End of Days (Penryn & the End of Days #3)(46)

A nonangel with canary-yellow feathers reaches for me. His skin has been ripped right off his arm, leaving only the glistening muscles beneath. I cringe, but he grabs me by the hair and yanks me up to my feet.

‘What is it?’ asks Beliel. ‘Can we eat it?’ I don’t know if I’ve ever seen anything more disturbing than empty eye sockets, especially on someone I know, even if it’s Beliel.

He puts a pointy ear in his mouth and chews on it. It looks a lot like a hellion’s ear. I wonder what happened to the hellion I rode.

Then I see what’s left of it on the ground, all smashed and torn apart. It’s hardly recognizable anymore.

Where’s Raffe?

‘It’s a Daughter of Man,’ says my captor. His voice is ominous, like those words have some deep meaning.

There’s a long silence as everyone stares at me.

‘Which one?’ Beliel finally asks.

The one holding me looks around at the others. He doesn’t ease up on my hair. ‘Is this one of yours? She’s not mine.’

‘There’s no reason to believe she would be one of ours, Cyclone,’ says Beliel. His voice is raspy as if he’d either been screaming himself raw or someone had choked him.

‘I’m through with them,’ says one. ‘The thought of them makes me ill.’

‘Yeah, maybe Big B’s right,’ says another. ‘Maybe we’re better off eating her. We could use some meat to help us heal.’

I squirm trying to get out of the nonangel’s grip. Where is Raffe?

‘Let her go,’ says another. This one has blue-tinged feathers.

‘Thermo, if we let her go, she’ll wish we had cooked her up and eaten her. Setting her free here is not a mercy.’

That’s not what I wanted to hear.

‘And is that a sword?’ Several of them lean down to look at my sword, which lies on the ground just out of reach.

One of them tries to lift it and grunts at the weight. He lets it go.

They all stare at me, scrutinizing.

‘What are you?’ asks Cyclone.

‘She’s a Daughter of Man, can’t you see that?’ says Thermo.

‘If she’s a Daughter of Man, where’s her pack of hellions?’ says a guy with black feathers and sharp eyes. ‘Where are her chains? Why does she look so healthy and whole?’

‘And how does she have an angel sword?’ asks one who has brown wings streaked with yellow.

‘It can’t be hers. Somehow, it got here. And somehow, she got here. But that doesn’t mean it’s her sword. We haven’t been here long enough to believe things that are that crazy.’ They all look at Pooky Bear with longing, but none of them tries to pick her up.

‘So whose is it?’ They all look at me.

I shrug. ‘I’m just a Daughter of Man. I don’t know anything.’

No one argues with that.

‘Where am I?’ I ask. The pull on my hair is becoming unbearable. Two of them have their scalps partly torn off, and I’m beginning to wonder if this is why.

‘In the Pit,’ says Thermo. ‘Welcome to the hunting district.’

‘Is this the same as hell?’ I ask.

The one with black feathers shrugs. ‘Does it matter? It’s hellish. Why do you care if it matches your primitive myth?’

‘What do you hunt here?’ I ask.

The angel with the brown-and-yellow wings snorts. ‘We don’t. We’re the prey.’

That doesn’t sound good. ‘What are you?’ I ask. I’m assuming they’re Raffe’s Watchers, but better to be sure. ‘You don’t look like angels, and you don’t look like . . .’ What do I really know about what demons look like?

‘Oh, do excuse us for not introducing ourselves,’ says the one with the brown-and-yellow wings. He emphasizes his sarcasm by bowing to me. ‘We are the newly Fallen. The Watchers, to be precise. And probably your executioners. Not that it’ll take more than one of us to do the deed. But you get the point. I’m Howler.’

Howler points to the one with black feathers and brown skin. ‘That’s Hawk.’ He points to the one with blue-tinged feathers, then to several others. ‘Thermo. Flyer. Big B. Little B. And the one holding you is Cyclone.’ He looks around at the others. There are too many to introduce them all, not that I’d remember their names. ‘Do we care who she is?’

‘Sure,’ says Flyer. ‘Maybe it’ll give us something to think about when we’re bored out of our minds for the next millennium. Who are you?’

‘I’m . . .’ I’m hesitant to give them my name. Raffe said names have power. ‘I’m the angel slayer.’

It sounds kind of ridiculous now that I’ve said it. It sounded better in my head, but whatever.

For a moment, they all stare at me.

Then, as if on cue, they burst out laughing.

Howler curls over his left ribs with his hands protectively covering them like they’re broken. ‘Oh, don’t make me laugh. That hurts.’

Cyclone chuckles behind me. He finally lets go of my hair, leaving my scalp tender. ‘Holy Mother of God, I didn’t realize I could laugh anymore.’

‘Yeah, it’s been a long, long time,’ says Little B.