The Angel's Fire

by Holley Trent

  “I’ve left this one on the loose for too long,” Tarik told him after a few minutes. His target had entered a stationery shop and Tarik would wait until he exited. He never did his dirty work around humans. “I’ve been hearing whispers about this one from angels who pretend now not to know us.”

  They knew them when it was convenient. Tarik didn’t feel any particular way about that.

  His friend gave a grave nod.

  “Have you been busy?”

  Tamatsu cut him a chilly sideward look.

  Normally, Tarik would have known the answer to that, but he’d been away. He’d been stalking in a place where Tamatsu hadn’t been before and Tarik hadn’t uttered one word about it to him. He didn’t know why, except that perhaps the thought of Lola was something he didn’t want to share. If she could beguile and ensnare Tarik, Tamatsu probably wouldn’t stand a chance.

  Tarik grimaced. “Show me where you’ve been right after I handle this.”

  Tamatsu let out a breath and shifted his weight. He looked nervous. Unsettled. Unusual for him. The only time he ever looked so out of sorts was when he’d had a near-miss with his former lover—the one who’d stolen his voice. He’d been trying to track her for hundreds of years, but the jealous wretch was elusive.

  Maybe he found her.

  Tarik hoped so. He would do what was necessary to squeeze his friend’s voice out of that elf, even if he had to flatten her like a concertina.

  His prey stepped out of the shop carrying a parcel under his arm. It was a pity that he’d spent the money on good paper he wouldn’t have a chance to use.

  Tarik grunted and angled his head toward the creature.

  Tamatsu nodded and pointed to the ground—his signal for “I’ll wait here.”

  Probably wise. He wouldn’t have blended in much better than Tarik did, and unlike Tarik and Gulielmus, he didn’t possess the ability to easily change his appearance. There wasn’t an abundance of seven-foot-tall East Asian-appearing men in Trenton.

  Or anywhere.

  Mostly, he kept to the shadows everywhere he went. He’d never been the outgoing sort.

  Tarik didn’t bother making the locals comfortable by changing his facade. He charged into the crowd and ignored the gasps and annoyed mutters and caught the back of the traitor’s head in his gaze. Tarik found it ironic that the very angel who had so many rancorous things to say about his disgraced fellows had also had himself been banished to Earth.

  Or perhaps the blackguard volunteered.

  Tarik breathed out a quiet scoff and watched the reed-thin creature hurry into a walk-up apartment building.

  He waited at the corner and watched him ascend the stairs at the side of the building. Tarik could see him through the sooty windows. Second floor. Third. Twenty seconds later, a light flicked on in the back of the apartment block.

  Tarik moved between the buildings and once he was out of sight of bystanders, he unfurled his wings and launched himself to the roof. He touched down briefly, ignoring the throbbing pain in his shoulder joint, and jumped down to the narrow ledge of the third floor.

  He wasn’t the sort of angel who bothered with knocking. He kicked in the window glass and bounded to the floor.

  Varner let out a winded shout, dropped his parcel, and tossed the small table in the kitchen over as if to put an obstacle between them. “Oh no, not you.” He started opening drawers, searching them. Tarik could hear the rattle of silverware and he stepped slowly toward him. He didn’t need to rush. Varner would never outrun him. He’d never been able to best him a single time in eons, and the contest hadn’t gotten any fairer since Tarik had fallen.

  “Perhaps we can discuss this like rational people.” Varner picked up and dropped three different knives, each larger than the last.

  They couldn’t hurt Tarik. At least, not with any degree of significance. Only angel-forged metal could dispatch him, and Varner had never been given any. He was an orator—a manipulator. He’d been tasked with ensuring the others knew the rules and why they were supposed to follow them. He postured himself as a sympathetic listening ear. A confidante.

  He was a liar.

  “I’m not a person,” Tarik said in a low, even voice. “You told me that, remember? Long ago. You told me I was defective and that I should hide those human traits that I must have absorbed from working here for so long. I told you that I’d always had those traits. You laughed and said you wouldn’t tell.”

