by Kristie Cook
“Nothing to be sorry about, Alexis. This is the way it’s supposed to be, and you will stop him now. You are meant to do this. Not me. I am meant to be in the Otherworld, with the rest of the Amadis daughters and the Angels.”
“Please don’t leave me again.” I held tightly to her small body, the feathers of her wings soft as they quivered under my hands.
“We’re always here, Alexis. But we all have our roles. We all have our places to serve. Your place is here. Mine is not. Just know that I always love you.” She pressed a kiss to my head, unable to find my face buried between her shoulder and neck.
“I love you, too,” I cried, and I fell forward to my knees, nothing there to hold my weight anymore.
They were gone.
I leaned over my thighs and quietly wept, feeling more alone than ever.
A few minutes, or perhaps hours, later, the door opened. Tristan found me on my knees on the floor, probably looking as though I bowed in prayer. Except my whole body trembled, more with anger than sadness and loneliness as he sat down beside me.
“What’s the matter, my love?”
“Nothing,” I said before sitting up and swiping the backs of my hands over my eyes. “Everything.” I threw my hands in the air and let them smack down on my thighs. “Just when I think I have answers, when we think we’re doing the right thing, when we have direction, the door gets slammed in our faces.”
I laughed, even as the anger burned in my chest. How could I tell him Mom, Rina, and Cassandra had been here, looking like Angels? How could I explain their instructions that seemed so ridiculous? I’d imagined the whole scene. I had to have. I hoped I had, and that some sorceress hadn’t thrown me into another false vision. Either way, their visit could not have been real. Mom and Rina wouldn’t tease me like that. Would they?
“I think I’m just tired,” I said. “Tired already of all of this. Tired of being tired.”
“Everyone else is resting until nightfall. Come on.” He took my hand and pulled me to my feet, then led me to a small office that had probably belonged to the priest.
He sat on the suede-upholstered couch and pulled me down with him, then wrapped his arms around me and lay down. We squirmed and wiggled, getting ourselves situated, without him letting go of me.
“You smell different,” he said.
“Yeah, probably gross. I need a shower.”
“No. More like heaven,” he murmured into my hair before we fell into a restive, regenerative sleep that I’d needed more than I expected.
“Alexis, Tristan.” Blossom’s voice, soft, coming through a crack in the door. “Solomon has an idea.”
We both sat up simultaneously, instantly awake.
Ten minutes later, we’d all gathered into the pews in the sanctuary, and Solomon stood in front of us, near the altar, as though ready to deliver a sermon.
“We need to go to Westminster Abbey,” he announced, and I didn’t know whether to laugh or scream.
“Is this some kind of joke?” I asked him. “Did they come to you, too? Tell you to find the door with the wings carved in the casing and give a special secret knock?”
Solomon leveled me with a what-the-hell look. “I know not what you mean, but we should be able to find help at the abbey.”
“Nobody wants to help us,” I said. “They only want to kill us.”
“Surely there’s somebody,” Sheree said.
“Well, if there is, they’re too terrorized to come out and show it,” Vanessa said. “I wouldn’t bank on anyone at the abbey being willing to help us—if there even is anyone. The Daemoni probably started there as they seemingly have with all the so-called religious leaders.”
Solomon’s cornrows grazed his shoulders as he shook his head. “No, I no longer expect anyone to be there, but there is protection on its sacred grounds. And there is a stash of weapons.”
“We all have weapons,” Owen pointed out. “In some form or another.”
“The kinds of weapons we cannot use against the Normans,” Solomon said. “The kinds of weapons that identify us as supernaturals as soon as we use them.”
Tristan straightened up next to me and nodded. “Right. Yes, you’re right, Solomon. We need to look and act more Norman. Carry Norman weapons. Fight like them. Even if we have to fight against them, at least it’s fairer.”
“Well, not exactly fair,” Vanessa said as she barely flicked her wrist and a throwing star soared across the room. She suddenly stood where she’d aimed, holding the star between her fingers. “It’s not like they’d have a chance against us.”
