A Slither of Hope

by Lisa M Basso

  He’d go for the first locker. He had to.

  A splitting pain began to carry all the way up my side, but I had to keep moving. Kade was just like any other Fallen now. I had to make myself believe that or I might not make it out of this alive. I was on my own.

  At a busy intersection, while I waited for traffic to pass, I pulled out my cell phone. I switched the power off and removed the battery, tossing it in the storm drain by my feet. I threw the other half of the phone in a garbage can once I crossed the street. At least Kade had taught me something useful.

  With the storage facility finally in sight, twenty-four blocks later, I picked up my speed, then thought better of it. I slowed to a stroll, watching every rooftop and possible corner. So far so good. I punched in the six-digit code for the automated gate and bolted to the second set of buildings. I flung the door open and ran until I reached the bend in the hallway. It was late enough that no one else should be here, but just in case, I peeked around the corner. Empty.

  I ran to unit two-fifty-three, a small five-by-five unit, and started on the combination lock. A scuffling noise sounded across the hall. I fumbled with the lock. It clacked against the corrugated metal door, rattling through the hallway like a siren. I cringed and placed my hand on the door to stop the noise. Checking over both shoulders, I headed farther down the hall, where the rustling came from. The sound came again. I looked around the corner and cringed. A rat was shuffling though a discarded bag of chips lying on the floor.

  I returned to my unit, fingers shaking. The lock gave way on the third try. There was no need to roll the door all the way up when it took just a few inches. I reached in around the left side and grabbed the Ziploc baggie, shoved it in my pocket, and locked up the unit. It cost me an extra few seconds, but better that than getting caught for being careless.

  Now that I had money, I could find someplace safe. While leaving the storage space, I thought about my options. The airport was too risky. Who knew if my fake ID was good enough to get me past security? Besides, I couldn’t risk going home to get it—back to Kade’s. That place was not my home. Not anymore.

  I hailed the first cab I saw. “What’s the closest way out of the city, bus or train?” I asked.

  “The train station is closest,” the cabbie said with his fingers working away on the machine that would be counting my time in the back seat and charging me for it. Good thing I had cash now. “Is that where you want to go?”

  I thought about it. “No, take me to the bus station.” Better to cover my butt in as many ways as I could. If I zigzagged, Kade—or anyone else looking—would have a harder time finding me.

  The ride seemed to take hours. I scanned every street, every person for black wings. It was the most nerve-wracking car ride of my life. My stomach gurgled. I didn’t know whether it was lack of food, too much stress, or a combination of the two, but I’d get something to eat as soon as I was safe.

  When we neared the bus station—I recognized it by all the buses parked out front—I was tempted to direct the car around the corner or a few blocks up, but nerves got the better of me. Being this close, I was bound to get sloppy. The shorter the walk to the inside of the bus terminal, the better. There would be people—witnesses—inside, and possibly even cameras. The sooner I got there, the better off I’d be.

  As soon as the cab stopped, I threw the guy a twenty and ran toward the entrance. No one stopped me. No one even cared enough to watch me while I found the ticket counter and waited in line.

  “I need a ticket to the first bus headed out of town.” Yeah, that didn’t sound suspicious at all.

  “We have three buses leaving in seven, ten, and twenty-two minutes. Where are you headed?”

  Good question. “Give me a one-way ticket to Safford, Arizona.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Kade

  Son of a bitch. I pinched the bridge of my now-broken nose, fingers slick with warm blood, and snapped the damn thing back into place. Tears burned my eyes, coming instinctively with the rise in pain. I took one step forward, ready to stop Ray before she got too far, but familiar laughter called my attention back to the alley.

  “What was that, brother?”

  Stay cool. I wiped at the already slowing flow of blood. “Just a silly girl who got the wrong idea about our relationship.” Damn it. I’d have to deal with Ray later. Sorath had information I needed. “Now, back to the hunt.”

  “Lucien’s in the city tracking the girl down himself.”

