12 9| Athena

I took a long sip of water, pondering everything I had been told. "How do you know Eve is in Heaven?" I asked. Heaven and Hell existed, but so did the Underworld, according to Griffin and Sebastian.

The Underworld was basically where demons lived and stayed, but people could go there, too, apparently. I had a slight curiosity about the Underworld (which sometimes was visited by angels if too many demons escaped, but Sebastian had been taking care of it lately) and low-key wanted to visit, but I wouldn't say that out loud.

Griffin stared at me blankly. "She's not on the list of names on the Wall."

"The Wall?"

Sebastian nodded. "Yeah, before you enter the gates of hell, everyone is allowed a few minutes to search for the names of their loved ones on the Wall. Each person is etched there until they've been dead so long they're forgotten about."

Griffin grinned. "Yeah, but the thing is, even if you find their name, you'll never see them. That's a part of the torture."

I frowned, chewing that over in my head. "That's horrible."

He shrugged. "It's hell, Athena."

The concept of hell terrified me, and they hadn't even explained it yet. Griffin and Sebastian hadn't been yet, since you had to actually die to go. Meaning, they hadn't encountered the devil either. "This is insane," I murmured. I had known this stuff existed, especially after knowing Sebastian for so long. Hearing about it firsthand, though, was… unnerving. "Anyway, what you're telling me is there is no way to keep Mother from rising?"

Sebastian coughed. "Technically, we didn't tell you that."

True, I had overheard it while eavesdropping. If they truly hadn't wanted me to listen, I was sure they could've corralled some part of their superpowers and stopped it.

Or just walked to another room.

I waved off Sebastian's statement. "Answer my question."

It was Griffin, though, who looked at me from the opposite end of the sofa with a calculated look in his eyes. For the past thirty minutes, he had been giving me a look I knew all too well—extreme attraction, a lusty look in his eyes. His looks made me nervous, even a little afraid. Until they didn't, and the look turned into desire suddenly, quickly, before disappearing.

It wasn't like Griffin was ugly; like Sebastian, he had that ethereal sexiness to him, but I just didn't feel that way about him.

"And if I tell you, again, what we all know to be true—that Mother will rise regardless of action—what will that do?" he asked, crossing his legs. He had, begrudgingly, thrown sweats over his boxers.

In theory, nothing would change or happen. Every time he said it was simply another punch in the gut that reminded me my death was imminent. Or, at the very least, a lot of pain and fighting in the next few weeks. Although, it did make me want to bury my head in some books and figure this out.

Which was perhaps what I needed. Nothing could motivate me more than my death.

"Humor me, Griffin, just confirm it. One more time," I answered with a shrug.

Rolling his eyes, Griffin sat up with a sigh. "Fine. Like I said earlier, we have no knowledge of Mother, we have no knowledge of how to get information about Mother, and I predict we have a solid three weeks until one of you dies. So unless some miracle happens by then, yes, Mother will rise."

There it was, that sharp, rolling pain in my stomach. You're going to die, Athena, it told me, cackling loudly. "You see, Griffin," I said quietly, thinking, "I feel like if you just give me some time, we can avoid all of this." I wouldn't die, and neither would Clare.

"You have three weeks."

"I haven't come across a problem I couldn't solve yet." Of course, those problems tended to have numerical answers, and no amount of math could solve this particular issue.

Sebastian chuckled. "You also haven't faced a problem with demons either."

I shrugged. "Every problem has a solution."

Three weeks seemed like a long time, but, then again, it truly didn't. If today was part of those three weeks, then I had already lost a whole day doing nothing. Then to think about the past few days I was holed up in Sebastian's house, practicing with my saber. Even the past few months I had spent learning nothing about Sebastian and his siblings and everything about lower-level demons, which didn't even seem to matter now because Mother was pulling out the medium guns for me.

All of it, wasted time.

"We're being realist," Sebastian explained. "This isn't even something we can figure out, Tee."

I sighed. Being a realist didn't mean giving up. The way I looked at it, we could definitely be looking for information in the time leading up to it. "So we give up?" I demanded. "Your realism, like your plan to keep me safe, sucks."

