by eden Hudson
The one who left you and who you still don’t know what the hell she is.
My brain is the worst.
In the basement, Kathan gestured at something in front of him, just behind the stairs. I shifted position and craned my neck, but I still couldn’t see. Too many angels in the way.
More screaming. The little hairs on the back of my neck stood up. That had to be Desty.
I strained to listen harder. Laughter. Talking. Under that, I thought I could hear crying, but I couldn’t be sure.
There was another basement window about ten feet to my right. I might have a better view from there.
I looked over my shoulder. Took a second to check the rest of the backyard for foot soldiers.
Nothing.
I got up and low-ran over to the other window.
My plan was to look for Kathan and Tempie, get my bearings back, then look and see what it was they’d been pointing at. But in the middle of the room, the girl I loved was strapped to a table with a foot soldier ripping off a strip of her skin with a pair of fishing pliers.
I was about to kick the window in so I could beat that asshole to death—or as close to death as you could beat a fallen angel—but just then Desty’s head turned in my direction and I saw something that made the vamp venom in my veins freeze up.
She was crying.
Her face was flushed dark red. Tears rolled down the sides of her face and into her ears, the same way they’d done when I mesmerized her and she was fighting me.
Behind me, someone snorted.
I spun around.
Rian, wearing black riot gear like the rest of the foot soldiers on patrol. “Boy, you just will not die, will you?”
He reached for my shoulder one-handed like I was going to comply and go peacefully.
My fist shot out before I even finished thinking about how much I’d like to knock that shit-eating smirk off his face. All the pissed-off murder-rage from what they were doing to Desty was coiled up in my arm and I let it loose on Rian’s right side.
It’s hard to say what made the louder noise—my knuckles snapping or Rian’s ribs breaking. He stumbled back a couple steps, gasping for air. I didn’t give him a chance to recover. I tackled him. We hit the dirt with me on top.
It looked like Rian was going for his gun, but I didn’t care. My fists kept hammering into his face. I barely had any control over them. All I could think about was getting to Desty.
But Rian didn’t pull that pussy revolver he kept on his belt or even the I’m-compensating-for-something maglite. He jerked Mikal’s flaming sword out of thin air.
The sword set off something in my vamp brain, some survival instinct that was dedicated specifically to not getting my ass sent to Hell. I rolled off him and up to my hands and feet, crouched like a sprinter ready to run.
“Fucking family—worst fucking—every damn time I turn around!” he yelled, holding his broken ribs with one hand and stabbing the sword in my direction with the other.
I skittered back a couple steps. I could still hear Mikal screaming as they dragged her to Hell. I could smell the fire and brimstone and see the sick greenish-black color everything turned, the way they clawed at her and dragged her down.
Rian lunged again, sword-first. I backpedaled some more. His broken ribs weren’t slowing him down. They must’ve already started healing. In a minute, he’d be back to one hundred percent and I wouldn’t stand a chance.
Desty needed me. She was down in that basement with those assholes hurting her and putting their hands all over her.
But there wasn’t anything I could do. Not by myself, not against a couple hundred fallen angels inside their lair, and not against that sword. Not without dying and spending the rest of eternity in Hell.
Shit. Why didn’t I bring anything with me? A rifle, a grenade, that fucking katana—anything.
There really wasn’t anything I could do. I couldn’t help Desty. She was down there crying and I couldn’t do anything to stop it.
Rian swung the sword at me.
I turned around and ran.
“Coward,” he yelled after me.
The vamp speed kicked in and I was halfway to the road before I heard rifle fire behind me. One of the other guards must’ve spotted me hightailing it. A spray of bullets ripped into my shoulder and the meat of my arm. I pitched forward onto my hands, skidding in the loose gravel at the edge of the road. Vamp venom welled up and stuck my ripped t-shirt to the holes.
I pushed myself back up to my feet and kept running. What did bullets matter? I barely felt them, anyway. All I could think about was Desty crying and me leaving her behind. I was leaving her behind like the Goddamned coward I was.
