by Debra Dunbar
“Hello, Ben.” I smiled. It wasn’t a nice smile. “So angelic of you to visit your pregnant girlfriend. Time for you to explain yourself before I haul you before the Ruling Council for violating eight twenty–two forty–nine o–five.”
Nils frowned. “He brought an amphibious life–form into Aaru?”
“We don’t have time for this,” Ben interjected, shooting a quick glance toward my front door. “They’re coming. She’s not safe here.”
He’d voiced that comment before.
“Who’s coming?”
As if I didn’t know. The Ruling Council had given me a pass, although none of them probably believed I’d really sent Harper to Hel. In time, I’m sure there would be a rogue band of angels attacking my house, but this was too soon for mob activity.
“Hunters.”
Bull … shit. Nils and I exchanged glances. “How many?”
“Five or more.”
Hunters work alone, and there were no lynch mobs. Ben’s next words only served to confirm my suspicions. “We have to get her out of here and to safety. Now.”
The angel’s announcement was echoed by a blast that rocked my house. The window to the left of my front door shattered, and I cursed. I’d just paid to have that fucking thing replaced after Nyalla’s ghoul encounter, and now a bunch of angels had taken it out. I needed to seriously consider bullet–proof glass in next year’s budget.
The house shook again, and I saw bits of drywall dust float down from the ceiling. “Get Harper and Nyalla into the cellar,” I told Nils. “I’m gonna make these motherfuckers regret the day they stepped foot out of Aaru.”
I didn’t look back, trusting they’d follow my orders. Racing toward the door, I flung it open and unloaded the shotgun on whatever happened to be on my front lawn. The sentient weapon didn’t let me down. With a spray of bullets that seemed to unerringly find their target, I ran down the crushed–shell pathway with the adrenaline of a pissed–off Rambo. Screams echoed from either side of me, making me wonder exactly how many angels had mustered up the set of balls it took to attack Satan in her earthly home.
“Fuckers! Come and get me, you worthless pansies.”
One did, nailing me right in the shoulder with a stream of white. It wasn’t as restrained as Dalmai’s attack had been. This one burned through flesh and bone, leaving me to operate the shotgun one–handed. Gritting my teeth, I shook off the pain. I’d suffered worse at the hands of Ahriman. Diving behind a woodpile for cover, I kept firing into the shrubberies. The way my bullets looped around, I hoped the angels would be unable to figure out my location. I wasn’t good at this sort of fighting unless it was one on one.
“There’s five,” Nils whispered in my ear.
I nearly shot him in surprise. Fuck, the guy moved as silently as a drop of rain.
“Where’s Dalmai? Ben? I could use a few more angels on my side.” Not that I expected Ben to help, especially if what I suspected was true.
“Well, you’ve got me.” Nils edged forward to look through a gap in the stacked logs. “Dalmai will conveniently meditate through the whole conflict, and Bencul is busy guarding Harper.”
Bencul. Figures Nils would know his real name. That tidbit of information would come in handy later.
“We need to sneak up on them. What can we use as a distraction? Besides Harper, that is.”
“Me.” Nils didn’t sound particularly thrilled at his answer. “Dalmai’s reaction to me was actually pretty tame. They’ll come after me with a vengeance.”
“And kill you. That would suck on so many levels.” I should welcome getting rid of my Fallen–angel albatross, but the guy was beginning to grow on me.
Nils gave me an odd look. “Only you can kill me. Don’t you know that? The Fallen are immortal; their existence is at the whim of the Iblis.”
I remember hearing the whim thing, but didn’t really ponder the significance at the time. “All right then. Go get ‘em.”
He vanished — not like Gregory, or my horse Diablo. Nils seemed to blur into the air, and, with no more than a stirring of grass and leaves, he was gone. I ducked to avoid a blast of white, which exploded the layer of logs just above my head, and began crawling along the ground toward where Nils had said the angels were. It wasn’t easy scooting through brush with a shotgun in tow, but I felt better with the weapon at the ready.
