Angel Of Solace (4 page)

Sariel chuckled softly. “I know you have a lot of questions to ask. The others won’t be expecting us for a bit yet, so ask away.”

“All right,” he said, wiping his mouth and setting down the bowl. He glanced to the window again, just as he had been doing the entire time he was eating.

“You’re welcome to look if you want,” she told him. “I’m sure it looks different in person than on holo stills.”

He walked over to the window and gazed outside. It wasn’t the best vantage point in the city by any stretch, but at least they were a few stories up. He could see out to the ocean and the giant statue of the Faceless Knight that towered over the harbor a few kilometers east. For most immigrants, it was the landmark they had always thought of when they envisioned Solace—the stalwart protector whose shield would shelter anyone against the evils of the world.

“It’s real,” she said with a smile, dropping into the chair at the table. “You really got away.”

Her voice seemed to drag him back into the present, and he turned about to face her. “I guess I’m wondering about that. Who was it that tried to stop me?”

“Bounty hunters hired by the Agency,” she said. “We’re not sure how they tracked you yet. Fortunately, it shouldn’t matter anymore. They have no presence in Solace.”

His lips pressed into a tight line. “I assume you’re going to want something in return.”

“There’s no price, if that’s what you’re asking,” she assured him. “We wanted to help you, and now we hope you’ll want to help us.”

“You mean help the Asurans?”

Sariel leaned back a bit in her chair and crossed her legs. “Yes. We’re in the middle of a war for our survival, and we need all the assistance we can get.”

“Like an Angel who left the Covenant and risked her life to help a whore she’s never met.”

She turned back towards him. His eyes weren’t accusatory, just curious. She had gotten him to trust her that much, at least. “There’s a great deal to it, as you can imagine. As far as I’m aware, I’m the only one who has ever gotten off the mainland before, and certainly the only one who has gotten to Solace.”

“But it has happened before?”

She nodded faintly. “Others have tried to leave shortly after the Bonding. It is said that something went wrong with the ritual. I’m…not sure if that is true or not.”

“The Bonding…you mean when they stick a holy spirit inside you? I thought you became the spirit.”

“Not precisely. You’re a Demon—you know what the Covenant says about you. They claim you can possess people, take over their bodies and minds…but you can’t. We’re not really that different.”

“But it is inside you?”

“Yes,” she said softly, carefully planning out her words. He would need to know all of it eventually, but for now he would have to be content with the basics. “I was Bonded when I turned eighteen, and for two years everything was going well. It’s impossible to describe to someone who hasn’t undergone it. After the ritual, you have this other consciousness inside of you. You can’t exactly feel it, but you know it’s there, and every once in a while you will get…flashes from it.”

“Like thoughts or memories?”

“Nothing that concrete. You just
know
things you didn’t before. I went into the ritual as a temple priestess, and the next day I could heal a man with a touch. I can’t explain how it works, but I just know how to do it.”

Damien turned from the window and took a seat next to her. “So then why did you leave?”

“I began to notice certain…problems that I hadn’t before.”

He raised his eyebrow inquisitively but said nothing. She wanted to reach out and touch him, to read his emotions, but of course that would work both ways, and she still needed to remain a bit aloof.

“Normally the Bonding strengthens a priest’s resolve, as you can imagine. With the spirit inside of us, we become far more loyal and determined. Many priests change so much their friends don’t recognize them anymore.” She paused and took a deep breath. “That didn’t happen to me. I started to notice all the little things I used to ignore. The priests seemed to violate the Sacra’thar on a daily basis, and the other Angels were…well, cruel at times. They were more obsessed with tracking down Demons than with the continued restoration of Argoa.”

“And you started wondering why?”

“I still wonder why,” she admitted. “When I suggested we should learn more about the Demons, it was taken as the highest form of blasphemy from an Angel. They were going to…remove it from me.”

Damien’s cheek twitched. “I’m guessing that wasn’t going to be pleasant.”

“I would have died,” she told him. “Once a priest is Bonded, there is no way to remove the spirit without an exorcism—and those are always fatal.”

