by E. A. Copen
“If only. There are worse things than the Devil out there, mate, and Alexi’s crawled into bed with one of the worst.”
He nodded. “And this is why Niko is doing what he’s doing?”
“I don’t know. He says it is. But Niko… He’s difficult to read. I can’t help but wonder if he’s in this for some other reason. I know you know him well, Mr. Sava. What is it he wants?”
“The same thing all of us want,” said the old man, tossing his cigarette butt to the ground and turning toward me. “A world without boxes.”
Something buzzed by my head and landed on my neck. I lifted a hand to swat it away, thinking it was a fly but paused when I realized it was too heavy a creature for that, and flies didn’t grumble in Hellion.
“Boneflake!” I grinned and picked the little imp off my shoulder. He looked no worse for wear, despite having stayed out significantly longer than we’d agreed upon. “You’re late.”
He shouted at me, turned around in my hand, and wiggled his naked arse at me. That’d be Imp for “kiss my ass, I do what I want.”
“We’ll see about that.” I closed my hand around him and dropped him into my pocket.
“Now I’ve seen everything,” Konstantine said, shaking his head.
There was a sudden crash inside the building and the two of us turned to face the door.
“Another friend of yours?” Konstantine asked.
“Doubt it.”
He grabbed the door handle.
I put a hand on his shoulder. “Could be what’s in there isn’t any more human than Alexi, mate. Maybe let me handle it, yeah?”
Konstantine set his jaw and squinted at me. “This is my taverna. I’ll be damned if anyone or anything gets to wreck it but me,” he said and jerked open the door.
I followed him in, hot on his heels. We didn’t find the source of the crash until we got to the front room and found the picture window shattered. Two thugs in satyr form had found their way in and stood a short distance from the broken window armed with semi-automatic rifles. They swung them around at us as soon as Konstantine walked through the door and opened fire.
I grabbed the old man and jerked him back behind the wall before any bullets could hit him. “Do you have any guns?” I shouted over the din of gunfire.
Konstantine shook his head. “No guns.”
“Magic it is, then.” I rolled up my sleeves, closed my eyes, and pulled on my power.
There was a break in the gunfire, just long enough for a small metallic canister to clink against the floor. My brain registered what it was about a millisecond before I could put words to it. “Grenade!”
I pushed myself away from the wall, throwing myself as far out of the explosion’s path as I could without stopping to check on the old man. A heartbeat later, it went off. Heat scorched my back, and the force of the detonation pushed me headlong into an oven. Pots and pans rattled to the floor while bits of glass exploded from nowhere, slicing into exposed skin.
Somehow, I wound up on my stomach, hands over my head. A rack of pots had fallen on top of me. I turned halfway over and shoved it aside, coughing from breathing in the settling smoke. I was alive enough to cough and hadn’t coughed up anything essential, plus all my limbs were still attached, which meant I’d come out of that better than expected. The loud bang had robbed me of all sound except for a high-pitched ringing though, and the knock to the head had left me bleeding and foggy-headed.
Two figures forced their way through the smoke and flashed bright lights on me. I raised a hand, squinting to make out who they were beyond the lights. That’s right. Alexi’s fuckwit satyr goons. But why weren’t they shooting at me?
I blinked dust out of my eyes as a third figure in a long black coat stepped through the rubble, tugging on a pair of leather gloves. Iosef. He’d stayed in his human form, apparently preferring that to his more fitting half-goat appearance. Iosef glanced to his left before turning to face me. His mouth moved, but I couldn’t make out anything he said. Sounded like the bastard was yelling through a wall.
I chanced pushing to my feet. The world tilted and I would’ve gone down if one of the satyrs hadn’t grabbed me by the shoulder. He wasn’t being helpful, though. Far from it. Bastard drove a fist into my gut and pushed all the air out from my lungs. My legs went from under me and I fell to the floor, barely catching myself from hitting it face-first. Three big drops of blood splashed to the floor in front of me.
Iosef’s shoes suddenly appeared in my vision. Idiot was still trying to talk to me with that smug look on his face, hands clasped behind his back. I had no idea what he was saying, but I knew my response.
