Hellsbane 01 - Hellsbane (12 page)

I got to my feet. “Yeah, but the school librarian won’t be nearly as nice as our friend at the reference desk.”

Tommy laughed, turning to lead our way back along the computer room wall. We were five steps from the wide center aisle when a nauseating odor filled my nose.

“Uck, did you fart?” As soon as I asked, I knew that wasn’t it. “Oh no.”

Tommy drew his sword, knees bent. His steps turned cautious, silent. He motioned for me to stay back. I nodded and slid my hilt from its sheath, willing the blade to form. I dropped my purse, adjusting my grip on the sword.

The stench of rotten eggs grew thick enough to taste. I gagged, my stomach churning. Bile threatened at the back of my throat and I swallowed it down, shadowing two steps behind Tommy, turning right into the main aisle. Rows of bookshelves lined the aisle on either side of us.

Adrenaline coursed through my veins. My reflexes were on hyper alert, keeping me on my toes. We paused, listening, moving as one fluid battling force, first and second wave, instinct choreographing us more than conscious thought. But there was no one there. With each passing second my muscles tightened, ready to thrust, block, jab.

Nothing happened.

I couldn’t hold the intensity. I straightened, let my sword drop to my side.
What the—

“Oh,” someone said to my right.

I jumped, twisting to face back down the aisle we’d just come up. A woman holding children’s books stood at the far end of the aisle next to where we’d just come from. She dropped the books and held up her hands in surrender. She looked like a mousy schoolteacher—short, butterscotch hair; bland conservative blouse, slacks; and sensible shoes. She was maybe three inches taller than me, with an athletic build a lot like mine.

“Uh, sorry?” she said, her dark eyes flicking from my face to my sword. She looked at me like I’d just licked a light socket for the zesty charge. I tucked the sword behind me.

“No. It’s okay, we were just…Um…” I had nothing.

“Is that a sword? Did you bring a weapon into the library?” she asked, stepping toward me, craning her neck trying to see what I hid behind my back.
Busted
.

I shrugged and stepped out of the main aisle between the bookshelf and the computer room wall again, bringing the sword out where she could see it. “Um, yeah. It is. We were at a Renaissance demonstration and…”
Crap
. I went blank. My bullshit skills were on the fritz.

“Emma,” Tommy said from the center aisle. I looked for him over my shoulder, but I’d gone far enough down the side aisle I couldn’t see him around the corner.

“Don’t worry about it,” the woman said, and I looked back in time to see her draw a dagger from a sheath at the small of her back. “I brought one, too.”

“Oh, shit.”

She lunged at me, thrusting the twelve-inch dagger straight at my gut. I arched, jumping backward and swinging my sword down in front of me to block. Metal clanked against metal, knocking her dagger arm to the side. Her momentum drove her forward anyway, her free hand reaching up, lightning quick, to snag my neck.

Her grip was superhuman, and my hand went to her wrist on reflex. She squeezed, cutting off air, and my brain raced for options. Girl instincts rocketed to the forefront, my nails scratching and digging at her hand. But she wasn’t fazed, her fingers tightening, her nails cutting into my skin.

I kicked at her, panic keeping me from thinking to use my sword. My foot landed hard against her shin. I kicked again and caught her in the gut. She huffed, but didn’t let go.

Her sweet, schoolteacher face twisted in rage. I could see now her dark eyes were really a deep purple. I’d think they were pretty…if she weren’t trying to kill me.

“Filthy-blooded nephilim,” she said, before she slammed me hard against the bookshelf. “I’ll snap your head off your neck.”

Books rained down on us, knocking my shoulder, bouncing like boulders off my head. The big shelf rocked from the force of the impact, and she used my neck like a handle to slam me the other way against the glass computer wall.

Air exploded from my lungs on impact and a sharp crack sounded. I winced, eyes shut against the pain jolting across my shoulder, radiating through my body. Something had broken. I hoped it was the glass and not me.

The demon lifted me in front of her, shaking my body like a German shepherd would a cat. She wasn’t much taller than I was, and she had to lift me high to keep me hanging. She managed. My feet dangled, scraping the floor, almost touching, but not enough to let me get a foothold and leverage to pull away. My vision tunneled, blackness closing in as my lungs burned for air.

