Walking in the Midst of Fire (26 page)

Malatesta leaned upon the bar, breathing heavily from the exertion of keeping the monster from emerging again while also maintaining the glamour. He thought about leaving the room and finding Remy Chandler before his act was discovered, and they were all put in jeopardy.

He walked toward the door, but was compelled to stop—to stare at the body of Natalia. The bloody smear on the wall above the bed told him that she was injured, quite possibly even dead, but he needed to know.

The Larva chattered excitedly inside his head, eager to deface the woman’s body in some foul way; but Malatesta remained strong, holding the leash tight.

Natalia lay crumpled upon the floor, her limbs bent in ways that suggested to him bones broken in more than one place. And the way her head hung limply to one side . . .

He believed that she might be dead.

The Vatican sorcerer had begun to utter a special prayer for the dead when he saw the body twitch. For a brief moment he was overjoyed by the idea that he hadn’t killed her, but was still nauseated by what he—the Larva—had been allowed to do.

Compelled to move closer, Malatesta found himself kneeling before the woman, reaching out to lay a comforting hand upon a leg bent disturbingly in the wrong direction.

Natalia’s eyes came open, staring.

He could not contain the gasp that escaped his lips as she began to thrash, hauling herself upright against the bed.

Wanting to tell her to stop before she could injure herself further, Malatesta remained strangely silent, watching entranced as she adjusted herself accordingly, setting limbs and bones straight, the way they should have been.

Natalia saw that he was watching, and laughed.

“I knew the bad angel that Morgan told me about was in there somewhere.” She adjusted her arm, bone grinding against broken bone. “Just give me a minute to heal, baby,” she told him, her lips stained with blood.

“Then we can really have ourselves a party.”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

I
t was as if the building on Newbury Street and Francis were connected on some level. He had lived in the brownstone since its construction back in 1882, and they’d been through quite a bit together, seen a lot of things.

This angelic incursion was just the latest.

Standing silently in the lobby, Francis closed his eyes and reached out, feeling as the building felt, hearing the sounds, smelling the smells both old and new.

The angels had come in from the roof. The magickal wards that Francis had set up so many years ago were signaling the invasion. He doubted that the invaders had even noticed them, and if they had, they hadn’t given them a second thought.

These were angels of Heaven’s war legion, and Francis seriously doubted they gave one lick that they were trespassing.

Which was why he was going to teach them a little lesson on respecting others’ space.

Still standing in the entryway, senses fanning out through the building like a spider’s web, he was able to trace their movements. There were six of them, spread out, investigating every apartment, probably trying to pick up the scent of the general’s stinking body.

Francis opened his eyes, and pulled his knife from inside his suit coat pocket. Squinting from behind his dark-framed glasses, he found a weak point in reality, and swiftly cut a passage that would take him to the first of the home invaders.

The first of his prey.

•   •   •

The angel Montagin looked as though he might burst into tears at any moment.

“We’re dead,” he whined, as he nibbled on a fingernail. “Might as well just accept our fate.”

“I’m not accepting anything,” Squire said. “What I am gonna do is what Francis asked me to.”

The angel watched him.

“You’re going to hide the body?” he asked. “What’s the use?”

Squire turned at the door. “You have a better plan, Mary? Gonna stand here and wait to be slaughtered? I don’t fucking think so.” Squire stopped, eyeing Heath and Montagin. “Are you coming or not?”

It didn’t take Heath long to make up his mind. “Your plan is better than no plan,” he said, walking as if drunk, still experiencing the effects of the Bone Master’s poisonous bullet.

Squire continued to stare at the angel. “I’m not gonna ask you twice.”

“So what, then?” Montagin asked as he strode over to join them. “We hide Aszrus’ body, and then what of us? Are you going to hide us, too?”

Squire led them down the hall to the living room where the angel general’s corpse was still waiting.

“One thing at a time, Tinkerbell.” Squire stopped in front of the dead angel’s body. “Now help me move this furniture around. I’m gonna need the biggest shadow we can make.”

