Heaven can Wait

by Nicola Lawson

  I fanned my wings forwards and a gust of air was pushed towards the demon. The light of my halo moved forwards along with the wind and it passed into the darkness. It washed over the demon before it could think to do anything to stop it. Where the light hit it the demon lost its hold on the mortal realm. In a moment it was fully covered in my light and its evil had no place to go. The darkness imploded and as suddenly as that the demon was gone.

  My glow faded and my wings retracted. I collapsed in a puddle on the floor.

  And I cried.

  I had enough good in me still but that didn't change what I had done to survive this evening. It didn't change that I had murdered a mortal man. The fact that I was at least semi-possessed by a partially demonic entity at the time didn't really make that any better.

  I curled myself up on the floor and waited for somebody, anybody to come and sort this mess out for me. But I had a feeling that whatever followed after this, I was going to discover that there was no quick fix answer.

  EPILOGUE

  So, what's next for me? If you don't have the answer I certainly don't.

  They released me from hospital the day after the attack. Stern and his NIRU buddies finished questioning me a couple of days later, that was the day before yesterday, they decided there was nothing they could charge me with. I didn't tell them what Thick and Thin had been doing in the room and I didn't tell them what I had done to Thick.

  I had wanted to confess. Wanted to face mortal justice for my sin but Selene had talked me out of it. She was right when she said I would punish myself worse than anything they could do.

  Speaking of Selene, by asking for her help and granting her some control over my body I linked us in a manner that she knew no way to separate. Apparently Selene had been warned about just such an occurrence but hadn't been paying attention. We had had a very long argument about it on my bus journey home, freaking out the few passengers unlucky enough to have seats next to the non-human section. So far she has avoided my requests to find her father and see if he knows some way to help us out of this.

  I don't even want to think about what Halberd and the elders will think if they ever find out I murdered a man and that I'm, at least technically, possessed.

  I think Stern has had me black-balled as a police consultant, too involved in too many crimes for his liking whether they can pin anything on me or not, so I need a new job. Selene has suggested I inherit her business, I don't know if bounty-hunting is a particularly angelic occupation.

  And apart from my relationship with Selene I have the two men in my life to deal with. My first date with Christopher Thyme is in a couple of hours and tomorrow I'm out with Alex Frost.

  So who knows what the future holds. At least it can't get any more complicated than this.

  Right?

  ***************

  The vampyre Montoya had cut short his hunt and as a result had not had the time to secure a victim for his Mistress. There were plenty of victims for her to choose from in any of the number of larders kept by their clan. She preferred her meat hand-picked by one of her trusted hunters or to hunt it down herself but when he told her what he had discovered, when he presented her with the gifts he had managed to bring. Surely that would be enough for her to forgive him on this one occasion. What he had to give her instead could even be enough to warrant a reward.

  After his encounter with the girl, Faith, Montoya formed the word in his mouth, let it linger on his tongue, tasted it like he had tasted her. It could be fortunate that they had been interrupted. Montoya knew that he could get carried away and non-vampyre women were just so fragile. If he was right his Mistress would not want this one harmed, at least not yet. Montoya got his thoughts back on track, as well as getting carried away with women he also found them very distracting. The warmth in their bodies, the life. The way their pulses would rush in their terror forcing that warm, alive blood so close to the surface of their flesh . . .

  Anyway, after his encounter with Faith when those human hunters, Montoya spat the word in his thoughts, how could humans ever consider themselves worthy of taking on that description?, after the hunters chased him out of the room he had hurried up the sheer wall and hid himself on the rooftop. He had sent the others who had come through with him and escaped the ambush away. They had scattered on the winds drawing off a great number of the humans who tried to follow on foot or in their machines. A small party of humans had come up to perform a quick search. Montoya could have killed them all in a matter of seconds, but he was already starting to realise that his Mistress would want more information on this Faith. So he had kept to the shadows, easily evading them. They had had no locators with them and went back inside empty handed.

  Montoya had watched from the roof as Faith and the man who had been with her left the building. The man came out first, he was being carried out on some sort of stretcher. He was placed in the back of one of their machines which promptly roared to life and moved away. Faith came next being supported by that thing who had dared to interfere.

  Montoya willed himself to transform into his true vampyric form, when his senses were at their most alert. He used his nostrils and tongue to pick out Faith's scent from the mass of human smells that surrounded her. She got into another of the vehicles under her own power. It too started to move off and then abruptly came to a halt having moved only a matter of paces. The door that Faith had entered by was opened and she leaned out. Several seconds later after she had spat out a small amount of vomit, she sat back up and the vehicle continued on it's way.

  It was a simple matter for him to keep pace with the machine by leaping from rooftop to rooftop. He would have more problems when they left the city and the buildings became smaller and more widely spaced. He would still be able to keep up with them by running along at street level but down on their level there would be an increased risk of them spotting him.

