Vengeance: The Niteclif Evolutions, Book 3 (13 page)

I nodded, familiar with this part of the prophecy. I wanted to tell him to hurry up. Looking back, I should have begged him to slow down.

“With the Dominae gaining strength and gathering more and more of the spirits of the Nephilim as their wraiths and personal assassins, should chaos take over, Hell will break through its restricted planes of existence and evil will rule the Earth.

“Your path is clear though fraught with difficult choices and alternate endings.”

I stood and faced him. “With no disrespect intended, I’ve been through hell since I got here. I’ve been shot, stabbed, beaten, actually killed and cursed, and that was all before I got my second paycheck. You can drop it on me because I do better with the ‘get it out there’ method. The build-up scares me.”

“As it should,” Micah acknowledged.

“Look, get it over with or I go prepare for the return of Asswipe, or whatever his name is, and his buddies because I’ve got a personal score to settle with him.” It was a tough speech full of false bravado and a lot of hand waving, but it got the job done.

“Your wish, my command.” Micah drew himself up to his full height and closed his eyes. “Madeleine Niteclif is the One True Niteclif, evidenced by her Evolution. As such—”
 

A thunderous boom rumbled up the stairs. Everyone scrambled to their feet and rushed the door. Hellion’s voice in the chaos stopped us. “Bahlin, stay with Maddy. If necessary, take to the air and get her away. You, Micah, are coming with me.”
 

The fallen angel gave a curt nod and darted through the door after Hellion.

The knots in my stomach were heavy. Cloying fear saturated the air. I wasn’t scared for me but for Hellion. The last time he’d commanded me to stay while he fought, Bahlin had shot him and he’d nearly died. I didn’t want to let him go.

Voices thundered around the foyer and I could hear the intermingling of magics as they crashed one into another, the sound like lightning hitting stone. I thought I was going to be sick.
 

Bahlin took my hand.
 

I grasped his like the lifeline it was. “I can’t stand this.”

“Do you want to leave?”

“Hell no! I want you to go down there with me to fight! I don’t have a weapon, but the foyer is just big enough to contain you if you shift. If he needs you…”

Bahlin reached into his boot and pulled out a familiar dagger that I’d used on numerous occasions, handing it to me hilt first. Its familiar weight was a comfort. “I’m surprised you don’t have one of your own. Keep that one until you’re done with it.”

“I—”

“Keep it. Let’s go.” He tightened his grip on my hand and led me out the door. We were plastered to the wall and I moved behind him as silent and unshakable as a shadow. He looked back over his shoulder and hissed, “You do whatever the hell I tell you to do, Maddy.” It was a statement, not a request.
 

I nodded, unwilling to admit I’d throw myself into the fray if it would make a difference.

“Stay one step behind me and mirror my steps.” He let go my hand and crept forward, two steps at a time. My shorter legs had to hit every step just to keep my balance.
 

I’d been so focused on just keeping up with him that I accidentally crashed into him when he stopped. “Sorry!” I hissed, motioning him forward. Four steps to the turn where we could see the foyer.
 

The sounds of fighting were ferocious. Bahlin turned to speak to me, his eyes dark blue one minute and icy the next. “I’m going around the corner and you’re staying here. Don’t argue,” he snarled when I opened my mouth to do just that. “I’ll call for you if you can help, but I’ll not be distracted and have you getting someone killed just because we didn’t properly arm you. Stay. Put.”

I nodded, furious to be left behind as the weak link again. I’d about had enough of that. I briefly considered going back to the room to retrieve the gun I’d started my training with—another Colt 1911—from my bedside table, but it would take too long. Instead, I gripped the dagger and eased out just a bit.

Bahlin had taken on a hybrid form of his dragon that I’d never seen, one that involved claws, a mixture of skin and scales, lumps where wings and a tail would be, talons and a snout. He’d also grown to somewhere around eight feet tall and stood with Hellion and his staff against the Dominae, Agares.
 

