by Jody Wallace
In the middle, a mound of white feathers shimmered. Jesús, that was a big bird! Several yards to the left was a body, missing its head. Maroon flesh covered the person-sized creature, but no clothing. Cuts marred it all over, oozing black ichor. Its four arms were tipped by claws, and it had the feet of a chicken. Batlike wings had half-retracted beside it, one seared nearly in two.
A daemon. She’d never seen one in real life, but there were only a few ways to kill them. That meant the white wings belonged to…
Archangel Gregori groaned and rolled over. His breastplate was dented. Silver glinted on his arms. White skirting draped at his knees and exposed his muscular calves. On his golden head, his halo appeared to be askew. His wings flapped feebly, splayed beneath him like white sheets.
He didn’t look comfortable. Did angeli feel pain?
Pistol in hand, Adelita entered the clearing, trying not to forget the daemon a few paces away but unable to keep her distance. She’d only seen the angeli on television, Gregori mostly, his noble brow wrinkled with concern, his wings artfully feathered, his armor gleaming, his garments clinging just so, outlining his body…
Well. One wasn’t supposed to lust after men who weren’t one’s husband, much less sainted beings, but that hadn’t stopped people from objectifying the angeli as if they were movie stars instead of the Lord’s messengers. Telling tales, whispering stories.
Adelita, too, had sinned in her heart.
She looked at the archangel’s firm lips, his square, cleft chin, the muscles in his bare biceps. She looked lower. His torso. Lower.
Adelita was sinning in her heart right now. But he was so beautiful. Angeli glowed with purity and holiness.
On television they glowed. Supposedly they glowed. Right now, Gregori didn’t, but he was no less striking.
She swallowed, hard, and ignored her corruption. It was to be expected. A flawed being such as her was naturally drawn to an angeli’s perfection. Papers had been written about it, about the end times. As had articles professing that the angeli and apocalypse were a global hoax.
The unbelievers had certainly had their wake-up call, hadn’t they? Certainly the light hadn’t taken any of them.
“Angeli.” She meant her voice to come out full of reverence, but to her ears it just sounded loud. “Are you well?”
Gregori flung an arm over his eyes and muttered. Golden hair stubbled his jaw.
Angeli grew beards?
“Archangel, may I assist you?” Adelita inched closer. She realized she was trembling. It was becoming hard to aim the pistol at the daemon beyond Gregori.
She reached his side. Her shadow, long in the afternoon sun, fell over his face. His silver-wrapped forearm shifted above his head, and his jaw clenched. He was aware of her.
“Angeli?”
Chapter Three
Gregori felt a presence. His sensor array seemed to be glitchy, and his awareness was dulled by alcohol and the crash, but he was fairly certain it was a large animal.
Coyote, maybe? Vocalizations stuttered at the edge of his consciousness. It wasn’t the daemon or he’d already be eviscerated.
No, couldn’t be the daemon. With the last gasp of his blaster, he’d blown that fragger’s head off after luring it away from the portion of the horde it guarded. Unfortunately, it took daemon bodies a long time to realize they were dead.
Preparing himself to move swiftly, he opened his eyes.
Someone backlit by the sun, someone tall and menacing with an outsized head, was pointing a gun at him.
Gregori leaped up and struck in one smooth motion. The weapon went flying. His attacker squeaked. Gregori’s body followed his hand, and he stumbled sideways. Sunlight knifed into his eyeballs.
“Dammit.” He righted himself. His attacker dodged, but Gregori, eyes watering, caught the man easily. Which meant it was a Terran. The group of Ship-lickers assigned to stop his crusade to help Terra were enhanced like he was. A challenge.
A Terran, not so much. With a quick twist, he wrestled the person face-first to the ground, falling on the prone body. Aside from his consultations with their military and leaders and an occasional foray on television, Gregori had steered as clear of Terrans as possible. Acting saintly for their benefit was a pain in his ass now that he wasn’t an official handler, and he had work to do. He’d saved a few people, but most had cleared out of the area where the entities were.
