Iridescent (Ember 2)

by Carol Oates

  A disturbance in the breeze at the back of his neck followed by a muffled thump warned him company had arrived.

  “Gabriel.” Draven turned in time to see Gabe’s wings fold in behind his back and disappear.

  Gabe stood several feet away, wrapped in the swirling steam from a nearby chimney vent. Gabe lowered his head in formal greeting. Draven noted his stiff shoulders, the hard set of his jaw, and the way his fingers clutched the jacket of his expensive suit. Gabe was a man on a mission. These last few years had worn on them all, but on the angel before him especially. Draven commended Gabe for taking on the roles of leader and second-in-command during all those times Sebastian struggled or didn’t quite live up to his responsibilities. Gabe was probably the reason Sebastian still held onto his position—because he’d always had Gabe to pick up the pieces and watch his back. Regardless, history couldn’t re-write itself, and the Nuhra still looked to Sebastian.

  “Thank you for coming.” Gabe walked toward him and held out his hand.

  Draven took it without hesitation and shook it firmly. “How could I resist?” he admitted. Clearly, Sebastian was up to something. If Gabe was turning to him, it meant the issue was something that concerned all of them. “I take it you are here to explain what’s been going on?”

  “First—”

  “Nathaniel is nearby, should Brie require assistance.”

  Gabe released a breath. He didn’t need to explain his reasons for seeking extra protection from Draven. Calling in another Nuhra to replace him would mean running the risk of alerting Sebastian.

  Curiouser and curiouser, Draven thought.

  “But isn’t he—”

  Draven cut him off a second time. “I trust him implicitly,” he stated confidently about the guard who had once seen his Nephilim daughter slaughtered and in turn annihilated the Nuhra responsible.

  Gabe sighed again. “We need to talk.”

  “I gathered.”

  Gabe scowled, reproaching Draven’s flippant attitude. Rhetoric was another tool he used for containing the effects of his condition. It distracted him, and he wasn’t about to give it up. The Nuhra walked past him—too close. His anxiety caused the hairs on Draven’s arms to rise. It radiated off him and pinged at Draven’s skin, leaving him feeling like a plucked chicken. His toes curled inside his sneakers. What he wouldn’t give to be rid of them already.

  “That bar down there.” Gabe inclined his head in the direction of a gaudy blue neon sign…The Devil’s Snare.

  The bar was as seedy as they came. Even the thought of circulation among its wretched patrons made Draven shudder, fortunately imperceptibly. “How amusingly apt.”

  “That’s where Sebastian’s been hiding.”

  “Why doesn’t that surprise me?” He peeked over the side again, in time to see the sign flicker, accompanied by a distinct sizzle.

  Gabe shot him a cold glare and stepped up onto the low wall surrounding the roof of the building. His wings appeared, and one long stride, he disappeared out of view.

  Damn you, Sebastian. Draven followed Gabe up and over the wall, simultaneously unfurling his own wings. By the time he touched ground in the alley by the side of the bar, Gabe’s wings were gone, and he appeared almost human again…as human as any of them ever appeared. He was in the process of shrugging on his suit jacket to cover the rips in his shirt.

  Draven groaned, making no effort to hide his exasperation. He didn’t particularly enjoy being out in the open, and frankly, he had bigger fish to fry. If the Nuhra wanted to spend time babysitting Sebastian, it didn’t concern him much. Sebastian had served his purpose by publically acknowledging the time for fighting among themselves had ended. Besides that, he had little patience for Sebastian’s whining after what he’d done to Candra and then for dragging Ananchel into it.

  “I don’t like this,” he complained, pulling on his own leather jacket after his wings vanished. They made their way to the front of the bar. Few cars traveled these streets, and those that did rarely stopped. Even taking that into account, the streets were more deserted than they should have been. In fact, there was barely a soul in sight. Now that he thought of it, the usual din of the city seemed to have settled at a lower volume.

