Fallen (18 page)

S
ophia came to from a faint. The air smelled dank and dusty. The left side of her black skirt was badly torn. Her white blouse was smudged with dirt and her arm—

Chains clanked when she lifted her arm.

Panic racing from her heart and up her throat, she stifled a cry. She sat on a stone dais. Her left wrist was shackled and chained to the stone wall behind her.

What in hell? Where was she? How did she get here?

She remembered…that man who'd been so thoughtful and had offered to call the police. She'd gotten in his car.
Stupid!
He'd retrieved his cell phone from the driver's seat, then tossed it in the backseat. His sneer had cut her like a blade. She'd screamed, and then she'd seen fangs.

Fangs? Yes, the man had long white fangs.

She slapped her free hand against her neck. He hadn't bitten her. Like he would have? Was he…?

“What's going on?”

Scrambling to her feet she pulled at the chain with both hands. The thick bolt drilled into the wall held it securely. She'd never free herself. And the tight shackle kept her from folding her fingers inward to slip out from it.

Scanning her surroundings, her gaze landed upon nothing but stone walls and floor. It was a cavernous room, yet high above beams of light flashed down from holes carved within the stone ceiling. Those holes beamed down a circle onto the floor at one side of the room.

On that far side the wall stood a picture of some sort. It was as tall as a man and featured vivid colors that formed a strange beast—

Sophia gasped on her breath. The painting looked similar to the creature that had been in her apartment.

 

That insane man had changed into a creature! She'd been foolish enough to invite into her home— Cooper, that was his name. He'd seemed perfectly sane and kind. Handsome. Charming.

He'd changed into a monster with wings! And then another monster formed from black metal and sporting horns had rushed into her apartment and battled the blue one.

She could not wrap her head around it all. Why was she here? Where was here? Had one of those monsters returned and imprisoned her in a lair?

Nothing made sense. It was difficult to think with the pounding blood her heart surfed through her system. She had to be strong. And get the hell out of here before the monster returned.

Sitting and pressing her bare feet to the wall at either side of the bolt, she pulled until the skin tore at her wrist. Blood dripped onto her bare foot and she sniffed back tears from the pain.

“Ah! The fresh smell of blood in the morning.”

The male voice clamped an invisible hand about her neck, tightening her scalp. Sophia did not want to turn and look. If it was Cooper she had no idea how to win against the weird creature he could become.

Why hadn't she stayed in Jersey with her girlfriend and helped her start the cupcake shop she'd been so excited about?

She struggled, tears spilling down her nose and cheeks as the shackles cut deeply. A cold touch to her shoulder frightened a warbling scream from her throat.

“Enough of that.”

The man leaned in and with but a tug, yanked the bolt from the wall. The chain dropped onto Sophia's thigh. Would he set her free?

Then he turned her about and knelt before her. It wasn't the same man. Not Cooper. He was dark of eye and hair and his voice was disturbingly calm.

“My name is Antonio del Gado. You are a guest in my home.”

His home? This was…a…a dungeon!

“Let me go.” She couldn't find calm. Her entire body shook as if ice flowed through her veins. “I won't tell anyone. I promise.”

“There's nothing to tell, Sophia.” He reached for her hair, but when she flinched, he did not continue that touch. Instead, he grabbed her shackled hand and tutted over the blood. “Smells delicious.”

Fangs curved over his lower lip.
Vampire
. They were vampires!

Sophia tried to scream again, but the cry stuck in her throat. And she wanted to kick, but her legs felt leaden. Frozen in fear, she could but watch as the man bowed over her wrist and sniffed, savoring her scent.

Mon Dieu, help me.

The man abruptly stopped sniffing and smoothed his fingers over the mark on her forearm. “Mustn't get distracted.” His fangs disappeared as if they were a movie trick.

Light-headed and woozy, Sophia struggled to stay alert. She was not going to become some horror-movie extra who gets killed halfway through the film because of stupidity.

