by Zoe Forward
“You’re going to have to learn. I’ll teach you.” For a moment, he was tempted to trashcan dive for the rest of the Smirnoff. “The alcohol will be worn off by the time we get to the plane. I’ll be good to fly.”
He passed out for the entire ride to the private airport, waking as they pulled near the plane. Roman leveraged himself up the narrow stairs to the plane, glad to find his buzz gone. Flynn already had his laptop open and was in a video call with Gerard for the required check-in post mission completion.
Roman slumped into the seat next to Flynn.
“You look terrible,” Gerard said. “Were you drinking again?”
Roman shrugged. “Got the job done. Why should you care how I do it?”
Gerard’s brow wrinkled, and he pinched the skin at his throat. “I’ve known you a long time, Roman. This isn’t you. You’re the one who keeps it together when hell and damnation rains down. What’s going on?”
Flynn compressed his lips.
Gerard sighed. “You’ve been spiraling since you finished the lycan mission. What is it about her that got to you?”
Flynn leaned in front of the screen. “You’re seriously asking? You required Roman to execute one of our kind who we weren’t convinced was guilty. She wasn’t dangerous to humans. Sure, she was wily and able to dodge us a while, but doing all that—killing someone likely innocent—fractured his soul. You don’t come back from that kind of shit.”
How he loved his little brother.
“Stop sending us on these stupid jobs,” Roman said. “We need some time to go find Ky. He’s never gone longer than two days without making contact. It’s been almost five weeks. I need to know if he might be…” Roman threw his head back against the headrest and smacked it twice against the leather.
In a tone gentler than his normal one, Gerard said, “I wish I could let you go find him. But there’s more to be done. It’s like someone found the doorway to hell and slammed it wide open. But maybe you two should take a break for a few days. Recharge. Go get laid or something to burn off steam.”
He glared at the screen, nausea rolling his stomach at the thought of touching anyone other than Nova.
He was so getting drunk at the other end of this plane ride.
“There’s this report of a demon in Brussels,” Gerard said. “Actually, it’s where you guys were the other day.”
“No.” Roman slammed closed the laptop.
“You know that won’t stop him,” Flynn said. “He’ll still email it to me. We still have to deal with it.”
“Not tonight.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
When Roman made it to the first level entertainment room in his mother’s compound on the Greek island, he didn’t bother to check which bottles he snagged from the bar. On the second level, he realized in his right hand was a Bacardi and the left was a… Sambuca?
He might be desperate, but that Italian anise-flavored shit was nasty.
Didn’t matter. The moon would start its ascent in an hour, which meant he needed to be six shades of comatose in the next thirty minutes. A third bottle of something might be necessary to get the deed done. Or he could take a knockout pill, like the one he’d given Colin. He’d snagged one and put it in his pocket before leaving the plane.
Helicopter blades pounded outside, vibrating the walls. Evie had arrived. Odd for her to be late, but that was her business.
He wasn’t up to participating in the formality of a “family” dinner, not with Ky absent and the shadow of Nova’s death hanging over him. Him in residence and passed out was best for everyone.
After the climb to the third-level room usually designated to him, he collapsed onto the bed. He propped himself up for long enough to unscrew the Bacardi and chug half of it.
Flynn pleading with him today flashed through his brain. He had to figure out how to function. For his brother. And in order to get done what needed doing. Flynn was right. They needed to work out how to end the curse.
Tomorrow, he’d do better. Not today.
Tonight, full moon night, he’d sleep in a self-induced dreamless state. He guzzled the other half of the Bacardi, caring little for its sweetness, but desperate for its effect. By the time he dropped the empty bottle on the floor and consumed half of the Sambuca, his emotions bottomed out into a serene flatness that eased the pain.
He rotated the small white pill between his fingers. Taking it might knock him out six hours or thirty-six. No consistency in its effect on any of them, and each time they took it, its effects were different. Being incapacitated and his body vulnerable terrified him. It’s why he didn’t take them often.
He put the pill in his mouth and washed it down with another fourth of the Sambuca.
…
The knock on the door was so quiet, he thought he’d imagined it. He blinked at the ceiling, registering the light coming from outside. It was a new day, maybe the next day or a few days?
The knock came again louder.
“Go away,” he barked out as he struggled to read his watch. Four p.m. He pressed a few buttons trying to get the date to come up.
Two days?
The door opened, and in stepped Flynn. After clearing his throat, he said, “I know you took a pill and you’ve been out a while, but this is the second phone call in the past few hours. I can’t put him off any longer.”
“Tell Gerard no. I can’t today.”
Flynn held up a small cell phone. “That angel is on the phone. He said it’s an emergency. No one should have this burner phone’s number. He says his boss gave it to him. His boss being God.”
“Are you kidding?” He shifted to sit upright against the headboard.
Flynn put the phone to his ear. “He thinks I’m kidding. Uh-huh. Agreed.” He held out the phone. “Here.”
