Rebel reached back between his wings, grasping for Eclipse. Only to pat his t-shirt, like the sword could’ve slipped under the cotton.
I rolled my eyes.
Snake Bite chuckled, tossing his locks like a wild cat before a kill. ‘Why yes, and it’s quite delicious.’
When the vampire’s gaze slid to me, Rebel hurled himself at the bastard with a growl.
Snake Bite sidestepped, hooking his arm around Rebel’s throat and slamming him against the boot of the Range Rover. Silver slashing shanks shot from his fingers like claws. ‘You see, you may have forgotten your toy, but I always have both my weapons.’ When Snake Bite grinned, his fangs grew longer.
I gasped.
A flash of silver, a tumble of black, and Rebel being pulled into a side alley by a bloke with tattooed birds exploding across his face…
Rebel had saved me from a vampire that first day.
Evie had a point: behind these glasses, I was blind. Because I’d abandoned Rebel, both on that first day and to Da in his bedroom. Just as now every screaming, straining nerve begged me to run.
But there was no way I was bailing on Rebel, even if I hadn’t been bound to him by Ma’s magic.
Not again.
Go visit some Feathery realness on that Fang!
You told you me to dump the angel before. If I’d played your game, he’d be the prisoner to the spell lobbers. And what would I be?
Free. But you’re showboating, Violet-cakes, you want every man at your feet and every woman in your shadow. Secrets all revealed like candy.
This isn’t my battle. I’m not a trained huntress yet.
The vampire sank his artificial steel fingernails into Rebel’s shoulder, pinning him against the car.
The slashes across Rebel’s chest? One mystery solved.
This is your move: fight or hide.
Snake Bite licked up Rebel’s neck, nibbling his ear. Rebel shuddered.
For all I know the vampires are the heroes. Rebel’s bad, yeah?
And I’m Jiminy Cricket, the voice of your conscience.
Rebel flapped his wings with a sudden, brutal crack across the vampire’s suede jacketed back.
Snake Bite howled, his claw grip loosening, until Rebel wrenched away, diving beneath the vampire.
I was mesmerized by the savage beauty of the dance.
Rebel spun, his eyes burning as fiercely as his wings, and swept Snake Bite in a blur of suede and black to the drive. His wings that’d been soft and welcoming to me, were now as hard as the vampire’s steel nails.
You have a choice. Are you on the side of the angels or the vampires?
How do I know, when I’m half of each? I’ve only been prisoner of one side, maybe I shouldn’t choose either?
I stood stock-still, whilst they grappled at my feet.
Then claws slashed across Rebel’s bad wing. A line of red fire. He hissed.
Blood had been drawn on Rebel’s wing. It hit me harder than I’d reckoned possible. A volcano erupted inside me in a searing ash cloud.
To hell with who was the hero or the villain. To hell with games. And to hell with choices.
Rebel was mine, whether I’d chosen him, or the newly awoken powers within me had. And if he was a hunter, then so was I.
I stepped mechanically to the Range Rover, snapping off the steel antenna.
Swish — it whipped through the air like a cane.
I gripped it in my sweaty palm. The two bitches didn’t even glance up.
Their mistake.
This was the god-like moment, when you held life in your hands. I was light-headed from the punch of potency curling the ash in black tinged clouds.
Then I skewered the vampire through the heart.
I didn’t expect the chortle.
Snake Bite glanced back over his shoulder at me, the antenna sticking out of his back like a fashion accessory gone wrong. Rebel lay subdued under him, his wings beating feebly.
‘I would say I’m surprised by how badly trained you are, monster,’ Snake Bite gritted his teeth as he plucked the antenna out of his back and then tossed it into the bushes with a patronising smile, ‘but then when I see who your Custodian is…’
Rebel frowned. ‘We’re not in your computer game, princess. You can only kill these ball-bags by destroying their idiot heads.’
I dove into the bushes, wildly scrabbling for the antenna. Skin was grazed from my palms, and my knees smarted as I sank down onto the twigs. A branch thwacked against my cheek; I flinched at the sting.
