Page 18 of Unshakable

Henri struggled tocontain his curiosity, even as the touch of Kamen Tourelle’s skin against his seared his flesh. Not enough to cause harm, enough to let him know of the differences between them and remind him where a Fallen Angel gets his power.

He tried and failed contain his giddiness, which he found completely inappropriate given the situation. While he hoped he would be able to have a conversation, he didn’t really expect a lunch sit-down, or any sit-down at all.

As Tourelle settled into his chair, Henri rubbed his hand and asked, “Can you control that, the heat, the tingle?”

“The ladies love it.” Tourelle shrugged and narrowed his eyes. Cutting to the chase, he leaned across the table, his pouty, bored face framed by his hands. “Who are you, Grigori, and what the hell do you want with me?”

“Me? I’m nobody. My name is Henri.”

Tourelle sat back and stared at him. “I saw you in New York. Now you’re here. What is your interest here?”

“I could ask you the same.”

A long pause stretched between them, filled with the bustle of wait staff and customers coming and going. Finally, Tourelle said, “Do you remember who I was with in New York?”

Henri did. The experience had been disjointing, seeing two Fallen together. They usually warred too much among themselves to put their heads together. “How could I forget?”

“He’s still in New York, following your absent-minded son around, in case you become too large a nuisance here. He seems oblivious to just about everyone and everything.”

Henri smiled, not doubting the truth he’d just heard, his heart thundering at the threat while his blood froze. “Yes, I know. He’s not cut out for this kind of thing, is he? I don’t know what to do with him, to tell you the truth.”

“I know what to do with him.” Tourelle’s grim eyes darkened as the threat left his lips. “What do you want, interloper?”

Henri didn’t pause or break eye contact even as his stomach clenched, thinking of Sam. “I want to understand why you find Toula Thibodeaux so intriguing. She is a beautiful woman, no doubt. Remind me, hasn’t she spurned you once already?”

He waved his hand as if her actions didn’t matter. “She is nothing to me and yet I find myself drawn back here, to this area of the world and this line of witches time and time again.”

Henri’s eyebrows shot up. “Witches, you say?”

“If you know what I am,” Tourelle paused and bared his teeth in a rather gorgeous, movie-star smile, “then you know there are all manner of things between man and anything divine. Don’t you know what she is?”

He knew, and he’d seen enough during his time to put names to monsters who dared to cross the threshold between their world and his. Demon, vampire, werewolf, angel and more.

“Tell me more,” Henri prodded, sending their waiter away for the third time with a distracted wave. “If you know more.”

“You know nothing!” The hissed accusation came at him with the speed of a bullet. “You lure me here with your pretend knowledge?”

Henri laughed at his outrage. “I don’t feign anything. I know my world and the rules therein. I’m a mortal being, I haven’t been around as long as you. Don’t expect me to have your level of expertise and knowledge.”

Tourelle seemed taken back, chastised, then became defensive. “If you know the rules of your world, you know you are outside those boundaries.”

“Am I?” Henri narrowed his field of vision. Did this demon even have pores? “You didn’t know she’d been involved with one of us?”

“Which one?” Tourelle demanded, then scoffed. “You?”

“I’m not at liberty to say.”

“What has she told you about me?” he asked, behaving now like a jealous lover.

“Nothing, actually. I’m curious why you’re here if you didn’t get what you wanted before.”

“You just answered your own question. I didn’t get what I wanted. From her.”

Henri fell silent and Tourelle took the opportunity to order a drink, one of the local beers on tap. He downed the beverage in three gulps and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “I need gallons to get drunk anymore. Try getting around a tolerance level of centuries.”

Henri chuckled, seeing how ground down the Fallen seemed in one moment, how energized the next. “I thought three hundred years was bad.”

Tourelle smiled and said, “You don’t have to be my enemy. Not really. The prophecy is clear. One of you will get in my way, one day. Maybe you’re not the one, maybe not. You don’t have to be.”

What prophecy did he reference? Did he mean Toula’s prayer or something else? Henri didn’t ask, sliding the reference away for later. “If you say so. I don’t relish the idea of being enemies.”

“At least you’re somewhat wise.”

“Hmmm.” Henri motioned to the waiter, who came to their table, ready to take their order. Henri looked at Tourelle. “We’re not enemies, not yet. Let’s share a meal.”

Nodding, Tourelle ordered the spiciest dish on the menu, like a caricature of the devil himself, and Henri a steak. Once the waiter retreated, Henri asked, “Do you remember everything of your life since The Fall?”

Tourelle nodded. “You?”

“No.” Henri shook his head. “I don’t even remember my past lives. No idea how many times I’ve been reincarnated. I’m told this is common, only a select few remember their lives. Have you met others like me?”

“Met? No, this is a first, although I’ve been warned about your kind’s exuberant curiosity. You were able to see us, in New York, to know what we are? How?”

“I see energy, and you have an abundance of a particular kind of spiritual energy no other being has. I don’t know if we can all do this. To see two of you together was unusual, I admit. I’ve seen Fallen before, in passing, enough to recognize what you are.”

“Not enough to stay away,” he growled.

“I know, I know, curiosity killed the cat.” He paused as the waiter returned with bread. “I am not a cat, though. I have met Toula Thibodeaux and although she’s witty and pretty, I don’t see the need to ruin her life. What is she to you?”

“You could never understand.” Tourelle tore into the bread. “I barely understand. You believe I’m hunting her? I’m hunting more than her. I seek something intangible, something she has access to, whether she knows it or not, through the generations of her family.”

Henri pocketed his words without pausing to interpret their meaning. They explained why Tourelle intercepted the family line time after time.

“Is there no other way?”

Tourelle grimaced. “Are you asking a fallen angel to engage a conscience? There are three viable lineages in the world, and I visit them all regularly. I will have what I need in due time. Patience is not my virtue, as you well know, but something I’ve been forced to learn over an expanse of time.”

He referred to the children with veiled language, one child in particular. “Yes, you do have all the time in the world, don’t you?”

“Yes, and,” Tourelle’s dead eyes met Henri’s, “I’ve tried everything. Lies, trickery, even the truth as I know it. One day, everything will fall into place and at long last, the world will know my name.”

Henri almost laughed at the comic book language except Tourelle seemed serious. “In what context will the world know your name?”

“As its ruler.”

Henri took in the depth and breadth of his statement as their food arrived. Any appetite he’d imagined fled on the conversation at hand. The Fallen, as far as he understood any kind of pecking order, were free to wreak havoc on earth as long as they were careful not to usurp Lucifer’s oversight.

If they did, they were taken to the proverbial woodshed. Henri could not begin to imagine the horrors therein. Considering the entirety of evil in this world, what his own eyes had seen, Tourelle’s statement nearly undid his sanity.

He wanted to be the top dog.

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