“You’ll beat me with love? That sounds salacious. I’m so looking forward to it. Now let me tell you what I demand in exchange. I cannot have you return as a more powerful being and have you unmatched by us. That hardly seems fair to have the strength of an angel with the latitude given to a soul. It’s gluttonous of you, Simone. Unless…” his scheming gaze falls on Emil, “I’m allowed a champion of my own.”
I close my eyes briefly. “You need a champion? That’s a little cowardly of you. Are you afraid of me?”
“Afraid? No. I merely seek to maintain a balance, and because I don’t have a soul, I will require a soul to act in my stead. I choose your inescapable, Emil. He will return here as a half-angel. He’ll dance circles around the pieces of your broken heart.”
Emil, who kills for fun, can’t believe his good fortune. He knows what this could mean. He’ll be one of the most powerful beings in the universe. He’ll believe himself God-like, even though he cannot even imagine how miniscule he really is.
Emil sizes me up once more, his depraved soul growing darker. “I accept,” he says without hesitation.
“Does Heaven agree?” Byzantyne lifts his eyebrow to Atwater and waits for him to respond.
Atwater pauses for a moment. His eyes become white, losing any indication that he has irises as they disappear. His body trembles as if enduring a shock from some outside force. It only takes a moment for his eyes to become normal once more. He stops shaking. “Heaven accepts.”
“I still feel as if Simone is getting the better part of this bargain.”
“What is it that you want?”
“I want you blind. You have something planned. I don’t know what it is, but you came into this lifetime hoping for this outcome. Didn’t you?”
“You know I can hardly predict what will happen when I enter a new life. There are too many variables to ever know the outcome of a life.”
“It’s not so hard when you know the players.”
“But I never know the setup, do I?”
“Don’t you? Still. I want you to go into this next lifetime with no prior knowledge of these negotiations. You don’t get to know who you are or why you’re here. And whoever is sent to protect you from us will be blind to the goal of the mission as well.” Byzantyne looks down at Xavier on the ground. My guardian angel is unconscious, having succumbed to the pain of having his wings readjusted. “He doesn’t get to know your mission either.”
“We don’t have to know the goal of the mission or that it involves you and Emil when I return here. It’ll be the only logical choice though, given Emil is my inescapable and you’re his handler. What other reason would I have to come back here?”
“As you say,” Byzantyne accepts my logic. “You will be born into this next life as a human, so you will know nothing of Heaven or your inescapable. You’ll follow the biological progression of an angel with an angelic body. You won’t have angelic strength until you begin to evolve. When that time comes, if you make it that far and begin your evolution into angel, you will lose Xavier and whoever else is protecting you. They must ascend. You’ll be left on your own. No one else is to be told of your arrival on earth or your purpose here.”
“Someone has to know.”
“Atwater can know—Heaven can know, but they can’t tell you or the players in our game.”
“Xavier will never agree to leave me.”
“Then Heaven will have to force him back. He doesn’t get to stay with you.”
It’s as if he has punched me in the stomach. I want to curl into a ball and hide. What he is proposing is sure disaster for me. I try to imagine it. I’ll be a new being alone in the world, weak and transitioning into angel with no protection. I scrutinize the warrior angels surrounding us. They’re not what one would term as open-minded. I glance at Reed. His clever eyes see the torment of my decision. Restrained from me, his face is a mask of agony, watching me struggle through this. “What would you do if you met an angel with a soul, Reed?” I ask as if we’re the only two beings in the room.
He doesn’t smile, but there’s a tender quality in the look that passes from him to me. “If it were anyone else, Simone, I don’t know. But, because it will be you, I’d have a better chance at harming starlight. I would protect you. You can trust me.”
Byzantyne barks with laughter. “A Power with the eloquence of a poet! Do you believe him, Simone? He’s programmed to murder anything that could be seen as unnatural. It’s innate in him. He’d be made blind as well. He wouldn’t remember any of this the moment he leaves here.” Smug humor resonates from the Seraph.