Among Aniels

by Quinn Blackbird

  My heart catches in my throat. “To seek them out when not even all the Gods know that they exist, how can I expect to survive them?”

  “Is this not the risk you are so willing to take?” He arches a perfect eyebrow. “This is your only other option, Kee. If you are too afraid to take this journey, now is the time to speak it. Now is the time to leave.”

  Koal flashes in my mind—the way his mouth warped and those razor-sharp teeth flung for me. I shudder against the wall and shake my head.

  “No, I’m not going back. I can’t.”

  Silver pushes from the wall and, looking down on me, says, “Then stop worrying about what might or could become. Focus on what you want and what you hope will come to be.” His gaze turns dark. “I won’t put up with a terrified mortal this whole journey.”

  Jaw clenched, I nod, then push up from the wall to join him. As I straighten up, I glance up at the door, and how terribly still and silent it is.

  Silver traces my gaze. “Koal cannot break through it,” he reminds me. “But mine is not the only door to the underground tunnels in the Capital. There are others—and he will find one that he may pass through. He knows where we are and,” he adds and snatches up my travel bag from the damp floor, “we have a ship to catch.”

  I gasp as he shoves the bag into my arms. So much for gentlemanly courtesy.

  Silver pays me no mind. As I sling the bag strap over my chest, he whips out a white-gold pocket-watch from the inside of his silk black vest, and he checks the time.

  “We must make our way there, now,” he says, but he doesn't tell me where ‘there’ is. He stalks off down the tunnel, leaving me to cart this heavy bag all by myself. Aniels aren’t gentlemen, I decide, as I stumble after him.

  A little ways up, Silver pauses ahead, and looks over his shoulder at me. A smirk takes his lips, all cloaks and daggers that chill my gut.

  “Even for a mortal,” he says, “you are awfully slow.”

  12.

  Undesirables flock to the underground tunnels for shelter, I quickly learn.

  Before walking the long lengths of these tunnels, I never gave much thought to where they lived, but now I know. They dwell down here, in the thick heat.

  It’s slum conditions. Even worse than the darkest, dampest parts of the Shadow Quarter. Still, with every tunnel that forks off another, and we make a turn, we come across more and more of the homeless undesirables. These ones aren’t addicts or night walkers. I can tell by the alert gleams of their eyes that follow us as we pass, the way they hug their few belongings to their bodies as though we wish to snatch up stuffy, torn blankets and sacks of stale bread probably looted from the bins behind the bakeries.

  Silver doesn’t pay the homeless vilas any mind. He stares ahead, only breaking away his gaze to check the pocket-watch tucked inside his black silk vest. His pace is brisk, and I shuffle alongside him to keep up.

  The bag weighs heavily over my body. Already, the strap is digging into the space between my breasts, and I feel the skin there starting to turn raw. My aniel companion doesn't offer to carry the bag for me, despite that a faint glisten of sweat has started to bead on my forehead, and my breaths are turning ragged.

  Silver and I have been walking for two hours—according to the pocket-watch—when I notice that the dampness in the air is sinking into my clothes, turning them sour with a faint mouldy odour.

  We pass a homeless woman and child—who cling to each other, wide stares on us—before we reach a forked end of the tunnel. Silver doesn’t hesitate before he takes the passageway to the left, and it’s so narrow that I’m forced to walk behind him.

  I sense we are nearing the end of the tunnels. Distantly, the sound of waves crashing against rocks echoes through the passageways, and the sea-chill starts to creep into the air.

  Despite the gel-sensation that’s creeping into my leg bones, I force myself to shadow Silver down the shadows of the narrow tunnel. I can feel my heart skip some beats and the beads of sweat roll down the curve of my spine.

  Silver doesn’t break pace. I ache to throw the bag strap off my chest and sink down onto the ground. My parched mouth craves a phial of my remedy. But since his pace allows no pause, and we have a vengeful Daemon on our tails, I don’t stop. I force myself onward until I’m staggering behind Silver, the soles of my boots scuffing over the puddles on the stone floor.

  The tunnel spears ahead, seeming to go on forever, until the violent songs of waves on rocks starts to rise up in the air, louder and louder with each step we take. Then, there’s a breach of shadows at the farther end of the tunnel. A dusty wedge of light that breaks through the dark.

  Silver seems to stride faster for the end of the tunnel. I struggle to keep up at his tail. Feel like my legs are about to give out beneath me when we finally march upon the wedge of light. It comes from above, a sort of rounded drain, and a rusted ladder lines the wall leading up to the fresh air.

