26
Born and raised in the shadow of Hackney, my bloody death had haunted me ever since I’d clasped my first shank.
Bitches like me died on the streets.
Yet the chance to go out battling for something righteous had spiralled me to violet glory. Now I shook, however, that I’d bleed out shackled. Worse? My Brigadier and punk Rebel would suffer the same.
Tower Block B, floor eleven. Gizem’s fiery orange apartment.
Violins, in an imperious waltz, soared from the sound system on the glass coffee table. The table was a riot of white lilies. The intense sweet scent was sickening.
I shifted from foot to foot, glancing down at Rebel and Ash’s boots on either side of mine because it was easier than looking up at Eden. We were lined in front of him: peasants before a king.
Eden sprawled on a flame red armchair; his coat hung artfully open. His eyes glittered as he examined his captives, like we were tasty treats at a tea party.
Bird Tattoo prowled behind us in guard mode.
A soft kid’s sobbing was coming from behind the closed door of Aylin’s bedroom.
Gizem’s bedroom door was closed. She wasn’t sobbing. Hell, I wished she was because her silence hurt worse.
Carefully, I tested the cuffs, hissing as my skin blistered: these must be custom-made for angels and vampires. I scanned the apartment, from the fawn divan underneath the window, piled with fluffy cushions, to the corridor with the cracked radiator, through to the kitchen.
All ordinary. Except for the leader of the Pure and his prisoners.
‘Kneel to your king.’ Eden waved at the laminated flooring. When I hesitated, he nodded to Bird Tattoo. ‘A pawn must learn when the game is lost.’
Bird Tattoo shoved me in the back, and I gasped from the sudden jolt to my knife wound.
I stumbled forward a step. But I didn’t kneel.
Bird Tattoo stomped to Aylin’s bedroom. When he wrenched open the door, and Aylin’s wail rose in crescendo with the violin, I dropped to my knees.
Aylin believed in bastard Father Christmas. Gizem was trying to give her a life — hope — that we’d never had.
In a single moment, Bird Tattoo could’ve torn it from her.
What if he had already?
To my surprise, Rebel and Ash sank to their knees next to me. Both their shoulders brushed mine — one on either side — warm and solid.
It gave me strength.
Eden clapped his hands. ‘How delightful: three wicked rebels on their knees, soon to be punished by the Pure armies.’
‘Crack on with it then, bro,’ I tilted my chin, ‘or are you killing us with your rhymes?’
Eden leant forward on his blazing throne. ‘If you wish to burn my house, I shall burn yours. The birthing pains of all ancient blood feuds.’ When Ash stiffened, Eden chuckled. ‘Whore, your bugs were such a short game of hide-and-seek. Although,’ he kicked his bare feet up onto the glass table, ‘you shall still make a pretty soldier on your hands and knees.’
I snarled, struggling to stand, but Ash shook his head.
Eden pouted. ‘Do you now wish to know why my purified are dressed for the ball?’
I lifted my eyebrow. ‘They’re waiting for you to turn into a pumpkin?’
Eden pointed his long foot at me. ‘This is the night I catch a monster by the toe, and if it squeals, gut it in the snow.’
I recoiled.
He knew all along, J, about tonight. He set us up.
Eden plays with the mind. He’s a vampire Drake.
With the power inside, you could bleed the world dry, but you’re the only one who can choose it.
‘How…. Who grassed?’ I didn’t look either side at Rebel or Ash; I didn’t want to catch the flash of guilt before I knew the truth.
But I could still sense they’d both stiffened.
Eden glanced around at the tiny apartment. ‘You own an enemy, by owning those they love.’ He sprang across the coffee table, booting the sound system to stuttering silence. He bent me backwards, sweeping me into his arms. ‘Monster and vampire, sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G.’ Then he kissed me tenderly on the lips as he murmured, ‘I could’ve chosen anywhere in the City, but I nest with the girl who loved you enough to save you from a vampire’s embrace. I told you, I have been dreaming of this from the moment of your birth.’
I struggled then, snapping at Eden’s full lips, until he backed away.
No one had grassed; Eden had planned this.
Eden’s played me — all of us.
Our mistake was not guessing just how long Eden has been in this game.
Eden gave a high laugh and strolled to the armchair, before throwing himself down.
Hell, everything here on the Estate — the cuckooing in Tower Block B and Gizem and her sis held as hostages — was happening because of me.
When I’d thought to blaze in the hero, I’d already painted the target on their backs.
