Mandy M. Roth - Magic Under Fire (Over a Dozen Tales of Urban Fantasy)

by Unknown

  So much for the old chestnuts. Felicia wanted to run a hand through her hair in frustration, but since she’d pulled the unruly curls back into a ponytail as she readied herself to paint, that wouldn’t really work. She settled for crossing her arms. “You want the truth? Okay — you go first.”

  His brows drew together. “I’m not sure I know what you mean.”

  Oh, I’m pretty sure you do. “The truth is that the people who know me also know I don’t freak out easily. So what do you think happened last night to make me act the way I did?”

  A flash of comprehension in his dark eyes, and a thinning of the mouth that had kissed her so memorably the night before. That was all she needed to see. He knew exactly what had set her off. Whether he’d admit it was an entirely different matter.

  And then a shrug, a casual lift of broad shoulders beneath a jacket that was far too heavy for the warm autumn day outside. Then again, he was probably used to extreme heat, wasn’t he?

  With that gesture, Felicia knew he wouldn’t tell her the truth. Wouldn’t…or couldn’t. Did it really matter? Besides, did she really want to know?

  Probably not.

  “Well, here we are, then,” she said, and this time she didn’t bother to keep the weariness or frustration out of her voice. “We hardly know each other, so I didn’t really expect you to tell me the truth. That’s your prerogative. But since I’m trying to get some work done…” She let her words trail off and directed an eloquent glance at the door.

  He didn’t pretend to misunderstand. “I really screwed this up, didn’t I?”

  “Yes,” she replied, a little astonished at her own boldness. An unexpected wash of anger passed over her. Maybe it was simple rage at having the one guy she thought she liked turn out to be someone she’d be crazy to want. “You did.”

  She turned away from him deliberately and went back to her abandoned paintbrush. She didn’t want to look at him anymore. He was too human right now. If she looked at him one minute longer, she worried that she’d make herself forget what she’d seen the night before.

  This time, he did slam the door. Felicia winced at the sound. Then she took a deep breath and reached for her palette.

  “FUCK, FUCK, FUCKITY-FUCK.”

  “Language, Samael.”

  He was so wound up he hadn’t even realized that someone was sitting in the passenger seat of the Silverado. A Someone he certainly hadn’t expected to see.

  Samael blinked. “Uriel?”

  “Drive, Samael. You and I have much to discuss.”

  If an archangel tells you to drive, you drive. Samael stuck the key in the ignition and pulled away from the curb. He waited until they were headed safely westward on Wilshire before saying, “Can I ask what this is about?”

  “You may ask.”

  Samael risked a quick sideways glance. Although the angel had taken on a somewhat human guise, he could never have passed in a crowd the way Samael did on a daily basis. A terrible light glowed behind his pale eyes, and his features had a perfection even the best plastic surgeon could never achieve. No wonder he’d been waiting inside the truck instead of out on the sidewalk.

  That begged the question as to what he was doing in Los Angeles at all. The last confirmed angel sighting in L.A. had been back in 1983, and even then the angel in question had been a simple messenger, not one of the Seven.

  “Slumming, huh?” he asked.

  “Hardly,” Uriel replied, his tone unruffled. “Do you mind if I turn on the air conditioning?”

  Samael fought back a grin. “Go ahead.”

  Uriel flicked a finger, and the dial on the climate control unit rotated all the way over to the right. He let out a sigh. “Better. That interview didn’t go very well, did it?”

  “Eavesdropping?”

  The angel said smoothly, “I would prefer ‘monitoring.’ Not quite so negative a connotation, and closer to the mark in terms of intention. At any rate, it would seem Ms. McGovern isn’t quite ready to admit the truth of your existence. Then again, neither are you, it seems.”

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Samael demanded. The light at Figueroa turned red, and he stomped on the brakes.

  “Have you ever wondered, in all the time you’ve toiled here on Earth, why you’re allowed so many liberties? Why you’re given the opportunity to live in many ways like a mortal man, including these liaisons you indulge in from time to time?”