So what was this Terran doing here, trying to shoot him?
“You think you can attack me, you, ah, wretched mortal?” He wrenched the man’s arm higher. The smallish body was soft for a human male, especially the buttocks.
“Angeli, please.” The man had a high voice. Long brown hair curled past a wide-brimmed hat. He struggled weakly. “Forgive me, please forgive me. I would never harm a messenger of the Lord.”
Wait a second. Something about this read wrong. Gregori lurched onto his hands and knees and tried to access the DNA scanner in his sensor array. Nothing but static. Damn thing needed a reboot. Again. Was any of his tech worth crap anymore?
“I’m not going to hurt you,” he told the Terran, “but don’t fight me or you’ll regret it.”
“Understood.”
He arched his wings into a dome in case the Terran was stupid enough to think he could run. With a grunt, he flipped the man over. The hat tumbled off in the process.
Not a man. A woman. She had long-lashed brown eyes, an oval face, full red lips. Masses of dark hair. Flecks of dirt and pine needles coated her cheek and clothing from where he’d shoved her into the ground. Her white shirt was smeared with fresh blood.
“You’re a female,” he said, as if it were news to her.
She nodded. “Y-yes, angeli.”
Didn’t mean she wasn’t a threat. He inspected her body, looking for weapons and the source of the blood. He located surface wounds on her legs, arms, and hands. “You’re hurt.”
“It’s nothing.” Her breasts rose and fell rhythmically. He watched them a moment. Round and balanced, like twin moons, the fabric covering them taut. Something about her breasts made his head swim, but that could be the alcohol, not to mention the fact that a daemon, and then a Terran, had nearly killed him.
He shouldn’t be cutting it so close with Ship still in orbit and the retrieval teams still white-lighting select Terrans.
He returned his gaze to her face. Her dusky cheeks were flushed, and her breathing was faster than normal.
“Were you trying to shoot me?” He didn’t know much about Terran females except what he’d learned masquerading as their religious icon. He’d had opportunities, but it wouldn’t have been convincing if he’d indulged. That wasn’t the mythology Ship had ordered them to follow on this planet.
Not that his team had stuck to the program.
“Shoot you? Santa Maria!” she exclaimed. Her English was musically accented. “I would never.”
“You sure about that?” Her vocal and physical cues seemed honest, but she’d been pointing a gun at his head. Based on the sunbeams razing his skin, he was 90 percent sure his force field was kaput. Fragging tech. A bullet anywhere besides his armor would have ripped into him.
“I’m sure I wasn’t going to shoot you.”
“Then what’s with the gun?” And what was she doing in this area besides inciting the horde?
Before he could ask more, she said, “Why do you worry about a little pistol? You can’t die. You’re angeli.”
“I…” What should he tell her? He’d continued to follow code after the failure. Not because he was a blind, code-following Ship-licker, since he’d grown jaundiced in that regard with Ship’s decisions about Terra, but because it was simpler. The established cover seemed like the best way to sway their militaries—and keep Niko and other trackers from coming after him too hard. So far, so good. “Not exactly.”
“What does this mean, not exactly?” Her leg bumped his as she shifted. “Is it because you’re archangel? I’ve seen you on television. I wou
ldn’t mistake that face or that…pair of wings.”
“I am Gregori.” She was a believer, then. Good. Believers were easier to deal with than skeptics. Less arguing. “Let’s just say I’m no longer in favor.”
“I know. I saw the video when your Chosen One failed.”
“He wasn’t my choice,” Gregori began, before the rest of her words sank in. “There was a video?”
“Oh, yes. We all saw the video on the news programs. Again and again. Have you not?”
“No.” Bilge-brained, interfering Terrans. Never had a planet’s residents made his job as tough as it had been on Terra. No wonder the shades hadn’t come after him in a nice, killable clump at the pinhole—they’d been going after some tasty Terran treats.
“We saw you striving against the horde with your divine light.” Something soft brushed his wrist. Her hand, patting him. “We saw your brethren desert you, but you stood by us.”
