She noticed a second, oval-shaped yellow blob closing in on the demon with abhadhon speed. The second shape included wings.
Her nosy neighbor.
Even without her super-hearing selected, the demon’s inhuman scream resonated intensely in Jovienne’s ears, as the creature’s flesh ripped under the blessed blade of this other abhadhon.
Shutting down the enhanced sight, she leapt to the air and glided closer to watch with normal vision. She did not beat her wings, concerned that sound would give her away. Below, the demon moved again, hobbling along the row of skeletal cars. The abhadhon followed, like a cruel cat playing with a wounded mouse.
Jovienne angled her wings to swoop in.
In a flash of lightning, the demon fell and this other abhadhon pounced, making the killing blow. Scarlet wings shot up for balance.
Landing on the hood of an ancient Cadillac, Jovienne’s boots made the slightest sound. The scarlet wings jerked defensively around the other abhadhon and a toss of her head forced a mass of straight auburn hair to resettle without obscuring her line of sight. She sneered at Jovienne, and then refocused on her kill, spreading the red feathers wide.
The beast hissed and gave a death-shudder before lying still. Jovienne’s Call That Followed shut down.
The abhadhon kept her back to Jovienne. Red leather edged this one’s armor, if lingerie could be called armor. Jovienne felt embarrassed for her and realized the second round of armor Eitan tried to give her wasn’t so bad, but that still didn’t mean she would be wearing it. “You were in the alley last night.” She noticed the blunt end of this other abhadhon’s pike was pointed at her.
The abhadhon sidestepped from the creature. She yanked the spike from the inert body and Jovienne’s gaze fell to the hole left from the heart-bursting deathblow. Black liquid seeped from both the wound and the creature’s mouth. Its fire died and only coal-black ooze remained, instantly cooled and slick. It would seep into the ground in moments.
“Who are you?” Jovienne demanded.
Her painted lips curved in a sneering smile. “Damnzel.”
The scarlet-winged angel spun the long pike between her fingers as if twirling a baton. The motion flung droplets of black ooze across Jovienne’s face and jacket.
“What the Hell?” Wiping the goo from her face, Jovienne stared hard at Damnzel’s profile. Even from a side-view, this other’s sordid grin was obvious. “What’s your problem?”
“You being lazy or incompetent.” Damnzel spun and ran away down the row of disposed cars, denting the hoods.
Recognizing a challenge, Jovienne followed on the ground in front of the row.
Damnzel quickened and, defying gravity to tread upon the faces of the vehicles, smashed headlights with the heels of her boots. As Jovienne quickened to catch up, she rushed through the bursting fall of shattered glass.
Instant stinging made her look down. Thick shards protruded from the leather along her shins and atop her feet. Some struck deep enough to hit muscle. Every step tore the sinews more. Grumbling, Jovienne stopped and bent to free the shards from her gear.
She realized her blood smelled different from that of the woman in the alley. There was a hint of cinnamon in hers, which made her recall the overwhelming scent during her transformation. She thought back, to times she’d cut herself during training. Hadn’t she always smelled like this?
Feeling the prickle and itch of healing, she wiped her fingers over her shins to gather what blood had spilled, then lifted her hand to her nose, sniffing.
The gravel rustled under Damnzel’s stiletto heels. Jovienne glanced up to see the scarlet angel returning, crisscrossing her steps like a model on a runway. “What’s your problem?” she asked. “Aside from the obvious, anyway.”
Jovienne plucked glass from the other shin. “You’re out of your zone.”
“The demon was nearing my territory, and you were nowhere to be seen, sweetie,” Damnzel snapped. “I’m not one to sit around and let demons into my zone. Or out of it.”
“I don’t need your help.” That, if anything, was her problem. She knew she could do this horrifying job. She just didn’t want to know what she would turn into after doing this job for forever.
“Yeah, right. Bloody Savior, look at you! He’ll give wings to anybody these days.” Her gaze lifted heavenward. “I don’t need a lazy neighbor.”
Jovienne stood straight. Before she could speak, Damnzel looked her up and down and laughed.
“San-Fran’s a rough zone,” Damnzel continued. “And you’re so not ready for it. What’s with the jacket? You cold or something?”
“You’re the one who should be cold,” Jovienne said.
Damnzel ran her hand over her breasts. “Aww, are you shy?” She dragged the last word out. “Shyness is one step away from cowardice in my book. It’ll get you killed. And then I’ll be stuck pulling double duty again.”
Moonlight shone through a break in the clouds, spotlighting Damnzel’s stunningly beautiful face. But for all the make-up enhancing her lashes and shape of her eyes, they were hard eyes seasoned to abhadhon life. They belied the withering going on underneath.
Seeing it reconfirmed Jovienne’s concern for herself long-term.
“I really hate double duty,” Damnzel continued. “Do us both a favor, sweetie. Stop making stupid mistakes.” Shel turned away.
Jovienne grabbed her arm. “Wait. Last night—”
“I know what you did.” Damnzel jerked out of her grasp. “You’ve got a lot to learn, missy.”
Fists at her sides, she followed. “My name is Jovienne.”
