Ashes of Angels (17 page)

A clatter below alerted them both. Cassandra moved closer to the railing, the side of her body hugging Sam's torso.

“What are they doing? I can't see that far.”

“There's a leader,” he whispered. “Dark hair pulled in a queue behind his head. Looks Spanish descent.”

“Sounds like the description I've been given for Antonio.”

He squeezed her hand and lowered his voice. “The leader is injecting something in the nephilim's leg— No, he's…drawing blood.”

“They're going to drink it,” she said. “Can it be so easy as that? What happens when they've taken nephilim blood? They can walk in the daytime? What's so great about that? A lot of vampires already do that. Why do we need to fear the Anakim so much?”

“If it were so easy as taking blood I would suspect you've not much to fear from them. But…” He winced.

Below, shouts clattered. Cassandra saw what looked like
crimson spattered all over the dais and the arms and faces of the vampires.

“They injected it into one of their own. Then…boom.” Sam turned and settled to squat against the railing and the scene. “It's not going to be so easy. Which means they'll continue to hunt muses and Fallen in hopes of creating more nephilim. And meanwhile, they will torture the one they have in custody, if it stays captive for long. We've got to kill it before the vampires can figure how to use it to their advantage.”

Cassandra swallowed. The idea of destroying a living thing did not sit well with her. But when the thing was a monster… “Its mother was human.”

“You can't think of that, Cassandra. It is a monster, through and through. Wouldn't your grandmother want you to protect innocents?”

She nodded, but it was still hard to agree when she thought of Ophelia and her lost life.

“Your sister has the angel ash?” Sam flashed her a hopeful gaze.

“Yes, let's go back up,” she said.

He directed her up the stairs. They emerged on the roof as another being landed on the cinder blocks edging the snowy surface. It spread out its wings of bone and growled at Sam.

“Everybody down!” Sam yelled, and charged the Fallen one.

C
assandra pulled herself up from the snow. Her cheek had landed on ice when Sam had protectively shoved her down. She wiped away blood from her skin.

Two Fallen faced off at the corner opposite where she, her sister and Zane were. Sam, who remained in human form, was keeping the new Fallen away from them, she knew. But whenever he leaped from the roof, perhaps in an attempt to bring the Fallen along, the angel with wings of bone swept out a wing to grab Sam and whip him onto the roof.

“Zane!”

Cassandra grabbed her sister around the waist when she started after the vampire, who swung the demon blade on a long chain in an expert move. “He's armed. You are not, so we're staying here.”

“You're bleeding. Did Sam do that to you?”

“It's nothing, not his fault.” Her sister's eyes watered. “An accident, Coco.” She hugged her against her neck. “Worry
about Zane. Just so long as your lover doesn't stab the wrong angel with that blade. I'd hate to protest your wedding because your new hubby killed the man I—”

Coco grasped the front of Cassandra's jacket and her sadness burst into joy. “The man you…? Love?”

She kept her mouth shut, which only drew her sister's grin broader. She could imagine what she wanted to hear, yet at this moment, Cassandra wasn't sure how to answer.

Yes, you are
.

Very well. She was sure.

He said he'd sacrifice Above for her. That was all he had wanted, to return. And instead he'd trade it all to simply hold her hand. How amazing was that?

Zane slid across the roof, and landed at their feet. The blond vampire shook the snow off his head and smiled at Coco. “Got 'em right where I want them.”

“Don't you dare hurt Sam,” Cassandra admonished.

The vampire gave her a double take, then nodded, agreeing. “I think I should sit this one out. Your Sam has things under control. You still have the bag of angel ash, love?”

Coco dug under her coat and drew out the Ziploc full of crystal ash. “You take it. It'll be safer in your hands. You've got the big blade to protect—”

Zane stood, and immediately ducked as two angels soared over his head. The vampire's hand snatched at the air. The new Fallen had hooked the plastic bag with a wing tip.

Cassandra felt the sweep of a wing across her head and shoved Coco. “Let's move!”

“Watch it!” Zane lunged and flattened both Cassandra and Coco upon the snow. “Stay flat.”

Blood dripped onto Cassandra's hand. It wasn't blue, which meant the vampire must have taken a hit. She sure hoped getting vamp blood on her skin wouldn't turn her into a bloodsucker.

“The bloody Fallen nabbed the bag,” Zane said.

