Revelation (20 page)

They’d seen no higher-level demons, who according to Lune would look human. A few screeching wraiths, and a pack of scythe-clawed harpies that Luniel chased into the sky and dispatched without mercy. No clue to Quuzaat, if he even existed. No signs of any animal smugglers, biohazard containment failures or any other potential disease origin point. Just…dead things. Over and again, and endlessly.

“Need a rest?” Luniel crouched beside her, wings balancing, big thighs flexing in tight leather. Blood streaked his armor, his arms shiny with sweat and gore. His damp black hair fell in strands from its knot and stuck to his face, and he flashed his gaze left and right, up and back, ever vigilant. He took protecting her seriously. He never rested, never dropped his guard.

Never looked her in the eye. Icy, distant, like he did an unpleasant but necessary job.

A few hours earlier, she’d melted under his fiery kisses. Trembled with desire as he held her in his arms. Gasped with breathless pleasure from his smallest touch. He’d wanted her, too. She was sure of it. But now, he treated her like business, and unwanted business at that.

She straightened, determined. If that was the way he wanted it? Fine. Two could play. “No,” she replied, just as cold. “Do you?” And she pushed past him and crept around the corner.

The steps to the abandoned 110th Street subway station still had the light working, papers and rubbish blown against the green iron handrails. The subway hadn’t stopped here for a long time, and the station’s entrance was boarded up, though someone—mutie squatters?—had kicked a hole.

Against the fence, in piles of rotting paper, a woman huddled in a dusty black dress, clutching a child. Her hair was dusty but not tattered, her face streaked not with blood, but tears.

Morgan tapped Luniel’s arm, and pointed.
Clean
, she mouthed, careful not to scare this one. Maybe the woman could give them information. If the sight of Luniel didn’t freak the shit out of her first.

Luniel shrugged, keeping to the shadows.

She sheathed her buzzing knife. It didn’t want to go in, and she shoved a few times before it relented. She stepped carefully into the light, keeping her distance. “Hello?”

The woman’s head jerked around, and she grabbed the child close.

“Don’t be afraid. I’m a doctor. I won’t hurt you. Do you need help? Your child?”

The woman stared, tears welling. “Oh, thank you,” she prayed, fervent. “Thank you, thank you.” And she scrambled up, lifting the sleepy child. Her ponytail smeared dirt onto her shoulder. “I thought there weren’t no one left. Just me. They’re everywhere.”

Morgan edged closer, careful not to make sudden moves. She couldn’t see any wounds that needed treating. “Muties, you mean?”

“The sick ones. I hear ’em screaming, chasing each other. The street ain’t safe.”

“Listen, we’re gonna get you out of here, I promise. Have you seen an animal warehouse around here? A place where they keep pets, or livestock?”

The woman looked blank.

“How about a hospital that’s still operational? Or a biological waste station?”

“Huh? Oh, you mean like a big trash place? Where they got poison and stuff? Them yellow signs on the doors?” She hefted the child on her hip. Still it slept. “Yes, ma’am, I seen that.”

Morgan’s heart skipped. “Do you remember where?”

“Um. Sure. I think…down there.” She shuffled closer, and pointed over Morgan’s shoulder.

Morgan turned, and the woman laughed, an ugly, cunning sound. And her hot dry fingers fastened around Morgan’s neck.

Her pulse jerked, sparking her into action, and she kicked backwards, connecting with a sick crunch.

Hot toffee breeze whisked, and Luniel whirled in on midnight wings, dragging the woman off her. The child hit the ground with a wet thud, and slumped, empty eye sockets staring.

Already dead. Part of its torso and half its face were chewed off. The woman hadn’t been protecting it. She’d been eating it. Slowly. Saving some for later.

Morgan gaped, stunned. Freshly infected victims looked normal. Their brains still reasoned. And they were cunning about making new friends.

And now the poisoned thing snarled and scrambled up on all fours, and Morgan could see the fever shining in her eyes, her dark-stained teeth. The blood on her dress where she’d fed. Why had Morgan not noticed before? Too determined to stop killing and get information?

Or did she want so desperately to save just one, that she’d closed her eyes to the truth? Luniel said they couldn’t be saved. Maybe he was right.

Footsteps pattered on concrete, getting louder, and Luniel leapt backwards, shielding Morgan with his wings. She shook
herself. No time to analyze now. Not with a dozen other zombies—what else could she call them?—charging from the subway towards them. Dirty zombies, compared to the woman, their clothes torn, their arms and faces blackening with rot.

