Kiss Me Deadly Read online

  ***

  “Why weren’t you killed?”

  Asher’s voice was so soft, I could hardly hear it over the faint crackling of the fire. We were lying amid an assortment of cushions and blankets that Asher had found. I felt returned to myself, brought back from the dead by Asher’s tender but passionate kisses, his hands learning the curve of my neck, my jaw, my shoulders.

  Now, with my head against his chest, I contemplated his question, thinking back to the night of my family’s death. The screams tearing through the night. The moment’s hesitation before I fulfilled my promise, climbing out of the window and making my way along the roofline until I could drop to the dewy grass and run.

  Run without looking back, as Father had instructed should such a thing come to pass.

  “Bael came for my parents first.” I was glad he could not see my face, though I refused the tears that fought their way to my eyes. “I heard them screaming.”

  “How did you know to run?” His voice was sincere and filled with a sadness that took me by surprise.

  “I’ve always known what I was. What we were. My parents didn’t keep it a secret.” I hesitated, wondering if my parents had disobeyed an unknown code of the Descendants. “Does that shock you?”

  “Well, it is not forbidden to illuminate the next generation of Descendants...” His voice trailed off, and I knew he had left something unsaid.

  “But?” I asked.

  “But,” he continued, his chest rising under my ear. “It is difficult to predict how the mortals would behave if they knew the offspring of angels walked among them. Most of the Descendants wait until their children are of age to tell them. You cannot be more than—”

  I lifted myself up on my arms, looking into his eyes. “I am eighteen, thank you very much! Besides, you are hardly ‘seasoned.’ How old are you?”

  His eyes shone with something like amusement. “My age is not measured in mortal years.”

  “Well, then,” I tipped my head, not even trying to hide the sarcasm in my voice. “Why don’t you tell me how old you would be if it were.”

  “Nearly twenty.”

  “Twenty?” I laughed aloud. “Well, I suppose I should feel safe in the hands of one so experienced!”

  He sighed. “Yes, well, I’m in the final phase of my Apprenticeship. Bael is my last individual kill. I need only destroy him, and I’ll be a full-fledged Assassin. The Council would not have sent me if they didn’t have faith in my abilities. It is an important task.”

  “Yes, it is. One that is rightfully mine.” I heard the steel in my voice and felt the warmth of the past hours slipping away.

  “If you wanted to destroy him so badly, why have you been following him for nearly a week without moving in to kill him? You have had more than one opportunity.” The earlier affection in his voice was replaced with frustration.

  I tried to hide my surprise. Obviously, Asher had been observing me longer than simply one night. And there was something else. Something I was afraid to voice, though I knew I must if I was to honor whatever strange and beautiful thing had happened between us.

  I nodded, looking into Asher’s eyes. “I have had chances to take Bael.”

  Asher shrugged. “What stopped you then? Fear?”

  His question did not surprise me. I had wondered on more than one occasion if it was fear that held me in check. Fear that, despite all the training my parents had bestowed upon me before their death, I would be no match for Bael.

  But in the end I had been forced to admit that fear wasn’t the problem.

  I shook my head. “No. Not fear, though I know it would be justified when faced with a demon like Bael.”

  “Then what?” Asher’s voice was soft but firm. I knew he would not let it go until he had an answer.

  I tried to think of a way to tell him that my reason for hesitating was far darker than fear and infinitely more dangerous. I waited because I relished my hatred for Bael. It was the only thing that made me feel alive, and I held it close like a freezing man clinging to the dying flicker of a fire.

  I sat up, hugging my knees to my chest and looking away from Asher’s eyes. They already saw too much of me.

  “Once Bael is dead, what will be left of me?” I asked the darkened room. “What reason will I have to wake up each morning? To put one foot in front of the other? To go on while every single person that I cherished is cold and dead in the ground?”

  It took him a moment to speak.

  “Hate will be a cold consolation for the losses you have endured,” he said softly.

  I looked into the fire. “Perhaps. But I have nothing else.”

  He sighed. “Rose.” When I turned toward him, he was looking at me with such tenderness that it caused my breath to catch in my throat. No young man had ever looked at me in such a way. “If I agree to aid you in destroying Bael, will you promise to wait until tomorrow when we are both rested and I can fight by your side?”

  It took me a moment to speak, so speechless was I by his offer. “You would ... You would do that?”

  “It is our task to protect the Descendants. Allowing you to go after Bael on your own would increase your odds of being killed and Bael’s chances of escape, thereby rendering my own mission unsuccessful.”

  I tried to mask my hurt. “So that is the only reason you would agree to help me? To ensure that your mission is successful and to see me out of the way so that you might earn your place as an Assassin?”