  Lucien. Lucifer’s only son. On Earth. Tracking Rayna. Things had just gone from shit to thoroughly fucked. Lucien was a shape changer, a talent his father had seen to instill in him upon his creation. The type of energy used to create such a being was said to have sucked all of the nine circles of Hell dry for centuries. Which was why Lucien was one of a kind, and could hopefully never be made again. As a shape changer, Lucien could have been anyone, anywhere.

  Last time it took an army of angels to send him back to Hell. Now it was up to me to stop him. Alone. We were so fucked.

  “I could use some help,” Sorath said, snapping me from my thoughts. “I left quite a mess inside.” A smile darker than his eyes grew wide on his face.

  To a depraved scum like Sorath, that could only mean one thing.

  I stood closer than I’d dared to recently. “Where is Lucien? We should be helping him.”

  He clapped his left hand on my shoulder, his face smug with that exacting nod of his. “In time, brother. First, your help?”

  Time. We were all made of it. I wiped at the remaining trickle of blood above my lip. Time for Shelly and her customers was most likely up thanks to the Fallen I once called brother. Hate simmered in me. I turned down that emotion. Time was a tricky thing. Unfortunately for Sorath, I was out of time. And so was he.

  I slipped the knife from the inside of my jeans, the metal handle warm from being pressed against my skin. In one quick, fluid movement, I placed my left arm on his shoulder, flicked the blade out, and stabbed it into his heart. With a quick, forceful twist, I sunk in deeper.

  His warm blood mingled with my own—dripping from my nose—flowing out of him and over my knife. His eyes widened, becoming more white than black. It had to be this way. If I’d given him a chance to fight, he would have snapped me in two.

  I would say I was sorry, if it were true.

  I watched the river of blood continue to pour until his eyes went still. When I was sure his heart was unsalvageable, I removed my knife and folded it away, blood and all. Sorath’s body slumped to the floor.

  Now to see what he really knew. I pulled his wallet and cell phone from his pants and shoved them in my jacket pocket. He was heavier than he looked—which was saying a lot considering how stacked he was muscularly. I dragged his body to the dumpster and finally tossed him in after six tries.

  Wiping the blood from my hands on my jeans, I thumbed through Sorath’s phone. A text stood out. The most recent one. From someone called Mihr. With a San Francisco area code. It had to be one of Sorath’s minions. “We think the girl may have been spotted. We are on her trail.”

  Damn it. I had to call Sorath’s dogs off Ray. I rapidly tapped the phone’s screen, replying to the message sent less than an hour ago. “Don’t do anything without me. Meet me at the church. Now.”

  With Sorath taken care of, I started down the street. The church was across town and I’d never make it without my wings or my car. I stopped at the corner, dread coating my throat. I didn’t want to know, but I had to check. Peering in through the diner’s window, I found Roxy’s empty. It couldn’t be, though. I opened the door. The customers were crumpled, tucked away beneath their tables, and Shelly was behind the counter. All with the life sucked out of them.

  I’m sorry, Shelly. I covered her already cold body with an apron hanging beside the register and left.

  I slammed my fist through the exterior wall of the diner and wished I could kill Sorath a second time. These poor humans. I zipped my jac
ket all the way up to hide most of the blood and ran home, where there was no sign of Ray. From the look of things she hadn’t come here after our little spat either. Her stuff was all still in place. Even the stash of cash she kept tucked away in her sock drawer was still here. I tried calling her. The number went straight to voicemail. She was probably running through the emergency protocol I taught her. Don’t go home. Pick up your stuff from a storage locker. Get out of town. What a time for my teachings to backfire on me.

  I hurriedly washed the blood off my face and hands then changed my clothes and wiped down my leather jacket. I ran around the corner for my car and drove as fast as I dared, making it to the church in record time. The heart beating in my chest raced so hard it felt ready to explode. I switched Sorath’s phone to silent and conquered the basement stairs.

  All three of Sorath’s Fallen were huddled in a circle, yelling, no doubt pissed that their leader called them off the hunt. That was good. Arguing meant they didn’t have Ray.

  “What’s going on, guys? I got a text from Sorath to meet him here.”

  The three of them turned, silencing their argument.

  “He contacted you?” the slimmest one asked.