Something inside me shut down. Instincts, born from the melding of my blood with angelic grace, took hold. A tingling swell of power coursed up from the depths of my being. I couldn’t give up. Not to this…thing.
Never
.

I swung my sword, bringing it around in an arch, hard and sure into her side. The distinct wet
thunk
as the sharp blade cut through meat and bone reverberated up my arm. It was like hitting a tree trunk. But her scream was human, shrill, and she bent with the blow. Her grip only grew tighter.

My sword was stuck in her side for a second. I had to wiggle and jerk it to get it free of her body. She should’ve gone down—I’d nearly cut her in half—but she didn’t. For a split second, the exact moment my blade popped out of her, relief made her lower me. I found my feet quickly.

My knees wobbled, but they held long enough for me to lift my sword between us. My elbow swung back, gaining momentum to drive the point deep into her gut. My nephilim strength shoved her backward, her nails gouging my neck as her grasp slipped away.

She didn’t scream this time, but the air gushed out of her, and she doubled over the sword. Her hand opened on her dagger, and it clanked against the linoleum floor. She grabbed the blade of my sword and raised her head to meet my eyes.

Her pretty purple irises had turned demon yellow, glowing, the pupils now ink-black vertical slits. She snarled at me, showing inhumanly sharp white teeth. Then she took a step, the move driving my sword deeper into her body.

“Die already,” I said.

“You first.” Her voice was raw, growling. Then the bitch punched me, popped me right in the nose.

The force sent me sailing backward and brought stars flashing in a circle around my head as I slid on my butt across the center aisle. One of those rotating magazine towers crashed against my back, stopping my slide and showering metal and paper over my head. I crumpled on the floor, the metal tower across my legs, magazines scattered over my back and shoulders.

I couldn’t catch my breath. I needed a second, just a moment to fill my lungs. The deep inhale raced down my throat, and with it went blood and spit. I took another fast deep breath. Bloody air was better than nothing.

A loud clank and rattle—like the sound of metal hitting and sliding across the floor near my feet—drew me up an instant before someone lifted the magazine rack off my legs. I heard the rack crash down the aisle, slamming into a far-off bookcase.

My sword
. I’d lost my grip when she sent me flying. I’d left it stuck in her belly, but I could see it wasn’t in her anymore. She must have pulled it out and thrown it. Shifting my gaze in the direction I’d heard the clamor of metal, I saw the hilt now sticking out from under a scatter of magazines.

Just as I reached for the sword, her iron-hard grip latched around my ankle and yanked me hard. The demon dragged me free of the debris. I rolled to my back, bringing my other foot up to drive into her elbow.

Like the crack of a wooden bat, her bones snapped. She screeched, her wails piercing my ears like ice. She let my ankle go, protecting the broken arm against her body. I rolled to my belly, scrambling back for my sword.

My fingers purchased metal, tugged the grip into my palm a half-breath before the demon’s steely fingers fisted in my hair. She yanked, snapping my head back, bringing the rest of my body flying backward over my legs so my feet were under me again.

Big mistake. I found my footing and twisted, ignoring the sharp bite of pain as my hair ripped out by the roots. I backhanded her, the solid pommel of my sword driving into the side of her head.

Black goo splattered from her temple. She staggered back, and I glanced down to see way too many of my straight, blonde strands stringing between her fingers. The demon stumbled, teetering on her feet as she turned to face me. She held her head where the oozing blood still flowed, streaking down her face and neck. Her other arm hung at a strange angle, useless at her side.

More thick goo blackened her side and stained the front of her shirt at her belly. She panted, glaring at me, spittle mixed with demon blood bubbling at the corners of her mouth with her breaths.

I gave a quick wipe to the dampness under my nose with the back of my hand. My wrist and forearm came away smeared with blood. The coppery taste trickled into my mouth, down the back of my throat. Warm, wet streams traced my chin and neck. Pain throbbed in my shoulder. My neck burned like acid.

I pushed all thoughts of my injuries from my mind and double fisted my sword.
Ready
.

Somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew Tommy was fighting farther up the aisle. I’d caught glimpses of metal flashing, bodies launching toward him, falling back. Blood, red and black alike, splattered the floors, the shelves, the books. Sounds of battle echoed loudly through the small library, but for me the world went suddenly silent.

