Warrior (Fallen)

by Kristina Douglas

  Who held me? Had Michael decided to get rid of me for good? He’d sworn he wouldn’t touch me, and within forty-eight hours we’d been in his bed.

  It was getting colder, and I knew my kidnapper was moving higher, higher still, where the atmosphere was so thin I couldn’t catch my breath, smothered as I was by the cloth.

  I was blacking out, losing consciousness, and I wondered if he was simply going to kill me this way, by cold and lack of oxygen. Everything was fading, and even though I had no idea whom I could trust, I couldn’t help it. The last sound I made before I lost consciousness was a pitiful cry for help.

  “Michael.”

  MICHAEL HEARD HER. Calling his name, desperate, afraid. His warrior bride was afraid, and he needed to find her.

  He had to fight the unnerving panic. He closed his eyes, trying to sense her, picture the places she might be. She was nowhere on the beach—he would feel her life force if she were. Unless she was dead.

  But that was impossible—Sheol was safety personified. The gates were still barred, and she had to be hidden somewhere. Unless someone had flown her away. Unless, once more, a traitor lurked in their midst.

  She was no longer in Sheol. He knew it with a feeling of dread. She was gone, and therefore someone—some angel—had taken her. He landed hard, moving through the annex purposefully. It took him a moment to pull on clothes, and he caught the scent of her, of them, on his sheets. She smelled like jasmine, and he cursed, heading for her rooms.

  Of course she was gone. But nothing had been taken. No change of clothes, no food had been eaten, she hadn’t even taken a shower. In fact, she hadn’t been back here since she’d left him—he would know it, sense it, if she had. Would smell the lingering, erotic trace of jasmine and sex as she moved through the room. He resisted the impulse to slam the door behind him, stalking down the corridor in a mix of fury and panic. She hadn’t run this time. He knew it. She had cried out for him. She was in danger.

  “What’s wrong?” The voice startled him enough that he jumped, irrational hope warring with despair. He turned to see Asbel standing there, watching him with a concerned expression.

  “Have you seen Tory?” he demanded, shocked that his voice was so raw.

  “Tory? Oh, you mean the goddess. Why don’t you ask Rachel?” Asbel suggested, nodding toward the shore, and Michael cursed. Azazel and his wife were walking by the edge of the water, holding hands. He wanted to snarl.

  Rachel was the very last person he wanted to talk to. She was a far cry from the usually docile Fallen wives, possibly because she had once been a demon—the demon, the Lilith—and he still wasn’t convinced she hadn’t found a way to tap into her ancient powers. Besides, he’d gotten the clear impression that Rachel considered herself Tory’s champion, against him.

  “What’s wrong?” Azazel demanded when Michael reached them.

  “Tory’s gone.” He glared at Rachel. “Did you help her? Do something to take her away from me?”

  “Take her away from you?” she said. “I thought you didn’t want any part of her. Or is it only a particular part you were interested in?”

  His already shaky temper flared. “She’s in trouble,” he snapped. “Someone’s taken her. Did you have anything to do with it?”

  “Of course we didn’t,” Azazel said calmly. “We need her. We need you to cooperate. We were coming here to talk to you both, to try to convince you—”

  The last thing he wanted to hear was Azazel telling him he had to have sex. Not now.

  “It’s been taken care of.” His voice was still raw. “Bedded and blooded. So where the fuck is she?”

  Rachel looked even more surprised. “I don’t believe I’ve ever seen the stoic Archangel Michael so wound up.”

  He wanted to snarl, but he kept himself under control. Azazel was very protective of his wife, and any disrespect would result in a confrontation. Right now he didn’t have the time for politics. “This isn’t about me, Rachel,” he said in a tightly controlled voice. “This is about her.”

  “About Tory.” Rachel used the name deliberately, like a prod. Of course she would notice that he’d avoided calling her by name.

  “About Tory,” he agreed. “She’s not in Sheol.”

  Rachel’s amusement vanished. “She has to be.”

  “She’s not. I heard her call me. In fact, I think that’s what woke me up. Someone took her, and I felt her struggle.”

