by C. L. Coffey
“Or we could just wait here for her to leave,” I suggested.
“We don’t know what she looks like.”
I shrugged. “Do we need to? Can’t you look for her aura? Check whoever comes out of—”
Before I could finish explaining my brilliant idea, there was a sound that had both Gabriel and I looking past the side of the building towards the courtyard area I’d sat in last week.
“Did you hear that?” I asked. “Was that a scream?”
A scream being cut off.
“Yes.” Gabriel raised his arm and the umbrella up into the air, and then started running down the street.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Not caring about the rain or trying to stay under the umbrella, I ran after him. We turned the corner almost simultaneously, but there was no one there. “Did we—?”
“Stay there.” Gabriel thrust the umbrella towards me and carried on running.
Across from the bench I’d sat on was a section set back. I remembered it only because the man had been sat in on. Gabriel ran straight for it, disappearing from sight.
Doing the exact opposite to what Gabriel had said, I ran after him. As I came to the corner, I dropped the umbrella then pulled my dagger out of my purse.
On the ground, clutching at her throat, was a girl. With the rain still coming down so heavily, thick makeup streaked across her face, making it hard to tell how old she was, but she looked high school age.
In front of her, Gabriel was squaring off with a man. I had to look twice, but realized he was the one who was here the other day. Wearing the same dark suit, he was soaked by the rain though he wore the shiniest shoes I’d ever seen. He looked like an investment banker, not a guy who’d be holding a sword in his hands.
With Gabriel taking care of the man, I ran over to the girl, dropping down beside her. Careful with the dagger but afraid to put it away in case the guy decided to turn his attention to us, I pulled her hands back from her neck.
Wrapped around her neck like a scarf was a chain; like the ones used to secure a bicycle. It wasn’t tight, yet there were horrible welts on her neck, blistering like the metal was burning her.
She was writhing on the ground; her moans were gargled by the rain.
Not caring how hot the chain was, I grabbed an end. Instead of my hand being scorched, I almost recoiled at how cold it was compared to what I expected.
With one quick movement, I unraveled it from her neck and flung it away. She instantly rolled onto her side, coughing and spluttering.
“Siobhan?”
The girl nodded.
“Are you okay?”
She didn’t answer, instead, clutched at my leg.
Behind her, the man Gabriel was fighting fell to the ground. Gabriel kicked the man, and when he didn’t move, dropped down to pick up his weapon. He jogged over to us, breathing heavily. “Is she okay?”
The girl rolled over. As she looked at the archangel, her eyes went wide. “Gabriel?” She nearly gasped.
Transferring both weapons to one hand, Gabriel used his other to reach out and brush the girl’s long hair out of her face. I wasn’t sure if her hair was dark brown or black because of the rain, but with her pale face and the panda eyes her smudged mascara and eyeliner gave her, it was making the welts on her neck look almost crimson.
“You’re okay now,” Gabriel muttered. He looked up at me. “Where’s the umbrella?”
Glancing around, I saw the abandoned umbrella and scrambled to my feet to go get it. One corner was dented, but it was still useable. I ran back, holding it above Siobhan.
Gabriel stuck his hand into his pocket and pulled out a small bottle, the size of cough syrup. He quickly unscrewed it, holding it above her neck. “It’s holy water. This will probably hurt.”
Leaning over, Gabriel slowly poured the water over the welts. Like when I cleaned out his wound, it smoked.
Siobhan opened her mouth, but the scream that came out was more like an agonized whisper. Thankfully, the welts quickly seemed to deflate, although the skin stayed red around them.
“Do you think you can sit?” Gabriel asked as she lay gasping for air. “There’s a little water left but I think you should drink it.”
Nodding, Siobhan clenched her jaw and then sat upright, bringing her knees up so she could lean her head against them. She sat like that for a few seconds before she reached for the bottle and drank whatever was left inside.
“How do you feel?” I asked her.