  Tarik neatly picked up the table and set it to rights. He didn’t see any good reason to leave a mess for Varner’s landlord to clean up. Tarik believed in leaving places more immaculate than he’d found them.

  Varner spun around and clutched the edge of the narrow wooden shelf behind him. His eyes were bleary and red, and the irises that had once shined bright as a night sky looked clouded over. They were sick-looking eyes. Sick just like his manner.

  “I was only doing my job,” Varner said. “And I tried to get you to do yours.”

  “I’m not here about that.” Tarik took another step toward the cowering rascal and unsheathed his sword.

  Varner went even whiter from fright.

  Normally, Tarik enjoyed seeing that physical response. He loved when a victim realized that he was going to get his comeuppance. He fed on that fear and it sustained him for weeks.

  But Tarik’s heart wasn’t in the job. Varner had delighted in watching Tarik, Tamatsu, and Gulielmus shamed and stripped of their favor, and that would have been enough for Tarik to want to end Varner’s life. Angels didn’t turn on each other that way. But the reason Tarik couldn’t let bygones be bygones was that Varner was rotten to the core. The last time Tarik had been so moved to act, he’d destroyed a slaver’s ship.

  For only the second time in more than three hundred years, Tarik was doing a job for free.

  He took another step.

  “You have nothing to gain from this,” Varner said frantically. “Just leave me be. You want money? I’ll give you money. Jewels. Whatever you want.”

  “I don’t want your dirty money.” Another step. Close enough to smell the rotted stench of death on Varner’s breath. He was only half alive. Walking, talking pestilence. Corrupt and amoral. Lola would have spit on a thing like him. Tarik was a fucking saint in comparison.

  “What do you want, then? You know, I could just go away. Vanish. You would never have to see or hear from me again.”

  “I don’t need your cooperation with that. I can make that happen without your assistance.”

  Varner tried to lunge toward the door, but Tarik put his sword up horizontal and level with Varner’s neck. One more inch and Varner would have saved Tarik the effort of having to swing the thing.

  Tarik could just get on with it. He could dispatch the nasty thing to hell or wherever and move on with his day. Tamatsu was still waiting outside with things to show him and Tarik was growing cold without the goddess in his proximity. He’d never needed a spare conscience before, but he was growing used to having one.

  He couldn’t go yet, though. Not until he heard Varner’s excuse. The job wouldn’t feel complete until he’d heard the lie.

  “It was just a game, Tarik. That’s all.” There was a tinge of fear in the sounds he made, but he laughed in the way of creatures who were never forced to face the consequences of their actions.

  Tarik didn’t find the circumstances amusing. “Rarely do I miss the order and structure of my previous and favored role amongst the angels,” he said, murderously quiet. “But I knew there were many who thrived there and would be useless without their orders. Their wills were obedient and compliant, and I envied them for that at times. In fact, you told all of us deviants that we should try to be more like them. Do you recall that?”

  Varner’s shoulders jerked upward. He swallowed loudly.

  “If we were like them,” Tarik said, “would you have done the same thing to us?”

  “No, no, no,” Varner said with a disingenuous laugh. “Of course not. I knew
you were much too valuable for that. I wouldn’t have done that to you.”

  Every lie the lizard told made Tarik wonder how a mistake like him could have spawned from something that was supposed to be all good. He’d lain in wait for eons waiting for the perfect time to gain a foothold to importance.

  “Tell me who else was involved,” Tarik said with impatience. “Give me all the names.”

  A bead of sweat that had been waiting at the edge of Varner’s temple finally tracked down his brow, quickly followed by another.

  Interesting.

  He wondered how much had been stripped from Varner when he’d left the heavenly host. All fallen ones had abilities taken away in various degrees but, physiologically, most retained their previous soundness.

  Angels weren’t supposed to sweat.

