by Jenny McKane
There were charred little imp bodies everywhere and as Sunny’s eyes scanned over them, they were drawn over to a corner where a makeshift structure stood—looking like some sort of blanket fort she might have made as a child. Fabric hung from the ceiling down to the ground where they were fastened by bolts into the cement. There were also a disproportionately large amount of imp remains in that direction, almost as if they were protecting something.
On unsteady feet, as she was doing her best not to step in gooey imp guts, she moved closer to the tent.
“You guys,” she called softly, just in case there were more imps in rooms they hadn’t cleared yet. “I think something’s back here.”
She could hear movement and a muffled sound, almost like a voice.
“Don’t move,” Gideon said, suddenly appearing behind her. He had his sword drawn and carefully pulled one side of the fabric back as he peered into the darkness. He wasn’t two steps inside the structure when he swore loudly.
“Metatron,” he yelled. “Get in here.”
Not waiting for Metatron, Sunny pushed her way in and saw Gideon kneeling down. In the darkness, it was hard for her to make out just what he was doing, but as her eyes adjusted, she saw that he was kneeling in front of an unconscious form, holding the person’s head off the ground as he examined them.
Sunny let out a low curse of her own when recognition hit. Shit.
It was Gabriel.
Chapter Eight
“He’s hardly breathing,” Eli called from the back of the SUV as Metatron raced through the backstreets of the demon-controlled north side of Chicago.
It’d taken them longer than anybody wanted to clear Gabriel’s battered body through the house. They’d been met with another wave of imps that were hell-bent on not letting them out the front door with their prize.
Tesah and Eron wouldn’t be able to let loose another charge from their swords for another day, so the swords came out and everyone hacked and stabbed their way through at least one hundred more small imps, with a few larger ones thrown in for good measure. Luckily, there weren’t any more elementals mixed in, or things would have been even more hairball than they already were. Metatron had Gabriel slung over his shoulder, as nobody except the Powers would have been able to carry him and there was no chance they were going to lower themselves enough to do that.
After pushing through the doorway into the street outside, Eli yanked the door closed behind them and shoved a piece of rebar through the door’s handle in an effort to hold them in long enough to escape, which they did.
The SUV raced through barricaded and blocked streets as they wound their way towards Roosevelt Road. It was a little after 12 PM as they raced away from the toy factory, but it seemed like the demonic activity from the surrounding buildings they were passing was increasing.
“How is he?” Metatron called back, his hands clasping the wheel of the vehicle tightly as he drove like a maniac.
As ever, Tesah and Eron were leading the way with their vehicle just up ahead. The demonic activity was increasing at a surprising rate the further they drove, causing Sin to speculate that they had set off some sort of alarm when they retrieved Gabriel.
“He has a heartbeat, but he’s not waking up,” yelled Eli. “And there’s something wrong with his hand!”
Sunny tried to glance over her shoulder toward the back and see what Eli was talking about, but it was no use. She couldn’t see anything and with the way that Metatron was driving, she was being thrown all over the seat she occupied as it was. Gideon was in the row behind her, trying to keep the pressure off of his shoulder. He’d taken a slice from a talon of one of the imps and was babying it. Almost every species of demon had some sort of venom that came through their teeth and talons, and while imp venom wouldn’t necessarily kill Gideon, it slowed healing and was a general pain in the ass.
The drive took forever, and more than once she heard Metatron swear loudly as he thought he was being followed. Sunny could never verify, as she had a hard time looking out the back window. But whatever was chasing them left off right around Roosevelt Road. Once they crossed that invisible boundary, the divide between demon-held and human-held territory, the ride was less bumpy and much easier.
They made it back to their safe house about two hours later. Metatron and Eli carried the unconscious Gabriel into a back bedroom and shut the door. About an hour later, there was a knock at the front door and Tesah allowed a man with stark white hair and a neatly trimmed goatee through the front door. Sunny knew immediately that he was some sort of angel. It didn’t take much guessing, as the aura that radiated off the man was pure angelic.
