Forbidden (The Preternaturals)

by Zoe Winters

  “Abomination,” The voices whispered, starting their overlapping track of condemnation again.

  Rodolfo looked off into the void of the room. “All right. That will be enough for now.”

  The voices silenced.

  Rodolfo continued. “It is the firm and unanimous belief of the council that you are a disastrous mistake. As you know, there are only three options for an angel who errs. Rehabilitation, Falling, and Destruction. Rehabilitation, I’m afraid, is off the table.”

  Then what was the point of bringing her here if she couldn’t make amends? If it wasn’t penance… it was retribution.

  “N-no. I can change. I can do better. I promise.”

  Angeline couldn’t think which fate would be worse. When the voices had been their loudest, destruction had felt like welcome peace, anything to make it quiet. But the quiet wouldn’t be a quiet she could experience, it would be her complete eradication. Now that it was a real possibility, it terrified her.

  It wasn’t like the fear of death other mortal beings experienced. With mortals, they might fear the unknown, they might worry that there was nothing, or they might fear some nightmarish Hell, but they didn’t know. Angeline knew the train had no further stops. If they destroyed her… it was exactly as it sounded.

  But falling… Falling was the stuff of covert whisperings and waking in the middle of the night from a bad dream you couldn’t remember the details of that still left you shaken. Falling was banishment, ostracizing. She’d be an outcast, even among the preternaturals, only fit for a menial job guarding some vampire somewhere—if any sought a guardian.

  “I feel destruction would be more merciful in the end if we’re being blunt,” Rodolfo said. “The vampire was only toying with you, you know. He was never going to forgive you. He just wanted to hurt you and drink the blood you so foolishly offered him. Why would he deny the purest, best, most powerful blood in existence? Especially attached to a morally weak and guilty soul such as yourself?”

  Angeline looked at her hands clasped in her lap as if in prayer. Rodolfo was right about her. She didn’t care about Heaven or any angelic goals. Prayers bored her. She only went because it was required and because of the way it felt when the light touched her wings. Hadrian was all she’d cared about since that first night when she’d known—or thought she’d known—that he was meant for her.

  But perhaps it had only been the drugs in her system at the time. Druggie blood didn’t always give the most astute insight. Still, she hadn’t been able to stay away from him—not as a vampire and not as an angel. If he didn’t want her, what the hell would she do? What was the point of anything? It had all been one long, lonely night that had stretched for unbroken centuries. And if she fell, it would stretch for eternity, an eternity on the outside looking in.

  She had to change the angel’s mind. “C-could I speak with the council? Please, just let me have a chance to explain it all to them. I would stay away from Father Hadrian. I promise.”

  Rodolfo laughed. “No you wouldn’t. Don’t lie.”

  “I-I’m not lying!”

  “You are. The saddest part of it is that you don’t know you are. You could no more stay away from him than you could stay away from light or he could stay away from blood. You would go back to him, even knowing the consequences, and then we’d be here again. And I simply don’t have time for that. We have important things to do, more important than dealing with your sick infatuation with the blood drinker.”

  Angeline wondered if the “important things” he had to do involved planning the final battle against the demons and demon hybrids like the vampires and guardians. She thought of Hadrian alone in his church and of how terrible it would be if the angels won the war and the human dimension became another sterile, obedient Heaven.”

  She looked up to find Rodolfo staring at her as if he knew her mind, her thoughts. Maybe he did. Maybe there was nothing you could hide from anyone here. Maybe she’d been lying to herself thinking it was possible to do anything but whatever they said and not be found out. After all, the room had heard her thoughts and answered her. If a room could, surely a senior angel could as well.

  “Let’s flip a coin, shall we? Heads you live and fall, tails you die.”

  Angeline wasn’t sure if his hands were tied, if he’d even met with the other angels, or if he was just that set on getting rid of her for good.

