I stopped walking and he looked at me, a question in his emerald-green eyes. I smiled before I could stop myself.
“I think I can sense them,” I said.
I didn’t think; I knew. I’d been tasting apple for the past couple of blocks, and the sound of birds flying, smashing through trees, was not one heard by others nearby. These are my angelic senses. Most Grigori have one. Some, like Lincoln, have two. Lucky me, I have all five, and I seem to feel them more acutely than any other Grigori I have met. Great to be special and all, but having an extra five senses can be, well, overwhelming.
“How long have you been sensing them?”
I hesitated. He saw.
“Violet…how long?”
I was worried Lincoln would judge me, that the fact I could sense them from so much farther away would be a form of supernatural condescension and alienate me. “Not long. Maybe one street back,” I said.
Lincoln raised his eyebrows at me.
“Three streets back.”
The corners of his mouth curled. He was holding back his Cheshire. I was a fool—he was proud of me.
I rolled my eyes at his twinkling expression. “They’re in the street. There are two of them,” I said.
He nodded, now refocused. “I can smell them.” His primary angelic sense was smell, though he could also hear.
I returned his nod. The fragrance of sickly sweet flowers flooded the area so strongly, it even overpowered the stench of the street.
He took half a step in front of me and I let him. I may be able to sense them from farther away, but Lincoln could size them up and pick the strongest much faster than I could.
They emerged from the darkness, looking human but not at the same time. Both were dressed casually, although one had bloodstains all the way up his right arm. I quickly took in my surroundings again, spotting one, then two, then three figures tucked into their sleeping bags, unmoving.
Energy hummed through my body and a cruel thrum worked its way up into the base of my ribs. I had let it in once before, had allowed the energy to take over my body, forcing me to the ground, paralyzing me in the pain of others. I grabbed Lincoln’s arm. He didn’t look back, but I had his attention.
“They’re all dead. They’ve killed them all,” I said, all too aware that the exiles were moving closer by the second. Agents of death.
“Linc, should I do it?” I whispered.
We had such a honed connection, he knew exactly what I meant.
Though most Grigori need physical contact to return an exile, I had discovered I don’t—and I can take out multiples at the same time. I also am the first Grigori who can take an exile’s power against his will.
But the full extent of my power was still an unknown, and that left everyone…nervous.
“No. Your power’s spiking all over the place. Are you okay?” Lincoln replied.
The exiles were getting closer.
My senses were on the edge but I had them under control…just. “I’m okay. I could try.”
“Stay focused. Stick to the plan.” His tone left little room for discussion.
Great. The plan. The one that has me all dagger happy.
Except I’m not.
Lincoln and Griffin had insisted that I still had to enter combat the same way as all other Grigori, that it wasn’t enough for me to rely on my power to get me out of everything. In theory, I agreed. But at this very moment—standing smack bang in the middle of a slaughter zone while two overstimulated, decidedly unhinged exiles moved in on us—it seemed extreme.
The exiles stopped in front of us, smiling. They assessed us the way only otherworldly creatures can—a flick of the eyes, showing a defensive mechanism and hunger at the same time. Exiles, whether light or dark, hate Grigori and love killing us above all others. We are their greatest, their only, threat. If exiles are successful in eliminating the Grigori, there will be no hope for anyone else.
“You are a little late,” said the shorter of the two, the one with the bloodied arm, like he’d been waiting for us.
Lincoln had already positioned himself level with him, not that I needed the heads up that this one was the more derailed of the two.
“It’s a pity. We would have liked to keep a few to tear apart in front of you. I prefer an audience. But we got bored.” He smiled, showing perfectly white teeth, pink full lips. Had I not been so sure of the senses, I would have sworn he was a sixteen-year-old jock. That was the thing about exiles: they all looked healthy and strong, in their prime.
“You knew we were coming?” Lincoln asked, twisting his body a little more, shielding me.
The exile laughed. “I have a message for you.”
“And I thought your days as messengers were over.”
The jock-looking exile licked his lips, barely restraining himself. “The reward of getting to kill you”—he glanced at me—“and her, is sufficient incentive.”
“Well?” Lincoln said, showing no concern.
The exile’s smile broadened and he spoke slowly. “Nahilius said to tell you he’s coming for what’s yours.”
Lincoln stiffened. The exile cackled loudly.
“Make your choice,” Lincoln growled, giving the exile the opportunity to choose to have his power stripped and become only human, or be returned. There was no denying that, when he went into fighter mode, he was lethal. But so were they.
“Choice?” The jock boy laughed. “So kind of you to offer. I think I will choose decapitation for you and something a bit more…fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants for her.” He looked to me, his buddy laughing away. Then I saw it. It was gone as quickly as it had come, but it was definitely there. Recognition.
He could sense me, could sense my power. Of course, given what he could sense and what he’d probably heard I could do to him, he should have run. Instead, true to exile form, he lunged toward me, relishing the challenge.
Lincoln’s arm shot out, his forearm slamming into the exile’s neck, breaking his speed and redirecting his attention. That was all I had time to see before the other one wound up for a right hook to my head.
