The Mammoth Book of Paranormal Romance 2

Four

Don’t be a hero.

He hated them right now, demons and spawns, angels, too, even the good kind. They couldn’t stop meddling with people’s lives, trying to pull the blanket on to their side. Jealous freaks, the lot of them. They didn’t have souls, and it burned them to think monkey-men had them, when clearly, they were inferior. Like animals.

Cain couldn’t have been less hero material. But that didn’t mean he intended to make it easy for hell to get its claws back into him. They wanted the secrets, they could come pry them out of his dead fingers. Fuck them. Fuck Berith.

“Wait here, okay,” he murmured, even though he knew Bethany couldn’t hear him any longer. “After it’s all done, I’ll come find you.”

He gently laid her down on her side and stood. After he gathered what ammo Bethany still had strapped to her, he straightened and caught movement in the reflective glass to his left. Cain only had time to whirl around. A split second later, something resembling a giant bat crashed against one of the glass walls. A spawn. Shudders traversed the floor. Ominous cracking sounds reverberated along the ceiling and down the concrete half walls. Dust floated around him like tiny snowflakes.

Through the windows, more spawns circled the leaning tower. The sky filled with them. Another hit the glass walls, then another. Like birds hitting a windshield. Wails and shrieks made Cain’s ears hiss.

He had to put as much distance as he could between Bethany and him, if only to spare her the sordid violations those keepers had in mind for her. He wouldn’t let them get their hands on her, even dead.

He couldn’t.

Time slowed. Noise came to him dimmed and dulled like standing across the street from a pounding discotheque. The smell of sulphur choked the air. There were two ways down from here. He couldn’t go back the way he’d come for fear of the other keepers getting their hands on Bethany. His sacrifice wouldn’t make that much of a difference in where she’d wake up, but at least they wouldn’t go after the defenceless woman. It’d at least buy her a serene death.

Cain jumped on to the glass ledge. Two feet wide, he stood directly on it, well away from Bethany.

“Come get me,” he growled through his teeth. “You fuckers.”

Cain aimed his Luger down between his feet and fired his second to last bullet. The shot went through the tempered glass and widened the spider web already there. Lines crackled outward, turned milky white like a small frozen puddle. But instead of hitting the frozen ground, when this “puddle” shattered nothing but air caught him. With a growl, he fell through the hole.

Spawns converged on him. They hit and slashed him with their serrated claws and scalpel-sharp fangs. Something gave in his shoulder. In his descent, he managed to twist face-up. Such a pretty sky. A spawn dived for him and grabbed Cain by the torso. He felt his skin perforating. Wet warmth spread. Blood everywhere, falling up from him in a reversed crimson rain. Wind howled but couldn’t drown his laugh. Cain was dying. He shot his last bullet right into the monster’s face. It wailed and dropped him.

What a fucking way to go.

Out of nowhere a bright white glow sliced the air.

What the—?

Spawns screeched. The light reached him with the speed of a bullet. Something caught him, and Cain humphed with the sudden deceleration that squished his innards back along his spine. Whatever — whoever — had caught him couldn’t be seen for the brilliant glow that enveloped the stout form. All he knew was that as soon as the being caught him, spawns had flown away in a flurry of leathery wings and frustrating shrieks. Wind abated, the angle changed, and Cain was gently deposited to the ground where he collapsed to his knees, forehead against the concrete and hands splayed on either side. Too weak to stand, barely strong enough to lift his head to look at his saviour.

The being straightened up. A pair of feathered wings like golden horns thrust heavenward on either side. Cain understood. Of all the weird things he’d witnessed, this took the prize. What the fuck was going on?

The glow abated, the wings folded behind a pair of stooped shoulders and a head clad in a hand-knitted cap he would’ve recognized anywhere. He couldn’t believe his eyes.

“You’re heavier than you look,” Sister Evangeline said. Her hands moved rapid-fire.

Cain struggled up to his knees, panting and gagging. He patted his side where the spawn had sliced him. Nothing. Not even blood. Jesus on a cross. .

“What have you done?” he panted. “You’re an angel? Why didn’t I see you as you really are?”

She sucked her teeth. “You’re welcome, mon garçon.”

Cain sat on his heels because he couldn’t stand. Not because of his injuries, as he couldn’t seem to find a single one, despite being cut and shredded and sliced in many places during the two-second fall from the funicular. He took a few deep breaths, closed his eyes. When he thought he wouldn’t stumble around like a drunk, he stood slowly, cautiously, as if trying on a brand new pair of legs. Everything felt different somehow and he couldn’t place why. Even the cold against his exposed skin felt sharper. He shivered.