The soft touch over her forearm tickled. “You know what this means, Sophia?”

She shook her head lethargically. The muzzy precursor to a faint pulled at her conscious.
Stay awake!
And look for escape exits. She scuddered a glance about the room. A huge medieval-looking wood door with iron studs sat about thirty feet to her left.

“But you must have some knowledge.” He smoothed his thumb over the mark on her skin. “My man brought me the notebook taken from your home.”

He left her lolling against the wall, weak and so frightened. Her brain envisioned her running out of here, but her muscles did not comply.

He returned and displayed the small red velvet-covered sketchbook that belonged to her. She'd thought the apartment strangely messy last night. Someone had been in her apartment
before
Cooper had walked her home.

“This belongs to you,” the man said.

Was he a man? He had fangs. That would make him a creature. Not a man. Not human. But that was impossible. And yet, she'd watched Cooper grow wings last night. What had he been? She'd never believed in monsters.

Now was a good time to begin.

“Did you draw all these sigils, Sophia?”

She'd never heard them called that before—sigils. The word sounded odd. Sid-zel. She shook her head.

“So you must know what they mean? Which angel they coincide with?”

“Angel?” She nodded drowsily. So exhausted. She wanted to sleep, to close her eyes and wake in her own bed. “Don't know what they mean.”

He knelt before her and gripped her hand again. It ached and she could smell the blood.

“You've worn an angel sigil all your life, Sophia. You draw angel sigils in your pretty red notebook. And you want me to believe you don't know what they mean? Come, Sophia, we will get along much better if you are truthful with me.”

“I…don't know. Just thought…I had a guardian angel.”

“A guardian is the last thing you should name your Fallen counterpart. An angel was in your home last night. The man who shifted halfway with wings.” He pointed to the painting. “Did he have sex with you?”

She shook her head violently. “Please, let me go.”

“Why didn't he? That is his only reason for walking this earth. To find his muse—you—and get you pregnant.”

A muse? Why did he name her that?

Yet, she wanted to cooperate. Maybe he'd release her. “There was another…creature. Made of metal. Stopped…the angel. They fought. I ran out.”

“The Sinistari demon?”

“A demon?”

“I marvel you know so little.”

He showed her a page from her notebook that featured a circle sigil with Y-shaped dashes growing out at four points. “This angel—Zaqiel—died a few months ago. Slain by a Sinistari. If your angel has no desire to have sex with you
then I need to summon another. Something must be wrong with the idiot Fallen one. I can use the sigils to summon another, but I also need names.”

He paged to the sigil matching the one on her arm and tapped the design Sophia had always thought looked like two sevens butting heads. “Juphiel. That is the angel's name who seeks you.”

“No. He said his name was…Cooper.”

“Interesting. Did you see the sigil on him?”

Had she seen— Yes, she recalled now that blue mark on his abdomen, riding the tight ridges of his muscles. It had glowed, but at the time she had been frantic to escape so couldn't be sure the design had matched hers.

“And who does this one belong to?” He opened to the next page and held it before her. On it she'd drawn three parallel lines topped by three dots.

“I don't know names,” she pleaded. “I had no idea those images were related to angel sigils. I see them in dreams!”

“I think you're lying.”

Perhaps, but she wasn't lying about not knowing the names.

“Yes, well, get comfy, Sophia. If Juphiel has tasted you once, he will want another taste. Did he give you the angelkiss?”

She shook her head, not understanding.

“Lick you somewhere?”

“Yes,” she whispered. “My neck.” And to confirm that weird act now made the skin on her neck burn. She slapped a palm to it.

“Excellent. We've merely to sit back and wait for him.”

He strode away, and Sophia slid to the dais edge. The
chain spilled over the edge and clattered heavily to the floor.

“Sit tight, pretty muse,” Antonio called.

The door slammed shut, sealing her in the stone cell. Instead of screaming, Sophia fainted.

