Daniel
“Chaol!”
Where the two streets intersected, a strange man stood tall, gripping a demon by the throat.
He wore a white, gauzy fabric that wrapped around his body and limbs, spattered with black demon blood.
Golden sandals adorned his feet. His hair was pale yellow, and his eyes were gold.
His lips pulled away from his teeth in a snarl as he pressed his free hand to the demon’s chest, and when he pulled his hand away, a red mist came with it, swirling in the air between them.
An agonized scream tore from the demon, thrashing in the stranger’s grip, and he inhaled the smoke into his own body, grinning wildly as the demon went limp. Dead.
He dropped the body without fanfare and turned toward the horrified crowd still trying to right themselves in the rubble.
“Run,” a guttural voice said. “Run!”
All around Daniel, demons clambered to their feet and ran.
There was no rhyme or reason to the chaos.
Everyone was moving different directions.
A knee slammed into Daniel’s side, sending him sprawling, and a heavy foot crashed down on his upper arm, wrenching his shoulder painfully.
He yelped, clawing his way to his feet and pushing through the crowd.
“Chaol! Chaol!”
The stranger—the angel—was approaching as Daniel finally spotted Chaol through the crowd. He was upright now, on his knees with one hand pressed to the ground. Black blood ribboned down the side of his face as his gaze lifted, searching the chaotic throng.
“Danny!” he hollered, turning this way and that.
“Chaol!”
Strong hands grabbed his arms, forcefully spinning him around and bringing him face to face with the angel.
His eyes weren’t just gold. There were streaks of other colors within them, catching the light.
His yellow hair looked silky soft, clean and unblemished despite everything.
Did angels sweat? Did they bleed? Had no one else managed to hurt him at all?
He didn’t even look winded. He was tearing through the city of demons like a kid with a Lego castle.
Terror seized Daniel’s lungs as the angel yanked his hood back—and stopped.
“Human?” His baritone voice held a musical lilt, but it didn’t sound pleased at all by this surprise.
“Let him go!” Chaol slammed into them, his claws raking at the angel’s face.
The angel arched away with a grunt, shoving Daniel hard.
He hit the ground and twisted to look back at them.
The angel was gripping Chaol by the throat, and Daniel watched in horror as he raised his free hand and placed it flat on Chaol’s heaving chest. Chaol’s wings beat uselessly as red smoke bloomed from his chest, and a choked scream broke free from his lips.
Daniel scrambled to his feet. He needed a weapon. Something that might be able to hurt the angel. Whirling around, he spotted the blacksmith nearby. The shop was empty now, and the street was mostly devoid of life. The few who were left were too injured in the blast to get away.
Daniel raced to the open storefront. Heat billowed from within, and weapons hung along every wall. Daniel grabbed a sword at random—and dropped it with a cry when it burned his hand.
“Fuck, that hurt,” he hissed, already stooping down to pick it back up. Gritting his teeth as his palm sizzled, he rushed back out onto the road where the angel still held Chaol in the air. The demon’s struggles were weakening, and panic zipped through Daniel. He had to help. Now.
“No!” he screamed, swinging the sword.
In the blink of an eye, the angel dropped Chaol to the ground and drew a blindingly white blade from thin air. It clashed with Daniel’s, sparking as holy met hellish.
“You dare?” the angel growled. “You dare to raise your hand to me, you vermin?”
Vermin? Daniel thought wildly. What kind of an angel was this guy?
“That demon is mine.” He didn’t know where the words came from, but he felt them in his very soul. Daniel’s place would always be between Chaol and danger.
The angel swung his blade, and Daniel raised his own, parrying and backing away.
His hands shook with the effort of holding onto the burning sword.
Pain screamed up his arms. He tried not to think about what his hands looked like.
They would heal quickly once this was over. He couldn’t die twice, right?
Arms wrapped around him from behind. “Hold on tight, darkling.”
Daniel barely had time to suck down a breath before they launched into the air, sailing away from the angel and all the destruction he’d wrought.
Daniel watched him until their bodies turned away, praying that the angel wouldn’t decide to follow.
He had wings, too, after all. But he turned away, seemingly deciding that they weren’t worth the trouble.
Thank fuck for that.
“Drop the sword, Danny,” Chaol said in his ear. His breaths were labored, and his arms shook around Daniel.
“But what if—”
“Drop it now. It’s hurting you.”
Reluctantly, he pried his hand open and whimpered as it peeled away from the skin, falling through the air below them.
