Before These Wings (Wings Book 1)

by Wendy Knight

  He whirled away from the girls and faced the alien; although, it was more of a demon in his mind. Not solid, it seemed to be made from shadows, in the shape of a giant, evil dog. The size of a rhino, maybe, but he’d seen it swallow humans whole. Or… not swallow them. Sometimes they tore their victims apart first.

  It hissed, it’s red, glowing eyes the only color in an otherwise pitch-black body.

  Cole swallowed hard, risking a glance over his shoulder. Phoenyx had cleared the alley. Enika was just rounding the corner.

  Taking his eyes off the alien was a mistake. He could feel the shadows pulling at the light around him as he spun toward it again, but too late. It launched itself through the air, jaws open in a horrific grin. He screamed, but the scream caught in his throat, trapped behind the terror that choked him.

  Phoenyx. I love you.

  A thousand memories flooded through him, and time stood still while he watched them flash by. “Cole, be nice to your sister. She’s younger than you, and still learning.” Cole scowled at his mom, crossing his arms over his chest. “She’s only ten months younger than me. And she’s a stupid girl. How come you didn’t have a boy?” His mom smiled, ruffling his hair as she walked to the kitchen. “Because Heaven knew you needed a sister. You have school tomorrow. First day of second grade! Aren’t you getting old?” And she’d smiled. Birthdays, holidays, school days, all blurring together. Some memories were brighter, more vivid than others though.

  “Your sister’s only ten months younger than you? Dude, your sister is hot.”

  Cole growled, glaring at his new friend over the hood of his truck. “Step back, Keven. She’s off-limits.”

  Keven laughed and held up his hands. “Sorry, Cole. I didn’t know. Prom’s next week though.”

  “Not a chance in h—”

  His memories shifted to Phoenyx. “Cole, right? Enika never shuts up about you. Is she here? We’re supposed to work on a history project together.” She tipped her head to the side, long black waves tumbling across her shoulders and down her back as she smiled at him with laughing brown eyes. He’d fallen hard from the very first second he’d seen her, and he’d never looked back. She was the love of his life, but he’d never thought his life would be so short.

  He’d lost her right after the Empyreans had landed — the aliens they’d thought were here to save them, but oh, how wrong they’d been. He’d assumed Nyx was dead. For months, he’d searched for her, almost giving up hope.

  But it didn’t matter, because three days ago, he’d found her. Phoenyx, his little survivor, small, sweet, and fast.

  And now he was losing her again.

  A lifetime of thoughts, in a mere fraction of a second.

  The Garce screeched as it was jerked back, away from him. Cole’s eyes flew open as a whole new horror nearly drove him to his knees.

  The Empyreans. They were here.

  There were two of them, light blue wings waving lazily in the darkness, beautiful faces with the ornate, sparkling tattoos twisting around their eyes. They were tall, slender, and moved with the grace of an immortal ballerina and the speed of a shooting star.

  They landed on the asphalt so lightly, Cole couldn’t even hear it from where he stood, but he’d seen them many times, when they were angry, land so hard they cracked the ground and sent tremors waving away from them. The Garce howled and struggled and screamed, but it couldn’t escape. Where the humans had no way to fight something made of shadows, the Empyrean could grab the shadows… and suck the shadows dry.

  Cole stepped back, praying they wouldn’t notice him as they eagerly tore into the Garce, their delicate white fangs stretching, almost piercing the perfect lips. His feet moved silently, carrying him backward down the alley toward Phoenyx and Enika. He had to protect them. He had to get them out of here. Because the Empyreans would kill him, drain him like they did the Garce, but Phoenyx and Enika were in real danger. They would take them. The Empyreans would take them and torture them and who knew what else, because no one had ever escaped from them. He couldn’t let that happen.

  Once he’d made it to the shadows, he spun and sprinted around the corner of the alley, praying Phoenyx had gotten them out of there. Praying that they were safe. Praying that there weren’t any more Empyreans than the two he’d left behind.

  But there were.

