Archangel's Viper by Nalini Singh
Holly tried to see it and today, she could. Two angels, beautiful and strong, laughing together, their feathers glinting in the sunlight, and their eyes bright. "It must've hurt Raphael to have to kill him."
"There was no choice." Venom pointed forward to the next balcony. "Do you think you can cross the gap?"
Seventy seconds to go.
She had to force her eyes away from the sky, the wings deep inside her wanting to stretch out and sweep off this balcony. The urge was so strong that she had to remind herself that she wasn't an angel. She wouldn't soar; she'd crash to the earth, bloodied and broken. The internal battle ate up five precious seconds.
"Yes," she said after mentally measuring the gap.
Venom went first, landing on the opposite side in a silent crouch. Breath shallow, Holly crept up on top of the balustrade . . . and then she flew to land on the far side of the other balcony. Venom's eyes gleamed when he turned toward her. She lifted her shoulders and opened her hands in a silent I don't know how I did that answer.
Another balcony lay beyond.
Sixty seconds to go.
Jumping again, they found themselves at the corner; a turret rose up on the far side of the balcony. And Holly's chest glowed so hard that she could feel the rays attempting to pierce the black fabric of her jacket.
She gritted her teeth and, putting her hand on Venom's arm, pointed up with her other. Whatever it was that called to her, it was in that turret. Venom ran his hand down her back as he put his lips to her ear. "There were rumors Michaela might be pregnant. Any chance we're about to break into a nursery?"
Joy and anger unfurled within her. Along with a violent dose of jealousy.
"I don't know," she said through the dark pulse of it. "Unless archangels stay pregnant for years, any child won't be his."
"Michaela could've inadvertently transferred part of Uram into the child."
All the blood left Holly's face, to be replaced by chill horror. "What do we do? If it's a child?"
"We do the only thing we can," Venom answered. "We tell Raphael."
"Just like that?"
"We are talking about the child of an archangel."
Yes, said the powerful whisper inside her head, the weak have no place here.
Holly closed her hands into fists. "It's getting harder to stay me."
Venom's jaw grew tight. "Turret windows look like they're welded shut," he murmured as he crouched in the darkness, "and there's no way to climb that surface. We'll have to go through these balcony doors, then figure out the rest." He glanced over his shoulder. "Twenty seconds left by my count. If we don't make it in before he turns, go flat on the balcony."
Horror a twisting intruder in her gut at the idea an infant might be dealing with the same dark urges that howled inside her, Holly nonetheless took out her penknife and gave Venom the toothpick. It took him fifteen agonizing seconds to access the darkened room. Entering just as the sentry angel began his turn, they waited for their eyes to adjust.
A shirt thrown over a chair, boots lined up neatly near the doorway, a comb and what might've been cologne or aftershave on the small dresser. An opening to the right, darkness beyond.
The bed was empty.
Not relaxing, Holly padded quietly across the carpet to peek into what turned out to be a large dressing area with sanitary facilities on the right behind a glass door. All empty. She gave Venom the thumbs-up and he emerged from the pool of black where he'd concealed himself so he could provide stealthy backup should Holly be caught. Their next problem was the closed door to this room. It would open out into the same mezzanine passageway that held the two angelic sentries.
Turning the doorknob with jaw-clenched care and tortoise slowness, Venom nudged open the door a fraction of a fraction. Barely enough of a crack to slide out his mirror to examine the passageway. His grim expression told her what he'd seen.
Now what? she mouthed.
29
We wait, Venom mouthed back.
They both took a seat on the floor behind the door.
"What about . . ." She pointed at the bed and its missing owner.
"Vampire or mortal from the size of the bed," Venom murmured directly against her ear, his lips brushing a part of her body she'd never before realized was so sensitive. "I can mesmerize vampires far older than I am, so as long as it isn't someone of Dmitri's age, it won't be a problem."
"And how did that happen?" Holly whispered after tugging down his head with her hand pressed against his cheek. He was warm under her palm, his stubble having begun to emerge to give his skin an intriguingly rough texture. "I get that you're still developing, but from mesmerizing human prey to old immortals?" The surge in Holly's power made sense because of the creepy stuff that had forced its way into her body, but Venom had no such excuse.
"Dmitri says he grew stronger in sudden bursts, too. As if the body builds up to a certain point, then pushes over in one go."
That made sense in an immortal way. "Well, hypnotizing powers or not, it's not a good bet to hope this guy is under your mesmerism age limit. We're in an archangelic stronghold."
Venom grinned and shrugged.
When she scowled at him, he mouthed, Kitty. She punched him lightly on the arm. He took her fisted hand, pretended to sink his fangs into her knuckles. Her lips twitched . . . and it was okay. Because they were in this together.
An hour passed, with Venom using his mirror to check the hallway every few minutes. The pain in Holly's chest slowly intensified to the point that she pressed her palm to her chest in a futile effort to ease it. Venom saw the movement, put his hand on her thigh. She gripped that hand, held on hard. And tried to breathe.
"The angels are walking in the opposite direction," he said three minutes later. "The turret entrance should be directly to our left."
