Redemption (A NOVEL OF THE SEVEN SIGNS) (23 page)

“The hell you will.” Rose folded her arms over her wet t-shirt. Holy Jesus. Like a second skin, licking every gorgeous curve…

“Just stay here, okay? I need to clean up your mess. There’s a bleeding body out there, in case you’ve forgotten.” Cruelty stung his words. Like she’d forget that, the way she’d growled and moaned and sucked blood from that body like a monster…

Hurt flashed in her eyes. It didn’t make him feel better. “Fine,” she snapped. “Whatever. Just don’t expect me to be here when you get back.”

“Oh, I think you will be. The locks are formidable. And we’re on the twentieth floor. Unless you can fly…”

She scowled, but she had to know it was true. “Screw you, angel.”

He smiled, sharp. “I state a fact, you tell me to go fuck myself. Looks like we’ve returned to normality.”

“How nice.”

“Not a moment too soon.”

“Suits me.” She narrowed her eyes at him, mocking.

“Fine.”

“Whatever.”

God, he wanted to smack her smug face off. Or kiss her mouth until it bruised.

He flung up his hands in mock surrender, and stalked to the bed. His body still quivered, feathers and muscle and bone. She’d see it, laugh at him, make some snarky comment and he’d leap over there and strangle the bitch, like he should’ve done the first moment he saw her…

First things first. He needed to change. He shouldn’t go out
covered in blood…but he kept his clothes here, in the bedroom. And the idea of stripping off in front of
her
…

His courage quailed, courage that had stood firm on a thousand battlefields. He clenched his fists, rolled his neck, popped a few taut vertebrae. It didn’t help. Inwardly, he growled, frustrated. “Do you mind?”

“What?”

He made a turning-about motion with one finger.

She laughed. “What are you, shy? I’ve seen it all before and better, hero.”

“Then it won’t matter if you don’t look, will it?”

“Jesus, you really are the Virgin frickin’ Mary.” But she did turn away. Lounging on one foot, like she couldn’t care less. Damn her.

He vanished his wings with a red-sparkled snap, and swiftly as he could—his fingers seemed to have thickened and gotten clumsy while he wasn’t watching—unbuckled his armor and shucked off his filthy shirt.

She wasn’t watching him. He knew that, right? She wouldn’t sneak a peek. But he could still feel her gaze on him, sizing him up, drizzling liquid lust over his skin like warm oil…

Uh-huh.
His pulse raced. He didn’t dare glance around. Did she like what she saw? Did he turn her on, the way she did him? It sure seemed like it, the way she’d rubbed herself against him a minute ago. The way her lips eased apart, tilting up breathlessly for his kiss…

Or all just a vampire’s lie?

He unclipped his boots, kicked them off. As he unbuttoned his trousers, his cock strained towards his fingers, aching for sensation. Sweat popped on his skin. He’d never so badly wanted to touch himself. Thrust himself into his fist and put an end to this hell-cursed need…but release was self-indulgent, the easy way out. He would endure. And besides,
she
was watching. Not cool.

Not cool at all.

He found some fresh trousers in the drawer and pulled them on. Shit, he nearly couldn’t button them, he was so hard,
and the tight leather squashed him uncomfortably. He reclipped his boots, yanked on a black t-shirt and flashed his wings back in.

His feathers ruffled and settled. They still had blood in them. So did his hair. The healing magic burned the cursed mess off, of course, but only to a certain extent. He could really use a shower.

Yeah. With
her
standing there? Not in a thousand years.

Without looking at her—and certain her eyes were fixed on him, laughing—he strode out into the living room. Daylight angled in, slanting shadows over the gore-stained floor, the body, the mess of blood on his sofa. He flung the corpse over his shoulder, and flashed out.

*   *   *

His boots thudded down in a burned-out crater in Harlem. Smoke twisted like black demonwisps, crawling over the charred remains of buildings. The broken shells of apartments hunched like old men over the melted concrete sidewalk. Early-morning shadows crawled long, stretched by the wind that fingered his damp hair.

Eerie silence. Just the crackle of burning rubble.

He slung the corpse to the ground. It twitched, and its chest convulsed, trying to breathe.

Dude wasn’t dead.
Great. What am I supposed to do with him now?

He lifted the guy by the hair, and cold reason jumpstarted his brain. Maybe because he was away from
her
, his mind functioning without any help from his hard-on. His choices glinted, crystalline.
Let him suffer? Or put him down?

