Redemption (A NOVEL OF THE SEVEN SIGNS) (31 page)

CHAPTER 27

Japheth flashed out his sword, a blinding blue blaze, and prayed holy fire.

Wind sucked along the ground towards him, and around him, a six-foot sphere erupted into flame.

A shimmering blue shockwave of wrath boomed outwards. The hell-spelled air boiled in fury. And twelve vampires screamed, flesh melting from bones.

He exploded into action.

Nine seconds to slash off their heads. Swift, precise, calculated to the last slice.

He landed in a mess of blood. His fireball dissipated, eaten by furious hellspells. He whirled, the breeze snapping his bloodstained hair back, and dived down the terrace steps into blackness.

Hell.

Sightless, oppressive heat. Only the stink and the screams of damned creatures to guide his way. He lit his angelsight, a rich cordite flare, but the smoking hellspells blinded him.

Shit
. His wing glow smothered under wailing black shadows. Vampires screeched and chewed at his legs, gripping
with unearthly strength. He stabbed, slashed off limbs, broke bones and necks.

One jumped on his back, hacking at the roots of his feathers with something sharp and jagged. His blood splurted. Crap, that hurt. Disoriented, he crashed into a pile of corpses. They flopped, stinking, and he tumbled face-first into a heap of rotting flesh.

Ew.
He spat, acidic. The vampire on his back fell with him, and he flipped to his feet in the dark, jammed one boot on the thing’s scrawny throat by pure instinct, and stabbed his blade through its heart.

It screamed, and gnashed its fangs, and died.

Fresh glory flamed in his blood, and he fought on.

Was it a minute, an hour before he cleared the terrace? He didn’t know. He knew only muscles flexing, heart pumping, feathers sweeping and slicing. His sword sang sweet death, a malicious melody that crooned in his veins like a lover’s sigh.

Bodies fell. Bones crunched. Screams shimmered, and he sliced them off, delicate and precise. Blood splashed in his eyes, and he sizzled it away. His fingers ached on the sword’s sticky grip. But finally, light spilled into his world.

He blinked, adjusting swiftly. The bonfire glared balefully from above the terrace’s seven archways.
One for each perverted sign. Poetic.

Catching his breath, he stepped out onto slippery tiles. The thickening stink watered his eyes. What was that bubbling sound? Thick, claggy like the
pop!
of boiling mud in a geyser…

The flames roared higher in sick triumph, illuminating Bethesda Fountain.

The wide round pool overflowed with blood. It slopped over the edge onto the tiles. Around the marble rim, lotus flowers rotted black.

He edged closer. Vampires splashed and glutted themselves in the pool. One girl squatted in her torn dress, dipping her face in the blood, gulping it in. She spewed up a clot of black strings, torn flesh. It splashed into the pool and sank, and she kept right on drinking.

Japheth swallowed, sour. Yeah, that was about the grossest
thing he’d ever seen. But something was strange. These creatures hadn’t filled the pool with their dying victims’ blood. It was pouring from the central bronze basin, where the statue of the angel stood.

Pumping up from the fountain’s pipes.

He stared.
Angel of the Waters
, she was called, long robes flapping in imaginary breeze, wings flared back. Named for the holy healing waters of Bethesda. It was in the Book.
An angel went down and troubled the water
, it said,
and whosoever stepped in was healed
…

Now, the bronze angel was stained with gore, a cruel thorny crown jammed around her forehead, and…

Atop her head sat the demon. Perched on his pointy butt, swinging his legs. He wore a tailcoat and a dented top hat, and he sang at the top of his voice, some vile hell-twisted language that spidered Japheth’s skin cold.

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

Fluvium had cursed the water supply. Tipped in his vial of perverted wrath and poisoned the mains with the vampire curse. And the stench of hellmagic was overpowering. It scratched with acid-drenched claws, a living thing trying to peel layers from his skin and devour them.

This curse was one kick-ass son of a bitch.

Japheth shuddered, sick. Any human who drank this water—who tasted even a single drop by mistake—would become vampire.

*   *   *

Rose crouched in the bushes, wreathed in sultry vampire shadows. It had taken her nearly half an hour to climb from Japheth’s window, break out of the adjacent apartment, and run down here. She hoped she wasn’t too late.

Screams tore the air, the ragged sounds of death and splitting flesh. Beneath the terrace, the darkness lit with electric blue flashes. Japheth was killing vampires.

The slaughter raked her nerves, iron claws on glass. So much killing. So many human lives, wasted.

I’m so sick of all this death.

Surprise glimmered warm at the thought. She enjoyed her powers. Relished her unholy vengeance. She’d thought she’d never get enough, never kill or maim or destroy enough to make up for what had happened to her. But now…

Cautiously, she peered out. A huge bonfire roared on the terrace, leaping dozens of feet skywards in a monstrous plume of smoke. Even from thirty yards away, black grit crunched her throat sour.

But the stink of blood was worse. It splurted from the fountain, down the angel statue, into the pool and over the sides. The vampires slopped in it up to their ankles. Some of them rolled in it, licking the tiles…and atop the bronze angel, the demon swung his legs, and sang his hell-weird song, and laughed.

I’m one of these monsters.
Rose’s guts wrenched, and she vomited into the dirt. Her eyes poured, burning. She wiped her mouth. A reddish stain soaked the earth, her most recent meal, and it made her retch again.
I belong with them
…

But all that blood in the fountain didn’t make her hungry.

