by Kim Faulks
She glanced at the wailing, howling creature in the Nephilim’s grip and then jerked her stony gaze to Arrow once more. “How the hell am I supposed to do that?”
He cut me a glance as I licked at the gash in my shoulder. “I have no idea, but for my sake…please figure it out…and do it fast.”
Arrow yanked his hand into the air and, with a sudden plunge, punched his fist through the phantom writhing in his other hand.
The thing howled, tearing at his arm…until, in a heartbeat, it slumped and then slowly faded away.
The Nephilim stilled, and then dropped his hands. There was a tiredness in his midnight eyes, an emptiness echoed in the slump of his shoulders, as he slowed the beat of his wings and touched down on the empty lane in front of me.
“You’re not strong enough yet, pup,” he murmured, casting a look at the gash on my shoulder and the one stinging on my cheek.
Monstrous strides closed the distance between us. He grasped my front leg and lifted it, taking a closer look at the claw marks on my side. “Stay with the hunter, she’ll teach you right.” He glanced toward Purity and then to me once more. “A team is always stronger than one. Lean on each other, especially now.”
He dropped my leg and stepped away, then, with one fluid lunge into the air, he beat his midnight wings and rose. “But don’t take too long, yeah? There’s only so many of these things I can kill at any one time. And you…” he jerked his head toward Purity and then the now-broken wooden training blade in her hand. “You’re gonna need something a little less…useless.”
One sweep of his hand and the training dagger was replaced by something else. Black steel shone in her hand. She looked down, catching the glint on the edge of the blade.
“Just be careful,” Arrow growled, his eyes soft, voice filled with thunder.
He turned his focus toward the shimmering air in the distance, where three more of the Soulless waited.
“Mel?” Purity was there, sliding her arm across my back.
I saw her through the eyes of my Hound. He breathed in her scent and leaned into her touch. He took everything he could, then sank into the depths, taking the sharpened claws from my fingertips and the soft midnight fur from my skin. And with shuddered breaths, he left me.
“You okay?” She took in the mess of my shoulder, and lifted wide eyes to mine. Tears shimmered, and my heart melted at the sight. “You’re hurt,” she whispered.
“I’m fine. Look at me,” I captured the soft skin of her chin and lifted her head. “I’m fine.”
“You’re gonna get hurt,” Alma growled. “You’re gonna bleed, both of you. Just, next time, Hound, make sure you can put the damn thing down.”
I gave her a nod.
She was right.
Purity could’ve been hurt protecting me.
I looked at the blade in her hand.
Maybe Alma was right about the Unseelie. “Redemption,” I growled and wound my good arm around Purity’s shoulder. “That’s what you called him, right?”
There was a twitch of the old woman’s lips. “Yeah. The Unseelie are born tough. He’ll teach you the things I’m too old to teach you. He’ll turn you into a warrior…I’ll turn you into a hunter.”
I gave her a nod and took a step, glancing at the human still cowering against the rear wheel of his car. “Stay in the City. It’s only going to be worse out there.”
“Y-you d-don’t know that,” he stuttered, and shook his head.
His hands were bloody, his arms ripped and torn, and with a sinking weight of responsibility, I answered. “Yes, I do.”
Chapter Three
Purity
Melkor flinched as he climbed into the pickup. But this time, I stopped outside, making him take the center seat. No way was he rushing headlong into death without me.
No goddamn way…
He shot me a look that said just as much. I took a last glance behind us, to the man slowly climbing into his car. The poor guy was shaking, tears streaming down his face. All he could do was cry. “Thank you, God. Thank you, Jesus.”
I didn’t have the heart to tell him God had no hand in this.
This was all Hell.
Every single bit of it.
I heaved myself into the cab and yanked the door closed before I turned to Mel. His face was pale, his skin trembled as I touched him.
“It’s okay,” I murmured, and stared at the mess of his shoulder.
His shirt hung in jagged strips, the flesh underneath sliced like someone had hacked him with jagged slashes of a knife. But I hadn’t seen a knife. I hadn’t seen anything but a blur in the air.
If that was what we were up against…then we were fucked.
Hundreds…no, thousands of these things were out here, freed by the piece of fucking shit who killed Melkor’s father.
Alma started the pickup and took one long look at the mess under my hand. “We’ll get that cleaned up.”
“Don’t bother,” Melkor growled, and leaned against the rear of the seat as we rolled past the human still clutching the steering wheel of his car and sobbing as we passed. “I’ll be healed soon anyway.”
“We’ll get you cleaned up,” the old woman snarled.
There was no room for arguments. No room for anything other than to give in. Mel gave a slow nod and closed his eyes, and in that moment when he didn’t see me, I saw him. He was a supernova inside my head, blazing…burning, tearing everything from me with one reckless lunge toward that thing.
Pain flared along the back of my head, like steel spikes rammed into my spine. I tore my gaze away from him as a shudder broke through my chest. Tears came next. I clenched my jaw and blinked. Not now…not fucking now. Movement came at the corner of my eye as the stubborn goddamn Hellhound reached out with his injured arm and gripped my hand.