“Cold, wet, and pissed off.” Her Irish accent sounded rough because of the whispered voice. Or maybe because of her anger. She frowned over at the dead guy behind Gabriel. “I can’t believe you brought him here.”
“We didn’t bring him here,” Gabriel told her.
Siobhan gave him a scathing look. “I’ve been working here for three years,” she said, the word ‘three’ sounding more like ‘tree.’ “And not once has anyone attacked me. Yet the day you turn up, so does he.”
“He was here last week,” I told her, glancing over at the man to make sure it was the same guy. “We walked around here, and he was already sitting on that bench over there. I think he’s been following you for a while.”
The teenager looked up at me. The color returning to her face disappeared in an instant. “What?”
Without waiting for an answer, she scrambled to her feet, pushing Gabriel’s hand away as he tried to help her. On her feet now, she was a few inches shorter than me but just as skinny. Her wet clothes hung off her, making her look scrawny. But she shoved me to the side like she was just as strong as Gabriel.
I almost went flying, catching myself at the last moment. “Hey.” I objected.
She didn’t pay attention, just hurried back to the road. At almost the same moment, Gabriel and I both tore after her. As I shoved my dagger back into my bag, Gabriel was tucking both of the weapons he had under his jacket.
We caught up with her just as she turned the corner.
“You two need to go.”
“You were just attacked by a fallen angel,” I told her.
“He wasn’t a fallen angel,” Gabriel and Siobhan said, almost at the same time.
“He was a nephilim,” Gabriel told me as we stayed close to Siobhan.
The teenager looked up at him, frowning. “He’s not just a nephilim.”
“Was he a Watcher?” I asked.
Siobhan’s steps faltered. She stopped suddenly, and I had to move to the side to avoid bumping her. “What do you know about Watchers?”
“That’s why we’re here,” Gabriel said.
She stared up at us, then very slowly, shook her head. “Nope.” With no further explanation, she continued hurrying down the street.
After going to all this trouble, I wasn’t about to give up, so I ran after her. “Wait. We need your help.”
“Go away and leave me alone before you get me killed.” Siobhan ran across the street, narrowly missing several cars as they blared their horns.
“For someone so concerned about the Fallen finding her, she’s sure not bothered about a bus squishing her,” I muttered to Gabriel, not waiting for the lights to turn either. I gave one driver an apologetic wave as we ran after the cherub.
“Siobhan, wait up,” Gabriel called as we followed her onto a bridge over the Thames. “If you come with me, I can take you to my House and get those injuries seen to properly.”
The teenager spun on her heels, her soaking wet hair whipping out around her. “No, you want to take me back to your House to question me about something I know better than to talk about.” She pointed behind us. “Which I would have thought that guy back there would have been a good indication of.”
“There’s a prophecy—”
“I don’t care if Jesus has decided to return to earth to learn how to Riverdance. I left my House, and I’m not going back to any of them.”
“Are you more scared of Gabriel, the Fallen, or the Watchers?” I asked, confused.
Siob
han looked at Gabriel before shaking her head. “I’m not scared of Gabriel. I’m scared of what he will do with the information when he knows about it.”
I glanced up at Gabriel, hoping he wasn’t going to get mad, before looking at Siobhan. “I’m a nephilim.” A train rattled past, making me jump. I hadn’t realized the bridge shared a walkway with train tracks.
Siobhan didn’t move, staring at me in disbelief. She slowly shook her head. “An archangel and a nephilim? You’re lying.”
“She is a nephilim. I swear to God,” Gabriel said.
The rain seemed to start falling sideways as a strong breeze whipped downstream across the river, but none of us moved.
“I took an oath,” Siobhan said, eventually. “There’s only so much I can tell you.”
“My friend is a prophet, and she’s been having the same recurring dream,” I said, tweaking the truth a fraction. “Something bad is coming, and the only way I can stop it is to figure out what this prophecy means. Anything that you can tell us might help.”
Behind Siobhan, a man with a ponytail was hurrying across the bridge towards us. Apparently, we weren’t the only ones crazy enough to be out in this weather. As he got closer, I stepped to the side for him to pass.