But I was coming back. Hell yes, I was coming back, and every bit of shitstorm that I could bring down on Kathan’s head was coming with me.
Desty
I felt sick, ashamed, and so angry. The pain was more of an afterthought, something that had faded to the background of my mind, just a part of my new reality. I couldn’t stop what they were doing to me. I couldn’t do anything to end it. They were in complete control and I was nothing, just an object for them to play with.
The foot soldier who was in charge of “the entertainment” bit me. Like actually bit me. It hurt so much that I screamed. He and the fallen angels Kathan had brought downstairs laughed.
I hated them. God, I hated them so much. I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to quit crying.
“Modesty, I want you to know that you can make all of this stop,” Kathan said. “I’ll give you a choice: agree to become my familiar, and I promise you, I will put an end to this.”
“Please, Desty,” Tempie said. “Just do it. Just say yes. Please?”
She sounded just like my sister. I could hear myself sobbing. Why was she with them? Why did she have to run away from home and try to kill herself like this? Why couldn’t she have done anything else? Drugs, prostitution, Ultimate Fighting, anything? Why wouldn’t she help me?
In the rational part of my mind, I knew Tempie didn’t have any more control over what she said or did than I had over the foot soldier who’d bitten me, but part of me still blamed her.
“Modesty?” Kathan prompted.
“Won’t work,” I whimpered. Blood and bruised lips and broken teeth garbled my words. “Didn’t before.”
“It will this time,” Kathan said.
So he’d found a way to make Tempie and me the same again.
He nodded at someone and stepped back. A second later, something icy and metal pinched the inside of my thigh. I screamed before it even happened, as soon as I realized that it was the pliers again. My skin made a ripping sound like tearing fabric, then there was nothing but searing cold fire down the inside of my leg.
“Now, Modesty,” Kathan said as if he were being perfectly reasonable, “Do you want him to continue or do you agree to become joint-familiar with your sister?”
When I realized what was happening, I felt this sick rolling in my stomach. Five seconds ago, hadn’t I wanted some kind of control back? Some kind of way to make them stop doing this to me? But now I couldn’t say yes. Kathan wasn’t giving me control. He was backing me into a corner, manipulating me into becoming his familiar just to stop the pain. Kathan was using me, just like the foot soldiers were. It was his fault I was here in the first place, and now he was asking me to choose between staying here and doing what he wanted me to. I felt like screaming again.
Before, I’d been able to agree to become joint-familiar because it was a matter of saving people—for whatever idiotic reason, I’d thought I was the one to do it. Now, though, he and the foot soldiers had turned my agreeing into a matter of admitting that I was beaten.
I had been beaten. I had been ready to do anything to stop them. If only they hadn’t changed the decision from “Help Your Fellow Man or Leave Them to Be Trampled On” to “Do What I Tell You To or Keep Being Tortured.”
Present me with facts contrary to what I believe and I w
ill change my mind to fit the facts. But try to force me into doing what you want and I would rather die before bending to your will.
“I’m sorry, Modesty,” Kathan said. “I don’t believe I heard—”
I must’ve been thinking all that out loud. I swallowed the blood in my mouth and tried to speak up. “I said, ‘I would rather die.’”
Kathan’s chuckle was as dark as the inside of the lunatic’s cell.
“Unfortunately, that’s not one of your options.” He turned to the alphas who had followed him downstairs. “I imagine it’s been a long time since your troops have had a crack at a true Destroyer. Tell them to go nuts. We just need her breathing.”
He and Tempie started for the stairs. I had to bite my tongue so I wouldn’t beg them to come back. I was done begging. I was done crying. I might have been about to spend a lot more time screaming, but I would be damned if it was for their help.
Tough
Lonely had already boarded up the front window of the tattoo parlor by the time I got back. I slammed the door open. There were at least twice as many people crowded into the front room as there’d been when I left, most of them standing in little clusters around a crow or a coyote with a gun. I had to shove and elbow my way through to get to the back.