Griffin laughed. "No, we don't give up. We'll still be searching for answers, Athena, it's just that we don't think we'll find them in time to save Clare." He looked off to the TV. A rerun football game was on.

Save Clare. Her life had been forfeit for mine, as decided by them. Relief coursed through me. I didn't have to make the decision, which was lazy and cowardly on my part, and that resolved me of feeling guilty about her death. Sad, yes, but not guilty.

I disagreed, though. I felt like three weeks was plenty of time to find out who Mother was, what she could do, her limitations. "Have you tried asking around?" I asked. Maybe if I knew a little more of their history, I could help them, but I knew little to nothing except demons existed and one was trying to off me.

They gave me identical 'duh' looks. Griffin shook his head. "We have a psychic working with us, but she's as forthcoming with information as a baby." He said the word 'baby' with a tremendous amount of disgust in his tone like a baby was akin to a murderer.

"Babies give you plenty of information if you know what to listen for," I teased.

Griffin looked personally offended. "All they do is cry and defecate. Ungrateful degenerates," he growled, dark brown eyes turning red.

Sebastian made eye contact with me. This guy, huh? his eyes seemed to say.

I returned my eyes to Griffin, whose mouth was still screwed up. "My point is," I said slowly, still trying to figure out which baby had pissed him off before deciding not to worry about it because demons had a lot going on and I only had three weeks to figure out my own stuff, "maybe the psychic is giving you all the answers, you just aren't listening to her."

He gave me a blank look. "You don't think I listened?"

Considering the smartest thing he had decided to do was help save me (and even that in itself kind of sucked because he completely ignored the fact that there was another innocent life at stake), I was beginning to think he didn't listen. So far, he had come up with a plan, one with many flaws, to let Mother rise and destroy the world, but then rebuild it, which totally meant the end of the majority of human life as we knew it (or so we assumed because what good could Mother want), and also he didn't know much about his history. That, and he was very confident he had the most important thing to say in the room. It was just a slight hunch that he had been givens tons of hints and information he had just ignored.

I didn't think telling him the truth was helpful, though, so I gave him a patient smile. "Of course you did. Maybe a fresh perspective will help, though," I told him diplomatically. On the other side of him, Sebastian smirked at me. "Just tell me what you know, besides what I heard in the kitchen, and I'll see if I can figure something out."

"Some psychic prophecy mumbo jumbo. Roughly translated in your language it says, Both sides consist of seven, if love shall fail, then so shall Heaven."

"Does anyone have a pen and paper?" I asked. I wanted to remember every word, and I also worked better when I saw it.

Griffin frowned. "Why would I have that lying around?"

I opened my mouth to give him plenty of answers—notes, ideas, writing down information over the phone. Anything he was involved it—I didn't question how they got their money since supernatural people always tended to be rich in pop culture—required paper. Griffin was a piece of work. I closed my mouth. "You're right," I said, pulling out my phone instead. I'd just write it down later. "Repeat it, please. Word for word how she told you."

He repeated himself, and I typed it down exactly as he said it. When he was done, I read it again, making a mental note to devote some time to it later. I had a short story to write for a class in the morning I needed to focus on. If I survived, if we did find a way to keep her from rising, then I couldn't let my GPA drop. I had graduate school to attend. As it was, I would be up the next few hours, and I was already getting sleepy.

Even though I spent the majority of the past few days in Sebastian's house, I was feeling tired but with a pent up kind of nervousness. It was like something (besides the fear and anxiety) was bubbling underneath my skin, threatening to spill out. Every time I felt it, I hit the training room because it was the only thing that even slightly released it. If I fell asleep with the tension, I had weird, crazy dreams I didn't fully remember. All I knew was that they had flashes of angels and blood and some kind of war. The scenery was blurred but from what I could make out and remember, it was a place of supposed serenity—minus the blood and dead bodies. The dreams unnerved me.

Griffin and Sebastian stared at me expectantly. "So. What do you make of it?" Griffin asked as I closed my phone and put it back in my jacket pocket.

"It sounds like the beginning of a supernatural romance," I answered because I literally ���made' nothing of it. "At first glance, though, it's obviously some battle between good and evil, love and hate."

