Sons of Angels

by Rachel Green

  “Why? I’m not mad, and neither are you.”

  “Try to convince other people of that when they think you’re talking to yourself at the bus stop. If it wasn’t for Wrack...”

  “Why? What does Wrack do for you?”

  “He keeps me sane.” Julie reached up to stroke the imp under the chin. “He keeps all the others away from me so I can get some peace.”

  The creature began to purr, but still kept an eye on Felicia.

  “Where did you meet him? He seems quite...attached to you.”

  “He came in with another patient, but they were always arguing. When... What was his name?”

  “Terry.” The imp changed position, twisting his head. Felicia could hear the bones cracking. “He was such a tosser.”

  “Terry, yes. When Terry came in, he was quite violent and a lot of the staff were frightened of him. They sedated him and gave him electro-convulsive therapy, pronounced him cured and sent him home.”

  “I didn’t like the electrics.” Wrack’s tail curled and uncurled as he spoke. “They played havoc with my sleep patterns.”

  “So there he was, wandering around the wards looking for someone to talk to, and he found me.”

  “This would be about two years ago?”

  Julie nodded. “That’s right. The World Cup was on television. How did you know that?”

  “That was when the hospital wrote to me to say that you were ‘responding to treatment’ and had calmed down considerably but still needed further observation.”

  “Wrack began keeping away the ghosts. They don’t mean any harm but there are so many of them, all trying to talk at once. It’s bedlam in here, sometimes.”

  “I’m going to get you out. You can come and live with me.”

  “With you?” Julie gave a bark of laughter. “You’d hate me after five minutes.”

  Chapter 9

  Felicia ran along the hospital paths, past the rose beds and the shrubbery, the privet hedges and the sculpted yews. She’d always used running as a means of clearing her head and discarding what was unimportant. Her father had taught her as much when she still lived at home. “Exercise clears the mind,” he used to say. “Keep up, Felicia.” Now her head was spinning with Julie’s revelations. What was a Changed and why had it happened to her? She wanted to go back to when life was ordinary.

  The matron at the hospital had been unsympathetic about getting her sister discharged. There was a lot of paperwork involved, and she was not in a position to help her fill out forms. Felicia would have to make an appointment with Julie’s consultant, who wasn’t available on a Sunday. Even doctors, apparently, had homes and families.

  By the time she’d finished, all the talk of release forms and care procedures had given Felicia a headache. The scar on her shoulder throbbed.

  So she ran, ignoring Julie on the bench, to the poplar trees at the edge of the grounds. It had all started with the sex on Friday night. The girl with the broken tooth had infected her.

  She reached the trees. Running was cathartic and her thoughts were running faster than she. What was the girl’s name? Gemma?

  Felicia tripped and fell, sprawling onto the hard ground with the full weight of her body. “Damn.” She spat blood onto the baked earth and put a hand to her bruised lip. She stood, wincing at the pain from her cut leg. Perhaps it wasn’t such a good idea to go running in a long skirt.

  She had no warning of the branch that hit her in the face. She fell backward, smacking the ground and narrowly missing a stone that would have cracked her head in two. The world went gray again as her anger flared and a man appeared right where she’d been standing.

  “What the hell?” Felicia stumbled back, raising her fists, but the man laughed and dropped the branch.

  “Hold it!” His voice had a melodic timbre. “I had to provoke your gift.”

  “Who the hell are you?” Felicia stood, her heart pumping, ready to run.

  The figure stepped closer. He was taller than Felicia by several inches and had one of those faces that looked anywhere between forty and sixty, full of crow’s feet and laughter lines. His gray hair was cut short in a tonsure and she was put in mind of Derek Jacobi wearing a fifties-style suit. “Someone amused by your repetitive speech. I thought you possessed of more education.”

  “You still haven’t said who you are.” Felicia’s hands clenched.

  “Have a guess.” He stretched his arms and white wings unfolded from its shoulder blades.

  Felicia gaped. “You’re an angel?”

