“Father Valenti’s always around.”
The dude should really take the out I’m giving him.
“What’re you doin’ on our turf anyway?” he says, thrusting his bat in my direction. “We’ve never seen those colors before.”
I turn and show him the thorn insignia on the back of my red jacket.
“The Forsaken? The same one’s who ran the Rat Kings out of Coney?”
“That’s us,” Hurley says. “And who are you?”
“Rockabilly Knights.”
Hurley snorts. “Never heard of ya.”
“Don’t matter. You can’t go marchin’ across our country without a pass from us.”
“We don’t need a pass from a bunch of greasers,” Hurley says.
“We’re not here for a fight,” I say, making one last attempt to keep things cool. “We just came from a big summit in the Bronx. We missed our train. All we want is to make it to the next station and get home to Coney.”
Frowning, he looks at his gang, then at me. “What summit? There’s been no word on the street about some big meet-up.”
“The Bad Hats called the meet. Select gangs only,” I say.
He swallows, shuffling his weight nervously from one foot to the other. He’s obviously heard of them. I didn’t know the Bad Hats had a rep with the gullies.
“No way,” he counters. “If that was true, we would’ve been there.”
I shrug impatiently.
“What? You saying we’re not bad enough to be asked?” he challenges. “We’ve got a heavy rep around these parts.”
“We’re wasting our breath on these losers,” Hurley says, stepping forward with a low, menacing growl. “Time for some stompin’.”
“Phasers on stun,” I tell him. “These guys can’t take what we normally dish out.”
“You callin’ us pussies?” their leader yells.
A girl in her late teens runs out of the brownstone across the street. She stops next to the leader. “Rico, let it go,” she says, her eyes darting nervously above our heads to something on the church.
I glance over my shoulder. The dark angel hasn’t moved from the window ledge. Is she seeing the angel too?
“Whoa, who’s the sexy mama?” Hurley says, leering at the girl.
I’m with him there. She’s smokin’ hot. Honey-colored hair so long it brushes the waist of her cut-offs, and tanned legs that go on and on. Can’t get enough of the way the muscles of her calves curve into those beat-up cowboy boots.
“Sienna, get your ass back inside,” Rico says, shoving her away roughly.
Thrown off balance, she regains her footing, stopping in place when her eyes lock with mine. I can’t keep from staring back. She looks just like this John William Godward painting, called Mischief and Repose, from this museum I used to hide in at night. The scene was of a girl lying on her back with long wavy hair spilling over her pillow. She was all relaxed, maybe even bored, lounging there in a baby blue dress, so thin a nipple showed through. But that’s not the main reason I liked the painting. The expression on her face is what got me. Her head was turned toward me, her pink lips parted in surprise and deep blue eyes looking straight at me as if she’d finally found something worthy of her interest. Made me feel important. I’ve wanted a girl to look at me like that ever since.
And here she is.
Sienna’s gaze drops to my chest, her eyes narrowing like she’s seeing straight through to the crystal. My pulse races. Can she see what I am?
I jump over the fence, landing on the sidewalk a few feet from her. “Hold on, you’re comin’ with us,” I say. Grabbing her by the arm, I drag her over to my bike.
Rico rushes after me, but Hurley blocks his way. “Get your grimy hands off her! That’s my sister,” Rico shouts at me.
The rest of his gang spreads out, surrounding the five of us, lurching forward with bats swinging. Nyx appears behind two of them, driving her daggers into their arms–a merciful move on her part. Crying out in pain, they turn and swipe their bats at her. She vanishes in a blur of smoke and they end up hitting each other in the head, both falling unconscious like two of the three stooges.
Hurley grabs hold of the top of Rico’s bat, shoving the bottom end into his gut. He buckles over, gasping for air. Smirking, Hurley grabs the bat, whirling round just as two others rush in from the rear. Holding the bat parallel to the ground, Hurley blocks their blows, then swings it low, knocking their feet out from under them. They roll on their backs, screaming and grabbing fractured shins.
