Whiskey and Angelfire

by A. A. Chamberlynn

  “I’m not sure why or how. It just started happening. And if you sensed that I was withdrawing from you… I guess that’s why.” He drummed one set of fingers nervously against his thigh. “We’re supposed to be partners, to work together, but when I feel a connection like that to you, it makes things… strange.”

  “Yeah, I had kinda noticed you were acting different. I thought maybe you didn’t want to work together anymore. Like you didn’t trust me or something.”

  “No.” His eyes met mine finally. “Not at all. Sorry.”

  “Don’t be. Your sensing thing came in major handy tonight. Olga said she wasn’t going to kill me, but it seemed like she might have changed her mind.”

  The tension in the air between us lessened as the subject changed. “She’s pretty terrifying,” he agreed. “I haven’t felt a lot of beings as powerful as she is. She might even give Lucifer a run for his money.” A pause. “What are you going to do about it?”

  “Haven’t the foggiest,” I said with a grimace. “But that’s priority number four on the list of ‘Zyan’s life going to shit’. First, tell me what’s happening with the angels.”

  “Michael’s on a rampage,” Eli said, shaking his head. “He’s forced us to perform dozens of raids, he’s locking supes up left and right. Honestly, I think the only reason he let you go was because it would make the HR lose face to imprison someone they’d previously employed.”

  “Yikes. About Ambriel…”

  “You found something?”

  I nodded. “But if I tell you, you have to keep it between the two of us. You’d be directly disobeying the angelic forces. Maybe it’d be better if you didn’t know.”

  “Just tell me, Zyan,” he said, his eyes afire.

  I took a deep breath. “Pan knows where they are. Ambriel and Kara, the shifter. Ambriel and Kara ran away together. They’re lovers.”

  I watched his face as the words came out. First, a flicker of anger at Pan’s name, then a moment of confusion, then astonishment.

  “But it’s forbidden!” he exclaimed.

  “Which is why they had to hide themselves.”

  “So they’re safe and well?”

  “Yes. As you know, we tried to track them and can’t. But it’s what they want.”

  Eli closed his eyes, and for a moment his face lost its youthful purity and time could be seen there. He wasn’t as old as me, but he was still over a century. “Michael will never accept that. He’ll tear apart the city looking for them.”

  “I know,” I murmured. “Plus, there’s Lucifer’s plot.”

  Eli waited expectantly as I told him everything that had transpired and what Anna told us. “What are we going to do?” he said at last.

  “I don’t know.” My eyes met his, and I knew we both saw nothing but lost depths. I broke the silence first. “And now I have Olga after me, as if Lucifer trying to finish his bond wasn’t enough.”

  Eli reached out tentatively and traced my mark with his finger, lingering on the new rune. I shivered and he pulled his hand back.

  “I can’t imagine you turning into something like Alexander and Anna,” he said, his voice rough. “I just—it just can’t be possible.”

  “You saw the creature who made me tonight,” I whispered. “It’s definitely possible.”

  Eli reached out and placed a hand on my shoulder, his thumb stroking my collar bone almost absentmindedly. He looked down, his hair falling in his face. “I wish you could see yourself as I see you.”

  He opened his mouth to say more, but his wrist comm buzzed. “I have to go, or they’ll know I’ve left headquarters. We’ll think of something—we always do.”

  And with that, he shot up into the sky and disappeared in a burst of light.

  The boat rocked beneath me and I tried to remember how to breathe. My skin tingled where Eli had touched me. Until I’d seen him tonight, I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed him, just in the two days since I’d gotten booted out of NHTF headquarters. It seemed an eternity. The smell of him, the lavender of his eyes, the siren song of his soul. When he was near, I could feel it, this light ever-present touch in my mind. Did I feel strongly for Eli, or was it his soul I craved? I stared up at the spot in the sky where he’d disappeared.

  I felt like a junkie. And Eli was my drug.

  With a groan of frustration, I stepped through the pathways back to Magdalene’s. Dublin was about to get ripped apart by the angels, if Lucifer didn’t turn everyone into demons first. Everything was crumbling and we needed to come up with a plan of attack. And fast.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  I stepped out onto the dock at Mags’s, practically on top of Donovan.

