by S. M. Reine
He couldn’t let it get that far.
Instead, Abram freaked out.
He screamed and jumped away as much as he could while remaining on the pedestal. “Get it off! Get it the fuck off of me!” He kicked wildly at the vine. It didn’t release him, but it loosened. The vines that had been approaching his waist shied back.
Azrael jerked on Summer’s chain hard enough that she yelped. “Stop moving.”
He pretended not to hear. The tumblers on his shackles fell into place, and the lock came smoothly undone. “No! Save me!” he shouted, still trying to fake panic, making his eyes as wide as possible. He kept his arms behind his back and held on to the shackles. Didn’t want to drop them yet.
Abram twisted, squirmed, and did his very best impression of Crystal’s shrieks when Trevin dunked her underwater at the sanctuary. He felt stupid. Really stupid. All he wanted to do was attack Azrael, still jerking on Summer’s chain, and instead he was fucking whining.
But the vines weren’t wrapping around him anymore, and when Azrael’s punishment didn’t make Abram hold still, he finally gave up.
The angel tightened the choke chain, looped the opposite end of Summer’s leash around a grave, and climbed onto the base of the cross with Abram. “Hold still, mortal!” Azrael said, exasperated.
Abram dropped the shackles and wrapped one arm around Azrael’s throat.
“Fine,” he growled.
He kicked one of his feet against the cross, propelling both of them to the ground. The vines ripped free. They hit the grass with Abram on top and he slammed his fists into Azrael’s face. It was about as effective as trying to bite through rock. The angel barely flinched.
Azrael shoved him off. Abram hit a gravestone hard—a gravestone right next to Summer.
She was gasping for breath, pawing at her face, unable to reach the chain that dug into her flesh. Abram yanked hard on the collar.
The angel struck him, driving him to the ground face-first.
“I’ll just have to apologize to Leliel for killing you,” Azrael said, closing his hands around Abram’s neck from behind.
Abram’s vision blurred.
And then the pressure was gone.
Azrael kicked wildly as he was dragged through the grass. Summer pulled so hard that it looked like she was about to wrench the arm from his socket. She growled as she jerked at him like a chew toy.
The silver chain was puddled on the ground a few feet away. Abram had loosened the collar enough that Summer had pawed it open.
He scooped it off the ground.
Summer gave a yelp, and it took Abram an instant to realize that it wasn’t a pain sound. It was a warning.
He turned to see another angel dropping toward them.
Damn it.
Abram wrapped the chain around his fist and prepared to face this new enemy.
The new angel slammed into the ground a few feet away, sending clods of dirt flying into the air. He straightened with his wings stretched to either side.
Abram swung at him. The angel caught his wrist, deflecting the blow, and Abram swung again. His knuckles connected with the angel’s face. He was shocked when that actually staggered his assailant—the new angel was so much weaker than Azrael.
That shock was the only thing that kept Abram from hitting him again.
“Stop!” the angel snapped.
Though Abram hadn’t recognized the face, he definitely recognized the voice. Nash ripped Azrael off of Summer, slamming him into a gravestone.
“Nashriel!” Azrael groaned. He was drenched in blood.
“Forgive me if I don’t have the patience to deal with you right now,” Nash said, and he slammed Azrael’s head into the cross hard enough to knock him out. The angel’s glow instantly dimmed when his face went blank. He slumped.
“Hang on,” Abram said. “Hold him up.”
Nash pinned Azrael in place long enough for Abram to lock him to the cross with the silver chain. He momentarily contemplated putting it around his neck, letting it dig into the bite wounds that Summer had given him, but he wasn’t that cruel. He wrapped it around Azrael’s chest instead. The silver spikes dug into his ribs.
Summer shifted back into her human form with a gasp of shock. “Nash!”
He smiled when he turned to see her, but he only made it two steps before collapsing, too. His burned wings bowed behind him.
Summer lifted him up with an arm looped around his waist. Shifting between shapes hadn’t done anything for the silver wounds around her throat, leaving pinpricks under her chin and a burning red stripe. She was still in better shape than Nash.
“Oh, you big, stupid man,” she said. “I’m going to kill you.” She kissed him on the lips. “You are so dead when I get a second.” Another kiss. “There will be pain and torture and—”
“Later,” Abram interrupted.
“He’s right,” Nash said. “We’ll need to get to the door as soon as possible. I can’t fly us there.”
“The pack is under here in this pool thing. We need them first,” Abram said.
Summer hesitated, nuzzling Nash’s cheek with hers almost absentmindedly. “You heard what Leliel said about Rylie. If they’re out to get her, we need to—”
“Rylie’s fine. She’s protected by Abel. This is our only chance to get Levi.” At Summer’s look, Abram amended it to, “We have to get the pack while we’re here.”
“Whatever we’re doing, we need to make it fast,” Nash said. “Leliel saw me leaving. She’ll be here at any moment. I’m surprised she isn’t already.” His eyes focused on the sky, and grim resignation crossed his blistered features. “Ah. And that would be why.”
Abram looked up, too. Almost a dozen angels were soaring toward them.
Leliel had collected an army before hunting down Nash.
