by C. S. Wilde
Kevin, a red-haired boy in his early twenties, rushed toward them. “Bloody hells, can’t a bloke go to the loo anymore?” Kevin was part of an interchange program with the precinct’s counterpart in England, which was clear by his thick Yorkshire accent. “I mean, when nature calls you—” He stopped when he spotted Archie and assessed the damage. “Old Man, do you ever listen?”
Kevin quickly placed his hands over Archie’s ribs. Golden light shone beneath his palms, and Archie let out a relieved breath. Kevin, on the other hand, grunted and squeezed his face as if being repeatedly shot.
Certain Selfless could inherit remnants of their angelic powers. With Kevin, it had been healing, since he’d been a powerful second-tier. This was more rumor than fact, but considering Kevin’s abilities, the rumor had to be true.
Having a human body hindered him, though—all Selfless for that matter—and healing could cause Kevin a great deal of pain, especially if he crossed the line.
“You ought to watch out, Archie,” Kevin said in between grunts of pain. “You can’t miss your own retirement party, yeah?”
Liam scowled. “Did everybody know except me?”
“Yes,” the Captain said, standing up in that stiff military manner of hers.
Liam watched the scar that cut her face in a diagonal, then quickly diverted his attention to his own feet. “Cap, I’d like to oppose Archie’s retirement. You know he can’t quit the game. I mean, a condo in Florida?” He snorted. “You know he’ll be miserable there. I can take care of him.”
He felt like adding that the Captain herself should’ve retired some five years ago, but her furious glare told him to shut up.
“Can you? Really?” She nodded toward his injured partner and a sweating Kevin. “The evidence says otherwise.”
“Go easy on him, Shelly,” Archie said. He tried to move but winced in pain instead.
Only Archie was allowed to call the Captain by her name. Liam had tried it once, and he’d gotten two weeks of desk work for it.
“Your boy is as careless as you are,” she told the old man, a certain grief in her tone.
It was the Captain who handed them their missions, and it was the Captain who bore the weight of sending someone to their death; the kids she often trained herself, the people she loved like family. Her dark brown eyes and wrinkled skin spoke of a lifetime of trials.
Archie used to call her “a mountain against an unending storm.” It fit her all too well.
Kevin fell with his back on the floor and took deep breaths, his chest heaving up and down, his forehead shining with sweat. “I did my best, heh?”
Archie carefully bent down from his chair and tapped Kevin’s ankles. “You did good enough, Kev.”
The Captain didn’t wait another second before handing Liam a paper. “I need you to investigate this claim. No funny business, just detective work. Do not engage in a fight, or I will have your ass handed to you on a platter. Understand?” This she said looking specifically at Archie, because she knew he wasn’t letting Liam go on this mission alone.
“Oy,” Kevin yelled from the ground, sensing the same thing the Captain did. “You need to rest, old man.”
“I’m fine.” Archie smiled in that warm way that assured Liam he had everything under control. “Don’t worry about me. I’ll tag alone merely as a consultant, all right? Besides, you said it yourself, Shelly. It’s easy detective work.”
Kevin sat up and shook his head. “Your funeral, you stubborn old sag.” He stood up and patted his clothes. “If you all excuse me, I have some paperwork to finish.” And off he went, wobbly and weak, doing his best to stand up straight.
Archie turned to the Captain. “I think Kevin would be a good partner for Liam.”
The Captain raised a thin gray eyebrow. “Do you realize how hard it was to get a healer like him across the pond?”
“Yes.”
“And you want me to assign the best healer in miles to your little guard dog? Denied,” she said, then turned to Liam. “I’ll hand out a list of potential partners to you later, and you better pick one.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Liam said, knowing better than to argue.
Archie tapped his own legs and stood. He stretched his arms and exhaled loudly, like he was releasing the weight of the entire world off his back. “Ah, good as new.” But Liam knew by the shaking of Archie’s knees that he was still in a small degree of pain.
“Old man, are you sure—”
Archie nodded to the exit of the precinct. “Let’s roll, kid.”
