CHAPTER 23
The vampiress and halo hunter huddled together in the doorway watching the Fallen go after his muse. Pyx looked away from the dreadful sight. She was helpless to stop her lover from doing the one thing he had never wanted to do.
It wasn’t in Cooper to want to harm anyone. Well, anyone innocent. Vampires were not included on that list.
And even if he didn’t harm the muse now, and simply had sex with her and pushed her aside, the harm would be mentally implanted, and later, as far as Pyx understood, the muse would never survive giving birth.
She kicked the floor. The damned ward she stood on acted as a steel-barred prison, keeping Pyx from moving outside of the circle, or flashing.
This was her moment. Her one opportunity as a Sinistari to prove herself to her brethren and claim the task of slaying a Fallen. And she was trapped!
Not that she intended to shove Joe into Cooper’s chest and take his life. Perhaps for a second or two she had felt all-powerful and determined to prove herself to her Sinistari brethren.
But that was then. Now she wanted freedom, her own mortality. The ability to choose how to live her life. She wanted to dress like a girl and do girl things, like put on makeup and chatter about lovers with girlfriends. She wanted to make a home with a man and create a family.
Most of all she wanted Cooper. In her arms. In her life. Telling her she was sexy the way she was, goofy attempts at femininity included. And she wanted to answer with “I love you.”
A growl from inside the dungeon indicated Cooper fought his vicious innate urge.
She was not holding up her end of the bargain they’d made.
The halo hunter toppled as he shuffled around behind the vampiress in an attempt to get a better view. For one moment, his shoulder and left hip swung over the binding ward—it held no power against him.
That moment was all Pyx needed. She grabbed the messenger bag slung over his shoulder. He tugged on the leather strap, but Pyx managed to overturn it and the halos spilled out around her feet, inside the binding circle. One wobbled and fell against the wall, out of her reach.
“You’ve had them all along,” Pyx said. “You’ve probably got Cooper’s halo here.”
Kneeling to gather the halos into her arms, she threaded her hand through them and strung them over her wrist like oversize bracelets. None of them glowed. Where was her halo? She couldn’t reach the one by the wall.
“Give them back!” Donovan yelled. He made no move to reach for them. The hunter knew his place. “She’s got the halos! The one Antonio gave you.”
Ah-ha. So one of these was Cooper’s. Pyx took the first from her wrist.
“Too late, the Fallen is moving in on his prey,” the vampiress reported.
Prey? Pyx winced. So not Cooper.
She had to help him. She would even if it meant…yes, killing him. But she was yet trapped and too far away to plunge a dagger into his heart.
She held a halo before her. There was one other option.
“You will not harm the muse. I won’t let it happen!”
Pyx threw the first halo into the room. It landed near the dais, far from Cooper’s grasp or notice. It didn’t glow.
Gripping another halo as if to throw a Frisbee, she sent it flying. Nothing.
She tried three more in rapid succession. One hit Cooper’s hard glass abdomen. It bounced to the floor and rolled toward the doorway where the vampiress reclaimed it. It didn’t glow, so Pyx wasn’t upset about the nab.
The last one she gripped and held above her head. As Cooper clutched the struggling muse’s chain to drag her onto the dais, Pyx saw the sigil on his abdomen glow. The design flashed blue, getting brighter and brighter, as if a fresh brand.
“Please let this be the one.” Kissing it for luck, she aimed and threw the halo.
The vampiress jumped, her fingertips snagging the center of the halo and upsetting its course. The halo wobbled midair, glowing blue, and landed on the dais but inches from the muse’s groping and bloodied fingers.
It glowed. It was the one!
“Get it!” Pyx yelled. She beat fists against her invisible cage. “Sophia! It’s the one!”
She was sure the muse did not understand her desperate pleas. And if Cooper did hear, in his state he was focused only on one thing, and that was not claiming his earthbound soul.
“Go in there and get it out of the way,” the vampiress urged Donovan. “Hurry!”
