Ashes of Angels

by Michele Hauf

  Zane slid across the roof, and landed at their feet. The blond vampire shook the snow off his head and smiled at Coco. “Got ’em right where I want them.”

  “Don’t you dare hurt Sam,” Cassandra admonished.

  The vampire gave her a double take, then nodded, agreeing. “I think I should sit this one out. Your Sam has things under control. You still have the bag of angel ash, love?”

  Coco dug under her coat and drew out the Ziploc full of crystal ash. “You take it. It’ll be safer in your hands. You’ve got the big blade to protect—”

  Zane stood, and immediately ducked as two angels soared over his head. The vampire’s hand snatched at the air. The new Fallen had hooked the plastic bag with a wing tip.

  Cassandra felt the sweep of a wing across her head and shoved Coco. “Let’s move!”

  “Watch it!” Zane lunged and flattened both Cassandra and Coco upon the snow. “Stay flat.”

  Blood dripped onto Cassandra’s hand. It wasn’t blue, which meant the vampire must have taken a hit. She sure hoped getting vamp blood on her skin wouldn’t turn her into a bloodsucker.

  “The bloody Fallen nabbed the bag,” Zane said.

  She managed to crane her neck in time to see the Fallen teetering, arms out and flapping, the bag of angel ash dangling from its broken wing tip. A thick blue line seeped across its neck.

  Sam swung an arm before him, halo in hand, cutting another deep gash into his opponent’s bare chest. The halo stuck and when he plunged it deep into the heart, Cassandra knew what would happen, and screamed.

  Sam twisted, whipping the angel into the air to fling it away from them. A bone wing swept before him and he grabbed the plastic bag. The flimsy plastic tore away from the wing tip. Crystal ash spilled out, showering the sky, and the wind took it into a swirl.

  “No!” Coco jumped, grasping at the ash in the air, but was unable to collect the minute flecks. A wing whisked over her head. Coco fainted.

  The Fallen stumbled, knocking Sam over with its massive wing. He headed toward Cassandra and the others. Blue blood spurted from its chest where Sam’s halo was embedded. Yet it roared and slashed forward a wing.

  Zane dodged under the bone wing structure and shoved the demon blade up through the center of the halo and deep into the Fallen’s heart. A spectacular explosion of angel ash filled the air around the vampire. Crystal flakes from the body glinted as if shards of glass.

  The wind gusted again, taking the ash into the sky, along with the other remnants.

  Sam dropped against the cinder blocks, head bowed and hand slapping the ooze of blue over his heart.

  Cassandra ran over to Sam and saw the splinter of bone sticking out from his chest. Part of the Fallen’s wing had lodged there. She grabbed it and yanked it out. Blue gushed from the wound.

  It could not be a fatal wound. The bone would have had to pierce Sam’s glass heart. Bone cannot go through glass. But she didn’t know. Everything about the Fallen was ineffable, strong and strangely adamant.

  Dropping the bone, she pressed her palms to Sam’s chest. “It can’t be. Please! Tell me it didn’t pierce your heart.”

  Sam grabbed her about the waist and pulled her to him. His breath hushed against her ear. “Don’t worry, bunny. Just a little cut. My heart is intact.”

  “A little cut?”

  He smoothed a finger over the cut on her cheek. “I’m sorry.”

  “For what? You’re alive!”

  “The ash.”

  Their only means of killing the nephilim trapped in the warehouse below had been dispersed and was now impossible to collect. As well, the newly slain Fallen’s ashes had been whipped away by the wind.

  “We’ll think of something.” She kissed Sam and pulled his head to her chest to hold him tightly.

  It seemed around every corner they turned some new and deadly force was waiting to push them back the two steps they’d gained. It would be suicide to charge the vampire tribe right now. Not without an army of slayers—and angel ash.

  “The wind took it all,” Sam whispered. “It’s as if we were not meant to be here at this moment. I don’t understand it, Cassandra.” He fisted his fingers. “It should have been so easy.”

  “Nothing worth accomplishing is ever easy.”

  “We need the ash to slay the nephilim.”

  “We’ll get more somehow.”

