by eden Hudson
You’re not really there.
—every single eye was on the Sword of Judgment in Colt’s hand. One cut from that thing and they’d be warming their tail feathers in the Lake of Fire next to Mikal. They tried to stay just outside the sword’s reach and shoot at him at the same time. They were fast, experienced, and intelligent.
But Colt was crazy.
I loved fighting. Always had. Chalk it up to Short Man Syndrome if you have to, but I would fight any asshole of any size on any day or night of the week. But the way I fought and the thing Colt did weren’t the same kind of thing. Colt didn’t fight for fun. He didn’t fight because he liked it. He fought because he was it.
Colt disappeared into fights. Not like so you’d lose track of him, but more like he wasn’t Colt anymore, wasn’t human or my brother or anybody. He was just a sword or a gun or fists—or, shit, once just a pen. I’d seen him get shot during battles and not notice it until way later. And after the war, a couple times when guns deals went wrong. During one attempted fuck-over by a pack of coyotes—the last fucking time we sold guns to coyotes, by the way—Colt got stabbed. Tough and I had to drag him away from the fight and leave all our shit behind to get stolen because Colt was losing too much blood. When we got him back to the cabin, he snapped out of it. He hadn’t even realized he’d got cut.
Tough had thought that was really awesome because Tough was a dumbass with a hero-worship problem. He didn’t understand that our brother was a weapon of mass destruction that just fucking detonated sometimes. That wasn’t cool, it was fucking terrifying. Especially when you took into account that none of us, not even Sissy, knew how to snap Colt out of it when he went off.
Of course, it came in handy every once in a great while. Like when you were trapped in the woods with a death squad of fallen angel foot soldiers.
Colt kicked and slashed and hacked. As soon as a rifle got a bead on him, he went for the fucker aiming it. The foot soldiers tried to get just enough distance between themselves and him to shoot him without punching their own one-way ticket to Hell. I knocked them back at him and disrupted their shots when I could.
Then we pulled a play worthy of being right back in the middle of the war.
Colt lunged at a foot soldier. The soldier tripped back toward me. Colt spun around to hold off a double-team. I slammed my elbow into the back of the foot soldier’s skull, then kicked him back toward Colt. Clicked my tongue. Colt dropped and rolled away from the double-team. He came up swinging the sword. It sliced home, right into the foot soldier’s thigh.
“Fuck yeah!” I hollered. It was beautiful. Just fucking beautiful. If we’d had the Sword of Judgment during the war, we would’ve won that shit.
A burning wind whipped through the trees. The leaves curled up and crackled. The woods turned a creepy-ass green, one shade sicker than that color the sky turns just before a tornado hits.
I stopped grinning like a dumbass and took a couple steps back.
“No.” The foot soldier dropped his rifle. He grabbed for one of his buddies, catching a handful of tar-covered feathers and not much more. “Don’t let them. Help. Help me! Please!”
Then the wailing kicked up. Endless, throatless screams that were even worse than that greenish light, coming from nowhere and everywhere at the same time. If I’d still been alive, I probably would’ve pissed myself hearing that.
Colt had gone still, staring off into nothing. But the foot soldiers were too busy trying to put some distance between themselves and their doomed buddy to take advantage of the perfect target.
“Don’t let them!” the doomed foot soldier screamed. In the greenish light and the flickering orange from the Sword of Judgment, you could see tears rolling down his face.
As somebody who had seen Them before, in passing, I couldn’t say as I blamed the guy for crying. I didn’t particularly want to see Them again either, and I wasn’t even the one getting my ass dragged to Hell.
“Come on, Sunshine.” I grabbed Colt’s arm and pulled him away while everybody else was too scared to think. “Let’s get out of here before shit gets real.”
Tiffani
Once I made it back to the bakery, I went to the kitchen and mixed the dough for lobster tail pastries. I didn’t open for another six hours, but I’d already fed and I almost never slept. I had to do something.