  “I’m one of you now, didn’t he tell you?”

  “No, but we’re glad to have you,” the one a half-inch shorter than the rest said.

  “What’s taking him so long?” This was the last one. The one that didn’t seem to give a crap about my arrival.

  “Do we know what the deal is?”

  “We were on our way to Lucien who was tracking the girl with the gray wings. She was so close. Sorath’s text to meet here was unusual,” Shorty said.

  I made sure my eyes widened the right amount. “The Lucien?”

  “The very one. Glad you joined us now?” Slim nudged me with his elbow.

  As loyal as Shorty, Slim, and Other Guy were, they wouldn’t wait forever for Sorath. And they wouldn’t back down if they’d already been in touch with Lucien. Besides Lucifer himself, Lucien was top of the food chain to these junkyard dogs. Getting close to Sorath had been easy. He trusted me. I didn’t have the same repartee or past with any of these three stooges.

  I hadn’t had time to scrape up a plan on my way here, but there were always a few tried and true go-to methods I had stored upstairs from longer ago than I should remember. My favorite? Divide and conquer. “If this is as serious as it sounds, we should probably bulk up, right?”

  The three of them looked at each other, naturally leaning into that same huddle I’d walked in on.

  “He’s right,” Shorty said first.

  Slim followed up with, “Sorath’s not here yet. A quick zap of energy might not be a bad idea.”

  Other Guy furrowed his brow. I refrained from rolling my eyes. My adrenaline was still sky high and if one of these Fallen didn’t come with me soon, I’d have to try facing them all together. I really hoped I didn’t have to face them all together. Impatience drummed across my skin, leaving my nerves, and my fingers, twitchy.

  Finally, I cleared my throat and decided to use my eagerness to my advantage. “One of us should stay behind anyway, in case Sorath shows up while we’re gone.” I headed toward the back area that led to the convent. “Thanks, buddy.”

  Other Guy stood there, lips fumbling, while Slim and Shorty followed right behind me. If there was anything I could count on Lucifer’s lot for, it was eagerness to cause chaos. Plus these three all seemed to be on the same level power-wise. I was older, therefore more powerful, and Sorath had trusted me. The trickledown effect couldn’t have been better if I planned it myself.

  The convent loomed in the darkness, a tiny white house against the starry backdrop of the night. Going in there to ravage what was left of the priests and nuns was exactly the opposite of what I saw myself doing today before this shit blew up in my face. But what was a man without a plan going to do? The pass-through between the church and the building next door was narrow and unlit, but it protected whoever walked through from the cold. On the right, a set of cement stairs with one iffy metal handrail led up to the church.

  The church.

  I grabbed the handrail and climbed the four cracked, uneven stairs. With my hand on the brass door knob, I said, “I feel like a little variety tonight.”

  Slim and Shorty grinned as I pulled the door open. The scent of incense, candle wax, and old wood mixed inside. It had been so long since I’d been in a church, the old familiar smell made me sneeze. In the old days, long before cell phones, cars, and electricity, I spent my nights in whatever church I could find, laid out in the pews, talking to my brothers about very different things than people talk about now.

  “There are enough for all of us,” Shorty said.

  The smell had brought me further back into my past than I’d been in years. Further back than it was safe to remember. Further away than I should have been with these two at my back. “Grab whoever you want and bring them back here, just don’t cause a scene. Let’s keep this neat and quiet.”

  “If we can,” Slim added with a horrid smile that I wanted to hit off his face so badly. The amount of teeth in Slim’s mouth had to be double what normal people get, either that or his mouth was too wide, showing all his teeth at once. Either way, I wanted them bloody.

  The two flared their wings out and took to the back of the church.

  Since there were no services tonight, so the pews were sparsely populated. I counted seven women and one man, all over the age of forty, the majority of them with seventy percent or more gray hair. I’d always wondered what it would be like to have gray hair, or experience any aging at all. A deep wrinkle, crow’s-feet, arthritis. It didn’t appeal to most humans, but those were the kinds of badges of honor that angels aren’t allowed.