A breeze picked up, trickling the scent of daemon to his nostrils. He tightened his wings around them to ward off the odor. “No one was supposed to be near the…”
He paused, frowning. What had the Terrans called it again?
“La boca de infierno?” she asked.
Sounded familiar. “Sure. There.”
“A team of reporters made it in. One survived.” She glanced sideways, and he followed her gaze. Under the canopy of his wings, a tiny sapling jutted through the pine needles. “Are you going to let me up?”
“In a minute.” He was having some difficulty remembering how to address Terran females. Were they different from Shipborn females, who were equal in all ways except numbers? His fight with the daemon seemed to have addled his brain. He tried to access the array again and got static. “I don’t understand why you mortals go against my orders.”
She shrugged, the motion jiggling her breasts. “Because we’re sinners.”
“No one was supposed to be at la boca,” he repeated. When he lowered his head to make his point, his queue of blond hair slid over his shoulder. “No one is supposed to be here, either.”
“I realize that,” she said with a sigh.
So why was she here? The closest branch of the horde had been several miles distant when he’d last seen it, nearer than he liked. Was the daemon he’d killed the only one with this group or part of a set? The vicious entities’ purpose on a planet was twofold—destroy opposition and round up sentients for the horde to eat when pickings grew slim. They couldn’t function well without food, one of the few signs that the maelstrom aliens had any similarities with creatures in this dimension.
He’d been busting his ass making sure the pickings had been slim and the daemons killed. A couple near misses, but he knew the consequences if the shades got him.
When he didn’t say anything else, his prisoner licked her lips. “Will I be punished?”
“Maybe.”
“How will I be punished?”
Tough question. All of Terra might be punished. He’d put brakes on the horde, giving the Terrans what information he could, fighting daemons, splitzing shades. Ship presumably trusted him not to wake a leviathan because the retrieval had continued, and the trackers sent after him had remained low-key. No planetwide sensors, no massive ops to chase him down.
In fact, it almost seemed as though the trackers weren’t trying. And it almost seemed as though he could single-handedly save this planet, except for a couple minor issues. He hadn’t figured out a way to seal the nexus without Ship’s munitions, and his tech was on borrowed time.
None of this helped him answer the woman’s question. How would she be punished?
Her leg bumped his again, and he glanced down her body. Their position was practically intimate. Suddenly his limbs felt weak, and he lowered himself until he connected with her.
Ahhh. Now they were intimate. It had been a while since he’d been intimate with a female.
She made a small, whimpering sound. He wasn’t sure what it meant. What he did know was her soft curves were bliss against his aching muscles. He could feel his injuries healing, but her form was healing in a different way. A way that was unwise, which reminded him how much he’d had to drink before the daemon had sprung his trap at that deserted bar.
Drinking wasn’t his best choice to pass the time, but Terran intoxicants dulled his rage and anger. They also helped him sleep.
She exhaled, her breath as sweet as dried fruit. “Are you ever going to answer me?”
Right. She’d asked him a question. “What did you want to know again?”
“I asked how I’ll be punished. For being in the bad zone.”
“Ah.” Hard to concentrate with his array fritzed, with sensations tingling all over his body. “Use your imagination.”
Her eyebrows arched. “My imagination? I cannot seem to help my imagination, and that is part of my problem.”
“Your problem is… Your problem is… Something else. The horde. Something. Hell.” His brain felt as thick as Ship’s hull. How could imagination be a problem?
“I smell whiskey.” She frowned. “Are you drunk?”
“Me? ’Course not.” His enhanced metabolism would process the alcohol soon. “Why are you out here?”
“Before my time comes, I wanted to see…” She paused and reached for his face. Gregori flinched back, but she persevered, touching his headpiece. “That’s not a halo,” she said. “Why don’t you have the halo?”
“We don’t always reveal our halos.”
She tugged, and the headpiece tangled in his hair. Fragging hell, it was as bent as shrapnel. A reboot wasn’t going to fix that.
