He screamed, dropping the knife and releasing his grip on her hair. But her jaw only tightened as he tried to pull away. He grabbed her head and pulled as hard as he could, and she took a chunk of his arm with her as he tossed her across the parking lot.
Celeste landed in a crouch and slowly got to her feet. Her mouth was covered with so much blood, it dribbled down her chin. She spat a crimson chunk of flesh and muscle onto the ground. The priest was busy staring at his injury. Whatever the angel had done to them probably made them pretty resistant to pain, but it looked like it didn’t do much to protect them from shock.
But as for her? She felt better than ever. The charge from their blood was almost like drinking from Luther. Not quite as powerful, but it was a definite step up from the blood of a normal human.
In his shock, she went for her next attack, charging him and knocking him to the ground. She straddled him and bit into his neck. He tried to scream, but no sound came. She kept drinking, waiting until his heart finally stopped.
Now there was just one more. And she just hoped she wasn’t too late to stop him from killing Luther.
* * *
I drew the knife, staring at Luxton as I held it in a standard grip. He smiled at me and the two of us sized each other up. Dakota was still behind me. I looked at the end of the church and saw the doors were still there.
“What’d you mean when you asked about my body?” I asked.
Luxton chuckled and shook his head. “Oh, Luther, Luther, Luther… Did you really think you could invade my bride’s dreams without us knowing? As long as you’re in here—” he held his arms out to gesture to the dreamscape “—you’re vulnerable out there.”
“And how do you know where I am out there?”
Luxton raised his index finger and wagged it. “That would spoil the surprise. Maybe you should leave now before it’s too late.”
He was trying to get me to leave? Why not stall until whoever he sent after me in the real world could kill me?
Wait, of course. I glanced at Dakota. He wanted me to leave before knowing where she was. He knew he couldn’t stop her from telling me—he was scared of her. Of the power she could draw while she was connected to the nephilim.
“I’ll leave when I’m good and ready.” I hurled the dagger at Luxton. It spun through the air before striking him in the chest.
He grunted and looked down at the weapon, buried in to the hilt. One hand wrapped around the handle and he tugged on it, slowly liberating the dagger from his body. I didn’t want to wait until he could give it back, so I grabbed Dakota and pulled her down the aisle with me.
“We have to get to the doors!” I said. “You still got that location in mind?”
“Yeah, but what about him?”
“Don’t worry about him. First we gotta find out where you are before it’s too late.”
We ran down the aisle towards the double doors at the end. If we could reach them, Dakota could show me where she was.
But as we ran, the doors didn’t seem to get any closer. If anything, they seemed to get further and further away. I stopped and sighed, turning around when I heard Luxton’s laughter. It was like we hadn’t moved at all.
“Don’t you get it?” he said. “I control this place.”
“Is that so?” I asked.
“Of course.” Luxton descended the steps down from the dais. “You may be strong out there, Luther…but in here, I’m a god.”
“Might have a little more pull than you realize.” I held out my hand, concentrating my energy. Using magic in the dreamscape was no different from using it in the real world—draw power from the realm, focus your intent, know the proper incantations. “Incendium!”
I extended my fingers, and when I did, the spot where Luxton was standing exploded, bursting into wild flames. He screamed as his entire body became consumed by them, and soon the fire spread to the rest of the church. It caught the pews on fire, latching on to the parishioners and burning them alive.
“No!” Dakota reached out for her friends, who just continued staring and smiling at her.
I grabbed her arm and held her back, preventing her from running to them. “Stop it! They’re not real!”
“But—”
“Look at me!” I spun her and held her tightly by the shoulders, staring right into her eyes. “They’re. Not. Real. You and me, that’s real. And we have to go. Now.”
The confusion in her eyes was obvious. Couldn’t really blame the girl, either. The dreamscape could easily seem like reality to many people. Especially when you were watching the people you know burn alive, so much so that you could even smell the flesh cooking.
We ran for the door and I gripped her hand tightly. As soon as we reached the doors, I looked down at her. “Remember, concentrate on where you are right now.”
She took a breath and pushed open the doors. We stepped through and found ourselves outside in a wide-open field. There was a house, the only one around for miles. I looked around, trying to look for some landmark, something that would point to where she was.
“Goddamn, this could be just about anywhere in the Midwest…” I muttered.
Dakota pulled me along with her, towards the house. I went along at first, but then stopped and tugged on her hand.
“Hold on, you sure that’s wise?” I asked.
Without looking back at me, she said, “You have to see.”
She pulled on my hand even more and I relented, following behind her. The two of us walked towards the white house. It looked a little nicer than the house from before, about two stories tall. An old house, maybe built around the beginning of the twentieth century. We passed through the fence and walked towards the steps leading up to the front porch.
And then I saw it on the door. Or, rather, on the mailbox right beside the door. An address.
* * *
The old priest went into the back area where he saw Luther’s unconscious body sitting on the ground. There was one person standing between him and his prey—an old blind woman who fixed her white eyes on him. He couldn’t help but chuckle.