I spat blood all over his pretty, polished shoes.
Another foot, this one ending in a hoof, whipped up and caught my chin. My whole body snapped backward from the force of the kick. I must’ve temporarily blacked out because the next thing I knew I was on my back, staring up at Iosef’s disapproving face. Sound had finally come back to me, at least. Apparently, all I needed was a good kick to the head for a reset.
Iosef issued a command to someone in Greek. Hands appeared out of nowhere to jerk me up between them. I tried to find my feet, but all the head kicking had left me with a disconnect between my brain and body. It was just as well since Iosef’s men seemed content to just hold me.
Their reasoning became clear a moment later when more of Iosef’s men dragged in a badly beaten Konstantine. Hard to tell if it was the explosion that’d ripped open his face and torn his arm from its socket or if that was thanks to Iosef. His shirt was singed though, and I spied a small fire burning in the kitchen just behind him. He wasn’t strong enough to fight them in his condition, but his wife was. They’d dragged her in by the hair.
Old Konstantine straightened at the sight of his wife and turned his attention to Iosef, pleading in Greek. Iosef backhanded him. The old woman screamed incessantly until Iosef drew a pistol and pressed it to her temple. He glanced at Konstantine, switching to English for my benefit no doubt. “Where is Stefan Nikolaides?”
The old woman’s lips trembled as her husband met her eyes. A tense moment of silence passed before Konstantine whispered an answer.
She forced a smile but started sobbing again.
“One last time, old man.” Iosef pressed the gun harder against her temple. “Where is he?”
Konstantine drew up and spat in Iosef’s face. “Go fuck yourself.”
Iosef pulled the gun away from her head and shot Konstantine square between the eyes.
His wife screamed.
“How about it, Josiah?” Iosef grinned, pressing the hot barrel of his gun against the old woman’s head. “Do I get to splatter old Ya-ya's brains today too? Or will you do what you should’ve done from the start and walk away?”
She was dead either way. Iosef couldn’t let her live, not after killing her husband in front of her. Ya-ya might’ve been a sweet little old woman, but she was a woman with means and a voice. If he let her live, she’d work tirelessly until the day she died to put an end to him.
Still, if I didn’t tell him, her blood would be on my hands.
Maybe I could stop him, hit him with magic before he shot her. Was I faster than his trigger finger? Stronger than a room full of angry satyrs? Why the fuck was this even my fight to begin with? Iosef was right about one thing; I should’ve walked away when I had the chance to get out clean.
I caught the old woman’s teary, swollen eyes. She nodded at me and closed them, biting her lip to keep from whimpering.
“Go on, then.” I gestured for him to get on with it. “What the fuck do I care? She’s just some old woman to me.”
“Who told you to look for Stefan?” Iosef demanded.
“Your mum.”
He sneered at me, finger tightening on the trigger.
“Stop!” Niko’s voice rang through the kitchen, loud and clear.
Iosef’s finger relaxed.
I closed my eyes and winced. You fuckwit! You were almost free,
and then you had to open your big dumb mouth.
Broken glass crunched under his shoes as Niko stepped into the kitchen off to the right, his hands raised in surrender. “You want me? Here I am, Iosef. Let them go.”
“Come on now, Niko. You know I can’t do that. But she will make a good sacrifice.” He shoved the old woman aside for some of his goons to take.
Niko surged forward only to halt when Iosef pointed the gun at him.
I clenched my fists and pulled on my power. Iosef was right in front of me. One clear shot and I could take him out. All I had to do was be faster than a speeding bullet.
What do I care about how fast I am? Even if he shoots Niko, I should take him out. This is too big to hesitate over one life. If I don’t kill him, he’ll complete his ritual and release Remiel. Then it’ll all go tits up for humanity, and the apocalypse will turn into a best-case scenario. Iosef had to die, and I had to kill him now before he got his hands on Niko and that amulet. I had the power and the perfect shot.
So, why the fuck couldn’t I do it?
Iosef slowly turned his head toward me.
