by Sawyer Black
He wasn’t ready to walk around naked, no matter what people saw. Fuck that.
He adjusted his tie and met Nadia’s reflected eyes. They were hooded with worry, and she lit another cigarette with trembling hands.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Adam told me his story while you were away, and I can’t help thinking you’re making a mistake.”
“Maybe.”
“And that’s good enough for you?”
“Not really.” Henry cocked his head at the beautiful child playing with dolls. “But it’s good enough for him.”
“You’re putting your trust in an angel’s spawn who has less of a grasp on reality than you?”
Henry grinned. “I know, right?”
“Henry …”
“No. I’m one step closer to saving my daughter, but every second makes the distance I have to travel grow by fucking miles. I’ll do anything! Don’t you fucking get it?”
Nadia stepped back. The surprise on her face drove his rage into a bitter shout. “I don’t give a fuck about anybody but her. Boothe or Mandyel? Fuck ’em! They twisted the truth to get what they wanted from me, and I’m finally doing things my way. And I’m gonna take this kid with me, and I’m gonna kill that man. And if he kills me instead, then I. Don’t. Care.”
“Maybe I care.”
“Who the fuck are you to care about me? You don’t fucking know me, lady. You can pretend to be on my side all you want, but just like everybody else, you walk around like you got a secret, and you know what? Keep it. Because I don’t give a fuck about you, either. The only thing I give a fuck about is my DAUGHTER!”
Adam pressed against the back of his leg, kneading the fabric of his slacks between his little fingers. Nadia dropped her face to smile at him.
Don’t mind us, Son. Mommy and Daddy are just having a little disagreement.
“No, Henry. The only person you give a fuck about is you.”
She jammed the silver stem back into her mouth and spun around to stomp into the back. A door slammed so hard, the glass in the display cabinets quivered, and a painting of angels playing poker jumped from its nail to slide down the wall.
Henry stood with his shoulders heaving. He opened his fists, and Adam’s hand crept into his, clamping down in a grip much stronger than the child’s frame would suggest. He looked down, and the boy returned his anger. His brows drawn together, and his lips drawn up in a snarl.
Adam turned to step toward the door, dragging Henry along like a newspaper boat in a storm drain.
Through the front door an into the blinding afternoon sun, he marched to the limo. Henry turned to catch Francesco’s eye and twirled his finger around his head in a let’s go gesture of impatience. The driver nodded and tipped his glass to drain his margarita. He dug into his pocket as he stood, dropping a handful of bills on his empty plate.
Adam crawled across the seat and drew his legs underneath him, watching Henry duck in and slam the door. The car rocked when Francesco dropped in, and the engine fired up with a rumble. As they pulled away, Henry couldn’t shake the feeling that it was the last time he’d see her. He shrugged.
After what I said, it’s probably for the best.
He ground his teeth and stared out the window.
Still burning those bridges.
Adam set his hand on Henry’s forearm. He looked into the boy’s eyes, and they hardened into ice. Henry could no longer tell how deep the water was. “You remind me of my father.”
“Why? Because I’m a demon? Because I’m ugly?”
“No, because he was sad and angry all the time, too. Like he knew something bad was going to happen, and he couldn’t let himself be happy for too long.”
“Sounds like a smart man.”
“Not anymore. He’s dead, Henry.”
Henry growled, and his demon form vibrated in his chest, stretching Mike Serafino like a flesh balloon. His anger flashed into a rage, and the light coming into the car turned red. Sparks glittered in the air like dust, and he felt a sudden but unmistakable heat pluming up from the floor.
“It makes me so mad,” Adam said. His hands drew into small fists, his knuckles whitening with the pressure. His panted breath steamed out of his mouth in a billowing jet. Anger rolled off his brow like a fever, feeding Henry’s rage where it grew to a blinding inferno in his mind, consuming his whole world.
The limo slowed to a stop in front of a tall black building. The Burg City Credit Union. The main entrance was black glass and revolving doors. Two flanking side entrances with stairs descended below the street. Under the credit union. Henry nodded and turned back to Adam, his throat closing with emotion, unfelt and unwanted.
