by Ella Summers
And it worked. Mesmerized by the cowboy spice, enamored of the rugged charm, the tourists saw only the signs, the Frontier charm, the cowboy outfits. Some of the braver souls even sampled the local moonshine. Sadly, the homemade alcohol wasn’t a stereotype. It was a fact of life here, a staple of the Frontier existence.
The tourists didn’t see beyond the pretty facade. They didn’t see the monsters lurking on the Black Plains beyond, nor did they hear the soft, persistent grumble of white noise, the hum of the monsters beyond.
The monsters on the plains were restless. I could feel it. The influx of people was drawing them closer. In anticipation, the golden Magitech barrier had been turned on. It was so bright that you could see the magical glow from every part of town. The tourists certainly appreciated that glow. If they’d all been a little less drunk, they’d have appreciated it for something much more than as a light show. They would have realized that barrier was all that stood between them and being eaten by monsters.
“Leda!”
I turned to find Carmen Wilder, the daughter of Purgatory’s sheriff, running toward me. Dressed in a green tank top and very tiny denim shorts, cowgirl boots and a cowgirl hat with sparkles, she was all dolled up for the festival. Slim, tall, and sweet, Carmen was always popular with the tourists.
She squeezed me into a tight hug. Her caramel hair, braided in two pigtails, smelled like strawberries. I knew that shampoo; there weren’t many hair product choices in Purgatory. Strawberry was one and the other was vanilla. And then there was a neutral, noncommittal scent that just smelled like plain old soap.
“What you’re doing for Zane is so brave, Leda,” Carmen said.
She was referring to last year. She’d been out on a date with my brother Zane when they were attacked and Zane was abducted. He disappeared without a trace. So I joined the Legion of Angels to gain the rare magic of telepathy, to link to his mind and find him. But telepathy, the power known as Ghost’s Whisper, was high level magic. Before I could gain that power, I would need to become an angel. I still had a long way to go.
We later discovered that Zane had been taken by the Guardians, who were supposed to be the peacekeepers of the original immortals and all-around good people. But only fools believed everything they heard. There was always more to the stories. I wanted to see Zane for myself, especially since the Guardians would not allow him to leave their realm. That bothered me. This time-out from Earth was supposedly a cleansing to balance his magic, but just because he couldn’t leave, that didn’t mean I couldn’t go see him.
“The sacrifice you made to find Zane—” Carmen said.
“He’ll be all right,” I cut her off.
You never knew who was listening. There were a lot of people trying to find Zane for his magic, gods and demons among them.
I started walking toward the festival again, and Carmen matched pace beside me.
“Gods, I missed that smell,” I teased, looking around.
She laughed. “It’s not so bad right now. It rained last night.”
Purgatory was rough around the edges. It smelled like wilderness and metal and magic, courtesy of the glowing Magitech wall. And thanks to last night’s rain, the smell was almost pleasant, like a forest after a storm, which covered up the inevitable sweaty stench of so many people in such a small space.
But the rain had done nothing to cool down the town. Though the day was closing in on evening, it was hot. No, make that scorching. The weather reminded me of last summer, of how I’d started the night with a mark to catch and a bounty to collect. Then it had all gone downhill from there. My brother was abducted and then before I knew it, I was joining the Legion of Angels.
“I’m glad you survived, Leda,” Carmen told me, squeezing my hand.
I smiled at her. “Thanks.”
Half of my initiation group hadn’t survived the first sip of Nectar. Six more had died when we’d drunk the Nectar again, their wills crushed, unable to absorb the magic that tore through our bodies like a firestorm. The survival rates had gotten a little better after that. A certain sadistic angel excepted, the Legion tried not to push its soldiers up for promotion before we were ready. It did no one any good if we died.
The Legion’s soldiers were the gods’ army on Earth, and we were therefore bestowed with supernatural powers, the gods’ gifts of magic. We trained long and hard for each and every level. It was literally a matter of life or death. Each gift of magic—each promotion ceremony in the Legion—was marked by an increase in power, or you failed and died from the Nectar. The strongest soldiers, the most powerful of us, became angels. They commanded territories on the continents and led soldiers to protect the Earth from threats, mortal and immortal alike.