She managed to crane her neck in time to see the Fallen teetering, arms out and flapping, the bag of angel ash dangling from its broken wing tip. A thick blue line seeped across its neck.

Sam swung an arm before him, halo in hand, cutting another deep gash into his opponent's bare chest. The halo stuck and when he plunged it deep into the heart, Cassandra knew what would happen, and screamed.

Sam twisted, whipping the angel into the air to fling it away from them. A bone wing swept before him and he grabbed the plastic bag. The flimsy plastic tore away from the wing tip. Crystal ash spilled out, showering the sky, and the wind took it into a swirl.

“No!” Coco jumped, grasping at the ash in the air, but was unable to collect the minute flecks. A wing whisked over her head. Coco fainted.

The Fallen stumbled, knocking Sam over with its massive wing. He headed toward Cassandra and the others. Blue blood spurted from its chest where Sam's halo was embedded. Yet it roared and slashed forward a wing.

Zane dodged under the bone wing structure and shoved the demon blade up through the center of the halo and deep into the Fallen's heart. A spectacular explosion of angel ash filled the air around the vampire. Crystal flakes from the body glinted as if shards of glass.

The wind gusted again, taking the ash into the sky, along with the other remnants.

Sam dropped against the cinder blocks, head bowed and hand slapping the ooze of blue over his heart.

Cassandra ran over to Sam and saw the splinter of bone sticking out from his chest. Part of the Fallen's wing had lodged there. She grabbed it and yanked it out. Blue gushed from the wound.

It could not be a fatal wound. The bone would have had to pierce Sam's glass heart. Bone cannot go through glass. But she didn't know. Everything about the Fallen was ineffable, strong and strangely adamant.

Dropping the bone, she pressed her palms to Sam's chest. “It can't be. Please! Tell me it didn't pierce your heart.”

Sam grabbed her about the waist and pulled her to him. His breath hushed against her ear. “Don't worry, bunny. Just a little cut. My heart is intact.”

“A little cut?”

He smoothed a finger over the cut on her cheek. “I'm sorry.”

“For what? You're alive!”

“The ash.”

Their only means of killing the nephilim trapped in the warehouse below had been dispersed and was now impossible to collect. As well, the newly slain Fallen's ashes had been whipped away by the wind.

“We'll think of something.” She kissed Sam and pulled his head to her chest to hold him tightly.

It seemed around every corner they turned some new and deadly force was waiting to push them back the two steps they'd gained. It would be suicide to charge the vampire tribe right now. Not without an army of slayers—and angel ash.

“The wind took it all,” Sam whispered. “It's as if we were not meant to be here at this moment. I don't understand it, Cassandra.” He fisted his fingers. “It should have been so easy.”

“Nothing worth accomplishing is ever easy.”

“We need the ash to slay the nephilim.”

“We'll get more somehow.”

“Somehow? Right. I could…” He slapped his wounded chest then studied the oddly colored blood that dripped off his fingers. A wince tightened his jaw, but he smoothed it away with a nod. “I have a plan.”

“A plan?” Zane nodded, flipping the demon blade between
his fingers. “We're listening.” He bent over Coco and lifted her head as she came to from the faint. Smoothing his fingers over her brow, he offered a calm safety that Cassandra admired.

Sam studied his halo, tracing blue blood rimming the edges, and placed it against his chest, over his heart, the blade digging into the oozing wound.

Cassandra lunged for her lover. “No!”

She managed to shove him backward onto the snowy rooftop, which dislodged the halo from his chest. She grabbed the halo and tossed it to Coco, who caught it and tucked it behind her back.

Sam growled and wrestled her onto her back in the snow. He was gentle, but she couldn't have gotten free if she tried. He pinned down her wrists. “I have to do this!”

“You're not going to sacrifice yourself! The three of us cannot fight all the vampires and a bloody nephilim without your help.”

Abruptly releasing her, Sam sat back on his heels. He looked to Coco, who fixed him with an impudent I-dare-you glare.

“You're not going anywhere, buddy,” Cassandra said, gripping his bloody shirt. “Not until the nephilim is dead and we've got the book from the vampires. Got that?”

He nodded, silent in acquiescence. Yet at that moment he seemed lost, perhaps defeated.

“Then you can return Above,” Cassandra added, “or wherever it is you want to go.”

“I'll stay here with you. If you don't mind.”

She lifted her chin, looking at him through her lashes. “That is what I want.”