The funny thing about that was it didn’t necessarily mean that the man had a good vibe to him. Not all angels had peaceful, loving vibes about them that made Sunny think they were only about being good and light and comforting. No, some of the most terrifying creatures she had run across in the past year had been angelic. Terrifyingly angelic.
The man (angel?) strode past the people gathered in the home’s living room without a word, and without instructions or directions, strode straight through to the room where Gabriel and Metatron were. There weren’t any voices to be heard, no sounds of struggle or fighting. Nothing. Just silence.
Time passed slowly and, eventually, the group decided they needed to eat, sending Sin and Eli out a few times for food.
The little house in Tammer Park was fully equipped, so they gathered around a good-sized oak dining table and started digging into the food they produced. Downtown Chicago was out of the question, so it turned out they’d had to drive even farther south to find any sort of grocery store or fast food joint still open. They’d found a fried chicken joint and ordered everything they could before returning.
The food was good. So good. Sunny didn’t remember a time she’d ever ordered a round of fried chicken on purpose, and damn, but she’d been missing out her whole life. Either that, or she was so burned out on adrenaline spikes lately that the carbs and the fat were like a balm to her soul. The only thing that cut into her enjoyment of the food was when Selah decided to march down the stairs and grace them with her presence. She didn’t say anything—just picked over a small plate of potato wedges and sniffed at them, seemingly uninterested in food at all. So why had she bothered to walk downstairs? Sunny swallowed at the annoyance bubbling up in her chest and closed her eyes. She counted backward from 10 to stop herself from making some snide comment.
When she finally reached zero, she opened her eyes and set about eating her own food again. Selah stayed long enough to catch Gideon’s eye and share a look with him before retreating. Sunny’s stomach soured as she didn’t bother to hide the fact that she was snooping.
If Gideon knew Sunny had witnessed the moment between he and Selah, he didn’t make it obvious. He just pretended everything was fine.
Tesah and Eron, as ever, ate their own food from whatever little angelic lunch boxes they carried with them. Metatron assured Sunny that angels consumed mortal food when dwelling in the human realm, but the weird, slimy things that came out of packages and straight into their mouths looked incredibly foreign and non-mortal.
“Don’t dwell on it too long,” Sin had whispered to her, shaking his head in warning as Tesah looked their way. Sunny made sure to keep her eyes on her own food after that—they were obviously touchy about being judged.
The conversation lulled after everyone ate. Selah was upstairs, naturally, and locked away in her little room. Gideon was on the couch, thumbing through a book he’d been carrying around the past few days. Sunny hadn’t bothered to ask him what it was about or why he was reading it because he hadn’t been overly talkative lately. She gave him his space.
Both Eli and Metatron ventured out of the room Gabriel was in long enough to grab a few mouthfuls of food, but neither said anything worthwhile and both had retreated back behind the closed door within minutes.
There was something in the air telling Sunny that things were
off. The grim look on Metatron’s normally peaceful face was a dead giveaway—almost as much as the fact that Eli had very little appetite.
Much later that night, almost into the wee hours of the next morning, everyone in the house was still awake and buzzing with some sort of nervous tension. There was no news on Gabriel and that strange, silent angel who’d walked in hours earlier was still in there. Metatron finally emerged, looking more haggard than Sunny had ever seen him, and called everyone to the table.
“No news on Gabriel,” he said, getting straight to the point. “He’s still unconscious, though his body is alive. It’s strange. As if his body is on some sort of lockdown. He won’t unclench his hands; his body won’t relax. At this point, the healer doesn’t think it’s biological.”
Sunny blinked at that.
“What, then?”
“Magic.”
Sin spoke up.
“He’s cursed? Under some sort of spell?”
Metatron shook his head as Eli emerged from the back room, looking just as worn out and just as tired.
“No,” Metatron said slowly.
Sunny didn’t miss the fact that Metatron and Eli’s eyes met, and some silent message was transmitted between them.
