by L. A. Banks
She nodded and went to him and he enfolded her in his arms.
“Okay, brothers, listen up,” Bath Kol said. “We need a phone, then we need the number wiped so we don’t get some poor bastard accidentally whacked by the dark side—make sure they get an upgrade or something for the phone we’re gonna borrow. Now . . . here’s the thing. We gotta make it seem like she snuck and got a phone without Azrael knowing. So, she’s gonna need to call back and say Azrael was acting weird in New York and didn’t want her to call, but a friend of his—a nice lady in Brooklyn who owns a spa, slipped her a phone.”
Bath Kol looked at Celeste. “They got the first tip-off from Queen’s house, so it stands to reason they’d believe that. Then you’re gonna whisper and act like you’re calling from inside a bathroom so Az can’t hear you, around six thirty when it’s just getting dark. I want you to describe to your aunt’s answering machine what the ship looks like—can’t miss it. Then from there, it’s battle stations. I want you to keep the line open for an incoming call—and you’re probably gonna get that incoming call for the negotiation of the trade, or some kind of contact from them. I’m not sure. That’s where it’s gonna get dicey. Park the bikes; unload the weapons. That’s all I made up so far.”
“The messengers haven’t gotten to her but she’s feeling something,” Malpas said, coming to Nathaniel. “The wires are hot. She left a message for her aunt. She had an eerie feeling and is returning to Philly tonight around six thirty.”
“Good. She should be feeling something. I’d be concerned if she didn’t.”
The waiting was the hard part. The sitting and doing nothing while they rigged the ship to go up like Fourth of July fireworks was crazy-making. The knowing that her aunt Niecey was being held and possibly tortured by demons, an old woman frightened out of her mind, tore Celeste’s heart out of its frame.
But learning how to shoot everything they had in their arsenal helped take the edge off. She’d always been afraid of guns, but given all she’d seen and all they were up against, being able to defend herself gave her a sense of personal power. If they had her aunt, the dark side had drawn a line in the sand—one that she wasn’t afraid to cross to blow their heads off.
Just as Bath Kol predicted, her borrowed cell phone rang a little after seven.
“Remember the plan,” he said, sitting across from her with a map and a crate between them.
The other angels nodded and they gathered in close. Azrael placed a hand on her shoulder when she picked up on the third ring.
“Auntie?” Celeste said, amazed at how her aunt’s home number came up on the caller ID.
“Yeah, baby, you still coming to see me?”
“Of course.” Celeste then dropped her voice. “But Azrael is acting really weird. He’s got me down in the old ship on Christopher Columbus and Oregon that he swears he’s gonna renovate for some on-the-water hotel—him and his brothers. You know men and their big dreams. But he was really adamant about it after we ran into some trouble in New York . . . but I don’t want you to worry. Everything’s fine. I should be there in like a half hour to forty-five minutes, okay?”
“All right, baby. You just take your time and drive safe.”
“Love you. We will. Bye.”
“Bye.”
Celeste hung up the phone. “That wasn’t my aunt.”
“Right you are,” Bath Kol said, standing. “Demons can throw their voices and sound like whoever they want.”
“She knew we weren’t driving when we left, that’s one. Two, she never said, ‘I love you,’ back.” Celeste stood and ruffled her ponytail up from her neck. “Now what?”
“We take a small extraction team up to the abandoned factory warehouse up on Allegheny Avenue and hope most of their forces are headed this way. Our team is ready for whatever they send down here, but let’s just hope that they don’t figure out that we know they’ve got your aunt up there.”
“But won’t they be expecting me to walk in the door up on Ellsworth Avenue at my aunt’s house in West Philly? They’re going to bring her there and make her open the door there.” Celeste looked around at the group. “Right?”
“Or they could have a face-changer greet you at her door while keeping her at the factory,” Isda said. “That’s what Bath Kol should just come out and say to you straight.”
Bath Kol nodded and rubbed his palms down his face.
“They could try to trick you into a trade for nothing,” Azrael said slowly. “Celeste, this was why I wouldn’t promise you, despite what the brothers urged me to say to you.”
