Redemption (A NOVEL OF THE SEVEN SIGNS) (2 page)

Chapter 48

CHAPTER 1

And the third angel poured out his vial upon the rivers
and fountains of waters; and they became blood…

—REVELATION 16:4

Japheth gazed into the hot moonlit sky, and prayed.
Lord, let me kill every last vampire in Babylon.

Starting with this lot.

Six of them, soaked in blood, creeping from steamy shadows. Streetlamps flickered, burning their crazed eyes crimson. One had dreadlocks. Another wore a cheap suit. One had pink-dyed hair and pierced eyebrows. They snarled with long sickle teeth, and clawed the air with bitten hands.

“Charming.” Dashiel flashed his blue-flaming sword, two-handed, and flared his dark wings for balance. His silver armor glowed, angry. “It’s
Night of the Living Junkies.
Did you bring popcorn?”

“If they kill us, we’ll be just as dead.” Japheth’s golden feathers prickled, a warrior’s instinct. His spell-sharpened gaze snapped left and right, his senses itching for scents, alive for the tiniest rustle. Distances, heights, relative strength. Trajectory plotted, bing-badda-boom.

Killing demonspawn was what he was made for. And every dead vampire took him one step closer to heaven.

He conjured his sword and dived full length. The sky-lit blade burned cold in his hand. The creatures spat hell-stung
curses, slashing at him with ragged nails. Japheth somersaulted over them, a flurry of gold.
Snick!
A head flew, spraying crimson.
Splat!
Another. He sprang a backflip, slicing a third creature apart at the waist.

He landed with a crunch on the bloody sidewalk and surveyed the carnage. Dashiel had already head-sliced two more. Their corpses leaked red puddles on the concrete. The last vampire screeched, insane with hunger, and hurtled for Japheth’s throat.

Its teeth scraped his shoulder. Its breath stank of dead flesh. Japheth ignored the sting, the burning hellcurse. He flashed his sword away, grabbed the creature’s neck in both hands, and twisted.

Snap!
Its head flopped. He tossed the corpse aside, and sizzled the blood from his breastplate with a hissing heavenspell. “Four for me, two for you. Getting slow, old man?”

“Bite me, baby face.” Dashiel vanished his sword, a blue flash, and wiped blood from his eyes. “Jesus. Last month shambling corpses, this month hungry metrosexuals with bad teeth. What gives?”

“You know what.” Japheth flexed scorched palms. Already the wounds were healing. Angelflesh on demon always burned. He didn’t mind the pain. It meant he was doing heaven’s work.

And since he’d been Tainted—since Michael tore his soul from his body and banished him to this dirty, decadent earth, neither damned nor saved—he couldn’t afford to sin. Not if he ever wanted back into heaven.

“You really think these blood-munching idiots are another vial?” Dashiel laughed. “Isn’t it meant to be rivers of blood this time? These days everything’s a fucking sign. The wind blows the wrong way across Times Square and suddenly it’s the end of the world—”

“
‘They have shed the blood of saints and prophets, so you have given them blood to drink, for they deserve it,
’” quoted Japheth ironically. “It’s in the Book, right next to the rivers of blood. You really should read more, Dash. It’s kind of important.”

“I must be the prophet, then.” Dash grinned. “Because sure as hell’s a shithole, I ain’t no saint.”

“Isn’t that the truth.” Japheth hoisted a severed head to the light. Even dead, the thing’s hair sizzled in his fist. The corrupted stink assaulted him, that unmistakable mix of charcoal, rotting meat and shit. Moonlight glinted a gleeful hellcurse in its empty eyes.
Give me your soul, angel,
it seemed to cackle silently.
Die screaming. The world’s ours now.

Not on my watch, scumbreath.
He poked a stinging finger into its mouth. Its jaw gaped, blood and broken teeth. Sure was crowded in there. Curved canines and incisors, unnaturally long, with sharp serrated points. This thing wasn’t human, not anymore. “Look, it’s a new variant. Three rows of teeth. Brutal.”

Dash peered closer, wrinkling his nose. “Okay, that’s ugly. The curse must be mutating. Spreading, too. There’s more of ’em every week. Slimy shitballs are crawling from here to SoHo.”

Japheth tossed the reeking head away. “Well, whatever it is, we can still kill ’em. I call that good news.”

“You’ve got a one-track sense of fun, you know that?”

Japheth grinned, feral. “Whatever gets you through the night.”

“Bloodthirsty bastard.” Dashiel cracked his neck bones, tense, and flexed his glittery brown wings. “Fucking hellspawn. There goes my quiet evening.”

Japheth could hear Dash’s heartbeat, strong and swift, sparkling with heaven’s glory. Dash had issues with glory. Until he did something about it—likely, he’d find some willing woman and take it out on her—he’d have sweet-fire poison pumping in his veins, a raging headache, the hard-on from hell.

Japheth preferred to fight himself into exhaustion. It was safer that way…but he suppressed a dark twinge of envy. “Yeah, right. When’s the last time you spent the night alone?”