This human had sustained deep vampire bites. He’d soon be insane, dead and in hell, or infected with the curse. Add to that, the evil raping prick was already crazy as a shit-house rat… Japheth didn’t like what might happen when he woke up and realized what he was. The things his new powers could do.

You fuck him up good, hear me?
That abused girl’s voice resounded in his head, and he wrapped one hand under the human’s chin and
crunch!
snapped its bleeding neck.

Consider yourself fucked up good, asshole.
He dropped
the body in a pile of ash and splintered steel. It slumped, already blank-faced in death…

Warning spidered over the back of his neck.

He whirled, feathers crackling. Nothing. No movement in the sharp early shadows…but his nose twitched. Honeyscent. The cloying sweetness of heaven.

He flashed his sword, ribbons of blue flame. “Show yourself, soldier.”

Gravel crunched, and from behind a broken brick wall swooped a shining copper-winged angel.

She landed gracefully, and folded shimmering wings with a haughty snap. Flawless dark skin, smooth cheeks, her cocoa-brown hair clipped neatly back. She wore a spotless gray suit, and she halted three feet away and aimed her delicate curved sword at his throat.

But Japheth barely registered any of it.

He saw only disdainful eyes, the deep brown of a woodland pool. Beautiful, the way an angel should be. Her coppery feathers pristine, glowing, alight with holy fervor.

The way he’d once been, when they’d lain side-by-side on that starlit beach long ago.

He tried to talk, but his tongue thickened, useless. “Esther. Uh…what a surprise.”

His thoughts twisted, diving deeper into blackness. He’d once been like her. And now here he was, dumping a corpse. A vampire’s half-dead prey. With that vampire’s almost-kiss still burning on his lips.

Give yourself a break,
his inner demon argued.
She hasn’t spent the last fourteen hundred years greasing around in the dirt down here. Easy to be sinless, when you live in heaven.

But the empty hollow where his soul once lived cried out in forgotten agony. Could he ever go back? Did he even belong there?

His bones shivered. He knew the rules. Knew what was right and what was sinful. But his treacherous heart whispered otherwise, luring him to evil…and he’d followed it.

For the first time in centuries, the crippling doubt surged full strength, drowning his faith on an ugly tide.
What the hell were you thinking, Jae? You’ll never win redemption. You’re evil, pure and poisonous. You lie, you murder, you’re a slave to your lust, and what’s worse? You’re too damn proud to admit you’re a sinner. Michael cast you down because you deserved it. Your stink corrupted that hallowed garden. You don’t belong there. You never did.

You belong in hell.

“Japheth.” Esther eyed his pet corpse, her pretty mouth curling. “What in heaven’s name are you doing?”

Anyone could see the corpse was vampire prey. Torn throat, pale bloodless skin. His guts heated, scolding. Memories of that awful day centuries ago ate at him like hungry worms. Esther’s disdain, the first hot slither of her hatred, the hollow cracking pain in his chest that could only have been his heart…

“Nothing,” he said roughly. “Cleaning up a mess. Did he send you to check up on me?” That’d be just Michael’s style.

Esther crouched to examine the body. Dust kicked up beneath her wings. She wrinkled her nose. “Vampire bites. Honestly. Do you have to wallow in the shit you’ve dropped yourself in?”

“Wow. Great to see you, too. Michael’s manners are rubbing off on you.” Probably, the archangel was screwing her. Michael screwed all his minions at some time or another. Strangely, the idea didn’t hurt. But still his heart stung raw, like she’d torn the skin off and rubbed it in salt.

Wallowing in it was exactly what he’d done.

He’d lied. Tortured, killed for revenge. Indulged his lust. Rubbed himself on a hungry vampire, slimed in her victim’s blood…and come a devil’s sly whisper from
forgiving
her.

“Shall I tell him you’ve gone completely insane?” Esther dusted her hands clean, and raised her sword again. “Or are you going to tell me what you’re doing with a vampire’s leftovers?”

He vanished his sword with an angry blue crackle. “None of your damn business. Done sneering at me, or is there a point?”

Esther didn’t disarm. She just studied him coolly, and flicked the tip of her blade. A lock of his hair sliced free. “My, my. Is that blood in your hair?”

“There’d be blood in yours, too, if you ever did anything useful.” His stomach sickened, cold. He didn’t remember her like this. In his dreams, she’d been warm, laughing, starry-eyed. Not this proud statue.