She pushed him in the chest hard as hot tears filled her eyes. “I knew she could be at risk! But with all this time we’ve wasted, she could already be tortured or dead! You had me here for hours, waiting so your ambush would work? I don’t care about getting them; I care about saving her!”
“No . . . I didn’t just leave her there as bait. I was trying to figure out the best way to buy some time for her. If we rushed in with heavy artillery, there would be too high a risk for collateral damage—her loss of life, Celeste,” Azrael said carefully, trying to steady her with the calm tone of his voice. “There were and are so many variables, Bath Kol has been trying to keep his visions open, trying to—”
“If she dies or is hurt, I’m kicking all of your asses, we clear?” Celeste pointed at Azrael, then spun on Bath Kol. “You put four fliers up in the air and I’m going to tell you the route they’d most likely have to take. You’re able to blind people to your presence as angels, so do it. If you see my aunt in a car or van in your visions heading toward West Philly, then bum-rush the van. If you can’t find her and there’s no evidence of anyone in the house, meet us back at the factory. Three or four of us can take bikes to West Philly, because if there’s a no-show, it’s easy enough to cut over the back side of West on a chopper, roll over the Girard Avenue bridge, and be in North Central in a heartbeat. We can meet up with you there or we can do the damned thing at the waterfront.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Bath Kol said with a half smile.
Isda nodded and leaned in near Azrael. “No offense, mon, but your ’oman is sexy as hell when she’s pissed off.”
Chapter 18
Riding with a pack of what looked like Hells Angels that were really heaven-sent was somehow surreal. Anger trumped fear as Celeste hung on to Azrael’s shoulders all the way up Oregon Avenue from the waterfront through South Philly. They made a quick jag onto the expressway, taking I-76 West and coming off at the University Avenue exit, packing enough artillery to take out a fair section of the city.
Strange thing was, people only saw them and the bikes. Bath Kol and his unit were masters at making weapons disappear against a chopper. They simply covered the artillery with blue-white angel light, and suddenly the extra bulk appeared to the naked human eye as extra detailing and design on their motorcycles.
Three bikes peeled off from them on University Avenue, going down Woodland Avenue—they took Baltimore Avenue. The connect point would be at opposite ends of Aunt Niecey’s block. Azrael slowed down as they entered her aunt’s street, bumped the bike up on the sidewalk, stomped down the kickstand, then looked back.
“You ready?”
She nodded and took off her helmet. He turned off the motor. Neighbors leaned out of doorways and craned their necks from porches. She could just hear it now: Denise Jackson’s drug-addict niece got her little cousin shot and came home with some big, burly black biker dude. Bath Kol had told her what the dark side had done, and now she seethed with rage just knowing what kind of emotional hell her aunt had to be going through because of the lie.
When she saw Miss Thelma run down the block in her slippers, Celeste cringed. But to her surprise Azrael turned around and pointed back up the block.
His command was simple: “Go home.”
Celeste waited for the normal hand-on-hip, neck-peck who-you-talkin’-to that never came. Miss Thelma looked confused, as if she’d lost something and couldn’t
remember what it was, then shuffled back up the street in her bedroom slippers. Clearly something had happened to Azrael, too. He seemed to be getting stronger, more used to his power here . . . Celeste couldn’t identify it, but he was different.
Listening for sounds in the house, Celeste rang the bell, unable to think about any of that now beyond praying nobody on the block would get hurt if it got crazy inside.
After a moment, she saw her aunt coming toward the door. Azrael put a steadying hand on her shoulder.
“Perceive with your gift, not with your heart,” he said quietly in her ear. “If you see me do something, think twice before you shoot me.”
He stood up straight as the tumblers turned, and she forced a smile. Her aunt opened the door, but didn’t ask for any sugar. Celeste cast Azrael a glance and he caught it.
“Did you have a nice time in New York?” Aunt Niecey said, smiling at both Celeste and Azrael.
