Angelic Nightmare

by H G Lynch

  Ember looked a little dejected, but shrugged. “He’s probably busy with important angel stuff. Oh, well.” She glanced down at the little, battery-operated clock on the table, amongst the bottles and glasses, and smiled. The glow-in-the-dark green numbers proclaimed it to be a quarter to twelve. Almost midnight.

  Carefully, she settled down against him, avoiding his injured side. It didn’t really hurt anymore, but he was still weaker than he should’ve been. He’d be fine by tomorrow, but for tonight, he just had to hope there wouldn’t be any more attacks.

  “You called?” a serene voice suddenly asked from the shadows, and they all flinched in surprise.

  Turning, Reid could instantly see the dark hair and bronze skin of Raphael, standing in the darkest part of the garden, dressed in jeans and an actual hoodie. He was smiling very faintly, clearly amused by their surprise.

  “Raz! You actually came!” Ember squealed, apparently delighted.

  Reid chuckled. “Whoa, Emz. If the guy wasn’t an angel, I’d think there was something going on between you two,” he joked.

  Ember gave him a dark look, but otherwise ignored his comment.

  “I assume you called me for a reason, Ember?” Raphael asked patiently.

  Ember nodded. “We’re having a celebration. It’s Hogmanay. We thought you might want to join us,” she said.

  Reid chuckled at Raphael’s confused, surprised expression.

  “What, never seen a party before, Raz?” he taunted, lifting a beer off the patio table.

  Raphael frowned. “You want me to join you?”

  Ember nodded.

  Raphael hesitated, then gave a slight shrug, and took up the last patio chair. It was one of the few times they’d ever seen the guy sit.

  “Hey, look!” Sherry pointed to the clock, which was ticking down the seconds to midnight. Ember squirmed excitedly on his lap, and she and Sherry shared a glance.

  They started counting down…

  “Ten, nine, eight—”

  Ricky joined in, “Seven, six—”

  Oh, what the hell, Reid thought, and counted with them, “Five, four, three, two—”

  Ember sat up straight and the air temperature suddenly dropped. “ONE!”

  The fireworks sizzled, then shot off into the sky, like bright, colourful comets.

  “Happy New Year!” Sherry and Ember giggled, eyes fixed on the sky. The rockets soared higher and higher, up into the clear, sapphire sky.

  The fireworks exploded in a rain of purple and yellow and red, the sound of the explosions following quickly after the light show. All around them, more fireworks were going off at other houses, cheers rose from the ground for streets around, echoing in the night sky.

  Fireworks flashed up over the trees in all directions, all different colours and styles and sizes. Somewhere, someone was blaring rock music, adding to the howling and explosions.

  Then Ember turned in his lap and leaned down to kiss him enthusiastically, her excitement and tipsiness making her recklessly bold. He didn’t mind. He kissed her back, tasting her mouth and lips, as she wound her fingers into his hair, sending hot shivers down his spine.

  Oh, yes, this was the right way to celebrate the new year. With friends and fireworks and the girl he loved.

  ***

  Ember was tired and damp and cold by the time they all gathered up and went inside. Raz said goodnight and gave them, what she was sure was, the first genuine smile to ever grace his fine lips. Hiro, after drinking several beers, despite being underage — Hell, they were all underage. He just happened to be the youngest. They weren’t his parents, they weren’t going to tell him what not to do — had lost some of his natural snark, and sprouted a fox tail from his human body. Which amused them all to great ends. Hiro had seemed a little confused at first, as if he couldn’t figure out why he suddenly had a tail.

  It had been a surprisingly fun night, considering how the day had started out. And Ember was still tingling from some of the, eh, more enthusiastic kisses she’d had with Reid. Normally, she wouldn’t have been nearly so…outright in displaying her affections in front of company, but, well, she’d been drinking. Lowered inhibitions and all. Sherry and Ricky had been doing their own thing, Hiro had been too fascinated by his own tail, and Raz hadn’t seemed to really care, so she supposed she didn’t have to be too horrendously embarrassed.