“This is a machine.”
“Mother fra—” He stopped himself. “It’s not a machine.” It was an endo-organic communication and sensor array. A broken endo-organic communication and sensor array he had no bloody idea how he was going to replace.
She shook it, yanking his hair. “This is not a halo.”
“You said that already.” He grabbed her hand so she’d stop abusing his scalp.
“You’re not glowing, either. On television you glow.”
“I’m all out of glow.” Her skin was warm. Silky. Worries about the sensor array, about the horde, blipped out of his head like shooting stars. She was supple and cushiony, her hips cradling his. It had been so long, and his preferences didn’t run to men.
His cock hardened as he thought about her hips and how much time had passed since he’d had a woman. Since a woman had had him, inside her body. Hot and slick and luscious.
He considered the woman beneath him. Many Terran females had offered to have him inside their bodies. One had offered a week ago, and he hadn’t been interested.
Well, he was now. Damn. Why had he held himself to code after the Chosen One had failed? He could have been rutting like a seed parent picked by a Shipborn female as the father of her child.
He adjusted himself against her. So soft. “I don’t suppose we could go somewhere safer and—”
Her eyes widened. “Is that… Is that your… Oh, I don’t think so, señor.”
Gregori swallowed. “Is that a no?”
“I’ve heard the talk, but never about you.” She wouldn’t meet his eyes. “I didn’t believe it. You’re angeli. You’re not supposed to have mortal desires.”
He had them. He had more desire for her every second, and less desire to demonstrate anything resembling piety. “Says who?”
“I say so. And the Lord. But you’re obviously…” Her eyes narrowed. “Is this some sort of test? Tempting me like this?”
Which answer would be more likely to result in a cooperative woman? “Maybe.”
“Then forgive me, angeli, for I have sinned,” she said, without taking her gaze off his face. “I haven’t been to confession in over a month. I have stolen things, only to survive, you understand, and I killed a man. With my gun. He planned to hurt me.” She paused as if expecting a reaction out of him. “I have to protect myself from men who would take advantage of me.
”
“You’re forgiven,” he said automatically. Terrans liked to hear that, even though it wasn’t his place to say it.
“Maybe I am, maybe I’m not. The problem is, right now I feel…”
“You feel?” He could feel her. Her heat, so different from the sun. His head spun like a comet’s tail. He could lie atop her and listen to her all day.
Her lips tightened. “I think you know, since you’re the one doing it to me.”
He slid a leg between hers. Her bare skin was velvet against his knee. “I’m not doing anything.”
“I feel lust,” she said matter-of-factly, and took a deep breath. Her face wrinkled. “Dios, what is that smell?” She continued with a string of words in another language. With his headset broken, he knew only English.
“I’m sorry, I don’t understand.”
“The stench, Gregori, the stench! It’s like death.”
“It’s not me. It’s the daemon.” With all the water on Terra, he bathed regularly.
“I totally forgot. There’s a dead daemon next to us. If it comes back to life, it could be on us like rats on cheese.” She slapped his arms, her hands smearing blood across his skin and multipurp bands. “Let me up.”
She was right. The daemon’s stench had turned rancid. That’s how he knew it was completely dead. They should leave, anyway. It wasn’t secure here.
He rose and lifted her to her feet. She stumbled away as soon as he released her, dusting her shirt and pants. Then, completely without warning, she whirled back to him, grabbed his feathers and yanked.
“Are these really wings?” she demanded.
Good thing he’d had the battle tips retracted. “What else would they be?”
“I don’t know.” She glared at him. “Who’s to say only the heavenly host can have wings? Daemons fly, too.”
“You continue to doubt me, mortal? After seeing me on your television?” He spread his wings halfway and glared back. This was easier when his force field—his glow—and his headpiece were functional. Dammit.
“Obviously you haven’t seen any 3-D movies.” She marched behind him and inspected his shoulders. He allowed it, even as her gaze made him self-conscious. As though he should flex his muscles and stand straighter.