Whiskey and Angelfire Read online

  “Vlad!” Quinn screeched.

  I spun around, finger to my lips, but she wasn’t looking. She was rushing toward a cell that contained Vlad. He couldn’t see her of course, but stood with his hands around the bars, looking out with a forlorn and puzzled look on his face.

  “It’s me, Quinn,” she said, with the sense to stage whisper this time. “I’m invisible!”

  “Quinn?!” he said, a smile forming on his face.

  “No shit. Shut up and let’s go!” I growled.

  Quinn had other ideas, however. With a defiant look on her face, she shot a blast of magic at the lock on Vlad’s door. It burst off, clanging against the floor.

  “Jesus. Come on, Quinn!” I snapped, grabbing her wrist and yanking her down the hall.

  The other supes started yelling at us.

  “Unfair!”

  “No way!”

  “Let us out!”

  As we ran, Quinn shot the locks off dozens of cells. When we reached the end of the cell block, I spun and shouted, “Do us a favor and create a distraction, okay?”

  Not that I needed to ask. Over a hundred supes flooded down the hall.

  A herd of angels ran toward us and we ducked into a broom closet to let them pass. After they’d moved on, I saw something that looked promising up ahead: a large room with banks of screens, bright lights, and lots of surly-looking angels.

  “Up there,” I whispered to Quinn.

  We walked quietly toward the control room and stopped outside. It had glass walls on three sides, so we could easily see within. About two dozen angels were crowded inside, watching the screens or calling out orders on comm devices. Some of the screens showed the search near the south door, others the supes we’d released that were now wreaking havoc in the halls. Looked like some of them had made it to another exit and were fleeing into the night.

  Some of the angels shifted positions, and then I saw him: Michael. Michael with his amazing wings that were a million colors at once. Did that happen with extreme age, or was he unique in some way? I didn’t take long to ponder it. Creeping forward, I made for Michael, motioning for Quinn to stay back.

  I slid into the room, edging around the doorframe, hugging the walls. The angels milled around again, reminding me of cats at a fish market. And then I saw Eli. He stood by Hunter, watching one of the screens. Her eyes burned with fury, while his gaze remained neutral. Well, neutral for him still being pretty damn serious. But his eyes didn’t hold any passion for the task. They were calm, calm as a glassy sea.

  He turned then and looked right at me, and his entire body went rigid. I froze. How could he see me? Had the spell worn off? But no, the other angels were oblivious to my presence. Eli spun back around, staring intently at the screen again, but I knew it hadn’t been just a happenstance look in my direction. Our eyes had met, and that calm had shattered.

  But I had to keep moving. Tiptoeing around the edge of the action, I moved steadily toward Michael. He stood about a dozen feet away now, surrounded by other angels. If only he’d move my way just a bit. Eli cast a quick glance over his shoulder at me, and I heard Hunter ask what was distracting him. He shook his head and muttered something I couldn’t hear. From the smug smile on her face I’d guess it was something like “down with those jerkface supes!” He played his part well.

  Almost there. Five feet away, but still three angels between me and Michael. I felt as if I couldn’t breathe lest it reveal my presence. A couple more feet forward. I was practically on top of them. The smell of their souls, clean and herbal, settled over my skin. But I didn’t have a desire to taste them, to possess them, not like with Eli’s soul. It seemed that even among angels he was something special.

  One of the angels stepped back and I had to spin to get out of the way, almost crashing into a chair. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Eli making his way in my direction. Did he think I was going to try to assassinate Michael? Eh, I wouldn’t put it past myself. If he only knew the silly task Pan put me up to.

  The angel that had moved left me a tiny opening to reach in and grab a feather. And it wouldn’t be like plucking a chicken feather, either. Not an angel’s feathers, with their weird flexible metallic quality. Would Michael feel it when I yanked it out? Taking a deep breath, I stepped forward into the gap. My fingers caught hold of a feather and I pulled at the same time that I stepped back, in and out like a cobra.

  Michael spun around.

  At the same time that Eli bumped into him. “Oh, sorry! Not watching where I’m going. Deepest apologies, sir.”