  Samael shot a quick glance over at Uriel. The angel stared forward, the marble perfection of his profile in stark contrast to the shabby streets around them. “Perks. That’s all. It’s not as if I need a dental plan.”

  The corners of Uriel’s mouth turned upward for a brief moment. “To be sure. A question, though — did you ever stop to wonder what happened to Alastor? Or Eligos?”

  “I thought they were reassigned.”

  “And yet you haven’t seen them in Hell for some time.”

  The light changed, and Samael pushed down on the gas a little more heavily than he intended. The Silverado jumped forward like a startled horse.

  Come to think of it, he really hadn’t given the two demons Uriel had just mentioned much thought. L.A. had been Alastor’s stomping grounds back in the day when the city was still called “El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Angeles del Río de Porciúncula.” Then Samael got Alastor’s assignment. At the time he’d only been grateful for the cushy topside posting. He’d presumed that Alastor had transgressed somehow and had been banished to the Pit. Same for Eligos, except his jurisdiction once encompassed the modern-day Bay Area.

  “So?” he asked Uriel. “Hell’s a big place. I go down, make a drop, and then come back up. I’m not there to catch up on old acquaintances.”

  The unearthly smile returned to Uriel’s lips. “Your dedication is admirable, although perhaps it has prevented you from seeing as clearly as you might.”

  “Did you come all the way down here just to throw a few insults my way?” Samael tightened his grip on the steering wheel. He was tempted to pull over and ask the archangel to get out — not that Uriel would comply. Still, the angelic jabs were a bit much to take, especially on top of that awkward not-argument he’d just had with Felicia.

  “Of course not. I merely wanted to remind you of a concept you seem to have forgotten.”

  “And what’s that?”

  Uriel turned pale eyes toward him. “Redemption.”

  “Come again?”

  “You demons are so narrow in your focus. You all think there is no hope of change, no chance to be anything more than what you are.” The archangel faced forward once again, then said casually, “That light just turned yellow.”

  Cursing, Samael jammed on the brakes again and managed to keep the truck from going more than a foot or so over the limit line. Goddamn distracting angels and their circular arguments — “Getting angry serves no purpose,” Uriel commented. “You would do best to listen. It was pride that cast you down before. If you let it, pride will keep you trapped in this existence forever.”

  Had it been pride? The Fall had happened so long ago, Samael hardly thought of it anymore. It was easier to do that than to admit he and his fellow demons might have made a colossal mistake. Lucifer could be horribly persuasive, damn his silver tongue.

  Well, defying God had seemed like a good idea at the time.

  “What does pride have to do with any of this?”

  “More than you might think.” Uriel crossed his arms; his fingers looked pale and oddly boneless against the dark sleeves of his suit jacket. “What stopped you from telling Ms. McGovern the truth?”

  “I like my job,” Samael replied, and nudged the Silverado forward, since the light had just turned green. “I don’t want to lose it. I also like her. She shouldn’t be punished just because she has spectacularly bad timing.”

  “True. But perhaps you fear a punishment that will never come.”

  “I’d rather not take the chance.”

  “Pity,
” said Uriel. “Because until you let go of your pride and your fear, nothing will change. Just because you cannot see your chains, it doesn’t mean they do not exist.”

  And then, having delivered this pronouncement, he vanished. A wash of golden light filled the truck’s interior for a few seconds and was gone. Samael reflected it was a good thing they’d been moving at a decent clip when Uriel pulled his disappearing act; even L.A.’s notoriously unobservant drivers might have noticed the yellow light that flooded the truck’s cab if they’d been stopped at a light when it happened.

  As for the rest…

  “Chains, my ass,” he muttered. Just because Uriel was an archangel didn’t mean he knew what he was talking about. Samael couldn’t have told Felicia the truth about what she saw last night — the risks were too great. Pride had nothing to do with any of it. And redemption? Not a word you’d usually find in a demon’s vocabulary.

