Behind the desk stood a man in a Legion uniform. He and the three other Legion soldiers in the grand hall froze as Damiel and I walked down the aisle. Their wide eyes were all locked on Damiel. They clearly knew who he was. Even if they hadn’t recognized his face, the shiny metal Master Interrogator pin on his jacket gave him away.
Damiel stopped in front of the desk and declared, “I am here to see Colonel Spellstorm.”
The soldier behind the desk bore the insignia of a drop of blood on his jacket, marking him as a Legion soldier of the first level. His hair was blond, almost white. He was tall. His shoulders were wide but not bulky. The latter was a sign that he had trained extensively, but still, he was quite slender for a Legion soldier. Legion men usually had a lot more muscle on them than this guy; muscles made them feel like they could take on anyone and anything, so they took their bodybuilding very seriously.
This soldier was obviously still new to the Legion. He had the strength of the vampire in him, the gods’ first gift, which made him stronger than any human. He was no match for an angel, however.
“Do you have an appointment?” the soldier asked.
Gold flashed in Damiel’s blue eyes. “Do you know who I am?” he demanded.
The man’s pale hair seemed to go a shade whiter. He swallowed hard. “Colonel Dragonsire.”
“And what is Colonel Dragonsire’s function at the Legion of Angels?” Damiel asked.
His use of the third person was particularly foreboding.
“He…you are the Master Interrogator.”
“That’s right. And the Master Interrogator does not require an appointment to see anyone.”
The soldier blinked in confusion. “Then why did you come through the front door? Why stop at the front desk before going inside? Why not just charge in?”
The Interrogators regularly made a habit of coming in without ceremony and taking whatever—or whomever—they wanted.
But not this time, and I had a good idea of why that was. Damiel had turned our arrival into a very public event. He was making a statement. He wanted everyone here to know that Colonel Spellstorm, their commander, was a suspect in the Interrogators’ investigation. It was his way of showing people that no one, not even an angel, was above reproach. He was demonstrating that an angel traitor could be hunted down, shackled, and punished—just the same as any other traitor.
“I don’t expect you to understand,” Damiel told the soldier with a dismissive flick of his hand that shot every item on the reception desk into the air.
The soldier jumped in alarm.
Damiel’s eyes, cold and hard, met his. “But I do expect you to have Colonel Spellstorm brought to me at once.”
The soldier gave Damiel a wobbly nod and picked up the phone. He jumped again when the floating contents of his desk suddenly all dropped out of the air and smashed against the tabletop.
I thought about what I knew of Colonel Spellstorm. I’d met him before, through my father. There weren’t all that many angels on Earth. They all knew one another. And yet I didn’t really know much about Colonel Spellstorm. He’d worked with my father a few times. From what I remembered, he was as arrogant, competent, and merciless as was expected of an angel in the gods’ army—but I’d never have pegged him for a traitor.
The doors at the back of the room opened, and someone stepped into the grand hall. Unlike the soldier behind the desk, this man was no fresh recruit. His body had been forged in battle, his face hardened by experience. His brown eyes had a seasoned look about them, like he’d seen many battles and hadn’t come out of them unscathed. The scar that cut across one side of his face, a bumpy ripple on his smooth dark skin, was a sign of that.
He must have been cut by an immortal blade. Mundane—and most magical weapons—did not leave marks on the bodies of Legion soldiers; we healed too fast. It took a particularly potent weapon or poison to scar us.
The seasoned soldier stopped in front of us. “Colonel Dragonsire. Lt. Colonel Lightbringer.” He bowed his head. “What can I do for you?”
His voice was crisp, polished. He sounded like he’d once been a high-level member of the nobility, before the war had come to Earth, before the monsters had wiped out the old ways. Nowadays, we didn’t have dukes and barons, or kings and queens. Angels ruled the Earth’s territories.
Damiel looked the soldier up and down, then declared, “You are not Colonel Spellstorm.”
“No, I’m not,” he confirmed. “Colonel Spellstorm is not here. I am Major Grant.”
“Colonel Spellstorm’s second in command,” said Damiel.
He really didn’t miss a thing. He’d probably memorized the names and faces of everyone assigned to this office before we’d come here. When it came to doing his homework, Damiel was clearly as thorough as he was in his interrogations.
“Come with us,” Damiel told Major Grant.
Then he flicked his hand, using his telekinetic magic to open the doors that brought us past the entrance hall. As we strode down the main corridor, everyone stopped to watch us. Dead silence reigned. I held my head high and exuded perfection for all I was worth, just as my father had taught me.
Damiel led on. Along with memorizing the list of Legion soldiers stationed here, he must have committed the building map to memory too. He led us down the hall like he’d walked this path hundreds of times before, like he didn’t even need to think about the way anymore, like it was second nature to him.
He led me and the Major up the many flights of stairs to the office on the roof level. Large, light, and spartan in design, it had glass walls on all sides. The room alone occupied the building’s highest level.
Clearly, the office belonged to Colonel Spellstorm. Angels liked to be on top.
There wasn’t much in the room except for a desk and chair—and a single sculpture of two angels wrestling, engaged in single combat. They were obviously fighting for their lives. The sculpture was detailed. Every hair was crisp, as were the fierce expressions on the angels’ faces. Their mouths were drawn back in snarls. Every drop of blood on their bodies was perfectly defined.
That sculpture sure was ominous.
Damiel looked around the sparse office. His gaze fell upon the sculpture, considering it like a true art connoisseur.
Sharply, he turned on his heel to face me. “Bind Major Grant to that chair. You will find ropes in the lower desk drawer.”
I slid the lowest drawer open and, sure enough, I found a bundle of rope inside.
Were the contents of the angel commander’s desk drawers also in the profile Damiel had memorized, or did he just understand Colonel Spellstorm that well? Neither possibility was particularly appealing.
I bound Major Grant to Colonel Spellstorm’s chair, using the angel’s own rope to tie up his faithful second-in-second. There was a kind of dark irony to that, something it took an angel to appreciate.
Major Grant didn’t move as I tied him up, even though he must have know this was going to be unpleasant. He simply looked resigned. Standing by without a hint of protest took far greater courage than fighting us tooth and nail—and I respected Major Grant for it. I also felt a twinge of guilt about what Damiel was about to do to him.
Damiel stared into Major Grant’s eyes. The soldier’s body shook under the strain of Damiel’s siren magic. I knew it the moment Damiel usurped his will because Major Grant suddenly went completely still.