"The Battle between Good and Evil has never been so exciting!"
Reviewed by Lyn Nicholas
Posted May 28, 2012
Fantasy Urban
SINS OF THE SON is the thrilling sequel to Sins of the
Angels. Alex had the perfect plan to end the Apocalypse
once and for all, but that plan didn't work out so well. Now
she has to try again and get back into the game of Angels.
But it may be too late. Never before have I seen such an epic battle story of good
and evil with so many scrumptious twists and turns. I loved
the tension and suspense that Poitevin creates. Her prose is
fast-paced and oh so intense! The character interactions are fun, flirty, and fascinating.
Using scintillating character development and fast-paced
action, Linda Poitevin has crafted an amazing series in the
Grigori Legacy. If you're a fan of paranormal romance of the
supernatural variety, you should definitely read SINS OF THE
SON!
SUMMARY
Out of Print A detective with a secret...
When homicide
detective Alexandra Jarvis sees a photo of Seth Benjamin on
a police bulletin, she knows that Heaven's plan to halt
Armageddon has gone terribly wrong. As the only mortal who
knows of Seth's true nature, she's also the only one who
can
save him.
An exiled angel turned
assassin...
Aramael was a hunter of Fallen Angels
until a traitor forced him into earthly exile. Now, with no
powers and only a faint memory of Alex, his mortal
soulmate,
he will stop at nothing to redeem himself--even if it means
destroying Seth in the name of the Creator.
A world with little chance of redemption...
As
Alex's need to protect Seth sets her on a collision course
with the determined Aramael, the conflict between them may
push the world over the edge--and into the very chaos
they're trying to prevent.
ExcerptPrologueFive thousand years ago
"Do we have an agreement?" the One asked.
"You're serious." Lucifer turned from the window, a
scowl
etched between his brows, eyes clouded with suspicion. "You
would do this to your own son, burden him with this
destiny."
"We would do this to our son," the One corrected,
"because we have run out of other options. We both know the
pact between us won't last forever. There are too many
variables. And if we go to war again, it will never end.
Think of it, Lucifer: you wish the annihilation of the
mortals, I wish their survival. When the peace now between
us comes to an end, let our son decide which of our wishes
will be granted. Seth is equal parts each of us. Who better
to decide who is right about the mortal race?"
"How do I know I can trust you? How do I know you'll
abide by the agreement if he chooses against you?"
"Because I am the One," she said simply. She met her
former helpmeet's gaze with an unflinching one of her own.
His mouth drew almost imperceptibly tighter. She felt her
heartbeat catch. For a moment, she wondered if he might
have
guessed at her secret. Then, deep within him, she sensed
his
desire to accept her words, his longing to believe her. She
offered him a small smile.
Lucifer's gaze flicked to the wall and then returned to
her. He rocked back on his heels, hands tucked into his
pockets.
"You've always said my mortal children are worthless,"
she pressed. "That there was no point to their existence.
If
you truly believe that, if you're certain you're right,
then
this is your chance to redeem your views. Our son, reborn
into the mortal world to live as one of them, raised by
them, growing to adulthood—and then, by his own
choices, deciding their fate. If he chooses to live a life
of good, to live up to his potential by mortal standards,
then you acknowledge the inherent worth of all humans and
withdraw fully from their realm. If he chooses otherwise,
then I accept defeat. And if either of us does anything to
interfere with him once the contract is signed, we forfeit.
Do we have an agreement?"
"Forfeit how?"
"We accept defeat according to the terms."
Nostrils flaring and jaw tight, Lucifer stared at her,
hovering on the edge of decision. "And us?" he asked at
last. "What of us?"
The One hesitated. She had anticipated this question and
agonized over it for days before coming up with a response
that would satisfy Lucifer without being a lie. Vague as
the
words were, however, they still proved difficult to utter.
She straightened, finding resolve in the certainty that she
did what was right. That it was the only way.
Without meeting his eyes, she recited the words she had
rehearsed. "One way or the other, my mortal children will
no
longer stand in our way."
"That's not much of an answer."
"It is the best I can give. A great deal of betrayal has
passed between us."
"Betrayal on both sides." Bitterness edged Lucifer's
words.
The One inclined her head, acknowledging his perspective
without commenting on its truth—or lack thereof.
Lucifer's jaw hardened. "What is to stop me from
breaking
the pact now and triggering this agreement you propose? If
the decision will be that final, perhaps we should just get
it over with."
