Broken Angel

by Amanda Jones

  The shape shifter eyed Yetarel across the table they’d taken in the main bar. He would make a great first target. From the memory flashes he’d inherited from B, he knew they shared a special bond. Yetarel would definitely be the easiest to peel away from the group. He stared down into the bottom of his beer mug and fidgeted, making himself seem as nervous as possible.

  Yetarel glanced at him in concern almost immediately. “You okay?”

  “Yeah, sure.” The shape shifter nodded shakily. “Totally cool here, bro. Don’t worry.”

  “You don’t look fine.” Yetarel frowned worriedly.

  “Seriously, I’m good.” The shape shifter choked out, his internal evil smile growing wider and wider by the second.

  Yetarel stood and motioned towards the stairs that went down to the portal room. “Let’s go, bud. You need to get some shit off your chest, I can tell.”

  “Thanks, buddy.” The shape shifter whispered, getting to his feet.

  The two men headed towards the basement, the shape shifter making a show of looking around nervously and rubbing at his wrists as though he were still haunted by imaginary manacles. Yetarel kept shooting worried glances at him, clapping him on the back in a show of brotherly support. When they reached the bottom of the worn staircase, the shape shifter stopped and started to shuffle his feet nervously, kicking at the stone flags in a show of nerves.

  “Spill it, bro. You know you can tell me anything.” Yetarel said solemnly.

  The shape shifter took a deep breath. “They drugged me…at Brimstone. It was…I could feel everything slipping away…I had no control. They took me to the warehouse and chained me up…I can still feel the cuffs on my wrists.” He swallowed hard and allowed his eyes to water, seemingly choking back his tears. “The blood…there was so much blood…”

  “Oh shit.” Yetarel breathed, stepping towards him.

  The shape shifter waved him off, putting on a show of embarrassment at his display of emotions. “I just…it was so much like…before…” He trailed off.

  Yetarel stood there at a loss, shaking his head in distress. “I…I don’t know what to say.”

  “Yeah, well...” The shape shifter feigned discomfort at his disclosure.

  Yetarel stepped in and gave him a bear hug. “Always here for you, dude.”

  “I know.” The shape shifter said, finally allowing his evil smile out to play.

  Satisfaction coursed through him as he grabbed a chunk of Yetarel’s hair and smashed his head into the stone wall with all of his strength. The fallen angel tried to fight back, but wasn’t any match for the overpowering attack as his head was slammed repeatedly until he blacked out. The shape shifter let Yetarel’s body slide down to the floor where it landed in a heap with a dull thud. Bending down, he slipped Yetarel’s knife out of his pants pocket. He flipped the knife open and wasted no time slicing a cut into the unconscious man’s arm. He dropped the knife to the floor where it landed with a clatter beside its owner. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the small glass vial, popping off the top and carefully allowing one obsidian droplet to fall into the open wound. He congratulated himself on a job well done as he slipped the top back onto the vial, paying close attention not to allow any of the contents to touch his own skin. It was one thing to infect Yetarel with the ultimate evil, that didn’t mean he wanted any of it for himself. He liked to choose evil; indentured servitude was definitely not his bag.

  As he turned to walk away, Yetarel groaned from down on the floor. “What the fuck, dude?”

  The shape shifter spun back around when he started to shift. His skin was rising and falling, changing colour and texture. He could feel the frame of his body beginning to shrink and stretch. He knew he was officially out of time. Rushing forward, he grabbed Yetarel’s head again and locked in on his eyes.

  “Who the fuck are you?” Yetarel asked in confusion as he tried unsuccessfully to tear his eyes away from his assailant.

  “I’m you.” The shape shifter said with a sick smile as he slammed Yetarel’s head into the floor, putting his lights out yet again.

  Wearing his new Yetarel skin, the shape shifter whistled a happy tune as he made his way up the stairs towards the main tavern. Time to start thinking up excuses to sneak out; he had to get back to the mansion and to B.

