Before I could get off a shot, Blythe firebombed me. Dude had wicked reflexes. I rolled away, the heat of the flames so close I could feel it on my ass.
And rolled right into the fridge.
Pain bloomed in the back of my skull as my head made contact with metal. I was momentarily stunned, splayed across the tiles like a rag doll. When the disorientation passed, I groaned and checked my scalp for open wounds or gushing blood. Thankfully, my dumbass hadn’t barreled full force into the metal and cut my scalp open.
Azrael! Tiny roared, a rare note of panic in his tone.
I looked up in time to see a blast of fire headed straight for me.
Like Blythe, my reflexes were generally on point. But the blow to my noggin had left me sluggish. I gaped at the oncoming flames, willing my body to move.
But the fire didn’t reach me. A dark, hulking form leapt directly into the flames and steamrolled Blythe. My deathhound and the demon both crashed to the floor.
Tiny rolled free with his own momentum, but steam rose from his chest and front paws. I caught a glimpse of raw, red, blistered skin where there should have been soft, dark fur.
Fury raced through me, shutting down any leftover delirium from my semi-concussion.
I grabbed my bow and stood, hurrying to Blythe’s side as he began to sit up. I whipped my back leg around into a vicious round-kick, and the demon’s head snapped back with the force of the blow.
I didn’t stop there. I stepped into another kick, and another, while biting out, “You. Hurt. My. Dog.”
The demon struggled to crawl away from me, to get out of the dead zone of my long legs, but he hadn’t a chance in hell. He was bleeding from one eye, and my series of kicks were doing a great job of ensuring he’d be damn near unconscious by the time I ran him through with a bolt.
Not that I wanted him to be insensible for the killing blow. I just wanted him to stop fucking fighting back.
Even as I thought that, his remaining eye began to flame.
Bastard.
As I rounded out another kick, I ripped the bolt from my crossbow. In a fluid motion so quick he couldn’t see it coming, I jammed the bolt in his eye.
Blythe shrieked. He lashed out at me with both hands, sharp claws scratching at my face. I inhaled sharply as his nails raked across my skin, then stumbled out of his reach. The bolt stuck out from his eye socket, and blood poured down his pale face.
“Not so badass without your fire, huh?” I gave him another vicious kick with my combat boot.
Blythe sprawled on the fancy tiled floor of his McMansion kitchen and remained still. He sobbed under his breath, though nothing came from his destroyed eyes but blood.
Breathing heavily, I wiped warm liquid away from the scratches on my cheek. My blood – angel blood – shimmered golden on my fingertips.
“David Blythe,” I said as I nocked an arrow in the bow. “You have been sentenced to execution by the Black Council of the Barrens. Do you have any last words?”
“Nach thruth villi fira.” Blythe spit, presumably aiming for my face. Sadly for him, he fell way short and it didn’t even hit my boots.
I was no expert in arcane demon languages, but I was ninety percent certain he’d just told me to burn in hell.
“After you.” I lifted the crossbow one-handed, golden blood still on my fingers, and loosed the bolt at his throat. The arrow lodged deeply in his trachea. I waited until the last of his gurgles stopped, then went to check on Tiny.
The deathhound lay on his side, breathing hard. He wagged his tail as I appeared in his field of vision. Did you get him?
“Yeah, he’s dead.” I squatted next to my familiar and eyed the damage. The hellfire had burned away the fur on his two front legs, his chest, and part of his right side. The exposed skin was already blistering. “That looks painful.”
I’m not exactly having the time of my life, Tiny said, licking his lips – his nervous tick. Could we maybe make a visit to Gabriel?
“You got it. Can you walk? Or do I need to find a wheelbarrow?”
Har, har. Tiny sat up and wavered, pink tongue flapping.
“Tiny. Chill.” I put a hand on his non-charred side and helped him to his feet. “Gabe will fix you right up.”
But as my best friend struggled to his giant paws, whining as he put weight on his burned feet, my heart constricted in my chest.