At the same time, Gabriel’s hand went to my hip, his fingers pressing in slightly.
“What?”
Before I could ask my question, the man stopped just behind Siobhan, but her attention wasn’t on him—or us. It was fixed on something behind me. I turned, and as I did, found two more men standing there.
“Fallen or nephilim?” I asked Gabriel in a low voice.
“Fallen,” he replied.
“Crap.” Alternating my attention between the three fallen angels, I reached into my bag and wrapped my hand around the hilt of the dagger.
Siobhan inched her way closer to us as Ponytail started to do the same behind her. “Do you still have that extra weapon?” she whispered to Gabriel.
“You’re not going to make this easy for us, are you? Just let us have the girl, and we’ll be on our way.” The fallen angel was the one who had spoken before. He was tall, good looking, and strangely, wearing eyeglasses with no lenses in them.
“I will make this easy on you by allowing you to walk away now,” Gabriel told him.
The second fallen angel giggled. Of the three Fallen, he was the biggest, buffest, and the prettiest. And he giggled.
Glasses rolled his eyes, clearly as impressed with that sound as I was. But instead of saying anything to him, he quickly flicked his arm, and a sword dropped from his sleeve; the blade was long and black.
“They have no auras,” Gabriel said.
No auras meant their vessels were already dead, but I wasn’t entirely certain what the significance of that was.
“Praise God,” Siobhan muttered.
Whatever that was code for, I would ask later—if we managed to survive a fight with three fallen angels.
Giggles grinned, allowing his sword to appear. When I glanced behind, Ponytail was also armed.
The rain fell heavier, and when I looked up and down the bridge, the only thing that seemed to be going for us at that point was there were no humans to get caught in the crossfire.
But there was a fourth man walking towards us, just behind Ponytail.
He had a bald head and dark eyes that I would recognize anywhere. “You . . . you were the guy at my mom’s apartment.”
Isaac held a hand over his heart and pushed out his lower lip. “Aw, you remember me.” On a kid, that look might have been cute, but it was creepy on him.
Gabriel looked over and frowned. “What are you doing here?”
“Click and collect?” Isaac said with a shrug. “We’re here to pick up a very precious parcel.”
Behind him, Giggles erupted into a hyena laugh.
Under no circumstance was I going to allow them to take Siobhan considering how hard it had been to find her, and that she might be the only one who could help us with the watchers. Seeing as though their intentions were clear, I pulled my dagger from my bag.
As I brought it up in front of me, the blade growing, Gabriel made no effort to hide him handing the Watcher’s blade to Siobhan, clearly having the same train of thought.
I wasn’t an expert when it came to blades, but it was longer than my dagger, yet not as long as my sword. I’d seen it before. It was just like the stake stabbed through my shoulder.
Weird weapon choice . . . but currently better than having one of us unarmed.
At this point, I was hoping Siobhan was as good a fighter as Gabriel had made the cherubim out to be. Because we were going to need her.
Wielding the stake like it was a sword, Siobhan let out a battle cry and jumped at Glasses. He was ready for her; his sword met hers with a clink that echoed off the bridge.
“Help her,” Gabriel told me as he ran towards Isaac and Ponytail.
Pausing, I looked between the Gabriel and Siobhan. My body wanted to help Gabriel to even out the score, but as I watched him attack the two of them, his movements looking like a ceremonial sword dance as he fought, I figured that was probably his way of telling me not to get in his way.
Without a battle cry, I whirled around, swinging my sword towards Giggles’ head. Giggles stopped laughing long enough to bring his sword up and block my attack.
Beside me, even though she was armed with a long metal stake, Siobhan was moving so fast, I was surprised to see Glasses still standing.
At the last second, I saw the blade coming towards me, so I dropped to the ground. Whatever Gabriel or Siobhan were doing was no longer my concern—not if I wanted to stay alive.
Because Giggles was so bulky, his body kept moving. Seeing my chance, I shoved my arm forward, aiming for his stomach. Which was when he decided to show me that his bulk was deceiving.
