Days of New: The Complete Collection (Serials 1-5) (2 page)

“Get your shit together, man,” Clark mumbled to himself as he turned away from the window. He couldn’t deny the crushing pressure he felt staring down at the refugees, knowing they were looking to him for survival.

Jeans, work jackets covered in dirt, and torn rock band T-shirts were strewn about the floor at his feet as he crossed the small apartment and set a metal pot on the wood-burning stove. He filled it with water, numbly watching as it began to boil. He knew the coffee would be bitter if he dumped the grounds in too early, but he did it anyway.

He drank his coffee quickly before venturing back into the bedroom to dress. Camille was in the shower, the ancient pipes thundering to life behind the walls; thankfully, the compound had a solar powered pump to maintain the water pressure. He couldn’t find his old leather jacket that had once belonged to his father, so he settled on a faded plaid shirt with the sleeves rolled up unevenly, a stained white undershirt, and jeans with more holes than material. He closed the door quietly behind him and set off down the hall.

As Clark hurried to his office, he kept his head down and his eyes on the well-trodden stones of the Descendants of Enoch’s compound. Entire wings and halls had been added to the estate over the centuries, making it sprawl before him like a damp, cluttered maze. People shuffled about behind their rooms’ doors, preparing for another long day of work and cold. The place was coming alive, waking with the grudging acknowledgment of a new dawn.

He reached his office door and silently slipped inside. The wood-paneled room overlooked the western fields, a view familiar to Clark. He’d spent hundreds of hours playing in front of this very desk while his father had worked.

He sank into the leather chair behind the desk and poured himself a glass of whiskey before he turned on the stereo in the corner. The Clash spilled out and filled the room as light from the sunrise trickled through the windows. He leaned back in his chair and sighed, watching the bright colors leech into the clouds. The whiskey did the trick and burned away thoughts of the war, Sophia, and Michaela.

Because if he thought about Michaela, then he thought about Sophia. And if he thought about Sophia, he remembered his father’s death. And his father’s death brought on memories of hybrids and Watchers and plagues and Lucifer and Hell and unwanted tattoos and running through the woods, counting down the seconds before death. He couldn’t think of any of that or else he would be halfway through the liquor bottle before the sun had fully risen.

Because all the people he missed were all the people he’d lost, and they were gone and far away. And he needed to focus because he had to save the world today.

He heard a knock on his door. “Come in,” Clark called and took a sip.

Zarachiel limped in, his back twisted beneath his heavy coat, the pain in his warm caramel eyes evident. “We have a slight situation.”

Clark groaned and quickly swallowed the rest of his whiskey. “What now?”

“It’s nothing like that. A Nephil arrived this morning. She’s demanding to see you,” Zarachiel said. He shoved his hands into the worn pockets of his work pants, which were a little too short for his long legs and tall frame.

“Who is it, Z?” Clark asked.

“You should know—”

Just then, the door banged open behind Zarachiel, and the Nephil in question charged inside. At the sight of her, Clark sprang to his feet, dropping the whiskey glass to the floor. It shattered on impact, sending shards across the rug. His heart was somewhere in his throat, squeezing the breath out of him.

“Sophia?” he choked out.

“No,” the Nephil said. “But I think you knew my sister.”

Clark wavered, his head spinning. For one horrible moment, he thought he might actually faint, but guys like him didn’t faint. He reached for his humor, for any badass comment that could save him from this moment, but he floundered in a sea of horrible, wrenching pain.

“You look just like her,” he whispered, his eyes sweeping over the girl’s light colored hair and eyes.

“I wouldn’t know. I haven’t seen my sister in a very long time,” the girl snapped. Her tone was brisk, her words clipped, but her hands trembled, and she had to tuck them into the simple coat she wore that was much too thin for the brutal Kentucky winter the compound was currently enduring.

“Why are you here?” Clark asked, still drinking her in. His heart kept sputtering, like a worn-out car in winter. He had to remind himself over and over that this wasn’t his precious Sophia.

