Fallen (8 page)

“I think you can do about anything you like in that.” He smiled and crossed his arms over his chest. Peering down, he waited for her to heel out one of her feet, displaying the black combat boot laced high up her ankle. “What's with the boots?”

“I like them. You got a problem with them?”

He was about to comment that combat boots did not go at all with a slinky black silk number, but stopped himself. Mr. Blackwell, he was not. And for some reason, the look worked on Pyx. Sexy
and
I-can-stab-you-faster-than-you-can-wink.

Yeah, he liked it, he really liked it.

“All right then. Let's go stake some vamps.”

P
yx led Cooper onto the dance floor in club
Exsangue
. Dancing in this silk dress was a voluptuous experience. She was beginning to take to heart Cooper's quest for all things sensual. He was right. Every experience opened her senses, and ignoring it was stupid.

The airy fabric slid across her bare flesh as if it were a lover's hand. Or so she suspected. She wasn't sure what a lover's hand felt like. She'd only had the two kisses from Cooper, and he didn't count because any accidental seduction between the two of them was part of her master plan to lure him into trusting her.

Cooper danced to the beat of a song called “Disturbia.” The music became him. It was as if he didn't have to try at all. Music moved within him. He'd bounce a bit, then groove his hips, and then wink at her.

Oh, that fluttery wink. It made something in Pyx flutter. Definitely not her heart, though.

Why was she having a problem with the things her breed would normally swallow in large gulps and then go on to more, more and more? The Sinistari were known for their decadent indulgence in mortal sin.

She had indulged in theft, gluttony, vanity and greed, but not yet lust.

When she closed her eyes and surrendered to the sound it was as though her body was the instrument, and she liked the feeling. The frantic beat directed her body.

Cooper's hand slid to the back of her waist. He swayed closer to her, enticing her into the same delirious beat that toyed with their closeness and threatened forgotten goals.

He gave her that big white-toothed smile, like he was proud of her. Man, did his eyes glimmer in the club's weird flashing lights. Angel, warrior, dancer. He occupied a place in her mind that didn't know how to process the experience. Or maybe that place had already accepted what the demon could not.

Demon, warrior, slayer.

Focus on the task, Pyxion. You're playing up to the angel to keep him close, remember?

Despite the sexy clothing, she still kept her dagger strapped close under her arm. This demon would not trip over silly mortal emotions.

Bending her knees, Pyx lowered, shifting her hips side to side. Screw the overthinking. She was here to hunt vampires.

Gliding up to standing position, she allowed Cooper to wrap a hand around her from behind, and spread his fingers across her stomach. His touch was not warm, but not disturbingly cold.

They moved in time with one another. Pyx bumped him
with her derriere and she discovered that hard weapon he possessed was ready and willing again.

I have a dagger, too…but it's not called Joe
.

Is that what men were like? So focused on their…parts. Could it be, they were literally controlled by their penises? And she was so worried she hadn't been a man?

Yet a woman could easily control that appendage without even touching it. She merely had to smile prettily at him and bat her lashes.

Cool.

Pyx swept her gaze about the dance floor and high along the balcony. A man lingered at the railing above, elbows propped and eyes taking in the scene. Tall, thin and too pale. He was unmistakably vampire. It was a sense she got for the longtooths; she couldn't explain it more than to say she got a shiver in her veins.

Gliding up to Cooper, she pressed close to him. He secured her hips with each hand and slowed their rhythm to a rocking sway that made parts on her body tingle. And that wasn't a vampire tingle, either.

“There's one standing directly over you,” she said at his ear.

The sweep of his breath across her face made her want to nuzzle in closer. And she did, quickly, just long enough to breathe in his musky male scent. It was subtle, yet she wanted more of it. To drown in it.

He turned her in his embrace, his fingers brushing over her breast. That set her insides to a jiggly quiver.

So maybe the male had as much power over the female with mere touches and looks. That left her on uneven playing ground, for Cooper obviously had much more experience in the sexual arts than she did.

They moved slowly, rocking and blending with the
dancers. He turned her so he could get a look at the vampire.

“I know that vampire,” he muttered over her shoulder. “He's warded against angels.”

“Seems a lot of them are.”

