Page 72 of Vanish Into Light

“Things like not walking straight into gunfire without a vest?”

“Hm. Among others.”

FIFTEEN

The worst part about his fall to the pit hadn’t been the pain. Not the burning, tearing, branding, flaying agony of being shredded again and again and again. Not the taste of blood as it filled his mouth, his lungs. Not the way his eyes had been seared out, and his backbone pulled through his skin and grafted with wings and tail. None of that.

No, the worst had been the sense, deep beneath all the places he was being ripped open, that he washome. That he belonged in this place. The way it didn’t feel foreign; the way, in the midst of the greatest agony, he hadn’t been afraid.

The only thing that had come close was missing Rose.

He had her again, now, and that was a kind of home, too. A home with room for one more, it seemed. His hair smelled like Lance – or, it did before he stepped out into the driving rain, and took flight.

They didn’t want him to go: Rose and Lance put on near-identical stern expressions that left him chuckling under his breath. The laughter hid the winces, though, as he pulled on clothes and pain lanced through him. The wounds were closed, but his flesh remembered.

“I’m not going to pick a fight with anyone,” he assured them, though they look unimpressed. “But I need to check on something.”

“Let us come with you,” Lance said, the absolute darling.

“No, baby.” Beck traced his lower lip with the tip of a claw, until he earned a shudder, and then pressed a kiss to Rose’s mouth, fast and sweet. “I won’t be long.”

He’d been warm, when he first woke, cocooned in soft sheets, cradled between them. Now the driving rain stung his face, slipped beneath his coat collar, and chilled him to the bone. The water made his wings heavy, and each forceful beat of them tugged at his freshly-knit skin. He gritted his teeth and kept flying.

No rooftop meeting, this time. He landed on the sidewalk, folded his wings, and slicked back his hair with hands that only trembled a little. He had them under control by the time he reached the awning in front of High Water, and the bouncers didn’t bother radioing in or asking him any questions; they parted, pulled open the doors, and let him right in.

Noah was in the swanky, understated bar up front, one hip leaning against a bar stool, smoking a cigar and chatting up a human woman dressed too finely to be one of the working girls – a customer, then. He glanced up once – and then again, eyes going wide when he recognized Beck. It would have been gratifying, at another time, to stop and offer a sharp grin, a wink, maybe flex his claws a little and flash his fangs. But Beck didn’t have the energy – or the interest – for that right now. He flicked his tail in silent greeting, and saw Noah press himself back against the bar, slack-jawed and terrified as he passed.

A small pleasure.

He found Damien in the orgy room, a girl tucked beneath each arm, and another between his legs, painted lips stretched wide. Her jerked so hard he choked the poor thing when he noticed Beck standing over him. “Shit!”

The girls – the one on her knees coughing and gagging, helped by her friends – beat a hasty retreat, and Beck dropped down primly onto the sofa beside Damien, crossing one leg over the other.

“Put that away.” He gestured to Damien’s lap, and the hellspawn scrambled to tuck his wet cock away and zip his fly.

“Jeez…Beck. Shit, what are – um…” He tugged at his shirt, and tucked his hair behind his ears, and fidgeted like a schoolboy caught with a joint. “Uh…I didn’t think I’d see you back here. Wasn’t expecting you.”

“I’d rather be anywhere else, believe me.” Beck scanned the room, briefly considered asking to go somewhere quieter and more private, then decided against it. None of the writhing, moaning, fully-engaged people or hellspawn around them was giving them a second thought, much less eavesdropping. They had a better chance of speaking freely here than anywhere else in the building, where cameras or mics could pick up their conversation. “I need to ask you about hell,” he said, turning back in time to watch Damien’s brows shoot up into his hairline in surprise.

“Hey, man. You were there. You probably know more than me.”

Beck stared at him, until Damien rubbed at the back of his neck, expression pinched and unhappy.

“I mean…I can try and help. What do you wanna know about?”

It had hit somewhere between licking the idiot pimp’s blood off his lips and losing consciousness. In the skittery, too-bright space between one sluggish, bleeding-out heartbeat and the next, a memory had slammed into him just like all those bullets had: standing on some nothing, no-account hellspawn’s head and listening to him plead.Father…Father, please, I’ll do better. The crunch of his skull shattering.

He remembered the hushed murmurs, and the sense of there being a vacuum. It had been like home, but one with an empty master bedroom.

Another memory, when he woke on the table, body screaming at him, Rose and Lance’s worried faces hovering above. Blue light. And cold, so cold, wings heavy, too heavy, coated in ice – but not wings like these. Feathers. Pain in his chest, running him through, a pain the bullet wounds could only echo and mimic.

He pinned Damien back in his seat with a look and said, “How long has hell been leaderless?”

Damien looked like he’d been punched. “What?”

“You heard me.”

“Yeah, but” – someone screamed behind their sofa, high, breathy, and porno-worthy – “what does that even mean?”

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