I wasn’t birth. The Beginning. Saviour. I was death. The End. Destroyer.
When I panted, sinking onto my arse, Rebel stooped over me. Suddenly, he gave me a hidden grin and whispered, ‘I told you we’d get in. Now we hunt.’
I stared at Rebel like he’d snapped.
That had been his plan all along?
There’d been no betrayal because Rebel had known he’d be sensed, we’d be captured, and then dragged in here…where he reckoned I’d take out Eden?
More secrets.
Yet the problem with Rebel’s plan was that Eden was right. He owned the people I loved, so he owned me. The vampires had herded the humans back into the tower block. If the choice was to save myself, my sister, Rebel and Brigadier by burning down this human world, then maybe I wasn’t like Eden.
Because I wouldn’t take it.
Yet Rebel was smiling at me with such faith, it made my heart ache. No one had ever looked at me like that.
Why the hell did Rebel have to look at me like that now?
‘My sweet lost angel,’ Eden crooned, casting a hooded glance between Rebel and me. The bastard had noticed Rebel’s smile too. ‘By the time the long night ends, you’ll be the Fallen.’
You own an enemy, my owning those they love…
I drew in my breath, jerking away from Rebel.
Just getting it now?
But I don’t love Rebel…I just…don’t hate him.
That he loves you, hooker. The bondage angel loves you.
Eden nodded at Bird Tattoo again; Bird Tattoo hauled up Rebel under his arm like he was a kid and dropped him onto Eden’s lap.
When Rebel squirmed, Eden encircled his throat with his hands, just brushing over the base of his neck in warning.
Rebel stilled, breathing heavily, yet his look at me was still hopeful, like he expected me to spring up and save him.
Save the world.
A tear escaped down my cheek, and I couldn’t hide it.
I stared at the picture on the wall above Eden’s head. It was the first design I’d ever made for Angels vs Vampires: a warrior angel, victorious and rising to perfection.
Why had I ever reckoned I could be her?
Eden stroked down the front of Rebel’s trousers, smacking the outside of Rebel’s hip when he shrank back. ‘Tomorrow, when you Fall, you’ll make a pretty pet.’
‘Don’t touch him.’ Mine — my blood sang — to touch, kiss, hurt…
Eden pushed Rebel’s leather jacket off his trembling shoulders, twisting it over his handcuffs. When Rebel tried to keep his wings folded back, Eden pinched his sensitive shoulder blades, until his wings drooped limply at either side in their mangled ruin. Eden’s face flushed with outrage. ‘Who has so defiled my lost one? Such sacrilege! The wings must be whole, a perfect offering, when they’re purified.’ His gaze flickered to Ash. ‘Crawl to lie at my feet.’
Ash raised his eyebrow at me, as if awaiting my command, but jumped when Rebel yowled.
Eden’s steel claws were buried in Rebel’s thigh, like a lion pinning down its prey. ‘Crawl, whore.’
I nodded, and Ash crawled around the coffee table, before lying tensely on his face in front of Eden.
Bird Tattoo dragged down Ash’s army coat, pulling out his soft grey wings. Then he stalked to me and wrenched back my hair. The cold nick of a flick-knife pressed against my throat.
A click and Rebel was tumbled to the floor, with the handcuff removed from his right wrist.
‘Pretty matching pets with bloody wings.’ Eden tossed a shank to Rebel. Then he drew his fingers through his hair with a dramatic sigh. ‘A choice: carve the feathers from the Fallen, or allow us to slice the monster.’
As if an army order had already been given, Ash spread out his wings for the blade.
I shook.
Rebel bent over Ash, the shank tracing the violet tip feather. When he looked round at me, the knife raised, I expected to see victory on his face — his revenge on the vampire, enemy, rival who’d broken and ripped the feathers from his own wing — not agonised despair. He sank in the blade at the tip, and Ash screamed.
Then the shank was falling from Rebel’s fingers. ‘Do it to me.’ His freed hand rubbed backwards and forwards pleadingly on Eden’s bare feet. ‘Don’t be after making me—’
Ash surged up to his knees. ‘That wasn’t an option. Hack now, angst later.’
Eden stroked both their heads. ‘Did the war end? Are you not hunter and hunted? But if you refuse, I’ll pluck the whore myself and bleed a monster.’
Rebel snatched up the shank and drove it into Ash’s wing.
When Ash hollered, I shuddered, sinking into my mind and searching for it: the violet righteousness, twined with seething black that could…if not save us…then stop this.
The one Rebel believed in.
