Revelation (16 page)

He dipped his nose into her hair, inhaling, and in a flash of Tainted glory, they vanished.

On the rooftop, Jadzia sat, her leather-clad legs dangling over the edge, gazing into the ceaseless midnight sky. Moonlight glared her eyes wet, but the sting was pale compared to the ache in her heart.

Another stupid tear rolled down her cheek. Heaven, this was so idiotic. Lune was right. They’d had nothing, just a few sweet moments in the dark. She’d known him for a hundred and fifty years. They’d never be anything but good friends.

So why did she feel like she’d torn her heart from her chest and eaten it?

Jadzia swooped off into the darkness, warm updrafts buoyant under her wings. She climbed, thrusting hard, hot breeze streaming her hair. She should flash to Dash and the others. The Prince of Blood’s orgy would be starting. Time to fight. But she couldn’t face them, not yet.

Midnight warmth thrummed her feathers, tingling her whole body with the exhilaration of flight. Below her, the city glittered and burned, the wind stained sour with smoke and rotting blood.

Sleeping with Lune? Mistake. She should have known.

Had known, in fact. But she’d had a crappy day and was feeling lonely and maudlin—like that was an excuse—and he, truth
be told, was moody and a little drunk. Alcohol didn’t affect angels the same as it did humans—an angel’s metabolism was more efficient—and you had to drink a lot, and fast, to get any effect. When Lune’s mood darkened, and it darkened a lot lately, he drank hard.

She’d joined him in polishing off a half case of single malt scotch, and what with the flavor and the dizzying warmth, crying on shoulders led to kissing led to…ahem. Going down on him on the couch. Lune pulling her off him and stripping her naked, pushing inside her and making her gasp and shudder. Delirium and sighs and tears. It was good sex. He was careful, attentive, unhurried. But yeah, something missing.

Always, something missing.

Like anything to choose from, for instance. Now that she was Tainted, most of the guys she once knew didn’t want anything to do with her. She snorted. Self-righteous assholes. Like they’d never done anything they were ashamed of.

Not that it wouldn’t be nice to go with one of the Tainted boys. Keep it in the family, so to speak. But—Jadzia dipped one wing, wheeling in a sweeping curve over glitzy skyscrapers and neon spires towards the East River and the streaking runway lights and anti-aircraft guns of LaGuardia—they were all flawed, somehow.

Smoke billowed from a burning building, stinging her eyes as she flew. Dashiel was hot, oh my, roughly charming and a body to break your heart, but…ew. He’d scraped her up when she was broken, taken care of her ever since she fell. Not boyfriend material. It’d be like sleeping with her big brother.

Japheth was a darling at heart, no matter what everyone said, but a total no-show in the romance department. And Ariel was a steadfast friend, but word was that when it came to anything more than a one-night stand, he had an icicle shoved so far up his ass it poked out the top of his head. Trillium had tried, but as Iria said dismissively at the time—and worldly sex-bomb Iria would know—
Trill tries everything and never buys, honey.

Jadzia had thought Luniel might be different. And he was. Sweet, funny, gorgeous, a kick-ass demon killer and one of nature’s true gentlemen—but he just wasn’t that into her. And if that wasn’t the suckiest rejection of all…

Jadzia dived low over the bay, wrinkling her nose in the
fleshy stink. The blood was turning foul, rotting fish carcasses clogging the beaches. Clean-up crews worked into the night, men scooping the mess into plastic bins to carry it away in trucks, but the filth was endless and kept coming.

She could feel Dash and the others, close, their excitement and urgency a throbbing echo in her veins. After so many years, they were in her blood, and she in theirs. Time to come together.

She wheeled right, streaking along the bright ribbon of the Long Island Expressway and over downtown Babylon, her hair streaming back. The jeweled scattering of lights was marred by black voids of no electricity, dotted with bonfires. Down towards the financial district, cranes gleamed among the skyscrapers. A few months ago, some politico nutters had tried to go “Oklahoma City” on One Police Plaza in the name of the New Anarchy. But they’d screwed up, flattening instead a nearby office building and cracking part of the Brooklyn Bridge flyover, and the blast site still wasn’t cleaned up. These NA clowns, they spray-painted their mark on everything they destroyed—an upside-down red anarchy symbol pierced by an arrow—attacked everything that stood for order. Schools, fire de-partments, subway stations, hospitals, no care for lives innocent or otherwise. They called it the “War on Peace.” Jadzia called it a fucking mess.