Roman took the phone but didn’t answer right away. He shuttered his eyelids and counted to a slow three before he answered. “Zadkiel?”
“Do you have the Nepherites khopesh on you?” Roman recognized the burnished voice in clipped English as that of Zadkiel.
“Not on me personally, but it’s accessible.” He kept a storehouse of magical weapons like it on his plane, but never worried his plane would be raided. He placed powerful protective spells on it.
“I need you to bring it and yourself to Brussels ASAP. Since I can’t touch the weapon, I’m going to need you to dispatch this one.”
The Egyptian khopesh sword had been imbued with ancient magic such that it was the only of its kind in existence, the only universal demon slayer. Or angel slayer. Low-level demons could be sent back to their holes by waving a few of the right talismans and intoning the right words. A mid-level demon might require a bit of force to send back but could be returned to its hell. Need of the khopesh and a call from Zadkiel meant whatever creature he was facing was top-tier evil.
He held his forehead. “I’m not in good enough shape to deal with something like that today.”
“Get off your drunk, sedated butt and get here. My strength to keep it occupied is waning. It’s already killed at least twenty, maybe more. How long until you’re here?”
He groaned and calculated in his head. “Six to seven hours, give or take.”
“I’ll text you the address.” The call ended.
Roman dropped the phone on the bed and held his pounding head.
“So?” Flynn asked.
“I need ibuprofen. Those knockout pills are the devil.”
“Aside from that?”
“We have to go back to Brussels tonight. It’s probably the same demon Gerard wanted us to deal with.”
“First, you need a shower and a meal. You sure we can’t hold off until tomorrow afternoon?”
“When one of God’s archangels requests you show up, you do it.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Roman
was ready to fight by the time he jogged silently beside the angel and Flynn down a narrow street in Brussels. No alcohol in his system this time. Two blocks later, a screech rose up that was not high enough to be female, but the low and ragged cry reflected a human male in the throes of a violent death.
The call hit him on a fundamental level. Protection of the innocent wasn’t only his sworn duty, but it’d been ingrained in his soul for as long as he could remember. It was both a burden and a calling.
As he broke into a sprint, he caught the angel grinning. This time his dark hair was streaked with blond as if he did a home-kit highlighting. He wore an Iron Man T-shirt and tight jeans. The jeans were really tight, as in almost inappropriate. How could he move without wrenching the junk? Also, why was he grinning when someone suffered? He’d never understand this creature. He cornered around a boxy house onto a side street. Familiar scents hit his nostrils—demon and human blood. Demons smelled like the unique aroma of barbequed compost.
Bolting forward, he threw the demon away from the human, not that it would do anything to save the life that was now draining blood from a zillion scratched and pierced holes onto the ground. He wondered if the angel could do a miracle, or even if the guy was worthy of one.
Apparently, the human wasn’t. The angel made no move to approach the human.
Where he’d touched the demon, his hands burned like he’d put a palm down on a hot stove. He outed one of his daggers and nailed the demon in the chest as it charged him. Just as he was about to pull the khopesh sword from the scabbard beneath his coat at his back, which was awkward as hell to carry around—uncomfortable handle size and bulky unbalanced blade—the demon nailed him in the chest with three talons and sent him sailing into the house across the street.
He forced himself to breathe through the pain scorching his chest.
The scent of charbroiled decay kicked up a notch, which meant the demon had called in some friends. Not unexpected. As he got himself upright and untangled from Christmas lights, a mini demon army of six attacked Flynn and…Nova?
He stumbled backward, his head reeling and no longer in the fight. “What the bloody hell? You’re dead. How are you here?”
What was she doing here?
Where was that bloody angel? He did this. The question was how. Did he resurrect her from the dead? Did that make her not the same person?
Zadkiel was gone.
He’d ditched them?
He blinked. And stumbled in her direction.
She was fighting off demons with a knife, dressed in a black outfit that blended with shadows. This wasn’t a hallucination.
The demon on Nova’s back plunged its knife deep into her side. To her credit, she didn’t make a noise, but the sight scrambled his mind.
His brain shifted into high rage. He screamed and charged. Forget locating the one in charge, which was the logical and most effective approach to stop the minion army. Kill the leader and the underlings would run. He didn’t register her fighting back or knocking the little demon to the ground.
Had to protect Nova.
This time, demon sword in hand, he ran for her. By the time he reached her, she already had the mini-demon off her back and was chanting something above it that froze the being.
She stepped away with a smile and waved at him to get on doing his thing with the sword.
Too much emotion swirled inside his head. He wobbled. Flynn moved to help him but he held up a staying hand. “You died.”
“I did.”
“But you’re here.” Spots flashed in his vision. Don’t. Pass. Out.
“Yes. I’m here, but apparently you’d prefer if I was dead?” Her eyes narrowed.
“No. That’s not what I said. You died. I saw him execute you.” He unsheathed the khopesh to attack a demon headed their way. “Did Zadkiel do this?”
He sliced the demon with the sword, which turned it to dust. He was going to kill the angel next time he saw him. He’d clearly lost his mind to bring her back only to involve her in this.
