The Devil's Wife (2 page)

      With a sigh of frustration, I stepped up onto the balcony rail, balancing carefully on the thin iron. My tail and wings were hidden away, but I wasn't some misguided, unbalanced human—I didn't wobble at all. After a second, I jumped down to land, crouched and cat-like, next to Bradley with hatred curling my lip further.

      "I suggest you let her go," I growled, darting forward to grab him.

      There was only the slightest of sounds behind me, but that was enough to tell me a fraction of a second too late that someone was there. A knife entered my kidney and I squawked, turning on the man and knocking him flying into the wall with my arm. Another man grabbed me, and I cursed—I was an Angel at heart, I didn't know how to fight like these humans. He locked my arms behind my back so I couldn't throw him off, forcing me to my knees.

      "Look, boys," Bradley said, retrieving the knife from my back and making me groan. "We found ourselves another player!"

      The gang members laughed. I ignored the dull throb from the region of my wounded kidney. I had a human's body, but, unlike them, I couldn't be killed. They could be killed, however, and I was going to be the one to do it.

      "Tell you what, sweetheart," Bradley said, stepping up close to the woman again and running the flat of the blade down the side of her face, "you do what I say, and I won't kill him." He grinned at her. "Yet."

      She lifted her knee into his groin with all the force she could muster. The man staggered back, holding his crotch, his face red, and collapsed to his knees, then fell to his side, fighting to breathe through the pain.

      "Go suck yourself off, Bradley. You're not going to touch me," she snarled at him, and spat at him where he lay on the ground.

      The gang members growled like a pack of wolves. Bradley's second-in-charge backhanded the woman, throwing her head toward me. Her blue eyes seemed to light the darkness, they were so pale... so familiar...

      I stared at her senselessly, my surroundings and the pain forgotten. There was only the shock of seeing her familiar—oh, so familiar—face here.

      "Holy shit," I breathed. "Sera!"

      The woman stopped struggling against her captor,

frowning at me as though trying to work out if she knew me from somewhere. Her brown hair fell across her face as she seemed to decide she didn't know me, and she stood on the foot of the man holding her. It did nothing—the man was wearing steel-capped boots—except to make the man twist her arm up further behind her back. He laughed as she hissed in pain.

      Bradley was already recovering from the woman's blow. He stood up, pulling her face around to make her look at him. She tried to knee him again but he slapped her other cheek, throwing her strike wide. I struggled against the men with renewed energy, but to no avail. They were stronger than I was, my physique a magically-induced illusion rather than actual muscle.

      Bradley stood flush against her, in such a way that if she tried to knee him again, she would only hit his thigh. He held her jaw, forcing her to look at him, and she struggled, trying to hit him.

      "If you do that again, I will kill you," he threatened. "I am not so afraid of Jason that I'd allow you to disrespect me like that."

      She spat in his face. I laughed, earning a punch in the kidney from the man behind me. I groaned and sank to my knees, faking pain. Bradley wiped the spit from his face and hit her again. I growled, trying to pull my arms from the humans' grips.

      "I'm going to enjoy this," Bradley said with an evil smirk, stepping back and gesturing to the man holding the woman. "You have no idea how big a pain in the ass you are or how glad a lot of people would be to see a criminal like you dead on the side of the road, cut, burned, and fucked until your heart explodes in your chest."

      The man holding the captive woman threw her to the ground, and before she could recover, Bradley pounced on her, rolling her over and straddling her hips, hooking her hands up above her head in a tight grip. She stopped trying to buck him off when he picked up the knife and pressed it to her cheek, though she glared death up at Bradley and continued to scratch at his hands.

      "Every time you try to throw me off," he threatened, using the blade to slice her shirt open, "I am going to order a finger to be cut from this man. If he runs out of fingers, we move to his hands, then his arms. If you keep going... well, there are a lot of men here who haven't been laid in a while."

      The woman stilled, glancing at me. I shook my head at her, trying to tell her not to worry about me, and she growled up at the man holding her. He sliced through her bra, leaving her breasts open to the air. One of the other gang members tied her hands above her head. He held the trailing end of the rope firmly, holding her hands where she couldn't strike their leader.

      The woman's face grew as red as mine when she saw the lustful looks on the faces of the humans around her. I gagged on the strong, sweet honeycomb taste of Lust filling the air. I slowly pulled a foot up underneath me, ready to release my wings and escape the humans' clutches. The woman's eyes flickered to me, taking in the sight of me. She seemed to understand that I was going to create a distraction. I could see annoyance in her glance at how long it was taking, but she seemed to know I would create a distraction large enough to allow her to throw off the man now fondling her chest and trying to cut away her pants.

      Bradley grinned down at her, mashing his lips against hers. The knife at her stomach prevented her from biting the tongue I could see he was forcing into her mouth.

      With a savage growl, I pushed myself upwards, pushing the humans away from me with my wings as they burst out of my back. I sliced the throat of one of the men with my tail as I hovered above them all. As I flapped my wings to keep myself airborne, the woman bucked her hips, throwing the man over her head. She cursed and groaned as the man's knife buried itself to the hilt in her stomach. She moved closer to the rope in order to create enough slack in it so that she could put her hands on her stomach and stop the bleeding. She pulled the knife out of her abdomen to use on the rope, wincing occasionally as the crimson blood flowed down her stomach. I could see she was gritting her teeth against the pain.