She hovered over the towers of Wall Street, following her friends’ buzzing vibe, and drifted down between tall steel and glass buildings to an empty street, where cigarette butts littered the pavement under glowing streetlights, and newspapers blew against the concrete barriers designed to stop traffic from entering the inner sanctum. Broken glass glinted from a smashed window on the first floor, and inside, remnants of glory floated like glowing smoke where her friends had passed.

Jaz drifted through the jagged opening. Shadows thickened, but her angelsight allowed her to see in the dark. Everything living gave off its own vital aura in the invisible spectrum, and like a big nocturnal cat’s, her eyes could gather the smallest amount of visible light, too.

This place looked like a new office fit-out had been abandoned—in a hurry. Electrical leads still hung ragged from the ceiling, waiting for their light fixtures, and silver air-conditioner ducting spilled torn from an open vent. But blood
splashed the walls, and a workman’s chewed corpse bled at her feet, his overalls torn by hungry teeth.

She flitted over dusty office carpet for the stairs. On the second floor, the dim shadows glimmered with glory, amid unassembled cubicle fittings and stacks of unfitted ceiling plaster, and the familiar, dear scents of her friends comforted her. Coffee for Japheth, a flash of gold. Warm earth after rain for Dashiel. Cigarette smoke and roses meant Trillium, and the musky, female scent of rich perfume could only be Iria.

She rounded the corner by the open elevator shaft, and Dash flashed a handsome grin. “Gang’s all here.”

Jadzia landed and strode up to them, cracking her knuckles. “Let’s get to it.”

But her stomach churned, green. Always the same, before every fight, no matter how much she worked out, sparred, practiced with weapons. Luniel hadn’t been joking when he said she could kick his ass. Not every time, but even with her slightness and lack of height, Jadzia could hold her own against the best.

But it was always the same, before every fight.

Doubt. Terror. The deep-seated fear that this time, she’d weaken, just like she weakened that fateful day a century and a half ago, when Michael showed her what his fabled wrath was really all about.

Cowardice in the face of the enemy.
No fouler sin for heaven’s warrior.

She’d fought herself to exhaustion, that steamy night in Cawnpore. Eighteen fifty-seven, the last murderous days of the British East India Company, bloody and ripe with sin. With the chaos of demon-haunted rebellion screaming around them, she and her posse of warrior angels had finally burst into the hellish subterranean sanctum. Miles and miles of tunnels, crawling with hellspawn. They’d split up, killing as they went, and finally she’d come upon a bunch of the demon prince’s discarded minions, trapped behind a barbed iron portcullis and howling for release. They’d screamed at her, thrashing their scrawny bodies against the bars.

But not in defiance or hatred. The demons were starving. Broken. Insane with thirst, unhinged with hunger. Doomed by their prince never to waste away. Just to live on, in unimaginable torment.

They cried and clawed their faces raw, begging her for death. Implored her on their knees. Thanked her for bringing them release.

And for a moment, she’d hesitated, strange compassion warming her heart. She’d reached between the bars to touch one, and he sobbed into her hand and kissed it, burning her.

And that’s how the other angels found her. Staying her sword against a demon.

Word of advice, Jadzia of the Tainted,
Michael had snarled in her ear later, as she sprawled breathless and bleeding at his feet.
Never trust a demon. It’ll only get you killed.

Demons lied, Jadzia knew that. Played on your sympathy. Told you anything you wanted to hear in order to get their way.

But Michael hadn’t been there. He hadn’t seen the abject despair in those creatures’ eyes. In her heart, she knew they hadn’t deceived her.

But it didn’t matter. Fact was, she’d faltered. Let an enemy get the better of her. She’d deserved to be shunned, and was fucking lucky she still lived.

And one day, she’d fail again. She knew it with a certainty that no amount of sparring and training could erase. Her heart was weak. The business with Luniel tonight only proved it. She’d lose her nerve, and die. Worse, she’d get her friends killed, and nothing Michael could do to her would top that for torture.

