He let out a snarl of frustration. “What? You think I’m a shameless jerk who gets off on lying to innocent girls? I thought you knew me better than that.”
“I don’t know you at all! You and Kraven are brothers. Maybe you’re a lot more alike than I thought. Maybe you should be a demon, too.”
His jaw tightened. “You’re right, I should be.”
My breath caught. “What?”
“A long time ago, I was one of the bad guys.” His face was stone. “Real bad, Samantha—you don’t know. But I’ve changed. New name, new job…new existence. Everything’s different now.”
He’d knocked me totally off balance with this unexpected glimpse into his past. But, really, for all I knew he was just lying again. I glared at him with more intensity than I’d ever felt in my life, our gazes locked on each other. Nothing existed at that moment but the two of us. “You’re still one of the bad guys, Bishop. This just proves it.”
I forced myself to turn away from him, but he grabbed my arm and spun me back around so he could look at me angrily. “Did I knowingly lead you to believe something that wasn’t one hundred percent true? Maybe I did. But you said you hated me. I had to say something that would keep you around. No matter what.”
“I do hate you.”
His fingers bit into my shoulders. “That’s your decision. But when I go back to Heaven, I will find an answer. I will save you.”
“Leave me alone.” I pulled away from him and started to walk again.
He was persistent, though. He still followed me, which only made this harder. Having him near me, even now, made it too difficult to think straight.
He said he was one of the bad guys.
I shivered. Who was he? What had he done—and how long ago? And why had he become an angel if Kraven became a demon?
Finally, I stopped and turned to face him. I glared up at his face. Despite the shadows surrounding us, there was a dim, unnerving glow in his beautiful eyes as he watched me.
As I was trying to form words around my racing thoughts, something surprising caught my eye. I stared up into the sky behind him.
He frowned. “What is it?”
It took me a moment to find my voice. “Kraven said there were supposed to be four of you on your team, right? Two angels and two demons?”
“Yeah, four.”
I kept staring at the column of light that had just appeared in the night sky. “Looks like you’re getting a bonus member.”
He turned to look in the same direction. “You see another searchlight?”
I just nodded.
He stayed silent, but I knew what he wanted to say. He wanted me to lead him to the right spot, just as I’d done with the others. Sounded like somebody had their signals crossed—literally—when it came to the total number of demons and angels currently in the city. If there was another one tonight, then there might be even more than that.
My possibility of getting back what Stephen had taken from me had fizzled and died tonight, no matter what the angel was ready to promise me now.
The question was, did I completely blame him for what he’d let me believe? Would I have done the exact same thing in his position, knowing what was at stake if I couldn’t find the others?
Damn it, I probably would have.
It didn’t make any of this right, nor did it lessen the anger or betrayal I felt toward him, but part of me did understand.
He wanted to help me. He just wasn’t totally sure if he could.
If he’d put it that bluntly, maybe I wouldn’t have agreed to help him in the first place.
I hissed out a long breath. “This is it, Bishop. This is definitely the last time I’m ever going to help you.”
Two of us could play the lying game.
Natalie wanted the dagger so I could help her leave the city. I wasn’t ready to do that just yet. My heart ached from hearing her tell me about my parents, but I couldn’t do what she wanted me to do. Not yet, anyway.
But I also couldn’t lead Bishop to the Source and let him destroy my aunt—the only connection I had to my real father.
Looked like I was still right in the middle. It sure didn’t feel like the best location to hang out for very long.
It almost felt routine now, following the searchlight that would lead us to an angel or a demon. I kept several feet between us so I wouldn’t feel as drawn to him as I normally did. Didn’t help much. Even with my lingering pain over feeling betrayed and lied to, my attraction to him was stronger than ever before as I felt his heated gaze on me while we walked.
So damn unfair.
This searchlight didn’t lead us too many blocks away from the abandoned church. It was practically deserted in this neighborhood, compared to where we’d found Roth on the busy downtown sidewalk in the shopping district. Abandoned, empty, lonely—depressing, really. A good chunk of Trinity was like this now, as if any life that had existed before had died off, leaving a shadowy ghost town behind.
The light led us to another boy, not that I was all that surprised about his gender. He was an inch or two shorter than Bishop, which still meant he was at least six feet tall, with cocoa-colored skin and dark eyes. Attractive, of course, no big surprise there, either. He wore ill-fitting khaki pants and a green button-down shirt. His black hair was so short it was nearly shaved.
He had his arms crossed and he trudged along the sidewalk, headed slowly toward downtown.
“That’s him?” Bishop said.
