"About time you woke up."
Selene's voice was enough to tip me over the edge. I rolled over and threw up. At least I had the freedom to do that.
Apart from my own recently expelled vomit I could smell fresh air, grass and greenery. I forced my eyes open and was immediately on the alert.
"Oh fantastic," Selene said sarcastically, echoing my own sentiment.
We were in one of the pens. If I looked up I could see the wire mesh roof in the slowly growing light. It looked like dawn was on the way.
Something growled and I whirled around but saw nothing. It looked like I might not be alive to see that dawn when it arrived.
The blood from my wrists had travelled down so that it all but covered my hands. It had dried to a brownish crust. On my right hand Selene's ring glinted brightly amidst the dried up blood.
"You should get us out of here."
"Thanks for stating the obvious." Anger was rising up to replace my fear. "You have any other smart-assed suggestions?"
"I could come up with something if you like, but haven't you got better things to be doing right now?"
"You got me into this, if you remember?"
"I got you into nothing. You're the one who got us both into this mess, trying to help people who hate you. This investigation of yours got me killed. I thought I faced most danger from Alavigne and her hunters but in the end it was some gangsters zombie servants who killed me and destroyed my body. Now the only way my essence can continue is through you. And to make things worse, you have two guys hot for you and you're keeping your legs tight as a vice. You're too stuck up to even give yourself some pleasure."
If only she knew what I had been about to do this afternoon.
"Well I didn't ask to be your keeper."
"And I didn't ask to need to be kept. You have no idea how hard it is to be trapped here. Only experiencing the world through your spineless shell. Fight back sometimes."
I could feel the anger building and I didn't know where mine ended and Selene's began. A disturbing revelation that, for more than one reason.
"I'm posessed!"
Selene scoffed, "You of all people should know better than to make claims like that. It takes a more powerful demon than me to send its spirit out from whichever realm of hell it resides in and take over a mortal. Real possessions involve the total subjegation of the subject to the demons will."
"All right, all right. I didn't mean to snap at you. But this is a lot for me to have to take in. I mean talking to you is one thing. But this . . . It's more than I can think about right now."
I think I had almost forgotten where exactly I was, and what danger I was in. Everything was brought back to me in a rush when I tripped over the cow.
Generally speaking full grown cows are very large animals, not usually the sort of thing that you can just stumble over. Of course, also generally speaking, most cows aren't stripped of a lot of their skin and muscle, what is left being raw strips of bloody meat just clinging to the skeleton.
I was falling forwards, about to hit flat on my face, when somehow I was flipping over and standing on my feet. My long hair was loose and flapping about my face. In a shocked state I brushed it backwards.
"What just happened?"
"You just did exactly what I would have done."
I didn't want to think about what that meant too deeply, the fact that Selene had controlled me in that instant, lucky for me I had more pressing concerns at that moment. Such as being terrified of ending up like that carcass I had just fallen over.
I have already mentioned that I studied a certain amount of supernatural biology. Unfortunately my studies only made me aware of how many different creatures were capable of doing that to a cow. None of them were creatures that I wanted to be trapped in a cage with.
"What did you make of that Smith character?" Selene obviously had other things on her mind, although I found her focus a little strange under the circumstances. Myself I thought there were more immediate concerns that were infinitely more deserving of my attention.
All the same I answered her. "He was powerful, but he lacked focus. He was using power for something in there and it was leaking out of him."
"What do you think, some sort of magician?"
I shook my head, Selene had succeeded in distracting me from the cow and my fear, if that was her purpose. "If he had that sort of raw power they would have recruited him to the council of witches, wizards and mages. They would have trained him or eliminated him. He wouldn't be here doing this."
"Well he looked human."
We both got it at the same time, and we also knew that the other got it as well. There was no need for either of us to make the statement out loud. No need to say that the reason his power was flowing from him was because he willed it to be so. Mr X was using some sort of glamour or spell to make him appear to be human. But whatever he was he certainly wasn't that.
If I hadn't been distracted by me discussion with Selene I might have noticed them surrounding us before our hunters had finished. But then again I might not. As it was the first I knew of it was when they started tightening the noose.
The creatures were bipedal and chest high. They had clayed hands and feet. Their faces were all teeth and large grey eyes. They were called Chupacabra, goatsuckers. When they were solitary they had taken smaller livestock in South America draining their blood like vampires. When they started being rounded up they had evolved into pack hunters and become even more dangerous. The last wild pack had taken out an entire Mexican village before they were exterminated. This pack would be more than a match for me.
I turned around on the spot as the hunters slowly advanced. There were guttural growls and hisses as they communicated with each other. Not that there could have been a great deal of co-ordination needed. I was just standing there out in the open with them in a circle around me. I couldn't be looking everywhere at once and they just kept up their steady inexorable approach. I suddenly had the blade from my bra in my hand, for all the good it would do.
"I'll help you get as many as you can before they take you." There was a calm sort of fatality to Selene's tone.