  “Perhaps.” The white feathers changed to dark membrane stretched over a skeletal frame. “Or a demon.” The wings turned gray, then brown. “Or something in between. I am Taliel. Your grandmother called me Tally.”

  “You knew my grandmother?”

  “Intimately.” Taliel stepped closer, his form shifting into that of a young man. “We were lovers, once, a long time ago. She had my child.”

  “Aunty Glad? That explains a lot.”

  “No.” Taliel looked toward the hospital. “Your mother. Your mother is nephilim, which means a child of the elohim, the host of God.”

  Felicia frowned. “What does that make me? Is what’s happening to me your fault?”

  Taliel shrugged. “Genetically, yes, though the child of a nephilim can remain mundane. Something triggered your change.”

  “Someone.”

  Taliel nodded. “Or someone, yes. The question is why?”

  * * * *

  Felicia awoke in the street, her head pounding, her body sore. Why was she lying on the ground? Where was Julie? What was that tantalizing smell? She stumbled to her feet, brushing off the worst of the dust and dirt from her clothes. She had no idea where her car was but her head was pounding enough for a bottle full of mescal worms to have taken residence. The sky had deepened to a shade of Prussian blue and the streetlights were flickering on.

  One thing she was certain of was she’d lost several hours of time. It was already dark. She remembered meeting Taliel but since then, nothing.

  She ran her tongue across her lip, looking for the bruise, but her lips were full and whole, and her leg bore no trace of the cut she’d received when she had fallen. A hand to the forehead revealed no wound from Taliel’s branch either, though her fingernails scraped off traces of dried blood, proving she hadn’t dreamt the whole exchange.

  Where was she?

  She blinked, and the world shifted into pinpoint focus in monochrome. Splashes of color intruded–lines and trails marking where people had walked, dogs and cats had prowled and a thin green line along the gutter where a rat had run. Bright splashes of yellow overlaid the trails where dogs had urinated.

  She caught the scent of children’s sweat and ice cream, and knew where she was. The Royal Park was over to the east, the gallery north. Familiar territory. There was a dance club two streets away.

  Felicia began walking. She wanted something, but was unsure what. Food perhaps, or sex. Her thoughts crowded into each other. Sex was food, wasn’t it? She increased her pace, her strides lengthening. Prey was food.

  She entered the club with barely a glance at the doormen, dropping money on the counter without even checking the amount. They allowed her in without comment.

  Felicia could smell the heat of desire emanating from the groups of dancers, their lust a deep red tinged with the mauve of desire. It was almost a living organism in itself and she followed it to the upper floors, the crush of velvet overwhelming and intoxicating. All the pseudo-vampires and potential suicides were lined with a swirl of yellow need.

  She picked one at random. A female she vaguely recognized. Her scent was musky, a purple of decay overlaying the basic red of lust that Felicia zeroed in upon, crossing the intervening space in seconds and whisking the girl away from her gaggle of sycophantic friends faster than she could voice an objection.

  “Do you–”

  Felicia silenced her objection with a kiss, holding her head with both hands and forcing h
er tongue into her mouth. She struggled for a moment before melting into Felicia’s grip, surrendering to dominance and the promise of sex.

  Felicia shifted her hand to the girl’s waist, pulling her in close and sliding one leg between the girl’s, holding her upright with a thigh and increasing the pressure. She took the hint and moved with the music, performing tribadism while Felicia sucked the breath from her body.

  Felicia wrapped her fist in dark hair, pulling the girl’s head back to expose her neck and planting open-mouthed kisses along her throat, the girl’s scent turning almost black with want as she shook under a small orgasm. Felicia’s teeth grazed the skin, feeling the strong pulse through her lips and tongue. She slid her hand up the taut bodice, and her sense of red desire turned electric blue with sudden pain.

  She yanked backward, stumbling into the pair of barely-legals behind her as she raised her hand to the light. A thin black line was etched into her palm, the mirror image of the chain that the girl was wearing. A silver chain. The music was suddenly louder than she could bear and Felicia felt close to vomiting.