  By this time I was slipping back out the door, feather in hand. I cast one quick look over my shoulder to see Michael’s simmering gaze losing its heat as Eli pointed at some supes getting rounded up on one of the screens.

  Quinn met me in the hall. “That was close!”

  “Tell me about it,” I said.

  We jogged back through the halls. I’d seen a closer door on one of the screens, so I led us in that direction. We rounded a corner, and the door came into view, a few yards ahead. In addition to a dozen NHTF soldiers.

  I felt a shimmer of magic, and we were visible again. The guards yelled and charged in our direction.

  “This way! Then I’ll cloak us again and we’ll loop back,” Quinn said.

  “A little warning next time!” I growled.

  We dashed back around the corner, and as soon as we were out of sight, Quinn put the invisibility back on. Eight of the guards came running around the corner, and kept on going as we pressed ourselves up against the wall.

  Turning on my heel, I high-tailed it back toward the door. The four remaining guards looked around frantically, wondering where the rapidly approaching sound of footfalls came from. I leaped into the air, spinning in a circle of punches and kicks that sent them all to the ground like a bunch of bowling pins. Quinn blasted the door open, and we were out.

  I didn’t waste a moment in jumping us through the pathways back to Merrion Square. I turned to Quinn. “Okay. Now on to the real work. Let’s find that missing angel.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  “Ambriel is hidden in a timefold,” Pan explained with one of his expansive hand gestures.

  It’d been an hour since Quinn and I returned from angel headquarters. Riley and Scorch had the hacking stuff scoped out. Now it was time to find the star-crossed lovers and get shit done. Of course, there was still Lucifer’s plot to turn everyone into demons looming over our heads, but I’d have to take things one global disaster at a time.

  “What’s a timefold?” Scorch asked.

  “Exactly what it sounds like,” Pan said impatiently. He was running Michael’s feather back and forth under his chin as if considering turning it into a sex toy. “You fold time, so you’re in a place with no time, and no one can find you. Simple.”

  “Of course,” I said, rolling my eyes. “So, let’s undo it or whatever we need to do.”

  “A timefold is simple,” said Pan, “But unraveling one is not.” He looked at each of us in turn. “It will require a great deal of power and magic from us all. It will also require us to move through our own timelines, past and future.”

  “I don’t really have magic per say, not like Zy and Quinn,” Riley said.

  “Shifters have innate magic,” Pan said. “All beings do, even humans. You just have to allow it to come forth.”

  “You’ll be fine, Ri,” Quinn said, patting him on the shoulder.

  “Are we ready?” I asked, looking at the two of them.

  “We’re ready,” Riley responded.

  Pan took a long dagger from within the folds of his vest and made a cut across both palms. Crimson welled up against his tawny skin. I offered my hands up to him and he cut mine next, followed by Quinn and then Riley. Quinn bit her lip as she watched Pan approach Scorch with the dagger, but the kid took it without so much as wincing.

  Pan said, “Now we mix the blood so we’re all bonded together.”

  We took turns grasping palms. “For
m a circle,” Pan intoned. His voice had taken on a deep, sonorous quality, and for once his face was dead serious. We did as instructed. Finally, just before closing the circle, Pan dropped the angel feather in between us. It hovered in midair, swirling slowly.

  “Ambriel is Michael’s nephew,” Pan said, answering my unspoken question. “This will make finding him a bit easier.”

  My mouth fell open. So, it hadn’t all been a gigantic waste of time just to amuse Pan. Or rather, he’d had the added benefit of not only stealing something from Michael, but pissing me off in the process. Not to mention this put everything into crystal clear perspective—no wonder Michael was crazy obsessed with finding Ambriel.

  Pan took my hand, a sly smile on his face as he watched me process things, and the circle was complete. The air around us began to grown hazy. Glancing over, I could see Pan’s lips moving as he uttered some sort of spell. The thickness in the air became a full-on fog. The park disappeared from view. The stars overhead blinked out of sight one by one, like someone snuffing out candles. Mist surrounded us completely, and the world disappeared.

  “We can open the circle again, but keep hold of each other,” Pan said. “Now we walk.”

