Page 41 of Vanish Into Light

“Stop struggling,” Beck hissed in his ear, and though he fought for breath, he stilled in the grip of his attacker.

Beck’s claws pricked at the skin of his face, and Rose wondered – hoped – if he would claw him properly: put out his eyes and scar his skin and leave him crawling helpless across the floor.

“You should show some respect to the fairer sex,Noah.” Then Beck ducked his head, and bit the man’s throat, just above the strangling pressure of his own tail.

~*~

Lance found himself out in the first, more understated room of the club, with three fingers of something amber in a glass before him, on a stool beside Damien the hellspawn.

He felt a little drunk, though he hadn’t touched a drop of his drink, his thoughts swimming in and out, like he was watching things happen to him, rather than making decisions for himself.

Damien had lit a cigarette and was sitting sideways on his stool, so he faced Lance; his knee kept brushing against Lance’s hip. “I feel for you, man,” he said on his next exhale, thick smoke uncoiling between them. “I mean, you were the boss, right?” He leaned forward, and Lance couldn’t understand why he didn’t lean away; flicked at the front of Lance’s jacket, the stitched DU LAC with his rank in front of it. “Lieutenant, huh? That’s pretty cool. But then Beck waltzed in and took over, didn’t he?”

Lance found himself murmuring, “Yeah.”

Damien twitched an apologetic smile. “Yeah, he does that.” Up close like this, his red irises were striated with gold and black; his skin was smooth and ageless, save the little lines that blossomed around his eyes when he smiled. “What are you gonna do, though?” He slouched back onto his own stool, though his knees stayed pressed to the side of Lance’s leg, two burning-warm points of contact at his hip and thigh. “Beck is just Beck. He always gets what he wants.”

Lance frowned. “Not always.”

“Oh.” Damien chuckled, the sound low, and dark; it sent a little chill down his spine that wasn’t exactly unpleasant. “Trust me: if he wants something, he gets it. Do you know” – he sat forward again, eyes sparkling, voice going conspiratorial – “that within three months of showing up in hell, he went from being just another poor sucker in the vault, to being a guard? He earned everybody’s trust, and then their respect, and then he was all but running the place. By the time I was sent topside, there wasn’t a soul in hell who didn’t get the willies when they heard his name.”

Lance frowned, and curiosity won out over the nagging little voice in the back of his head that told him he was making a very, very big mistake. That he should shut up and run: get his people out of here. “I don’t get it. What’s so special about him?”

Damien laughed again, a shocked bark of a laugh that shook his whole lean frame. “I can’t believe you’re even asking me that! Come on, man. You know.”

“No, I don’t.” The room seemed to tilt, and when he reached a hand across the bar to steady himself, his fingers bumped into the cold, wet glass that had been set before him earlier.

Damien nodded toward him. “Go on and drink that, you’ll feel better.”

Lance gripped the tumbler and brought it to his lips. “Why does he – why can I notthinkwhen–” Frustrated, he took a long swallow. It was excellent whiskey, smooth and too-hot in all the right ways, the burn a welcome one in his throat.

Damien shrugged, and took another drag. Tapped ash into the crystal tray on the bar. “Part of it’s just Beck, you know?”

Lance nodded, as if he actually did know. That was the exact thing Rose had said to him, as ifbeing Beckwas some sort of quantifiable state of being that explained anything.

“But, I mean…maybe…” Damien drawled, tone shifting – body, too, as he leaned forward into Lance’s space. He fingered the collar of Lance’s jacket, lightly, and then gripped it, smile widening sharp and wicked. He exhaled a slow stream of smoke into Lance’s mouth. “Maybe you’ve just got a taste for hell.”

No, that voice in the back of his head said.No, absolutely not, get away from me, you’re a fucking demon.

But he held perfectly still, vibrating faintly, pulse tripping, as Damien put his lips to his ear and whispered, “The purest things corrupt the easiest.” And he didn’t move, only went pliant and unresisting, when Damien shifted – flash of red eyes and fangs – and fitted their mouths together.

~*~

Noah’s eyes rolled back in his head, and his body went limp in Beck’s grasp. Beck withdrew with a faint pop as the seal of lips and flesh broke; he opened his hands and Noah fell, face-first, heavy and lifeless to the carpet. He licked the blood from his lips, after; wiped the corners of his mouth with delicate fingertips, and hummed, expression thoughtful.

It was the second time Rose had seen him drink someone’s blood, and, thankfully, her brain didn’t skip and halt like it had the last time – though her pulse did rattle, a little.

“Well,” Beck said, voice thick. He swallowed, and looked down at the unconscious man. “I should have just done that from the start.”

“Peckish?” she asked, and managed to sound dry and amused – well, because she was, truth told. Once she got past the shock of it, she thought it was kind of…hot. A little. God knew she was intimately familiar with the taste of blood on her lips, though she’d never sought to drink straight from the fount.

“No. It allows me to” – he gestured beside his temple, an impatient flick of fingers; Beck had never been one to struggle for words – “see the truth of things. A man can lie all day with his mouth, but blood never lies.” He met her gaze, meaningfully. Then stepped over Noah’s limp form and joined her. “The trinket is actually a shard of Saint Michael’s sword – an actual sword, and not a metaphorical one. It seems that, when Saint Michael came down, he got lost for a while: a suitable host was hard to secure for one so lofty. The sword was lost – or taken, rather – and Raphael truly was the one to give it to our host here.” This with a contemptuous look over his shoulder.

“So Raphael found a new conduit?” Her pulse kicked like a triphammer.

“Yes. His face is vaguely familiar. I think the poor boy might have been a model – a fragrance ad strikes my memory…Anyway. Yes. Raphael gave it to Noah, with strict instructions to hide it. The results of which we saw firsthand.”

“But…why would Raphael want to hide Michael’s sword? Aren’t all the archangels on the same side?”

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