Sebastian sighed. "Perhaps we could ask another psychic. Or a human with the Sight." The Sight was what they called it when we could see demons and angels in their true form without needing help. These humans usually ended up homeless or addicted to something because they thought they were crazy.

Griffin narrowed his eyes. "And what can a human with the Sight do besides tell us if they see demons?"

I looked at Sebastian for an answer. He shrugged. "Well, nobody else in our world knows about Mother."

He had a smidgen of a point. Maybe Mother would be too full of herself to wipe the memories of humans with the Sight, thinking then less than or as crazy as we were. Still, with the thousands, if not millions of them, roaming the planet, it wouldn't be time effective to find one who could help us.

Griffin was nodding, though, looking reflective. ���Another psychic perhaps," he muttered. "The human idea is stupid."

Sebastian bristled. "You can find a psychic. You aren't doing anything else here." He gave him a sharp look before adding, "Not that I think it'll do much."

Griffin shrugged. "It's better than talking to every homeless person you see, demanding if their drug-addled brains know the name of a super demon."

I glared. "Not all homeless people are on drugs, and it's not fair to judge them without knowing what they been through. Domestic abuse, sexual assault are contributing factors. As well as—"

"I'm going to stop you there because I don't care."

"You should," I snapped. "You could easily be one of them."

"I'd rot in hell before I became homeless."

"You were gonna rot in hell anyway, you asshole."

Sebastian snapped his fingers, bringing my attention to him. At some point, he had moved between the two of us. "Greed, watch your mouth.��

Griffin was grinning, though, that sharp look in his eyes calculating. He liked my anger, liked bantering with me. I made a mental note to stop as he raised his hands defensively and said, "I'll be good if she promises to be bad."

Sebastian snarled, the inhumane sound ripping through my chest.

Good Lord, I thought, clutching my necklace. I tried to control my face—even if he couldn't see it, Griffin could.

Thankfully, Griffin looked at Sebastian and Sebastian only. I tried to corral the conversation back to something productive. "Why won't the psychic help?"

"The psychics we use—they tell us certain things: when to move, how to move. They usually lead us to the information we need, so maybe that's it," Sebastian answered, never taking his eyes off Griffin nor moving away from me.

Made sense. We needed some information, like, last week, though. I'd talk to Hilary about it. "So we'd have to ask the right questions of the source?" And what was the source? Did they send us to a certain place? A certain person? Had I been given the answers by someone and missed it because I wasn't paying attention?

Sebastian sighed. "I still don't believe a psychic would—"

"Then shut the hell up," Griffin snapped. "This is the best idea we've had in the past two weeks." He turned to me, not looking the slight bit irritated by Sebastian. Instead, his eyes burned bright with excitement. "Yes, but we'd have to know who, or what, the source is as well. A hooker could be a source. A wadded napkin in our path could be a source."

I had thrown away so many napkins and sheets of paper. Never thought I would come to regret it. I rubbed my temples together in frustration. The more answers we got, the more questions I had.

Sebastian gave his brother a sharp look. "I'm sure if the hooker was a source, you would've known."

I pressed my lips together to keep from giggling. Griffin ignored him. I asked another question. "Do you guys use different psychics? Or just one?" Because if it was different psychics, maybe they saw different things, different parts of the puzzle. If the siblings all put their pieces on the table, we could potentially have something that made sense.

Griffin shrugged. "We don't talk to each other, sweetheart."

Of course. I wanted to throw my hands in the air, but I kept myself together. I knew Sebastian didn't talk to his siblings, but for all of them to ignore each other? "Could you find out maybe?"

He nodded. "Anything for you, baby." For a second, just a brief second, the way he eyed me made me feel super aware of myself, my curves, my face. My cheeks heated for the second time in the past fifteen minutes.

Sebastian coughed, pulling me away from Griffin's gaze. "So say the psychic doesn't work. What is our next plan? We can't have just one," he said, not so subtly trying to divert my attention.

