Twenty-seven minutes later, Clark and Michaela were still stuck in traffic and no closer to the accident. Michaela was growing impatient, but traffic was stopped on either side of the interstate as far as Clark could see. From the looks of the people reclined in their seats with their cars turned off, no one was going anywhere anytime soon. Clark turned off the Chevelle.

“So tell me again why you think Lucifer is taking souls or whatever.”

“He said something to me in the cave. It’s just a hunch, but I need to check it out before we go to the Descendants,” Michaela said.

“Well, we can probably hoof it from here.”

Michaela grabbed a UK baseball cap out of his backseat. She pulled it low on her head and put on his extra pair of sunglasses.

“Very stealthy. Uh, what are you doing?”

Michaela had upturned the bottle of whiskey, letting the amber liquid pool in her hand. She dabbed it around her throat and on the backs of her wrists. Then she ran her fingers through her hair.

“There might be a lot of angels around, and I don’t want anyone to smell me,” she answered as she got out of the car.

“Oh, they’re gonna smell you all right,” Clark said, putting on a hat too just in case. He caught up to her, and they joined the trickling stream of rubberneckers walking farther up the road to get a better view of the carnage.

“Why a car accident?” Clark asked.

“Anything where a large amount of people are injured or dying,” Michaela answered.

Clark cringed. “That’s kind of twisted.”

“Wherever there are souls, Loki will be there.”

“Do you not like him?”

“How did you know?” Michaela glanced at Clark.

“Your eyes get hard when you talk about him.” Michaela’s eyes were hidden behind her sunglasses, but Clark could still tell she narrowed them at him. He smirked.

“He just worries me. As the Angel of Death, he’s neither a holy nor fallen angel, because he takes all the souls. He has no allegiance, and that seems dangerous to me. He’s just stuck in the middle,” Michaela said.

“Sounds normal to me.” At Michaela’s bewildered expression, he continued. “Think about it. You’re kind of stuck in the middle right now too. I’m in between for sure. We might get along better with him than you think.”

Michaela frowned, and Clark thought she didn’t want to consider getting along with the Angel of Death.

A mile and a half later, Clark was deeply resenting the Kentucky heat when he caught sight of the flashing lights. Cops barricaded the road against the people and reporters who craned their necks in an attempt to see blood and crumpled metal. Ambulances and fire trucks lined the median and shoulder. The smell of spilled fuel and fire burned Clark’s nose. An uneasy quiver upset his stomach at being so close to death.

Michaela didn’t notice the chaos beyond the barricades as she scanned the crowds for Loki. Clark joined in on the search just for something to do other than think about why none of the ambulances were racing off toward a hospital. He had no idea what Loki looked like, so it surprised him when he caught sight of a very out-of-place angel wandering through the edges of destruction around the wreck.

He nudged Michaela. “Is that him?”

Clark nodded toward the tall, disconcertingly skinny angel amongst the police and firemen. Michaela followed his gaze and looked surprised when she recognized the angel too.

“How can you see him?” she asked, failing to hide her shock, which Clark took slight offense to.

“With my eyes.”

She stared at him a moment longer, searching his face. “Humans aren’t supposed to see the Angel of Death,” she said before she leaned in and sniffed him.

He recoiled, but she had already walked off toward the edge of the crowd. He lifted an arm and smelled his armpit before following her, feeling assured he didn’t smell that bad.

Clark reached Michaela right as she whistled so loud his eardrum popped. The people closest to them cringed and shot Michaela nasty glares. Clark massaged his ear and swore.

Loki turned at the sound, staring straight at Michaela, who lifted her chin in a slight greeting. Clark squinted at the Angel of Death, preparing a joke about how nerdy he looked, when Loki disappeared. Clark blinked, and Loki reappeared right in front of them with a cool smile and a glinting smirk in his green eyes.

Clark jerked in surprise, which caused the angel to acknowledge him.

“Loki, this is—”

Loki reached up, placing his hands on their shoulders, and suddenly they were in the woods. Clark could just make out the scene on the road, where he had just been standing through the thinner branches of the woods where they were now. His breakfast bubbled in his stomach, making him burp a little, but that was it, considering he’d just teleported.

“Well, Michaela, I can honestly say that I am pleasantly surprised to see you,” Loki said in a voice that perfectly suited his overall sketchiness in Clark’s opinion. Loki looked at Michaela like he felt something more than surprise at seeing her. Clark instantly didn’t like the angel.

“No one’s buying that Loki. As I was saying before, this is Clark. He recognized you,” Michaela said.

