Finale

only be used for good. Whatever evil ideas they’re entertaining, they won’t work.”
    “Just the same, you’re actually considering doing it?” I asked reprovingly.
    “I need them off my back! The archangels can’t know what I’ve been doing. I’ll be banished. They’ll rip out my wings and it’ll all be over. I’ll be
stuck down here forever.”
    “We need a plan,” Scott said. “Twenty minutes between the call and the meeting doesn’t give us a lot of wiggle room.”
    “When your blackmailer calls, agree to the meeting,” I instructed Pepper. “If they tell you to come alone, say you will. Sound as compliant and cooperative as you possibly can
without going over the top.”
    “And then what?” Pepper asked, flapping his shoulders as if to air out his armpits. I tried not to stare. Never could I have guessed that the first archangel I’d meet would be
such a sniveling, cowardly rat. So much for the archangels of my dreams—powerful, inescapable, all-knowing, and perhaps most important, exemplary.
    I fixed my eyes on Pepper’s. “And then Scott and I will go in your place, take the blackmailer down, and deliver them to you.”

C HAPTER

27
    W HAT! YOU CAN’T DO THAT!” PEPPER SPAT the words vehemently. “They won’t be happy, and
they’ll refuse to work with me. Worse, they might go straight to the archangels!”
    “Your blackmailer doesn’t work with you anymore. From now on, he or she deals directly with us,” I said. “Scott and I are going to retrieve the objects they want
enchanted, and we might need your cooperation in evaluating them. If you can tell us what you think they might have intended to use them for, the information could be valuable.”
    “How do I even know if I can trust you?” Pepper said in high-pitched protest.
    “There’s always a blood oath. . . .” I let the idea dangle. “I’ll swear my intentions, and you’ll swear to stay away from Patch. Unless, of course,
you’re still too good for an oath.”
    “This is awful,” Pepper said, tugging at his collar like it was pinching him. “What a tangle.”
    “Scott and I will have a team in place. Nothing will go wrong,” I reassured Pepper, then added a quick private instruction to Scott using mind-speak:
Keep him calm while I call
Patch, will you?
    I walked to the end of the alley before placing the call. Dried leaves rustled past my feet, and I snuggled deeper into my coat for warmth. Of all the nights to be out, I’d chosen the
coldest one yet. Frost bit into my skin and made my nose run. “It’s me. We’ve got Pepper.”
    I heard Patch sigh in relief.
    “I don’t think the double life is an act,” I went on. “He’s got a genuine gambling problem. Nor do I think he’s on a mission from the archangels to chain you
in hell. He might have been down here on assignment originally, but he’s given it up in favor of indulging in a human lifestyle. Now for the big news. He knows you aren’t blackmailing
him—all this time he’s been trying to pencil you in for a job.”
    “What job?”
    “He didn’t say. I think he’s dropped it. He’s got bigger problems to fret over. He’s scheduled to meet with the real blackmailer tonight.” I didn’t say
the rest, but that didn’t keep me from thinking it. I felt so confident Dabria was behind this, I would have bet my life on it. “We don’t know the time or the meeting place yet.
When the blackmailer calls Pepper, we’re going to have a twenty-minute window. We’ll need to move fast.”
    “Do you think it’s a trap?”
    “I think Pepper is a coward, and he’s glad we’re going in and he doesn’t have to.”
    “I’m ready,” Patch said grimly. “As soon as I know where we’re heading, I’ll meet you there. Do one last thing for me, Angel.”
    “Name it.”
    “I want to find you safe and sound when this is over.”
    The call came ten minutes before midnight. Pepper couldn’t have given better answers if he’d rehearsed them. “Yes, I’ll come alone.” “Yes,
I’ll enchant the objects.” “Yes, I can be at the cemetery in twenty minutes.”
    The instant he hung up, I said, “Which cemetery? Coldwater’s?”
    A nod. “Inside the mausoleum. I’m supposed to wait there for further instructions.”
    I turned to Scott. “There’s only one mausoleum in the city cemetery. It’s right by my dad’s gravesite. We couldn’t have picked a better spot ourselves. There are
trees and headstones everywhere, and