The Daughter of Zion

by Elicia Hyder

  When I heard the doors close behind him, I grabbed the bars. “Fury? Can you hear me?”

  I knew she could. Even without my supernatural hearing, I could hear Cruz and Nash breathing in the cell beside me.

  “Allison, please answer me.”

  “I…fine.” The swelling, and probably the pain, distorted her speech.

  “Did he hit you?”

  “I hia hia fus.”

  She hit him first. That made me smile, but she clearly couldn’t move her mouth. Her voice was weak and raspy.

  We needed to get out of here.

  “Kane, what are these cuffs made from, and how do we get them off?” I asked him in the cell directly across from mine.

  He looked through the small window in his door. “They’re made of high-Z and neodymium. They work together to create a crippling magnetic field for angels. The only way to get them off without Iliana is with a keystone. We have one, but it’s with Rogan in Manila.”

  “Where did you get it?”

  “Huffman smuggled a set out to us.”

  “So they were developed by the Morning Star?”

  “Az actually started the project, but yeah, the Morning Star finished it. They tested them on Rogan when they had him. It’s how we knew about it.”

  The elevator whooshed through the floors again. This time it was Anya. They put her in the cell with me. Her long hair was disheveled and worry filled her eyes.

  She gripped the bars in the window when the guards were gone. “Fury!”

  No answer.

  Anya turned to me. “Is she OK? Is she hurt?”

  “She’s OK, but I think it probably hurts her to talk. The guard busted her lip open. Did you see what happened?”

  “I didn’t see it, but I heard it. It sounded like he got handsy with her. I think she broke his nose. Did you see the blood when he brought her down?”

  “I did.”

  “Warren, I heard him hit her through the walls. It was hard.”

  I felt sick.

  “You gonna kill him when we get out of here?”

  I looked at her. “Is that even a question?”

  “What a mess.” She raked her fingers through her long hair, taming it back into the elastic band. “What was Iliana thinking?” When she finished retying her hair, she knocked her knuckles against the wall. “We aren’t getting out of here.”

  I didn’t want to confess that I doubted my daughter. But I doubted my daughter.

  The walls were at least a foot thick. They wouldn’t be easy to break through even if they weren’t made from high-Z.

  Cassiel came down next. When they led her past our cell, she finally made eye contact with me. She looked like she might cry, but I doubted she would give the guards the satisfaction.

  The sight of her saddened me. Still in her white dress, two days after I’d first seen her in it. Her exposed skin was dirty and tears had stained her face.

  As angry as she had made me, I wished I could comfort her. Cassiel had once admitted to me she wasn’t cut out for life on Earth. Now she was stuck beneath it in an angelproof cell.

  With Fury.

  The guards pushed her inside and slammed the door.

  “Oh god,” I heard her say a second later.

  I crossed the cell in one long stride. “What’s wrong?” I asked when the guards left again.

  “Fury’s unconscious.”

  Anya pushed in front of me. “Unconscious?”

  “She’s breathing, and her pulse is OK, but she’s out.” A second later, Cassiel groaned. “She has a mandibular fracture.”

  “English, Cassiel,” Kane said.

  “That was English. Her lower jawbone is broken. Her gums are split, and a few teeth are displaced.”

  My fists clenched.

  “Is she going to be OK?” Anya asked, gripping the bars.

  “She’s lost some blood, but I think so. She probably passed out from the pain.”

  Anya’s legs wobbled, and I caught her around the middle before she dropped to her knees. “Iliana can heal her,” I said, shaking her just enough to get her attention.

  Her fingers curled into my shirt. “Where is she?”

  “They haven’t brought her down yet.”

  Anya’s fingers went slack. “They brought her down before me. She’s not here?”

  My chest tightened. “No.”

  “They’re separating us. Samael and Sandalphon were taken elsewhere also. They took them back out the front door,” Nash said from the next cell.

  Anya walked to the corner and slid down the wall. “What do you think that means?” She pulled her knees up and draped her arms across them.

