by E. A. Copen
The elevator jerked to a stop and the lights flickered before dying. When they came back up, it was only the emergency lighting. We’d only made it as far as the twenty-second floor. I leaned forward and tapped the lobby button, but the display didn’t respond. Someone had cut power to our elevator. I looked over at Josiah.
He squinted. “Bugger.”
Something heavy impacted the top of the elevator car. We retreated to the corners. If whoever it was up there had guns, we were fucked. Something sharp grated against the metal, making it scream at a frequency that hurt my teeth. I cringed and covered my ears.
Above, the ceiling peeled back, opening as if we stood inside a tin can. A bone-chilling roar shook the car, and a lion stuck its head into the opening, flashing huge teeth. Wait…a lion? Why the hell was there a lion in an elevator shaft?
Huge claws tore at the wall as it tried to pull itself into the car with us. I drew the dagger from my garter and threw it. The blade spun and struck the lion’s paw, pinning it to the elevator wall. It roared. Powerful muscles flexed, shifting under the skin and rolling like waves. Fur disappeared, and the proportions shifted until the paw became a human hand. Another hand reached into the car and pulled the knife out.
A lion shifter. Great.
Josiah finally found the sense to back away from the lion and join me on my side of the elevator car. “You got any silver on you?”
“No. You?”
He pushed his sleeves up. “Keep it busy.”
I was about to ask him how I was supposed to keep a four-hundred-pound man-lion busy with the beast dropped into the car with us. He stood on his leonine hind legs like a man, though the only thing human about him were his arms, and even they were slowly shifting back to their animal form. Dagger-like claws sprouted, and sharp teeth snapped before his cat lips stretched into a smile.
He thought I was unarmed. Idiot. Even without my knives, I was my own weapon.
The lion slashed at me, but I ducked low, avoiding his strike with ease and throwing myself inside his range to deliver a precise strike to his stomach. It was a wall of hard muscle, and he knew how to flex to take the punch. With that mane of thick hair, his throat wasn’t a viable target, but his balls were. I followed the punch with a kick that left him dropping to all fours. The move would’ve crushed me if I didn’t slip away toward the front of the elevator at the last second.
Claws grazed my back in three lines of heat. I wasn’t fast enough. Another swipe took my legs from under me, and I landed face-down in a puddle of my own blood. The lion’s muscles coiled, preparing to strike.
Josiah struck first. Bright blue flame sprouted in his hand, and he tossed it at the lion. All that fur went up as if he’d been soaked in gasoline and the lion exploded into a blue fireball, but he didn’t burn. He opened his mouth and inhaled sucking all the fire up before spitting it back at Josiah in a stream of sticky magic napalm.
Josiah leaped out of the way, managing only to get his clothing singed. He landed on the floor next to me, patting out the flames.
“Quit dicking around and kill it!” I snarled. Despite trying to stem the flow of blood with a firm grip, I’d already lost enough blood that I was feeling dizzy. My role in the fight was over.
The lion shifter swiped at Josiah who rolled out of the way, leaving streaks of blood over the elevator floor. He kicked at the lion, but it was a pointless gesture. The lion just caught his leg and squeezed, trying to crush the bone.
It was a mistake to leave Josiah’s hands free. He slammed his palm into the blood pooling next to him with a shout. Thick, black magic swirled up inside the elevator car, dark and foul enough it made my stomach turn. The power swirled and surged, pulling at my own magic. I fought the urge to answer whatever he’d just called, and my mind reeled with the effort.
The lion shifter’s eyes went wide as the magic hit him, and he tried to shake it off as it were water.
“Kneel!” Josiah barked, except he didn’t say it in English or any other Earth language for that matter. He’d used a language native to Hell and her demons.
The shifter grimaced, mouth fighting to form words. “You think you can command me? With your demonic speech?”
Josiah gritted his teeth and extended a blood-soaked hand toward the lion, continuing in the same language. “Kneel, you son of a bitch!”
