by A. L. Larsen
“No. Absolutely not,” I said, my face still in his shoulder.
“Why not? Are you worried I’ll be too frightening?”
“No. I’m worried you’ll be too beautiful. You’re already almost more than I can take. If I look at you now and you’re even more beautiful than usual, I think my heart might actually explode.”
“That would be unfortunate.” I could hear the smile in his voice.
“You know, for someone that just turned into a mythical winged entity, you sound exactly the same,” I pointed out.
“I feel the same, too. I still feel like me. I really didn’t think I would. I was convinced that the Alastair you knew would cease to exist when I was like this.”
“But here you are,” I said with a smile.
“Yes, here I am,” he said. “You sure you don’t want to take a look at me?”
“Why is this important to you?” I countered.
“I just…I need to know you’re not afraid of me,” he said softly.
I pulled my head back. And then I opened my eyes.
For a moment, I was completely blinded. But then my eyes adjusted to the light, and I tilted my head back to look into Alastair’s face.
“You’re smiling,” he said. “That’s a good sign.”
“You are still you,” I said. “You’re still Alastair.”
“Do I look any different?”
“Not really. I mean, aside from the fact that you’re radiating this pure, white light. And ok, you have – yeah, I can’t actually look at your wings right now, because that’s just a little more than my brain can process. But you still absolutely look like my Alastair.”
“Your Alastair,” he said with a smile. “I like that.”
“Me too,” I cuddled against him again. After a moment I said, “I don’t know why Joey thought angels were scary.”
“He said full-blooded angels are frightening because they’re so otherworldly. Apparently nephilim are another thing all together.”
I noticed the sound of yelling off in the distance, over the rush of the wind. “Speaking of Joey, I assume that’s him I’m hearing.”
“It is. He actually hasn’t stopped swearing since Athos scooped him up and flew him out the window. He has an exceptionally colorful vocabulary.”
I turned my head and looked down, then immediately buried my face in Alastair’s shoulder again. We were really high up, flying over the outskirts of Las Vegas, just a few scattered lights far below us. “You know,” I said after a bit, “That running toward the broken window maneuver back at the hotel was really gutsy. You were that sure you’d transform, huh?”
“I had my doubts, but I relied on your steadfast belief. You absolutely knew I could do it.”
“That’s true. But how did you know I was thinking that?”
“Because I can smell fear. And even when you realized I was about to run us out a top story window, you still weren’t afraid. You simply believed in me.”
“I’ve always had faith in you, Allie. And you’ve never let me down.”
“And what a terribly literal way of letting you down that would have been, had I in fact not been able to transform after I’d hurled us out that window,” he said.
“Yeah, but it didn’t happen.”
I adjusted my grip on him, then tentatively slid a hand down his broad shoulders, feeling his powerful muscles flexing and releasing. I kept sliding my hand down until my little finger grazed something extraordinary soft, right about at his shoulder blade. And then I ran that same fingertip hesitantly over the softness in short little strokes.
Alastair chuckled. “Are you petting me?”
I smiled at that. “Kind of. I’m trying to slowly wrap my head around the fact that you have wings. It’s not an easy concept to process. But they feel really good, I’ve never felt anything that soft. And I guess I’m touching them as a way of slowly acclimating myself to them.”
He kissed the top of my head and said, “Whatever works.”
After a couple minutes he told me, “The Order is closing fast. All four of them got away from the mob back on the Strip. We’re going to have to land and get ready to face them.”
I glanced around and saw we were over empty desert now, the lights of Las Vegas behind us in the distance, a highway miles to our left. We began to descend, coasting smoothly, the only sound the rush of air past my ears. In just a couple minutes Alastair and I were on the ground. He set me down gingerly, and then took a couple steps back from me.
“I’m going to try to revert back,” he said. “So if you want to see me in this form, it might be your last chance for a while.”