Clark didn’t know what the big deal was, but Loki looked at him quizzically, his mouth still twisting into a slightly naughtier version of a normal smile. “He saw me before I appeared in front of you?”

“Clear as day,” Clark said.

“Let me do the talking,” Michaela said to Clark before she added, “He’s a human.”

“Really? I thought he was a fairy with that hair.” Loki leaned over and sniffed Clark. “Are you the one who smells so bad? I detect whiskey. Jack Daniels, perhaps?”

Clark opened his mouth, but Michaela cut him off. “Loki, I need to ask you a question, and I need you to be straight with me.”

“Of course. Whatever you need. But first, I have to ask, how are you doing?”

Clark didn’t hear concern in Loki’s voice. The angel’s eyes drifted over Michaela’s shoulders where her wings should have been. He shook his head. The expression on his face was sad, but his eyes still gleamed with mischief.

“I’m fine,” Michaela said shortly. “What would you say if I said it will be the humans who will win this war for the fallen?”

“I would say that someone is definitely thinking outside the box. And if I had to guess, I would say that someone is our dear friend, Lucifer.”

Michaela leaned forward. “What is he up to?”

“So you figured out you were set up then?” Loki asked with a wide grin.

“How would you know that?” Michaela asked, taken aback.

“It’s hard to get a lot by the Angel of Death.” Loki grinned, revealing sharp, blindingly white teeth. “Especially when it involves the souls. Things would go awry quickly if both the holy and fallen angels didn’t include me in their little plots.”

Michaela gritted her teeth. “I know Lucifer is up to something with the souls. I don’t know why he set me up.” She took a deep breath. “Please, just tell me. Why is Lucifer doing this?”

The grin slowly slipped from Loki’s face. Everything slid away until his features were nothing but a blank canvas. Suddenly, he burst out with a bark of laughter, making both Michaela and Clark jump. His grin was back, but this time it looked slightly wild. His eyes danced wolfishly.

“Oh, so you don’t know.” Loki shook his head at Michaela. “You still think it was the fallen who set you up.”

“What are you talking about, Loki?” Michaela’s words were careful, deliberately even.

“It wasn’t the fallen who framed you for the invasion of Heaven.” His smile stretched from ear to ear as he spoke, like he savored every word.

“Don’t play games with me.” Michaela’s words were hisses. “If it wasn’t the fallen who set me up then who did?”

Her question was too much for Loki. Clark watched, shocked, as the angel doubled over and his shoulders shook, his body vibrated. The angel threw back his head and howled with laughter.

“Don’t laugh at me.”

Loki was still laughing as he managed to speak. “Oh, Michaela. You’re a real peach, you know that?”

“What are you saying?” Michaela asked. Clark would have put his hand on her arm to reassure her if he didn’t think she would rip it off.

“What do you think I’m saying?” Loki asked when he finally leveled his gaze on her.

“Loki, you owe me,” Michaela said quietly. Clark heard the threat in the words. Nervously, he glanced back to Loki, who still looked to be in good humor.

“Sweet Michaela, I don’t think you are in the position to be making demands of me anymore. Actually, if I were to think about it long enough, I believe it would be my duty to escort you to Heaven. You are a fugitive after all, fallen or not…” he trailed off suggestively.

Michaela stepped forward. The air between their three bodies thickened. Clark thought Michaela might punch Loki. Instead, her voice was calm, almost reassuring, when she spoke.

“Loki, you wouldn’t have told me this much if you were going to turn me in to the Aethere. I know you care about the souls no matter what you or the other angels say to the contrary. I would hope that whatever Lucifer is doing, you wouldn’t want it to continue. So tell me what you meant before I get really pissed off.”

A flicker of emotion passed over Loki’s face, so quickly Clark couldn’t place it, before Loki’s mocking grin settled back into place. His laugh twinkled like a breeze through wind chimes as he raised his hands in mock surrender.

“Easy, Michaela. Don’t get too sentimental on me,” Loki said with a wink. “But I simply don’t understand why you’re bothering with this when you obviously have much graver concerns on your hands?” His eyes settled briefly on the blackness on Michaela’s arm.

“I just need to know what Lucifer is going to do with the souls.”

Loki settled back against a tree and said, “I can’t speak for any angel’s intentions—fallen or otherwise. I can only say what I’ve heard.”

“And what have you heard?” Michaela prodded.

“The Aethere are cleaning house. It’s the Purification, they say.”

Clark heard the capital letter in his sentence. “The Purification?” he asked.

Loki rolled his eyes at Clark. “These holy angels have a word for everything. It’s ridiculous and impossible to keep up with to say the least.”