  “Sorry,” I said. “One of these days I’m actually going to knock somebody over jumping through the paths.”

  “No problem. I can take a fall,” Donovan said, smiling and leaning in for a kiss. He tensed slightly as our lips touched. “Did you find something to eat?”

  I winced. “Yeah.”

  “Then why do you smell like Eli?” His eyes had gone cold, his jaw tight.

  “Why are you questioning me as if you don’t trust me?” I growled. Weariness settled on me like ten thousand wet blankets and I knew I couldn’t go to sleep, which just made it worse. I seriously did not need this shit right now.

  His eyes flickered. “You’ve been a bit distant lately, that’s all.”

  “Really?” I flashed him a contemptuous look. “I’m back in Ireland, a place that brings back the worst possible memories, trying to find an angel, trying to stop the city from being turned into demons, caught in the middle of an angel on a power trip and my maker wanting to ruin my life, and unable to sleep because Lucifer wants me to be his little lackey. And you’re gonna bug me because you feel insecure?”

  His expression darkened. “I know everything’s gone to hell, and I want to be there for you, Zy. But I’m always the last person you turn to. It’s always Quinn, Riley, and Eli before me. Like I’m a goddamn afterthought.”

  “Well, they’ve been around a lot longer than you have,” I sputtered. “You can’t just jump back into my life and expect to be number one.”

  “Eli hasn’t been around longer than me.”

  “He saved my life tonight, okay? I had a little run-in with Olga when I was out hunting. I think she was going to kill me, or at least torture me, but then Eli came and we got the hell out of there.”

  Confusion shadowed Donovan’s face. “That doesn’t make sense. How did he know you were in trouble?”

  I opened and closed my mouth a couple times. “He—I—we sort of have this connection. He can sense when I’m in danger.”

  Donovan’s eyes widened. “He what? So, what, he’s your personal guardian angel or something?”

  “It’s not like that,” I snapped. “Eli’s my partner. We have a lot of history in a short amount of time, a bond.”

  “A bond.” His arms were crossed over his chest, the veins in his arms popping out. “What am I supposed to do with that, Zy? Some other guy has a special bond with my girlfriend?”

  “Be grateful. I’d be dead if he didn’t.”

  “Of course I’m glad you’re not dead. But it’s a lot to ask. That I trust you when you’re always with him, and now I find out he can sense things about you?”

  “A lot to ask?” I stared at him in disbelief. “I’m not the one who cheated before, remember? I’ve done nothing, nothing, to earn such distrust. This is bullshit.”

  “You’re never going to truly let it go, are you?” Donovan asked, his eyes sad.

  “I think you need to look at your actions right now, not mine,” I hissed. “Think it over.”

  I stalked past him out into the marsh without a backward glance. A growl of frustration rose from my throat. I kept to the narrow pathways of earth that wound through the tributaries. Exhaustion settled into my bones, but my thoughts spun like the stars overhead. Donovan was ridiculous to bring this up in the middle of all the shit going on
right now. And to accuse me of having a thing with Eli? Pretty pathetic. I didn’t need his insecure crap. Sure, me and Eli were close. We had to be, we were partners. We’d saved each other’s lives repeatedly. And yeah, maybe I had the occasional lustful thought about him. Or his soul, which was cleaner than just about anything I’d ever encountered. Still didn’t give Donovan a right to mistrust me. What a dick.

  Lightning flickered overhead, fittingly dramatic. Great, another storm. Just my luck, out here trying to walk off some steam. I stopped and glanced up to see how close the clouds were.

  Except the sky was perfectly clear.

  I turned in a slow circle, scanning my surroundings. Lights flickered off to the east, back toward the town. But they were right on the edge of the marshes. Another group of supes seeking refuge at Mags’s place? No, too many lights. When I heard the revving of engines and saw a flash of wings overhead, I knew what it was. The angels and the NHTF.