The lion sank to his knees, eyes wide with terror his voice didn’t betray. “You can’t escape. We see all. We know all. Someone will kill you.”
Josiah stood on shaky legs and staggered to the other side of the elevator to grab my dagger from where the lion had dropped it. “Yeah, maybe,” he said, stepping up behind the lion shifter. “But it isn’t going to be you.”
He plunged the dagger into the beast’s neck, just above its chest and sawed through muscle, tendon, and gristle. The shifter roared and snarled, but whatever magic Josiah had worked kept it from fighting back. Blue light lit the wound as the shifter’s body tried to heal the damage, but the dagger cut too deep too fast. In the space of a minute, he’d severed the head to the spine. With a snarl, he snapped bone and tore the head free, tossing it aside.
The body shrank back into the body of a naked man built like a soldier. On his chest was a tattoo, a handprint. Underneath, in a curling script, it read: Manus Dei. God’s Hand.
Josiah went to his knees in front of me. “Let’s get you patched up.”
Pantyhose make a decent tourniquet in a bind. The claws hadn’t nicked any arteries, so I thought I’d be fine with some stitches. For now, the stockings would have to do. I stripped them off and let Josiah do most of the work, mostly because the injury was awkward for me to get at. I thought he’d make some smart remark as he was prone to do. Instead, he worked with the quiet and thoughtful efficiency of someone used to patching up serious wounds in bloody elevators.
While he finished tying the stocking around my thigh, I studied the dead shifter in the elevator and thought of Victis. “Why was a shifter working for God’s Hand hiding in your friend’s building?”
“He’s not my friend,” Josiah answered a little too quickly for it to be true. “And I don’t know. Danny’s organizing the demons in Manhattan. Seems to be at odds with him working with an organization like God’s Hand.”
He had a point. If Monahan was working with demons, zealots wouldn’t want anything to do with him. Still, it couldn’t be chance. Angels and demons didn’t work together, but they didn’t just ignore each other either. The two forces were diametrically opposed. They couldn’t help but fight each other, so why had this soldier ignored the man gathering demons to him to attack us?
“Why is he organizing demons?”
Josiah shrugged. “Power. Money. Control. Typical bullshit.” He was staring at the way my blood-soaked shirt stuck to my chest.
Here I was, covered head to toe in blood and we were sitting less than a foot from a decapitated body, and all he could think about was sex. Most people would be in the corner vomiting from the smell or the panic of having to deal with an assassin, but not him. I couldn’t decide if it was pathetic and disgusting or interesting.
“So God’s Hand should be trying to stop him,” I pointed out. “Instead they’re trying to kill us. What’ve they got against you?”
“Nothing other than my entire existence.”
“They seem to be taking it rather personally.”
“Zealots aren’t known for rational thinking.” He stood and offered me a hand. His palm was stained deep red with the dead man’s blood.
I slid my palm into his and used the railing in the elevator to pull myself up without putting any weight on my injured leg. He gestured for me to turn around. I hesitated.
“Need to see about the scratches on your back, sweetheart,” he explained.
Right. That stupid lion had swiped my upper back too. The injury still burned, but it wasn’t bleeding as bad, so I’d almost forgotten about it.
I turned around and gripped the railing in the corner. �
��What was that spell you used?”
“Difficult. I pulled on the residual power in your blood. You felt it?”
I nodded and then suppressed a shudder as he brushed my hair aside. Breath tickled the back of my neck as he leaned in for a closer look. My monster stretched inside as if waking from a long sleep. “I didn’t know you could do that.”
“You’d be surprised what I can do.” He passed his hands over the three cuts in my back, filling them with a faint buzz of magic.
My heart thumped in my throat. I swallowed it and turned my head to give him a sharp warning look over my shoulder. “How does it look?”
“Oh, everything back here looks amazing as always.”
“Creep.” I turned around, expecting him to move away, but he didn’t back off.
“Icy bitch.”
We stared each other down for a moment before he took a deep breath and a step back.
