Revelations

Club Envy, Los Angeles, 2025

POV: Naga

The bass in Club Envy walked up through the floorboards and into my ribs. Light cut the main room into strobing flashes of blue, red and white, catching sweat on shoulders and the silver glare of glasses.

Shelby slid through the crowd, chin up, shoulders loose. She looked back to check I was behind her. The bouncer at the hall watched us come, hesitated a half heartbeat, then stepped aside. His eyes stuck on me a second longer than on her. Guess he heard the gunshot from the last time we visited.

The music began to fade as we walked down the hallway in the back. Shelby pushed the last door without knocking.

The room was already full.

Makoto sat forward at the table, arms crossed over a city map frayed at the folds.

Aki stood against the dim wall, arms folded like. Her gaze slid over us and away again, not dismissing, but not exactly welcoming.

Haru lingered near the door, pale. He looked breakable until you found his gaze. He watched everything with the patience of someone who got good at it young.

And then there was Mr. Specter, of course, at the head of the table. He lounged like the chair was built specifically for him, one ankle on a knee, and an untouched drink sweating into the wood of the mahogany. The familiar smirk sat at the corner of his mouth.

Makoto didn’t pretend at greetings. “I confirmed with him,” he said, still looking at the map. “He did send you.”

“So you take us for liars,” Shelby said, dropping into the chair opposite. I noticed that she didn’t dress her words up for anyone.

I took the seat beside her. The table creaked. The shadows under my boots stretched and then lay down like a dog told to behave.

Makoto’s finger tapped three circled blocks on the map, near the river. Thick black lines cut through. “Downtown,” he said. “Warehouse rows. Almost everything coming in and out of L.A passes through here first. If Malice operates in this city, chances are they’ve been through here. We sweep. Two teams. Haru with Aki. I’ll go with them.”

Aki let out a small, unbothered sound. “Why don’t you come with us?”

“You’re my knife, I need you to stay with Haru,” Makoto said. “And I need to make sure these two don’t try anything funny.”

Shelby leaned over the map, her forearm brushing mine. “What kind of sweep? Walk and watch or start pulling doors?”

“Walk and watch,” Makoto said. “We don’t kick anything we can’t map. We’ve been there before and found nothing. But this time we don’t need to find anything there.”

He looked at me, not the way people look when they’re afraid of monsters, but the way they look at tools they’re about to use. “We just need to find out if anything was there.”

I nodded. “So you want me to see if angel blood passed through there in the past.”

Shelby added, easy and certain, “If you can catch even a trace of Haneul’s blood, we can follow it to Malice.”

The air changed. Not belief, not disbelief.

Haru’s head tilted, curious, while Aki’s mouth ticked at one corner, humor sharpened to an edge.

Specter didn’t speak for once. I guess that meant he was listening.

“Rules,” Makoto said. “Don’t chase anything without reporting back to me. We pull out if it smells wrong.” His eyes cut to me again. “And if Malice shows, we regroup and follow them.”

Specter lifted his glass, but didn’t drink. Condensation tracked down his knuckle. “Before you go,” he said, voice bored and careful at once, “I have a story.”

Makoto didn’t sigh. His jaw did it for him. “Not the time.”

“It’s exactly the time.” Specter set his elbows on the table and laced his fingers. His gaze found me and stayed. “There’s something I think our friend Naga here deserves to know.”

My gaze narrowed. “Speak.”

“I did some digging after our talk,” he said. “And I found old stories of an angel who walked the earth. She came into villages and turned tired soils into bountiful fields. She aided kingdoms, produced fountains of clean water where there wasn’t any. Plagues and illnesses dissipated wherever she went, and prosperity followed her close behind.”

My chest tightened. The shadows under my boots tensed, thin and ready.

“And?” Shelby asked. Her voice didn’t shake.

