by Amy Braun
I lowered my hands. “Max will get over it–”
“Not Max. Raphael.”
She lifted her chin just enough so I could see the sadness welling in her icy blue eyes. “Raphael untied the rest of you, but he wouldn’t come near me.”
“So? The only angel we’ve ever met who hasn’t had a stick up his ass is Sephiel, and he’s a special case in basically every sense of the word.”
“It doesn’t feel like that. He must see me as a plague or something. Maybe he knows what I’ll become.”
“You’re not going to become anything. You’re just Dro.”
She lowered her eyes and sighed, shaking her head. “Not anymore. I used to be, but I’m different now, Connie. I can feel it. That nightmare...” She opened her mouth to speak again, but couldn’t get out the words.
“It won’t happen, little sister.”
Dro looked at me. “You don’t know what I dreamed.”
“Doesn’t matter. If you don’t want it to happen, then it won’t.”
She held the stare for a long time, then said, “Back at the house, I told you that I knew it was going to happen. I knew that I was going to lose control. I wanted to just let it all go. I can’t stop what’s happening to me, Constance. It’s just going to get worse.”
That gave me pause. “What are you trying to say?”
Dro hesitated, biting her lip. “You would save me from anything, right?”
We both knew it wasn’t a question, but she was waiting for an answer anyway. “Of course.”
“Even myself?”
Any other coherent thought I had stopped. “You’d better not be suggesting what I think you’re suggesting,” I warned.
“Constance–”
“No. I’m not going to entertain that thought because it will not happen, do you understand me?”
There was no room for negotiation. Not this time. There was nothing I wouldn’t do for Dro.
Except what she was asking for.
“I nearly got everyone killed,” Dro pleaded. “I burned Max, and you would have died if I didn’t find you.”
“But you did,” I pointed out. “You found me, and you saved me.”
I was proud of the small grin I managed, but Dro was still too upset. I reached across the scarred table and held out my upturned hand. Dro stared uncertainly at it, like she wasn’t sure she could touch me. I kept waiting, and she finally put her hand in mine.
“We’ll figure this out, little sister,” I promised. “The best thing we can do right now is find the fragment carriers.” I twisted my face into a grimace. “Ugh. Kinda sounds like an STD, doesn’t it?”
Dro’s laugh was so unexpected that I was sure I was hearing things. And while it was a small laugh, it was her through and through. I missed the sound so much that it almost hurt to hear again. Thankfully, I wasn’t the only one who did.
“What did we miss?” Max asked, slowly taking his seat next to Dro. He distanced himself at first, then started shuffling closer until his arm was touching hers. It was a slow start, but it was progress.
“Nothing I want to repeat,” I told him, glancing over my shoulder as Warrick slipped into the booth next to me. His arm stretched along the edge of the seat behind me, like it was the most casual thing in the world for him. Damned if it didn’t relax me.
“We’ve got bigger problems now,” I said, getting back on track. “We need to find those fragments.”
I turned my head to Sephiel, who was standing in front of the booth like a waiter about to take our orders. He was paying attention, but his eyes were more distant than usual. The news of Rorikel’s death must have been hitting him harder than I realized. Usually he was jumping at the chance to put a wrench in Lucifer’s plots.
“You think Raphael was telling us the truth?” I asked him.
Sephiel didn’t look up when he responded. “Angels see little use in lying, especially archangels. I cannot confirm what he shall tell Michael upon waking, but his theory is sound. Lucifer is fond of these sorts of games.”
Ah. There was the bitterness he thought he was hiding.
“So how the hell are we supposed to find these people? It isn’t like they organize Bring Your Own Knife block parties.” Max suddenly looked uncomfortable with his comment. “Do they?”
“Doubt it,” I responded, not liking where this was going to go. “But I do think they’re under orders from someone. Not just Lucifer.”
“Drake is the kind of guy willing to take orders for money,” Warrick said, barely masking his own anger. “Which leaves...”
“Yup,” I sighed. “Mateo and the Blood Thorns.”
The table went silent at the mention of my ex-lover. I always knew I would cross paths with him sooner or later, but I was seriously hoping for the later option. He’d never forgive me for the depths of my betrayal, just as I wouldn’t forgive him for his. The next time we met, one of us was going to be bleeding.
“Are you positive it’s him and not just some random guys?” Dro asked. She had never trusted Mateo when we were together, and I had just brushed it off as jealousy at the time.
Now I wished I had listened.
“I’m very sure,” I told her. “Think about what Drake said.”
“He could have just been saying that to freak you out...”
I was shaking my head. “No. He knew what he was saying. Then think about where the attacks have been taking place, and in what order.” I looked deep into my little sister’s eyes. “Every single attack has been in a spot where I did a run. He started at the beginning, at the warehouse.”