  He reached up to stroke my cheek, his eyes clouded with something I already knew was desire. “You want me to give voice to what has happened between us. To explain it.” He took a deep breath, shaking his head. “I cannot. I have traveled the world over. I have slain frightful demons and been faced with questions that have no answer. Yet none of those questions come close to the one I have found in you.”

  I lay my head back on his chest, embarrassed at the intensity of his gaze. “After we destroy Bael, you will have to leave, won’t you? You will be an Assassin in your own right and must continue the Council’s quest to rid the Earth of the remaining demons.”

  “Yes,” he said softly. My heart warmed to him further for his honesty. “We should sleep. Tomorrow will be a challenging day for us both.”

  I nodded, trying to memorize the feel of his arms around me, the rise and fall of his muscled chest as he breathed. And then, just as I fell into the mystery of sleep, I was flooded with complete and total peace.

  ***

  His absence was not the first thing I noticed upon waking. It was the weak slant of light spilling from a crack in the parlor’s curtains, casting everything in the unfamiliar room a soupy gray. It took me a moment to remember; Bael at the street fight, Asher’s hand on my arm, our hiding place in the alley, my last visit to the house.

  And then, Asher’s hands in my hair. His mouth on mine. The chiseled plane of his chest under my hands.

  I sat up, the blankets falling away as I looked around the parlor. The embers were still hot in the fireplace, but there was no one else in the room.

  Asher was gone, as I should have known he would be.

  ***

  The streets were nearly empty as I made my way through town. It was too early for civilized people to be about, though I came across a few laborers and a drunkard passed out cold on the side of the road.

  I was no longer nervous in the more questionable neighborhoods Bael preferred. In the past week, I had followed him to brothels, fights, seedy drinking establishments, and of course, the boarding house in which he rented a room. I saw it now, rising before me in crumbling brick, and thought back to all the times I stood in the shadows, cursing myself for allowing him to live another day.

  But now I understood. Now I knew.

  Those moments all led to this one. This was the moment when Bael would finally fall. And if I had anything to say about it, he would not do so at the end of the Apprentice’s Blade, but at the end of mine.

  I made my way up the steps, eyeing the
dark places along the buildings on either side. Bael was a creature of habit and would likely still be asleep in his bed, but it would not do to be careless now. Not after all I had been through to reach this moment.

  The front door was unlocked, as it always was, and I made my way inside, closing the door softly behind me. I started up the L-shaped staircase to the right of the entry, stepping over the second squeaky riser. I was grateful my initial fury at Asher had passed. I could not afford to have anything cloud my judgment. Besides, I should be angry at myself for trusting him.

  Even still, we were on the same side. We both wanted the demon dead, and I was happy to allow Asher the glory. I wanted only the knowledge of my vengeance.

  The thought caused me to move faster. It was quiet in the boarding house, and I began to worry that I was too late. That Asher had already dispensed with Bael. But a moment later, a loud crash beyond the top of the staircase told me I had arrived just in time.

  I raced up the last few stairs, stopping at the top of the landing, trying to follow the sound. There was a muffled grunting and cursing, punctuated by a slamming that seemed to shake the very house. I turned my head to the right, following a terrific bang that brought to mind an overturned wardrobe or chest of drawers. It was a testament to the nature of the boarding house that no one opened a door to ask about the noise or demand quiet. Fights were not uncommon in this part of town. It was dangerous to involve oneself with quarrels that were not one’s own.

  Passing by the first door on the left, I continued down the hall to the second as the crashing grew louder. I stopped in front of the second door, gathering my wits and trying to calm the slamming of my heart against my chest. Then, all at once, it grew quiet, the noise from within the room stilling as quickly as it had started.

  There was suddenly no time to wait.

  I flung open the door, quietly but swiftly, not wanting to give Bael an advantage. It took only seconds to assess the scene before me. I calculated my options at lightning speed the way Father had taught me.

  The disheveled room. Broken glass on the floor. An overturned writing desk two feet in front of me. And fifteen feet away, Bael and Asher, their bodies frighteningly still and close, against the wall across the room.

  Then, the most important thing of all; Bael, one arm shoved up against Asher’s neck, choking him as he held a glistening Blade against the throbbing pulse at Asher’s throat. My fingers caressed the handle of my dagger, raising it as I felt Father’s hand on my arm, heard his voice in the recesses of my mind.

  Hit your mark, Rose.

  Instinct took over, and the knife left my hand before I could contemplate my chances. It sailed through the air, the ancient words inscribed on its hilt writhing and swirling as the weapon cartwheeled toward its target.