  Azazel looked grave. “We’d best tell Raziel right away. He’ll send someone to check the gate, but if that’s still intact, then there’s no way anyone could get in here.”

  “What if he was already in?”

  The expression on Azazel’s face matched his own foreboding. “You can’t think we have another traitor!”

  Michael hadn’t even realized Asbel was still with them until he spoke up. “There could be. If it comes to it, my money’s on Metatron. She humiliated him in the workout room, and he’s never made friends with any of the Fallen. I think he’d do anything he could to get back to Uriel.”

  “How could someone want to get back to Uriel? He’s a soul-killing bastard,” Rachel protested.

  “He could destroy more than her soul,” Michael said. “You’re right, Asbel. Metatron was his chief angel for millennia, and he’s the logical suspect. If he brought the goddess to the Dark City, I expect the archangel would allow him to stay.”

  The blood drained from Rachel’s face, leaving her ghostly pale, a look Michael hadn’t seen on her since they’d brought her broken body here—broken by the Dark City. No wonder she was frozen, saying nothing. She’d managed to escape, but not before they’d had a chance to torture her.

  Asbel broke in. “Why assume Tory was taken to the Dark City? Maybe someone just took pity on her and flew her out of here.”

  Michael controlled his start of irritation. Asbel had always been quiet and unassuming; suddenly he was a voice of reason when Michael least wanted to hear it. “We all know that’s not true. Uriel must have her.”

  Rachel closed her eyes for a moment. The slight shudder that ripped through her lean body told him everything, and a blind fury closed in around him.

  It was gone the moment it hit, and he focused on Rachel. “I’m going to bring her back.”

  “You can’t!” Asbel protested. “You’re needed here. There’s no guarantee that that’s where she’s gone, or even if anyone’s taken her. And if they have . . . you know what Beloch is like. She’s probably already dead. If she’s lucky.”

  The look Michael gave him would have frozen a hardier soul. “Are you telling me what I should do, Asbel?”

  He shook his head. “Of course not, Michael.”

  “I’ll tell you what I’m wondering,” Rachel said in a shaky voice. “I’m wondering why you suddenly care so damned much.”

  “None of your damned business,” he snapped.

  “The training . . .” Asbel began, his voice trailing away beneath Michael’s glare.

  For a moment Michael couldn’t move, torn between duty and the overwhelming, crushing need to get to Tory. And for the first time in the eons of his existence, duty lost. “Go. Tell Raziel what has happened. He will know what to do.”

  “This is a bad idea,” Asbel said.

  But he couldn’t be worried about bad ideas. Without another word he spread his wings in the misty morning light and soared up, up into the milky thickness of clouds.

  The Dark City awaited him, the world of pain and punishment, the home of murderous Beloch and the vicious Truth Breakers and the guilt that ran through Michael like blood. It was past time he faced it. They’d taken Tory.

  He was ready to kill again.

  CHAPTER

  FIFTEEN

  EVERYTHING HURT. SO BADLY THAT I didn’t want to move, didn’t even want to open my eyes. First things first—I definitely didn’t want to throw up. If I stayed very still and took calm, even breaths, the nausea would pass. As long as I didn’t move, I was okay.

  M
y stomach roiled, then slowly, slowly settled, at least enough for me to consider opening my eyes, though I had no intention of moving any other part of my body. Wherever I was smelled like mold and death, and I briefly considered whether I even wanted to look.

  Curiosity got the better of me. I opened my eyes to blackness.

  Okay, fine. Screw it, I needed more sleep anyway. My stomach still hadn’t decided whether it was going to continue doing the dance from hell or go back to behaving itself, and pain moved through my muscles like a machine intent on destruction.

  I fought back the only way I could. I surrendered to the darkness and slept.

  WHEN I WOKE for the second time. the darkness had faded. I tilted my head, very carefully, and saw a small, narrow window up high in one wall, letting in a gray, fitful light, so gray that everything around me seemed colorless. I looked down at my own body. Still faintly pink flesh, and I could see fading bruises from my sparring match with Michael. But I didn’t want to think about that—or what had followed.

