Dee motioned him to follow her.
“Where are you going?” Rosabella yelled. “Eddie is my—our daughter—and if you’re going to talk about her, I have a right to know.”
Daniel appeared at the top of the stairs and took the situation in with one quick glance. “Rosabella.” He strode into the kitchen. “I can see how upset you are. This must be awful for you.”
Wrath tuned out the sound of Rosabella pouring her woes into a receptive ear.
“Bianca is…” Dee sipped her beer and glanced about them. “I didn’t know it at first, but now things are starting to drop into place.”
He didn’t have time for games, but out of respect for Dee, he waited.
“She’s our witch,” Dee whispered. “She has to be. The one who performed the summoning. She showed up here a few months ago and knew all about the hell gate. At the time, she offered to help me, and I trusted her. She kept her mouth shut and even offered to keep an eye on Eddie while I was away.” Eyes wide, Dee leaned closer. “But she was behind the Macbeth thing. She suggested the play at the board meeting. Only a witch would know about the curse and how to capitalize on it.”
Wrath got it. “She wanted to activate the curse so she could summon one of us.”
“Right.” Dee shook her head. “I should have known better than to trust a stranger, but she guessed what Eddie was, and she seemed so sympathetic and promised to help me keep her hidden from the guardians.” Her voice wobbled. “I thought she was my friend.”
He knew all about trusting the wrong person, and as a hell prince, he had no excuses. The biggest regret of his eternal life continued to weep and wail in the kitchen. “Witches are too good at hiding their true purpose.”
“But now she’s disappeared, and you tell me so has Lucifer.” Dee cleared her throat and took a long swallow of beer. “I don’t believe in coincidences.”
It was bad enough when he thought of Eddie in Lucifer’s hands, but the idea of a witch having access to the kind of power Eddie could produce made his blood freeze. “Tell me everything you know.”
He felt Ramiel’s presence moments before the archangel thundered his name, “Wrath!”
Like a virulent STD, Ramiel materialized in front of him. “You’re back.”
“Yup.” Wrath wasn’t going to waste his time explaining himself to this gutter guzzler.
Ramiel nodded politely to Dee. “You didn’t find Lucifer.”
Something about his tone made Wrath pay better attention. “You already knew that.”
“Raphael says he can sense him on the earth plane, but he can’t get a lock on him.” Ramiel leaned closer to him. “Your powers are restored.”
“Disappointed?”
“Don’t be churlish.” Ramiel gave him a chiding glance. “Where is Haziel?”
That was going to take some explaining but not to this sock worm. “Haziel is safe.” And if Ramiel had really given a crap about Haziel’s wellbeing, he should never have sent her after him.
Ramiel’s wings released in a whoosh. “Where is she?”
“I told you, she’s safe.” Wrath released his wings and let his rage bubble to the surface. Ramiel was the perfect target for his fear and frustration.
Stepping into him, almost chest to chest, Ramiel asked, his voice silky with menace, “Where is my seraph?”
“Where you sent her.” Wrath could go for a full-on battle right now. “In hell.”
Ramiel’s fist shot toward his face, and Wrath caught it and held it. Power for power, they were a match, and a fight between them would be exactly what Wrath needed.
“Stop it.” Gabriel strode out of Dee’s bedroom.
Was Dee housing the combined hosts and hordes of heaven and hell in her and Eddie’s tiny apartment?
Gabriel clapped her hands. “There will be no fighting on this plane.”
“He left Haziel in hell.” Ramiel kept up the pressure of his fist in Wrath’s palm.
“And you should never have sent a seraph to do a task that clearly fell to you.” Gabriel straightened her mauve pencil skirt over her hips. “Fighting is only a possibility because neither of you have stuck to doing what you should be doing.”
Raguel followed behind her. “Is Haziel okay?” His concern was genuine, which was why Wrath deigned to answer him.
“I left her with Ava. She’ll be fine, and Ava will keep her safe.”
“Fetch her,” Ramiel grated. “Or I will not be answerable for the consequences.”
Gabriel pushed between them with a sniff. “You really do need to fetch her, Wrath. Section fourteen, subsection twelve of the code states quite clearly that no angel can exist in hell without a valid purpose.” She tapped his chest. “And as you are currently here, Haziel has outstayed her welcome in hell.”
He wasn’t going to waste his breath telling them that retrieving Haziel was next on his to-do list, so he settled for sneering at them.
Chapter Thirteen
A bar in London
Across the crowded happy hour rush, the women clustered together giggling at some shared joke. Their cheeks were flushed with the combination of liquor, excitement, and ambient heat.
