A Matter of Time (The Angel Sight Series) (3 page)

“I think it’s time to try something a little more severe.” Az whirled around, broadsword still at his right side.

Nothing prepared me for his left hand gripping the back of my neck and watching the tip of the blade slide into my stomach. Ice stole my breath. Blood bubbled up my throat and sputtered out of my mouth. I tried to inhale and choked on warm copper, spattering Azriel’s apron. His hand tightened on the back of my neck as the sword carved a new path up my stomach.

“That’s more the welcome I had in mind.” His voice remained horrifyingly calm.

I choked again, coughing and gasping. The room darkened.

Happy place
, I reminded myself.
Go to your happy place before
—

I tried to gasp again, the instinct to live driving me. Fluid pumped from my mouth, my lungs reminding my instincts blood wasn’t good for them.

No more
, I tried to say, gasp, relay somehow. I needed a breather—a breath. One single breath of air—even Hell air—was better than … than this.

“That doesn’t look good,” Lucien said. I was surprised I could hear his voice. Surprised I could hear anything but the constant over-heated flutter of my spazzing heart.

Fighting against taking another pain-filled gasp, my chest burned. But now, my chest wasn’t alone in its struggle. My stomach, which I had to assume at this point had been sliced open like a gutted fish, seared and throbbed in a pain so explosive—

My vision faded to black. The pain ceased for a moment. I felt myself falling, air rushing. I smacked into the damp, blood-soaked dirt floor. Not only did the pain return full-force, but it brought along a friend for my brain.

The chains still around my wrists and ankles rattled as I curled myself up in a ball, waiting for the healing to kick into third goddamn gear and save me from the splitting pain.

The crunching of footsteps brought with it a narrow set of ankles. Lucien. “It seems my essence has finally run its course.”

I gasped through blood-filled lungs. His essence gone. I coughed, the action flaring pain. My vision went white.

This was it. All of my refusals, all of my fight, all of my time, wasted, only for it to end like this.

I closed my eyes, saying a silent
I’m sorry
to Kade. I couldn’t hold out for his return. If he ever would return.

Thoughts and facts twisted in my mind like a hurricane. A surefire sign my brain was shutting down.

“Now I have to decide if you’re worth saving … more of my essence … or to let you die.”

Lucien’s words only registered every few syllables, but I understood enough to claw at the dirt and mouth three words: Let. Me. Die.

That last molecule of energy was all it took for me to let go completely. I welcomed the darkness. At least death couldn’t be as bad as Hell. Nothing could be worse than what I’d been put through these last five years down here. In the bigger picture, my death was better for the world above me. Better I was gone instead of the constant threat I posed to them if Lucien had managed to turn me into his puppet. Death would be sweeter than anything I could remember.

But there was no sweetness here.

Cold.

So much of Hell had been freezing, until now. Stabs of fire-pokers burst from my stomach to my legs, up into my chest, heart, arms, and fingers. So hot. Too hot. My eyes flew open of their own volition.

Dungeon.

Lucien.

Azriel.

Hell.

No.

I screamed through almost un-burning lungs. I looked down to find my ripped, bloodied shirt and the rapidly closing wound beneath it. “No!”

My body shook as I collapsed in the red dirt, clawing at it as if doing so would turn back time. Tears spilled down my face into the bloodied sand around my mouth. “Why couldn’t you just let me die?” I screamed again, finding reserves of strength that must have come from a fresh dose of Lucien’s life essence. He’d intended all along to keep me in this damned, hopeless place.

Strong and unchained. What an interesting combination. I scrambled for Lucien’s leg. My body was still healing, but nothing would stop me from tearing him limb from limb. Even if he would heal.

“We’ve got a fighter.” Azriel chuckled, stomping his boot down on the middle of my back and grating grains of dirt into my still-open stomach wound.

A fighter. Damn straight I was. I flailed for a few seconds before twisting one way, then the other, to throw off Azriel’s balance. It worked. I rolled to my left several times, then crouched low on my feet. My gaze bounced wildly from Lucien to Azriel. I didn’t know if I was deciding which one to go for first or watching them to see which would try and grab me. Being on the opposite side of the Wall ’O Weapons was a serious disadvantage, but I was closest to the door. Not that I’d get very far if I managed to bolt. Still, tallying my options helped my brain to function again.