Swinging their bats wildly, four others lunge at Justice and Gort. Justice fluidly dodges out of the way, while Gort steps forward, blocking their hard blows with the metal plates covering his arms. A stream of black cables snake out from the metal casing of his midsection, zapping them with enough electricity to knock them back, rolling on the street in a stunned heap.
I push Sienna toward my bike, hot to get her out of there. I’ve got loads of questions. A bat plows into my ribs, knocking the wind from my lungs, slamming me to the ground. Gasping, I roll onto my back in time to see a guy ready to split my skull. Twisting to the left, the bat cracks against the concrete next to my ear. I yank his leg out from under him, making him fall flat on his back. Scrambling upright, I drive my knee in his chest, grab his throat and squeeze.
“Stop! We can leave now,” Sienna says, her eyes round with fear. “There’s no one left to stop you.”
I look down at the guy I’m crushing the life out of. He’s no older than Booker. His face is purple, eyes bloodshot and bulging, veins swelling along his neck and temples. I’m not known for my muscle, but a gullie, no matter how strong, would never win an arm wrestling match against me. It’s easy to forget how easily humans break.
Releasing my grip, I jump to my feet and look around. She’s right, the Rockabilly Knights aren’t getting up any time soon.
I walk over to my bike, gesturing for her to get on behind me. She hesitates, looking at the mutant bike with a mixture of fear and revulsion.
Interesting. She can also see through glamours.
“Don’t worry, it won’t bite,” I tell her.
Nodding warily, she swings her leg up over the seat and wraps her arms around my waist, taking me by surprise. The scent of shampoo and cocoa butter mingling in with the faint odor of her sweat drifts over me, making my blood pump hard. Thrown by how strongly she’s affecting me, I try clamping down on my runaway feelings. She may be hot and exactly what I’ve always fantasized about, but come on. She’s a frickin’ gullie. I’ve got way better options than that.
She leans against me. The soft press of her breasts on my back and smooth thighs against my hips destroys my defenses all over again. Doing my best to shake off the sexual fog taking over, I pull the choke, open the throttle and kickstart the engine. With a loud, sudden growl, the demon bike vibrates beneath us and I rip it up so hard and fast the boots leave a smoking line of rubber on the sidewalk.
Justice and Gort follow in my wake, while Hurley glides up alongside with Nyx as his passenger. I can’t resist a sideways glance as she slowly turns her head in my direction. Her shoulder-length hair whips darkly around her face as she stares at Sienna like some interesting curiosity. Then that piercing gray gaze slides to me and her expression shifts to one of pure steel and fury.
Pointing my eyes straight ahead, so she doesn’t catch how sheepish I feel, I speed up to escape her glare. If I could, I’d explain why I need this chick, but that would mean telling Nyx more about my past than I’m ready to share.
14
My Anguish
IT’S CLOSE TO ONE O’CLOCK in the morning, and we’re not even half way home yet.
As much as I’m burnin’ to get back to Coney, I can’t go another block without finding out what this girl knows about the dark angel. After I get my answers, I’ll cut her loose. Having a weak gullie along on a run like this’ll just slow us down.
Hooking a right off Park onto 123rd, I speed beneath the elevat
ed tracks and race down the street. Several cars screech to a halt as I cut through a thin stream of traffic on Madison and make my way over to the Marcus Garvey entrance. Angry drivers honk and shout at me.
Turning off the engine, I stare out at a dark stretch of grass surrounded by shadowy trees. Once again, the strange need to be in amongst the woods and blend with them comes over me.
The deep rumbling of the other monster bikes pulls me out of the stare as they rest their rides next to mine.
“What the hell, Edge?” Hurley asks, his face flushed an angry shade of red. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were trying to lose us.”
“That’s exactly what it looked like to me,” Nyx says.
“Lay off,” Justice butts in. “I’m sure our prince of light has a good reason.”
My whole body tenses. Did he hear Rade call me the Seelie prince? I stare at him a few seconds before chalking it up to Justice being Justice. I relax. He must’ve pulled the prince thing from his precious Paradise Lost. I get what he’s doing. He’s trying to suck up after murdering the priest. He knows he’s in trouble, and I will be dealing with him, but not until we’re back home.