The halo hunter dashed inside the chamber, ducking and trying to sneak up behind the Fallen who lifted the muse by a shoulder and turned her over onto her back. The muse was still conscious, but she looked defeated, close to surrender as her eyelids fluttered.
Pyx bit her lower lip and tasted acrid blood. She clenched her fists until it felt as if her adamant bones would tear the human skin. Stepping from foot to foot she beat upon the binding walls. Clawing her nails down them did nothing but bring her own pain. Fine runnels of black blood trickled down the invisible walls before her, unable to permeate the ward.
But what was that?
The muse had the halo in hand. Yes! But she was not in control, and the angel easily moved her about, dragging her close to the edge of the dais. And yet, she was trying to utilize the halo as a weapon, her fingers curling about the innocuous circle of ineffable substance.
The sigils glowed brightly on both the muse’s forearm and Cooper’s stomach.
Suddenly the muse swept the hand holding the halo through the air before her. The halo’s curved edge neatly cut through Cooper’s cheek. Blue blood drooled down his jaw and spattered the muse’s dirty white shirt.
The Fallen yowled and grabbed the halo, dropping the muse in a sprawl. The muse lifted her hand from the puddle of angel blood and marveled at the odd color.
Noticing the halo hunter creeping up behind him, Cooper set him back with a mere shoving gesture. Donovan hit the wall, spine flat, arms spread and head lolling. He dropped in a heap on the floor.
“Yes,” Pyx hissed. “One down.” She reached for the vampiress but her knuckles slammed into the blood-spattered invisible wall. “Just take a few steps back, bitch. Come on!”
Vinny remained oblivious to the demon’s struggles. She eyed her boyfriend, and the angel who stood, staggering.
Cooper studied the halo, glowing brightly in his clenched grip. Did he know what it was while in his altered state? He must. But did he know how to use it beyond as a weapon?
“Do it, Cooper!” Pyx shouted. “Step away from the muse. Take your freedom. You can make that choice!”
The angel turned a look on her. Their eyes held across the distance.
Pyx’s heart boomed. Memory of their lovemaking deepened her conviction, the longing that her lover have the one thing he desired. Could he remember that desire now? Would it help?
Suddenly, the angel nodded. Pyx didn’t know if it was an “I will do the right thing” nod, or a “this will serve to cut off someone’s head nicely” nod.
She slammed her palms against the warded walls and gasped down her heartbeats. All she could do was wait. And hope.
Cooper raised the halo high above his head. The circle glowed brighter, changing from blue to bold silver. A bell-like ringing echoed off the walls, drowning out the muse’s cries. And when he let go of the halo, it hovered and found position above and behind his head, locking into place.
The room filled with light so bright even Pyx had to look away. But as she did so, the light forced the vampiress from her feet, and she collided with the limestone wall outside Pyx’s prison. Her hand landed a grasp away from the stray halo, but the vampire didn’t notice it in the shadows.
The muse, scrambling along the wall toward the door, stopped and blocked her eyes with a hand. The sigil on her forearm glowed bright silver to match Cooper’s halo.
Donovan woke and cowered at the sight, tucking his head against the wall and tugging up his jacket to cover his face.
The vampire swore and kicked the door frame.
And Pyx sniffed away a tear. She stepped back, arms hanging loose at her sides. Sound had ceased. Frustrated anger ceased. Wonder eddied through her veins.
She had never witnessed a sight more eloquent and perfect.
The angel’s wings stretched high and flapped a few times as if to take flight. Like a grand peacock, the blue, emerald and violet glass shimmered. The entire angel glowed as if sunlight burst out through his pores. It was an angel complete, shaped as a man, but not human by any means.
Cooper’s feet left the ground. Arms and head flung back and chest lifted, he rose two feet from the dais as if being drawn Above by a guiding hand. He closed his eyes as he tilted his head skyward. He’d never been able to look up for his crime of falling.
Tears streamed down Pyx’s face. She sputtered and hugged herself. Joy infused her heart and she cried happily for her lover.
And then the stained-glass wings began to crack.
