Fallen Angel of Mine (4 page)

The sound of people yelling and
crashing through underbrush caught my ears. The hellhounds' ears
were already angled that way, their bright yellow eyes alert. We
didn't have long before the police showed up. If they'd had
questions before, I couldn't imagine what they'd ask upon seeing my
unscathed body after playing demolition derby with a ten-ton
garbage truck.

Malkesh whined and looked toward a tree
about a hundred feet away.

"Elyssa Borathen, show yourself,"
Kassallandra exclaimed.

Elyssa slid into view, quiet as a
ninja. "Let him go," she said, her voice tight with
apprehension.

I wondered how long she'd been hiding
there. A chill ran down my back. She would slice my nanner off if
she'd seen the kiss Nightliss had given me.

"I am not holding him against his
will," Kassallandra replied.

"Oh really?" I said. "So your lapdogs
are just sitting around, waiting to be petted?"

Kassallandra arched an imperious
eyebrow. "The police are nearing. I suggest we retreat to a better
place for discussion."

"Discussion?" I said, the pitch of my
voice jumping up an octave. "I don't call it 'discussion' when
you're going all grade school on me with the name calling. Haven't
you ever heard you can catch more flies with honey than
vinegar?"

Her eyes narrowed, though the corner of
her mouth lifted ever so slightly. Probably not quite a smile, but
close enough.

I glanced in the direction of the
voices. "Better make up your mind fast, Kassallandra, 'cause I'm
not going anywhere with someone who's being ugly to me."

She took in a deep breath. "Fine. I—I
apologize for my harsh words."

I cupped a hand to my ear. "Wait a
minute, what was that? I didn't quite hear."

She pressed her lips into thin lines,
took a deep breath and said, "I apologize for calling you an
abomination." Malkesh pressed his great head to her side and
whined. Man, apologizing had to really hurt for a stuck-up snit
like her.

"You promise to be nice?"

"Really now, the police
are—"

I raised my voice. "Kassallandra. Do
you promise to be nice, or should I go away and leave you all by
your lonesome?"

She bared her pearly whites and grunted
in a most unladylike way before saying, "Yes. I will endeavor to be
nice."

I grinned and took a step toward her.
Malkesh snarled so I took a hasty step back. "See now, that wasn't
so hard, was it?"

"May we go now?" she said, looking
through the dense pine trees toward the sound of encroaching
people.

I glanced at the gray-suited remains of
the golems, dissolving into gray sludge and soaking into the
ground. I wondered if the stuff was biodegradable. "Yeah, let's
go." I motioned at Kassallandra. "Lead the way." I took one last
look at the chaotic scene: the slime-filled gray suits, the
overturned garbage truck, and the torn earth. I almost felt sorry
for the detectives who had to figure this mess out.

Kassallandra motioned us to follow. "My
car is back this way."

"I'm not blindly hopping into your
car," I said. "If you want to talk, we'll meet somewhere else.
Somewhere very public."

"You have no reason to trust me, but I
give you my word I will do nothing to harm you, and you can leave
whenever you wish."

"I don't know you, Kassallandra. How do
I know your word is worth anything?"

Her irises darkened to a deep red and
her gaze focused into a glare. It seemed to cost her something to
hold her tongue as a war burned behind her eyes. I wondered if she
was counting to ten or about to order Malkesh to bite my leg. Her
glare faded and softened, and a single, soft word emerged from her
lovely lips: "Please."

There was something powerful
about that word, especially coming from her. This was
not
a woman who said
"please" often, if at all. My ability to read women wasn't that
great, but it had only taken me a minute to classify Kassallandra
as a world-class diva who expected everyone to bow to her whims.
After everything I'd been through over the past few days, I wasn't
about to kneel to anyone, much less her.

I glanced at Elyssa and could tell she
was thinking the same thing, from the thoughtful look in her
eyes.

"Your word," I said.

