Sweet Peril

  “Why don’t I get us something to drink?” Patti said, standing. She tried to pass my dad, but he reached out and grabbed her up in a bear hug, laughing and spinning her around. Patti let out a surprised laugh and then slapped at his shoulder until he let her down. She shook her head and grinned all the way to the kitchen, a blast of orange and yellow swirling through her aura.

  He beamed at me, and what could I do but smile back? The man-demon was joyous.

  The three of us sat at the table with our glasses.

  “Okay. What are we going to do?” I asked Dad. “How do I make this happen?”

  I could see the wheels turning in his mind as he went into business mode. He spoke in quick bursts as thoughts came to him.

  “Sister Ruth was right. You’ll need allies. We’ll need to build an army of Neph willing to help when the time comes. Not all the Neph can be trusted. I’ll have to research them. It could take a while. We’ll have to be patient and careful in the meantime. The Dukes are a suspicious group and we’ll never be fully off the hook with them after that summit. I can’t touch the Sword of Righteousness, but I can show you some basic sword skills and get you in some classes. You’ve got that leg holster we made for the hilt, so you’ll need to keep it on you at all times. We’ll get you a passport right away. You’ll need a partner who can travel with you to recruit the other Neph. I can talk to that son of Alocer and see if he’s willing. The two of you can go on long weekends and school breaks. Maybe even—”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa, Dad.” My brain flipped out when he said “army” and then short-circuited at the mention of “sword skills.” I wasn’t some “Giant of Old” like the Bible called Nephilim.

  “What?” he asked. “You don’t want to work with Alocer’s kid? I thought you liked him.”

  “I do. Kope’s great. And he’s the only one whose father isn’t keeping dibs on him. I get that. But as far as the prophecy . . . what if . . . I don’t know. This thing is so huge. How do we even know it’s about me? It just says ‘A Nephilim pure of heart,’ so there could be others. What if I . . .” Can’t do it.

  When I looked into Dad’s eyes, I found a rock-solid faith there. He pointed at me. “You can do it. And you will. Don’t doubt yourself, ’cause if the Maker wants to use you, you gotta be all in.”

  I swallowed hard. “But . . . I’ve been working,” I said in a small voice.

  Next to him Patti’s eyes spilled over.

  It was my deep-down terrible fear—that one day I’d touch the Sword of Righteousness and it would no longer zap me. I hadn’t touched it since before the summit.

  “No, baby,” Dad assured me. “Your heart is pure.”

  “But how do you know?” I whispered.

  Dad shook his head. “Tell me how you feel about the people around you when you have to work.”

  “I . . .” I glanced at Patti, who gave me a small nod. “At first I always get a little, I don’t know, thrill or something, when I can get them to drink. Like a rush of power. But then it fades, and I feel sorry for them. I worry about them and I feel guilty. I hate it.” The last part came out barely a whisper.

  “That’s how I know your heart is pure, Anna,” he said. “Through it all, you choose to love them. You could have come to loathe humans like many of the Neph do, or to feel indifferent toward them as a way to make it easier on yourself, but that’s not you.”

  I chewed my lip and stared down at the table. So many elements of this puzzle were unknown, but I hoped he was right.

  “Go get the hilt,” Dad ordered.

  I looked up at him, a sharp pang of fear ripping through me.

  “Go get it,” he said more softly this time. I went to my room and took the leather-clad hilt from my purse on the dresser. Then I walked back to the table and lay the hilt in the middle, sitting in my chair. Dad pushed back a little, taking his hands off the table and leaning away from it. A flash of fear crossed his face and was gone just as quickly.

  “Sorry,” I said, pulling the hilt closer to me.

  He cleared his throat. “Go ahead and open it. Just, uh, don’t point it at me.” He looked a little sheepish saying that. “Even though I’m sure it’ll know I’m not a threat. It’s just that a single slash from an angel’s sword is what sent me to hell in the first place, so, yeah.” He cleared his throat again.

  “Is that what the sword does?” Patti asked. “Sends souls to hell?”