Their footsteps clicked against the concrete sidewalk. The street was deserted, quiet. In Liam’s experience, silence was never a good sign. It always preceded trouble.
“Can’t I work solo?” he blurted, his hands shoved in the pockets of his leather jacket. “I’m not exactly good at people skills.”
Archie frowned. “Your ‘people skills’ are pretty decent when you’re picking up girls at the bar. I believe you took two ladies home last night?”
An easy grin spread on Liam’s lips. “Different kind of people skills.” He studied his own shuffling feet. “I was thinking we could establish a private practice. You’d do all the boring stuff like research and paperwork, while I’d be out on the streets.”
“You’d still need a partner to watch your back,” Archie countered.
Hells, this wasn’t going as Liam expected. Archie had been his partner since his first day as a Selfless. He had made Liam the detective and the man he was today. Fury Boys, that’s how they were known on the streets. Fierce Selfless who got the job done, but most importantly, a team.
Liam wasn’t sure how he was supposed to go on without him.
“Whatever,” he said, remembering all the times he had shot that word at Archie when he was a teenager.
Deep down, Liam knew his father had to retire. Archie wasn’t as fast or as strong as he used to be, and poor Kevin was having to patch him up more frequently.
It saddened him in a way. When Archie was younger he had been a force of nature, Liam’s one and only hero. But his hero was only human.
They found the vampire looming near a dark alley. Drake was his name, and he was Archie’s contact with the In-Betweens.
He stared at Liam and Archie with nearly white irises, his pupils tiny black dots. From up close, it felt like staring into a tiger’s eyes before it lunged at prey.
“Why have you called me?” the vampire asked, his hands shaking.
Drake’s skin was marble white, and sickening blue veins had started growing under it, rising from the bottom of his neck. This vampire was starving. Drake was so thin, it seemed his flesh had been glued to his bones.
“How long since you last fed?” There was pity in Archie’s tone.
The old man would fall upon a demon with the fury of the Gods, but he’d always avoid conflict with the In-Betweens, even though they were technically as damned as demons.
“Do you care? Do any of you holy ones care?” The vampire gritted his teeth, showing his protuberant fangs. “I ask again, what do you want?”
“We want to know why the attacks on humans have increased in sector thirteen.” Liam stepped forward, trying to stand between Archie and the bloodsucker. “A lot of vampires are being generated without going through the natural death process.”
“Well, complain to the ones who cursed us for not choosing a side,” the vampire hissed. “That was your Gods, wasn’t it?”
“And the Devils too,” Liam added, watching him, waiting for the moment Drake would lose control. “Don’t blame us if you couldn’t pick a side when you died.” Liam’s muscles clenched, and he stepped forward. “But by turning humans, you’re stripping them of the choice you had.”
Archie put a hand on Liam’s shoulder and stepped forward. “Drake, the hunger is clouding your judgement.” His tone was calm, soothing. “Tell us how we can help.”
The vampire gurgled a laugh. “Angels helping an In-Between? We’re stuck in the middle of a w
ar we want no part in.” He showcased his fangs. “This is the price we pay for neutrality, and oh, how fair it is.”
“There are no neutral sides in the battle against darkness,” Liam said. “Which makes you all as good as demons.”
“And yet we hate them as much as we hate you,” Drake spat. “Your Gods might have given us immortality on Earth and sensitivity to light, but it was the Devils who gave us our hunger for blood.” He paced back and forth. “Of course we generate vampires. It’s the nature of our curse. But we never pass the annual quota the Order imposed.”
Finally, he was opening up.
“What changed?” Liam pushed, his arms crossed.
“Someone’s starving us, cutting our legally obtained blood supplies. At some point, the hunger takes over and we attack humans.” He looked at the street, as if making sure no one overheard them. “The numbers of starving vampires are increasing, and the main covens can’t control them anymore. Then you Selfless or Warriors and Archangels, you’re all the same, we’re just targets to you all, aren’t we?” He chortled. “You come and smite us without asking questions, and the demons just smile and watch because they want the world to burn. I lost three of my coven this week.” He shook his head. “We’re not alone. Too many werewolves have been hunting on forbidden grounds lately.”