The crafty things had set a trap, and she’d fallen right in.

They hurtled up the steps, slavering with hunger.

Her blood burned, angry survival instincts kicking in. The knife sprung eagerly into her palm. The spelled metal buzzed hot, and it felt good.

Luniel leapt, diving over the zombies’ heads. He somersaulted behind them, his sword singing a blazing blue arc. Three heads toppled.

The others didn’t stop. They sprinted for her in a cloud of meaty stink. The leading one whooped with laughter, his handsome young face twisted. Morgan’s heart galloped. Her fingers closed around the glass jar in her pocket, and she yanked it out and hurled it, hard as she could.

It hit the lead zombie in the skull and smashed, holy water splashing free.

But it didn’t bubble. His face didn’t burn. No blue glow. The water just ran down his face to soak his dirty shirt.

Her guts hollowed cold. The zombie giggled and danced, flinging his arms wildly, and kept coming.

Shit. Should have known that religious crap couldn’t be trusted.

Morgan’s knife vibrated, glowing, hot and sticky with eagerness for the fight, and before she could think or prepare, the weapon flashed her arm out and struck.

The blade sank into the zombie’s belly.
So soft
, she thought, detached.
The flesh cuts so easily when it’s alive
. Blood gushed, lumpy with clotting flesh. The stink made her gag. The zombie made a sick sound, halfway between a gurgle and a shriek. Red spit erupted from his grin, and he slammed into her, knocking her off balance, clawing with sticky thumbs for her eyeballs.

Morgan shoved the knife in harder, but it didn’t stop him. She fought, evading his gnashing teeth by inches. A second zombie grabbed her arm, trying to bite. Another one clawed her hair. Morgan kicked and punched, fear setting her muscles alight.
This can’t be happening,
a quiet voice whispered in her head.
Eaten by zombies. What an unscientific way to die.

Glass shattered, and the zombies roared in agony and tumbled away.

Water splashed Morgan’s face. Glass shards stung. Dumbly, she wiped them off. The three zombies howled on the ground, clawing at their melting skin, which bubbled and spat like acid.

Holy water. Thrown by a hand more blessed than hers.

Luniel swooped low over the screaming zombies. The sigil burned into his palm glowed blue, and he hurled another bomb at the lead zombie from point-blank range. “Die, hellspawn,” he growled, and it sounded not like a regular epithet, but a curse.

The glass smashed into the zombie’s face, and the foul creature caught fire.

Like a petrol bomb, the fiery water licked and spread. Flames consumed the body, melting clothes and skin and flesh from bone, until the shrieking creature thrashed and lay still.

The other zombies who were still upright backed off, muttering around rotting fingers. Luniel lurched upwards and dived for them, sword slashing. One tumbled, sliced in half. The others turned and fled, their shambling legs crackling. Still lucid enough to care for their lives. But only just.

Morgan’s lungs heaved, searching for air. She fumbled for her
inhaler and sucked, grateful. Numb with dread, she made herself check for wounds. Nothing. She was uninfected. She wiped stinking spit from her face, trying to calm down. She didn’t think any had gotten in her mouth. Too damn late now if it had.

Luniel shook blood from his sword. One of the melting zombies groaned and flopped, and Lune broke its neck with a kick. The head rolled. “You okay?”

She shrugged, impatient. “How did you do that?”

“Like this?” He demonstrated another kick on the last zombie, and its skull flopped.

“You know what I mean. How’d you do it?”

“How did I what? Set some sick guy on fire with a glass of water? Or kill a hell-cursed man with a heaven-blessed bomb?” He laughed, dark. “You tell me, Dr. Sterling.” And he walked on.

Morgan’s throat tightened. If he were a con man or a charlatan, she knew, he’d have found some way to make it work for her. At least once. That was how these cult shysters operated. Like a pool shark. Give you a little, make you pay for a lot.

But she’d felt nothing when she threw that water. Not even an inkling. And then Luniel had set a man alight with it. It couldn’t be a trick. They’d filled those jars together. She knew they contained nothing but water from the baptistery.

Damn it. He wasn’t lying. Maybe the zombies really were hell-cursed. And if he wasn’t lying about that…what else had he done out of honesty and not deceit? Protecting her? Healing her?

