Ashes of Angels (22 page)

A
gain the halo burst through a window, spinning like an insane 33 1/3 rpm flung off the turntable. It reached the back of the warehouse, and spun out through the window.

Zane lunged a look through the window and managed to dodge the return path of the deadly thing.

Now I got it. Granny had told my sister and I that the halo always returned to the thrower. She'd forgotten to mention the part that the thrower must be the original owner. We wouldn't be in this situation if I'd known that.

My ear burned but I resisted touching it. I didn't want to know how badly I'd been hurt, but suspected it was just a nick.

I shuffled against a wall, my hand slipping on the bits of crumbled Sheetrock and rubble. I wasn't about to get in the way. I had a ninja vampire to protect me.

A flash of silver caught my attention. The vampire swung the chain at his side, the brilliant blade catching the moonlight
like a beacon. It had something to do with the scar on his face, I guessed. A battle prize won for the price of a devastating wound?

“Watch out, love!”

I ducked to the floor, grinning ear to ear, because I foolishly believed he meant it when he called me
love
. It was an endearment, nothing more. I think the heady rush of danger, adrenaline and blood loss was making me a little loopy. If not fatally attracted to the baddest of the bad.

Another window crashed. Glass shards rained over my back. The chain
swooshed
overhead. And the clink of metal against metal. He'd snagged the halo!

I wanted to jump up and hug him, slobber him with kisses and congratulate him on being the hero—

“Don't move,” he commanded.

—or not.

His boots cracked over the glass. His fingers moved over my back, carefully removing the shards and brushing through my hair and over my skin. “Okay, you can stand now.”

“You got it.” I hugged him, and he allowed it. It wasn't a return hug, I knew that much. He was just letting it happen. He really believed the monster bit. Poor guy. “You got what you wanted.”

He sighed and pushed me from his embrace. “Not quite yet.”

We eyed the warehouse through the insistent downpour. The angel stood at the broken window. Zane waved the halo mockingly, which earned us a nasty gesture I didn't think angels were allowed to perform.

Noting my surprise, Zane said, “The Fallen are not like the angels you believe in, love. Nothing fluffy or divine about them. This is yours.” He handed me the halo. “Now that he's without a weapon, I can go after him.”

He swung up the chain and grabbed the blade. “Got this
pretty slicer from a Sinistari demon. The tip is coated in some kind of angel poison. It's the only thing that'll kill a Fallen. Gotta shove it up into his glass heart, though, which means I'll have to get real close. Wish me luck.”

“Wait.” I leaned in and kissed the scar cutting his cheek. “It's from the blade, right? You went up against a Sinistari?” Granny had told us they are a breed of demons forged specifically to slay the Fallen. “I don't understand. Why do you need this angel dead?”

“Doesn't matter what angel, as long as it's dead.” He huffed out a sigh. “Do we need to do this now?”

The rain beat relentlessly. The angel across the street wasn't going anywhere.

“Yes, now.”

 

Why was this bird making it so difficult to like her? She wanted too much. We'd just met. Hell, we were soon to part. I didn't do attachment. It wasn't easy when one needed to snack on their partner every once in a while. Made for mistrust and fear, and that's never good for a relationship.

“You are Anakim,” she said. “They're the vampire tribe after the angels right now. They think if they can capture a Nephilim, they can drink its blood and strengthen their bloodline. Make it so they can walk in the day like most other vampires.”

“You know your stuff,” I said, stalling, shaking the chain loosely in my grip. The blade banged my leg above the combat boots.

I noticed a fine line of crimson at the corner of her eye and my instincts put me up close to her before I had even decided to move. I tongued the cut. She sighed and bent into my embrace. Giving. Wanting. So vulnerable.

Had my persuasion taken away her free will? I hadn't
used that much on her earlier, and I certainly hadn't used any right now.

“I like you, Zane,” she said, her fingers finding the vein on my throat and holding over my pulse. “I want to know you.”

“It's the persuasion. Nothing but.”

She gut-punched me. I doubled at the surprising force of her right hook pummeling below the kidney. Mother of—

“You call that persuasion?” she challenged.