One of the chupacabra' gave a howl and the dozen or so in the pack surrounding me charged. I had seen Jurassic park and there was no T-Rex about to save my ass. Selene had made it clear she didn't expect me to be able to fight my way out even if she could help. So it was up to me.
If I had been human I would have been dead. I spend so much time trying to fit in amongst them and a lot of them still called me a freak. Well it was time to use some of my freaky nature to help me.
Obviously I couldn't see it when I started glowing, but I could see the light of the halo growing around me. The chupacabra' weren't put off by my lightshow and continued to advance. Luckily making myself glow was just a side-effect to the real show. It didn't hurt to have the wings sprout out of my back, they were as much a part of me as my empathic abilities but one that was even less used. They sprouted from the nubs on my shoulder blades but didn't really come out from inside my body. It's just one of the magical benefits to being an angel I guess. What the wings did do was rip through the entire back of my top so that it fell from my front leaving me just in my bra.
I flared my wings out so that their white sails spread far off to my sides. The chupacabra' still weren't discouraged and charged even faster. With a thought, and a flick of muscles only angels have, I had the wings wrap me in a soft cocoon.
"Wow," Selene sounded genuinely awed.
I kept my feet as the first attacker slammed into the shell I had created with my wings. They hit again and again and somehow I kept my feet throughout. And then they started on my wings with their claws. My wings could be turned hard enough to protect me to a certain extent but they weren't designed to be shields. Each claw stroke cut deeply into my wings and hurt like a . . . well like a bitch.
"You really are a bad influence on me," I told Selene.
One powerful stroke cut t
he wing at my back and I gasped in pain. I flexed my wings again, this time forcing them outwards with an effort that sent the chupacabra flying away from me. They landed in a variety of positions but were universally back on their feet an instant later. They charged in no more cautiously than they had the first time. I had cast them off but I hadn’t caused them any damage. On the other hand they had me bleeding.
It was time to leave. I used my wings the way they were intended and got myself up off the ground. The pack of chupacabra jumped and snapped at my heels but I was out of reach and getting higher. The fact that we were still trapped inside a steel mesh cage wasn't going to be a problem. In a flash of even brighter light I passed into that in between place that I can only describe to you as limbo. It is a place between realms where nothing exists.
Limbo is the barrier between the mortal realm and the other realms that is supposed to keep things like me and things like you apart. I suppose there must be a similar barrier that separates the mortal realm from that of the vampyre creatures I had encountered with Halberd, but I could only access this space. If I chose to I could slip though to the other side, rejoin Halberd and the others and forget all about what was happening down there on earth. I would never be able to explain Selene to them but at least I would be safe.
There again I had been plenty safe in my existence there before and that was the problem. Up there we were all so insulated that we could just forget about the problems plaguing the mortal world. But I believed the barriers had slipped for a reason. That if those of us who could help in some small way fro good refused then all that would come to the mortal realm would be those who sought advantage for their own ends. Those that were evil.
So when I dropped back out of limbo I did so back in the mortal realm. I did so just outside my apartment where I collapsed in the middle of the street.
Selene didn't have to ask why I had collapsed, she felt my pain and exhaustion. I closed off my halo and my injured wings melted back into my body. Instead of damage to the wings there were gashes in my back. I had never had occasion to use my wings like that so I hadn't known that the damage could transfer. I would know better for next time. The fact that there would be a next time was reward enough for a few scratches.
I got myself to my feet and battled up to my apartment. I stumbled through the door and was ready to collapse onto my bed. I would have done so if it weren't for the fact that the bed was fully occupied as a sofa at that moment with Christopher Thyme and Alex Frost sitting to either side of a handcuffed Fluvius.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
I cast my pained gaze across the trio. Before I could think of anything to say I collapsed again. However poor quality my carpet might be it is a much more forgiving surface to collapse onto than that of the road outside. Both Frost and Thyme jumped up to help me. I am sure Fluvius would have joined them had he not been in cuffs.
I let them help me over to the sofa bed and lay me upon it. Fluvius had hopped off and was standing next to my head.
"Are you all right, lassie?"
I managed a smile. "I'll live, I suppose. What happened to you?"
"More importantly, what happened to you?" Thyme interjected.
"First explain why my friend is in cuffs." I should have told them everything I had learned last night right away. But I was stubborn enough to want to know what was going on here first. Fluvius might be an unrepentant womaniser and lech but other than that he was completely harmless.
"We were worried about you. You weren't answering any calls and when we came down here you were nowhere to be seen. We did find him skulking about."
"So you arrested him?"
"He arrested him," Thyme said defensively, indicating Agent Frost.
Frost opened his mouth a couple of times like a fish gulping in the air as he looked from me to Fluvius and worked out what to say. "You were missing, he was here with no good explanation. What would you have done in my place?"
"Well, now I'm back and he was here at my invitation, so you can turn him loose."
Frost immediately did as I said. He knelt down in front of Fluvius and removed the cuffs. "Sorry for the misunderstanding."