  Everything slowed down, and Asher’s eyes grew wide, meeting mine over Bael’s shoulder. I did not see the fear I expected. Nor was there anger that I had come despite his obvious desire that I remain at the cottage.

  No. There was only relief and gratitude and something deeper and too complex to name.

  It all happened in the instant before the knife hit Bael between the shoulder blades, a sickening thud sounding at the moment of impact. For a moment, the demon did not move. Asher still struggled against his grip, and I wondered if it was all a dream. If I had not, in fact, just hit Bael with the only weapon that could kill him—an angel’s Avenging Blade.

  But then a crimson blanket began to spread outward from the knife protruding from his back. Bael’s arm loosened and then dropped from Asher’s throat as he staggered backward, falling to the floor, his eyes roaming the room desperately for a glimpse of his killer.

  When he saw me, still standing in the doorway, his eyes flashed.

  “You.” It was not an accusation but a declaration.

  A second later, flames erupted at the center of his body, a flash of purple fire rising from them in the moment before the flames disappeared in a muffled whoosh, leaving nothing in its place save the faint smell of burning mortal flesh.

  Asher slid down the wall, his breath coming in ragged gasps, a fine line of blood trickling from a small cut in his neck. I knelt beside him, waiting for his breath to steady and wondering if he would be angry after all. Finally, he opened his mouth to speak, and I braced myself for his wrath, my arguments at the ready.

  “You have good aim,” he croaked.

  I nodded, my shoulders sagging in relief. “Thank you.”

  I do not know how long we sat in the now-quiet room. Time had warped and slowed in the aftermath of Bael’s destruction. Finally, I could not wait any longer.

  “I suppose you’ll be going now? Moving on to the next demon? Attempting to protect another family of Descendants?”

  He nodded, pushing himself to his feet with effort and making his way to the door. Turning back, he managed a pained smile. “You coming?”

  My heart lifted. I was at his side in seconds. He took my hand, leading me out the door and down the stairs. Opening the front door to the boarding house, the morning light was a flash of brilliance. And then, we were out of the darkness at last.

  Errant

  BY DIANA PETERFREUND

  The unicorn hunter brought her own unicorn, which was good as none had been seen in the countryside for years. Everyone in the château paused in their duties as she entered the courtyard; they stared in open fascination at her dusty traveling cloak and the equally dusty unicorn at her side.

  If they’d been expecting the lithe, elegant monster they’d seen in tapestries and paintings, they were destined for disappointment. The unicorn was a rickety, goat-like creature with a bedraggled tail and tangled, mud-caked mats in her shaggy silver coat. She was missing a few teeth, and one of her eyes had already begun to cloud over with age. But her horn was as long and proud as ever, thrusting upward from her brow in a tight spiral half as long as a man’s arm.

  The hunter led the unicorn to the empty hitching post, and tied a length of chain first about the unicorn’s neck, and then around the post. “Bleib,” she told the beast, and the unicorn hung its head, its pink tongue lolling slightly from heat and thirst. The workers in the courtyard scattered. Chains and fatigue might slow the animal down, but they’d heard the stories. They knew the danger.

  The unicorn hunter was shown into the parlor with little delay. Gathered there were four people: two strangers, plus the man with whom the unicorn hunter had business, and a petite girl a few years younger than the hunter, with skin the color of white roses and hair that curled softly about her face like a golden halo. She was dressed in a fine blue gown that would likely tear like tissue if she bent the wrong way, and she stared at the hunter with a mixture of fascination and revulsion.

  “Sister Maria Brigitta of the Order of the Lioness,” said the unicorn hunter, giving a curt nod to the man she’d come to see. “I am here about the hunt.”

  “Indeed.” His eyes widening slightly at her accent. “I didn’t realize you were German.”

  “Bavarian by birth,” Gitta replied. “But I lived in Rome with the Order since my fifth year.” And she’d wager her French was better than his German.

  The man’s name was Adolphe Dufosset, but as far as Gitta could tell, he was not the lord of this house. Neither was the tall, dark man in the corner, who, Gitta learned, was the Vicomte de Veyrac, the father of the young man who turned out to be the girl’s betrothed.

  No one bothered to introduce the girl.

  Gitta wasted no more time and laid out the terms of her services. “For two ounces of gold, I will provide a unicorn and protection from the unicorn for the duration of your ritual. That includes teaching the maiden her duties. The price increases to two and a half should the maiden not pass the test.” The Vicomte stiffened at these words, but Gitta felt no need to clarify. After all, he was not the one to pay her fee. “And the price quadruples should you wish to actually kill the unicorn.”