  I was doing it again. Getting lost. I needed to stay focused. Killing Sorath might have lessened the Fallen’s hold on my leash, but it was still choking me, and my mind was overcompensating by taking a few liberties of its own when I needed it here, now.

  I snatched up the closest human and silenced her with one look at my eyes. “Ssshhh. Everything is all right.” With any luck she’d live through this. When I saw Slim and Shorty towing their meals behind them, I brought the older woman in my arms behind the altar wall. “No matter what happens, don’t scream,” I told the woman, hoping she wouldn’t die from a heart attack in the next two minutes.

  Slim had the old man with him. Interesting taste in appetite considering women outnumbered men seven to one. He wasted no time holding the man’s mouth open and taking the red-tinged essence into his own, his wings reflecting countless silver pinpricks of light.

  Shorty slammed his woman against the back wall, shaking several pictures of the priests currently serving at the church above him. He coaxed the woman’s mouth open, almost sensually, and kissed her before turning to me. “Not hungry?” he asked, his eyes narrowing in his brother’s starlight.

  I threw on a hasty grin and pinned the old lady to the wall. When her life force started to trickle in, a haze filled my brain, clouding my vision. When things were this good, I understood the need humans had for drugs. The parts of the woman I could taste were candy. Pure, honey-coated, sin-free emotion. I drank her in, unable to stop. The thump of her heart against my chest began to slow, the irregular beats telling me if I held on much longer I would drain her dry.

  That couldn’t happen. I turned my head away, waiting for the pounding desire, the absolute need, to die down. With my palm flat against her face, I turned her head to the side, trying to focus my vision. Clouds of black parted, changing to red smoke. Shorty feeding. I pushed my lady off and released my knife, pulling it free and flicking it open, though it was sticky with Sorath’s blood.

  With one quick glance at Shorty, still preoccupied, I positioned myself behind him and drove the blade in, through the wings, and hopefully into his heart. For good measure, I yanked the knife out and snapped his neck. If he wasn’t dead, he’d be incapacitated while I—
>
  The man Slim was feeding on pitched out a hysterical scream. His cries carried in a deep echo that resonated through the church. Slim glanced over from his meal. By the time his brain registered what was happening I was already closing in on him. Slim threw the old man at me. I had just enough time to move the knife so I didn’t stab the innocent man.

  “Get out,” I told him, not needing black eyes to make him obey.

  Slim took to the air. “You’re a traitor!” he screeched, circling above Shorty’s body.

  “I’ve been getting a lot of that today.”

  He dove into me, knocking the knife from my hand. A fist fired into my still-sore nose. I recovered quickly and kicked out, flinging him back into the wall. The plaster behind him crumbled on impact, sending him soaring straight through it. Plaster dust coated him like a reject ghost. He rolled onto the altar. The remaining churchgoers screamed and rushed toward the door. Slim flapped his wings, dusting the area around him in white powder. Before he could take off, I dove through the hole in the wall and tackled him. The slippery bastard squirmed out of my grip before I could lock my hold on him.

  There was no way for him to know I couldn’t fly. What he did know was that he wouldn’t be walking away alive if he faced me on the ground. What I knew was if he never came down I’d be screwed.

  Slim flapped his wings again and left the ground, hovering a few feet off the ground. I saw an opportunity and ran for the mosaic column beside him. I jumped, kicked off it, and hooked an arm around his waist.

  “You can’t fly!” he said.

  I reached up, grabbed a massive handful of feathers, and yanked until his wing snapped. His cry almost made me smile. We sank. The floor came up on us fast, slamming into my back. The hard marble altar cracked under our weight, sending up more dust. We both rolled off in separate directions. “Now. Neither. Can. You,” I breathed out around failing lungs.

  Despite his newly broken wing, Slim climbed to his feet first. He rounded the altar, pulling a real knife off his from his ankle. A way bigger knife than the one I just lost. Faster than I would have guessed he could move, Slim lunged at me. I managed to roll out of the way, the polished steel barely missing my head. He followed through with his strike. The blade speared into my left wing and pinned me to the floor. I bit my lip and grunted through the pain.