“What do you mean cleaning house?” she asked quietly.

“Only the best souls make the team. Everyone else gets the boot,” Loki said.

“They can’t do that. They can’t purify Heaven.”

Loki shrugged. “I don’t make the rules. You do,” Loki paused. The glint returned to his eyes, darkening them to the color of steel. “Well, at least you used to.”

Clark narrowed his eyes at the mocking angel’s intentional mistake. Michaela went very still next to Clark. He hadn’t known her long, and he would never assume to know the character of an angel, but he felt her struggle, like she wanted nothing more than to race skyward and burst into Heaven, demanding resolution. Unfairly judged souls went against her very creation.

“Stop playing games, Loki. Why are the Aethere doing this?”

Loki sighed dramatically. “They say you ran Heaven into the ground. Too many unworthy souls were forgiven. They want to return it to its former glory, to Eden. It’s the beginning of a new era, and the Purification is the Aethere’s first reform. And Hell can have all the impure souls it wants.”

Michaela’s eyes snapped. “What does Lucifer have to do with the Purification?”

“Ah, the heart of the matter.” Loki leaned forward, like it was a secret. “Tell me, Michaela, are you fighting to clear your name? Is that why you ask these questions?”

“I just want information,” Michaela responded quietly. She closed her eyes. “I want to know what is happening. Lucifer cannot get away with this.”

“That’s all?” Loki rubbed his pointed chin with long, pale fingers. “You don’t want to rescue everyone? Return Heaven to its rightful guardians?”

Michaela looked away, pausing for a long moment. “Loki, you’ve received countless souls passing from their bodies. You have felt their worth. What would you say of my soul? How would you guess me to be judged if I were a dead human?”

The two angels and one human regarded each other silently. Finally, when Clark couldn’t bare it any longer, Loki spoke. “You are asking the wrong questions. You should be asking yourself if you believe in coincidence.”

Loki’s smile was rueful; the gleam in his eye turned spiteful. Clark could answer that question—no angel of any kind believed in coincidence.

“This,” Michaela said, pointing to the darkness on her arm to signal not only her fall, but Heaven’s, “has to do with the Aethere’s Purification?”

Clark glanced at her. She had shifted, changed. Her body was still, the air around her cold. Her voice was hard. Somehow Clark felt they had treaded upon a batch of thin ice.

“Oh, the Aethere have everything to do with it, sweet girl.”

Clark scowled at him.

“Go on,” Michaela said quietly, fiercely.

“The Aethere say they started this grand Purification to cleanse Heaven by disallowing impure souls from entering. By raising the bar in judgment, guess what happens?”

“Lucifer gets more souls for himself,” Clark answered.

“Exactly. Heaven only knows—well I guess it really doesn’t—what Lucifer is going to do with those souls. But I doubt the Aethere care too much about that,” Loki said, looking at Clark with a wicked gleam, shining bright off his pale face. He turned to Michaela. “They got what they wanted,” he added.

“What did they want?”

“Who do you think the Aethere hate more than Lucifer?” Loki asked.

“I don’t know…” Michaela began to frown, lines forming between her brows.

“Who, in their eyes, ruined Heaven? Who puts more emphasis on the souls than the angels? Who, in their minds, got what she deserved?”

Michaela looked away, her mouth pressed tightly closed. Her eyes searched the trees like she might find answers written in the bark. She began to shake her head, covering her mouth with a trembling hand.

“Exactly. They wanted you and your Archangels out of the way. They needed a path to power cleared, and what better way than turning everyone against you? The other angelic choirs had to support the Aethere. They knew they couldn’t just call a witch-hunt for no reason. What do you think gave them that reason?”

Michaela trembled beside Clark. Her emotions sparked like a live wire along her skin, causing static electricity. Loki saw Michaela wasn’t able to speak, so he went on.

“What would discredit a choir more than losing half their ranks to the fallen? Not to mention a General who let the enemy in the front doors. And a murderer on top of all that? It’s a perfectly acceptable reason for the Aethere to step up and save Heaven and Earth from chaos. Think about it. They are doing us all a favor by rounding up you Archangel hooligans. But of course, that isn’t the point we are getting at is it?”

“Then what is the damn point?” Clark asked, glaring at the angel.

Loki leered at Clark with that mischievous gaze of his. “So you’re really not a fairy then? Okay, don’t get so riled up. The point is, the Aethere couldn’t have asked for a better excuse to take control. It was almost too perfect, wasn’t it? Like maybe it had been a set up from the very beginning.” Loki emphasized every word in his last sentence.

