Andrei nodded. “Pour. I’ll be right back.” He walked to the men’s room, washed his face with cold water, and waited until his erection dwindled before leaving.
Upon returning to the bar, he downed the shot before he sat. “Refill,” he called.
Crawl into a bottle. Crawl in and never come out.
TWO-FINGERED HANDS popped up at the edge of Jovienne’s circle. Another pair followed. A wiry little imp poked its dog-like head through the opening, skin blistered around orange eyes. Lips curled back and it snarled, flashing two rows of sharp canine teeth.
This little Chihuahua was all that would answer her summoning?
It hopped through the Hellgate and stood on two-toed, flat feet. Jovienne kicked out. The demon lurched away from her strike, clenching all four of its little fists, but it was not her target. Instead, her boot smeared the smaller circle. The flames died out and the demon’s passage home slammed shut, filling with scorched earth.
Seeing that, the demon scurried up her leg in a vicious rush, claws hooking in the leather and digging into her thigh.
Jovienne screamed as her skin tore. Her fist swung. The little mouth opened, stretching wide. Jaws clamped around her wrist, missing the spikes.
She thumped its head with her other fist and flung it away. The Chihuahua rolled onto its feet. Shaking all over, the little claws stabbed into its flesh and jerked down in jagged motions, slicing down its face, chest, and legs.
Jovienne felt sorry for the little thing. She’d terrified it.
Its eyes shimmered red and it bared all of its nasty little teeth. But it didn’t bleed Hellfire, even as it shredded its own flesh.
Her first assumption was wrong.
Another demon stepped out of this first one’s flesh, as though vacuum-packed in that doggie-suit. And this second one grew. Fast.
Jovienne drew her weapon. Imp with a chrysalis stage. By the time her sword was unsheathed, she faced an angry demon with mass like a bull standing on its hind legs.
Three times as broad as her, and a good three feet taller, it had a flat-topped head and a piggish snout with tusks like Brahma horns poking from the sides of its drooling mouth. Its hands ended in hooked talons and its feet were enormous hooves. A raspy wet sound wheezed from its snout as it breathed. The short white fur that covered it smelled like a soured wet dog.
Jovienne held her breath and pulled back for a two-handed thrust. There could be no missing such a huge thing, but a strong attack would be needed to stab deep enough to damage the heart and slay this imp.
Before she could plunge the weapon into that furred flesh, however, a talon shot forward and closed around her sword arm. This thing, huge as it was, remained as quick as the Chihuahua.
It thrust her backward against the barrier of magic, restraining the threatening weapon.
Jovienne was too short to punch it in the face, so she swiped her wing at the demon. Buffeting its head with feathers had little effect, but she kept flapping like a panicked bird. The thing snapped at her, gaining a mouthful of feathers. When she pulled away, black quills ripped free and she shouted in pain.
It slammed her against the magical barrier again and again, knocking the air from her lungs and the sword from her hand.
The size and strength of this demon outmatched her. If it kept ramming her against the barrier, it could knock her out. Changing plans, she jerked the left dagger from her thigh sheath and jabbed it deep into the flesh under its ribs. The demon squealed. Its hot breath was a foul, boiling spray.
Jovienne pulled the dagger out and stabbed again, but the blade was too short to hit its heart.
There was only one thing to do. And it was going to hurt.
Stabbing into its belly, she sliced downward to make an opening big enough to get the hilt through. Ramming her arm elbow-deep under its ribcage, she sliced back and forth as Hellfire burned her unprotected fingers.
Still, she couldn’t reach the demon’s heart.
With a shout, she turned the dagger within the demon and stabbed the tip outward from between the creature’s ribs. Using this as leverage, she kicked both feet up into the demon’s restraining forearm. She heard it snap.
The demon roared in pain, releasing her as it retreated. But all her weight hung by her grip on the dagger within it, and that meant the demon dragged her with it. Magma poured over the gauntlet and her sleeve.
