Forbidden (The Preternaturals) (17 page)

But falling… Falling was the stuff of covert whisperings and waking in
the middle of the night from a bad dream you couldn’t remember the
details of that still left you shaken. Falling was banishment,
ostracizing. She’d be an outcast, even among the preternaturals,
only fit for a menial job guarding some vampire somewhere—if any
sought a guardian.

“I feel destruction would be more merciful in the end if we’re being
blunt,” Rodolfo said. “The vampire was only toying with you, you
know. He was never going to forgive you. He just wanted to hurt you
and drink the blood you so foolishly offered him. Why would he deny
the purest, best, most powerful blood in existence? Especially
attached to a morally weak and guilty soul such as yourself?”

Angeline looked at her hands clasped in her lap as if in prayer. Rodolfo was
right about her. She didn’t care about Heaven or any angelic goals.
Prayers bored her. She only went because it was required and because
of the way it felt when the light touched her wings. Hadrian was all
she’d cared about since that first night when she’d known—or
thought she’d known—that he was meant for her.

But perhaps it had only been the drugs in her system at the time. Druggie
blood didn’t always give the most astute insight. Still, she hadn’t
been able to stay away from him—not as a vampire and not as an
angel. If he didn’t want her, what the hell would she do? What was
the point of anything? It had all been one long, lonely night that
had stretched for unbroken centuries. And if she fell, it would
stretch for eternity, an eternity on the outside looking in.

She had to change the angel’s mind. “C-could I speak with the
council? Please, just let me have a chance to explain it all to them.
I would stay away from Father Hadrian. I promise.”

Rodolfo laughed. “No you wouldn’t. Don’t lie.”

“I-I’m not lying!”

“You are. The saddest part of it is that you don’t know you are. You
could no more stay away from him than you could stay away from light
or he could stay away from blood. You would go back to him, even
knowing the consequences, and then we’d be here again. And I simply
don’t have time for that. We have important things to do, more
important than dealing with your sick infatuation with the blood
drinker.”

Angeline wondered if the “important things” he had to do involved planning
the final battle against the demons and demon hybrids like the
vampires and guardians. She thought of Hadrian alone in his church
and of how terrible it would be if the angels won the war and the
human dimension became another sterile, obedient Heaven.”

She looked up to find Rodolfo staring at her as if he knew her mind, her
thoughts. Maybe he did. Maybe there was nothing you could hide from
anyone here. Maybe she’d been lying to herself thinking it was
possible to do anything but whatever they said and not be found out.
After all, the room had heard her thoughts and answered her. If a
room could, surely a senior angel could as well.

“Let’s flip a coin, shall we? Heads you live and fall, tails you die.”

Angeline wasn’t sure if his hands were tied, if he’d even met with the
other angels, or if he was just that set on getting rid of her for
good.

Rodolfo pulled out a shiny gold coin from his robes and flipped it high into
the air. Angeline’s eyes followed the coin as it seemed to spin
forever. It was as if gravity had lost power as it revolved in front
of her and then made its creeping descent to the table.

Angeline squeezed her eyes shut as it clattered against the hard surface,
settling out with an almost distant ringing metallic sound as if this
were all happening miles and miles away from here.

“Open your eyes, Angeline.”

It took a long while for her to work up the courage to open her eyes to
see the coin gleaming up at her.

Heads.

“He only wanted you for your sweet angel blood, and to mess with your
mind, to pay you back for turning him. You know, Father Hadrian was a
man we were prepared to elevate when he died—until you came along
and ruined it. We will no longer elevate former vampires. You took
that from him.”

She wiped the tears with the back of her hand. It shouldn’t make her
feel more guilty. After all, Heaven wasn’t at all what she’d
imagined it would be when she’d been human. Should she wish such a
vindictive and unforgiving place on Hadrian? She knew somewhere
inside, he was still good. Even if he couldn’t forgive her, it
wasn’t because there was no goodness or will to forgive
anyone
.
She’d watched him as he’d fed and absolved person after person
for decades. Erasing their pasts, helping them work out their
futures, fixing their lives. He was a thousand times better than
anyone up here. He was too good for this place, and they knew it.