The demon woman roared at me, like an elephant trumpeting the charge. She reached for the long magazine rack, cumbersome with the wire holders swinging around the center pole. She hefted it on her hip, holding it like a jousting pole, and charged.

I blinked, and time shifted, slowed, or maybe I just moved that much faster. I watched her come, every step, every subtle shift of muscle, and I waited. Waited. The tip of the rack only two feet from my gut, I spun to the side and brought my sword home to its target.

The cut was clean, quick, and over before her scream left her lips. Butterscotch hair, button nose, and glowing yellow demon eyes came and went—came and went—as the demon’s head rolled and bounced into the bottom of the nearest bookshelf. Then the whole of her turned to a steaming pile of goo.

“Emma,” Tommy said, breathless. I turned to see him panting in the middle of the aisle, sword loose at his side. Black ooze dripped from his blade, taken from the pile of goo on the floor to his left. Farther back another heap smoldered. He’d fought two and come away without a scratch. I’d barely survived one…and mine was a chick.

“You okay?” he asked.

I nodded without really thinking about the question or the answer. Adrenaline seeped away, and pain swelled up to match its retreat. I winced and doubled over, bracing my hands on my knees.
Crap
. I couldn’t get a good breath, and my whole face felt like I’d run headlong into a Mack truck. I let my sword fall to my feet. I couldn’t stop shaking; my heart raced like a gerbil on a wheel. Not a good sign.

“Just take deep slow breaths,” he said, but I could hear the laughter in his voice.
Jerk
. “You’ll get used to it. After fifty or so fights like this, that is.”

I swung my gaze to the side to see him walking toward me, his hand swiftly twirling the grip of his sword in his palm like a tennis player does his racket. His smile brightened, dimples going deep, sky blue eyes sparkling with relief.

Then he stopped. His brows drew tight and the brilliant handsome smile flattened. He looked down, and my gaze followed, both of us seeing the long sharp metal point jutting from his chest at the same time.

“What is that?” I said.

Tommy’s gaze swung back to mine, his eye questioning as though he’d had the same thought. The blade twisted, boring a hole, and his knees buckled, dropping him to the floor. He knelt there for several seconds, staring at me. Someone yelled his name.

A second later I realized it was me.

He fell forward, face first, no life left to even lift his hands against the impact. He bounced when he hit, jamming his face in insult against the hard floor. Blood pooled around his head almost instantly. I stared at him, hands still on my knees, sword flat on the floor beside my feet.

Slowly, my gaze lifted to the figure standing where he’d been. He was big, dark hair and even darker eyes, dressed like he’d just stepped out of the gym. His mesh shirt and bicycle shorts strained over muscles bigger than my head. Where had he come from? How had we missed him? It didn’t matter. He snarled at me, just as the female demon had, his teeth too white, too damn sharp.

His body shifted, his long legs stretching over Tommy’s body, bringing him toward me. The long dagger in his hand dripped brilliant red with Tommy’s blood.

I should’ve screamed. I should’ve gone mad with rage and heartache. I should’ve let loose my revenge and sliced him to ribbons before his slow demon brain even knew I’d moved.

I didn’t. I let him come.

I reached for my sword on the floor at my feet, felt it heavy and solid in my grip. A sudden sense of meaning snaked down through my heart and into my gut as the demon came within reach. A feeling of destiny that I’d never felt before welled inside me.

I exploded in a rush of speed, swinging the long blade in a wide slanting circle as I went. My body spun, the extra momentum traveling up my arm, driving the sword easily through the bottom of his chin and out the top of his head. Half his face slipped off.

I finished the spin, three-hundred-and-sixty degrees, and stopped with a quick plant of my toe back where I’d started—just in time to see the bastard drop.

CHAPTER TWELVE

“I don’t know who called the police and paramedics.” My eyes did a slow blink at the black zippered body bag on the gurney in front of me, trying to wrap my brain around the fact Tommy was inside. They wouldn’t let me ride with him to the hospital, or wherever they were going to take him. But Eli asked the attendants to give me a few minutes with him before they left. The “no” on the guy’s lips had faded into a “yes” at the angel’s request and the two men walked to the side of the ambulance to wait without questioning.