She fought to get her feet under her, then matched its moves like a dance. Like this, she was able to turn the dagger within again, and planting her feet, she thrust upward with all her might and jammed her whole arm up inside this demon.
The blade ruptured its heart.
Releasing the dagger, she tried to remove her hand, but the studded gauntlet hooked on the inside of the ribcage. The imp stumbled forward. Desperate to free herself before the demon fell atop her, she yanked her arm as it staggered, again dragging her along. Finally, the spike came free and her arm slipped out.
Jovienne rolled away between its legs and screamed as the air made the burning pain in her fingers more intense. She gasped, jolting with pain. Every heartbeat made her hand throb more. The injury was grotesque and—
Her jacket was on fire.
Jovienne fumbled free of the unburnt gauntlet even as she dematerialized her wings. Thrusting the jacket off, the seared gauntlet ripped from her injured hand. She screamed as flesh tore away and the sleeve dragged over ruined, skinless fingers.
The smoking leather fell to the ground beside the black puddle of sludge that used to be a demon. She stomped on the leather to stifle the flames, and then crumbled to her haunches, cradling her wound. Even the residuals of her earned grace couldn’t diminish the horror of this.
Her fingernails were gone. She could see bone. Her knuckles were red and what skin remained was swelling. Ribbons of blisters trailed along her palm and over the back of her hand where drops of magma seeped under the leather. These stung like an electrical charge.
Burnt blood caked her hand. Black. Steaming.
Like I’m trying to make myself a cinder.
Maybe cinders were weavers who faced a demon and failed. But she hadn’t failed. She killed a five-hundred-pound after-the-chrysalis imp.
I did what I wanted. My way. Independently. The quintanumin answered for a demon I summoned.
Retrieving the sword, she severed the sleeves from the jacket. Sucking air through her teeth, she slid her burned hand inside the unburnt sleeve to protect it.
Blessed blades didn’t cause this. It wasn’t going to mend immediately, and she couldn’t go to a trauma center. This would have to heal on its own.
She cast a narrow-eyed look at the oily slick of black goo seeping into the ground. The Hellfire magma blood, whether in heated or cooled form, didn’t have a permanent effect on this world because it wasn’t of this world, which explained why it could burn her: she was no longer completely of this world either.
After gingerly donning the now sleeveless jacket she wandered away from the junkyard, still invisible to human eyes. When the rain fell, she called the wings and used them like a giant feathered umbrella.
She walked. The cold drizzle lowered the temperature to near freezing. Passing under a bridge and, grateful for the shelter, she let the wings relax into their normal closed position and leaned against the cement support.
A light appeared in the sky, as big as a car and as bright as the sun. The light rocketed under the bridge and hovered over her head.
Holding her injured arm behind her hip and out of view, her other arm rose defensively before her face. Screened through her fingers, the pulsing, diaphanous illumination held no constant shape. Radiant rays stretched from its core, clear and colorful and blinding all at once.
“Jovienne.”
“What are you?”
“I am an angel, but unlike yourself.” The youthful male voice began like a singing bird, and ended like a hiss.
“Ease off on the super-nova.” The severed sleeve protecting her injury s
lipped a little.
“You are not permitted to gaze upon the seraphim. You cannot fathom such glory.”
“And yet you came to visit.”
“I am to censure you.”
“For what?” Jovienne asked innocently.
“It is known what you have done this night.”
“Known? What is known?” She wasn’t going to admit anything.
“You will never again do as you did this night. Many weep for your folly.” The staccato syllables reminded Jovienne of a chirping bird.
She stopped leaning. “You mean you’re reprimanding me for slaying a demon?”
“No. You are being censured for opening a Hellgate.”
Jovienne lowered her arm and angled her chin so that her brow shielded her vision, irritated at how much it felt like bowing. “The quintanumin were forced upon me with the intention that I slay demons and I did. You don’t get to bitch about how.”
“You acted not as an abhadhon.”