His brother looked away from me, curling his lip at Sebastian. They had a silent conversation, dark and angry, filled with years of hatred. This was one of those times I was glad Sebastian usually kept me away from the super demon stuff. Their looks were terrifying. "Don't be afraid, Athena," Griffin told me, voice warm and lulling. Immediately, I felt the tendrils of fear pull back, replaced by the same serenity I felt earlier while they were talking. He was definitely messing with my emotions. "Sebastian and I have never fought each other."

"Psychically," Sebastian clarified, giving him one final dark look before turning back to me with that stormy expression I had come to know him for. I still felt nothing but insane calmness, which took precedence over Sebastian's question. There was something more pressing I needed to know. Well, wanted to know.

"Besides multiplying yourself, what else can you do?" I asked Griffin. "And what about your other siblings?"

Griffin smiled, chilling. "I control emotions. I can tell how someone is feeling and change it. Like, right now, I'm keeping you calm, but just like that—" he snapped his fingers, and I felt the urge to throw myself across the sofa and into Sebastian's lap. It was a fire that burned every single inch of my skin. I forgot the prophecy, Griffin, everything in the room except that moment Sebastian and I had earlier on the stairs, where I wanted to kiss him. I wanted much, much mo— "I can make you feel something else."

The feeling disappeared as quickly as it came, and I realized I was staring at Sebastian hungrily like he was a steaming hot plate of food and I was a starving man.

If Sebastian noticed, he hid it behind his glare at Griffin. "Don't use her as a demonstration," he growled.

I didn't mind the demonstration on me, though. It was actually good to see his powers in action, feel them. "What're the limitations?" I asked, curious. "Are there limitations?"

Griffin shook his head. "None that I know of," he answered, still smiling. He was blatantly ignoring Sebastian, who was giving him a look so dark it was burning the back of my head by proxy. "As far as my siblings, they have a wide range of abilities from mind control to controlling the elements."

Hm.

"Were you born with these powers?" I asked. "I know you aren't the first of your kind, so do you get the same powers every time around? What's your life cycle?" Sebastian had always told me he was technically immortal. As in, he could live forever as long as none of his siblings killed him, and neither did a greater demon.

Griffin looked confused. "Did Sloth not tell you any of this?"

It was weird to hear Sebastian called that. "No," I snorted. "He barely told me his name." Getting information from him was harder than finding a needle in the haystack.

Sebastian took a deep breath, glancing down as his phone buzzed in his hand. Without a word, he got up and left, slamming the door behind him with attitude. I didn't understand why he was so anti-Griffin. Sure, the guy was smug, a little pretentious, and didn't seem to take much seriously, but for a powerful demon, I expected nothing less. In fact, I thought Griffin was rather tame.

Of course, I hadn't seen him at his worst and hoped I never had to.

Griffin watched him leave, rolling his eyes. "I'm not surprised at Sloth. He loves his secrets as much as he loves you," he told me, keeping his gaze on me. "Of all my brother's secrets, though, his feelings for you are his best kept. I'm not even sure he knows the extent of them."

I wanted to argue. It was none of his business what Sebastian felt for me, even if he did love me like that.

"'Denial ain't just a river in Egypt'," Griffin quoted before I could reply.

I lifted a shoulder. "I haven't seen anything that shows he loves me. In that way anyway," I said honestly.

"I'm not talking about the denial of his feelings toward you," Griffin corrected quietly.

I pretended to not understand what he was talking about. Yeah, sure, I had a tiny crush on Sebastian sometimes, but I hadn't fallen in love. I knew better. I had already done the math. Falling in love with him was a Bad Idea, and it had a low success rate. "He's my best friend," I told him firmly. It didn't matter either way how either of us felt. Not until Mother had been put to a stop. That was what was important.

Griffin sighed. "That's true." He sat up, giving up the conversation—thankfully. "Anyway, we weren't here until the 14th century, not too many years after The Divine Comedy was written. Nephilim, the bastard children of fallen angels and humans, became irrelevant. Fallen angels, the devil, demons—they all wanted someone who could wreak havoc and would wreak havoc. The Nephilim were too human, though, and while they were stronger and faster and exhibited some powers, they also had a good side to them. Most of them chose to walk the path of good, so Hell needed a substitute.

