“Do you have a minute?”

I patted my pockets. “Not on me, but I can go through the couch cushions.”

“Charley.” He pretended to be annoyed, but I felt the emotions tumbling inside him. He was happy. Completely content. It was not an emotion I felt from him often, and if Cookie had been there, I would’ve kissed her on the mouth.

I had to admit, however, I was a little surprised. I’d ruined his pre-honeymoon honeymoon.

“I’m sorry about tonight,” I said.

“Don’t worry about it. She’s like you. Won’t give up until she’s got her man.”

“That’s true. She’s a good egg. But you already knew that, I’m guessing.”

“I did.”

“You looked fantastic, by the way,” I said. He’d changed out of the tux, but he’d looked amazing in it.

“Thank you.” We were venturing onto uncomfortable ground. Compliments weren’t part of our MO. Passive-aggressive insults were. Mild threats. A little nagging here and there. “You looked pretty amazing yourself.”

My brows shot up. “I’m surprised you noticed, what with that goddess standing next to you.”

He almost blushed. “You got that right.”

“I hope the captain enjoyed himself.”

“I think he did. He’s quite … taken with you.”

Though he didn’t mean that in an attraction kind of way, I said, “Yeah, just don’t tell the old ball and chain. So, what’s up?”

“Well, we still haven’t decided exactly where we’re going on our honeymoon, and I thought you might know what she’s thinking. She won’t tell me. She wants me to choose where I want to go, but I want her to choose.”

“So, you want me to flip a coin? See who chooses?”

“No, I want you to find out where she really wants to go.”

I smiled and leaned into him. “See, that’s the funny thing, Uncle Bob. She wants to go anywhere you are. You could book a vacation in Bosnia, and she’d be happy.”

“You’re no help whatsoever.”

“Well, I do have one word of advice: Don’t take her to hell. I’ve heard it’s really dry there this time of year.”

“You’re worse than no help.”

“I know. I really do. You haven’t heard anything, have you?” He knew what I meant without my having to elaborate.

“No, hon. I’m sorry. We are working the forensics, waiting for lab results.”

Unlike on television, real forensic work took weeks or even months. Knowing that didn’t help. My impatience knew no bounds. Still, Ubie would have something new to chew on as soon as Mr. Alaniz sent in that anonymous tip about Vatican Boy. I would kill to be there during questioning. Not anybody important. I might knock off someone who groped women in the subway or talked in the theater.

I leaned in to give him a hug and whispered into his ear. “Puerto Rico.”

He gave me a quick squeeze before letting me go with a wink and a grin.

*   *   *

Just as I was about to head toward the office again, I decided to take the opportunity to question my investigator about the recent, and rather disturbing, developments. What on earth could Angel have been talking about with Reyes? And why was Angel defending him? Last I heard, he hated the guy with a fiery passion. He’d never trusted him, so why the sudden camaraderie?

I summoned him, determined to find out. He appeared before me, his arms crossed at his chest as though I’d interrupted something important. The kid had been dead for decades. How important could his activities be?

“What are you and my other half up to?”

A hint of surprise flashed across his face, but he recovered quickly. “I don’t know what you are talking about.”

“Don’t try to play the innocent with me. I saw you and Reyes talking in the field.”

He lunged forward and pasted his hand over my mouth. “Shhhh,” he said, scanning the area. “How did you see us?”

I peeled his hand away. “I looked. You were there. Reyes was upset. What’s going on, and why all the secrecy?”

He cursed softly to himself. “I can’t tell you.”

“Angel,” I said, stepping closer and giving him my infamous death stare, the one that frightened man and beast alike, “either you tell me what is going on, or I swear by all that is holy—”

“Please,” he said, giving me a light shove of dismissal. “I’m more scared of him than of you, but only on days that end in Y.”

“Wait, why are you scared of him? Did he threaten you?”

“No. He doesn’t have to. Have you seen his angry side? Not something I want to mess with.”

“Then clearly you haven’t seen mine.”

He scoffed. “Your angry side is like when Mrs. Cleaver burns the muffins.”

“That is so offensive. I’ve never made muffins in my life.”

“Whatever, chiquita. I ain’t spilling, so take your threats and—ow!”

I’d taken hold of his arm and sank my nails into his flesh. “What?” I asked, forcing him closer. “What was that?”

“You can torture me. It won’t help. I can’t tell you, but just know everything he’s doing is for you and your baby’s safety.”

I let go. “For Beep?”

“Yes,” he said, rubbing his arm.

“Just give me a hint, then. Angel, if she’s in danger—”

“If?” he asked, his voice incredulous. “Have you looked around? Of course, she’s in danger. You both are. I’m not sure why that hasn’t sunk in.”

“It’s sunk in. It’s completely sunken, but—”

“I ain’t talking. You’ll have to ask Rey’aziel.”

He disappeared before I had a chance to argue further. Damn it. I hated being left out of the loop. I loved loops. People didn’t understand that about me.

I heard a loud crash coming from the dining room slash study. While we had assigned a small room past the dining hall to be our office, the dining hall itself had become our study. Reyes, Osh, and Garrett Swopes spent a lot of time in there, scouring over the texts Garrett uncovered, trying to find out how to kill the Twelve. Osh insisted they couldn’t be killed. Only sent back to hell. So now they were trying to figure out how to do that as well. While it would be only a temporary fix, we would take what we could get.

I hurried there and came upon a very upset Garrett Swopes and a poor, innocent chair on which he’d taken out his frustration. He’d also knocked over a stack of notes, the same stack he’d been slaving over for weeks. He was funny when he was upset, so I almost didn’t intervene. But he saw me anyway and gave me his back, embarrassed.

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

He was still in the nice button-down he’d worn under his jacket.

“I thought you had to leave early to work a skip for Javier.”

“I did, but they picked him up this morning.”

“Oh, well, that’s good.” I nodded toward the papers. “No luck?”

He shook his head. “None. There’s nothing in here about how to kill the Twelve.” He’d hired a doctor of linguistics to translate the texts, and although Dr. von Holstein didn’t get through all of them, he’d gone through a good amount. It was all quite fascinating. Much of what this guy named Cleosaurius wrote was about me, aka the Daughter of Light, and Beep, whom he referred to as the Daughter. He did say on one or two notations that she would be a melding of light and darkness, me and Reyes respectively, and he prophesied that Beep, though he never called her that, would be the downfall of Lucifer. That she would destroy him. And while pretty much everything he wrote went against Revelations and the predictions written therein, some of it coincided with the ancient texts. The four horsemen, for example, although Cleo simply called them the bringers of great suffering.

He also prophesied about the Twelve and said what we’d been hearing over and over: Twelve would be sent and twelve would be summoned. So, then, who did the sending and the summoning? Surely Lucifer had sent the Twelve, the hellhounds patrolling our borders night and day. But who summoned the other Twelve? And how did they play into all of this? And how on earth did we kill them?