“So you ran,” he reasoned.

“Yes. I fell in with the Asurans mostly by chance, and their leader eventually convinced me we shared the same goals.”

He seemed to mull over it for a few minutes. He undoubtedly had a million other questions to ask her, but she hoped he would be patient. All this had to be overwhelming enough for him as it was…

“So what about me?” Damien asked finally. “How do I fit in?”

“You initiated contact,” she reminded him. “We try to help any Demon we can, but of course we don’t have the resources to do it all the time. In your case, I did some checking and became interested in you. I convinced them to make you a priority.”

“But why? There have to be hundreds of others trying to get away. Why me?”

Again she resisted the impulse to touch his arm. “The Asurans ask very little of those we help. We don’t free Demons just to turn them into servants. But we do ask that they consider helping others like them, or at the very least helping us one time to repay the debt.”

“But you wanted something specific from me,” he pressed, the glint of the midday sun reflecting off his eyes.

“Yes,” she admitted. “I need you. I think you may be the only person who can…fix me.”

“Fix you?” he asked, tilting his head. “I’m no healer. Surely your powers…”

“It’s not a matter of healing,” she said, “not exactly. It’s…complicated. It’s probably best to wait until you’ve spoken with the others first.”

Sariel reached across to him, gently touching his arm, and the spark between them flared. She let her sadness wash over him, but also her resolve. She hadn’t given up hope yet, and it was important he understood that. If she was right about him, he would try to help her.

At the edges of her mind she could feel the spirit inside her stir, its thoughts slowly seeping into her own, and she remembered how little time she truly had. Soon enough her own thoughts would be little more than a whisper, and the Angel inside her would take her back to the Covenant—or worse, destroy the Asurans and everything they had worked to build. 

But she wasn’t going to let that happen. One way or another, she was not going to be around for the final throes of the transformation. She only prayed that this man next to her would be her salvation.

He had to be.

Chapter Three

Her dress was red, her heels were high, and at least two dozen of the gala’s hundred something people were checking her out. It was exactly what they had planned on when designing this whole operation, and it was going as well as they could have hoped.

But that didn’t mean she had to like it.

Shyrah Mulare suppressed a frown and finished off the last of her wine. She stood alone at the top of the western staircase inside the
Parleia
, the largest ballroom/convention center in the district, if not all of Solace. For the next few minutes, her sole purpose here was to draw the attention of as many of the patrons as she could while her associates completed their work in the background. For the previous hour, it had been her job to set all of that up, flirting with the businessmen, entertainers, and politicians in the crowd before perching up here.

It was not her typical assignment on a mission like this, and it drudged up far too many memories of her past life with the Syndicate. A frown cracked through her carefully controlled expression, and for probably the hundredth time tonight she cursed their precious little Angel for not being here to do this instead.

It was a foolish sentiment and she knew it. She should have been saving her ire for the heavyset, middle-aged man currently adding a few slices of cheese to his plate some twenty meters below and to the right—Kal Beren, slaver, trafficker, and generally miserable excuse for a human being. He was the entire reason they were here, and his unexpected presence was why they had been forced to change their timetable and do this without Sariel.

“Security just swept the outer hall,” Corin said into the small communicator stashed inside the clip of her upper earring. “We’re setting up now. The faster you can flush Beren out, the better.”

“Understood,” acknowledged a second, deeper male voice.

Shyrah leisurely swept her gaze across the ballroom floor to the tall, dark-skinned man with a distinguished tuft of gray in his short beard and hair. Samuel Kronn, their leader and the man who had insisted they couldn’t wait for Sariel to make their move against Beren, started making his way across the gala floor. He made eye contact with their other agents and offered them each a fractional nod before stopping and faking a sip of wine.

“It’s time.”

It was an order for her, and Shyrah took a deep breath and turned—and nearly smacked right into the chest of a young man who had managed to creep up on her.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” he said, taking the opportunity to put a hand on her shoulder and smile widely. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“You didn’t,” she told him. She searched her memory…Olaf Johnson, the son of a wealthy businessman. He had been one of the few she hadn’t managed to chat with earlier. “I just need to find the restroom.”