“I know,” Damnzel barked. “I know more about you and your witch wings than I want too.”
“What the Hell are you babbling about?”
Damnzel halted and raised her weapon. “I don’t babble.”
Jovienne stopped too, but ignored the weapon. “Witch wings?” The words squeezed between clenched teeth.
Damnzel’s wing flexed forward and Jovienne ducked under the intended swipe and threw out her own dark wing to knock the red one away. She didn’t think of the wings as weapons before.
They traded a few blows, until lightning flashed and the sky grumbled like an angry parent warning the children to hush.
The red-winged abhadhon backed up quickly, but looked down her Barbie-doll nose at Jovienne. “No matter what the Big Guy wants the rest of us to think, you’re not one of us. You never will be.” Leaping upward, Damnzel flew across the bay and back to her zone, south of San Francisco.
Jovienne hoped a strong gale blew behind Damnzel, one that would send her so far away she could never get back.
Wait.
Send her.
Sender.
Cinder.
Jovienne’s spine stiffened. The air left her lungs.
Gramma called them cinders, but as a child, Jovienne equated the word with the burnt quality of those things’ bodies. Gramma could have meant sender.
If she did, that meant Gramma knew much more than Jovienne ever considered.
The rain resumed.
Leaping and twisting in the air, Jovienne landed on the crane and raced up the steep incline of the single, mighty arm. Nearing the uppermost tip, she extended her wings and flapped into a better wind that pushed her to the northeast.
She tried the in-flight quickening and dropped it. The saturated air obscured her vision and the drops pelted her face and exposed skin like needle tips. At regular speed, though, rain streamed down her head and onto her face like tears.
Drenched wings could fly, but it was more tiresome and she hadn’t gotten the energy perk of making the kill. Jovienne scanned for immediate shelter. The parking garage below would do.
After shaking water from her wings, she walked, invisible, to the underground level. The lights were dim. Only a few cars remained parked. The sound of water trickling through the drainage system was soothing.
Wings wrapped tight to block the cold wind, she huddled into a corner.
God may have told everyone she’d used weaving in her test, but He hadn’t told her anything about everyone else. He wanted His enslaved monster’s monster isolated and alone.
If she remembered her history lessons, when slaves rebelled they armed themselves with their bare hands or the tools given them for their labor. The quintanumin were her tools. They were used against her, as the means for God to control and punish His slave.
So how could she use the quintanumin to fight back?
TEN
Tuesday
CINDERS, OR SENDERS, arose with the drums, preceded a demon, and departed before the demon arrived. Those were the facts Jovienne knew for certain. Everything else was a mystery, and she was determined to add to her knowledge tonight.
She had an idea, but she first needed to ensure she could maintain speed as long as necessary. Invisible, Jovienne snuck in the back door of a steak house and stole a strip steak from under the warmer to ensure she’d have enough protein and fuel for what she had planned.
As sunset neared, she flew in a tight central circle around San Francisco. The Call beckoned her to the north, and she sped into the thundering heart of sound.
Atop a corner drugstore, Jovienne watched the parking lot waver and ripple as the cinder climbed up. As soon as the cinder’s head cleared the ground, she accessed the aspect of the quintanumin that dispersed energy. Dispatching that stream of glistening and powdery purple light from her palm, she marked the cinder as she’d marked the demon in her test. The energy coiled around the creature’s cranium.
The cinder dashed across the lot and down a one-way street. The colored mist streaked out behind it. Following the twists and turns from above, she needed a few bursts of this new and improved speed to stay aligned with the cinder.
But this plan had a flaw. She had only one speed while quickened. There was no means she knew of to accelerate or decelerate within it. If her quickened self was not close to the same speed as the cinder, she might not be able to identify what exactly it was doing.
She was also concerned with how to keep herself still and her eyes focused when her body revved, ready to move like nothing human.
As the cinder zigzagged down a series of neighborhood side-streets, she closed the distance between them. It stopped beside a mighty oak tree with twisted limbs.
There, where families lived, the cinder paused between two parked cars to do its work.
Jovienne soared under the tree’s thick limbs. Too late, she saw that its roots had heaved-up the edge of the sidewalk. Misstepping on the uneven cement, she over-compensated and stumbled against the trunk. Her arms wrapped around it. Keeping her speed and perception amped-up, she clung to the tree anchoring her. Hearing each long breath in her ears, feeling the blood crawl through her veins while the accelerated actions jarred her brain, she identified the cinder’s actions.
It was no longer an incomprehensible blur, but fluid movements, like a dance. The hideous, skeletal creature gestured. The sound of scouring sandpaper hissed from the thing’s open mouth. It reached within its chest and yanked out its beating heart, an ugly, blackened, and shriveled thing. The cinder squeezed oily, black blood onto the ground, and then shoved the heart back into its chest.
It was performing a twisted version of weaving!
A shocked breath sucked into her lungs, but with the quickening activated, that gasp seemed to take a painstaking long time.
She wanted to wipe this from her mind, but she analyzed the details, deciphered the symbolic acts, ordered the gestures and put to memory the invocations and the one ingredient bringing this reaction: the blood of its own heart.
