Chapter Twelve
Anya
Plummeted into night, a few sparks from the fire still crackled after being snuffed out by the crumbling building. I was surprised to find Dommiel and I were in one piece. For a man who protested he cared for no one but himself, he had now saved me twice in one evening. Or perhaps it was now near morning. All I knew was that the weight of his protective body on top of me was a sensation I could come to cherish.
The shouts from the street above and the sound of gunfire made it apparent the hit on this building was coincidence, not a target directly on us.
“Come on,” he growled in my ear. “Let’s get out of here before the roof caves. We can’t sift till we’re outside my wards.”
Yanking me to my feet, he hurried to his desk in the semi-dark and stuffed ammo into his satchel before grabbing a Bowie knife and tucking it into his boot. He grabbed a few other things and stuffed them quickly into his bag. A lightning flash pulsed bright through the crashed-in window, highlighting his grim look of determination as he swept the destroyed room one last time. His antique Greek vase lay in shards on the ground.
“Let’s go.”
Though a creature of some comfort who enjoyed his collectibles, he didn’t seem to care to leave them behind as he darted for the short stairwell and the outer door. I fell in quickly behind him.
“Where are we going?”
“Back to Germany where Axel said I’d find the witch, Nadya. He said she can give us the information we need to get inside Lisabette’s palace in Estonia.”
He opened the steel door, still completely intact, checked the alleyway with his gun drawn and ready.
“Come on.”
Once outside, the repetitive flare of ether ammo zipping past the alley drew my gaze as humans ran toward the gunfire. Another crack of lightning, then a rumble of thunder.
“Ah, hell.” Dommiel sighed as large, armed men fled past.
“What is it?”
“Looks like those Twelvers I’ve worked with have finally come to blows with King Henry’s men.”
Then a familiar tall and lean figure strode past, his revolver in hand.
“Xander.”
I sifted to the end of the alleyway and peered around the corner. Dommiel was right behind me.
“We’re leaving, Anya.”
I shot him a look. “No. We’re not. That’s Xander, one of Uriel’s hunters. We’ll help him first.”
“Christ, woman. This will be the second time I’m seen by demonkind fighting against them in the last twenty-four hours.”
“Then don’t help. Stay here in the alley and wait for me.”
I zipped around the corner, unsheathing my long daggers, ignoring Dommiel’s violent curse as I slipped into the fray.
Demons blasted the oncoming resistance fighters. Beyond the line and within a circle of demon guards, there were about a hundred humans on their knees, their hands bound behind their backs. Some were garbed in the black attire of Twelvers, but most were just ordinary women and children.
I sifted to Xander’s side, shielding behind a truck as he fired rounds over the hood.
With a quick glance, he returned his sights over the hood. “Hello there, darling. Decided to join us for another day of fun and frivolity? I’d thought you quit London.”
His ever-casual dialogue, even in the face of death, delivered with his aristocratic English accent always seemed to make me smile. Despite the chance of imminent death.
“I did,” I finally answered. “I’m on a quest to find Uriel.”
His casual gaze sized me up and down. “Interesting. For it appears to me you’re crouched behind a sad little sedan in the south side of London, facing off those hellions we both love to hate.”
“Seriously, Xander. What is going on here?”
He aimed and fired, blasting a demon in the face who had sifted right in front of the car. His body crumbled, then exploded into fiery embers and ash.
“Well, I’m firing at and killing demons. What are you doing?”
So exasperating, this man. “Those humans they’ve got on their knees. What are they doing with them?”
His unruffled expression suddenly hardened into sharp angles. “Those are slaves to the demon hordes, if we don’t save them.”
“Slaves?” My heart skipped a beat. “So many children.”
“Indeed.” His voice had dropped into a darker region. “The demons of today enjoy playing with children.”
“No, Xander.”
He spared a glance for me. “It might be best if you sit this one out, darling.”
His gaze flicked to my neck where the wound had healed. On the surface, anyway.
“Why would I sit this one out?”