Yet as Ash writhed in scarlet agony, and Rebel’s quick glances at me became at first cautious, then doubting, and finally blank — the same as Drake’s, Jade’s…mine — nothing flared but my own powerlessness.
The sense that this truly was my night to die.
Crimson. Blood dripping from outstretched wings. Mutilated, the feathers carved out…
Here was the Ash of my dreams, lying in his own feathers and blood.
If I’d chosen to return to Angel World with Drake, I could’ve saved the Brigadier.
Future paths, memories, visions…you can’t trust them, believe me.
But what about Rebel wingless on his knees and Jade dying with a shank to the guts? What if they…?
And what if you’re so focused on them not coming true, you make them happen?
How could Angel World be any worse? I made the wrong choice. Drake’s pill was safety, and I chose suffering.
When Eden pulled Rebel back onto his lap, he slipped the shank from Rebel’s scarlet hand, before flicking off the feathers and sucking the bloody fingers.
Ash lay motionless, struggling to breathe.
Eden caressed Rebel’s slumped shoulders. ‘There, let’s have some refreshments with our entertainment.’
Gizem had never been silent. I’d seen her beaten, dumped back from foster homes, fired from jobs, and on the day that she’d discovered she was pregnant.
She’d always had something to say.
Yet when Bird Tattoo led her out of Aylin’s bedroom wrapped in a threadbare bathrobe, she shuffled with her head down, without saying a word.
Ash had been spot on: Walking Dead.
Gizem startled when she saw me on my knees, a vampire with his wings shanked bloody, and an angel like a little boy on his daddy’s lap.
But barely.
Eden clucked at her, like she was a skittish chicken, before winding his hand through her lank hair and pulling her close enough to sink his fangs into her neck.
Gizem had saved me from Phoenix, taking the slash to the face, which should’ve been my throat. But I had to watch as a vampire drank from her.
Yeah, Rebel had made a balls of teaching me to be a vampire hunter.
‘Drink from my cup,’ Eden pressed Gizem’s scarlet neck against Rebel’s resisting lips.
Rebel twisted away. When his tongue licked out, across the blood dribbling down his chin, he shuddered. ‘I’m an Addict, a bad angel, and a ball-bag. But I’m not the Fallen. Not like you.’
‘Yes, so like me, by dawn. Drink.’
He shook his head. Then screeched, as Eden sank his claw into the base of his neck.
‘Allow it,’ I leapt up, booting the coffee table, until — shatter — it cracked, cascading lilies across the floor. ‘He’ll drink.’
This time the glare Gizem shot me was venomous.
Hell, I deserved it.
‘I can’t, Feathers,’ Rebel’s voice was husky; his eyes red-rimmed. ‘Your blood was like soaring to the heavens, but I’ll be cursed to hell if I—’
‘I trust you.’ Rebel gave a shocked gasp. He’d trusted me to save the world, yet it’d taken me to this moment to realise it was true. And it was too late. ‘You asked, if you Fell, what I’d do. I know now. I’d be proud to have you at my side, the same as Ash, because it doesn’t make any difference what’s done to you or who you become…you’re still you. My Irish punk bondage wallad.’
Rebel blinked, before he whispered, ‘Thank you, princess.’
His teeth descended to Gizem’s neck. He worried at the skin, sucking at the blood.
Mine…bound by blood.
Only mine.
I hadn’t realised I was growling, until Eden elbowed Gizem onto the fawn divan and stroked Rebel’s shoulders, calming him from the blood high.
I shook my head, cutting off the growl.
‘Now I own everyone you love, monster. I own you. Wait, not everyone.’ Eden clutched Rebel by one hand, whirling into Aylin’s bedroom and drawing out a weeping bundle in pink pyjamas in the other. ‘One little pink bird sitting in the sun, she took a nap…and then there were none.’
‘No…’ This time, I didn’t even think. I sprang over the coffee table, low roundhouse kicking Eden.
Eden stumbled onto the glass, shrieking as his bare soles sliced.
Ash struggled up, sweeping out Eden’s knees with his bleeding wings; Eden crashed over the armchair.
Rebel dived after Eden, hooking him across the chin with his freed fist.
Gizem snatched her sister’s hand, pulling her down onto the divan’s cushions.
Slam — Bird Tattoo headbutted me.
I stumbled, tasting my own blood down the back of my throat. Dizzy, I tripped. The orange apartment blurred.
Then the snick of a flick-knife at my throat, and just as the world was saved, it was lost.