Redemption (A NOVEL OF THE SEVEN SIGNS) (38 page)

In her ear, her phone buzzed, incongruous. Cell reception at twelve thousand feet. Who knew?

She tapped her tiny earpiece. “I’m kinda busy,” she snapped, darting her gaze left and right. Where was Trillium?

“Iria…damn time…. you for an hour.” Dashiel’s voice crackled, dropping in and out.

Twin wraiths knotted themselves around her throat. She hurled them away and fired a shining silver bolt. They exploded in mid-air, splashing fearful muck. Ha. Like target shooting, only better. “Could use your help, Dash. Where are you?”

“Jerusalem,” yelled Dash.

“What the hell are you doing in Jerusalem?”

“Don’t ask. I’m… Michael isn’t…you have to…”

She wiped fresh demonslime from her face, the burns healing. Her eyes darted sharply to a red-green flash at the tower’s wall. Trillium, laying into a pack of wraiths with twin swords blazing. His laughter swirled on the wind, and she grinned. He’d always loved a fight.

She sprinted, wings stretched back. “Say again? I’m losing you, Dash.”

“I said, you’ve gotta…the vial. Gabriel said… Don’t let him…” The line popped, and dropped out.

Shit
. Iria leapt, sweeping her wings around and kicking another wraith to swirling smoke. Dash was talking to Gabriel? About the vial? Sounded important. But no time to bother about it now.

Beneath her, Trillium whirled, his dappled wings afire. Wraiths squealed and exploded. The smoke stung her eyes. She landed on slushy stones beside him, and he grinned at her, orange hair poking up like a porcupine’s spines. He clashed his crossed swords, and sparks flew. “Just in time, my lovely. I saved the queen for you.”

She grinned back, excitement twingeing sharp. Her crossbow sprang alight with emerald fire. “Don’t do me any favors, hero. First to two hundred, you said.”

He crunched a screaming wraith under his boot. Slime splurted, eating into the bricks. “Ew, gross. Two hundred? I lost count.”

“I didn’t. Whiskey’s on you.”

“Needed an excuse to buy you a drink anyway. I’m intimidated by your gorgeousness.” His smile twinkled. “Y’know. Shy little boy like me.”

“The hell you are.” His inked muscles swelled brutally, pumped up from the fight, and his manic eyes blazed.
Shy
and
boy
weren’t words that sprang to mind.

“Okay, maybe not. But you are, warrior queen. Gorgeous, that is. Did I ever tell you that?”

“Screw you.” But secret pleasure tingled inside her, and she glanced away, mortified. He’d never said anything like that before. Fuck, her cheeks were warm. She was
blushing
. Iria didn’t blush. Ever.
I’m gonna kick his crusty jeans-ad ass
…

A blood-rotting screech tore the air. She cursed, dragging herself back to the real world. Smoke billowed. Her skin crawled with magical fear. And the queen wraith slithered from a ragged hole in the ether, with a sharp
snap!
as the rift sealed shut.

Long, lizardlike, shimmering like a ghost, leathery fins trailing and a long spiked tail crusted with sharp scales. The queen snarled, her long crocodile jaws slavering, three rows of needle teeth dripping with acid malice.

Ash rained, laced with bone-chilling terror. Trillium
yelled, and leapt, shielding Iria from the caustic shower with a purple-flamed wing. But too late. She gasped, and the choking spell hit her full in the face.

Shit
. Iria staggered, sick and cold. She trembled. Her pulse stumbled to escape. Her breath strangled. She needed to pee. Every sense screeched at her to run, hide, dig a hole and disappear…

Trillium dragged her up, his fist in her feathers. His voice thundered in her ear. “Stay with me, Iria. Fight that bitch!”

She growled, and cracked the fearspells off with a sparkling green heavencurse. Black charcoal shards rained, aflame. Thwarted, the queen wraith screamed, and struck.

