Fallen (22 page)

Bruce threaded the fingers of both hands together and flexed them out. “Let's take him out!”

This could not end well.

Cooper clutched a shard of glass in one hand. Blood spilled down the edge of it, and even as he braced himself to be pummeled by vampires he couldn't help but marvel.

Red blood. Coming from him!

But now he was mortal, he had to stay alive if he wanted to enjoy that prize.

The first vampire lunged. Cooper lashed out with the glass shard, catching the vamp across the jugular.

 

Pyx gasped breath. The mortal tears ate at her flesh. She had to get away from Sophia. She flashed outside the cavernous room where she had left her lover upon the heap of shattered wings. Colliding with the wall, she staggered and swept low, almost falling, but caught herself with a hand to the floor.

“Cooper,” she managed to say.

Everything hurt. Her skin sizzled. Sophia's tears were eating along her arm and up her shoulder.

A fog of ash dispersed before her eyes, and before she could think
dead vamp,
Cooper knelt before her. A glass shard had been utilized as a stake; it dripped with blood.

“Hey, sweetie. Killin' some vamps.”

“I can see that.”

“Are you okay? Did one of them get you?”

“No, I'm fine. Just a little weak after flashing the muse away.” She sat up against the door frame, and it was easier to breathe. Yet her neck burned now.

She scanned the room. No more vampires. But plenty
of piles of ash, as well as the glass remains of Cooper's wings. “You've been busy. But does that mean…”

“Kiss me.” He tugged her to him and embraced her with bloody hands. The glass shard he dropped, the halo she felt crush against her spine. His face was spattered in vamp blood, but she didn't mind as he kissed her.

This kiss felt different than any previous kiss he'd given her. It was warmer, lusher, more urgent, and the blood taste from his lip tasted salty and new.

It would be their goodbye kiss.

“You taste so good,” he said. “I love you, Pyx.”

She wiped a smear of blood from the corner of his eye. New blood gushed out behind her finger. “Cooper?”

He nodded. The twinkle in his eye confused her. But more so the blood flowing from beside his eye did. “Are you…? Is this your blood?”

“Yep.” He kissed her again. “Some vampire blood, too. Those bastards are nasty, but once you ash one of them the others get leery or run away. I toasted three or four.”

“Good for you.”

His bare shoulders were covered with ash. His skin was red and cut from the glass. And he bled…

…red blood.

“You got your soul?”

“I did,” he said. “A bright and shiny mortal soul. My heart is beating. Feel it.” He pulled her hand over his chest, where indeed, Pyx felt the insistent heartbeats. “What is this?”

He touched her shoulder gently, but Pyx sucked in a hiss at the painful contact.

“Pyx?”

“Mortal tears,” she managed, feeling the burn work at her throat. “Just…kiss me again. Please?”

“Your skin is burning away. Pyx, the tears will kill you. I've got to stop this. How can I?”

Her head lolled to the side, and she saw the flash of a halo sitting in the darkness. Cooper must have seen it too, because he lunged for it. It glowed blue in his hands.

“I'm no longer Fallen,” he said, “which means… Pyx, this is yours. It can save you.”

“We don't know that.”

“But we don't know otherwise. We've got to try it. I wonder how this works.” He held it above her head, as it had moved above his for proper position. “Feel anything?”

Only pain creeping under her jaw and up the back of her skull. Pyx nodded lethargically.

“There's gotta be a way to make it work.” He touched it to her forehead. Nothing happened. “Maybe if you hold it in your hands?”

“No,” she muttered.

“Damn it, Pyx, you're not going to give up!” He slammed it against her chest and suddenly Pyx's entire body stiffened.

The halo heated against the leather dress and it burned far worse than the mortal tears.

“It's glowing brightly,” her lover said on a gasp. “Does it hurt, Pyx? I'll stop it—”

“Leave it,” she managed.

The burn permeated her skin and breasts and all the way into her heart. Something was wrong. It hurt worse than any pain she had felt since walking earth.

Crying out, Pyx stretched her arms out wide. The halo melted through her dress. Stench of burned flesh filled the air. The ineffable metal sank into her, burning through flesh, muscle and bone. She could not bend her arms to grab it away.

All she could do was scream, until her scream grew to silence.

“Christ,” she heard Cooper say as an oath.

She felt it all. The halo clanged against her adamant heart, then curved and began to form about the hideous organ. Black demon blood oozed from the circle entrance wound marking the upper part of her chest.

And then it ceased. The burn grew cold. Her heart, which had felt molten, pulsed once. And then again.

Pyx dropped her head and slapped a hand against the oozing wound on her chest.

A squeezing clutch gripped her heart. She gasped as if her hard, demonic lungs required air. She couldn't breathe. And then she wondered if it was because her lungs really did need air.

Was she becoming mortal?

“Talk to me, Pyx. The burns on your neck and arm are gone. But your chest is healing too slowly. What have I done?”

She reached out blindly and landed her fingers loosely on his chest.
Be still,
she wanted to say,
let it happen
.

And then she felt it—the first pulse of mortality. Sweet. Enormous.
Thud
. And again,
thud, thud, thud
.