Maybe it was because of how heavy I was breathing. I’d pulled in a lot of power, enough that it was vibrating over my skin like lightning, caressing the bleeding cut in my head, just begging to be used. It took more effort to hold it back than it would’ve been to unleash it.
“Put him in the cuffs,” Iosef ordered.
I turned and unleashed all the pent-up magic at the first asshole satyr who dared put his hands on me. It hit him with the force of a full-speed truck, nearly tearing him in half at the waist. His goat legs stayed put while the top half flew back at fifty miles an hour to splatter against the wall, little more than a chunky smear of crimson.
Another satyr opened fire, but I pulled on the blood pooling around my collar to put up a shield. Bullets struck it and bounced off, ricocheting all around the destroyed kitchen. One of them struck another satyr in the throat and he fell, gurgling, gun shooting the ceiling. Still holding the blood shield, I turned, intent on unleashing everything I had left against Iosef, but the bastard was too fast. He’d grabbed Niko and held him tight against his chest like a human shield as he backed toward the door, one hand raised toward me. A ball of crimson energy spun in his hand, the same color as my shield. Blood magic.
Hit him anyway, screamed the voice in my head. But I didn’t have a clear shot. I couldn’t hit him without taking out Stefan too.
The satyrs stopped to reload. I turned my attention back to them and sprayed a blast of holy fire two feet wide and four feet tall. It engulfed both the remaining satyrs and the restaurant wall behind them in blue flame. When I turned back to deal with Iosef, the only sign he’d ever been there at all was the back door swinging closed.
The alley, I thought and stepped forward.
My foot bumped against something soft, and I looked down to see the old woman. In their rush to get out, they’d abandoned her. She was bleeding from a shot to her arm and some scrapes and bruises, but she was otherwise alive.
Flame shot up to the ceiling where black smoke was already rolling in a thick cloud. The taverna would burn down in minutes. No time to get her out if I went after Iosef.
“Fuck me,” I groaned and knelt to sling the old woman’s arm around my shoulder. “Come on, Grandma. You don’t die here today.”
The dining room ceiling collapsed behind us just as we made it through the front door. I stumbled, coughing into the street, half-expecting to run into guards Iosef had left behind. Instead, the street was empty but for some bleary-eyed onlookers still in their pajamas, staring at the building as it went up in flames.
Red and blue lights lit up the sides of buildings as a firetruck and an ambulance swerved around the corner.
“Ah, bugger all.” I sighed. So much for making a clean getaway. That was what I got for doing the right thing.
Chapter Twenty-Three
JOSIAH
I’d never been in the back of an ambulance before. The whole thing felt surreal, undeservedly mundane. Uniformed folks rushed into the scene, some to put out the fire and others to grab the old woman from me. I didn’t want to let her go, but I was too dazed to hold on.
Ash fell in the street like warm snow, swirling and dancing with sparks from the fire raging behind me. Someone grabbed my arm and ushered me to sit on a gurney where they flashed lights in my eyes and took my pulse.
All I could think about was Niko. I should’ve taken the shot. The look in his eyes as Iosef dragged him away only confirmed what he said earlier. Iosef needed both Niko and the amulet to complete the summoning, and I’d handed both of them to him with hardly a fight. My hesitance had doomed us all, and for what? So they could torture and kill Niko for their spell? He was dead either way, wasn’t he? But I couldn’t be his executioner.
Now Niko would probably die and Remiel would have his day in the sun, and there was fuck all I could do about it from the back of an ambulance.
I spent the ride to Mount Sinai Hospital running the scene over again and again in my mind, reliving everything in perfect detail from my conversation in the alley with Konstantine Sava to slaying the satyrs while Iosef escaped. All I saw were errors, missed opportunities, mistakes. After everything I had been through and all the knowledge I’d gathered, I should’ve been better prepared. Instead, I’d broken the only rule I’d vowed to live by since Danny’s death: Never make it personal.
The great American healthcare system shuffled me through it like a snag in a well-oiled cog of redundancies and inefficiencies. They deemed my injuries non-life threatening and shoved me in a curtained off area to wait for stitches while they dealt with other patients.