  All the same, he found himself hoping for a sudden rash of evil-doers’ deaths. Anything to keep his mind off Felicia McGovern and the way she’d squared her shoulders as she turned away from him to pick up her paintbrush. That small gesture told him more than any words could have. She wanted nothing to do with him.

  If only he could force himself to feel the same way about her.

  THIS IS IMPOSSIBLE. Felicia set down her brush for the tenth time and pushed her stool away from the easel. So much for using her work to take her mind off Sam. She’d already made a few mistakes that could be painted over tomorrow once she got her head screwed on a little straighter. She couldn’t risk the kind of error that would force her to start over. She knew Lauren had already communicated her timetable to the governor’s people, and a delay in starting that set of portraits could result in her losing the contract altogether.

  Despite its high ceilings and uncluttered space, the loft suddenly felt claustrophobic. Felicia stood and went to the kitchen for a glass of water. After she poured herself a glass and went back out to the living room area, her gaze fell on the grouping of landscapes that hung on the far wall.

  She let out a breath. Of course. She could pack up her portable easel and one of the smaller canvases she’d bought a few weeks earlier, and get herself off to Griffith Park for some therapeutic outdoor painting. It was early enough in the afternoon that she’d have a good three hours or so of daylight before she had to quit for the day. Maybe that was all she needed. At the very least, a change of scenery couldn’t hurt.

  Fifteen minutes later, she had the Volvo pointed north on I-5. Light flecks of ash dotted her windshield, and the skies overhead were a dusty dun color. Maybe not the best conditions for outdoor painting. On the other hand, it would be quite a challenge to capture that hazy quality of light and the sky’s sullen hue on canvas. With any luck, focusing on the painting would take her mind far enough away that she could forget about Sam for a few hours.

  Hell of a name for a demon, she mused, as she got off the freeway at Los Feliz and headed up the hill toward the park. Not that she actually believed Sam was his real name. It didn’t really matter, since she knew she’d never see him again.

  She tried to ignore the pang she felt at that realization. Crazy of her. Even setting aside the entire demon-or-not question, she’d only met the guy the night before last. One great date and spectacular sex didn’t exactly constitute a love for the ages, after all. So what if she’d thought he might be someone she could be with, someone who seemed to laugh at the same things she did and who showed none of the warning signs exhibited by the angst-ridden messes who’d previously littered her love life?

  None of that mattered, compared to what she’d seen the night before. Worse, it had all been a lie. He wasn’t who she had thought he was.

  Stop it, she told herself. If she’d set out on this little excursion for the sole purpose of excising Sam from her thoughts, she was doing a spectacularly bad job of it.

  Focus. She had a particular spot in mind, a promontory off one of the hiking trails that wound through the area just below the Observatory. It faced south and west, and afforded a view of both the hillsides and the skyscrapers downtown.

  Once she’d parked and began hiking toward her destination, she realized the place seemed unusually quiet for a Sunday afternoon. On most weekend days, you couldn’t turn around on these hills without being run down by hikers and joggers and families on nature discovery walks. Maybe the bad air quality had kept people inside.

  She could definitely smell smoke on the wind. Made sense, since the Santa Anas blew east to west, and the Glendale fire was almost due east of here. It did taste a little chewy, to use Eduardo’s phrase. Still, she thought she’d be all right — painting didn’t exactly constitute heavy physical activity, and she’d only be out here for a few hours.

  Some quick strokes to lay in the outlines of the hills and the tall buildings in the distance. Then shades of dun and ochre and muted gray-blue for the sky, tones she could echo in the hillsides as well. She hummed to herself as she set out her paints. So far so good. At least she’d managed to avoid thinking about Sam for almost two minutes at a stretch.

  Baby steps. At this point, that was about all she could hope for.

  “I DON’T KNOW how Abigor can watch this stuff,” Samael said aloud, and clicked off the television in disgust. Beer helped to buffer the experience, but even a six-pack of micro-brew Oktoberfest hadn’t succeeded in making the baseball game remotely interesting. Demons couldn’t get drunk, but a sufficient amount of alcohol was enough to get them somewhat elevated.