“When’s the last time you didn’t?”

Japheth smiled brightly. “Screw you.”

“Tricky, with the size of the stick up your ass.”

“Yet somehow you manage.” Japheth wiggled his little finger, smirking.

Dash snorted, shaking his dark head. “You know, I get your whole sinless, warrior-for-god, let-me-back-into-heaven kick? But it wouldn’t kill you to relax once in a while.”

“You sure about that?” Lust was a sin, even for a Tainted angel. He’d never win redemption that way. And besides, all that meaningless carnal pleasure was…sordid. Self-indulgent. His heart wasn’t in it. He had better outlets for heaven’s holy wrath than getting hot and breathless with a beautiful stranger.

Like slaughtering hellspawn. Killing was a sin, too. That was in the Book. But not when the monsters had already sold their souls to hell. That was mercy, or heaven-sweet vengeance. Either way, it was good.

He flexed fervent wings. He didn’t want to talk, or play heartless sex games. He just wanted to coat himself with demon-cursed blood, score a few more dead hellspawn for heaven. “Relax, yes. Sludge my wits with some dirty crap cooked up in a toilet bowl in Queens, and make a slut of myself with some woman I don’t care about? I’ll skip it, if it’s all the same to you.”

“Who said anything about sluts?” said Dash innocently. “Chicks dig that silent-warrior vibe of yours. Lots of them are perfectly nice girls—”

“Which is why they’re better off never knowing me.”

Dash tilted his gaze skywards. “He’s a killer, not a lover. I’m sorry, did I miss the chapter where it says ‘thou shalt be a frosty-assed son of a bitch’?”

“Yeah. It’s right under the part where it says ‘go forth and screw yourself into damnation.’ I think you stopped there.”

“Okay, fine, I give up,” Dash grumbled. “Your loss.” He rolled tight shoulders, and the golden snakecharm around his neck glinted in evil red moonlight. “This vampire thing is getting worse. I’ll run it by Mike, see what he wants to do.”

Japheth sweated, like he always did when he thought of Michael, who alone had the power to return him to heaven.
Once, he and the icy archangel had been close. Now? Not so much. “Because that worked so well last time,” he replied tightly. “We barely got out of the first two signs alive.”

Dash shrugged. “Above my pay scale, brother. Stopping this Apocalypse is Mike’s circus. Let him be ringmaster.”

“You’re gonna trust him? After he ordered me to kill you?” Sometimes, Michael tested him, to see how far he’d fallen. He still remembered how close he’d come, the fire licking his blade, the horrid compulsion to kill racing in his blood…

“Still alive, ain’t I?” Dash waved a careless hand. “Spit it or swallow it, Mike still owns our soulless asses. Does it piss me off? Every damn day. But what am I gonna do, get another job? Oh, wait, opportunities in the private sector for ‘kick-ass angel of death with no soul’ seem to have dried right up.” He dragged his long dark hair from its curled iron clip and refastened it. “So screw it,” he announced happily. “Let’s get drunk. You coming, or is that a daft question?”

“To a bar, with you and your hard-on? Let me think.”

“Suit yourself.” Dash clapped him on the shoulder, a gesture that never failed to irritate. “Happy killing. Watch out for the Angel Slayer.”

Some jerk-off in the West Village was killing angels. Almost a dozen in the past few weeks. Stabbing them through the heart with a demonblade and pissing off into the night like a mincing coward.

Hungry lightning crackled around Japheth’s sword grip. Bring it on. Just let the bastard try it. “Yeah. Right. The Angel Slayer better watch out for me.”

“Atta boy.” Dash winked, and flashed out.

Alone in the moonlight, Japheth ruffled clotted golden feathers. Thick summer heat slicked his skin. Flames flickered in an upstairs window. Shadows leapt. Smoke curled, gritty in his mouth. Gunfire cracked, and in the distance, a woman screamed.

He whispered an ancient prayer, and glory sparkled into his blood like frosty flame. His breath quickened as the rush hit him hard. His eyes watered. His muscles tightened, shuddered. Yeah. Pleasure, hunger, sweet desire—it was no contest.
His heavenly gifts hadn’t been taken from him, not in all these long years of being Tainted. But he knew the glory could desert him at any moment.

Better use it while it lasts.

He crouched, one hand braced on the pavement. His nerves glittered on a fighting edge, his senses razor sharp. No time to lose. Somewhere, demons plotted destruction. The Angel Slayer lurked in shadow. The street still reeked of hell-cursed vampire blood.

And Japheth of the Tainted was just in the mood for more.

CHAPTER 2

“Don’t squeal, godscum. Just die.”

Rose Harley twisted her demon-spelled knife deeper into the angel’s heart. Blood gushed, and her skin blistered with holy wrath.

How she loathed the self-righteous stench of heaven.

She drove the knife in harder. Angry red hellsparks crackled from her blade. The angel choked, his eyes blank, and stopped thrashing. Blood soaked his jeans, his shirt, his prissy white feathers.