Tiny had been my partner for years. Since the Fall. Since the end. Before I was forced into service for the demons. Nothing mattered to me more than him.
And his wounds reminded me that deathound or not, I could lose him at any time. He was ageless, but not immortal.
I couldn’t live this life without him.
* * *
I’d known Gabriel for almost as long as the world had turned.
Once upon a time, he had ruled as an angel of beloved pets in heaven, but on this side of the Fall, he operated a low-cost vet clinic not far from my apartment.
Lucky for me, he lived where he worked. So even though it was almost two in the morning, a sleep disheveled Gabriel answered my incessant beating on his door.
He leaned against the doorframe, his sapphire eyes raking over me – bloody cheeks, a blossoming bruise on my left eye, probably looking about as good as someone run over by a truck.
“Rough night?” he asked, clearly amused.
“I’m glad you get a kick out of seeing me bleeding and battered,” I said. “Can we focus on Tiny, please?”
Gabriel dropped his gaze to the deathhound leaning against my legs. His eyes widened, and he squatted to face the dog.
“What the hell happened?” His palms raced over Tiny's injuries. “Jesus, Azrael. These are third degree burns.”
“Jesus, Gabriel, I wasn’t the one who burned him!” I griped.
He glanced up at me, his honey blond hair drooping in his eyes. “You’re right. I’m sorry. Come on, Tiny.”
I followed behind my slow-moving familiar, ready to catch him if he fell. Tiny wasn’t one to complain or acknowledge he was in pain, but I knew he was by the way he hunched, turtling in on himself. My familiar wasn’t a huncher. He was a two-hundred-pound deathhound and proud the fuck of it. He could kill a man with one mighty chomp of his jaw. He could crush a windpipe with one paw.
I helped Gabriel get Tiny's massive bulk onto the examination table, then stepped out of the way so he could do his veterinarian thing.
“Real fire or mystical?” Gabriel asked as he took the clippers to the fur around Tiny's burns
“Um. Both?”
Gabriel sighed. “It can’t be both, Azri.”
“It was a demon,” I offered. I hooked my hands beside my eyes. “He could shoot flames from his eyes.”
Gabriel straightened and blinked at me. “How many times have I told you to stop taking Tiny on hits? He isn’t invincible, Azri.”
“How many times have I told you Tiny refuses to stay home?” I replied. “He’s not just a dog, Gabe. He’s a fucking hound of hell.”
Could you possibly stop talking of me as if weren’t laying here between you? Tiny said, voice tired.
I touched his ear. “He’s requested we stop talking about him. Over him.”
“Tiny, you have to be careful,” Gabriel said, turning his attention to the dog. He gently clipped away the last of the fur around the burns. “You’re the last remaining deathhound. You’re a treasure.”
“He’s my treasure,” I pointed out sullenly.
Gabriel acknowledged me with a nod. “I’m going to apply a poultice,” he went on, addressing Tiny. “Then I’ll bandage you up. It will take a day or two to heal up, but in the meantime, the poultice will numb the pain.”
While Gabe cleaned and treated his burns, I stayed by Tiny's side, gently scratching his ears.
I knew Gabriel was right. Tiny was my best friend and the other half of my soul, but he was also rare. Deathhounds had been killed off by the demons after the Fall. As far as I knew, Tiny was the only one left.
> If I didn’t keep him safe, not only would I be without him, but the world would be too.
And I didn’t want to think about what kind of chaos that would bring.
2
The sun was rising over the city as we mounted the exterior fire escape that functioned as the steps to our front door.
Tiny had slowed somewhere between Gabe’s office and our apartment. I figured on top of the pain from his burned paws, his meds had finally kicked in. He looked fit to fall over, so I hovered close behind him as we climbed the four stories to home. I wasn’t dumb enough to think I could carry him, but I could at least attempt to keep him from listing over the edge of the fire escape.
The dim interior of our apartment still smelled of last night’s dinner—reheated Thai noodles from a cheap place nearby. My stomach rumbled, since it had been quite some time since dinner. I needed a snack before I passed out for the night.