  Silver, before he even touches the ladder, waves his hand overhead. I watch, amazed, as the drain dissolves into ash that flutters down to us. I flatten my hand over my brow to stop any of the ash from getting in my eyes.

  Halfway up the ladder, Silver pauses and, slowly, twists to look down at me. His satchel hangs away from his hip, swaying in the gentle wind that whispers down on us.

  I stare up at him, the bag sagging at my hip, fresh ash smudging my ruined clothes. The faint glow of light bounces off his pale hair, making it gleam like a halo around his perfectly carved marble-like face. My heart constricts.

  “The tote,” he says and, holding onto the salt-eroded ladder with one hand, reaches down to me. “Hand it up.”

  I squint up at him, the dusty light piercing into my eyes. “The what?”

  His lashes lower. He looks utterly unimpressed by me. “Your bag.”

  “Oh.” I fling the strap off my body. With a thud, it lands at the toes of my boots. It takes me all the withering strength I have left in my body to heave the bag up to his outstretched hand.

  Tote. Guess I’m not fancy enough to know that’s what sort of bag this is. Always just called it a dress bag, since I only ever used it before now to cart my torn and worn dresses back and forth from seamstresses in the Merchant Markets for repair.

  Effortlessly, Silver throws the strap over his shoulder. He climbs the rest of the ladder with ease. I wait until he’s through the mouth of the once-drain, and his shadow looms high in the wedge of light, shedding darkness down on me.

  I eye the ladder with a spark of panic budding within my chest. Looks like, with just the right amount of weight, it will come crumbling down to the stone floor. But Silver definitely weighs more than I do—especially since I’m not donned in a heavy, layered dress—and the ladder held for him.

  As I reach for a sunset-orange bar, the wave of vertigo I anticipated is quick to wash over me. I squeeze my eyes shut on the dizzying sensation and climb up the ladder, using only my hands as my sight. Just as I reach the top, Silver scoops down a hand and snatches my wrist in a tight grip. He hauls me up, out of the tunnel.

  I stagger beside him, trying to catch my balance, when a violent punch of wind hits me so hard that I almost bowl over. Silver’s grip on my wrist steadies me.

  I blink against the sudden brightness, waiting for my eyes to adjust. And slowly, I realise we have come out of the wall of a cliff that hugs an unfamiliar shore.

  This isn't the Port.

  As I look around the sharp cliff and rocky shore and angled sea, I realise we must be far out from the Capital.

  On the rocks of the shore, a small rickety boat sits—waiting for us.

  A young girl is perched in the boat, two oars overlapped on her thighs, and she waves us down with a bright smile on her freckled face. My eyebrows hike at the sight of her—a pirate hat, tilted to the side on her head, and a blouse with puffy shoulders. Not a sailor apprentice, not by any means. This young girl, barely cracking the age of her teen years, is a pirate, plain as day.

  S
ilver doesn't appear surprised by the girl’s youth. He keeps the bag hauled over his own shoulder, then helps me into the small boat.

  The girl rows us out to sea, without speaking a word. There would be total silence between the three of us if it weren’t for the late-day tide crashing against the cliff down some miles and the squawks of sea-vultures circling overhead.

  The pirate-girl steers us around the tall cliffs that hug the shore and, when we breach the edge, I see it ahead. A real life pirate ship. All black, no sails, and riddled with moving shadows on deck.

  My heart jumps in my chest and I scoot closer to Silver on the boat. He throws me a curious glance, but I have eyes only for the pirate ship we draw closer to.

  For as long as I can remember, I dreamt of sailing away with pirates and sailors on some spooky ship, away to another part of the world where I can be free. This is not the way I imagined it, but still, now that we draw nearer the ship, a bud of excitement blossoms in my chest.

  Perhaps my dreams will come true after all.

  end of book 2

  QUINN BLACKBIRD

  AMONG ANIELS is the second in a 6-part mini-series, GODS AND DAEMONS. Hang onto your kindle, because things are about to get wild.

  This series will be rapid-released.

  If you are interested in paperbacks, you can find them on the box set pages. Just go to my author profile on Amazon and click on the box sets of this series.

  I hope you have enjoyed the read.

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  If you have enjoyed this read, please check out the dark fantasy world of Gods. Other available series in this world:

  GODS AND MONSTERS

  GODS AND PRISONERS (This will be released in an anthology in September, then on my own page in December 2020).

  All series can be read independently.

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