I ground my teeth. “You saw what happened at the club.”

“Hard to miss that pink fairy all over him.” She squeezed my hand. “I’m sorry, honey.”

“Nero can kiss whoever he wants. I don’t care.” I rose from the sofa. “Playing ninja is exhausting. I’m going to bed now.”

That night I dreamed that it had been me on that sofa with Nero in Three Wishes, and that we’d done a lot more than just kiss. He’d drunk from me, and I from him. I woke up the next morning drenched in sweat. I lifted my hand to my throat, where my pulse throbbed against my skin. I could almost still feel where he’d bitten me, and it hadn’t even been real. It had been just a dream. I fell back onto the mattress with a heavy sigh. I was in so over my head with that angel.

15

The Dog House

My dream had awoken me just a few minutes before my alarm clock went off, so there was no point in going back to sleep. I pulled on my training clothes, then headed down to the gym. I wasn’t looking forward to seeing Nero again, but I couldn’t just back out of our training sessions. I was getting better because of them, as last night’s fight against the masked assailants had reminded me.

I could do this. I could train with Nero and not think about…well, anything but the training. I took a deep breath and opened the door to the gym. Nero was waiting for me inside, but he wasn’t alone. Jace and Captain Somerset were standing beside him.

I was about to walk over to them when Nero said, “There’s no need to disrupt your morning workout routine, Pandora. Fireswift will spot you.”

Ok, all business it was. That was good. I walked over to the weight bench. The barbell was already loaded. I cursed under my breath at the weight Nero had loaded on. Either he’d forgotten to switch out his own weights, or he was punishing me for something. Since it felt like Nero was always punishing me for something, I was going with the latter.

“The inquisition team finished speaking with the witches we brought here for questioning,” Captain Somerset said.

The inquisitors had questioned everyone in the school yesterday afternoon, but they’d invited a few special someones here for followup questions. Yes, ‘invited’ was the word they’d used, as though they were simply inviting them to tea. The Legion had a pretty dark sense of humor.

“No one knew anything,” she said.

The Legion inquisitors were notoriously thorough. If they hadn’t found anything, there either wasn’t anything to be found, or someone had cast a spell on them that prevented them from revealing secrets under torture. But only a god or a demon had magic powerful enough to cast a spell that would withstand the Legion’s inquisitors.

Nero seemed to be thinking along the same lines. “The supernaturals that the inquisitors questioned about their defection to the demon army also revealed nothing. If these witches have the same master, they may be under the same spell,” he said as I lowered onto the workout bench.

“What do we do?” Captain Somerset asked him.

“If you use a strong enough hammer, eventually you can crack through anything,” he replied.

I slid the bar off the stand and began to bench-press the weights Nero had given me. By the third repetition I was cursing his name. By the tenth, I was yearning for the power to set that evil angel on fire.

“Are you all right?” Jace asked me.

“Fine,” I huffed, lifting the bar again.

“I can’t believe you’re lifting that. It’s over three hundred pounds, and you’re not a very big girl.”

“Not…helping,” I growled.

“People with supernatural powers require supernatural challenges,” Nero said, watching me as I settled the bar back onto its stand.

I moved on to the next station, exercising my shoulder muscles. “It feels at least as good as it hurts just so long as you imagine yourself slamming the weights into the source of your supernatural suffering,” I whispered to Jace.

He turned his back to our audience to hide the smile on his face. Nero continued to watch me as though I were a bomb that would explode at any moment.

“There is another matter to discuss,” he told Captain Somerset. “There was an incident at the New York University of Witchcraft last night. One involving someone dressed as a ninja.”

I nearly dropped my weights. I steadied my grip just in time.

Captain Somerset snorted. “A ninja? A bit early for Halloween, isn’t it?”

“University security chased the ninja off the campus, but they were too slow. Or, more accurately, the ninja was too fast,” Nero continued, staring at me.

Yeah, he knew who the ninja had been all right. Why did I even bother? Drake was right. You couldn’t hide anything from Nero. He always found out.

“Did they catch the four masked men?” I asked casually, beginning my bench dips. I had to do a few hundred of them to feel the burn.

“Yes. They were not as fast as the ninja.” His eyes narrowed. “I don’t remember assigning you to break into the witches’ university last night.”

“Oh, really?” I laughed. “Well, you were so distracted that I guess you must have forgotten all about it.”

Captain Somerset swallowed a shocked chortle. I didn’t even know what had compelled me to say that, but I wasn’t going to back down now. I’d already jumped in with both feet. So I met Nero’s stare with foolish determination.

“What did you find out at the school?” he asked. His face could have been carved from granite for all the emotion it was showing right now. It was no wonder sculptors liked to make statues out of angels. They were practically statues already.