  I sat up, very slowly, determined not to make a sound even though I felt stiff and sore. The only way past the pain was through it, I knew that. I looked around, taking in my surroundings.

  A cell. There was no other word for it, and not a monastic cell like the room I didn’t want to think about, Michael’s room. This was a prison cell. The narrow iron bed was covered with gray-toned bedding, the walls made out of gray stone. There was a bucket in the corner, and I had the uneasy suspicion that that was to be my plumbing. Fortunately I had the bladder of a camel, because I was not—I repeat, not—using a bucket.

  I glanced up at the ceiling. No security cameras in sight. So why was I so certain that someone was watching me? Because someone most definitely was—malevolent eyes followed my every move as I slowly got to my feet.

  There was a narrow wooden door in the wall opposite the tiny window. It was locked, though I couldn’t see how. I muttered the Latin I had used when Michael had locked me in, but nothing happened. I tested the wood to see whether I was capable of splintering it, but I knew immediately that it wouldn’t give underneath my strongest kicks. I was stuck here until someone wanted to let me out.

  I shook my body, trying to work out the kinks. The stiffness was fading, and in a little while I could ignore it completely. I looked at the window set high in the wall. Too small for me to climb through, but at least I could get an idea of where I was. Did Michael have some kind of prison cell for people who managed to break through his powerful self-control? Some kind of oubliette where he could toss me and forget about me? Was it even Michael who’d brought me here? I didn’t think so, my latent instincts kicking in. Whoever had brought me here needed to know I wasn’t about to go gentle into that good night. I went back to the narrow, tumbled bed, noticing with apprehension that there were shackles attached to the frame. At least they hadn’t used those. Yet.

  So far my track record when it came to escaping imprisonment wasn’t good. One escape in the almost twenty-five years I’d lived at the castello; one escape from Sheol that had only brought me to an endless beach. I’d gotten out of my locked room, only to end up in a cell where my so-called goddess powers didn’t seem to work.

  I dragged the bed across the stone floor, wincing at the screech it made, and then climbed up on it. It still wasn’t tall enough, but by balancing on the iron headboard I could grab hold of the window ledge, so I hauled myself up to peer outside.

  And then fell back on the bed, the shock of it physical.

  I was in no place I had ever seen, or even imagined. It looked as if I were in the midst of a movie from the 1930s or 1940s—all black-and-white and sepia-toned. People were moving outside, gray people with no color to their hair or faces; an antique car drove by, and in the distance I could see a cadre of what looked like the military. Gray, cold, merciless, marching in formation.

  I lifted my arm to look at it. Still warm, creamy flesh, pale as always, but with the flush of life in it. The jeans I had tugged on before going to Michael’s room were a clear, faded blue, the tank top a deep maroon. I was in color in a world that wasn’t. And I knew, instinctively, that this was a Very Bad Place.

  It wasn’t such a great leap. A world without color was bound to be wrong. Despite the fact that I had distrusted Sheol, it was heavenly compared to this dark, dismal place.

  The question was, who had brought me here? And why?

  I had flown—the nausea and muscle pain told me that, even if I couldn’t remember a thing. Last I knew, I had been at the door to the training annex, and a shadow had come over me. Had I been knocked unconscious? Drugged? I had no idea. Just that blackness had followed.

  Who had done this to me? Michael? He was the most obvious choice. Everyone else had wanted me in his bed. I had broken through his armor, his defenses. I had caused his latest fall from grace, as surely as the first angels had fallen for love of human women.

  Of course, there were a number of differences. For one thing, he didn’t love me. It had been sex, pure and simple—well, maybe not so pure. But sex, not love. For another, I wasn’t human, even if I was distressingly mortal.

  No, it hadn’t been Michael. But the question remained—who had brought me here?