I held back my shiver as the memory threatened to surface. Dozens of bodies, riddled with holes that still dripped blood, sightless eyes staring at me, a man’s tongue being cut out before a bullet shattered his brain.
We send messages, Constance, Emilio recited in my head. You will never be respected if you do not make them remember you.
My shoulders stiffened when Warrick’s hand rested on my shoulder. He rubbed his thumb along the side of my neck, the slow, tender motion drawing me back to reality.
“I know where the next attack will be,” I said. “Simon is next.”
Dro winced. The night I helped Mateo kill the stupid thief was also the night I promised Dro that we’d find a way out.
We did, but only barely. This time I wasn’t sure we’d be so lucky.
“No offence, Constance,” Max said warily. “But how do you know they’re even involved? I mean, they were with Lucifer last time, but why would he trust them with the Key to Hell?”
“Anarchy strengthens the Gate,” Sephiel reminded us. “Causing chaos while sending a message to Constance would be efficient on many levels.”
I wasn’t about to argue that. “Mateo has enough control over the Blood Thorns to make sure they know where to go and when. Maybe he holds all the fragments and is giving them to a Thorn when he wants to use them. I’ll ask him after we have a nice reunion.”
A nice reunion being when I buried my hatchet in his heart. If he didn’t have the fragments, he would know where they were. Blood Thorns always had ears to the ground. Besides, the sooner he was dead, the less I would have to look over my shoulder.
“Okay, let’s assume he does have them, and these are messages to you,” Warrick said. “We don’t know when the next massacre is going to take place. We won’t have time to just wait for it.”
“What’s the date?”
Warrick looked at me curiously, then glanced at his watch. “August 19.”
I sighed. “We won’t have to wait long. The attack will be tomorrow night.”
The room fell silent. I could feel Warrick and Dro’s worried eyes on me, but instead of meeting either, I slouched in my seat and crossed my arms over my chest. Warrick turned his head.
“Max?”
The psychic exhaled and closed his eyes. After a couple moments of concentration, he blinked open his eyes and gave Warrick a pitying look.
“She’s right. I
saw an attack and...” he glanced at me nervously, “and Constance got hurt, but that was it. Everything in this damn city is blocking my precognition.” He put his elbows on the table and lowered his chin into his cupped hands. “This frigging sucks.”
Dro paused, then reached out and touched Max’s arm. He glanced at her, but didn’t flinch. They smiled cautiously at each other, and then Max lowered his far hand to slide it across the table and take hers.
I was glad Dro was working things out with her boyfriend. She would need someone to talk to when I was finished telling them my plan.
“Mateo has got to be running out of patience. If we don’t move now, he’s going to turn the city upside down to find me.” I shook my head absently. “It’s a fucking wonder he’s waited this long. But I know him. If we don’t give him what he wants, he’ll find another way to take it. He’ll burn down every building in sight if he has to.”
And, here comes the tricky part.
“We need to draw him out,” I said. “Bait him and trick him. There’s only one way to do that.”
Max and Sephiel were waiting for my answer, but Dro and Warrick already knew.
“Con, you can’t,” Dro protested and the same time Warrick said, “No fucking way.”
“It’s the best way to make sure they have the fragments. It’s me he wants, anyway.”
“Which is exactly why you shouldn’t go,” Warrick said aggressively.
“It isn’t like we have a lot of options right now,” I defended. “I know that street and building just as well as Mateo does. I can hold my own against him.”
“He tried to cut off your head last time.” Warrick was getting riled. “Mateo has Drake with him now. They have the Blood Thorns. They’ll swarm you with demons. You are not going alone.”
I shoved his arm off my shoulder, then turned to face him. “What do you think is going to happen if you show up with me? If something goes down–”
“When,” he interrupted, green eyes blazing.
“–then I can’t protect you.”
I skipped over what I was really trying to say: that if Warrick got into another fight with Drake, it would be to the death. Warrick had fought him before and barely walked away. If he was losing his fight, I wouldn’t be able to help him. I would only be able to watch him die.
“I’ve never been the one who needed protecting,” he shot back.
I almost wanted to slap him. I might have, if Dro hadn’t intervened.
“He’s right, Constance. This is too dangerous for you to do alone. I know you don’t want to risk any of us, but it isn’t fair to ask us that for you. We’ve always been stronger together. So you can face Mateo and Drake on your own at first, but we aren’t staying behind.”
And that was that.
Even though I wanted to keep arguing, even though I wanted to dive across the table and make a mad dash for the door, it wasn’t going to happen. Warrick would yank me back into my seat, and even if I could escape him, Dro would be on my heels before I hit the door. I looked at Max and Sephiel for help, but their expressions told me I wasn’t going to find allies there, either.