The little boy swelled, and his human form went blurry. He turned to put one foot on the floor, and when he looked up, the boy ceased to exist. Wings burst from his back to spread across the cabin. Brilliant white with black tips, one pressed against the glass behind Francesco’s head. The other rubbed the rear window. Silver-blonde hair flowed from his head like water, his eyes burning with a swirling white light.
His powerful hands with the fingers tipped in black claws, opened and closed in rhythm with his breath. Muscles rippled up his forearms all the way to his shoulders. His jeans and Hawaiian shirt charred into a curled shell that clung to him like a second skin, the crisp edges glowing with red heat. He growled, and the sound penetrated Henry’s brain like a bear hiding in the brush, ready to clear the trail with one wicked slash of its monstrous paw.
The separation glass slid down, and Francesco looked at the back seat through the rearview. His mouth closed with a snap. “Nope,” he said with a tight shake of his head.
The glass reversed direction and sealed at the top with a suck of air.
In Henry’s mind, Mike Serafino waved goodbye.
The demon erupted, and it was almost orgasmic. He sucked in the air until his breast split with thunder, his Hell roar shattering each window on every car within twenty feet.
Screams and horns. Car alarms. Emotion carried on the breeze. It fed Henry's rage, and he thrust his shoulder into the street, tearing the door off its hinges in a twisting squeal of metal. A swirling tunnel of red light narrowed in his vision, leading to the bank’s subterranean entrance.
Adam streaked past his head with the scream of a falcon, his wings pounding. Adam’s burning wake washed over him, and Henry joined the half-breed’s shrieking terror to streak down into the dark.
A door of smoked glass loomed at the bottom of the steps, and Henry pulled the shadows around him like armor. Henry’s lips drew back in a grin, and he lowered his head as he charged.
Chapter Thirty-Four
The shadows shredded away from him as they exploded into the grand lobby under the Burg City Credit Union. A room heavy with a darkness that extended beneath the building above them supported by raw steel columns bolted into the ceiling. A reception desk in the center made of live oak clad in copper, soft cove lighting making its polished counter glow. Rich leather chairs in a half circle waiting area. Subdued lamps for reading.
What is this fucking place?
Dead silent and empty.
Henry skidded to a stop, his claws digging into the plush burgundy carpet. Adam careened in a spastic arc to land on the desk, his wings scattering paper into the air like glossy white leaves. He ran from one end to the other, his frantic steps slapping an echo like a snare drum.
Henry swung his head from side to side in confusion. The rage left him, and he shivered with a chill racking his spine. Like dialing his mental radio to an empty spot in the spectrum, he heard a buzzing in the background. Something trying to intrude on his station. Demanding his attention.
Adam dropped to the floor, wings wilting into his back, his little boy’s face folding out of the demon’s rage to look up at him with his exotic eyes wide and crying in frustration.
It was Adam. It was the boy’s frequency overloading his antenna. Henry closed his eyes and spun the knob. The city’s
oppressive sorrow burst into his brain, bringing clarity to his thoughts. His own anger dropped to ride the symphony in his mind, and an undercurrent of satisfaction flickered in his attention.
Laughter floated out into the lobby. Low and dark. A sinister chuckle that paralyzed Henry.
“Where is everyone?” Adam cried.
Come rushing in here without a plan.
“Why aren’t they here?”
Like a fucking little kid.
Adam’s tiny fist pounding into his bare thigh. The laughter’s rising strength as a shadow stretched from the depths of a hallway. Another shadow at its side. A third.
“Answer me, Henry! Answer me right now!” The child’s commanding power washed over him, crumbling as it passed. Henry shook his head and pointed to the approaching shadows.
“Answer it yourself, kid.”
A dusky man in an expensive suit and an open-mouthed smile stepped into the light. Dark laughter rose from his thick chest, and his eyes sparkled with genuine mirth.
Hennessy Lucius stood at the man’s shoulder, a brass horn held out in front of him.
