Angel Descended (The Awakened Book 6)

by Matthew S. Cox

  “Whatever for? I’m perfectly comfortable here.”

  “Well, it’s your loss if you don’t go. I’d hurry if I were you. Certain types of chances don’t come ‘round so often.”

  The woman vanished in a cloud of silvery fog, which seeped down into the floor.

  Aaron flung the blankets away and sat up. After a moment of staring at the door, he stumbled over to the desk where he’d left his clothes, scratching his ass as a brief homage to Darwin.

  “Great and bloody Hell. Archon wants to see me.” He muttered in the voice of a petulant schoolboy as he stepped into his pants. “I suppose I should go straight away before I get in even more trouble.”

  He hissed through his teeth. Probably wanted to give him the Nth degree for dragging Anna off to see Melissa’s family. Aaron’s joviality died in an instant.

  Shite. She was beside herself on the ride back. What did she say to him? “Fuck…”

  Aaron ran out the door trying to pull his suit jacket on and button his shirt simultaneously. He gave up on both tasks and sprinted up the stairwell up to the tenth floor and the atrium with the ostentatious sculpture, an explosion of cubes from a cracked silicon slab. Three doors led out of the receiving area for the company’s top executives, now home to little more than rats and whatever trash Archon’s little army had left behind.

  A doll in the image of an Asian woman sat behind the desk facing him, its artificiality obvious by the gaps at the corners of the mouth and eyes, and the creepy sense radiating from skin that didn’t look right. The doll didn’t move; it hadn’t so much as twitched for decades. As old as it looked, it likely had a power cell rather than a fusion core or had run off the building’s electricity.

  He jumped the desk and ran toward the office of the CEO, the space Archon had appropriated as his. Aaron slowed as he passed an executive conference room and a private elevator.

  I’ve no idea what I’m walking into. He squeezed the comforting presence of the E-90 under his coat. Archon would hesitate to invade my mind. The gun came out. As soon as his finger touched the trigger, azure dots swished back and forth on both sides of the housing, making the walls glow. Two steps later, he hesitated.

  This won’t look good if I walk in there with a gun out. Shit, what if he’s done something to Anna?

  Metal clattered in time with Anna grunting.

  Aaron stopped breathing. That bitch. She tried to trick me into running in on them fucking. He stomped back to the stairs.

  “Hello? Can anyone hear me? Is someone out there?” Anna yelled.

  “Sorry. Aurora’s being a pain in the ass.”

  “Aaron?” The distinct sound of chains rattled. “Aaron! Please! Oh, feck, hurry up.”

  His mind conjured all sorts of horrible images of what Archon had done to her when she’d confronted him with the truth about Melissa. It didn’t prepare him for the scene waiting for him when he burst in the door, E-90 raised.

  Anna lay naked on the bed, arms cuffed to the headboard, pink furry shackles around her ankles chaining her legs apart to the corners. The Comforgel pad beneath her glowed from orange to yellow in an endless, mesmerizing shift. A grinning azure faerie tattoo marked her milky-white skin up and to the right of her sex. Muscles in her legs tensed from her futile effort to close her legs against the restraints.

  He looked straight at the floor. “Uhm… Now, that I wasn’t expecting. You’re as defenseless as a Manchester goal.”

  She grunted as if straining. “Dammit, Aaron, let me out! Shoot the chains.”

  “What happened?” He looked up, shocked at her lack of comeback for the jab at her team, and put the E-90 back in his coat. “I can’t. It’ll go through six floors at least. Too dangerous.”

  Anna writhed. “Hell if I know. James just up and buggered off, leaving me like this. Come on, shift your arse and get the damn key. It’s on the nightstand. I’m about to burst.”

  He tried to hide the amusement in his grin as he approached the nightstand. “Now why do you think he did that?”

  Her face turned pink.

  “Did he think you’d like it?”

  Pink darkened to crimson. “No. Not this time.” Anna thrashed. “Fecking hell. I’m not as helpless as I look. I can still zap the smile off your face. Let me out!”