  Not elevated enough, apparently. He tossed the remote aside and went to the sliding glass doors that opened on his balcony. The skies had begun to darken, and at first he thought he’d misjudged the time and that the sun had started to set. Then he looked up.

  Threatening brown fingers of smoke stretched westward, curling over the city. Frowning, Samael opened the sliding door and stepped outside. The familiar scent of burning brush met his nostrils, and he looked to the east. This had to be something new, something closer than the fire in the hills above Glendale.

  His condo was about three or four miles as the crow flies from the Hollywood sign. On clear days he could see it easily, along with the shining white dome of the Griffith Observatory. Now, however, a cloud of brown haze blocked even his demon-sharp vision, and an ominous plume of smoke obscured the famous building.

  He’d seen too many human artifacts destroyed throughout the millennia to be too distraught over the loss of a single structure, no matter how legendary it might be. Likewise for the hillsides around the Observatory. Brush burned in California. That was just the way of things.

  He stood there for a moment, watching the smoke and hearing the distant wail of sirens. Then a rush of heat seemed to explode through all his veins. Golden light seared his vision.

  Go to her! thundered a voice Samael distantly realized was Uriel’s. Go to her now, before all is lost!

  At first Samael couldn’t understand what Uriel meant. Then the fire ebbed from his veins as quickly as it had come, bringing with it cold realization. Go to her. Go to Felicia, who had said she often went to Griffith Park to paint. Who had probably gone there to seek what solace she could, following her conversation with Samael.

  No time to think, and no time to do this the human way. He already stood on the balcony; it was the work of less than a second to assume his demon form and push himself up and away. Anyone on the street below would have seen only a passing shadow overhead; perhaps they might have felt an odd sensation of disquiet without knowing where it had come from.

  He used the drifting clouds of smoke as extra cover. L.A.’s streets flickered beneath him through the haze as powerful wings drove him forward. The scent of smoke grew stronger as he flew over Hollywood and crossed the 101 Freeway. Sirens screamed in his ears, and the flashing lights of emergency vehicles glowed like embers through the gray-brown haze, a haze which increased tenfold as he crossed Los Feliz and the pricey neighborhoods that backed up against the
open hillsides surrounding the Observatory. Two or three of those multi-million-dollar homes were already ablaze.

  Somehow he felt her, felt the same magnetic draw he would toward a doomed soul. Well, not quite the same. He knew if she perished in the fire, her soul would not be his to claim. But somehow he still knew where to find her, knew where she was hidden in the firestorm below.

  He couldn’t go to her in his human shape. He could tell she was still alive, but only a rescue by air was feasible at this point. The flames licked up through the dry brush on all sides; even the natural firebreaks afforded by the hiking trails weren’t enough to keep the hungry fires at bay.

  So be it. Whatever punishment he might face for going to her as he was now, in his demon form seemed mild compared to the thought of her dying in the conflagration below. He had seen such deaths before. They were never easy.

  He took a breath, and began his descent.

  REALLY BRILLIANT IDEA, Felicia. I’m guessing it ranks right up there with the guy who thought the Titanic had enough lifeboats.

  The sarcastic tone of her interior voice couldn’t mask the terror she felt rising in her. Somehow, she knew she was going to die here.

  The fire had pushed her back up the road, having already consumed the little promontory where she’d been painting. Her easel and canvas were long gone, but she guessed their loss was the least of her problems.

  How could it have come up so suddenly? The flames hadn’t seemed like something inanimate, but rather a malevolent, purposeful monster that had raced up the hillside so fast she could only drop everything and run. At least she’d had enough common sense to wear sturdy flat boots instead of sandals, despite the day’s warmth.

  She’d struck out for one of the wide hiking trails and service roads that wound through the semi-wilderness beneath the Observatory, thinking if she followed it upward she could outpace the fire and gain the relative safety of the building. The place was steel-girdered and made of concrete almost a foot thick. Surely it would have offered some protection from the flames.