Page 12 of Vanish Into Light

“Rogue,” Shubert said, human-voiced again. “Did you wanthumanityto figure out how to rocket-ship their way straight into heaven? Does that sound likefunto you?”

In a steadier voice, Morgan said, “Our war has never been with humanity. It’s with hell. So many of us have forgotten that.”

Rose said, “But it was an angel that opened the rift to hell five years ago. I saw that firsthand.” She flicked a quick, subtle look at Becket, and Lance felt something brush his ankle – Becket’stail, he realized, with a pulse of revulsion.

Morgan said, “There are those among my kind who want to hasten the final battle. To render the earth to ash and settle the score with hell, once and for all.”

Lance’s thoughts were ping-ponging back and forth: one second distracted by Becket’s untenable, freakishly magnetizing presence beside him, the next struggling to understand the unreality of what the two angels were telling them. “Wait. Hold on. If the rift in the sky was two-way, does that mean the Hell Rift was two-way also?”

“Yes,” both conduits said in unison.

Baraqiel said, “While it was open, humans could have plunged straight to hell.”

“Some of us even did,” Becket said.

The room fell silent for a beat, save the droning of the cold, overhead lights. When Lance blinked, he could still feel the shape of Rose’s ribs beneath his hand that day, that surprising strength of her lean body as she struggled. Could still remember the fist of blood closing around Becket and the dead angel he held, the wild light in his eyes that wasn’t all that different, truth told, from the bright gleam he’d earned in hell.

Bedlam said, “That’s all well and good. But I just want to know how to get all you motherfuckers back where you belong and keep any rifts from opening again. The world can’t even begin to recovery until we get heaven and hell’s agents out of the picture.”

“An excellent idea, Captain,” Becket said.

“I’m not talking to you – unless you’ve got secret insider info you’ve been withholding.”

“Hmph. No.” A glance proved he’d folded his arms, expression going very blank.

Shubert said, “And what’s in it for me if I help you? If I even can?”

It was Morgan who answered. “If you don’t help, I’ll throw you in the pit.”

His throat jumped as he swallowed. “Well. I can try.”

FOUR

Both ways. The rifts wentboth ways. Rose was having a hard time wrapping her brain around that.

No, scratch that. The thing she grappled with most was the idea that a forceotherthan heaven had been able to create such a rend in the fabric of the universe. What the hell did that mean? Perhaps literally.

This was what she chose to dwell on, as she sat in a hard, plastic chair in the mess, heels drawn up, arm around her knees, because every time she glanced across the table at Beck, she recalled that flash ofsomething elsein his gaze up on the roof. Recalled his tail around Shubert’s throat, and her own pulse of alarm – when once upon a time, his violence had never been anything but acceptable to her.

She hadn’t even thought of it as violence, back then. She had been with him, had lived in that place of knives and blood and death, and been just as much a part of it as him; had never questioned it. She’d always known she was too cold, too cruel, too much for everyone in the military.

So why was Beck here now, and she was challenging him, rather than accepting every ounce of pain he dished out?

“What are you thinking?” Lance asked, softly, beside her, and that was the answer, wasn’t it? Lance had made hersoft.

She turned toward him, slowly, not missing the slight lift of one of Beck’s brows, and found Lance two chairs away, sitting sideways so he faced her, trademark notch of concern marring his forehead. He was always so worried about her; had been from the first.

Beck had only ever looked on her with curiosity, and encouragement, and hunger.

She dropped her gaze to the floor, where the grungy terrazzo offered no conflict of feelings, and said, “So how do we get all the conduits to go back? Do we have to open two more rifts?”

“Absolutely not,” Lance said, right away. “There’s no way to make them go back. We have to learn how the rifts were opened, prevent it from happening again, and kill all the conduits of both kinds that are left.”

“All?” Beck asked, and though his tone was polite as ever, Rose heard the traces of mockery in it. “Aren’t you the enterprising little soldier boy.”

Lance’s voice hardened on his response. “I’m a knight, actually. Not a soldier.”

“Meh.” Beck rapped the tips of his claws on the tabletop. “Rosie, what do you think?”

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