“Apparently not,” I croaked.

“I do what I want, when I want, with whomever I want. You're not making me do a thing, vampire. So get over it.”

I smirked, loving that if I had to go a few rounds with anyone tonight it was this particular hotheaded chick with the chocolate blood and sinful kisses.

So she wanted me, scars and all? Made a bloke's shoulders straighten and I lifted my chin a notch.

“Fine. I'm Anakim, or was. After the vamp bit me I joined the tribe because I didn't know what else there was to do. Besides, I needed some direction on the whole avoiding-the-sunlight thing.”

“The Anakim tribe is weak,” she said. “They won't stop until they get a Nephilim.”

“Exactly. They—we—got our hands on an angel and his muse recently. It wasn't pretty. They are trying to breed helpless mortal muses to vicious Fallen. Much as I want to walk in the sun, I won't do it at a woman's expense. I'll stick to the shadows, thank you very much.”

“Noble.”

I shrugged. Monsters didn't do noble, either.

“So what are you going to do with the dead angel?” she asked.

“One less Fallen is one less horror for all the muses, wouldn't you say?”

She narrowed her eyes, seeing into a part of me I barely knew. “But you want something more.”

This bird was not stupid.

“Yeah? Well, that's the part you don't get to know about. So you take the bloody halo and bring it to your sister. Give her a kiss for me, and I wish you all the luck avoiding her Fallen. Best advice I can give you is to run if you ever see another. Meanwhile, I'm going to trip on over to the angel across the way. He's only got iron wings and steel muscles to fight me now. Wish me luck.”

“I'm coming with you.”

“This is no longer a partnership, Coco. I let you toddle along—”

“Toddle along! You wouldn't have found the angel if I hadn't led you to the muse's place.”

“A dead muse. Luck happened us upon the angel.”

She did not pout, nor try to cajole my tender slice of heart with big sad eyes. But she did thrust back her shoulders and stare me down. Ninja vampires were supposed to be impervious.

I wasn't ninja. I possessed some wicked martial skills, learned during my military service. But who'da thought I'd need emotional skills to fend off my most challenging opponent yet? Unfortunately, I hadn't received that particular training.

“Fine.” I had a feeling I was going to regret this, but it was a better option than simply walking away and never seeing this lovely bird again. “You can stick around, because arguing with you will only piss me off. But you are not going in that building. You stay outside and keep watch, okay?”

She touched me before I even saw it coming. Her palm flattened over my heart. A heart that beat and wasn't as black as I thought it should be, and a heart that remembered what it was
like to be mortal. Mortality had been tough—I'd served the British army a decade in combat and secret black ops missions that had brought me to the brink—but I'd never lost the capacity to need, to want, to pine for love.

Monsters don't get to love.

Right. Almost forgot.

“Let's go.”

T
he evening had taken an odd turn. I'd thought to find the halo, stick it in a brown padded mailer and send if off to my sister, Cassandra. Task complete. Back to the grind. The grind being nine-to-five detail behind the desk at a travel agency.

Adventure being my thing—albeit, on the glossy pages of a travel brochure—I preferred this altered version of the evening. Land in the arms of a scary-looking man, who happens to be a vampire, who happens to bite me—twice. Chase an angel. Dodge angel's deadly weapon. Win back the halo. The day is saved and the girl gets the guy!

Except whatever was going on in the warehouse across the street right now didn't sound, or look, like day-saving.

Zane was in there, and that made me antsy. I didn't want him to get hurt. I doubted the angel would leave him scarred this time around. No, the Fallen was out for blood after we'd stolen his halo.

Halos were supposed to hold the Fallen's earthbound soul.
The angel could take that soul and become mortal. But Granny told us most Fallen didn't want to go with a pitiful human existence and eventually die a mortal death. They preferred to remain something more than mortal—and to go after their muses as their twisted libidos demanded.

Things crashed, maybe boards, windows and interior walls. Every so often a brilliant flash of blue would mimic the glow of the halo I held. A man cried out in pain—Zane. I'd developed a twitch, wanting to rush in every time I heard his miserable shouts.