  As it turned out he didn't have to follow them any great distance until he was gifted with something he could use. The window on Faith's side of the vehicle was wound down and something was cast out. Montoya's sharp eyes identified it as the garment Faith had been wearing and which he had torn in his irritation at being interrupted. He stopped and let the vehicle continue on. When it was out of sight he launched himself from the room of the building he had been hiding on. He came to the ground gently at the side of the cast off clothing. He picked it up and examined it. His tongue and nose told him that there was some of Faith's blood on the item. Perfect. His Mistress would be able to use that to her own advantage.

  Now, Montoya was back awaiting his Mistress's convenience, to present her with this new and possibly vital piece of information. He knew better than to trouble the guards posted outside her chambers. The Mistress granted an audience at her own time of choosing and on her own terms. She was never disturbed. Montoya could have waited elsewhere in the palace. As one of the Mistress's best hunters he had a lot of respect within the clan and could enjoy most of the pleasurable activities whenever he chose. But the Mistress could emerge at any time and if he was not present to tell her what he had learned immediately she would not be pleased.

  Just as he didn't trouble the guards to try and gain admittance he also didn't bother to try and engage them in conversation. They were completely dedicated to their task to the exclusion of all else. These guards had submitted to procedures that removed their tongues so that they could not engage in meaningless conversation. A side-effect of the procedure was a greatly lowered libido so that the procedure served a dual purpose and also acted as a partial castration, another benefit as there were both male and female guards on her staff and the Mistress herself could prove very distracting without great strength of will. That wasn't the only surgical procedure which the guards endured in order to take up such an honoured position. Both had had the lower half of their left arm removed, grafted on in its place was a wicked spiked weapon. Blades had been attached to bones in their other arm, in their shoulders and down along the lengt
h of their spines.

  The needs for the guards here were not so great since the last of the great clan wars some eight-hundred years before, before Montoya's time by a period of some four-hundred years. Some of the guards on the Mistress's staff dated back from those days but there were also a number of newer initiates. Rumours, never spoken of in front of the Mistress or any of those closest to her, flew around the palace that over time some of the guards sexual desires had reawakened and that some had given in to their desires inside the Mistress's chamber when she was sleeping. She had allegedly wakened and caught them in the middle of it, at which point she had had them insert their bladed arms in various orifices so that the offenders cut each other apart from the inside. Because none of the weapons were made of silver the wounds had not been fatal. The rumour went that the Mistress had had them locked away somewhere in the palace where their torment continued to this day.

  Montoya didn't know whether he believed the rumour, a different version had her joining in with the sexual activities before initiating the punishment, but he did believe that his Mistress was capable of dishing out that or worse punishments to those who angered her. That was why it had been a risk for him to return here without bringing her a meal as he had been ordered.

  The ornate double doors of the Mistress's chambers started to move. The carved black wood swung inwards steadily. Montoya stepped off the wall where he had been leaning and straightened up. He turned his head to the ground in the proper manner of respect but his eyes were focused as far forwards as he could get them. Very few got to see the inside of the Mistress's private chambers, because her personal guards all had their tongues removed there were even fewer who could talk about what they had seen. Montoya had never been invited inside.

  The doors reached their most open point. For all his efforts all that Montoya could see beyond them was the same cold stone flooring that was out in the hallway. Then a pair of feet came into his field of vision. They were small, definitely female, feet. They had slender toes with black painted nails, high arches separated those toes from equally perfect heels. There was no blemish on those feet. They stepped closer as their owner came out through the door which was closed behind them.

  As the feet got closer they brought more of their owner gradually into Montoya's view. First came a pair of delicate ankles which merged seamless into smooth slender legs. Montoya's head was starting to lift without him consciously willing it eager for him to get a look at the rest. He forced it back down and averted his eyes in an attempt to remove some of the temptation. One did not gaze upon the Mistress until they were given her permission to do so. It was no rumour that several of her subjects had had their eyes put out after they had done so. They hung around the palace awaiting some command from the Mistress that they could carry out and hope to, in some small way, redeem themselves.

  "Unless I am mistaken, which I never am, there is something missing here." The Mistress's voice was as perfect as the rest of her.

  When she used the tongue of command none could fail to obey, when she was angry her speech would send fear through the heart of her bravest warrior. And when she used her voice to seduce . . . Montoya had never been privy to that pleasure, merely being in her presence without seeing more of her than her feet he was finding it difficult to resist her.

  Montoya kept his head bowed and did not respond. Just as one did not look upon her without being given permission, one did not speak until told to do so.

  "I sense you have some explanation that you believe will excuse this dereliction of your duties. Hope that it does so. Now explain to me why I should spare you the punishment that awaits all who would disobey me."

