Angelstone: Dark Angel #2 (Urban Fantasy)

by Peach, Hanna

  He didn’t think it was fair to keep Mini in this room all day, and his mama didn’t have a good explanation as to why when he had asked her.

  The smoke in this section of Aradale was thicker. He could see Mini’s little face up against the glass portion of the door, banging on the glass with her little hands. She was crying. Ky didn’t like it when Mini cried. He frowned, wishing he had brought a cookie with him or something. That usually made Mini smile. And it felt warm inside him, like a hug, when he saw her smile.

  “It’s okay, Mini. I’m getting you out of there,” Ky said as he reached the door. He turned the lock on the outside and pulled it open. Mini launched herself into his arms. He felt taller and bigger all of a sudden with her tucked against him, and he felt stronger as her trembling made her curls shake under his chin.

  “Come on,” he said softly. “Let’s get out of here.”

  “Not so fast.” The voice startled him. A hand reached around the door and grabbed him by the scruff of his collar.

  It was a man who now blocked their path. No, not a man. He had a second face, a demon face. Mini screamed and buried her face in Ky’s chest. Ky just stared at him, struggling to hold the bravery in his frame. He had only heard of such monsters in the tales his mother would sometimes tell him before he fell asleep. But this monster was not a story. It was real and it was here.

  The monster grinned as he peered at Mini. “And what do we have here?”

  Chapter 47

  Jordan had sedated Israel and Adere with DreamWalker sleep for the flight back to Aradale. As they travelled across the sky, Israel hung from the arms of Alyx, Jordan, Vix and Tobias. Lukas and Moloko were carrying Adere between them.

  They were almost to Nordlingen when Alyx smelled the first hints of smoke. As they got closer, the air became thicker with the choke of fire. In the horizon, the flames licked the night sky, spewing forth ash and fiery rain. Sirens pierced the night like a wailing mother desperate for her child.

  “Ana, Ky,” the first cry of despair came from Lukas when they realized it was Aradale that was on fire. Alyx’s stomach turned over.

  “We have to hurry,” Tobias cried out. They sped towards the burning building.

  They landed in the back gardens of Aradale, which seemed to have been spared the blaze as yet. A wall of flames rose up from the Aradale building. Alyx hoped that the residents had all gotten out.

  Lukas let go of Adere and flew towards the building, yelling for his wife and child. Moloko dropped to the grass, not being able to carry Adere’s weight herself. Alyx, Jordan, Tobias and Vix lay Israel on the ground on his stomach, head to one side. They ran towards the building, Alyx staying with Israel. His breathing was ragged and shallow. Alyx pushed aside some damp curls now sticking to his forehead. What if he died before they got him help?

  A moan to her left caused her to jump to her feet. There was a figure, lying some meters away, next to an open hatch in the ground. It was Marin.

  Alyx ran over to him. “Marin.” Alyx peered at the seraph’s face as his eyes fluttered. “What happened? Where’s Ana?”

  Marin squinted as if to help him focus on her face. He breathed heavily between each phrase spoken, “The Darkened... they came. Ky ran off... for Mini. Ana went back... for him.”

  He had barely finished his sentence before Alyx took to the air. “I’ll be back, Marin. I’m going to find Ana.”

  Alyx had to shield her face with her arm as she neared the building, the flames battering her with a searing heat. She called out for Ana, Lukas and Jordan, but she could barely hear herself over the roar of the fire.

  She flew to the side of the building and saw that the mortal firefighters were already there, their trucks blazing sickly looking red and blue lights across the night. Several firefighters were directing a gush of water from a hose towards the fire. Alyx dropped to the ground and began to run.

  To one side, Alyx could see Lukas clutching at Ana, who was shaking and crying. A soot-faced Xiang was clinging to Vix. Dianne, Tobias, Moloko and Jordan were huddled together. Other Seraphim gathered around in clumps as they watched their home being consumed by flames.

  Alyx ran over to them, a question in her eyes.

