Instead he moved to where the Bruja had left her duffle bag on the floor. He rummaged in search of the keys that would unlock Aaron’s bonds. He found blades, a dead scorpion, a tin full of something pink and greasy, but no keys. Aaron spoke up.
“If you knew you were going to lose your fingers to get us out of here, why did you let him shock me twice?”
Glad to be distracted from the itching sensation that marked the healing of his ruined hand, Peni smiled wryly.
“Sorry cousin. But I had to be sure it was worth it. If you couldn’t take a couple jolts, then you never coulda survived what we’re going to have to go through to get out of here.”
Aaron shrugged, with his face though, still unable to move his shoulders.
“Good point.”
Peni found the keys on the belt of the same man that had undone his own chains.
“How long has she been at you cuz?” His own voice sounded odd to him. He hadn’t spoken much in his captivity. The pidgin English of Hawaii still persisted.
Arms freed, Aaron rubbed the blood back into them. Unpleasant popping sounds issued from his elbows and shoulders. Using his two good hands, he gingerly unclamped the rest of the Dragon Cuffs, careful not to give even the slightest tug on the severed cables.
“Not sure. She told me about a week. How about you?”
Peni tossed Aaron the t-shirt and pants of a man he’d killed in a relatively bloodless method. Taking stock, he noted that the white boy was thick, muscled, looked like he could handle himself. One of the Monks maybe.
“She been working on me for something like six or eight months.”
Aaron had a hard time looking the man in the eye after hearing it. He was a mess after only maybe eight days. Torture resistance had never been his strong suit. He decided to change the subject.
“So how do we get out of here?”
Peni shrugged, finally letting his massive wings curl back into nothingness. Unneeded for now.
Aaron still had a hard time accepting this characteristic of the Angels. Each of them bore beautiful, powerful, tangible wings in one moment, only to have them disappear in the next. His son had a collection in his room of giant feathers from Angel wings. Concrete proof that the wings were more than symbolic, more than ethereal. Feathers of every shimmering color imaginable, and these never faded away, even if the Angels that had gifted them died. It was no more puzzling than any of the other hundred impossibilities he now saw on a daily basis, but the small detail made it all seem that much more dreamlike.
“We don’t have a lot of options.” If you’ve noticed, this room only has four doors.” Peni told him. Indeed, Aaron saw as he pulled on the proffered clothing. There was a heavy-handled door on each of the long room’s walls. The ceiling’s air vents were far too small for either man to fit through. Other than the brackets on the floor, the cart that had carried Peni, and Aaron’s chains and tub, the gymnasium-sized room was featureless. His mind slid through the possible scenarios, the infinite unknowns and variables. And the three biggest problems they had. He voiced these to Peni.
“Well, we know we are underground, but not how deep. We don’t know how much security we’re going to encounter, and we are unarmed.”
Peni nodded, and held up his left hand, displaying the fresh skin that had closed over the nubs of his abbreviated fingers. “and handicapped.”
Noting the damage, Aaron tried to encourage the Angel as he busily armed himself with the discarded guns and ammunition of the dead bodyguards, solving the smallest of their problems.
“Handicapped how?” Aaron stopped what he was doing and looked earnestly at his new friend. “Make a fist.”
Peni frowned, but squeezed what was left of the fingers and thumb shut to form a club-like fist.
“See?” Aaron offered sarcastically “almost like it was before..”
Peni raised an eyebrow at the attempted humor, then rolled his massive shoulders up toward his ears.
“I’ll make it work. Let’s go.”
Las Vegas, Nevada
“Compassion. That’s the real weakness. The Achilles heel.”
The Bruja spoke breathlessly into the phone as she half-ran, half-flew through the halls of Babel’s subterranean levels.
Peni had given her final proof of what she already suspected.
On the other end of the line Valdez’s impatient voice came back to her.
“You’re going to have to explain a little more clearly than that Witch.”