  I paced the cell. “I’d imagine Azrael built something more long term for the Morning Star.” I looked at the ceiling. “She’s on the floor with the vault.”

  “She’s probably in the vault,” I heard Nash say. “Azrael converted it into a high-security cell.”

  “More secure than these?” Kane asked.

  “Yep, but also more livable for long-term prisoners. It has a separate bathroom.”

  “What about Sandalphon and Samael?” Cassiel asked.

  “The Morning Star wants to convert the Angels of Death. He didn’t have any luck with me, so he’s probably starting on Samael. Sandalphon, too, I would assume, since all the angels of Eden respect him.”

  “Think they’ll cave?” Anya asked.

  I shook my head. “Not a chance.”

  Anya leaned her head back against the wall. “What about Sloan and Nate?”

  “I’m hoping Az took them to see Adrianne. From the sound of it, she’s very much in control here.”

  “She is,” Nash agreed.

  “I don’t know Adrianne,” Anya said.

  “She’s Azrael’s wife now. Before all this, she and Sloan were inseparable best friends.”

  “She’s the one who gave birth to the Morning Star?”

  I nodded.

  “When we were back at the airfield, she wasn’t quite as zombie-like as Azrael,” Anya said. She’d been outside the bus to witness it all.

  “What happened?”

  “This really tall woman pulled up in some fancy black SUV and jumped out like she might kill someone.”

  I smiled, but it was sad. “Sounds like Adrianne.”

  “She started to go to Sloan, and the Morning Star got in her way. She fought against him, but he had guards take her back to her car. I think she punched one of them in the ear.”

  My brows drew together. “So she’s not under the Morning Star’s control at all. Interesting.”

  “She wouldn’t be,” Cassiel said.

  I walked to the cell door so I could hear her better. “Why not? She’s a human.”

  “But she shares DNA with the Morning Star. He can’t control her like he can control other humans. Angel-offspring relationships are different.”

  “Kasyade could summon Sloan,” I said.

  “Was she able to control Sloan?” Cassiel asked.

  “No. It would’ve probably made the demon’s job of getting us together a whole lot easier if she could.”

  “Exactly. The Morning Star can influence his earthly mother to a degree, but he can’t outright control her.”

  “So we might have an ally on the inside?” Kane asked.

  “I don’t know if we can call her an ally. Sloan said they hadn’t seen or talked to each other in years,” I said.

  “But she was definitely worried about Sloan,” Anya said. “She was very upset by all of it.”

  “I agree,” Nash said. “Adrianne’s been skeptical about her son for a while.”

  “You know her?” I asked.

  “I worked for them for years before I was deemed a traitor. Adrianne’s probably the only reason I wasn’t killed.”

  The elevator doors opened, and the guards—one of them was Thacker—led Jett past my cell.

  “Hey, we need a doctor down here,” I said as they waited for the door operator to o
pen the cell at the end of the hall.

  “I don’t give a shit what you need.” Thacker didn’t even turn to look at me. “Keep your mouth shut.”

  “She needs a doctor. I fear she’s in danger of bleeding to death,” Cassiel argued.

  I hoped Cassiel was being dramatic in order to get Fury some help.

  “That’s your problem, bitch.”

  A buzzer sounded, and the cell door opened. They put Jett inside. When it closed, they walked past me again.

  “You broke her jaw!” I shouted.

  Thacker stopped in front of my door. “She’s lucky it wasn’t her neck. Stupid cunt.”

  Rage short-circuited my brain. I slammed my fist into the bars. As stars exploded in my vision, I remembered the cell was impenetrable. With an audible crunch, my fingers and knuckles shattered, sending splintered bones slicing through my skin.

  My whole body slumped against the door as Thacker turned toward me. He was laughing.

  Blood splashed onto my boots and the concrete, and I quietly screamed in pain as I cradled the mangled limb against my chest. Anya jumped up to help me.

  “Geez, Warren. What were you thinking?” She stripped down to her sports bra and used her teeth to rip her T-shirt down the middle.