Victoria, the vamp who made me, used to say that I was an insomniac because my soul wanted to be alive so badly that it wouldn’t let me sleep. But Vic had had a romantic way of looking at everything, even the burgeoning alcoholism she’d made me kick before she would turn me. The truth is when you get made, the way you die is the way you stay. Your skin tightens a little from the lost fluids and the vamp venom evens out your skin tone, but your hair and fingernails never grow again. Every illness or broken bone you have at the moment of death is yours for the duration of your undeath.
I died a chronic insomniac. Getting made had preserved that.
Times like tonight made me hate my insomnia. Staying awake around the clock saved me a fortune in legal fees—vamps are legally dead when they sleep, so unless you have a recurring daily freeze on your assets your inheritors could take over your estate while you “slept”—and it allowed me to keep the bakery open all day, but it also gave me twenty-four hours of focused dwelling time.
My standby distraction was baking. It had been my mother’s, too. Used to be when I came home from school, I could tell exactly how things between her and my father were going as soon as I walked in the door. If I smelled roast or casserole, everything was as it should be. Cookies? Tread lightly. Fresh baked bread, pastries, or starters? Wait in your room.
After I finished shaping the lobster tails, I added the cream puff filling, and threw them in the oven. Then I started a batch of scones. Strawberries and cream since they were the hardest not to overcook. I threw the ingredients together, slammed the bowl under the mixer, and dropped the arm. The paddle churned the dough.
Damn it all. I rubbed my eyes. I needed a cigarette. But I could smell the lobster tails getting close. They might go over if I didn’t stick around.
“What the hell.” I fished my hard pack out of my khakis and lit up. “It’s my bakery.” I could smoke inside if I wanted to. Colt was the only human I knew who would’ve given me the business about the smell soaking into the food.
I flipped the mixer off and pinched the cigarette between my lips while I scraped the paddle clean.
The vamp connection with Mitzi opened.
This Tough sleeping at night thing is really inconvenient, she said. I want to go to the carnival! Everybody’s going to be having fun riding rides but me. I wish he had turned into an insomniac like you.
I shrugged and blew smoke at the ceiling from the corner of my mouth. Maybe if Vic hadn’t been staked back in ‘79, she would’ve said that Tough’s soul wanted to be dead so badly that it wouldn’t let him stay awake.
Gloomy, gloomy Tiffani, Mitzi said.
What happened to putting Tough down for Jason? I asked.
Definitely at some point. She let me see her fantasy of plunging the stake into Tough’s chest as he came. It was one she’d shown me a few times before when she was having sex with him. I always wanted to do that when he was alive, just to see what would happen to a human. But for now he’s enough fun to keep me busy. Or he would be if he would wake the hell up.
I spread some flour on the island and scooped the dough onto it. Stopped to flick my cigarette butt into the slop sink and find my rolling pin.
Mitzi’s giggle danced across the connection. Did you know I’m his revenge-fuck? It’s so pathetic.
Did you want something?
What’s the matter, Tiffani? Can’t stand that I’m getting some and you’re all alone, all over again? What happened with Saint Lover-boy? Are you too white bread for him now? Does he want someone with a little more kink?
She was trying to get a reaction, but when it came to Mitzi, shutting off the anger and pain was easy.
Only two people in eighty-five years had been able to affect me the way she was trying to and she wasn’t either one of them.
I could show you a thing or two if you wanted, Mitzi said, pushing a little harder. If your little saint is anything like his brother, I’ve got some moves that’ll drive him crazy.
I’m an old dog. I stopped rolling out the dough and grabbed the pizza cutter. It’s too late to teach me new tricks.
Is it the heat thing? Mitzi asked. Mikal’s an awfully hot act to follow. You can’t blame a guy for not wanting to freeze his dick off in your ice-cold snatch.
I let her feel me shrug, then I began cutting the dough into triangles. With scones, the trick is getting them all the exact same size so they cook evenly.
You’re the worst, Mitzi pouted.
Got customers coming in a couple hours, I told her. At least twice as many as usual, with the Armistice Celebration. I need to get this place ready to open.
Mitzi gave me a disgusted sigh, then closed the connection.
