Ivory Guard (17 page)

The shade bit in
to the flesh beneath her ribs, licking her skin like acid being poured, and she screamed.

Suddenly the angel’s head whipped around and he vanished with a curse.

Blinking her eyes, to clear them from the tears that escaped, Lillian searched what had scared him off. The drunken guy from the bar had come out, holding on to the nearest car and standing on wobbly legs, eyes wide as saucers.

And then Joshua was right in front of her.
His lips were moving, but she didn’t hear anything. Shock. Wow, that really made her want to laugh. She had never once been in shock ever since this crazy Ivory shit started. One freaking angel and her spotless record was blown to hell.

When she looked back up, they were all there.
Her guard. Their faces were moving in and out of focus and so she looked back down. Concrete, unmoving concrete. Closing her eyes, she breathed, knowing that she needed to get back under control. When she felt herself calming, voices and words finally started to come back and make sense.

“
What the hell happened?”

“Was that a
freaking angel?”

“How bad are you hurt?”

Holding up her a hand to stop the flood, Lillian begged, “One at a time and not so loud.” Her voice was surprisingly hoarse even to her own ears. She must have screamed quite a lot but couldn’t recall having done so. Hands pulled her up and linked around her to carry her towards the car.

The shadow blade wound was heating her up, a dark kind of fever spreading like a palpable tendril through her body.
Shit. Her skin was clammy, sweaty, and she really didn’t feel that well.

Joshua leaned her against the hood, holding her up with his own body when her legs didn’t want to obey her. “Shit, Lillian. What’s the matter?”

“A shade.”

She saw her friends exchanging worried glances.

“The angel had a shade. Got me…in the side.”

When her world started to spin, Lillian knew she was in really big trouble.
She was growing weaker with every second. There were only two people who could help her now. And only one of them had never let her down. Shaking her head in the hope to clear it, Lillian got out her cell and hit speed dial. Minimum contact was a must for Becca to stay under the radar, but they had exchanged one life-and-death emergency number. As far as Lillian was concerned this totally qualified as an emergency.

“What’s wrong?” The witch didn’t waste any time with unnecessary question
s. Gotta love her!

Lillian put her on speaker and then closed her eyes,
trying to block out the pain by concentrating on the two most important questions. “Is there a way to protect myself against angels, or at least a way to keep them out of my house?”

Silence thundered for a second
, then a careful, “Yes.”

Joshua took the phone when her hand started shaking like mad.
“Good. We’re on our way to New Orleans. We’ll arrive in a little over an hour, and I need our safe house to be
really
safe when we get there.”

“Address.”

Joshua gave it to her. Lillian swallowed, cleared her dry throat. “Oh, and Becca. Any idea what I need to treat a shadow blade wound?”

The witch hissed.
“Damn it, girl. But yes…The shade is darkness and death, so you need the opposites to heal. Branding the wound should work. So might healing plants, but without treating them or boiling them. Try wolf’s bane, purple coneflower or marigold, if you can get your hands on them, and then stuff them right into the wound, but it isn’t as effective as… well, I know this sounds weird, but semen works too, since it’s life in a rather pure form.”

Lillian didn’t even have the power to comment on the last one
, and it said volumes about her guard’s set of mind that they didn’t either. “Thanks, Becca.”

“No problem. See you later.”

Joshua disconnected and Lillian locked gazes with him, “Flaming daggers. Now.” To her guard she advised, “You’ll need to hold me down for this.”

EIGHTEEN

When Lillian came to, her eyes searched her surroundings until she realized the Dodge had come to a stop; the sudden lack of movement and the hum of its engine probably what had pulled her out of the darkness she had been in ever since they had branded her wound closed.

Joshua pulled the key out of the ignition
, and he and Matt turned around in their front seat, looking at her with concerned eyes. “Hey, welcome back.”

“How are you feeling
?” Abby asked softly from beside her.

Time for interior inventory.

Her skin was warm
but not hot; her eyesight was normal. No dizziness. But there was pain. Though it had changed from the sharp, poking, slithering kind to a dull, constant throb.

“Better, definitely better.”

Pulling her shirt up a bit she inspected her side. The wound was covered with a tidy white square bandage, but Lillian was sure what was underneath would leave a nice, fat scar. “Thank you guys.”

Abby sighed, her eyes a bit teary. “You scared the living daylights out of me.” Then she took a deep breath, pushing through the worry and pinned Lillian with her eyes to her seat. “Now, what the hell happened back there?”

Lillian looked out the window and saw they were parked to the side of their safe house. Safe house, my ass. Either the angels had quite the sick sense of humor or didn’t know that a safe house was meant to keep you
safe
– and not to come crashing down on you in your sleep.

Motioning towards the house, where she could see Becca moving around, she suggested with a small smile, “How about I tell the story just once?”

