by Trisha Telep
Through the window, the sky was taking on brown and orange hues. Dawn couldn’t be far off. He checked his watch again. Half past five or so.
“It’s here.” Bethany’s voice sounded higher-pitched than usual. She popped up above the counter, emptied her magazine through the broken wall then crouched back. A riposte several seconds long made ribbons of decorative banners, swiss cheese of partitions and clanged against the waiting area’s aluminium poles. Cain pulled the empty magazine, dropped it, loaded the last three shells he had. The incendiaries.
The doors slid apart. He didn’t need to urge her to be quick about it when she passed him at full sprint. He backpedalled into the giant funicular made of bay windows and steel beams. Spawns had begun to land around the broken glass and scrambled inside the tight opening. Like vultures trying to squeeze in through a doggy door. Gunshot accompanied them. The keepers were close, too.
Cain fired the first of the incendiary shells. Magnesium and flint cores, they’d been meant to penetrate the target and blow it up from the inside. The closest spawn caught it in the belly. Its bony ridges and skeleton triggered the charge. As the elevator pinged its arrival, the spawn exploded. A firestorm that reached the cathedral ceiling. Flames leaped out in all directions. Because he wouldn’t be able to use the incendiary shell up in the tower, he fired a second one into the lobby. The conflagration turned the air desert-dry and oven-hot. Gunshot stopped. Wails and shrieks drowned even the swoosh of blood flow in his ears. As the doors closed, a wave of heat buffeted the cabin.
At the rate of seven feet a second, the funicular took them up towards the tower’s apex. Around them, Montreal had begun to wake. Deep orange slashes crisscrossed the sky. Dawn was less than an hour away.
“We need a plan.” Cain turned to her, caught the look of pain she quickly masked beneath her usual bravado. “Ideas?”
“Lemme think, okay.” Bethany leaned against the wall, closed her eyes. Cain wasn’t fast enough to keep her from sinking to her butt. Her rictus of agony cut through his temporary shell shock.
“Where are you hurt?” He leaned over so he could take a look.
“I’m good,” she replied through her teeth. “Nothing to it.”
Bright red blood seeped through her fingers as she pressed a hand to her hip. Cain knelt by her side. “You’re not good, a spawn got you.”
“Not for the first time.” She grinned, grimaced. “We should start our own biz, you and me. It’d be fun.”
“Fun like tonight? No, thanks.”
Cain peeled her fingers off the messy wound. An injury from a spawn’s demonic touch wouldn’t heal unless cleansed with holy water. Fever would set in, infection, hallucinations. For this woman, a long and agonizing death that could take years before another trip downstairs. At least she had a run of secrets to show for it. Asmodeus might leave her alone and send her back up right away. If she were very lucky.
“You know how it goes, Bethany. You know how it always ends for those like us.”
“I know. I just . . .” She cleared her throat. “I wanted it to be different.”
As soon as they reached the top, Cain slipped his arms under Bethany and carried her just outside the door. She winced when he deposited her back on to the carpeted floor. He then dragged a metal garbage can from the landing, dropped it in the funicular doorway so none of the keepers or Berith’s unfortunate host could call it down to them. The doors closed with a ping, hit the garbage can and slid back out again. And again. The funicular would stay at the top. Plus, if all went well – and his luck suddenly turned for the better – they’d need a ride down.
The sky was turning orange and mauve, with bands of brown and amber across the horizons. Daylight was minutes away. Not fast enough.
“Hold still.” Cain pulled out of his coat pocket a handful of the little bags of holy water. They looked like fast food packets of ketchup. He tore one open, dribbled some between her fingers, then more right into the wound while she held the torn vinyl wide. Blood and holy water turned her white outfit pink.
The spawn’s talon must have dug deeper than he’d thought. There was so much blood. Too much. He used all his holy water to make sure the wound was clean. Working on the gash also meant he didn’t have to meet her gaze, which she kept on his face the entire time. Neither stated the obvious futility of cleaning a mortal wound.
