9 A RARE BIRD
A RARE BIRD
S UNSHINE AND R AUM STUMBLED OUT OF THE HELLGATE into a dilapidated study.
The place had been ransacked. Papers were swept across the floors, and desk drawers were tossed haphazardly around.
Books had been pulled from the shelves, their pages torn out.
Underworld graffiti decorated the walls—Sheolic curse words and a crude rendering of a monstrous phallus—and the windowpanes had been smashed out.
“How … charming,” Sunshine muttered, hugging her arms.
In Hell, the skin of an angel glittered like light striking diamonds. It wasn’t bright, but it was decidedly incongruous with the dingey environment, and it was unmistakable. Nothing else gave off that ethereal glimmer, and if anyone saw it, they would know immediately what she was.
Raum looked at her, golden gaze sliding down her form, and … snorted.
“What?” She tried not to be offended.
“Ever heard of Twilight ?”
“As in … the time before dusk?”
“As in, sparkly vampires.”
She frowned. “Vampires do not sparkle. Angels do, and only when they’re in Hell.”
He shook his head. “Never mind. Just put the cloak on. And make sure you stay covered.”
“I have no more wish to be discovered than you do.” She did so, lifting the oversized hood over her face. The sleeves were long and covered her arms, and she tied the opening securely shut.
Before they’d left, she had changed her clothes into something more suitable for Hell, and she now wore heavy lace-up boots, jeans, and a fitted T-shirt, all of which were black.
Two long knives were holstered at her thighs, and two shorter ones were strapped to her calves and tucked into her boots.
All her blades were consecrated, but unfortunately, consecrated weapons had no power in Hell.
Still, they were sharp, and she was a skilled fighter.
She could defend herself in combat, but she hoped it wouldn’t come to that.
She had to admit, the cloaks were a good idea. Raum had donned one as well, and if anyone saw them, they would see only a couple mysterious strangers minding their business.
Turning away, he strode over to the smashed-out window and scanned the landscape. Sunshine followed, curious to see their surroundings.
He’d told her that the hellgate was taking them into a vacant territory that had belonged to Valefor, a Duke of Hell that had been killed. He’d also warned her that the territory might still be contested. But Sunshine was not expecting to look outside and see an active battlefield.
The fighting was chaotic and disorganized. Bloody brawling covered the land like a blanket, and there was even violence in the air, winged forms silhouetted against the eerie red sky.
“By the Spheres,” she whispered. “It’s a massacre.”
“We need to fly around,” Raum said as if this was normal. She supposed it probably was. “We can’t go through that unnoticed.” He looked at her. “Are your wings as sparkly as the rest of you?”
“Yes.”
Raum scowled, turning back to the carnage below. “I’ll have to carry you, then.”
“Can you?”
He nodded.
“Okay, then. I trust you.”
His gaze sharpened and snapped to her face, and she flinched, swallowing back the urge to recant her words. She didn’t trust him, not even remotely, and she wasn’t sure why she’d said it. But she was too proud to correct herself. Nor, she realized, did she want to hurt his feelings.
She was well aware how foolish that was.
His mouth twisted into an expression that looked oddly like disgust. Did her apparent willingness to trust repulse him? Did he think her innocent and naive?
“I have to shift,” he said.
“Okay.”
He said nothing, and they continued to stare at each other in silence for several moments. She was glad for the protection of her hood, shadowing her face.
Was he … hesitating?
“I won’t be able to communicate in this form,” he said.
She nodded.
“But I can still understand you.”
“Okay …”
“Make sure to keep yourself covered by the cloak. It’ll be hard in the wind.”
“I’ll be fine.”
Finally, when the silence grew nearly unbearable, he said, “I’ll still be … me. So don’t scream.”
She swallowed, trying to hide her sudden trepidation. “Okay …”
She’d watched Raum with near obsession in the last three weeks. She knew he had a penchant for theft and a fondness for animals. She knew his demon form was that of a crow—a demon crow—and that the Earth crow form he took was only a similar, miniature version of his true form.
What she didn’t know was what exactly a demon crow looked like.