“It’s more like the archangel Gabriel is protecting something,” Eli said quietly and Sunny swore she could hear time stop.
She didn’t hear anyone breathing or moving or eating, like they all had been just moments before.
“I don’t understand,” she said quietly.
Gideon had broken the spell and was moving toward the table.
“Gabriel, the man who’s been in the mortal realm, seems to be one entity. He’s trying to break through and come back,” Eli said slowly. “The archangel that still exists is stopping him. Protecting something. We think whatever is in his hand will give us our answers, but we can’t get him to let go for anything. No amount of brute force, no coaxing, no prying. Nothing will unlock his fingers from the clenched fist to show us what he’s hiding.”
“And he’s not responding to you or anything you two do?” Gideon was asking the question now.
Eli shook his head.
“What did the healer suggest?”
Metatron blew out a long, exasperated breath. “The one thing we’re short on,” he finally said. “Time.”
Chapter Nine
Because they seemed to be in a holding pattern, it seemed like the perfect moment for Gideon and Sunny to have another one of their existential relationship crises. He’d gone cold on her again and spent a lot of time behind closed doors with Selah, who’d basically refused to come out now.
They holed up in that small Tammer Park house for nearly five days straight waiting for something to change with Gabriel (who Sunny still hadn’t been able to see yet) and aside from a few scavenger trips here and there for supplies (food, first aid, booze for Eli and Sin), it was mind-numbingly boring for Sunny to do nothing but wait around for more reports.
The humans (backed by a few angels) were losing ground in Chicago because rogue portals kept popping up, allowing a horde or two of demons across. According to the intel both Sin and the Powers were able to glean, the portals were shit—temporary, makeshift structures that served no purpose other than to let through as many demons as possible before it collapsed.
“It means the dream demons are still doing their part on their side,” Gideon said somberly, his face looking down.
It was good news, right? Sunny searched the faces around her. So, why then, did everyone look so glum?
“What’s the bad news?”
Tesah gave a dramatic snort. “You mean aside from the fact that scores of demons are being led into the already-failing battle?”
Sunny could all but hear the stupid human part Tesah likely wanted to add to the end. But Sunny knew there was more to what wasn’t being said, so she did something she usually avoided. She pushed back a little.
“Yeah, aside from the obvious,” she snapped, her eyes raising to Tesah’s dark scowl. It was a stupid thing to do, that much was certain, but Sunny found herself at a breaking point with all the sitting around and waiting they were doing.
“I think they’re implying that there’s demon support from this side, too,” Sin replied coolly.
The Powers were a judgmental lot, but in the past 48 hours, they’d gotten downright hostile toward the two part-demons in their group.
“Well, I can attest that I certainly am not creating temporary demon portals for Camael to shove military units through,” Sin said, his hand over his heart.
He was mocking the Powers and Sunny wasn’t sure they knew it. They weren’t well versed in sarcasm.
“Same,” Gideon said as he moved through the kitchen. If the accusations or resentment from Tesah and Eron got under his skin, he didn’t let it show.
“I guess the good news is that now we have something to kill time with while we wait for Gabriel to go all archangel and wake up for us,” Eli said as he pushed his chair back from the table. “Looks like we have another mission on our hands.”
Sin was grinning like a mad man. Sunny looked from person to person, trying to gauge their reaction. On the one hand, it was getting torturous sitting around the tiny little house each day waiting for something to happen. But on the other, that something that was happening was deadly and dangerous and likely involved a lot of fighting.
“Give me a day,” Sin said, rubbing his hands together. “There are some cambions on the east side who’d love to give a fool up for the right price. I’ll have names of these portal makers in no time.”
Eron stood and banged his fist on the table.
While Tesah was scary enough with her proud, ice queen face, Eron was something a little more intense. He rarely spoke, and he seemed to notice everything. If Tesah thought they were above the human/demon/archangel gang they were part of at the moment, Eron believed he and his female counterpart to be in the next stratosphere. To Sunny, it was a wonder that he didn’t turn his fancy angelic sword on the lot of them daily, given how annoyed he always looked.
