It was as though the entire backyard of the apartment building was filled with shadows, like a swimming pool was with water. Somehow Owen knew they were the source of the freezing chill in the air. They swam all around Jael, who was glowing. No, it was his sword that was glowing. The blade was so bright now, Owen couldn’t look at it, and each time Jael swung it, he shredded the shadows to wisps. But then more shadows rushed in to fill the gap, pouring in like evil black water.
There was someone else there too—another figure with a shining sword—but Owen barely had time to glance at whoever it was before they were suddenly standing in front of a shabby wooden door marked 119.
Jael turned his head, his green eyes burning like emerald flames in his dark face. “Go!” he bellowed, nodding at the door. “Hurry, I can’t hold them off for long.”
Owen didn’t ask any more questions. Clearly something beyond his comprehension was happening here. But if Leah was somewhere in the middle of this, being hurt—Please, God, no—then he intended to plunge right in. He tried the knob, but the door was locked. Placing his shoulder against the door, he shoved hard, and the cheap wood splintered, the lock snapping under the pressure. He rushed into the apartment, the sword Jael had given him tight in his fist, and saw…
Nothing.
There was nothing in the empty living room but a few scattered roach traps and a pile of clothes. Owen frowned and stepped forward, his eyes flickering over the scattered clothing, which looked familiar. A purple polo shirt, a pair of jeans turned inside out, as though someone had been in a hurry to get them off. “Or maybe like someone dragged them off,” whispered a little voice in his mind. And then… God, no. Oh no. A pair of pale pink panties. Leah’s, he was sure.
Owen felt a rage building inside him that was like nothing he had ever known before. He wanted to rush through the apartment, calling her name. Wanted desperately to know she was all right, unhurt. But he had a feeling—an instinct that stirred far back in his brain—that whoever had her was dangerous. Very dangerous.
Forcing himself to go slowly, he walked, sword held high, through the empty apartment. Nothing in the kitchen area or the breakfast nook either. Nothing but a dripping faucet in the empty, unused bathroom. That only left the bedroom.
He turned down a short hallway and found himself in front of a closed door. There was no sound coming from the room behind the door, but he felt something. A silent signal of distress. Leah.
His sword grasped firmly in one hand, he threw open the door, intent on taking whoever had her by surprise.
But the only one in the room was Leah.
She lay on the floor naked, her hands tied behind her back and her eyes closed. Over her mouth was a piece of duct tape—doubtless the reason he hadn’t heard any screaming. Her golden hair, fanned out around her head on the dingy tan carpet, was matted and filthy. It looked as though someone had spattered her with some kind of thick, sticky black tar. In fact, the oily, viscous substance was everywhere—dripping down her cheeks, splattered across her breasts, oozing over her thighs—and it smelled. Not an odor he could detect with his nose, but something worse. A psychic stench that reeked of corruption. It set his teeth on edge, made him feel sick and enraged at the same time. What the hell is it?
But whatever it was, they could deal with it later. Now he had to get Leah out of here as fast as he could. And then he was going to kill the son of a bitch who had done this to her.
Owen took a step forward, and her blue eyes fluttered open. They were red and swollen, as though she’d been crying, but they widened when she recognized him.
He reached out to her. “It’s all right, sweetheart. I’m going to get you out of here.”
Her eyes went even wider, and she shook her head violently. Her gaze whipped over his shoulder, her body rigid with fear. Behind you! There was no need for her to say it—he could feel it in every fiber of his being. His entire body seemed to vibrate like a plucked string, and everything moved in slow motion as he turned to see who—or what—was standing behind him.
“Well, well. Looks like we have two for the price of one tonight. Did you come to let me fuck you too, angel boy? Or did you want to watch me fuck your girl?”
The thing that was speaking might once have been human. On the outside it looked like a balding, middle-aged man with a huge, hairy gut and small, greedy eyes. But there was something wrong about it—something deformed. It looked less like a person than a puppet—a capering marionette whose strings were being pulled from the inside. And its pale blue eyes were full of bloodred flames.