“Are you… okay?” Chaol asked breathlessly.
“I should be asking you that,” Daniel said, gripping one of Chaol’s arms around his middle. “You don’t sound so good.”
“I’m well enough—to get us the fuck away from there. Hold on tight. Is he following us?”
Daniel craned his head to look past Chaol’s shoulder. “No, I don’t see him.”
“Good. Good—ah,” he hissed, fingers spasming in Daniel’s cloak.
“What the hell did he do to you?”
“I don’t know, but it hurt. I don’t—know how long I can keep us up here.”
“Then don’t. We’re safe now. Take us down.”
They hadn’t gone very high, and the city streets whizzed by below them. Chaol panted in Daniel’s ear, and he reached up with one hand, cradling Chaol’s clammy face.
“Please. Please don’t hurt yourself. Take us down.”
Chaol turned his head, nuzzling Daniel’s palm.
He spread his wings wide, gliding down slowly.
They came to a graceless stop on a low rooftop, both of them staggering and falling.
Chaol sprawled on his back, white wings spread out on either side of him, panting.
Daniel crawled over, taking his face in both hands.
“Are you okay? Are you hurt?”
“I don’t know,” Chaol gasped, taking one of Daniel’s hands and laying it on his chest where the angel had touched him. “Hurt. Bad.”
“What did he even do?” Daniel asked, searching and failing to find any sort of wound.
Chaol shook his head. “It felt like… he was eating my life-force or something. It made me feel so weak. Like he was draining all my energy.”
“Like what a sin eater does to a human soul?”
Chaol met his eyes, dark brows furrowing. “Yeah. But demons don’t have souls.”
“You have… something. You’re alive. You exist. You have some sort of life-force.”
“I don’t know what you’d call it then,” Chaol said, staring up at the sky.
Daniel’s mind swirled. Why would an angel be stealing the life-force of demons? Sin eaters ate the souls of sinners. What could an angel want with demonic souls, or whatever they had?
“And nothing like this has ever happened before?” he asked.
Chaol huffed out a laugh. “Hell no.”
Daniel blew out a breath. “Okay. I have a lot of questions and probably no way to get answers.”
“Pfft, same.”
“We should probably keep moving, though. He’s still in the city nearby. Can you walk?”
Chaol paused, as though taking stock of himself, and then nodded. “I think so.” He pushed himself upright. “What about you? How are your hands?”
Daniel had been trying not to think about them, but now that he focused on the pain, he realized it was milder than before. He lifted them and found newly healed, pink skin, and swollen blisters that were steadily shrinking.
“I don’t need my hands to walk,” he said. “But they’re okay.”
Chaol studied them intently for a moment, then met Daniel’s eyes with something akin to wonder. “You fucking fought an angel for me.”
That demon is mine. He still felt the truth in the words. What the hell did that mean for them?
Daniel cleared his throat. “You’ve killed demons for me.”
“Demons and angels are pretty different,” Chaol said.
Daniel shrugged. “Not to me. He was hurting you. I had to stop him. That’s all there is to it.”
Chaol’s eyes widened slightly, like that was even more wondrous.
“Come on. We should get moving.”
He helped Chaol stand. His body trembled with weakness, wings sagging, and Daniel stayed close, keeping an arm around him.
“Can you transform?” Daniel asked. The wings would probably be a hassle in the narrow alleyway below.
“Not yet. It takes energy I don’t have. Don’t worry, I’ll manage.”
There was luckily a ladder on one side of the building, which they were able to take to the alley between buildings.
True to his word, Chaol tucked his wings against his back as he descended.
At the mouth of the alley, Daniel noticed a toolbox sitting beside the front door.
A hammer sat on top of it, and before he could think better of it, he picked it up and hung it through his belt.
“Petty theft now, darkling?” Chaol murmured.
“I don’t want to be caught by surprise again, and a hammer hurts just as well as anything if you swing it hard enough.”
Chaol chuckled. “I don’t think you can kill an angel with a hammer.”
“If he touches you again, we’ll find out.
” Quiet rage simmered through him, and he knew he’d hear Chaol’s broken scream in his nightmares later that night.
He’d never forget that sound, nor the panic it had filled him with.
He would do many terrible things to keep Chaol from feeling that kind of pain again.
Even now, Chaol stumbled with uncharacteristic clumsiness, leaning heavily on Daniel with an arm around his shoulders.
He was weakened, and Daniel would do whatever it took to protect him.