“It’s not like we’re going to seriously fight them either,” Char quipped. “They’ll have the advantage because they don’t care if they hurt or even kill us. Besides, not everyone here is like you.”
Before we could argue any further, air-raid sirens sounded, and a nearby explosion shook the church. I grabbed Dorian’s hand and ran for the cellar, where we spent four more hours taking shelter from the bombs and discussing our options. We had few. Well, only one that provided any semblance of a real plan. When our surroundings finally fell quiet, we estimated the time to be about three a.m. If we were going to head to Westminster, this was the time to do it. Hopefully, Normans slept, and the streets would be quiet.
Of course, we couldn’t possibly have such good luck.
The first fifteen blocks proved to be easy as we stuck close to the buildings, dark shadows moving in a dark night. The city felt like another world—blacked out and silent with no power. No lights brightened the sky with a soft backlight for as far as we could see. No Big Ben, giant Ferris wheel, or any buildings lit up to provide a sense of location or direction. The only light came from the occasional orange glow of the fires still burning in some buildings. No motors hummed. No horns or emergency sirens. Every once in a while, I’d hear a car engine in the far distance, speeding away. Nobody—and I meant nobody—walked the streets. Yes, it was the middle of the night, but this was London, not some small town in Bible-belt America.
And then we found the Daemoni.
We’d been creeping along a plaza-like area right below the Eye, London’s famous Ferris wheel, headed for the bridge to cross the river to Westminster. Vanessa had been running ahead of us, scoping things out and giving us the all clear when she found a place to hide us before moving on to the next point. That was how she stumbled upon a nest of vampires feasting.
“Oh, well. Hello, boys,” she said about fifty yards ahead of us.
Tristan and I exchanged a look and ran ahead to catch up with her. Solomon met us there. Eight vampires were feeding on three norms, obviously against their will. We arrived in time to see Vanessa’s boot land in a Daemoni vampire’s head as she kicked it as though it were a soccer ball. Too distracted by his meal to realize whom he was dealing with, he looked up at us with his lips curled back to bare bloody fangs and red glowing eyes, trying to threaten us.
“I can do that, too.” Vanessa displayed her true vampire look. Only, her eyes didn’t glow.
“Me as well,” Solomon said, and he vamped out, too, both of them snarling at the others, who’d all stopped eating.
“I can’t do that, but I can do this,” Tristan said, and he swept his hand out, throwing the vampires off their human meals.
They soared several yards and crashed into the ticket building for the Eye, then jumped to their feet and flew back at us. I shot electricity at them at the same time Tristan stopped them in mid-motion, paralyzing them. Vanessa blurred behind them, and with a succession of cracks, they each dropped to the ground, their heads at odd angles to the rest of their bodies.
She appeared next to me.
“You broke their necks?” I asked.
“It’s not like they’re dead,” she retorted.
“Do you know them?” Solomon asked as he studied each one.
Vanessa walked back over to the line of still bodies. She kicked one’s foot. “That’s the leader of the main London nest.”
“Not
likely to be converted then,” Charlotte said, finally joining us. “Are any of them?”
Vanessa wrinkled her nose. “Doubt it. This nest is older than dirt and one of the worst of the worst.”
“Alexis, you know what to do,” Charlotte said.
With a sigh, I grabbed the hilt of my dagger and walked over to the temporarily dead vamps. If they couldn’t take what I was about to do, the “temporarily” part would have been, well, temporary. I swallowed hard, trying to push the lump in my throat away as I squatted next to the one Vanessa had identified as the leader. I thought he’d be an easy way to start this process, getting the worst out of the way first. Holding my dagger with both hands, I lifted it above my head, then slammed it into his chest, straight into his heart. At the same time, I pushed Amadis power through the blade.
His body immediately began convulsing from the combination of the silver blade and the power of all things good. His eyes flew open, glowing bright red. But only for a moment. They dimmed quickly and then went out completely as his skin put off a purplish-black smoke, stinking like a corpse and shriveling up against his bones. My Amadis power defeated the dark magic in him, the only thing keeping him “alive” since he had no hope or love—no soul—left inside him.
