by Jessa Slade
The warden in the middle angled a shepherd’s crook across his chest. To the imp, the crook blazed, molten streams of etheric energy spiraling upward like ghostly fire. “We would not have thought you would be so stupid as to use it.”
She heard herself say, “I suppose you both learned a lesson.”
Wow, she so did not need that focused golden fuming—Fane included—upon her. She stepped past Fane’s arm toward the wardens. If she was going to die, she might as well get it over with.
But the wardens retreated a step, except for the middle one. That was fine; she wasn’t here for the VIP tour. She tilted her head toward Fane. “Back to your plan.”
“Plan?” In contrast to his crook, the warden’s tone dripped ice.
“To retrieve my sword,” Fane said as he stepped into the room.
His slightly haughty emphasis on the last word made Bella wonder if the wardens’ compared the size of their…weapons. Maybe a skinny pole with a hook on the end just wasn’t considered as sexy as a long, thick sword. She resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Like the enmity wasn’t thick enough.
But the warden didn’t seem annoyed, or at least no more annoyed than he’d been already. If anything, a note of glee lightened his voice when he said, “Your abraxas is irretrievably ruined. Even if you take it back from the djinn-man, its influence is forever poisoned.”
Bella didn’t need to see the flare of gold in Fane’s eyes to sense his rage. “If Thorne’s power has altered the sword, I will change it back.”
The warden at one end of the line shook her head, her voice every bit as uncompromising, if less delighted. “The flaws will be permanent and impossible to absolve.”
Bella coughed under her breath. So much for the forgiveness of sins. Maybe that only applied to animate objects. Of course, the wardens seemed unwilling to offer any absolution to Fane either.
She couldn’t imagine—didn’t want to imagine—what they would do to her.
Fane seemed to recognize the nowhere-fast nature of the conversation. “Regardless,” he said. “Retrieving the abraxas from Thorne’s possession will weaken him. That is in all our interests.”
“But mostly yours,” the male warden said snidely. “It matters little to us what weapons the tenebrae wield against us. We will fight on.”
Fane gave an exasperated sigh. “But wouldn’t it be better to just win one?”
“Corvus tried to end the war once and for all,” the warden drawled. “And look where that got him.”
Bella blinked in surprise at the tacit confession the sphericanum wasn’t interested in ending anything. Corvus had wanted to bring the battle to a head, to force heaven and hell to at last confront each other without the intervening avatars of djinn-men, wardens and talyan. It had been almost noble; demented and doomed, not to mention devastating to the earthly realm, but strangely, sadly noble.
Not that she’d say as much aloud. No need to reveal her demonic origins so blatantly.
Fane crossed his arms over his chest. “Fine. Then consider your possible elevation through the spheres should we take out one of the most insidious djinn-men to emerge in centuries.”
The warden hesitated, and Bella wondered how he didn’t recognize temptation when it was right in front of him.
Of course, he didn’t recognize an imp when it was right in front of him either. But Bella wasn’t going to blame him for that; which made her more virtuous than a warden, apparently.
However, the female warden was shifting uncomfortably. Or maybe one of the glowing gold arrows in the quiver on her back was poking her in the ass. “We cannot consort with an exile.”
Bella took another step up. “He doesn’t need a consort, thanks anyway, but maybe you can work with me.”
Again she quavered under the weight of those stares, but if they were going to make this happen… She dragged out the little glass ball she’d carried up in her pocket and balanced it in the center of her palm. “We need to capture and confine tenebrae emanations, and reversing the charge of the wards the sphericanum uses, we think we can—”
With the curve of his crook, the male warden slapped her hand.
The glass ball flew from her grasp and bounced once on the carpet but did not break. Bella gasped and reached down, but the warden smashed his bare foot down on the bauble.
Red glass and blood flared in the imp’s vision.
“Whatever sphere secrets the traitor has revealed must go with you to your grave, woman,” the warden said harshly. “Which will be sooner rather than later if you speak of this.”