“Would you stay?” Bethany asked.
He knew what she meant.
“Yeah.” He sat by her side, knees drawn up. She’d pulled herself to a sitting position along the wall. A more dignified way to go.
Fresh blood continued seeping through her fingers. “It’s too bad.”
“What is?”
“Timing,” she grunted. “I – I would’ve . . . asked you out . . . like on a real date. Been meaning to for years.” She smiled despite what must have been terrible pain. “You won’t . . . b– believe this, but I’m kind of shy.”
Cain laughed. Couldn’t help it. “Yeah, shy. We can always plan for next time.” He didn’t know if either of them would be sent back to the mortal plane after such a huge fuck-up. He knew for a fact Berith would want some time to play with him before he shot him back up to earth. If he did.
“I just wish . . . I – I just wish things were different.”
He patted her knee. Heat seeped into his cold hand and he found taking it off her was much harder than it should have been. So he left it on her leg. She pressed her own hand over his. Blood coated their skin. A bond made of pain.
“Take them, okay.”
Cain shook his head. “It’s your only bargaining chip, without them, Asmodeus—”
“He would anyway. And I d – don’t give a shit.” She grimaced as she reached into her belt. “Take them.”
Earlier that night, he would’ve done anything to get his hand on the little black box Bethany presently proffered. But as he looked at it now, he didn’t have the heart to take it from a dying woman’s hands. Especially Bethany’s hands. “It won’t make a difference for me. I pissed him off too many times.”
Bethany rested her head on his shoulder. “Lied to the cops. Wrapped my car . . . around a telephone pole.” She pulled her hand away from the wound, rubbed her crimson fingers together. “Killed t-two others . . . was drunk.”
Cain understood then why she’d been sent directly to the eighth level. He’d always wondered about that, because if the woman was a major pain in the butt, she didn’t look like a hardened criminal. But liars, cheaters and usurpers populated the eighth. And drunk drivers who pretended to be sober.
“You?”
Cain swallowed hard. “I killed two people, too. My brother Abel, then later, myself.”
“I knew . . . y-you were the Cain.”
What was there to say? He acquiesced with a nod.
She pressed the little box in his hand. “D-don’t be a hero.” Her voice grew weak, her eyes closed. “I hope . . . see you . . .” Her head lolled on her chest.
He knew she still lived because her body hadn’t yet burst out in ashes and glowing embers. But he checked for a pulse at her neck, wanting it to be steady and strong. Weak, shallow. Barely there. She wouldn’t be waking again.
Cain took the little black box, slippery with Bethany’s blood, and turned it around in his hand. He’d watched Berith gorge on secrets, all at once like a glutton, or savour them one at a time, placing the fragile gold paillettes on his tongue. He’d seen demons sell them for more damned souls like Bethany and him. Like cards on a poker table.
He was done being played.
Around him, the Montreal skyline turned brighter. Almost dawn.
Four
Don’t be a hero.
He hated them right now, demons and spawns, angels, too, even the good kind. They couldn’t stop meddling with people’s lives, trying to pull the blanket on to their side. Jealous freaks, the lot of them. They didn’t have souls, and it burned them to think monkey-men had them, when clearly, they were inferior. Like a
nimals.
Cain couldn’t have been less hero material. But that didn’t mean he intended to make it easy for hell to get its claws back into him. They wanted the secrets, they could come pry them out of his dead fingers. Fuck them. Fuck Berith.
“Wait here, okay,” he murmured, even though he knew Bethany couldn’t hear him any longer. “After it’s all done, I’ll come find you.”
He gently laid her down on her side and stood. After he gathered what ammo Bethany still had strapped to her, he straightened and caught movement in the reflective glass to his left. Cain only had time to whirl around. A split second later, something resembling a giant bat crashed against one of the glass walls. A spawn. Shudders traversed the floor. Ominous cracking sounds reverberated along the ceiling and down the concrete half walls. Dust floated around him like tiny snowflakes.