As soon as she was gone, I threw the pizza cutter at the wall. Paint chipped, cinder block cracked, and the wheel snapped off the handle.
I scrubbed my hands across my face. Then I went to the magnet strip and pulled down the ulu. The rest of that dough wasn’t going to cut itself.
Desty
As we turned down the lane to the Dark Mansion, I fought the urge to look out the window. My nerves were already shot. I didn’t need to watch a demonic cathedral’s Hell windows crawling in the moonlight. I focused on my boots. They were boring, beat-up, safe. And was that a little sand on the sole? Fascinating.
Flickering red and orange light started bouncing around the interior of the limo like a burning disco ball.
I couldn’t help it. I scooted closer to the window and looked.
The dilapidated barn at the edge of the parking lot was just a pile of burning boards. A twisted, blackened cow panel stood next to the blaze, clinging onto a cheerfully burning hedge post.
“Hedge,” Dad used to say when he was fixing fence. “Built to last.”
Most of the parking lot was empty, but three cars—probably the ones closest to the barn when the bomb went off—were still parked and on fire. Fallen angel foot soldiers armed with industrial-sized extinguishers hung around, trying to contain the blaze.
Our limo passed a fleet of news vans parked at the Dark Mansion’s huge front doors and pulled around to the Permanent Residence Wing. The barracks to the west of the mansion had been reduced to smoking rubble. A few foot soldiers with flashlights sifted through the ashes, probably searching for anything they could salvage.
I wanted to be suspicious, to tell myself that this was more acting for the benefit of anyone watching, but there weren’t any news crews back here. Worse, whenever a foot soldier’s face was momentarily illuminated, the expression was stony, flat.
The limo stopped. Kathan climbed out first, then helped Tempie out. I scooted to the door.
Kathan held his hand out to me. I stared at it.
“It doesn’t bite,” he said.
Duh. He’s just trying to be polite. I took his hand, but tried not to lean too heavily on it as I got out of the limo.
Kathan’s skin was a degree away from blistering. My brain tried to play up the differences between him and Tough—burning versus freezing; cool, calm understanding versus a fiery temper ready to explode; the constant, effortless air of seduction versus the laughing, mangled attempts at sexiness that had been so perfect.
I pulled my hand back.
Even as hot as it was outside, the lack of Kathan’s warmth was immediately noticeable. My fingers felt cold. I stuck them in my shorts pocket.
Then I realized the foot soldiers over by the barracks had stopped searching the rubble. They were standing perfectly still, watching us. One foot soldier shook out his wings angrily. Another one spat as if he was trying to get a bad taste out of his mouth. All of them were glaring.
At me?
It made sense. Less than twelve hours ago, I had helped their mortal enemy blow up their home. Now I was being welcomed into the fold as if I hadn’t done anything at all.
I took a deep breath and followed Kathan and Tempie into the mansion. I shivered, but not from the sudden blast of air conditioning.
Even after the door shut, I could still feel the foot soldiers’ black eyes boring into the back of my neck.
The thick red carpet in the Permanent Residence Wing muted our footsteps. Tempie’s hands seemed to be magnetically drawn to Kathan’s fly. His hands were pretty busy, too, working their way under the hem of her barely-there dress.
I kept my eyes on the carpet so I wouldn’t catch a glimpse of anything I couldn’t unsee.
Another foot soldier met us at the door of Kathan’s rooms. There was a possibility it was Fatigues—the foot soldier who had escorted me to Kathan the time I came to the Dark Mansion with Motocop—but I couldn’t say for sure. Maybe it was because I was exhausted, but all the panty-melting muscles, obsidian feathers, and perfectly shined combat boots were starting to look alike to me.
Kathan detached his lips from Tempie’s throat just long enough to say, “Show Modesty to her rooms.”
The foot soldier gave him a short nod.
“Have a good night, Modesty,” Kathan said over his shoulder as he lifted Tempie onto his hips. She locked her ankles behind his butt and pulled his mouth back to hers.
“Uh, thanks,” I said, pretty sure they weren’t listening. “You have a good night, too.”