I held his…but I still didn’t turn my head.
I still didn’t look at him. Not the blood covering his shoulder, or the tremor in his eyes whispering….
I’m trying to be brave.
I’m trying to love and defend the only way I know how.
I gave a slow nod to the whispers in my head. I understood his first reaction was to run toward danger, especially where those things were concerned.
But he needed to understand something about me.
As desperate as he was to kill them, I was just as desperate to save him.
I slid my hand to the warm steel beside me and wound my fingers around the hilt of the black blade. The thing was heavier than the wooden dagger…sharper, too.
Talons stuck out of each side of the hilt and then curled back around. I slid my fingers in the gaps they left and felt the palm of my hand locked in against the molded grip. The blade itself had a slight curve. The wicked edge almost had a spark under the sunlight shining through the grimy windshield of the old pickup.
This was no training knife. No small weapon, either. I lifted the hilt and stared at the mark of Lucifer carved into the end.
“Warriors get a blade like that,” Melkor murmured. “But they have to earn it first…seems like you already have.”
He stared at the weapon through cracked open lids, and then closed his eyes once more.
“How? I didn’t do a damn thing,” I murmured, and stared at the blade.
“You came at that thing like a Hound in full flight,” he murmured. “Fucking ferocious, those are the words I’d use.”
Fucking ferocious? I stared at the blade and pride flared through me. I was fucking ferocious when it came to Melkor. I was moody, and raw…I was turned inside out every time I saw him in danger. My heart was exposed…vulnerable.
I’d never thought…never even contemplated my own safety.
He was all I cared about, and if it meant I needed to learn how to fight better to protect him, then that’s what I’d do. I closed my fingers, pulling the warm steel forged in Hell against my palm once more.
Unseelie or not, I would learn to be fucking ferocious just a little bit more.
/>
Alma wove through the city streets as we made our way toward the ‘other’ part of the city. The one my parents never talked about, let alone went to. I turned my head, scanning the houses and the streets, thinking about them…were they looking for me? Did they even notice I was gone?
I winced at the thought. I’d left my home hating them.
They didn’t know me, not really…not my values, or my beliefs.
They were complicit in my friendship with Melkor up to a point…but there was still a wall there…and I stood on the other side.
An ache came from nowhere when I thought about them. I wished they were here…wished I could talk to them…wished they were different.
I guess they wished the same about me.
“You okay?” Mel murmured.
“Yeah,” I nodded. “Yeah, I am.”
We turned another corner and the familiar sight of the Circle came into view. I’d been here twice before. Once when it was just Alma and me. We’d snuck in like thieves in the night, taking books and training gear.
The second time was for Alma to have a meeting with some douchehat who ran the company for her. She strode out, face stony, muttering something about ‘stabbing the bastard in his sleep’, but she refused to say any more. Instead, she just yanked the door closed behind her and started the truck.
Now, she slowed at the corner, and then again, until we were going at a crawl. People filled the space, some waving signs, crowding the grassy area in front of the building, and spilled onto the street.
Clean up your OWN shit! Read one placard. Please help us! Read another.
The people were divided in the wake of the outbreak. Half of the city called for the Circle to be held accountable, and the other half were desperate for the terror to end.
Flashing red and blue lights splashed over terrified faces. Cop cars lined both sides of the street. There was a barricade, but there were far more people than there were those to defend it.
The result was utter chaos.
“Fucking hell,” Alma murmured, and pulled to a stop in the middle of the street as we were swarmed.
She looked through the grimy windshield at their faces. I clenched Melkor’s hand even tighter. They slammed fists on the hood of the rusted pickup And screamed their hatred and fear through the cracked-open windows.
I glanced at Alma as she just stared at them, pain echoed in her tired eyes. She hurt for them…ached when they ached, felt every single one of their stares.
I think I understood her a little better in that moment…somehow, I got a glimpse of the woman behind the hunter.
“Right,” she murmured. “Doesn’t look like we’ll be moving anytime soon.”
She yanked the keys from the ignition, pulled the handle, and shoved open the door.
I scrambled to follow, gripping the hilt of the knife as I pushed against those who crowded my door.
“Help us!” someone screamed. “Do something!”
I glanced behind me, and held open the door with my ass. Melkor slid after me as I lifted the blade and tucked it into the elastic waistband of my jeans and, for the thousandth time, I whispered a thank you to the person who designed jeans to fit.
Eating without being severed in two was enjoyable.
Breathing was even better.
Melkor slid out of the pickup, made his way to the back of the flap covering the bed, and heaved our duffel bags free.
“Make way,” Alma growled. “Come on, let us through.”
“What are those things?” someone called at my right. “Can you please tell us what they are?”
Alma shot the person a glare. A microphone was plunged through the crowd toward her. The older woman just shook her head. “I’m not here for press conferences. You’ve been given all the information we have. The Circle is doing all it can to track these entities down, and all your questions need to be directed to Director Alistair Horton. He’s leading the investigations, and I have full faith we’ll get through this…together. Now please, let us through. Let us do our job.”
