Forbidden (The Preternaturals) (16 page)

“Why don’t we wait and see what Tam can do about the angels before we
start worrying about all this,” Greta, the shy brunette werecat
said. Anthony growled at her, and she shrank back.

But Anthony saw the sense in what she suggested. “Tam, how long until
you know if anything can be done?”

“I’m not sure. Maybe three days to be safe. I’m being asked to do the
impossible here. I’m flattered and all, but come on.”

“We’ll meet back in three days, then.”

Hadrian stood. “I’ll be at my church. If anything changes, send your
goons. And have them knock politely. I might be busy doing something
more important.”

The baby made another happy gurgling sound and tugged on the Noah’s
fur. Sydney clapped her hands in delight when his eyes glowed golden.
She crawled to Anthony, and he scooped her up and held her. She
smacked playfully at his face and let out a peel of laughter. She was
clearly daddy’s girl.

“Whatever,” the vampire said, too busy making googly faces at his daughter to
care anymore about Hadrian.

The others got up from the tables as well, and the meeting dispersed.

When Hadrian reached the street, he felt the hunger. If he planned to make
it back to his church basement before sunrise, he’d need to have
dinner before he started the journey. Since Angeline, human blood
didn’t taste right anymore. It was like going from a gourmet meal
at a five-star restaurant to fast food that had sat under the heat
lamp for hours.

Where was she? Had she abandoned him? Gone back on her word? That didn’t
feel right. The way she’d followed and clung to him like a puppy
desperate for approval… She seemed willing to do anything to
appease his wrath, and the darker pieces inside him reveled in it.

He found himself swinging irrationally between an angry urge to punish
her and worry as he prowled the streets. What if something had
happened? Could she be in trouble in Heaven? It wasn’t as if there
was any way for him to get up there. And though he knew Cain could
get into the waiting area outside the main gate, Hadrian knew the
demon wouldn’t help him.

And what could Cain do anyway? Nothing. If Angeline wasn’t already in
trouble, she would be if a demon prowled around, demanding her
release.

There was an enforcer on practically every street corner in Cary Town now.
The vampires of the group wore sturdy metal armor over their hearts,
and thick steel collars around their necks to prevent blades from
going through. It was a ridiculous look, but it did beg the question
of why all vampires didn’t just dress that way to eliminate the
only real threats that could kill them besides sunlight and fire.

One of the enforcers sent Hadrian a menacing glare when he found a meal
walking down the street at such a late hour. She must be suicidal.

The enforcer growled.

“Are you going to give me grief about feeding?” Hadrian asked. Sure, he
could feed once he cleared Anthony’s city but, he was hungry now.

“Not if you go through the proper procedures. Don’t call attention and
memory wipe, just like before the humans knew. We’re trying to keep
the panic down.”

So that’s why the human felt safe to wander the streets. Anthony’s
propaganda worked on one species, at least.

“Of course. I was never into the flashy shit, anyway,” Hadrian said.

The enforcer nodded, and Father Hadrian made his way across the street to
the isolated young woman. He gripped her arm and moved her into an
alleyway. There were no witnesses, and she wasn’t a screamer so he
didn’t bother with thrall.

Her eyes were wide and frightened, and she looked to the nearest enforcer
as if surely he would save her if she cried out.

“What makes you think it’s safe for you to wander these streets alone?
You know what’s out here, now.” Hadrian allowed his fangs to come
out and felt the glow light his eyes.

“T-there haven’t been attacks here, and with the police…”

Hadrian laughed. “You think those are police? Why do you think they wear
armor over their hearts?”

Her eyes widened. “But, there haven’t been any killings here.”

“That you know of.” He looked inside her mind, searching for the guilty
secret that he could absolve her of or damn her for. She was a
schoolteacher, and the worst thing she seemed to have ever done was
cheat on a test in high school. She didn’t appear to carry any
great guilt, and he didn’t think she should die for it. He wasn’t
a psychopath, for God’s sake.

He touched the side of her face. “Forget you saw me and go home. Don’t
go out after dark. It’s not safe, whatever you’ve been told.”