Stretching out his arms and releasing his voice, Cooper shouted at the immense pain as his glass flesh crackled and chipped away. At once the ineffable substance glowed molten red then cool blue.
The wings shattered and shards of glass sprayed the room. Donovan dashed for the muse to protect her, and managed to drag her out from the room.
“What’d you do that for?” his girlfriend asked, eyeing the muse.
“We don’t want her dead.”
“Yeah? We don’t want to stick around here anymore either. I can feel them.” She looked around and down the long dark hallway. “They’re getting closer.”
“The vampires? Then let’s go.” He grabbed her hand. “We tried, Vinny. There’s nothing more we can do now.”
“Let me out!” Pyx insisted, beating the invisible barrier.
“You’ll kill us,” Vinny said.
“I won’t. I want to keep the muse safe. I promised Cooper. I can flash her away from him.”
Michael stepped on the chalk-drawn sigil and shuffled his feet over it. It broke the circle. Pyx sucked in the air as if she’d been deprived. With that, he grabbed his girlfriend’s hand and took off.
Pyx plunged down to scoop the trembling muse into her arms. She glanced up to see Cooper lying amidst a pile of glass shards on the floor, half-naked and not glowing.
“Maybe you’re safe now,” she said and set the muse down. “I think he’s done it.”
“No, don’t leave me!” The muse grabbed Pyx’s leather skirt. “They’re coming back!”
Indeed, she smelled the vampires before she saw them. With a decisive nod, Pyx scooped up the muse and flashed to her apartment. They arrived in the living room. She set the muse down on the green velvet sofa. The stuffing exploded out of one end where Pyxion the Other had stepped on it with her hoof.
“I can’t stay. I have to get back to Cooper. You’re safe from him now, but not the vampires. I suggest you move away from Paris. Fast.”
“Mon Dieu,” the muse cried and grabbed Pyx’s arm. Tears spattered her neck and chest.
Pyx slapped a hand over her burning flesh. It sizzled. Mortal tears. The agony of contact stretched a scream from her mouth. Each tiny droplet burned through her tender flesh and began to eat away at the metal bone beneath.
Grasping for something—anything—to support her, Pyx blacked out and collapsed on the floor before the stunned muse.
* * *
His hand shifted over the rubble of glass shards. The scattered tinging noise sweetened the air and the odd aches and pains in his limbs segued to the background. Even sweeter was the dull, steady thud that sounded so close. Ta-dum. Ta-dum. Thud.
Inside his ears? Where was it coming from?
Pushing onto his forearms, Cooper shook his head and blinked. He lay on a pile of broken glass, but didn’t appear to be cut.
Where was here? The room was a huge cavern of stone. To his side an open doorway exposed the dark maw of what must be a hallway.
The thud, thud continued. And suddenly he knew.
Cooper slapped a palm to his chest. “Heartbeats?”
He’d only heard the sort when he’d press his ear to a mortal’s chest or held them and traced his fingers over the pulsing vein.
“It worked.”
He shuffled his palms over the glass shards and found the cold, dull halo. It didn’t glow when he picked it up. It didn’t have to. It couldn’t now.
“I’m human.” He savored the word, the meaning of it.
All he had ever wanted—dreamed about for millennia while imprisoned in the Ninth Void—now it was his. He had a soul. And he’d gotten it—
“Sophia?” He scanned the room. The muse was nowhere to be seen. Nor was Pyx. Where was everybody?
“I didn’t hurt her.” Pray, he had not hurt Sophia.
Pyx had come to the rescue, as promised. Though he’d expected her to plunge Joe into his heart, instead, she’d put his halo in his hands.
He heard footsteps scuffling down the dark hallway. More than one person. Clutching the halo, Cooper pushed up to sit, but that was all he could manage. He looked down the kilt and over his bare legs. These mortal bones felt as though they’d just run a marathon.
A smear of red dashed his leg below the kilt hem.
“Blood?”
Real, red mortal blood. With a shout of joy tickling his tongue, Cooper’s elation was interrupted.
