Devil May Care (20 page)

He let me go and I stumbled backward, landing hard on my ass. When I looked up he had sprinted off, straight into the swarm of sprites.

“What in the name of Evil are you doing?” I screeched, chasing after him.

“Saving you,” he called over his shoulder. “Now run!”

“I am running!” I seriously regretted my previous avoidance of exercise. He’d have probably outpaced me anyway because of his height, but he ran every day and I hadn’t been near a track since tenth grade gym class. And back then I’d gotten myself a note from the doctor claiming I was allergic to aerobic exercise so I didn’t actually have to do anything.

“The other direction, you dipshit!” he barked over his shoulder and I swear on his mother’s grave—I know, I know, wishful thinking on my part—the bastard sped up. On purpose. I
so
needed to get to the gym more.

He disappeared inside the swarm and the sprites froze, stunned at the intrusion. They fell silent for an awful moment, not moving, and then seemed to implode toward the nephilim in their midst.

Damn it. Damn it.
Damn it!
So much for sneaking out while their backs were turned. Now I’d be lucky if they didn’t tear his physical body apart before this was over. There was no choice left—I could either run for my life or save his ass. I felt a sharp zap through the bracelet and then an agonizing pain that I knew was coming from Matt as the sprites bombarded him with magic.

I watched, stunned, as a sprite flew past my head, tumbling head over heels as it went, and heard several loud crunches before another sprite went speeding past me and the entire mass began to howl. Matt backhanded another one of the creatures like it was nothing more than a fly and I had to resist the urge to kick him. Stupid man. Stupid, brave, honorable man who was trying to distract them with his bare hands so I would have enough time to escape.

Like I was going anywhere without him.

I felt another sharp jolt. Matt’s knees buckled. He dropped to the ground and the swarm covered him completely, cutting me off to nothing but their howls and the pain-filled shrieks of the man caught in their midst.

I stopped, kicked off my shoes, and dug my toes into the moist grass. I closed my eyes and drew as much power through the link as I could. It rushed through me, dark and electric, tingling as it raced along my wings. I threw my head back and lifted my hands, hellfire crackling between them. Blisters had formed on the palms of my hands, cracking open from the intense heat when I launched the hellfire over my head and into the swarm.

There was no time to waste building more fireballs. I needed something a bit more immediate. Something able to fight the sprites at their own level. Dad had always warned that imps were fickle—almost impossible to control—but right now I didn’t see where I had a choice.

Another fireball crackled between my hands and I tossed it overhand into the center of the swarm, hoping it would be enough to distract them and give Matt the chance to get free.

As the swarm rose up, turning toward me instead of Matt, I stamped my foot, focusing all of my anger and hatred into the Earth beneath my toes. The ground rolled sickeningly, splitting open along the length of their meadow and between my feet. I hopped to one side as brimstone fumes billowed out of the chasm. An angry, roiling mass of blue appeared, and I smiled. If they wanted a fight, it was time they got the chance to pick on someone their own size.

The problem with concurrent evolution was this: for every creature we had, the Celestial Kingdom had one that was similar. Demons had rock imps, little blue creatures who lived in craggy bits of rock and basically caused mischief. The angels had little green flying sprites that tended flowers and worried about cats. The crucial thing everyone forgot was that
similar
and
identical
were not interchangeable words. An imp and a sprite might look alike but there was one crucial difference—imps were Hellborn, a twisted mutation of demon stock. Those pint-sized buggers loved a good fight. They didn’t need a reason. Just an enemy.

“Imps,” I yelled down into the Earth and they all turned to me as one, their wide, black eyes on me. They scurried into a swarming mass, their teeth bared, howling and pounding on their tiny chests, ready to go where I ordered them. “To war! Take no prisoners but leave the nephilim alive.”

The imps poured out of the chasm, screeching like bats, attacking anything and everything in their path. I watched four of them stack themselves up like circus performers and pluck one of the sprites out of the air, ripping off her wings and tossing her to the ground for the others to dispatch before moving on.

The imps charged at the swarm of sprites surrounding Matt and the whole mess exploded into chaos. The blood-curdling screams of sprites blended into the war cries of the imps and the whole clearing burst into a fury of carnage. I skirted around the battling creatures and took off toward Matt, who was standing stunned in the middle of the battlefield, all of his weight on his left side.