“What does it feel like? The Nectar?” Carmen added shyly.
“Why? Thinking of joining the Legion yourself?”
“I’ve always wanted to have magic,” she admitted, chewing on her lower lip. “But I don’t think I’d survive. I would be one of the bodies on the floor at the end.”
“Don’t underestimate yourself. You’re strong.”
I could see it in her, a strong-willed resolve. She had a decent chance of surviving the initiation ceremony.
“You think I should join?” Her voice was quiet, full of reverence, as though I’d just told her she was everything she ever wanted to be.
I turned to face her, setting my hands on her shoulders. “No, I think you should live your life, staying far away from the world of angels.”
“Is it so bad?”
“Sometimes. The training, the pressure to perform, to succeed. The battles, the beasts. The Legion breaks you, Carmen. And then they leave it to you to put yourself back together again.”
“And the angels?” she asked, her voice hardly above a whisper.
“The angels might just be the scariest part of all,” I said honestly. I took her arm. “Come on.”
Then I led her toward the music in the distance. With every step that we took, it grew louder, its rhythm intertwined with the chorus of cheering people and the pop and beep of carnival games.
As always, the paranormal soldiers walked the streets of Purgatory, though there were more of them in town than usual. No doubt they’d been brought in for the Party at the Wall, a festival that drew tourists from all over the Eastern Territory.
The paranormal soldiers didn’t react to me at all. Fear didn’t crinkle their brows when they saw me.
Which was just as it should be. Before getting on that train, I’d made a conscious decision to dress in a casual halter top and a skirt rather than wear my Legion uniform. That was why the paranormal soldiers on patrol didn’t salute, bow, or cower before me. Even they feared our reputation—and our absolute authority over them and every other citizen of Earth.
The paranormal soldiers were never stationed here for more than a few months. Purgatory was just a means to an end, a gateway to more prestigious assignments. They came and left and never looked back.
So none of them had been here the last time I was in town. Otherwise, they’d probably have recognized me, uniform or not. Soldiers who’d encountered me remembered me well. Nero said it was because I created an impact crater wherever I went. A shock wave, he liked to call it. That’s why he’d given me the nickname Pandora, the Bringer of Chaos.
I, on the other hand, liked to think people remembered me for my smile. Nero hadn’t been convinced by my stellar argument. In fact, his response had been a not-so-gentle reminder to never argue with an angel.
“Hey, Carmen, introduce us to your new friend?” a paranormal soldier called out. He obviously thought I was a soft city girl, a tourist who’d come to gawk at the cowboys and dance on the wall. He had no idea.
The soldier was standing with two other bulky male soldiers. There wasn’t much to do in Purgatory, so the paranormal soldiers spent a lot of time pumping iron at their private gym.
“I don’t know if you can handle her,” Carmen called back. “She’s a sophistica
ted city girl, here on visit from New York City.”
Sophisticated? I contained a snort, which was apparently as unseemly for a soldier in the gods’ army as rolling your eyes.
“I’m sophisticated,” the soldier declared.
“Your favorite food is macaroni and cheese,” his comrade pointed out.
“And?” he shot back. “Yours is pizza.”
Mmm, they were making me hungry. I’d missed lunch and it was already dinnertime.
“You’re both savages,” a third soldier told them.
They all laughed.
“Hey, Brokers? How about you?” the second soldier called out. “You’ve joined us from New York City. You’re fancy. You even eat with a knife and a fork.”
A fourth soldier joined us, Brokers presumably. “Whereabouts in New York do you live?” he asked me, a pleasant smile on his face.
“Close to the Promenade.”