•   •   •

Taking down an angel of the Lord was all about surprise, and capitalizing on their sheer arrogance. As far as angels were concerned, nobody was as badass as they were.

Francis begged to differ.

He stepped from the rip he’d cut in the stuff of time and space, and quietly darted for a patch of shadow in the upper corridor, just as one of the angel soldiers rounded the corner. The angel was armored, what light there was on the abandoned floor glinting off Heavenly forged metal. In one hand he held a sword, and it glowed as if just pulled from the heart of the sun.

This guy had
meanmotherfucker
written all over him, but Francis wasn’t fazed in the least. He’d watched a lot of mean motherfuckers cry for their mothers when faced with something meaner than them.

Francis put away his knife and drew his pistol, waiting for the angel to come closer. He stepped from the shadows, striking at the soldier of Heaven. The angel did not even have the opportunity to raise his fiery sword before Francis drove the butt of his weapon into the angel’s forehead.

Wings of chocolate brown flecked with white erupted from behind the warrior of Heaven like a parachute. Perhaps it was to startle his attacker, or maybe to provide a means of escape, but either way, it didn’t work. For Francis stuck to him like glue, hitting him again and again, until the angel crashed to the floor and remained still.

The blood was flowing freely from the fissure that Francis had put in the angel’s forehead, but at least he was still alive. How easy it would have been to slip the knife from inside his pocket and end this being’s life permanently, or fire a single shot from his gun into the unconscious soldier’s heart, or skull.

But that wasn’t what this was all about. Instead, he stifled his urge to kill, and used the knife to cut another passage to his next encounter.

Besides, he didn’t want to have to listen to Remy complain about his use of excessive force.

•   •   •

Montagin watched as the hobgoblin and the sorcerer moved the furniture, using what little sun was coming through the window to create a particularly large patch of shadow.

“Thanks for the help, Precious,” Squire said as he finished moving the recliner.

“You’re welcome,” Montagin responded, before realizing that the little creature was being entirely sarcastic.

He had never encountered one of these hobgoblin creatures before, and now figured it was probably because they had all been slain for their infuriating, antagonistic ways.

At least that was why he would kill one.

“Now, what should we do with this patch of shadow?” the angel asked.

“
We
do nothing,” Squire retorted. “But
I
will use my special gift to open a passage to a place that exists on the other side of all shadows, and remove this particularly fragrant bag of angelic rot from this plane of existence.”

The hobgoblin’s words were like a blow to the heart, but Montagin managed to suppress his anger at the creature’s lack of respect.

“You’re going to put him in the dark,” Montagin said, going to Aszrus’ corpse, and kneeling down beside it.

“Yeah, it’s pretty dark there on the shadow paths.”

Montagin wasn’t a particularly emotional being—most angels were not—but during his time upon Earth, he’d found that certain human characteristics had begun to rub off on him. He’d developed quite the affection for the general over the course of his service to him.

For a being that had once burned with the light of divinity, to now be stored away in darkness . . . it just seemed so incredibly sad.

“Do you want to say a few words?” Squire asked. “Y’know, before the angel apocalypse rains down on our fucking heads.”

Montagin turned his gaze from his former master.

“Just do it, you foul thing,” he said with a snarl.

“Only because you asked nice,” Squire said with a crooked grin as he cracked his knuckles.

The hobgoblin squatted at the edge of the shadow, reaching out and allowing just the tips of his fingers to brush against the floor where the darkness lay.

“That should do it,” he said, tilting his head to the side like an artist admiring his canvas. Then he turned to the angel. “Help me drag him over.”

“No,” Montagin said. “I’ll do it myself.”

The angel placed his arms beneath the body of General Aszrus, and lifted the corpse with ease. At the edge of the shadow, he stopped and peered down into the darkness. It reminded him of a pool of oil.

“What should I do now?”

“Lower him down,” Squire explained. “This particular passage looks as though . . .”