“We need to regroup,” Zane suggested. “Coco and I need to recharge. She's been running on fumes for over twenty-four hours. And I'm a little worried for all the fainting you've been doing, love.”

“Yeah, weird, eh?” Coco clasped her boyfriend's hand.
Sam's halo dangled on her wrist. “Let's take a few hours and come up with a new plan of attack. We know where the vamps are now. We just need to figure how we can overtake them. Let's head to the hotel.”

Sam held out his hand to receive, and Coco stared blankly at it.

“It's his halo,” Cassandra said.

Her sister nodded and sheepishly handed over the weapon. “It makes me feel hope to hold it. Caz insists she doesn't feel it, maybe because she's a muse. We have the other one back at the hotel. But…it was nice to hold for a moment. Thanks.”

Sam took the halo and studied it as the wind swept a cold breeze over the rooftop. He offered it back to Coco. “Hang on to it until we get to the hotel, will you?”

As if offered a great treasure, Coco accepted the halo and clutched it to her chest. Zane lifted her in his arms and stepped to the roof ledge. “Thank you.” She winked at her sister. “See you back at the fort!”

Cassandra snuggled up to her wounded warrior, not caring her shirt was soaked in the blue blood or that the wetness was making her shiver. “That was kind of you.”

“She'll take care of it. I trust her. I'm sorry I scared you. It was foolish of me to think I could help you by taking myself out of the equation.”

“You are my protector.”

“I'll defend you with my life, lover mine.”

“I like it when you claim me like that.”

“Lover mine?” He kissed her head and lifted her into his arms. “Let's fly.”

She snuggled against his chest, and as they took to the air, she wished he really could fly and that, together, they could leave this earth. And then she abandoned the wild wish, because she knew she'd already had it once, wrapped in Sam's arms as they had made love.

 

Another hot shower was what she needed to wash off the strangely sticky blue angel blood and restore her body to normal temperature. The hotel bathroom mirror was steamed and Cassandra drew a circle on it.

She tilted her head, wondering why she'd done that. Then, without thinking it through, she drew a spiral in the middle of the circle, a match to her sigil.

“The muse protected by her angel,” she whispered. “His halo surrounds me. I'm not going to let him go. He's mine.”

Naked, and still wet from the shower, she stalked from the bathroom to the bedroom, where Sam sat on the bed. Tearing open his blood-soaked, tattered shirt, she kissed his chest.

“Whoa! What's up?”

“I want to have angry, end-of-the-world sex,” she said. “Got a problem with that?”

“No. But it's not the end of the world.”

“It's not the apocalypse, either, but it feels pretty close right now. Don't harsh my angry sex vibes, Sam. Give me some of this angel flesh. Right now.”

She shoved him hard and he fell back on the bed, arms splayed. But he wasn't going to play shy. He wrapped his legs about her hips and pulled her onto him. The possession racheted up her desire tenfold.

Unzipping his fly, she didn't bother to pull down the pants and instead slid her hand inside to grip his erection. “You saving this for something special? Or can we get some use out of it?”

He heeled off his pants and lifted her thighs to position her directly over his cock. “You want it angry? I'm not angry with you, but I can give you dirty and needy.”

He lowered her onto his shaft, and the hot width of him burned her sweetly as she slid onto his hardness. Holding her hips, he moved her up and down. She followed his direction,
slapping a palm to his chest where the halo had cut but had not left a scar.

“If this is why I Fell,” he growled, jaw tight, “I'd do it again and again.”

“You like sex with mortal women, big boy?”

“Just you, Cassandra mine. Only you. Ah!”

He came, his shoulders shuddering and a throaty growl vibrating against her fingers. He shot hot inside her and one sweep of his fingers across her swollen nub brought her right along with him.

Cassandra swung back her arms and gripped him below the knees as her loins contracted and frenzied the exquisite high of orgasm through her muscles. It had happened so fast, so perfectly.

“Oh, God.”

His surprising utterance made her swing upright and bracket his face with her hands. “What did you just say?”

“Now I know why everyone gives a shout out to Him while in the throes of orgasm. It truly is something worthy of thanks.”

“Angel boy, we're just getting started.”

He tilted his hips, turned her onto her back on the bed, and slid his hands down her torso and thighs, spreading her legs wide. Bowing to her mons, he pressed his mouth against her heat to taste her.