“You shouldn’t have been able to track me here,” said Carver. “I took precautions.”
“You accounted for our magic and our technology, but not for the human element,” Nero said, glancing at me.
“How did you find me?” he asked.
“New York is a busy city,” I told him. “There are people everywhere, and a ninja is kind of hard to miss.”
“You bribed them.” Carver laughed. It was a sad, defeated laugh. “I never would have expected that from the Legion. You consider yourselves so holy, too dignified for such base things.”
“I’m neither holy nor dignified.”
Carver looked at me for a few seconds, then he said to Nero, “She is the most dangerous weapon the Legion of Angels has.”
I was about to dispute the accusation, but Nero spoke first. “Yes. She is.”
What the hell was that supposed to mean?
“You aided the shifters in their attacks on a hundred and fifty people,” Nero said to the witch. “You poisoned vampires, tried to poison shifters, and tried to blow up Legion soldiers—twice. You stole highly dangerous materials from the witch coven leaders of New York in an attempt to frame them. In doing all of this, you impeded a vital Legion investigation. Demons are no laughing matter. The last time they gained a foothold into our world, the Earth was nearly torn apart. You might not have helped them directly, but you prevented us from catching the people who did. And all because of your childish need to enact revenge against the witches who removed you from power.” Nero’s words dripped icicles. “The Legion of Angels are the protectors who stand between monsters and civilization, between hell and Earth. You have not simply betrayed us. You have betrayed all of humanity.”
“You promised not to kill me if I told you what you want to know,” Carver spluttered nervously, his hands quaking against the invisible bonds holding him to the wall.
“Yes, I did.”
“You also promised not to torture me.”
“Indeed.” Nero’s smile was almost feral.
“And you said you wouldn’t order anyone to kill me.”
“I don’t have to.” Nero waved his hand, and Luna fell off the wall. “She already promised you she would kill you, and she isn’t the sort of person to make empty threats.”
Luna advanced toward Carver, gold flashing in her eyes as she drew a knife.
“You can’t kill me!” he squealed. “That’s what he wants.”
“I don’t care what he wants. I made a promise to you, and I’m going to fulfill it.” She flipped the knife around in her hand.
“He’ll just kill you afterwards.”
Her mouth pulled back into a snarl. “But you’ll die first.”
Carver shook and thrashed against the psychic spell Nero had cast to hold him in place, but he didn’t have the magic to overpower an angel. He wasn’t moving an inch unless Nero allowed it.
“Wait!” Carver shouted, his terrified gaze darting to Nero. “If they couldn’t get away, they were going to blow this boat out of the sky. There are bombs all over the ship.”
“Where are these bombs?” Nero asked.
“Here,” Luna said with a demented smile. Her hand darted to a button on her wrist band.
The wall behind her exploded, taking her and the rest of her pack with it. The blast shot me and Nero across the room. His body closed around mine, shielding me from the force of the explosion—and from the impact as we slammed hard into a metal beam. I got to my feet, my body groaning in wretched protest. I looked back at Nero, who was shaking his head like it wasn’t on right.
“Are you ok?” I asked him.
“Fine,” his voice ground out. Gods, he sounded even worse than I felt. Of course he did. He’d been soaked in poison twice, set on fire by magic flames, then nearly ripped apart by an explosion.
A rush of movement caught my eye. Carver was running for the big, gaping hole the explosion had blown in the side of the ship. Luna must have miscalculated when she’d blown up herself and her pack. She must have thought she’d take Carver and us with them. Carver was taking full advantage of her mistake.
Nero waved his hand at the witch. Nothing happened. Frowning, he grabbed one of his knives and hurled it at Carver, but the witch was already on his way out. I ran to the hole, staring down as a parachute ballooned up. He’d come prepared. Nero drew another knife, aiming it for the parachute. Before he could throw it, however, a second explosion went off, blasting us out of the airship.
21
Steam Witch
Nero’s hand locked around mine, snapping us both back into the airship. As our feet hit the floor, his wings folded in, then faded away in a puff of golden smoke. But our problems weren’t over. A wall of flames raged in front of us, crackling and swaying in the wind blowing inside from the big hole at our backs. Nero waved his hand, but just like last time, nothing happened.
“This is aggravating,” he said.
“Never had performance issues before?” I quipped, smirking as I pulled a fire extinguisher off the wall.
He gave me an inscrutable look. “You live dangerously.”
“Because I’m teasing an angel?”
“Among many things.”
It took the entire contents of the fire extinguisher to put out the flames, so I hoped there weren’t any more fires. I wasn’t counting on luck, though. Another explosion rocked the ship. It sounded like it had come from the other end. Just how many bombs had the shifters hidden? So this was their contingency plan. They were going to blow us up along with them so no one ever knew what they’d done, so that the Legion wouldn’t punish the entire shifter community for their crimes. If Luna and her pack weren’t so murder-crazy, I might have admired their self-sacrificing bravery.