Celeste rounded Azrael. “Yeah, Auntie, we had a ball. Az brought a new bike. Come out and see.” Her goal was simple, get the demon impostor out of her aunt’s house. Bath Kol had been very clear about how Azrael’s prayer barriers had been breached. Aunt Neicey let the demons in of her own free will. That had been the only way they could have gotten inside the house. Guised as her favorite reporter, the demon had tricked her aunt into giving them an invitation; tonight Celeste and Azrael would revoke it.
Azrael glanced up as crows began to gather on the telephone lines.
“Aw, baby, I’ll see it later. I’m not dressed. You all come in here and get something to eat.”
“I’m not taking no for an answer,” Celeste said, rushing up to her “aunt” and grabbing her hard by the wrist.
The second they touched, she saw a face behind the face. Azrael yelled no, but the entity yanked Celeste through the door. Azrael was right on Celeste’s heels in time to see her unload two silver shells into what looked like her aunt’s forehead.
“Pull it out of the house,” Celeste said, backing up. “Seal the house again like you did before.”
He yanked the body out by the feet and quickly touched the wall, causing it to light up. Sirens and neighbors were screaming. Then he opened up a light column on the porch as the thing lying at his feet began sitting up.
“Go to Hell!” Azrael said, and reached behind his back and pulled out the machete Isda swore by, beheading the creature.
Celeste turned away. Neighbors shrieked. But the second the head rolled away, the demon’s true face could be seen. Pure black eyes were sunk into the sockets and a mouth filled with gnarled teeth held a deadly grimace. Within seconds it combusted, also sucking the blood from the rug up and down into the fiery swirl that the light column had become. The front door slammed and resealed itself with blue-white light. But thousands of angry ravens exploded from the telephone lines.
Jumping down the front steps, Azrael grabbed Celeste by the waist, hit the pavement, and was on the bike, wielding a machete to fend off the birds, with her behind him. Bikes met them at the corner, and Bath Kol’s men flung blessed liter bottles of spring water into the air and into the center of the attacking flock, then shot the bottles before they hit the asphalt.
Birds fell and burned from contact with the holy water that spread out in the air like napalm. Then suddenly the scorched flock drew together into a screaming, black-leather-clad, dark angel. His once handsome African features were partially melted and bloodied. Fangs lengthened in his mouth as his pitch-black eyes revealed no whites and beheld them with pure hatred. He got up holding his seared face as the motorcycles split up and went in opposite directions. Opening his massive black wings, he took to the air behind Azrael and Celeste.
“Use the machete,” Azrael shouted. “Don’t shoot! He wants you to hit innocent bystanders.”
Celeste ducked down, holding on tightly, and accepted the handoff of the weapon. The sound of huge black wings beating the air behind them made her shut her eyes for a moment, but in that same moment she saw Nathaniel strike her aunt . . . in that same moment a strong hand wound around her ponytail and yanked her head back, and in the next moment her eyes met the eyes of the fallen. There was no scream from her lips as she swung with all her might, and suddenly she was free.
The machete cut through leather, skin, and bone. The arm fell and the dark angel that had been chasing them from the air in sinister swoops and dives touched down. Celeste looked over her shoulder as two choppers skidded in behind theirs, facing the injured beast, and sent a grenade-launched rocket into its chest. She pressed her face against Azrael’s back as embers floated down and sulfur stench filled the air.
“Go to Hell,” he said, then spit, pulling away on a wheelie.
Breathless angels flew in next to Bath Kol and took cover outside the abandoned factory warehouse.
“There was no sign of them on the highway,” one said quietly, hunkering down in the shadows. “Every street Celeste told us to monitor, we did.”
Bath Kol used silent hand signals to position his men around the perimeter and then touched the walls. He shook his head.
“Nothing,” he whispered. “The building is cold. I should have been able to pick up a human heartbeat, though. She’s not here. They’ve been using black magic to block my vision, once they were onto my first visual breach into their lair.”
The moment he said the words, the building vomited demons from every orifice. Crablike creatures with human faces bent into demonic contortions skittered out from the windows and fire escapes, as bat-winged gargoyles took to the air while fast-moving flesh-eaters bore gruesome mouths packed with razor-sharp teeth. The angels unloaded everything they had but the legions seemed to replenish themselves at will.