  “I don’t like any of what’s going on,” Gabe responded, his tone unusually scornful. “But despite what you might tell yourself, I know Sebastian a little better than you do. You are going to have to trust me when I say there is something he isn’t telling either of us.”

  Draven stretched his tingling fingers and groaned. He couldn’t argue; he’d suspected as much himself. Anyway, he could use a drink to take the edge off. His skin felt hot and tight. “Let’s get this over with.”

  Gabe nodded and pushed open the chipped and peeling door.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  INSIDE, THEY WERE GREETED with the stony silence reserved for strangers in places like this. A place anyone could disappear in as long as they had money in their pocket and appeared to keep their business to themselves. The door swung closed, and every set of eyes gauged them, wondering what had brought them here. Cigarette smoke ribboned into the air, accompanied by the aroma of stale beer and old sweat. Draven swallowed thickly, attempting to adjust to the sting at the back of his throat.

  Several customers were visible, although submerged in the gray tobacco cloud swirling through the bar. Wooden paneled walls seemed as if they’d seen better days. They had once been decorated with pictures, but all that remained was an array of outlines that didn’t fade with the rest of the wood over the passage of time. Much like the Watchers residing in Acheron.

  A young woman eyed them impatiently from behind the bar, below yet more neon and a small television set with bad reception playing the nighttime news. The woman looked out of place. For a start, her clothes were clean, and her bronze skin gleamed with health. Her mahogany hair hung over one shoulder in a loose braid, and her muscles popped, defined and sculpted, displayed perfectly by the snow-white tank.

  “Fallen,” Draven muttered under his breath, so low no one would hear.

  The woman’s curved eyebrow rose sharply, challenging them. “Well? The nearest ten-screen theater is way over the other side of the river.” She finished when neither of them responded, “Either you step into my fine establishment and order yourselves a drink, or you don’t let the door hit those cute butts on the way out.” The girl exuded no-nonsense.

  “Two beers,” Gabe said, holding his fingers up for emphasis.

  Just like that, the tension broke, and everyone went back to business as usual. Draven really didn’t want to know what that entailed.

  The woman threw the towel she carried over her shoulder, uncapped two beers, and slapped them down on the counter. “You don’t have to use sign language. I still hear just fine.”

  Gabe held his hands up, showing he meant no offense.

  “Jimmy, take a hike.” She banged her hand down flat on the counter. The bottles rattled, and a middle-aged guy sitting on a stool halfway down blinked, as if chasing away sleep.

  On closer inspection, he wasn’t middle-aged, simply worn-out. His skin hung loosely off his skull, and his shirt appeared to be too big for his lanky frame. Goodwill, Draven guessed. The guy grabbed his tumbler and grumbled lowly.

  “Don’t you back talk me now, Jimmy, or you’ll be finding some other sap to let you crash in their basement and eat their food,” the woman admonished him.

  Jimmy lowered his head and frowned, utterly contrite. He shuffled over to one of the many dark corners and promptly closed his eyelids once more.

  “I take it you’re here for James Dean?”

  Draven tilted his head in question, not wanting to give too much away. They had no idea who they were talking to, and after all, a fallen had no allegiance.

  A bored smirk formed on her lips, and she went back to wiping down the bar top. “Pretty boy in leather…thinks the world doesn’t understand him.”

  “What makes you think that?” Draven
enquired guardedly. Gabe stood beside him, sipping beer, and he couldn’t help being a little irritated at being left to do the talking.

  She paused, cloth in hand. Her jaw slackened, and she peered back at him from beneath loose tendrils of wavy hair. The woman’s eyes spoke volumes of incredulity with a twist of contempt. He didn’t answer her silent question, and she leaned over the bar as if to whisper, pressing her firm breasts into the surprisingly gleaming lacquer. “I gave up my wings, not my intelligence, you complete, raging ass.”

  Gabe spluttered his beer and choked back a laugh at the woman’s audacity. She went back to cleaning and flickered her fierce eyes in his direction.

  “Besides, we don’t get too many…suits in here.”