But he hadn’t dreamed about Esther for a long time. She’d faded from his memory, like everything else in heaven. Pale, empty, a ghost bereft of substance.

Unbidden, an image of Rose Harley burned into his mind. Rose certainly wasn’t pale. No, she bled color, excitement, rage, dark-sweet delight. She wasn’t afraid to feel…

“Oh, I don’t think that’s demon blood, Japheth. Any more than I think you’re just cleaning up a mess.” Esther propped one spotless hand on her hip, and bit her lip, thoughtful.

He remembered that gesture. It used to make him smile. Hell, he used to make
her
smile. Both so bloody innocent, convinced they’d live forever. That heaven would go on, and on, and nothing would ever change.

Well, now he knew better.

The world wasn’t perfect. Everything changed eventually. And no one—not him, not Esther, not even Michael—lived forever. Not if this Demon King and his crazy-ass disciples had their way.

Crap, he didn’t have time for this. Plans to make, demons to hunt. And Rose still needed him. “Look, this is real nice and all, but…”

“Don’t play innocent.” Esther’s laugh clanged like cracked glass bells, off-key. “I saw you.”

“Come again?”

“You really should draw the curtains when you have your little demonspawn girlfriends over.” Her brown eyes gloated, bitter and bright. “Anyone might see in.”

He flushed, mortified. She’d tell Michael the whole sordid story. As if he didn’t have enough problems right now.

He strode closer, challenging her. “And what did you see, Esther? Go on, let me have it. Or are you so damned perfect that you don’t know the words?”

Her pretty lips tightened. “It was disgusting. How far you’ve sunk.”

His guts bruised inside, like she’d punched him. He
laughed. “Why do you hate me so much? I never hurt you. I never asked you for anything. We used to be friends. What changed?”

“You deceived me!” Flame glittered on her coppery wings, red and green.

“That’s ridiculous.” His head swam, confused. He didn’t remember. What foul sins was he guilty of now?

“I trusted you! You pretended to be good, but you lied, Japheth, Michael cast you down. He’s never wrong.”

“But I didn’t…” He bit his tongue, cutting off the denial. Excuses were useless. What was done was done.

Esther’s lovely eyes brimmed. “They’re not complicated rules. You do as you’re told, you don’t make mistakes. It’s not supposed to be a trick!”

“The rules.” Christ, he was shaking again. The orders he’d believed in since he was made. The ones he’d unknowingly broken.

The rules that said Rose Harley was irredeemable.

“Yes!” Esther hissed. “The rules. Made by
God
.”

Her blind innocence jabbed spikes under his skin. “I asked Him, you know that? The day I was Tainted. I begged Him to show me how I could atone for my sins. You know what He said?”

Esther twisted her mouth, silent.

“Nothing,” Japheth said stonily. “Not a damn thing. It looks pretty simple, doesn’t it, from where you stand? Where everything’s clean and tidy? Well, I’m alone here, Esther. I’m figuring it out as best I can. Think about that, the next time Michael hands you your morals on a plate.” And he turned aside, icing his anger clear.

But Esther tossed her haughty chin. “I don’t know, Jae. Not screwing a vampire slut seems pretty simple to me.”

He arced back to her, burning. “Don’t judge me. You know nothing about what it’s like…”

His throat corked shut.
You weren’t there,
Rose had said.
You don’t know anything about me
…

A sick ache hammered between his eyes. That was different. Wasn’t it?

But he couldn’t defeat the truth. Heaven was a blur, a
shadow. A picture he’d kept for so long, all the colors had faded to gray. Earth was the real world now, hot and bloody, sparkling with ecstasy and excruciations and heart-wrenching emotion.

God, it was terrifying. All that
feeling
. He’d run scared from it for as long as he could remember.

But he’d never felt more alive. Never closer to the edge. And he’d sacrifice all that…for what?

To be like Esther? Mind shuttered? Eyes blinkered, seeing only what she wanted to see? Or was that just the demon in him, whispering foul lies? Worse still, his own wretched black heart?

Esther was right. He was lost. Corrupted. Evil inside…

Sparks showered from his feathers, and with a gut-wrenching screech, his rage exploded.

The ground shuddered. Thunder rolled, black and threatening. Wind whipped his hair back, his muscles swelling so tight it hurt. Corrupted scarlet fire blazed behind his eyelids, and he struggled to hold it in. Oh, Lord. He wanted to howl, pour his living fury into the air, ignite it and destroy everything in his path…