“I mean the Angels will sacrifice themselves for any they consider to be innocent! We’ve seen it a hundred times before, but I couldn’t be sure until now.” She was excited by her revelation. The weakness had been found, and now she was hungry to exploit it in one of their myriad battles with the Angels. “We can defeat them easily. Just give the order to target families, children, civilians. The Angels will be distracted and focus only on saving lives. The Monks will follow suit. They do whatever the Angels do. If they’re intent on defending others and not themselves, we’ll be able to wipe them out easily.”
She could hear that Hunter was chewing something. Eating again.
“I am not overly sentimental myself Bruja, but you should remember that most of our mercenaries are nothing more than desperate civilians and will likely be reluctant to open fire on families and children.”
“Their loyalty extends as far as their greed Hunter. Promise them more money!”
“I am already paying a considerable number of people handsome salaries in exchange for information, weapons, food to feed the militia, and other services. That is to say nothing of the real estate and employment that I’ve promised to my more loyal supporters once this whole thing gets sorted out….” He countered.
The Bruja offered him her trademark laugh as she moved, leaping up a flight of stairs effortlessly.
“I didn’t say pay more money. I said promise them more money.”
Out of the basement levels now, she vaulted across the huge space of the lobby, landing atop the stone-tree obelisk in the center to get a better view of the encampment outside the windows on Babel’s courtyard. The barracks there were abuzz with preparation. She wondered why.
Valdez’s silence on the line was enough to tell her that he agreed with her plan.
“Hunter?…” Before she could ask what the fuss was all about he was already explaining.
“We’ll not get a chance to test your new trick today, woman. There is a sizeable attack force on its way to Babel right now. Our moles at Nellis, Hill, and CNIC in San Diego have all reported large movements of those soldiers-in-black. Rumors point to another attack on the tower. Soon.”
The Bruja frowned inwardly at the news. She hadn’t had real cause to hurt anybody in weeks. A whole slew of Angels and Monks on the way to her own adopted doorstep presented a prime opportunity. Unfortunately, she had just recently discovered something important that had sparked her self-preservation instincts more than ever. Her ink-colored wings shuddered in anticipation.
“Find Koontz and tell him I want to see him and his lieutenants to discuss the readiness of our ‘troops‘.” Valdez continued “I don’t want to spend a month on repairs like the last time… I will also expect a full report on what happened with the Triplets and their capture party. Thus far I haven’t seen any dead or incapacitated Angels being brought here, which leads me to believe that the news is less than good.”
The Bruja winced. Her plan with the Triplets hadn’t worked, but it wasn’t a total loss. Two of the three had survived. Twins now.
“When business is finished, I’ll see you myself. In the Starlight Suite this time.”
The Bruja weighed her options. She could ignore this last request if she wanted to. But of late Valdez had been taking his training very seriously, and after a few rituals, he was starting to get in touch with the deeper source of his powers. She decided it wouldn’t hurt. Or rather, it would hurt, and that’s what made it worth it.
She leapt again off the t
op of the monument and headed up, for the penthouse level where she could find Kyle Koontz, latest in a long line of men to head Babel’s militia.
She exited into the dry hot air through a balcony door, wheeling around the tower in a wide vertical spiral, enjoying the way the parched atmosphere tugged at her.
Others that flew near the tower gave her a wide berth. Their shadows would twist as she passed, pulling toward her for just a moment before snapping back to their slavery. Few dared look at her for more than the briefest glance, unwilling to risk eye contact.
Halfway up the tower she re-entered through another sliding door and tucked her wings.
Slowly, the Bruja’s bare feet carried her the rest of the way to the door leading to Koontz’s suite of rooms. He had chosen some white-trash theme or another rather than opting for the real luxury found in the massive tower’s higher-up floors.
The Bruja rapped twice with her scarred knuckles. Koontz’s assistant opened the door. A buxom blonde wearing little more than trashy high heels. Her name was something contrived and ironic, like Chastity or Champagne.
