Revelation (43 page)

“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 iron-curled 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, irritatingly. “Happy killing. Watch out for the Angel Slayer.”

“Yeah. Right.” 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. “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 flames. 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.

“Don’t squeal, godscum. Just die.”

Rose Harley twisted her demon-spelled knife deeper into the angel’s heart. Hot blood gushed, painting her crimson to the wrists, and her skin blistered foul with holy wrath.

Fuck, she hated 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.

Dead. Skewered on demonsteel. Meat for the rats.

Good fucking riddance.

Rose ripped her knife free, satisfied. The fourth she’d lured to his end this week. Stupid thing wasn’t even smart enough to come to the Village in full armor.

The angel’s corpse slumped to the pavement, face first, a pile of limbs and bloody feathers. At the smell of his cooling flesh, Rose’s guts rumbled. Her wicked fangs pressed hungrily at her lips. She hadn’t fed in too long. But angel’s blood was poison to a vampire. She’d have to wait.

She yanked a bloodstained white feather from his wing and jabbed it into her braid with the others. Her hair singed in protest, but only weakly. The dead angel’s glory was already
fading. Idiot flyboys. Always so superior, with their false tales of salvation.

But the Apocalypse was happening. The End was now. It was too damn late to be saved.

Rose jammed her knife away in its thigh holster, spat on the corpse with a blistering curse and stalked away into the dark.

The street glittered like evil rubies in her vampire night-sight. Dark doorways, glinting barred windows, neon signs flashing, broken. A fragrant vine brushed her damp face as she turned the corner. Deserted, shadows dancing like ghosts. Firelight flickered, crackling an eerie melody, and heat hung thick and gritty. Like half of the West Village, this place was burning.

Good riddance to that, too.

Her sturdy bootheels clunked on the broken sidewalk. She didn’t bother to mask the sound. Sure, she was being hunted. She’d refused allegiance to the West Village vampire coven master—what a whack-job he was, with his barbed-wire piercings and sadistic pleasure games—which made her fair game for his most devoted minions. But the night was hers now, humming in her blood, licking her muscles to tingling strength.

Bad luck for any dumb-ass creature who tried to jump her.

She wiped bloody hands on her jeans, wincing as the burns scraped raw. Angel on demonspawn always burned. No matter. It’d heal overnight, slowly, but still faster than a human. Hell possessed vast power, and now it was at her fingertips. All you had to do was surrender to the dark.

She flexed her strong thighs, and grinned. All those hard years of dance rehearsal—in her previous life, and how long ago that seemed—had made her flexible, agile, stronger than she looked. Now, she was lethal. She was Chosen, the first rank of vampires, made not by fleeting infection from another vampire, but by the demon Prince of Thirst himself.

It felt damn good to be powerful.

But the hour grew late. Again her belly growled, reminding her what she needed. Demon-haunted moonlight cast reddish shadows from quiet brick apartments. Smoke drifted, the crackle of flames from an upstairs window. A cat scampered across her path, twitching its black tail.

She searched the sky warily for dawn’s pale tinge. Nothing
yet. Sunlight didn’t burn her, or any Count Dracula shit like that. But it itched, deep inside where the demon’s curse coiled and muttered like a hungry slug. Morning stung her eyes, made her achy and weak, like a flu. And it’d only get worse, the longer she lived with the curse.

On Greenwich Avenue, lamps cast bright halos over empty shops and cafes. Village Square lay deserted, eerie, lit orange by a burning pile of garbage. She crossed over to Ninth Street. No sensible human walked abroad at night in the West Village, not since the vampires moved in. But the neighborhood rustled and murmured, unseen, every sound distinct in Rose’s preternatural ears. Late-night traffic from Sixth Avenue, thumping car stereos, a siren’s distant wail. Whispers from locked apartments, sobbing, sighs of despair or pleasure. Stinging sweat, pain’s bright static, the hot poison tang of a kiss.

Terrifying, when first she’d been made, the cacophony of human existence. Now, her rich senses exhilarated her.

Sweat trickled in her hair, and she swiped it away. Sultry summer closed in around her, the sickly stench of blood and angel sweat still strong…and her stomach still grumbled, demanding. She needed to feed.

Her throat tightened, reluctant. Killing angels was one thing, those princes of bullshit and false promises. They deserved it.

Feeding on people was another thing entirely. She’d have to crunch her jagged teeth on flesh, feel the liquid fire splashing into her mouth, down her throat, the rich salty tang of human terror…

She shivered. The first time she’d fed, weeks ago, she’d gagged it right back up, disgusted and turned on at the same time. She was clumsy, newly made, and the guy had died, of course. Just a skinny kid wearing eyeliner and bruises, desperate for cash. He hadn’t deserved the dumb lonely death of prey…

But it wasn’t the boy’s tears that sickened her the most. Not even her guilty flush of pleasure.

It was the banality. So easy, to drain him dry. Life was such a stupid, fleeting thing. Fire had thundered in her veins, triumph, exultation. Her first kill.

Actually, no. Her second…

Horrid images raped her, stark and flash-lit like crime-scene tableaux. The night she was made, a ravenous fever-drenched
nightmare. Twisted wet sheets on the bed, a gore-streaked teddy bear, a wet blond hank torn out by the roots…

Rose swallowed, sweating. That night, the demon prince’s curse had made her a monster. She’d screamed aloud to heaven, begging for absolution. Just one mistake. One little mistake, and now Bridie was gone forever. Brown-eyed Bridie, six years old, who liked applecakes and hide-and-seek. Who called her Auntie Rosie, and had mostly (but not altogether) stopped asking when Mommy was coming home.

