Jegudiel (Deadly Virtues 2)

“How are you, Diel and she alike?” Maria mused, arms crossed over her chest as she paced in front of the fire. “How do she and the Fallen have anything in common?”

“We’re about to find out.” Gabriel moved to the door of the study. Maria followed, and when they stepped outside, the rest of the brothers were waiting on the grand staircase in the manor’s vast hallway.

“Someone has Diel, and we’re going to meet them at the family graveyard. Soon.” Gabriel met the eyes of Bara, Uriel, Raphael, Michael and Sela, who were all watching him in return.

“Someone ‘has’ him,” Uriel said. “How the fuck do you even get Diel without him tearing your head off first?”

“I don’t know,” Gabriel said. “They know about the collar.”

“There’s more than one of them?” Uriel asked.

“She said ‘we.’ There’s more than just her,” Gabriel explained.

“You think this is a trap?” Raphael asked.

“We spoke to Diel himself,” Maria said to her boyfriend. “He sounded okay, then said he has something he wants us to see.”

“Well, this is going to be fucking fun,” Bara said. “I’ve been bored out of my goddamn mind these past few days.”

“And which Diel did you speak to?” Sela asked Gabriel, eyebrow raised. He knew his best friend better than any of them.

Gabriel sighed. “His monster.”

Michael was leaning against the table, staring at the grandfather clock and the pendulum that swung from side to side. Gabriel’s younger brother was as silent and distant as always.

“We’re going to get him.” Gabriel checked the time. “Get ready. We’re leaving in fifteen minutes.”

“Is this the Brethren?” Sela asked, and the brothers halted in their tracks. “Are we being played by those fuckers right now?”

“It was a woman we spoke to,” Maria said. “The Brethren might use women in their plans, but they wouldn’t allow them to be organized or be leaders in any way. The woman we spoke to, Dinah … she certainly wasn’t meek like I used to be. That gives me faith that she is not involved with them. She sounded strong. She sounded bold.”

Maria sighed, likely remembering her previous life as a nun and how she unknowingly became a pawn in the Brethren’s wicked game to lure in Raphael and kill him. How easily Father Quinn and Father Murray manipulated her into believing she was doing God’s work and that it would benefit the wider church by having a killer such as Raphael contained in their custody.

But Gabriel felt his heart plummet when he saw a flash of doubt in Maria’s gaze. “We don’t believe this is a trap.” He sighed. “But we prepare for anything and everything.” His soul screamed in dismay at the thought of being drawn into another fight with the Brethren. Of more blood being spilled and more lives being lost. It went against everything Gabriel’s pacifist heart believed in. “But we get Diel back,” he whispered. “Above anything, we get our brother back.”

* * *

The wind whipped around the dark graveyard, and the moon was full and high in the dark sky when Gabriel, Maria and his brothers got out of the van and stepped onto the cold grass that surrounded the sea of aged, wind-battered gravestones. The gravestones belonged to Gabriel and Michael’s ancestors … and some of the victims of their serial-killer grandfather that had never been discovered. Bare-branched trees cradled the graveyard’s outer edges. Gabriel, Maria and his brothers gathered near the ornate mausoleum that held his grandfather’s body, and they waited.

Gabriel exhaled in preparation for whatever was about to transpire. Minutes later, he heard the sound of tires on the gravel road leading to the isolated graveyard.

“Get ready,” he said quietly to his brothers. Raphael pushed Maria behind him, his golden eyes fixing on the shadow of the dark van that turned onto the long driveway to the cemetery.

Gabriel’s brothers were silent behind him, thanks to the years of training to be stealthy, to blend into the night and become living, breathing shadows. Each of them held weapons, concealed from sight, and he could feel the pulsing air whipping around them, his brothers itching for a fight, excited for the chance of killing.

Gabriel briefly closed his eyes, a silent prayer sailing from his mind into the sky. Please let this not be a Brethren trap. Please let Diel be safe, and save my brothers from shedding even more blood.

The lights of the black van were off as it came to a halt several feet before where Gabriel stood. He wore a long black jacket over his priest’s uniform, but nothing hiding his face. His blond curls shone like sunbeams in the gloomy, gray cemetery. He didn’t want to scare away whoever was in that van; he wanted them to see his face and understand that he meant them no harm.

The door to the van opened, and he felt his brothers readying for an attack. Gabriel squinted in the darkness as someone, dressed in all black, got out of the passenger side door. They wore a hood that covered their head and some kind of scarf that covered all of their face but their eyes. They approached, and a few others followed behind, dressed in exactly the same way.