Mom and Charlotte had taught me the theory of killing a Daemoni who’d lost his soul completely to Satan, but this was the first time I’d actually done it. I’d delivered the final and true death to this vampire.
I moved along the line of bodies, doing the same to each one. If any of them had hope left, they would have begged for mercy. I would have been able to sense any possibility for redemption. They only needed the slightest hint of hope, of desire to be different. None of these vamps had any, and they all shriveled into dried up corpses.
My heart felt as withered as their bodies by the time I finished. I’d said numerous times how much I wanted to kill the Daemoni, but now that I’d actually done so, it didn’t give me the satisfaction I’d desired. Only overwhelming sadness.
“The norms will be okay,” Blossom said, putting a hand on my arm to comfort me. “Solomon healed them and sent them on their way.”
I nodded. “That’s good.”
Tristan shot a flame out of his palm, lighting the corpses on fire to make sure they were good and gone.
“That’ll draw attention,” Owen said. “We better get moving again.”
We’d barely started off when someone whispered from a shadow, “Follow me.”
A Norman girl wearing all black—a leather jacket, jeans, and combat boots—with a sword strapped to her back and another knife tied to her upper thigh, stepped in front of us and waved us in her direction. Tristan and I exchanged a glance.
“Come on,” she said, “before the humans see you.”
We walked in her direction, but only because she headed the same way we did anyway. She ran ahead of us, beckoning us on.
“We’ll lose her on the other side of the bridge,” Tristan murmured, and I nodded.
Until we’d come upon the vamps, I’d been contemplating what we were going to do after Westminster Abbey. I was pretty sure that wasn’t the abbey Cassandra had meant. After Tristan had pointed out that I smelled like Mom, Rina, and Cassandra, I had to admit to myself that they hadn’t been a vision, which meant I had to sincerely consider what they’d instructed me to do. And that made me wonder if Noah was still at Whitby Abbey, and they were sending us there for that reason. The whole secret door and knock was weird, though, throwing me for a loop.
The girl continued heading in the same direction we did, until right before we reached Westminster, when she turned right into an alley.
“This way,” she said, but we kept on. “Alexis! This way before they see you!”
She held a door open about twenty feet into the alley. Above it, carved into the wood frame, was a pair of angel wings.
“Hold on,” I murmured, grabbing Tristan’s arm as I turned toward the girl. “Who are you?”
Her eyes grew big as she stared behind me. “Just come on!”
Several pairs of heavy footsteps ran toward us, and I glanced over my shoulder. These weren’t super-sized, beefed up Normans, but they were still military, with military-issued guns pointed right at us.
“Hurry up,” the girl yelled. “It’s safe in here.”
Guns started firing, only in the air at first. I glanced at my people, all of them looking at me as though I’d lost my mind when I jerked my head in the girl’s direction.
“Let’s go,” I said, deciding to trust her . . . and Cassandra.
I took off for the door at the same time the soldiers lowered their guns, no longer giving us warnings. My team sprinted after me.
“In here.” The girl waved us inside.
Once we ran through the entrance, she slammed and bolted the metal door shut with a thick piece of wood.
“I’ll protect it,” Owen said.
“Who are you?” I demanded of the girl. “How do you know my name?”
She pushed the sleeve of her jacket back, and turned the inside of her wrist upward to show what looked like a new tattoo: the same angel wings that were carved in the doorway with the initials A.K. scrolled into them.
“I’m Kristen,” she said. “Second in charge of this place. Ammi, my sister, is commander, but she’s out right now.”
“What place?” I asked suspiciously. I assumed A.K. stood for Ammi and Kristen, and I almost laughed. Cassandra really had sent us to some kind of bizarre neighborhood clubhouse, after all.
“Relax, Alexis.” She pulled her sleeve back down to cover the tattoo and turned to lead us through the dark corridor we’d entered. After a few yards, it ended at stairs that only went down. “You’re with friends. Supporters.”