“Jesus Christ,” he said, coughing as I ran toward him. He was covered in grass and mud, his shirt soaked in blood and hanging in tatters. His jeans were ripped and I could see a long, bloody gash down the length of his inner thigh. He’d lost his left shoe and, given the angle of his right foot, I was pretty sure his ankle was broken.

“Had nothing to do with this,” I said when I reached him. “But will completely approve of my methods.”

“I doubt it.” Matt doubled over and wheezed, his knees buckling. He crumpled to the ground and I dropped onto my knees beside him. He fought for breath and I knew he was in agony. “But I will admit it was one hell of a show.”

“Yeah, well, you ain’t seen nothing yet.” I wrapped my arm around him, trying to keep him upright. I couldn’t see any serious injuries but his face was pale and his muscles trembled. You didn’t have to be a nurse to know that neither of those were good signs. “Let’s just get you home and I’ll knock your socks off.”

“I don’t think that’s going to happen. You can’t get me out of here on your own.” He nodded and gasped as a spasm wracked his chest. He struggled to breathe, blood splattering across his hand as he tried to suck in some much needed air. Damn it. I needed to get him home and I needed to do it now. No matter how big of a risk it was.

“I’ll open a portal,” I said, fighting to keep my composure. Now was not the time to cry. Now was the time to get him somewhere safe. Do triage. Crying would have to wait. I reached for my powers and the portal opened, less of a rip in reality and more like the slow ease of a Band-Aid. “I’m so sorry, Matt. There just isn’t any other way.”

Instead of answering, Matt groaned and went limp, his face gray, and his chest still.

Chapter Twenty-Two

I grabbed him by the arm and dragged his unconscious body through the hole, and into my apartment.

“You are not allowed to die! Or shuffle off your mortal form, or whatever you want to call it! Don’t even think about it, Matthew…Andrews.” I wiped my eyes and grimaced. “See, you can’t die yet. I don’t even know your middle name, and that means I can’t cuss you out.”

An angry shriek sounded behind me on the other side of the portal, and I turned to see Daharack glaring at me. “A curse on you, Forked Tongue. I lay a curse of—”

I pointed my right index finger at him, giving a solid jolt of demonic power. The sprite exploded like a grape in the microwave.

“Oh, go to Hell,” I yelled. The imps, who were busy tearing the clearing to pieces, turned to look at me
en masse
. “All of you. Back to Hell. And clean your mess up before you go.”

The imps let out a high-pitched cheer and swept back across the meadow, pulling tiny green bodies behind them. The portal closed with a
snap
and I turned to the man lying on my floor.

I dropped to my knees and put one hand on his chest and the other at his throat. Still not breathing. No pulse. Damn it. Years of medical training kicked in. First things first: get him breathing. We’d deal with the other injuries after that. I pressed my fingers into his mouth and swept the airway, making sure there were no obstructions.

“You are not going to die,” I snarled and started CPR. Not here. Not now. And definitely not over me.

A portal tore open behind me but I didn’t stop. Whoever it was could either help or come back later.

“Faith, move,” Lisa said behind me. “We need to—”

“
MOVE
!” J yelled and dropped onto the floor next to Matt. I noticed that, for once, he wasn’t wearing scrubs. Instead, he was actually dressed in his regular people clothes. Crap, the one time I needed him to have it together and this is what I get. “Nahamia, get the cuff off of him.”

Nahamia rushed over and fell to his knees beside J, across from Lisa who had planted herself on the other side. He snatched Matt’s arm off the floor and tore the cuff open. He dropped it onto the floor, and turned to J. “What do you need?”

“Dad. Whatever he’s doing tell him it can wait.” He looked at me and then at Dad. “Uncle Louis, take her and go. Now.”

Dad grabbed my wrist and started to pull. When I jerked away from him, grabbing at Matt’s body, he let go of me and stood. Strong arms wrapped around my waist and he hoisted me into the air like a sack of potatoes.

“Let me go.” I batted at my father with my hands. “I’m a nurse, I can help. He’s not going to die because of me.”

Instead of answering he carried me into the hall and slammed the door shut behind him. “Hope!”

My sister came barreling down the stairs, her shoes clopping on the bare wood, and her horns curling up out of her hair. “What happened?”

“Matt’s injured.” Dad shifted his weight, trying to keep hold of me even though I was smacking at him and kicking my feet.

“Let me go.” I squirmed until my head could turn into his arm and I sank my teeth into his bicep. He lowered me to the floor, and held me against his chest in an iron grip.

Hope hauled her arm back and slapped me.