  “Somehow? Right. I could…” He slapped his wounded chest then studied the oddly colored blood that dripped off his fingers. A wince tightened his jaw, but he smoothed it away with a nod. “I have a plan.”

  “A plan?” Zane nodded, flipping the demon blade between his fingers. “We’re listening.” He bent over Coco and lifted her head as she came to from the faint. Smoothing his fingers over her brow, he offered a calm safety that Cassandra admired.

  Sam studied his halo, tracing blue blood rimming the edges, and placed it against his chest, over his heart, the blade digging into the oozing wound.

  Cassandra lunged for her lover. “No!”

  She managed to shove him backward onto the snowy rooftop, which dislodged the halo from his chest. She grabbed the halo and tossed it to Coco, who caught it and tucked it behind her back.

  Sam growled and wrestled her onto her back in the snow. He was gentle, but she couldn’t have gotten free if she tried. He pinned down her wrists. “I have to do this!”

  “You’re not going to sacrifice yourself! The three of us cannot fight all the vampires and a bloody nephilim without your help.”

  Abruptly releasing her, Sam sat back on his heels. He looked to Coco, who fixed him with an impudent I-dare-you glare.

  “You’re not going anywhere, buddy,” Cassandra said, gripping his bloody shirt. “Not until the nephilim is dead and we’ve got the book from the vampires. Got that?”

  He nodded, silent in acquiescence. Yet at that moment he seemed lost, perhaps defeated.

  “Then you can return Above,” Cassandra added, “or wherever it is you want to go.”

  “I’ll stay here with you. If you don’t mind.”

  She lifted her chin, looking at him through her lashes. “That is what I want.”

  “We need to regroup,” Zane suggested. “Coco and I need to recharge. She’s been running on fumes for over twenty-four hours. And I’m a little worried for all the fainting you’ve been doing, love.”

  “Yeah, weird, eh?” Coco clasped her boyfriend’s hand. Sam’s halo dangled on her wrist. “Let’s take a few hours and come up with a new plan of attack. We know where the vamps are now. We just need to figure how we can overtake them. Let’s head to the hotel.”

  Sam held out his hand to receive, and Coco stared blankly at it.

  “It’s his halo,” Cassandra said.

  Her sister nodded and sheepishly handed over the weapon. “It makes me feel hope to hold it. Caz insists she doesn’t feel it, maybe because she’s a muse. We have the other one back at the hotel. But…it was nice to hold for a moment. Thanks.”

  Sam took the halo and studied it as the wind swept a cold breeze over the rooftop. He offered it back to Coco. “Hang on to it until we get to the hotel, will you?”

  As if offered a great treasure, Coco accepted the halo and clutched it to her chest. Zane lifted her in his arms and stepped to the roof ledge. “Thank you.” She winked at her sister. “See you back at the fort!”

  Cassandra snuggled up to her wounded warrior, not caring her shirt was soaked in the blue blood or that the wetness was making her shiver. “That was kind of you.”

  “She’ll take care of it. I trust her. I’m sorry I scared you. It was foolish of me to think I could help you by taking myself out of the equation.”

  “You are my protector.”

  “I’ll defend you with my life, lover mine.”

  “I like it when you claim me like that.”

  “Lover mine?” He kissed her head and lifted her into his arms. “Let’s fly.”

  She snuggled against his chest, and as the
y took to the air, she wished he really could fly and that, together, they could leave this earth. And then she abandoned the wild wish, because she knew she’d already had it once, wrapped in Sam’s arms as they had made love.

  Another hot shower was what she needed to wash off the strangely sticky blue angel blood and restore her body to normal temperature. The hotel bathroom mirror was steamed and Cassandra drew a circle on it.

  She tilted her head, wondering why she’d done that. Then, without thinking it through, she drew a spiral in the middle of the circle, a match to her sigil.

  “The muse protected by her angel,” she whispered. “His halo surrounds me. I’m not going to let him go. He’s mine.”

  Naked, and still wet from the shower, she stalked from the bathroom to the bedroom, where Sam sat on the bed. Tearing open his blood-soaked, tattered shirt, she kissed his chest.

  “Whoa! What’s up?”

  “I want to have angry, end-of-the-world sex,” she said. “Got a problem with that?”