  I slid to the floor as the guards laughed all the way back to the elevator.

  “Let me see it,” Anya said when she’d finished tearing the shirt into several large strips.

  I hid the hand behind my elbow as I held the arm. “I don’t think you want to.”

  “I promise I’ve seen worse. Give it here.”

  When I showed her my hand, she gagged. “Oh my god.

  “I told you it was bad.”

  “It looks like it went through a meat grinder. Holy hell.” She gagged again, turning away like she might actually vomit.

  “Just wrap it as tight as you can. It will heal.”

  “An injury like this will take a while, even for you.”

  Holy shit, it hurt. I was an idiot. A bullheaded idiot.

  “Try to hold still.” Anya draped the first strip of fabric over my knuckles, which were the worst. Bone and cartilage poked through the skin. She wrapped the fabric around once more before tying it tight against my palm.

  I swore, gritting my teeth as the pain ripped through my entire arm.

  Our friends were talking through the other cells, but I had no idea what they were saying, nor could I care at that moment.

  When Anya finally finished, I exhaled for the first time in what felt like minutes. My fingers were going numb from the loss of blood, which I was honestly thankful for.

  “Better?” she asked with a grimace.

  “It will be. Shit, that was stupid.”

  “You’ve gotten too dependent on your powers. You’ve forgotten that even you have limits.”

  “Warren, are you okay?” Cassiel’s voice echoed down the hallway.

  “Yeah. I’ll be fine.” Blood seeped through the strips of fabric.

  “What did you do?” Cassiel asked.

  “He thought he could punch through the bars,” Anya answered for me.

  “I don’t recommend trying it,” I said.

  “Es en ket?” Reuel asked.

  “Remember when that train crushed your arm in Chicago?” I asked, leaning against the door.

  “Tek.”

  “It’s not quite that bad, but there’s a lot of bone showing.” I turned back toward the window, bracing my shoulder against it. “Cassiel, how’s Fury?”

  “Still unconscious, and for her sake, I hope she stays that way.”

  “We need Iliana,” Kane said.

  I don’t think I’d ever heard him say he needed anyone or anything in all the time I’d known him.

  “She’s here somewhere. I watched them bring her down,” Jett said.

  I looked out the window. A piece of my flesh had splattered onto the metal. “She didn’t come to this floor.”

  “Wherever she is, we need to get her out,” Jett said. “The Morning Star has no need for her now that he’s destroyed the spirit line. I fear he means to kill her.”

  I thought of Orin guarding Iliana with his sword. “Got any bright ideas on how to do that?”

  No one answered.

  “Huffman,” Kane finally said, looking at me from across the hall. “Maybe he’ll find out we’re here and break us out.”

  “That’s a tall order for a human,” Cruz said.

  We were all quiet for a long time. Anya and I both sat down on the floor again. My hand had begun to heal, and the blistering pain made my eyes water. With gritted teeth and toes curled in my boots, I tried to think of an escape.

  There wasn’t one.

  Quiet moaning broke the silence.

  Fury.

  I jumped up.

  “She’s waking up,” Cassiel said with a sickened tone. “This is going to be bad.”

  Before long, the groaning became a stifled wail. I thumped my head against the cell bars.

  Cassiel quietly consoled her. “Fury, I know it hurts, but we’re going to get you some help. Try to be as still as possible.”

  I leaned my forehead against the door as her cries seared my spirit. Even more than my hand, everything inside me ached for her.

  “Wah-en,” she said.

  “He’s close by,” Cassiel told her.

  “Wah-en,” she said again, more forceful but just as distorted.

  “What?” Cassiel asked.

  I straightened. “What is it?”

  “She’s pointing up,” Cassiel answered.

  Kane popped up in his window. “Cassiel, is Fury wearing cuffs?”

  “No.”

  I looked at the ceiling again.

  Anya stood beside me. “Fury can see power.”

  “Even through these walls?” Kane asked.

  Mentally, I crossed my fingers. “Maybe so.”