I turned toward him and my breath caught. He was crouched down, one knee and one hand on the ground, looking up at me. And he was framed by two huge, perfect, downy wings, each at least seven feet long, the purest pristine white and illuminated like the rest of him. “Wow,” I murmured.
He grinned at that, and then he closed his eyes and concentrated. Athos and Joey landed a few feet away, but I didn’t take my eyes off Alastair. And suddenly, it was as if he gathered all the light back into himself, extinguishing the radiance in an instant, the wings vanishing. He stood and said, “Hey, I did it.” He still glowed very subtly, so he was clearly visible in the predawn darkness.
“That was absolutely extraordinary,” I told him, and crossed the desert to him and gave him a hug. I touched bare skin on his back, through the gashes in his t-shirt where his wings had torn right through the thin cotton fabric.
“Hate to interrupt,” Athos said, “but we have incoming Order in about sixty seconds.”
We all lined up shoulder to shoulder, and I reached down into my boot and pulled out the little snake knife. I had dropped it when Alastair grabbed me and jumped out the window, and it had instantly reappeared in its usual place.
“Remember what I told you, Allie,” Athos said, crouching slightly and clutching the blade Joey had given him earlier. “The red haired one is overconfident, often leaves his midsection exposed. The north African has poor peripheral vision. The blonde always fakes left but always dodges right. And the tall one with black hair, Zane…well, he doesn’t actually have any weaknesses.”
The four nephilim were almost upon us, their wings stirring the night as they lit up the surrounding area. They were absolutely huge, bigger even than Athos and Alastair. I swallowed against the dryness in my throat, and wiped my sweaty palms on my jeans. “Get behind me, Lu,” Joey whispered.
“No.”
“This is no time for heroics. Get behind me!” Joey hissed.
“I have Knifey, and I intend to use him,” I told him.
“The very fact that you assigned your weapon a nickname and a gender tells me you’re not qualified for this fight,” Joey said.
“Bite me, Joey.”
“If only.”
The Order surrounded us, each as precisely positioned as the hands of a compass rose when they touched down. We closed up our formation, pressing back to back to back, and Alastair took my free hand in his.
“Athos,” the biggest one, presumably Zane, said, his voice deep and full of authority. “So this is how your life ends, slain in the desert beside a pair of murderous vampires. What a terrible waste of a noble nephilim heritage. And who’s that you’ve gotten to help you? A little human girl? How deliciously pathetic.”
“Yeah, you’re gonna pay for that comment, jerk,” I ground out between clenched teeth.
They circled us slowly, perfectly in step with one another, each holding two long knives. They were still in angel form, bare-chested, their enormous wings unfurled behind them, making them look even bigger than they already did – and not one of them was shorter than six-six.
They were taking their time. Waiting for something. I couldn’t imagine what.
And then, suddenly, I realized what their game was. The sky in the direction I was facing was just beginning to lighten slightly, the faintest traces of pink visible over the mountains in
the distance. And we were in the middle of open desert, no shelter anywhere.
“They’re stalling,” I exclaimed. “They’re waiting for the sunrise, which will take out Joey and Allie. By the looks of it, sunrise is only a few minutes off.”
“You’re right,” Joey muttered. “So we’d better kill them quickly.” And in the next instant he was skirmishing with the blonde haired nephilim.
Athos ran at Zane, and immediately the other two nephilim descended on him with wild, inhuman cries, weapons slashing. Apparently taking out Athos, the traitor, was their top priority.
In the next moment Alastair was in the battle as well, pulling the red-haired warrior off his half-brother. The two began to fight viciously. It didn’t seem to matter that Alastair didn’t actually have a weapon as he landed blow after blow with his fists and with well-placed kicks, all while expertly dodging the two long blades.
My breath was coming fast as I pivoted repeatedly, watching all three fights at once. Each was happening about twenty yards from me, all the supernaturals moving at such astonishing speed that it was hard to follow the action. I wanted to step in, but at the rate they were all moving, I couldn’t be sure that I wouldn’t accidentally catch Alastair or Joey or Athos with my blade, instead of one of the Order.