  Montoya kept his head bowed as he spoke, said: "I do not presume to claim that I know better than you, Mistress. I do not ask your forgiveness for my failure, I only hope that you will recognise that I acted as I did because I honestly believed that this was the best way I could serve you." That should be subservient enough. "As the Mistress, with her vast knowledge, is no doubt aware my party was ambushed by hunters-"

  "Indeed I am aware," his Mistress interrupted him a tinge of that anger entering her tone. "I am also aware that you offer me these compliments in an attempt to appease me. If your reason is a good enough one you will be spared, if it is not no amount of this grovelling will help you. Now continue, and speak plainly lest I become impatient with this tale."

  "As you command. One of those who attempted to ambush us was a young woman, young by their terms as well as ours. At first I thought to take her for my own as punishment for joining that rabble and working against us."

  If feet could look impatient the Mistress's most definitely were doing so. Montoya moved on to the point quickly, said: "This female wore a silver ring on a chain about her neck. It was etched with symbols that were so fine they could only be seen in certain lights and from certain angles. I do not know what language those symbols were in, or even if they were meant to represent a language. But they were imbued with a measure of magical potency."

  The next time she spoke the anger was gone out of her voice but Montoya could tell that the Mistress wasn't convinced. "You believe that this one you saw is the heir, but you have not brought her to me so that I can test her."

  "I believe she carries the essence of the heir but she was angel and not demon.

  "I would have brought her, Mistress. But they had many of their human hunters to protect her. I believed that confirmation of her existence was too important to risk loosing if I fell trying to obtain her for you." In actual fact his reasoning had centred more around his own instinct for self-preservation.

  His Mistress wasn't fooled, she said: "You were more interested in saving your own skin than bringing this information to me. We have known for years that the heir walks in their world. There was a failed attempt to capture her and her mother just before her birth. And another of my servants was closing in on her before I felt the disturbance of her death. What you offer is nothing new. On it's own this does not convince me to spare you, but I sense there is more."

  Montoya continued: "There is, Mistress. I believe the essence of the heir has indeed passed to this angel. I have learned the name that she goes by, she is called Faith." Names had a lot of power when they were in the hands of one like the Mistress. What had even more power . . . "And I have this."

  Montoya brought the torn garment that Faith had been wearing out from behind his back and gave it to the Mistress. She took it from him and lifted it out of his sight he heard her sniff it.

  "Her name and her blood," the Mistress said her voice thoughtful. "These I can use. You are lucky, consider yourself spared. Now go to the larder and fetch me something to eat. Bring it with you to my chambers and we can discuss this Faith in more detail."

  With that his Mistress turned and went back through into her chambers. Montoya at last lifted his head and went in search of food for her as he had been commanded.

  Alavigne, called simply Mistress by all of her subjects but hardly a name she could use when she thought about herself, brought the human garment up to her nose again. It carried the odours picked up by those creatures as they made their way through their world but it was a simple matter for her to tune those out. It was the blood she was after. She had the blood and she had a name, Faith. These were indeed things that she could use. Her plans had been delayed by some two decades, what were two decades to those who would live for millennia? But Alavigne could not fool herself. She might have lived for thousands of years but she was far from patient. But now the waiting was over and she could put her plans in motion in earnest.

  It bothered her that she hadn't been able to locate the heir to be there when she was killed to trap the essence. But it would not be difficult to wrest the essence from this angel.

  There was a knock at the door to her chambers. Alavigne had almost forgotten that she had ordered the hunter, Montoya, to return here with something from the larder. She took her time setting the clothing down and getting u
p from her bed before she walked across to open the doors and admit him. "Enter."

  Montoya made a valiant effort at keeping his eyes to the ground. His attempts were not made any easier by the young human girl he had brought for her. She was crying, screaming, resisting him. Montoya was more than strong enough to force her inside. There were any number of ways he could have incapacitated her and so made his job easier. But this girl, who couldn't be more than fifteen or sixteen years old, was destined for his Mistress and so Montoya would not dare to interfere with her.

  Alavigne watched him struggle for a few moments enjoying his efforts. His eyes came up on one occasion so that he saw her fully. The action was accidental on his part but it was no accident that he lingered for several moments too long before he turned them away. Alavigne decided to put and end to this before he could do it again and cause her to take offence.

  "Enough. Stop struggling." She addressed the human girl putting the full weight of her authority behind the words.

  The human did as instructed freezing in place as Alavigne had commanded. With the problem taken care of Montoya hurried to get himself into a respectful position with his head dutifully bowed. Alavigne had only been partially shielding herself when he had glimpsed her, had she not been doing that much he would never have been able to turn his gaze away from her. Still he had turned away and now he did look immediately to the floor instead of trying to sneak another look. Alavigne turned her shields to their fullest, she would still be devastatingly attractive but Montoya would be able to look upon her with Alavigne herself helping with his restraint.

  "You may look," she said.

  Hesitantly at first he raised his eyes. His hesitation vanished rapidly and he was obviously enjoying what he saw even as he tried to control himself for fear of causing her offence.