"Let's do it." Trying to sneak past under the angels' noses was a massive risk, but so was sitting here when her chest was threatening to crack in half, leaving her a bloody, broken mess.
Opening the door, Venom slipped out to watch the angels while waving her out. Holly didn't argue or hesitate. She padded on silent feet to the only possible door that could lead to the turret--it was angled into the corner.
Her hand fell on the doorknob.
It was locked.
Shit.
She looked over her shoulder to see that Venom was backing up toward her. She knew he was keeping his gaze forward in the hope he could mesmerize the angels should it come to that. But those angels would turn onto the other part of the mezzanine within seconds. No way they could avoid being seen.
There was no time for Venom to pick the lock.
Holly stared at the lock . . . and a whisper of acid green rolled down her arm and into it. Oddly calm, the pain no longer agonizing, she turned the doorknob again. She was inside the next second. Venom moved with viper speed to join her, the two of them managing to shut the door without making a noise.
Tongue dry and heart a drum, Holly stared at him. It was dark in this part of the turret and her chest, it was glowing. So were Venom's eyes. She touched her fingers to his left cheekbone. He was strong and extraordinary and unique . . . and she'd always wanted to have him in her court. But he was ridiculously loyal to Raphael. She'd never understood why. Raphael was a strong pup but she was thousands of years older, had far more power. Yet Raphael was able to hold the loyalty of not just this vampire with the eyes of a viper, but that of Dmitri.
He'd never been able to do that. He'd had friendships once. A long time ago. Raphael had been his friend. They'd raced through the Refuge on wings of air and fire, or that was what it had felt like. It was after Raphael's ascension that things had changed. The pup had become too strong, and he'd had trouble accepting that.
Such a fool he'd been.
He should've killed Raphael before the young angel he'd known had ever ascended.
"Holly."
Holly stared into eyes slitted like a snake's, Venom's hands gripping her upper arms
"Drink." Venom held his wrist up to her mouth.
Once again, the punch of his unique and brutally powerful blood helped her shove the echo to enough of a distance that she could function. "I won't be able to last long," she warned him. "He's very strong in this place." Stuck in Holly's weak body, but flush with a power that had lain dormant since the attack.
"Then let's finish our recon and get out of here."
Holly turned to the stairs that spiraled up to the top of the turret. They were narrow but well maintained and a metal railing ran along the right side. She went first. Venom didn't try to stop her.
He will never limit me. He will help me fly.
It was a gift, one she held on to tight.
The closer she got to the turret, the more difficult it became to ignore the violent pressure in her chest. Holly unzipped the jacket in a futile effort to ease that pressure. Acid green light blazed out of her, spearing through the darkness. It glimmered on the iron of the huge padlock that hung on the door to the turret room.
Break it.
Digging the nails of one hand into her palm, Holly retrieved her penknife with the other, then pushed out the toothpick using her thumbnail. "One more lock to pick," she said to Venom. There was no way to hide a broken padlock and they'd promised to leave behind no trace of their presence.
Venom crouched down to begin.
It took him long enough that sweat began to trickle down her temples, the pressure inside her a cauldron. Stripping off the jacket and her pack, she left them both by the door. Venom unclipped the padlock right then and put it down quietly beside her things, before quickly taking off his pack and placing it next to hers.
Rising to his feet, he placed his hand on the doorknob. "I'll go first."
Holly nodded because she had to get inside, and agreement was the fastest way to ensure it.
Venom took hold of her chin, made sure her eyes locked with his. "Take what blood you need to stay in control."
Only after she'd nodded did he open the door.
The room within was lit only by an acid green glow. Holly thought at first that it was her chest . . . but that light was coming from something in the center of the circular space. Gripping Venom's hand viciously tight, she stared at the frightening sight that met her: a crib. White and delicate.
Her stomach roiled. A baby?
No. Please no.
She felt Venom suck in a breath and then the two of them walked silently closer, close enough to look down into that horrifying crib. Only . . . they hit something before they got within touching distance of whatever lay in the crib. A barrier blazed up against them, repelling them with enough force that they both stumbled, barely keeping their feet. Its color was a shimmering bronze that reminded Holly of Michaela's wings. As they watched, it formed into a lattice that enclosed the entire crib in a ball of glittering power.
"What is that?" Holly raised her fingers to the bronze power but didn't touch it.
"It looks like Michaela can leave behind static pieces of her power." Venom scanned the glittering structure. "Probably a Cascade-born ability, or else there would've been rumors about it before now. My guess is she'd have to recharge the construct at some point."
Holly didn't care about the answer anymore, even though she'd asked the question. The green glow in the crib called to her. Heart pounding, chest pulsing, she stepped close enough to look through the lattice cage . . . and saw a misshapen and twisted . . . Not a child.
It had no head. No eyes. No nose. No limbs. No rib cage. No hips. No spinal cord.
It looked like nothing human or immortal or even animal. It was nothing but a lump of clay mashed together and turned into meat. But that distorted lump of flesh rose and fell in a pattern of breaths and its pale brown skin was as fragile as a baby's beneath the acid green glow.