Because Sophia was dead.

“This is the Descendant of Enoch’s compound, is it not? You all are the protectors of the angels, their saintly guardians on Earth. An order of humans passed down generation after generation from the great Enoch himself, right? Or did I take a wrong turn somewhere?”

The girl talked a hard game, but her lips trembled and her gray eyes were much too wide.

“I see you found the brochure,” Clark commented dryly. He sat back in his chair because his knees were growing too weak to hold him. His eyes traveled down the girl’s slender neck to the lapel of her coat, which revealed the tiniest glimpse of creamy white skin. Suddenly, images of Sophia beneath him in the darkness came to mind. He heard her moan, felt her nails digging into his ass as he moved inside her. The crotch of his pants tightened, and he had to pour another drink into a new, unbroken glass.

“The Descendants don’t do much protecting these days, not since the end of the war. The plagues didn’t leave much behind, but we take any survivors who can make it here. We’re more of a refugee camp now,” Clark added, sipping from his drink. The amber liquid burned him back to life, lit a fire to his numbness.

The girl came forward, squaring her tiny shoulders. “I came here for—”

“Look,” Clark interrupted. “It’s really early in the morning, and I don’t even know your name.”

“I see I interrupted your
coffee
.” The girl’s eyes flickered down to his drink, but they caught on his arms. He saw the flash of fear in her eyes. She was a Nephil, which meant she’d heard the rumors about his tattoos. “Are those the marks of the Apocrypha?”

The ink on his arms danced and itched at the name, his skin twitching under her fervent gaze.
Holy shit
, Clark thought. He had to get her attention back to his face. Her enraptured attention on his body was messing with his head. Though her light brown hair was darker than Sophia’s strawberry blond color, she still looked much too similar to Sophia.

“Your name?” he snapped.

She jumped at his harsh tone, but her eyes met his again. “Maya.”

“Nice to meet you, Maya. I’m Clark St. James, but apparently my reputation precedes me. As it should. Now, if you don’t mind, I’ve got shit to do—”

“Wait! I need to talk to you. I came a very long way, and I—”

“Z,” Clark said, turning to the angel, who stood very quietly in the corner. “Don’t we have
very
important shit to do right now?”

“Uh,” Zarachiel paused. Normally, they just worked in the greenhouses until lunch. As the leader of the Nephilim, Clark was in charge of growing the food for next year, which meant lots of tedious planning and prepping in the greenhouses now. “Sure.”

“See?” Clark looked back at Maya, whose shoulders slumped, her eyes brimming with tears. “But we will talk soon. I promise,” he lied. If he had any say in the matter, he would never talk to this creature again.

He couldn’t bear it, couldn’t handle the pain of seeing all he’d lost staring back at him.

“But I really need—”

“Zarachiel, will you escort Maya to the Nephilim wing? I believe you will find an available apartment over there.”

Clark swiveled around in his chair, taking the bottle of whiskey with him. He heard Zarachiel murmuring to the girl, who seemed reluctant to go. But when the door clicked shut, Clark doubled over, clenching his stomach. His breaths were ragged and gasping as the panic attack had its way with him.

His vision grayed at the edges and floor tilted up ever so kindly to meet his face as he tumbled out of the chair.

Chapter Two

C
lark came to in his apartment, lying in his bed, with a jolt. This time he knew he was in a new nightmare because he’d seen Sophia’s ghost. Or he’d thought he had. Groaning, he sat up, his mind banging at the confines of his skull. “What the hell?” he muttered.

“You fainted.”