  He led us off into the mist. I couldn’t see anything around me, but after a few steps I no longer felt ground beneath my feet, and I knew we had passed out of the earth realm. However, I didn’t think we were necessarily in another realm, either. We were somehow in a place between places, like the interdimensional highways. Except I didn’t think we were exactly there, either. Because it wasn’t a place we were in, but rather a time.

  We walked for what seemed a quarter hour in complete silence. The fog seemed to seep into my very bones, cool and moist. Every inhale and exhale seemed loud, and every beat of my heart. Out of the grayness ahead, I heard a howl.

  Everyone froze except for Pan, who kept walking and pulled us along. Another howl broke the stillness, and then a low, deep growl. Something moved in the mist ahead, darting left, then right. A glowing as well, eyes perhaps. A large shadowy figure bounded toward us, growing in size as it approached. A wolf. It was a giant wolf. I flinched for impact, but it bounded through us like a ghost.

  “It’s my old pack,” Riley whispered as more wolf shapes appeared, dashing in and out of the fog around us.

  “I told you, we must travel through our past and future,” Pan said. “We are all connected now, so we see everyone else’s as well as our own.”

  Through the fog I could see trees now, huge cedars and birch groves. A rushing, bubbling sound like a river; more howls. The moon, huge overhead, oppressively so. Mountains in the distance, the smell of earth and stone and snow and time. A deer, the pack on its heels, crashing through the forest, snarling, barking. Bringing down the beast, the scent of warm blood filling the air, tearing flesh, white bone.

  And then another smell in the forest. A human. Just another beast. Another chase, another kill if they are lucky. Panicked breath, gasps, terror. Right on her heels, almost there…

  With a swirl, the images vanished, though I could still hear the sound of someone hyperventilating. I realized it was Riley, and I also realized these were no ordinary flashbacks. I could feel them. Like they were my own. I looked back to Riley at the end of the line. He saw the sympathy in my eyes and his breathing calmed down. Pan wasn’t joking about this being a challenge.

  Images started to pop up again, and it didn’t take long to figure out whose memories these were. A small, golden-haired girl of about twelve, sitting in the parlor of an antebellum house. China tea cups, a grandfather clock on the shelf, a vase of purple tulips. Oatmeal cookies scent the air. An elderly woman sitting in a pink wingback chair, posture stiff as the china. The girl lifts a tea cup from the silver tray beside her, but she’s clumsy and it crashes to the floor, shattering into a million pieces.

  The woman is up and out of her chair, a towering thunder cloud. Without thinking, the girl puts the teacup back together, an impulsive flash of magic she didn’t even know she had. They stare at the teacup, sitting pristine upon the silver tray again, though tea is still splattered all over the floor. The clock ticks noisily in time with the pounding of the girl’s heart…

  Mist swirled around us once again. Quinn’s eyes were bright with tears. Flecks of white started to pepper us and the air grew cold as the next memory took hold.

  Snow falls outside a bright red tent, old and battered. Beneath the tent, large iron-barred cages on wheels form a circle. People mill about the cages, speaking in Russian or maybe Czech. They’ve come to see the creatures within the cages. Reynauldo’s Circus of Wonders. Puffs of white breath escape their mouths as they crowd around in excitement. There’s a woman that turns into a giant snake, a unicorn, even a boy that can catch himself on fire. He’s the one they really want to see, the star of the show. King of freaks.

  The boy, no older than twelve, is poked repeatedly with a stick by a small man that hides inside the ring of cages. Making him angry is the only way to produce a dramatic shift at so young an age. Pain shoots up his ribcage as he’s jabbed again and again, and he feels it coming, the heat. The heat and the flame will wash away the pain. It starts in his eyes, and he sees the people’s own eyes grow huge as they stare into the glow. It moves down over his body, flickering along his skin, and he has a moment of peace…

  Scorch’s flashback melted away abruptly, to be replaced by a completely different scene. Our journey seemed to be speeding up. The next flashback arrived fully formed, and it was mine.