Eli’s arm warmed around me. He scooted closer on the bench seat. “It doesn’t matter.”

I swung my gaze to him, my body numb. “I couldn’t find his sword. I don’t know what happened to it.”

“His soul took it back from whence it came,” Eli said. His smooth voice rippled through me, soothing the edges of my tattered emotions. But it was just a voice, normal, human, not the intense blissful stroke of an angel’s voice.

I could’ve used the sweet numbing escape, the sense of carefree comfort he could offer. But it wouldn’t be real. Eli could distract me, turn my thoughts and feelings to other, more carnal things, but nothing would change. Tommy would still be dead.

As tempting as those blissful sensations were, I couldn’t, wouldn’t ask Eli to share his angelic touch with me. I wouldn’t run from this. I owed it to Tommy.
Eli
owed it to Tommy. We’d needed Eli today, really needed him, and he hadn’t come.

“Where were you?” I asked, turning my gaze back to the long black bag.

“I came the moment I realized,” he said. “I’ve always felt his need before. I should’ve felt yours. I didn’t. I can only guess you were relying on each other and didn’t reach out to me until there was no one else.”

“He was worried for me,” I said. “If he’d been fighting on his own, he wouldn’t have dropped his guard.”

“Alone, the battle would have been different, but not necessarily the outcome.”

“That’s not true. He would’ve reached out to you instead of thinking about me,” I said, desperate to find where we’d made our mistake. “You would’ve known he needed you and come to help. You could’ve done something.”

“No,” Eli said. “There’s nothing I could’ve done. I have witnessed the last breath of countless illorum. My presence has been little comfort. Given the choice, I believe Thomas preferred seeing you in his final earthly moments.”

“Given the choice, he’d prefer to still be breathing,” I said. “I know you can’t pick up a sword and fight, but you could’ve, I don’t know, used your powers somehow. Maybe if you’d been there, the demons wouldn’t have attacked. Maybe you could’ve snatched him out of there before it was too late.”

“No, Emma Jane.” He caught my chin between his thumb and the crook of his finger, turning my face to his. “Understand this. I cannot interfere. What I did for you in the gardens of Augusto I should not have done. I’ve told you, it’s forbidden.”

“Yeah, but you did it anyway,” I said. “You used your powers to get me out of there before the demons could attack. You could’ve done the same for Tommy.”

“The distinctions I made that allowed me to act were thin, at best. Many of my brothers didn’t agree. Pointing to our active training that day and claiming ignorance to a coming attack was my only excuse. And it wasn’t a good one.”

“You told your brothers you didn’t know the demons were about to attack?” I asked. I knew he’d lied, but I couldn’t get used to the notion. I shifted back enough to pull my chin from his hold.

“Yes. And not very well,” he said. “The reasoning was flimsy, yet it was far more than I would’ve had today. There was nothing I could do…for either of you.”

“You got in trouble for helping me in the gardens?” The only punishment I knew for angels was the abyss, and that seemed kind of severe for a little white lie that ultimately saved my butt.

“I was…warned.” He glanced out the open back doors of the ambulance then back to me. His jaw tightened, and his brows drew together. “I’ll be monitored for a time. Until they’re satisfied my prejudices are well in hand. Today should go far in proving my resolve.”

My gut twisted. “You let Tommy die to prove a point?”

Eli flinched as though I’d slapped him. “No. Emma Jane, I…” Anger and resolve warred across his face. “No. Do not, for one instant, believe that I didn’t love Thomas—that I would not trade my life for his. Trust me when I say, there was nothing I could have done to save him. Nothing.”

My rational brain knew he meant every word, but inside, I was aching. Logic and reason were hard to accept when my broken heart was doing the thinking. “Then what’re you doing here? I mean, what good are you? You can’t help, and I seriously don’t need an audience.”

I caught his flinch from the corner of my eye, and regret made me look the other way. I stared at the body bag, at where Tommy’s smiling pale blue eyes should be underneath. I wanted to see his eyes again, that smile.
This can’t be real.

“I’m here because I care about you, Emma Jane, just as I cared for Thomas,” he said. “I’m here to do what I can, however small and unimportant my efforts may seem to you.”

I felt his hand move my hair at my neck, felt his warm fingers feather my skin before a sharp jolt of pain sliced through me. I jerked away.

