by G. K. DeRosa
I darted to the bedroom and grabbed my backpack. The crumpled sheets on the bed reminded me of Ash and our night together. The kiss. I swallowed down the lump in my throat before it choked me and hurried back to the kitchen. I filled my backpack with as many cans of food and bottled water it could hold.
“Duke, come!” I rushed to the door, the clicking of Duke’s nails on the tile right behind me. I slowly pulled it open and peered outside. Dusk settled over the abandoned neighborhood, not even a cricket chirped.
I took a deep breath and stepped out onto the porch. What was the worst thing that could happen? I’d get kidnapped by an angel and sentenced to life as their servant? At least maybe I’d find Asher.
Something sleek and black on the sidewalk caught my eye. I ran down the steps and the familiar object took shape. My dad’s gun. Asher had dropped it when the nephilim grabbed him. I threw the gun in my backpack and marched down the quiet street.
The sound of my pounding heart roared across my eardrums. Just breathe. I took a few more steps and hazarded a glance up at the sky. Still clear. Not an angel in sight. No wings flapping, nothing.
My shoulders relaxed, and I let my arms swing by my side as I walked. I switched my focus from the sky to the houses. I peered into each one as I passed, hoping to find any signs of life.
They all looked identical to the one we had found: broken windows, boarded up doors, dark and uninhabited. I walked around the entire block then doubled back around. An eerie silence blanketed the neighborhood. I almost missed the hum of wings.
The upscale community was huge, much larger than I’d imagined. After walking for over an hour, pitch black surrounded me. I had to go back. Even if there were humans around, no one would be out at this hour.
The night belonged to the vampires.
I slunk back to the house, ignoring the growing lump in my throat. Climbing into bed, I pulled the covers up to my neck. I rolled over and stared at the empty side of the mattress. Tears burned my eyes. I hugged the pillow next to me, a slight scent of Asher still remaining. It was almost like he was still there with me.
The following morning, I got up and repeated yesterday’s exercise. My only hope was finding people; it was the only way I’d survive.
Duke’s nails clicked along the asphalt as we surveyed the quiet neighborhood yet again. Slits of light seeped through the thick clouds, providing a hint of warmth. I wrapped the light jacket tighter around myself, thanking Mother Nature for a relatively warm spring.
“Let’s go another few blocks and then we’ll turn back.”
Duke barked and ran a few steps ahead of me. At least someone was enjoying the stroll.
A sharp whistle sent my heart racing. I yanked my gun out of my backpack, and I whipped my head from side to side to determine the direction of the sound. It stopped. What the hell? I took another step forward, and a long whistle followed by a short one carried through the air. It was coming from the house across the street.
I darted toward the pale yellow house, straining to hear something. A faint whistling started up again, and this time I recognized a tune. Yankee Doodle. Only a human would know that classic melody.
I rushed up the stairs to the large front porch. The windows and front door were all boarded shut. I put my ear to the door and could still make out the tune.
“Hello?” I whispered. “Is anyone in there?”
Slow footsteps drew near the door. I held my breath, one hand on my gun.
“Are you alone?” a gravelly voice spoke through the door.
I froze. Should I really answer that? “Yes,” I finally said.
“Go around back. There’s a window by the trash bins. I’ll meet you there.”
I grabbed Duke by the collar and tugged him around to the back of the house. Overgrown shrubbery crawled up the sides of the faded yellow walls, the grass almost coming up to my knees. Every window was covered in decaying plywood. I rounded the corner, and two large trash bins leaned up against the pale siding. I pushed one to the side and found a large window, the tall grass concealing it from view. It was just like the one we had in our basement.
A face appeared through the glass, and I jumped back. Duke growled, his eyes trained on the figure.
“Sorry, didn’t mean to frighten you.”
The man unlatched the lock and pushed the window open. He eyed the gun in my hand and frowned. “You can come in if you like, but that’s not welcome in my home.”
I paused, my fingers clenching the handle. What if this guy was a crazed killer? Was I really just going to walk into his boarded up house unarmed? Then again, he was the first human I’d seen in months that seemed to want to help me.
He must have noticed my indecision because he cracked a smile. “My name’s Parker. I swear I don’t bite. Can you say the same about that dog?”
I patted Duke on the head and he sat beside me, his big tongue rolling out of his mouth. “Yeah. He’s pretty harmless—unless threatened.” I had enough sense to add in that last part.
“You can leave the gun behind the trash cans. No one will take it.” He shrugged. “There’s no one left.”
I pried my fingers off the handle and wedged the gun between the side of the house and the overgrown grass, pulling a garbage bin on top of it. I took a step back and admired my work. No one would ever see it if they happened to walk by.
I crouched down and came level with the large window. He swung the glass open all the way and motioned for me to enter. I eyed the opening, making sure Duke would fit and slid down feet first.
Chapter 7
I landed on a long wooden bench that ran along the interior wall. It took a second for my eyes to focus in the dim lighting. I’d been right; it was a basement and it looked a lot like mine. Tall shelves lined two of the cinderblock walls filled with canned goods, bottled water and medical supplies. A single cot sat in the corner adjacent to another door.
