Wings of the Wicked

8


ON SUNDAY NIGHT, WILL AND I WERE PREPARING TO meet Ava and Marcus to hunt the last nycterids. I struggled with what to wear for patrolling gear. Ava’s comments about my outfit shouldn’t have bothered me, especially since she was a reaper and the freezing February air didn’t bother her like it did me. I had to stay warm out there, or I’d be shivering like crazy instead of defending myself. I rummaged through the winter clothes in my closet with the door shut while Will waited. There was a pair of leggings that I went running in that would work. Fighting in stretchy pants would be a lot easier than in jeans. A turtleneck sweater might be enough to keep me warm, since I could just discard my coat if anything attacked.

“Are you ready yet?” Will called.

“Just a sec.” I tugged on a black turtleneck and then realized that my leggings were also black. There was no way I was dressing up like a ninja. I threw off the sweater and picked out a purple one. Huge improvement. I scrounged through my shoes and picked out a pair of cute purple snow boots with fur trim to match. Even bigger improvement.

I emerged from my closet and found Will sitting on my bed. “Have you been staring at my door since I went in there?”

“There wasn’t much else for me to do,” he said. His gaze dropped to my feet, and his brow flickered. “Nice boots.”

I put my hands on my hips and glowered at him. “You’re really mean.”

He laughed. “I just complimented you!”

“No,” I growled. “You’re making fun of my boots. I’m not stupid.”

He shook his head, grinning. “Are you ready finally?”

I picked up my scarf and coat. “Yeah. Are you?”

“Yeah. I’ve been waiting.”

I laughed and tossed my scarf into his face. He caught it effortlessly.

“You probably shouldn’t wear this out hunting, anyway,” he said, examining it and frowning.

“Why not? It’s pretty and warm.”

He held it out. “It’s easy for claws to grab. Strangulation is a bad way to go.”

I scowled and grabbed it back. “Fine. I won’t wear the scarf. I swear, you guys just want me to freeze to death.”

“Once you get moving, you’ll warm up.”

“Not likely. It’s like ten degrees outside,” I grumbled.

He grabbed my sweater, tugging me closer to where he sat, and gave me a fake serious look. “Stop whining.”

I swatted at his hand, forcing him to let me go. “I’m going to kick your ass.” I smoothed my sweater back out.

He laughed and rose to his feet. “Really. You look like a cupcake. Are you ready to go? We have to meet them in a half hour and it’s already dark out.”

I saluted him. “Yes, drill sergeant.”

We parked my car in a safe lot downtown and walked quite a ways into a grubbier area. The demonic reapers liked to hunt in the rougher neighborhoods. Fewer people walking around at night meant there were more quiet places to kill and feed without interruption. We found Marcus sitting on the stoop of an abandoned, boarded-up house.

“You aren’t still mad at me, are you?” Marcus asked as he came down the steps.

I let out a breath and walked up to him. “No. Just remember what I said.”

He grinned playfully. “I remember everything.”

Ava landed to my right, making me jump. She must have stepped off the roof. Her long hair was tied into a ponytail, and she matched Marcus in the same sleek black outfit as the other night. “Do you have any preferred method of patrolling?” she asked, her gaze lingering on my leggings. There was just no making her happy, I decided.

I stared at her. “Method?” I looked at Will.

“We’re on combat patrol,” he explained gently to me.

We’d never discussed terms to describe our hunting habits. We went out, looked for reapers, maybe killed one, and went home. I didn’t know there were other ways of doing it. “Which means we go out looking for bad guys, right?”

Will turned to Ava. “We don’t practice advanced tactics.”

Ava’s brow flickered and she said nothing.

“Don’t give them such a hard time,” Marcus said. “They get the job done, obviously.”

“If they were more organized, then the Preliator would have a better track record of staying alive.”

That stung. My jaw tightened and I tried to smile. “Well, maybe I’ll just leave you to show me how it’s done, then. Staying alive, I mean. Best of luck.” I turned toward Will and lowered my voice. “I really don’t want to be criticized the entire time I’m trying not to die.”

“I understand,” he said. “But I wouldn’t have us work with them if I thought we didn’t need it. We don’t really know what we’re up against, and we can use all the help we can get.”