Raum turned away, heading toward the more open part of the room. And then he shifted. One moment, he was a man with dark skin and golden eyes, and the next, he was … decidedly not.
Her eyes bugged. So that is what a demon crow looks like.
He was huge, towering and formidable. His enormous body was covered in shiny black feathers, right to the tips of four massive obsidian wings.
His head was strangely reptilian, covered in leathery black scales instead of feathers—the same gnarled scales she’d seen on his arms when they’d sworn their vow—and his jet-black beak looked razor-sharp.
His legs were scaled like his head, with huge curved talons. Though he had the same fan-shaped tail as an Earth crow, there was something distinctly prehistoric about his featherless head and bright golden eyes.
He was a giant dinosaur crow … from Hell.
That great head cocked suddenly, and only his earlier request held in the scream that rose in her throat. And because he’d explained, I’ll still be me.
“My g-goodness,” she said, swallowing hard. He was enormous. She understood now why he’d been so confident in his ability to carry her in flight. She felt positively miniscule compared to him.
The demon crow took a step toward her, and she flinched. It was pure instinct. The only times Sunshine had been close to such monsters were when she’d battled with them. Demons and angels were enemies. It was written into the very fabric of reality.
And yet she stood with as much calm as she could muster as a demon approached her and lifted a foot full of deadly claws. Good lord, he was going to carry her with those talons.
She forced a weak smile. “Shall we?”
His responding caw made her jump.
He made an unmistakable gesture with his beak toward the window, so she walked over to it and then turned back to look at him. It was hard not to look at him. “How do you want to do this?”
He gestured toward the window again.
She had no idea what he was trying to say, but she stepped closer. The window was big, which it needed to be to fit him through it. But there wasn’t room for them both, and she’d already figured out he planned to carry her in his talons.
When she glanced back at him, he gestured toward the window again.
“You want me to … jump?”
His long beak went up and down. Great. She looked out the window and glanced down. Way down. They were at the top of a high tower, which actually made her feel better. More falling time reduced the chances of her hitting the ground.
“You’d better catch me quickly, because if I feel like you don’t, I’ll use my own wings, and then we’ll both be in trouble.”
The crow demon blinked. He did so by sliding a whitish membrane horizontally across his eyeball. She suppressed a shudder.
“Okay. Here I go.”
She climbed onto the low windowsill, pushing down all thoughts about the insanity of what she was about to do, and then leapt into space. She plummeted for only a second before she felt sharp talons closing around her torso.
Accustomed to flight, she once again managed to contain her scream, but it was perilously close to slipping out.
Especially because they fell another couple seconds before he adjusted her in his claws, tucking her against his feathered body, and pumped his powerful wings— four wings! —to gain altitude.
And then they were flying.
And it was … wonderful.
She knew Raum’s demon form was unique to him, and therefore recognizable. If someone spent too long studying the sky, they might realize who it was flying up there. And god forbid they run into another flying demon.
But instead of worrying about that, after ensuring she was hidden beneath her cloak, she relaxed into his hold and turned her face up to study him.
He was quite impressive in this form. Magnificent, really. His feathers were sleek and shiny, outrageously soft against her. The way his head swiveled as he flew, scanning the ground beneath them, was even more majestic than the powerful birds of prey on Earth.
Skirting around the edge of the battle grounds, he flew them toward the sharp-tipped mountain range that bordered the territory. From there, he climbed to a higher elevation and followed the rocky landscape.
They flew for hours. The air was hot and musty, but this high up and traveling at this speed, the wind made it cold. The red sky wasn’t bright, but somehow, it provided ample light to navigate by.
Another angel might have found it humiliating to be carried by a winged creature when they could fly themselves, but Sunshine didn’t mind.
She had nothing to prove, and her desire to avoid detection in Hell was far greater than her need for independence.
She would do almost anything to avoid a repeat of her past.
Eventually, Raum banked right, and they left the mountains behind, following the twisting path of a blood-red river as it wound through rocky foothills. Foothills that were scattered with bone fragments as numerous as rocks. How lovely.
They continued on for a while until, in the distance, the tips of tall towers became visible.
“Is that … ?” she called into the rushing wind.
Raum’s great bird head nodded.