Rolling her eyes, she added with a snort,
“He may as well go to one of those shops with the neon hands blinking out front. Most of those charlatans can’t see anything but money and the bottom of a bottle.”
A few demons grunted laughs of agreement.
Alvin/Molokai grunted along with them, but still didn’t look satisfied. He stared down at Dags’ face like he was barely restraining himself from slicing open his throat.
Dags wondered if the others would be able to restrain either Molokai or the Kara/Leticia demon, if one or both of them really made up their minds to do it, to just take Dags out.
Even with a concussion, he knew he was running out of time.
He definitely didn’t have time to put all the pieces together of everything he’d just been listening to. He had to find a way out of this.
Now. No matter how screwed up his head was.
“Get me the potion,” Mara said, her voice hard.
She held out a hand.
“I want all of it,” she added. “Whatever we’ve got left.”
“Of course,” Molokai muttered, obviously not liking that either. “Let’s just waste every drop of a concoction that took us days to make. Just give it all to this feathered asshole. Because that’s a great use of resources⏤”
“Molokai.” Mara stared at him, her red eyes warning. “We’ll make more. We still have time. It’s days yet, before the moon will be right to conduct the ritual.” She raised her voice, addressing the rest of the room. “Someone bring it to me. Now.”
The Kara/Leticia demon rose to her feet, huffing in annoyance.
Clearly, she and Molokai were in the “let’s kill all angels” camp.
Another demon spoke up from a different part of the room.
“You’re sure you want it all?” the male said, doubtful. “It’s three full doses⏤”
“I’m sure,” Mara said, sharper. “Are all of you suffering from amnesia? He’s an angel. He might not be fully awakened yet, but he’s still an angel. I’m far more concerned that three doses won’t be enough.”
The big one, Rupert, opened his mouth to speak.
Mara cut him off.
“It won’t kill him,” she said, her voice back to warning. “They might technically be in human bodies, but they aren’t human. No more than we are.”
Rupert shrugged his massive shoulders.
“We are not born into these bodies,” he reminded her, soft.
Mara frowned, staring up at the tank-sized demon.
“Are you really telling me my business, Brother Rupert?”
“No,” he said, holding up a plate-sized hand. “I am just concerned. As you said, the Father was adamant about this one. About this one in particular⏤”
“He’ll be fine,” Mara repeated.
After a pause, Rupert nodded.
His red-tinged eyes remained doubtful.
Dags saw the Kara/Leticia demon return to this part of the room. She carried a glass vial out in front of her, holding it delicately between a thumb and forefinger, like there was some chance it might explode.
Dags watched Kara push Jade gently aside to reach them.
Jade, who still hadn’t spoken, who looked more tranquilized than he felt, yet whose eyes still belonged to Jade somehow, barely seemed to notice Kara as she passed.
Dags watched Leticia/Kara pass the vial over to the demon, Mara. His eyes zeroed in on the swirling, violet liquid as Mara held it up to the light.
Dags felt his nerves ratchet up as he stared at it with her.
“Okay,” Mara said, nodding to the big demon. “Hold him still. I need to pour it down his throat. Don’t let him spit it out.”
The big demon took his foot off the chain between Dags’ cuffed hands.
Dags immediately began to struggle.
He writhed over to his stomach, kicking out behind him. He managed to catch Molokai/Alvin in the face with his boot, causing the male demon to let out a furious hiss. Dags kicked out at the Mara-demon next, and heard her curse, using a language he didn’t know.
Then the big one caught hold of his shoulders, flipping Dags unceremoniously onto his back. He knelt on the top part of Dags’ chest, gripping Dags’ black hair in his hands and forcing him down to the hardwood floor.
“Now,” the one named Rupert said. “Make him drink it now.”
Mara crouched closer, un-stoppering the vial.
Dags writhed again, trying to get free, but that monster had one of his meaty hands around his jaw now, forcing it down, even as he continued to clench his other hand in Dags’ hair.
There was nothing Dags could do but lie there, gasping, half-choking from the unnatural position. More hands were holding down other parts of his body: his feet, his legs, his abdomen and chest. He fought to struggle anyway, but couldn’t move much.
Then the purple liquid was being poured down his throat.
Dags choked, fighting to spit it out, even as he gagged on it.
“Swallow,” the big one grunted. “Swallow, you little fuck.”
“Can I kick him in the throat?” the Alvin/Molokai one said, still sounding out of breath from Dags’ kick. “That should motivate him⏤”
“Or crush his windpipe,” Kara/Leticia muttered in annoyance. “Either way, it’s a win.”
“Silence,” Mara commanded.
Most of the liquid was making its way down Dags’ throat, despite his attempts to force it back up. He gasped in frustration, but that only made him swallow more.
Dags realized it was now or never.
He might already be too late.
For all he knew, they might already have killed him.
Whatever the truth of it, he had to do something now. He couldn’t wait a second longer, however-much his head felt like it might split open with pain.