But first, I had to complete my job.
The book was still splayed open to the page that held David Blythe’s information. David Goliath Blythe, B. 1/2/202 BCE. Demon. He was sandwiched between the only other David Goliath Blythe--human—and a David Gregory Blythe—also human.
I grabbed a thumbtack from the ceramic dish beside the book and pricked my thumb. Blood welled from the wound. My golden blood lacked luster in the dim, one-window apartment, though that didn’t change its potency.
I gently swiped my finger across Blythe's name.
My blood seeped into the vellum page and turned black. The ink of his name flared golden, then faded back to black. When the magic was done doing its thing, Blythe's name was still visible, but struck through by a solid black line.
It was a funny job, being the angel of death. A thousand years ago, when I existed in the kingdom of heaven doing my duties in the name of the Holy One, it was my pen that chose who lived and died. Every single soul that passed from the living realm into the next did so beneath my hand.
Now, it wasn’t quite the cut-and-dried job it had once been. I no longer controlled the death rate. People died without my knowledge and their names faded from my record – not even a vestige of their existence still visible.
They were simply forgotten.
If I caught them before they faded completely, I struck them—just to be sure. But it was a big book, and I was one girl. Every once in a while, I’d come across an empty space and say a prayer.
Who the fuck knew what happened to their souls? Because I certainly didn’t. The Book of Life and Death wasn’t meant to operate on its own. Deaths weren’t meant to occur willy-nilly. I was the divine judge, jury, and executioner.
The Fall changed the dynamic. The Holy One was as far removed from me as I was from heaven, and as a result, the tie between me and the book had warped.
Those who died by my hand, which had been many in the past two hundred years on earth, had to be manually struck out. Otherwise, their names stayed put and their souls would remain in limbo, which was just more nightmare I didn’t need on my conscience. If I couldn’t keep all the souls on earth safe, I could at least ensure my marks passed peacefully.
I waved a hand over the book, and it slammed shut – ever the obedient vessel.
Tiny had curled up on his mattress, his eyelids drooping from the pain medication. I sent up a silent prayer of thanks that he was safe and headed past him towards the kitchen.
“Want some food?” I asked as I opened the fridge.
I want sleep and healing. Even his metaphysical mind voice sounded exhausted.
“Food helps with both those things.”
My only reply was a snuffle as he buried his face in his blankets.
I fixed a PB&J and ate it standing at the double window that looked out over the city. I could see the river in the distance, lapping waves glistening beneath the early rays of the morning sun. Smoke drifted from the factories that lined the banks, and the low-rise sublets between there and here were silent and dark. The skyscrapers were behind my apartment building, away from the low-income River District. Where the skyscrapers soared, so too did the financial status of the Barrens.
Tiny was already snoring by the time I crawled into my own bed beside his. I curled into a ball beneath the thin blanket, exhausted enough to sleep for ten years.
But sleep took its time coming as I watched the march of shadows along the walls.
* * *
The Black Council operated out of an old warehouse in the River District. Not because they were poor, but because it wasn’t safe for them to operate anywhere more visible.
The Black Council wasn’t exactly a beloved entity in the Barrens. Plenty of people – angel, human, and demon – would have been happy if the council’s offices burned. They’d likely dance in the flames and use the ashes to draw war paint on their skin.
So, secrecy was key.
The façade of the council’s building gave nothing away – it was one more supposedly empty warehouse with black-painted windows and empty spaces where signs should have been.
I stomped up the stairs to the second floor and shoved open the door to Cobalt's office. His blonde bimbo of a receptionist gave me her best side-eye then went back to her magazine.
I fought the urge to throw something at her. The bitch had never spoken a word to me. I was pretty sure she sucked Cobalt off on a regular basis, and she just didn’t like me going into his office because I was a thinner, prettier version of her. I probably pinged her competition radar.
What she didn’t realize, however, was I wouldn’t touch Cobalt with a two-foot pole wrapped in latex.
As I strolled into his office, the demon looked up from the stack of papers on his desk. “Ah, Azrael. Good timing. I take it all went well last night at Blythe's?”
