The Staff and the Blade: Irin Chronicles Book Four (54 page)

The man nodded.

“Can you tell me what is in the building down by the dock?”

The man’s jaw clenched. “No,” he ground out. “But know that heaven will judge you if the innocent pay for the guilty’s crimes.”

Damien glanced at Kostas, who nodded. The Grigori pulled the man up and tossed him toward one of the Leo’s men. “Hold this one. Damien and I are going after an angel.”

※

“I can’t wait much longer,” Sari said. “You cooperate, or we’ll put you out.”

The woman hissed and firmed her hold on the gun pointed at Sari. “You will not drug children. You said you were here to help them.”

“Milena,” one of the pregnant women down the hall called, “what is going on?”

“Gabi, Belinda, go back in your room. Shut the door and wait for Tomik or William. Children, go back into your room. Tomik will be here soon.”

The pregnant women turned to go, and Kyra shot to her feet, holding the little girl she’d been talking to.

“Zi yada!”

The little girl started crying when the women fell to the ground. Kyra turned to the woman the others had called Milena.

“What have you done to them?” she screamed as the children all began to wail.

“Listen to me, human.” Kyra marched up to Milena, who lowered the gun as soon as it was pointed near a child. “The women are fine. We are here to help you escape this angel.”

“Angel?”

Kyra grabbed the gun out of her hand and handed it to Sari. “Yes,
angel
. He’s a monster, isn’t he?”

“Yes.” The woman looked defeated. Hell, she looked on the verge of falling over.

Kyra continued. “These children and you are innocents. I was once like them. We are taking you away from here, saving your life, and getting help for these babies. Are you with me, or do I need to knock you out too?”

The woman’s eyes were tortured. She didn’t look at Kyra, she looked at Sari.

“How do I know? How do I know I can trust you? I cannot trust anyone. Not with them.”

Gritting her teeth, Sari knelt down and picked up a little boy who was sniffling and staring at the women Kyra had knocked out.

“Please believe me,” Sari said, stroking his dark hair. “I would never harm a child.”

The child stopped crying at her touch. He nuzzled into Sari, wrapping his arms around her neck and clinging to her. Sari swallowed the lump in her throat and held him tight. The screams in her mind died back as she focused on the vulnerable little boy in her arms.

“I would
never
harm a child.”

※

Damien didn’t waste time trying to be covert. If the angel didn’t know they were coming at this point, he was an idiot and he’d be easy to kill. The Rěkaves scribes fanned out and covered him as he and Kostas breached a narrow door in a utility area on the far side of the house facing the electric fence.

Damien grunted when the sting of electricity coursed through his body. “Doorknob is wired.”

Crude but effective. Especially for human intruders.

“Let me guess,” Kostas said. “There’s some mystical spell that will allow me to enter this place even though it’ll be painful as hell. But don’t worry, it won’t kill me.”

“No.” Damien picked up a two-by-four that had been stored in the utility area. “Just electricity. It’ll kill us both.”

He used the two-by-four to ram down the door. It took four tries, but the hinges gave way.

“I see we’ve abandoned stealth,” Kostas said.

“The alarms didn’t give that away?”

The question was, would Aurel already be gone? Angels couldn’t fly, but some could transport themselves. If Aurel had fled, he’d be returning with more of his men. His children, those Sari was rescuing that moment, would still be under his control. Damien didn’t want to think about what the angel could make them do. Or what that could do to his mate.

The utility door led to what looked like a basement. Locked rooms were along one wall, but Damien heard nothing behind them. Still, they’d have to be checked later.

No movement on the stairs.

“I don’t hear anything,” Kostas whispered as the scribes moved to the main floor. They spread out and searched the rooms, but no one was found. No Grigori. No women. No angel.

Damien was near rage. If they could not find Aurel, they would have to abandon the children. There was no telling—

“Wait.” Kostas put a hand on his arm. “I hear something.”

He calmed the rush of his blood and focused his senses.

“I hear it too.”

It was a quiet, whimpering sound.

“Dear God,” Kostas said. “Please tell me he doesn’t have a taste for children.”

There was no stopping the man. Kostas bolted up the stairs before Damien could shout at him to stop. He was through a door and flung across the room as Damien ducked. He came in low and rolling, drawing the large hunting knife at his waist. Not the black blade. Not yet…

“Bastard!” Kostas yelled from the ground. “Let her go.”

Aurel was in human form, lying naked on the bed, a young woman between his legs. He had a silver knife at her throat and a thin line of blood trickled down her breast.

Damien tried to meet her eyes, but she was frozen in panic. The whimpering had come from her. She was staring at the body of another girl across the room. That one wasn’t moving. Her blank stare told Damien she would never move again.

“Who are you?” Aurel asked. “Which house are you from?”

“No house sends me,” Damien said calmly. “Let the girl go. What need have you, a son of heaven, for a human to shield you?”

Aurel chuckled. “Pretty words say court training. Are you one of Katalin’s warriors, then? You’re better than most, but you’re still not better than me.”

“Do you think so?” Damien was taking stock of the angel. If he’d been able to transport himself, he’d already be gone. The fact that he was using the girl meant he didn’t have the confidence to fight even two scribes on his own. Or Aurel had so much confidence that he wanted to toy with Damien and Kostas. Not atypical behavior from one of the Fallen. They were easily bored creatures.

“Let the girl go,” Kostas said, lurching to his feet. He was leaning against the wall, but he was standing.

“No.” Aurel swirled the blood in circles on her skin. “I like her here. Besides, your little attack came at an… inconvenient time. I’m modest.”

“I doubt that.” Damien glanced out the window to see the river in the distance. There was someone running across the grass. “We’re getting rid your children, you know. Even if you kill me and my brother, they will all be gone.”