The shadow exploded upward in a geyser of liquid black. Montagin recoiled. Stumbling back, he lost his balance and fell to the floor with the stinking body of the angel general atop him.

“What is this?” he managed, rolling the body aside to see a giant tentacle, its underside covered in what looked to be hungry mouths, waving in the apartment air before them like a cobra waiting to strike.

“I hate when that happens,” Squire said, watching the monstrosity.

The tentacle lashed out, its movement a blur as the muscular appendage wrapped around one of Aszrus’ legs, dragging the corpse toward it.

It was bad enough that the general was going to be put into the darkness
,
Montagin thought as he allowed the divine power that churned within him to ignite his body, but he would be damned if he was going to allow his angel master to end up in the belly of some shadow-born abomination.

•   •   •

The fiery sword cut a crackling swath through the air not far from Francis’ face.

“Fuck,” the former Guardian growled as he leapt back from the blade’s path. He hadn’t hit this particular soldier of Heaven hard enough.

The angel soldier roared, his ivory wings carrying him through the air toward Francis. Francis dove out of the way, but he was too slow and the angel’s booted foot caught him on the temple, sending him sprawling to the hallway floor.

Through blurred vision Francis watched as the angel touched down, and strode eagerly toward him, burning sword ready for another strike.

Was that a smile he saw on the angel’s chiseled features?

Francis managed to push himself up into a sitting position, reaching into his suit coat as the angel prepared to deliver what was certain to be a killing strike.

“Hold that pose,” he said as he withdrew the Pitiless pistol and fired a bullet into the angel’s armored knee.

The scream was horrible. The soldier of Heaven pitched to one side, his fiery blade burying itself in the hardwood floor, angrily sputtering and crackling. He looked as though he were about to say something, but Francis didn’t wait to hear it.

“Say good night, Gracie,” the former Guardian said as he struck his foe on the side of the head with the butt of the gun.

The angel went down with a grunt, but fought to remain conscious, another weapon of fire beginning to materialize in his grasp.

Francis hit him again, and then one more time for good measure. He waited a moment to be sure that the angel was down, using the time for a much needed breather. He was surprised that he felt so winded after having dealt with only five of the home invaders.
Too much living the good life is probably the answer,
he thought.

There was still one more angel to go, and he was pretty sure that it was the leader, and would likely be tougher than the others.

He took a deep breath, put the gun away, and pulled out the knife again. He was just about to slice into the fabric of time and space when he caught movement from the corner of his eye—the angel he had thought was out for the count launched himself at Francis with a predator’s shriek.

The enraged soldier of God tackled Francis, sending the blade of the knife he was about to use into the substance between here and there, slicing a crooked line sideways as the two flew backward to the floor.

The angel screamed like some bird of prey, flapping his wings crazily while raining blows down upon Francis, finally knocking the special knife from his grasp.

“Son of a bitch,” Francis hissed as one of the angel’s fists connected with his face, knocking off his glasses and filling his mouth with the taste of blood. He tried going for his gun, but the fists just fell all the faster.

Fuck
—a few more hits like that and Francis was sure that he wouldn’t even remember his name.

He knew what he had to do to survive.

It was the same sort of decision he’d made while standing before the Lord God, when he’d thrown himself on the mercy of his Creator. He’d known he’d fucked up in taking the side of Lucifer Morningstar and hadn’t been afraid to admit it.

And he’d fucked up again now, letting this piece-of-shit angel get the jump on him.

He called upon the special reserve of strength he always set aside for times like this, arched his back, and launched himself up toward his attacker, the flat of his forehead connecting with the angel’s face. Francis took a certain amount of pleasure in the snapping sound the angel’s nose made as it broke.

The angel was stunned as blood poured from his nostrils. Francis grabbed the angel by his breastplate and threw him to the floor. The angel yelled, his wings beating wildly. Francis had had enough. Reaching into the mass of feathers and taking hold of the angel’s wings, he savagely bent and twisted until he heard the sweet, sweet sound of snapping, followed by a wail of agony.