A Terrible Fall of Angels (Zaniel Havelock #1)(22)
She looked at me, and she was having trouble focusing on me; shit, she was going to pass out, which meant she was in more pain than she was letting on. Please God, help her.
“I would rather die quick than let that thing kill me slowly.”
“She’s no fun,” demon Mark said; I’d never known that a voice that deep could whine like that.
“You won’t even come out and play with me, you’re the most unfun demon I’ve ever met,” Bridges taunted.
I looked into Kate’s face and said, “You sure?”
She nodded. “I’m sure.”
“I’ll fuck her and then you’re next, cunt!” Demon Mark’s whine again.
“Big talk from a demon that has to hide behind doors because he’s afraid of bullets,” she said.
The demon screamed, roared, and the sound made some of the cops behind me cry out, because you can’t hear the wails of the damned for the first time without it haunting you.
A red-skinned arm went around Kate’s waist. I had a second to decide if I’d hold on and force the demon to tear her in half while I was still holding her hand. I let go.
She screamed and clung tighter to me. “Don’t let me go!”
“Stay alive, we’ll get you out.”
“NO!” she wailed, and her nails cut into my skin through my sleeve, and then carved bloody streaks down my hand. I had one last glimpse of her pale face and then she was around the door out of our sight. The screams started, and I screamed with her, “God help us!”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
He will,” a voice said. I turned to find Gimble standing outside his room. He looked even shorter and younger in the oversized hospital gown. He smiled at me, face still soft and shining with the memory of his first angel sighting. It hadn’t made me this happy even at ten when I’d met my Guardian Angel. For a second I resented him his joy. How could he smile with Kate’s screams filling the hallway? The sound made me want to start yelling for SWAT or explosives, anything to get through that door.
“You’ve got an IV hanging from your arm, Gimble,” Detective Lila Bridges said.
He smiled at her as if nothing was wrong, and I wanted to hit him. “Stop smiling, Gimble, stop smiling while she’s screaming,” I said; my voice was thick with wanting to yell, to strike out at something, anything.
“No one is screaming, Havoc,” he said in that happy, relaxed voice.
He was right, shit! “Kate! Kate! Answer me!” I yelled it with my hand on that damned stuck door.
“I’m here, Havoc. I’m . . . okay,” she said; her voice was scared, but it wasn’t a scream.
“Where’s the demon?” I asked.
“I am still here, human.” But there was something in the tone of the voice that had changed.
“What’s happening?” demon Mark asked.
“Tell her to come to the door,” Gimble said.
“It’s stuck shut,” I said.
“Call her to you, Havoc, it’ll be all right.” He smiled that beatific smile at me.
I started to ask the demon to let her come to the door, but Gimble laid a hand on my shoulder. The power thrilled over my skin like being hit with the warmest, coziest blanket while someone stuck your finger in a light socket, so that it felt better than anything and hurt all at the same time. No wonder so many humans who worked with angels ended up being masochists, because that’s what it was: angelic power.
“How?” I started to ask, but Gimble looked at me and there was something older than him looking out of his hazel eyes, something achingly older than he would ever be.
“Do not ask the permission of the enemy, Havoc. You do not need it, just act, do, they cannot stop you.” The word choice wasn’t even his, as if he were as possessed as Mark Cookson.
Gimble’s face frowned at me. “You know better than to equate this with the monstrosity in the other room.”
I thought, of course, but I didn’t really believe it. I’d gotten adept at thinking one thing and feeling another when angels were in my head.
The face frowned again, but it wasn’t any expression I’d ever seen on Gimble’s face. “Oh, Havoc, how sorrowful you have become.”
I wanted to tell the angel to get out of my head, but I wanted Kate saved more. “Help me save her.”
Gimble smiled at me, so happy. “That’s why we’re here, we heard your prayer for her.”
I swallowed, trying not to be afraid for Gimble. I’d never seen this happen outside of the College of Angels and only to Angel Speakers, those of us who interacted directly with the angelic. It shouldn’t have worked like this for Gimble from just seeing one in its true form. It didn’t work this way, but I stopped questioning it and let that power flow over me, through me. The less I fought the better it felt, like sliding into a bath that was just suddenly the perfect temperature, not too hot, not too cold, just right, except it was power that I let cover me, a power I’d sworn I’d never allow near me again. I tried to think of it like finding a weapon that could save Kate and not like a spiritual magic that had almost destroyed me once.
“Kate, come to the door.”
“Don’t you fucking move, bitch!” Mark’s demon voice again.