Closing his eyes, he offered up a prayer, a wish, a desperate plea… something.
Then he drew in every flicker of power, ever spark and charge he could feel of the blue-green fire. He concentrated every particle, every wave, drawing it in even as he transformed it somehow, turning it into a liquid flame that heated every molecule in his body.
He didn’t think.
He inhaled a last breath.
Then he exploded that light outward.
He threw it out harder than he’d ever done before. He let go of control completely, knowing it was all he had left.
It was this, or it was nothing.
For a bare instant, he thought he’d killed himself.
Chapter 15
A Desperate Move
Light erupted in a dense plume out of his chest.
That was more or less the leakage.
Those first coils of light were what blinded Dags, what made the demons wince back, hissing, throwing hands up to shield their eyes and faces.
Even the big one, Rupert, leaned back, loosening his grip on Dags’ jaw and hair.
The Mara demon threw up a hand along with the others. More importantly, she stopped pouring for those few seconds as she grimaced, wincing away from the green-blue flame.
That was only the first second or so.
Dags saw it all as if in slow-motion, watching the demons react where they huddled around him, feeling fingers loosen on his legs and feet and hair and shoulders and chest and jaw. He felt those hands not wanting to touch him.
He felt the blue-green flame burn them, even as it repulsed them.
Gradually, he grew aware of a much more intense sensation.
A lot more of that rippling, sparking charge had been channeled downward, shooting down Dags’ torso to his legs, then down to his feet.
Which was lucky, because that’s where he really needed it.
He hoped that charge would build up enough to shove him a yard or two across the hardwood floor, just enough to give him the space to scramble back to his feet. All he dared to hope for was a little bit of breathing room.
A little bit of time.
Just enough to ma
ke a run for it.
Feeling the instant where it about to explode out of him, Dags reached up instinctively with his cuffed hands, snatching the glass vial with the violet liquid out of Mara-demon’s fingers. Gripping it tightly in both hands, he forced the stopper back in where it had been pulled out and hung from the rim by a piece of rubber.
Then he let go of the fire.
He didn’t just let it go⏤he kicked it out of him as hard as he could.
Maybe he was overcompensating.
Maybe he just had no damned clue what he was doing, even now, after almost ten years of screwing around with these powers.
Either way, that snaking charge of light didn’t just throw him a few yards.
It threw him the length of a damned football field.
Dags shot backwards like he’d been hurled from a cannon.
He crashed through the legs of demons standing directly behind him, knocking through them like a bowling ball plowing through wooden pins. The blue-green charge smashed a hole through that crowd without stopping, without so much as slowing down, even after he’d smacked his head and cuffed wrists on at least five sets of feet and legs.
He continued to grip the vial with the purple liquid with both hands, protecting it instinctively.
Dags’ whole body seemed to accelerate faster in those first seconds, shooting towards the glass doors like he had a jet pack strapped to each of his legs.
He barely had time to let out a surprised grunt, to tuck his head, brace his forearms for impact⏤
When he crashed through the glass and skidded over the pool deck outside.
His back and jacket got hot as it burned across the wood.
He was actually afraid he might catch fire.
Then, out of nowhere, he smacked his back and shoulders against the slightly raised lip around the edge of the pool and went hurtling above the water. He watched the lit blue surface go by in bewilderment⏤
⏤only to slam into the artistic rock formation making up the fake waterfall that poured chlorinated water over the deep end of the pool.
He fell unceremoniously into a smaller pool of water on the rocks above the waterfall. Somehow, he still gripped the glass vial in one hand.
He let out a weak groan.
He’d remembered to tuck his head.
Even so, his whole body hurt.
The pain started to bleed into his awareness from his shoulders and back slamming into the pile of decorative boulders. He shoved the vial into one side pocket awkwardly with his cuffed hands, then fought to get to his hands and knees. On the first try, he fell face-first back into the pool of water at the top of the fake falls, nearly face-planting into a smaller rock formation that broke the waterline.
Forcing his eyes open, he fought himself up out of the water a second time, that time making it to his hands and knees, his whole body shaking with blue-green current, which sparked and coiled around him like neon snakes.
Gasping, still fighting to think, he forced himself halfway up, leaning heavily on one of the big rocks.
He had to get the hell out of there.
The thought echoed.
He had to get out of there before the whole thing was wasted, before they dragged him down from the rocks, forced his mouth open and made him drink the rest of that poison that would either kill him or wipe out his mind.
The realization got him moving.
Dags staggered to his feet, and began climbing the rock formation behind the pool. He got to the top and tried to climb down the other side, but slipped on the wet rocks.
Unable to catch himself, he fell straight down the back end of the sculpture, only to find himself face-planting again, this time on wet grass.
He dragged himself up, dazed, and now he could hear them coming after him.
He wasn’t going to make it.
God, he’d never make it, not like this.