The whore backed away from the door and looked at the floor when she saw the Bruja, retreating at a frantic pace. High heels click-clicked away on the marble floors without even a word.
Koontz appeared from behind a wall wearing a cowboy hat and a bath robe, lank hair looking greasy as ever. The ex-con was small in stature, with teeth like a car accident, but he was better than the last two Valdez had put in charge of the civilian help.
He could fly at least, and he was fearless.
Koontz was notorious for his temper, even at times coming to blows with Brown, who was much larger and much more gifted.
Now, he gnawed on a celery stick coated in what was either peanut butter or dung. She guessed peanut-butter.
He did not appear happy to see her.
“Aww hell. What do you want Bruja?” Koontz peeled the cowboy hat off and threw it over the back of a white couch.
She relayed the orders from Valdez quickly.
“Alright, but I already heard this twice. Preparations are well under way. What did he have to send you here for?”
She giggled at him. “I guess he doesn’t trust you.”
This drew a derisive snort from Koontz.
“Yeah but he doesn’t trust you either.”
“Perhaps he sent me as a bit of a reminder, to let you know what the cost of failure would be.”
Koontz wagged his snack at her, tempting her to corrupt it somehow with her magic.
“Don’t threaten me, witch. I know what I’m doing.”
Her characteristic laughter polluted the air once again as she turned to leave. Koontz’s petulance was ruining her good mood.
Champagne, if that was actually her name, did not make another appearance.
Outside in the hall, the Bruja found a handyman tinkering with some damaged elevator buttons. Performing the most normal of jobs in a totally abnormal world.
He jumped when he saw her, only slightly, before swallowing hard and trying to appear nonchalant.
The Bruja enjoyed this, the little ways in which people tried to conceal their fear of her.
Futile attempts that meant nothing because she could hear their hearts beating faster and smell the nervous changes in body odor.
She smiled at him.
Reluctantly, he smiled back before dipping back to his screwdrivers. He stared intently at the turning of the tool, as if it were something new to him.
“What’s your name?” She purred at him like a cat. He jumped.
“It’s.. Cuppet. Andrew. Andrew Cuppet, err. Miss..”
“Ah, just the man I was looking for. Can I borrow that?” The handyman looked puzzled, but handed her the indicated screwdriver.
She took it and pressed its flat head into her palm until blood came out.
Slowly, she dragged the point across her skin in the shape of an ‘A’. Then a ‘C’.
Upon seeing his initials written in her blood, the handyman’s face drained of color. His ill-concealed fear finally bubbled freely.
“No no, listen, please! I’ve got kids. I only came because my oldest boy works here. He’s one of you. One of the Angels…”
The Bruja’s childish laugh was silent for once as she frowned at him.
“Idiot!” A scarred and tattooed arm flashed forward impossibly fast. The screwdriver punched into the man’s chest, sinking through the cartilage between his ribs. Warm air gushed out over her hand from a punctured lung. With no breath to cry out, Mr. Cuppet managed to emit only a pitiful wheeze.
“Your son is not an Angel!” Her tone was venomous. “The Angels will lose this war. We are not Angels.”
She spoke again in a long-dead language and the wound on his chest opened wider.
Dark thorny branches started to sprout from the screwdriver, little sharp vines growing inward and outward, fed by her hate and his blood. The man’s eyes widened and he looked around for a place to run.
Far too late for that.
The Bruja turned away from him, picking at the place where blood had already dried on her hot skin.
The thorn spell was not an easy one to summon. Things like parasites and bacteria were easy to afflict on humans, because they were already present. Latent assassins waiting to be coaxed forth. Plants took a great deal more control and energy.
It wasn’t her best trick, but it was taxing enough that she was glad to have an appointment with her boss and his wellspring of evil. Her detour with the handyman had made her late for their rendezvous. Valdez would be angry. Good.
Las Vegas, Nevada
Night in Las Vegas had finally regained its gorgeous luster.