“Cooper changed into the angel. He did something to me to prevent me from dying, but I’ve been asleep until now. He brought me here. I did die. I haven’t gotten any explanations beyond that.”
Two new demons approached him with daggers flying. With a wail of fury, he destroyed both. Zeroing in on the source, the head super shit, he charged, sword in hand.
Someone yelled behind him, but he couldn’t hear—didn’t want to hear. He was on autopilot and wanted this thing gone. He wanted Nova safe.
He had to do it…to save her. And the others.
…
“Roman, can you hear me?”
Someone was shaking him. He woke up in a void of being unable to see. He couldn’t feel his legs.
The voice. It was hers. He wasn’t dead. Guess that was good. And bonus: she was still here.
“Can you do anything with all that? He’s bleeding all over the place?” someone said, maybe Flynn.
“We have to get him off the street,” came another male voice. “There.”
His body was jostled, maybe carried. When he next opened his eyes, he stared up into a cavernous ceiling and an electric chandelier far too ornate and gigantic to be in a house other than that of an ostentatious king. This had to be a church. He intoned the rosary.
Everything came back in a flash. Him attacking the senior demon. The demon struck with talons and then a knife. Then the fucker bit him. He’d kicked his foot into the demon’s stomach to dislodge the demon from his shoulder. He’d gone to slice it, and it smashed his arm. Then he remembered nothing.
There weren’t any spells or tricks to stop a demon like that, other than the khopesh sword. Since it was dead, either Zadkiel or someone else completed the job.
Were those bagpipes? This had to be a dream. Bagpipes in Belgium?
With a groan, he pushed himself upright to search for the source of the music.
“Whoa,” Flynn said. “Stay still until the angel can do something.”
“What’s that music?”
Zadkiel’s handsome face popped into his line of vision, replacing Flynn’s. “You shouldn’t be awake.”
“That bad, huh?”
“Worse. What were you thinking? You don’t go solo insane on a demon like that.”
He fell back to a prone position. “I think the bite is the worst of it. If I turn into a demon or zombie, kill me.”
“The last thing I want to see is a zombified Roman,” the angel said. He took something out of his pocket that looked like a hand-rolled cigarette. It smelled herbal, but not cannabis or tobacco. He crushed the material between his hands and sprinkled it over the bite.
Roman hissed when it felt like acid burning his skin.
In his low rumble, Zadkiel said, “Give it a few minutes. The sting will go away.”
“What was that?” he gritted through clenched teeth.
“Something you can only get in the upper world.”
“What happened? How’d it die?”
The angel ducked his head and looked sideways. “Turns out you’re not the only one who can wield that blade. I had a hunch Nova would be useful, which is why I invited her. Well, part of the reason.”
“Invited her? She was dead. What’d you do?” He felt his grip on consciousness sliding.
“I pulled a few strings. Made a call for you. You know, things friends do when a friend is going to die unless something changes?”
“Thank you. I don’t think I can ever repay you.” He gripped the angel’s hand tight. “Where is she?”
“I’m here.”
He couldn’t see her, but he felt her small hand take his and squeeze. He focused on the warmth of her touch rather than the sizzling going on where the demon bit him.
She said, “Stay still for him to…you’re bleeding all over t
he place. I didn’t make it back to life only to have you exit it. Hang on.”
“This is going to hurt more than the powder.” The angel’s hands began to glow. When the glow touched his body, it felt as if someone lit him on fire.
He tried not to cry out, but the raw scream crawled its way up his throat until he passed out again.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Roman knelt in the front row of the Catholic church, which wasn’t an old building but a newer construction in the heart of Brussels. The early light of dawn cast a rainbow through the stained-glass windows. The room was drafty and smelled of wood cleanser. A few humans moved behind him, each wrapped in their own purposes. No one made eye contact.
He’d completed several rosaries, not that it helped answer his questions or focus his mind. His body might be entirely healed, which was a miracle, but his head was a mess. Nova remained in a side room with Flynn, waiting. Actually, he’d ordered Flynn not to let her bolt. As in he’d lay down some serious pain if she left.
Before he departed Brussels, he needed to thank the deity that sent him help and brought her back. And see if he could find some answers within himself. Maybe at least figure out how to convince Nova to stay. He didn’t think he could handle her gone again. Yet, her staying meant he had to get a grip on how to let her fight while figuring out how to keep her hidden.
Too bad he couldn’t consult the angel, but he was long gone.
How did he proceed, knowing the woman he loved was alive, but couldn’t be with him for legit reasons? Like being ordered to kill her again or being used as leverage by an enemy or the king. How did he continue chasing supernatural threats when he’d prefer to chase her?
“I could use a little guidance,” he whispered.
A man knelt next to him. Too close. He glared.
And fell to his side away from him. “Zadkiel?”
“You still look rough. The unshaved thing mixed with pseudo-alcoholism isn’t a good look on you. At least you’re not green.”