  Aaron swiped the key, leaned one knee on the Comforgel pad, and stooped over her. He fumbled at the furry shroud in search of the keyhole. Anna whined and made faces as she squirmed, as if pulling on the cuffs would make it easier for him to open them.

  He watched her face for a moment. “You are enjoying this, aren’t you?”

  “No, you twat. I’m about to piss all over myself. I’ve been like this for hours.” She looked away, voice trembling. “Reminding me where I came from, I suspect.”

  “Hold still.” He squeezed her arm, offering a reassuring smile.

  She went a still as she could manage, save for a persistent bouncing of her right leg. As soon as he got one side open, she flew upright and grabbed herself between the legs. Aaron dropped the key on the pad between her knees and turned his back. Anna whimpered as she bent forward to unlock her ankles. A steady stream of whispered cursing emanated from her as she struggled to reach with an overfull bladder.

  Moments later, she rolled off the bed and loped across the room. He stifled a laugh as she rushed to the CEO’s huge private bathroom, still with handcuffs dangling from her left wrist and in too much of a hurry to care about clothes.

  She didn’t even bother to close the door.

  Aaron meandered across the room, stooping to pluck a robe from the floor along the way. He leaned near the ornate arch with his back to the wall and made appraising faces at the robe until her relieved moaning subsided.

  “When Aurora told me to get up here, I thought you’d confronted him. I was honestly expecting a much worse sight.”

  “I started to, but he made everything sound so necessary.” Her voice echoed from within a chamber of faux-marble walls. “I can’t believe he left me fixed to the bed like that. I got sick once when I was in the gutter. Bastard of a manager locked me in the cage overnight.”

  “You must’ve been quite a handful if they kept you in a cage.” Aaron chuckled.

  “Dancing cage, twat.”

  “Oh, yes. That’s much better. I didn’t think those could lock.”

  “They usually don’t. Blake was a miserable shit and modified them. I expected something like that from him, but James? He’s never been cruel to me before.” Metal rattled; she sniffled as if wiping her face. “Wait, no. I’m wrong.”

  “Do I want to know?” asked Aaron.

  “Put a chopstick through my hand. Needed a guinea pig to show that little girl what a stimpak does.”

  A wave of heat rose inside him. Archon didn’t care about her at all. He saw her as a tool, a possession. “You remember what I said about friends turning on you?”

  The clicking of metal approached the door. Aaron held out the robe without looking. She took it.

  “You’ve already seen everything there is to see. You don’t need to be so polite.”

  “The tattoo is cute.” Sensing she’d tied the garment around herself, he looked up with a smile. “Aye, but it wasn’t exactly by choice. Tryin’ to make it less embarrassing for ya.”

  Anna looked exhausted but happy. She held up her left arm, cuffs dangling. “Not the most mortifying thing that’s ever ‘appened to me. Twice you’ve come to my rescue, innit?”

  Telekinesis fetched the key from the bed to his hand, and he took the cuffs off her. “This is hardly on par with getting tossed out the window of The Spire.”

  Anna shivered. “Maybe not, but I was starting to doubt I’d ever get off that bed. It’s strange… I was only there for a few hours, but I thought I’d never get free.”

  Aaron held her bruised wrist, letting the restraints drop. She smelled of sweat and plastic, her short, white hair matted to her head. “From the cuffs? Or from him?”

  “
He… saved me from the gutter.” Anna stared out the window. “I’d be dead if it wasn’t for him.”

  “Is that true?”

  She glanced up, sapphire eyes brimming with fear, doubt, and pain. Her mouth opened and closed twice, but she didn’t come up with anything to say. He couldn’t pull away from her forlorn expression. Anna looked so small and vulnerable. She’d been the only reason he’d gotten this far in over his head. In that moment at the starship plant, he knew he couldn’t let her face Archon alone. His fear, of her running off in a panic if he said the wrong thing, had held him back long enough.

  He ran his fingers over the mark on her arm. “You’re quite beautiful when you’re lost and confused. I’d rather like to get to know the real Anna.”

  She stared at his hand touching her for a silent moment. “I don’t even know her anymore.”

  “Look inside. She’s waiting for us both.” Aaron almost kissed her when she made eye contact again, but hesitated at the static tingle crawling up his arm. “You’re tingling.”