“So?” Jovienne shrugged and the severed sleeve slid off before she could stop it. She kept the arm hidden behind her. “I am not just an abhadhon, am I?”
When the seraph did not answer, she went on.
“If I could open a Hellgate and kill them one by one—”
“No!” the seraph boomed. “You will never seek to open another.” His radiance blossomed brighter.
Jovienne’s legs weakened. She collapsed to her knees before the seraph. Being put in her ‘dim’ place churned up anger. Her legs would not move, but her arms weren’t constrained by this glory. With a growl, she reached to the cement pole. Her blistered and ruined fingers scraped over the rough surface, leaving trails of blood as she sought a handhold and found none.
“Jovienne.”
Pain coursed through her as when she refused the Call.
A whimper pushed past her lips.
They could chastise her for choosing independence, but they could not make her accept this enslaved bow. She fought for a handhold, grappling, needing to stand on her own feet.
“Forget the ritual you performed this night,” the seraph said. “Offer no more of your essence to evil. It is commanded.”
Jovienne gritted her teeth; still her knees remained bent. “What difference does it make if I summon them or if the cinders do?” She shouted more from pain than effort to make a point.
“The olaim create doorways, but they can release only a single demon. You tapped the power of your—” Distant thunder stopped the angel mid-sentence. “You tapped old power. Your doorway is a Hellgate. It opens both ways.”
“It’s not like I’d go in and get them.” She was sweating with effort to force her way up.
“Hear me and understand! If the demons take you through the door you cannot be rescued.”
“I break that small circle once the demon arrives. The hole backfills. It’s shut.”
“You are commanded: Do not risk this action again! Should you die, your wall of protection will fall, leaving the Hellgate open for demons to overtake the world. Disobedience will be punished.” The light rose, leaving.
Suddenly her legs obeyed and she stood. Her blisters split and already bloodied flesh looked like so much ground meat after clawing up the cement to stand. Her head snapped up and she shouted, “Tell Eitan I need new gloves!”
Jovienne put the sleeve around her injury once more. When the light from the seraph disappeared, the rain abated and she headed home. Once in the safety of her elevator bedroom, she removed all her gear and left only the sleeve covering her hand. Her weapons lay strewn where they’d fallen and she nestled naked into her wings on the couch. Only then did she remove the sleeve to examine her disfigured hand.
Something thudded beyond the elevator.
Leaping to her feet, she instinctively armed herself, but her devastated fingertips couldn’t maintain a grip. Swearing, she stepped nearer the opening and listened. Her amplified hearing revealed soft steps coming her way. One pair of bare feet.
“I can hear you as well,” Eitan said.
She tossed the dagger to the couch. Calling the ghost hands and giving them a hazy bit of color, she wrapped them around her naked body and folded her wings around her. “Then why sneak up on me like that?” She padded toward Eitan. If he could barefoot it, so could she.
“Who’s sneaking? I stomped to announce myself.”
Jovienne paused and squared her shoulders. She held her burned fingers behind her, as with the seraph. Dangling there, her hand began to throb.
“I was told you requested new gloves.” He offered two pairs, one with fingers and one without.
Everything about his manner said he was pissed off. She just wasn’t sure if it was because he knew what she had done or if her need for gloves disturbed his off-duty time.
With her uninjured hand, she slid the fingered gloves from his grasp. She rubbed her thumb over the leather. The texture was smooth and supple. The studs were absent.
“You can have both pairs, just take them.” He offered the other set.
She drew her left hand forward.
Eitan sucked in a breath and dropped the gloves to grab her left arm and examine it. “What happened?”
“Class Two. Big one. Had to rupture its heart somehow.”
Head down, he studied the injury, and then abruptly his head snapped up to look her in the eye. “You reached inside it?”
“I said it was big.”
He studied her face as if seeing her for the first time. He released her and was silent for seconds, but he did not look away. “It will start to hurt more as the nerves regenerate. By morning the soreness should be gone.” His voice was soft and reassuring. “The nails will have reformed by then, too. The blistering will disappear by noon and the redness by dusk.”