“Y-yes. I’ll do that. Thank you,” she said, as that glassy look came into
her eyes that indicated she’d been successfully compelled to obey.

Hadrian growled in frustration when she’d gone, and the enforcer raised a
brow.

“Not to your taste?” he asked.

“Shut up.”

Hadrian couldn’t pin down why he hadn’t been able to feed from the woman
in the alley. For decades, feeding had been a ritualistic
entanglement of his previous job and satiating his hunger. He’d
always been big on ritual, after all.

He stalked down a couple more streets until he found a larger crowd.
Their strategy appeared to be safety in numbers. He wondered how that
was working out for them. It was a festival. Hadrian leaped out of
the way of a fire eater, having no desire to get singed tonight.

This time he was more picky. He scanned the crowd, looking for a mind
filled to the brink with trouble—anything so he could get this done
and go back to his church.

Ah, there was one. A woman with long blonde hair, trying to blend into
the crowd, but unable to. She’d abandoned her children and had a string of affairs with junkies,
hanging on to them to get her own fix. She was with one of them now.

Hadrian negotiated the crowd and put a hand on the man’s arm. “Do you
mind if I borrow your girl?”

The guy was thin. His clothing hung on him as if he were a wire coat
hanger. He wore a flannel shirt and smelled of cheap whiskey. “Why
don’t you move along, shit stain?”

Charming. Hadrian looked into his eyes. “I’ve got a better idea. Forget you
ever met this woman. She’s not with you.”

When Hadrian turned to his prey, it was clear from her expression that she
knew what he was. And unlike the other woman, this one looked like a
screamer. “Don’t speak,” he said, capturing her gaze in his
before she could take her vocal chords for a test drive in the public
square.

He led her away from the crowd, sifting through her mind for more
details. He took her to an abandoned playground near Anthony’s
place. “Tell me, are you sorry for your sins?”

“What?”

“You know what I’m asking. Abandoning your children, the men, the
drugs.”

She started to cry. “And if I’m not you’ll kill me? Or will it
matter either way?”

Bright woman. Far too bright for any of this.

“Answer.”

“It doesn’t make any difference.”

She wouldn’t formally confess but the guilt gnawed at her, especially
over her kids. It ate away at the edges of her soul, hollowing out
something inside of her, stealing bits of her humanity.

Hadrian sniffed at her throat. He didn’t smell anything on her, but the
blood underneath the surface could still be tainted with drugs, and
he didn’t need that while traveling home. He put a suggestion in
her mind so his fangs would give her pleasure instead of pain, then
he took a brief taste. Clean. She hadn’t had a hit yet.

Her body arched toward him as he bit down, drinking as much as he could
without causing true damage. While he fed, he erased the guilt and
sadness and horror over the things she’d done. Then he pulled away
and licked the wounds to seal them.

“Do you know where the nearest rehab clinic is?”

“Yes, but… I can’t afford the trip to get there.”

He pulled out his wallet and took out a debit card. It had belonged to
one of his recent victims who hadn’t been sorry. She had quite a bank balance, and no
one missed her yet. “You will pack up your things immediately and go there. You will use
this card for anything you need to get yourself back together.”

She nodded, the thrall ensuring she would do what he asked. She took the
card and slipped it into her purse.

“Do you have paper and a pen?” he asked.

She pulled an old bill and a ballpoint pen out of her purse. He scrawled
his name and some numbers on the paper and handed it back to her. “This is the pin number
for the card, and below it is my cell number. When you get out, if you have any problems seeing your
children, call me and I will handle it.” He took her hand to put
more force into his thrall. “You will
never
use again, do
you understand?”

“Y-yes.”

“And you will call if you have trouble? With anything?” When he absolved
someone, he didn’t leave them with no help. And he could easily
enthrall anyone who prevented her from getting back to her kids when
she’d cleaned up.

“Y-yes.”

“Good girl. You will forget the vampire part of our interaction. I am just
a man. Just a nice man who helped you.”