Rodolfo’s eyes narrowed as if he’d pulled those rebellious thoughts from her
head, but then he brushed it away as if the holy decision of the coin
were infallible. “He won’t want you once you’re just a
guardian, but we’ll send you to him anyway. Let him reject you when
you need him most so you’ll truly understand what you’ve lost up
here. Just think, Angeline, if you’ve watched him forgive so many
others and he can’t forgive you, it just proves how terrible you
really are.”

He scooted his chair back and went to the center of the room, the remote
in his hand. Angeline remained frozen by his words and too weary from
the onslaught of the past two days to move again. No one had beaten
her or tortured her physically as she’d feared from the hollow
looks in the eyes of angels who had been brought to this place in the
past, but what she’d been subjected to had somehow been worse.

Pain might have been cathartic. It would have been release. Relief. But
instead it had been those voices and those images tunneling into her
mind… never letting her rest, all while starving her of the light
she so craved to feel healthy and alive. It would have been difficult
to use physical or mystical pain against her. She would have had her
wings to protect and shield herself. But getting inside her mind with
ugly words and images… that was something her wings couldn’t
defend against.

“Come here!” Rodolfo bellowed, pointing to a spot in the center of the
room.

She slowly rose and moved to where he pointed, not sure what was about to
happen but knowing it would be bad. Falling wasn’t an easy
transition. That much she knew. He pressed a button on the remote and
the desk and chairs folded back into the wall, taking the gold coin
with it.

“Undress,” he said.

“I-I’m sorry what?”

Rodolfo rolled his eyes. “Oh, please. I am not weak. I do not have those
desires. I’m not Kurt.” Off her expression he said, “I saw the
way he looked at you, how he touched you. Kurt will be disciplined.”

“B-but he didn’t do anything! It was my fault!”

It sounded wrong when she said it aloud. It wasn’t exactly what she
meant, but if Hadrian hadn’t bitten her, changed her somehow, Kurt
wouldn’t have reacted. Would he? Hadn’t she brought the
temptation up there by breaking one of the biggest rules they had for
angels? No consorting with anyone in any physical way. And definitely
no vampires. There were clearly consequences for not following that
rule.

“Yes, yes. Everything is your fault. We know. Now give me the dress. And
the undergarments.”

Angeline didn’t care if Rodolfo didn’t “have those desires”. It didn’t
matter. Hadrian had awakened something inside her, and nudity was no
longer an innocent original state. She turned away and unclasped the
endless buttons down the back of the dress.

It was ridiculous, but all she could think was how much she loved this
dress. And how could they take it from her? A second ridiculous
thought bubbled to the surface of her mind… relief that all the
corsets she’d stolen and hidden in her closet were with Hadrian. It
was stupid, but she didn’t want to lose them.

She stepped out of the dress and went to work on the corset, it seemed to
take a small lifetime to loosen the laces and get out of it. Then she
slipped out of her shoes and panties.

“Wings,” he said.

“Huh?”

“The wings, extend them… they’re coming off.”

Her blood froze in her veins, and she was suddenly unconcerned with her
lack of clothing. “What do you mean they’re
coming off?
”

“Exactly what it sounds like. Snip. Snip. Coming off.” He pushed a button in
the remote and metal robotic arms descended from the ceiling.

The arms gripped Angeline’s shoulders. Her wings came out on reflex,
even though she willed with all her strength to keep them in. The
protective force field was absent. It didn’t work in the black
room.

Two additional metallic arms came toward her immobilized form. She tried
to shrink from them, but there was nowhere to go.

“Please don’t do this. I’ll be good. I swear! I won’t see him again!”

Rodolfo’s eyes lit with sadistic malice and anticipation as if waiting for a
gift to be unwrapped on Christmas morning.

The sound was like a thick curtain being torn, followed by her deafening
screams, then a silence so loud and a blackness so deep she couldn’t
see or hear anything at all. Angeline thought she was dead, but then
she felt the blood dripping down her back. And the searing pain that
stole her breath.