Dommiel appeared on Xander’s other side. He gave a nod to Xander, who grinned at my partner, as to an old friend.
“Hello, Captain Blackheart.”
“Seems you’re up to your neck in shit as usual, eh, Goldilocks.”
I stared in shock at their familiar and playful exchange, though neither seemed to mind me.
“Always, Captain. You know, I really believe that eye patch looks fetching on you. I’ll bet it lures many women into your naughty lair.”
Dommiel arched a brow at him, then returned his gaze over the hood. “Who’s in charge of this shit-show, anyway?”
“On our side or theirs? Oh, wait. I mean our side or yours? Which is it these days? I never can figure out whose side you’re on.”
Dommiel didn’t appear perturbed in the least at yet another accusation of him playing both sides. “Never mind.” A growl reverberated in his chest. “I just got my answer.”
A sudden barrage of ether fire shot overhead and the screams of women and children echoed in the air with the howling storm. A storm that produced no rain, only sizzling electricity snapping in the air.
A new wave of demons appeared, all in black except for red collars, a blasphemous mimicry of the priesthood.
“Rook and Simian’s red priests,” I murmured, fear shooting adrenaline through my blood.
The red priests were called such for the blood they spilled. They were some abomination of the princes’—hell-black hair and mouths and sharpened teeth with corpse-pale skin. They sifted into the demon-guarded inner circle, snatched and disappeared again, taking their captives to who knew where, two by two.
Dommiel stood from the cover of the car and glared down. “We can sift in and save a few. Bring them to Dartmoor.”
My heart soared as he blinked out with a crackle of electricity and appeared inside the circle, wrapping his arms around a boy and girl, probably siblings. Then disappeared.
“Let’s go, then, darling. Your man seems to have the right idea.”
My man? No time to ponder Xander’s assumption. And whether he was right or wrong.
With that, Xander snapped into a sift, then I followed. We both made it inside the circle without the guards noticing. The Twelvers caught sight of us and raised their efforts in gunfire, barraging the guards as well as the priests, who were forced to engage. Without even thinking, I latched on to a woman’s arm and the boy at her side, sifting with frantic speed through the Void. The boy screamed, which echoed over the moor as we snapped out near the rock facing where I’d met Dommiel for the first time. There were four humans shivering and wide-eyed. I removed my dagger and quickly cut the bonds of the woman.
“Here.” I gave her the dagger. “Untie them. Calm them.”
Tears streaking her face, she nodded in silence. I sifted back out directly into the circle and had to dodge the swing of a sword blade. Priests were waiting for us. Before he could lay hands on me, I sifted to the far part of the circle. He grinned at me and pulled two young women up onto their feet and into his arms before sifting out. We were racing against the priests to get as many of the captives as we could.
I latched on to two little boys, perhaps five and seven, then disappeared again. When I reappeared onto Dartmoor, there were several more people. Xander and Dommiel were making quick work. But now the priests were waiting for us.
I sifted back to the sedan, crouching where we’d had a good view of the circle of captives. There were less than twenty still there, waiting to see who would get to them first—their masters or their saviors. My gut burned with fire as three priests appeared and snatched six more.
“Bastards,” I muttered under my breath, sifting to the center where the last few humans huddled in fear.
“My oh my,” came a sinister voice behind me, the familiar malevolence rolling over me like liquid pain.
I spun, unsheathing my long dagger at the same time. Though it would be difficult to penetrate the full metal armor he wore from head to toe. Like double chainmail, his long black hair slid in silky waves over the shining metal, wind-tossed like the perfect god or the most demonic prince, which is exactly what he was.
His crimson eyes measured me with too much knowledge. Black spidery veins ran through his pale face, horribly beautiful despite the network of veins marking him for one of the demon prince twins who’d never ventured to earth until this Great War began.
Sliding his tongue over his lips, his gaze dropped to my neck. I flinched at the automatic sting under my skin. He laughed, low and deep, knowing his essence, his poison, was doing its work. I didn’t know how long I had before the putrid substance would engulf my heart, then my soul, transforming me to his willing slave. But the fear of it was raw and desperate, chasing my sanity to the edge.