The door slammed behind them.
“I think they’re about to,” the foot soldier said.
But when I looked up, his smirk was cold and angry.
“Right this way, Modesty.” The way he said my name made it sound like an insult.
I opened my mouth—who knows what idiotic thing I thought I was going to say—but the foot soldier spun hard on his heel and strode off before I could make a sound. I jogged to catch up.
Now that felt familiar. Maybe this fallen angel was Fatigues.
“Is this your job?” I blurted as I fell into step beside him. “Uh, I mean, do you work inside the mansion as part of your rank?”
Possible Fatigues glared straight ahead. “I’m security.”
“Like a guard? Do you rotate shifts or—”
Possible Fatigues stopped in his tracks and turned on me. His wings snapped open to their full span like the hood of a cobra flaring. The tar covering his feathers seemed to absorb the light in the hall.
If my throat hadn’t locked up, I probably would’ve screamed.
“Let’s clear something up right now, doll face,” he hissed, leaning in close. “I don’t want to be your friend. Being in any proximity to you makes me want to rip your belly open, pull your intestines out, and shove them down your throat. But I assume that in doing so I would contract some sort of disease from touching the Whitney-fucking whore who helped that psycho blow up my home and send my commanding officer to Hell.”
My backpack bumped the wall. I’d been backing away from him without realizing it.
“I-I-I didn’t mean to hurt anyone,” I squeaked.
“No, of course not,” Possible Fatigues said. “You fell in with the wrong crowd, made some bad calls. You just wanted to help. You didn’t stop to think what might happen to anybody else.”
“I—”
“Save the excuses,” he said, taking a step back and folding his wings. “Kathan gave the order not to touch you. Me? I follow orders.”
The extra physical space reminded me to breathe. I inhaled. Exhaled. Tremors ran through my arms and legs like chills.
“I do now, anyway.” As he turned and started walking again, a corner of Possible Fatigues’s mouth lifted in a half-smile. “But not all of my brethren learned their lesson the first time. That’s why I’m here. I’ll make sure no one forgets their orders and rapes you bloody while you sleep.” He was yards away from me by then, with his long legs eating up more floor every s
econd I stayed frozen, but I heard him snicker. “Or, I don’t know, anything else someone might allegedly be planning. That’s my job, doll face. I’m your security.”
Ryder
The best thing about living way out in the sticks is, when you need to, you can take off running from your back door and cut a straight line through woods and back pastures to town without ever hitting blacktop. We ran for a good ten minutes through the trees before they cleared off and we came to a barbwire fence over a creek.
Colt stopped long enough to shove that fiery sword back into Hell, then he slid down the draw and ducked under the lowest-hanging wire like he did this shit all the time.
He knew where he was going.
“Hey, Sunshine,” I wheezed. You don’t get a lot of exercise in Heaven, and honestly, I wasn’t in that great of shape before I died. Half a bottle of Southern Comfort a night will do that to a guy. “Where we headed?”
Colt jogged up the other side of the draw.
For a guy who was supposed to be watching his brother’s back and helping him figure shit out, I was getting left in the dark an awful fucking lot. Almost like I wasn’t his own fucking mental construct.
Colt stumbled and shook his head like he was trying to shake off a punch.
Wait. Shit. Not a mental construct. Divine intervention. God was like, “Go help your brother. Git ‘er done,” and I went. I went to help my brother because that was what I did when I was alive. I protected him. Always.
Colt bent over and put his hands on his knees.
I took a step closer to him. “Like, remember that time Rian pulled us over and you started to freak out, spouting shit about lines and black noise, and I shot Rian’s stupid ass before he could hear you? You remember that, Sunshine, don’t you?”
Colt was talking to himself, but I couldn’t hear what he was saying. I grabbed a fistful of his shirt and pulled him up so that he had to face me.
“In school, when you had that flashback and stabbed Cris, and that teacher—the hot one who was trying to work off her student loans—she Tased you? Who convinced Sissy to let us drop out? That’s right, this motherfucker right here.”