  “I…” She pulled away.

  Aaron’s heart skipped a beat. Too far. Idiot! “Anna… I—”

  “I need to go to London.” She sighed at herself. “And I need a shower.”

  He leaned on the wall to avoid falling over, watching her scramble to collect an outfit before racing back to the bathroom and hopping into the autoshower.

  She hesitated before closing the tube door. “Aaron?”

  “Hmm?” He stuffed his hands in his pockets, gazing at his shoes to give her some privacy.

  “Will you go to London with me? I’m not sure I can do it alone.”

  He pursed his lips, grimaced, and tapped his foot. “Aye. It’s been too long since I’ve been to a decent chippery.”

  24

  Penny and Spawny

  Anna

  Without thinking about it, Anna reached over the armrest and grasped Aaron’s hand as a familiar skyline filled the windows of the shuttle. Forty-nine minutes after leaving West City, she found herself staring at the unmistakable black scar where Coventry tainted east London. They flew too far away, and too high up to pick out the tower from the murk. A gradual descending turn brought the buildings closer. Far off to the north, the glimmer of a handful of private hovercars dotted the green, well away from the city and King William’s paranoia.

  A man in a teal and grey PubTran jumpsuit, a flight attendant, made his way down the aisle trying to sell last minute drinks and snacks.

  Anna didn’t look at him, and had only a vague awareness of Aaron’s polite “I’m fine, thanks.”

  Minutes later, the shuttle glided to a graceful stop in midair and settled in for a landing.

  “You look surprised to find the city’s still here.”

  She smiled at him, though worry weighed her down. “I can’t believe it’s not raining.”

  “It’s not that bad.” He winked. “You probably just remember it raining all the time because you were in an awful situation.”

  “So you’re saying the four days a week of rain is a metaphor in my memory?”

  “Something like that.” Aaron glanced to his right, over the aisle, and out the opposite windows. “You’re sure we’ll not run into any… difficulties?”

  “We shouldn’t. As long as we don’t go making a scene.” It’s not like the CSB made a habit of publicizing what they did to us. Old Bill wouldn’t know us to look.

  Aaron gripped her hand tight. Whether he tried to comfort her or searched for reassurance, she couldn’t tell. “Aye. Not plannin’ on scene-makin’, are we?”

  “No,” she whispered.

  Once the crowd in the aisle had thinned, Aaron stood and moved to let her go first. She accepted his hand, climbed out of her seat, and led the way to the boarding chute. A line started at the security gate and backed up all the way into the shuttle.

  Unlike the UCF, the transportation authorities of Britain had a problem with personal firearms. Anna fidgeted as they went from waiting on the shuttle to waiting in the docking tube. Every time the line moved another twenty-six inches forward, she had to fight harder to keep her nerves in check.

  In the terminal, five uniformed officers of the Metropolitan Police Force stood in a row, flanked on either side by robotic attack dogs. Matte black armor and red-lit eyes gave the false canines a demonic presence, though Anna didn’t feel the least bit of concern for them. In fact, they reassured her. Two handy power sources to draw upon if things got hairy. The gaze of the three men and two women in black armor worried her more. She hadn’t set foot in London in five years, but she worried one of them might remember her. Of course, a constable relegated to guard duty around Coventry wasn’t likely to be at Heathrow. That place held undesirables on both sides of the law. Police had two ways out of that job: enduring it until retirement or quitting.

  Dying, the obvious third option, seldom occurred. Even the East End boys appreciated the irony of watching them suffer out the tattered end of a career shot to shit. That sergeant seemed like a nice man. I wonder what he did to wind up there?

  What’s wrong? The sudden intrusion of Aaron’s voice in her mind almost made her scream.

  She whirled on him, a momentary glower became a stare of pleading. I don’t trust constables.

  Even psionic ones? He feigned a wounded expression.

  All five of the cops drew rifles on a middle-aged man when an alarm went off.

  The man shrieked and held his hands up. “It’s a museum piece! It hasn’t worked in four hundred years.”

  She buried her face in Aaron’s chest. Oh, shit. Please tell me you left your gun behind.