The sound of his smooth, deep voice sank into me and made me shiver. I wanted to forgive him, even while memories of his betrayal still swirled all around me.
My conflicting emotions toward Bishop weren’t helpful right now. All they could do was distract me.
“Yeah,” I finally said. “I don’t get it, though. Why would they tell Kraven there’s supposed to be four of you and then send another one?”
“No idea.” He didn’t sound happy about that.
I had a flash of what happened last time with Roth and the worry over us making a mistake and actually killing some innocent kid. “Just make sure to check him first. Don’t just, you know, do it.”
“I will. You can leave now.” He paused. “If you want to.”
I eyed him sideways while we kept walking and I drew my coat closer to block the chill. Since we weren’t exactly walking hand in hand, I felt the cold night all too well. “And miss all the excitement?”
He kept his tense attention on the kid. “I know you don’t like this part.”
“Bishop, the day I start to like witnessing someone get stabbed through the heart is not a day I’m looking forward to.”
He shook his head. “You’ve been so brave about all of this.”
That made me snort humorlessly. “That’s not exactly a word I’d use to describe myself.”
He finally met my gaze and my heart betrayed me by skipping a beat. I guess it had already recovered from being broken. Fickle heart.
“I just wish I understood how you can do this,” he said.
He had no idea what the truth really was—that I was a…a nexus, like Natalie said. Since I wasn’t ready to share that at the moment, he’d just have to keep guessing.
Bishop pulled me to a stop. The kid had also stopped walking and turned to face us.
“Are you following me?” he asked.
“Us?” I was the first to speak. “Um, maybe. Hi there. How are you tonight?”
He looked at me like I might be a bit crazy. “This is a bad neighborhood, you know. Dangerous at night.”
“Your point?”
“What do you want with me?”
Bishop stepped forward. “We know you’re lost and we want to help you.”
The kid’s eyes weren’t as dark as I thought they were at a distance. They were a medium brown, flecked with gold. They tracked back to me and his brows drew together. “Do I know you?”
“Me?” I pointed at myself.
“Yeah, you look familiar.”
Bishop and I exchanged a glance. “It’s all yours,” I told him, waving my hand and stepping backward.
That earned me the barest hint of one of his rare but amazing smiles. It worked like a lightning bolt right to my heart. My heart honestly couldn’t make up its mind about the angel—it was either broken or doing backflips.
Bishop turned back to the kid. “Have you dreamed about Samantha? Is that how you know her?”
“Dreamed about her? Actually…yeah, I have. Is that strange, or what?”
“Not strange. It was a sign that we’re here to help you right now.”
The boy frowned, but then his attention shifted to something behind us and his eyes widened with fear. “I’ve dreamed about something like that, too.”
I turned to look and a gasp caught in my throat.
A large man was barreling down the sidewalk. He wore a dark blue business suit, which was wrinkled and dirty. I could smell him from ten feet away—like something rotten found at the bottom of a garbage can. His face was so pale white it seemed to glow like the moon in the darkness.
And his eyes—they were black and glazed, with no emotion or intelligence in them. Only hunger.
They were like Carly’s eyes had been. It was enough to freeze me in place with horror.
Bishop shoved me out of the way as the man stormed toward us, and then Bishop was tackled to the ground, landing hard on his back. I shrieked, thinking that this monster was going to hurt Bishop, but I couldn’t figure out what to grab or kick to help him.
But the angel had been chosen for this mission for a reason. I’d only seen a glimpse of his fighting skills before. Tonight I got to see more. He slammed his fist into the man’s face and used the leverage to flip him onto his back. The man fought back, but Bishop had taken full control of the situation.
“Can you understand me?” Bishop demanded. “Can you still think clearly enough to answer me?”
A line of drool slid out of the man’s mouth as he powered forward, fighting hard and wildly against Bishop, but not making any indication that he understood what he was asked.
“Last chance,” Bishop growled, getting to his feet to stand in front of me, as if trying to block me from any harm. “Can you hear me? Or has the hunger taken your mind completely?”
The man was back on his feet and he surged toward Bishop.
Suddenly the golden dagger was in Bishop’s hand and he arched it toward the man’s chest where it met its mark. I clamped a hand over my mouth to stop from screaming. It had all happened so fast.
A high-pitched screech that didn’t sound human escaped the man’s throat as Bishop yanked the blade back out. The man fell hard to his knees.
“Samantha, get back!” Bishop grabbed hold of my coat sleeve and pulled me away so there was a dozen feet between us and the monster who’d just attacked us.
