He heard his cynical girl gasp. The universe was, indeed, made of wondrous stuff. The Boss’s ever-present laughter charged the glittering energy of the nexus with potent joy. Lance felt supercharged, like he’d consumed a quad shot cappuccino. This was how angels fed—the sheer astonishing reality of the cosmos.
A dull brown streak besmirched the fabric of reality. It looked as though someone had smeared feces over a gleaming horse’s hide.
Lance grasped the blade of the sharp sword, slicing open his hand. Since his physical body was merely symbolic of his will, he felt no pain.
His angel blood was real, though. His fluids mixed with John’s, mixing his angelic essence with that of a Guide.
“Where is he?” Lance demanded of the swirling lights.
A portal appeared with a shuddering, snakelike ripple. A viper’s mouth, extra-hinged and lined with fangs, opened. The air rippled, leading to a pocket dimension that shouldn’t have been there. Another blast of sour sulfur assaulted the two searchers.
“Those fuckers.” Valerie’s voice was low and angry.
Sometime during the ritual, she had pulled a duffel of weapons from the car and slung it over her back. The snake hissed back at them, fangs dripping green drops of ichor. It spit at them, but Lance’s wings repelled the deadly assault.
“This is a really stupid way to arrange getting your ass killed off.” Under the warm shelter of his wings, Valerie strapped a machete to her thigh. Her voice sounded careless and disinterested, but Lance smelled the concern on her, an unlikely combination of magnolia and jasmine.
Concern for John only? Perhaps for him as well? He set the thought aside and transformed his sword to the magnifier. As the viper swayed, he scrutinized the portal.
“The kidnapping is Lucifer’s plan. He wants to regain me by threatening John.” Lance tightened his sword belt. “The pocket dimension? That’s a counterplan.”
“Whatever. Someone has John.” She buttoned her dragon coat over her belly. “Ready?”
He manifested a shirt pocket over his heart, and tucked the magnifying glass there. Drawing his sword, Lance saluted the viper. “They will test us with our deepest temptations. If we fail, John will be forfeit.”
“Fuck them.” She bared her own fangs at the snake. “Let’s dance.”
Lance threaded their fingers together and they dove into the snake’s gullet.
CHAPTER 20
John turned over in the too-soft bed. Musty linens settled over his face, making him sneeze. Whatever rustic pensione Valerie and he were vacationing in, they were not coming back. Some crazy travel guides suggested sleeping in haylofts; John preferred his creature comforts.
His head throbbed in time to his pulse as though he had been drinking cheap wine; the boom-boom of his heart sounded like a war hammer. His back hurt as if someone had clobbered him with a two-by-four.
He took a tentative breath, waiting for his overachieving immune system to take care of the pains.
“Husband?”
A childishly sweet voice echoed in John’s ear. He hmmmmed in protest at being disturbed. It was the weekend, a lazy two days for a break from Valerie’s endless, futile research. Especially since she was supposed to bring him croissants and jam in bed this morning. He smacked his lips. Yuck. His mouth was dry and gummy.
“Are you awake, darling? I have missed you so much.”
Wait a minute.
This voice was tentative, lacking Valerie’s assured tones. His mind might be foggy and his mouth disgusting, but there was nothing wrong with his nose. John’s nose crinkled at the conflicting scents of lavender, wood smoke, and sulfur.
What the hell was he doing surrounded by Fallen Angels?
His eyelids scraped over his eyeballs as though they were lined with sandpaper. A blond waif with full lips and a gap between her front teeth smiled at him. Her eyes were grotesquely wide, like those of the famous black velvet paintings of children. Her smile revealed the fragility of her mind. Something had stretched this poor woman’s brain to its limit. Best to remain noncommittal until he gathered more information.
“I’m awake.” John managed to sit upright on the overstuffed bed. Lace dripped like clinging tentacles from every surface of the bedroom. An old-style wood-burning stove overheated the room, the air too dry to breathe comfortably.