I blinked through the stars swarming in front of my eyes. “What the hell?”

“You’re hysterical. Everyone knows you slap someone who’s hysterical.” Hope grabbed me and pulled me away from Dad, giving me a good shake. “Besides, if something didn’t snap you out of it you’d have tried pulling on your power and then you would have killed him for sure. And, I’ve got to admit, smacking the tar out of someone felt pretty good. Even if it was you.”

“The bond doesn’t just click on and off like a switch.” Dad gave me a tight hug before plopping down on the stairs and dragging me into his lap. I let my head drop onto his shoulder and he began rubbing circles in my back. “It’ll take a bit for the links between you to break down. I know you want to help Matt but right now the best thing you can do is stay out here, sweetheart. Let your cousin and your uncle work.”

“He’s going to die because of me.”

Instead of answering, he began rocking back and forth like you would to soothe a tiny child. He started to hum softly, patting my back, and I let myself sink into the soft warmth of his shoulder. Sometimes even demonesses needed their daddies.

“It’s not your fault.” Hope took my hand in hers, squeezing my fingers. Which only made me feel worse. Hope bitch-slapping someone was her standard operating procedure. Comforting was something she could only bring herself to do during an utter catastrophe.

“It is.” I buried my head further into the crook of my father’s neck. “Everything’s my fault. He ran into the middle of a swarm to save me. But I couldn’t let him do that. So I called up balls of hellfire and caused an earthquake. I released a tribe of imps. What was I thinking?”

“You were trying to save him,” Hope said. “If you wouldn’t have done those things those sprites would have torn him apart and you’d be right there with him. Matt gave you the only chance at escape you were going to have. You had to take it. And what do you mean, you called up an earthquake and a pack of imps? I’ve never even called up a pack of imps before. No one can control imps.”

“I don’t want to talk about the imps.” I sniffled. If J wouldn’t let me in the room that meant he didn’t expect Matt to walk out of my apartment on his own. Matt probably hadn’t expected to make it even that far. He’d died trying to give me the chance to escape and all I’d done was drain him. “Matt’s going to die and all you care about are the imps.”

“He’s going to be all right,” Dad said. “Your uncle and your cousin aren’t going to lose him. He means too much to you. To all of us. He’s part of this family.

“What if they can’t manage it?” I stared into his emerald green eyes. “What if they can’t save him? What if he ends up trapped
there
? Where I can’t be with him?”

“Do you know,” Dad said, “that I think you might have the most trust issues of any person I’ve ever met in all my long life? It’s ironic, if you think about it. A woman named Faith, who has seen the Alpha Himself perform miracles, and you don’t think they can manage to heal a man who’s been mugged by a group of overgrown honeybees.”

“Yeah, well, maybe Mom should have tried for Charity or Prudence as a virtue to name me after instead of Faith.”

“What I want to know is why?” Hope asked.

“Why what?” I asked.

She was chewing on her lower lip and picking at her nails. “Why send your son out to die? Valerie set an ambush in the one place she knew he’d look.”

“We figured that out.” I nodded. “She set this all up for a reason. I just don’t know what it is.”

“She’s sending a message,” Dad said quietly and his hand quit moving, pressing down in the middle of where my wings would be if they were out. “You girls heard Brenda at the Church Brewworks. They consider the Crucifixion to be a good thing. They think the message is something to be celebrated like a badge of honor. ‘For he so loved his followers he gave them his only son.’ Matt’s not her only son but he’s what she had available to sacrifice at the time.”

“So you’re saying his mother is a fucking nutcase,” Hope replied.

“Tell me about it.” I rested my head against Dad’s chest, and tried not to think about the fact that there wasn’t any noise coming from behind my apartment door. The places where healthy people battled to stay alive were never quiet.

“Don’t try to explain it to yourself,” Dad said. “There’s no point in trying to understand why crazy people do the things that they do. Even when they have reasons, they’re never good ones.”

“How am I not supposed to try? We didn’t even manage to find Tolliver. We’re going to lose them both now.”

“We know where Tolliver
isn’t
,” Dad said, “and that is almost as good as knowing where he is. Now we know where not to look to narrow things down considerably. Plus, I still maintain that the nephilim isn’t going to step into the light. I won’t allow it and neither will your uncle. They will find some way to heal his body. He’s part of this family and we aren’t going to take a chance of losing one of you ever again.”