  He patted her on the back. You tell me. Your face is mushed into the pocket I usually store it in.

  When their turn at the desk came, Anna went rigid, expecting hands to roam her every curve. Much to her astonishment, the guard waved a detector around without making contact.

  Oi, I’m a Proper now. She flashed a nervous smile. Don’t reckon they’d respect me if they knew I was ‘gifted.’

  Twenty minutes later, Anna held back the urge to sprint as they cleared the checkpoint and made it to the street outside the terminal building where an army of autocabs waited. She darted into the first one she could find.

  “Good afternoon,” said a pleasant male voice. “Welcome to Britain’s Autocab. Please state your destination.”

  “Grandpoint, Oxford, please,” said Anna. “Nine Marlborough Road.”

  Aaron got in and pulled the door closed.

  “Sixty-one credits,” chimed the voice.

  She swiped her NetMini over the reader embedded in the wall and folded her hands in her lap.

  “You know, we spend an awful lot of time in taxis,” said Aaron.

  Anna laughed. “Aye. Seems.”

  The autocab whirred to a halt outside a fourteen-story residence complex a short distance from a bend in the Thames. False red bricks covered the first four floors, after which plain plastisteel ran the rest of the way to the roof. Anna followed Aaron out of the car and approached the gate. She couldn’t make up her mind which would be worse: finding things to be as she expected, or finding something done to Penny’s head. After taking a deep breath, she entered a tiny front yard and trotted up the six steps to the main entrance, a locked door.

  Anna put a hand on the mirrored panel containing the ImDent reader. Since she lacked an implanted identity chip, it didn’t do anything. She concentrated on the electronics within, and a rush of energy swept over her. The building’s wiring drew itself in as traces of scintillating amber threads. She focused on the door mechanism and zoomed her view in, as though she stood on the printed circuit board. It took only a moment to feel out the line that would cut power to the magnetic locks, and she pulled energy away from it.

  The door opened from its rubber seal with the sound of a kiss.

  “Bloody…” muttered Aaron. “You’re a technokinetic too?”

  “No.” She pulled the heavy door aside and ducked i
n. “It’s all circuits. I don’t have to defeat the security system. I skip right over it. Ultimately, it comes down to which wire needs power fed to it to work the lock. Or, in this case, turned off to free the magnets.”

  “I get the feeling you’ve done this before.”

  She pushed the elevator call button, folded her arms, and offered a wry one-eyebrow-raised smile. “I used to be a bad girl.”

  “Really? You?”

  Anna spun about, backed into the elevator, and waited for the doors to close. “Not that bad. I did some freelance work for some people. Personal protection, infiltration, snooping… corporate espionage mostly. I wasn’t a hitter or anything.”

  “Fascinating.”

  “Of course, if you ask again, I’ll deny mentioning that.”

  “Right.”

  Why did I admit that? She tapped her foot. Next thing you know, I’ll tell him about dancing.

  “And now you’re blushing…”

  Shame collapsed under the weight of anger, mostly at herself. “Don’t ask.”

  Aaron’s attention followed a crawling spark among the control buttons. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

  Anna stormed down the plain pea-green hallway decorated with holograms recreating ancient oil paintings of pastoral fields, lakes, and forests.

  “Good grief,” said Aaron. “Do you think they’ve a committee of little old women who approve all the décor?” He mimicked an elderly woman’s voice. “Sorry, my dear. This piece is not boring enough. It simply won’t do. Take it away.”

  Knots of nerves in her gut unwound a little at his joke, but not enough to let her laugh. She stopped at the fifth door on the left and pushed the buzzer before she could think about what she was doing.

  “Minnit,” called Penny’s voice from the other side.

  “Aaron?”

  “Aye?”

  “Stand behind me and hold my arms.”

  “Why?”

  “So I don’t run when the door opens.”

  He did. She let herself lean into him a little. Am I betraying James? A twinge of nausea slid around the pit of her stomach as she thought back to the look on Aaron’s face a few hours ago. There she stood, naked save for a handcuff dangling from her arm, and he stared into her soul as though he wished he could reach inside her and peel away all the pain she’d ever felt.