Pretty amazing how his wings found sudden strength at the sight of so many angels on their way to kill them.
They soared down the spiral stairs into the pool below the cemetery. Nash’s hands were locked on Abram and Summer’s arms as he carried them down into the darkness. For a few breathless moments, Abram looked down on the cavern where he had been temporarily incarcerated.
It was vast and curved, like being inside a shallow sphere, and the bottom was filled with stone slabs that almost looked like a city in miniature. A heavy fog clung to the floor, leaving everything glistening with moisture. It was difficult to breathe.
Ten feet above the misty ground, Nash’s grip slipped on Abram.
Abram slammed into stone.
He pushed himself onto all fours immediately, wheezing from the impact. Naturally, Nash set Summer down lightly—as lightly as he could. He only dropped her a few inches above the floor.
“Give me a moment,” the angel gasped. “I can carry us the rest of the way to the chamber.”
“No time. I’ve got you,” Summer said. She pulled his arm over her shoulders and started walking. It took her a moment to realize she didn’t know where she was going. She stopped and turned to Abram. “Bro?”
“This way,” he said.
Their movements stirred the mist in the cavern as they rushed through, exposing the slabs in brief flashes. Abram didn’t look at the people sprawled over the stones again. Seeing them once before had been far too much.
It was Summer’s first time down there, though. He glanced at her. She was staring openly, mouth dropped open, tears shimmering in her eyes. But she was tough. Way tougher than anyone had any right to be. She didn’t stop moving.
Light flared behind them, casting long shadows over their path.
Abram didn’t look back. “Faster. We’ve got company.”
“Sorry, honey,” Summer said, and she lifted Nash off the ground. He’d put his wings away, and she was tall, but it was still ridiculous seeing her haul a man her height through the somber cavern underneath New Eden. Almost comical.
A female voice shouted at them. “Stop!”
Leliel had joined them after all.
Abram wasn’t going to bet on their odds against her with a dozen angels at her back. He didn’t turn to fight.
They sprinted the rest of the way to the tunnel.
It felt like he had just been there hours earlier, though it had been days since James and Elise had freed him from New Eden. His chest clenched tighter as they raced toward the room where the pack was incarcerated.
The blaze of light at their backs was the only sign that the angels had reached the mouth of the tunnel. Abram shoved Summer and Nash into the room ahead of him. It was dark and narrow, almost claustrophobic in comparison to the cavern outside.
“Break the capstone on the arch!” Nash ordered.
Abram looked up at the doorway. It was as elaborate as all of the angels’ other constructions, and it looked like all of the stones in the arch had been placed by hand. “How?”
“Do it!”
“I’ve got this,” Summer said.
Leliel ran up the hallway on foot. It was too narrow to fly, even with their graceful, slender wings. “Nashriel!”
Summer jumped up and seized the capstone, ripping it from the arch with all of her werewolf strength.
The door collapsed.
Abram jerked her away from the crashing rubble, shielding his sister with his back as rocks pelted him. He got a single, satisfying glimpse of Leliel’s angry expression before the whole wall came down, sealing off the room…and locking them inside.
When the dust settled, the room underneath New Eden was silent except for a faint sound like a heartbeat. It rolled through the floor and made Abram’s body pulse in time with it.
Summer backed away from Abram and the rubble.
“That was…drastic,” she said, tossing the capstone to the ground.
“These rooms were designed to be severed from the others,” Nash said. “It’s a safety mechanism in case of invasion.”
“Except that we’re locked in instead of getting locked out?” Summer was very pale. “There’s a way out, right?”
Abram could tell from Nash’s expression that there wasn’t.
“We’ll die in here,” Abram said.
“We would have died at Leliel’s hands. This gives us at least a few hours to figure out an alternative,” Nash said.
“Like starving to death instead of getting killed quickly.”
“We’ll dehydrate first,” Summer said lightly, as if she were joking. Even she couldn’t bring any levity to the situation. She stared around the room, hands clutching her heart. “What is that noise?” she whispered, as if afraid the angels would hear them.
There was shifting on the other side of the collapsed wall. It was impossible to tell if they were trying to break in or just free themselves from the destruction.
“The shifting?” Abram asked.
“The thumping.” She turned to one of the crystal chambers set into the wall, wiping condensation away with her hand.
“Don’t,” he said. He remembered how much it had hurt to see the pack in there. How much it had shocked and sickened him. Summer was so much more sensitive.
But when she saw the creature within—a sleeping basandere—she only looked sad. “They’re all full?” she asked, looking up the room. The fog made it impossible to see more than a few feet down.
“Pretty much.”
Nash had slumped against the wall, but now he struggled to his feet. “These are all mortal creatures of Earth. They’ve been isolated from the humans for a reason. This isn’t just a place to feed us. This is a place to drain our enemies.”
“What a horrible thing to do to people,” Summer said, wiping the condensation off of the next chamber. Her chin trembled. “Just evil.”
Nash settled his hands on her shoulders. “Angels are not inherently evil. We are, however, incredibly driven to innovate. What’s more innovative than automating our feeding processes so we can focus on more creative pursuits?”
“That’s evil innovation.”