“I just—”

“And I wouldn’t do this if I didn’t think you could prove her wrong,” he said. “I believe in you, and I know what you can do. She doesn’t, because she doesn’t know you like I do. Teaming up with them will be worth it if we can stop Bastian.”

His expression was filled with conviction, and for a moment I believed him. And then I felt like I didn’t want to disappoint him. And I wanted to prove Ava wrong. I was useful. I was strong. And I knew what I was doing. My soul was thousands of years old and I was an angel. I was Gabriel. Ava had nothing on me and I’d already proven that. If I had to kick her ass again to make a point, then I would.

I must have been thinking too hard again, because Will grinned at me the way he did when I made funny faces—which was often. “Shut up,” I said.

“I didn’t say a thing.”

I gave him the stink eye. “You were thinking it.”

“Are we ready?” Ava asked behind me.

I turned around and marched down the street. “We sure are.”

Marcus laughed. “I told you I liked this girl.”

A black shadow passed over my head, and the world swelled with the thick odor of brimstone.

“Ellie! Swords!” Will’s voice shouted from behind me.

My eyes shot to the sky. The nycterids had arrived.

I threw off my coat and summoned my swords just as one of the nycterids dived at me. My vision filled with the reaper’s sunken, bony face, her jaws stretching and jagged teeth gleaming. Angelfire erupted, and I sliced one blade through the air. The nycterid lurched left, but my sword ripped deep through her leg. I spun on my heel and sliced the second sword through her leg again, this time through bone. The limb flung free in a spray of blood, and the reaper let out an earsplitting shriek so shrill that I fell to my knees. I groaned as my skull felt like it was about to implode. Forcing my eyes open, I watched the nycterid spiral through the air and crash through a decrepit apartment building across the street. Her body slammed hard through the steel and concrete and made half the building collapse on top of her in a deafening roar.

I bounced to my feet and shot toward where the nycterid had vanished. Will called my name from somewhere around me, but I kept going. The nycterid was wounded, and I had to finish her off now. I leaped through the rubble and climbed into a hallway. I could hear the beast’s cries from deep inside, below me.

The floor exploded in front of me, and the nycterid’s horrible face burst through wood and carpet. I slid to a stop in shock, my angelfire dancing off the reaper’s skeletal face in a sinister way. Her wings struggled through the hole, hooking her talons every place she could to drag her body up and forward. Her teeth snapped at me in between her shrieks.

In a wave of certainty, I climbed to my feet and let out a cry as I swung my sword at her long neck, but she twisted away. My blade made a fiery, shallow gash and the reaper screamed and thrashed her head, slamming my body through a wall and into one of the apartments. I crashed through the wreckage and hit the floor of a kitchen. My head spun and swam with chaos. My ears felt as if they were underwater; the cries of the nycterid and Will screaming my name were so far away. Both my swords were still in my hands, and I climbed to my feet, reigniting the angelfire. Beyond the hole in the wall my body had made, I could distantly hear the colossal reaper struggling, no doubt breaking more and more of the floor beneath her weight.

My pulse slowed, and time slowed with it, as I waited for the reaper to appear. I exhaled and steadied my blades.

And then her body exploded through the wall, the ceiling crashing down on her head like a waterfall of dust and debris. She fought forward, and I tightened my grip on my helves. Her gnarled snout shot at my face, fangs gnashing, pale orbs for eyes gleaming and staring into mine without seeing me. She chomped and I twisted. She swung her neck back around, and I screamed as I plunged my sword into the side of her skull. Angelfire engulfed the reaper’s head, spreading down her long neck to the tip of her tail until the flames swallowed her massive body and wings. She vanished in seconds and left only falling bits of flame and ash behind.

I staggered back breathlessly until I hit a wall. Part of me wanted to drop my weapons and relax against it, but I was afraid of something else bursting through. The building was destroyed. The floor groaned and walls creaked. More stuff fell from the ceiling. Will’s voice called my name again. I wasn’t sure if it was adrenaline that made me feel like a zombie or if it was shock.

He appeared out of nowhere, grabbing me and pulling me into him. His hands cupped my face, fingers threading into my hair. “Are you okay? Ellie, are you all right? I couldn’t follow you. Are you hurt?”