She moved fast for a norm, taking us down several flights before we came to the last step and walked into an enormous room lit with only two battery-powered lanterns in diagonal corners. A few dozen people were gathered, most curled on makeshift beds of blankets and sleeping bags, and some sitting or standing in small groups and whispering quietly while working on various tasks—reading, sewing, even bandaging each other up. A few others came into the room through doorways. The lighting was too dim to see where those doors led. They all fell silent, stopped what they were doing, and turned to us with excitement and awe shining in their eyes. Then they began to arouse the others. Whispers of “Wake up and look who’s here!” carried across the room.
“We would have made your welcome a big party if we’d known you were coming,” Kristen said. “I know it’s not a castle or anything, but you and your group can call it home for now. You’re safe here.”
“What is this place?” I asked again. “Who are you people?”
Those awake enough to know what was going on held their arms up—some already bare, others having to push sleeves back—and showed the same tattoo on all of their inner wrists. Okay, maybe not a club. More like a cult.
“This,” Kristen said, sweeping her arm out toward the room, “all of us?” She smiled proudly. “We are A.K.’s Angels.”
I stared at her with bewilderment, not understanding why she seemed to expect me to be excited, or at least impressed. “A.K., as in Ammi and Kristen?”
She laughed. “No, silly. A.K. as in Alexis Katerina.”
Chapter 16
I simply stared at the girl, too shocked to form words. Tristan, Owen, Charlotte, and Vanessa, however, pushed me backwards to stand in front of me. The rest of my team circled Dorian and me in, blocking my view of anything, although I heard the shuffles of many people in the room rising to their feet.
“How do you know her name?” Tristan demanded, and with the sharp tone of his voice, I could only imagine the frightful spark in his eyes.
“She was right?” Kristen squeaked, sounding excited and impressed just as much as scared. Her nerves showed as she babbled on. “It’s really Alexis Katerina? That’s what someone in one of the American cells said, but we didn’t know if she
really knew what she was talking about. We thought it was a guess, you know, from A.K. Emerson. I mean, we got the Alexis part from the news, before it went down, and there’s been all kinds of speculation about the K. We heard more and more that it stood for Katerina, so that’s kind of what we went with. No worries. It’s just A.K. for all intents and purposes. Don’t want those arseholes out there knowing exactly what it all means. Anyway, you, uh, don’t have to worry about us. We’re on your side.”
“You need to explain more than that,” Vanessa ordered.
“Who are you?” Owen asked.
I peeked around Tristan’s arm. I really didn’t feel like we had anything to worry about. Only norms dwelled here. Nothing we couldn’t handle. And the bits and pieces I could pick up from their thoughts were far from alarming—most simply felt awe to see us here. Sasha remained hidden in Dorian’s coat, so she didn’t sense any danger either.
“We’re A.K.’s fans,” Kristen said. “Big fans. We had a forum on the Internet, where we would talk about the books and characters—the largest fan site for A.K. Emerson. Fans from all over would get on there all the time, even after she died . . . or when we thought she died. A lot of us didn’t believe she actually had, since there was no body or anything. Anyway, we even had role-playing games and everything. So when the news said A.K. was still alive and responsible for the supernatural attacks, the forum exploded. Most of us were gobsmacked, especially the part about her leading the bad guys. Her—” She ducked to peek at me between Tristan’s and Owen’s arms. “Your books are good, as in not evil. They’re dark, yes, but they’re also about love and hope. How could anyone who writes stuff like that be responsible for everything going on? So we started putting together local groups and called ourselves A.K.’s Angels. It was mostly all talk at first, trying to sort how to prove to the world that you aren’t bad. But then things got worse. We lost our homes, our schools, and businesses. Family members . . . Everything’s changed. So we gathered here, and this has become home. There are cells around the world doing the same thing.” She paused and frowned. “Last we know, that is. Since all the communication networks went down, we haven’t been able to reach any of the others. We don’t know who’s still around. We were the third largest then, though. Two American cells were the largest. But who knows now?”