Fluvius rubbed at his wrists and looked between me and Agent Frost. I braced myself for some verbal assault directed at Frost. I needn't have bothered.
"Don't worry aboot it, lad. You were just lookin' out for the lass, I can understand that."
Fluvius turned serious eyes on me. "Are you sure you are okay?"
I nodded and managed to cover up how much the motion hurt my damaged back. "I'm fine, now get back to Chandra so she can stop worrying about you."
It wouldn't have been polite to mention that his wife would be less worried about Fluvius' health and more about what he was getting up to.
Fluvius left and I was alone with the two men who were vying for my affections. It might have been Selene's influence but I wasn't really liking the way they were hovering over me like worried mother hens. I was about to push myself into a sitting position where would have been better able to express my dislike of the current situation when I realised that I couldn't. Not a good sign. But with both my own stubbornness and Selene's I wasn't about to let either of the two men know how hurt I really was.
"So you two were worried about me?" I said with a sly smile. All of a sudden I was aware of my only partially clothed state. Rather than being embarrassed as I would have been only a few days before, I was more annoyed that in my current state there wasn't really any way for me to take advantage of it.
"Oh I don't know about that. You're already flat on your back if these guy's are gentlemen they'll be able to pleasure you without you having to do too much yourself." There was a slight jealousy along with the eagerness in Selene's tone.
My body reacted to the thoughts of what Selene's suggestion brought to mind. Hopefully the two men thought the reaction beneath my bra was down to more that I was feeling the cold than it was to them.
"No more games, Faith. What happened to you?"
So I told them. Not all of it of course. I kept Selene out of it but most of the facts were there. Both men chided me for being foolish for going down there alone and right at that moment I couldn't be bothered to argue with them. They were probably right.
"I'll tell Stern and we can organise for a team to go into the Zone and arrest this guy this afternoon," Frost said.
I couldn't let them go after Smith alone. "I'll come with you."
I pushed myself up, ignoring the pain. What I couldn't ignore were the sheets soaked in my own blood that came up with me.
"Damn!" Thyme exclaimed.
Both men rushed around to take a look at my back.
"You need to be in a hospital."
"I'm fine," I protested trying to focus my eyes on one of the four men who were all of a sudden standing there.
"You are so not fine," Frost said. "Look you've already gone above and beyond the call of duty on this one. Let us take care of it now."
I was going to protest again but my mouth and tongue wouldn't form the words I needed. My legs wouldn't keep me upright any longer and I turned to jelly pressed between the two men.
"I guess this is typical for you. To be pressed half-naked between two men and in no state to take advantage of it."
I was glad I could no longer form words because I would have argued with Selene regardless of what either man might think to my apparently talking to myself. In the end I couldn't focus my thoughts enough to keep them in my head and I slipped into unconsciousness. Again.
Remember how I complained at how it seemed I was continually being interrupted every time I tried to take a bath? Well that is much more preferable to this new thing of constantly winding up in an unconscious state. This time I didn't feel particularly in pain or nauseous when I came to. Rather I was just feeling weak. I was in a typical hospital room. Sterile and full of machinery and things that I couldn't name or know exactly what they were for. There is one benefit to being a non-human and tha
t is that hospitals, when they deign to treat you, do so in a private room to keep you isolated from all of their human patients.
There were tubes and wires attached to my body. Selene was urging me to rip them off but I was more cautious. They were in me and on me for a reason, I didn't know what ripping them out would do.
I had been stripped out of my clothes and dressed in a hospital gown. I figured that it would have been the hospital staff who stripped me and a part of me kind of wished it had been at least one of either Thyme or Frost. No, that wasn't right, I liked my men to be gentlemen. If I thought one of them would try to take advantage of me like that I should have been appalled. But I wasn't and it hurt my head to try and think too deeply on what that meant. Selene's ring was back on a chain about my neck.
I scooted myself into a more seated position. I could feel where they had bandaged my back but I couldn't feel pain from the gashes. That was probably down to painkillers instead of the blood loss that had caused the lack of feeling at my apartment.
My head swam in this new upright position so I let myself sink back down. I would just rest my eyes for a moment to relieve some of the aching in my head.
The next time I opened my eyes Christopher Thyme was at the side of my bed and there was a small bamboo plant on the dresser at the side of my bed.
"Nice to see you awake," he said reaching out to take my hand in his.
"Nice to be awake." I returned his smile and tightened my grip on his hand. "How long has it been?"
"We brought you here early this morning and now it's tonight. You've been unconscious for most of the day."
"Did they get him?" He wouldn't need me to elaborate on who I was referring to.
Thyme looked over his shoulder towards the door to my private room. "I'll let Agent Frost decide what you need to know about that. While you've been out we sort of came to an agreement between us."
That seemed sort of ominous. Something must have shown in my face because: "No, nothing bad. We both agree that we think we could fall in love with you. And we don't want to make this difficult for you. We've agreed to take it in turns until you are ready to choose. When you are up and out of here we'll go out on our first date and then Frost gets his turn."
Heaven can Wait Page 27