“So,” he began, walking through the blood to retrieve his bag. Miraculously, the stupid bag didn’t have a spot of blood on it. “We’ll have to get out of here one way or another. How’s the leg? Strong enough to take a bit of weight?”
Josiah dug through his bag and came out with a crowbar.
“Seriously?” I growled. “You have that in there, but you don’t have a tourniquet or a proper bandage?”
He looked at me as if I’d just suggested he chop off his own arm. “If I’m ever so bad off I need a tourniquet, I’d never find it before I passed out. As for bandages, what are you complaining about? It’s dealt with.”
Of course, it would never occur to him that anyone else would need a tourniquet or bandage. God forbid he should have an ounce of sympathy for any living thing with less than eight legs.
He used the crowbar to pry open the elevator doors. The elevator car had stopped between floors, so he hoisted me up on his shoulders to climb out. As I pulled myself to freedom, I couldn’t help but picture the elevator cable suddenly snapping, sending the car careening down the last twenty plus floors. If that happened, it’d snap my spine. Maybe I’d get lucky, and it’d break Josiah’s neck when he climbed through.
No such luck, of course, but a girl could hope.
Once we were both on solid ground again, we found ourselves on an empty office floor. Probably closed for the long holiday weekend. Tomorrow was Thanksgiving. Small blessing, I guess. At least we wouldn’t have people running to call the cops about the bloodstained people in the lobby.
Rather than take an elevator the last twenty-three stories, Josiah thought it would be better if we took the stairs. He wasn’t the one walking around in heels with a bleeding gash on her leg. I could’ve strangled him, except I had to keep one arm around his neck as we navigated the stairs. It was the only way to keep weight off my injured leg. Every step still hurt.
I gritted my teeth as we moved from the landing of the fourteenth floor to the next set of stairs. “If I never see a set of stairs again, it’ll be too soon.”
Josiah grunted. “You should let up on the wine, sweetheart. You’re getting heavy.”
“And you smell like you’ve forgotten how to shower.”
“Says the woman I had to force into the bath a few days ago.”
Point for Josiah, but I didn’t acknowledge it aloud. “So, what’s the history with you and this guy anyway?”
“We were in a cult together in L.A.”
I looked over at him as he struggled with my weight. A cult? He didn’t strike me as the cultist type.
“Didn’t feel like a cult at the time,” he quickly explained. “All either of us cared about was the magic. And the girls. Lots of magic in the nineties was in cult circles. Assholes with a drop of power figured out they could get more of it by luring kids with sex and drugs. Drug them up, take their blood, turn yourself into a god.”
“Like the Manson family?”
He shook his head. The move threw me off balance, and I had to brace against the railing for a moment. “We didn’t kill anyone. Christian was careful. Never asked for blood directly. He got most of what he wanted willingly. Bastard gathered runaways with magical talent. Promised us the world. Offered us anything we wanted. Money, influence, sex, drugs, music. Whatever. Then, when we were too far in, then came the bloodletting. He made us fight each other.”
“For drugs?”
“For his love and approval.”
That’s the tension between him and Monahan, I realized. They’d shared the same father figure only to have that father reject Monahan in favor of Josiah. After time on the street, at such a tender age, they would’ve been desperate for acceptance and approval from a father figure, and the bastard who took them in used it against them. It was conjured loyalty, bought and paid for with pain and blood. Just like Father had done with me.
I suddenly understood Josiah on a level that felt too intimate.
I broke away to lean on the wall and turned to him. His hair was plastered to his forehead with sweat. “I can walk myself if you slow down. I just need the railing.”
He coughed, rubbed his chest, and made a sweeping gesture forward. “After you, Princess.”
Ass. I try to be nice, and he shoves it back in my face like an insult.
We walked the last thirteen stories mostly in silence. On the second floor, I stumbled, and he tried to help me, but I shoved him away. I didn’t need him. Not until I ran out of railing anyway. On the bottom floor, I tried my leg and almost fell.