Clark glanced toward the voice. Zarachiel sat in a chair beside the bed with his elbows on his knees, leaning forward as he watched Clark. The line of his back was jagged and hunching where his wings had been hacked out. Like Michaela, Zarachiel had also been an Archangel, accused of betraying Heaven and tortured. When the radical holy angels had taken his wings, they hadn’t been kind; they’d cut them out, ruining the bone and fine lines of the once-beautiful Archangel. Clark thought he could repair Zarachiel’s mangled bones in his back with the magic contained on his arms from the Watchers’ secrets, but the angel wouldn’t let him. Instead, he’d chosen to remain on Earth with Clark, wingless and in a constant haze of pain. Zarachiel’s decision had cost him Uriel, his Archangel mate, the one he was created to be with. They were supposed to be together forever; instead, Zarachiel was at Clark’s side, looking worried for
him
.

Clark wanted to say something snarky about fainting, but he didn’t have the heart.

“Do you remember why?” Zarachiel offered quietly, his voice soft and easy.

“Yeah,” Clark said just as quietly. He put his head in his hands, feeling a horrible wrenching in his heart, like he was losing Sophia all over again. “I remember.”

“I didn’t know she was here until it was too late. If so, I would’ve given you more warning.”

“Why is she here? Why now?” Clark’s voice broke, and it would’ve embarrassed him if he was in the company of anyone but Zarachiel. But the angel had already seen this broken part of Clark. “Why, Z?”

Zarachiel had a way of quiet examination, like he was picking a person apart, finding the flaws, putting them aside, and patching the person back together again. The searching had been unnerving at first, but now Clark just waited, staring back at his friend, looking past the broken angel to see the man inside.

“I don’t know why she came, but I’m very sorry.”

Clark blinked and looked away. There were never any solid, comforting answers in this world. He’d learned that long ago with Michaela. Thinking of her, thinking of their friendship, made him miss her all over again. He loved Zarachiel like a brother, but he wished Michaela were here right now. Almost more than he wished Sophia was here.

Once upon a time before the war, Michaela had been the General of Heaven, the most powerful and glorious Archangel, the first angel created. But when Clark had met her, she’d been nothing but a broken, wingless angel framed as a traitor to Heaven and Earth and hunted like a fugitive. Together, they’d taken on the war as best friends and allies. Clark had thought they would patch the world back together when everything was over, but that was just a fantasy. Michaela had a new role as the Angel of Death, and her duties took her far away from friendship’s needing reach. Clark understood, but missing her compounded onto the load he bore today and crumbled him.

“What are you going to do?” Zarachiel asked as Clark surged up from the bed and walked into dining room.

“Get shitfaced.”

From the bar, which used to be a china buffet, Clark drank straight from a bottle of whiskey. Zarachiel followed him into the room and sat down at the table, looking over all their work from the last six months. Agriculture books littered the table, along with coffee-stained papers. A large map showing the entire surrounding town and compound spread across the middle of the table. Its curling corners were held down by half-full tumblers of whiskey.

“Do you miss it?” Clark asked, staring into the bottle, swishing the amber liquid around.

“Heaven?” Z asked.

“And the other angels.”

“Sometimes,” Zarachiel said with a loaded sigh. “But I like this work. It makes me happy, and that was something I thought I’d lost when they took my wings. I find a sense of peace out in the greenhouses with my hands in the dirt.”

“Is that why you stay? For peace?” Clark had never understood that. Why stay on Earth, a ruined and ragged place, when you could return to Heaven?

“For Heaven to be so perfect, there was never much peace to be had.”

Clark didn’t really know what to say about that, and the silence stretched out for too long. “I want the Nephil questioned before I talk to her again,” he said.

“I can do that.”

Clark drank some more, and Zarachiel sat in his chair some more. They pretended to discuss the coming spring crops, but they both knew it was just a ruse so that Zarachiel could watch over him. Once a third of the handle was gone, Clark stood, scraping his chair back. The unfairness of the situation overwhelmed him, angered him, until he could contain it no longer.

“Why is she here?” he hissed, smelling the whiskey on his breath even as he took another heady gulp.

Zarachiel watched him closely, his face void of all expression. He didn’t respond.