 

Pyx wandered the muse's apartment. The living room was a mess. The walls and windows looked as if a wild animal had scratched its talons across them.

She was looking for an address book, something that would lead her to the mother, but then she had the notion that perhaps a daughter would not need to write down her parents' address.

“This isn't going to help me find the muse.”

Instincts warned Pyx that the muse was not with her mother. That nothing had been normal for the muse since last night. But how dare she go to Cooper with this worry? He needed to stay as far from the muse as possible.

Unless the Sinistari demon could finally convince him to take his muse.

“No. I don't want him near the muse.”

She couldn't kill him last night.

She wouldn't kill him now.

She wanted to make love with him again.

Yes, she'd thought the
L
-word. Because it was fore in her mind. And though she had no experience with it previously, Pyx knew to her very black marrow that love was what pushed her solidly across the line to stand on Cooper's side now.

“I'll take the punishment I deserve. I no longer wish to deny my wants. I make this choice,” she said. “I will not kill the Fallen.”

 

“Where's the bitch?” Antonio asked his assistant.

“Sedated.”

“I wanted her alert.”

“She was strong.”

“Leave her to me.”

Antonio stalked down the hallway toward the cell where prisoners were kept. It had been months since he'd seen Vinny. She had been his favorite until she'd decided to flee from his tutelage and take up with a mortal.

A
mortal
.

The rebellion cut into his heart. He'd survived this world for three centuries and rarely had he opened his heart to any of his blood children.

As a mortal, Vinny had been feisty and ambitious. Antonio had found her bleeding in an alley after an attack by some of his tribe. The attack had been an anomaly. He did not sanction murder. Vinny had clung to him, fearful, yet near death for she'd been bitten over and over and had lost copious amounts of blood. He'd promised to give her all she asked for if she would take his blood.

He wondered now if she had agreed because the idea of death so young was horrific, or if she had been attracted to him. He'd thought there was an attraction. He had been stupid.

He kicked the metal door and it swung inside the small cell carved out of a vein of granite, which was in abundance beneath the city of Paris. A raised stone slab provided a place to rest, but not at all comfortably.

Vinny was alert and sitting up. Big green eyes assessed him with a look that again made him realize what a fool he had been to believe she could have loved him.

“The strays eventually return to the flock,” he said calmly, stepping to the stone slab to loom over her. Her long wavy hair was secured at the back of her head in a ponytail, making her narrow face appear thin, almost skeletal. “You're looking gaunt, Vinny. The boyfriend not
taking proper care of you? You decide the best sip is from your master and come to beg my mercy?”

She tucked her head against the inside of her elbow. Not going to play? Antonio used the heel of his boot to shove her arm from her knee, forcing her to look up.

She was frightened of him. As she should be.

He leaned over her and gripped a hank of her hair. “You smell like dirty mortal.” He'd kept her from feeding on mortals to keep her as his own. Until the damned halo hunter had arrived on the scene.

“It's the same blood you drink,” she whispered viciously. He detected not a hint of fear in her voice. “What do you want from me?”

“Besides contrition?”

“You're not my confessor. I have no god.”

“You should, Vinny. We all require something or someone to believe in.”

“You're a hypocrite. This has to do with the Fallen, doesn't it?”

“Now we're getting somewhere.”

Releasing her hair, he squatted before her. She would be a fool to charge him, but then, he would not put it past her. He was more powerful. And once already he'd held her captive within the cage of light beaming down from the dungeon ceiling. She would not forget her place.

“I'm going to send you on your way to rendezvous with your insipid mortal lover. And when you return to his side, you will tell him to bring the Fallen to me, or I will hunt you both down and slay him first so you can watch, and then I'll chain you out in the sun. Sound like fun?”

“How are we supposed to get the angel to you? He doesn't trust Michael.”

“Isn't your lover some kind of hunter of halos? Doesn't he have halos with which to bait the angel?”

“We've already checked. None of them are the Fallen's.”