There was only one sure way to deter them both: to use the power Lucien had been trying to coax out of me. If Lucien wanted it, that meant it had to stay locked away. I could get out of this on my own.

“I think you’ve had enough for today,” Lucien said, returning to his throne. Not a single sign of worry marred his face. And why should it? I was nothing to fear.

“What if
I’m
not done?” I countered, still tasting blood and sand on my tongue.

A smile snaked up Azriel’s face, finding its way to his dark eyes.

“Give me a weapon,” I offered. “Let’s make this interesting.”

“Doubtful.” Lucien examined his nails the way a woman would after an expensive manicure. “But we do have something else for you. Come along, take a seat.”

“I think I’ll stand.” I fought my shaking muscles to stretch to my full height of so-not-tall-enough-to-be-a-threat—to anyone, let alone these two monsters.

Lucien fished what resembled a TV remote out from beneath his throne seat and pointed it to the blood-spattered metal panel behind the Wall ’O Torture. The entire thing flicked white for a moment, minus the blood, and then a small triangle pointing to the right appeared in the upper corner, the words PLAY in bold letters beside it. The first few frames of the film were shaky at best, like someone had taken the video from inside their pocket. The camera pointed toward the ground for twenty seconds, and then the image rose up. Dark, damp pavement moved beneath the camera. White lines, possibly from a crosswalk. A curb.

Home. Maybe not San Francisco, or Arizona, but topside. I almost collapsed right there, but from the glance I darted at Lucien, there was more coming.

This movie couldn’t be good if Lucien wanted me to see it. I should have tried my escape right then and used all my strength to pry the door off the hinges, but I still feared the rack. At least this way I’d be able to turn away or tune it out.

I swallowed down sand and sour-tasting old blood, and watched the camera zoom in on several men with shining dark wings behind them. They were definitely on the surface. I hadn’t seen a wing reflecting sun or moonlight since the night Lucien brought me down here. The night Kade sacrificed everything to come with me. The camera zoomed out to dark streets teeming with hundreds of people. The buildings curving around the crowd were taller than the camera could capture. The street-level storefronts illuminated out, their foreign fluorescent signs casting pinks, purples, blues, and yellows out into the massive crowd. Asia maybe or a large Asian borough in a huge city like New York.

The cameraman slowly zoomed in on the Fallen again, walking among the people like they belonged. They reached a corner, and all four of them turned in separate directions, dispersing like opposite ends of a magnet. The camera stayed there, zooming in on people coming and going, the four Fallen long since gone.

The screen went dark for a second, then more shuffling, black asphalt, ground moving fast. Running. The camera swung up to reveal all four Fallen gathered in a narrow side street, red life flowing from four women into the mouths of four Fallen. I almost squeezed my eyes closed when something stopped me. The camera zooming in on one Fallen in particular.
My
Fallen. Kade, his black eyes fully open, his hands cupping either sides of the woman’s face, her life flowing into him. Kade. On the surface. Feeding. With other Fallen.

The TV went black, and I collapsed onto the floor.

Ire welled up inside me, growing until there was no place for it to go. I wanted to hurt Lucien for what he’d done to Kade. To hurt Azriel for what he’d done to my former classmates, Allison Woodward, Tony DiMeeko, and Cassie Waters. Especially Cassie. My memory took me back to that thundering night on Stratford Independence High School’s roof. The deal I’d made with Azriel to spare my fellow student’s lives. Everyone but Allison. The gun in her hand. The deafening noise of the gunshot. The charred scent of gunpowder. The warmth of the blood on my hands as I held her body.

Anger built up around me like armor. I wanted to hurt the ones that hurt me, and so many others. The tang of blood on my tongue coursed with the hot need for revenge. I wanted nothing other than to hunt, stab, and kill. The warmth flooding my body intensified until I felt as if I might burn from the inside out. Pressure and resentment built up in me until there was nothing left of who I used to be. Only hate remained, and my body was too small to contain it.