What they were doing wasn’t hunger, it was madness. Sick satisfaction in others’ suffering. And she wanted no part of it. Not now. Not ever.

But she watched Japheth explode from beneath the terrace, a ball of spitting blue flame, and her guts twisted. If Fluvium killed Japheth, she’d have failed. She’d be in hell the instant that demon moon swelled full. And if Japheth killed Fluvium—it seemed frighteningly possible—then…what?

She’d still be cursed, her sins unforgiven.

Japheth had promised not to kill her. And so far, he’d kept his word to the letter. But what did she have to look forward to? Hell? Oblivion? Endless nights of this bloody torment, again and forever until the End?

Either way, she was screwed.

But the prospect of hell still fired cold bullets of terror into her heart. Pain unending, skin peeling back, acid teeth gnawing eternally at her joints. And Bridie, screaming at her, hacking at her heart with tiny claws,
You killed me, Auntie Rosie, I’m in hell and it’s all your fault
…

She steeled herself, polishing her hatred afresh. Forgiveness
was a sick joke. Her sins were irredeemable. Japheth had to die. She’d force her cursed blood down his throat if she had to. At least then, she’d know what was in store for her. One more month away from Bridie’s accusing eyes. For that, she’d…

Rose swallowed. For that, she’d do anything.

Even send this beautiful angel to hell?

She crept from the bushes. Her thighs creaked, tense. Sweat dripped between her breasts, soaking her new t-shirt. Where was all his so-called compassion when God cursed her?
Too little, too late, angel. You lost this game. I’m damned, and it’s forever.

She padded down the grassy slope towards the fountain. On her left, the firelit terrace loomed. Vampires pranced and giggled among piles of corpses. They groped each other, kissing, biting, coupling frantically. They seemed madly delighted to have a vengeful angel in their midst, and they pointed and screeched with unholy laughter. One guy was jerking off, concentrating furiously, scraping up handfuls of clotting blood to lubricate himself.

Rose swallowed bile. She’d seen worse, in Caliban’s filthy coven. At least the guy wasn’t doing a dead body…
oh, Jesus.
She retched again, guts aching.
Ew. Don’t look, Rose. Just keep your eyes on the demon.

She crept closer, beside the sloping wall. Onto the gore-stained paving. The fire’s roaring heat roasted the tiny hairs from her cheeks.

“Maah!”

A little vampire boy pointed at her, banging a chewed human bone on the ground. His belly was swollen, and tiny fangs sliced his lips. “Maah!” he yelled into the din, and smacked at her legs with his bone. “Wa-maa-
maaah
!”

Fuck.
He’d give her away. She’d have to…

Her heart hollowed cold. He was just a baby. Too young to understand what she was, to know what the angel’s mark meant. He only knew she was strange, upsetting, not like the others.

God have mercy, he was only two or three. Was he really bound for hell?

Bridie’s in hell.
The demon’s voice crept stealthily into her heart.
Oh, yes, Rose, she surely is. Screaming and bleeding and suffering in hell, forever and always. You sent her there. Why not this one? Kill him, and get on with it.

Trembling, Rose lifted a finger to her lips, and widened her eyes at the boy, like it was a game. “Shh…”

The cursed boy grinned back. “Shh,” he agreed happily, and stuffed the bone’s end back into his mouth.

Her pulse racing, she crept silently on.

A few feet away, Japheth shook blood from his hair, breathing hard. She crouched by the cloistered arches, wreathed in shadow. He’d taken some hits. His smooth skin was clawed and bitten. Blue glitter rained, and his wounds healed, his magical angelflesh doing its blessed work.

He flared his blue sword brighter. “Get your ugly butt down here, Fluvium, and let’s get this over with. Don’t make me come up there.”

Rose’s throat clenched hard. He was brave. Determined. Uncompromising. All the things she admired in a warrior. But it didn’t matter. Not when hell awaited her.

She had to be there when he fell. Overpower him herself. Then, maybe, Fluvium would let her have him, and she’d win her respite.

The betrayal stung bitter in her mouth. But she had no choice. Jump out, flatten him, pin those handsome golden wings to the ground… She crouched, heart thumping, poised to attack.

The moon lurched through a break in the clouds, huge and bloated like a bloody midnight sun.

The vampires howled as one, an insane wolf pack keening for prey. The sound tore strips from Rose’s soul. Not quite full, that gore-soaked moon. Just a sliver away from brimming with demonic power.

But Japheth staggered, thrown off balance. He shielded his eyes, flashing his blade up to defend against the piercing hell-cursed glare.

The demon just cackled, and jumped. He landed like a cat, on all fours on the slick tiles. Beneath his tailcoat, he wore demon armor, a suit of studded black leather. A spiked leather
collar was tucked around his throat, and his long hair stuck to his cheeks in bloody crimson ringlets.

The blood sloughed aside as he wiped the knots back…but the hair underneath was crimson, too.

Not midnight purple. Red.

Rose stared, chilled. Red hair. Pointy face, sharp little chin, eyes black as hellshadow.

“Oh, this is fucking priceless.” Zuul giggled, black eyes alight with glee. He doffed his top hat, ironic, and frisbeed it away. “Are you looking for the Prince of Thirst? Too late, Blondie. Job’s all done.”

Jesus Christ in a pumpkin pie. We’re screwed.

CHAPTER 28