Cookson’s face was humanoid, but the mouth was full of black fangs to match the curved black claws. His skin had turned red like the scales he’d worn at the hospital. The fangs snapped at my face, and I thought, You don’t have fangs, toothless, but nothing changed. The demon snarled, “I’m half human, and we have our own imagination, Havoc. You can’t fuck with our form now, too late for that!”
I got my gun free and aimed at its face. The demon grinned and opened its mouth wide to engulf the gun and half my hand, and bit down as I pulled the trigger. I screamed and the bullet went out the back of the demon’s head while it laughed. It bit down and I screamed again.
The angel trapped at its back shrieked with me. I balled my hand into a fist and kept firing the bullets into the demon. I couldn’t kill it, but maybe I could keep it from biting my hand off. It finally reared back and spat a bullet at my face.
“That still hurts, damn, but pain is worth free will.”
His Guardian Angel screamed again as the demon’s claws scrambled for my face. If I died, the angel was trapped in torment. I prayed that if I died, I’d be able to set the angel free first.
There was the sound of wings like birds, and a voice breathed through me, “Zaniel, come to me.”
I didn’t think I could be any more scared, but I was wrong. I didn’t want to see Her again, ever, because I was afraid of what would happen. If it had been just my death on the line I might have hesitated, but I couldn’t leave the Guardian Angel to be tortured.
“I will destroy that handsome face and body, Havoc, and then I will hunt down the last women and be free to roam the Earth. No priest will exorcise me to Hell, because I will be half human.”
“That’s not possible,” I said through gritted teeth as I fought to keep his claws from my face.
“No, but it’s still true,” the demon said.
My gun clicked empty, and I couldn’t reach the extra magazine in my pocket. He raised black claws upward like five daggers. I was still trapped under the weight of two bodies, ground into the glass and diamonds. I was out of time to decide, so I did the only thing I could be certain would free the angel. I opened the space between here and where the angels dance on golden threads and sing the universe into continuous creation.
Our blood spilled out like rubies shining and bouncing in round globes because there was no gravity here. Golden lines of power sang and gleamed around us, and the angels sang the universe into being, creating and re-creating over and over. Matter is neither created nor destroyed, it simply is. The perfection of it filled me and I wasn’t even afraid as I watched the rubies sparkle against the gold and silver and . . . colors that had no words to describe them surrounded us.
Stevens didn’t care, because the dead feel nothing, but Mark Cookson cared. He began to scream. The human part of him wasn’t ready to go among the angels. The demon part of him got control and growled at me, “You cannot destroy us that easily.”
The angel on his back screamed for help and now there were many others that could hear its cry. The angels came glowing and burning and I heard a familiar voice. “Zaniel, what have they done to you?”
I said, “Save the angel, set it free.”
“And what of you, Zaniel?”
“I want to go home.”
“You are home,” she said, and I could almost see her golden hair, almost see her eyes, and then she was too far inside my head and she saw what I thought home meant, and it wasn’t Her. We floated in the middle of holy fire; the seraphim had come, and neither Mark Cookson nor the demon sharing his body was pure enough of heart to survive their six-winged embrace.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
I woke up in the hospital with Dr. Paulson looking down at me. “Good to see you awake,” he said, smiling.
“Good to be awake,” I said; my voice sounded rough as if I’d been out longer than I realized.
I don’t know if he saw it on my face, but he answered my question. “You’ve been unconscious for almost two days.”
“How bad?” I asked, and looked down at myself. I had expected my hand to be in bandages, but it wasn’t. I remembered the fangs biting into me; that shouldn’t have healed in two days.
“The officers who came to try to rescue you and the other policeman said you were on fire, but it gave off no heat and cast no shadows. I’d love to know how you conjured fire to kill the demon without setting the building and yourself ablaze.”
“It was holy fire, and I’ve walked through it before, so I knew I would be fine.”
“Mark Cookson’s body wasn’t fine; the other police saw it burn, but there was nothing left of it.”
“The Infernal can’t survive the touch of holy flame,” I said.
“The dead police officer’s body was intact and unharmed, though the witnesses aren’t sure why it didn’t burn.”
“Stevens was dead; he couldn’t be afraid of the holy flame and its messengers, and he must have been a good person when he was alive,” I said.
“From all accounts he was,” Paulson said. He then proceeded to check me top to bottom to see if there were any lingering effects from what had happened. At the end he said, “You are remarkably well for someone who was attacked by a demon and burned with holy fire.”
“Thank you.”
“I don’t think it’s me you should be thanking.”
“You’re right,” I said, and sent a prayer of gratitude to God and the angels, though I was careful not to think too hard about the latter. I did not need another visitation.
“Your lieutenant is outside waiting for me to give him permission to see you. Are you up to answering questions about what happened?”
“Yes,” I said.
He shook his head. “I knew you would say that, but talk fast, because you need to rest.”
“I thought I wasn’t hurt?”
“You don’t seem to be, but you were unconscious for almost forty-eight hours, that makes me cautious.”
“I feel fine.”
“All your wounds are healed, even the arm and stomach,” he said.
“Why don’t you look happier about that?” I asked.
“Raise up your hospital gown and look at your right arm,” he said.
It was an odd request, but I did what he asked, because it was simple, and he had that look that you never want to see on your doctor’s face. The one just before they told you something you didn’t want to hear about your health or someone else’s.
I pushed up the sleeve and there was what looked like a tattoo in a band that encircled my arm just below the shoulder. It was pale blue and looked tribal. I touched my skin and it felt like it always felt. I closed my eyes and ran my fingertips over my skin, and there it was, the slightest of texture differences. I opened my eyes and stared at it.
“You didn’t have a tattoo there when I treated you for the demon attack at the hospital,” Dr. Paulson said.
“I don’t have any tattoos,” I said.
He motioned toward my arm. “You do now.”
I stared at it, and he handed me his phone with pictures of the outside of my arm. “I figured you’d want to see them and I’d rather you not rush to the bathroom mirror just yet.”