The Promenade was a street of high skyscrapers, each one the home of an important global organization. Among them was the black building that housed the League, a worldwide bounty hunting company. Another was the paranormal soldiers’ blue glass skyscraper. And the crown jewel of the Promenade, the focal point of the block, was a sparkling white obelisk, the east coast headquarters of the Legion of Angels. The building shone so brightly, it looked as though diamonds had been crushed into the facade. I wouldn’t have been the least bit surprised if that were actually the case. The angels at the top of the Legion didn’t spare any expense when it came to showing off how superior they were.
Brokers’s eyebrows drew up at the mention of the Promenade. “How close?”
“Pretty close,” I said evasively. Ok, pretty close was a bit of an understatement. “And you?” I added quickly, trying to take the focus off of me.
“I live on the Promenade,” he replied. “I have a pretty good view of the city from my window.”
I lived dead center on the Promenade, at the top of the highest tower. I could look over the whole city from my living room window. I didn’t say that, though. I hadn’t come here to be the center of attention. I’d come here to blend into the crowd—and then find my family and live a few normal days before I had to go back to work.
“After the festival, I’m heading back to New York,” he continued. But he was looking at Carmen now. She was obviously more his type. You know, cuter. Sweeter. More innocent. Less likely to break both his kneecaps if he got cheeky.
As we walked toward the heart of the festival, he kept talking, telling Carmen about where he lived and praising the beauty of New York, filling her head with silly notions about clean streets and orderly garbage removal.
Ok, yes, you could literally eat off the streets of the Promenade. Some people actually did that, believing that brought them closer to the gods. But they were the same sort who scoured the sidewalks and city parks for angel feathers.
When we reached the wall, Brokers parted ways with us, giving Carmen a gentlemanly bow before climbing up the ladder to one of the watchtowers. From there, the paranormal soldiers could stare across the Black Plains, looking for signs of gathering monsters. But they didn’t go out onto the plains themselves. When danger brewed beyond the wall, the Legion of Angels was brought in.
It was only fitting, I suppose, for the gods’ army to clean up this mess. Long ago, the monsters had been the battle beasts of the gods and demons, but the deities had lost control over them, and so the monsters had overrun the Earth.
Humans didn’t know this. They thought the demons, at the eve of their defeat, had unleashed the monsters on Earth. The truth was both gods and demons lost control over the monsters when the beasts began to interbreed, the new monsters of mixed light and dark magic being immune to the deities’ control. The gods had won the war, and the people of Earth were still paying the price. Humanity was protected in our cities past the walls, but we were not safe. Not as long as monsters still lurked past the wall. Not as long as we were caught in the epic war between gods and demons, between light and dark, a war that spanned worlds and stretched back millennia.
“The tourists look happy,” Carmen commented, watching them laugh as they played carnival games and ate deep-fried snacks.
The deliciously unhealthy smell of it made my stomach growl in hunger.
“The locals look happy too,” I said.
“This morning, an extra hundred paranormal soldiers arrived in town. Of course we’re happy. For a few days, we’re all safe.”
That was the point of the extra paranormal soldiers: to keep things safe for the wealthy tourists. It was easy to let the flashing disco balls, the colorful carousels, and the bubblegum music fool you, but at its core the Frontier was a dangerous, uncivilized place to be. A place where the monsters on this side of the wall were as dangerous as the ones out on the plains.
“How bad has it gotten?” I asked Carmen.
“Bad.” Her voice was solemn. “The district lords rule this town now. My father hardly has any power left.”
The sheriff didn’t have the resources to keep the city criminals from flooding to our town and using it as a convenient hiding place. The district lords did have those resources and then some. People here looked to them for help, even as they knew they were trading one devil for another.
“You have to do something, Leda,” Carmen pleaded with me. “The Legion could end this.”
Except the Legion of Angels answered to the gods. And the gods didn’t give a damn about earthly matters. As long as the district lords paid tribute to the gods, as long as they did not impede the Pilgrims, the voice of the gods’ teachings, from doing their work, the Legion of Angels would do nothing. And it was that indifference that the district lords had been thriving on for years.
