He walked toward us, gaze locked on me, his steps slow and even. “Is it true? You are the Preliator? You’re very little.”

I chose to ignore that last addition. He seemed nervous, so I made an effort to appear friendly. I held out a hand for him to shake. “Hi. I’m Ellie.”

The reaper watched my open hand for a few moments, long enough to make things pretty awkward, and he gave Will an unsure look. When Will didn’t immediately break his arm, he took my hand and held it firmly. “It is an honor. I am your servant and my name is Icarus.”

I gave him a warm smile. “Great to meet you, Icarus. Can you show us to your relic, please?”

“Yes, yes,” he said. “Come on in.”

Will and I followed Icarus into the trailer. The interior was dark, with only a few sparse pieces of tattered furniture. The cabinets in the kitchen were broken and the carpet smelled thickly of mold. I didn’t want to seem rude by covering my mouth and nose from the smell, but it was very difficult not to. Will, politely, gave no sign of discomfort, though his sense of smell had to be a hundred times stronger than mine. Icarus held a hand out, motioning for us to stand still, and he crossed the narrow living room to one of the windows. He pulled on the blinds cord and the floor between us slid apart with a mechanical hum, revealing a grated steel spiral staircase descending into a brightly lit shaft.

“That’s not what I expected,” I murmured to Will. He seemed unfazed by the secret passage, as if they appeared all the time in real life.

“What relic are you looking for?” Icarus asked as he returned to where we stood.

“It’s called the Pentalpha,” Will explained. “It’s extremely powerful and crafted by Gabriel herself. It has the ability to summon the Fallen.”

“Ah,” Icarus said. “One of your own creations, Preliator? I’m sorry I don’t recognize this word, but I’m happy to show you what I have. Perhaps you will know it when you see it.” He started down the stairs. “Follow me. All relic guardians have their own way of surviving and protecting their charges. The house above this facility is camouflage, more or less. People don’t usually come knocking, and if the demonic track me down, then they won’t find much. It also acts as a fallout shelter. You know, just in case. After World War Two, the fifties had me a little nervous about these humans and their affinity for explosives. So I upgraded when bomb shelters were all the rage during the Cold War. Not that I’m paranoid. I’m careful. Just in case.”

I shot Will an uncomfortable look. “No, of course not. So you’ve been down here for sixty years?”

“Is that how long it’s been?” he asked. “I’ve had modifications done a few times. Be careful where you step and where you touch the walls. There are defensive devices triggered by touch.”

“This place is booby-trapped?” I asked, suddenly panicked.

“A bit,” he replied. “Yeah.”

I stopped dead in my tracks, making Will bump into me. “Why didn’t you say something? How do we get past them?”

“No worries,” Icarus said casually. “I deactivated them when I opened the doors. I have an ability to control metal and electrical devices. But you never know. I could have missed one, so be careful.”

I gulped. “Just in case?”

“Yeah.”

I bit my lip and decided to proceed at my own risk. Icarus seemed content navigating the booby-trapped staircase, so I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt. We reached the bottom of the shaft and found a hallway made entirely of steel, which led to an enormous heavy door with an elaborate adornment of high-security locks. An angelic spell repelling the demonic was painted in red across the door and on the metal floor in front of it. I didn’t need to get close to smell that the paint was actually blood—fresh blood.

“Have you ever had a breach by the demonic?” I asked Icarus.

“They’ve never gotten this far,” he replied. The locks clicked and buzzed and retracted, allowing the door to swing open. Beyond the door was another hallway, but this one looked like it belonged in an ordinary house. A runner stretched over the carpet and the hall opened up into a living area with leather couches and an insane number of books scattered around and stacked in leaning towers. Despite Icarus’s talents with metal, there weren’t many appliances to be seen.

“Do you live down here?” I asked.

“Yep,” he said. “I don’t get out much except to get food and anything else I need.”

“Couldn’t tell.”

“Such is the life of a guardian,” he mused. “Yours ought to know.”

I peeked over my shoulder at my hard-faced Guardian. “Will definitely doesn’t get out much unless I make him.”

Icarus led us into a bedroom. “When one has something precious, one tends to be unwilling to let it out of sight,” he said.

“I understand all too well,” Will replied.

Icarus gazed up at the ceiling, and a panel hissed free and slid to the side, allowing a metal safe to be drawn out of a dark space on a high-tech dumbwaiter of sorts. I marveled at all the strange devices Icarus had in here and wondered how he managed before electricity was invented. I imagined he was pretty bored back then.

“You probably haven’t opened this up in a while,” I said. “I hope you remember the combination.”

“There is no combination,” the relic guardian replied and stared at the safe door. After a moment, mechanical things inside clicked and whirled and the door popped open, just as the locks on the passageway door sprang free. Icarus reached in and removed an object larger than I’d expected. It was a statue—not the Pentalpha ring.