The scene was perfectly illuminated by the glowing nephilim, but gradually, it was becoming illuminated by the rising sun as well. I turned toward the mountains in a panic. The sky was warming. It was just a matter of minutes before the sun would appear over the ridge.
Joey was most at risk from the rising sun, he’d ignite instantly. Alastair was more resilient, he could last a few minutes in direct sunlight. I made a decision and ran toward Joey, who was wrestling with the blonde nephilim, growling as he dodged a swinging blade, then flipping the nephilim to the ground before the warrior drove a boot into Joey’s midsection and sent him flying backwards.
I screamed his name, and when Joey turned his head to look at me, I tossed him my knife. His hand closed around it just as the blonde half-angel fell on him, blades drawn back, prepared to strike.
Like flipping a switch, the nephilim went totally limp on top of Joey, and was thrown off onto the dusty ground a moment later. His eyelids fluttered for only a moment before he died.
Joey jumped to his feet and smiled at me. This was slightly unnerving, because he was spattered with blood and his fangs were fully extended. My knife was totally covered in the nephilim’s blood, as was Joey’s hand up to his wrist, obviously having been plunged into the now-dead warrior along with the knife. “Thanks for loaning me Knifey,” he said cheerfully, his green eyes sparkling. He was absolutely, without a doubt, in his element.
He was made for this.
Joey turned toward the other fights then, and rapidly assessed the situation. And then he drew his hand back and hurled my knife across fifty yards of desert, where it embedded deeply between the wings of the red-haired warrior that Alastair had been fighting.
Allie stepped back in surprise as the nephilim collapsed before him. His eyes were alight with blue fire as he turned to look at us. Joey gave him a little salute, and then I grabbed him by the shoulders and turned him toward me.
“Joey, the sun’s almost up. You need to seek shelter. Now.”
He turned toward the sunrise and swore under his breath, then looked at me and said, “You’re right. You’re going to need to get Alastair to cover, too – he can only last about six or seven minutes in sunlight before he ignites. Be careful, Cupcake.” He kissed my cheek, and in the next instant he was gone, a swirling trail of dust the only indication of which direction he’d headed.
Alastair and Athos were now locked in battle with the two remaining nephilim, who were clearly fighting as a team. Zane and the other warrior were back to back in a defensive position, countering Athos and Alastair’s every attack expertly. Although the north African warrior was severely injured, it looked like the Order could hold the brothers off for hours in that position – and we most definitely didn’t have hours.
I ran to the fallen red-haired nephilim to retrieve my knife, and found it sticking out of a bloody, shriveled, almost mummified corpse. The body’s wings had vanished, its form simply human. I shuddered and plucked my knife out gingerly. It was still completely coated in blood. The two intertwined metal snakes that comprised the knife’s handle uncoiled slightly, undulating in my hand before wrapping themselves securely around the dark blue gem at the weapon’s base. The stone was glowing steadily. All of that was more than a little eerie, and I murmured, “I’m glad you’re on my side, Knifey, because that’s some disturbing stuff.”
Alastair and Athos were side by side, about to make another run at all that remained of the Order, when I joined them and held up the knife by its blade, where Zane could clearly see it. “This has already taken out two of your cohorts,” I said loudly. “And if you insist on sticking around, I’ll make sure it finishes the job.”
Zane stared at the blade in disbelief before meeting my gaze and asking, “What are you?”
“A little human girl. With the power to kill you,” I replied, calling on all the bravado I could muster.
He hesitated a long moment, looking at the blade, then at Athos and Alastair. “This isn’t over,” Zane said. And then he launched into the air with a powerful push of his wings, and took off back toward the city.
The remaining injured warrior wavered for a moment when his comrade took off, then lunged at Athos with a menacing growl. He didn’t stand a chance. In the next instant he was falling at Athos’ feet, his body already shrinking, aging a hundred years, two hundred, as he hit the ground.