“Ah.” He gestured with his head, a predator’s smile on his lips. “It’s just that way…I could escort you, if you like.”

He was the type of man who wouldn’t understand why that was insulting because he simply didn’t care. He was used to being obeyed, if for no other reason than the voca he could drop on the table. In character, she should have been one to go along with it. Five years ago in a different lifetime, she probably would have. But not today.

“I can find my way,” she said, and tried to push past him.

He didn’t move. “No need to rush,” he chuckled. “You’ve had enough to drink—those stairs might be difficult.”

His hand was on her arm now. Clearly he was expecting her to recognize him and lose herself in his reputation. It was tempting to jab him in the neck or sweep his legs out from under him, but of course that would end their mission right here. No, as annoyed as she was with the entire situation, she wasn’t going to risk the opportunity to deal with a wad of human garbage like Beren.

“You might be right,” she said, smiling and letting her face warm with recognition. “So you’ve been watching me?”

“Me and every other man in this room,” he replied easily. “I was actually hoping I could get your name…and then maybe a dance or two.”

“Dance first—after you escort me to the restroom.”

She offered him her arm, and he chuckled and took it. A moment later they were heading down the stairs towards their destination.

“Well, if you’re not going to tell me your name, at least let me guess.”

“I’m not stopping you—it might be amusing.”

“Indeed.” He paused briefly as they walked, and something in his face changed. “I actually don’t think you’re even on the guest list.”

She raised an eyebrow and fought to keep the surprise off her face. “That’s not very flattering.”

“I don’t mind; in fact, I think it shows some ambition,” he said. “Your makeup is good, but from this close it’s hard not to notice the unfortunate burn scar on your left cheek.”

If she weren’t desperately trying to get to the restrooms in the corridor, she would have stopped right there. Instead she just pulled her arm away and kept creeping forward. “Now you’re just being rude.”

“I also noticed the way you walk,” he went on as if she hadn’t said anything, coming to a stop a few meters before the hallway. “Most of the women in this room have never had to lift a finger in their lives. You, on the other hand, clearly hate walking in those heels, and no debutante has this kind of muscle tone in her forearms.”

Now she froze. Was he about to call for security? Perhaps he already had, and they were on the way…

“But like I said, I don’t mind. I actually prefer a woman with character.” The predator’s smile returned to his lips. “You found a way in here hoping to schmooze with the social elite and get some for yourself. That’s just ambition, and I can hardly blame you for it. I just figured I could save you the trouble.”

Shyrah almost laughed in his face. He wasn’t some over-perceptive tattle-tale going to turn her in to security—he was just a chauvinist who thought he could get her on her back for a few voca and save her the trouble of grifting someone else. The irony was delicious.

“In that case, I like a perceptive man.” She tugged at his arm and subtly dragged him into the solitude of the corridor, her blue eyes smiling wider than her lips. He followed easily, and the moment the two of them were out of sight she pulled him in close and brought her hands to his face.

And then she had him.

Shyrah was not a particularly strong Demon compared to some of the other Asurans, but she had learned a few tricks. With just a touch of her skin to his, Johnson’s entire body convulsed as she overloaded his nervous system, freezing his muscles in place. As his consciousness slipped away she dragged him in through the door into the women’s restroom.

Fortunately, it was empty at the moment, which made the next few seconds much easier. Shyrah hauled him into a stall and propped his insensate body in such a way that hopefully any other visitors would just think it was occupied. She wasn’t powerful enough to change his memory, so when he woke up he would recall what had happened and be quite pissed off about it—but with any luck that wouldn’t be for an hour or so, long after she and the others were gone.

“Problem?” Kronn whispered into her ear.

“No problem,” she said into the transmitter on her left bracelet. “I’m on my way over now. You think he’s interested?”

“He watched you the entire time you went down that balcony.”

“All the better when I come out alone, then,” she told him.