At last, my questing hand closed around cold steel. It fitted, as well as any shank.
When I marched back to the vampire, he still had Rebel pinned to the ground. He licked his tongue over his lip piercings and jabbed a claw into Rebel’s wing.
Rebel writhed, gritting his teeth not to holler. There were scarlet holes patterning his wings; Snake Bite had been using him as a pin cushion.
Then I swung.
The antenna sliced into the back of the vampire’s head. He grunted and tried to stand, but I swung again.
Snake Bite grabbed hold of the gory end of the steel and yanked. I stumbled forward, but Rebel launched himself upwards, headbutting the vampire. Snake Bite groaned; his grip loosened.
I wrenched back the antenna, and then swung again, and again and… I was nothing but a blur of swishing steel.
The vampire fell on top of Rebel.
Beneath me was a mess of smashed skull, matted black hair, and crimson blood, sprawled over Rebel’s wings.
My land of bones and feathers had scuttled into the real world.
I dropped to my knees, hurling down the sticky red antenna.
Then I chucked up.
Rebel struggled out from underneath the body, slipping his leathers back over his wings. ‘That’ll do it,’ he glanced down at the vampire. ‘That was brilliant!’
I wiped the spittle from my chin.
The bondage punk bounced on his toes like we’d been to a rave not a murder.
‘If you’re my Custodian,’ I gasped out, ‘I want to be taught how to hunt. But also…how to control…myself.’
To my surprise, Rebel nodded. ‘I was a dope. You’re ready to become a hunter.’
He opened the velvet pouch that Ma had hung around his neck and scattered the herbs over Snake Bite’s body. Like a ciggie held to a lighter, the edges caught to embers. The vampire’s hair flamed, his coffee coat and soles of his boots curled to black, and his insides tumbled to ash. In a matter of moments, his corpse disintegrated to a stain on the ground.
I caught Rebel’s arm. ‘Hold it, punk boy, why didn’t we spray this acid Hackney style at the bastard?’
‘It doesn’t work on the living. Only the dead.’
I scrunched up my nose. ‘And vampires aren’t dead?’
Rebel gave me a long look. ‘I told you. This isn’t your game. And vampires…aren’t what you think.’
If I was truly half vampire, then I hoped that was true.
A powerful, ancient monster burnt to nothing.
I’d done that. We’d done that. Simply because he was a vampire.
I shifted uncomfortably.
Snake Bite had called me a monster. And he was right.
The cane swung like a hypnotist’s watch — back and forth — from Da’s hand, as he waited for Rebel and me to creep into the study. He perched on the edge of his desk, his leg swinging in time with the cane.
I squinted through the shadows. Star-shaped lamps shimmered around the corners: a sultan’s tent.
Da’s face was drawn, and for the first time I noticed tiny wrinkles radiating from the edges of his eyes.
No way had the bastard earned those through laughter.
‘Close the door,’ Da fixed Rebel with a hard stare, ‘you took…her…away from our protection without my permission. Why?’
Rebel clicked shut the door with a sigh. ‘We’re not sprogs to be protected. You trained me to be a hunter, and Feathers had to see.’
‘So, did she?’
‘Yeah, bro,’ the vampire with black hair and eyes – like mine – leaping panther-like onto the back of the car, his fangs at Rebel’s pale throat, and then burning into nothing but ash, ‘I saw.’
‘I’m delighted. Then you can also witness Rebel’s punishment,’ Da gripped Rebel’s arm, propelling him towards the desk.
Except this time, Rebel stuck his heels into the sheepskin rug: a lamb refusing to be dragged to slaughter.
Da tutted, swinging the cane arcing towards Rebel’s arse, but Rebel reached his hand behind him and caught it with his palm. With an effortless flick of his wrist, he twisted the evil length of cane out of Da’s grip.
Crack — Rebel snapped the thick wood over his leather encased knee. Then with a clatter, he sent it skittering over Da’s wolf and fox oak desk.
It was easy to forget how strong he was and how much he fought to control that strength. I craved to have the same self-discipline when the rages roared.
In the silence, Da gawked at him.