  There was an even more overpowering concern: I was freaking starving. I tried to envision a rich meal appearing at my doorstep, with rare steak and garlic mashed potatoes, but nothing arrived, and thinking about it was making me even hungrier, so I stopped, concentrating again on the window. Could I possibly fit through its narrow confines? Even if I broke out the mullions, I doubted I could make it without chewing off my own arm.

  Not a feasible idea, though at that point I was hungry enough to consider it.

  I looked around me for weapons. The room was empty—nothing in it but the bed frame and bucket. I rose and looked at the frame more carefully. There were flat pieces of metal between the springs and the frame, and I twisted one loose. It wasn’t huge, maybe five inches long, but the metal was sharp, and it was better than nothing.

  In the meantime, I had no choice but to sit and wait.

  IT DIDN’T TAKE long. The door opened, revealing two women who looked like something out of a bad World War II movie. “Ve have vays of making you talk,” I muttered to myself as the two Vikings marched into the room and hauled me to my feet.

  I let them. In the best of times I was fairly sure I could have taken the two of them—their beefy muscle bordered on fat, and I was very, very good.

  But I was also weak and hungry, and had no idea where to go. At least these women were letting me out of here. I would be patient and see where they took me.

  It wasn’t promising. We were in some kind of underground warren—windowless hallways led to more windowless hallways, and the two women marched at my sides like armed guards. I was barefoot—my shoes were still lying in the workout room in Sheol.

  But this wasn’t Sheol. These weren’t the wives of the Fallen, and this was no haven. This was a Bad Place, and when they pushed open a heavy door and gestured me inside, I wasn’t particularly eager to go.

  A shove in the middle of my back took care of my reluctance, and I found myself in a vast, empty stone room, the door closing and locking behind us as they followed me in.

  “Stand against that wall,” one of the women ordered, and I was almost surprised that she didn’t have a stereotypical villainess’s accent. She sounded soft, almost sweet.

  I glanced at the bare wall. Probably not a firing squad—there was no sign of blood on the wall or the floor. Still, I wasn’t about to obey meekly without a reason.

  “Why?”

  “Do as you’re told,” the first woman said. The second was busy fiddling with something attached to a long tube, and I was beginning to feel very uneasy about the whole thing.

  “I don’t do anything unless I have a good reason for it,” I said sweetly. “What the hell is that—”

  The water hit me full force, slamming me back against the wall. The second woma
n was wielding what looked like a fireman’s hose, and I fell to my knees beneath the painful onslaught, unable to fight back. It was bitterly cold, soaking me to the bone, and I had hideous visions of Holocaust movies. Didn’t the Nazis herd victims into a room and turn a hose on them? Had I somehow slipped through a time warp? If I could believe in angels and vampires and ancient Roman goddesses, was time travel far behind?

  I curled into a ball, protecting my body from the worst of the assault, and then I rolled across the floor, under the blast of water, before the women could react. I caught one woman across the knees and she went down hard; then I grabbed the hose from the second one and proceeded to use it on them. The two bodies skidded across the floor in front of the gushing water, slamming up against the wall, and if I’d been kind I would have shut off the nozzle. I wasn’t feeling kind.

  “Enough!” a voice thundered from the previously locked door, now standing open, revealing a tall, cloaked figure; and with no move on my part the water suddenly slowed to a trickle. I dropped the hose in disgust, prepared to take on the two women, who’d scrambled to their feet and were slowly advancing on me, when the new voice came again.

  “Enough, I said.”

  I turned and snarled, “Mind your own business. I can take them.”

  There were twin gasps of horror from my two tormenters, and they looked at me as if they expected lightning to strike. “Yes, my lord,” one of them murmured, sounding totally cowed. She grabbed the other woman’s meaty paw and dragged her from the room, both of them looking as sodden and bedraggled as I felt.

  I finally turned my attention on the newcomer, surveying him with interest. He looked like something out of a Harry Potter movie—tall and wizardly, with flowing gray hair, kindly eyes, and the soft mouth of a sybarite. He looked genial, harmless, but I wasn’t in the mood to play nice. He was also as gray and colorless as everyone else.

  “Who are you?” I demanded, shoving my sopping hair away from my face.