Why is it that they all know how to fight?
Exiles seemed to come to earth and take human forms, and, although none of them had great technique, they all knew how to hit. Hard. Luckily for me, thanks to many hours of training and some angelic augmentation, so did I.
We exchanged blow for blow. I’m not short for a girl, but he was tall for a man, so he had that over me. He got in a few good knocks to my face, but he really favored his right side, so I just kept moving toward it, getting nice and close so he couldn’t gain any leverage. I was getting on top of things; a series of kicks to his legs had left him shaky. I hadn’t landed one in that magic spot that would blow out his knee, but he was stumbling.
A glow of colors lit up to my right. I knew what it was, but I looked anyway. Lincoln had the jock in a headlock and as I turned, I saw him plunge his dagger into the exile, returning him. What I failed to see was the tall exile’s fist heading straight for my ear. It was a sucker punch, but then these guys had no morals, let alone fighting ethics. I was caught off-balance and could feel blood seeping down the side of my neck as I fell.
My hand went instinctively to my dagger as the exile came down on top of me. My fingers wrapped around the hilt. There was an opening. If I hadn’t hesitated, I could have gotten the dagger out; I could have returned him.
Instead, my shoulder smashed into the gravel road and I quickly rolled onto my back in an attempt to evade him. He collided into me so hard I felt the top of my spine grind into the road and screamed. I punched him in the face twice, but he was too close now and had taken the advantage. He drove his knee into my stomach and drew back a clenched fist for what I knew was going to hurt a lot.
But it didn’t. He never got his chance.
All I saw was Lin
coln’s dagger coming through the exile’s chest, the glory of his power’s colorful mist, and then, the exile was gone.
Lincoln stood above me, strong and ready for anything. I looked into his fighting eyes and they softened for a moment. He put his hand out and helped me up. It was warm and real, and he pulled me into him and wrapped an arm around me to help me walk.
“I couldn’t…” I wanted to explain, to give an acceptable excuse. I was letting him down by not stepping up. I wasn’t just putting myself in danger, but everyone else as well.
The bodies of the exiles had disappeared, but we were still surrounded by a killing field of homeless dead people no one would claim and barely any would even notice were gone. I felt bad walking away, like I was being disrespectful, but there was no option. We’d inform the police anonymously later. We couldn’t risk getting pulled into murder investigations we could never explain.
“You did great. I can’t sense any more of them,” he said, looking around. “Can you?” He sounded unusually anxious.
“No,” I said. “Do you know what they were talking about? Who’s Nahilius?”
Lincoln hesitated. “Just a troublemaker. No one for you to worry about.”
“Oh,” I said, keeping my eye on him as he looked away.
Lincoln tightened the arm he had around me, supporting me. “It’s just going to take some time. What you went through…in the desert. It’s okay that you need some time.”
“You’re upset with me. I can see it,” I said, wincing at the pain in both my ear and the back of my neck.
“What’s the first rule in combat, Violet?” He spoke in his training voice. This time my cringe wasn’t at the pain, but at the stupidity that I was about to have to admit to.
“Never take your eyes off your opponent.”
“Exactly.” We walked on. He didn’t need to say any more. We both knew this one was all on me.
When we turned the corner, out into a busier street, he pulled me a little closer protectively. I loved being tucked in his arms, wrapped in his warmth, and wished we could have our chance to explore what we were to one another.
“We need to get you away from here so I can heal you.”
A drunk man dressed in a suit of rags slumped against the wall by the roadside, and as we passed, his almost-empty bottle fell from his hands, clinking into the gutter and making me look down. I stopped walking. I could feel something. Not the senses, something else. It was…stale. A lingering shadow of something…
I reached down and picked up the bottle to hand to the derelict, but I hadn’t thought it through, and as I straightened, I paid the price with a wicked head spin followed by the throb of all throbs from my neck right up to my temples.
I shut my eyes briefly and took a slow breath. Lincoln steadied me.
“You dropped this,” I said, holding the bottle out to the drifter.
The man looked up.
So many things happened within a split second. First, the effort of reaching out made the man lose balance and his upper half joined his lower half on the ground again. Second, I gasped. Third, Lincoln pushed me behind him and pulled out his dagger in the middle of a busy street.
Then…Onyx burst out laughing.
“But we all are men, in our own natures frail, and capable of our flesh; few are angels…”
William Shakespeare
“Finally! I’ve been waiting for you”—he hiccupped through a series of wet, chesty coughs—“to come kill me with your little knife!”
He lay back on the ground, arms splayed. “Go ahead! Anywhere you like! Just make it count, but not my face.” He closed his eyes and laughed again while he started to sing a tuneless ditty. “Finally…finally…finally…they have come for me!”
“Oh my God,” I said, pulling up to stand beside Lincoln.
There are a great many things to fear out there, even when you are supernaturally strong and fast, and although the memories of what this former exile had done to me—how he had filleted me through the back and smiled as he watched life drain from my body—were fresh, there was little doubt that this man was a mere shadow of what had once been: a very formidable, frightening enemy.