I spun on Alastair as the sky went fully rose and gold and pink, and exclaimed, “Allie, the sun’s going to appear over those mountains in about a minute. You need to seek shelter right now. Athos and I will catch up.”
Alastair kissed me quickly and said, “I love you, Lu. Please be careful.” He glanced at Athos. “You be careful too, brother.” And then he was gone, headed in the same direction as Joey.
Athos looked much the worse for wear. His long hair hung loose around his shoulders, and his bare torso was covered in blood and dirt. He sunk to his knees and caught his breath, but for only a few seconds. Then he pushed himself to his feet again and said, “We don’t have much time. We need to get to the hospital to help Bryn, after figuring out a way to round up Alastair and Joey. But first, I need to bury these men. Help me find something to dig with.”
That surprised me, but I did as he asked. I searched around, and lucked into an old, rusted automobile bumper, which I brought to him.
Once again showing superhuman strength, Athos used a curved end of the bumper like a shovel, and in only a few minutes managed to dig three shallow graves in the hard-packed desert earth. He carefully placed each of the bodies in the graves and covered them over, then said what sounded like a prayer in Latin, his head bowed.
He came over to me then and picked up my hand wordlessly, and we began walking in the direction Alastair and Joey had gone.
Chapter Sixteen
Athos was quiet for a while before saying, “I know we need to hurry, and I’ll revert to angel form and carry you in just a bit. I just need to give my body another minute or two to heal.”
“Are you hurt?”
He nodded and pulled his hair aside to reveal a deep stab wound in his back. He let his hair fall again as he said, “It came out here.” He lightly touched a small wound above his navel.
“Oh my God, we have to get you to a hospital!”
But he was shaking his head. “I’m only half-human, remember? A human doctor wouldn’t know what to make of me. And besides, it’s healing fine on its own.”
“Does it hurt?”
He raised an eyebrow at me and grinned just a little. “A sword passed all the way through me. What do you think?”
“Well, it didn’t stop you from fighting. Or digging three graves. So who knows?” I countered.
�
��That had to be done. The pain was irrelevant.”
“Do you always bury the bodies of your enemies?”
“Those men weren’t my enemies. Not really. We fought side by side for a time. We were comrades. Granted, they turned on me when I left, as I knew they would, and I had to fight them to keep myself and you and Alastair alive. But that didn’t make them my enemies.”
I thought about that for a while. Eventually I asked, “Why did they look like that when they died?”
“The moment they died, the magic that was held in them was released. The angel part of them left their human shells. So their bodies caught up with their true age.”
“They died so quickly. Thank God you didn’t die that quickly when I stabbed you with my knife.”
“You really only nicked me, so I didn’t take in as much of the poison. If you really had stabbed me, I assume I’d have died very quickly.”
We’d been trudging tiredly across dry desert as we talked, kicking up dust and scattering little brown lizards as we went. Off in the distance, a big rusty pickup truck appeared on the horizon, barreling toward us and creating a huge dirt cloud behind it.
“Think we should be concerned about that?” Athos asked, indicating the truck by pointing at it with the knife in his hand.
“Nah. That person’s driving like a maniac. So it’s probably Joey,” I said.
The truck pulled up beside us a couple minutes later, and we shielded our faces from the cloud of dust that encircled us. Every window in the truck was blacked out with mud, and Joey cracked the window a fraction of an inch and called out, “Mind riding in the bed of the truck? I’d open the door for you, but then I’d incinerate myself.”
“Sure, we’ll ride in back. Is Alastair in there?”
“I am,” he called.
“Can you actually see where you’re going with mud on all the windows?” I asked Joey.
“More or less.”
I sighed at that and climbed in the bed of the truck. “Ok, so try to remember we’re back here,” I called. “And maybe don’t drive like a crazy person.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” Joey said. And he took off like a shot. I grabbed onto the side of the truck to keep from getting flung out the back.