Like that would do any good. Go, super travel-agent lady! Not to be. Actually, my middle name is Marie, not Adventure.

Squatting against the wall, I huddled, protecting the halo between my legs and chest, and kept one eye on the second-floor window. Had something just been thrown across the room? Something man-sized?

I ducked my head against my knees.

“Don't look, Coco. He'll be fine. He said he had a good chance now the angel had been disarmed.”

Clicky footsteps set up the hairs on my arms. I recognized the pitter-pat of high heels. One person. Coming up around the corner from where I sat.

I swung up and almost did a chest bump with the woman who was preoccupied with scratching her wrist. A wrist that glowed blue.

“I don't know what it is,” she muttered, boggled and obviously more worried about the glowing sigil than a complete stranger who bowed over her wrist to inspect. “It's always been there, but it just started to glow. It's like some kind of alien implant. Oh, my bloody hell!”

“Don't worry.” I cringed.
Not the truth, Coco.
But I needed to calm her, and make sure no one nearby—like the Fallen—saw her.

I walked her back around the corner and hugged her. She
allowed it. I sensed she was in shock for she shivered minutely. “It's an angel sigil,” I said. “You were born with it, right?”

She nodded. Wisps of blond hair that had dried about her hairline teased the air. The rain had stopped, but it was dark, murky and more humid than a steam room.

“It's very pretty.” I traced the square shape that had a triangle in the middle. I hadn't seen the Fallen's sigil, but I knew that this muse matched the angel Zane was fighting. That's the only reason it would glow. “And it itches?”

She nodded again. Her skin was red and I worried she'd tear it with those press-on nails. “Stop.” Itching turned the sigil into a beacon the angel could follow right to the muse. I clasped both hands about her wrist. “I'll explain things. You won't like what I have to say, but you need the information.”

“Sure, whatever, lady. Wait.”

We both studied her inflamed skin, the sigil now a soft brown against the redness where she'd scratched. It had stopped glowing. I cast a glance over my shoulder. Darkness in the second-floor window.

Had Zane accomplished the task?

Or would the muse and I be dodging a furious angel intent on claiming the halo and his muse?

I strung the halo on a forearm, and then sheltered the woman from whatever might come our way.

 

The air glimmered before me. I staggered, bloody blade held back and out with one hand. The cuts on my body hurt like hell, and the blood drooling out soaked me in crimson. Those damned iron wings had been sharp.

Had been. Heh.

The angel's body burst into a brilliant nimbus and shattered. A glamorous wall of sparkly bits hung suspended before me momentarily. The wings dropped in flakes of black iron, the crystallized body fell in a man-length pile of ash before my feet.

This is what I'd been stalking the streets for tonight. What I'd been striving for over the months since witnessing the Anakim tribe's macabre machinations.

And yet, I looked over my shoulder, out the window, but could not see street level. Did she wait for me?
Didn't the hero deserve a kiss?
Or had Coco wisely fled?

For a moment of utter wimpy wistfulness, I thought I saw her bright brown eyes flash at me. And then I blinked, and the sexy princess turned cat burglar was running toward me. Her eyes weren't as happy to see me as I'd hoped, rather wide and unbelieving, actually.

She deftly avoided the angel ash and slammed into me, setting me off balance, so I clung to her. Every cut on my skin screamed. My right leg, which I'm sure was broken, buckled. I went down, and she fell with me, until we kneeled before each other, embracing.

I buried my face in her hair. Rain-fresh summers and the sensual heat of her skin chased back the pain. Chocolate heartbeats pulsed against my chest.

She clasped my head and whispered something that sounded like, “I'm so glad you're alive.”

No one had ever been glad that my heart beat. People usually ran when they saw me coming. Coat me in a quart of my own blood, and I'd really send them running.

Yet Coco clung as if she had found something long-ago lost. And I felt a piece being fit into some greater scene. Her life. My life. We fit together oddly enough.

Damn, I wanted to make this work. Could the pieces stay together?

“I'm getting blood all over you, love. Purple, even. Guess the angel blood mixed with my own.”

“I don't care.” She wouldn't let go.

