A Touch Menacing (26 page)

Run. Now.
The thought beat harder with each moment she waited. In a few steps she could be out of the enclosed staircase and in the upstairs hall.

The wailing music had gotten louder, more off-key. It sounded almost like . . .

Screaming.

Launching up the stairs, Madeline grabbed the knob, but the door was ripped out of her grip. She dove forward, past the figure in the doorway. He grabbed her by the neck and lifted her.

“Please,” she choked, hanging helpless. She clawed at the hand, but her gloves made her nails useless. “Please, I can’t breathe!” She pointed her toes, trying to find ground. Maroon irises bored into her.
Bound.

With a dramatic choking noise, she rolled her eyes back and went limp. Her limbs twitched to fight, punch, survive as he shook her once, hard. And then his fingers loosened. With everything she had, Madeline swung her leg into his crotch.

The angel tossed her backward. Flying down the steps, she slammed into the wall, her shoulder popping out of place. When she hit the landing, pain radiated through her rib cage, so intense she couldn’t get air.

The Bound who’d grabbed hold of her descended the stairs even as two others came up from below. “End her,” he rasped, still bent from her kick. “Quickly. They mustn’t be allowed to escape.”

“Stop!” she croaked. “I’m not one of them.” She held a hand up, agony shooting through her chest. “I’m not. A Sider. I swear.”

A face appeared suddenly before her. She flinched, jarring ribs that must be broken. She could smell the angel, a thick scent like wood smoke that tickled at the back of her throat. She clenched her jaw, didn’t dare move.

“We know what you are. We watched you well, Madeline.”

The broken sound of her name made her cringe. “Don’t hurt me. I helped Gabriel. Please. Ask him. I’m on your side.”

Silence. The angel she’d kicked plodded down the stairs.

“See to the others,” he said quietly. His two companions loped past. When the door at the top of the stairs opened, a cloud of acrid smoke rolled across the ceiling.

“Oh my God,” she whispered.

“No.” He tottered closer, his steps uneven. “Not your God.”

Panic knotted in her stomach.

“Madeline.” A low, sharp crackle came from his mouth. “Tell me how the plague began.”

I don’t know,
she thought.
Should I lie?
A thump shook through the floorboards above her head. Something hammered against the door. She curled up, hiding her face. If he was going to kill her, she didn’t want to see, didn’t want to know it was coming. Cold sweat poured off her.
I’m going into shock,
she realized. The angel kneeling next to her made a pitying noise.

Fingers stabbed into her shattered ribs, squeezing. Madeline screamed. Black dots sparkled in front of her as she fought against losing consciousness.

“Stop!” she sobbed. Warmth spilled down her side.

“Brief pain, then nothing,” he said as if to console her.

“Gabe will speak for me!” Blinking away tears, she grabbed for his wrist. “I’m his friend. Tell Gabe. I fixed everything,” she said.
I’m mortal now.

The hands on her froze, and she let her own fall away. They’d bring Gabe to her and he’d make the pain stop and it would be okay.
Where’s Luke?
she thought. He’d save her. She’d make a deal with him. Anything he wanted.

“You
dare
ask Gabriel to speak against his own kind while you stay loyal to
Lucifer
?” She tried to lift her head, but the angel pressed down on her shoulder. “You’d brand Gabriel a traitor to lure him back to darkness? It will never be.”

He shoved her hard. The back of Madeline’s head cracked against the wood stair. Her vision swam as the Bound angel drew back a hand.

“Please,” she said.

His fist plunged down.

CHAPTER 15

G
abriel walked down the street alone. He’d tried to ride the subway, hoping the constant swaying of the cars would settle him. But once he’d gone through the turnstile, dark thoughts from when he’d been Fallen surfaced, fragmented and out of focus. He couldn’t explain the cold sweat he’d gotten from standing on the platform. Before the train even pulled into the station, he decided to walk.

He couldn’t bear to stay with the other Bound, knowing the Sider in the prisonlike room was there because of him. Gabe had heard screams, tried to tune them out, but what his ears had blocked out, his conscience kept loud.
Don’t break,
he’d begged Zach without saying a word.
Don’t tell them where Eden is, if you know.
When they finally decided Zach had given them all he knew, Gabe had taken off.

He looked up to find he’d walked almost twelve avenue blocks and wound up in front of Milton’s. A sheet of plywood covered a window. The door was locked, the establishment closed. He rested his forehead against the iron gate over it for a beat and looked in through the glass of the door. Inside, the tables had been tossed around, and a dark splotch of dried blood stained the entryway. Gabe turned away.

He crossed the street and headed through the alley, drawing out his walk to Eden’s. Checking the apartment without her there to report back to the Bound should take some pressure off. Yet, even though it wasn’t a lie, he felt like a liar. The faint taste of sulfur hadn’t left him in almost a day.

When he came out of the alley, a girl looked down at him from above. She’d sprawled out halfway up by the time he made it around the side of the stairs.

“You a Sider?” He said it without thinking.

“You need Touch?” she asked. Gabe hesitated only a second before nodding.

Her braids bounced with each stair as she came down to meet him. “You pay me first, then I lose the protection,” she said, holding out a gloved hand. “Twenty. Unless you want to double up. That’s thirty.”

Gabe reached into his pocket. “What is Touch exactly?” he said, without taking out the money. “How does it work?”

She snapped her gum. “Magic.”

“No, really,” he pressed.