“Those scratches are full of brimstone,” he said. “You need holy water.”

“I don’t have any,” I said, reaching up to pull my too-short hair around to cover the wounds. “It’s fine. I’ll take care of it later.”

The punch to my nose and the scratches on my neck were my only injuries. I was sore in spots, probably bruised pretty well, but Tommy had been killed. I was lucky, and I knew it. I certainly wasn’t going to sit there complaining.

Eli stood, leaning over the gurney, reaching past me to the zipper at the top of the body bag.

“Hey. What’re you doing?” I wanted to see Tommy again…alive. I knew I couldn’t have that, and so I wasn’t sure I was ready to see him any other way. I’d held his head in my lap until the police arrived. He’d already been cold, lifeless even then. He’d died almost instantly. It all seemed like a foggy dream in my mind.

“You need holy water, now. You can’t allow brimstone to fester in your bloodstream. Thomas always carried a vial.” He pulled the zipper to Tommy’s chest.

“If you’re talking about his necklace pouch, that’s his,” I said, using my fear of seeing Tommy’s lifeless eyes again to fuel my indignation. “You can’t just take stuff off his body.”

“On the contrary, this is one of the few things I can do.” He pulled the edges of the bag apart, and I couldn’t stop myself from looking.

I don’t know what I was hoping, that it wasn’t really Tommy inside there, that there’d been some mistake and he was just unconscious? I don’t know. It didn’t matter. It was Tommy inside. No doubt.

The edges of the dark bag cupped around his face, framing all his light blond hair. He lay with his eyes closed, his long lashes shadowing his cheeks, his lips in a soft relaxed line, almost a smile. There was no blood. Why was there no blood?

His handsome face was untouched. There was something about it that bothered me. I figured it was seeing him so…normal. He could’ve been sleeping and looked exactly the same. He wasn’t sleeping, and the knowledge clogged my throat. My breath shook. I was suddenly cold, despite the warmth of the sunny day.

“I repaired the damage his body suffered to avoid unwanted questions.” Eli pulled the leather strap from around Tommy’s neck and worked the tiny pouch free of his T-shirt. He cupped the pouch in his hand for a second, then pulled the necklace free. He zipped the bag again, and this time, I made myself look away before the zipper hid Tommy’s serene face.

“I don’t want it,” I said, guessing he planned to offer me the necklace. “It’s not yours to give.”

Eli settled beside me again. “It is. I gave it to Thomas years ago. It didn’t look like this then—I’d made it for Jeannette. Thomas didn’t appreciate the feminine quality so I altered its appearance to his tastes.”

I looked at the necklace he dangled. The leather strap was a silver chain now, the pouch a long, purplish crystal with a decorative metal top. Sunlight streamed in through the back of the ambulance and sparked off the liquid inside the crystal.

“This is the way the vial looked when I gave it to Jeannette.” He twisted off the top, overturned it onto his fingertip. He held it straight again so the water wouldn’t spill, then dabbed his wet finger to the bridge of my nose.

The skin warmed and tingled, broken cartilage crackled and straightened. He tipped the crystal onto his finger again and dabbed the scratches on my neck. The warm tingles started there, too, the flesh knitting itself back together, dissolving some of the bubbling brimstone that hadn’t already been sealed beneath my quickly healing skin.

“Drink what’s left,” he said, offering the vial to me. I swallowed the small shot in one gulp and handed the crystal back. The holy water heated down my throat like brandy, sizzled through my veins, the sensation tracking its path down my neck, along my arms, down my chest and belly, and warming through my legs. I stopped hurting…physically.

“I can change the vial into any form that suits you. But I want you to take it. Keep it with you always,” he said. “Tommy would want you to have it.”

The mention of his name tightened my chest. I swallowed as heartache slowly hardened my resolve, boiling my sorrow to anger. This wasn’t right. Wasn’t fair. Tommy was the better fighter. He’d given up so much of his life already. He shouldn’t be the one in that bag.
I should be
.

“Change it back to the way he liked it,” I said. If it was from Tommy, I wanted it to be the way he’d worn it. I wanted it around my neck when my sword sliced through the neck of the Fallen who had ordered his death. I’d get him for this, for taking Tommy’s chance at a normal life, for the dinner he never got to have with his family, the nephew he never got to know. I’d get the bastard who did this…for Tommy.