A few seconds later she was back out on the ballroom floor, her eyes quickly latching onto their target, Beren. The man was rapidly finishing off the last of his appetizers when his eyes locked onto hers. She tossed him a polite smile, then glanced away and began leisurely making her way over towards him. She didn’t need any more than that; in a single second, she could tell he had just figured out what was going on, and he was about to attempt his escape.

“He’s making for the southeast door,” Kronn confirmed.

Corin made a nervous groan over the com. “That might be trouble. One of the guards decided to loop back around for a second pass. Beren might run right into him.”

“It doesn’t matter,” she whispered, casually adjusting her hair so she could speak into the wrist mic. “He’s going down tonight.”

Beren was at the door now. He tossed a single glance over his shoulder at her, the apprehension and annoyance on his face as clear as day, then thrust open the door and went out into the hallway. Shyrah did her best to speed up without tripping or drawing too much attention to herself, and less than five seconds later she was following him out into the corridor.

In a different place and time, it might have been a lethal decision. He could have been prepared to ambush her, but she knew he wasn’t armed—the
Parleia’s
security, for all its problems, wasn’t that terrible. And the fact the patrolling guard would be here was both a boon and a curse. On the one hand, it meant he probably wasn’t going to be waiting around the corner to tackle her.

On the other, it meant that Beren might try to alert him instead. And it seemed that was exactly what he was doing. 

“Is there something wrong, sir?” the slightly overweight, almost certainly underpaid guard asked. He was ten meters down to her right, roughly halfway through his patrol through this barren white corridor that led to a stairwell on either side. Beren was striding towards the man, shaking his hands dismissively.

“No, no, just needed some air.”

It was clear the guard wasn’t buying it, but then his gaze flicked to Shyrah. Judging by the way his face twitched, he was apparently impressed by what he saw.

“He gets a little nervous around so many people,” she said playfully. “Don’t you, dear?”

The guard raised his eyebrow at Beren, who was still moving forward. Middle-aged men coming to parties with women half their age was hardly surprising, but the guard, to his credit, didn’t seem convinced. His left hand settled comfortably on his holstered pistol.

“The stairwell is for emergencies only, and the rest of this area is off-limits,” he said stoically. “I’m sorry, but I’ll have to ask both of you to head back into the ballroom area.”

Beren stopped and smiled. “Not married, are you? Probably don’t understand.”

The younger man paused as he digested that, and in that instant of hesitation, Beren struck.

He was faster than she would have imagined for someone of his age and stockiness, but an open-palmed jab with his right hand caught the guard totally flat-footed, and a moment later Beren was sweeping the weapon from its holster. Shyrah had, at best, about two seconds in which to stop him before he turned and gunned her down.

It was more than enough.

 She lunged forward in a move she had practiced probably a hundred times over the last few years, but never while wearing stilettos. Still, she managed well enough, sliding within a heartbeat of him and then dropping to the floor and sweeping his legs out from underneath him.

Beren hit the ground hard, and she heard the gun clatter across the floor and then bounce down the stairwell. As she flipped to her feet, she breathed a silent thanks to her earlier insistence to Kronn that she not wear the overly strappy shoes he had suggested—her right shoe had flown off during the maneuver, and it took only a subtle kick of her left foot to do the same with it.

Shyrah pounced on top of Beren, grasping for his face. All she needed was a touch and this would all be over. He flailed wildly to try and swat her away, but she dodged with practiced ease and brought her left hand to his cheek.

And froze. Her skin flared with an unexpected onrush of emotions as an empathic spark surged between them. She tried desperately to pull back and blink them away—

Beren made her pay for the moment of hesitation. A wild left hook connected with her jaw and she tumbled off of him, swearing and bringing her hands up defensively in case he struck again.

“Not on me, bitch,” he growled, and she felt him taking off for the staircase.

Shyrah blinked and tried to recover. Most men would have tried to just overpower her, but he was smart enough to know she would have backup and just decided to run. But she had known he was smart, and that wasn’t what surprised her. Touching a normal man would not have triggered an empathic spark. 

Kal Beren, slaver and trafficker of Demons, was a Demon himself. She had experienced the link with many others, but this caught her by surprise. How in God’s name could this man mistreat his own people so badly? How could he live with himself?