“We’re not allowed to interfere in local affairs,” I told Carmen.
She frowned at me. “Now that’s just bullshit.”
I couldn’t have said it better myself. We at the Legion of Angels, the hand of the gods, dealt only with threats to the Earth, to the gods. We were not supposed to interfere in mortal affairs. We were told that such things were beneath us, that we were not to sully our hands with squabbles between mortals and so-called ‘lesser’ supernaturals. Those were to be left to the local sheriffs and other law enforcement.
Except the local law enforcement didn’t get the resources they needed to keep the people safe. So the district lords had stepped in, and now they ruled like kings. That’s how they saw themselves: as cowboy royalty.
It was disgusting, I thought as I watched one of the district lords walk down the street in his expensive royal-blue cowboy boots and hat, surrounded by an entourage of bodyguards. He was acting like a king, like he owned this town. My town. And he was just one of many district lords in Purgatory.
The royal blue lord crossed paths with a cowboy lord from another district. They took a moment to stop and glare at each other. Tension brewed between them, heavy and thick, approaching a boiling point.
But then, just like that, they each moved along. It hadn’t come to a fight—at least not today. Who knew what tomorrow held? Each of the district lords was a different strain of the same disease, and that disease was consuming Purgatory from the inside. It made me sick.
“I know, Carmen.” I unclenched my fists. “I don’t like it any more than you do.” I had to get a hold on my anger.
The Legion told us it was wrong to get caught up in earthly matters. We needed to be separate, above humanity, not mixing with it. Connections with humans were discouraged. They were seen as a weakness.
Except I saw them as a strength. My friends and my family were part of who I was. My connection to them helped me stay human, even as I grew closer to becoming an angel. My humanity was my anchor. You see, sometimes, it was not only about being ‘right’ or ‘just’; it was about being kind. About caring for others. Compassion—that’s what was too often missing when you tried so hard to do things in a perfectly orderly manner.
“I couldn’t join the
Legion,” Carmen said, her voice trembling with anger. “And not just because I’m scared. I think it would be even worse to have all that power and yet be completely powerless to use it, to stand by as everything crumbles to ash. I don’t know how you do it, Leda.”
Well, the truth was I didn’t always follow the rules. I was the black sheep of the Legion. Soldiers in the gods’ army were trained to fight with proper technique, with dignity. With finesse.
I, on the other hand, was a dirty fighter. I had no qualms about using anything around me, fighting not only with swords or guns. I was not above fighting with a water bottle, a clothesline, or a car antenna. Or even the dirt beneath my feet. Many Legion soldiers—especially the angels—saw that as abhorrent behavior. But it did give me an advantage. Fighting with dignity was too predictable and not always practical. I’d learned to fight out here on the streets of the Frontier, in the dark alleys of Purgatory, where survival was more important than how polished your steel was and more relevant than how shiny you kept your leather.
“Adjusting to the Legion’s ways has been challenging,” I told Carmen. Honestly, adapting to the code of conduct had been harder than the training or the poisonous Nectar I had to survive to gain new magic.
I waved at Dale and Cindy as they passed us, their hands inside the back pockets of each other’s jeans. Dale, my sixty-year-old former neighbor, was a kind man, though he enjoyed the moonshine a little too much. The curvy, buxom Cindy with her long legs, full lips, and bouncy locks, looked like a retired model who spared no expense when it came to looking fabulous. Her crimson lipstick was a perfect match to her hair, and her dark eyeshadow really made her green eyes pop. I’d been present in the Witch’s Watering Hole, Purgatory’s favorite bar, at the dawn of Dale and Cindy’s relationship. It had been that same fateful night Zane went missing.
“Your secret admirer is stalking us,” Carmen whispered to me.
I turned around and waved at Jak, the shy nerdy kid who’d had a crush on me since third grade. “Hi, how’s it going?”
“F-fine,” he stuttered, looking even more nervous than usual. No, forget nervous; he was downright intimidated. “You j-joined the Legion.”