The woods erupted into shouts and explosions. I jumped to my feet and ran, trusting in my shotgun to aim true. I hesitated, taking careful aim at the angel in front me. Then I shot him in the back. He jerked and turned around, shocked eyes meeting mine as his torso disintegrated into a pile of sand. Slowly, his form granulized until nothing remained.
He wasn’t the only one shocked. I had no idea how to calibrate this weapon. In the past, it had always injured. Why not this time? I didn’t have much of a chance to contemplate the ramifications of what I’d done before another angel appeared, staring at the sand in confusion.
I shot him too, with the same results. I was really screwed now. I’d killed two angels, so I might as well kill the other three — in for a penny, in for a pound. Ducking behind trees, I followed the sound of rhythmic thuds to see the other three angels taking turns as they pounded Nils to a bloody pulp.
Down they went, spraying sand all over Nils, who was a convulsing heap of raw flesh on the moss–covered ground. I strode over to him, kicking sand out of the way.
“So, you gonna let me kiss you now?”
He glared at me, one blue iris in a red background, the other eye swollen closed. “No.” The word was mangled with saliva and blood.
I watched as he thrashed around, gaining enough control to slowly heal his broken and torn body. As much as I wanted to leave him in peace as he struggled, I worried that more angels would come and find him in this vulnerable position.
“You good?”
He nodded, finally repaired sufficiently to stagger his way to the house. I dismissed my shotgun at the door and walked in to see Nyalla clutching the wand in one hand, and the silver collar in the other. Harper, by her side, had a net at the ready. Bencul was hiding in the kitchen, visible over the granite–topped bar. So much for staying in the basement.
Nils walked in behind me, and Nyalla’s eyes grew huge as she saw him.
“He’ll be okay. He took one for the team and is having a hard time healing.”
Bencul came out of the kitchen. “Are they gone? They’ll be back, you know. This isn’t a safe place for the baby anymore. I need to move Harper elsewhere.”
“You’re not moving me anywhere.” Harper snarled. “When will you get it through your thick head that I don’t want you anymore?”
“That’s my child. I’ll do what I need to in order to protect him. What you want is of no matter.”
Shit. I needed to intervene before Harper started stabbing again.
“Those angels won’t be back. Ever. They’re dead.”
Ben stopped, his face registering disbelief. “You killed them? You weren’t … they can’t.”
“Should have thought of that before you sicced your friends on my house with license to kill. They were your friends, right?” The look on his face was all the confirmation I needed. “Well, they’re piles of sand now, all five of them.”
Nyalla edged toward the kitchen, putting herself between the angel and Harper, who was looking at me in confusion.
“Ben’s friends? Why would he send angels to attack me? He’d not risk his child… .” The woman turned to look at the father of her child, realization dawning on her face. “The monsters. You’ve wanted me to go to them the whole time. This was just an elaborate plan to get me to comply.”
“Yep. Either you’d be begging for monsters after a few days in my house, or his buddies would provide some added incentive.”
I knew this was how this asshole’s mind worked. Get Harper to comply any way possible, and if they killed the Iblis in the process, then hey, I was breaking the law anyway. And that would be th
ree less favors he’d owe.
“Makes sense,” Harper said, fingering the elven net. “Problem is, I’m not going with him. Ever.”
The angel’s blue eyes were cold. He took a step toward her. “You used to be so agreeable, so malleable, so easy to influence. I’m done playing these games. You’re coming with me. I won’t risk the life of my child because you’ve turned rebellious.”
I stepped in between them, summoning my shotgun. He hesitated, eyeing the weapon and obviously remembering his five dead buddies. Harper might not want to leave her baby in the care of these “monsters”, but if I could find out how the angels were hiding their offspring, it might give us another alternative for her and the child — an alternative beyond hiding in my house or life in Hel.
“Where is it that angels hide their Nephilim, Bencul?”
He shook his head, blond curls bouncing angrily from side to side. “That’s not something I’d tell any demon, let alone the Iblis.”
I shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. She’s said she’s staying. It’s her choice, not yours.”
“It’s safer for her there. Once the baby is born, she can leave.”
“I’m not leaving my child with monsters, Ben.” Harper’s voice was eerily calm. “I told you to stay away from me and my baby. I’m going to raise him myself. I’ve made my choice.”
“It’s not your choice to make,” he thundered, trying to sidestep around me.
The shotgun wasn’t very effective as a projectile weapon in close range, but it did make a nice bully stick. I whacked him in the shoulder with it, and he staggered backward. Not that these two girls seemed to need my intervention. Harper fingered her knives with purpose, and Nyalla clutched the wand in a white–knuckled hand.
Ben growled and eyed my gun, clearly calculating his odds of getting by me. “The only reason you are alive is because of me,” he told Harper. “You would have died on that mountain, but I saved you. You’re mine now. I gave you life. In return, you are to bear my children.”
What a fucking psycho. “I don’t think Harper has any knowledge of this contract with you. Do you have a copy of the breeding proposal and signed documents to prove your claims?”
Yeah, I’d clearly been hanging out with angels for far too long.
“She’s a human.” Bencul spun about to face me, his face ugly with anger. “There is no need for proposals and signed documents with them. They’re practically animals — just look at their vibration patterns. I saved her life. She’s mine, and she owes me.”
Harper gasped. “I don’t owe you anything. This baby is mine. I’ll see you in hell before I give my son to you.”
What a great idea. Wish I’d thought of it.
Ben turned again at her words, giving me the perfect opportunity to whack him across the back of the head with my shotgun. I thought about stepping back and putting a few magical bullets into him but didn’t trust the thing not to kill him. Besides, I had a far more horrible fate in store for this angel than death.
Whatever its powers as a trajectory weapon, the shotgun made a good cudgel. Bencul went down like a felled tree and stayed down, especially after Harper kicked him in the head a few times.
In no time at all, I was heading down to Columbia, a duct–taped and collared angel in the trunk of my Suburban with Nyalla by my side. Harper had begged to go, but I couldn’t let her leave the house, let alone have the gate guardian see her.
“This is hard for her,” Nyalla commented as we pulled into the mall parking lot. “Everyone has a dark side, but to find out the man who supposedly loved you was using you for breeding stock … that’s going to leave scars.”
I knew all about scars, although mine were mostly all over and through my spirit–self. Exploding myself along with Oak Island had done a number on me, as had my torture under Ahriman’s loving touch. Ahriman. I shivered and turned down the AC in the Suburban a notch. Okay, so maybe my scars weren’t just on the surface.
I remembered Harper gnawing her nails to bloody nubs, depressed and doubting her ability to parent this child, ready to resort to murder to protect herself. She was so angry. The only hope she had of a normal life was if we removed this asshole from it entirely. The woman might never fully heal from this, but I’d do all I could to give her a chance.
“This angel will never hurt her again,” I promised.
“And never see the child he so desperately wanted,” Nyalla added, climbing out of the car.
I popped the trunk and pulled Bencul out by his pretty, blond hair. His eyes glared at me above the duct tape. “Grab that shopping cart, will you, Nyalla?”
Both of us seized the angel, struggling to get him into the flimsy cart. His weight toppled it over the first few times, sending him crashing to the ground. I was grateful that it wasn’t a busy section of the mall. Finally we got him in, and I tucked a blanket around him to hide him from view.
There was something oddly satisfying in wheeling an angel around the mall, bumping into every wall and kiosk I could find. The gate guardian’s eyes widened as we approached the gate, located this time in the rear of a Victoria’s Secret store.
“I’m not seeing this. I am truly not seeing this.”
“Then you better turn your eyes,” I told her, yanking off the blanket to reveal my duct–taped angel.
A nearby sales clerk froze, a box of underwear in her hand. “I’m calling security,” she announced.
“I am security,” I told her. “This is our new policy for dealing with shoplifters.”
She cocked an eyebrow, obviously unsure whether to believe me or not.