“Sooner even than that, probably,” Bella muttered. She knelt to retrieve the broken ornament.
“In that case—” The warden raised his crook.
Fane punched him. One shot, right past the crook and straight to the stern, square jaw.
The warden went over backward, white robe flapping.
The female warden jumped to one side, an arrow instantly cocked in her bow, and the other wardens were bristling with their weapons a half-second later.
Fane shook out his hand. “We don’t use our abraxas against the innocent.”
“There are no innocents in the war between good and evil,” the female warden reminded him. “Everyone takes a side.”
“Not everyone,” Fane said. He did not look over his shoulder, but Bella felt the intent aimed at her anyway.
The female warden rumbled angrily in her throat. “The ambivalent should be the first to die.”
Bella picked the bloody shards of the ornament out of the carpet. “No doubt you’ll get your wish.” She rose as the male warden sat up, groaning. “Let’s get out of here.”
Fane nodded brusquely and recalled the elevator.
The female warden cocked her bow another notch tighter. “Don’t come back here again, Fane. Once was stupid. Twice will be suicide. And you wouldn’t want that stain on your soul, would you?”
He didn’t reply, just faced the elevator doors until they opened and strode in.
Bella kept a wary eye on the golden glow of the enraged angels, but they made no further moves.
She and Fane descended in silence. She wondered if the descent felt more metaphorical to him, once again kicked out of his celestial standing. She cleared her throat. “That went well.”
He stared at the dropping numbers. “We still have our heads.”
“And angelic blood spoor. The divine essence can be used to bless artifacts used against the tenebrae. The reliquary I have at my apartment supposedly has a saint’s knucklebone, but I’m pretty sure it’s a pig’s tail bone. Unless the saint cracked his knuckles a lot.”
“You’re babbling.”
“I do that when I’m grateful to be alive.”
The elevator door opened and they marched across the lobby, which was filled with wardens in white who parted slower than the Red Sea to let them pass.
Bella shivered at the threat of those golden glares—some mere sparks, some bright enough to scorch—and moved closer to Fane, but no one tried to stop them. Too bad, in a way. Certainly she’d be safe from the tenebrae here in sphericanum central.
Fane reached for the front door, but it opened before he touched it. An angelic possessed dressed in white overalls waved them out, grumbling, “They told me I have to replace the entire keypad.”
“Sucks to be you,” Bella said.
The lesser ward jerked his thumb toward Fane. “Not as much as it sucks to be him.”
Fane ignored the other angelic possessed as he stalked past. He held his flattened palm out to Bella.
She put the broken ornament in his hand. “You’re upset. I’ll drive.”
He glowered, first at the glass, then at her. “I’ll be upset if you drive.”
“Which will be a nice distraction for you. I’m so thoughtful that way.” She pointed the fob at the Porsche and the headlights flashed a silvery halogen welcome through spits of icy rain.
She shivered again. Already the night threatened. Shadows s
eemed to decant from the low clouds, dripping down the sides of the tall buildings and spreading across the pavement toward her boots.
She opened the passenger door and then whisked around the front of the car.
Fane slapped his palms down on the roof. “I’m serious.”
“So I’ve noticed. And I’m driving.” She slid into the driver’s seat and ran her hands over the controls, familiarizing herself with the touch of fine leather and chrome. Still, Fane didn’t plunk himself down into the passenger seat until she actually started up the engine with a somewhat unnecessary roar.
He dumped the bloody glass shards into the center console coin holder. “I suppose it doesn’t really matter if I die.”
“That’s the spirit.” She peeled smoothly away from the curb.
His fingers clenched the arm rest. “You didn’t even check your blindspot.”
She looked at him. “Do you hear how silly you just sounded? I’m blind-ish, remember?”
He slumped lower yet. “Oh, how the mighty have fallen.”
“Were you mighty?”
His hand spasmed again on the arm rest between them. For him, she realized, talking about his loss was more terrifying than handing over his keys.