For the first time, the girl seemed to be sizing him up. She took a step back.

“What’ll forty bucks get me?” he asked quickly, and just like he’d hoped, her eyes met his. The fear dropped away from her. Gabe eased closer. “There we go,” he whispered as the girl’s eyelids drooped, the connection taking. “Whose crew are you with?”

“Madeline’s,” she slurred. A frown dug deep. “Madeline would want me to pass to you because you seem so sad.”

Gabe flinched, almost broke eye contact, but stopped himself. “Were you on Touch before you became a Sider?” She didn’t answer. He gave the girl’s shoulder a gentle squeeze, and forced himself to use the information she’d given him. “Did the Touch make you sad like me, and then you became a Sider?”

“I was alive once,” she said. “I had so many things I wanted to do. . . . So many things and then it all kind of just . . .” She wiggled her gloved fingers in front of her and then splayed them. “Poof. And now there’s nothing. I have to get rid of Touch.” The vacant misery in her invaded him, gripped his bones like a parasite and dug in. He slammed his eyes shut, so unnerved he almost missed her whisper. “It has nowhere to go because I can’t use it.”

Gabe snapped alert. “You can’t use it yourself,” he said. “All those things you were
supposed to do
. . .”

On the stair, the girl seemed to be coming out from under the influence of his sway. “It’s twenty bucks for a dose,” she said, an edge to her voice that hadn’t been there seconds before.

“Forget it,” Gabe said distractedly, tossing the cash he had in his pocket to her anyway. “Take this and get out of here. Don’t come back, understand?”

“Hey!” she called after him, but he didn’t turn back.

Mortals’ paths led them from one event to the next, their whole lives planned out in branches of choices. And without paths, the Siders seemed paused. “And all that potential has to go somewhere,” Gabe said to himself. “That’s what Touch is.”

A thought sparked in his mind. The Siders Eden had sent Upstairs had gone on passing Touch, passing potential to souls that shouldn’t have had any. The souls Upstairs then disappeared.
They’re not
disappearing,
though,
he realized.
They’re reincarnating.

“Holy shit,” he blurted.

A disgusted sound just behind him broke through his stupor. “Such unbecoming language,” Raphael admonished.

Gabriel stared at him, face blank.
He saw me let the girl go,
Gabe thought.
I’m screwed.
“Please, let me explain,” he said. “It’s not what you think.”

“And what do I think?” Raphael asked. “What
should
I think? That you’re not acting like one of us? That you’re releasing Siders instead of ending them? An offense punishable, Gabriel.”

Fear lanced through Gabe. He was so close to figuring it all out. Could feel it. “No. Don’t turn me in. Please,” he said, grabbing for Raphael.

“There are others who have given up on you, Gabriel, but I refuse. Perhaps to a fault.” Gabe shook his head as if to reassure him, but Raphael went on. “You must end the death breather, Gabriel. The time has come.”

I can’t.

“You can,” Raphael said. “She’ll be weak when you get to her.”

Gabe froze. “What did you do?”

“Her injuries will be enough that she won’t escape you again.”

“No, you don’t understand.” Panic sped through him. They were hurting Eden, knowing he wouldn’t be able to resist his promise with her weakened. But from what he’d seen at her apartment, even bruises had the potential to kill her. “Tell me where she is,” he demanded. When Raphael didn’t answer, Gabe took him by the shoulders. “I’ll be Damned if I don’t get to her in time.”

Raphael nodded sadly. “Indeed you will. And that choice is yours, Gabriel. Choose wisely.”

“I will! I
will
! Tell me where she is,” he begged. When Raphael rattled off the location, Gabriel’s heart sank. He’d never been to the alley Raphael named, so he couldn’t travel there instantly. Gabe drew up a mental map of lower Manhattan, searching for the closest place.

The abandoned building. Eden was only a few blocks from where the Bound gathered.
What the hell is she doing there?
he thought, but it didn’t matter. From the building to that alley would be a two-minute run.
I can save her.

If I make it in time.

CHAPTER 15

G
abriel walked down the street alone. He’d tried to ride the subway, hoping the constant swaying of the cars would settle him. But once he’d gone through the turnstile, dark thoughts from when he’d been Fallen surfaced, fragmented and out of focus. He couldn’t explain the cold sweat he’d gotten from standing on the platform. Before the train even pulled into the station, he decided to walk.

He couldn’t bear to stay with the other Bound, knowing the Sider in the prisonlike room was there because of him. Gabe had heard screams, tried to tune them out, but what his ears had blocked out, his conscience kept loud.
Don’t break,
he’d begged Zach without saying a word.
Don’t tell them where Eden is, if you know.
When they finally decided Zach had given them all he knew, Gabe had taken off.

He looked up to find he’d walked almost twelve avenue blocks and wound up in front of Milton’s. A sheet of plywood covered a window. The door was locked, the establishment closed. He rested his forehead against the iron gate over it for a beat and looked in through the glass of the door. Inside, the tables had been tossed around, and a dark splotch of dried blood stained the entryway. Gabe turned away.

He crossed the street and headed through the alley, drawing out his walk to Eden’s. Checking the apartment without her there to report back to the Bound should take some pressure off. Yet, even though it wasn’t a lie, he felt like a liar. The faint taste of sulfur hadn’t left him in almost a day.

When he came out of the alley, a girl looked down at him from above. She’d sprawled out halfway up by the time he made it around the side of the stairs.