  Dad eyed the hilt with discomfort. “It disperses justice as God would have it. It can send a soul somewhere, or it can wipe a soul from existence. It knows what to do when it hits. Go ahead and touch it, baby. Don’t be afraid.”

  I stared at it for a long time before wiping my sweaty palms on my shorts. With shaking hands I opened the top of the leather casing and let the hilt slide out a few inches. I sucked in a breath and brought my hands down to the shimmery metal.

  I gasped as an electric current blasted through my skin, zapping up my arm. Then I curled my fingers around the hilt and let the buzz throb through my body. No flaming sword came to life from the hilt, because I wasn’t in danger. But it worked. It recognized my heart and would allow me to wield it. Every cell of my body was alive with its energy.

  Patti and Dad were both watching me, their eyes shining with hope and love.

  I could do this. I wanted to live with purpose. I needed there to be a worthwhile reason for all the pain.

  I slid the hilt back into its case.

  “Dad?”

  “Hm?” He glanced up, having been lost in his own imaginings.

  “When can I go to California? To tell Blake and Kaidan?” His eyes narrowed at me and I fumbled on, a tightness clamping over my insides. “’Cause they live the closest. They need to know, right? Allies and all?”

  He entwined his fingers and put them behind his head. “Maybe I’ll tell them myself.”

  My shoulders slumped, and I quickly squared them back again. He was testing me. Patti could tell, as well. She crossed her arms.

  “Okay,” I said, unable to keep the hint of bad attitude from my voice. “Just so long as they know about it. Soon.” I crossed my arms to match Patti.

  Dad closed his eyes. “Anna.”

  “Yes?”

  “How long’s it been since you saw the son of Pharzuph?”

  Oh, crap. “Um . . . a day?”

  Two giant brown eyes popped open.

  “Just for a few minutes at a record store,” I clarified. “Pharzuph was out of town.”

  He grumbled a muffled curse into his hand, then asked, “He called you?”

  “No. He won’t talk to me. I found out about it from my friend Jay.”

  Dad nodded. Where was he going with this?

  “You still got a crush on him?” He linked his fingers on the table in front of him.

  “It’s not a crush, Dad.”

  He sighed. “And that’s exactly why it’s not a good idea for you to see him, Anna. He seems to understand that. Why don’t you?”

  I bit down hard, not trusting myself to answer.

  “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be harsh, but you still don’t have that killer instinct most Neph come to learn during childhood. You’re not cautious enough in your relationships. You can be mad at me all you want, but it’s my job to keep you out of danger. Over time your feelings for him will fade.”

  “You of all people know it doesn’t work like that,” Patti said to him. “You spent hundreds of years looking for Anna’s mother.”

  He sat back in his chair, regarding her with wary respect and I wanted to punch the air. He knew she was right. He’d scoured the earth looking for Mariantha—my mother, a guardian angel whom he’d never stopped loving. Dad gave me a slow nod.

  “The fact is, you’ll be less distracted with him out of the picture. So, for now, no trips to California, and I don’t want to hear anything else about him. Got it?”

  Patti winked at me.

  “Got it,” I whispered.

  He’d said “for n
ow.” It was a flimsy phrase to cling to, but still I clung.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  FIRST ASSIGNMENT

  Five weeks passed that summer without hearing from Dad. The good thing was, whisperers were checking on me only once every couple of weeks. The bad thing was, I hated being kept in the dark, and I was impatient. Summer was flying by and I’d been hoping to get some things accomplished before the start of senior year.

  I sat on our balcony after my jog, wishing for a breeze in the stifling late morning air.

  Patti came out and handed me a steaming mug of coffee.

  “You work today?” Patti asked.

  I shook my head. “Tomorrow.” I still had my job at the soft-serve stand.

  She took a long drink of her coffee and grinned. “Wanna hear something weird? I feel like spending some of that demon loot.”

  I almost choked on the sip I’d just taken. Patti never wanted to spend money, especially the haul Dad had given us. She laughed at my expression.