Just as I made it to the pull-down stairs, somebody grabbed my arm. The static in my brain dropped to a low whine and the sound faded back into the world.
“Tough?” Scout said. “Where have you been? You’re bleeding. What the…?”
I shook her off and took the steps two at a time. By the time I got to the top, Lonely and Clarion had joined the party.
I lifted one end of the TBG-7 crate until the roll of razor wire slid off and hit the floor. The crate’s lid was nailed shut. I dug at it for a second with my bare fingers, then started looking around for a pry bar or claw hammer.
Clarion was the first to stick his snout in it. “What’s going on?”
I ignored him. Grabbed a bayonet knife out of a box full of them, levered the blade into the crack, and put all my weight on the handle. The nails creaked. The lid gave about a quarter inch. I shifted the bayonet to a new spot deeper in the crack and threw my weight onto it again. The nails screamed and the lid popped off. I tossed it and the bayonet off to the side.
“Somebody’s got bleeding on the brain,” Lonely said, not bothering to come all the way up into the attic. “And I don’t mean medically. Who’s the target, tarnished one?”
They’re… Words wouldn’t come, just a shot of her face falling back toward me, tears dripping down into her ears. I scooped handfuls of packing straw out of the crate and threw them on the floor. They’re hurting her.
“The angels have his girlfriend,” Lonely explained for Clarion and Scout.
They don’t just have her. They’re torturing her. I pulled a TBG-7 out of the crate. Hefty. Good. I pointed it at Lonely. Now, where do you keep your launchers?
“No,” Lonely said.
No?
“You heard me, and you’re crowspawn, so I know you understood me.” Lonely flapped up into the attic and wheeled around Scout so he could land in front of me. He shifted back to human form and crossed his fat arms. “You’re not running off to have a showdown with Kathan. Not with my warheads, and not after everything we just went through to organize this uprising. You’ll lose the last battle before it even gets started.”
Oh, now you care?
“Lonely’s right,” Clarion said. “You can’t just run in there, guns blazing. They’ll put a stake through your heart, then go back to whatever they’re doing to your girlfriend.”
I’m not going to run in there. Me and my new best friend here are going to paint those basement walls with fallen angel.
“If they’re really torturing her, then they’re not going to kill her,” Lonely said. “You torture with a goal in mind, not to kill. They’ll keep her alive until they’ve achieved their goal.”
I guess in whatever reality crows were from, that was the kind of thing that passed for comforting. I snorted, but didn’t bother responding. I shoved around Lonely and went for an unlabeled crate. The lid was already loose on that one. I tore it off. No launchers, just disassembled bipods.
“Someone shot you,” Clarion said.
Can’t sneak anything past a coyote.
Lonely relayed that one, but Clare didn’t take offense.
“They saw you,” the coyote said. “That means they know that you know what they’re doing to her. They’re going to use her against you. They’ll try to draw you out.”
I waved the TBG-7 at Clarion. Hey, look. It’s working. Then I glared at Lonely. If I could get a fucking launcher.
“Tough.” Scout was looking at me like I’d slapped her or something. “She’s not even… She left you. What…” Scout must’ve realized then that she was talking out loud because she shook her head like she was trying to reset her brain. “Tough, that coward bitch chose Kathan. She picked the fallen angels over us—over you. She’s getting what she deserved.”
My teeth ground together. Some predatory vampire sense warned me that Lonely and Clarion were tensing up, probably getting ready in case they had to stop me from ripping Scout’s throat out.
“Regardless,” Clarion said. “We can’t just leave an innocent bystander—”
“She’s not an innocent bystander!” Scout stomped her foot like a little brat throwing a tantrum. “This is her fault!”
“Whatever you want to call it, we can’t leave her with them,” Clarion said. “But Tough, you need to stop and think for a second. You can’t fire a thermo round into a basement and expect anything mortal to survive. The fallen angels will heal. Your girlfriend won’t.”