I held up a bra. “He was jacking off in the dressing room. And he had three more of them stuffed into his pockets.”
The woman backed away, glaring down at the angel. “You disgusting pervert!”
“You can’t send him through!” the guardian protested. “He’s an angel. I don’t care what he was doing to human undergarments; sending him to Hel is not an equitable punishment for that crime.”
“Tell it to the big guy.” I pulled the angel out of the cart, knocking it over onto a display of thong underwear.
“You tell it to the big guy.” The gate guardian averted her eyes, concentrating on a display of lacy thong underwear. “Last time I told on you, I nearly got my head ripped off. Nope. I didn’t see anything. Nothing at all.”
Whatever. With a wave of my hand, the gate appeared, shimmering.
“Nyalla, can you do your magic?”
I held my shotgun against the angel’s head as Nyalla removed the collar. Then, with a swift kick of my boot, I sent him through the gate.
“There. That’s done.” I dismissed the gun and turned to see the Gate Guardian, her eyes darting between the collar in Nyalla’s hand and me.
“He’ll just come right back, you know. Angels are able to activate the gates.”
I shrugged. “Yeah. And what’s he going to tell the other angels? It violates the treaty for him to have been in Hel. They’ll kill him or worse, make him into one of my Fallen. Even if he tells them I pushed him through, they’ll wonder what he’s been doing to survive. His choice is to stay in Hel and die, or come back and die.”
The gate guardian looked at her watch. It was a nice Omega with a diamond bezel. “Bet you pancakes at iHop he’s dead within twenty–four hours.”
“You’re on.” There was no way. Once he got caught, the demons would want to keep him around as long as possible to play with and show off to their friends. “At least a week, maybe two.”
–16–
Nyalla was right about Harper’s grief. I waited all night, hoping Gregory would pop in for a date–night. It was just as well he was a no–show. The mood in the house wasn’t exactly supportive of a romantic interlude. Plus I was going to have to eventually tell him about the five angels who’d become a mini sand box out front of my house, and the one I’d booted to Hel. He had been concerned over my smackdown of Dalmai, and I somehow doubted my recent activities would be consi
dered trivial. My only hope would be to confess as soon as possible and throw myself at his mercy. Or just throw myself at him.
I finally couldn’t take it any longer, so I called Candy and arranged to meet her for a jog.
“Two or four legged,” I asked as I hopped out of my car. We were up in the northern part of the county at the section of the Catoctin Mountains near the Pennsylvania border.
“Two.” Candy sighed. “Last time I got a bit too close to a farm. They thought I was a huge coyote.”
“They shot at you?” I got shot at all the time. Especially since I’d recently made it a practice of doing some midnight runs through Fort Detrick. Naked. With my shotgun in hand.
Candy laughed. “Yeah. With a camera. Next thing I know there are pictures all over the papers and Facebook. Every hunter in the Thurmont area is hoping to put my pelt on a wall.”
I understood that one too. “So how are things going with you guys?” The werewolves had been granted some liberties in the past year, but they still needed to toe the line of a strict existence contract or risk being exterminated by the angels.
“Great, actually. All the problems in Aaru mean no one has much time to pay attention to us. How about you?”
“All the problems in Aaru seem to be landing at my door. Did I tell you that somehow I’m now in charge of humans with bad credit? I’m supposed to rehabilitate them or some shit like that. Oh, and I’m in charge of Fallen angels, too. No kidding. There’s one holed up in my house right now, although he actually seems to be pretty cool.”
“That’s not the one in your basement, is it?”
“No, but that one’s still there too — in a bedroom, though, not the basement. Gregory commanded him to serve me. Evidently ‘serve’ means meditate and snark at the other angel, because that’s all he’s done so far.”
“Pfft. Make him do housework. Or cook.”
“Yeah, because a being that has never tasted food should be trusted with meal preparation. Remember that sandwich Gregory made me?” It had been an odd concoction of lunch meat, carrots and jelly. Thankfully his skills at coffee preparation were of a higher caliber.