  Rodolfo pulled out a shiny gold coin from his robes and flipped it high into the air. Angeline’s eyes followed the coin as it seemed to spin forever. It was as if gravity had lost power as it revolved in front of her and then made its creeping descent to the table.

  Angeline squeezed her eyes shut as it clattered against the hard surface, settling out with an almost distant ringing metallic sound as if this were all happening miles and miles away from here.

  “Open your eyes, Angeline.”

  It took a long while for her to work up the courage to open her eyes to see the coin gleaming up at her.

  Heads.

  “He only wanted you for your sweet angel blood, and to mess with your mind, to pay you back for turning him. You know, Father Hadrian was a man we were prepared to elevate when he died—until you came along and ruined it. We will no longer elevate former vampires. You took that from him.”

  She wiped the tears with the back of her hand. It shouldn’t make her feel more guilty. After all, Heaven wasn’t at all what she’d imagined it would be when she’d been human. Should she wish such a vindictive and unforgiving place on Hadrian? She knew somewhere inside, he was still good. Even if he couldn’t forgive her, it wasn’t because there was no goodness or will to forgive anyone. She’d watched him as he’d fed and absolved person after person for decades. Erasing their pasts, helping them work out their futures, fixing their lives. He was a thousand times better than anyone up here. He was too good for this place, and they knew it.

  Rodolfo’s eyes narrowed as if he’d pulled those rebellious thoughts from her head, but then he brushed it away as if the holy decision of the coin were infallible. “He won’t want you once you’re just a guardian, but we’ll send you to him anyway. Let him reject you when you need him most so you’ll truly understand what you’ve lost up here. Just think, Angeline, if you’ve watched him forgive so many others and he can’t forgive you, it just proves how terrible you really are.”

  He scooted his chair back and went to the center of the room, the remote in his hand. Angeline remained frozen by his words and too weary from the onslaught of the past two days to move again. No one had beaten her or tortured her physically as she’d feared from the hollow looks in the eyes of angels who had been brought to this place in the past, but what she’d been subjected to had somehow been worse.

  Pain might have been cathartic. It would have been release. Relief. But instead it had been those voices and those images tunneling into her mind… never letting her rest, all while starving her of the light she so craved to feel healthy and alive. It would have been difficult to use physical or mystical pain against her. She would have had her wings to protect and shield herself. But getting inside her mind with ugly words and images… that was something her wings couldn’t defend against.

  “Come here!” Rodolfo bellowed, pointing to a spot in the center of the room.

  She slowly rose and moved to where he pointed, not sure what was about to happen but knowing it would be bad. Falling wasn’t an easy transition. That much she knew. He pressed a button on the remote and the desk and chairs folded back into the wall, taking the gold coin with it.

  “Undress,” he said.

  “I-I’m sorry what?”

  Rodolfo rolled his eyes. “Oh, please. I am not weak. I do not have those desires. I’m not Kurt.” Off her expression he said, “I saw the way he looked at you, how he touched you. Kurt will be disciplined.”

  “B-but he didn’t do anything! It was my fault!”

  It sounded wrong when she said it aloud. It wasn’t exactly what she meant, but if
Hadrian hadn’t bitten her, changed her somehow, Kurt wouldn’t have reacted. Would he? Hadn’t she brought the temptation up there by breaking one of the biggest rules they had for angels? No consorting with anyone in any physical way. And definitely no vampires. There were clearly consequences for not following that rule.

  “Yes, yes. Everything is your fault. We know. Now give me the dress. And the undergarments.”

  Angeline didn’t care if Rodolfo didn’t “have those desires”. It didn’t matter. Hadrian had awakened something inside her, and nudity was no longer an innocent original state. She turned away and unclasped the endless buttons down the back of the dress.

  It was ridiculous, but all she could think was how much she loved this dress. And how could they take it from her? A second ridiculous thought bubbled to the surface of her mind… relief that all the corsets she’d stolen and hidden in her closet were with Hadrian. It was stupid, but she didn’t want to lose them.