A crackle, then Dommiel stood beside me, staring down Simian. He moved in front of me, his body partially blocking the heinous beast a few yards away. I heard Xander appear behind us, then disappear again, surely having taken two more captives with him. Glancing over my shoulder, one of Simian’s priests, black robe-like coat whipping in the wind, gathered up the last three and disappeared.
“Let’s go, Dommiel,” I whispered, eager to be gone. To be far, far away.
But it was too late. He’d already deduced there was some sort of history between myself and the demon prince. Dommiel always saw too much. The prince hadn’t uttered a word yet, but his smile said enough.
“Tsk, tsk. It appears my angel has already chosen another demon consort.” His smile flattened, his blood-red eyes burned with cold rage. “A wanted traitor.”
Dommiel said nothing, his Glock in one hand, knuckles white, his Bowie knife gripped in the other. I couldn’t see his face, but the trembling fury rolling off of him told me enough.
“Let’s just go,” I said again.
Waltzing from behind Simian came his twin, identical in fearsome appearance and dark beauty, their red-collared priests making a wide arc to surround us.
“Oh, brother. Are you playing with her again?”
“Dommiel, please,” I grated, refusing to sift away without him. The damn man wouldn’t move, wouldn’t even acknowledge me, his focus so intent on Simian and now his brother.
Simian tilted his head in an eerie semblance of a serpent, his words clipped and harsh. “But I like playing with her. It’ll be more enjoyable when her new guard dog is stretched on my rack in Erebus.”
I gasped. The very thought of Dommiel being tortured in the darkest pit of the underworld turned my blood to ice.
“Dommiel.”
“No, Anya.”
Damn the man! He wouldn’t turn away. If anything, he readied himself, squaring into a fighting stance.
Simian whispered something and a crack of electricity popped in the air near him, then a loathsome creature appeared. One that sucked the air right out of my lungs.
“Bellock,” I whispered.
A new fear rolled over me. My wings twitched and tightened against my back at the sight of the angel hunter. They were known for clipping their prey’s wings before they dragged them to some festering dungeon in hell.
With midnight eyes, flat and soulless, he centered on Dommiel. Huge and muscular with ash-gray skin and black veins webbing down his neck and across bare arms, he huffed out a grunt, his breath puffing out in a white curl. He wore a chest-plate of armor, leaving his arms free, one wielding a wickedly sharp and curved scimitar. He was an otherworld barbarian, devoted to destruction and pain.
Rather than tense, Dommiel seemed to relax, his shoulders rounding, though he kept a tight grip on his handgun at his side.
The creature sidled forward, catlike and too graceful for such a beast. “Why am I not surprised?” His lifeless eyes didn’t seem to move, but I felt them on me. “Keeping company with angels now.” He circled his wrist, waving his scimitar in an arc. “Those would make some lovely trophies on my wall.”
My wings.
Dommiel chuckled, then aimed his Glock in a split-second move, firing off three rounds of ether ammo, green fire flaring bright. Bellock blocked all three with the flick of his blade. He was fast. And deadly. And coming closer.
“I’ve been wondering where you’ve been hiding,” said Bellock.
Simian, Rook, and their priests remained silent and watchful behind him.
“Not hiding.” He holstered his gun and pulled out a twelve-inch blade, one side spiked with half-inch curved teeth. “Just more important things to do than deal with your ugly ass.”
I backed away, giving them room for combat, for there was no avoiding that was exactly what Dommiel had in mind. Why I thought he’d run away, sift away, to safety when faced with the enemies who blackened his name and sought to chain his soul in hell, I don’t know. Still, fear skittered through my veins.
Bellock swung first. Dommiel easily dodged, spun beneath his arm, and sliced with the jagged blade along the angel hunter’s ribs. Bellock growled, spinning and swinging horizontally. I gasped. Dommiel ducked and got another slice on the back of the hunter’s thigh, ripping through fabric to gray flesh.