Bruce paused in the doorway, arms outstretched to stop the gang behind him from charging inside. The vampire sneered, revealing fangs.
Cooper cursed. He thrust out his hand, an intuitive move, and wished the vampire away. But the command did not work. It couldn’t work.
He was now mortal.
Facing down a gang of hungry vampires. He had no stake. No means to defense.
“What’s up?” someone behind Bruce asked.
“I think he’s done it,” Bruce said. “He’s mortal now.”
“Where’s the muse?”
“They’re all gone. Except him.”
“What do we do with him?”
Bruce threaded the fingers of both hands together and flexed them out. “Let’s take him out!”
This could not end well.
Cooper clutched a shard of glass in one hand. Blood spilled down the edge of it, and even as he braced himself to be pummeled by vampires he couldn’t help but marvel.
Red blood. Coming from him!
But now he was mortal, he had to stay alive if he wanted to enjoy that prize.
The first vampire lunged. Cooper lashed out with the glass shard, catching the vamp across the jugular.
* * *
Pyx gasped breath. The mortal tears ate at her flesh. She had to get away from Sophia. She flashed outside the cavernous room where she had left her lover upon the heap of shattered wings. Colliding with the wall, she staggered and swept low, almost falling, but caught herself with a hand to the floor.
“Cooper,” she managed to say.
Everything hurt. Her skin sizzled. Sophia’s tears were eating along her arm and up her shoulder.
A fog of ash dispersed before her eyes, and before she could think dead vamp, Cooper knelt before her. A glass shard had been utilized as a stake; it dripped with blood.
“Hey, sweetie. Killin’ some vamps.”
“I can see that.”
“Are you okay? Did one of them get you?”
“No, I’m fine. Just a little weak after flashing the muse away.” She sat up against the door frame, and it was easier to breathe. Yet her neck burned now.
She scanned the room. No more vampires. But plenty of piles of ash, as well as the glass remains of Cooper’s wings. “You’ve been busy. But does that mean…”
“Kiss me.” He tugged her to him and embraced her with bloody hands. The glass shard he dropped, the halo she felt crush against her spine. His face was spattered in vamp blood, but she didn’t mind as he kissed her.
This kiss felt different than any previous kiss he’d given her. It was warmer, lusher, more urgent, and the blood taste from his lip tasted salty and new.
It would be their goodbye kiss.
“You taste so good,” he said. “I love you, Pyx.”
She wiped a smear of blood from the corner of his eye. New blood gushed out behind her finger. “Cooper?”
He nodded. The twinkle in his eye confused her. But more so the blood flowing from beside his eye did. “Are you…? Is this your blood?”
“Yep.” He kissed her again. “Some vampire blood, too. Those bastards are nasty, but once you ash one of them the others get leery or run away. I toasted three or four.”
“Good for you.”
His bare shoulders were covered with ash. His skin was red and cut from the glass. And he bled…
…red blood.
“You got your soul?”
“I did,” he said. “A bright and shiny mortal soul. My heart is beating. Feel it.” He pulled her hand over his chest, where indeed, Pyx felt the insistent heartbeats. “What is this?”
He touched her shoulder gently, but Pyx sucked in a hiss at the painful contact.
“Pyx?”
“Mortal tears,” she managed, feeling the burn work at her throat. “Just…kiss me again. Please?”
“Your skin is burning away. Pyx, the tears will kill you. I’ve got to stop this. How can I?”
Her head lolled to the side, and she saw the flash of a halo sitting in the darkness. Cooper must have seen it too, because he lunged for it. It glowed blue in his hands.
“I’m no longer Fallen,” he said, “which means… Pyx, this is yours. It can save you.”
“We don’t know that.”
“But we don’t know otherwise. We’ve got to try it. I wonder how this works.” He held it above her head, as it had moved above his for proper position. “Feel anything?”
Only pain creeping under her jaw and up the back of her skull. Pyx nodded lethargically.
“There’s gotta be a way to make it work.” He touched it to her forehead. Nothing happened. “Maybe if you hold it in your hands?”