  Gabe placed his bottle on the counter and wiped his lips with the back of his hand. “Where is he?”

  She inclined her head to the rear of the bar, where a narrow doorway led to another room. “There’s a pool table in back. Your boy is a mean drunk and a hustler.”

  Gabe nodded in gratitude and turned to Draven. “Wait here a minute. If he sees you, he’s bound to clam up.”

  “Then why am I here?”

  “In case I need to choke answers out of him.” He patted Draven on the shoulder and grinned wryly. “I’m guessing you wouldn’t have a problem helping me out with that.”

  He smirked. Gabe was right.

  “Does he come here a lot?” Draven asked the girl pouring blue liquor into several shot glasses arranged on a tray.

  “Oh, yeah,” she replied, drawing out the words and raising her eyebrows. “Sebastian’s been a regular for a while now.”

  Draven watched her closely. She walked around the bar and deposited the tray at a small table near the back wall where two women and a man crowded together. The man handed one of the women a glass off the tray immediately. His other hand slid under the table as he fixed his leering gaze on the fallen. She paid no attention, or if she did, she didn’t show it. She exchanged her liquor for payment and made her way back behind the bar.

  “You take care of him? You take care of Sebastian?”

  She shrugged, and the till pinged when she slammed it shut with her hip. “What can I say? Waifs and strays are clearly my thing.”

  The fallen moved around the bar effortlessly and handled the bottles like a pro. As she worked, Draven noticed how most of the time, she didn’t need to watch when she reached for something. It all appeared to be second nature to her, something she had been doing a long time.

  Draven took a long swig of his beer and closed his eyes, wishing it was something stronger to dull the ache in his head. A heavy clink directly in front of him caught his attention, and he blinked his eyes open. As if she’d read his mind, a labeless bottle of golden liquid sat there with an empty glass. He found himself nodding in gratitude once more to this strange woman as he poured a sizable amount. When he finished, she took the bottle from his hands and corked it. Her full pink lips quirked up on one side.

  “You don’t remember me, do you?”

  Her eyes remained on the glass until he emptied it. The welcome burn in his throat distracted him from the feeling that the walls were slowly inching inward, pulling the pitiful souls around him ever nearer. Without saying a word, the woman uncorked the bottle and refilled his glass.

  “Should I?”

  She sighed, as if hoping she were wrong, and returned the bottle to its home below the bar. “People call me Sandal, but my name is Sandalphon.”

  Draven quickly recalled any names he could of the Nuhra. None matched the woman’s. She clearly knew him, although given his position, that wasn’t entirely unusual. She appeared to believe he would know her. In the beginning, there had been thousands on each side. It had swollen to tens of thousands. Each name was a grain of sand in a sandstorm. Back then, he wouldn’t have known each one. Now he wished he had. By the time they’d ceased their raging battles, numbers had dwindled, leaving Watchers in the thousands once more.

  After waiting a moment for recognition that never came, she continued in a low, reserved tone. “I was one of the first to follow, one of the first to bear young. My child was the first Sebastian slayed.”

  Draven gulped, his stomach clenched, and he had to consciously lighten his hold. He could feel the cheap bar glass beneath his fingertips weaken, the molecules preparing to split and shatter.

  She stepped back, her penetrating eyes never shifting from his for a fraction of a second. “He was grown by then, a head taller than his father and such a terrible beast. It didn’t matter because I couldn’t strike down my own child.” She shivered, seeming to get caught up in a particularly painful memory, and made a tight fist with one hand, the skin paling over her knuckles from the force. “Not even when he dismembered the man I loved.” Her long eyelashes fluttered, and she took a deep breath, shaking off the thought. “Anyway…it took me a long time to get my head back on straight. Eventually, I came to terms with the fact that Sebastian did what he had to do and I couldn’t.”

  Draven drained his glass, and Sandal produced the bottle. He briefly deliberated if it was a good idea to keep drinking and decided good idea or not, he needed it. The woman in front of him wasn’t a Nuhra; in her previous existence, she had been a Tenebras, one of his own.