  It had Enika in its hands, long, dark blue fingernails tracing a pattern lovingly against her cheek, drawing blood. “You’ll be so pretty as one of us,” it purred. Already, Cole could see the tattoos forming around his sister’s eyes, catching the moonlight as they sparkled like there were a thousand tiny diamonds embedded in the fine lines along her skin. Enika trembled and whimpered as she turned her face away, eyes squinched shut tight. Cole stumbled forward, looking around him for a weapon — anything. Their guns and knives did little to the Empyreans, but if he could just distract it…

  “Hey! Hey, you ugly moth! Do you really want her when you could have me? She’s little. And weak!” Phoenyx screamed, throwing a broken brick at the Empyrean’s head. It moved so fast Cole couldn’t follow; although, he would be haunted by the movement for the rest of his life. The Empyrean dropped his sister and shot across the cracked, deserted road. It snatched Phoenyx off the street and soared into the night. Enika screamed, diving for them, like her arms could possibly reach into the sky and save her best friend. And Cole was forced to turn away from Phoenyx, from his hopes and dreams and future, to save his sister. He scooped her up against his chest and ran for the safety of the rising sun.

  Chapter One

  NYX SCOOTED CLOSER TO THE ROCKY precipice, and then just a bit further, so she could curl her toes around the edge. The wind howled, jerking at her hair and loose, black dress. She stared down, trying to estimate the drop. It was so far she couldn’t see the bottom in the darkness, but then, the moon wasn’t giving her much light tonight. She spread her arms wide, embracing the emptiness, and tumbled forward.

  She fell so fast that the mountainside blurred around her and the scream of the wind in her ears almost, almost, drowned out the roar of adrenaline. The ground raced up to meet her, seemingly hungry for her blood, aching for her death.

  Not today.

  Her wings shot out, jerking her to a stop mid-air, her feet almost grazing the ground that had moments before been a demon about to devour her alive. She smiled to herself in the darkness, tipping her head to share her smile with the moon. She loved the moon — had always loved the moon — but even more so now because the moon didn’t try to kill her like the sun did. She stretched, reaching her hands out, trying to touch the furthest edge of her wings, but they were too long. Yes, she might be a freak of nature, but she could look for silver linings with the best of them.

  And wings? Definitely a silver lining.

  She raised her hand in front of her face and wiggled her fingers, smiling as the fingertips turned blue and sparks of her blood — on fire — escaped and shot into the air. It reminded her of the Baked Alaska, when the waiters would set the alcohol on fire and pour it onto the cake. Except that her blood wasn’t even remotely edible, except to the Garce. “Pretty,” she murmured.

  Being able to shoot blood on fire from her hands? Also a silver lining.

  The blue streaks running through her black hair and the blue, sparkly tattoos that wound their way around her eyes would be pretty if they weren’t so alien. So would the pale skin; although, thank everything that was good and right, her skin wasn’t blue like the Pys’.

  Another silver lining.

  She stretched her wings up and down, and lifted into the sky. Faster and faster, higher and higher, until she passed the rocky mountain cliff that she’d hurled herself from minutes before. Up into the clouds, weaving in and out, feeling the condensation kiss her skin and dissolve against her cheeks, because she was hot. Always hot, apparently a side effect of having your blood on fire. Later, when she returned to the city and the tunnels, she would care that she was a freak. But right now, while s
he soared free through the night sky, she embraced the alien half of herself and let her wings take her places she could never have gone when she was human.

  Unfortunately, she wasn’t out here to soar like a bird through the salt flats of Utah. She was hunting. Or doing recon. She could never remember what the word was Keven used when he told her what to do. In a nutshell, she was looking for aliens. Because she was the only one alive who could kill them.

  The Garce were like shadowy dog zombies. They weren’t smart, but they were relentless and they could disappear into the shadows and out of her reach, but only if they saw her coming. They were dying out, and not just because the Empyreans — or Pys, as Nyx called them — were eating the Garce as fast as they could. No, the Garce had run out of a food supply. If Nyx had to guess, she’d estimate that there were only about 100,000 people left on the planet. She hadn’t been out of what had once been the United States since before the invasion, but she remembered the news reports at the very beginning. Overpopulated cities in India, China, and Japan had been hit the hardest. Too many people with nowhere to run. And then there hadn’t been enough people left to run the TV stations… or even give the cities electricity. Now, they practically lived in the dark ages.