Oh, fuck.
The old man lifted his shoulders in a deep breath and pursed his lips.
God damn it.
Hennessy pressed the metal spiral to his mouth and blew.
Adam spun as a piercing note rang through the air. It doubled and tripled, blaring from the distance. Ringing in Henry’s mind.
The little boy screamed, slapping his hands to his ears and falling to his knees.
Hennessy blew again, and when Adam screamed a second time, blood burst from his mouth in a bubbling gurgle.
Blood poured from his nose. Seeped from the corners of his eyes. He tipped to his side, gasping and coughing, his wide eyes fixed on Henry’s. Horror and panic painted his face, and Henry scooped the boy off the floor.
Hennessy blew again, and Adam convulsed in Henry’s arms, his eyes squeezing shut in agony as more blood pressed through his gritted teeth.
“STOP IT!” Henry screamed, looking at the mayor’s brother with seething hatred. “You’re killing him!”
“For God’s sake, Hennessy. Henry’s right.” The voice dug into Henry’s heart, and the third shadow solidified.
Pastor Owen dropped his hand on Hennessy’s shoulder. “That was not supposed to happen.”
Henry struggled to maintain his grip on the dying child in his arms. His grip on reality. Adam gasped and moaned, bloody tears tracking down his cheeks.
Confusion spun through Henry as the pieces slid together — Pastor Owen. How long had he been a part of this? How much had he orchestrated?
What the fuck?
“I don’t know what’s happening,” Hennessy said. “Now that he’s found his champion, the horn should draw him to us. It should just work.”
Henry gently laid Adam on the blood-soaked carpet, putting his right hand on the child’s chest the way he had when Amélie had been rushed to the hospital with pneumonia. They thought she was going to die, and if she had, he and Samantha wouldn’t try again. Three strikes and you’re out.
He looked up at Hennessy, then at Owen, his vision dimming with the red cloud of his rage. “He doesn’t have a champion, you dumb fucks.”
Hennessy asked, “Then how is he commanding you?”
“He’s not. He can’t. I’m somebody else’s champion.”
Hennessy shook his head, but Pastor Owen’s eyes sprang wide in understanding. “Of course. Amélie.”
Hennessy’s faced wrinkled in disbelief, and he brought the horn up, pulling air in through his nose.
Henry flashed into the shadows, stretching across the floor to pool at Hennessy’s feet faster than a thought. The old men sent his air into the horn, and Henry shot out of the darkness spreading out from the old man’s shoes.
Time slowed as he sent all of his pain and frustration into the strike, his left hand rising from the shadows. He could still feel Adam’s dying heat beneath his palm.
Every time he yelled at Amélie. Turned his back on Samantha in anger. Hurt somebody. Hurt himself. Adam’s terrible panic, his eyes begging Henry to help. It all went into the muscles of his shoulder. Filling every fiber as his claws descended toward Hennessy’s wrinkled forehead.
Pastor Owen threw himself to the side, suspended in the molasses flow of Henry’s awareness. The suit on the other side, Petrov Obisev for sure, ducked and threw his hands up to cover his face.
Henry’s claws sunk into Hennessy’s flesh, parting his skull like clay. Blood erupted in a sparkling wash. Tinkling in his ears like music as it bounced and rippled through the air, each drop a silver bell ringing out.
His claws continued unabated through the old man’s face, the remains spouting out like a melon collapsing under the blast of a shotgun. Henry thought it was beautiful. If only the moment could last forever.
He shredded through Hennessy’s shocked expression, then connected with metal as the horn sang its final note.
Pain exploded up Henry’s arm.
A crushing wave blew Henry back as his left hand burst into flames. His fingers crumbled into ash as he flew, the light filling his eyes and his thoughts, drowning the scream that rose from the hollow of his soul.
As light consumed his senses, Henry felt nothing. Not the flight, nor the landing. In a final brilliant flash, the light dimmed, pulsing as it went.
And in the darkness, Henry felt only the pain of failure.
Henry ached.
