Page 16

Crowds had gathered in Purgatory to watch a parade of bounty hunters drive into town. I flew over all the people gathered here and landed on the raised statue of an angel just outside the train station. Just beyond the statue was a colorful mural that glorified the gods and their heavenly soldiers, the angels.

I’d chosen this place to land, not because I enjoyed angel artwork, but because I’d seen my foster mother Calli standing on the statue.

“I saved you a spot, Leda,” Calli told me as she scooted sideways to make space for me on the statue’s narrow platform.

“Thanks,” I replied and made my wings vanish. There was hardly enough space here for the two of us without my wings, let alone with them.

“You’re up early,” she commented with a canted smile.

I smiled. The town’s clocktower told me it was just past eleven in the morning. Before I’d left Purgatory to join the Legion of Angels, I’d been a night owl and a late riser. Back then, I’d considered it horribly early if I got out of bed before noon. The Legion had changed that about me. It had changed a lot of things about me.

“I like your hair,” I told Calli.

She flicked the end of her dark braid. “Tessa did it.”

“Did she do your makeup too?”

“Yep. She said it made me look twenty years younger. I guess that’s supposed to be a good thing.”

Calli wasn’t much older than forty.

“Oh, yes. Definitely.” I nodded. “You look more like my big sister than my mom.”

She leaned back against the statue, folded her arms over her chest, and hit me with her best mom glare. “Maybe I should have instead saved this spot for the handsome businessman Tessa set me up with on a date.”

“A date? Tell me everything.”

“Well, he’s handsome and a businessman. That’s all I know.”

“That’s not much to go on.”

She shrugged. “I’ve tracked down people with less info.”

I snorted. Because it was so true. I’d learned everything I knew about being a bounty hunter from Calli.

“So, how have you been?” I asked her.

“I’d be better if you stopped by more often to visit me. I only live a few blocks away from you, Leda.”

“I know, and I’m sorry. I’ve just been so busy.”

“There are some things more important than saving the world.”

“Like what?”

“Like family,” she told me.

“Tell that to the world.” I gave her a small smile, which opened up into a big yawn.

Her eyes caught me in their crosshairs. “You aren’t getting enough sleep.”

“I’m fine.”

“No, you’re not fine. You’re exhausted. And you’re looking thin.”

“If you promise to cook me your famous meatballs, I might be inclined to stop by for dinner.” I grinned at her.

I was pretty certain that Calli was the best cook in all the world. But her talents didn’t stop there. She could shoot the petals off a daisy and drink a vampire under the table. She had the cleverness of a witch, the tenacity of a werewolf, and the heart of a saint. But despite all her magical qualities, she was completely human.

Human, mortal Callista Pierce had been a better parent to me and my foster siblings than either of my immortal, omniscient deity parents could ever be, and I loved her dearly.

“I’ll promise to make meatballs if you’ll promise to take a vacation from work,” Calli said.

I sighed. “I can’t right now. Supernaturals are dying, humans are protesting, and to top it all off, I’m supposed to be negotiating peace between heaven and hell.”

She let out a long, low whistle. “You’ve sure got a lot on your plate. No wonder you look like shit.”

I laughed. “Thanks.”

She patted me hard on the back. “Anytime, kiddo.” The humor faded from her face. “So, are you going to talk to me about what’s really got you stressed out?”

“I told you. Supernaturals are dying, humans are protesting, and I’m supposed to be negotiating peace between heaven and hell.”

Her eyes narrowed and her dark brows drew together. “I was referring to Nero Windstriker.”

I threw my hands up in exasperation. “Does everyone know about our fight?”

“Yes, Leda. I think it’s safe to say that everyone knows.” Calli pointed at the storm cloud hanging over Nero’s house. It looked even darker and grumpier than it had yesterday.

“I don’t want to talk about it right now.”

“Your choice,” she said. “But it seems to me that if you’re both unhappy when you’re apart, you might as well be together.”

That was Calli in a nutshell: practical and right to the point, without fluff or pretense.

“That is, if you can both get over your hardheadedness,” she added.

“Angels are known to be stubborn.”

Calli laughed. “Leda, you were smashing your stubborn head through walls long before you were an angel, so don’t go blaming angel nature for this one. This is all you and Nero.”

“I guess you’re right.”

“Of course I am. It says so right here.”

She zipped down her utility vest just far enough for me to see the text on the t-shirt below. It read: I am always right.

I laughed out loud. “Well, I guess that settles that.”

She nodded at me. “It most certainly does.”

“Well, since you know everything, how about telling me why all these bounty hunters are marching into our town?”

“Bounty hunters like to talk big and make a scene, Leda. You know that.”

I did know that actually. After all, I used to be one of them.

“I mean, why have they come here?” I said.

Her forehead crinkled in confusion. “You know why they’re here.”

“If I knew, I wouldn’t ask, Calli. It’s too early in the morning to play cute.”

“Well, word on the Grapevine is they’re all here to hunt down the same person.”

The Grapevine was the world’s busiest bounty hunter message board.

“The bounty must be a big one,” I commented.

“One million dollars.”

“Yikes, that’s a lot of money for one person. Who can even afford a bounty like that?”

“You can, apparently.”

“I can?”

“The bounty was issued by Leda Pandora of the Legion of Angels.”

I frowned. “I don’t remember ever issuing this bounty.”

“The mark is Carver Spellsword.”

Ohhh. It was all starting to make sense now. I had told Alec to use any Legion resources he needed to find Carver Spellsword. And money was one of the Legion’s many resources. I had to admit I appreciated Alec’s ingenuity. I’d been trying so hard to play by the Legion’s rules and be a proper angel that I hadn’t considered bringing in the bounty hunters. It was a brilliant idea. Bounty hunters excelled at finding people who didn’t want to be found.