“Not all of them. We've taken out unwarded vamps. And who is to say if he's warded against demons?”

“How to determine which ones have wards and which do not?” Pyx said. “Probably the leaders. Let's get him out of here. See if he's got minions.”

“I do like to slay minions.”

He clasped her hand and led her from the dance floor. While she wanted to walk beside him, to catch up and even surpass him, Pyx decided it would look better if the vampire saw the angel leading her out. Maybe the vamp would even think she was the muse.

Cooper kicked open the exit door. They entered the night with hands clasped and Pyx hugged up next to him. Just to make things look good. Certainly not because the shim of his sleeve across her bare arm tingled wickedly and made her weigh the benefits of slaying vamps against the thrill of more kisses.

Or was that the thrill of slaying vamps and the benefits of kisses? Certainly kissing was more thrilling than slaying.

The club parking lot opened to a narrow alleyway, but she didn't want to take out any vampires so close to the building, in case an innocent walked out. And Cooper's method of annihilating vampires was rather messy.

“I know you're using me,” he said as they crossed the lot, hands swinging.

So what else was new? “You're using me.”

“So we understand it's not real affection, then.” He drew her hand up to press at his mouth.

Affection? Did he mean between
them?
Was the angel developing feelings toward her? No, couldn't be.

Pyx tugged her hand out of his, away from the allure of his kiss. “Nope, just a game.”

“Fine.”

“Fine.” Seriously? Why had it been necessary to confirm what had been so obvious?

Angels didn't fall in love any more than demons did. Unless she'd been assigned to slay a broken one. Had the man landed on his head after his Fall? It was possible because his utter lack of interest in finding his muse was just wrong. And since when did angels kiss demons?

You kissed him back
.

“There's a couple on the rooftop,” Cooper said over his shoulder to her. Then he leaped and landed on the roof of a brick-sided building.

Happy to abandon her mutinous thoughts about kissing, Pyx followed, landing beside him.

Cooper pressed a hand to her hip, to keep her behind him. She did not like to be stifled, and peeked around his shoulder. Three vampires flashed stiletto grins at her. Behind her, the vamp from the club had matched their leap. Now he pulled out a length of chain from his jacket and swung it over his head.

Pyx pulled out the wooden stake tucked in her boot and swung around, prepared to connect with flesh and blood. The vampire dodged and waggled an admonishing finger at her.

Cooper flicked a throwing star. It landed in one vampire in the skull above his ear. The vamp grabbed the razor-edged star and yelped as it cut open his palm.

“Nice one,” Pyx said. She kicked high to heel a vamp in the jaw. “But watch this!”

Her head still angled downward from the kick, palms
to asphalt, she pushed off and flipped high into the air, landing on another vamp's shoulder with her thighs. She squeezed but that wasn't going to take out an immortal bloodsucker. Lunging forward over its head, she plunged the stake into his chest, and somersaulted to land on both feet. Behind her the air filled with vamp ash. The smell of that stuff was like burnt, rotting meat.

“Not bad—”

“Cooper, watch out!”

He had been aiming for the vampire wielding the chain in front of him, and didn't see the vamp who leaped for his back and clung like a monkey. The vampire slammed a gun barrel against Cooper's back.

The angel shouted viciously. His arms and legs snapped out from his body, shaking, as if touched by a Taser.

The decoy vampire laughed and turned right into Pyx's space. She shoved a stake in his heart.

Cooper let out a biting string of mortal oaths. His body shuddered as if pinned in midair. He struggled, fighting the weird effects of whatever had been done to him.

The vampire who'd been on Cooper's back lunged for Pyx. She booted him in the chest. He dropped the gun and landed against the brick wall with a thud. Stake held ready to stab, she was about to take him out when Cooper's painful cry stopped her.

“I will not relent,” another vampire said to Cooper, whom Pyx had not turned to look at yet. “I want a name, buddy. I'll return when you're not sporting a demon on your arm.”

Cooper's growl was unnatural and glassy. Something wasn't right.

Turning about, Pyx's stake hand dropped to her side. Her mouth may have dropped open, too, but only momentarily.

Cooper wasn't in human form.