  A bar, polished wood. Whiskey in thick glasses sliding to customers, spilling over the sides, perfuming the air. Loud music, all brass; trumpets, trombones, and a saxophone. Women in tiny dresses of beads or fringe that shimmied as they walked. Mine has both—rows of fringe alternating with beading in black and white. A cigarette with a long holder rests between my gloved hands. Manhattan, 1922, Black Bat Speakeasy.

  I lean against the bar, throwing a seductive smile to the bartender. His curly brown hair is tucked under a chimney sweep hat. “Hey, show me how to make one of those.” I nod to the cocktail he’s just passed a gentleman next to me.

  The bartender smiles. “Ladies don’t usually bartend.” Before I can insist he says, “But I’m always up for breaking the rules.”

  We grin devilishly at each other as he pulls a bottle of liquor out from under the counter. He deftly flips a glass upright from a stack to his left. “First, sugar cubes and a dash of bitters.” He drops a couple cubes into the glass and sprinkles a few dashes of dark liquid in with them.

  “What’re bitters?”

  “A very concentrated liquor made from plants and herbs,” the bartender says with a wink.

  He adds a bit of water into the glass and muddles everything together with a smooth wooden paddle. “Now we add bourbon.” He pours in a few ounces, then says, “You look like you take it strong.” I nod and he continues. “Just a splash of water on top, stir and add—” he reaches into a bowl behind him. “An orange slice.”

  I take a sip, closing my eyes to savor it. “Mmmm. What is it?”

  “An old-fashioned,” he says.

  “Why, thank you for showing me—?”

  “Patrick,” he responds. “And who do I have the pleasure of serving this evening?”

  “Zyan.”

  “Zyan. That’s an unusual name.” He raises both eyebrows.

  “I made it up yesterday.”

  He laughs, he thinks I’m joking. “Oh, did you now? Well, it’s a beautiful name for a beautiful lady.”

  He leans in, and the essence of his soul washes up against me. It’s clean and pure, and it would taste like the sun if only I could have it, bright and electric…

  “I have to go,” I say, and Patrick straightens. I catch his hurt and puzzled look as I dash off through the crowd.

  All the souls are pulsing at me now, and everything’s gone hazy except for their brightness. The music is now a dim sound in my ears, the laughter of the people aro
und me a faint echo. Even the color is draining from the room, it’s gone gray and cold. Except for the souls. My power surges up. I freeze in place, looking around me. This whole place could be mine in a matter of moments. All I had to do was call, and they’d come to me willingly. A glamourous death, for those who live on the edge of danger in a prohibition club. They could all be mine…

  I rush from the room, knocking into people, angry cries rising up around me. The door, finally, the door is before me. I fling it open and the darkness of the alley envelopes me. Cool, black, quiet. I sink against the damp brick wall and cover my face with my hands. Foolish. I’d been foolish to think I’d gained control of my urges. I’d have to leave the city, go back to living in solitude. So close, too close… I push off from the wall. I have to get out of here.

  The door flies open. “Zyan?”

  Patrick, the bartender. He stands in the doorway, a flaming torch of white light, and all I want is to have him.

  The image shifted, fell away, and another took its place.

  Pan sits at a high stone table beneath a spill of glittering stars. The table sits on a hill, the hill on a small island. Ocean surrounds it, shimmering ink under the black sky. Everything is awash in midnight and moonlight but the torches that encircle the table, flares of vermillion against the darkness.

  Eleven stone seats at the table, five on each side and one at the head. Eleven beings, all from different realms: Earth, Faerie, Heaven, Hell, and others. All gazes focus on the one at the head of the table. Golden-haired, fair-skinned, lips like roses, eyes pale lavender.

  “Thank you for meeting me here tonight,” he says. “We have much to discuss.”

  Mist swirled in again and things started to speed up even more. They didn’t come in distinct scenes now, but flashes of things, back and forth, so that I couldn’t tell whose was whose. A green-washed sky, the Northern Lights. Rain, umbrellas, a car overturned in the middle of a busy road. Sand, a beach, the sun setting. Lucifer’s face, wearing a look of fear. A figure cloaked all in black, wings like the night. Pan, standing at the edge of a fiery chasm, a split in the universe. A lake, expansive and calm, mist hanging over it, a castle in the distance. Blood, pooling onto pavement, so much blood.