The ghost drifted forward. “It’s also where I first met him.”
“Bael?”
The ghost shook his head, and the sight turned my stomach. “No. Him. The Harbinger.”
“I thought you said you only spoke with Bael,” Zayne said.
“He said that he came to him,” I reminded Zayne.
“I saw the Harbinger only once and then Bael,” the senator said, coming even closer. I sort of wished he wouldn’t. “I thought he was an angel answering my prayers. He is an angel. I thought he would help me. That he would bring back Natashya.”
I’d felt pity for the man before, but there’d been mostly anger. But now? Now that I knew how he felt? There was more pity than anything else. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m sorry that he lied to you. I’m sorry that you believed him.”
One eye focused on me. The other eye...well, I didn’t even want to know where that ended up. “She was everything—my strength, my courage. My backbone and the voice of reason. I would’ve never made it to where I did if she hadn’t chosen me—”
A young man walked through the senator, causing the ghost to scatter. I tensed, holding my breath until the senator reappeared.
Zayne was staring at the young man’s back. “He didn’t even know he walked through him.” He looked down at me. “How many times have I walked through ghosts?”
“You probably don’t want me to answer that,” I told him, and then refocused on Fisher.
“I’m never going to see her again, am I?” he asked, flickering. “I realized that when you all left. I had nothing left.”
My heart squeezed. “Did you—?”
“It was the one like you. Sulien. He’d been watching. He was always watching.” His voice faded out and came back. “I was going to find you—find you both and tell you what I knew, but Sulien was there...and now there’s this thing that keeps following me. It’s a light.”
“And you don’t want to go to it,” I surmised, unsure if I was relieved or not to learn that he’d been thrown out of that hotel window. I really couldn’t blame him, though, for avoiding the light. The senator knew enough now to know what awaited him, and it was most likely not going to be pretty. I wanted to lie, and not just because it may make him more likely to give us helpful information he’d held back on before, but because Fisher had been played in the worst ways. Maybe if he hadn’t been preyed upon, he wouldn’t have been in the position to do the damage that he’d done. But it was still a choice he made, and feeling bad for him didn’t mean what he did was okay.
And I didn’t lie when it came to this. “I don’t think you’ll see your wife,” I told him, exhaling heavily. “The Harbinger preyed upon your grief and used it against you, but you made those choices, even after you began to sense something wasn’t right. You’ll have to answer for that, because you can’t stay here. If you do, you’ll end up even worse than you are now.”
“But is...is God forgiving?” Fisher lifted half-formed hands. “I always believed that He was. That’s what I was taught, but...”
But he met a homicidal archangel, so he was probably questioning everything he knew about God and all of that. I glanced at Zayne, unsure of how to answer.
“We don’t know,” Zayne spoke up. “And I don’t think anyone really knows what can be forgiven and what can’t be. Avoiding it, though? Probably not going to do you any favors.”
The senator fell quiet as his gaze shifted to the hotel across the street.
I took a deep breath. “You were looking for me—for us? Did you have something to say? If so, you probably want to do it. I know you probably don’t have much time until you lose hold—”
“And float,” he said. “Sometimes I just float.”
“That sounds...disturbing,” Zayne murmured.
“I lied. I lied so many times to the people I represented, to families of those kids who were so hopeful,” Fisher went on, and I struggled with my patience. “I lied to Natashya. Told her I would go on—that I wouldn’t lose myself or lose faith. I lied to both of you.” He continued to stare across the street. “It’s there. The light.”
Zayne turned, and I swore to God, if he was able to see it I may lose my mind. Luckily for him, I didn’t think he did, because when he turned back, he was frowning.
“Why were you looking for us? You said you were going to come to us before Sulien showed up.” I tried to get him back on track. “If you know something that could help us stop the Harbinger—”
“It won’t undo all that I’ve done. It won’t make things right.”
“No,” I said softly. “I don’t think it will, but this is bigger than you—it’s bigger than all of us. What the Harbinger plans will destroy this world and parts of Heaven. It will be the end of everything. We need to stop that.”
“They’re together.” Senator Fisher’s form scrambled. “The Harbinger and Bael. I lied when I said I didn’t know where that was. I was afraid. A coward. I can’t be afraid anymore.”
I think Zayne and I stopped breathing.
“He’s been staying at a farm in Gaithersburg.” He rattled off an unfamiliar address. “That’s where you should find them.” He shuddered again, this time becoming more solid. “I’m sorry for all that I’ve done and it’s time I reap what I sowed.”
Senator Fisher took one more step forward and vanished before I could even say thank you.
“He’s gone.” Zayne turned in a slow circle. “Did he...?”
“He went into the light.” Throat thick, I swallowed. “He went to judgment.”
* * *
We were on the strangest damn conference call known to man. Roth, Layla and Lucifer on one end and Nicolai and several other Wardens on the other.
I was counting all my blessings that it wasn’t a video call.
“It’s about an hour from here, depending on the traffic,” Zayne said, having looked up the address on his phone the moment after Senator Fisher had gone into the light. Now he had his laptop open and resting in his lap as we sat on the couch. We figured it was best to call both at the same time. So far, everyone had been playing nice.
Probably because Lucifer was apparently watching Supernatural.
Shocker.
“Turns out, the house was recently up for sale,” Zayne said. “The listing is still on one of those realty websites.”