Angel of Chaos (Imp Book 6) (18 page)

“Ben’s friends? Why would he send angels to attack me? He’d not risk his child… .” The woman turned to look at the father of her child, realization dawning on her face. “The monsters. You’ve wanted me to go to them the whole time. This was just an elaborate plan to get me to comply.”

“Yep. Either you’d be begging for monsters after a few days in my house, or his buddies would provide some added incentive.”

I knew this was how this asshole’s mind worked. Get Harper to comply any way possible, and if they killed the Iblis in the process, then hey, I was breaking the law anyway. And that would be three less favors he’d owe.

“Makes sense,” Harper said, fingering the elven net. “Problem is, I’m not going with him. Ever.”

The angel’s blue eyes were cold. He took a step toward her. “You used to be so agreeable, so malleable, so easy to influence. I’m done playing these games. You’re coming with me. I won’t risk the life of my child because you’ve turned rebellious.”

I stepped in between them, summoning my shotgun. He hesitated, eyeing the weapon and obviously remembering his five dead buddies. Harper might not want to leave her baby in the care of these “monsters”, but if I could find out how the angels were hiding their offspring, it might give us another alternative for her and the child — an alternative beyond hiding in my house or life in Hel.

“Where is it that angels hide their Nephilim, Bencul?”

He shook his head, blond curls bouncing angrily from side to side. “That’s not something I’d tell any demon, let alone the Iblis.”

I shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. She’s said she’s staying. It’s her choice, not yours.”

“It’s safer for her there. Once the baby is born, she can leave.”

“I’m not leaving my child with monsters, Ben.” Harper’s voice was eerily calm. “I told you to stay away from me and my baby. I’m going to raise him myself. I’ve made my choice.”

“It’s not your choice to make,” he thundered, trying to sidestep around me.

The shotgun wasn’t very effective as a projectile weapon in close range, but it did make a nice bully stick. I whacked him in the shoulder with it, and he staggered backward. Not that these two girls seemed to need my intervention. Harper fingered her knives with purpose, and Nyalla clutched the wand in a white–knuckled hand.

Ben growled and eyed my gun, clearly calculating his odds of getting by me. “The only reason you are alive is because of me,” he told Harper. “You would have died on that mountain, but I saved you. You’re mine now. I gave you life. In return, you are to bear my children.”

What a fucking psycho. “I don’t think Harper has any knowledge of this contract with you. Do you have a copy of the breeding proposal and signed documents to prove your claims?”

Yeah, I’d clearly been hanging out with angels for far too long.

“She’s a human.” Bencul spun about to face me, his face ugly with anger. “There is no need for proposals and signed documents with them. They’re practically animals — just look at their vibration patterns. I saved her life. She’s mine, and she owes me.”

Harper gasped. “I don’t owe you anything. This baby is
mine
. I’ll see you in hell before I give my son to you.”

What a great idea. Wish I’d thought of it.

Ben turned again at her words, giving me the perfect opportunity to whack him across the back of the head with my shotgun. I thought about stepping back and putting a few magical bullets into him but didn’t trust the thing not to kill him. Besides, I had a far more horrible fate in store for this angel than death.

Whatever its powers as a trajectory weapon, the shotgun made a good cudgel. Bencul went down like a felled tree and stayed down, especially after Harper kicked him in the head a few times.

In no time at all, I was heading down to Columbia, a duct–taped and collared angel in the trunk of my Suburban with Nyalla by my side. Harper had begged to go, but I couldn’t let her leave the house, let alone have the gate guardian see her.

“This is hard for her,” Nyalla commented as we pulled into the mall parking lot. “Everyone has a dark side, but to find out the man who supposedly loved you was using you for breeding stock … that’s going to leave scars.”

I knew all about scars, although mine were mostly all over and through my spirit–self. Exploding myself along with Oak Island had done a number on me, as had my torture under Ahriman’s loving touch. Ahriman. I shivered and turned down the AC in the Suburban a notch. Okay, so maybe my scars weren’t just on the surface.

I remembered Harper gnawing her nails to bloody nubs, depressed and doubting her ability to parent this child, ready to resort to murder to protect herself. She was so angry. The only hope she had of a normal life was if we removed this asshole from it entirely. The woman might never fully heal from this, but I’d do all I could to give her a chance.

