Page 19

CHOSEN AND DAMNED

SEAN

T he door splintered open behind me as Cade burst into the room, gun already drawn and aimed at Hayes—or whatever Hayes had become. Without hesitation, he fired.

The gunshot echoed through the abandoned house, a deafening crack that should have ended things.

But it didn't. Cassiel just stood there, looking at the hole in his chest with mild curiosity, like a man noticing a stain on his shirt.

No blood. No pain. Nothing. Just a perfect round hole in the fabric where the bullet had passed clean through.

“What the feck?” I muttered, relief flooding through me at Cade's arrival even as the situation remained dire.

The air in the house felt charged, like the moment before a lightning strike, and the smell of gunpowder hung heavy between us.

My pulse hammered in my ears as I watched Cassiel, waiting for him to fall, to bleed, to do anything a normal being would do after taking a bullet to the chest. But he just stood there, unperturbed, studying us with those cold, ancient eyes.

Cade didn't hesitate. Fifteen years of hunting had taught him not to waste time when plan A failed.

He lunged forward with the fluid grace of a predator, pulling his demon dagger free in a sharp, practiced motion.

The silver blade with its engraved symbols caught the dim light as he plunged it deep into Cassiel's torso, right where the heart should be.

Nothing happened. No flash of light, no dying scream, no crackling energy.

The blade sank into Cassiel's body as if he were made of warm butter, but his expression didn't change.

He simply stood there, regarding Cade with that unnervingly calm stare, like a scientist observing an interesting but ultimately harmless specimen.

“Are you done?” Cassiel asked, his voice flat and emotionless, devoid of even the faintest hint of discomfort.

Cade yanked the blade out and stepped back, his breath coming quick but controlled.

I recognized the look on his face—part confusion, part calculation.

The wheels turning behind those eyes, trying to figure out what the hell we were dealing with.

The silver blade gleamed clean in his hand; no blood, no ichor, nothing to suggest it had just been buried six inches deep in a living being's chest.

“Demon daggers work on everything,” Cade said, his voice tight with frustration.

I'd seen him kill a dozen different types of creatures with that blade.

Demons, shapeshifters, even a particularly nasty Fetch.

Nothing supernatural had ever just shrugged it off like this.

Not even the most ancient vampires we'd faced or those black-eyed bastards from Queens.

Cassiel tilted his head, regarding Cade with something almost like pity, the gesture reminding me uncomfortably of a bird of prey studying a field mouse. “Not everything,” he replied simply.

The wound in his chest where the bullet had torn through was already closing, the torn fabric of his coat mending itself before our eyes. Same with the stab wound, the hole sealing shut like it had never been there. No scar, no mark, no evidence that he'd been attacked at all.

“Well, shit,” I muttered, adjusting my grip on my own weapon. Not that it would do any good, but the familiar weight in my hand was reassuring. The cold metal grounded me, kept me focused when everything else seemed to be sliding sideways into the realm of the impossible. “Cade, any bright ideas?”

Cade's jaw tightened, the muscle there twitching like it always did when he was thinking fast and coming up empty. He glanced around the room, probably looking for anything we could use as a weapon. Holy water. Salt. Iron. The usual arsenal against the supernatural.

“Holy water?” he suggested, his free hand already moving toward the flask in his jacket pocket.

“You think that'll work when silver didn't even scratch him?” I reminded him, nodding toward the blade Cade tried earlier. The silver-edged knife had practically bounced off Cassiel, not even leaving a mark. “Whatever this thing is, it's not responding to our usual arsenal.”

“Iron? Salt?” Cade pressed, not ready to give up.

“The blade was silver-edged,” I pointed out. “Fat lot of good that did. If silver doesn't work, I doubt the rest of our trick bag will either.”

Cassiel watched our exchange with that same unsettling patience, making no move to attack or flee. Just waiting, as if he had all the time in the world. Like a mountain watching ants scurry around its base.

“We need to regroup,” Cade muttered, low enough that only I could hear. “Find Sterling, see if he's got any lore on this.”

“And leave this... whatever he is... to do what, exactly?” I shot back, not taking my eyes off Cassiel. “Finish what he started with Hayes?”

“Hayes is already gone,” Cassiel interjected, his hearing apparently far better than a human's should be. “His body serves my purpose now.”