Although obviously bursting with curiosity and concern her friends put a leash on their questions, which made her love them even more, and they all got out of the car. Ah, stretching her legs felt wonderful. Then Lillian marched towards the front door which had been left gaping open, and came to an almost screeching halt right in front of the threshold. A thick line of coarse salt ran the length of it. But that wasn’t what had her staring. Beside the line of salt was another one, thick, brown and viscous, and Lillian had no idea what it was. Looking up she called out for Becca.

Noise from a room in the back and then the witch came jogging. S
he was wearing skinny jeans, black boots with the laces open, and a top a bit too large for her so it was slipping off one shoulder. “Hey, there you are. Come on in.”

As they did Lillian kept an eye on the brown substance. “What the hell is that?”

“Bone dust works really good against angels, but just a breath of air and it’s gone, so I always mix it in with blood.”

“Huh.”

Joshua frowned. “Bone dust?”

Shrugging Becca explained
while leading the way into the kitchen, “It’s rather simple. You use salt, a pure substance, against demons, which are impure creatures. Against angels, pure beings, you use…”

Nodding in understanding he said, “…an impure substance.
Got it.”

Becca’s
smiling gaze changed drastically, turning serious and worried as she stared at Lillian. Hands on her hips, the witch looked rather scary as she said, “Not that I don’t mind chatting with you but I believe we’ve, or you’ve, got much bigger problems right now. What the hell is going on?”

“Good question,” Abby seconded.

Suddenly all eyes turned to Lillian.

“
Yeah, I’ve got quite a few of them myself,” she murmured before she opened herself up to her memories of last night. Step by step she took her friends with her. “We stopped at a roadside bar to get coffee. Abby went to the restrooms while I went outside. I placed the cups on the hood so I would have a hand free to open the door, but before I could even reach for it someone grabbed me so hard that I lost balance. It was an angel. At first I thought he might not know what I was, so I flexed my wings and told him we were on the same side. No reaction.” She took a deep breath. “He carried a shade.”

Matt wondered, “What? But that’s not possible. He would hurt himself with it.”

Becca, arms crossed over her chest, shook her head. “Not if he wore protection, which I assume he did.”

Lillian nodded
. “Yeah, some kind of thick, metal threaded glove. Anyway, I realized he wasn’t playing any games and we fought. He was strong. I think I wouldn’t have been able to fight him off.” She snorted, “No, I’m pretty sure actually.”

“What happened then?” Abby softly encouraged her.

Knowing the people around her were her friends, her family, who would accept her, weakness and all, gave her the power she hadn’t known she needed. “A boy…I’d seen him in
the bar, totally drunk, stumbled outside and saw us. The angel vanished. Guess he wasn’t too eager on having an audience.”

“Do
you know him, the angel?”

“I barely saw him. He wore a
hoodie, and the night and lighting from the parking lot really worked in his favor. Oh, he had black wings.”

“A fallen?
Or an angel who is about to,” Becca wondered in a voice that suggested her mind was working hard and was already elsewhere.

Holding her breath Lillian admitted, “There’s something else I need to tell you.”
All eyes were back on her. “I… flew.”

Abby grimaced,
“Why do I get the feeling you mean that literally?”

“Because I do.
It wasn’t much. Just above the ground. More like floating, really. But…it was just…different.”

“But we aren’t supposed to…we aren’t able to …
are we?” The grimace turned into a curious frown.

“Don’t think so. Don’t know what it means…” Automatically, since the witch always seemed to have the answers, her eyes drifted to Becca.

Eyes wide, her shoulders moved helplessly. “No freaking clue for once. Gonna have to think on this one. But you probably should keep that under wraps. Like really tight.”

Lillian glanced at each one of them and everyone nodded their promise.

“Okay. Jesus.” Matt’s brows very nearly hit the roof as he rammed a hand into his hair. “Uhm… So what now? What are we going to do? What’s the plan?”

“
We came here to do a job and that’s exactly what we’ll do. Nothing changes, except for one thing.” Lillian braced her arms on the kitchen table and then locked gazes with her guard. “I want you on your guard. The angel was prepared, he had a shade and protection against it, which makes it premeditated. As long as we don’t know where the threat is coming from, there’s not much we can do. We are safe in this house,
but
the moment we step outside I need you on your toes. More so than ever before. Maybe the guy’s just a crazy angel on a killing spree and will be taken care of soon, who knows. But until then, I want you alert. All.The.Freaking.Time.”

Abby
winked at her, “Great to have you back.”

“Thanks. L
et’s find ourselves a hellhole.”

H
er guard headed out, eager for a fight to get rid of all the nervous energy the angel incident had left behind. As Lillian was about to follow them, Becca’s hand on her arm stopped her in her tracks.

The witch’s
serious eyes and dark frown didn’t promise anything good.

“What is it
?”

Becca bit the inside of her cheek and expelled a nervous breath.
“I meant to call you about this, but then you were attacked. But... Did the Ebony ever attack you
in
the safe houses?”