Continuing to circle around, he brought up a foot, kicked the sword away, then continued spinning until he had done a three-sixty.
Somehow, I kept hold of my sword despite a sharp pain shooting up my arm.
Keeping his momentum going, Giggles brought his arm up and swung down. This time, I had to bring my sword up to block the blow. Vibrations ran along my arm again as I fought to keep hold of it.
This guy wasn’t fast as much as he was strong.
And I didn’t have the skill to beat him.
Right now, my best chance was praying that either Gabriel or Siobhan could finish their guys off quick enough to help me out, or to find myself a lucky strike.
If I made it out of this alive, I wasn’t waiting until next semester to learn how to fight. I’d make sure Gabriel moved us onto sword fighting, and I was going to spend my whole summer learning.
To hell with American lit.
Giggles scraped his sword along the edge of mine, causing a hideous high-pitched screech before swinging it around at me again. This time, as I brought my sword up to block, his weight pulled him forward. The sword ran the length of the blade, slamming into the guard of my sword.
And he didn’t stop, pushing me backwards into the metal railings of the bridge. With his body pressed up against mine, there was barely any room for me to move my arms or the sword. But there wasn’t for him, either.
Bringing my head back, I slammed it into his as hard as I could, letting out a grunt of pain.
Both our swords went clattering to the ground.
Ignoring the slight double vision I had before Giggles could recover, I stomped my foot down on his as hard as I could. The fallen angel took a couple of steps backwards then he smirked.
Wiggling his eyebrows, he raised his hands, now curled into fists.
I wasn’t sure my chances in a fist fight were going to be much better.
“You could just give up,” he told me.
“Are you going to?” I shuffled away from the railing to give myself room to maneuver. As Giggles turned his body with mine, I kept moving. From this position, the wind wasn’t blowing the rain into my eyes as
much.
The fallen angel giggled.
At the same time, a gust of wind hit the bridge, making not only the bridge sway a little, but also causing rainwater to blow straight into his eyes. Before he could wipe it away, I tilted my body and kicked as hard as I could. My boot connected with his gut and I wobbled.
Instead of staggering backwards, he doubled over, but as I went to follow my kick with a punch to the side of his head, Giggles ploughed forward. His shoulder hit my lower ribs.
Giggles didn’t stop and the next thing I knew, my body hit the pavement and knocked the air out of my lungs.
On top of me now, the fallen angel sat back, grinning at me. As the first giggle left his mouth, I felt the burn. The same burn from when I’d fought Jonah. Like last time, it didn’t hurt, and although I wasn’t aware of any bleeding injuries, the pain stopped like I’d been cauterized again.
Rage surged through me. I reached up, grabbing the front of Giggles’ shirt. As flames burst to life in my palm, despite the rain, Giggles looked down, his eyes going wide.
The fire inside me seemed to take control of my limbs. I clung onto him as he tried to scramble away, using his movements to pull me upright. While my body straightened, I brought my fist back and punched at this throat as hard as I could, letting go of his burning shirt at the same time.
Giggles flew backwards like a rocket, sliding along the bridge into the railings. Only, the railings didn’t stop him. They snapped open, metal twanging loudly. That’s when Giggles fell off the edge of the bridge.
I barely heard his body hit the water as I rolled over onto my knees.
The fire inside of me was growing, consuming my thoughts with a dull roar.
Until a scream beside me brought me back. Lunging for my fallen sword, I picked it up and rose to my feet. I turned and found Siobhan slumped against the railings of the bridge, blood mixing with puddles on the ground.
Glasses was standing over her, blood dripping from his sword.
This time, I unleashed my own battle cry, hoping the fallen angel would turn. As he did, I swung. He had no time to stop me from chopping his head off.
His body hit the ground, but I stood there, staring at his head. It stared back at me, open mouthed. Panting like I had just run back-to-back marathons. Beside him, Siobhan stared up at me, her mouth hanging open. “How did you do that?”