“No,” Michaela whispered.

“What are you saying?” Clark asked, his head moving from angel to angel, trying to understand.

“I’m saying it was the Aethere from the very start. In exchange for the rights to a few extra leagues of souls, Lucifer invaded Heaven and framed the Archangels, so the Aethere could sweep in like the saviors of Heaven,” Loki answered, gesturing with his arms like he had just revealed a bright, shining treasure. “Of course the only problem is they didn’t stipulate how Lucifer could use the souls or his new shiny, fallen Archangels. So, I guess the joke is technically on the Aethere…and you of course.”

“How is he using them?” Clark asked, frowning. Michaela looked unable to speak.

“Not in conventional ways, let’s say that.”

“But if the Aethere want to purify Heaven, why are they working with Lucifer?” The sound of crunching metal came from the road, diverting Clark’s attention. When he looked back, Loki was watching him closely with a sweet smile.

“The Aethere hate the souls.” Clark felt Michaela’s body sag next to his at Loki’s words. Her eyes were on the ground. “They’ve been sick of judging worthless souls for a long time. They want Heaven for the angels, not the humans. So they don’t care who they have to work with to accomplish their goals. To them, Lucifer can have Hell and Earth if he wants it. As long as they get Heaven.”

“But will Lucifer be happy with just Hell and Earth?” Clark asked, winning him a beaming smile from Loki.

“That’s the million dollar question.”

“I don’t believe it.” Michaela finally spoke. “I can’t believe our own angels would do something like that against us.”

Her words were not intended to draw a line between the holy angels and Loki, but they did. Clark saw the flash of anger cross Loki’s face.

“Suit yourself. Now, if you don’t mind,” Loki said, touching his finger to the brim of a hat he wasn’t wearing.

To Clark, they had stepped in one big steaming pile of it, and now Loki wanted to blow them off. Michaela didn’t respond to the Angel of Death when he started to leave.

“I have a question for you,” he asked Loki, who paused and looked back at them. Michaela stirred at his side. Clark felt her eyes on him.

“Clark.” Her voice was low and full of caution.

“Shoot,” Loki said over her, his cunning grin in place beneath his eyes that shimmered with renewed interest.

“You take all the souls to judgment? Every one?”

“Technically, I retrieve the souls from the bodies. The carrier angels take them to judgment,” Loki amended.

“So you take every soul from every person who dies?”

“Yes,” Loki answered, warming to the game.

“How? I mean, how can you get to every one?”

“Time doesn’t exist for me. This conversation, however long we have spent here in the woods, means nothing to me. I can get everywhere I need to be, because there is no place I can’t be.”

That definitely made Clark’s head hurt, so he moved on. “Do you remember every soul?”

Loki paused, like he understood where Clark was going. He leaned closer, making Clark want to inch backwards. He held his ground.

“Who are you asking about, boy?”

Clark sucked in a breath. He heard Michaela start to say something, but he ignored her. “Iris St. James.”

Time for Clark seemed to stand still too. Loki cocked his head as if he recognized Clark, but then he shrugged. “I can’t remember every one.”

Clark nodded, his eyes shifting to the grass and roots at his feet.

“If you don’t believe me,” Loki said to Michaela, “then you should see the answers for yourself. Go to Devilish Desires in Charleston. But really, is it so hard to believe?”

Loki began walking back to the road. He called over his shoulder, “Just be careful what you listen to though.” He winked and disappeared.

When Clark and Michaela finally reached the Chevelle, traffic still hadn’t moved. Clark climbed into the driver’s seat. Michaela didn’t comment as he took a huge swig from the whiskey bottle. He kept a tight grip on its neck as they maneuvered around the cars, hopped the grassy median, and wove down the shoulder of the opposite side of the interstate until they were free enough to hit eighty miles an hour.

“What do you think Lucifer is doing with those extra souls?” Clark asked.

“Nothing good.” Michaela spoke with her face turned toward the window.

“I thought you didn’t believe Loki about the deal?”

“It feels unimaginable. What kind of angel would frame their General for an invasion? Heaven is not about power, it’s about servitude and honor. If Loki is telling the truth then I will not turn myself in to the angels who actually betrayed Heaven and framed me for it,” Michaela said.

“So how do you know who is telling the truth?”

“We go to Charleston.”

“All right! That’s my girl!” Clark lifted his hand for a high-five, but Michaela only gave him an empty stare before she looked away. Michaela was quiet as they drove. Her forehead rested on the glass, eyes fluttering open and closed as she drifted to sleep.