Specter’s mouth thinned. “Her own kind came. Not demons. Not men.” He laid his words down like a blade on velvet. “They say she tried to free the devil. Then the Archangel Michael came to find her, here on Earth, and took her life. That was over a thousand years ago.”

Everything in me froze.

Michael? This couldn’t be true. He was one of the few I trusted most before my banishment. My brother-in-arms. Why would he kill Haneul? Absurd.

The bass from the main room thudded through the wall in a rhythm I couldn’t make my heart match.

“That can’t be true,” I said, the words scraping out from my throat.

Specter didn’t move, but the focus in his eyes narrowed. “That’s what they say.”

“That’s wrong, Michael—” I said. “She isn’t dead.”

Shelby’s fingers found my sleeve under the table. “Naga.”

“I caught her scent,” I said, louder. “Don’t mess with me, Specter.”

Wood groaned under my palm. A hairline crack ran from the heel of my hand to the table’s edge.

Haru chimed in. “How do we know the angel in the story is the one you’re looking for?”

Specter’s gaze taunted me, as if he’d already figured out the answer to that question.

I couldn’t tell them that I was the one she freed. Having people other than Shelby knowing who I really am was something I’d rather go without.

Makoto didn’t look up. “Alive or dead, it changes none of this. You’ll get your answers when we find Malice.”

The floor felt unstable, as if I’d just learned I’d been walking on water this whole time and had simply forgotten to drown. Haneul couldn’t have died that long ago, I’d just seen her before I came to L.A.

Could it be that more time passed than I had realized? It would explain why the world was so different from the one she described.

I didn’t have time to think about the whys and what ifs. Makoto was right. I’d only get my answers when we find Malice. But the thought couldn’t escape my mind, that if Haneul was dead then everything was all for nothing.

Makoto flattened his hand on the map to keep it from curling. “We move in forty,” he said. “No phones. Radios only.”

“Let’s just do this quickly,” I told him. I was more distraught than I’d ever admit.

Specter’s gaze was stuck to me like glue. Not afraid, but curious. His eyes came back up to mine and stayed there too long for my comfort.

He didn’t have to say a word. I could see the suspicion take root in his calm gaze. He was a smart man, perhaps dangerously so. I wouldn’t mind that, if it were clearer whose side he was on.

Shelby pushed back from the table. “Then let’s use the forty. I need a bathroom break.”

Aki pushed off the wall and stretched like a cat. “You’re adorable when you pretend you’re in charge.”

“I’m adorable no matter what I do,” Shelby said, already halfway to the door.

Haru ghosted aside to let her pass. He didn’t speak. He just watched each of our faces like he was writing them down for later.

Makoto folded the map with quick hands. He slid it into his jacket and stood. “We meet at the back-alley.”

Halfway to the door, Specter’s voice followed, mild enough to make the room cold. “One more thing.”

Makoto didn’t turn. “Spit it.”

Shelby did, I assumed it was because she always wanted the last word. “If this is about payment, put it on a tab.”

Specter’s snide smirk edged in. He wasn’t looking at her. He was looking at me. “It isn’t about a tab,” he said. “It’s about… transparency.”

Shelby’s fingers twitched near her sleeve. Aki stopped pretending she wasn’t interested and leaned her shoulder into the frame, while Haru’s head tilted so slightly you’d miss it if you weren’t already watching him.

But Specter didn’t change his posture. Nor did he raise his voice. He simply let the words land where everyone could hear them, leaning close enough to put his hand on my shoulder.

“The way you reacted to that story,” he said, softer. “A story of an angel, martyred for attempting to free the devil. Then you pop up out of thin air, literally, looking for an angel who ‘freed’ you.” His eyes didn’t blink.

“So tell me, stranger.” He let the last word ride the air like a dare. “Are you the Devil?”

The room went silent.

I looked at Specter. He held my gaze with the satisfaction of a man who had finally asked the question he’d been dying to hear himself say.

The question hung in the air.

Not a single one of us breathed.