  “No. But it’s not the end of the world.”

  “It’s not the apocalypse, either, but it feels pretty close right now. Don’t harsh my angry sex vibes, Sam. Give me some of this angel flesh. Right now.”

  She shoved him hard and he fell back on the bed, arms splayed. But he wasn’t going to play shy. He wrapped his legs about her hips and pulled her onto him. The possession racheted up her desire tenfold.

  Unzipping his fly, she didn’t bother to pull down the pants and instead slid her hand inside to grip his erection. “You saving this for something special? Or can we get some use out of it?”

  He heeled off his pants and lifted her thighs to position her directly over his cock. “You want it angry? I’m not angry with you, but I can give you dirty and needy.”

  He lowered her onto his shaft, and the hot width of him burned her sweetly as she slid onto his hardness. Holding her hips, he moved her up and down. She followed his direction, slapping a palm to his chest where the halo had cut but had not left a scar.

  “If this is why I Fell,” he growled, jaw tight, “I’d do it again and again.”

  “You like sex with mortal women, big boy?”

  “Just you, Cassandra mine. Only you. Ah!”

  He came, his shoulders shuddering and a throaty growl vibrating against her fingers. He shot hot inside her and one sweep of his fingers across her swollen nub brought her right along with him.

  Cassandra swung back her arms and gripped him below the knees as her loins contracted and frenzied the exquisite high of orgasm through her muscles. It had happened so fast, so perfectly.

  “Oh, God.”

  His surprising utterance made her swing upright and bracket his face with her hands. “What did you just say?”

  “Now I know why everyone gives a shout out to Him while in the throes of orgasm. It truly is something worthy of thanks.”

  “Angel boy, we’re just getting started.”

  He tilted his hips, turned her onto her back on the bed, and slid his hands down her torso and thighs, spreading her legs wide. Bowing to her mons, he pressed his mouth against her heat to taste her.

  Chapter 18

  Cassandra held a coffee cup in each hand, and still managed to push the elevator button with her elbow. Normally, she didn’t begin to function until after sunrise, and pushing buttons with her elbows? So talented!

  An incredible mood had fixed into her bones. The past few hours had been perfect, wrapped in an angel’s arms. And though the day promised Really Bad Stuff, she wasn’t going to worry about it until after she’d had her coffee.

  The elevator dinged, and she was startled to see two men from inside walk toward her. Must be morticians from the conference.

  As they paralleled her, one grabbed her about the shoulders, and the other slapped a palm over her mouth. One of her hands crushed the paper coffee cup, spilling hot liquid down her pants leg. She tried to swing the other cup toward one of her attackers, but the coffee only splashed the inner elevator wall.

  They carried her, squirming, around the corner and outside to a waiting black van.

  A black van only meant one thing.

  What the hell were vampires doing up so early? Or were they getting ready to tuck in for the day?

  What was she thinking? Vampires had kidnapped her.

  “Cassandra? Ah—yikes! Oh. Oh, dear.”

  Eyes closed, Sam heard a female voice somewhere in the room. His skin was cool, but whispered with memory of Cassandra’s tongue laving its entirety.

  Mmm, he wanted more. And wished he could lick her without giving her the itchy angelkiss. Soon, he’d claim his soul, which would grant him mortality—and the ability to lick his lover in return. Above offered nothing when compared to lying in Cassandra’s arms.

  “Sorry. Is my sister in the bathroom? Er, are you awake? Oh, dear.”

  That wasn’t Cassandra’s voice. Must be the sister. Of course, Cassandra was lying right next to him. Sam slapped the empty side of the bed.

  He came awake with a start, sitting upright, noting he lay naked on top of the sheets.

  Coco stood near the door, examining the ceiling.

  “Sorry.” He dragged a sheet up from the floor and wrapped it around his waist.

  A knock on the door sounded just before the door opened. The vampire walked in, took one look at Sam standing in nothing but a sheet, and turned a scornful look on his lover.

  The trio quickly realized something was not right. Zane had returned from the coffee shop and hadn’t run into Cassandra while there. After Sam dressed in jeans and a thin T-shirt Zane had lent to him and led them to the elevator, they discovered traces of spilled coffee. They reached the ground floor and saw the empty coffee cups abandoned near the door exiting to the parking lot.