“My dear, you’ll want to get out of the way.” He drew a knife from his jacket and held it up for her to see. “I don’t want to use this on you, too.”
Cassandra said nothing. Her face took on a look of increased concentration. She narrowed her eyes and winds began to pick up. Invisible forces buffeted the priest, keeping him from advancing further.
“Dunno what those angel boys did to you, but whatever it is, it’s no match for a real psychic, sweetie-pie,” she said.
“Is that so?” The old priest smiled and his eyes flashed.
Cassandra was thrown from her spot, striking the wall. She couldn’t move from it, pinned there by the old priest. He allowed her to drop after a moment and went straight for Luther. He knelt in front of the cambion, smiling as he gently traced the knife along Luther’s bald head.
“This is what happens when you defy the Lord, my friend.” He raised the knife, about to bring it down. Before he could, something grabbed his wrist. The priest looked back in surprise and saw Celeste standing there, the blood of his colleagues dripping from her lips.
“And this is what happens when you piss off a vampire.”
She broke his arm and he screamed, the knife clattering to the ground. She went in to bite him, but his eyes flashed, hurling her away from him with his mind. He looked at his broken arm, finding it difficult to move it at all, even without pain.
The priest wasn’t deterred, though. He picked up the dagger with his good hand and approached the cambion once again.
The priest raised the blade above Luther’s head, and then brought it down.
31
My eyes opened just in time to see a knife coming right towards my head.
I grabbed the attacker’s wrist, squeezing and twisting as I pointed the knife in a safer direction while I rose from my seated position on the floor. His eyes had a flash of blue in them but were otherwise brown,
and he was dressed like a priest, with silver hair and a beard.
“Old man,” I said, “you have no idea who you are fucking with.”
The knife clattered to the ground and I released his wrist so I could slam my open palm against his chest. He was thrown back, stumbling and crashing onto the ground. I looked in the corner of the room and saw Cassandra lying on the ground. Near the exit was Celeste, staring at me, both surprised and apparently grateful.
“What’d I miss?” I asked.
“This guy and two other holy rollers turned up wanting to kill you,” said Celeste.
“Interesting.” I reached into my jacket, glad to feel the weight of the real revolver in my hand again. I looked at the priest. “So why don’t you tell me who sent you before I blow your head off?”
The old priest looked up and his eyes flashed blue. Wait…that wasn’t supposed—
I couldn’t finish my thought—an invisible force threw me back and I toppled the hookah over, the gun slipping from my hand. Ash went everywhere; the smell of the coal burning the rug filled the air while water dribbled out from the base.
When I looked up at him again, the priest had thrown Celeste back out the exit without a thought. He held out a hand towards me, his fingers spread out and tensed. I felt a tightness in my chest, something gripping onto my heart. Just what was this guy? He was powerful, but not powerful enough to be an angel. Some kind of psychic like Cassandra?
“You have defied the Lord,” he said. “And for that, you must be cast into the fires of damnation!”
“Y-yeah…I remember that lullaby…”
That’s it, Cross. Make jokes. Not like your heart’s about to give out or anything. Pain ran down my left arm and I tried to focus my power. The dreamwalk had taken a lot more energy than I would’ve liked—contending with Luxton certainly hadn’t been part of the plan. And now I wake up to find this guy with an axe to grind.
I tried to get up, but just fell back down on my knees. The pain was all I could think about. I needed to do something before it was too late. I looked up and saw Cassandra on the ground, staring right back at me with her blank, white eyes. She nodded, a determined expression on her wrinkled face. What was she doing?
Her eyes started to glow, and suddenly, it was like I got a second wind. The pain started to subside in my chest and I could get to my feet—although I quickly found I had to brace myself against the wall to stay up. The priest looked just as surprised as me.
Next to the toppled hookah was my gun. I reached my hand for it, but the weapon shook. The priest must have realized what I was doing, because he reached for it, too, pitting his power against mine. It was a psychic tug-of-war between the two of us, both trying to get our hands on the means to kill the other. The gun hovered in the air, sometimes moving closer to me, sometimes to the priest, but more or less stuck in position.
I stared him in the eye, focusing what little power I had left. He was strong, there was no doubt about that. But me? I had no problem playing dirty.
“Ignis.”
There was a flash of red and a small flame appeared on his cuff. Not very large, but it was enough to distract him so the gun could fly into my hand. I raised it and fired into his left shoulder just as he put out the flame. The force of impact threw him against the wall and his right hand went to the wound. I fired another bullet into his right shoulder and he screamed.
Now free from his grip, both Cassandra and Celeste came up beside me, staring down at him. Without even looking up at them, I said, “We need to whip up a binding trap. I’ve got some questions I want to ask this piece of shit.”
* * *
After catching each other up on what we’d missed, Celeste went to take care of the two bodies outside before anyone noticed. In case anyone had turned up, Cassandra went with to alter memories. But Cassandra’s place was on a darkened street people rarely drove by—shouldn’t be much problem with the locals.