  Jordan turned his haunted eyes towards her. “Ky is missing. He went after Mini. There are firefighters in there now searching for them.”

  Alyx nodded. “I found Marin at the back. We need to—”

  A piercing shriek interrupted her. It came from Ana. She was trying to push Lukas off her, crying incoherently. Alyx looked towards where she was pointing. A fireman was jogging from the building, a small limp body flopping across his arms.

  “God help us,” Jordan whispered beside her.

  Ana rushed towards the man holding her child, Lukas stumbling after her. Jordan and Alyx both moved towards him as well.

  “We found him locked in one of the rooms,” the firefighter said as he knelt to the ground, laying Ky’s lifeless body across the dry grass. “I’m so sorry. We didn’t get to him in time.” The firefighter gave them a mournful look before standing back up. “I have to get back in there.” He jogged back towards the building.

  The flames were dying down under the constant streams of water, but the horror was just awakening. Ana grabbed at her son. She sobbed and shook him and demanded that he wake up right this minute. Alyx half expected Ky to sit up, clap his hands and laugh at how he had fooled them all with his acting. But Ky didn’t sit up. He didn’t laugh. He would never laugh again.

  Lukas stood over his wife, staring at the ground, his eyes reflecting only flames. He looked… devoid. Empty.

  Alyx stared at him, wanting to reassure him but… she didn’t know how. She was torn between giving him space and touching him; she felt useless, completely useless. How do you reassure someone who has just lost part of their reason for living?

  Lukas’s head snapped up. “Dianne,” he said, pushing past Alyx to get to the seraphelle. Dianne looked up from her conversation with Tobias, looking stunned and a little scared at Lukas’s forceful cry for her attention. “Dianne,” Lukas cried, grabbing the seraphelle by her shoulders. She screwed up her face as if his hands were hurting her. “You have to take his last memory.”

  It was the right of the next of kin to have their loved one’s last memory if they wished. Dianne’s eyes widened and she mouthed a silent “no”. Alyx didn’t blame her.

  “Lukas... you’re… hurting me.”

  “Dianne, please,” said Lukas, but it didn’t look like he loosened his grip. “You have to tell me what happened. I have to know…”

  Dianne and Lukas stared at each other for a moment. In the silence, something was communicated between them. Dianne nodded.

  It took two of them to pull Ana away from Ky. Lukas gripped his sobbing wife as Dianne placed her shaking hands on Ky’s forehead. After a moment, Dianne pulled her hands off him, gripping her fingers together and to her chest.

  “Ky went to Mini’s room.” As Dianne spoke her voice warbled. “He unlocked her door, but the Darkened arrived. They took Mini and locked Ky in her room. He died trying to save her.” Dianne’s face crumpled as tears began to roll down. “I’m so sorry, Lukas. I’m so, so sorry.”

  Alyx wiped away tears as she watched Lukas fall upon his wife and child, encasing them both in his arms, rocking them back and forth. Their pain was a palpable thing, real and thick, and it cloaked the air in a somber, dark oppression, thicker than smoke. As Aradale crumpled, it left a red and blackened wound upon the earth.

  Chapter 48

  Mason woke up to a pounding on his compartment door. The clock on the bedside table read 6:02 a.m. in glaring red numbers. Still too bloody early in his opinion. His door pounded again.

  “I’m coming. I’m coming.” Mason swiped his face with a rough hand. “This better be good,” he mumbled. He swayed a little after he stood, then stumbled towards the door. At the door was a worried-looking Owl, a youngster of about sixteen with large watery eyes who refused to sle
ep at night. “What?” Mason demanded.

  “Angel is here.” He used Alyx’s Clan name.

  “Alyx?” Mason frowned, looking around Owl. There was no one there. In fact, no one else was awake yet, Mason thought with a bit of resentment. “Well, where is she?”

  “I told her to wait at the north entrance.”

  “What? Why the hell would you do that? You know she’s always welcome here. Let her in.”

  “No, sir. It’s not her... it’s all the others that she is with.”