  She stepped out of the dress and went to work on the corset, it seemed to take a small lifetime to loosen the laces and get out of it. Then she slipped out of her shoes and panties.

  “Wings,” he said.

  “Huh?”

  “The wings, extend them… they’re coming off.”

  Her blood froze in her veins, and she was suddenly unconcerned with her lack of clothing. “What do you mean they’re coming off?”

  “Exactly what it sounds like. Snip. Snip. Coming off.” He pushed a button in the remote and metal robotic arms descended from the ceiling.

  The arms gripped Angeline’s shoulders. Her wings came out on reflex, even though she willed with all her strength to keep them in. The protective force field was absent. It didn’t work in the black room.

  Two additional metallic arms came toward her immobilized form. She tried to shrink from them, but there was nowhere to go.

  “Please don’t do this. I’ll be good. I swear! I won’t see him again!”

  Rodolfo’s eyes lit with sadistic malice and anticipation as if waiting for a gift to be unwrapped on Christmas morning.

  The sound was like a thick curtain being torn, followed by her deafening screams, then a silence so loud and a blackness so deep she couldn’t see or hear anything at all. Angeline thought she was dead, but then she felt the blood dripping down her back. And the searing pain that stole her breath.

  ***

  Hadrian reclined in the basement trying to finish his mystery novel, but he no longer cared who had done it. It was obvious it was the jealous cousin. Any idiot could see it. Besides, he’d read the same paragraph six times now, and the prose wasn’t getting any more crisp or intelligent.

  He tossed the book across the room and growled at it, as if it would sprout legs and scamper off in terror at his displeasure. His growl was answered by a crack of thunder, so loud and near that it seemed to shake the church on its very foundation.

  The thunder clap spooked him, and he was glad for once that Angeline wasn’t here to watch him quake like some small child over an impending storm. He glanced at the wardrobe with her corsets inside and then at the bed she’d lain in while he’d watched her sleep, telling himself repeatedly that there was no part of him that wanted anything but the sweet perfection of her blood—and to make her pay for her crimes.

  Almost as much as the turning, he’d been livid to find her following him, keeping tabs on him. And she’d been doing it for decades without him sensing her once—until she’d risked his wrath to warn him.

  The power went out with another crack of thunder. Hadrian cursed as his night vision adjusted to the dark. He climbed the back staircase to search for the candles and matches. Streaks of angry lightning lit the sky behind the stained glass, but there was no rain.

  In the pauses between thunder, he heard a weak banging on the church doors and crying and muffled words he couldn’t make out as more thunder rolled through.

  Hadrian drew back in horror when he opened the door to find a naked Angeline, crumpled and shivering on his steps.

  “Father Hadrian… please… help me.”

  Her back was a mess. He’d never seen so much blood come out of one person. It seemed as if it might never stop. Her wings had been torn from her spine, and if she weren’t immortal, she’d be a corpse already. It was stunning that she’d had the energy or ability to bang on the door or cry for help at all.

  Angeline’s hands bled for her efforts. How long had she been out here thinking he’d ignore her cries? Whatever she’d done, whatever urge he had to punish her, the display in front of him was sadistic and wrong.

  He knelt beside her on the steps and pulled her onto his lap, then tore into his wrist with fangs. “Here, drink.”

  She latched onto his arm, still sobbing against him. While she drank, he leaned over her back to drink some of the blood to clean her up and aid the healing. She wasn’t regenerating like a human would if he’d given them his blood. If there was a change, it wasn’t much. The blood still flowed out of her far too fast.

  Seeing it made him panic, but he quickly gained control. It wouldn’t help her if he was afraid. He had to be the calm one. The steady one. Even so, he choked back his own sob at what those monsters had done to her.

  Hadrian ran his tongue over the back of her hands, relieved when they healed. At least vampire blood and saliva did work for her. She wasn’t an alien creature outside the scope of his powers.