“I think one of my guys issued the bounty,” I told Calli.

“As long as you still pay in the end, I don’t care who issued it.”

“You are joining the hunt for Spellsword?”

“Why not?”

“He’s a dark angel. You don’t go after regular supernaturals, let alone ones with hell’s power bursting from their fingertips.”

“Generally, no,” she agreed. “But a million dollars is quite a lot of money.”

It sure was. I just hoped Nyx wouldn’t scold me when the time came for the Legion to pay up.

“Here comes the competition,” Calli declared.

The street was so packed with people that the bounty hunters in their vehicles were moving slower than they could have walked. At the head of the bunch was a woman riding a motorcycle. She was dressed in a sand-colored wrapped tunic and a pair of brown leather boots over beige leggings. On her back, she wore a sword with a long, curved blade.

The hunter’s pale blonde hair was braided into a long plait. The end almost brushed against the motorcycle seat. I shook my head at her lack of helmet. The bounty-hunting business attracted the sort of person who liked to dance with danger, and this hunter’s bright blue eyes definitely sparkled with a kind of wild recklessness. As I watched her drive past us, I felt like there was something very familiar about her, but I couldn’t quite place where I’d seen her before.

“Who’s that?” I asked Calli.

“Her name is Aerilyn. I heard she’s done a few jobs in the west over the years.”

“And here?”

“I don’t think she’s been out here before. Why?”

“She looks familiar. I was hoping you could tell me where I might have seen her before, perhaps back when I was working with you.”

Calli shook her head. “Sorry, no. Actually, I don’t know much about Aerilyn except her name. Might be a stage name, though. I’ve never heard her last name.”

Some bounty hunters had stage names, and those were usually a single name. Like Jinx, my least favorite bounty hunter ever.

The next vehicle in line was a convertible that looked so old, it might have come from the era before the monsters took over the Earth. The little car had been repainted in flashy, bright red. The top was down at the moment, giving me a clear view of the person behind the wheel.

It was Gypsy, the bounty hunter I’d met in Beyond yesterday. Today, she was wearing a pair of big sunglasses and a wide grin as she waved at the cheering crowd.

“Everyone seems much happier with the bounty hunters than they’ve been with me lately,” I commented to Calli.

“Don’t take it personally, Leda. This isn’t about you.”

“That isn’t about me?”

Several people in the crowd were carrying handmade signs. One of them read, ‘Purgatory doesn’t need a new tyrant’. Another read, ‘Go home, Leda Pandora, Angel of False Promises’.

“Things are tense right now.” Calli frowned at the signs. “And some people are incurably stupid. ‘Go home’, they say?” Fury burned in her eyes. “This is your home. You grew up here. They know that.”

“I think they’ve forgotten,” I told her. “When I was made an angel, I became someone else entirely to them.”

“Those who truly know you, know you’re still the same old Leda.”

I hoped she was right, but lately I’d started having my doubts.

“Who are they?” I asked, drawing Calli’s attention to the next bounty hunters.

There were two of them in the boxy white truck with all its windows rolled open and the top folded down.

“That’s Gemini and her husband Sagittarius,” Calli told me.

Those were definitely stage names.

“They’re both very experienced,” she continued. “Gemini was already working at the League when I joined, but she left a few years before I did to go independent. She started a business with Sagittarius, and they’ve worked every job together since. Before that, I believe Sagittarius was a contractor, doing research for the paranormal soldiers.”

Gemini had dark red hair, about chin length. Sagittarius had short white hair and a matching beard. Both of them wore the same fitted black t-shirt and brown sunhat. In fact, they were dressed identically, right down to the placement of the tiny silver gadgets on their black armbands. So they were one of those couples who’d been together so long that they even dressed alike.

“They’re good with tech,” said Calli. “Whether that means designing it or stealing it so they can reverse-engineer it.”

The final bounty hunter in the procession required no introduction. I knew him. Back when I’d worked in Purgatory as a bounty hunter, Nolan Ash had been a paranormal soldier stationed here. Now I was an angel, and he was a bounty hunter. Funny the twists and turns people’s lives took.

Like Aerilyn, Nolan was riding a motorcycle into town. The twenty-four-year-old hunter was built like the soldier he’d once been. He had spiky black hair and dark brown eyes that looked too wise for his years. He was dressed entirely in black, just like a paranormal soldier. Clearly, he hadn’t put that part of his life entirely behind him.

“Nolan joined the League,” Calli told me.

The League was the world’s largest bounty-hunting company. Working for them guaranteed you a decent salary and a lot more prestige than independent bounty hunters enjoyed. The problem was you didn’t have much choice of what assignments you got.

“So he’s the rep the League sent,” I said. “I guess a million-dollar bounty would get their attention.”

“It’s gotten a lot of people’s attention,” replied Calli. “I’m sure this is only the first wave of bounty hunters to come here.”

As Nolan’s motorcycle passed by, several of the paranormal soldiers on crowd-control duty gave him cold, hard stares. The guys who knew Nolan must have seen his career switch as a betrayal. Maybe they needed to take Calli’s advice and not take things so personally.

“What did I miss?” Tessa asked as she climbed up onto the statue with me and Calli.

“You missed your boyfriend.” I indicated Nolan.

“I do not miss him, and he’s no longer my boyfriend,” Tessa declared.

Tessa had dated at least half of the paranormal soldiers in town at one point or another.

“Though I have to admit, the new outfit is very flattering.” She tilted her head to look at him from a different angle. “It’s so well-fitted.”

The buzz of my phone killed the laughter on my lips. I was really starting to dread any news.

“I have to go,” I told Tessa and Calli. “There’s been another killing.”