  “You’re taking too long.” Tarik turned the blade ninety degrees and pressed it flat against Varner’s Adam’s apple. He pushed him back against the wall, forcing him to lift his chin to avoid a nick. Even a small cut could be fatal. “I know there were others involved. Tell me who they are. Tell me the other deviants involved in causing a score of lesser angels fall to this place with no defenses.”

  All of those sweet, pious helpers. The ones who watched over children’s dreams and whispered in their minds that maybe they should slow down a little when there was trouble on the path ahead.

  They were cannon fodder.

  “And you’ll…spare me?” Varner’s grin was tremulous.

  Tarik ground his teeth and nodded. Sometimes, he’d purposefully back away from a confrontation. He’d leave a target alive because he didn’t yet know what he didn’t know. He might have to extract additional information from him later.

  “Fine. Fine.” Varner cleared his throat. Swallowed. Fixed his gaze on the ceiling. He rattled off a list of names and Tarik seared each to memory, keeping his grip tight on his sword. So many deviants to hunt down and eliminate. A waste of time and distraction he didn’t need—especially not when he’d committed himself to being less of the vigilante that Lola abhorred.

  He wanted to make himself more palatable for her, but there were some offenses he simply could not ignore. If he did nothing, the abuses to those lesser angels would continue unchecked.

  So, he’d put his thumbprint on the massacre. He’d accept the notoriety he hated so much if it meant his lowlife counterparts thought twice about harming the individuals least able to fight back.

  “Well, that’s all of them,” Varner said when he concluded the list.

  “Thank you.” Tarik turned the blade and severed head from body. For a minute, he stared at the disappearing pile of ash at his feet dispassionately.

  He left through the door instead of the window, sheathing his sword as he descended the stairs.

  Tarik didn’t break promises. He’d meant to let the creature live, but then Varner had lied.

  Varner had forgotten who Tarik knew. Some of the names on his list couldn’t have possibly been involved. Tarik knew them too well. Knew their habits. Knew where they went and what their codes were.

  Gulielmus’s elusive tailor was one. Tamatsu was another. Varner named one of rare fallen females as well, which was so patently ridiculous that Tarik almost couldn’t suppress a laugh. She’d fallen not because she was defective, but because she was too good. She wanted to serve from the ground and not be apart from mankind.

  Varner had fucked up royally there.

  Tarik found his friend where he’d left him.

  Tamatsu’s brow immediately furrowed and gaze narrowed.

  “No questions now,” Tarik said. “Work to do later. I have a list of names to work down. I’d appreciate your consult on whether or not it is reliable.”

  Ever trusting of his friend, Tamatsu nodded slowly.

  “Now, what was it you wanted to show me?” Tarik was impatient and wanted to get to work immediately eliminating the creatures on that list, but if Tamatsu’s discovery was something that could be quickly resolved, he’d do that first.

  Tamatsu clapped a hand to Tarik’s shoulder.

  Tarik nodded.

  They pooled their energy to make the jump less exerting, relying on Tamatsu’s steering.

  He landed them in a dense jungle overlooking a small village dotted with small, permanent shelters, a communal cooking area, and a precariously constructed well.

  Tamatsu waved his hand down his face. Tarik got the gist.

  They pulled energy back from their physical forms and cloaked themselves. Invisible, they moved into the group.

  Tarik took count as he went. Two. Four. Seven. Twelve. Eighteen.

  All women, speaking a pidgin language. There was Spanish in it. Bits of Bantu. But the last components were what informed him of their location. An Aztec language.

  They were in southern Mexico. The last time he’d been anywhere near, he’d destroyed a boat and irritated a goddess.

  And they’d…made something together. That something hadn’t been meant to last. But there they were. Their energy was as obvious to him as the position of the sun in the sky.

  Couldn’t be. Could it?

  They were supposed to have made their ways home to Angola. But they weren’t just African anymore. Apparently, those women had used the little time they had to establish legacies. They couldn’t have been very strong. He’d only given them enough fire for them to go down in a blaze of glory when the time came.

  But they’d migrated a bit. Set down roots.

  Evolved, somehow.

  Puzzled, he edged as close to the communal space as he dared and read their energy for confirmation.