  Chapter Twenty Two

  Bataryal

  A scream cut through the air and the demonic band stopped dead in the middle of their performance. Everyone turned to stare at the door and what had just come through it. The man was unconscious and lying on his stomach, he looked like he’d been hit by a Mack truck. Blood seeped out from unseen wounds onto the floor; his hands were a crushed and twisted mess. Theo jumped over the counter of the bar and raced over to the broken man’s side, whipping his bar rag off his shoulder to wipe the blood off his face. He rolled the man over and finally got his first good look at him.

  “Sam! Get over here!” Theo shouted.

  Sam came bursting through the crowd that had gathered in a semi-circle around the prone man. He dropped down to his haunches beside Theo and looked down.

  “B? What the fuck happened to him? I just saw him a few minutes ago and he was fine.” Sam grabbed the towel out of Theo’s hand and wiped his friend’s face. Blood from a multitude of tiny cuts came away, showing a pale, tired, and worn face.

  “Dude, I just saw him go downstairs with your buddy a little while ago.” Theo shook his head in confusion.

  “Which buddy?” Sam asked as he grabbed B under his arms and slid him the rest of the way inside the door.

  “Calvin Klein…I mean, Yetarel.” Theo said, realizing this wasn’t the time to use Yetarel’s jokey moniker.

  Sam turned towards one of the demons in the crowd. “Get Al, Bill, Sergei, and Mara.” He switched his attention back to Theo. “Do you know where Yetarel is? He might know what happened here.”

  Theo shook his head. “Sam, he left about five minutes ago. I saw him walk past the bar and right out the front door. He didn’t say where he was going; he just took off.”

  “What the hell is he doing just up and leaving like that.” Sam frowned and threw up his hands in frustration. “All hell is literally breaking loose here.”

  A groan from the floor caught their attention. B was moaning and twisting his head back and forth as though he were locked in a nightmare. Suddenly, his eyes popped open and he stared straight at Sam’s shocked face.

  “Skin…double…not…me…” He croaked out through parched lips.

  Sam leaned down closer. “What is it, buddy?”

  “Not…me…change…ling…” He coughed and wheezed.

  Sam sat back up and looked at Theo. “Do you know what he’s saying?”

  Theo shook his head. “Not a clue.”

  There was a shuffling and jostling of the crowd and Bill, Al, Sergei, and Mara burst through.

  “Holy shit!” Sergei exclaimed as he saw B lying on the floor.

  Mara dropped down to the floor beside B and pushed aside her emotions, allowing the physician in her to come to the forefront. She reached for his arm in an attempt to examine one of his crushed hands. Half-delirious, B tried to raise his arm to grab at her with his useless limb. Mara shushed him, trying to calm him so she could study his injuries without causing him any additional pain. B raised his head as much as he was able and looked her dead in the eye.

  “Not me…other me,” he said in a rush of breath.

  Mara reached down and placed her hand on his forehead, leaning closer to him. “Shhhh, just lie there and let me take care of you.”

  “N…No…so sorry…earlier…not me.” His eyes were wild and desperate, like he needed her to understand him more than he needed his next breath.

  “What’s not you?” she asked as she continued trying to soothe him.

  “Don’t…be with…other…me…” His eyes were beseeching her.

  “Okay,” she said, agreeing to whatever it was that he ached to have her agree to. “Don’t
worry. I’m here with you.”

  B nodded weakly, placated for the moment by her acceptance of his request. Instead of closing his eyes and resting, he kept staring into hers. The look he gave her was full of…something. Under normal circumstances, and with anybody else, Mara would have sworn it was love. She felt her body sway towards him, an electric current felt like it was humming through her body, drawing her ever closer to him. The feeling was so welcome she almost felt like weeping. Even though it had tormented her before, the lack of anything she’d felt around B the past few hours had disturbed her. Nothing that soul deep should be able to just come and go, and she was relieved that she hadn’t imagined it.

