Jinx jumped up from his ruined motorcycle, a string of curses pouring out of his mouth. “You stupid girl!” he screamed at me.
He grabbed the prisoner and threw him over his back. Calli, Tessa, and Gin were closing in now from three sides. They’d caught up to him. Jinx ran straight toward me. I was blocking the only way out now, and I didn’t move.
“Get out of the way!” he shouted.
Calli and my sisters were almost upon him.
Jinx ran faster, shouting louder at me this time. “Move it!”
I just stood there and waited.
“What’s the matter with you?! Are you deaf?!” He shoved me out of the way.
I took the hit, but I didn’t budge. He crashed into me and fell, the prisoner tumbling off his back. Jinx looked up at me as my hood fell back, revealing my face. Surprise flashed across his face as he recognized me. He froze.
“That was a mistake,” I told him.
Jinx tried to duck, but I knocked him to the ground with a solid strike to the head. Disoriented, he stumbled, narrowly catching himself before he fell. I pivoted around him and kicked the back of his knees. His legs collapsed, and his knees hit the brick road.
“I’d heard you’d joined the Legion.” He spat out blood. “You’re interfering. This isn’t your jurisdiction. You’re making a big mistake.”
“No, you’re the one who made a mistake by striking a soldier in the Legion of Angels,” I told him.
Defeat and anger swirled inside his eyes. “You might be a soldier of heaven now, but you still fight dirty.”
I stomped my boot against his back, pinning him in place. “Always,” I said with a smile.
I had no handcuffs, but it didn’t matter. I yanked a strand of wire off a nearby clothesline and used it to bind his hands together. As he struggled, the wire cut into his skin. A few drops of blood pooled up. He stopped moving, shooting a dirty look over his shoulder.
“Brokers,” I called out to the paranormal soldier I’d met before.
He’d come back down to the ground to check out the commotion, and he wasn’t the only one. Every paranormal soldier in the area was staring at me now that they’d all realized I was a member of the Legion of Angels.
And they weren’t the only ones staring. The festival had paused, and everyone was gawking at us. From the sidelines, Yellow Hat, the tourist who’d hit on me earlier, now looked as pale as a sheet. He was probably wondering if I’d toss him to the Interrogators so they could investigate his boasts of sneaking into Legion clubs. As though the Interrogators didn’t have better things to do.
The paranormal soldiers didn’t speak, waiting for me to tell them what to do. They looked ready to piss themselves. Legion soldiers might kill the monsters hunting humanity, but we also brought in people who threatened the gods’ order. And no one wanted to be declared a threat. You really had to walk on eggshells around many of my fellow Legion soldiers, especially the angels. All they had to do was declare you suspicious, and then the Legion Interrogators swooped in and tossed you into an interrogation cell. You might be released—eventually—but the Interrogators would be very, very thorough in their interviews.
Except I had no intention of throwing people to the Interrogators on a whim, just because they’d annoyed me. Even so, I had to maintain the Legion’s image.
“Put this bounty hunter in jail for the night,” I told Brokers, my tone sharp, commanding. I even put a little siren magic behind my words, just enough to give them kick. “That will teach him not to strike a member of the Legion of Angels.”
I didn’t allow emotion to show on my face. I was professional, cold. Dispassionate. Nero would have been so proud.
Truth be told, it was a lenient sentence, but I had no interest in torturing people. I just wanted Jinx out of the way so my family could do their job without him stealing their mark. And besides, I had tricked him into attacking me.
Brokers and another paranormal soldier each took hold of one of Jinx’s arms.
“He is a slippery one,” I told them. “If he so much as twitches, you have my permission to knock him upside the head with your guns.”
They nodded solemnly and headed off toward the sheriff’s office, looking relieved that the bounty hunter was the one being punished instead of them. The show over, everyone returned to their festivities. Music boomed, conversations sprouted up, and the high-pitched beeps of the carnival games filled the festival grounds once more. It was as though the whole thing had never happened.
I looked down at the Magitech Leech at my feet. He shuddered and averted my eyes, fear freezing him. He didn’t try to escape. He didn’t even move. His body was slouched over in defeat, no fight left in him.
“Why didn’t you use cuffs to restrain Jinx?” Gin asked me as she checked the prisoner’s restraints.
“I came here for some family time. For a vacation. I didn’t expect to be dispensing Legion justice, so I didn’t bring any handcuffs. I don’t carry them around for fun.”
Grinning from ear to ear, Tessa whispered something to Gin. I picked up the words ‘handcuffs’ and ‘playing with angels’. They both laughed.
I glared at them, but they didn’t cower before my stare. They were used to it. And I didn’t think it would have been fair to put the full force of my magic behind that glare. Though watching their snickering at my expense, I had to admit I was tempted.
“Let’s go, you comedians. We need to get Leechy over to the sheriff’s station,” Calli told them, prodding their prisoner forward.
“But we’ll be right back, so no running off,” Tessa added, wiggling her finger at me.
I could almost see the thoughts of grand parades and color-coordinated parties swirling in her eyes.
After they’d left, I turned my attention to the festival—and, more specifically, to the delectable scents wafting from the food stands. My tummy rumbled. If I’d been hungry before my little rooftop sprint, I was now positively famished. I looked around for some really unhealthy carnival food, my first choices being onion rings and deep-fried candy bars. They were so delectably, deliciously disgusting. I had to have them.
But I never made it to the cluster of food stands. Something cast a dark shadow over the festival, rolling in like a storm cloud. Every single person on the ground stopped and stared, a chorus of oohs and aahs rising from the crowd. The shadow shifted, diving.
An angel landed, his boots kissing the ground in a soft whisper, his wings extended in a perfect heavenly blend of black, blue, and green. Everyone stared at him in awe, mesmerized, completely caught in his spell.
3
Archangel's Spell
The angel was not just any angel. He was General Nero Windstriker, an archangel and my lover.
Unlike me, Nero was wearing the black leather uniform of the Legion of Angels. Trained from birth to fulfill his destiny of becoming an angel, he didn’t really have a casual and relaxed mode. He was rarely out of uniform. I regularly teased him about that, but right now, as I watched him walk, the admiring crowd parting before him, I couldn’t help but appreciate the sight of him in that uniform.
The black armor shone—no, glowed—in the light of the setting sun, the smooth leather accentuating every muscle. The soft, deliciously-subtle creak of leather against his hard, unyielding body as he moved was a wicked tease—and a sweet temptation.
Framed in a halo of sunshine and floodlights, his caramel hair was lit up, sparkling like liquid gold. A ceiling of clouds hung over the carnival—all but a single open patch of sunlight directly over Nero. It looked like a skylight from heaven. He was obviously manipulating the elements to create that effect, to make himself shine. Angels did that when they wanted to inspire awe, respect, or fear.