I could tell Hellion was in control of the situation, but what I couldn’t see, anywhere, was Micah. My eyes scanned the chaos and made little sense of what I saw until I found him crouched near his bedroom door, well away from the fight and clearly alarmed at being without a weapon. I watched as Hellion struggled with Agares and decided I needed to get to Micah, just in case. I sprinted across the foyer.
 

Bahlin saw me, but he couldn’t call out his disapproval without interrupting Hellion’s concentration. Instead, he glared and flipped me off then turned back to the fight.
 

“Are you okay?” Exertion paired with adrenaline had made my breath come short.
 

“I am, though I must admit it’s difficult not to flee.” I had my back partially turned to the fight so it was Micah’s startled eyes that alerted me to the problem. “Oh dear God,” he whispered. “The wraiths.”

I whipped around and saw a ghostly haze materializing around Agares. The specters weren’t cohesive, but neither were they single entities. Fearfully fascinated, I watched as Agares coaxed them forth with firm affection.

Micah grabbed my arm. “We need to go, Maddy. Now.”

I wrenched myself free of his grasp. “I have to warn Hellion and his people first.” I took three large steps first and screamed out to Bahlin, “Tell him that he has to dematerialize and take you with him. You’ve all got to get out of here.”

Micah grabbed me again and, in a flash of light, we were gone.

Chapter Seven

It was entirely different than traveling with Hellion. Micah just willed us somewhere and we were there. There was no sense of time and space, no disorientation, no anything. I had been in Hellion’s foyer, now I was in someone’s…apartment? House? Condo?

Micah paced, running his fingers through his hair as he worked the stalk like he was on a runway in Milan. He muttered to himself in an Arabic language. Hebrew, maybe? Without warning, he dropped to his knees and wailed. He was the epitome of despair as he held his hands to the sky and pled with the heavens. His answer was silence. Micah dropped his hands to his knees and folded in on himself. Anguish rolled off of him like a heated mirage.

I held my tongue as long as I could, which was basically long enough to swallow my saliva and take a breath. “Where the hell are we? And why aren’t Hellion and the others here?” I locked my trembling knees and ran a hand over my face. “You need to tell me you didn’t abandon him to fight your fight alone, Micah.” Silence. “Where is Hellion? Answer me before I go Justice Dealer on your ass and provoke you into lighting up.”

He spun on his knees. His face blazed with holy light, his eyes the colors of rich cognac in the sunshine. Rising to his elevated height of seven-plus feet, he towered over me. “Did I leave him?” He pursued me slowly as I backed away from him. “I did. Do you want to know why, Madeleine Niteclif, last of her line?”
 

The wall crept up on me, stopping my retreat with jarring force.

He stopped in front of me and leaned down.

I held my ground and went toe-to-toe with him. “There’s not a reason good enough.” My voice shook with rage.

“I’ve waited for you for over fourteen hundred years. You were the reason I fell to Earth, so enamored was I of being your familiar and becoming part of the revered justice that was dealt in this world. My divine nature is to determine paths, both those to come and those already taken, so I would be useful. But that’s not the only reason. I saw you, a glimpse of you in the Creation Sphere, and it was enough. I wanted you, Maddy, enough to become Nephilim. I—” he pounded his chest, “—
I
want to father the next line of Niteclifs.”

“The next line of Niteclifs?” My words sounded pulled, like I was working with not the English language but instead with cooled taffy—slow, difficult, labored.
 

“Here is what we didn’t finish due to Agares’s arrival. You are the One True Niteclif, evidenced by your Evolution.”

“I am.”

“As an only child, Madeleine, you have no siblings or heirs of the same bloodline.”

“No, I don’t.”
 

“As such, it is your duty to bear the next generation of Niteclifs. To facilitate your breeding, you are releasing pheromones that are drawing men to you.”

“Wait just a damned minute here!” I started, but Micah wasn’t finished.