  My feet spun in the mud and I sprinted back to the shack. When I hit the dock I turned back. The lights were halfway across the marsh by now.

  “The angels are here! We’ve got to move!” I called.

  Mags came out, cursing, and so did Quinn and Riley and the vamp that was rooming down the hall.

  “Where’s Donovan?” I asked.

  “He took off, shortly after you did,” Riley said, his tone apologetic. Our little argument had apparently been heard by everybody.

  Quinn shrieked, “Scorch!”

  There was no response.

  “Scorch!” Riley yelled.

  “Where is he?” Quinn asked, panicked.

  “I think I saw him head out for a walk a few minutes ago,” the vamp said.

  “Well then we’d better hope he saw the lights and headed away,” I said.

  “What? We can’t leave him,” Quinn said.

  “If we don’t, we’ll all be caught and locked up. Then we’ll have zero chance of helping him,” I said.

  The lights shone only a few dozen yards away now, and voices could be heard, soldiers shouting orders. The vamp took off, a blur in the night.

  “I’m not leaving!” Quinn said, shaking her head back and forth violently.

  “Zy’s right, Quinn,” Riley said. “We’ll find him later. We can’t do that if we’re locked up.”

  He grabbed her arm, and finally she moved, though her face was still a mask of indecision.

  “Out the back,” Mags said. “I’ll lead the way.”

  I nodded to Mags and we followed her. Lights flickered behind us as we left, and I heard splashing and the thump of someone landing on the dock. Darkness was all we had on our side now as we blended into the dense trees behind Mags’s shack. Shouts rang out as the angels discovered no one was there. They’d search the house for a minute or so, and then they’d be on us.

  Water splashed up around my knees and my ankle twisted beneath me. Lesson one of escaping: don’t look back. It never ends well.

  “This way,” Mags said as Riley yanked me out of the water. She led the way a few paces to the left where a small boat was tied.

  “Unless that thing has a fast and also silent motor, we’ll never make it before they get here,” I said.

  “Just get in the boat,” Mags croaked, her yellow eyes staring me down.

  We clambered in and pushed off from the shore. Mags dipped the oars with precision, and we rocketed forward across the water. More shouts, more lights. The crashing of brush and snapping of tree limbs. A dozen angels and NHTF officers burst out of the trees, moonlight illuminating them. The angels launched into the sky and shot toward us.

  From the other side of the marsh, back toward the city, an inky blot moved across the night sky, blocking out the stars. My breath caught in my lungs. What sort of creature was that big? How many goddamn things were chasing us?

  It rushed across the sky, moving and shifting as it went, undulating and changing form, a huge black mass. With a thousand shrieks, it dove toward us and our pursuers. Or more specifically, our pursuers. The mass broke around us like a wave over a rock, smoothly parting. As it moved past, not touching us, but close enough to see, I realized what it was: Mags had called the birds in the swamp to defend us. A cloud of thousands of avian friends, swarming those that tried to capture us.

  “Wow,” Quinn whispered as we shot further and further away from them.

  “Are they going to kill them?” Riley asked, concerned.

  “No,” said Mags. “Only distract and detain.”

  Within a couple minutes we reached the far side of the swampy area and got out on dry land. We all stopped to look at each other for a moment, stricken.

  “This is where we part ways,” Mags said. “I’ll be heading out of the country until this mess settles down.”

  “Thanks for everything,” I said. “Sorry for... all of it.”

  Mags nodded.

  “I need to do a location spell on Scorch,” Quinn said, interrupting us.

  “Not here,” I said. “Let’s pop back into the city.”

  “Good luck finding the kid.” Mags waved farewell and then surprised us all by rocketing gracefully into the sky. She was gone in two blinks of an eye.

  I jumped through the pathways twice, taking Riley the first time and Quinn the second. I took us to the rooftop of a five story building, an old hotel turned night club for supes a few blocks from Gus’s. I’d spotted Super Nova when we’d arrived a few days ago. It’d been packed up on the roof, but now it was empty. Deserted. I slowly walked to the edge and peered over, doing a slow scan of the surrounding streets. There were no pedestrians out and about, only NHTF and angel convoys rolling up and down. The area was basically under military occupation.