"The fallen angels decided Dante, being a human, would know what were the worst sins of them all—honestly, I feel like pedophilia is a lot worse than being lazy, but even his wife was years younger than him, I'm told, so that would be a little hypocritical—and decided to personify us to do their bidding.

"So the devil created us like God created the first human—through mud. He molded us into people, then took the blood of the fallen angels and his blood and promised seven Nephilim mothers money and riches if only they would carry us. So they did, and that's the brief version of our creation."

My mind whirled as I took this all in. The craziest part about it was that it was real, and, here I was, entangled in this life I knew little about.

"As for your other questions, yes we're born with the same powers each time around. We train and learn, such as you do at school, I suppose." Griffin sounded bored as if this information wasn't extremely fascinating. I couldn't wrap my mind around it. This didn't fit any logic I usually relied on. "That's honestly all I could tell you. Did that help with anything?"

"It helped to sate my curiosity." However, it helped nothing with Mother. Later, though, when I had a chance, I would go over his story, put it together and try to figure out where they fit in with Mother, who she was to him, if not the woman who created them or birthed them. "Sebastian said that her section of your journals was pulled out. Do you have any idea of who could've done that?" I asked.

Griffin shrugged. The door opened, and I saw Sebastian slide through the kitchen and back to us, his arms crossed over his chest. "I have a lead on Mother—in Europe," he said, his voice nonchalant.

I tilted my head. "I'm going to Europe?" I could work something out with classes. Sebastian would have to take me because he wouldn't be leaving me alone.

Sebastian shook his head. "Too dangerous. I'll only be gone a day or so. I'll get a friend of mine to watch you go to class and back to my house."

Irritation bristled through me. I didn't need to be watched like some baby. I rolled my eyes at him. "I'll be fine for a day or two," I mumbled.

Griffin shook his head. "My brother is right. You need someone to watch you," he agreed, surprising me. "Which is why I'll do it. I can have multiple versions of myself protecting you. One outside the house, one inside the house, one in your car. You'll be better protected than when you're with Sloth alone."

Sebastian looked like he wanted to argue, but he didn't. "Let's not get crazy."

I felt a little nervous with Sebastian leaving. Griffin didn't take anything seriously to me, but he also made a compelling argument. Multiple versions of him were better than one Sebastian. Also, Griffin desired something from me more than to rebuild the Earth. He would be diligent. ���I'm okay with it," I told him.

Sebastian met my eyes. <i>Are you sure?</i> his gaze asked.

I was more than sure actually. I could pick Griffin's brain. "I won't be doin' much but studying and learning to use my blade," I told him, shrugging. My mind was already racing with possibilities. I could use Griffin to go places, do things. We could do our own research while Sebastian was gone. The excitement went through me. Griffin was definitely a rule breaker. He wouldn't mind at all.

Griffin grinned widely. "See, nothing to worry about, brother." He slapped him on the shoulder and stood, unbuttoning his shirt. "Before you go, just give me a few hours to conduct some research of my own."

I frowned. "With your shirt off?"

Sebastian sighed heavily. "Remember those hooker sources he talked about?"

Oh.

I laughed, standing up as it seemed it was time to go. I hadn't gotten any true answers here, but I had some information I could work with. After I finished my homework, I could write it down in my notebook, start piecing things together. Like the prophecy.

Griffin chuckled. "You have your methods, brother, I have mine."

<i>Sand, everywhere—underneath my legs, my feet. I laid on the ground, flat on my back, pinned there by something I couldn't see. I squirmed to no avail. I was stuck. </i>

<i> Whimpering, I looked around. The water rose toward me faster and faster. In a few minutes, it would be rushing over my face unless I moved. I would drown here. The sky cracked, thunder rumbling the air around me. The ground trembled. "Silly, Athena," a voice said, amusement in her tone. She sounded like somebody's mother, except her voice made my skin go cold. "Do you really think you can stop me?"</i>

<i> I didn't have to ask. Mother. The water slid toward me, and I saw it wasn't clear as it touched my skin. It was blood red and sticky. I looked up, refusing to pay attention to it, even though my heart was pounding.</i>

<i> "Yes."</i>