Rage flared on the angel’s face. “They’re mine!”

“They’ll be dead soon.”

Aurel tossed the girl off the bed and stood, his form growing to seven feet tall and broad as a barn door.

Not scared then, Damien thought. Bored. Damn.

He raised the knife, but it was no match against the angel’s voice. Aurel roared, and the force of it flung Damien back into the wall, pinning his hand over his head. The roaring went on. It was a feral howl and a thundering train. The cry of a storm and a felled tree. The sound was elemental. He wanted to clutch his ears and curl up in pain, but he was pressed against the wall with no hope of escape.

The angel’s gold eyes glowed in the darkness. The human girl screamed and scrambled to the corner. Damien heard the other scribes trying to climb the stairs, but the voice of the angel held them back.

Then, as suddenly as the sound came, it died. Damien opened his eyes to see Aurel with an arrow lodged in his temple. He looked confused. Another flew through the window and pierced his neck.

“Go!” Kostas yelled.

Damien drew the black blade and stumbled across the room, every muscle and bone screaming. One of the Rěkaves scribes ran into the room, launching himself at the angel’s knees as his brothers drew their weapons.

With a crash, the angel fell forward, crushing the scribe who’d tackled him, arrows still piercing his neck and his temple.

“
Praetor
, the blade!”

The scribes pinned Aurel down as he struggled. Kostas crawled over and yanked the arrow at the angel’s temple to the side. Then he shoved a fist in the monster’s mouth to try to keep him silent.

Damien crawled over the massive form and straddled Aurel’s back.

“I need his neck!” he yelled.

Kostas roared in pain but shoved his fist to the side to expose the neck.

“Bastard!” he screamed. “He’s biting off my hand!”

Damien plunged the knife in Aurel’s spine as Kostas yanked his hand back, his fist closed around the massive tongue he’d ripped from the angel’s mouth. A screaming sound filled the air.

“Get back!” Damien yelled, pulling at Kostas’s shoulders. The hand the angel had bitten was dangling at an odd angle. The angel had turned the Grigori’s hand to raw meat. Damien didn’t know how Kostas had pulled out the monster’s tongue.

They crawled away from the angel as its skin turned black. Fine cracks appeared, riddling its giant body, rapidly gaping wider as a fiery red glow emanated from the center of its chest. It looked as if the angel was melting from the inside, his skin breaking apart from the heat.

“Grab the girl,” Kostas said. “Get out of here!”

The screaming wind became louder. None of the Rěkaves scribes moved toward the girl.

“For God’s sake!” Kostas yelled. He tucked his wounded hand into his side and crawled to the traumatized woman. He was trying to lift her just as Damien reached them both.

“I’ve got her,” Damien yelled. “I’ve got her. Run!”

They made it down the stairs just as the room exploded.

CHAPTER NINE

S
ARI
held the boy against her chest as they made their way downriver in the fishing boat. They left the wreckage of Aurel’s house behind, left the bound Grigori who’d wanted to stay. Only Tomik had wanted to come with the women and children. Milena trusted him, so Damien had allowed him to board the fishing boat headed for Prague and Astrid, who would take a look at Kostas’s injuries and see if his hand was reparable.

“He’s never been held,” Milena said. Zuzana had curled into the woman’s side with Vaclav resting against Zuzana.

“What do you mean?”

“Lucas.” Milena nodded to the boy in Sari’s arms. “He never trusted Tomik. Or any man. I think he witnessed Aurel do something horrible to his mother. She didn’t waste away like most of them. One morning, she was just gone.”

“And she left her baby.”

Milena nodded. “He wouldn’t let Tomik or William pick him up, and I can’t hold them like that. So he’s never been held.”

Sari’s heart threatened to break open. The finely held control almost snapped. “How old is he?”

“A little over two.”

Sari clutched him tighter and had the satisfaction of feeling Lucas sigh against her chest, his chubby cheek pressed to her skin. He was sleeping.

“Do you want the baby?” Sari nodded to her stomach. “If you don’t, I understand. We can take care of him for you. He won’t harm either me or my sisters.”

Milena put a hand over her belly. “You’re not taking him from me. I’ve figured out how to care for them. If he can drink formula—”

“There’s no reason he shouldn’t be able to.”

“Then he’s mine. I don’t care who his father is. He’s my child.”

Sari shifted the baby on her chest. “He’s making you sick. You know that, don’t you?”

“No.” Milena shook her head. “He makes me brave.”

The fierce look in the woman’s eyes humbled Sari. She imagined the first mothers, human women who sacrificed so much for their beloved children. What must it be like to know that the very thing you loved could kill you? And still they fought. Still they loved. No wonder the first mothers were venerated in ancient songs.

“What are you going to do with us?” Milena asked.

Sari looked around her. Three unconscious human women, one wary rogue, and fourteen Grigori children. Grigori children at her feet. Leaning against her. Crawling in her lap as she held a baby. It was a scene from one of her nightmares.

Except that it wasn’t.

Her mate stood at the helm, talking with Natalya, the archer who’d sent the arrows into Aurel and given the scribes the chance to kill the angel. Leo and Kyra tried unsuccessfully not to stare at each other. Kostas was pale from pain and blood loss, his hand wrapped in thick bandages and held to his chest. But Mala guarded him as he talked with Tomik, who was rubbing his temple and glancing at Milena. The scribes and singers from Rěkaves draped the children in blankets and poured them glasses of milk, asking their names and tousling their hair or rubbing their cheeks. Any sign to show that they were safe and among those who could care for them.

All Sari could picture was a giant castle and an empty courtyard that echoed with the sounds of war. How much better if they rang with the sounds of war… and laughing children?

“We’re taking you home,” Sari said to Milena. “My home. Your new home if you want it.”