“Furthermore, your child, a son, is destined to take over the High Council by force, displacing and killing the current ruler. There will be war and internal conflict, but your line will emerge victorious and will continue to be Justice Dealers for all known time.”

“I don’t want any of this. I made my choice when I chose Hellion. Don’t you understand that?” I sidled away from him, sorely tempted to knock the holy shit out of the messenger. “And I don’t want kids for a while, a long while—as in maybe never. And what about the other prophecy?”

“It’s been fulfilled,” Micah said.

“No, it hasn’t. I chose Hellion, remember? Time stopped and I knew he was the one. And Odin said we’re supposed to have an epic love.” I clutched his sleeve and pulled on his arm fiercely as he tried to turn away from me. “It hasn’t had time to happen yet. I just…I just… Doesn’t any of this matter to you?”

“Your playing field has just been opened up, Maddy. Yahweh’s edict trumps those of his Nephilim and their finite kingdoms.” He pried my hand from his arm and flung it away. “You don’t have to pick from only the two men anymore. You’ve served your purpose for the first prophecy, setting the new leader into place and putting into motion those things that must come to pass over the next hundred years. This is from the source of all gods, and it must be adhered to. I’m sorry.” He started to walk away and it triggered something violent in me.

“Don’t you walk away from me, you son of a bitch!” I took off across the room and, for the second time, performed a successful flying tackle. We went to the floor in a flailing tangle of limbs as we pushed and shoved and, okay, there was a little hair pulling, until I pulled my signature move and grabbed him by the balls.

He roared and I swear the windows shook. “Release me!”

“Uh-uh. No way. Not until you tell me what this means.” I squeezed a little tighter and he grinned, setting me back. I wasn’t sure what to do with a sadist.

“You truly want to know what it means.” His eyes lit up with that glorious internal light, and he said, “One kiss and I’ll prove to you what I’m saying.”

“I’m not kissing y—mph!”
 

He homed in on my mouth like a missile and struck just that fast. He kissed me fiercely, all teeth, lips and tongue. He was everywhere.

I was lost, confused at my primal desire to respond. I closed my eyes and raised a hand to Micah’s face, my fingers sliding along his stubbled jaw. Consciously and subconsciously I recognized that this wasn’t my lover’s face. That was all it took. I pushed away from him, startled at the raw arousal I felt between my legs. I scrambled to my feet and glared at him.

“You sorry son of a bitch.” My chest heaved, and I rubbed my lips without thinking.
 

“You liked it.” His grin was all male pride. Micah was grace personified as he rose, the sun picking up highlights in his hair and—what the hell? His shadow showed an outline of enormous wings.
 

My mind blanked completely. “Stand still.” Tentative steps carried me around him in a wide arc, disrupting the sunshine and chasing his shadow away. I stepped forward and, with only my fingertips, touched his back. His shoulders twitched but nothing else happened. There were no lumps, bumps or oddities that accounted for what I’d seen. Shaking my head I stepped back. This fascination had to stop. I floundered about as I mentally hunted for my anger. It was important that I capitalize on the tools at hand, and anger was handy.

“If you don’t help me find Hellion right this second, I’m walking out that door and leaving you alone. I’ve found my way around this city before and I’ll do it again.”

“Let me explain one thing and then I’ll take you back to the house.”

“You’ve got sixty seconds.” I looked down at my watch. “Go.”

He shrugged. “You have to produce the next heir to the Niteclif legacy, and more than one would be beneficial. The pheromone you are releasing will increase in strength the longer you serve. This pheromone will draw males to you. They will desire to mate and bond with you, though they won’t understand why they feel pulled as they do. You must provide an heir.”

“Fine. I’ve got Hellion. We’re happy to fuck like sheep, er, rabbits. It’s taken care of.” I had completely forgotten to keep time. “Can you Ascend now?”
 

“No, Maddy. I told you. I’ve been waiting for you. I volunteered for the job before I fell. I’m the man who will father your child.”

The last thing I remembered was thinking it would be great if it was soft landing, because I was going down and out.