There was a twisted and sickeningly soft-appearing bone sticking out of its center that vaguely resembled the shape of a wing. But, it wasn't a wing. And what was that? The tip of an adult finger, complete with a hard, square nail, jutting out below the wet shine of a patch of flesh that appeared to be rotting beneath the false life of the acidic glow. And oh, God, there were three adult teeth sticking out on the other side of it.
How could it breathe? It had no nose, no mouth. No brain. How could it be alive?
Her stomach roiled.
Bile rising, Holly began to back off . . . and the wings stretched and stretched and tore out of her before she could do anything to fight the migration.
*
Venom saw Holly's back stiffen, her spine arching in a dangerous curve. Her mouth opened on a soundless scream, spears of acidic green light pouring out of every cell of her body. Even as he moved toward her with inhuman speed, the light coalesced into a single tight beam and began to stream toward the lattice.
The lattice bounced it back into Holly with brutal force.
She shuddered, blood streaming out of her nose and her eyes, her, but her body bowed again nearly at once, the acid green energy punching once more at the lattice. Venom was ready when it was repelled this time. He grabbed Holly in the split second after the power returned but before it retook control.
He connected with her eyes. But, as he'd feared, Holly was immune to his ability to mesmerize. Her eyes glowed as the power rose again. And where his hand pressed against her stomach from his attempt to capture her, he felt wetness. He didn't need to look to know what it was.
Every vampire knew the sharp metallic tang of blood.
The energy inside her was literally tearing her apart in its frantic efforts to get to the energy . . . receptacle in the bronze lattice cage. Venom made a split-second decision. He gripped Holly's throat in a single powerful hand and squeezed hard, cutting off her blood flow. Her body spasmed in his grip for nearly a minute before going limp.
A human would be dead.
He was counting on the fact that Holly wasn't human. Because if he'd killed . . . Pain such as he'd never again expected to feel tore through him as he scooped her up into his arms and carried her to the far side of the room. Placing her on a window seat, he checked her pulse.
Relief was a cold punch in his gut.
She was alive, and the glow had stopped. It made him believe that the thing inside her needed her to be conscious to do what it had been doing. Which meant its own consciousness wasn't whole, couldn't exist without being a parasite. As with the pulsing horror in the crib, it was twisted and created of pieces. It needed to use Holly as a host. However, like an insect that erupted out of its host's body after consuming that body from the inside out, it'd kill her in an effort to get out.
Leaving Holly on the seat, Venom went to look through the lattice again; he needed to give the sire every detail he could. His gut told him that thing shouldn't exist and wasn't alive in any known sense, the rise and fall under its skin having only a superficial resemblance to breathing. As he watched, that rise and fall pulsed and faded in random jaggedness, pulsed and faded. Flickered.
And he caught a hint of putrid green below the surface: decay.
All details stored in his mind, Venom moved to the next thing on his list and touched the bronze lattice directly. It threw him back against the wall, but he'd prepared for that outcome and rolled with viper fluidity. He'd been with Raphael long enough to identify the power that had repelled him as archangelic.
He wouldn't be getting through it.
Which left him with only one choice: he had to get Holly out of here before she regained consciousness and the malignant energy inside her began to once again attempt to reconnect with this other piece of itself. He also had to keep her away from it until he could talk to Raphael and figure out a solution that didn't end with Holly's death.
Because Venom wasn't okay with that.
Keeping an ear open for any sign that Holly was regaining consciousness, he went to the windows aroun
Michaela clearly understood that this unbeing could not be permitted to escape. Why, then, did she allow it to exist? For power? Or had she loved Uram enough to hold out hope for his return?
None of that was important in this time and place.
Only Holly mattered.
Venom would have to take her out the same way they'd come in.
He'd always liked a challenge, he thought grimly.
Going back over the room, he made sure they'd left behind no trace of their presence. It was evident that Michaela wasn't mentally connected to the power lattice, else the room would've been swarming with guards a minute after their entry. After he'd confirmed that no drops of Holly's blood lay on the floor to betray her, he picked up her body and exited the room, then placed her on the ground and carefully relocked the padlock in the same position in which he'd found it.
Getting Holly back into her jacket and zipping it up proved easy enough; he made a note to needle her by calling her a doll. She'd glare daggers at him before replying with some equally needling riposte. Her pack was a problem. However, she didn't have much more than food and a change of clothes in it now that her jacket was out. So he emptied everything into his own larger pack, then managed to squash her empty pack in there as well. Slinging it on, he picked her up again and tried not to look at the purpling bruise around her neck.
He'd done that.
He, a man who'd been very careful through time to never become without conscience, to never treat women as disposable commodities. His sisters might have forsaken him, but that didn't change that he was a man who'd grown up knowing it was his duty to care for, not harm them. "I'm sorry, kitty," he murmured, rubbing his cheek against her hair before he started down the stairs.
Getting to the bottom wasn't a problem--Holly didn't weigh all that much. She was pretty small, even though she seemed such a huge presence when she was awake and snapping back at him. Placing her on the ground again once they'd navigated the stairs, her back to a wall, he risked cracking open the door the tiniest fraction.