Kissing her?

She shook her head to clear it. She had worse upheavals to deal with than a flash of irrational desire for a man—make that a smoldering, muscled-up demon-killing machine—whom she’d barely met. A weapon that only worked if you believed in it—
because
you believed in it—mocked everything she knew. Everything she’d based her life around.

But for a heady moment, she found herself wishing it were true.

A world where following your heart worked. Where trust paid off to the good, and what you wanted actually meant something.

How wonderful. How beautiful. And how stupidly cruel.

Luniel believed, and could call down the power of his convictions. She couldn’t deny that any longer. But for such a brave, faithful creature still to be headed for oblivion when the world ended…well, that just made her want to curse God all over again.

Maybe she just wasn’t cut out for faith. Did that make her damned?

Morgan sighed, and shouldered her rucksack, and followed Luniel into the shadows. It was a good sign, at least, that the holy water hadn’t burned
her
.

On the 108th Street corner, a screeching hell-thing hung from cruel talons on a streetlight, swinging its rotting moth wings and spitting vitriol. Across the street, the public school glared behind a tall iron fence under security lights. Garbage piled up against broken apartment buildings with the stink of rotting food, and in the gutter, demons like deformed children with shiny black skin and wire-brush hair played catch with a zombie corpse.

Luniel pushed Morgan back against a shadowy wall, and dimmed his sword’s light, hiding them. “Bonecrushers,” he whispered. “Evil little fuckers. Watch the teeth.”

One cackled, its beady red eyes shining with glee, and hurled the naked corpse by one of its arms. It spun, flailing, and the arm tore off. To Morgan’s horror, it moaned. Still alive.

Another bonecrusher scuttled forward to catch it. The skull smacked into the pavement, and the bonecrusher munched into its torso with long saber teeth, ripping off a meaty chunk. The zombie groaned, and stopped moving. The demon dug in with delight, flesh smearing its ugly black face, and the other two bonecrushers scuttled up and beat their friend over the head with their fists before chewing the corpse limb from limb.

Morgan shuddered at the crunch of bone. “Won’t they be infected? I mean, doesn’t the curse affect them?”

Lune shook his head. “A hellcurse is of their essence. Feeding on it strengthens them. Why do you think the place is crawling with hellspawn? It’s dinnertime. And besides, they all want in good with the big man.”

“Quuzaat.” The name felt different in her mouth, now. Not
just a delusion. A real, living enemy. And deep inside her, loathing stirred, warm like a slug. Hating a disease was pointless. Hating a demon felt…necessary, and powerful. Like meeting the enemy on his own turf.

“Yeah.” Luniel’s blue gaze warmed. “You a believer yet?”

Wordlessly, she unshouldered the sack of water bombs and handed it to him.

He took it, dark.

She sighed. “I’m trying, Luniel. I really am. I just—”

“I know. For what it’s worth, you’re doing great.” He coughed, that gruff line he always took when he’d said something nice and was trying to restore his tough-guy aura. “Plenty of people fall apart. I’ve seen angels hit the dirt with poorer grace than you.”

Her eyes burned, and she blinked cruelly. No, she wouldn’t accept sympathy. He wasn’t the only one with a tough shell. “Maybe this is me falling apart,” she joked.

“Yeah? Heaven keep me from you on a good day, then.”

She flushed, and it maddened her. When had she started caring what he thought of her? Impressing him shouldn’t be high on her list of motivations for getting on with it.

But the smoldering embers in his gaze felt good.

She snorted, covering her awkwardness. “Yeah, well. I’m no Virgin Mary, okay, so don’t expect me to take it lying down.”

“No lying down involved with her. That was kind of the point.”

She giggled, tension easing. “You allowed to make jokes about that kind of stuff?”

“What they gonna do, ground me again? Anyway, all Gabriel told Maria was ‘your kid’s gonna be a star.’ He left out all the gory parts. She had nothing to complain about.”

Morgan paused. Maybe it was a fairy tale. Maybe not. Tonight, she was open to anything. “That was kind of mean, wasn’t it? Keeping the truth from her?”

“Company policy. Need-to-know basis. Only the boss has all the answers.”

“Sounds like a dictatorship.”

He looked at her like she’d spoken gibberish. “This is God we’re talking about. It’s not a whim. It’s the price of free will. Would you fight on, if you knew how it all ended?”