Kassallandra nodded. "You have
it."

Elyssa nodded. "She's being
honest."

"Fine." I motioned onward. "Lead the
way."

Malkesh growled. The other hounds' ears
swiveled ahead, their noses testing the air. Kassallandra looked at
Malkesh and her eyes grew wide. "More golems ahead and to the
sides, closing in fast."

I looked back. "We'll have to chance it
with the police then." The prospect didn't excite me. A new
scenario, however, filled me with dread. What if the gray men
attacked the police?

"No. There is a better way." She pulled
something from her pocket, simultaneously motioning Malkesh toward
a flat spot of pine-covered forest floor. The dog raced forward and
pawed the pine needles and leaves away until only bare earth
remained in a ten-foot radius.

"What is that?" I asked, as she placed
what looked like a curved black earring onto the bare
ground.

The redhead motioned us into the large
circle, pressed a thumb to the edge, and whispered a few words. I
heard the hum as the circle closed and felt the magic as it pressed
upon us in its tight confinement.

"You can do magic?" I asked.

"Almost anyone can do simple magic,"
she said.

The voices of pursuers grew louder. I
angled my head and tried to pinpoint their distance. I heard the
rustling of pine straw and bushes from countless other directions
as golems raced toward our position. I couldn't see them yet, but
they were in a hurry. Malkesh, ears already perked and angled
toward the sounds, looked at me with yellow eyes seeming to search
my own.

Not far
, said a deep voice in my head.

I jumped back. "Who the hell said
that?" I looked at the hound but it was staring off into the
distance toward the distant noise of rustling bushes and trampled
leaves.

"Said what?" asked Elyssa.

"Uh, someone said something in my
head."

Kassallandra glared at the massive
hound and then back to me, her fiery eyes filled with confusion.
"They are close, but I am ready." She shouted a single word and
pointed at the arch. It sprang upward and outward until it was
nearly the width of the circle and a few feet taller than
me.

"Is that an Obsidian Arch?" I
asked.

She nodded. "It is very much like
one."

The center of the arch crackled and
hummed, flickering between black, white, and cloudy
gray.

"Isn't this dangerous?" Elyssa asked as
the humming grew louder. "What about the cracks in reality forming
around this thing before the gateway is open? We could end up in
the Gloom."

"Safety is not my top priority at the
moment," Kassallandra said. She pointed up a nearby rise as a
figure raced over it and came for us.

My eyes stretched wide as a small army
of golems burst over the hill and sprinted toward us.

"I would usually take my time with such
a dangerous endeavor, but we have no time," Kassallandra said,
raising her voice over the throbbing hum from the arch.

The center of the arch flickered and
the grayness clarified, showing rocky granite walls
beyond.

"Where is that?" I asked.

"Thunder Rock."

I stiffened. "Why the hell are we going
there?"

"We have no choice. We must go,
now!"

I looked into Elyssa's wide eyes.
"Maybe we can outrun those things."

Elyssa shook her head. Glanced up the
hill. "No, she's right." Her black hair whipped in the wind coming
from the arch. "We don't have a choice."

I followed her gaze as the army of gray
men streaked toward us, their faces and eyes devoid of all emotion.
Two hounds leapt from the cover of bushes and attacked the front
line, savaging the first golem. But three other golems leapt on one
of the hounds. The huge dog shook them off like fleas. The
automatons swarmed it, punching and kicking. It snarled and snapped
at the attackers. Two gray men gripped its neck and twisted. The
hound yelped as a horrific crack filled the air. Its body collapsed
in a silent heap.

"Ketsheva!" Kassallandra
screamed.

Malkesh howled.

Kassallandra wiped angry tears from her
face. "Follow me now!" She leapt through the arch. The other three
hounds went through after her.

I looked up and saw one last hound
circling the gray men, snapping and biting to delay them, but there
were too many.

"Come on, you stupid dog!" I yelled at
it. "Run!"