‘I don’t need your lessons now,’ Rebel never dropped his gaze from Da’s. ‘I’m after being a Custodian myself, with my own student.’
I smirked. ‘Harsh.’
Da raised his hand, and my smile died.
That’s all bastard men knew: how to dash, beat, and shank.
But Da only pulled Rebel close, stroking his wings with a whispered, ‘I’m proud of you.’
It gutted me, those tender words, more than the clout I’d been expecting.
Maybe because I’d never heard them.
Maybe because I’d always dreamed I would from someone, whilst lying to myself I didn’t care that I never had.
Maybe because I reckoned I never would.
When Rebel yelped, I found myself raising my fists, ready for a fight. Wanting one.
Needing one.
Da, however, only held up a dove-grey feather, which he’d plucked from the tip of Rebel’s wing. ‘Good god! I had no idea you were this close. You must go back to Angel World. I know the brutality of your life there but—’
‘That’s bloody blarney. You don’t know.’ Rebel’s distress shocked me. His arms curled around Da’s neck.
Da rubbed Rebel’s back. ‘But if you don’t return—’
‘I can’t,’ he shot me a look through tear-trembling eyes.
Rebel had fled persecution. A bird cage prison. I knew that, but not why he looked to me as he said he couldn’t go back to his home. Or why he wept from fear.
At the same time, I craved to rip him from Da and punish him for taking comfort in someone else’s arms.
For keeping secrets again.
What unknown terror was held within that dove-grey feather?
11
To hunt is to hurt.
To hurt others and to be hurt by them is a line I’ve walked, unable to trust anyone but the voice in my head, since the day I was discovered — abandoned — in Hackney Cemetery.
Yet there’s more to a hunt than the hurt. There’s the very thing I’d been struggling for: control.
The steel sweep of feathers, slam of sugary copper, and anarchic blast of The Sex Pistols’ “God Save the Queen” shuddered tingles from my shoulder blades to my fingertips.
I stumbled, driven back by Rebel’s onslaught.
Tall oaks speared up to a grey sky, trapping me in the glade with Johnny Rotten’s swag punk vocals, a propulsive beat, and a killer 3-chord guitar riff.
Rebel grinned, hopping from foot to foot. He hummed along to the subversive music spitting from the iPod speakers buried beneath the twigs on the edges of our training circle.
These sessions — calling out my powers, and then battling to leash them — had been the highlight of my imprisonment with the witches. Every day out in the woods, we’d danced like only two vicious bitches can.
I shivered, as the first snowflakes drifted between us like confetti.
Then I booted Rebel in the gut.
Rebel groaned but then grabbed my leg, spinning me round in the air and sprawling me onto my back.
I scrambled away, but he launched himself onto me. His wings beat, silhouetted bat-like above me; grey speckled the violet. Each session one more grey feather appeared amongst the violet.
He held my arms above my head. When I struggled, arching against him, his eyes fluttered closed.
Either there was a shooter in his trousers, or the wallad was pleased to see me.
‘In a hunt, you must work out the weakness,’ Rebel stroked his wing down my cheek. ‘Vampires, like angels, can be hurt.’ He drew the soft tip of his wing across my pinned wrists, and I shook. His lips were close to mine. Snowflakes settled on the dark curves of his eyelashes. ‘Go for the hands. A bandjaxed vampire is still dangerous. Fire hurts them. But you’re after wanting the quick kill. Their weakness? Neck and head.’ A feathery touch swept across my throat: safety and danger all at once.
I choked, ‘Get off me.’
‘Make me.’
I gaped at him. ‘Are you sure you want to play this game, pretty boy?’
He smirked. ‘If you win, I’ll take you out to fight a vampire by yourself.’
I licked my lips. That was what I’d been training towards in this woodland at the bottom of the House of Rose, Wolf, and Fox.
To be a huntress…
‘And if I don’t win?’
Rebel’s gaze was suddenly serious. ‘You could keep your promise not to escape.’ Then he smiled shyly. ‘And call me Custodian...?’
‘In your dreams.’
I kneed him in the balls, wriggling away from him like a snake, as he doubled over.