Through the windows, more spawns circled the leaning tower. The sky filled with them. Another hit the glass walls, then another. Like birds hitting a windshield. Wails and shrieks made Cain’s ears hiss.
He had to put as much distance as he could between Bethany and him, if only to spare her the sordid violations those keepers had in mind for her. He wouldn’t let them get their hands on her, even dead.
He couldn’t.
Time slowed. Noise came to him dimmed and dulled like standing across the street from a pounding discotheque. The smell of sulphur choked the air. There were two ways down from here. He couldn’t go back the way he’d come for fear of the other keepers getting their hands on Bethany. His sacrifice wouldn’t make that much of a difference in where she’d wake up, but at least they wouldn’t go after the defenceless woman. It’d at least buy her a serene death.
Cain jumped on to the glass ledge. Two feet wide, he stood directly on it, well away from Bethany.
“Come get me,” he growled through his teeth. “You fuckers.”
Cain aimed his Luger down between his feet and fired his second to last bullet. The shot went through the tempered glass and widened the spider web already there. Lines crackled outward, turned milky white like a small frozen puddle. But instead of hitting the frozen ground, when this “puddle” shattered nothing but air caught him. With a growl, he fell through the hole.
Spawns converged on him. They hit and slashed him with their serrated claws and scalpel-sharp fangs. Something gave in his shoulder. In his descent, he managed to twist face-up. Such a pretty sky. A spawn dived for him and grabbed Cain by the torso. He felt his skin perforating. Wet warmth spread. Blood everywhere, falling up from him in a reversed crimson rain. Wind howled but couldn’t drown his laugh. Cain was dying. He shot his last bullet right into the monster’s face. It wailed and dropped him.
What a fucking way to go.
Out of nowhere a bright white glow sliced the air.
What the—?
Spawns screeched. The light reached him with the speed of a bullet. Something caught him, and Cain humphed with the sudden deceleration that squished his innards back along his spine. Whatever – whoever – had caught him couldn’t be seen for the brilliant glow that enveloped the stout form. All he knew was that as soon as the being caught him, spawns had flown away in a flurry of leathery wings and frustrating shrieks. Wind abated, the angle changed, and Cain was gently deposited to the ground where he collapsed to his knees, forehead against the concrete and hands splayed on either side. Too weak to stand, barely strong enough to lift his head to look at his saviour.
The being straightened up. A pair of feathered wings like golden horns thrust heavenward on either side. Cain understood. Of all the weird things he’d witnessed, this took the prize. What the fuck was going on?
The glow abated, the wings folded behind a pair of stooped shoulders and a head clad in a hand-knitted cap he would’ve recognized anywhere. He couldn’t believe his eyes.
“You’re heavier than you look,” Sister Evangeline said. Her hands moved rapid-fire.
Cain struggled up to his knees, panting and gagging. He patted his side where the spawn had sliced him. Nothing. Not even blood. Jesus on a cross . . .
“What have you done?” he panted. “You’re an angel? Why didn’t I see you as you really are?”
She sucked her teeth. “You’re welcome, mon garçon.”
Cain sat on his heels because he couldn’t stand. Not because of his injuries, as he couldn’t seem to find a single one, despite being cut and shredded and sliced in many places during the two-second fall from the funicular. He took a few deep breaths, closed his eyes. When he thought he wouldn’t stumble around like a drunk, he stood slowly, cautiously, as if trying on a brand new pair of legs. Everything felt different somehow and he couldn’t place why. Even the cold against his exposed skin felt sharper. He shivered.
Reality pressed back on him. He was only delaying the inevitable. Berith was waiting for him. “It won’t change anything.”
“It will,” she retorted. “Plus, you wouldn’t have survived the fall.”
“It doesn’t matter. He would’ve sent me back. After playing a bit with me first, of course. I pissed him off really good this time. Those secrets were worth a fortune in souls.” Fucking with Berith was worth the pain, though.