Plus, I’ve got to put my mind to coming up with a reason for stopping here. Unfortunately, the only excuse I can come up with will piss off Nyx more than she already is.
I slide off the bike, grab Sienna by the waist and pull her tight against me. “I gotta blow off some steam,” I tell them.
“What…?” Nyx says, her voice a low, hostile whisper.
“Right on, I catch your drift,” Hurley says, nodding his head enthusiastically. “Can I get in on it?”
“No, I need the rest of you to stay here and keep a look out.”
Nobody answers. I can see them questioning my orders.
“Got it?” I say, staring at Hurley’s sullen expression.
“That’s cold, man,” he mutters.
“Show some respect,” Justice tells him. “Let the prez have his conjugal reward.”
“Yeah, let the prez have what’s coming to him,” Nyx says with a smile so cold a chill knifes through me.
Ignoring her, I drag Sienna across the park, through a patch of trees and up a path of stone steps staggered into the schist outcroppings of the seventy-foot high plateau. By the time we get to the top, I’m slick with sweat. I’d give my left nut for a light breeze.
A half moon shines its dull light on the old watchtower and the weeded over stone terrace of the Acropolis the iron structure sits upon. If the trees were bare, we’d have clear views of the Empire State Building, Yankee Stadium, Grant’s Tomb, and the Harlem River. When I was a kid, I liked it up here. I could see far and wide. Nobody could sneak up on me.
I turn to Sienna, ready to drill her with questions, when all of a sudden the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. We’re not alone. I missed it on the first sweep, but a second look shows me there’s a large blackened shape disrupting the angular lines of the top part of the watchtower. As I inch forward, the form stretches upward–tall and forbidding.
The dark angel followed us.
Sienna sees it too. Frozen with fear, she makes the sign of the cross.
“Do you know what it is?” I ask.
“One of God’s outcasts.”
“You mean a fallen angel?”
“Yes, like Lucifer.”
The dark angel casts off the tower, its massive raven wings flapping, stirring up that breeze I’ve been craving. Maybe I should be more careful what I wish for.
As the angel lands a few yards away, Sienna rushes behind me, gripping my arm and trembling. She’s as tall as me and puts her chin on my shoulder as she stares at it. Whispering the Lord’s Prayer, her breath tickles my neck, giving me that down-low shiver.
Can’t believe she’s looking to me for protection. I’ve done zip to deserve her trust. If anything, she should be as scared of me as she is of the dark angel. Weird thing is, I want to keep her safe.
“What do you want from me?” I yell at the angel.
It moves closer over the stonework in a creepy, gliding sort of way.
Every muscle in my body tenses for a fight, but it stops within a few feet of us. I’ve never been this close before. It’s at least nine-feet-tall. A crown of thorns rests on its stringy, black hair. Blood trickles from the hairline down over a sad brow. Dark hollows surround watery, pale-blue eyes. There’s nothing but suffering engraved in its pale face.
The angel’s mouth opens in a silent wail, its face distorting into a Greek tragedy mask.
“Get out of my head!” Sienna screams, her eyes squeezed shut, hands pressed to her ears.
“What’s it doing?”
“It’s begging me to give you a message, but I don’t want to hear it.”
“Tell me what it’s saying. I have to know.”
She shakes her head, resisting until the angel glides close, looming over her with a tortured expression.
“Alright!” she gives in. “Just don’t come any closer!” She huddles close to me, putting her mouth close to my ear. “It’s saying there’s nothing to fear. But I think we should be very afraid,” she whispers, the heat of her breath distracting me in ways I really don’t need right now. “You shouldn’t believe anything it says. Fallen angels are deceivers. They’ll say exactly what you want to hear. Then when they have your trust, they trick you into horrible things.”
I pull away. Is she playing me? She couldn’t possibly care whether the angel screws me over or not. “I’m the last person to trust this thing,” I tell her. “But it’s my call, not yours. I need to know why it’s haunting me again.”