  “Wait!” The girl hurried after her as she fled the dance floor, intent upon finding the toilets, but Felicia ignored her, the pain a far more pressing matter than the prey.

  Felicia stumbled into the bathroom and crashed through the door of the first open cubicle, the pounding music threatening to split open her head. She dropped the lid, ignoring the mess of fecal matter and condoms floating in the water, and slumped, cradling her stomach with her arms, her head bowed until it rested against her knees.

  She fought the nausea then reviewed its possible cause. Drink? No. She’d been on water. Food? None since lunchtime.

  “How long are you going to be in there?” The cute twenty-something with whom she’d been dancing banged on the door. She was all black velvet and silver jewelry, but she’d be good for a one night stand.

  Felicia looked up. It was as if she could see through the door, for there was little Miss Vampire Chic outlined in the colors of musk, blood and sexual excitement. She grinned, her pain forgotten. “Coming.”

  * * * *

  Felicia howled.

  The scents were unfamiliar and for the second time in one night she had no idea where she was or how she had got here. She blinked weary eyes and focused upon green trunks and leaves. A garden? She stretched and yawned, judging it to be an hour before dawn. Long past her bedtime. She looked at her hand, still marked with the black line across the palm. Since when had she been allergic to silver? That would be damned inconvenient. She often dealt with silver in the artworks she displayed. Perhaps the chain had been dipped in something corrosive.

  She shivered, realizing she was naked. How often did that happen? She shook her head, wishing she could remember what had happened between the club and here, and took stock of her situation.

  First priority was to find clothes. Naked on the street on a weekday morning was an option likely to get her arrested, or worse. The thought caused her nails to slide out and harden. She stared at them, too numb to be surprised by anything more. She lifted them to her mouth and bit the end of one. They were hard as steel. Well, nothing worse than arrested, then. Second priority was to get home, shower and cancel her credit cards. She would report the purse as stolen.

  She stood to look over the bushes and discovered she was in the large garden of a house near, by the scent of the air, Laverstone Woods.

  The wall was easy to vault and Felicia soon found herself next to a line of parked cars. She looked into each of them, finding a bag of clothes in the third. Trusting her new ability to heal, she punched straight through the window and grabbed the bag, her muscles propelling her a hundred yards away before the alarm had even begun its second trill. This was fantastic. She’d always been fit but this was like the superhero films at the cinema. This was Batgirl without the gadgets, Wonder Woman without the tan. All those hours of gym membership had finally made a difference. Whatever the little chic chick had slipped in her drink obviously agreed with her.

  She changed into the liberated clothes quickly, lamenting the absence of shoes, and ventured out, turning this way and that to get her bearings.

  She sagged beneath a sudden weight on her back and pain spread like acid across her neck. Felicia threw herself backward against the nearest wall, slamming into it and dropping to the ground. A figure sprang away then turned to face her–a face from a thousand late-night horror movies. Chic chick had nothing on this one. This woman dressed the part, right down to the black contact lenses and pointed canines, to say nothing of the leather jacket and white blouse.

  * * * *

  Gillian leaped back and spat out blood, forcing her esophagus to convulse and vomit out the few mouthfuls she had ingested. That was a close call. The girl looked human enough. Comely rather than pretty, a shoulder-length flow of black hair framing an apple face. She didn’t look like a werewolf. Had she been hungrier she wouldn’t have been able to stop herself draining the bitch. She was tempted to rip the girl’s head off as a matter of course, though the short dark fur was unusual in the species and the partial transformation indicated she was newly initiated. Her long limbs would give her an advantage in a fight and those claws could do significant damage.

  She aimed a kick at the prone form. Her steel-tipped leather boots connected with a satin-soft cheek. The flesh tore but began to knit immediately, a bruise flushing purple beneath the surface, fading to yellow and vanishing in the blink of an eye.