As the cinder arose and sped off in the direction it had come from, the Call That Followed swirled around her.
Jovienne let her perception return to normal. Queasiness churned in her abdomen. She slid down the tree and vomited the steak. When her body stopped heaving, she rolled away and pressed her cheek on the cool, uneven cement.
Her stomach continued to threaten, but the nausea was joined by a familiar pricking on her skin: the demon was coming.
In seconds, an argument erupted inside the house closest to her. Then, she heard shouting from a house down the street. Another home erupted into an argument, and then another. The incorporeal fingers of evil stirred the air.
A snarl from the other side of the tree compelled her onto her feet, her weapon drawn. Touching the sword eased her physical symptoms. Brimming with the boosted grace of answering the Call That Followed, she moved into position to slay the demon, but each miserable step felt like another nail sealing up the coffin where her hope lay dead.
The demon struggled up through a hole where the black blood had pooled. This hole expanded and contracted as the demon worked its way through. It hadn’t even noted her presence before Jovienne’s sword ruined its heart. To be certain it wasn’t a shifter, she severed its head, too.
Dispassionately, she watched the black goo seep into the ground and wiped the weapon clean. The arguments on the street faded into silence.
Jovienne sat in her parent’s kitchen, astounded, watching Gramma weave a spell that called squirrels and chipmunks onto the patio, where they sat in uniform rows beyond the sliding glass doors.
“How did you do that? Is it magic?”
“I touched the spark in my soul.” Gramma smiled warmly. “You have a spark too.”
“What does that mean?”
“You are made of the stars of heaven and you carry a spark of that light in your soul. But you are also of the earth, so what goes inside your heart and mind will, like the richest soil, grow and give back.” She crouched down and smoothed Jovienne’s hair before gripping her thin arms with gentle hands. “Because of this, some people are going to be mean.”
Jovienne knew Gramma was talking about her father.
“I don’t want your spark to go dark, so I am going to teach you and give you something you can be proud of to grow and give back.”
“You’re going to teach me to bring the squirrels up to the door and be friends with them?”
Gramma gestured at the door and released the spell. The animals skittered back into the yard. “When I teach you, Jovienne, you’ll do much more than make friends with squirrels.” She picked up the glass cleaner and paper towels and walked into the living room. After spraying the big picture window, she handed some paper towels to Jovienne so she could wipe the lower area.
“Who put the spark inside us?”
Gramma’s smile faded and she stopped wiping. “God did.”
“Why?”
The streaks of cleaner reflected on Gramma’s face, making it look like blue tears. “Of all the people in the world, I guess some are just…lucky.”
“Lucky?” Jovienne glanced at the clock. The sun would set soon. “We hafta see those cinders. How is that lucky?” She wiped the glass faster.
“God opened our eyes to the truth.”
“What truth?”
“Oh, child. So many questions!” Gramma finished wiping the window then kissed Jovienne’s forehead. “Keep seeking answers and you’ll amount to something someday.”
Jovienne knew it was a sign they would talk about it later, but she was hooked on this subject. She wanted to understand right now. “What truth did God open our eyes to?”
Gramma regarded her for a long moment, and then her gaze was drawn outside, where Jovienne’s father pulled in the driveway and got out of the car. “The truth that there are bad things out there that God can’t stop.” Gramma stooped down to hold her hand. “People who see like we see, Jovienne, we’re the only ones who can do anything about it.” Gramma clasped the cross hanging around her neck. “Some
times, in order to help, we have to do bad things.”
The memory had been buried for a long time.
Gramma taught her to invoke a God-given spark in her soul to fuel the weaving magic. The first time she’d ever felt the electric current of weaver’s power flowing and fluttering across her skin, she’d been terrified. But her inner spark had flared into a blaze. She’d felt it.
Could that be what a cinder used? The creatures weren’t alive as she knew life to be. And yet they weren’t exactly dead, either. The one she’d watched had a beating heart. It seemed to think. It screamed in rage. Her star, or the residue of holy water, caused it pain.
You’re not one of us, Damnzel had said.
Jovienne’s jaw clamped tight. She wondered if Damnzel saw the things before she was given the quintanumin. She’d ask, if she had the displeasure of seeing the scarlet-winged angel again. What she needed to know now was simple enough: if what she feared was true, then what a cinder could do…she could do.
It might also explain why she and Andrei could see them before they were given the quintanumin.
All she had to do was test the theory.
If she dared to try this and failed, it would prove that she was either wrong or not skilled enough, or both.
But if she succeeded, it would prove her right.
Even though being right was a bad, bad thing, if she could raise a demon to slay, then she would be making the quintanumin reward her with that warmth and grace, and thereby control the quintanumin. One step toward fighting back.
She should have felt encouraged, but there was a huge flaw. The way to fight back was one in the same with proving the very thing she did not want to be true.
And that was why she didn’t intend to wait. She would test her theory. Right now. She could think of no reason to wait.
The rituals she’d performed with Gramma occurred so long ago, yet they worked. The crows had answered. The sensations remained in her palms. But this, she had to admit, was daring much more. This required a full ritual that tapped into deeper, stronger universal elements and energies to produce a greater result.
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