A Monster and a Gentleman

by Lila Dubois

  Cali had no such hang-ups.

  “Are you really going to shoot an archangel?”

  There was a rustle behind her as Michael caught on to her plan and spread his wings. The men sucked in breaths, cursed and a few even lowered their guns.

  “No,” the leader said, but there was a note of hesitation in his voice. “It’s a trick.”

  “And you’re willing to bet your immortal soul on that? Because he’s an angel.” Cali pointed to Michael.

  “The other one, he’s a demon.” The comment came not from the leader, but from one of the soldiers who now pointed his gun at Seling.

  “Of course he is,” Cali agreed. “But who do you think is guarding Hell? Who do you think keeps the souls from spilling out and becoming zombies?”

  Cali’s mother had claimed to be Christian, but Cali had never seen the inside of a church. Her father was a Muslim, but a lapsed one at best, so Cali’s knowledge of world religions was sketchy—were there zombies in Christianity? Either way, it sounded good.

  And after all, she was just buying time.

  The thing she’d seen was closer now—a winged shadow in the night sky. Help was coming—she just had to give them time.

  “Lucifer himself fell from Heaven. Without him, we would not know God’s grace.” The comment came from someone in the back and Cali nodded enthusiastically.

  “She’s lying.” It was the leader again. He flipped up the visor on his helmet, revealing cool blue eyes and a hard face. Cali had the distinct impression that he just wanted to kill something. He trained his gun on Seling. “If she’s right, then we’ll take the white one back to be studied, but kill the green one.” He bent his head, sighting the rifle, and Cali sucked in a breath.

  He didn’t get the chance to fire. Three small barbs sank deep into his wrist. They appeared soundlessly, fired from somewhere in the shadows. The gun clattered to the floor and he dropped to his knees, clutching his wrist and screaming.

  Cali let out the breath. Her whole body was vibrating with adrenaline and now hope. She’d seen those barbs before. “Put your guns down if you’re smart and want to live. Otherwise, by all means, try to shoot one of us.”

  Half the men put the guns down and backed up. The three directly in front of Cali didn’t.

  There was a thump, as if something heavy had landed near them, and then a massive white paw swiped the guns out of the hands of the three men near Cali.

  Tokaki was here.

  With a roar, Seling charged into the men. There was the rattle of gunfire, but either they didn’t hit him or Seling was too pissed to notice. He cut a swath through them, talons flashing. There was a flare of light as Seling breathed fire, his flame like the roar of a bonfire, making their flamethrower seem no more powerful than candles on a birthday cake.

  After the stalemate that held while Cali spoke with the men, the sudden flurry of violence was deafening. There were things she would have to process later, because the sudden and vicious violence was too much. She saw Tokaki, now a massive white tiger, hold a man down and bite his whole right arm off, spitting out the limb—which still held the gun—a moment later. Luke, the largest of any of them, was taking on two men. Their guns clattered to the floor before hitting them so hard that they fell back and rolled.

  Cali jumped into action, grabbing the straps of the discarded guns and throwing them over her shoulder. They were heavier than she anticipated and she staggered under the weight. When a dark figure ran at her, she grabbed one, struggling to point it at him.

  Rather than attack her, he held up his hands and dropped to his knees.

  “I didn’t know. I didn’t know.” She could barely hear him over the spatter of gunfire, shouts of the fighters and woosh of Seling’s flame and Tokaki’s roar.

  “What?”

  “Please! I didn’t know. I don’t want to fight them.”

  Cali stared on the man kneeling before her, finally realizing that he was surrendering.

  “Stay there,” she ordered. “And, uh, stay down.”

  She spun in a circle looking for anyone else who wasn’t engaging in the fight. Seeing one, she waved him over, and before long she had a collection of five men.

  The battle was over. There was no one left standing beside herself, Luke, Seling, Tokaki, Michael and Runako. The humans lay on the ground, some panting heavily, others moaning in pain. A few had been dismembered or eviscerated and some were dying or were already dead. Cali was handling it well until one man moaned, then coughed up blood before closing his eyes. His breath stopped.

  He’d died. Just like that, he’d died.

  Cali had spend her adult life on sets and stages, many of them dressed so expertly that it wasn’t just the audience that would forget it wasn’t real. She’d worked a few horror movies right out of school, and her brain had been filing what she saw now away as a really well-done horror set—disgusting, but not real.

  This was real. That man had died just in front of her. The blood that painted the floor in long arcs wasn’t a red chocolate mixture, it was being pumped out of living people.

  The monsters had cut through these men, making the almighty human weapon of a gun seem insignificant. She’d known they were dangerous, but now she understood it in a primal way.

  Luke said something in their language. One by one, they responded. Cali kept one of her new collection of guns trained on the men who were kneeling in front of her. Something touched her shoulder and she yelped.

  “It’s me,” Seling said.

  “These ones surrendered. You don’t have to kill them.”

  “We know. Give Luke the guns. We’re leaving.”

  “We’re leaving? But what are we going to do with, with them?” She pointed at the men with the gun.