“No.
Why?”

Becca started to pace across the length of the room.
“And outside, I mean right outside of it?”

Frowning now as well
, Lillian tried to figure out where these questions would lead to. “Yeah, a couple of times I think.”

“Y
ou fought him a lot, this Ebony, so I guess there’s a good possibility that he got your blood or some of your hair, right?”

Lillian thought back to all the attacks, all the fights, especially the one where he had slammed her through the ceiling of their safe house.
“Yeah, definitely. Why? What did you find out? You’re starting to freak me out.”

Becca suddenly stopped with the pacing to face her, but t
hat frown persisted. “The simplest and most effective way to find someone is through a locator spell. All you need for that to work is blood, hair and the likes. The thing is, even if he does that, your sigil,” she pointed towards Lillian’s wrist and the mark there, “should, you know, make the spell bounce off. I mean, that’s why you have it to begin with, so you aren’t easy pickings.”

“So…what are you saying?
That our sigil doesn’t work?”

Becca worried her lip, deep in thought. “I don’t know. It’s just a theory at the moment but
I promise as soon as I know more, I’ll contact you. Until then… just be careful and try to stay inside. I know it’s not your style, but…” She moved her shoulders, helpless.

“
I get it.” When Abby called from outside, Lillian rolled her eyes. “Duty calls. Thanks Becca. For everything.”

A small smile.
“Back at you.”

Lillian’s guard
met up with Sam’s and agreed to comb through the bayou in groups of two, since their previous explorations made them suspect the two hellholes there. Although Lillian liked Sam and believed they shared a lot of views, she wasn’t sure how he felt about chumming up with the enemy and so she had hesitated to tell him about Becca. For now, Abby and she had decided to test the waters through a little pillow talk. Not that much convincing had been needed, though looking back Lillian was pretty sure it had been Abby’s idea all along.

“You sure you’re up for fighting?” Joshua asked her as soon as the two of them were out of ear-shot, after they had to leave the Dodge behind and had started on foot.

“Stop worrying. I’m fine, really.”

His look told her enough; he didn’t believe a word she said.

Okay, so the wound still throbbed like hell even after s
he’d downed a couple of pills, but she hadn’t wanted Becca to help her out with this one. Not only because the witch had already done so much for them, but also because Lillian wanted the pain. It was a I-didn’t-imagine-it, in-your-face reminder that one of their own had attacked her.

“You just want to make sure you didn’t make it all up.”

Lillian stopped in her tracks to stare at him.

The smirk curling his lips was rather smug. “Don’t look so shocked.
We’ve been living under the same roof for the last two years.”

True. “Okay, you’re right. I just can’t wrap my mind around it.”

“That’s normal, Lillian. No one will see…less in you for that. Killing demons, sending them back to hell, that’s our normal and we can shrug it off. But fighting angels? That tops even our kind of day-to-day.”

Yeah, her guard was great. Softly smiling
, she nodded. “Thanks.”

“Now tell me, how your sword arm is doing?
And no bullshit.”

“The right arm is
fine, it’s my left side that troubles me.”

Without another word Joshua moved to stand to the left of her, covering her weaker side.
They continued like that through the bayou, in comfortable silence.

The air was rather humid and warmer than anything Lillian was used to for this time of year. But she really could get used to the mix of sweetness in the air, with a hint of salt and something mossy.

Suddenly Lillian noticed that telltale touch of red creeping up on their surroundings. Joshua apparently did as well, since without any words needed they both picked up the pace. A few minutes later and they found the holes. Two swirling masses of blood red, vomiting demons of all sizes and shapes into the world.

Not for the first time since they had met Becca and Quinn
, Lillian found herself wondering how many of them were trying to get away from the life they knew in hopes of a better one.

A glance and she knew that Joshua was thinking something along those very sam
e lines. His face was grim. No sign of adrenaline-induced exhilaration, but grim realization dimmed his eyes instead. And she had no idea what to tell him, what to say or to do to make sure they weren’t killing innocents.

Looking down and then back up at the dozens of demons only a few yards away, she finally said, “Kill only when attacked.”

A sharp nod, nothing more, but from the corner of her eye she noticed the tension in his shoulders ease a bit.

Slight movement to her right.

Ah. The rest of them had arrived, the two guards were here and surrounding the merging hellholes.

Without any kind of sign, acting on pure,
Ivory instinct the seven of them shot forward, breaking out of their hiding spots with weapons held low but ready.

Fighting always felt like coming home, or finding yourself. Lillian knew the scents and sounds, knew her body and its pla
ce in the fight. Honed reflexes; familiar, even automatic movements. Her body was lithe and capable and a weapon so smooth. For this brief moment in time there was nothing but clarity, sharpness…and freedom. Even when her opponents got lucky, it was like parents scolding, a rap on the knuckles. In the end it made her better, sharper still. It was divine.