  “What?” This woke Mason up. Others?

  Mason grabbed an overcoat and strode towards the northern entrance of the underground station, Owl skittering along behind him.

  When he reached the entrance he saw Alyx’s face, sooty, bloodstained and looking like she had aged a decade with worry lines. With her were more figures, almost two dozen of them, all with eyes like hers, feline and un-human. Christ almighty. What in the blazes was going on?

  “Alyx?”

  “Mason, please. We need your help. Can we stay?”

  Mason could feel a frown pulling on his features.

  “You said if I ever needed anything...”

  “Yes,” Mason growled. “You. If you ever need anything. Who are all these people? Or,” he raised an eyebrow at Alyx and lowered his voice, “can I even call them people?”

  Before Alyx could answer, Mason spotted Israel lying on a makeshift stretcher. Near him on another stretcher was a large-set man crusted with dried blood, who Mason recognized from his short time at their hidden community.

  “Jesus. What happened? Did the robbery go bad? Wait, wait.” Mason lifted his hands up. “I don’t want to know. No, actually I do need to know. Are the cops onto yer?”

  Alyx shook her head. “No. This isn’t because of the cops, Mason.”

  The demons, then. A hundred filthy curses went through his head. This was getting worse and worse. “Is Israel going be okay?”

  Alyx started to say something, but she stopped and pressed her mouth closed. Mason knew by the quiver of her lip that it wasn’t good news.

  “Please,” she begged. “We don’t know where else the demons have infiltrated. We have nowhere left to go.”

  She was fighting to keep the moisture welling in her eyes from spilling over. It hit Mason right in the heart. He would do anything for her to keep her from crying. “Of course. You can stay.” He waved an arm out to Owl. “They can come in.”

  “Thank you, Mason,” Alyx said, and she half-collapsed into his arms. “Just for as long as it takes for us to figure something out.”

  Mason pressed his lips to a thin line as he hugged her back. “Of course.”

  “If we can just get Israel and Marin a compartment, that would be great. Everyone else can sleep out on the station floor. We don’t want to impose too much.”

  Mason told Owl to wake a few others. Then he spent the next few minutes barking orders to his sleepy men. Breakfast was to be started. Bedding was to be procured. Within seconds the station was alive.

  Later, Mason opened the door to the compartment where they had placed Israel. Alyx was still sitting by Israel’s side, pressing a cold compress to his forehead. Israel looked pale and he seemed to be sleeping at the moment. He was shirtless with a gauze bandage wrapped around his chest.

  “Come out for breakfast, Alyx,” Mason said.

  She shook her head.

  Mason stepped to her side and eased an arm around her, pulling her to her feet. “You need to eat. You’re no good to him if you don’t keep your strength up.”

  She let him lead her from the compartment and to a small bench. The dining area had mostly cleared, as it was now late morning. At Mason’s nod, one of his men came over with a small bowl of cold porridge and a spoon. Mason tried a joke. “Don’t tell me yer needs me to feed yer too?”

  Alyx didn’t smile. She took the bowl from him and began to spoon the contents into her mouth. By the vacant look on her face, Mason knew she wasn’t tasting any of it.

  “What happened?” he asked after a few minutes of silence.

  “We thought we were being so clever,” she said as she played with the porridge in her bowl with her spoon. Mason waited for her to continue. “We succeeded in stealing the Black Stone. We thought we had just beaten the Darkened to it. But they were waiting for us at each location. They watched us steal the Black Stone and followed us. Then they attacked, stealing the Black Stone and capturing our people. Only three of them made it back. The Darkened offered a trade. All of their prisoners’ lives... for Israel’s.”

  Alyx paused to place a spoonful of porridge in her mouth, chewed, then swallowed.

  “I came up with this idea. This wonderful plan to rescue them, to save Israel and to capture Samyara at the same time,” her voice was bitter. “Warriors from our community and others hid nearby. I thought I was being so smart. Turns out Samyara had a plan of his own. He preempted me. It turns out he had hidden a locator on Marin and left him behind so he could to return to our community. The Darkened attacked Aradale while we were making the exchange. Samyara got away. He would have had Israel as well if I hadn’t disguised myself as him using magic.”