Not because the power grid had been restored. If anything, more of the neon monuments had been darkened by the lean months since the transformation.
For Hunter Valdez though, every surface and angle shined with promise. Promise of victory. Power.
He and his witch had made a breakthrough.
Through observation of her pet Angel and the many hours spent conditioning his own mind, body, and soul to handle her dark ways, the Bruja had unleashed something in him.
Potential.
The first time he’d heard the voices in his head it had terrified him. They were disorganized and menacing. Nightmarish sounds that both howled and murmured. They sounded intimately close, miles away, ancient and new.
In the glow of candles rendered from dog fat she had calmed him, explained, cajoled, and cursed into a sort of understanding.
“The voices of Hell” she had told him. “Will listen if you know how to speak their language.”
She taught him how to speak it.
As expected, he had turned out to be more than an apt pupil. Gifted even.
Black Masses, druid sun-wheels, animal sacrifices, Bruja had walked him through it all, week by week and month by month. Escalating his lessons slowly at first, then testing him violently, harshly.
Rather than silencing the voices, she instructed him on how to organize them.
Now they lined up nicely in his head. They answered his questions and volunteered their knowledge.
They called him ‘Sir‘.
Hunter Valdez favored the flashy, always had.
He might entertain himself by filling a crowded room with conjured-up wasps and flies. It delighted him to see the faces of his mercenaries when he turned a prisoner’s skin inside-out with nothing more than a word. They would stare wide eyed and dumb-tongued at the slippery mess. At this point, they feared him too much to defect or to disappoint.
Abject fear was better than loyalty.
On the days when he decided not to pay his makeshift army, the accountants received no complaints.
All that the Bruja asked in return was revenge.
His original reluctance to concede even that much had given way.
She could have her time with Serena. Hunter himself would take the rest.
All of them.
With the lessons she had taught him, he would harvest the fear and bloodshed to create more potential in himself. More ability. Concern for wealth had long-since faded.
What he wanted now was his due.
Power.
Respect too.
Anyone who wouldn’t grant it willingly risked having it taken by force. Anyone who opposed his authority would be dealt with. Starting with the Angels and their Monks.
He stared out over the Las Vegas night, toward the mountain behind which Nellis Air Force Base brooded. His informants there had done well, apprising him of the massive influx of troops, the movements of weaponry. The Monks were planning an assault. Of course, he’d assumed it was coming for some time.
Valdez spat onto the floor in dismissal of the enemy.
In this world, one could not expect to expand one’s influence and territory without resistance. His moles had told him about some mysterious weapon being brought in from Brazil. About the sub-group known as Swans, Angels who were somehow even more special than their allies. Invincible flying soldiers who roamed the skies and saved the day.
Hunter Valdez cringed at how cliché it all was.
Struck with sudden inspiration, he whispered a gruff word to turn his gob of spit into a scorpion. It had taken a long time for the Bruja to teach him the intricate magic necessary to do such a thing. The mindless creature skittered about in search of something to sting, yellow against the black marble floors of the offices.
Eventually it set upon a potted plant, which Valdez made carnivorous in order to punish the scorpion for its stupidity. Such little survival games were common practice ever since he’d learned to truly control and harness his abilities.
A man had to appreciate the lessons to be learned in every situation.
On this beautiful desert night, Hunter Valdez was eager.
The attack that his informants had been warning against for days was imminent. Maybe tonight. Surely it would be less than twenty-four hours. He felt indsidious momentum stirring.
Babel was ready.
His Flyers had been called home from their raiding parties. The paid help were motivated by offers of enormous bonuses that they would never see. Hunter Valdez expected that nearly half of his civilian support would flee as soon as the full-force assault on Babel began. Only those most loyal to him and his fortunes would risk everything in the face of the powerful Angels and their sharp-shooting Monks.
To Light Us, To Guard Us (The Angel War Book 1) Page 46