She strode forward and pushed aside the microphone in front of her. They shuffled out of her way. Melkor waited for me to follow and carried the bags.
It took us what felt like forever, pushing, growling, heads down, striding forward as we fought the short distance between the pickup in the middle of the street and the front door of the Circle.
Alma reached out, grasped the door, and yanked as a male called, “Please, can you help me! They took my mom. They took my mom and I don’t know what to do.”
There was something familiar about the voice. My gut clenched and, as I lifted my head, a faint voice echoed inside my mind…Hey, fatty!
He stood amongst the others. The familiar face of Jesse Harkin, high school jock. The most popular guy in school…a school I’d left behind less than a month ago. Never thought I’d see him again…but here he was.
“You?” Melkor pushed forward, his eyes burning with the red flames of Hell.
Jesse was confused for a second, glancing at Melkor and then at me. It took a second for the light bulb to click on inside his head, but I saw the second it did. His eyes widened as he once more looked from Melkor to me. “I know you,” he murmured. “You’re that girl…”
“And you’re that asshole,” Melkor muttered.
“Everything okay here?” Alma lingered inside the door.
“Fine,” Melkor reached out and gently pushed me toward Alma. “We’re right behind you.”
“They took my mom,” Jesse stepped forward, grasping the open door as I passed through. “Please, help me.”
But Melkor ushered me through, pulling the door closed behind us.
I could still hear Jesse calling to us outside…still hear him as we crossed the foyer and headed for the bank of elevators. Still hear him, even when the elevator doors closed and we descended.
“Can’t leave him like that,” the words slipped from my lips.
“What?” Melkor shook his head. “We really talking about this?”
I’d never seen him angry, not like this…not with fire in his eyes and the curl of his lips. “Yes,” I answered. “I’m really talking about this.”
Alma just watched us from the other side of the elevator, not saying a word. She didn’t need to.
“We can’t just shut them off, not like that,” I murmured.
“You want to listen to every harrowing story? Then you’ll be useless in the fight. You’ll drown, Purity, you’ll drown and there won’t be a thing I can do to save you.”
“And if I don’t listen, if I don’t take the time to care, then I’ll be useless to them. You may as well turn my heart to stone.”
The elevator car gave a shudder and pulled to a stop. I glanced at the illuminated number above the door, B2. The sub-basement…what kind of monsters live down here?
The thought filled my head for a second before shame moved in. I shouldn’t think like that, shouldn’t call them monsters.
Just one comment…
Just one word.
And I’d take one step toward the hatred and the terror. I wouldn’t do it. I wouldn’t let the horrors of this world dictate who I was as a person. I turned to his stony expression as Alma stepped through the open doors and Melkor followed.
I surged forward and grasped his hand. “I’m sorry, I don’t want to argue.”
He slowed, tendons tightening along his neck, soft words forced through clenched teeth. “I don’t want to fight with you, either. I never want to fight with you. I only ever want to protect you.”
“You can’t protect my heart,” I squeezed his hand, desperate for him to see.
He turned his head and seized my gaze. Amber flames blazed just a little brighter. “I’ve never been able to, have I?”
The corners of my lips twitched, and a floating feeling swept through me once more. “I think we’re having two different conversations.”
He smiled. No, he beamed. Skin pale, shoulder bloody, he laughed
and shook his head as Alma now slipped away from us one stride after another. One tug on my hand and we were following, leaving the bright white lights of the elevator behind, and sank into the darkness.
I held onto his hand, and followed. Still my mind slipped to Jesse standing at the front door of the building…pleading to anyone who would listen.
If that’d been my mom, no matter how different we thought, I’d scream my desperation until I was hoarse.
I swallowed hard as my pulse sped. I knew him…I knew him.
“We’ll listen,” Melkor murmured. “It’s all I can promise, okay? If he’s still outside when we return, we’ll listen to what he says.”
I jerked my gaze toward him in the dark. Desperation rushed, mingling with the hollow thud inside my chest.
He knew me…knew I cared…knew I wanted to help, however I could. “I love you.” The words slipped free.
I caught the shift of his gaze, and the catch of his breath. His hand went clammy, trapped against mine.
“I love you, too, Purity,” he answered, his voice deep and husky. “With everything I am.”
The hinges of a door squealed, piercing the emptiness and the moment. Melkor gave my hand a gentle squeeze and let it fall as he followed Alma through the open door and into a room in the basement.
And it was right there I understood just how far I’d come.
I was striding through an unnamed doorway in a sub-basement in a building filled with immortals…and I felt…elated.
I shook my head and followed him through the doorway to a small hallway. Voices echoed from the unnaturally bright glare of the room. Stainless steel clanged. An unfamiliar woman’s voice echoed and, as I stepped through the door, I realized why this room was hidden away down here in the dark.
A man sat on the end of a hospital bed, bloodied and fanged. His arm was sliced open, his long hair sodden with blood. He jerked his head toward me, midnight eyes blazing with hatred and pain.
“They did this to you, Blade?” Alma stepped closer, peering over the young doctor’s shoulder as she picked out chunks of embedded wood from his skin.