“It is not wise for you to engage these enemies alone,” Sephiel told me.
I glanced at Max, who held his hands up in defense.
“Hey, even if I wasn’t a psychic, I’d say this is a bad idea,” Max confessed.
Damn it. These people are going to get me killed. Or I’m going to get them killed.
But they weren’t giving me a choice.
“Fine,” I grumped, tightening my arms across my chest. I would keep the cranky act up for as long as I could.
If I didn’t, I would end up thinking about what it would mean if something went wrong. Given what we were taking a risk for, there was too much to lose if we failed.
Chapter 10
The group wanted to ease my crankiness, so we decided the best remedy was to find some food. I wasn’t going to complain, since I was starving, but it also gave me an excuse to walk and think. I had more on my mind than I cared to admit. Stalking ahead of the group on my own wasn’t really helping matters, but I wasn’t in the mood to talk.
I looked back and forth, trying to get a sense of the place I used to call home. We were clinging to the sidewalk, drawing up our hoodies and shirt collars to move attention away from us. We hadn’t seen any demons yet, and their lack of presence was making me uneasy. Demons used to find us the way wolves found a bleeding animal. It was just a matter of time, and before you knew it, your insides were leaking on your outsides.
But all I could see were boarded up windows covered in graffiti and sharply curved demonic symbols, broken glass and trash skittering along the cracked gravel. The buildings had taken on an ominous red glow from the fires set in oil drums, their heavy red lights flickering through the alleys. Over our heads, smoke hung like a storm cloud that refused to rain. Every breath tasted dirty, like my throat was being coated with smoke and sand.
The streets weren’t empty. Lying in the middle of the street on my left were three men. I thought they were passed out, until I saw the dried pool of crimson underneath them. A few blocks down, a man was slumped half in, half out of a shop window. His head hung over the windowsill, thin streaks of blood tracing down the brick wall. Over my head, I could hear a woman screaming past an illuminated apartment window. I couldn’t tell if it was a scream of earth-shattering pleasure, or soul-crushing pain. I stopped and listened to it, staring at the apartment window and feeling torn about running to find out what was happening.
“Constance?” I heard Warrick’s voice, felt him stand beside me.
The scream came again, and I made up my mind. My hand went to my belt and curled around my hatchet. I marched toward the apartment–
A new scream pierced my ears and my heart, only to be cut off a split second later, after a fountain of blood exploded across the glass window. I halted in my tracks, staring at the bloodstain and feeling my heart squeeze. A man stalked into sight, slightly obscured by the bloodstains. His hand swiped along the blood, removing it from the window. He licked the gore from his fingers, his eyes finding me. He smiled and raised his other hand, displaying a crimson-coated knife. He waggled his fingers around the blade, and kept licking the blood off his hand.
Warrick gripped my elbow and drew me away. I struggled at first, wanting to storm the apartment and cut that devious fucking smile off his face, but a glance at Warrick stopped me. His eyes were grim and shadowed, haunted. He shook his head slowly, and I understood.
There was no way we could save everyone. The whole city was drowning in violence, and it wasn’t going to change unless we shut the Hell Gate. That was just the way it was.
Didn’t mean I had to like it.
I pried my arm free of Warrick’s grip and kept walking. More screams carried through the darkened alleys and burned out buildings, and I couldn’t get them out of my head. It took all my will to remain in control and walk away.
But walking the streets I used to be so familiar with, I got the uneasy feeling that I wasn’t as in control as I wanted to be. It wouldn’t be the first time I had been helpless in the face of overwhelming obstacles...
They threw us in lockup without telling us what we’d been arrested for. We were kept in separate cells but at least we were across from each other.
Dro was sitting on the bench in her cell with her head in her hands. She was obviously ashamed and embarrassed for both of us. I was on the bench as well with my legs pulled up to my chest and my elbows on my knees. I was pissed that this was taking so long, that no one was telling us shit, and that they’d taken my father’s hatchet. That was what infuriated me the most. They were holding the last reminder of my dead parents. I wanted it back.
We were stuck there for hours before the cops finally came back. Two men with biceps the size of cantaloupes marched in with them. Dro lifted her head from her hands. I brought my feet off the bench and set them on the concrete floor so I could stand.
The cops were the same ones who had arrested us, and they harshly clashed with the two men behind them. The new guys were dressed in black jeans, black shirts, heavy boots, and leather jackets. My eyes went down to the black gloves on their hands. Instinct told me they were armed with guns and knives. I looked at their faces as I walked closer to the bars. They were both Hispanic, like me. One of the men had a face that reminded me of a pug, all squashed in and flat with beady dark eyes. A black teardrop was tattooed under the corner of his left eye, as if this guy was crying on the inside all the time. Yeah, right.