“Locked and loaded,” I replied as I folded myself into the giant armchair across from his desk. “He could shoot fire from his eyes. Woulda been nice to have a heads up.”
Cobalt grinned. His glamour showed a tall, dark, and handsome man with Mediterranean skin, black hair, and piercing blue eyes. I, on the other hand, was well aware of Cobalt's true form. To be honest, it was so hideous I couldn’t unsee it.
“You can hold your own, Azrael. We don’t need to hold your hand, do we?”
I gritted my teeth. “No, sir. It would simply make my job go a little smoother if I knew the mark could melt the skin off my face.”
Cobalt eyed the raw welts on my cheek, and the blooming bruise beneath my right eye. “Doesn’t look like he burned you. So what good would a warning have been?”
I opted to remain silent. Anything I wanted to say would have turned into an argument. Cobalt could talk circles around a wall.
“We have your next case lined up,” my boss went on with a smirk. He knew he had won. He shuffled through a stack of manila folders on his desk until he located the one he was looking for. He tossed it at me, and it skidded across his desktop. “A demon. Topher Whitman.”
I caught the folder against my chest. “Topher is a dumb fucking name,” I said as I whipped open the record.
“He’s a dumb fucking demon.” Cobalt leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers over his rock-hard abdomen. “We need this mark to be taken out on the down low.”
I rolled my eyes. “Please stop trying to bring ‘down low' back.”
I looked down at the folder as Cobalt retorted, but I didn’t hear him.
All I could see was Topher Whitman’s face.
His was the kind of face that should have been outlawed on behalf of women everywhere. Hard angles but soft green eyes; a head full of wavy black hair long enough to drift like spiderwebs around his eyes. He was a heartthrob who ate women for breakfast.
Considering he was a demon, that sentiment could have been literal.
“What he do?” I asked before I realized I was saying the words.
Cobalt’s eyes narrowed. “Since when do you question your assignments?”
I slapped the folder closed. “Damn, Cobalt. Lighten up.
Get another suck off from your bimbo secretary. I was just curious.”
“Take your curiosity and go kill Whitman,” Cobalt hissed, his eyes flaring red. “And get the fuck out of my office before I kill you.”
* * *
Demon marks were few and far between. My job was to eliminate anyone who posed a problem to the Black Council. At least, that was what I’d been told. For the most part, that meant angels and humans who were posing a threat. But every so often, a demon would crop up in opposition to the status quo. Not super on the regular, but every once in a while.
The fact I’d been assigned a demon two days in a row was… interesting. I couldn’t help but think it wasn’t a coincidence, either. Something was up. My head-down, eyes-averted lifestyle kept me from really seeing the seedy underside of life in the Barrens. But two demons in as many days indicated there was rebellion brewing. Rebellion that threatened the Black Council.
I was curious as fuck to know what was going on, even if I didn’t want to be involved. I’d have to bug Tiny to put his ear to the underground and see what he could dredge up.
According to the file, Topher Whitman ran a law firm downtown. Contrary to my immediate assumption that he was a sleazy defense lawyer, further reading revealed he was a prosecutor who specialized in human law. Which was… interesting. Or weird. Demons didn’t have a history of wanting to help humans. Demons were the number one reason humans were an endangered species.
Having barely escaped David Blythe's fiery eyes—and injured despite it—I decided to go into this job slightly more carefully than usual. The file told me nothing about Whitman’s demon species, which mean I wouldn’t have a leg-up on this guy anymore than I did Blythe. He didn’t look like a badass in his glamor shot, but in the Barrens, appearances were almost always deceiving.
Sometimes, I had a niggling feeling that Cobalt withheld stuff like that on purpose in a desire to see me dead. I didn’t live in some hunky-dory world where the demons actually wanted me alive. The Black Council tolerated me because I was a means to an end. That didn’t mean they wanted me alive.
Shadows and Sorcery: A Collection of Urban Fantasy and Paranormal Romance Novels Page 328