Its yellow eyes met mine and
it hesitated. Then, tongue lolling, it raced forward and leapt
through the arch. I pushed Elyssa. She stumbled through with an
indignant yelp. I glanced over my shoulder at the woods as I raced
through the arch to the other side. A face caught my gaze as I made
it through.
Underborn
. He stood next to the thick trunk of a pine tree. And I could
have sworn a smirk lit his face. A gray man dove toward me from the
other side.

Kassallandra shouted a word as the
golem's shoulders came through the gateway. The arch shuddered and
collapsed back to its original diminutive size in a heartbeat,
slicing the thing in half. The gray-suited torso hit the ground
with a meaty thud. The golem's hands grasped at my feet. Malkesh
leapt forward with a snarl and ripped the golem's head off with a
savage yank. Then he coughed the nasty thing back out and booted it
away with a huge paw.

"Why are those stupid things after me?"
I said, breathing heavily as my heart pounded like a
timpani.

"They were sent by someone allied with
those who wish to kill you," Kassallandra said, standing among a
spread of loose rocks and boulders, which had probably tumbled from
the granite cliffs surrounding us and the lake in the middle of the
abandoned quarry.

"Obviously," I said, my voice sparking
with sarcasm. "Until about twenty minutes ago, I would have sworn
that you were on the KJ side." I took a seat on a nearby boulder
and took off a shoe so I could dump out the debris irritating the
bottom of my foot.

Kassallandra arched an eyebrow.
"KJ?"

I gave her a cross look as pine straw,
leaves, and an acorn tumbled from my sneaker. "Yeah. Kill
Justin."

Kassallandra leaned against a rough
slab of granite and peered around the steep gray walls of the
quarry. "Welcome to the place where Templars massacred my family
and yours, Justin Slade."

"What the hell are you talking about?"
Elyssa said, eyes narrowed and wary. "I think you have your history
confused. Spawn ambushed the Templars when they came to apprehend
Vadaemos Slade."

"Do not insult me with that
vile term." Kassallandra's face hardened. "We are Daemos,
not
spawn
." She
waved the offense away with a flick of her wrist. "In any case, it
is you who are mistaken about the events here. Your father led an
unprovoked Templar attack on House Assad and Slade members while
they were seeking Vadaemos and his illegitimate bride, Orionas of
House Assad. Your father interfered with an internal
affair."

"It was hardly an internal affair,"
Elyssa said, her porcelain cheeks flushing pink. "Vadaemos was
manifesting into demon form and consuming the essence of innocents.
He was breaking Overworld law. My father did his duty and lost
every man under his command. He barely escaped with his
life."

Nearly every man,
I thought.
All except for
Kevin Sorenson, aka Turpin, aka Underborn, aka Jackass
Supreme.
That guy had more pseudonyms than
I had pairs of underwear. Underborn had fallen into the lake in the
middle of the massacre at Thunder Rock, thinking he was dead meat,
and woken up in southern Colombia instead.

"Your father nearly provoked a war!"
Kassallandra was on her feet, the blaze of her hair matching the
color of her irises.

I wondered how she could change eye
colors like that and if I could do the same. I then realized
shiznit was about to get real if I didn't do something fast to end
this argument. I put myself between the two women as they closed on
each other. "No need to get nasty, ladies." I looked at Elyssa.
"Remember what Underborn said about the whole thing being a
setup?"

She folded her arms and backed off a
step before nodding. "Someone wanted the Templars and Daemos to be
at odds."

The red in Kassallandra's irises faded.
"Are you referring to Underborn, the notorious
assassin?"

I nodded. "Why don't we all calm down a
bit and talk facts instead of yelling." I took my own advice and
sat back down, taking time to empty leaves and other outdoorsy
stuff out of my other shoe. Nature sure was dirty. Kassallandra
lowered herself to a boulder and rested a hand on Malkesh's head.
Elyssa took a seat next to me.