“Why?” Liam asked.
“Wolfsugar,” Archie deduced quietly.
The powder could be converted into a drug like Xanax. A good deal of werewolves took it as an aid to control the inner wolf, but if wrongly dosed, it could have the opposite effect and force the change, wiping out their control over the beast.
“So, someone’s withholding blood supplies from vampires and tampering with a drug werewolves use to control their change. All of this to force In-Betweens to kill humans?” Liam chortled. “My bet’s on you guys losing your shit like you always do.”
Drake glared at Liam with his predatory pupils. “The dark is on our doorstep. Soon it will be in yours too, Selfless.”
Liam had lost count of the times a vampire, demon, or werewolf had told him “the dark was coming.” The dark was always coming, and it was always losing because it was chaos and fury against the light’s order and logic.
Archie crossed his arms. “These are serious accusations, Drake.”
“It’s the truth,” he said. “Lilith will not stand by this for long, neither will the werewolf lord.”
“Who’s Lilith?” Liam asked.
Archie rested a hand on his shoulder. “Let’s call it a night, kid. He isn’t making sense.”
“She’s the mother of all vampires,” Drake said. “The first human who refused to choose between the Gods and the Devils when given the final choice.”
“The first vampire?” Liam frowned. “If she exists, she’s damn old.”
“Extremely, and also incredibly powerful.” Drake added with a sly grin. “She will bring reckoning to the Order and to the Devils, to all the creatures on this Earth that threaten us, that force us to make a choice we don’t want to make. She will resist, we all will, until there’s nothing left of us.”
Archie rolled up the long sleeve of his checkered shirt, showing the vampire his bulky arm. Drake licked his lips, his eyes focused solely on Archie’s veins.
“What are you doing?” Liam asked, a chill running down his spine.
“We need to be sure if he’s serious or if he’s lost it. If Lilith is real … well, the only way to know is by feeding him.”
Liam pushed Archie’s arm down. “Are you insane?”
“Kid, I’ve been doing this for over forty years,” Archie said with a sharp tone, his face a marbled mask. Liam knew this expression well, and he knew it meant a very serious ‘back off.’
So Liam swallowed his fears, his fists helplessly clenched, because that was all he could do, really. Going against his father wasn’t exactly an option; the old man was more stubborn than the Cap herself.
Archie stepped forward and gave Drake his arm. The vampire hesitated, almost as if wondering if this was a trick. Then his hunger took over, and he sank his fangs into Archie’s wrist.
Archie winced in pain, but allowed Drake to feed.
The vampire didn’t stop, swallowing long gulps. Of course. Vamps weren’t known for their self-control.
Liam tapped Drake’s hunched back. “That’s enough, buddy.”
The vampire didn’t free Archie, so Liam took out his sun dagger. In one swift move, he slashed the bloodsucker’s back. Drake immediately let the old man go, arching his spine as he uttered a loud curse.
The vampire recomposed, straightening his stance and cleaning the blood from the sides of his mouth. Selfless blood was stronger than normal human blood—something to do with an angel’s holy essence dripping into their human body. It would keep Drake fed for at least a week. Already, the sickly veins had started to retreat.
“Thank you, Archie.” Drake bowed to him, then stuck his tongue out and pressed his thumb against it. He touched Archie’s wrist, and his fang marks were soon gone. Vampire saliva, the world’s best Band-Aid. “If angels find out you fed me …”
“They won’t.” Archie folded his shirt back toward his wrists and buttoned his cuffs.
Drake peered at him with eyes that had turned to an unnatural silver. “What I told you is the truth. Someone is forcing us to attack humans, causing the Order to fall upon us without mercy. In doing so, whoever is behind this is annihilating the In-Betweens without getting their hands dirty. They’re using the Order to do their dirty work.”
“And Lilith?” Archie prodded.