Reality pressed back on him. He was only delaying the inevitable. Berith was waiting for him. “It won’t change anything.”

“It will,” she retorted. “Plus, you wouldn’t have survived the fall.”

“It doesn’t matter. He would’ve sent me back. After playing a bit with me first, of course. I pissed him off really good this time. Those secrets were worth a fortune in souls.” Fucking with Berith was worth the pain, though.

Sister Evangeline shook her head. “Not this time. You would have died. You would have squandered that life, too, just like you did the first.”

Cain took a moment to process the last part. “What—?”

She smiled and his theory was busted — because her eyes reflected the joy, unlike the other angels he’d met (not that they’d been the good kind, only fallen ones or hybrids).

A shiver tickled up his spine. “Do you mean. .?” He couldn’t even force the words out. It couldn’t be. He’d never heard of it. He was seeing things, or Berith was playing a cruel joke on him.

She nodded. “He’s all about second chances, you know. Even if people whine all the time and waste the years away.”

He couldn’t believe what was happening. “How? I. . I killed my own brother! How can he forgive me? What did I do?”

“Abel forgave you a long time ago, Cain. Live here and now. You could have left with the secrets, or you could have let the demons take her when they first caught up. Instead, you put the bull’s eye right between your own. You jumped to save her.”

Cain could hardly process the chain of thought. It was all a blur in his mind. It couldn’t be. He’d never have to go back there again? He’d never have to look into Berith’s ugly face? He was free from hell?

His elation quickly crystallized. “What about her? She belongs to Asmodeus.”

The older woman’s kindly eyes glowed white-hot for a moment and terrible, godly anger once more swelled her wings with glacial wind. Her hair stood on end, crackles of electricity joined her splayed fingers. Cain took a step back. “Do not speak their name!” Then the smile was back again as she seemed to deflate to her normal appearance. As if nothing had happened.

Sneaky angels.

Cain looked up at where the funicular light gradually descended to ground level. His heart leaped. What the hell was going on? Had one of the keepers snuck up there? Was Bethany still alive, in the hands of some hell-bought thug?

“Why do you worry about her?” The Sister’s hands flashed rapidly. “You like her?”

His first reaction was to snort a denial. Instead, what came out was a strangled, “Yeah, so?”

Sister Evangeline winked. “You think He’d bring you back to true life, only to make it miserable? She was going to get a second chance, eventually. But you.” She dropped her hands before starting to sign again. “You’re the one who surprised us all. Even Him.”

The Sister’s wings gradually receded, until nothing showed. She was once again an older woman with a messenger bag slung across her shoulders and a hand-knitted wool hat screwed on low. “Keep her out of trouble. I’m not going to pull you out of the roaster again. Already lost a few feathers for you two.”

“Yeah, I thought you guys didn’t have feathers.”

“Are you comparing me to the scum who turned their backs on Him? Merci beaucoup. That’s because you’d never seen a real angel. Until now.”

She turned and walked away before he could reply. Not that he had anything to say.

A faint sound caught his ear. He instinctively reached for his shotgun, which wasn’t there but somewhere between the base of the tower and the stadium itself. Shit. Wouldn’t that be grand to lose it minutes after being granted a new chance at life? Adrenaline shifted when he spotted the source of the noise. Boot heels clacking on concrete.

Bethany was coming at him. Not stumbling or floundering or even walking, despite the injuries she’d just suffered. The blond was running for him like a sprinter after the shot went off. And she didn’t seem to have any intention of slowing down either. Such spirit. How the hell had she managed that?

He squared his stance a second before she reached him, grabbed the front of his ruined jacket and planted a kiss that landed like knuckles. He had his arms around her before the thought registered he was killing his reputation. He didn’t give a damn. Not any more. Not around her.

Bethany pulled away, panting, tears in her eyes. She smiled, shook her head. “What the hell is going on?”

“We got another chance.”

He’d never been one for theatrics and big declarations. Get to the point. Life was too short for bullshit.

Her megawatt smile warmed him right down to his gut. “I’m hungry.”

“Yeah. A steak would be nice. Lots of blood and gravy.”

“Who said anything about food?” Bethany chuckled.

Cain could get used to that sound. In fact, he intended to do just that.