      Bradley staggered to his feet and looked at me as I landed in front of him, growling. I struck out to grab him, my fingers clawed, and I lifted him from his feet. The Hellraisers broke and ran, dropping their knives and guns. Only one stayed, pulling out a Glock and shooting at me.

      I turned to face him and folded up my wings. My tail flicked out and picked up a nearby gun, bringing it back to my hand. I took careful aim with the Browning and shot the human running at the head of the pack. I ignored the feeling of the human's bullets ripping into my body, as I continued to fire and kill the Hellraisers.

      With the same cold manner with which I shot the first man, I picked off the rest of them before they could make it from the alley. Bradley cursed me, and I crushed his throat, digging my claws in and leveling the gun at the shooter. He dropped his gun and turned to run, and I shot him twice in the back. I threw Bradley's body to the ground, stepping away from his corpse.

      "You have got to be fucking kidding me!" the woman's hysterical voice cried, drawing my attention.

      The woman was staring at me with wide eyes, trembling. She'd managed to cut through the rope that held her, and had backed up against the wall, using it to support herself. She stared openly at me as I put my wings and tail away, the claws on my fingers vanishing with them.

      "Don't be afraid," I said quietly, looking at her. The wind pushed my blond hair into my eyes. I moved to swipe it out of my face, and realized I still held the gun. I threw it away from me, ignoring the sound of it clattering over the pavement. "I'm not going to hurt you. I'm here to help you."

      "Get the fuck away from me, Demon!" she cried, edging down the wall with little winces.

      I frowned, but tried to look reassuring as blood dripped from her stomach. "I'm here to help you, just let me—"

      "I said fuck off!" She tried to push off from the wall, but her legs folded underneath her.

      The woman trembled more violently as I stepped toward her. I stopped, stepping back to where I was originally, worried. The blood coming from the cut on her stomach was still crimson—she was still bleeding.

      I tried to plead with her again. "Let me help you. You're in shock, you need help desperately."

      She stood, finding the wall and using it to pull herself up. "Get the hell away from—"

      She shuddered, her eyes rolling back into her head. She collapsed completely and I was too slow to catch her. Her head hit the pavement and I cursed, feeling along her scalp. As far as I could tell, her head was unharmed.

      I gathered her up into my arms, folding her shirt over her bare chest. The white of the material was stained the same red as my skin while her blood pumped slowly from her body, making my skin sticky as I held her carefully.

      "Hold on," I whispered, releasing my wings again.

      I ran to the end of the alley and leaped into the air, the muscles in my legs and wings straining to get me airborne with her extra weight in my arms. I headed straight upwards, then out of the sleepy city, flapping my way across the George Washington Bridge and following the river home.

~ * ~

      I landed carefully on the deck outside my front door, folding my wings in tightly as I opened the door and headed into the kitchen, the woman still in my arms. I cleared off the table in the middle of the kitchen with a single swipe of my right wing, everything skittering across the floor with a mighty crash. My feet were in heavy-duty work boots, so I didn't care about standing on the mess of metal, glass and plastic as I gently laid the brunette on the table.

      I put my wings away as I filled the sink with hot water. With a quick glance at the woman to check her breathing—it was shallow but regular—I headed down the hall to grab a couple of towels and some bandages from the bathroom.

      I re-entered the kitchen to find the woman was awake, examining the stab wound with unfocussed eyes. I put the towels down and gently pushed her back down, catching her head as her strength failed her, and put a towel beneath it to act as a pillow. She watched me through heavy lids as I opened her shirt, ignoring the sight of her breasts bared in the strong light of the kitchen in favor of examining the wound.

      "You're in shock, but I'm going to work on fixing that for you," I explained. "Shock is why you're not screaming at being in the Devil's kitchen." My brows furrowed as I saw the rips in her abdominal muscles, created by her constant movements. "You'll get over that eventually, at which point you'll probably run from the house chattering about God and your immortal soul. Until then, hold still."

      She twitched away from my fingers as I peered into the stab wound, and I frowned at her, meeting her gaze.

      "If you want me to stop the bleeding and help you heal," I said with a hint of reproach in my voice, "you're going to have to lie still. I'm not here to hurt you. If I was, you would already be dead. Try to keep that in mind."

      The woman nodded, her face becoming paler as though the effort took blood from her face.

      "I need you to tell me when it starts to hurt more," I instructed, prodding gently at her wound with my clawed finger.

      She hissed as my claw slipped and brushed against a bruised muscle. I made a tching noise and used her hand to hold a dry towel to the wound. I ducked quickly into the living room, flicking on the light. On the couch was a needle and thread I used for patching myself up. Wounds or infection couldn't kill me, but the ache was uncomfortable, so it paid to help them heal.

      I returned to the kitchen to find that the woman was still holding the towel to her stomach, groaning lightly in pain. I frowned, gently pulling the now-crimson towel from her hand. She looked up at me, taking in all the blood on my body, both hers and mine.

      "You're hurt," she said weakly, staring at a bullet wound in the centre of my chest.

      I glanced at her and looked at the wound. I rubbed absently at it. "Not as badly as you. Give me your hand."

      She lifted it, and it shook. I grabbed it and made her press another towel to the wound, then rested my hand on her cheek as her eyes rolled back in their sockets. The contrast of her skin on mine made me frown for a second, but I put it from my mind. I could tell she was trying to focus on me.

      "What's your name?" I asked her, gently slapping her cheek to jolt her awake. "Listen to me, focus on me. You have to keep your eyes on me, keep yourself awake. If you fall asleep, I won't be able to help you, and you will die, okay?"