  “Shh, listen,” Cassiel said.

  There was a faint whirr above us, like a saw cutting through metal…

  Like a saw cutting through steel, lead, and high-Z.

  It was right above us.

  I pushed Anya back against the wall as pebbles and dust began to fall from our ceiling. A crack of light broke through, shining like a spotlight and illuminating our cell. Concrete crashed in big chunks onto the floor as a bright hole opened wider and wider.

  Finally, the light dimmed.

  My sword clattered to the ground. Reuel’s fell on top of it. Then a third fell onto both of them.

  Iliana stuck her head through the hole. “I told you I’d get us off that island, didn’t I?”

  Chapter Ten

  “Orin came to kill me,” Iliana said as she curled her hands around the cuffs binding my wrists. They turned ice-cold and frosted over. Then they shattered in fragments of ice—not metal any longer. “He failed.”

  “He’s dead?” Anya asked.

  “No, when I took his sword, he grabbed a human shield. But I pushed them both into the tiny bathroom and sealed the door. They won’t be going anywhere for a while, and that’s five swords accounted for.”

  “Damn,” I said, my voice full of awe.

  Iliana smiled.

  Dad-mode switched back on. “We could have found another way off the island. You could’ve gotten hurt, or worse.”

  Her brow crumpled. “You knew I could break through high-Z.”

  I did?

  “The panic-room door,” Anya said.

  My eyes widened, remembering the story Nathan had told us at dinner our first night back.

  “And I did that in middle school. You think this place is going to stop me?” She smirked.

  “How did you get the other swords back?” Anya asked.

  “Orin carried them into my cell in a case marked Armory. I assume he was going to take all three of them there after he killed me. Idiot.” She turned my arm over, examining the bloody makeshift bandages. “What did you do?”

  “Lost his temper and punched the door,�
�� Anya answered.

  With a sigh, my daughter shook her head and started to unwrap the bandages.

  “Wait.” I grabbed her hand. “We don’t have much time, and Fury needs your help.”

  “What’s wrong with Fury?”

  “One of the guards shattered her jaw,” Anya said.

  Iliana started on Anya’s cuffs, but she looked at me. “Guess he’s a dead man.”

  “Why does everyone just assume I’m a lethal maniac? Anya asked the same thing,” I said.

  “You love her,” Iliana replied with a shrug.

  I picked up my sword and eased my injured arm through the scabbard’s strap. “I do love her, but I’m not just going to kill every human who—”

  “Are you going to kill him?” Iliana asked.

  “Well, yeah, but—”

  “Men.” Iliana rolled her eyes and shared a smile with Anya.

  “Oh, shut up and get us out of here,” I said, turning toward the door.

  She laughed.

  Once Anya’s cuffs were gone, Iliana blasted through the cell door like it was made of glass rather than impenetrable metal. Anya nudged me with her elbow. “Your kid is a badass.”

  I smiled. “Don’t I know it.”

  Iliana went straight to Cassiel and Fury’s cell without having to ask which one they were in. She opened the cell door with me and Anya right behind her.

  Cassiel was on the floor, holding Fury’s head in her lap. Fury’s face was so swollen now, she was almost unrecognizable. Blood was crusted all around her mouth and in dried rivers across her cheeks.

  I hung back as Iliana went inside for fear that as an Angel of Death, I might inadvertently make Fury’s pain worse.

  Iliana dropped to her knees and conjured bright white light into her hands. Cassiel shielded Fury’s eyes from the light as Iliana lowered it toward Fury’s chin.

  She cried out when my sensitive ears heard the jawbone snap back into place. My stomach lurched for her. As often is the case, the only thing more painful than the injury was its healing.

  It was over a moment later, and Iliana moved out of the way so I could pull Fury off Cassiel’s lap and cradle her in my arms instead. As I kissed Fury’s damp forehead, I saw Cassiel’s dress.

  The white was stained red with Fury’s blood.

  “Thank you,” I said, pointedly looking into Cassiel’s icy blue eyes.

  She nodded.