“What are you doing here?” Lincoln asked, not nearly as steady as usual. I realized he might be remembering his own near-death experience at the hands of Onyx. My hand flinched, instinctively wanting to comfort him, but I stopped myself. It wasn’t cool to show weakness—and it was even less cool to expose someone else’s.
Onyx opened his eyes into slits and wheezed some more. “Christ be damned! You haven’t come to kill me, have you?”
“No,” I said.
“I suppose you were after that lot down the road. Noisy ones. No finesse.” Even through slurred words, the sounds of contempt and longing were clear. “I see they had some fun with you, though,” he said, looking at the blood dripping from my ear.
“So much fun they’re no longer with us,” I sniped defensively, although I could hardly take the credit.
“Lucky bastards.”
“You can still sense them?” Lincoln asked.
“In a way. Not that I needed to. Would’ve been more subtle if they’d come in with tanks. If you haven’t come to kill me, go away.” He snatched the bottle that was still dangling from my hand and shuffled back to the wall.
I glanced at Lincoln. He looked appalled by the sight and stench of this man. I was sure his reaction was mirrored in my own face. “What are we going to do?” I asked.
“What do you mean? We’re going to get out of here and get you healed. Come on.” He motioned for us to move on, yet his eyes didn’t leave Onyx.
“Have you, umm…seen one like this before?” I swayed a little, the pain becoming unbearable. The shock had held it off till now.
“No,” he said, hiding his concern with impatience. “You’re losing too much blood.”
I shook my head and recoiled. “I know this is going to sound crazy, but I can’t just…Could we at least get him cleaned up a bit?” I held my breath.
Lincoln pulled me a few paces away from where Onyx was in the process of finishing the dregs of what looked like a bottle of bourbon.
“Violet, are you forgetting what he did?” he asked in a hushed but frantic tone.
“No, I just—”
“This could be some kind of setup. He said himself he could still sense them; he’s probably working with them.” He shook his head then looked back at Onyx again. “It’s too risky. Especially with the state you’re in.”
“We don’t have to take him anywhere private. We’re due to meet with Griffin in a minute. Maybe we should just take him to Hades with us?”
Before we could talk any more, Onyx pulled himself up to standing, using the wall for balance. He looked over to us and then…spat.
We watched as his loogie hit Lincoln’s boot, and then we simultaneously turned back to Onyx, who had started swinging the now empty bottle, making it clear that it would be the next thing headed in our direction.
“Filthy Grigori,” he slurred.
“Right,” Lincoln said, turning to me, “can we please go now?”
We left Onyx by the side of the road with his empty bottle and little else.
• • •
It probably wasn’t the best idea going straight to a club with an open head wound, but we really were late to meet Griffin and I’d insisted I was okay, much to Lincoln’s distress. Apart from the fact that my ear had suffered a massive trauma and was not up for the thumping bass that goes hand in hand with any good club, my face, neck, and shoulder were also caked in blood. I was glad I couldn’t see all the damage.
The bouncer opened the massive swinging door that had changed recently from a glossy black finish to an equally polished burnt orange. After a good look up and down, it was only once Lincoln had slipped the guy a twenty, whil
e promising we were only stopping in for a minute to collect someone, that he let us in.
Griffin was sitting at the bar. He always looked awkward in his uniform of black pants and navy shirt. He was old-fashioned in style, but I was beginning to think that might be the best thing about him. His loyalty was old-fashioned too.
He was talking to a man we both recognized as the owner of Hades. Neither Lincoln nor I had met him before, but we were aware of him and that Griffin believed he was more than human. It was obvious that whatever Griffin was saying to him had the owner seriously annoyed.
“Should we give them a minute?” I asked Lincoln, as he helped me through the press of partygoers. My head was exploding.
“What? And miss out on the fun?” He gave me a wink. I smiled and my heart fluttered as his eyes stayed on me for that moment longer than “only friends.”
Griffin saw us approach and quickly took in my state. “Do I need to ask?” He spoke with a fatherly tone that I’d learned not to balk at. Griffin was technically eighty-four, and since everything that had happened—the way I’d embraced and then faced Onyx and Joel—I’d earned his confidence.
He rolled his eyes when I didn’t respond. “It looks like reinforcements couldn’t arrive soon enough.”
I nodded. He wasn’t going to get any argument from me. Two tutors and three students from the Grigori training center in New York were arriving in two days and I couldn’t have been happier. I was going to be able to learn from the experts and have people my own age to train with, something I really needed. I was sure with their help, I would be able to get over whatever it was that had been holding me back.
Griffin had been eagerly awaiting the arrival of the two senior Grigori—the intelligence, resources, and backup they could provide was much needed. The Scripture that can decipher the identity of all Grigori, even those who have not yet embraced and are therefore defenseless, was at stake.
I would not stand by and watch it fall into the hands of exiles. If they found the key to destroying Grigori and gained the upper hand, the slaughter would not stop until all humans knelt before them, worshipping them as gods.
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