“Okay, dudes and dudettes.” Dashiel took a step back, and they all listened, like always. “The hellshits are lurking somewhere in this building, or within a block or two. They’ve got mutie allies and a bunch of poor virus-mad bastards on their side. Most of ’em are already hell-bound, but they’ll also have prisoners who don’t want to be here, so watch your body carving. And remember, we want the Prince of Blood alive, at least for long enough to tell us who he’s working for and where his friends are before we carve his ass to mustard. Stay together. And if you get separated, get on the damn phone. Don’t make me come looking for your sorry ass.” He swept a dark glance around. “Questions? Good. Let’s do this.”

Japheth gave Jadzia a frosty golden grin, and helped her check her armor, his light fingers tugging the straps. She did for him in turn, hoping his icy resolve would rub off on her. The way he hardened his heart was enviable.

Trillium flourished his favorite sword and punched her shoulder, cheerful. His orange hair already sparkled with sweat. “Let’s kick some hell-spawn ass, Lady J.”

“You got it.” Jadzia tried not to drop her gaze. They all pretended it wasn’t an issue. That they’d forgotten what she’d done, and trusted her.
Heaven, don’t let me fail them. Let me deserve them all.

Tall, voluptuous Iria cleared her throat. She wore her long dark hair braided back, and her cheeks gleamed pale, her heart-shaped lips deep scarlet. Soft black pants hugged her curving hips, her breastplate shining. A crossbow hung over one shoulder, with a quiver of spell-silver spikes. Casually, she shielded herself and Jadzia from view with an iridescent black wing, and her husky voice dropped low. “You okay, honey?”

Jadzia nodded, envious. Iria was confident. Brazen. A kick-ass fighter and a practiced seductress, every sultry movement steaming with sex or violence or both. She’d never understand
lonely
or
sad
. If Iria wanted something—or someone—she stalked right up and took it.

But Iria’s green gaze softened. “I’m sensing someone’s had a bad day. You want to sit this one out?”

“No.” The word rushed out. “I’m fine. Just a little tired. Kicking some demon butt will do me good.”

Iria smiled, wicked. “It always does me. You want to have a bitching session afterwards, get whatever’s on your mind off your chest, so to speak? You just let me know.”

Jadzia worked up a smile. “Thanks. I might just do that…”

A flash of spindly limbs, racing past a shadowed doorway with a chill-dark cackle from the depths of hell.

Jaz’s head whipped around, and she flashed her sword in, blue steel blazing. “Contact,” she snapped.

Iria cracked her knuckles. Japheth whipped gilded wings back with a snap. Trillium took one more drag and tossed his cigarette away. And heavensteel sang as five glowing angels armed themselves.

“Well, hallelujah,” murmured Dashiel, spinning his burning blade. And it began.

Light flashed, and ground thudded into Morgan’s feet.

Dim orange glow greeted her, dry with incense. Pale moonlight sliced the gloom from above towering gothic arches, and dust motes danced over wide stone floors and endless twin rows of wooden benches. She blinked, dizzy, and wriggled out of Luniel’s warm arms.

“Where are we?” She squinted down the long aisle. They’d already been to her office, flashing in without disturbing anyone, and they’d hunched over the epidemiology maps on her computer and confirmed the truth she’d already known: the virus had originated in East Harlem. Right by the shore, where blood now thickened. They’d chosen a fire-gutted public housing development by Jefferson Park on FDR Drive as a place to start.

This didn’t look like a burned-out project. It looked more like…

Luniel stretched his arms wide, wings aloft as he pirouetted. “It’s Himself’s house, Dr. Sterling. Don’t you recognize it?”

“You brought me to St. Patrick’s? What for?”

“Don’t sound so surprised. They still let me in. They just don’t talk nice to me.” He ran up the smooth stone aisle between
rows of old wooden pews and skidded, balancing on slicked-back wings.

“Idiot.” Morgan snorted, and followed. The distant altar shone golden. Behind her, the arched door was locked, the cathedral deserted. “I’m sorry, what are we doing here?”

“Arming ourselves. They’ve got plenty to spare. They’ll never miss it.” He danced around the corner into the transept, and a chapel with an ornate stone altar covered in carved reliefs. “There we are.”

She peered into the dimness. Candles and tapers flickered on a offertory, throwing eerie shadows onto the stained glass window above. In the center stood a carved stone font topped with a fancy golden turret. “Holy water? You’re shitting me.”

“Hey, I run with what works.” Luniel vaulted over the rail, gripped the turret and effortlessly ripped it off, tossing it aside on the stones with a deafening clang. “Hand me that bag?”