That cold statement sent a fresh wave of anger through me. Hayes might have been a religious nutjob walking straight into the jaws of death, but he'd been a person. And this thing had just... taken him. Used him up like a battery.

“You're not going anywhere,” I growled, even though a voice in the back of my head was screaming that we were outmatched.

I moved closer to Cade, keeping my eyes fixed on Cassiel. Whatever he was, he made no move to attack us, which was either a good sign or a really, really bad one. My experience suggested the latter.

The floorboards creaked beneath my boots as I shifted position, trying to get a better angle.

The abandoned house felt colder now, the air heavy with a presence that seemed to fill every corner, pressing against my skin like an electrical field.

Dust motes danced in the weak light filtering through the grimy windows, creating a surreal, dreamlike quality to the standoff.

“Okay, what the hell are you?” I demanded, trying to keep my voice steady. Fear was a luxury we couldn't afford, not when we were cornered with an unkillable whatever-the-hell standing between us. We needed information, and we needed it fast.

Cassiel straightened, his posture unnaturally perfect, like a soldier standing at attention. His expression remained unreadable as a blank wall, eyes fixed on some middle distance between us. “I am not here to harm you.”

“Yeah, sure.” Cade scoffed, wiping the clean blade on his jeans before slipping it back into its sheath. His fingers lingered near the hilt, ready to draw again at a moment's notice. “That's exactly what demons say right before they rip out your spine.”

A humorless smile tugged at my lips despite the tension. Classic Cade, sarcastic in the face of death. It was one of the things I'd missed most during those six months he was gone. His ability to stare into the abyss and flip it the bird.

The shadows in the room seemed to deepen, pooling in the corners and under the eaves, the weak light from the street lamps outside doing little to illuminate the space.

Cassiel stood immobile at the center of it all, a fixed point in the gathering darkness, his presence somehow both subtle and overwhelming at once.

Cassiel exhaled, a strangely human gesture that seemed out of place on his otherworldly countenance. His expression suggested this conversation was beneath him, like trying to explain quantum physics to a toddler. Or a man attempting to communicate with insects crawling across his boot.

“I am not a demon,” he said, his gaze settling on me with uncomfortable intensity. Those eyes seemed to see through me, past flesh and bone to something deeper. Something hidden. “I am an angel.”

The declaration was absurd and impossible.

I let out a sharp laugh that sounded harsh even to my own ears, echoing off the bare walls of the decaying house.

The very idea was ridiculous. Angels belonged in Sunday school stories and cheesy Christmas movies, not standing in abandoned houses in blood-soaked clothes.

“Right. Angels don't exist,” I said, the words automatic. We'd seen a lot of weird shit in our years of hunting—monsters, spirits, demons, gods. But angels? That was a bridge too far.

“Don't they?” Cassiel asked, his voice soft but carrying a weight that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. “You've seen demons. You've spoken with the dead. You've witnessed powers beyond mortal understanding. Why is this where you draw the line of possibility?”

His words hit uncomfortably close to home. It was true, we'd faced creatures and forces that defied explanation. So why was the idea of angels so hard to swallow?

I glanced at Cade, who looked as skeptical as I felt.

“Let's say you are an angel,” I said, not bothering to hide my disbelief. “Shouldn't you have wings? A halo? Be a little less...” I gestured vaguely at his blood-spattered appearance, “...murder-y?”

Cassiel's expression didn't change, but something shifted in his eyes—a flash of something ancient and cold. “You confuse the reality with the image. The messenger with the myth.”

The room shuddered slightly, like ripples spreading across water, and for just a split second, I saw.

.. something. A suggestion of vast, shadowy wings stretching from Cassiel's back, filling the room, reaching beyond the walls themselves.

A glimpse of light too bright to look at directly, of a form too vast and strange to comprehend.

Then it was gone, leaving spots dancing in my vision and a pounding in my head.

“Jaysus,” I breathed, blinking rapidly to clear my sight. “What the hell was that?”

“A glimpse,” Cassiel replied simply. “Nothing more. Your mind cannot comprehend my true form, just as an ant cannot comprehend a mountain.”

“Modest, aren't you?” Cade muttered, but I could tell from the way he'd paled that he'd seen it too. And that it had shaken him more than he wanted to admit.