Savage Wings: Book Three of The Whitechapel Chronicles

Chapter 36

"I can't help you here, you know that don't you? I can't see what you're about to do, I can't see what you're walking yourself into. Whatever was there, whatever I saw, it's gone."

When it came to predicting my future, Josiah's powers of foresight were temperamental to say the least.

Sometimes I wondered how he ever made a living controlling something that clearly controlled him, but then again, I hadn't been his usual kind of client and maybe the laws of foresight could never apply to me in the same way it did to others, Sister Agnes excluded. For whatever reason, his visions of me had been plunged back into darkness once again and I'd come to understand that the mysterious force that was blocking him was really a true master of control and manipulation. Showing somebody snapshots of the future was a surefire way of making sure they only reacted to what they thought was the truth. How better to govern the path one person will take by ensuring they never see the whole story? And yes, to some that might sound like something Lucifer might do, but I knew better. I knew just who, or what, was capable of manipulating the characters to further the plot and I was dismayed that the answer lay far closer to home than I could ever have imagined.

As time had gone by, as I'd come to understand the abilities I possessed, I'd also come to understand the creature that I had been created to become. It was a being of enormous power and one that was governed by this untameable sense of righteousness and the more I'd considered my actions of late, the more I realised just how the angel was effecting me. At first, I'd just assumed my new-found confidence in myself and my own capabilities had been part and parcel of being a vampire, one that was descended from Benjamin Garrick no less, who let's face it, had come to believe so much in his own bloodline, that his weaker creations – like Jenny – had been discarded with something that bordered on arrogant cruelty. I'd been reborn as a stronger version of me, fine tuning my instincts to hunt and survive, but lately, I'd begun to feel less like me than I ever had. From triumphantly blinding the Varúlfur to my confidence in my own ability to save Amy, everything I'd done recently had been governed by this sense that I was right and to hell with the consequences. That wasn't me. That wasn't who I was. But it was who the angels were.

The angel in me was fighting for dominance. Fighting to control me, fighting to carve a path in the direction in which it wanted to go and no seer was going to help sway me or knock me off course. It was making sure of that. I could feel it under my skin, in my veins, coursing through sinew and muscle, governing my thoughts and emotions. It was, quite simply, changing me and I wasn't sure I much liked the creature it was forcing me to become. And I certainly didn't like the direction in which it was forcing me to go. I didn't want to be Michael's pawn in this game. I didn't want to carry on the legacy left by Ezekiel and Benjamin. But I also couldn't just leave Lucius at the mercy of Drachmann, the thought of that, of what he'd do to him, pained me more than even the thought of the Gates being opened did and I knew it shouldn't be that way. I knew I should care about all the rest of it, but right then, I knew I would never survive knowing that Lucius had been sliced open and bled dry – forget what Drachmann or Brandon or even Lucifer would do to me – I wouldn't survive it, and what's more, I wasn't sure I would even want to.

I couldn't work out whether Josiah suspected that it was the angel inside me that was blocking him, if he did he certainly didn't let on and I wasn't about to admit to anything. He didn't trust the angels any more than he trusted the demons and I needed him on side. I needed him to trust me.

"I'm asking you to do this for me. As a friend," I said.

I winced as he laughed, feeling the burn of his mocking rebuff slice deep.

"Oh," he said, crossing his arms across his broad chest. "So we're friends now are we? Did you clear that with the boyfriend first? I'm not sure he'll be too happy to hear you call me that, although to be fair, I don't suppose he'll be too happy when he finds out about your clandestine chat with hubby either. He's quite the jealous type, is your Cain."