A deep throbbing that spread from every joint. His left hand was swirling agony. His skin puckered with blisters. He took a deep breath, and it almost felt stolen.
Burning chains kept his chest from expanding. He looked down through swollen eyelids, breathing through his nose.
He smelled like a steakhouse.
Black charring like a dark star extending from the center of his chest and down the fronts of his thighs. His burned cock flopping over to show healthy red underneath the split crust from base to tip. Rusty iron links digging into the skin across his shoulders and stomach. Around both ankles.
He flexed, but the chains glued his arms and sides together.
Henry raised his eyes to the flickering light as it danced across the floor. They were in the Lucius family tomb at Prince Hill. Bloody pentagram on the floor and empty mirror, but no Hennessy. Fuck him, anyway.
In the center of the pentagram was Adam. Ropes snaked out from bolts in the walls to knot around his wrists and ankles, forcing the boy to spread out like the points of the star he was held to. His naked flesh was covered in drying blood, and he was wan and gray.
His chest fluttered with his breath, and Henry sagged in relief.
The crypt door opened, and the candles danced, guttering black smoke into the air. A pair of figures in Order From Chaos robes stepped inside. One was the familiar form of Pastor Owen in red.
The other was his new friend, Petrov Obisev.
They crossed to the mirror, making a wide birth of the bloody symbol on the floor. Obisev crossed behind the iron frame and slid the robe from his shoulders. The pastor followed, and the two men stood nude in the orange light.
The pastor’s chest was a rainbow of ink. The cult’s symbol surrounded by colorful demons swirling around his ribs, each one stabbing into his skin and bringing out a torrent of inked blood that flowed into the runes all around them. Obisev was a dark blue blur of ink from knees to neck to elbows.
Henry tried to speak, but his dry throat seized. He worked some spit from the depths of his asphalt tongue and tried again. “The fuck is this?”
Pastor Owen smiled bitterly. “This is what Plan B looks like, Henry.”
Henry grunted a chuckle. “What, are you trying to summon that goat-foot bastard? I saw him the other day, and I gotta say. I wasn’t that impressed. Kinda looked like a pussy to me.”
Owen folded his robe and placed the neat pile at his feet. Obisev copied him, almost in perfect time like a military drill team.
“Yeah,” He
nry continued. “He just disappeared in a poof when he saw me. To be honest, I think it was penis envy.”
Pastor Owen looked over with a pained scowl. “I never cared much for your comedy, Henry.”
“Ouch, man.” Henry nodded, continuing to wriggle his right hand under the chains, working it toward his lap. “That hurts my feelings. I mean, kill my kid and rape my wife, fine. But insult my comedy? That’s just downright mean.”
Pastor Owen sighed. “Henry …”
“Too soon?”
“Henry. I didn’t rape Samantha or kill sweet Amélie.”
“Don’t you fucking dare say their names!”
“Henry, it wasn’t me who has caused you so much pain.”
“Oh, yeah? Then who was it, fucker?”
Pastor Owen dropped into a squat, resting an elbow on his own knee. His other hand rested on Henry’s thigh, and he looked up in sympathy. “It was you, Henry. That’s what everyone’s been trying to tell you.”
“The fuck outta here, you son of a bitch.”
“Son, it was your voice that made you a target. Your immorality that brought you to our attention. Your little followers who hung on your every word. As I’m sure your angel friend told you, your choices put this in motion.”
Looking into his eyes took Henry’s breath away. Exhaustion battled his mind, and his eyelids sagged.
“You evil fuck,” he croaked. “Did you ever even believe in God?”
“Oh, Henry.” The pastor’s face split into a loving smile. “Who do you think this is for. God wants this child dead. He wants to be safe in his own home like anybody else. Just like you did. And if the result is for my power to rise here on earth so that He can remain on his throne in Heaven, so be it. He will prepare for a battle that I allow Him to wage, all the while waiting for me to ascend and demand payment due.”
Henry grunted with the effort to move his hand the final few inches that would put the chain in his grasp. He closed his fingers over the burning metal and heaved.