“Welcome to my home,” said the older man.
“Thanks,” I muttered. Duke jumped down behind me, his nails scraping the concrete floor.
The man leaned up against a wooden beam in the middle of the room, and my gaze traveled down his leg. A black brace covered the majority of it, from his thigh down to his ankle.
He pushed his graying hair behind his ears and hobbled over to a chair. He ran his hand over his thigh and rubbed at the bandage. “I messed my leg up pretty good a few months ago. The hospitals were all overrun by then so I did what I could.”
He motioned to the chair across the table from him. “Have a seat. Tell me your name at least.” He put his elbow up on the table and scratched at his unkempt gray beard.
“I’m good standing.” I crossed my arms over my chest, staying near the window. I was pretty sure I could take the guy if things went south. He had a broken leg and looked to be almost sixty, but I didn’t want to risk getting too comfortable.
“And your name?” He looked up at me through hooded blue eyes.
“I’m Liv and that’s Duke.”
“Nice to meet you both.” His brows furrowed as his gaze bounced from me to Duke and back. “What’s a young girl like you doing out alone?”
A pang sliced through my chest. “I wasn’t alone. I just lost my friend. A nephilim—” My throat tightened, and I didn’t want to cry in front of a perfect stranger. I bit down on my lower lip to keep the tears from falling.
Parker glanced down at the floor as I fought to keep it together. “Those nephilim took every able-bodied man and woman in the county.” A rueful smile stretched across his lips. “I guess that’s why I’m still here.”
“Did anyone get away?”
He nodded. “The majority of Fallsbrooke cleared out before the war ended. Word spread that the vampires were getting the north. Most were more afraid of them than the angels. And yet, it’s been those nephilim capturing people left and right.”
“So you haven’t seen any stryx or vampires?” I couldn’t help the chill that raced up my spine when I said
the words.
“They go where people are—for the blood. That’s the one benefit of living in a ghost town.”
I moved toward the wooden beam and leaned on it. “What do you think the angels are doing with the people they snatch?”
“Rumors are that they’re turning the young men into soldiers for their army. The women are kept as servants. I’ve heard they’ve built training grounds around their headquarters in Washington, D.C.”
“You mean the tower that reaches all the way up to heaven?”
He chuckled. “That’s what they say.”
“Isn’t that what the nephilim are for? Why do they need more soldiers?”
He ran his hands through his hair, pushing it behind his ears. “Your guess is as good as mine, but I’d assume it has something to do with the vampires.”
My head spun. Asher was going to be turned into an angel warrior and pitted against vampires? I couldn’t let that happen.
“Do you know where they keep the humans they capture?”
He drummed his fingers on the table, the old wood wobbling. “A buddy of mine in D.C. said they built military style barracks all around the tower. That’s where they’re all kept, except for the ones lucky enough to get chosen to serve the head angels in the tower.”
I really hit the jackpot with this guy. “How do you know so much about them?”
He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a black leather wallet. He opened it and held it toward me. A golden badge and an ID stamped with bold black letters flashed across my vision. FBI.
My eyes widened.
“I’m retired now, but I had a lot of friends in D.C. when this whole thing went down. They kept me in the loop while they could.”
“What happened to them?”
He shrugged, his lips twisting down. “I don’t know.”
My gaze veered toward the window, the muzzle of the gun peeking up over the windowsill. “Wait. If you were an FBI agent, why didn’t you let me come in with my gun?”
A small smile pulled at his lips, wrinkling the corners. “Honey, I’ve spent my whole life around guns and gun-toting criminals. The way you held that thing made it plainly obvious that you had no business carrying one around.”
Heat diffused up my neck, and I was sure my cheeks were bright red.
“This is a small space, and I didn’t want to risk that gun going off and bullets ricocheting off these walls. A bum leg is bad enough; I don’t think I’d survive a bullet wound.”
I laughed, and the tension in my shoulders released. I walked over to the chair next to Parker and sat. “Thanks for letting me in. You didn’t have to do that.”
The lines around his deep-set eyes crinkled as he smiled. “No, I guess I didn’t. But what kind of a federal agent would I be if I hadn’t? I swore to serve and protect my country and its people. I may not be able to do much anymore, but this was something I could do.”
There was something I could do too. I could go to Washington, D.C. and find Asher. If the roles were reversed, he’d do it in a second. He’d never leave me at the mercy of warrior nephilim. He proved that yesterday when he saved me.
I gritted my teeth. I was doing this. “Parker, what else do you know about the angels?”
He arched a gray brow. “I know a lot of stuff. Could you be more specific?”
I chewed on a hangnail, fiddling with my fingers. “How do you get into their headquarters?”
He sat up, his eyes widening. “Don’t even think about it, girl. I’ve known trained men that have gone in and never come back out.” He snapped his mouth shut, his jaw twitching.
“Trained men? Like the military?” As far as I knew the humans hadn’t tried to fight back against the angels or the vampires since the beginning.
When the vampires first arrived, our military tried to fight them off. Then the angels came, and we knew we were screwed. The vampires needed blood to defeat the angels so nearly all humans within a fifty-mile radius of D.C. were wiped out.