  Which suited Nyx just fine. Because if it was dark, she was very, very hard to kill.

  Her eyes narrowed as she scanned the valley floor below her, running a perimeter around Ogden, what had once been one of the bigger cities in Utah. Now, as far as she knew, it was one of the few places in the state that still had human life, thanks to Keven.

  And thanks to her.

  There, slinking through the shadows, she finally caught sight of it. A shiver of alarm ran down her spine — while she’d been off playing chicken with the ground, the Garce had gotten within a couple miles of 25th Street, and the entrance to Keven’s compound. And Garce were like mice; where there was one, there were always more coming.

  Nyx tipped her wing, sliding sideways through the sky. The moon passed through her translucent blue-black wings, casting hypnotic rays of light on the ground in front of the Garce. She’d learned it from the Pys, watching them hunt while she’d been hiding from their attacks.

  She shook that memory away as she almost tumbled out of the sky, forcing her mind away from the pain and the terror. The Garce froze, looking around warily before it got caught in the light. Nyx knew she had it when its red eyes dimmed in the darkness, nearly fading into its shadowy skull.

  She tucked her wings in tight, a move she’d learned not from the aliens, but from watching the hawks when she’d gone camping with her dad all those years ago. She shot through the sky, and before the Garce could see her coming, she’d set her blood on fire and threw it down through the darkness, blue flames licking the air. It splashed across the Garce’s skull and set the entire demon-alien on fire. When her blood hit its blood, it exploded, like always, and she had to pull up quickly to dodge the flaming bits of alien raining from the sky. Wrinkling her nose, she hung in the air, scanning the abandoned streets for more of them. And since it was still dark, she also scanned the skies, watching for the creatures that had made her the freak she was.

  But the Pys had no reason to track her down. She was one of them now, so she wasn’t any use to them until it was time to invade another planet. When there were too few Garce here, their master called them home, and the Pys would follow. Only then would they come after Nyx.

  Or at least, that’s what she hoped.

  So the skies were safe. But the sun was rising, which meant she had to get back to the compound. Which meant that it had to be safe around the compound or they wouldn’t survive the day. She flew down between the buildings, dodging in and out of alleys and up and down the streets. She’d almost given up when she found them — three more, hiding in the shadows, only their bright, bloodthirsty red eyes revealing them. Three blood balls, roiling with bright blue flames, shot from her hands, gathering heat as they rolled through the air. She had deadly aim, thanks to Keven, and this time she was able to get away from them without even getting alien guts in her hair.

  Also a silver lining.

  One last stop. She risked a look toward the east at the rising sun. Those rays could bake her within minutes, which was considerably better than the Pys, who would die an agonizing but incredibly quick death within seconds. The sun baked them alive, boiling the fire in their veins and burning them from the inside out.

  She’d had it happen to her left wrist and hand. One time was all she needed to learn never to let it happen again. Because… ouch.

  She found the house, only a few miles north of Ogden and her compound, and dropped to the ground, tucking her wings up tight and racing up the sidewalk, now reclaimed by the grass and weeds and ivy. She remembered a thousand times running up this sidewalk when it was neatly trimmed with pretty flowers and solar lights. The white vinyl fence hadn’t been crushed then, and there hadn’t been blood stains and deep claw marks on the neighbor’s front door. Digging the spray paint out of her pocket, she risked another panicked glance at the sun and pulled the cap off. Hurry, hurry, hurry.

  She’d done this so many times she’d lost count, and her arm could practically spray the words without her brain’s help. And then she backed away, surveying her handiwork, before leaping into the sky and flying as fast as she could back to the compound. “Keven’s gonna kill me,” she muttered to herself as she dove under what was left of a traffic light. One last glance over her shoulder, hope nearly strangling the heart in her chest.

  25th tunnels. They aren’t a myth.

  #

  “DO YOU HAVE ANY idea what time it is?” Keven bellowed as she shoved the door to Brewskies open and raced inside, squealing in terror as the sun’s rays almost caught her. The windows were boarded up to protect her because they sure as heck wouldn’t have kept the Garce out. But they did keep the sun out. She slammed the door shut and squinted at Keven, who stood in the middle of the room with a very large gun, glaring at her.