  After several minutes of drinking from him, her bleeding stopped. How would she have fared without it? It upset him more than he could quantify to entertain the thought. She was still far from healed and would need more, but it was a start until he could get her inside. Rain pounded down, followed by angry gusts of wind that threw the rain against the door and window panes.

  The rain washed the blood off her skin but only made her shiver harder.

  Hadrian picked her up, and her arms went around his neck as he turned to take her into the church.

  “Goddammit!” he growled. The barrier. Whether it was her new demon nature interacting with a church, or the wards he’d had put up, Our Lady of Mercy would not admit Angeline. He sat her down in the corner of the alcove. The look she gave him was so scared and sad, as if he were simply abandoning her because she couldn’t go inside.

  “I’m going in to get a blanket and some things from the basement. Then we’ll go some place where you can rest. Okay?”

  A hesitant nod.

  Hadrian raced inside and down the back stairs to grab clothes for himself. He flung the wardrobe open, threw her things into her bag, and ripped the comforter off the bed. He took the steps two at a time to get back outside.

  She whimpered when he wrapped her up and lifted her to carry her to his car. “Shhhh. I know it hurts. We’ll fix you.”

  Hadrian unlocked the passenger side of the old yellow Buick Roadmaster and carefully put the fallen angel in the passenger side, locking the seat belt into place out of habit. He was glad he’d maintained the car over the decades.

  Chapter Eight

  Angeline sat wrapped in a blanket in Father Hadrian’s car. He was inside getting them a room at a mid-priced chain hotel that had interior hallways. It would be more secure for him than a motel where someone could bust in and allow the sunlight to stream in and fry him.

  She couldn’t stop shaking. It was like she was hungry, but the light of Heaven wouldn’t be an option anymore. What did she eat now? She didn’t know. Angels were forbidden from speaking to guardians, and it seemed guardians had gotten the same message. They feared further retribution from Heaven, so when they saw an angel, they turned and walked the other direction.

  Angeline hadn’t spoken on the drive, and Father Hadrian thankfully hadn’t asked her to. She wasn’t sure her vocal chords would process further sound after the screaming in the black room.

  It was all too much to process. Everything she’d lost. They’d dropped her right out of the sky, through the gathering storm clouds, onto the steps of his church. She’d been torn be
tween the pain of having her wings ripped out at the roots and the pain of falling so hard on the steps. She’d felt the deep bruises forming as she’d prayed for someone, anyone to hear her cries.

  Angeline couldn’t stop crying. She pulled down the visor and looked in the mirror. Her face was a red, splotchy mess. She wiped away the fresh tears and tried to stop the jitters.

  Why was he helping her? After two days in the black room she knew Father Hadrian would never help her, that he didn’t want her, that she was unclean and wrong and bad and even a vampire could never look on her with anything but disgust. Especially when she’d made him into one. Could she have ever forgiven Linus?

  If he’d come back as an angel and watched over her would she suddenly have fallen for him? Of course not. She would have wanted him as far from her as possible. She understood now. So why wasn’t Hadrian pushing her away? Was it a trick? Was he not finished punishing her for what she’d done?

  She hadn’t believed he would open the door, and thought if he did, he might just kick her down the stairs. But she was too weak to go anywhere beyond where they’d dropped her.

  He hadn’t just helped her, he’d given her blood to heal her. She still felt the bone-deep pain, barely muted from the small amount of healing that had happened. At least the bleeding had stopped. She hadn’t believed it ever would.

  Angeline jumped when two people scuffled nearby in the parking lot and bumped against the car. A vampire drained someone without thrall out in the open against the passenger side of the car. The blood dripped down the outside of her window, and she almost vomited. If she never saw blood again, it would be too soon.

  The vampire let the body drop and smiled at her as if to say: “You’re next.”

  Her spine burned as the protective reflexive wing expansion tried to happen, but of course there was nothing. There would never be anything again. Before she could mourn the loss, the vampire pulled back his fist to smash the window and drag her out. Angeline shrank back, wincing from the pain of the effort, but the shattering glass never came.