Whippy like a serpent, and as fast. Fangs sliced Iria’s cheek. She jerked away, blood drops flying, and clawed for the queen’s eyes. Trillium stabbed, twin blades like forked lightning…but the queen whiplashed, screaming, and his flaming swords slashed empty air. Triumphant, the queen gaped foul jaws around Trillium’s feathers and bit down.

Blood spurted. His wing bone broke, a horrible sound like crackling sticks. Trillium grunted, his face draining white. The queen crunched harder, shaking her head like a rabid dog. The sword clanged from his numbed right hand, and he fell.

“Get off him, you bitch!” Iria screamed. But the queen just grinned, her mouth full. Her spiked tail swept a wide arc, trailing black hellflame. Iria dived, vanishing her crossbow, and grabbed that thrashing tail.

Razor scales sliced her hands bloody. Iria yelled, and pulled harder. Christ, the bitch was strong. The queen thrashed, trying to fling Iria skywards, but she held on, driving downwards with her wings, and ground the tail into the stone with a crunching thud.

And Trillium roared his ancient battle cry, swung his left-hand blade, and sliced the queen in two.

The monster screamed. Trillium tore his dripping wing from her mouth. The severed tail fell, twitching, smoke wisping from the hacked-off end. And Iria scooped up Trill’s fallen sword, and drove it two-handed into the queen’s rolling eye.

The steel pierced the head like a needle, effortless. The
point slammed into the stone beneath. The queen wraith howled and thrashed and exploded into smoke.

And all around, tiny wraiths caught alight, shimmering for a few seconds before they fell like ashen stars, and winked out.

Kill the queen and you kill her children. Good bloody riddance.

Iria panted, searching for her burning breath. Blood coated her armor, her hands, her hair. The fear-rich smoke nipped at her skin, but she crackled it off. With a hiss of indignant heavenspell, her torn hands healed.

At her feet, Trillium bled on his belly in the snow. His left hand still clutched one fiery sword. He shifted his broken wing and blood trickled down his dirty breastplate into the slush. Torn feather ends puffed, drifting in the breeze.

He groaned, still on his face, and kicked up his feet. “Can I get a hand here?”

Iria slipped her hands under his arms, and heaved him up. He was warm, almost fevered. He stumbled, and she steadied him, holding his bulky shoulders. He smelled of Trill, musky hair and fresh male sweat. A good smell.

His broken wing drooped limply, uneven. He flexed it, and more sweat beaded on his pale face. “Ouch. Fucking glory. Taking its goddamn time.” He still managed a lopsided grin, green eyes sparkling bright. “You did good, lady.”

“In better shape than you.” Unwilled, Iria’s fingers lingered. His wounds would heal. She knew that. But still, she wanted to wipe the blood away, soothe his bruised flesh. His injury was her fault. If she hadn’t fallen apart in the middle of the fight…

Her guts twisted. She forced her hands still at her sides. “Listen, uh… Thanks. For…”

“No problem.” Trillium fidgeted. “Forget it.”

She’d like nothing better. But he’d saved her life when her courage failed. It needed to be said. “No, look, I…”

“It happens.” He rubbed a filthy hand in his hair, making it stick up. “We got through it. No one’s perfect.”

The old anger rippled in her veins, flashing her back to cold reality.
I am.

I was, until you ruined it. If you hadn’t distracted me with your goddamned crazy flirting, I would have seen that fucking queen coming and none of this would have happened
…

He’d caught her vulnerable. And Iria of the Tainted didn’t do vulnerable. Not now. Not ever.

“I guess not,” she said coldly. “One more thing, Trill. I’m not some little girl you need to protect. If you ever push me behind you in a fight again? I’ll shoot you in the back and clamber over your corpse.” And she shouldered her shimmering crossbow, and strode away.

CHAPTER 34

Two hundred and fifty feet below the earth, the heat was stifling.