He was right. I’d be scraping what was left of Desty off the walls. The pit of my stomach ached and the muscles in my arms and legs jittered. I didn’t know what to do. Fuck, I didn’t know what to do.
My fist tightened around the shaft of the TBG. If I wanted to save Desty, I needed Clarion and Lonely on my side. I couldn’t get her out by myself.
Lonely, tell him I saw the sword. Rian has it. I also saw about twenty more vehicles parked out front—two of them helicopters—and a bunch of fallen angels I didn’t recognize. I swallowed. I had to stop there before I lost my shit all over again thinking about those sick assholes laughing and talking while Desty cried.
Lonely relayed everything to Clarion.
The coyote considered it. “He’s gathering the legions.”
What if I went in and got Desty? Grab her and get out, then somebody outside lights up the Dark Mansion with the TBG. The angels might heal, but it’ll take them at least a few minutes to go from meat paste back to—
“They’ll stake you before you get through the door, tarnished one,” Lonely said.
My eyes landed on a box of shotgun shells marked AP-INCEN.
Maybe not. If I can get in, will you guys back me up?
Lonely laid out the gist of what I’d said for Clarion.
“Tough, how can you not see what a terrible idea this is?” Scout asked. “We need to forget about that coward tourist whore and focus on training the humans so we can go after the Sword of Judgment. We can’t risk the last battle on a doomed rescue mission.”
“Too late,” Lonely said, shifting his shoulders like he was shaking out his wings. “They know the tarnished one was there. If they haven’t already sent the Tracker after him, they will.”
“We need to press what’s left of our element of surprise before it’s gone,” Clarion said. “Right now the fallen angels think they’re just dealing with Tough. Even if they know about the humans organizing, they probably assume it’s just a few angry kids. They won’t expect those kids to be armed and accompanied by primals. It’s not a great plan, but if Tough does manage to get in alone, they’ll concentrate on stopping him. They won’t look for anyone else.”
Lonely twisted one of his lip rings with his split tongue. “Tough goes in, then two separate waves
of ground troops, one aerial squad, then an exit round to give ourselves time to run.”
“That’s what I’m thinking,” Clarion said, nodding. “Maybe Tough can get the girl out, maybe somebody can get their hands on the sword.”
“Maybes are better than nothing,” Lonely said.
Scout’s fists clenched and unclenched. She took a long breath and let it out before she opened her mouth.
“I won’t force any of my people to go in,” she said. “I’ll ask for volunteers.”
That was as close to an agreement as I would probably get from Scout, but I wasn’t too worried. Thanks to her stupid freedom propaganda, everybody in Scout’s army was a volunteer.
We headed downstairs. Lonely nodded at the crows hanging around his drafting desk. Some had stayed in human form, others were in their true form. They all crawked and flapped and nod-pecked at each other.
Clarion went straight to his packs. Any coyote who wasn’t already on four legs shifted, and crowded in shoulder-to-shoulder around Clarion. There were so many of them that it took almost a whole minute of biting, growling, and moving around for the coyotes to get into an order they could all agree on.
I headed for Dodge and Willow. If anybody would back me up, it would be them. Scout obviously wasn’t in any hurry to give her army the news because she tagged along behind me.
Dodge nodded when he saw me. “What’s up?”
I gestured at Scout so she would tell him. She cocked her body like she was about to throw some stupid teenager fit, then said, “He wants to attack the Dark Mansion tonight.”
“Tonight?” Dodge asked. “I thought we were going to have some time to train first.”
“That tourist girl,” Scout said. “Kathan’s familiar’s sister—”
“Desty,” Willow said.
Scout kept on talking like she hadn’t heard. “Tough thinks Kathan’s hurting her and he wants us all to go running in to save her, even though she chose her side and it damn sure wasn’t with us.”
“If Kathan’s hurting her, then Tough’s right,” Will said. “We’ve got to do something. What’s the plan?”