***

Hadrian reclined in the basement trying to finish his mystery novel, but he
no longer cared who had done it. It was obvious it was the jealous
cousin. Any idiot could see it. Besides, he’d read the same
paragraph six times now, and the prose wasn’t getting any more
crisp or intelligent.

He tossed the book across the room and growled at it, as if it would
sprout legs and scamper off in terror at his displeasure. His growl
was answered by a crack of thunder, so loud and near that it seemed
to shake the church on its very foundation.

The thunder clap spooked him, and he was glad for once that Angeline
wasn’t here to watch him quake like some small child over an
impending storm. He glanced at the wardrobe with her corsets inside
and then at the bed she’d lain in while he’d watched her sleep,
telling himself repeatedly that there was no part of him that wanted
anything but the sweet perfection of her blood—and to make her pay
for her crimes.

Almost as much as the turning, he’d been livid to find her following him,
keeping tabs on him. And she’d been doing it for decades without
him sensing her once—until she’d risked his wrath to warn him.

The power went out with another crack of thunder. Hadrian cursed as his
night vision adjusted to the dark. He climbed the back staircase to
search for the candles and matches. Streaks of angry lightning lit
the sky behind the stained glass, but there was no rain.

In the pauses between thunder, he heard a weak banging on the church
doors and crying and muffled words he couldn’t make out as more
thunder rolled through.

Hadrian drew back in horror when he opened the door to find a naked Angeline,
crumpled and shivering on his steps.

“Father Hadrian… please… help me.”

Her back was a mess. He’d never seen so much blood come out of one
person. It seemed as if it might never stop. Her wings had been torn
from her spine, and if she weren’t immortal, she’d be a corpse
already. It was stunning that she’d had the energy or ability to
bang on the door or cry for help at all.

Angeline’s hands bled for her efforts. How long had she been out here thinking
he’d ignore her cries? Whatever she’d done, whatever urge he had
to punish her, the display in front of him was sadistic and wrong.

He knelt beside her on the steps and pulled her onto his lap, then tore
into his wrist with fangs. “Here, drink.”

She latched onto his arm, still sobbing against him. While she drank, he
leaned over her back to drink some of the blood to clean her up and
aid the healing. She wasn’t regenerating like a human would if he’d
given them his blood. If there was a change, it wasn’t much. The
blood still flowed out of her far too
fast.

Seeing it made him panic, but he quickly gained control. It wouldn’t help
her if he was afraid. He had to be the calm one. The steady one. Even
so, he choked back his own sob at what those monsters had done to
her.

Hadrian ran his tongue over the back of her hands, relieved when they healed.
At least vampire blood and saliva
did
work for her. She wasn’t
an alien creature outside the scope of his powers.

After several minutes of drinking from him, her bleeding stopped. How would
she have fared without it? It upset him more than he could quantify
to entertain the thought. She was still far from healed and would
need more, but it was a start until he could get her inside. Rain
pounded down, followed by angry gusts of wind that threw the rain
against the door and window panes.

The rain washed the blood off her skin but only made her shiver harder.

Hadrian picked her up, and her arms went around his neck as he turned to take
her into the church.

“Goddammit!” he growled. The barrier. Whether it was her new demon nature
interacting with a church, or the wards he’d had put up,
Our
Lady of Mercy
would not admit Angeline. He sat her down in the
corner of the alcove. The look she gave him was so scared and sad, as
if he were simply abandoning her because she couldn’t go inside.

“I’m going in to get a blanket and some things from the basement. Then
we’ll go some place where you can rest. Okay?”

A hesitant nod.

Hadrian raced inside and down the back stairs to grab clothes for himself. He
flung the wardrobe open, threw her things into her bag, and ripped
the comforter off the bed. He took the steps two at a time to get
back outside.

She whimpered when he wrapped her up and lifted her to carry her to his
car. “Shhhh. I know it hurts. We’ll fix you.”