Feeling like I might burst into flames, I stared into their faces and screamed. Lucien and his narrow build, that lifeless hair flopping over his forehead, blue eyes still twinkling joyfully from watching my pain. And Azriel. His mouth a soft
o
after witnessing whatever change I was going through physically, thanks to Lucien giving me what no human should have to endure.

Fire and fury stole the rest of me. I screamed and concentrated everything I was worth into making them pay. White light blinded me, and I released myself to the hate coursing in my veins. The world once again went black.

Chapter Four

Kade

Once the pneumatic buzz from my first live feed in years began to dim, I stepped away from the pile of bodies on the ground and leaned against the walls beside my fellow Fallen—two of whom played with the deceased like they were a life-sized Barbie and Ken. The lady I had taken, seduced with my influence and drained dry, was at the top of the convoluted pile. Her head rolled to the side, her once bright brown eyes open so wide I feared they might pop from her sockets.

My cursed heart thundered. I’d done what I swore I never would again. I’d broken every rule I promised myself in Hell I wouldn’t. I fed on the living, lost control of myself, and took an innocent life.

What a way to start a new life.

But I was alive again. That was sure something. On Earth. A place I never thought I’d see again.

A car horn blared from one of the larger streets parallel to our small, closed off alleyway.

A hand clapped my shoulder from behind.

Desire to link with the Fallen spiked, the touch nearly bringing me to my knees. I spun, locking the wrist of the hand and slamming the body back-first against the nearest wall, my other hand jammed into the throat attached. Orias smiled at me from his restrained state. “How do you like the new Earth?”

Against my better wishes, I released him—we were supposed to be brothers, after all—and clapped him on the shoulder to pull him away from the wall.

“Fantastic,” I said with as much awe as I felt flowing inside me thanks to whatever her name was. I clenched my jaw and turned away from the body of the woman I had killed. “But what new Earth?”

“It’s been some time since you’ve been up here. Things have changed. Not all over, but in key places. We’ve started inserting ourselves into the human population. Mostly through low-level thugs and drug dealings, but still, interacting with humans on a daily basis.”

Looking over my shoulder for Lucien to confirm or deny this news, I found no one. “Lucien doesn’t have a problem with this … new way of life?”

Orias clapped me on the back, harder than necessary. “It was his idea.”

“Don’t bother,” Ruman said after stacking his Ken doll neatly on top of the body pile. “Lucien doesn’t stay long up here. He’s got some serious business downstairs.”

Fire roared in my stomach at the thought of Lucien’s serious business. Rayna. The one human who could see both the angels and the Fallen as we truly were. I had hoped that by Lucien having to travel up the ranks of Hell to bring us to Earth it would mean that Rayna would get some peace. But he didn’t travel with us, and he hadn’t spent much time topside before returning. It made me wonder again how he traveled back and forth, if he had a special power that could teleport him without the sixty-six days of travel.

“We probably shouldn’t go for another round,” Orias said. “Unless, of course, someone needs another go.” He blinked; a glossy black sheen coated his eyes. “Perhaps the newest of us?” His toothy smile widened.

All eyes turned to me. “Another go might be risky, but it would be fun.” A spark of desire crept into my eyes, cloaking the center of my vision in gray.

“We do have one of our own waiting on our arrival. Let’s get moving. Valac, take care of the bodies and catch up.”

All I could think about as we split into two groups was snapping a few necks, finding a knife, and running. If I could pull that off I’d never have to worry about going back to Hell. Only one thing stopped me from starting with Ruman, grabbing that awful ponytail, and breaking his neck.

Filing toward the opening of a narrow side street, my pulse crested. Nearing the throng of people heading home late from their long days at work should have been a normal experience. Except I’d been caged like an animal for years in Hell.

The world surrounding me flicked to grayscale. Black and white and all the dimensions between, but nothing more. Humans all looked the same through this view. No colors to deter my eye, no care for the fear in the faces of those I chose. A true predator’s gift.

I quickened my steps, the brisk walk of a man in need of something. The first person to walk too closely was a professional man in a suit. I grabbed him by the jacket, slammed him into the wall, and stared into his eyes.