“You sick son of a bitch.” Owen’s voice was tight. “What have you done to her?”
“What haven’t I done to her?” The thing grinned at him, and Owen realized suddenly that it was naked—as naked as Leah was. A thick, clublike penis hung between its legs, drooling oily black fluid down one hairy thigh.
And then Owen knew.
With a roar, he charged forward, and the sword in his hands suddenly burst into flame. He thrust the now-flaming sword at the thing, but it danced jerkily out of the way, laughing obscenely.
“Defiled, defiled,” it crooned in a cracked, distorted voice. “It’s too late. You’re too late, angel boy. She’s ruined now. Defiled.”
He should have been tempted to drop the burning sword, but he wasn’t. The flame felt cool against his skin—ice-cold, in fact—and clean somehow. The exact opposite of the filthy, capering thing in front of him. “Wielder of the cleansing fire.” He didn’t know where the words came from, but they rang in his head like a bell as he went after Leah’s tormentor.
It had a blade in its hand now—a twisted black knife, crooked and cruel and utterly deadly. It jabbed at him with it, and Owen jumped away, trusting the instinctive way his body moved, as though he had done this kind of thing before.
Another jab and he twisted away again and caught it with the edge of his blade. He slashed at the thing’s face, and suddenly its cheek was hanging in two flaps, pouring blackish red blood.
Putting a hand to its face, it looked at the blood on its dirty fingers and laughed. “Not bad, angel boy. You always were good with a sword.” It jumped left suddenly, as though it would go for Leah. Owen moved to protect her.
The black knife darted out, and a burning line of fire sliced across his upper arm. Owen glanced down to see that the short green sleeve of his scrub shirt was turning dark red. But there was no time for pain. Have to finish this. Have to get Leah out of here.
Moving in a way that seemed both completely foreign and utterly familiar at the same time, Owen feinted to the right and pretended to stumble, letting his guard down for a split second. The thing came at him again, black knife ready to take advantage of his weakness, and Owen struck.
Crouching low, he jabbed upward, and the flaming blade cut into the flabby belly. It melted the fat like butter, letting the guts come rushing out in a reddish gray tangle that looked like some kind of obscene apron hanging around its knees.
The blow should have killed it. But though the thing that had taken Leah fell to its knees, it still looked up at him, its face still contorted in a smile. “Go on,” it rasped in that deep, distorted voice. “Kill this vessel. Send me back to hell. I’ve done what I came to do, angel boy.”
Words came to Owen’s mouth that he didn’t understand, but he spoke them anyway because they felt right. “I’ll send you back, but not just to hell. Get thee to the pit, Asmodeus. By all that is holy, I cast you into the lake of fire, never to return.”
The thing’s eyes bulged, and it shrieked. “The pit? No! You can’t…you caaaaa—”
Owen took a double-handed grip on the flaming sword and raised it above his head. Then he brought it down with all his might. The burning blade split the thing’s skull in two, cutting off the scream and killing the demon for good.
The thing was dead before it slumped to the ground, but Owen didn’t spend any more time on it. He ran to where Leah lay shivering, still covered in the horrible
, oily fluid. The stench of it made his eyes water, but he didn’t hesitate to cut her bonds. At first she shrank from the flaming blade, but then she seemed to realize, as Owen had, that the flames wouldn’t burn her. She held still as he parted the yellow nylon rope that had dug great welts into her skin.
As soon as her hands were free, she yanked the tape off her mouth. It came away with a tearing sound that hurt to listen to, and Owen saw her lips were bleeding in several places where the skin had been torn by the powerful adhesive.
“Leah,” he started, but she shook her head.
“Get away from me.”
“What?” He put a hand out to her. “Leah, it’s me. I would never hurt you. I lo—”
“Don’t touch me!” It was nearly a scream.
Owen jerked his hand back and stared at her uncertainly. “Leah?”
“Don’t touch me,” she repeated, but her voice was a broken whisper now. “You don’t…don’t want to touch me, Owen. You’ll get it on you.”