  “Come on,” she said. “It’ll be fun. Let’s go crazy.”

  “You don’t have to ask me twice,” I said.

  We were worn out by the time we headed home. A good song came on the country station, and Patti cranked up the volume. We belted out the twangy chorus so loudly it’s a wonder I heard my cell phone ring. I turned down the radio and my heart hammered at the sight of Dad’s number.

  “Where are you?” he grumbled.

  “I’m on my way home with Patti.”

  “From where?”

  Biting my thumbnail, I mumbled, “Atlanta.”

  “What the hell are you doing out there?”

  I bristled at his tone. “We were just shopping.”

  “Shopping?”

  “Patti spent a ton of money. It was awesome.” I giggled and Patti popped my leg.

  Dad growled something incoherent, then said, “Well, hurry up. I’m at your place.”

  Yes! News! I smiled, part smug that he’d have to wait on me for once.

  “Tell him to hold his horses,” Patti said. “We’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

  When we got to the apartment, I stopped in the doorway, surprised to see someone standing at Dad’s side.

  “Kope!” I hadn’t meant to sprint across the small room to hug him around the neck, but I did. Had he always been this tall? I felt his frame rumble with light laughter. He pulled away from the embrace first, giving me a shy grin that showed off the single dimple in his cheek. The black badge of Wrath rested at his sternum.

  Kope had never seemed very young to begin with. Too much wisdom lived in those hazel eyes. But he looked even more mature these days with a bit of facial hair on his chin. His black hair was trimmed really short, and his coffee skin was as smooth as ever. He met my gaze full-on and I couldn’t stop smiling. Seeing one of my Neph friends after all this time was empowering.

  “You are looking well, Anna,” he said. He didn’t often use contractions, but the end sounds of some words were clipped off and smoothed together in a languid, slippery sort of way, like verbal cursive.

  “Thanks, Kope,” I told him. “So are you.”

  I turned my attention to Dad.

  “So? What are we doing? Where are we going?”

  His chuckle was dry, and he reached up to scratch his cheek.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, remembering my manners. “You guys sit down and then we can talk.”

  I went into the kitchen, where Patti was already filling four tall glasses with iced tea. The guys took seats around our small dining table.

  Dad pulled a large manila envelope from his jacket and opened it, setting a few pictures facedown, as Patti and I sat across from them.

  “It’s still important to keep a low profile after that bout of interest in you, but I think it’s safe to move forward. It’ll be best not to give you all the details about my intel, but I have several trusted humans and spirits who have been gathering information about Neph worldwide. This is the first one I can say for certain does not have a heart for her father’s work and may be willing to help us.”

  I smiled and bit my lip, excited and anxious. He flipped over a picture, showing an Arab girl in full garb with a head covering. Only an oval of her olive-toned face showed. In the next picture she was crouching in front of a child with a skinned knee who had fallen. It was obvious she was going to help him, but the picture had been taken at the perfect moment to capture her eyes giving the area a stealthy scan, as if making certain her act of kindness would not be witnessed.

  “Her name is Zania,” Dad explained. “She lives in Damascus, Syria, with her father, Sonellion, the Duke of Hatred.” A chill shot up my spine at the name of her father. “They moved to Syria two years ago from the kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Syria’s had some civil unrest, but the area she lives in is still safe for the most part.”

  “How long has Duke Sonellion been in the Middle East?” I asked.

  Dad paused. “Going on thirty years, so his term’s about up. Being the epicenter of three major religions means tensions are already running high. Makes easy work for Dukes.”

  “Have you worked out there?” Patti asked him.

  “Not permanently. Only odd jobs here and there. They call me the traveling Duke.”

  “Sounds like a bad country song,” I said.

  He frowned when Patti giggled, and the corner of Kope’s mouth twitched.

  “Just teasing,” I said, biting my lip.

  He glared at me, but his eyes held way too much affection to pull it off.

  “All right. Enough chitchat,” he said. “Back to business.”