“No,” she muttered.
“Damn it, Pyx, you’re not going to give up!” He slammed it against her chest and suddenly Pyx’s entire body stiffened.
The halo heated against the leather dress and it burned far worse than the mortal tears.
“It’s glowing brightly,” her lover said on a gasp. “Does it hurt, Pyx? I’ll stop it—”
“Leave it,” she managed.
The burn permeated her skin and breasts and all the way into her heart. Something was wrong. It hurt worse than any pain she had felt since walking earth.
Crying out, Pyx stretched her arms out wide. The halo melted through her dress. Stench of burned flesh filled the air. The ineffable metal sank into her, burning through flesh, muscle and bone. She could not bend her arms to grab it away.
All she could do was scream, until her scream grew to silence.
“Christ,” she heard Cooper say as an oath.
She felt it all. The halo clanged against her adamant heart, then curved and began to form about the hideous organ. Black demon blood oozed from the circle entrance wound marking the upper part of her chest.
And then it ceased. The burn grew cold. Her heart, which had felt molten, pulsed once. And then again.
Pyx dropped her head and slapped a hand against the oozing wound on her chest.
A squeezing clutch gripped her heart. She gasped as if her hard, demonic lungs required air. She couldn’t breathe. And then she wondered if it was because her lungs really did need air.
Was she becoming mortal?
“Talk to me, Pyx. The burns on your neck and arm are gone. But your chest is healing too slowly. What have I done?”
She reached out blindly and landed her fingers loosely on his chest. Be still, she wanted to say, let it happen.
And then she felt it—the first pulse of mortality. Sweet. Enormous. Thud. And again, thud, thud, thud.
Smiling, Pyx dragged Cooper’s hand up to place over her chest. The leather dress had a circle burned out of the middle between her breasts, and exposed one to the nipple.
The angel—former angel—chuckled softly and then nuzzled his ear against her breast. “It’s beating. Just like mine. You’re mortal now, Pyx.”
“I know. And I like it.”
“I love it,” he said.
“Yes.” She traced a finger down the side of his face, drawing his beauty in her mind. “Love.”
“Pyx.” He pulled her close and she closed her eyes and held on to him tighter than she’d hold a cliff hanging over Beneath. “I love you, Pyx.”
“I love you, too.” She stroked her fingers through his ash and blood-soaked hair. “We did it,” she exclaimed. “We really did it.”
“And I didn’t have to harm the muse in the process. I didn’t harm her, did I?”
“She’s fine. I flashed her home and told her to get out of town.”
“She’s a beacon to any other Fallen who may have been summoned by the insane leader of this vampire tribe.” Cooper squatted on his haunches. “We need to go after Antonio del Gado if we want this to stop.”
“He wasn’t in the gang you slayed?”
“Don’t know what he looks like. He could be ash.” He turned to inspect the ash piles in the dungeon.
“We’ll walk the entire place,” Pyx said. “If he’s here, we’ll find him and stake him.”
“Not you, sweetie. You’re not going to put yourself in danger now that you’re mortal.”
“Oh, yeah? I’m feeling much stronger now. A few more minutes and I bet this wound will be completely healed. Besides, you’re mortal now, too.”
“I can handle a few vamps.” He displayed the blood-soaked halo proudly. “This thing works pretty slick when you get them in the jugular. I’ll protect you from now on.”
She was about to protest, but instead Pyx shrugged and nodded. “Works for me. But before you go off stalking vampires will you do something for me?”
“Anything.”
“Come here.” She gripped the waist of his kilt, which was shredded and loose thanks to his shift, and tugged him down to straddle her, knees to either side of her thighs. “Kiss me, lover.”
“Gladly.”
The former angel and former demon kissed amid the vampire ash and Fallen detritus. The room glittered as moonlight sifted across the glass shards, and lifted the fine vampire ash to flutter through the air like fairy dust.
Neither noticed the magical moment, for this kiss was their first mortal connection. And they intended to make it last.