“This angel will never hurt her again,” I promised.

“And never see the child he so desperately wanted,” Nyalla added, climbing out of the car.

I popped the trunk and pulled Bencul out by his pretty, blond hair. His eyes glared at me above the duct tape. “Grab that shopping cart, will you, Nyalla?”

Both of us seized the angel, struggling to get him into the flimsy cart. His weight toppled it over the first few times, sending him crashing to the ground. I was grateful that it wasn’t a busy section of the mall. Finally we got him in, and I tucked a blanket around him to hide him from view.

There was something oddly satisfying in wheeling an angel around the mall, bumping into every wall and kiosk I could find. The gate guardian’s eyes widened as we approached the gate, located this time in the rear of a Victoria’s Secret store.

“I’m not seeing this. I am truly not seeing this.”

“Then you better turn your eyes,” I told her, yanking off the blanket to reveal my duct–taped angel.

A nearby sales clerk froze, a box of underwear in her hand. “I’m calling security,” she announced.

“I
am
security,” I told her. “This is our new policy for dealing with shoplifters.”

She cocked an eyebrow, obviously unsure whether to believe me or not.

I held up a bra. “He was jacking off in the dressing room. And he had three more of them stuffed into his pockets.”

The woman backed away, glaring down at the angel. “You disgusting pervert!”

“You can’t send him through!” the guardian protested. “He’s an angel. I don’t care what he was doing to human undergarments; sending him to Hel is not an equitable punishment for that crime.”

“Tell it to the big guy.” I pulled the angel out of the cart, knocking it over onto a display of thong underwear.

“You tell it to the big guy.” The gate guardian averted her eyes, concentrating on a display of lacy thong underwear. “Last time I told on you, I nearly got my head ripped off. Nope. I didn’t see anything. Nothing at all.”

Whatever. With a wave of my hand, the gate appeared, shimmering.

“Nyalla, can you do your magic?”

I held my shotgun against the angel’s head as Nyalla removed the collar. Then, with a swift kick of my boot, I sent him through the gate.

“There. That’s done.” I dismissed the gun and turned to see the Gate Guardian, her eyes darting between the collar in Nyalla’s hand and me.

“He’ll just come right back, you know. Angels are able to activate the gates.”

I shrugged. “Yeah. And what’s he going to tell the other angels? It violates the treaty for him to have been in Hel. They’ll kill him or worse, make him into one of my Fallen. Even if he tells them I pushed him through, they’ll wonder what he’s been doing to survive. His choice is to stay in Hel and die, or come back and die.”

The gate guardian looked at her watch. It was a nice Omega with a diamond bezel. “Bet you pancakes at iHop he’s dead within twenty–four hours.”

“You’re on.” There was no way. Once he got caught, the demons would want to keep him around as long as possible to play with and show off to their friends. “At least a week, maybe two.”

–16–

N
yalla was right about Harper’s grief. I waited all night, hoping Gregory would pop in for a date–night. It was just as well he was a no–show. The mood in the house wasn’t exactly supportive of a romantic interlude. Plus I was going to have to eventually tell him about the five angels who’d become a mini sand box out front of my house,
and
the one I’d booted to Hel. He had been concerned over my smackdown of Dalmai, and I somehow doubted my recent activities would be considered trivial. My only hope would be to confess as soon as possible and throw myself at his mercy. Or just throw myself at him.

I finally couldn’t take it any longer, so I called Candy and arranged to meet her for a jog.

“Two or four legged,” I asked as I hopped out of my car. We were up in the northern part of the county at the section of the Catoctin Mountains near the Pennsylvania border.

“Two.” Candy sighed. “Last time I got a bit too close to a farm. They thought I was a huge coyote.”

“They shot at you?” I got shot at all the time. Especially since I’d recently made it a practice of doing some midnight runs through Fort Detrick. Naked. With my shotgun in hand.

Candy laughed. “Yeah. With a camera. Next thing I know there are pictures all over the papers and Facebook. Every hunter in the Thurmont area is hoping to put my pelt on a wall.”

I understood that one too. “So how are things going with you guys?” The werewolves had been granted some liberties in the past year, but they still needed to toe the line of a strict existence contract or risk being exterminated by the angels.