“I won’t argue with that.” He glared at the chambers. “Eve never would have approved of this. That said, angels are far too smart to seal anything away permanently. It would be a waste of resources to leave the food in the chambers once they’ve perished. There must be a way to open them.”
Abram rounded on him. “Perished?”
“These are for temporary storage only. The humans out there—they will essentially live forever, as long as they remain connected to the system. These people will not. The angels want them to die. They just want to expend them first. That’s practicality.”
“That’s fucking evil,” Abram said.
He expected his sister to call him out on it, but she looked pretty pissed, too.
“Why? To torture them?” Summer asked.
“I don’t know. I wasn’t invited to any of the evil innovation planning meetings.” Nash sounded impatient. “I still think I can open them.”
He beat the fog away with a hand as he moved to the rear of the room, as far from the collapse as possible. It was quieter near the back. There was also a panel of mechanical switches against the wall, all unlabeled, and dotted with a few gemstones.
“Well, that looks easy,” Summer said, reaching for the switches.
Nash stopped her. “We’ll have to be careful. One wrong move and we could activate a kill switch instead. Angels may be too smart to seal anything away for eternity, but we’re also too smart to allow intruders to rescue their friends.”
Summer licked her lips as she studied the complicated mechanism on the wall. Abram sure as hell hoped it made some kind of sense to her, because it definitely didn’t make any sense to him. He knew cars pretty well. He also knew computers. It would be hard not to, living with Summer his whole life. But this? This was nothing like that.
“But all we have to do is flip the right switch,” she said, like that was such a minor thing to do. There were dozens of them.
“The right sequence of switches,” Nash agreed.
A sequence. Even better.
“Screw this,” Summer said. “I’m just going to punch through this crap.”
She drew back her fist, but Abram grabbed her arm. “No!”
His volume seemed to surprise her. She actually stopped. “What, why?”
“If the angels have rigged kill switches, don’t you think they’d tie them to breaking through the chambers too?” Abram asked. “You could kill Levi like this. You could kill the whole pack.”
“They’ll die if we don’t get them out. We’ll all die down here.”
“No,” Abram said again, more firmly. He jerked a dagger out of his boot and offered it hilt-first to his sister. “The floor is dirt.”
She understood immediately, but she didn’t look happy. “I don’t know, Abram…”
“Figure it out.”
She took the knife and kneeled, starting to dig the knife in the ground to draw lines mimicking the wall. “Okay. We’ll figure it out. It’s like any other machine—just have to break this down. Can you help, Nash?”
He gave the dirty ground a dubious look, but did sit down with her. “I’d like to remind you that I ran the entire world in Haven,” Nash said with imperious confidence. “That status wasn’t handed to me. I am a genius.”
“And humble, too,” Summer said, kissing his chin.
His face warmed a fraction when he smiled at her. “It will take time, though.”
Abram eyed the collapsed wall. It didn’t sound like the angels were trying to shift the rubble on the other side. Maybe they thought that there was no need to reach them after all. Why bother? They’d as good as interned themselves in a tomb.
“Seems like we’ve got all the time in the world,” Abram said.
Thirteen
THE STREETS OF Dis were filled with celebration. Something resembling music whined through the air—though it sounded kind of more like a herd of cats getting shoved through a meat grinder. Demons danced and cheered as though they had just won a victory.
Abel
was on the less-than-excited end of the spectrum. He’d liked seeing Earth’s sky watching him while he was in Hell. He’d liked knowing that there was a way to escape.
But that wasn’t so important at the moment. Not when he was on the hunt.
Demons gave cries of surprise and leaped out of his way as he pounded up the streets, paws slamming into the dirt, kicking up clouds of dust in his wake. Elise’s men raced to keep up with him. No way to tell if the demons were leaping back because of the sight of a werewolf in Hell, or because of Elise’s livery—either way, Abel had no problem cutting a path toward the scent of bonfire a few blocks away, where white-blue light glowed from behind a building.
The light had faded by the time Abel rounded the factory. The angel he’d been chasing had managed to vanish.
“Shit,” said one of the men, who’d introduced himself to Abel as Hank. He was a big guy with white scars from being whipped on the backs of his forearms. Just as visibly fucked up as Abel was, in human form. He liked Hank. “Where’d it go?”
Abel snuffled around, running his nose along the edge of the building. Mostly, he smelled ash and blood, byproducts of the factory. But that bonfire smell was still there, too. That was the smell that always followed angels.
He tracked it to a set of stairs concealed between the factory and its neighboring building, some kind of storage unit. The stairs were steep and dark.
The angel was down there.
He glanced back at Hank, Azis, and the other men to make sure they were watching then leaped down into the darkness.
It was a longer fall than he’d expected. His stomach jumped into his throat.
Then he hit on all fours, absorbing the shock. Ash kicked up around him. He sneezed twice.
The bottom of the stairs led to a short hallway terminating in a door. The angel’s smell was stronger in that hall.
There was also another smell—a much worse smell, far more frightening and unlike anything that had reached his werewolf nose before. Abel didn’t even know what to compare it to. It reminded him of dark, cold places like cemeteries, although he’d never been afraid of cemeteries and he was definitely afraid of this.