  We leaned in as he laid out a small map of the Middle East and pointed to the country of Syria on the Mediterranean Sea. “She recently turned twenty-five, and I believe they left Saudi Arabia when her identity was leaked as one of the girls in an illegal photo shoot. I have two of the less racy pictures here. Apparently they sparked a national outrage.” He flipped over a picture, which at first glance seemed innocent enough. And then I really looked and thought about them in context of the culture. In the first photo, taken in a nondescript room, she was completely draped in the traditional black burka, head and face covered with a thin slat for her eyes. But in one hand she pulled up the garment to reveal her knees, slim brown calves, and slender feet in black high heels. Her eyes glittered with rebellion.

  I glanced at Kope, whose gaze darted around the walls of our apartment. It seemed like he was going to great efforts not to look at the picture.

  I turned the first picture over and flipped the next one, which was slightly more revealing. This one was Zania from behind, still standing in the high heels, but the burka was lifted in both hands to the back of her thighs, her head and face coverings had been removed, and she was leaning backward. Her long ebony hair flowed seductively down her arched back. Her eyes were closed, and even though the top half of her face showed, it was not enough to give away her identity.

  I saw more skin than that at my school on a normal basis, but there was something incredibly sexy about the small amount of skin she showed, and the way she posed, knowing it was a culture that valued modesty and sexual purity. I pushed the picture toward Kope, who glanced at it and nodded. I watched him for a moment, wondering if the pictures offended him, but he gave nothing away. Until he once again caught me staring. His light eyes seemed to dance with heat as they gripped mine. A blush crept up my neck into my cheeks until he lowered his lids back to the map. The pictures made him feel something, all right. Underneath all that self-control, Kope was still just a guy.

  “There’s something else you should know about her,” Dad said, pulling out another photo. I took a drink, hoping to cool myself of the embarrassment. “You can’t see it in the pictures, just like badges can’t be captured on film, but Zania is an alcoholic. It seems she’s barely trying to control it. This is a month ago at a nightclub in Damascus.”

  I leaned in at the picture of her sitting at a bar, wearing designer jeans and
a tasteful short-sleeved blouse with her hair down. In the next picture the photographer had zoomed in and brightened the part that showed her pouring a bottle of something from her purse into her drink on the sly. My heart quickened, and I inspected the picture more closely.

  “She’s not wearing a headscarf,” I pointed out.

  Dad said, “Not all the women in Damascus wear them.”

  “She’s supposed to be promoting hate?” Patti asked.

  “Yep,” Dad answered. “Sonellion, her father, uses her to help further the cause of violence and hatred against women. Misogyny’s one of his favorites, but it’s more and more of a challenge these days.”

  Patti tsk-tsked and shook her head.

  “Anyhow, the girl was beaten and arrested for drunkenness in Saudi Arabia, which led to linking her to the photographs.” Dad leaned back in the chair, making it creak, and crossed his arms against his husky chest. “Sonellion managed to get her out of there, but trust me when I say he spares no love for her. She’s an asset and an amusement. When she stops being those, he’ll get rid of her.”

  “She’s given up, hasn’t she?” I asked, and he nodded, solemn. I looked back down at the bar picture. She needed hope. She needed to know about the prophecy. Determination revved inside me.

  “Duke Sonellion is traveling to central Africa to try and expand interest in a certain archaic act against women, one he hopes to bring into greater popularity in the Middle East if he can get them to embrace it for religious purposes.”

  He put a hand up when I opened my mouth to ask about it. “Don’t ask,” he said gruffly. “He left yesterday and he plans to be gone three to four weeks.”

  “So, when do we leave?” I asked.

  “I’m sure I don’t have to tell you there’s a lot of danger in the Middle East, Anna,” he said. I nodded.

  “Do you know any Arabic?” he asked Kope.

  “Yes, sir. My father often spoke it, and we frequented the Middle East in our travels.”

  Dad looked at me. “I’ve considered asking Kopano to do this one solo.”

  I sucked in a shocked breath and sat up straighter as a burst of angry indignance lashed through me.