Drake gave him a brief grin. “Now that was the hunger speaking.” Without another word, he turned and left.
“It’s not our problem,” Liam said as they watched Drake go. “If someone is out for the In-Betweens, then good riddance, right?”
Archie shook his head. “The In-Betweens aren’t demons, kid, even though we treat them like it. They don’t deserve our wrath.”
“They’re a fucking threat to humans, Archie. Demons, In-Betweens, they’re all the same shit,” Liam said, frowning at his mentor. “Your compassion for them makes no sense.”
“You could use some of it,” he said, then tapped Liam’s back. “See you tomorrow?”
Before Liam could answer, Archie turned and walked away.
Liam couldn’t help but feel that his mentor, his partner, his father, was disappointed in him. He should’ve followed Archie, should’ve cleared the air, like he always did when they had a disagreement. Instead, he watched Archie go, the lamplights drenching the old man in a fake halo as he walked under them.
The next day, the Archangel’s sword waited for Liam on his desk with all the proper paperwork. Archie’s handwriting on a ripped piece of paper said “Use it wisely.”
Not long after, the old man lay in a hospital bed, his wounds beyond anything Kevin could heal. The boy had volunteered though, knowing he’d probably die before saving Archie. Then they both would be dead. Liam could still remember the pain in the Captain’s eyes as she forced two Selfless to hold Kevin down and stop him from committing suicide.
To save Archie, they needed a full second-tier, an ascended angel. But the Order sent a helpless Guardian instead.
The strangest part of it all was that, when the time for his choice came, Archie didn’t become the angel he had once been, or one of the In-Betweens he seemed to pity and respect. No, Archie chose to become the thing he hated the most.
And Liam would find out why.
8
Ava
Ava woke with sunlight caressing her skin. A shy gust ventured through the half-open window, bringing in fresh air.
She stretched, rejoicing in her pleasant awakening right before inhaling the musky scent of oak and earth from her large shirt, the one Liam had given her before he’d gone to bed.
It was so big that it worked as a dress.
Since Liam’s shirts fitted perfectly against his muscular form, she guessed
he must wear this to sleep. Or perhaps he lent it to his lovers. But then the shirt would smell like them, and not so wonderfully like him.
She discreetly dipped her chin and sniffed the fabric, but a sting of pain swam down her stiff neck. The old sofa—her new bed—was as comfortable as an iron mattress.
“Morning,” Liam called out from the kitchen, his mouth half-full with food, most of him hidden behind a mess of hanging pans and piled cutlery on the kitchen counter.
Her heart drummed in her chest. Had he seen her sniff his shirt?
By his cocky grin, yes. Yes, he had.
As she approached the kitchen, the scent of burnt pancakes battled with the fresh air that ventured through the window. The burnt stench won, and Ava sighed deeply, muttering a prayer before sitting at the counter.
She looked down at the plate before her. It was filled with two burnt pancakes and scrambled eggs that smelled old.
“I thought I should fix you breakfast,” Liam said from across the counter. “As a peace offering.”
She turned to him, and her jaw hung open. Now that there was no kitchen clutter between them, she could see all of him. “You’re, hmm … shirtless.”
There he sat, bands of muscle perfectly woven together underneath tanned, smooth skin. A soft stubble peppered his jaw, venturing down his Adam’s apple. Heavens, Liam was a finely tuned symphony. She barely noticed the scars on his torso because they belonged to the symphony too. And those piercing eyes, smart and clear green; eyes that seemed to know exactly what she was thinking, they were peering at her.
“I’m being a nice host, princess,” he said. “Usually I walk around naked.” He forked a piece of pancake and shoved it in his mouth.
“I suppose I should thank you, then.” She cleared her throat and grabbed her fork, stabbing a portion of eggs with it. “Thank you. For the food, I mean. And for not walking around naked.”
He wiggled his eyebrows. “I used to be an angel before the Selfless Reincarnation Department turned me into a human, right? I guess I should honor my roots and play nice for a change.” He frowned. “By the way, how does the SRD turn angels into human babies?”