  Sergei stood back beside Sam, watching Mara as she ran her hands over B’s injured body. There was something oddly right about the situation, like she was meant to be the one tending to him. As Mara straightened her body, Sergei saw it. A faint, gold, shimmering light stretched between Mara’s chest and B’s. They were joined at the heart — one of the signs of soul mates in the underworld. It seemed fitting that after all the good she’d done in her centuries, Mara would find the one immortal whom would love her for all time.

  “What are you smiling about?” Sam whispered to Sergei.

  “Don’t you see it?” Sergei asked.

  “See what?” Sam frowned.

  Sergei chuckled. “Sorry, I keep forgetting. Witches can see these things. There’s a light binding them together.” He turned to smile at Sam. “I hope you guys like Mara, because I have a funny feeling you’ll be spending a lot more time with her.”

  Sam’s eyebrows hit the ceiling. “B and Mara? Never thought I’d see the day.” He shook his head in amazement. “Keep this under your hat though, bro. He’s not going to take well to the whole fate thing, let him figure it out himself.”

  “Roger that.” Sergei said with a little salute.

  A crash from the other side of the tavern had everyone wheeling around in surprise. Yetarel stumbled in bumping into tables, sending beer steins and plates smashing to the floor. Blood was caked in his hair at his temple as he flailed his way through the room. He reached out to steady himself on the bar counter, the veins on his arm were black, spidering out under his skin.

  “Kill me!” He shouted. “Kill me, please!”

  “How the hell did you get over there? You just left?” Theo looked like his brain was about to melt with all the crazy going on in his bar.

  “It wasn’t me. It was a shape shifter!” Yetarel shouted, his eyes crazed.

  The entire tavern turned from Yetarel, to B, and back again in unison.

  “Well, that explains a lot.” Sam muttered.

  Yetarel stumbled closer and grabbed at Bill. “Kill me now. Take off my head. Please!”

  “Whoa! Calm down, buddy. What happened to you?” Bill asked, holding his shaking friend steady.

  “Demon blood. He infected me! I can’t go through this again! Set me free, kill me!” He kept begging, unable to stop quaking in distress.

  Sam came over and took hold of Yetarel’s other arm. “What do you mean again?” He asked.

  “It won’t stop. The infection won’t stop. You need to end me now before I do something I can’t control.” Sweat broke out on Yetarel’s brow.

  “Help him.” The weak voice broke through the confusion; B was raising himself into a sitting position with Mara’s help. “Find a cure.” He winced in pain.

  Sergei piped up. “If it’s an infection from demon blood, I may be able to find a fix in one of my grimoires.”

  “Good. Do it.” Sam gave a resolute nod. “Let’s get these two out of here. Theo, your safe haven’s anti-violence pact has clearly been violated; you might want to look into that.”

  “Someone might want to get a hold of Amir, we’re gonna need to move this operation elsewhere.” Sergei said turning to Sam. “I’m going to need access to my books, and those two need to get some serious R&R.”

  “On it.” Sam pulled out his phone and texted Amir. Time to roll out.

  Chapter Twenty Three

  The Doppelgänger

  Crashing and banging filled the night air at Keir’s mansion, as the shape shifter crept towards it, keeping himself hidden in the shadows to disguise his ever-changing form. Slipping up close to the house, he peered in through a broken ground floor window to get a better look at what was going on inside. The blood-stained antique couch was upended, bookcases had been tipped over, and every knickknack imaginable had been smashed on the hardwood floor. In the middle of the destruction stood Keir, his eyes burning like blood red beacons in the night. If there was anything left in this room for him to break it would be a miracle, but he seemed determined to find something. Charging over to the marble fireplace, he grabbed up a poker and started wailing on the walls in a bid to bring the entire building down around himself. The shape shifter watched as Nyx sauntered in, a supermodel on a chaotic runway. Fearless, she sashayed right over to Keir and placed her hand between his shoulder blades. He stopped mid-swing, dropping the poker and turning to face her. There seemed to be a wordless exchange that calmed Keir immediately. He clenched his jaw, and balled his fists, but didn’t make another move in violence. He just turned away from her and left the room.