“Not almighty,” he said at last. “But mighty enough.”
“And now?”
“Mighty pissed. They want to banish me, fine, but to refuse a chance to confront Thorne? Why else are we here?”
“I think their problem was not the confrontation but the company.”
He snorted. “Shouldn’t matter.”
“Because the company you keep doesn’t matter to you?” She kept her eyes forward, not sure what she wanted him to say. Did she want him to care about the company he kept? But then, if an angel-man had any sort of judgment, he wouldn’t be with a demon…
He drummed his fingers restlessly, as if ticking through the various answers he might give. “I’m trying to do something here, for everyone’s good.” He sounded aggrieved.
Maybe because she was an entity of lesser evil, somehow that was not the response she wanted. She turned off at the next exit, jumping a couple lanes of traffic.
He shifted in his seat. “I thought we were going back to the house.”
“Why would you think that when I’m driving?”
“Because my home is the best place for you to be.”
She contemplated all her potential responses and decided two could play at his game of non-answers. “I can’t see anything in your house. It’s like living in a white bubble.”
He scowled. “In a bubble, nothing can get to you, which I thought was what you wanted.”
“Not nothing,” she said. “Just not the tenebrae.”
He waved one hand as if the distinction was of no interest to him. It should be, she thought grimly; without the protection of his abraxas and the sphericanum, he was almost as vulnerable as she was.
She parked the Porsche in the alley behind the Mortal Coil and tossed Fane the keys. Then she gathered her shopping bags and the broken ornament and let herself into the club.
Her heels tapped a slow, boring tempo down the back hall. So empty, so quiet. Sometimes she wished she kept the place hopping during the holidays, as a way to stay busy if nothing else. But she couldn’t risk others when the tenebrae came creeping. She wouldn’t let what happened to Mirabel happen to anyone else. At least not in front of her. Not again.
Despite her dismal thoughts, she found herself listening for the thud of harder footfalls as she rummaged behind the bar for a votive candle holder. But the only sound was the whisper of air through the ducts high overhead and the tinkle of glass as she dumped the broken ornament over the burned-down wax. She stifled her disappointment and turned toward the stairs to her apartment.
And let out an inadvertent shriek as she found herself nose to chest with Fane.
“I thought you were going home,” she said.
“I thought you were going home with me,” he countered. “Where are you going to hang your ornaments?”
“Upstairs. It’s smaller, more defensible.” Plus, she could see the pretty baubles from her bed and maybe sweeten her dreams.
He stepped out of her way. She hesitated a moment, but then with a mental shrug, she went up.
He was silent on the stairs behind her, almost eerily so for such a big man. Why did an angel need to be so sneaky? It had the power of goodness and light on its side.
But she felt the weight of his gaze, like the memory of his hand running down her naked back, and suddenly goodness and light seemed very far away.
She hurried a little faster up the stairs.
In her apartment, she hung her parka on the row of hooks by the door and kicked off her boots before taking the broken ornament to the reliquary. The antique was in the classic French style, like a miniature gilt-copper cathedral with rock crystal windows and a red enameled front door. With her fingernail, she popped the tiny latch and slid the candle into the depths.
“Watch out.” Fane’s hands on her shoulders made her start. “There’s still broken glass on the floor from when you threw your drink.” He guided her to one side then knelt to sweep up the trash.
She bit her lip. “You don’t have to do that.”
“If I cut myself, you can add it to your collection. Unless the blood from an outcast angel is useless.”
“I guess it depends on how you cut yourself. The warden shed his blood to reject us, to repel what he saw as a transgression. That impulse works against the tenebrae.” She ran her finger over the peaked steeples of the reliquary, and the copper spires thrummed an almost musical arpeggio. Did she dare ask if he would shed his blood for her? Or some other bodily fluid?
Her mouth felt swollen where she had nibbled at it, and when he stood up, looming over her, she couldn’t help but lick her lips. As transparent as glass…
He turned and went to the kitchen where he found her trash can under the sink. The ring of plain broken glass in the bottom of the bin sounded like her silly fantasies shattering.