When I looked back to Eli, Tommy’s tiny little pouch on its leather strap sat in the palm of his open hand. I took it and tied it around my neck.

“Do you know anything about the Fallen who sent these demons?” Eli asked.

“Not much. But I will,” I said. The guy was definitely on my shit list. One last look at the black zippered bag, and I pushed the thought of Tommy lying inside from my mind. I just couldn’t keep thinking about it. I had to let him go.

Eli shifted his knees to the side so I could squeeze between him and the gurney and out the back doors of the ambulance. The angel followed behind me. “I’m so proud of you, Emma Jane.”

I glanced back at Eli as I tucked the necklace inside my shirt. “For what?”

His smile beamed. “For heeding your call. For putting your duty above your sorrow.” He reached out and stroked my cheek. His touch sent a distracting shudder straight to my center. I ignored it.

“You’re an amazing woman, Emma Jane. Truly the flesh-and-blood finger of God. You humble me.”

“Dude, you’ve got it all wrong. This isn’t duty. This is revenge.”

His smile dimmed, his hands slipping into the pockets of his slacks. “I understand your need to find some kind of balance to handle your loss. But I assure you, the soul-deep need you’re feeling is the divine ordinance within.”

“Um…no. It’s really not.” I mean, if anyone would know it’d be me, right? This was straight-up coldhearted need for revenge.

“Your emotions are still too charged to understand how deeply your nephilim blood leads your—”

“Eli, stop.” I didn’t want to hear it. What I was about to do, what I wanted to do, was for Tommy. No one else. “I’m not the grand, noble woman you think I am. I’m not some saint. I’m not your Joan of Arc. I’m just…me. I’m pissed. I’m human. And I want to do some very bad things.”

“What you believe of yourself has little bearing on what God sees in you,” he said.

Damn, the guy was determined. Whatever. “Fine. You know what? It doesn’t matter. If you want to think there’s more to me wanting to take this guy down than there is, do it. Just…stay out of my way. I’ll call if I need you. Otherwise, I’ll do this on my own.”

“Miss?” I turned at the sound of the male voice behind me. A uniformed cop stood waiting, pen and pad in hand. My stomach dropped and rolled, like I’d gone down a giant roller-coaster hill. I knew that feeling. It wasn’t just sorrow and frazzled nerves. It was something else—a sixth sense, a nephilim sense.

I realized in that instant he was a nephilim, and that he didn’t know. I wasn’t going to tell him…or anyone. Maybe he’d be one of the lucky ones and never be called. I shifted my belt, making sure the hilt was safely at the small of my back and away from his accidental touch.

“Yes?” I said.

“I need…I need to ask you a few questions,” he said, his breath hitching for a second as though something inside him had made it catch. His eyes did a quick scan of me, head to toe, and he took off his cop hat and tucked it under one thick, muscled arm.

His nametag read D. Wysocki, and he had the bluest eyes, like actual sapphires, emphasis on the blue fire. His hair was short, light brown like coffee and cream, and his body was thick. He wasn’t fat, more like he’d wrestled in high school a few years back.

“What’s your name?”

“Emma Hellsbane.”

Officer Wysocki wrote it down. “The EMTs check you out, Emma?”

I tilted my head, wondering why he’d asked. He waved his pen at my face and T-shirt. “That’s a lot of blood. Is it yours?”

My hand went to my nose and I glanced down at my blood-splattered shirt. I’d forgotten. The pain was completely gone. “Yeah. I’m fine, though. Bloody nose.”

“Good,” he said. “The librarian says you came in with the stroke victim. You knew him?”

“What stroke victim?”

Wysocki flipped his pen to point at the ambulance behind me. I turned and looked over my shoulder just to make sure. They thought Tommy had died of a stroke? I guess having your heart drilled through could cause a stroke. Kind of like saying a guy hit by a bus died of kidney failure. Well, yeah…after bus tires crushed his kidneys.

I realized Eli had cleaned up more than just Tommy’s appearance—the same way Tommy had said the angels had cleaned up Coach Clark’s murder all those years ago. I looked to Eli to confirm, but he was gone.