“We’ll not learn about our enemy from our enemy,” he said, almost hissing as his eyes narrowed at the slowly deflating Sin.
Eli kept his gaze lowered and didn’t enter the fray, but Metatron did.
“I don’t consider any man, or woman, here who has bled with us so far to be our enemy, Eron,” Metatron said.
There was a measure of authority to his voice that normally wasn’t there. Metatron’s face portrayed ease and calm, but Sunny saw the storm behind his eyes.
“Why are we wasting our time here with them?” Eron hissed again, turning his head toward Tesah, who now stood, too. The tension in their bodies caused the atmosphere in the room to destabilize and it seemed everyone held their breath, waiting for the Powers to make their next move.
“Let’s get our own work done, Brother,” Tesah said as she stalked from the table with Eron right behind her.
When they had slammed the front door behind them and when the car had driven out of the driveway and the taillights disappeared down the road, it seemed the entire room let out a collective sigh of relief.
*****
It was the next morning—or afternoon, for all that Sunny could tell by the way her days were running together—when she and Gideon bashed heads again. She had been downstairs in the living room listening to a story from Sin about a time he’d been caught trying to steal a few bucks from a storm demon and the ensuing chase that happened through the back alleys of Austin’s bustling Sixth Street party scene.
He was a natural story teller—charming and engaging—and had Sunny and Eli rolling in laughter on the couch. She’d bent forward, howling in laughter at the part of the story where Sin ended up losing a sneaker in the chase and has to hop through a bustling bar scene with one shoe on and one shoe off. Leaning against Eli for support, she didn’t realize Gideon had come downstairs until she heard him slamming things shut in the kitchen.
Both Eli and Sin frowned, tossing glances over their shoulder, but both shrugged it off and went back to talking. Worried, Sunny moved into the kitchen and approached Gideon as he slammed a sandwich on a plate and tossed it on the table in front of him.
“Hi,” she said tentatively, not quite fully in the kitchen after catching sight of his foul mood.
“Hey.”
Gideon wasn’t looking at her. He also wasn’t touching his food, so he sort of sat there fuming and scowling.
“What’s going on? You seem upset.”
His eyes jumped up to hers and she held his gaze, wondering what was going on. He seemed so mad.
“Nothing,” he said, instead, his eyes slamming back down to the Formica table in front of him.
Taking a deep breath, she stepped further into the kitchen and hovered right behind the chair opposite him.
“Are you sure?” she hedged. “It doesn’t seem like nothing.”
She tensed as Gideon let out a snort, but still stayed silent. Sunny waited. Gideon ignored her.
Finally, her temper at a breaking point, Sunny snapped at him.
“You give me nothing to work with,” she said, her voice tight and low with emotion. “Absolutely nothing. I hope you’re getting what you need from her. I hope she makes you happier than I ever could.”
Her face burned with shame after saying those words, but the jealousy had mostly run its course with Sunny and its hooks were in her. She hated watching the easy interaction between Selah and Gideon and it tore her apart that Gideon kept her at arm’s length.
Sunny didn’t wait for Gideon to respond and instead made a huge coward move and ran upstairs toward her room. She needed a minute.
She wasn’t halfway up the stairs when she heard a plate clanging in the kitchen sink as Gideon presumably tossed it in there, but she ignored it. She didn’t care. She didn’t care about any of it, least of all Gideon Lafayette.
Rounding the corner toward her door, Sunny swung the door closed, not caring if she was slamming it (hell, hoping it slammed loud enough for it to disturb Selah) and started when the door crashed back open and bounced against the opposite wall. She turned and found a wide-eyed, angry Gideon practically foaming at the mouth in a rage. His eyes were wide, and he was breathing fast, like he’d just jumped all twelve of the stairs at once as she tried to storm away and shut the door in his face.