"We could. But with an equal chance that Seth might take
my path, are you willing to take the risk before you must?
I
don't propose this as an alternative, Lucifer, but as a
last
possible resort."
He stared at her for a long moment without speaking.
Then, suddenly, hostility fell away to reveal raw agony
shining from his eyes. "Is there any hope?" he asked. "Can
you ever love me again?"
The One stared at him, her most beautiful of all
creations, wrought from desire and longing and her own
infinite capacity for love. She had not laid eyes on him
since his departure from Heaven more than a thousand years
before, had refused even to call his image to mind, and so
allowed herself a moment now to study him. To remember all
he had been . . . see all he still was.
He stood before her, tall and fair, his eyes the pure,
crystalline color of amethyst, his magnificent wings
pulsing
with a glow that had faded only slightly in the years apart
from her. The One's heart contracted in a spasm of pain a
hundred thousand times greater than his would ever be.
Could
ever be. Even now, even after all he had done, all he had
become, it seemed light itself originated within him.
Lucifer, her Light–Bearer, stared back at her,
waiting.
She answered with the truth. "I never stopped."
The hope she needed to inspire within him sparked in his
eyes at last. He held her gaze a moment longer, then
crossed
the room to the desk. Pulling the parchment toward him, he
plucked a feather from his wing, dipped it into an ink pot,
and signed his name. The scratch of quill tip against paper
was loud in the silence that had fallen. He held the
feather
out to her.
"We have an agreement," he said.
With all her heart, she wanted to believe him.
Chapter One
"Yo, Jarvis!"
Alexandra Jarvis lifted her forehead from the hand
supporting it and peered over the jumble of files strewn
across her desk. Raymond Joly stood in the entrance to the
elevator hallway.
"You got company." The other detective jabbed his thumb
at the woman beside him before strolling away, coffee cup
in
hand.
Even before Alex's gaze settled on her sister, she
remembered. After three weeks of hedging, she'd finally
given in and promised to meet Jen for an early
lunch—she shot a look at the clock above Jen's head
and winced—half an hour ago. Great. The entire
morning
had dragged by in thirty–second increments, and still
she'd managed to lose track of time, giving her older
sibling yet one more lecture topic.
Heaving a sigh, she climbed to her feet and grimaced at
the stiffness of a body unaccustomed to week after week of
desk duty. Three files slid off the pile, heading for the
floor. Alex grabbed, missed, and with another sigh, stooped
to retrieve the waterfall of paper.
Her sister arrived desk–side as she dropped the
wayward files on top of the others.
"I think you're losing."
"I think I lost before I even started," Alex replied.
This lunch date was a bad idea. She and Jen had so little
to
say to one another these days, with both of them skirting
the issue of what had happened. What might have happened.
What Alex knew to be true and Jen preferred not to know at
all.
Jen waved at the files. "What do they have you doing?"
"Cold cases. Making calls to see if anything new has
turned up. Some of these go back thirty years. You can
imagine my success rate so far." Alex grimaced. She paused,
then added, "And you can see how far behind I am."
"Are you trying to get out of lunch, by any chance?"
"I wouldn't if I didn't have so much—" Meeting her
sister's brown eyes, she stopped. She couldn't lie. Not to
Jen. Not after what she'd put her sister through. And her
niece. She swallowed. "I just don't want to get into
anything with you, that's all."
Jen lifted her chin. "And I don't want to start
anything,
but you have to know I'm worried about you, Alex." She
crossed her arms and looked away, biting at her lip. "You
haven't been over to the house, you never call Nina. . ."
"I'm sorry, I've just been so busy with the insurance
and
the repairs and—" Again the lies stuck in Alex's
throat. Aware of far too many ears in the vicinity, she
jerked her head toward the conference room. "Let's go
somewhere quieter."
She led the way into the windowed room, closing the door
behind them. Pasting a smile onto her face, she turned to
Jen. "So how is Nina, anyway?"
"You could call her yourself and ask."
"Jen."
Her sister sighed. "She's okay. We found a great
therapist and Nina seems to like her. She still won't sleep
alone, but the nightmares aren't as frequent."
"That's good. I'm glad."
It was good—and nothing short of miraculous, given
that Nina had witnessed the mass murder of twenty–one
people, seen a Fallen Angel in his demonic form, and very
nearly been driven to suicide by the experience. A shudder
rippled through Alex at the stir of memories. She crossed
her arms over herself and perched on the edge of the
conference table. Not going there, Jarvis. Not now. Not
with
Jen watching.