  Gillian spat again onto the girl’s face. “You can stand up now. I’m not going to kill you. Not yet, anyway. Who are you, and why are you here? This is my turf, bitch, and I didn’t authorize a dog pack.”

  The girl leaped up and launched into an attack. Gillian sidestepped and caught her with a horizontal kick, felling her once again.

  “I said, stand up. Do you speak English or should I bark?” Gillian crouched, an aggressive stance that could propel her in any of six directions.

  The girl struggled upright. “Enough. I submit, or whatever it is you want.” She reached up and touched the wound on her neck, staring at the amount of blood. “What are you? Some kind of vampire?”

  “You seem so surprised. Didn’t you believe we existed?”

  The girl shrugged. “Well, to be honest, no. I thought it all romantic literature and the latest chic.”

  “Tch. A werewolf that doesn’t believe in vampires. I didn’t think I’d die to see the day.”

  “What makes you think I’m a werewolf?”

  “I can smell it.”

  “I don’t understand.” The girl sat on the pavement, her legs curled beneath her. “How can I be a werewolf? I’ve never met one.”

  “You must have. You’re one of the Changed, a denizen of the night. I can hurt you and you can hurt me.” Gillian shrugged. “Well, you could if you were quick enough.”

  “It would explain a lot of what’s been happening to me.” She looked away. “If anyone had asked me if I believed in werewolves and vampires a week ago I would have laughed in their face.”

  “Are there others of your kind? Where do they hang out? The last thing I need is a dog pack running about.”

  “There aren’t any others. Not that I know about, anyway. Only my sister, and she’s different. She sees dead people. Why did this happen to me? Last Friday I was normal.”

  “Why should I care?” Gillian pursed her lips. Whatever this dog was, she wasn’t dangerous. “Very well. I could try to find out. Give me your address and I’ll meet you tonight.”

  “Why not now?” The dog’s fists clenched, but Gillian laughed. “Not now. It’s nearly dawn.”

  “Oh, right. Sorry.” The girl reeled off her address. “What time?”

  “Sundown is at nine-twenty. Call it ten. I’m Gillian, by the way.”

  “Felicia. How will you...”

  Gillian left her.

  Chapter 10

  Felicia started walking.

  Even without shoes the few mil
es back to her flat was easy, though she tried to keep to the paved areas and grass verges rather than the gritty tarmac. She soon fell into an easy lope and from there it was all the more natural to run. Besides, running barefoot was becoming popular these days and she was less likely to draw attention to herself.

  Where had the hours gone?

  She thought about her lost time. She had no recollection between the hospital and the club, or between the club and meeting the vampire. It had never occurred to her such things really existed. Was she really a werewolf? Was she going to rip off her blouse and kill people in tight trousers every full moon?

  She couldn’t bear to think about it. Why couldn’t she just go back to her normal life? Would that be so hard?

  It was for Julie. She’d been driven mad by her gift. Felicia gave a bark of laughter, startling a woman waiting for an early bus, who looked with disgust at the bare-footed runner. What of her supposed grandfather, Taliel? An earth-bound angel was even harder to believe in than a vampire.

  In order to understand any of this, she had to go back to the beginning. How far back was that? Was it when the girl bit her last Friday or was it when her grandmother had an affair with an angel? Weren’t angels supposed to be sexless? Or was it earlier than that?

  She sped past a man with an Alsatian, which shrank back against its master’s legs growling, and another problem occurred to her. How were Harold and Mr. Jasfoup going to react to their basement tenant being a mythological killer?

  When she arrived at her flat, using the spare key she hid under the dustbin to get in, she collapsed on the sofa. Those missing hours hadn’t been spent sleeping. She was physically exhausted.

  Felicia set her alarm for mid-day and allowed herself to sleep, drifting into dreams of claws and blood. She awoke to the alarm, slamming her hand down on the clock so hard she crushed it. Felicia rubbed sleep from her eyes, disorientated that the sun was high in the sky already. With a jolt she realized she could see the numbers without her glasses or contact lenses. Her vision had returned to twenty-twenty.