There But For The Grace by A. J. Downey, Jeffrey Cook Page A

now, he probably could pass for an older, more responsible brother.
    I could work with that if it came down to it. I nodded, and Azrael’s lips quirked into a bemused smile.
    “I should like to know why you simply have not questioned anything up to this point,” he said.
    I shrugged, “You obviously haven’t spent longer than five minutes with Tab. He’s been my go-to guy when it comes to everything up to this point, and he hates questions. It’s like they’re his kryptonite or some shit.” I shrugged.
    Death full-on smiled, and he was so very pretty when he did it. Not handsome, not suave, but pretty. Like if I hadn’t been hanging around all these Angels, Archangels, Fallen and what have you for all this time, my panties probably would have gone up in a pyroclastic cloud, but after watching Tab with one of his almost shy, reserved smiles that he almost never let out to play… yeah, Death looked good for being, well, Death , but it just didn’t move me. Not the way it probably should have.
    “Let’s go inside. Have something to eat. I understand the food here is good, and the prices are better.”
    I nodded, “Sounds good. By the time the food hits the table, I’m pretty sure my stomach will be settled.” Truthfully, I was more than a little worried about the fact that I’d ralphed in the first place. I mean, granted, it’d been a minute since I’d done the rough Angel travel through space and maybe even time, but it hadn’t been that long.
    “You’re right to worry. I am afraid that it is one more thing that is indicative of the strain being placed upon your body. Your mind, however, is remarkably resilient.”
    I swallowed hard and looked at him plainly, leveling him as best I could with my gaze, which was a joke. Still, I looked Death incarnate right in the eye and asked him, “Am I dying or something? Is that what you just meant by that? Is having Iaoel in my head killing me?”
    His silence was all the answer I needed. He watched me process it, but really, all I had for him was dismissal. I dismissed the information and said, “Get me something to eat and tell me what I need to do to get into Hell.” Because if I was indeed dying, I didn’t have any time to waste thinking about it. I had to get Tab out before I kicked it. I’d promised him, and if it was the last thing I did, then fine, so be it. It was more than I had done with any of the rest of my life.
    Death murmured, “Of course,” and snapped me back to the here and now. He held open the diner door for me. “But before we get into that, I would like very much, to know why it is you are so eager to enter the abyss.”
    “Quid pro quo?” I asked. He nodded, and I nodded too, more to myself than anything.
    “Fair enough, let’s lay all our cards out on the table, shall we?”
    Death grinned, “I find you to be refreshingly direct, Adelaide Marion Long.”
    “Thanks,” I said dryly, “I aim to please.”
    We took a booth near the door as the waitress directed, and I ordered coffee, Death, surprisingly, did the same. I somehow didn’t really picture him as a coffee drinker.
    “So, why do you wish to get into Hell?” he asked me, and I blinked.
    “Wanna at least try to keep it down?”
    “There is no need. Speak plainly, girl. The mortals around us simply see a brother and sister talking about family issues.”
    “Good to know.” I huffed out a sigh. “I don’t have time for the long version, so I’ll stick to the basics. I got stuck with the Grace of Iaoel, the Angel of Visions. Tab, the Angel of Free Will, showed up and has, for the most part, kept me alive and able to make my own decisions while both Heaven and Hell have been after my ass.”
    Azrael’s eyebrows rose up into his hairline, and I realized I was sort of rambling. “Right, so Iaoel knew the location of the keys to the gates of both Heaven and Hell, and we found them. There was a big fight under Chernobyl –”
    He stopped me, “Yes, yes, I was there,