“Fall back!” Bath Kol ordered. “Fall back! The building is infested!”
A knife in his back made him hurl blood. It got him between his wings, the attacker an expert at angel physiology. Paralyzed, he couldn’t even cry out as the blade twisted.
“Remember me?” a female voice whispered close to his ear as he dropped to his knees. “I might not be able to permanently kill you, immortal . . . but I can make you start over from scratch after you leave this body really, really slowly.” She kissed the side of his sweaty face and licked his ear. “I’ll leave you conscious while they disembowel you . . . you know how demons like to play. Maybe cut off the thing that got you trapped here in the first place . . . either, or . . . both.”
Her blond hair caught on the breeze and flowed over his shoulder, but he couldn’t even reach up to yank her off him. He just stared as demons rushed toward him, his men’s voices becoming so far away. He’d told them to fall back; they had obeyed orders and in the mayhem didn’t see that he was trapped.
Beasts would feed on his flesh; they knew how to keep a man alive for hours . . . days . . . he’d seen the horrors during the old days of Rome . . . during the Inquisition, during so many demonic victories. Tears ran from the corners of his eyes as he choked on his own blood. The sound of a motorcycle made the she-devil stop carving into his back. His tormentor stood, yanking out her huge, serrated-edge bowie knife to defend herself from something moving quickly in a blur.
That’s when he saw Azrael, running toward him, black leather pants, wings outstretched, dreadlocks lifted with blue-white force. Azrael took three hurdler’s leaps and went airborne. Opened both hands and gleaming battle-axes filled them. Throwing the axes like boomerangs, he cleared a path to Bath Kol, severing heads along the way, calling his blades of death back into his grip again and again.
Uzi gunfire ricocheted off Azrael’s gleaming wings as he spun and pivoted midair, using every graceful martial-arts move he’d demonstrated in the density of the Bronx club. He threw an ax at the window and the gunfire stopped. The fleeing blonde dropped to her knees, her head rolling into the weeds before her body fell.
Bath Kol chuckled, although still crumpled on the ground and lying on his side as Azrael came to him. “I’m all fucked-up, man. Got it in the back b
etween my wings. Never saw it coming,” he wheezed, and spit blood.
“Do you want to go home?” Azrael asked, kneeling beside his friend as his eyes compassionately searched Bath Kol’s face.
“No. But I don’t want to be a freaking baby again. I want my old alcohol-and-tobacco-ridden body fixed. Don’t wanna have to be reborn the old-fashioned, human way. I like me and all my flaws.” Bath Kol chuckled again and coughed, but this time closed his eyes. “This hurts like a bitch, man . . . I ain’t gonna lie.”
“If you come with me for a little while, I can get you healed,” a familiar soft voice said. “Let me help you, my stubborn, valiant brother.”
“Jamaerah...”
Azrael stood and crossed his chest with both axes. “Thank you for manifesting my old arms—my blades of death. I never thought I would see them on this side of the ether again. Take care of him and send him back to us as we’ve known him.”
“Manifesting for you, dear brother, is my honor. I will always be in your debt,” Jamaerah said, then lifted Bath Kol away. “Fight well and kill them all.”
“Seal this area!” Azrael shouted, causing the parking lot to implode and open into a yawning inferno. Quickly the edges of concrete liquefied into a giant sinkhole. Abandoned cars, trash, and debris tumbled over the edge of the fiery abyss. “Send everything not of the Light to Hell!”
A huge explosion of demon bodies created a landslide, sucking the building down into the unending pit. Magma slurped at the edges of glowing bricks. Celeste scrambled with the team of angels that guarded her to get out of the way of the ever-widening hole. Ground was crumbling inches away. Angels dragged her forward as bikes toppled into the hellfire. Then just as insanely as it had started, the hole closed up in a snap, leaving a half-destroyed building and residual black smoke.
“We have to get back to the waterfront,” Celeste said breathlessly the second Azrael was at her side.