Black Spring

Nathaniel and I hurried after Beezle and down the back stairs. I stopped when we reached the back porch. Samiel stood there, watching Jude face off against Sokolov. The shapeshifter stood to one side, wearing the face of someone I’d never seen before.

“What’s happening?” I asked Samiel.

Remember how Daharan said that Jude’s problems came from his past? I guess that guy isn’t really Sokolov.

“No, he isn’t,” Beezle said, and his voice was full of wonder. “I never looked at him properly before, all the way down. I should have seen. I should have known.”

“Who is it?” I asked impatiently.

“Michael,” he said.

“Michael?” I said, looking at Sokolov’s fat little body and bald head. “Michael the archangel? All this time?”

No wonder Michael had seemed familiar to me when we had met. It wasn’t that his power had given birth to the Agency. It was because I’d seen him before, and had not known.

“Yes,” Sokolov said, and then he was not Sokolov. He was tall and golden and beautiful, and his eyes were made of flame. “All this time.”

“J.B. just told me you were fired from the Agency,” I said. “What were you doing there in the first place?”

“What do you think?” Michael snarled. “Keeping an eye on you, as I was told to do. Trapped in a human body, hiding my power. And the board has finally released me. They have always been suspicious of my connection with Lucifer. And once they discovered my other activities they let me go. All my centuries of devotion have been for naught.”

“The board? You mean, the board is . . .” I pointed my finger toward the sky.

“Yes,” Michael said. “They told me to watch you, to ensure you did not become a threat to humans. And I did what I was supposed to do.”

“You were supposed to torture J.B.? To set the Retrievers on me? To act like a petulant child at every turn?” I asked, feeling anger rising inside me. Adam made a little noise in my arms.

“You would act thus if you were more powerful than the sun and forced to submit to humans,” Michael said. “But all of my actions were approved and condoned by the board. All of them, except two. Working with Lucifer’s son, and working against Judas’s pack.”

Jude stared at him. “You killed my friends. My family. Why?”

Michael’s eyes narrowed, and it seemed the flame in them rose higher. “You were responsible for the death of the one we loved best.”

Jude growled. “You know very well that was not my fault. Lucifer tricked me.”

“It is by your actions that it occurred,” Michael said. “And I have been watching you for many centuries, waiting for an opportunity to hurt you most. When I discovered Alerian’s creature, I knew I had found a way.”

I shook my head, pulling Adam close to me. Nathaniel hovered protectively at my side, keeping an eye on the shapeshifter in case he decided to attack. But the shifter just stood there like a broken robot, its face blank.

“So everything that happened—the attacks on this house, the killing of Evangeline—that was all part of your plan to get back at me?” No wonder the shifter had been able to work its magic inside the house. Only Agents could cross the line of a domicile and use their power freely. Michael’s power had started the line of Agents in the first place.

“And Judas,” Michael said. “Do not forget that. It would hurt him if you were hurt, as it would hurt Lucifer to discover you killed his fiancée.”

“I hate to tell you this, but Lucifer never believed that farce in the first place,” I said. “He just wanted an excuse to lock me up and take my baby, and you gave him what he wanted.”

“And yet somehow you are standing here,” Michael said. “Despite all of my attempts and all of my machinations, you have managed to escape me over and over, and Lucifer’s heart is never harmed, and neither is Judas’s.”

“You won’t have to worry about Lucifer or his heart for a while,” I said. “He’s been called back to his mother, and I think there’s going to be a power void in the Grigori for a while. Oh, and Lucifer’s brother Daharan is watching over me and my kid, so don’t think that messing with us will affect the Morningstar anymore.”

“I no longer care about you,” Michael said. “I only want to kill this traitor, so that I can finally rest after all these years.”

“I told you, Lucifer tricked me,” Jude said. “I loved him as much as you did. You have no idea how I’ve suffered all these years, knowing I was responsible for his fate.”

“I do not care for your sufferings,” Michael said. “I only want it to be over.”

He lunged for Jude, his fingers twisting into claws, reaching for Jude’s throat. I thought Jude would change into a wolf and tear out Michael’s throat, but instead he defended himself as a human, with fists and teeth and the knife that he always kept in his boot.

For a moment I wondered why, because Jude would have a very clear advantage as a wolf. Then I realized that his guilt motivated him to do this, to give Michael a chance to kill him.