Sienna’s mouth turns down as she nods. The angel looks slightly less tormented as she listens to what it has to say. After a few minutes she turns to me, stiff and plainly uncomfortable with her new role. “It’s a little hard to understand. It talks like the Old Testament, but it’s basically saying someone commanded it to guard you in all your ways. The vampire warlock knew its mission and stopped it from doing its job by casting a barrier spell around South Brooklyn.” She looks at me nervously. “Does any of that sound true?”
Rage speeds my pulse, making the cut on my neck throb. That explains why we hardly ever left Brooklyn, and why Maddox was the only one who went into the city to find recruits. “Anything else?” I ask.
The tension in her face softens a bit as she listens to more. “It’s talking about your mother.”
A sharp pang hits me.
“It was your mother who ordered the angel to be your guardian.”
“Bullshit,” I say, glaring at the angel for playing the mom card. “You were never a guardian. All you ever brought me were bad omens.”
The angel steals closer to Sienna, looming over with an insistent frown. She backs up, saying, “It wants to know if you remember the day the warlocks invaded the Lincoln tunnel.”
It’s been thirteen years since I lived down in the tunnels with my old pureblood friends, but it feels like yesterday. The day the warlocks came is one I’ll never forget. Every bit of that day is burned into my brain.
My friends had sent me to pick up a bunch of take out orders for dinner. We had a system down, where we’d call in huge orders and I’d go get the food and smoke out of there without paying. I had four different stops to make that day because nobody could decide on the same thing. Not that it was a problem since I could teleport all over the city in no time at all. The gnome wanted Chinese, the wererat wanted Indian, the frost giant wanted Thai and the ogre wanted shawarmas. Weird thing was, every restaurant was either running late with the food or messed up the order. What should’ve taken thirty minutes tops, turned into two hours. By the time I got back to the tunnel, the warlocks had been there and my friends were dead.
“It’s saying it caused all the obstacles you ran into so you’d be gone when the warlocks came looking for you in the tunnel,” Sienna continues.
“You did all that?” I ask the angel.
“And many ot
her days filled with distractions, delays and enticements to keep you from harm,” Sienna answers as the angel nods solemnly.
All I’ve ever done is curse the dark angel for my rotten luck. “You really knew my mother?”
The angel continues to nod.
Any parenting, if you can call it that, happened in foster homes and juvie halls. My mother’s been a faceless phantom since day one. I can’t believe this. The angel’s the only one who’s actually seen her and talked to her. “Do you know where she went?”
“She’s back with the warlocks,” Sienna answers.
My chest contracts. She’s working with the warlocks? That means she’s been here this whole time. She threw me away, put me in the hands of human strangers.
It hurts to breathe.
“The angel’s saying she didn’t abandon you. The warlocks put her back in the bottle.” Confused, Sienna looks back at the angel. “Did I hear that right?”
I start breathing again. She didn’t leave me. She’s their prisoner. The warlocks took her from me.
The angel gives me a somber nod. I think it can hear my thoughts. Sliding its gaze to Sienna, it continues communicating more of the story.
“Rade Silverhand,” she says slowly and carefully, “had a bottled genie–your mother–in his collection for centuries. Then about twenty years ago, he imported some old manuscripts revealing the little known powers of the Djinn and how to compel a genie to do his bidding. When Rade found out the Djinn can cross the Wall, he came up with a plan to bring it down and invade the Highborn kingdom.” Her eyes widen. “That means you’re a genie too.”
“Only part,” I say without taking my gaze off the angel. “What did Rade make her do?”
“He compelled her to teleport to the Highborn kingdom and seduce King Newyddilyn until she was with child. She was ordered to deliver it on this side of the Wall, but Rade left out one very important detail. He never told her to hand you over to him immediately after the birth. He underestimated how literally genies take their orders. The second you were born, she tried to teleport you both out of New York. But because you’re not a full blood Djinn, she couldn’t get you across the Wall. That’s when she found the angel and ordered it to make sure you were taken care of. And…”
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