I sat on the edge of the narrow hospital bed, legs dangling over the edge, hands on my knees. The blood drying on my knuckles had begun to itch, but scratching at it seemed like too much effort. I wanted a smoke, a drink, a spell for proper time travel so I could go back and kill Iosef the first time.
“You know that’s not how time travel actually works, don’t you?” said a voice from behind me.
I closed my eyes and sighed. My guardian angel would choose now to make an appearance. “What do you want, Ira?”
“Is that any way to talk to an angel of the Lord?” Ira walked around the bed to stand before me. Like most angels of Ira’s order, it was impossible to discern a gender from their appearance. Maybe guardian angels didn’t have one. Fuck if I knew. Ira shoved the little squiggle of periwinkle-blue hair away from their black, shining eyes. White, feathery wings expanded and then shrank, folding neatly behind Ira’s back.
I glared at the angel, unimpressed. “We both know you’re double-dealing under the table, so cut the shit.”
The corner of Ira’s mouth tipped up into a smirk. “And it’s all about to pay off in a glorious way, isn’t it?”
“Yes, of course. Remiel gets free and does the dirty work for you winged fucks, killing the demons and decimating Hell as revenge for what old Lucifer did to him years ago. And when he’s finished there, he’ll turn his attention Heavenward, and Michael will get his epic apocalyptic battle. Win-win for everyone but the folks God made in His image. That’d be the humans for anyone keeping score.”
Ira’s smirk shifted into a scowl. “The Tribulation was foretold. It is written, and so shall it be, Josiah. Not even you can stop it from happening. It is God’s will.”
I snorted and rolled my eyes. “Says you.”
Ira darted forward, planting a hand on either side of me. Their head hovered just in front of mine, eyes blazing brilliant blue. “Do you know why I do this job? Why time and again I rescue your insufferable flesh from the flame and heal your wounds? It isn’t out of an abundance of love or any sense of duty.” Ira’s fingers closed around my jaw, squeezing. “It’s so that when you die, you do so having suffered more than any other living thing. I want to see you stand on the edge of the world as holy fire melts it down to be molded into something new. I don’t want you to kneel
before God, Josiah. I want to watch as Michael cuts away your legs and leaves you to drown in your own tainted blood.” They pushed me back.
The room spun, and my stomach reeled as my head hit the bed. A new ache spread through my chest. Not one that told me anything was broken, but one of pure exhaustion. I’d drained all my magic and put my body through the wringer to take out those last few satyrs. I couldn’t have punched out a fly in my current state.
Before I could recover, Ira loomed over me and thrust their hands into my head as if the skin wasn’t there. Searing fingers raked over my skull, threatening to boil my eyes with their touch. My whole body tensed, the pain so great I couldn’t scream, couldn’t kick, couldn’t think. Ira’s fingers moved to my ears, where they plucked out thick globs of blood and flesh and coaxed them to heal with a whisper that banished all rational thought. If the gods wanted the tortures in Hell to be more efficient, they’d have let the angels do it all. Ira was a master of inflicting maximum pain with minimal effort.
When my guardian angel was done fixing me, I lay curled up on the bed, arms wrapped tight around my shoulders and weeping.
Ira turned on the tap and slid their fingers under it, scrubbing away some invisible dirt. “Remiel will rise. I suggest you take the time you have left to get right with God, Josiah. Judgment Day will not be kind to you.”
“Here. I have a message for your boss next time you see him.” I forced one finger on each of my shaking fists to uncurl.
Ira smiled and shook their head. “A petulant child to the end. Farewell, Josiah. I don’t expect we’ll meet again.”
Ira vanished and I gasped in a breath, blinking away the last tears from my vision.
The curtain to my little corner of the emergency room slid aside and Khaleda peered in. “When they told me you were in the ER, I expected severed limbs, not a bloody bump on the head.” She stepped in and pulled the curtain closed behind her. “Well, let’s get you out of here before they start looking too closely at you. Poke and prod you enough, and I’m sure they’ll turn up something that’ll make them ask questions.” Khaleda pulled the oxygen monitor off my finger.