His legs were shaking. His whole body felt broken.
He began to run anyway, half-limping across the grass. He forced himself forward in lurching, drunken strides, trying to use his weight to further his momentum even as he fought to remember where the hell he’d left his car.
They were too fast.
He could hear them behind him now.
He could hear them breathing.
They were going to catch him.
The thought lived there in total certainty, stripped of emotion. There was no decision behind it. It was purely a mental acknowledgement of fact.
Even so, it must have triggered something.
Some survival instinct must have kicked in, taking over before Dags could even remember which direction he should be going, which part of the insanely large backyard led back to the driveway and out to the street.
He reached the middle of the wide grassy lawn, running all-out⏤
His wings burst out of his back.
The pain of that, the aching, mind-numbing pain as they unfolded around him, the black and gray feathers tinged with blood, the realization he’d just destroyed the last jacket he owned, that it might be for nothing, that it might be too late, even now…
Those were the last thoughts he remembered having.
After that, everything faded to black.
Chapter 16
New Eyes
He felt fingers on him, gentle.
They didn’t hurt, but terror gripped him, unknowing, without reason or understanding. He winced back from that hand, jerking back in reflex, fighting to get away⏤
The fingers gripped his wrist, which was still locked inside a metal cuff.
Something passed through her fingers.
Something…
He didn’t know what.
Whatever it was, he felt it hit his bloodstream almost like a drug. His muscles didn’t relax, not totally, but he went entirely still. Then, slowly, he lay back on the hard surface where his body sprawled.
It felt like giving in to the inevitable. Some part of him knew, without doubt, this might be it. This might be the end of the line.
“Hey.”
Female. Familiar.
Naggingly, frustratingly familiar.
“You’re okay,” she said. “I’m not going to hurt you. You’re safe now. Relax.”
He felt the words somewhere under his skin, winding through his blood.
They calmed the jerking pumps of blood and adrenaline through his veins, slowing them, turning them back into a semi-sane rhythm, calming the painful tensing of his muscles. Her fingers were in his hair, turning his face, bring him closer to her.
That time, he didn’t try to fight her.
He didn’t resist at all.
“Sleep,” the voice advised him, softer. “You can sleep now, I promise. I’ll stay here. I won’t let anyone hurt you.”
It never crossed his mind not to believe her.
It never crossed his mind to doubt her at all.
All the hyper-tensed muscles in his body unclenched.
The difference was almost painful. Everything hurt. His face, his hands, his feet, his legs, his spine. He hadn’t realized how clenched he’d been until he let it all go, until he let himself collapse on the hard surface where he lay.
…and once again, everything went black.
He jerked… and found himself shockingly awake.
He sat up, gasping, fighting to breathe, lost in nerve endings, ignited all over his body. Blue-green charge sparked over his skin, making it feel like it was on fire. He stared at the coiling, snaking, ripples of charge, gasping. He turned his arms and hands over in disbelief, unable to fathom how bright it was, how it seemed to infuse every part of him.
The cuffs were gone, but that fact didn’t calm him at all.
He could see through his skin. He could see through his own damned skin.
Pain writhed through him, contorting his body.
He let out a gasp, twisting, fighting to think through it.
Escape! his mind screamed at him. Escape! Fly!
His back st
arted to ache. He sat there, willing the wings to appear, willing with all his heart for them to return, willing back his only means of escape. He gasped with the effort of willing them to come back, but they wouldn’t come.
They wouldn’t come back.
He still had no damned idea how to make them work.
He was still sitting there, on that soft surface, gasping, when…
Fingers touched his back. They began caressing his skin, cautiously at first, then with more confidence. The hand stroked him, soothing his hot skin through the current, pulling him back towards her on the bed. In seconds, two hands were touching him, smoothing over his back, his shoulders, his arms, his fingers.
The current didn’t hurt anymore.
Stranger still, the current didn’t hurt whoever was touching him.
Whoever they were, the current didn’t burn their skin.
The current made the foreign skin warm, merging it with his.
It didn’t hurt her.
He sat there, letting those hands calm him, willing himself to calm down.
Then those hands began pulling on him more insistently, coaxing him backwards, tugging on his shoulders, reassuring him, even now.
He let her guide him to his back.
He was staring at the ceiling again. He saw moonlight on it, so much detail in rippling patterns, like water, patterns of water…
It was water. There was a pool.
There was a pool reflecting on the ceiling. It was beautiful. Blue, white and silver light, flickering over that darkness. How had he missed those rippling, mesmerizing patterns? How had he not seen how beautiful it was?
He stared up at the ceiling, confused by that beauty, even as some other, more agitated part of his mind warned him that he was trapped.
No stars overhead. No way out.
He was trapped. He was trapped here⏤
“Hey.” She slid closer, stroking his chest. “Hey. Calm down. You’re winding yourself up again. Calm down. You’re not in danger.”
Bad Angel Page 12