  Nyx looked around her, a bored expression on her face. Calmly, she raised her hand and examined her exquisite manicure, checking for any damage that may have occurred just being in the presence of the destruction-master. If he hadn’t known better, he would have thought she was an angel standing in the middle of hell.

  The shape shifter looked down at his exposed skin. He was shifting faster and faster with no time to waste. He only had a little while left before his situation went nuclear. He stepped on the shattered glass shards that littered the flowerbed and hoisted himself through the broken window, landing in a heap on the floor.

  “I was wondering when you were going to stop lurking around in the shadows like a peeping Tom.” Nyx’s bored voice floated over to him.

  The shape shifter popped up to his feet, dusting off his pants. “How did you know I was there?”

  Nyx waved her perfectly manicured hand in the air. “I have my ways.”

  With his body shifting back and forth between identities so fast they didn’t have time to settle, he crept closer to Nyx, hoping to get close enough to shift into her.

  “Don’t you fucking dare!” she said coldly, her eyes showing pinpricks of red and her teeth sharpening to points. “Find some other schmuck to clone.”

  The shape shifter backed off and waved his arms to encompass the room. “What happened here?”

  “Our fearless leader came home to discover that his pet is missing.” She stepped over a broken footstool and flipped over the only chair in the room that still had four legs, sitting down like she was the Queen of England on her throne.

  “Well, that’s inconvenient for me.” The shape shifter said, raising his shifting arm with a wry look on his constantly altering face. “At least I managed to infect one of the fallen.”

  “Well, bully for you.” Nyx looked him up and down. “Any ideas for getting to the rest of them before you implode?”

  “Not yet. I’ll think up something useful while I’m out finding a new face.” The shape shifter turned back towards the broken window. “I hope I get a piece of that sweet-ass vampire chick Mara.” He hoisted himself up and out of the window.

  * * * *

  Nyx

  Nyx sat alone for a minute, drumming her nails on the wooden arm of the chair. She was deep in thought and didn’t notice Keir’s arrival until he cleared his throat loudly.

  “Penny for your thoughts?” he asked.

  Nyx looked up at him with a sickly sweet smile. “Oh, they’re worth far more than that, sugar.”

  “Fair enough. How about this — a new pair of obscenely expensive shoes for your thoughts?” he said, raising his eyebrow in question.

  “I might be able to get on board with that.” She replied, her smile turning to one of
satisfaction. “Your little shape shifter has actually accomplished something. He got to one of the fallen.”

  Keir smiled. “Excellent. Now we need to find a way to get close to them and finish the job. Those fuckers are too tight knit. We need to find a new way in now that Bataryal has taken off.”

  Nyx stood, placed her hands on her hips and started to pace. “I think your creepy little friend may have gotten some useful intelligence. There’s a woman that they’ve allowed into their inner circle, a vampire named Mara. It seems that she’s involved with Bataryal.”

  “I see.” Keir raised a questioning eyebrow at her. “And how do you propose we use this little tidbit to our advantage, my dear? I see the evil little cogs in your brain turning. Don’t keep me in suspense.”

  “You know these men are irrationally protective of each other.” Nyx gave Keir an evil smile. “Just imagine how insanely protective they’d be of a woman they’d accepted into their circle, of a woman that’s involved with one of them.”

  Keir chuckled. “You really are a devious wench. You want to use her as bait.”

  “Find out everything about her and find a way to put her in mortal danger. Dangle her like a carrot and watch the suckers come running. There’s nothing those fools like better recently than playing the savior.”

  “I just love how your twisted mind works.” Keir’s eyes flashed a brighter red.

  Nyx gave him a wink. “I am my brother’s sister after all.”

  Chapter Twenty Four

  Sergei

  This was déjà vu for Sergei. His new apartment was overrun with fallen angels and Amir and Mara. The last time he’d helped them out this way, it had resulted in his untimely demise as a human and his resurrection as a vampire. He enjoyed the perks of his new life, but the torture he’d had to endure at the hands of Satan’s minion, Voss, was definitely not an event he wished to revisit. His tiny, one-bedroom apartment busted at the seams.