  “This is insane,” Riley whispered, the night air ripping his words away. “I hope Gus is alright.”

  “And they’ve got Scorch,” Quinn murmured.

  “We don’t know that for sure,” I said.

  Quinn just pursed her lips and closed her eyes, her magic crackling around her. When she opened her eyes a few moments later, they were clouded with worry.

  “It’s somewhere near North Wall Quay.”

  Something was definitely awry if Scorch was already that far away from Booterstown. He couldn’t have gotten there on his own in such a short period of time. Not to mention it was near the derelict area I’d gone hunting most recently and had my lovely run-in with Olga. But I didn’t want to worry Quinn, so I kept my mouth shut.

  I took us through the pathways to a familiar spot, then Quinn took the lead. “It’s this way,” she said, leading us toward a group of low, ramshackle buildings near the Liffey.

  Wintry air whisked around us, carrying the scent of the ocean, and snow clouds formed in the distance. It was still and quiet. Too still and quiet. Something was off.

  Quinn jogged to the entrance of a steel-framed building and pushed the door open, Riley and I on her heels. Lights hung overhead, casting circles of dull yellow on the concrete floors. Some of them flickered and one on the far side of the room sparked as if the circuitry was bad. An open door on the opposite side of the warehouse room revealed a dim hallway leading further into the depths of the building.

  “He’s over here!” Quinn said breathlessly, dashing for the hall.

  Riley and I exchanged a wary glance and followed her. I pulled my sword as we went down the hall, which opened onto another room filled with moldy-smelling crates and large iron cages. Scorch sat in one of the cages at the far end. Several other supes were locked in the surrounding cages, and they called to us as we entered the room. Quinn shot a burst of magic at the cage holding Scorch, and the door swung open.

  “Quinn, wait!” I hissed.

  “On what?”

  She reached down to help Scorch climb out, but he just sat there, shaking and staring off into the distance. “Scorch?”

  He didn’t respond, rocking slightly back and forth.

  “Hey, dude,” Riley said, approaching the cage slowly and squatting down so
he was eye level with the teen. “You ready to come out?”

  “I’m—I’m not allowed,” the kid stammered. “They’ll h-hurt me.”

  Quinn blanched. “Who will?”

  “The m-master,” he croaked.

  “Something’s not right… it’s too easy,” I said, mostly to myself, looking around. We needed to get the hell out of here, ASAP. I strode up behind Riley and Quinn. “Hey kid, you know how you wanted to hold my sword? Well, now’s your chance. Take it or leave it.” I twisted it so it glimmered in the dim lighting, flickering in his eyes.

  Scorch blinked as the light hit him, and slowly he turned his gaze up to meet mine. Consciousness dawned in his expression. Wherever he’d been before he came to Ireland, or whoever he’d been with more like, had done a real number on him. “Zyan?”

  “That’s right, kid. Crawl up out of there. We’ve gotta get going.”

  He blinked once more and then slowly crawled out of the cage. Quinn put a hand on his shoulder and cast me a grateful look.

  “Let’s just get out of here,” Riley said. “Zy’s right.”

  “Hey, what about us?” called one of the other supes, a young shapeshifter.

  I strode to the nearest cage and my katana made quick work of the rusty lock on the door. Quinn took care of the ones closest to her.

  “Alright, let’s move,” I snapped.

  We jogged back out into the main hall, which had been empty just moments before.

  It was no longer empty.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Two dozen angels and NHTF warriors stood in the previously empty room. Hunter stood front and center. Figures.

  “Kidnapping kids? That’s low, even for you,” I growled, spinning my sword in my hand.

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Hunter said. “You’ve broken into a government building without provocation.”

  “The gov’s slumming it these days,” I said, casting an imperious look at the dingy surroundings.

  “Come quietly and things will go better for you,” she said.

  “Been there, done that.” I snorted. “As fun as that sounds, I’ve got better things to do tonight than hang out with you, Hunter.”