I shook my head, forcing my gaze away from the empty space the reaper had filled only moments ago, and looked up into Will’s emerald eyes. In the failing light and billowing dust, they were like bright jewels guiding me home. He was out of breath, and I realized how much I must have terrified him by following the reaper into the building alone.

“The last—Orek—is outside,” he said, his voice rushed. “I think Ava and Marcus will take care of him. You did amazing.”

He led me through the rubble and down a steep decline of concrete chunks. My boots slipped, and he caught me before I fell. My body was still shaky, but Will had gotten hold of himself enough to guide me safely from the building. The world slowly became real to me again as I heard the reapers battling outside. Furious voices and roars filled my head, and I felt myself wanting to retreat and run away from the horror. But I had to keep going.

As soon as we emerged from the collapsing apartment building, I saw Ava fall and smack the pavement. Marcus ran to her side and shielded her, staring up past us at something high above. I twisted around and looked up to see Orek perched on the roof, his wings spread as wide as they could, his tail lashing. His long neck arched and his head swiveled toward me. His pallid eyes blinked, and he hissed, snapping his jaws in warning. His tail beat the pediment, tearing up chunks, and they fell. Will yanked me out of their path and they crashed to the ground.

Orek raised his head toward the sky and roared, his voice quaking with rage. The howl was shrill and mournful, sending strips of jagged ice down my spine. “Eki!”

I stepped away from the building and lit up my blades. Instead of diving to attack, Orek clamped the talons of his hind legs deeper into the pediment. If he planned on continuing the fight, he’d be an idiot. He was one demonic reaper against three angelic ones and myself. No matter how huge he was, he was at a disadvantage.

Orek beat his wings, roaring as he lifted himself into the air and disappeared into the night.

I let out a long breath of relief and let my angelfire die. I was covered in dust and the dead reaper’s blood. My sweater was torn across my collarbone, and I had the dried remains of a gash on my cheek, but the healed wound didn’t even ache anymore. Will’s hand cupped my chin, and he guided my face around, his touch without fear this time. He inspected quietly, and when he was satisfied, his hand swept along my chin and down my neck.

“I’m in one piece, I promise you,” I said.

He forced a little smile. “Just making sure. You scared me. She thrashed you around in there.”

“Well, I’m the one who made it out alive,” I said. “Not her.”

“Preliator,” Ava called. “You destroyed the nycterid by yourself. I’ve never seen anyone take on a nycterid alone. That was very impressive.”

She didn’t elaborate, but I recognized right away that I’d just been given an extreme compliment. Beside me, Will beamed in his subtle way that only I noticed. Maybe she wasn’t as bad as I’d thought. “Thank you, Ava.”

“Phenomenal,” Marcus bellowed. “Two down, one to go.”

“I’m ready for Orek,” I said. “And for whatever’s lined up after him.”

“What happened up there?” Will asked, glancing over his shoulder at the destroyed building.

I shuddered at the fresh, terrifying memory. “She was trapped. Eki. She fought her way through the building, but I don’t think she could see me or anything else. They’re blind, aren’t they? The nycterids.”

“Yes. They use echolocation and the supernatural sense that we reapers have to navigate their surroundings and locate prey.”

“Like bats,” I added.

His expression was distant and hard with thought. “Sort of. This combination in the nycterids is even more effective than eyesight, but Eki was disoriented in the building.”

“Yeah, like she couldn’t find me and started tearing the building down,” I said. “Everything happened so fast.”

“Maybe that’s what you need to do,” Ava suggested. “Stay fast. If and when Orek attacks again, keep moving. He may not be able to sense you, and you can gain an advantage over him.”

“That’s not a bad idea,” Will said.

That was if he didn’t come back with reinforcements. I knew that somewhere out there, Orek was pitching a rage over the loss of Eki. I wasn’t sure if his kind was capable of love the way humans and the vir were, but I wondered if the two nycterids had been mates. The thought made me feel regret for tearing them apart, but I had to defend myself. I also knew that if Orek cared for Eki, felt any sort of affection for her at all, then his next attack would be personal. It might be more difficult for him to take me alive when he would probably ache to just tear me into pieces.