Incendiary (The Premonition Series (Volume 4)) (36 page)

“Don’t b
e a crackhead, Lonan,” I plead
with him as they spread out in front of us.

Reed reaches
for a wr
ought-iron streetlamp and tears it out of the ground. Giant flashes of light and the
sizzle and pop of electricity em
its from the base of the lamp
as the light extinguishes.
He swings
it effortlessly i
n front of us,
grinning deviously at Lonan.
Lon
an grins
back, pulling a whistle from his pocket a
nd bringing
it
to his lips,
he blows
it loudly. Goose
bumps form on my arms as Reed straightens
and l
owers
his
street
lamp
. In moments
, f
allen
Power angels
and Archangels
begin
landing on parked cars and under shop eaves all around us.

My racing heart beat
s
faster than the thoughts in my h
ead as we
’
re
beco
ming
outnumber
ed
by more than a hundred
-to-
one in the space of ten seconds.
Feeling my world
spinning out of control, I go
down on
one knee, watching as a
b
right
-white
clone of myself pushes
it
s way out of my bo
dy. Seeing it fly from me, I’m
shocked by the direction it takes…it goes
straight up.

Reed and I back
up slowly, sheltered by the dark, closed
shop front behind us.
Lonan raises his hand, melting all of the snow between us.
A brazen f
allen Power angel with dark
, falcon-like wings approaches
us first. Pulling
energy to me, I whisper hushed words
while directing my spell at him.

As my magic
hit
s him, he
s
hrink
s
in his
clothing; h
is
shoes flop
off
him and his sweater
beco
me
s like a dress as he reduces
in size to no taller than a garden gnome
.
He looks
at me in panic
before
Reed swi
ng
s
the
street
lamp at him, connecting
with his abdomen
and swatt
ing him
out
of the park.

Growls of disbelief co
me from the Fallen who
witness
my mag
ic work on an a
ngel. I turn
on them, thro
wing energy and whispering the “
inside
out”
spell I’d made up myself.
I hit several
of them with it, causing the f
allen angels
to
drop to their knees as they begi
n heaving their insides out through their mouths.

But, seconds
after that, a f
allen Archangel turns
his auto
matic weapon on Reed an
d me
, spraying the air w
ith bullets. Blocking the projectile
s from me, Reed takes
several in the chest, stumbling back and falling to the ground in agony.
He could’
ve shapeshifted to
avoid the bullets, but he didn’t because I would’
ve
been hit. He took them for me
. Panic steals my breath
, seeing Reed struggle to rise to his knee.

As I look up, the Archangel
aims
his
gun
at
me; his eyes squint
in satisfaction
when
t
wo bullets rip
through
my right side
just below my ribs
.
The impact propels me backward and I expel most of the energy I was holding. With the little I now have,
I
manage to raise my hand and hurriedly
erect a
magical
wall between my enemies and us
, which stops the bullets like flies on a windscreen.

Gasping and holding
my side, I reel backward
, struggling
to keep on my feet in front of Reed.
Warm blood seep
s
between my fingers, bringing heat to their numbness.

Several F
allen advance
on
us immediately, but they find that they can
only get within
a few feet of me before they run into the wall I have
created wit
h my spell. A few
fallen angels pace
around us, looking for a w
eakness in my defenses. I growl at them
, hoping
to deter them
.

Then, my skin prickles
with quivering energy
as
Lonan
trie
s
to
pull
energy away from me in an attempt to
dissolve my sanctuary.
Quickly, my eyes go
to h
is while
I pant
and
fi
ght
for every ounce of energy to keep them all at bay.

Reed
stumble
s
and falls
beside me
and then
ri
se
s
to his feet. H
is
blood oozes
o
ut of
his
chest from the myriad of bullets
he has
taken for me. S
eeing him struggle to stay on his feet, s
omething
with
in me
feels like it’s tearing—
frayed by the sight of Reed in pain.
I straighten
up
slowly
,
while this
thread of pain inside of me gro
w
s
more and more
taut. Then,
when this pain reaches an excruciating level,
the thread
snap
s; it feels as if
my heart
is being torn from my chest. W
ithout thinking
, I find that I no longer
need to
strain for energy, it co
me
s to me willingly. I do
n’t whisper rhyming words,
b
ecause I do
n’t need them, they’
re just words
, meaningless in this visceral state
. Instead,
I
exude
pure, raw, human rage.

A bright beam
of
light, intense enough to bleach the sky white,
rolls out from my hands
, creating
a
white-hot
path straight t
hrough the Fall
en and Gancanagh. It incinerates
some
of
them
so completely that all that is left behind a
re shadows of their corpses on the ground
. Seeing ashy fl
akes of charred Angels billow like clouds and mix
with the new
ly
fallen snow, I sway
on my
feet
. B
efore
I realize what
is happening, I’m
on the
ground
.

C
old drifts of snow
collect
near
my cheek
as
Reed pulls
my battered body toward him. Cradlin
g my head on his lap, he strokes
my hair
as
he
leans against the door of a Polish shop. T
he f
lutter of more wings surrounds
o
ur position. I ca
n’
t lift my head to see the a
ngels
. Reed growls
a warnin
g to someone
approaching us, but a
ll I
see are his black boots and the bottom portion of his crimson wings.

A deep, masculine voice says
, “
Evie sent
her messe
nger
to me
…she i
s my daughter.”

Dreamy Drew

M
y warm breath floats i
n swirls like smoke around me, mingling with the icy air. Drip...drip...
blood falls from my fingertips to sp
atter the
snow covering the
frigid sidewalk by my feet. The C
restwood clock
tower calls out
a warning to me in the darkness:
BONG...BONG...BONG...it intones, but it sounds more like: RUN...RUN...RUN...

Quiet voice
s
, speaking in musical
,
lilting tones, interrupt
the
vicious death knell tolling in
my dream.
Waking with a lurch
from the nightmare
, I clutch
my side, while trying to get on my feet to defend myself. A st
rong hand pushes
me back down, forcing a growl out of me. Grasping the
restraining hand
, I try
hard to focus my blurry vision on the face
s
above me.

“Get off,” my lips curl
in a snarl
,
while I
push the hand away again.
Unfamiliar faces of angels
with searching eyes
hover
over me.
Arching my back
, I look
around at the room
behind me. I
t
’
s
a vaulting, ancient brick room
decorated with medieval armo
r and tunics with black crosses—
some sort of medieval tower
.

The hand on me slowly
lifts
, allowing me to slip off a table and ge
t
to my feet. S
tumbling back and coming up against a
cold
wall
, I
scan
the round
ed
,
medieval
windows lining it
.
M
y eyes
shift
back to the
five Powers in front of me and they narrow
at the angel holding a scalpe
l. Killing scenarios pulse through my mind
and now I just have to figure out which way I want to fight.

One
of the angels speaks
to me again in his
musical
language.

My head snaps
in his d
irection
and
as
my wings spread wide.
I whisper
, “This isn’t a sing-a-long…I’m about to kill
you
…”
Pick
ing up a wooden chair, I smash
it against the wall,
before
g
r
as
ping splint
er
ed wood in each hand. A
s I adopt
a
defensi
ve posture, they read it,
looking at each other with uncomfortable expressions
.

“Where am I
?
Where’
s Reed?
” I demand
, raising my han
d like I’ll
stake the first one that moves,
which I will
.
I
inch
toward the door on the fa
r wall and see them watch with
perplexed
expressions
.

“
You are in the
Brama Mostowa
.
You must l
ay
back,” one of the Powers answers
, speaking in a soft tone, while gesturing toward the table again.