  “Someone has taken her,” Coco deduced. She clung to Zane, who kissed her forehead and reassured her they would find her sister. “But who would do this?”

  “Vampires,” Sam confirmed. “I can smell their acrid scent.”

  Zane cleared his throat.

  “It’s an aggressive scent,” Sam clarified. “I’ll wager they’ve taken her to the warehouse where they’re keeping the nephilim.”

  “For what purpose?” Coco asked. “They don’t need the muse now they have a nephilim.”

  “What if their experiments with the nephilim continue to go awry?” Sam conjectured. “They can use a muse and another…” He swallowed, realization hitting hard. “They’ve taken her to lure me to them. That must be it.”

  And yet, something didn’t feel right about that, either. The vampires could summon any number of Fallen now they had the book of sigils and names. They didn’t need Sam.

  And that made Cassandra’s predicament ten times worse.

  “You can’t go after her,” Coco said to him. “You won’t be able to keep your emotions in check. You’ll get angry. What if you shift?”

  “Then Sam will stay far away,” Zane suggested. “I can go in after them.”

  “No. They don’t need me.” Sam started toward the outer door, fury pushing his steps. “They stole the book from Cassandra’s loft. They’re going to summon another Fallen.”

  “But I thought you had to be dead for another Fallen to go after Cassandra. Oh, dear.” Coco melted into Zane’s arms, but thankfully it was not a faint.

  “No, the other Fallen merely has to have lost his muse or already attempted her. I’m not sure, really. Whatever their plans, Cassandra is in trouble. And I won’t stand around talking about it.”

  Cassandra wrestled with the manacles about her wrists. The heavy iron tore her skin making it bleed. It hurt, but she couldn’t feel the pain beyond the initial tear of skin. Because she was distracted by its heartbeat.

  In a cage not twenty feet away from her, the nephilim sat, its bare shoulders rolled forward, and legs bent and clasped against its torso. The thing’s heavy round head was bald and distorted, as if the skin had melted to a sloggy pile around its jaw. The
ear was placed low and was pointed and tiny. On its back a small set of wilted wings, atrophied and pink, flapped, but could not lift a kitten from the ground, let alone the giant.

  Every so often it would give a mournful howl and bang the cage bars with its head. Impressions of the bars remained on the skull as if the bone were soft enough to be molded.

  Perhaps the bones were. It was still a newborn. She guessed it must stand over nine feet tall. Naked and deformed, hideous was the only way to describe it. Until it turned to look at her.

  Now Cassandra gazed into the perfectly round eyes. The irises boasted the kaleidoscope colors all Fallen possessed, except these irises really did move and shift, changing colors and creating gorgeous new designs. And they were watered with tears.

  Falling deep into the nephilim’s sorrowful gaze, Cassandra felt its pain and fear. It had only been on earth a day or two, a new and strange world where it should not even exist. It was merely struggling to survive the only way it could—on flesh and blood. The creature couldn’t understand why it had been caged, held captive and tortured.

  It was a baby. It needed what all children required—someone to offer reassurance, care for it, to…to hold its hand.

  All I desire is someone to hold my hand.

  Swallowing her sobs, Cassandra whispered, “I’m so sorry. This never should have happened.”

  The nephilim blinked, releasing copious tears. Then it opened its jaw wide, revealing sharp, double rows of fanged teeth and yowled so loudly Cassandra caught her head in her palms to cover her ears. Myriad tongues screamed out in that yell, like centuries of battle cries from all races and breeds. It pounded in Cassandra’s veins, and she bent over, curling into a ball.

  “Shut that thing up!”

  A pair of well-shod legs and feet stopped before her. Pricey loafers and tailored trousers. The man squatted and, able to ignore the whimpering yowls from the nearby cage without a wince, he angled his head to look her over.

  A black business suit and black shirt sported the glint of hematite at cuffs and neck. Hair as dark as the metallic stone was combed into a slick queue. His black eyes held centuries of knowledge, though no wrinkles creased his face. Those dark eyes touched her with a strange kindness.