Which incensed her. An imp did not want dreams. An imp did not need fantasies. Her only plan had been to keep herself free of the tenebraeternum another year, but here she was, exposed to an angel-man, half embroiled in a fight against a djinn-man, and on the sphericanum’s watch list, no doubt.
Doing her utmost to ignore Fane, she unwrapped her new sleigh and reindeer team from their tissues and hung them from the curtain rod at the window.
“You won’t be able to pull the drapes,” he warned.
“This time of year, I want all the light I can get.” She fussed with the spacing until they were perfect, then stepped back. The window was only a square of black framing the storm clouds and encroaching night. But the meager light of the streetlight below glinted in the silvered bits of the mercury glass, and she saw not just the reflected glimmer but the time and talent and joy the old man had blown into the molten glass. Drunken curmudgeon he might have been, but his love shone in the ornaments.
She gave the lead red-nosed reindeer a gentle nudge to set him swaying and then reluctantly turned to face her visitor.
He’d taken off his coat and stood with his hip propped against her kitchen counter, looking long, lean and mean with a tumbler of clear liquid in his hand.
She pointed. “That’s a pretty hefty drink for someone who’s about to drive away.”
“Who’s leaving?”
She tapped the accusing finger against her lower lip. “Um, let’s see…”
He drained the tumbler in one long swallow and then stalked across the room toward her.
She’d hung her protections against attack from the outside. Maybe she should have been looking within. She took a short step back.
He didn’t stop until their thighs bumped. “Yes, let us see,” he murmured.
He leaned down to kiss her, a slow kiss that coursed through her like the silver the old man had poured into the blown glass, so she felt as breathless and delicate,
with a bright spark inside her. She wanted his hands around her curves, his mouth stoking the flames.
When he finally lifted his head, his smile was as slow and hot as the kiss.
She swallowed hard. “Liar. You had pure water in your glass.”
“Then I must be drunk on something else.”
“Exhaustion, maybe.”
“Are you saying we should go to bed? I’ve been wanting to get a closer look at all those embroidered pillows.”
She choked on nothing.
He took her hand and turned toward the bed, oh so conveniently right there.
She took one step before setting her stocking feet flat on the floor and tugging her hand free. “No.”
“The kitchen counter again? If that’s what you want.”
“Where is this going, Cyril?”
He gestured one direction then the other. “The bed or the counter. Your choice. Unless you have another idea.”
“I don’t…”
He crossed his arms over his chest, tensing his broad shoulders. “Don’t what?”
“I needed a light against the darkness. You wanted to forget for a night.” She matched his crossed arms, hers lower over her belly where the ache of desire and denial centered. “What more is there?”
“Nothing more, not if you push me away.” Against the severe lines of his winter-pale cheekbones, his eyes seemed bluer than ever.
For an instant, her breath caught in her throat. When had she begun to see him so clearly? The blue of his eyes—no matter how blue—should be nothing more than another shade of gray to the imp. Then her heartbeat resumed with a frantic thud.
How had she gotten so far from the isolation and barricades that had saved her? The longest night was here and her tenebrae brethren would be close behind. Mirabel had died, the windows of her soul forever dimmed rather than confront the demons. Bella would never let him face that, see her like that. All she would have was a clearer view of the horror and disgust in his heavenly blue eyes.
With a slow shake of her head, she backed away. She had been the death of a hopeless, helpless girl; she would not be the stain on an angel-man’s soul.
From the lies all demons mastered, she dredged up a casual flick of her fingers. “It’s been fun, Fane. But the season is almost over. This is definitely over. Thanks for the ornaments. Thanks for showing me…showing me it was wrong to steal.” Wrong to steal the Jesuses. Wrong to steal a night of light from an angel-man. Wrong to steal… No, she might have just given away her heart. She tilted her head and let her smile tilt toward sardonic. “You’re obviously too good a man to be with the likes of me.”