  “I will take care of them.” The words were an unearthly grumble, coming from Tokaki’s massive jaws. He paced a circle around the men, several of whom bowed their heads rather than look at him.

  “Give me the guns.” Runako took them from Cali, lifting them easily.

  “It took you all long enough to get here.”

  Runako snorted. “It’s not my fault Seling did a terrible job of protecting you.”

  Cali snarled. “Don’t insult him.”

  “He did mostly die,” Michael added.

  Seling hadn’t said anything, though he still stood at her back. Cali reached over to touch his arm. It was hard as a rock, the muscles so tense that he flinched away from her. “Seling?”

  Something in her voice must have alerted the others.

  Luke and Runako crowded around her, each of them bracing a hand on one of Seling’s shoulders. Cali stood in the middle, feeling very short and very soft.

  “Seling, back away.” Luke’s voice was low and calm.

  “They kidnapped me.” Seling’s voice was just as low, but anything but calm. “They tortured me.” He looked at Runako. “They killed your sister.”

  “I know they did.”

  “They should die.”

  Cali tensed, wondering if she was about to watch the man she’d loved kill five men in cold blood.

  “Should they?” Luke asked.

  The man she loved.

  Cali nearly fainted as the words rattled around in her head. She loved Seling. She loved him.

  Maybe it was the stress of the battle. Maybe it had taken him almost dying to make her realize it. Hell, maybe tomorrow she’d realize she hated him and wanted to live alone with a million cats.

  But right now she loved him.

  “They should pay,” Seling growled.

  “And they will,” Luke assured him.

  “Wait, wait!” Cali held up her hands, cutting into their conversation.

  “Cali, we need to decide what to do,” Michael whispered to her.

  She waved her hands in the air. “Kill them or don’t. As long as I don’t end up in a women’s prison, I don’t care. I have something more important to discuss.”

  Seling looked down at her, his fa
ce so foreign, so different than her own, and yet in his eyes she saw him, the man she loved.

  A smile quirked his lips. “More important?”

  “Yes.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “Not here.”

  Cali took his arm and dragged him away from the others. Behind her, she heard Runako say, “She just saved your life.”

  “So what is more important?” Now that they were away, Cali could see the lines of strain and pain on his face.

  “You’re too tall.”

  “That’s what you want to talk about?”

  “No, but I don’t want to crane my neck when I say this.”

  Seling grabbed her ass and lifted her. Cali wrapped her legs around his chest and clung to his shoulders. “Am I hurting you?”

  “No.”

  “Okay, here goes.” She placed one hand on his cheek, her fingers small and slight against his green skin. “I love you.”

  He smiled—which was terrifying, with his fangs. “You love me.”

  “I never thought I’d say that to someone and mean it, not the way I mean it with you.”

  “Does that mean you are giving love a chance?”

  “You remember that?”

  “I remember everything you said before. I remember that you’re scared of love, and now I know why.” He turned his head and kissed her palm. “I never thought I’d find someone to love. My whole life has felt like I was barely hanging on. I survived when I shouldn’t have, I became a part of something important that I wouldn’t have dared do before. My best hope was to protect my Clan, make sure no one suffered.”

  “Like you did.”

  “But then I met you. You were so sure of yourself and the world that I knew you were the one for me. I found someone I could love, protect.”

  “I don’t need your protection.”

  “That won’t stop me from protecting you.”

  “And nothing will stop me from loving you.”

  He grinned. “You want to leave with me?”

  “Yes.” Cali’s body was tingling with the need to touch and be touched. She wanted his hands and mouth on her, erasing the lingering fear, eradicating the images of violence she’d seen tonight. “The only problem is that someone destroyed the stairs and the elevator, so you’ll have to wait until they bring a ladder or something for me.”

  “We don’t have to wait. Do you trust me?”

  “Trust you? Why?”

  Seling spun and lifted her so her back was to his chest. His arms around her waist supported her as her feet dangled.

  “You’re not…” Cali looked at the velvety blue night sky, then over her shoulder at Seling.

  “You said you trust me. And you love me.”

  “I changed my mind.”

  “Well, then what if I told you that I loved you too?”

  “You do?”

  “Yes.” Seling’s eyes narrowed. “But you already knew that, didn’t you?”

  “I suspected. It’s good to hear it.”

  “Then I’ll say it again—I love you.”

  Cali frowned. “I’m not really feeling it. Say it again, but this time maybe pause a bit between the words, see how that works.”

  “I’m not going to do a second take. I love you, and that’s it.”

  Cali smiled. “And that’s all I want.”

  Seling laughed then took a few running steps. He leapt off the side of the building, and for a moment they were falling, the ground rushing up to meet them. Then, with a snap, his wings opened and they rose into the air. With Seling at her back, Cali felt as if she were the one flying.

  “Higher,” she demanded. She didn’t know if he could hear her with the wind whipping by or if he just knew what she wanted, but Seling’s wings beat, lifting them into the air, until Cali thought she could touch that endless night.

  Up here, there was no one and nothing but them. There was no past, no future, only two souls who, against all odds, had found each other. When they touched down, they’d struggle to overcome themselves and the baggage of their lives. They’d have to find out if love was enough to keep them together, if love would make them better people, or become the weapon they used to wound each other.