Fine with me. Her warmth worked a balm to my wounds, and I could feel the skin knit closed, healing rapidly as vampires are
wont. It sizzled a bit. Might have gotten traces of angel blood in my system, but I didn't feel the big kaboom looming.

“I talked to the angel's muse outside.”

“What? His muse? Was here?”

“Yes, walking by. Must be why the angel was in the area—he followed the lure of her sigil. She was itching it like a crazy lady. I told her everything, and gave her my sister's phone number. I explained she's still not safe even though this Fallen is dead. He is dead, right?”

I toed the crystal dust. “That's about as dead as dead gets. Two muses in close proximity? London is overflowing with them.”

“Let's get out of here.”

“Works for me. But first—” I tugged out the folded plastic zip bag I kept tucked in a back pocket and handed it to Coco “—hold this. I'm not leaving without what I've come for.”

I scooped up the heavy, glittering angel remnants into the bag. It looked like diamonds, and had the weight of precious gemstones, but held no value for any person unless they were tracking a Nephilim.

“That stuff is gorgeous,” she said. “What is it?”

“Angel ash. The only means to kill a Nephilim.”

“You plan on killing Nephilim? I thought you wanted to prevent Nephilim from being conceived?”

“I do, but I can't be in all places at once. And I'm no professional angel slayer. Tonight was a fluke. I only won because I had this.” I patted the blade at my hip. It had been my first angel-slaying mission. “And the Anakim tribe is huge. I can't stop them from trying to create a Nephilim. This stuff is like an insurance policy. It can be doled out to all who may need it.”

“Like my sister?”

“It'll prove a might more effective than the halo, I'll wager.”

I shoved the last bit of ash in the bag and followed Coco's
fingers as we sealed the zip bag. I admired her enthusiasm, yet knew her real feelings were darker than the positive front she wore. Her sister would ever be in danger. There were dozens of Fallen, and the Anakim were summoning more to earth daily. The only thing that could kill them was a demon blade like I owned, or a real Sinistari demon, of which there were only about a dozen.

The future looked bleak. But I wanted to be a part of the solution. I couldn't do it myself. But I didn't want to endanger this precious woman.

“What's this?” She collected the black feather that had been uncovered beneath the ash. A splay of her fingers moved the delicate vanes. “It's made of iron? And yet it's soft as down.”

“When an angel dies one single feather remains. The Sinistari collect them as war prizes. You take it, love. Stick it in your hair.”

She did, and the thing almost looked glamorous, if the fact wasn't that it had come from a murderous angel who'd Fallen to earth intent on screwing mortal women.

“You should go,” I said, standing and shaking out my broken leg. “Sun's soon up.”

“You need to avoid it more than I do. Will you walk me home?” she inquired innocently. But her tone offered a promise of something much more than urgent kisses and groping.

I chuckled. “Are you making a pass at me, love?”

“Well, you did imply that we would finish what we had started after we took care of the big bad.” She splayed a hand over the glittering remains of the angel. “Big bad defeated.”

I'd never seen the lash-fluttering move utilized so skillfully. I could taste her sweetness on my tongue. And I wanted to feel the air she moved with her lashes against my lips.

“Can you walk?”

“In a few minutes. Just need to give it a bit to heal.”

“Maybe this will help.”

Truly, her kisses could be bottled and sold as medical aid. Coco's mouth against mine chased off the pain and the horror of standing before the Fallen and ramming the blade up into its chest. The agony I'd witnessed cross its kaleidoscope eyes had momentarily made me question my goal. Who was I—a true bloodsucking monster—to judge yet another monster? All of it was now obliterated by Coco's kiss.

Encircled in her arms, I began to drown, sinking deeper into a bright and wondrous abyss.
Not a monster
.

And I began to believe it.

I stepped onto my right foot and tested the leg. Healed. “You're good for me, love. Those kisses of yours are wicked powerful.”

“Come on.” She grabbed my arm, and I followed her dash through the warehouse. “We have to beat the sun. My flat is a good jog away.”

I didn't protest. In fact, I clasped her hand in mine and tugged her into the shadows, hugging the building walls, yet keeping up the race against the sun.