At the bottom of the metal stairs, a single electric light gleamed on the wall. Some kind of maintenance tunnel, concrete walls closing in. At Rose’s feet, train tracks gleamed along the wet floor, stretching off left and right, vanishing into hollow darkness. Water dripped and trickled. Somewhere in the distance, water rushed and thundered in massive pipes, vibrating the floor.

She wiped back damp hair, squinting into the dark. Her vampire sight showed…nothing. No one.

And that was creepier than the piled-up corpses at Bethesda.

It had taken an eternity to descend, her footfalls clanging impossibly loud. Or at least, so it had seemed. Japheth had drifted ahead of her, spiraling down on a warm updraft, sword in hand. The steel gleamed, a cold angry blue. Was it her imagination, or did the flames waver?

She shivered, despite the sweat. No time to worry about Japheth’s crisis of faith. Fluvium and his hateful plan were all that mattered. Bloody water, dripping with the vampire curse. All those unwitting victims, damned. Howling with bloodthirst,
fighting like animals for survival. They’d eat each other, and when it only made them hungrier, they’d do it again, and again, until…

Rose’s guts watered. She hadn’t thought she cared.
Let ’em die,
she’d have snarled.
Heaven doesn’t care. Why the hell should I?

But now, her benighted soul screamed at the injustice. People didn’t deserve to die like that. And she wasn’t ready for the world to end. For the first time since she’d been cursed, she saw a future. And damn it if she’d let that slip away now.

Ahead, Japheth beckoned. He pointed at the darkened ceiling, where a wheeled hatch was barely visible. “The valve chamber’s directly above us. I can hear movement. There’s at least one person in there.”

“Don’t tell me. Your plan is to burst in there in full sight of everyone?”

That familiar grin, wild with fight and glory. “Now you’re getting the hang of it.”

Her palms itched in frustration. God, she wanted to punch some sense into him. “Sure can’t fault your balls, angel,” she admitted grudgingly.

“Uh. Thanks. I think.” His gaze darkened. “Listen, if we don’t get out of this alive—”

“Oh, no, you don’t.” She warded him off with one hand. “Don’t be giving me your preachy bullshit now—”

“
If
we don’t get out alive,” he insisted, “I just…” His cheeks colored faintly. “You don’t make this easy, do you? Half the time I want to throttle you.”

“You’re a real romantic, you know that?”

“Let me finish.” His gaze locked on hers, so candid it hurt. “The rest of the time…well, I guess I like you, Rose Harley. Angel, vampire, whatever. You’re…refreshing.”

She tried to laugh, but a stupid lump cramped her throat. “Yeah? And how’s that?”

“You laugh at me.” He shrugged, awkward. “I don’t have a lot of friends. Mostly they’ve given up on testing me. It’s been…nice.” And he leaned over, halting, as if on some unwanted impulse, and kissed her.

Warm, chaste. Just a gentle kiss on the cheek. But it stabbed
cruel blades of longing into her heart. And then he pulled away, and the blades ripped out, bleeding.

Nice?
Rose choked on dumb wetness that trickled down the back of her nose. As in,
It was nice, but it’s over. I’m just not that into you. Call me if you ever need anything.

Fuck.

Her throat ached. She wanted to scream, tear the walls down, rage at this stupid injustice and the blind rules that crippled his heart.
He’s just a man. Can’t they let him be, for an hour? For a moment?

“Friends?” she scoffed, trying to keep it light. “Jesus bawled like a baby. With friends like you…”

“Yeah. Who needs ’em, right?” His haunted smile undid her…but her blood chilled, too. Was that a glint of guilt? What secrets did he keep now?

But before she could react, he’d turned away.

*   *   *

Japheth cranked the wheel one more time, and yanked the ceiling hatch open. The hinges creaked, and fiery light knifed in.

He could already smell the curse. Fluvium was here. Doing this alone was a bad idea. But he’d called Dash. No service. And the others were all still in Bhutan.