“Jonathon, do you remember me? It’s your Mina. Father went to such trouble to find you.” The blonde’s soft but clammy hands cupped his unshaven face. He felt his stubble scrape the overly soft skin of her palms. “I’ve left your room just as you like it.”
Whoever Jonathon was, he must have liked his rooms dusty and shut away.
A mutton-chopped man in an old-fashioned suit stood in the doorway of the bedroom. “You’ve been gone a long time, boy. You gave our girl quite the scare.” He nodded at John.
Mina’s father was a Fallen Angel. So was the maid quietly removing a pitcher of bloody water from a washstand. Another Fallen, dressed as a footman, waited by the door of this overstuffed bedroom. John’s ears pricked up at the sound of at least four more roaming what appeared to be a staid Victorian house.
Were these guys suicidal? They knew the price of damaging a Guide. John touched the shrinking but still large knot on his temple. They had most certainly damaged this Guide.
“I am most glad to be here and safe in such good company,” he responded to the wan blonde and her so-called father. At the mild threat in his voice, the maid twitched. The blue and white porcelain pitcher sloshed dirty water over her cuffs.
At the father’s glance, she scuttled out of the bedroom. The woman Mina hadn’t moved her hands from John’s face.
“Darling, please. Don’t you know me?”
As gently as possible, he took Mina’s hands in his. “I am sorry. I don’t think I am your husband. I do know that I have had a difficult and exhausting trip. I would feel more myself with a bath and some food.”
“Oh!” Mina scrambled off the too-tall bed, clouds of powdery dirt following her descent. “I will arrange both for you.” She tugged on a curtain tie of red brocade that hung from the ceiling. A hidden bell chimed merrily, incongruous in this dark household.
“Mina, let us allow our guest some privacy for his toilette. We will meet you downstairs.” The father nodded at John again, his eyes desperate for understanding.
John bent his head seemingly in acknowledgment of the Fallen’s words, but instead, hid his face until everyone had left the room.
Once alone, he pushed his hair away from his still-tired face. He had to buy time for his vampire to find Lance and come for the rescue. The two, together, would find him no matter where this strange bunch had concealed themselves.
Of course she would come. He knew Valerie. She had trouble letting go of those she loved. After all, she had named her car after a long-dead woman. Despite Lance’s abandonment, she ate clove-laden food. For sweet Jesus’ sake, she had refused to play her viola for anyone but her former wife.
Yes. She would come and she would be exceedingly displeased with this state of affairs. It was up to him to prevent her reversion. The poor girl was so bad at being nonlethal.
John pushed the covers off his lap. To top all this off, he was butt-naked in the bed.
Swell. He was naked and helpless, in an undisclosed location, with no weapons but his wits.
So what else was new?
CHAPTER 21
Glen Ellyn, Illinois
John Janté rolled over in the too-hard, lumpy bed. The rough sheets smelled of bleach, and his bedroom was too damn bright. Had he forgotten to draw the curtains?
His mother would have a fit if he had come in after one in the morning. She did not understand the almost perfectly peaceful nights when Lance, Theresa Madden, and John tangled together on a sofa and watched movies. How could he break the spell of something so close to what they needed?
Speaking of his mother, why was she not singing along to the latest music from Paris? Why was the house so sil
ent?
John opened his eyes. He was not in his bedroom in Danville. He was in a small white room with a white bed with cheap white sheets on his bed. His family would never allow such dreadful decorating. They were French. Being surrounded by beauty was not an option in their opinion.
Where were his pictures of France, the colorful wooden masks he collected, the photos of his family, his closets of clothes? He reached for his neck. Empty.
Where was his medallion, the symbol of his destiny?
His stomach twisted in fear. Panicked, he twisted on the bed, looking for clues.
Thin plastic hoses attached to his arms tangled as he wrestled with the bedclothes. “What the hell?” he cursed, but it came out more of a “Waaahhllll?” Another tube was stuffed in his mouth.