  Everyone kicked off their shoes in the back room, not wanting to track snow through the house. Ember closed and locked the glass doors, then took a handful of powder from the jar they’d started keeping next to bookcase. She spread the powder in a line across the doorway, and the powder lit up briefly, glowing blue as the wards turned on and linked up to the other lines of powder around the house. Hey, they weren’t stupid. They’d made sure the rest of the house was covered before disappearing into the back garden for a party.

  Then she sighed, yawned, and peeled off her hoodie, dropping it onto the sofa by the door. Reid shrugged off his hoodie as well, and she saw for the first time that he was only wearing a sleeveless shirt underneath. Part of her grew anxious at the fact he could’ve gotten cold like that, vampire or not —he was still weak, though she knew he was trying not to show it. Nobody else would’ve noticed, but she knew him too well — and part of her got all squirmy and tingly, because, well, he looked astoundingly hot in that shirt. His bare arms were leanly muscled, steel layered over with smooth, pale skin. And the slice of chest the low collar of the shirt showed was exquisite, the shape of his collarbones tantalising. Vaguely, Ember realised it wasn’t just the shirt —though it really did look damn good on him — but also the effect of the alcohol. She frowned. She didn’t like being in less-than-perfect control of herself, at least when that lack of control was caused by anything other than her wild temper.

  “What? You’re staring at me.” Reid arched a brow at her, looking both bemused and amused.

  She shook her head. “I like the shirt, that’s all.” She shrugged, trying not to give away just how much she liked the shirt on him.

  He noticed anyway and gave her one of those slow, bone-melting smiles that made her knees weak. She had to look away before she decided to do something she shouldn’t.

  “I’m going to, uh, check the rest of the wards. Just in case,” she mumbled, giving herself an excuse to get away from him. Tonight was not the night to be encouraging him. He was still injured.

  Despite the excuse being just that —an excuse — she checked the wards anyway. Starting with the guest room, then the kitchen, the study, the living room…

  She froze, her eyes going wide and her throat closing up. She opened her mouth to call for Reid, but her voice wouldn’t work. Fear, sudden and quite possibly irrational, sprung inside her like a leak in a pipe.

  There, sitting in the living room, perched casually on the sofa, was an elderly man, with greying hair and glasses and a kindly polite expression. Somehow, he looked familiar to Ember, but she couldn’t imagine where she might’ve met him. Hiro was curled on the sofa next to the man, in full fox form, apparently obliviously asleep.

  Sure, he just looked like an old man, but the very fact that he was in the house without anybody else knowing he was here set off alarm bells on six different levels in Ember’s head. And why was Hiro so casually settled next to him like that?

  Finally, her throat stopped trying to lock down on her, and she called for Reid, surprised by how steady and calm her own voice sounded, even though she was shaking terribly inside. “Reid! Reid, come here!”

  He was next to her in an instant, frowning down at her with worried eyes. “What? What’s wrong?” he asked, looking her up and down to make sure she wasn’t hurt.

  She gulped and pointed to the sofa, and saw Reid jerk, startled. He dropped into vampire mode in a heartbeat, and Ricky showed up out of nowhere.

  Sherry followed quickly, wanting to know what was going on. “Guys, what are you—” She shut up as soon as she saw the old man, and her green eyes got very wide. She loo
ked to Ember, who shrugged, but took a step over in front of Sherry, blocking her, just in case.

  “Who the hell are you and what are you doing here?” Reid hissed, and Ricky moved up next to him.

  The old man tilted his head and pushed his glasses up his crooked nose, frowning. “You don’t remember me? Ah, I suppose you wouldn’t. I am Professor Oliver, the, eh, teacher you spoke to at the university. I am also the man behind The Society—uh, tut, tut, you don’t want to be doing that.” The man held up a hand as Reid started forward to attack. He was holding one those glinting silver knives with the runes etched into the blade.

  Ember paled, and her stomach turned over. No. No more. Not again.

  Reid snarled, took a few steps anyway. Ricky caught his arm, gripping so tightly Ember could see cords stand out in Reid’s arm. Reid snarled viciously, a sound that made even Ember flinch in fear.

  “You!” she gasped, remembering him now. He was the professor who had thought she was too young for university. Of course, now she knew that had just been an act.