Smiling, Pyx dragged Cooper's hand up to place over her chest. The leather dress had a circle burned out of the middle between her breasts, and exposed one to the nipple.

The angel—former angel—chuckled softly and then nuzzled his ear against her breast. “It's beating. Just like mine. You're mortal now, Pyx.”

“I know. And I like it.”

“I love it,” he said.

“Yes.” She traced a finger down the side of his face, drawing his beauty in her mind. “Love.”

“Pyx.” He pulled her close and she closed her eyes and held on to him tighter than she'd hold a cliff hanging over Beneath. “I love you, Pyx.”

“I love you, too.” She stroked her fingers through his ash and blood-soaked hair. “We did it,” she exclaimed. “We really did it.”

“And I didn't have to harm the muse in the process. I didn't harm her, did I?”

“She's fine. I flashed her home and told her to get out of town.”

“She's a beacon to any other Fallen who may have been summoned by the insane leader of this vampire tribe.” Cooper squatted on his haunches. “We need to go after Antonio del Gado if we want this to stop.”

“He wasn't in the gang you slayed?”

“Don't know what he looks like. He could be ash.” He turned to inspect the ash piles in the dungeon.

“We'll walk the entire place,” Pyx said. “If he's here, we'll find him and stake him.”

“Not you, sweetie. You're not going to put yourself in danger now that you're mortal.”

“Oh, yeah? I'm feeling much stronger now. A few more minutes and I bet this wound will be completely healed. Besides, you're mortal now, too.”

“I can handle a few vamps.” He displayed the blood-soaked halo proudly. “This thing works pretty slick when you get them in the jugular. I'll protect you from now on.”

She was about to protest, but instead Pyx shrugged and nodded. “Works for me. But before you go off stalking vampires will you do something for me?”

“Anything.”

“Come here.” She gripped the waist of his kilt, which was shredded and loose thanks to his shift, and tugged
him down to straddle her, knees to either side of her thighs. “Kiss me, lover.”

“Gladly.”

The former angel and former demon kissed amid the vampire ash and Fallen detritus. The room glittered as moonlight sifted across the glass shards, and lifted the fine vampire ash to flutter through the air like fairy dust.

Neither noticed the magical moment, for this kiss was their first mortal connection. And they intended to make it last.

N
o vampires underground, at least, none that Pyx could sense. But she'd lost her vampire-sensing skills, so they wouldn't know if a vampire was around the next corner or not.

Which is why Cooper held Pyx close and walked ahead, makeshift stake from a chair leg held at the ready.

They were both aware that when a supernatural being claimed a mortal soul, that new mortal being eventually forgot their origins. They didn't know how much time they had, but prayed they would not also forget their love for one another.

Cooper kissed her forehead. “I won't forget you. And not knowing what I once was will be a blessing.”

“I agree.”

Now aboveground, they walked the halls and rooms of the rococo mansion. The office had been swept of incriminating evidence. No signs of Antonio del Gado
anywhere. They even checked the coffin in the master bedroom. Yes, there was a coffin.

“What do you think?” Pyx leaned against the open coffin, elbows to the red satin edge, as Cooper kicked aside an overturned chair. The room had been cleaned out swiftly.

“He's gone.”

“Which means more Fallen may be summoned to earth. And more Sinistari will be dispatched to slay them.”

“And more muses in peril,” Cooper finished. “I can't let that happen to those innocent women.”

“Didn't think so.” She spun the stake expertly. “We don't have to be supernatural to chase vampires.”

“No, but it would help. Wait. What's this?”

He moved aside a thick black damask curtain, but instead of revealing a window, it showed two paintings of angels. Matches to the life-size painting of Juphiel that had been in the dungeon, these paintings were of two different Fallen.

Cooper stroked a palm over the one that featured an angel designed of silver. The sigil on its breast was a spiral capped by a boxed line. It had been traced over with blood. “Samandiriel.”

“You know this one?” Pyx came to his side.

Cooper turned and squinted at her, as if seeing her for the first time. “Know…what?”

“The angel in the painting. You said Samandiriel? Is that the angel's name?”

He returned his attention to the painting, then stepped back, unsure.

“You've forgotten,” she decided. “Cooper? Do you know me?”

“Of course, love. But what are these paintings about? I don't understand them. And who is Samandiriel?”

“He's an angel who fell to earth and may have been summoned by the vampire Antonio del Gado.”

Her lover winced at her remarkable statement.

Pyx embraced him and laid her head aside his shoulder. So strong and warm. He'd lost all memory that he'd once been an angel. Good. It would be a horrible burden to bear now he was human.

She kissed him. “Let's walk, and fast.”

“Whatever you say, sweetie.”

They strode quickly down the halls of the mansion. “I love you, Cooper Truhart.”

“I love you, Pyx.” He kissed her on the cheek. “You smell like bubble gum.”

“You smell like the man I want to spend the rest of my life with.”

They entered the night and it kissed them both with a brisk fall breeze. Pyx tugged Cooper down the steps.

“I think that sounds like a marriage proposal,” he said. “The rest of your life?”

“Would you be my hubby?”

“Nothing would make me happier.”