He didn’t have to ask what “it” was. The noxious black fluid that covered her in dark splotches from her hairline to her thighs spoke for itself.
“She’s in shock.”
Jael’s deep voice behind him startled Owen. He turned, put himself in front of Leah to shield her nakedness, and looked up. The other man was breathing hard, a glowing sword still clenched in one dark fist and a bundle of cloth in the other, but he seemed at peace.
“Everything’s okay outside?” Owen asked, thinking of the swimming, swirling shadows.
Jael nodded shortly. “It was close for a while. There were hundreds of them. But when you dispatched their master, the rest of the imps fled.”
Owen wasn’t sure what he was talking about, but it didn’t matter. If the coast was clear outside, they needed to move on to the next step. “We need the police. And an ambulance,” he said, but Jael shook his head.
“You need to get your sister home. Let me deal with the cleanup.”
“But I killed a man. They’re going to want to ask questions. And Leah”—he dropped his voice a little—“Leah needs to go to the hospital.”
“There’s nothing they can do for her there,” Jael said firmly. “And besides, look at her. Do you really want to leave her alone in a big, impersonal place like a hospital while the police ask you questions you can’t answer without sounding insane?”
“I…” Owen glanced behind him briefly to see that his little sister had drawn her knees up to her chin and was shivering violently.
“She needs you and only you, Owen.” Jael’s deep voice was soft. “You have the healing touch; use it to help her. Lay your hands on her and make her well.” He dropped the bundle he’d been carrying in one hand, and Owen saw it was Leah’s discarded clothes. “Take her home.”
Owen didn’t want to argue anymore in front of his traumatized sister. Turning his back to Jael for a moment, he held out the clothes. “Here, Leah. Can you put these on? If you need help—”
“No!” She snatched the clothes and scooted away from him in one quick move. “No, I’ll do it myself. Just…give me some privacy.”
Owen nodded and turned back to Jael. “Come on. Out in the hall.” Once there, he turned on the other man again. “Look, I appreciate your offering to, uh, clean up the mess and your concern for Leah, but she’s a victim. She needs more than I can do for her. Counseling, therapy—”
Jael shook his head again. “She’s your other half; she needs your touch. And she needs to know that, no matter what happened, you still love her. Do you understand?”
Owen opened his mouth to protest again and then closed it. Jael spoke with quiet authority, a certainty that was hard to argue with. “All right,” he said at last. “I’ll take her home.”
“And let her know you love her,” Jael said emphatically.
“Of course.”
“No matter what was done to her.”
“What, you think I’d stop loving her because she was attacked?” Owen demanded. “What kind of a bastard do you think I am?”
Jael frowned. “There are many of our kind who couldn’t love after such an attack. We feel…too strongly about it when one of our own is defiled.”
“I don’t know what you mean by ‘our kind,’ and I don’t want to know,” Owen said evenly. “But you don’t have to worry. I’ll never stop caring for Leah. I can’t. Even when I know I should.”
“Just remember, your touch and yours alone can heal her.” Jael nodded and stepped aside just as the bedroom door opened and Leah stepped out on shaky legs.
“I’m ready.” She looked down at the carpet, obviously unwilling to meet Owen’s gaze. She was barefoot, and her shirt was on inside out, only half tucked into her jeans. Owen didn’t mention the haphazard way she was dressed. Now wasn’t the time to worry about minor details.
“Leah?” He tried to touch her shoulder, but she shied away from him. “Sweetheart,” he said softly, undeterred. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine.” She shook her head and looked up at him. “Please, Owen, don’t make me talk. Just take me home.”
Owen nodded. “All right. Let’s go.” He looked at Jael and then cast an uncertain glance back into the bedroom where the corpse of Leah’s attacker lay in a puddle of black and crimson.
“Don’t worry about it,” Jael assured him. “All traces will be gone the minute you depart.”
Owen nodded again. He didn’t know how it was possible to clean up such a messy scene and leave absolutely no trace of it, but he trusted that Jael could do it. The man obviously had skills that went way beyond surgery. “Come on,” he said to Leah and led the way out of the apartment.