Sister Evangeline shook her head. “Not this time. You would have died. You would have squandered that life, too, just like you did the first.”
Cain took a moment to process the last part. “What—?”
She smiled and his theory was busted – because her eyes reflected the joy, unlike the other angels he’d met (not that they’d been the good kind, only fallen ones or hybrids).
A shiver tickled up his spine. “Do you mean . . . ?” He couldn’t even force the words out. It couldn’t be. He’d never heard of it. He was seeing things, or Berith was playing a cruel joke on him.
She nodded. “He’s all about second chances, you know. Even if people whine all the time and waste the years away.”
He couldn’t believe what was happening. “How? I . . . I killed my own brother! How can he forgive me? What did I do?”
“Abel forgave you a long time ago, Cain. Live here and now. You could have left with the secrets, or you could have let the demons take her when they first caught up. Instead, you put the bull’s eye right between your own. You jumped to save her.”
Cain could hardly process the chain of thought. It was all a blur in his mind. It couldn’t be. He’d never have to go back there again? He’d never have to look into Berith’s ugly face? He was free from hell?
His elation quickly crystallized. “What about her? She belongs to Asmodeus.”
The older woman’s kindly eyes glowed white-hot for a moment and terrible, godly anger once more swelled her wings with glacial wind. Her hair stood on end, crackles of electricity joined her splayed fingers. Cain took a step back. “Do not speak their name!” Then the smile was back again as she seemed to deflate to her normal appearance. As if nothing had happened.
Sneaky angels.
Cain looked up at where the funicular light gradually descended to ground level. His heart leaped. What the hell was going on? Had one of the keepers snuck up there? Was Bethany still alive, in the hands of some hell-bought thug?
“Why do you worry about her?” The Sister’s hands flashed rapidly. “You like her?”
His first reaction was to snort a denial. Instead, what came out was a strangled, “Yeah, so?”
Sister Evangeline winked. “You think He’d bring you back to true life, only to make it miserable? She was going to get a second chance, eventually. But you.” She dropped her hands before starting to sign again. “You’re the one who surprised us all. Even Him.”
The Sister’s wings gradually receded, until nothing showed. She was once again an older woman with a messenger bag slung across her shoulders and a hand-knitted wool hat screwed on low. “Keep her out of trouble. I’m not going to pull you out of the roaster again. Already lost a few feathers for you two.”
“Yeah, I thought you guys didn’t have feathers.”
“Are you comparing me to the scum who turned their backs on Him? Merci beaucoup. That’s because you’d never seen a real angel. Until now.”
She turned and walked away before he could reply. Not that he had anything to say.
A faint sound caught his ear. He instinctively reached for his shotgun, which wasn’t there but somewhere between the base of the tower and the stadium itself. Shit. Wouldn’t that be grand to lose it minutes after being granted a new chance at life? Adrenaline shifted when he spotted the source of the noise. Boot heels clacking on concrete.
Bethany was coming at him. Not stumbling or floundering or even walking, despite the injuries she’d just suffered. The blond was running for him like a sprinter after the shot went off. And she didn’t seem to have any intention of slowing down either. Such spirit. How the hell had she managed that?
He squared his stance a second before she reached him, grabbed the front of his ruined jacket and planted a kiss that landed like knuckles. He had his arms around her before the thought registered he was killing his reputation. He didn’t give a damn. Not any more. Not around her.
Bethany pulled away, panting, tears in her eyes. She smiled, shook her head. “What the hell is going on?”
“We got another chance.”
He’d never been one for theatrics and big declarations. Get to the point. Life was too short for bullshit.
Her megawatt smile warmed him right down to his gut. “I’m hungry.”
“Yeah. A steak would be nice. Lots of blood and gravy.”
“Who said anything about food?” Bethany chuckled.
Cain could get used to that sound. In fact, he intended to do just that.
Marine Biology