“But—” I froze. Dad had said they weren’t going to lose Matt. Not that they wouldn’t let him die. Only that they’d somehow manage to heal him. Which would be the same thing—if Matt was being taken care of by mortal doctors. But he wasn’t. And you didn’t need to be a Sunday school addict to know that J had more than one trick up his sleeve when it came to keeping people alive.

The problem was, Dad and the Alpha hated to perform resurrections. Tolliver had told me once that the Alpha hated resurrections so much that they were the reason he’d taken a hands-off stance related to the mortal world. He believed resurrections were his sign that he needed to butt out and let mortals deal with things on their own.

I can’t say that his stance didn’t make sense. Bringing people back from the dead was a nasty business. Resurrections never worked like they should and the people who suffered through them never spoke about the experience. Whatever happened was something dark and terrible and no one who had been a part of one would ever talk about it.

“For now, the only thing we can do is wait,” Dad continued. “Wait and try to find out where your brother is. Just because Matt is injured and in our possession doesn’t mean the Angale will hand Tolliver over to us.”

“What about their compound?” I asked.

“We couldn’t find it. It’s trapped in some sort of bubble and no matter what we tried we couldn’t find an entrance.” Hope rose and stalked across the length of the landing, kicking the railing of the stairway when she got to it. “It’s like the place isn’t even really there.”

“A reality bubble,” I said. “Unless you know exactly where it is, it doesn’t exist on this plane. Not even for Dad.”

“Damn,” he muttered. “But I can’t understand why Bassano would allow something like this to happen. He has to know the Alpha isn’t going to sit idly by and let a group of nephilim take your brother hostage.”

“Who said he has any idea what’s going on? It’s not like Bassano and Matt’s mom were on the best of terms after all.” Lisa slunk out of my apartment, shutting the door behind her.

“Are they done? Is he okay?” I pulled myself out of my father’s grip and hurried over to her, hoping to hear something—anything—that would assure me Matt was going to be all right.

“They said it would take time.” She closed her eyes and dropped her head back to let out a long sigh. “So they sent me out to tell you everything was going to be fine.”

“Liar. They wouldn’t have just sent you out here to reassure me. Besides, I saw him. I was there with him in that place. He’s not fine, he’s dying. You’re a surgical nurse. Get your ass in there.”

“They told me to come out here and talk to you. Then they told me not to come back.”

“Right.” Dad nodded and clapped his hands. “You know what this means?”

“He’s never going to forgive any of us?” I slumped back against the stair above me and Hope wrapped her arms around me in what I suspected was supposed to be a hug.

“No,” Dad said. “Your uncle has given us something to hold over Valerie, and now, to add insult to injury, we’re going to go steal back the demon she kidnapped.”

“How do you propose to do that? We still don’t know where they’re keeping Tolliver.”

“Simple.” Dad gave me a grim smile. “You and Lisa are going to make her tell us where he is.”

“What makes you think she’s going to tell
us
anything?” I looked at my father but he wouldn’t meet my eyes, keeping his head turned toward Matt’s apartment door, and like that I knew. The Alpha wasn’t the only one who was inclined to play fast and loose with people when he needed to clear up loose ends. He’d learned that particular skill from Dad.

“Oh, I expect she won’t tell you much of anything at all to begin with.” Dad’s voice was forbidding and his shoulders were so tight that muscles in his back trembled. “But your uncle and I also don’t care what it takes for you to get it out of her. Just don’t kill her. If you kill her and she’s given you bad information our chances of finding your brother decrease.”

“Right.” I was not going to feel sorry for this woman. She’d planned to kill her own son. That should have been enough. Her homicidal tendencies aside, I still wasn’t looking forward to what was about to come. I’d never killed a person, not intentionally anyway, and until today I’d never wanted to, either.

“Leave it to me,” Lisa muttered. “You don’t need to be in there with her.”

“The hell I don’t.” This was a woman who had taken my brother hostage and tried to destroy the man I loved rather than let us be together. “Besides, I think I know a way to make her talk.”

“How is that?” Hope asked.

“Don’t worry about it.” I rubbed my palms over my eyes to wipe away the last of my tears. “If I have to use it, you’ll have plenty of time to be appalled later.”

“You’re going to do something that will appall
me
?” Hope asked. “Do tell.”

“Later.” I strode toward the door to Matt’s apartment and popped my knuckles like a barroom brawler getting ready for a fight. I tilted my head first to one side and then to the other, cracking the vertebrae in my neck, and shook my legs to loosen them.