The kid we’d been following also leaped by us, just as a swirling black vortex appeared out of absolutely nowhere. Even in the dark of night, this was even darker, a pitch-black hole hanging in the middle of the air about four feet in diameter. With its appearance came a horrible whirling sound, like a tornado, so loud it made it nearly impossible to think.
It felt as if a powerful vacuum was drawing us into it. The three of us slid forward on the pavement toward the vortex. I just stared at it with wide eyes, terrified. Bishop kept a tight grip on me to keep me from moving any closer to it, his rubber-soled shoes braced against the ground as an anchor. I reached out and took hold of the other kid’s arm.
The man with the black eyes was closest to the vortex. I felt his gaze bore into me for a long, horrible moment. Finally, the man hissed out his last breath and slumped backward.
The very next moment, it was as if the vortex literally reached out and yanked him back into the darkness. One moment the swirling, thunderous darkness was there, the next it shrank away and disappeared, leaving nothing behind but silence.
My heart thundered in my ears as I stayed exactly where I was for a few seconds, not moving, not breathing. The kid next to me was staring in shock at the space where the black hole had just been.
“What the hell was that?” he managed to ask after a moment.
“That,” Bishop said, “was the Hollow.”
Chapter 18
The kid stared at him. “You killed that guy and he got sucked into a big black hole.”
“Pretty much,” Bishop confirmed.
“And you’re supposed to help me?” He shot a glance at me. “What about you? How can you be so damn calm about what just happened?”
“Do I look calm?” I gripped my hands together to keep them from shaking. “I guess I’m only screaming on the inside right now.”
“What’s going on?”
Bishop eyed the boy. “Show me your back.”
“What?”
“Do it,” he snapped like a pissed-off drill sergeant. Whatever small amount of patience Bishop had had earlier had all but disappeared.
The kid glanced warily at the knife Bishop still held. “Yeah, okay. Whatever you say. You really want to see my back so much? You got it.”
He turned a little and pulled up his shirt enough for me to see there was an imprint of wings on his dark skin—and it was just like Bishop’s and Zach’s mark.
A third angel.
“Crazy tattoo, right?” He pulled his shirt back down. “I can’t remember much of anything lately, but I have no idea what would have possessed me to get something like—”
He gasped as Bishop sank the dagger into him. I watched in horror, not expecting it to happen so quickly. I hadn’t even had a chance to catch my breath.
The kid dropped to his knees and looked at me with confusion on his pained face. “I thought you wanted to help me.”
“I’m sorry,” I choked out. It was all I could think of to say. All that I could say.
The boy fell all the way to the ground and let out his last breath.
I braced myself, thinking for a moment the vortex would open again. I jumped when Bishop touched my arm.
“Why doesn’t the Hollow open again? He—he’s dead.” I couldn’t look at the body.
“It’s not the same as a true death. The ritual is specific and the dagger knows the difference. Think of it like an invisible shield surrounding each of the team members, protecting them when they entered the city—enough to fool the city’s barrier. It also blocks their memories and any abilities they have. This dagger cuts through that so their true selves can be returned.”
The dagger knew the difference?
It could cut through the shield. Natalie thought it could also cut through the barrier surrounding the city—if it was in my hands.
“Okay.” I just nodded, stunned. “Talented dagger. Does it talk, too?”
“Not recently.” He gave me a half grin and wiped the dagger off on his jeans before sheathing it. He crouched down next to the kid to check his back again. “Maybe Heaven felt that reinforcements were needed already. It’s been a week since I arrived. That was as long as I was originally given to find the others.”
I just stared back in the direction where the entrance to the Hollow had been. It wasn’t something I ever wanted to see again. Natalie had returned from that—from somewhere that was supposed to be one-way only.
“That man was the type of gray you’ve been telling me about,” I said, my voice shaky. “The ones you can’t reason with, who have no self-control when they feed too much.”
“That’s right.” He rose to his feet again. “There’s no coming back from that.”
“He was like a zombie.” I’d always loved zombie movies, even the really bad ones like the Zombie Queen sequel. But that—what I’d just seen—that had been real.
“That’s why we’re out patrolling the streets every night. This one—” he nodded at the new angel, currently DOA “—can help with that while I focus on finding the Source.”
I bit my bottom lip. “Are you close? Any leads?”
His g
aze scanned the dark street before it returned to mine. “I’m positive she hangs out at that nightclub of yours. Stephen was lying to me. I think I saw her the other night—she matches the description of the demon from last time. Dark hair, brown eyes, thin, twentyish.”
I fought to keep my expression neutral. “You’re like a detective.”
Dark Kiss (Harlequin Teen) Page 23