  “Why are you here? Do you have a death wish?” Ricky asked coldly.

  Reid kept up a continuous, low growling, apparently past the point of words.

  The professor just looked at him, looking mildly irritated. “I do not. That is why I have the knife. And also, why I have your friend here. Don’t worry, he’s merely asleep. I drugged him. But if you make any move to attack me, I’ll kill him. This blade works on any living creature, supernatural or human,” the professor warned, flashing the knife, putting the edge of the blade dangerously close to Hiro’s neck. Ember sucked in a breath sharply, and the professor’s grey eyes flicked to her, an oily smile crossing his thin mouth. “That’s what I thought. An animal lover. A compassionate. By the way, it is really very nice to meet you, Ember. I’ve been looking forward to this introduction for a long time now. You are…much smaller than I had imagined when I first heard about you. Of course, I knew who you were the second you stepped into my classroom at the university. Elementals carry a certain aura with them, and thanks to some advanced research on potions and elixirs, I can now see those auras.” The professor tilted his head to look at her, and she shivered, something slimy gliding down her spine. There was cold calculating gleam in those wizened grey eyes.

  “Why are you telling us all this? What are you here for? You can’t be so ssstupid as to think you can abduct Ember with all of usss here,” Ricky hissed, his voice icy and angry.

  Ember could see the muscles tensing in his back and shoulders, ready for action. Reid had stopped growling, but he was taut as a bow string, practically vibrating with rage. She couldn’t see his face, but she was kind of glad of that. No doubt he looked utterly murderous right now. It was a wonder the professor wasn’t cowering like a mouse in the corner.

  Instead, he looked simply confident and a little amused. It made Ember want to rip him apart piece by piece, but that knife, that damned knife, made sure she didn’t move an inch. Her strength started to slip, her powers draining away until she began to get that vulnerable, human feeling from her nightmare. She clutched onto her fire ability, desperately feeling for the heat around her, letting it tingle in her hands just to be sure she still had it.

  “No. I am not that reckless. And surely if I meant to harm any of you, really, your ward would not have let me in. No, I am here simply to meet you all, formally. And to give Ember the chance to give herself over to me and The Society.” Professor Oliver cast his gaze back to her and she tried not to flinch.

  But his words were so ridiculous, she blurted without thinking, “What? Are you insane? I’m not going anywhere with you!”

  The professor’s eyes narrowed behind his thin-rimmed spectacles, and his mouth flattened into a hard line for a moment, before he said, “I see. Well, Ember, I am offering you something here. I shall promise not to kill you, and, better than that, you shall rule with me over the new race I intend to create. We shall be partners. I will ensure your friends here live, of course. All I ask in return is that you come with me willingly and donate a few pints of your blood to our research.” The professor spoke so calmly, so logically, that for a moment, it hardly seemed like a bad idea. Except for the whole, ‘new race’ part. What the hell did he mean by that?

  “New race? What new race? What are you talking about?” Sherry, surprisingly, was the one to speak up, and Ember tried to block her when she moved forward.

  The professor’s gaze landed on her and his expression became puzzled, his brow furrowed. “My dear, you appear to have some sort of very mixed up aura. Just what species of supernatural are you?” he asked Sherry.

  Ember cringed, and held Sherry back. “Don’t talk to her. Don’t even dare. It’s me you’re here to see, so talk to me. Let Hiro go. Nobody will hurt you.” Okay, she couldn’t guarantee that, not with Reid as livid as he was.

  The professor seemed to realise that and gave her a heartless smile. “I think not, dear child. I am not so stupid as to think your boyfriend here will not try to rip me apart the second your little pet is clear of danger.”

  Reid snarled in response, and Ricky’s grip on his arm visibly tightened even more. He had to be cutting off circulation altogether by now. Reid barely seemed to notice, though.

  “Don’t call me that, or I swear, I will burn you alive. In fact, I don’t see why I shouldn’t do it right now. I can set you on fire from here before you can even blink,” she threatened, but her voice wavered, and she mentally cursed her damned nightmares for making her feel so weak. She might still have her powers, but she might as well be human for all the use they would do her right now; She was too scared to summon up a flame without it dropping off instantly. She couldn’t hold the focus or the power. And, hell, she really was trying.