Bellock cried out in rage. Dommiel laughed, sauntering in a circle around his opponent as if this were a practice bout in the sparring yard. Not a fight till the death. He slashed his knife toward the ground, splattering a thin line of the hunter’s black blood on the pavement.
“Seems you’re out of practice, Bellock. I expected more from a servant of the high princes.” His smile turned sharp, his voice dropping low. “Then again, slavery never did produce the best fighters.”
An ominous growl from the gray creature, then they were a blur of movement, the clanging of their blades all I could make out as they lunged and sliced. Bellock was infamous for his deadly fighting skill, yet Dommiel kept pace with equal measure. He was an even match, somewhat of a surprise to me as I watched with a scream lodged in my throat, waiting to rip free.
Simian caught my eye across the way, a subtle movement of his head as he watched me, not the fight. I gripped my dagger tighter. A stinging pain lanced from my neck to my chest, from where he’d grazed me with his fangs to where his essence lodged deeper.
He grinned, knowing his essence was doing its work inside of me, slowly drawing me closer to him, to being his willing slave. Unconsciously, I shook my head. Then he chuckled in that sinister way Simian did, his canines sharp as always.
“Ticktock, lovey,” he rasped, his gaze sweeping in a slow seductive glide down my body.
The invisible caress felt like a snake sliding over my skin. Palpable fear pumped my heart rate faster as I remained locked on the thing that would be my master if we didn’t find Uriel in time. Realizing the clanging of blades had stopped, I swiveled back to Dommiel, who’d observed the exchange between Simian and I, his glare murderous. It was just enough distraction for Bellock. He raised his scimitar high, readying to swing down on Dommiel’s head.
“No!” I screamed and sifted to him faster than I could think the command, wrapped him in both arms and sifted out before the hunter’s sword could cleave home.
Dommiel didn’t resist, but even in the few seconds we flew through the Void, I could feel fury vibrating off him. Even so, all I could think was how wonderful he felt in my arms, the sweat and smell of him some kind of sweet seduction all its own. How had it come to this? How had I fallen so quickly for a corrupt being, a self-professed sinner who gloried in shunning my own deepest beliefs? Perhaps because he truly was a liar. He said he cared for no one but himself, yet he was the first to sift into that circle to save the captives.
We flashed out onto the snow-covered hill of Dartmoor. I stumbled back when he tore out of my arms, his knife and gun still gripped fiercely in both hands.
“What the fuck was that, Anya?”
“I—I didn’t want you hurt. Bellock, he would’ve killed you.”
“That’s not what I’m talking about and you know it.”
His sharpened fangs colored his speech with a primitive timbre. One that made me shiver, and not entirely out of fear. I swallowed hard, unwilling to tell him about Simian. He sheathed his gun and blade before coming toward me, but it didn’t diminish the primal panic he sparked in my belly.
His metal hand gripped my shoulder, his flesh one wrapped my nape in a possessive hold, his mouth mere inches from mine as his voice grated so low I felt it more than heard him.
“Tell. Me. Now.”
“Captain Blackheart!”
Both our heads swiveled to Xander standing among the women and children we’d saved, all eyes, full of fear, glued to us. Except Xander, who frowned in confusion and concern.
“Not the right time or place.”
“You’re scaring the children,” I whispered.
Somehow, I knew that would break through the wall of fury he’d erected. Slowly, he dropped his hands from me, but the battle-hard fire in his dark ruby eye didn’t die. We’d be revisiting this again when we were alone, I was sure of it.
And how could I resist confessing to him? He had such a hold on me. It was terrifying. But not as much as being owned by Simian. I also feared Dommiel’s reaction if he knew. Would he mistrust me, thinking the poison might put his own life in danger, should I go under Simian’s spell and turn him over? I was stronger than that. If I felt the black essence taking over my soul, then I’d tell him. He could kill me and be done with it.
Until then, I couldn’t tell him the truth. I couldn’t watch as his gaze shifted from desire and admiration to suspicion and mistrust. I didn’t want to lose his allegiance. Or his affection.
Not yet.
Maybe not ever.