  “There’s enough darkness in the world already, don’t you think?”

  He didn’t respond. A million questions rushed forth in his brain, and his other senses, although dulled by the liquor, were bombarded. The scents, the sounds, every nerve under every inch of his skin rattled. Maybe if he’d been more like Ananchel. Maybe if he’d learned to control and harness his abilities, he would be of use to someone. He couldn’t seem to form the sentence he needed to tell the woman how sorry he was for her loss, how he would take back the past if he could. Damn it all, she was his responsibility, and he didn’t have the decency to recall her name.

  “Especially now,” she added, her dark eyes finding his from beneath thick curling lashes.

  “What makes you say that?”

  “I don’t need wings to see,” she replied, pushing a lock of hair behind her ear. “It feels like the end has come at last.”

  “It won’t be,” he assured her. I swear it won’t be.

  She smiled weakly, bringing back her dimples just a little.

  “Is that why you fell?” he asked, curious for the insight. “Because you believe the end is near?”

  Sandal reached out and patted the back of his hand resting on the bar. Her hands weren’t as soft as he imagined they had once been, but her touch still set his flesh on fire, although, not in the way Candra’s did. Sandal’s made him want to recoil. Candra’s touch also brought him peace, a brief respite from his heightened senses.

  He didn’t move, and Sandal didn’t seem to notice she had any effect on him.

  “No, I figured this was as near to living as one of us ever gets. I’m growing older, every second of every day. One day, I will die, but at least at the end, I’ll know I lived.” A genuine smile lit up her face at last, and her nose wrinkled up in an amused grimace. “Does that make sense at all? Probably not.”

  “It makes perfect sense.” He found himself agreeing without effort, as if a curtain had lifted from his eyes. All this time, they had been clinging to both lives and never truly experiencing either. Sandal was aging. Draven could see time working on her already in the faint creases around her eyes. Nevertheless, it didn’t steal her beauty; grace flowed out of every pore and wrapped around him. If he didn’t know better, he would have believed her still angelic. “We thought this part of the city was lost to us, that the souls here were beyond redemption.”

  The front door opened, flooding the dimness with a blue tinge from the neon outside for an instant. A shadowed figure entered, bringing with him the acrid scent of the outside world. Strangely, Draven found it almost pleasant in comparison to the odors inside these walls. His eyes adjusted once the door closed, and he saw a greasy looking person. He wore a cheap polye
ster shirt under an expensively cut coat, most likely stolen, Draven supposed. He hesitated, wringing his bony hands, and appeared to argue with himself. His lips moved, but no words escaped. With some trepidation, the guy took a halting pace toward the opposite end of the bar counter. Draven’s toes curled. The guy couldn’t have moved with more uncertainty in each step if he’d been walking over broken glass or white-hot coals.

  Sandal removed her hand from his, and her smile faltered but only a little. Her gray eyes remained bright and filled with the conviction of every word that passed her lips. “We are never beyond redemption, Draven. I know you still believe that.”

  He stared at her for a moment, attempting to imagine what it must be like retain so much hope. His own waned further by the second. Did she know about Lilith’s presence in the city? Of course she did. Secrets didn’t stay secret forever in Acheron.

  She inched away. “Now…” She smiled. His lips twitched in response but never made it to a full smile. “If you’ll excuse me, I have cheap beer and watered-down liquor to sell.”

  She flicked the hand towel over her shoulder and moved down the bar to take the guy’s order, although not a single word passed between them. Sandal paused with her fingers around the neck of a bottle of whiskey. The guy pressed his lips together like a kid getting scolded and produced a matte black chunk of metal from his inside pocket. He placed the handgun on the bar. Smoothly, Sandal covered the weapon with the palm of her hand and wrapped her slim fingers around it. Slowly and carefully, she slid the gun toward her. Her eyes flickered downward, followed by the sound of metal clanking on metal.

  Draven raised an eyebrow and wondered what else this woman kept behind the bar.