I jumped up, rolling my shoulders. ‘My advantage? A bitch fights dirty.’
Rebel’s eyes blazed as he straightened, his wings beating, whilst the snow fell in a furious flurry around him.
‘My advantage?’ He unsheathed Eclipse; its flames coursed around its black core. ‘I fight with a sword.’
‘Wait…before you gank me into chunky salsa,’ I backed up against the rough bark of an oak, snapping fallen branches on each step, ‘are you compensating for the Fang and his always having his weapon disrespect? Because I don’t have claws or—’
Violet fire shot from the end of Eclipse, burning through the snowing glade.
Crash.
A branch above my head splintered under the impact.
I ducked, shrieking. My heart thundered. ‘Bastard! That could’ve been my head.’
He shrugged. ‘Away with you, like I could miss those glasses if I was aiming for them. Now, shoot at me.’
I stared at him blankly. ‘What with? My magical invisible mind blast?’
He snorted with laughter. ‘Your violet fire, of course. It’s deadly special to you alone. Don’t look so gobsmacked. You’re half angel, you must’ve felt it.’
I shook my head, but it was there already because of Rebel’s attack, trembling in my fingers.
‘And what about the other half?’
He avoided my gaze.
We hadn’t spoken about the vampire having black eyes like me. Was it shameful for an angel to be…part vampire? Was that why I was a monster?
Crack.
An explosion blasted just above my shoulder.
I hissed and patted at the sparks dancing across my jacket, but Rebel was wearing his innocent expression, even as he raised Eclipse again and arced the fiery streak across my feet.
I yelped, hopping away.
It burst out then. The wrath. A crackling inferno fizzed across my fingertips but it was ice-cold.
I’d unleashed a fire storm on Rebel, before I’d even remembered we were training and I should be aiming to miss.
But all I wanted to do was hurt.
Rebel screamed, as the flames caught his right hand. His sword clattered down; the violet clung to his skin.
I watched, fascinated, whilst his fingers seared and blistered. He held his hand to his chest, gritting his teeth.
&n
bsp; I threw another fireball past his head to make him jump towards me.
If I controlled the fire, I controlled Rebel. And that was even better than controlling myself.
Caught in his pain, Rebel didn’t realise I’d trapped him, until I’d thrown him against the tree and wrenched both his hands above his head against the trunk, just as he’d held me on the ground.
When he did? It was too late.
I leant against him and couldn’t tell if it was snow melting down his cheeks or tears. When he struggled, the fast beat of his heart through his thin t-shirt, fluttered against my chest.
‘Hands and fire,’ I circled my thumbs over his burnt, captured hand. ‘Cheers for the pointer.’
I ghosted my mouth over Rebel’s, and he stilled.
Angels, vampires, blokes. They were all the same.
‘Who are my real parents?’ I murmured.
He stiffened in surprise and then went lax.
I pressed my face close to his neck, licking and nibbling at its base. I tightened my hold on his wrists. He was still hiding the truth from me.
He gasped. ‘Lay off. I don’t know.’
‘Yeah, you do.’ I held him in place with one hand, stroking through his feathers and tracing the patterns of grey and violet, as he trembled. ‘I get why the angels are hunting an Addict like you, but why are they hunting me? Is it because I’m too much of a vampire too?’
Rebel bucked, but I snogged him. Hard, deep, and demanding. At first, he fought it, frozen. The slam of copper was twice as sweet, however, when he thawed, lounging back into his imprisonment against the tree.
The bastard wasn’t rejecting me now.
That’s when I held Rebel’s own sword to his throat, nicking a cut just deep enough to make him gasp. ‘You’re dead.’ I lifted an eyebrow, pushing away from him and rejecting the kiss and unspoken offer the moment he’d melted against the oak. I grinned. ‘I win.’
This time, Rebel didn’t even attempt to hide his hurt. His wings curled around himself. ‘You cheated, princess. Be proud when you win without tricks.’
I’d warned him I fought dirty.
And all that mattered? I’d won the chance to fight my first vampire as a huntress.
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