  But now it was just them. Two souls spinning away into the night. And for tonight, it was enough.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Maeve and Oren

  Maeve kept her eyes closed as she waited. The lights and sounds of the other dimension swam around her, and if she didn’t concentrate she could be pulled away and lost. If she focused, she could feel the concrete beneath her feet, hear the sounds of the battle. She couldn’t help them unless she moved back into the real world, but Michael had been right, she couldn’t risk herself in the fight.

  She waited to feel their death, for the need to keen to overcome her.

  It never came.

  Something brushed by her, and Maeve stiffened. She knew there were things lurking in the swirling mists of colors, but she didn’t know who—or what—they were. Because she’d had no one to teach her about her powers, she’d learned by trial and error. It had taken twenty years—and some help from Tokaki’s uncle—for her to discover that she could use this dimension to travel. There were tales, even in human mythologies, about the land of fairies and the fairy roads, and Maeve could only assume this was one of them.

  The sounds of battle were fading. Fear clutched at her and Maeve concentrated harder, holding herself in place, worried that she was slipping deeper into the other dimension, losing herself in it. But it wasn’t her slipping away into the other dimension that was responsible for the lessening sounds—the battle was over. She stayed where she was, not wanting to upset the delicate balance of a truce, and breathed a sigh of relief as she heard the voice of each of her Clans-men.

  She’d been sure that Seling was dead. When she first touched him when he was a child, she’d seen many bleak futures. In almost all of them, he died young. There’d been only one thread which led to a long and happy life. She’d never had another chance to look because as he grew she began to care for him and his future was soon hidden from her.

  Through the veil that separated her from them, she heard Seling and Cali talking. It seemed he’d found that single thread. She smiled, glad for his happiness. Then their voices were gone.

  There was silence, and even through the veil she felt the lull, the calm after the storm.

  The battle was done, but now there was another kind of battle to be fought.

  Maeve reached out a hand and opened a portal to the real world.

  “Glad you’re back,” Michael said as she stepped through.

  Maeve surveyed the scene. A group of live humans were kneeling off to one side, but most were scattered on the ground. Some were still alive, others clearly dead.

  Luke, Michael, Runako and Tokaki crowded around her.

  She looked them over, assessing their injuries.

  “Seling has left with Cali?” She looked toward the night sky but couldn’t see them.

  “By now they’re probably fucking,” Runako said, arms crossed over his chest. The muscle on top of his right shoulder was a bloody mess and one of his wings had holes in it.

  Maeve looked around again. “Where’s Henry?”

  Tokakai—whose fur was speckled with blood—and Michael, who was holding a wad of bloody cloth against his thigh, looked concerned, while Luke and Runako frowned.

  “He didn’t come,” Luke said.

  “I can see that,” Maeve cut in, dread curling in her belly. “We need to—”

  “No, I mean we told him what was happening and he said he couldn’t come. He said there was something he had to do before he died.”

  “Those were his exact words?”

  “Yes.” Luke’s eyes narrowed. “Why? What do you know?”

  “I know many things.” Maeve bit the inside of her lip to hold back a smile. Apparently Henry had finally decided to face his fear.

  That didn’t excuse h
is behavior—they could have used him in the fight—but Maeve understood.

  She wouldn’t tell the others what she knew and where she suspected he’d gone. He would have to do that.

  “You will speak with Henry later. At this moment, we need to focus on what we’ll do with them.” Maeve motioned to the men. The live ones sucked in their breaths when she pointed at them.

  “I want to check with Margo first.” Runako grabbed a small pouch he had hooked to his belt. Like the others, he wore tight shorts the wardrobe department had designed and made for them, but unlike them he had a belt around his waist.

  He fumbled, pulling out a phone, which was comically tiny. “Fuck.”

  He passed the phone to Maeve, who was able to work it, but just barely, with her long nails.

  “Call Akta’s house.” Runako bared his teeth at a man who dropped his hands from his head.

  “Akta’s?”

  “We sent all the girls there. Her address is private and she has a good security system. It was the safest place.”

  Maeve’s lips twitched. Henry was in for a surprise.

  She spoke briefly to Akta, assuring her that everyone had survived. Each male took a moment to talk to his mate before they ended the call.

  “Wait, Henry’s with you?” Luke’s dark bushy brows rose in surprise at what Lena was saying. “Er, yes.” He looked at Runako. “Of course we sent him there to watch over you.”

  When that was done, they looked at each other and then at the disaster around them.

  “We could call the cops.” Luke was nodding as he spoke. “We’ll change to human, then tell them they attacked us while we were filming.”

  Michael nodded also, seeming to agree with Luke’s plan.

  Maeve caught Tokaki and Runako’s gazes. There was no happy ending to this night, but Michael and Luke, who both so desperately wanted and needed to believe in the good of humans, would never be willing to do what they must.

  “Michael, Luke, go to Akta’s house. We do not know if there are others and we cannot risk their safety with only Henry there to protect them.”

  That was all the convincing Michael needed. “We should go.”