Chapter Seven

Angeline had lost track of how long she’d been locked in the black room.
Time didn’t seem to exist here as there was no way to mark it. It
had definitely been longer than hours. Days? Weeks? Months? Those
words felt meaningless. Everything was meaningless. The only true
sense she had of the length of time she’d been here was how weak
and tired she felt, the result of a lack of light, being shut up in
this darkness so long. It wouldn’t show on her body, but it would
show in her eyes.

She’d thought Rodolfo would arrive soon after Kurt had left her. She’d
hoped she could reason with him, pray for mercy and hope to be given
one more chance to be good.

The voices had started calling for the destruction of her soul. And it
hardly seemed to matter. She’d lost the will to fight their
constant accusations.

It hadn’t taken long for the voices to move beyond verbal taunts. The
glass walls had transformed into screens, projecting stark images of
her life as a vampire with Linus. All her crimes repeated without
end. And when she closed her eyes to make it stop, the voices
screamed at her, swearing they would give her the final death for her
refusal to watch.

Even the terrible things Linus did to her were twisted to make it seem as
if somehow they were all her fault. Everything was her fault. The
rest of the world was virtuous and happy and at peace without her
existence messing things up. The world didn’t need her to ruffle
the fabric of existence with her tainted soul.

Then they’d shown her Hadrian, her obsession with him, giving him her
blood.

“Abomination!” they’d shrieked at her. Hundreds of voices overlapping with that
single accusation and taunt.

The door swung open, and Angeline looked up, moving her hands from her
face. She’d crouched in a corner of the black room to shield
herself from the constant onslaught of their mental torture and
cruelty.

“Angeline,” Rodolfo said.

He pulled out a remote, and she cringed away, afraid it was something
meant to hurt her, but one of the walls simply opened and pushed out
a platform with a desk and two chairs. The senior angel settled in
one of the chairs and extended a hand to the other, his face mild.

“Sit, and let’s talk,” he said.

She slunk to the small straight-backed chair he indicated. Her limbs were
sore and tired from no light and from being crunched in such a small
ball to try to disappear away from them.

“H-how long have I been in here?” she asked, fearing it had to be years or
decades. If she was ever allowed out of here, she would never be the
same. They’d broken her into small pieces. She was sure nothing
could form those pieces back into a single whole.

“Two days,” he said.

Two days? Two days. She’d marked the time when her friend had been kept
in the black room. It had been four weeks. What could they have
thought to do in four weeks? What more was coming?

“P-please let me out. I promise I’ll be good.”

His chair was elevated and he looked down his nose at her in that smug
way he’d turned into high art. “They all say that, but if we let
you out too soon and you haven’t learned…”

“I’ve learned. I-I swear I’ve learned.”

“I’ve spoken with the angelic council. There is talk of destroying you.
They don’t believe as a former vampire that you can be rehabilitated. It isn’t simply the
crime of giving your blood to a vampire, though that, too, is unforgivable.”

“Abomination,” The voices whispered, starting their overlapping track of
condemnation again.

Rodolfo looked off into the void of the room. “All right. That will be
enough for now.”

The voices silenced.

Rodolfo continued. “It is the firm and unanimous belief of the council that
you are a disastrous mistake. As you know, there are only three
options for an angel who errs. Rehabilitation, Falling, and
Destruction. Rehabilitation, I’m afraid, is off the table.”

Then what was the point of bringing her here if she couldn’t make
amends? If it wasn’t penance… it was retribution.

“N-no. I can change. I can do better. I promise.”

Angeline couldn’t think which fate would be worse. When the voices had been
their loudest, destruction had felt like welcome peace, anything to
make it quiet. But the quiet wouldn’t be a quiet she could
experience, it would be her complete eradication. Now that it was a
real possibility, it terrified her.

It wasn’t like the fear of death other mortal beings experienced. With
mortals, they might fear the unknown, they might worry that there was
nothing, or they might fear some nightmarish Hell, but they didn’t
know
. Angeline knew the train had no further stops. If they
destroyed her… it was exactly as it sounded.