  “I’m thinking it’s about sunrise?” She grinned, sliding sideways so she could get around him to the back stairs. Down into the tunnels beneath the city, where the sun couldn’t get her and the Garce couldn’t find them. Her wings, which were a good foot, maybe two, higher than her head, brushed the tunnel’s ceiling, and she was grateful that it was fairly smooth. Once she’d tried to fly upside down in the desert, and her wings had brushed the cacti.

  It hadn’t ended well.

  “You know that will kill you, right?” Keven asked, following her down to safety. He pulled the trap door shut above his head, ducking because he was as tall as her wings were.

  “I seem to recall something about that, yes.” She raised her left wrist, idly tracing the Phoenix tattoo covering the scars.

  He was the only one in the tunnels, like always. There were almost 300 people in this underground city, but not one of them would be out while she was still up, wandering around. They were scared of her, because she was everything that had hurt them.

  Even if she was everything that was keeping them alive.

  But Keven wasn’t afraid of her. He’d never told her why, but she suspected it was because they’d been friends before. Before the invasion, before she was taken. Before the Pys had changed her. He saw her as a weapon, but still human. Everyone else saw her as an alien, just waiting for the right time to attack.

  Or something. She’d never asked, because that would be awkward.

  “I killed four of them. One was pretty close. Three more were hiding a couple miles north of us,” she said over her shoulder. The oil lamps flickered as her wings passed by them, and she instinctively shied away.

  “Were there traces of any more?” Keven asked. He didn’t sound particularly worried. More like… annoyed.

  Nineteen going on forty. Nyx snickered to herself but straightened up when he growled from behind her. “Are you sure you can’t read minds?” she asked, because this had happened before.

  “Pretty sure I
’d know if I could.”

  “Right. Of course you would. But would you tell me if you could?”

  “Nope.”

  “In that case, I won’t tell you if there were traces of more Garce.”

  She could imagine his long suffering eye roll without even turning around, and she hid a grin.

  They reached the doorway with its imposing wood door and iron bars. It was at least 200 years old, but it held. She dug the key out of the little leather bag that she kept around her waist, and fitted it in the lock. Suddenly realizing how tired she was, she yawned and slumped down the stairs. “Night, Keven.”

  “See ya, Nyx.”

  She heard him lock the door behind her, not to keep her in, but to keep them out. The rest of the humans. Because more than once they’d tried to kill her in her sleep. Luckily for her, their guns and knives didn’t do much but hurt. A lot. No, the only things that could kill her were the Garce, the sun, and being hit by a blood ball.

  I really need a name for them, she mused around a yawn, tripping lightly down the stone steps. Blood ball sounds so disgusting.

  She’d taken a little “shopping trip” to the local furniture store, dismantled a bed, and carried it all down here. Then she’d rebuilt it. More “shopping trips” to get pretty bedding and rugs and an armoire to hold all the clothes she couldn’t figure out how to wear because of her wings. A vanity too, because she liked to check and make sure her skin was still white, and not blue. No lights, no lamps. She didn’t need them. Now, she tugged her dress off her head and then over her wings and tossed it in the corner to wash later. Her leggings were still relatively clean, so she folded them and put them away. She pulled an oversize shirt over her head, stuffing her wings through the slits in the back, and then collapsed on her bed, breathing hard. Changing clothes is super hard. No wonder the Pys all have magic clothes… or whatever they are. Maybe I should sneak back to their birthing pods and take another “shopping trip.” Just the thought sent her into a panic, so she struggled to her feet and found the brush sitting on the vanity. Once, her hair had been black. Maybe dark brown, depending on whether you asked her dad (who had black hair), or her mom (who had brown hair). Now, it was definitely black, except for the wide, bright blue streaks. It never got tangled, never got messy, but she brushed it anyway, then braided it because super thick, super long alien hair liked to get in her face at the worst possible moments. Finally, Nyx dug for the chain around her neck, drawing the small Phoenix charm to her lips.