  Mason rubbed a hand on her back in an attempt to soothe her. “At least that’s something. You did what you could.”

  Alyx snorted. “I lost the Black Stone and helped Samyara destroy our community. Ky, Ana’s son,” Alyx looked over at the gaunt looking woman staring vacantly into space and her eyes suddenly filled with moisture, “he was killed. And now Israel is dying. Because of me.”

  “You’ll find a cure. Of course you will.” Mason tried to infuse as much confidence into his voice as he could. Alyx didn’t need any reminders from him about how bad her situation looked.

  “I should go back to him. I don’t want him to be alone if he wakes.” Alyx stood and walked away, leaving her half empty bowl on the bench.

  Mason stayed on the bench for a few minutes, watching these supernatural creatures setting themselves up in his station. He frowned. His men weren’t stupid and he needed to tell them something as to why these people were here. So far the street pirates had managed to stay out of the supernatural war that raged through their streets at night. What would happen now that they were harboring the supernatural? How long would it take for one of the supernaturals to slip up and reveal one of their magics? How long would it take before one of the men figured it out?

  Mason had heard whispers of how supernatural blood was coveted as a drug in some lesser-civilized circles. But these lesser-civilized circles paid well. Sometimes greed overruled morality. And fear – fear of someone or something different – made it easy for some men to justify their behaviors.

  Then there were the demons. Alyx had said that the demons had followed them from the Black Stone locations, hidden a locator on one of them. What if the demons had followed Alyx down here? His station, his men, they would be at risk from attack as well. He needed to triple his watch, warn his men of a possible attack. Mason scowled and rubbed his forehead with his hand. He couldn’t help but silently begrudge Alyx.

  She had brought her war to his doorstep.

  Angelsong (Dark Angel #3)

  By Hanna Peach

  Israel lies dying from demon poison. To save him, Alyx needs the recipe for the cure, supposedly contained within the Threads of Dark, and she needs Mayrekk’s knowledge of herbs to make it.

  But Mayrekk remains imprisoned in Michaelea, being punished for his hand in Alyx’s escape, and Michael himself guards the key to Mayrekk’s freedom. The Threads of Dark is sealed within a secret chamber deep under the Archives of Urielos, a Seraphim city clinging to cliffs somewhere along the coast of Italy. Even if Alyx does manage to find a way into Urielos, the chamber is guarded by ancient riddles and deadly traps…

  Can Alyx rescue Mayrekk and retrieve the Threads of Dark before Israel slips away?

  Out now

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  Want more now?

  Go to www.hannapeach.com and select the “Secrets” tab to find “Samyara’s Hidden Chapters”, extra scenes from Angelstone just for you. Pssst! The password is: Javar

  Follow my blog for more secret scenes and upcoming book release dates. I love hearing from readers! Contact me through my website or Facebook page (www.facebook.com/AngelfireBooks). Much love and many thanks, Hanna.

  Books by Hanna Peach

  Urban Fantasy

  Angelfire (Dark Angel #1)

  Angelstone (Dark Angel #2)

  Angelsong (Dark Angel #3)

  Angelblood (Dark Angel #4) due out early 2014

  Romantic Suspense

  Bound by Lies (Bound #1) due out Dec/Jan

  Bound by Lies (Bound #1)

  By Hanna Peach

  Our love is on his terms. He contacts me only through notes − unpredictable and untraceable. When we meet, he can touch me, but I’m not allowed to touch him. When we make love, it’s only after I have been bound and blindfolded. It’s the only time I truly feel alive. Which is why I play along with it. For now.

  Caden Thaine is the most sinfully beautiful man I have ever seen. But more than that, his touch sets me on fire. And dear God, do I ache for him. I don’t know where he lives or even what he does. But this doesn’t scare me. My only fear is that one day his messages will stop.