"The real question is how are you?" Jen asked. Her gaze
moved to the scar at Alex's throat, then dropped to the
three additional ridges slashed across her chest.
Alex tightened her arms against the urge to pull her
blouse closed over the remains of the gashes that had so
nearly ended her life. "Surviving."
"Are you still seeing the department psychiatrist?"
"Not by choice"—Alex grimaced—"but yes. It's
force policy. Roberts tried to pull some strings, but he
didn't get far."
Her staff inspector had been amazing, in fact, doing
everything he could to have the usual
post–traumatic–event evaluation waived for her.
Roberts might not know exactly what had happened in Alex's
house the night she'd almost died, but the careful way he
didn't ask too much told Alex that he had his suspicions.
And that, like Jen, he would rather not know about the
reality of Heaven and Hell, or angels and demons, or the
impending war between them. A war almost certain to wipe
out
humanity.
"Is it helping?" Jen asked. "Have you told him what
happened?"
Alex snorted at the idea of confiding in the pompous,
irritating Dr. Bell. He'd restricted her to desk duty based
on what little he did know. If she told him just a fraction
of what she carried around in her head these days, he'd
slap
her into a psych ward and throw away the key.
Well, you see, Doc, it turns out my soulmate is an angel
and he's been cast out of Heaven because he fell in love
with me and killed his twin brother. That was the demon who
tried to do me in, by the way, and the whole mess may well
have triggered the Apocalypse, and . . .
Oh, yeah. She could just imagine how fast the department
shrink would draw up those commitment papers. Alex squeezed
her eyelids shut against the ache in her right temple, a
dull throb that never quite went away. Another leftover
from
her near–fatal confrontation with Aramael's twin.
Opening her eyes, she met her sister's frown. "Bell
isn't
the confiding type."
"Then ask for someone else. You need to talk to someone,
Alex. I wish it could be me, but—" Jen broke off and
looked away, her lips tight and her eyes suspiciously
shiny.
"Hey." Alex reached out and clasped her sister's
shoulders. "Would you stop? You have enough to worry about
with Nina. I'm a big girl. Let me deal with my own issues,
will you?"
"But that's the problem, isn't it? You're not dealing
with them. You're pretending they're not there."
Alex let her arms drop and curled her fingers over the
edge of the table on either side of her. Knuckles aching,
she stared at the light switch on the wall.
"If you can't work with this Dr. Bell," Jen continued,
"ask him to refer you. Or let me give you some names. You
need to keep looking until you find someone you're
comfortable with. Someone who can help."
Alex almost laughed at the idea any human being could
help her deal with the kind of evil she had faced, the kind
of evil that might be unleashed on the world. Except it
wasn't funny, and it wasn't going to happen. She didn't
care
what Jen or Bell or anyone said. Even if she could talk
about the secrets she had come to know, she wouldn't.
Because when it came right down to it, she didn't want to
relive it. Didn't want to think about it. Not any of it.
Not about Aramael, lost to her forever; not about Caim
or
a broken pact between Heaven and Hell; not about Heaven's
contingency plan or the Apocalypse waiting for humanity if
that plan failed.
She slid off the table. "Look, Jen, I know you want to
help, and I appreciate it. Really I do. But as much as you
don't want to talk about it, neither do I. Can we please
just leave it at that?"
Jen stalked the length of the conference room. "No,
Alex,
we can't just leave it at that, because you can't continue
like this. You're stretched so thin right now I'm afraid
you'll fly apart if someone sneezes too close. And I can't
help!"
"Is that what's bugging you? That you can't fix me
again?"
"I never fixed you in the first place," Jen muttered.
"Because it was never your responsibility. What Mom
did—what Mom was—" Alex swallowed and pressed
on. "What happened was horrific, Jen, but it's over. Done.
We both survived. It's time to stop trying to compensate
for
something that happened twenty–three years ago and
wasn't your fault to begin with."
A tear slid down Jennifer's cheek.
Alex sighed. She went to Jen and hugged her, crossed
arms
and all. "You're not responsible," she said softly.
"I know. I just don't know what I'll do if you—I
can't lose you, Alex."
Alex leaned her forehead against her sister's. "You
won't
lose me. I'm not Mom and I'm not that easy to get rid of."
Jen sniffed. "Promise?"
Perhaps some lies weren't all bad.
"Promise. Now I really do have to get back to work
before
I lose my desk under the mess. How about I come by for
dinner on Saturday? I'll bring a movie and ice cream."