Down in the basement, I got to work on the binding. This guy wasn’t an angel, but he seemed to have some angel juice inside him. What was it Celeste had told me they said to her? That they’d been touched by the Holy Spirit?
Wasn’t quite sure what that meant, but my guess was it wasn’t anything good. The old priest squirmed from the corner where I’d put him in some iron shackles I kept in my trunk. The typical bindings that work on most supernatural beings aren’t as effective on angels—but they can slow them down. So, the shackles would do the trick for someone who’d been “touched by an angel.”
Wow, that sounds a lot dirtier than I expected.
Cassandra’s basement had cold, concrete floors. This was where she kept some of her more dangerous stuff. And it was also the perfect place to paint a sigil on the ground. I stood up and admired my work: Enochian script drawn in red paint with a circle around it.
I walked over to the priest and unhooked his chains from the pipe they were wrapped around and pulled him into the circle. I stepped back and stared at him. He did the same. Didn’t matter how many bullets I put in him; he still wasn’t scared of me.
“What’s your name?” I asked.
“Grissom,” he said.
“Okay, Grissom. You wanna tell me what you and your pals were doing here?”
“We were sent to kill you,” he spat, “demon.”
I chuckled and went for my cigarette case. “Not quite a demon, Grissom. I’m half-human, too.”
“I know. The angel told me.”
“Angel?” I raised an eyebrow as I lit the cigarette with my Zippo. “Did this angel have a name?”
“I never asked; he never offered.”
I drew on the cigarette and sighed. “So let me get this straight. Some whackjob turns up, tells you he’s an angel, and you just believe him?” I shook my head. “Man, no wonder church membership is dwindling.”
“I saw his wings.” Grissom looked up to the ceiling, clearly lost in his memory. “He was…he was beautiful.”
“Right, right, they’re all beautiful and perfect, like puppies crapping out sunshine.”
“You have no respect for power of Heaven, do you?”
I scoffed. “Buddy, I couldn’t give less of a shit about Heaven if I tried.” I leaned against the wall, sliding one hand into my pocket while I held the cigarette in my other. “What I’m interested in is four innocent girls who that angel friend of yours is holding hostage.”
Grissom shook his head. “No. You don’t understand—”
“Yeah, I do,” I said. “There were five, but one of them didn’t make it. Your angel buddy is trying to set up some franchises. And that can’t be allowed to happen.”
“I don’t know what you expect me to do, I don’t—”
“I’m not gonna ask you where he is. Because you see, I already know. What I want to know is, how did an old guy like you get so juiced up? Your buddy said you were ‘touched by the Holy Spirit.’ What exactly does that mean?”
“He gave us some of his power,” said Grissom.
I watched him carefully. I’d hoped Grissom could give me something I could use. And it looked like he came through.
“Now that’s interesting. You see, there’s a problem I’ve been having lately.”
I moved from the wall and approached him, drawing on the cigarette. Once I got close enough, I blew the smoke in his face. He closed his eyes, but otherwise didn’t flinch.
“I’ve got a pretty nasty angel on my ass. And I’ve been trying to find a way to ditch him. But he’s a persistent bastard.”
“And you think I’m going to help you?”
I smiled, taking another drag on the cigarette. I heard the door open and footsteps descending the steps. Turning my back on Grissom, I walked over and met Celeste at the foot of the wooden staircase.
“Bodies are all taken care of.” She glanced at Grissom. “Get anything from Santa Claus?”
“The angel behind this empowered him and his friends,” I said. “I just need to work a little summoning ritual and may
be I can get somewhere.”
“Summoning ritual?” asked Celeste with an incredulous expression. “And who exactly are you going to summon?”
“Raziel.”
As I turned from her, Celeste grabbed my arm and forced me to face her again. “Are you crazy? I’m a vampire. You’re a cambion. And the Angel of Death wants your head on a stick. So your solution is to invite another angel over for coffee? What is with your damn death wish, Luther?”
I shook my head and took another drag on the cigarette. “It’s not a death wish. I’ve got a job to do and—”
“A job? Why’s it your job to help this girl? Why’s it your job to go up against a rogue angel?”
“You see anyone else linin’ up to bat, Celeste? Because I sure don’t.”
“Let. It. Go.” She patted my chest to emphasize each word. “You don’t owe this girl a damn thing. Nor do you have any reason to help out those winged dicks when they won’t even help themselves. Tell Raziel what you know and then let’s just go home.”
“I can’t.” I dropped my cigarette on the ground and stepped on it. Turning away from Celeste, I approached the wall, taking my dagger from my jacket. I rested the blade against my open palm.
“Dakota Reed is not your mother, Luther.”
I closed my eyes and sighed.
“You think I don’t know what this is really about?” asked Celeste.
I could feel her coming up behind me, resting her hands on my shoulders. But I didn’t turn around, just continued staring at the wall.
“I know you’ve been thinking that since she first came to you. That this is just like how you came into this world. And you think this time, you can save her. The way he couldn’t save your mother.” She wrapped her arms around my waist from behind, pressing her body against my back. “This won’t bring back your mom.”
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