The angel had shifted. Whether purposefully or as a result of the strange attack, Pyx couldn't know. He shook his glass head as if trying to shake off a daze.

The vampire who had spoken ran down the alleyway. She let him go.

There were more important things to concern her right now. She slapped her hip, but the dagger wasn't there.

Now was her chance! So what if the muse wasn't around. She didn't need one. The angel had assumed the form in which he could be slain.

Pyx frantically scanned the rooftop, but couldn't locate the dagger.

The angel moaned, and let out a high-pitched shriek. It resembled no earthly sound. He could blast out mortal eardrums, and eventually their brains, if he continued—but he did not.

Pyx stared at the shifted creature and forgot about Joe.

Magnificent was a poor word to describe Cooper in his half-shifted form. The man's shirt had torn away and his chest had become hard, solid blue glass, which flexed remarkably like liquid ice. To touch him in this form would invite a chill no creature could withstand. It wouldn't kill her, but it would freeze her solid.

Within the blue glass, Pyx saw the red heart. All angels had glass hearts. Not glass as mortals would define it; this particular angel was formed of ineffable substance that resembled glass.

All angels were different; some were fashioned from metal, wood, mist, razors, paper. Their structure was related to the craft each angel possessed and had taught the world upon their fall.

The creature standing before her looked like Cooper, but
his face was glass and where his hair should be a vapory substance clouded about his skull.

But the most spectacular sight was the wings stretching out thirty, maybe even forty feet behind him. A pseudo-peacock's array ruffled out from between his shoulders. No feathers. Angels did not do feathers until the final death. Instead, the illusion of feathers designed of what looked like stained glass shivered and moved with the air as if weightless. Titanium, blue, silver, emerald and violet glass glistened under the streetlights and cast lasers of color across the brick walls.

“Pyx?” His voice shuddered in a bell-like tone. He slapped a glass palm to his chest and the skin rippled as if flesh to flesh.

“You are an incredible sight,” she said, and then caught a lump in her throat.

A lift of his brow, cocky—even in half form the angel was still a Casanova—made Pyx realize what she just said.

“I mean, your wings. They're…gorgeous. Why did you shift?”

“Wasn't on purpose.” He suddenly fell to his knees and bowed, catching his palms on the asphalt. His wings swept the air beyond the roof of the three-story building to his right. “Shot me…with something. In the back. Like…electricity running through me. Couldn't help it.”

“Yes. The vampire had a gun.”

Pyx scanned the ground and sighted a small silver gun. She grabbed it. It was more an injection gun with an empty glass cartridge barrel than something that fired bullets.

And where had Joe gone?

“I think they injected you with—”

The piercing cry sounded again. Pyx winced and covered her ears.

She turned to find the wings gone and Cooper had resumed his mortal costume. His lower half hadn't shifted so he wore jeans, though his boots lay beside his bare feet. His chest heaved, flexing the muscles.

He looked up at her, huffing and exhausted from the shift. “Injected me? I felt it at my lower back. Take a look.”

She crawled over to him and noticed Joe lying not two feet away from the angel's feet.

“What do you see?”

A missed opportunity.

The chance to prove herself had been stolen by her misplaced wonder. For now. She would have another chance, and next time, she would not be distracted by the angel's beauty.

Pyx bent over him, but didn't see any marks on his flesh. “The light here is bad. Can you flash?”

“Of course I can. I'm not an invalid.”

“I mean, so we can go home and take a better look. Come on.” She swept up Joe and holstered the dagger, patting it once. Next time, for sure. “Whatever the vamps are up to, I want to figure this out.”

Missed opportunity or some kind of weird angel worship? She'd been utterly aghast at the beauty of his form. Sinistari did not admire the Fallen.

You're not going to fail again, Pyx
.

But had she already accepted the failure?

Cooper put a shaking arm across her shoulders and together they flashed.

 

Bruce had never seen a shifted angel. Not unless it had been a painting. In the moment when he'd clung to the Fallen's back, it had freaked him out. He wasn't sure the
GPS had been injected correctly. It had been designed to go into the mortal flesh the angel wore when on earth.

Why had it shifted? Was it because of the injection? Weird.

He tapped the receiver. Static buzzed.