He wasn’t completely convinced it was the right thing to do, but he was taking her home.
* * *
Somewhere high in the stratosphere, a soft rustling of wings. “Well, it’s done. There’s nothing left. Nothing to show that any of it ever happened.”
“Thank you, Jael.” Sounding subdued and tired. “That was fast work.”
Anxiously. “Are you all right? Were you wounded, Elloria?”
“Nothing that won’t heal. I’m more worried about Ariel. I…I can’t believe I couldn’t save her.”
Firmly. “You did save her. She’s alive. And she’s with Micah now.”
“You know what I mean. Even though they can actually be together without the taboo in the way—”
“What?” Shocked. “What did you say?”
A little sob. “That’s right. I didn’t get a chance to tell you. You know that letter from her mother you wanted me to bring to Ariel’s attention? Well, it told all about the adoption. So Ariel knows now—knows that she and Micah—”
“Aren’t related by blood.”
“Exactly. But how much good will it do to have them together now that she’s been defiled?”
“You think Micah won’t love her anymore?”
“I don’t know… I just don’t know.” Another sob. “It’s so horrible, the ultimate humiliation. I’ve known angels to wink out of existence because they can’t handle the aftermath.”
“Ariel doesn’t have that option. Not while she’s in a human body.”
“Yes, she does. The humans call it suicide. But if she dies by her own hand, she won’t return to her celestial form, and—”
“I know. And all is lost.” A sigh. “Have you heard anything from heaven? How much longer can they hold out against the demon force up there?”
“An earth day. Maybe two. They need Ariel and Micah to open the throne room. But now…now I don’t think it’s going to happen. Not ever.”
“I don’t know. You should have some faith, Elloria. Give Micah a chance. I spoke to him, and he still loves her, no matter what the demon did.”
“But…but she was defiled. Are you sure?”
“Give Micah some credit. She’s the other half of the angel twain. Their bond is the strongest in the universe. As long as she’s alive, he’ll love her.”
“But he won’t act on it! He thinks it’s wrong.”
“Yes.” Nodding. “Even now he believes that. But I truly believe that if he feels loving Ariel will heal her, he will go against the human society’s conventions and break the taboo once and for all.”
“If only she’d tell him what she learned. But I’m afraid she won’t. She won’t feel worthy of his love after what was done to her.”
Thoughtfully. “Maybe she will. Her love for him is as strong as his for her, don’t forget. And if she tells him—”
“If she tells him. If he loves her even though she’s been defiled. If, if, if. I’m so sick of if, Jael! We need the angel twain restored to their celestial forms. We need their swords to stand against the hordes of hell. We need—”
“We need to be patient, Elloria. For just a day or two more. Be patient and have faith. That’s all we can do.”
A deep breath and the rustling sound of feathers being smoothed down. “There is one other thing. We can give them a healing sleep. Something to help Ariel get over the trauma and help Micah to know what to say, what to do.”
“You’re right. They won’t get anything accomplished tonight, anyway. And maybe when they wake up…”
“Yes, maybe.”
Chapter Fourteen
All the way back to Owen’s loft, Leah tried not to think. She had been planning how to tell him the news, to let him know they weren’t actually related by blood. She’d wanted to take things slowly, to ease his pain. But how could she tell him now? After what had happened to her, she had no gentleness left in her. After that thing—No! She violently pushed the memory away. She just wanted to make her mind a blank, to completely forget what had happened.
Mentally she said her times tables up to twelve and tried to think of every irregular Spanish verb she could remember. Then she tried counting backward from ten thousand, but it didn’t help. Nothing helped, especially when she could feel Owen glancing at her from the corner of his eye while he drove.
“Defiled. Defiled!” The distorted voice of the thing Mr. Filcher had become rang in her head, and she could still feel the poisonous black cum he’d spurted all over her skin. The slime itched and burned like acid, as though she was somehow naturally allergic to it. But who had ever heard of being allergic to semen? Then again, who had ever heard of black semen?
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