He set his feet on the floor and shook his head. Something behind him made a loud squealing noise. A large machine with blinking lights and green readouts screamed at him.
He caught a glimpse of his face on the reflective surface of the machine.
Too pale, too thin, too weak. Too damn hairy. He looked like a hobo. What the hell? His mind stumbled over where he was and what he was doing. The last thing he remembered was a worm-riddled tongue reaching for his body. He believed he would die.
Obviously, he lived. What had happened?
The one splotch of color in the entire room was a bland poster that read ST. CHARLES’ NURSING HOME.
Spying a calendar on the wall, John froze like a frightened animal.
He’d lost years of his life. Was his nana even alive still? What about his parents?
And where was Lance? Not that John was a secret romantic or anything, but there were no hints that anyone, let alone someone as rambunctious as Lance, had visited. Not like they had been lovers, but John had been so certain it would happen. He had been completely abandoned by his friend as soon as the full knowledge of his past had hit Lance.
Now what? John rested his elbows on his knees and supported his head in his hands.
A week later, a fully recovered John walked out of the nursing home and into a taxi. His doctors called his healing a miracle; they liked to use that word when they had no idea what happened.
All John knew was that he might be thin, but he had his intellect, his Guide medallion, and now, accelerated healing. His duty to Lance, to help the penitent Fallen Angel to gain redemption, was still undone but John had his own life to consider. He would escape this flat state with its iceberg lettuce, return to France, and make his way. Alone.
Hours later, John settled into the international terminal at O’Hare Airport. A young woman sat across from him. Their gazes met.
She bit her lip and looked away. A few seconds later, she glanced back at him. Her brown hands smoothed her micro-braids away from her face.
For the first time in years, John smiled.
Perhaps he wouldn’t be too alone, after all.
CHAPTER 22
Disgusted, Valerie placed her hands on her hips. Pocket dimensions were supposed to be horrifying. Perhaps a steamy overgrown jungle swarming with deadly fauna. Or a mass grave crammed with the rotting bodies of her dead.
But the glossy, expensive shops at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas? She sheathed her machete. Shopping was not a torment. At least the place was pretty.
The desert sun gilded the caryatids who held up the ceiling into lushly robed angels. The domed ceiling of the three-story mall was painted with Renaissance-style beasts and dancers. Their vivid colors were reflected into the spotless plate-glass windows. The spiraling escalator echoed lightly against the empty hall.
An eight-hundred-dollar bra and panty set pranced in front of a curtain of flawless crystals. Dresses of gleaming silk and intricate hand-stitched embroidery draped on tufted seats as though waiting for a lover. Everything luxurious and sensual that had been forbidden by her when she had to be a man. The desire for such things had been beaten out of her by her parents long ago. Besides, her mission to punish war criminals had no place for expensive and delicate things that would get torn as she climbed mountains and decapitated monsters.
Resolute, she turned away, only to fall headlong into … lipstick.
Orange and brown and red and pink. Glossy. Matte. Sheer. Semi-sheer. Sponges on sticks filled with sticky, shiny gloss. Tubes of color. Pots and brushes and glitter.
Clank. Her machete beat against glass. Valerie shuddered to a halt, her hips pressed hard against a display case and her fingers coated in slippery color. She wiped her hands and stood at disdainful attention.
“Lipstick? You thought you could distract me with fucking cosmetics?”
Disgusted, she kicked open one of the mall’s exit doors.
Instead of the concrete river of Las Vegas Boulevard, she landed on a plain surrounded by stark mountains. Dry yellow dust coated her shoes. This was the interior of the Anatolian peninsula.
Not here. Not this hell.
“Mom?” the child asked.
“Don’t watch this.” Valerie cradled her belly as though she could blindfold the baby. No innocent should see what was about to happen.
“Tell me why.”
Valerie did not know much about child raising. But then and there she swore she would answer all her child’s questions, no matter how difficult.
“I was eleven. I had been sent as a hostage to the Ottoman court by my parents. It went … badly.”