But silence had greeted Rose’s prayer.

Silence, and dark eternity as a demon’s slave. Never be free. Never enjoy the sun. Never sate this terrible thirst…

Defiance burned like poison in Rose’s hell-cursed heart. Praying was useless. There were no second chances. Heaven had abandoned her. And she’d spend the rest of her days seeking retribution.

“Angel Slayer
,” they called her on the online news feeds. Her tally had reached twelve. She wore the bloodstained feathers in her hair to prove it. And she’d keep right on slaying till the slaying was done…

Her ears pricked.

Footsteps. Just around the corner. Sure and almost silent.

She paused, beyond the streetlamp’s dim halo. Listened harder. Light breathing, the spritz of male sweat…and blood.

Fresh, coppery, delicious, disgusting blood.

Her mouth watered. Prey. A human, abroad late at night in the Village, alone…

The dry stink of altar smoke made her gag. Ew. How had she missed it? Feathers zapping electric, bright steel like salt, the ozone tang of heavenspells.

Angel.

She laughed quietly.
Must be my lucky night.

But this one smelled different. She inhaled deeper. Mmm. Sweeter, somehow. Fresher, the reek of heaven worn thin. Almost…human.

Her fangs crunched out, famished. She snarled, and forced them back in. Drinking angel blood was like swallowing acid. She’d tried it in ignorance, when she first slew an angel, and it blistered her mouth raw. A demon’s curse and an angel’s filthy glory didn’t mix.

But
this
angel’s glory sure smelled good.

The footsteps whispered closer. Rose murmured a poisoned wish, and around her, the darkness thickened. Warm shadows wrapped her body, caressing her. She crouched, thighs tingling. Two in one night. All the better. She’d stab this prince of bullshit through his lying heart and watch him die.

And tomorrow, she’d hunt down another. And another. And more, until her thirst for retribution was satisfied—and she knew with hell-black certainty that no matter how many she killed, it’d never be enough.

Before the curse, like any ignorant beast, she’d pondered the meaning of life. Whether she had a higher purpose. If there really was a god.

Now, she knew.

Her sins would never be forgiven. Her life meant less than nothing. And her purpose was to kill every lying, self-righteous asshole of an angel she could find.

Because God was real, all right. And He loathed her.

Japheth paused, feathers twitching.

There it was again. The faint reek of demon corruption…but with the added coppery stench of stale human blood.

Vampires. Maybe the Angel Slayer.

Cold satisfaction tingled his tongue. The shadowy vigilante had killed eleven, that they knew of, and Michael was pissed. Everyone was pissed, even the Tainted Host. The word was that the Slayer must be a higher-level demon, maybe even a new prince.

Japheth wiped sweat from his eyes. Demon, hell. Sure, the Slayer was inhumanly strong. But it wasn’t a demon’s style. Demons were like terrorists. They gloated. Wanted everyone to know who was responsible for their dirty deeds. They valued infamy over life, a twisted breed of courage.

This craven Slayer just stabbed you in the heart and flitted off into the dark. Japheth’s mouth soured. A killer with no principles, just random malice. Worse: A coward.

Yeah, the Angel Slayer was definitely on Japheth’s list.

But a few more vampires? They’d do sweetly.

He inhaled, relishing the power flooding his body. Since he’d been cast to earth, black rage frosted inside him, a monster who
hungered to devour every hot, sweet, aching thing it couldn’t have…and only the blood of the damned could satisfy it.

Only killing hellspawn sprang the glory alive. A hot, sweet rush, better than sex or uneasy chemical oblivion. It reminded him there was a heaven, and that one day he’d go back there.

Keep it frosty, angel.
Michael’s advice, from some ancient battlefield before Japheth fell.
Save your hard-on for the enemy. They’re sure as shit saving theirs for us.

But it was more than that. Japheth was Tainted, banished to earth with his soul held to ransom. Just one stumble away from hell. If he screwed up again, he’d never be redeemed.

And unlike Dashiel, Japheth hadn’t given up on redemption. To bask in heaven’s liquid golden sunlight again, away from the ugly temptation of earthly things…

Japheth sniffed, tasting rich summer air. The dirty scent was thickening. Silently, he lighted upwards and drifted around the corner.

Leafy, fragrant branches brushed his face. Red neon letters crackled, casting a hellish electric glow. Sweat slicked his golden hair. He floated into the shadows, searching with his magical angelsight for the telltale auras of living souls…and then his nerves wrenched at the sound of a woman sobbing.

There. His sharp gaze locked on her. Crouched against the wall, hugging her knees tight. Bloodstained jeans, tangled dark hair in a braid. He couldn’t see her face, but she was long-legged, lithe, a glimpse of smooth skin showing where her t-shirt rode up over her hip.

Japheth stared, his heartbeat quickening. So…delicate. Vulnerable. And covered in blood, both vampire and human. Had she been attacked? Live or die, it was lose-lose. A bloodsucker’s bite drove them mad, boiled their minds in screaming nightmares until they starved or bled to death from self-inflicted wounds…or until they mastered the curse, and lived on as vampires.

He should kill her now, while she was still herself.

“Get away!” The woman scrambled back, hugging those long legs tighter in an effort to make herself small. She was sniffling. Trying not to cry.

Japheth bit back a bad word. He’d seen countless humans suffer at demon hands over the centuries. His indignation was
blunted, the sorrow dulled. But the idea of some sniggering hellshit wiping its foul sticky fingers on this woman…

Cold rage made his head ache. He had a job to do. Flash his knife, and slit her pretty throat…