***
Levering himself off the filthy pavement, Aramael swiped
the back of his hand across his bottom lip and spat out a
mouthful of blood. He forced his spine straight against a
spark of pain and glared at the Fallen One perched on the
fire escape above him. He really needed to stop taking
back–alley shortcuts.
His attacker grinned back. "I didn't believe it when
they
told me you were here," he said. "Thought I'd see for
myself."
Aramael spat again. A weapon would be nice right
now—something to compensate for the things he could
no
longer do—but he didn't dare look away from his enemy
long enough to find one. Even without using their
supernatural powers, Fallen Ones moved way faster than he
did in his new reality. They hit harder, too.
"You've seen," he retorted. "Now you can go."
The Fallen One uncoiled, stretched, and dropped lightly
to the ground beside him. He linked his fingers and cracked
his knuckles. "I don't think so, Power. Your kind has
caused
a great deal of suffering among us. It seems only fair one
of you should pay for some of it."
Aramael scowled at the leather–clad figure. Bloody
Hell, he was getting tired of this. The discovery of his
presence had been inevitable, of course; he'd known he
would
become a target at some point. One of their nemeses,
stripped of his angelic powers and cast from
Heaven—what Fallen One wouldn't want a shot at that?
But word had spread, the attacks came with increasing
frequency, and Aramael's plans disintegrated further with
each.
His path had seemed so clear at first. Find Alexandra
Jarvis, the soulmate from whom Mittron had taken such care
to separate him, and rekindle the connection between them.
If Mittron were right about Alex once inspiring Aramael to
abilities beyond what he should have had, perhaps she might
do so again. Perhaps he might, through her, stretch beyond
his current capacity and find a way to stop Mittron. To
stop
Armageddon.
With the Fallen Ones dogging his every step, however, it
would take him an entire mortal lifetime just to reach
Alex—and by then, with his memory of her fading a
little more with each rise and fall of the sun, there might
be nothing left to salvage. Nothing he could do.
He eyed his present tormentor, now circling just out of
arm's reach. Despite what the Fallen One may have heard
about Aramael's vulnerability, thousands of years of
caution
apparently died hard. Aramael was, after all, one of the
select few angels capable of imprisoning Fallen Ones in
Limbo. Or had been one of those angels until Mittron
orchestrated his downfall.
Now, however, he was wingless, powerless, reduced to the
same physical strength as a mortal, and sentenced to an
eternity of having the crap kicked out of him by his former
prey. And, worse, to watching from the sidelines as Heaven
and Hell went to war.
Gritting his teeth, he rolled his shoulders to ease the
tension building in them. It wasn't in his nature to lie
down and play dead, so he'd fight back as best he could. He
might even land a few hits of his own. But if the three
previous encounters were anything to go by, he didn't
expect
to remain standing for long.
The Fallen One stepped in with a jab; Aramael blocked
him
and struck a glancing blow on his shoulder—a blow
that, even to him, felt feeble. The Fallen One smirked.
A feral cat, scrounging through a pile of garbage,
slinked out of sight behind a row of battered cans. Aramael
braced himself. His enemy could take him down in a
heartbeat, but it wouldn't happen that way. There would be
pain involved first. A lot of pain.
The Fallen One's knuckles connected with his cheekbone
and a starburst exploded behind his eyes. Reeling back, he
staggered and shook his head, trying to locate his
aggressor
through flashes of light. Another hit, this one to the gut.
He grunted and doubled over, staying on his feet through
sheer willpower. He would not fall this easily. A fist
drove
into his kidney and agony sheared through him, obliterating
his resolve. His lungs sucked for air as all sense of his
enemy's whereabouts disappeared. Dropping to his hands and
knees, he waited for the next blows. They came quickly.
Kicks, now, from which no amount of curling up could
protect
him.
Lying in the alley's grunge, he endured the punishment.
Grimly, resolutely, and with growing bitterness. He might
not be able to stop Mittron, but if it took him the rest of
his existence, the Highest Seraph would somehow answer for
this. For the pain and humiliation; for the loss of what
Armael had so briefly found with Alexandra Jarvis; for the
treason that had brought it all to bear.
A booted foot crashed into Aramael's skull, sending a
wash of red across his vision. Awareness receded down a
darkening tunnel. Sound faded. Sensation died away.
Deep inside, the life spark of the weakened vessel he
had
become snuffed out yet again.
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