Living through it had turned her into a hate-filled killer. Watching helplessly, unable to stop the past, was true torment.
1442
“So you still think you can escape, little princess?” Salih, the head guard of this godforsaken prison, dragged young Vlad by his hair across the courtyard toward the barracks. “Why do you leave your happy home? Death is all that awaits you in the desert.”
Vlad scrambled as best he could to keep up, but the dust, rocks, and broken pottery ground into Vlad’s already-abraded skin. All the other times Vlad had been dragged back, he’d fought Salih by biting, gouging, pinching, and punching. Today, though, Vlad’s broken hands and black eyes prevented him from defending himself. Every shred of knowledge of fighting he’d learned from his parents gained nothing.
“You know by now there is nothing you can do, nowhere to go. Your family fears and loves Sultan Murad too much to want you back.” The Turk laughed as he dragged the almost-teenager into his own quarters.
Vlad hated the sultan of the Ottomans nearly as much as he hated Salih.
“I swear, little pigeon, you must love the lash as much as you disobey me.” Yanking hard on Vlad’s hair, he forced the Romanian to look into his face. “All you have to do is ask for it, and I would gladly flog you.” Salih traced Vlad’s cheek with the back of his free hand. “You know what it would take to make this easy on you, my princess. Embrace me as a girl should embrace her lover.”
Dazed, hungry, beaten, Vlad yanked hard against Salih’s grip, the pain on his scalp nothing compared to the rage in his heart.
“I am not your princess. I am not a girl,” Vlad spat. “I am a man.”
Salih merely laughed. “You and I both know better.” He snaked a dirty hand into Vlad’s trousers. Vlad screamed as the rough skin pulled at the mutilated, abused flesh.
Salih kept his name constantly carved on Vlad’s mound. “To mark that this is mine,” he’d boasted upon discovering the boy’s secret. Then he kept the wounds open by constantly penetrating the once-untouched vagina with anything he could think of, including his penis, his knife, fish hooks, wooden splinters—anything. The guard had disfigured the once-smooth flesh beyond all recognition.
Salih shook his head as Vlad pulled away from the violation.
“Over and over again, I show you your rightful place. Any natural woman would know what to do, but your family …” He sighed with mock sadness. “Since you seem so reluctant to ride my pole, you will ride whatever I order.”
He tossed Vlad into the side courtyard. Vlad elbowed himself off the ground and froze at the fres
hly installed stake. It was no longer than the length of Salih’s hand, but the sight filled Vlad with fresh terror. Salih uncorked a jug and poured oil on the stake, stroking it in a parody of masturbation.
“Perhaps this will be more to your liking, my fussy little princess.” Salih laughed.
He picked Vlad up like a baby and settled him on the pointed end of the wood. Pressing downward, he forced the oiled wood into Vlad’s violated orifice.
Hours later, Vlad lay in his cell, the dogs of the compound huddled against him, sharing their heat. They were his only friends here. Surrounded by warm, dusty fur, he plotted.
He would survive this. He would live to pull Salih’s miserable cock off his bloated body and then show him just what impalement could do.
Vlad would not die until his revenge was complete.
Valerie knelt by her damaged younger self. The dogs eyed her insubstantial form but remained calm. Silently, she thanked them. They had been Vlad’s only comfort.
The Fallen had created a subtle and cruel torture, indeed. Shoved her inability to save her own self, and therefore her inability to save John or Ilona down her dry throat. The only consolation was how proud Vlad had been, not crying or showing his captors any weakness.
“That Salih was seriously screwed up.” Her daughter’s voice was quiet but certain. “You know that, right?”
Valerie’s ghostlike hands stroked the nearest dog. “It was just part of the life back then.”
“We will stop people from doing those things when I get older.”
“It’s a deal, kid,” Valerie responded. A flicker of pride at her girl’s determination melted the anger that tightened Valerie’s jaw.
“I got my revenge many years later,” she told her child. “He was delicious.”
Idly, she dug a nail into the dust, swirling it into the memory of her retribution.
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