“Don’t worry about it. It doesn’t matter anymore anyway.” His gray brows knitted together as he ground his teeth.
There was something he wasn’t telling me.
He ticked his head toward a shelf over the table. “There’s plenty to eat if you’re hungry. I even have this fondue thing to heat up canned food. Makes it somewhat edible.”
“Thanks, but I’m okay for now.” What I really wanted was more information. Somehow I knew this guy could give it to me.
He slowly stood and limped over to the bed on the opposite side of the room. Next to it was a narrow door, which I assumed was the bathroom. “I’m gonna lie down for a bit. My leg’s acting up; there must be rain coming,” he said over his shoulder. “Make yourself at home.”
I nodded and watched him make the slow walk across the space. A small bedside table stood next to the bed with two picture frames. I couldn’t make out the faces from here, but it was definitely a family. Who had he lost?
I exhaled a slow breath and leaned my elbows on the table. If I stayed in Fallsbrooke, I’d become just like Parker. A girl, all alone, huddled in my own bunker. If I went after Asher, I could die, or worse still, be forced into servitude as an angel’s foot soldier or vampire’s blood slave. But at least I’d be doing something.
And if I found Asher…
My breath caught in my throat. I couldn’t think about it yet. I didn’t think I’d survive the disappointment if I failed.
Muffled snores filled the quiet room, and I glanced over my shoulder at my new companion. His chest slowly rose and fell, a small smile stretched across his bearded face. Somehow I got the feeling he didn’t usually sleep much.
The cot Parker offered me was just like the one in my basement. Uncomfortable. After a few hours of fitful sleep, I gave up. Parker was still snoring away so I slowly rose and grabbed a granola bar from my backpack. I munched on it quietly as I scanned the basement in the daylight.
Dark gray walls boxed us in with the one window the only source of light. I gulped down some water and got to my feet. Duke picked his head up off the floor as I passed him. I put my finger to my lips, and he settled back down. Something on the far shelf had caught my eye. I silently moved toward it, my eyes darting back and forth between the shelf and Parker’s sleeping form.
A cardboard box with rolls of paper sticking out of it perched on the top shelf. Below it were more boxes, each brimming with manila-colored files. I moved closer, running my finger over the dusty archives. What was all this stuff?
I pulled out one of the folders and flipped through the yellowing pages. Red and black lettering blanketed the documents: Property of the Federal Government, Private and Confidential, FBI and other lettered organizations I wasn’t familiar with. I slammed the file closed and tried to shove it back in the box, but a stack of photographs slipped out.
I dropped to my hands and knees. As I arranged the photographs into a pile, I couldn’t help but glance at the images. Angels and vampires—together. From the look of the angels’ magnificent wings, they had to be the leaders. After almost a year of war, we’d determined that their wing size was in direct correlation to their standing within the angelic hierarchy. Nephilim’s wings were the smallest and still they were larger than your average twelve-year-old was tall.
I flipped through more pictures. These had to have been taken after the war. There was no way the two immortal races would be caught dead in a room together before that. So who was running surveillance on them? Who could have gotten close enough to snap those photos?
The big box on the top shelf was calling my name. My fingers itched to pull down those paper scrolls. I got to my tiptoes and stretched. My fingers latched onto one of the rolls and pulled it down. I unrolled it across the floor. A set of diagrams inked in dark blue stretched out before me. Blueprints?
I turned it around and around but couldn’t make it out. I stood up and reached for another one, my fingers grazing the top of the box. I pushed up on my tiptoes a littl
e more and lost my balance. I fell forward, my hands pulling files down with me.
Duke jumped up and yipped as the folders and papers all tumbled to the floor. Crap! The snoring stopped and Parker jolted upright, his blue eyes fixed on me.
“I’m sorry,” I muttered. “I was just… um… looking for food and I knocked over some of your stuff.”
His eyes narrowed, and he scratched at his beard. “I did tell you I was an FBI agent, right?”
I gulped and tugged at the hem of my shirt. I wished I could pull it over my head.
He slowly stood and limped over to the mess of papers on the floor. “Did you find what you were looking for?”
“I didn’t mean to snoop, I swear. I just really need to find my friend, Ash. The angels have him, and if you know something that could help me, you have to tell me.” My lower lip quivered. “Please.”
He sighed and lowered himself onto the bench alongside the wall. “What do you want to know?”
Chapter 8
I stared at the blueprints splayed out across the floor with my jaw hung open. Parker had detailed schematics of all of downtown D.C., including the new angel tower, which sat smack dab in the center of the National Mall. It didn’t actually reach heaven, but it did soar over three thousand feet into the sky.
“How did you get all of these?” I sat back on my butt.
“I told you; I had a lot of friends in Washington.”
“What were they doing with these blueprints? Were they trying to take the angels down?”
A rueful chuckle escaped his lips. “They’ve been trying from the beginning. They never stopped.”
I glanced down at the angel tower. The diagram didn’t seem as complete as all the others. The bottom third was marked with doors and stairwells but the top portion was blank. “Why is this blueprint missing stuff?”
“Because not many humans have made it past the fiftieth floor of Arx.”