  Professor Oliver just looked at her over the rims of his glasses, frowning slightly. “You appear to be shaking, my dear. I doubt you can hold yourself together enough to make that threat anything but empty. How unusual. From what I’ve seen of you so far, you are normally much more courageous than this…” His grey eyes slid to Reid, who jerked forward, trying to get out of Ricky’s grasp, “But perhaps seeing your beloved boyfriend get staked has shaken your confidence. Pity. Ah, well, your blood will still be of great use to us. Won’t you at least consider joining me? Joining The Society? You don’t have to make this difficult, you know. You can work with us, and we shall let you and your friends live.” Again with that reasonable tone.

  It was starting to make Ember feel sick. Or, sicker rather.

  “What do you mean ‘what you’ve seen of me’? Have you been spying on me or something? And how did you know about…” She glanced at Reid before she could help herself. She really wished he would calm down and stand with her. She was worried he was exerting himself, raising his blood pressure too high. What if he started bleeding again, or it weakened him so he didn’t heal so fast? Plus, she really wanted his hand in hers, a solid feeling of comfort and safety.

  The professor chuckled dryly. “Oh my, yes, of course I’ve been spying. My people are everywhere, you know. I suspected after what you did to Amelia, Roger would break ranks and attempt something foolish, so I had him followed. That is how I know about your precious Reid getting himself staked.” The elderly man turned his wintry eyes on Reid again, smiling infuriatingly. “You’re a lucky boy, you realise? Most bloodsuckers would not be able to survive such an injury. You must have friends in very high places.” The hint of smug amusement in the professor’s tone made Ember suspect he knew about Raphael. Not that it made much of a difference in the long run really, but it certainly made her uncomfortable. What else did he know? They hardly knew anything about him or The Society or their intended goal — Except that it had something to do with using her blood to make a new race…a race of what precisely? And why the hell would she want to rule it with him? She wanted to watch him burn alive, slowly, after all the pain they’d gone through in the last five days.

  “Oh, and by the way, I presume y
ou have my mirror?” the professor asked, directing the question at Ember, who wanted to curl up and disappear. It took her a moment to think of what mirror he could be talking about. Then, putting on the bravest face she could, she raised her chin.

  “Yes, we have it. Why? Do you want it back?” she asked it like a challenge, and at least her voice didn’t shake this time.

  Professor Crazy by the sofa, stood up, smiling like he was indeed very amused. He shook his head. “Dear me, no. That thing was more trouble than it was worth. Why do you think I gave to old Ms. Mooring to keep?” he chuckled, and Ember felt a little spark of heat kindle in her fingertips. If she could just concentrate, suck in a bit more heat…

  “Well, I suppose I should be on my way. If you’re sure you don’t want to reconsider my offer, Ember? I will not offer it again, and you may find yourself regretting turning it down, very soon.”

  Ember shook her head mutely, and the professor sighed. “Alright, but don’t say I didn’t warn you. I’m sorry this is going to have to be difficult. Just remember, it was your choice. I shall take my leave now. Goodbye, Ember. I’ll see you all very soon, I‘m sure.”

  And with that, the professor was gone. Just…vanished. It wasn’t possible. Only Kitsune and angels could do that, and sometimes Reid when he was motivated enough to move invisibly fast. But the professor was human, she was sure of it. Maybe not entirely, though. What had he said about elixirs and being able to see auras? He was probably experimenting on himself, as well as the members of his organisation.

  Immediately, Ricky let go of Reid’s arm. Or rather, Reid snatched his arm away while Ricky was distracted by Hiro twitching in his sleep. He looked concerned for the fox, and went to examine him. Ember wondered vaguely if he was as good a vet as he was a doctor. Reid was fuming, his eyes glinting metallically, and his fangs had sliced shallow cuts in his lower lip. Blood stained his mouth and ran down his chin, and he didn’t seem to notice. His fists were clenched so tightly that his knuckles were white, and she could clearly see the fine bones of his hands standing out under his skin.