“You mean by nightfall I’ll be ready to start all over.”
He nodded. “That is precisely what I mean.” His manner was sad, his tone serious.
She yearned for tears, but she didn’t seem to have tears. Maybe the abhadhim weren’t allowed to cry. “This probably happens all the time, huh?”
His focus trailed downward. “This? No. This never happens.” Something about his fallen gaze became pensive.
“The abhadhim don’t often get Hellfire burns?”
A long moment passed. He finally looked up. “It has been my experience that those who talk tough are most timid at the task. But you…” His fingers wrapped around her wrist and he lifted the ugly injury between them. “Your courage is obvious. Despite the rebellious nature of your actions and the blasphemy you speak, courage is a quality I respect.”
Assuming he was stingy with his compliments, she gave him a nod of thanks, noting his expression was a mixture of surprise, sympathy, and satisfaction. Maybe he expected her to whine about the pain or disfigurement.
“I brought you something else.” He reached behind him and pulled a wrapped bundle of canvas from his back. He held it out to her.
Unwrapping the cloth while he held it, she revealed two glistening daggers with hieroglyphs etched into the serrated blades, adorned with roaring lion heads at the tip of the leather-wrapped hilts.
“The heads are caps,” he said. “Unscrew them to reveal small wells in the hilts for hallowed water.”
“I already have daggers with wells.”
“These wells will never run dry.” He shifted his grip and lifted one of the weapons, removing the cap to show her. “This might ease the pain,” he said and poured the liquid over her burns. It fizzed and bubbled like peroxide, and at the same time it cooled as if she’d plunged her wound into a deep snow bank. Numbness set in.
“Thank you,” she said. She accepted the dagger with her right hand and twisted it in her palm, feeling the balance.
Eitan dropped to one knee before her, fingers opening the torn pants to see scabbed punctures on her thigh where the imp had clawed her.
When he touched her, a flurry of butterflies migrated through her stomach. She readied to scold him
, but her gaze followed the trail of the braid down his back, and she studied his body, his muscles and skin, until he looked up into her face. “These will also be gone by mid-day.” He stood. “Before the sun sets, I will return with something new.”
TWELVE
Wednesday
WHEN JOVIENNE AWOKE on Wednesday, she was healed as Eitan had promised and another duffel bag sat under the open roof. Inside, she found a new pair of leather pants. The outer areas were reinforced with chainmail and had sewn-in sheaths accessed between rows of silver links. The inner thigh section had protective plates under a layer of thick black suede. A demon’s claws shouldn’t get through this mail as they had gotten around the plates of the other pants.
He’d also provided another halter of black leather which offered more frontal coverage than its predecessor. A suggestive amount of cleavage still showed via the plunging neckline. The stiff collar rounded behind her neck, and the lowest waist of it ended in layered flaps of hardened leather.
She wondered if Eitan managed a stock house of gear in Heaven, or if he made this and the other pieces specifically for her. Either way, he’d brought her something with a plunging neckline despite her protests. Whatever his motive for doing so, it didn’t make her think more highly of him.
The halter left her upper arms unprotected, but she hadn’t told Eitan about cutting the arms off the jacket. She put on the new gear and strapped sheaths to her forearms. The belt scabbard held the long-sword. Since the coat offered nothing, she left it behind.
Minutes after seven o’clock, she flew from Hyde Repository and soared to the summit of a flat-topped building. There, she released the wings and worked through her usual routines to ensure warmth. As her body followed the memorized sequence, her thoughts focused on what she’d learned last night and the seraph’s scolding.
Now that she could make these drums beat for her, now that she’d announced herself as a rival to the cinders—the seraph called them olaim, what was that?—maybe they would perk up their scorched ears. Maybe they would toss in their earthy graves. Maybe they wouldn’t come to San Francisco at all. Maybe the drums wouldn’t play.
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