He caught me by the elbow. “Hit me if you’re inclined. Either way, you need me. I’ll throw you over my shoulder and carry you out if you make too much of a fuss.”
I jerked my arm away. “As if you could. You were red in the face just from me leaning on you.”
“I carried you out of Hell. I’ll carry you out of here.”
I didn’t have a good retort for that, so I snapped my mouth shut and linked my arm in his. “Fine, but if you grab my ass, I’ll break your fingers.”
He grinned and winked at me. “How many fingers are we talkin’ about?”
“All of them,” I said through clenched teeth.
“Might be worth it.”
Gina was still at the desk when we walked by, two bloodied and battle-hardened people. Her already pale face turned white, and she jumped to her feet.
“No cause for alarm, Gina,” Josiah offered. “But you might want to hold off on asking for a raise for a few.”
She immediately picked up the phone to call the police.
Chapter Nine
KHALEDA
I stumbled out to Wall Street with Josiah into a wall of white. On the opposite side of the street, two businessmen hurried by, briefcases in one hand, phones tucked to their ears. Sirens screamed in the distance, drawing closer by the second. Response time in Manhattan was impressive.
Josiah pulled right while I tried to drag him to the left. We turned on each other, trading threatening glares. He was thinking about hitting me. Go on, make it count. I hope it’s worth spending the rest of your life in prison.
A yellow cab screeched to a stop where Wall Street ran into Williams and laid on the horn. We spun toward it and saw Victis leaning out the window, gesturing to us. That stupid bastard! Where had he gotten a cab? Not that I had time to complain. I was too busy limping toward him.
Josiah jerked open the back door, shoved me inside and threw himself in just as the red and blue came sliding down the street.
“Drive!” I shouted, and Josiah pulled the door closed.
Victis hit the gas, and we spun in place, fishtailing a moment before the vehicle jerked forward. We were cruising down the narrow, snow-covered street in no time. Well, crawling. There was too much snow on the road to go faster than twenty miles an hour.
My leg ached. I shifted so I could stretch it out, careful not to bump into Josiah. “What are you doing, Victis?”
He tried to tuck his head between his shoulders. “I came to warn you, Teacher. They sent someone to kill you.”
“We know,” Josiah
snapped. “Lion shifter, eh? Any more surprises we should know about?”
“Yes, there seems to be a disagreement about how you should be handled. One of the local commanders, Commander Petra, wants to kill you. Commander Decimus wants you brought in alive for questioning. They argued.”
“Can I take it this Commander Petra won?”
Victis shook his head. “There still hasn’t been a consensus. I believe the divide goes higher. There has been talk of a schism within the order.”
I focused on the passing buildings. It had really started to come down, covering the city in a wet white blanket. The cars normally parked on both sides of the street were absent while mounds of snow took their place. Getting around in the weather would be tough. Maybe that’d work in our favor and I’d be able to get a good night’s sleep.
We went over a bump that jostled my leg, and I hissed through my teeth in pain. I’d have to heal. Dammit all, the only way to do that was going to be to draw energy from someone else. Considering my options were to either further damage Victis or slink down to Josiah’s level, that wasn’t going to happen anytime soon.
“Can you magic those wounds closed?” Josiah asked.
I narrowed my eyes at him. “Don’t you think I would’ve done that already if I could’ve?”
“You aren’t at the top of your game though, are you? You still haven’t had a proper feeding.”
Give it a rest. I folded my arms and turned my attention back to the window.
“Come on, Khaleda. I’m not trying to be an asshole for once. I’m only pointing out the obvious. You’re dead weight if you’re injured. We still need each other.”
“A couple of stitches and I’ll be fine,” I lied.
Victis slowed to take the next turn and head south.
Josiah tapped on the grate. “We’re not going back to Chinatown just yet, mate. I’ve got someone I’ve got to meet at Casablanca’s in Brooklyn at five.”
He had to be kidding. We were covered in blood. Though he was putting on a good front, he had to be hurting after that fight. If we got attacked again, we’d be screwed.