  They had his taint, though diffused after so many short generations.

  There was the flavor of Lola in them, too.

  They were all so young. Not a single elder amongst them.

  They would never get old. They didn’t have time to get old. They were all living on borrowed time, just like their mothers and mothers’ mothers.

  Tarik pulled Tamatsu back into the greenery and retook his physical form.

  Tamatsu turned his hands over in a “Well?” gesture.

  Tarik rubbed a hand down his chin and grimaced. “A long, long story I will relay to you soon. I imagine you found them while doing other work in the area?”

  His friend nodded.

  Tarik’s energy was distinctive. Tamatsu would have certainly noticed if he’d encountered evidence of it. “As I said, I will tell you the story soon. For now, leave them be. I do not believe they’re sustainable as they are. No need to interfere further.” He dropped his hand on Tamatsu’s shoulder to signal a jump back to the States. “I killed Varner in Trenton.”

  Tamatsu’s brows shot up.

  “I’ll explain everything. I need to locate his accomplices. Those are the names I told you about. Will you assist?”

  Tamatsu rolled his eyes in his “Of course” way.

  So Tarik guided them to the last place he’d seen the first name on the list, energy sagging and wing throbbing as they landed in Belfast.

  He’d need to find something to eat before they transported themselves again, but that could wait. And if he found the time, he would send Lola a note explaining that he would be delayed.

  He couldn’t go back to Maria—not yet. Not while the mania of revenge was riding him. History had taught him that once he started down that path of rage, there’d be no turning back until the hunger was extinguished. Weeks. Months. He didn’t know how long.

  Taking care of Lola meant staying away until he was reasonable again. He couldn’t be reasonable when the Fates had nominated him to take his turn as executioner of his kind.

  Lola wouldn’t understand. She’d reject him for not being the safe bet she wanted, and he wouldn’t take that risk. He didn’t know what he would do if she refused his love, but he didn’t think it would be constructive or fruitful.

  What he did would probably be reckless—disruptive in a way that not even he could justify.

  It was b
etter to just stay away.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Roy pocketed the wad of cash and let out a long, ragged breath. “I hate to break news to you like this Miss Lola, especially so soon after collecting your rent, but after this month, you and the ladies are going to have to find other accommodations.”

  Lola stared into her half-consumed glass of milk and twined her fingers atop the splintery table. They’d fixed it the best they could after the previous week’s riot, but it was nearly impossible to put back together things that were meant to stay broken. She hadn’t a choice, though. She couldn’t afford to replace the table outright and figured they’d just make do until they were flush with cash again.

  “Did you hear me?” her landlord asked.

  She grunted and didn’t bother looking up. Her ribs ached. She’d barely managed to get her dress buttoned up in the back, and a corset had been out of the question.

  If she looked sloppy in her silk and lace, she didn’t care. She’d given up on the charade. She wasn’t trying to lure anyone to her bed, and every man in town had to have come to that conclusion already.

  “Well, all right,” Roy said. “I can never tell when you’re listening, is all. Like I said, I hate to do it to you, but I just don’t see how I can afford to keep the place what with all the destruction as of late. They say they’ll stop if I give them the deed.”

  “Sell it to Lola, then,” Rachel suggested from behind the bar. “That way, you don’t have to worry about it.”

  Lola let out a quiet huff and took a long sip of milk. Reflux had been bothering her as of late and she’d yet to discover a magical cure for that affliction. Some ailments of her humanesque body were more obnoxious than others.

  Rachel was sweet to advocate on Lola’s behalf, but Lola knew no good would come of it.

  “Well, um. Uh… You see—”

  “Quit the stammering, Roy,” Rachel said. “Spit it out. You know we’ll figure out some way to pay you. Why can’t you let her have it?”

  “Oh, come now, Rachel. You know how it is. It’d be different if you had a man here making me the offer. Nobody would say anything about that, and I’d give him a good price. You know what kind of hell I’d catch if folks found out I sold to her what I wouldn’t give them a chance on?”