“Great, actually. All the problems in Aaru mean no one has much time to pay attention to us. How about you?”

“All the problems in Aaru seem to be landing at my door. Did I tell you that somehow I’m now in charge of humans with bad credit? I’m supposed to rehabilitate them or some shit like that. Oh, and I’m in charge of Fallen angels, too. No kidding. There’s one holed up in my house right now, although he actually seems to be pretty cool.”

“That’s not the one in your basement, is it?”

“No, but that one’s still there too — in a bedroom, though, not the basement. Gregory commanded him to serve me. Evidently ‘serve’ means meditate and snark at the other angel, because that’s all he’s done so far.”

“Pfft. Make him do housework. Or cook.”

“Yeah, because a being that has never tasted food should be trusted with meal preparation. Remember that sandwich Gregory made me?” It had been an odd concoction of lunch meat, carrots and jelly. Thankfully his skills at coffee preparation were of a higher caliber.

Candy scrunched up her face in distaste. “Yeah, you’re right. Poor Sam; seems like you’re being overrun with angels.”

“No shit. It gets worse. I’ve had angels attack me twice more since that dude I stuck in the basement. Although, now that I’ve gotten rid of Harper’s boyfriend, I think that will taper off. The problem facing me now is how to keep her hidden. I told the angels I’d sent her to Hel. If they find out I’ve got a Nephilim in my house, unborn or not, my ass is in serious trouble.”

Candy halted on the trail, her mouth unbecomingly open. “A
Nephilim
? I thought she was just some friend of Nyalla’s you were helping out.”

“No. Why else did you think angels were besieging my house?”

Candy raised her eyebrows. Well, yeah. Trouble did seem to follow in my wake. It would be understandable for her to think I’d done something to piss the angels off.

“Anyway, I’ve got no clue what to do with her. I feel bad that she’s going to be hiding out in my house for another three months or so. And I’m totally at a loss about the birth itself and this baby. I really think the best idea would be to arrange some kind of transport to Hel.”

“You can’t send a half–angel to Hel!”

I grimaced. “A half–angel running around my house for however long they live is going to get noticed, and we’ll both end up dead. So if you’ve got any better ideas, I’m ready and willing to hear them.”

The werewolf bit her lip, frowning as she kicked a stone along the path. “I’ve heard there are places where Nephilim can be hidden, that their angel fathers know where to send them.”

“Well the father’s dead by now, and I can’t exactly run around Aaru asking random angels where they hide their Nephilim. Besides, Harper would refuse. Evidently the father wanted to send the kid there, but she says she won’t have a bunch of monsters raise her child.

Candy put her hands on her hips and raised her shrewd brown eyes to meet mine. “They’re not monsters. They’re werewolves.”

Now it was my turn to stand there open–mouthed. “Why in the fuck would you all shelter Nephilim? You guys walk a thin enough line with the angels as it is. If they found a Nephilim in your midst, all bets would be off as far as your existence contract. They’d kill you all… .”

Oh. Suddenly it all made sense.

Candy looked around the trail before speaking. “Werewolves are the descendants of Nephilim. We’re just lucky the angels haven’t figured that out yet. The Nephilim that have been caught and executed in the past weren’t analyzed in any detail before their death. Eventually it’s going to happen. The connection will be made between them and us. Then we’ll be exposed for what we are and wiped from the face of the Earth. We need to make sure the angels don’t get a chance to look too closely at their half–breed offspring. So we help hide them.”

Damned angels. Genetic cleansing at its finest when it came to the poor werewolves. “Why hide them right in your own packs? It’s not the best place to avoid notice given the close eye the angels keep on you all. If I were in your shoes, I’d kill every Nephilim child I found, to reduce the risk of being discovered. Dead, dusted bodies don’t tell tales.”

Candy looked disgusted. “Besides the fact that we don’t go around killing off innocent children, we need Nephilim. Werewolf–to–werewolf breeding eventually results in infertility and other problems. Nephilim introduce a surge of power into our genetic pool. They are Firsts. As adults, they are trusted advisors to our Alphas, powerful allies. If they choose to mate with a werewolf, their children have special skills and are fertile.”