“You need an ambulance,” she insisted. “You’re just in shock. He shot you—I saw it.” She twisted in his arms, risking being dropped two flights to push back his coat from his shoulder. “Right here.” The burned hole was still there, but the flesh underneath was already healing. He had to concentrate to keep it open at all.
“The bullet barely grazed me.”
“Bullshit…I saw…” She faltered, pushing back his shirt to examine the scratch. “Put me down.”
He obliged her, though it wasn’t easy. He wanted to keep hold of her. His heart was pounding. He was shaking all over. He couldn’t stop seeing her being slammed against the wall by Lucifer’s minions, couldn’t stop hearing her screams in his head. He wanted to hold her tight against him, feel her heartbeat, the warmth of her skin, listen to her breath until his own heart stopped pounding. But to her, he was all but a stranger. He had to let her go.
She ran her hands over his chest, touching all the rips and slashes in his shirt and coat, and it was all he could manage not to grab her again. “Kelsey…”
“The other one cut you,” she said, unbuttoning his shirt. “I saw him. I saw the knife—I felt that knife.” She touched her own throat, staring wide-eyed at his bare chest. The cuts from the demon’s earthly knife were already healed over, but the deep scratches from his unholy fangs and claws were festering, hot and ugly as a brand. “Oh my God…”
“They were whacked out of their minds,” he said, trying to sound normal, a mortal man who had just escaped disaster. “I barely saw them; it happened so fast.”
“He knew you,” she said, her eyes widening as they met his. “He called you by name. You ripped his arm completely off.”
“Adrenaline,” he started to explain. But she was falling, her eyes rolling back in her head. “Kelsey!” He caught her just before she fell back down the stairs.
“Kelsey?” A door opened—4B. “Oh my God!” A woman came out, petite, middle-aged. But no, he realized as she came closer and he smelled the sweet, earthy scent of her and saw the warm glow of her aura. Not a woman at all. “What happened?” She looked up at his face and gasped, recognizing him for what he was, too. “Well, what do you know?” she said with a tentative smile.
“What are you doing here?” He shifted Kelsey back into his arms, and the pagan nymph came to help, turning the unconscious woman’s head to rest against his shoulder.
“The same as you at the moment,” she said, brushing Kelsey’s hair back from her eyes. “Protecting this poor mortal.” She murmured some pointless incantation under her breath as her fingers danced lightly over Kelsey’s skull and down her neck as if checking for injuries. “Though I think I might be doing a better job of it.” She fixed him with warm, green eyes. “And with a purer motive.”
“Is she broken?” he asked, ignoring her challenge. He wasn’t surprised to find an earth spirit living in the same apartment building as Kelsey. These days, with their forests all but gone and the old passages between worlds becoming ha
rder and harder to open, the fae were everywhere. Every major city had at least half a dozen of the more corporeal ranks living among mortal humans. A city the size of this one might have as many as a hundred, with ethereal ancients as well. This one smiled at him, and he scowled. The pagan powers always found angels dreadfully amusing. They considered themselves outside the jurisdiction of angels and demons with their own version of the Light, their own definitions of good and evil. At least they had wisdom enough to fear the Fallen One.
“Just bruised and scraped, I think,” she said. “And very badly frightened.” She brushed a kiss on Kelsey’s temple, and she stirred, moaning softly. “Rest, child,” the nymph ordered, and the woman relaxed in his arms. “Are you the one who brought the demons here?”
He wanted to deny it. “Probably,” he said. “That wasn’t my intention, but they were probably after me.”
“Not just them,” she said. “He was here yesterday morning. I wondered what could have called him up.” She looked him up and down, shaking her head. “I might have known it was a falling angel.”
“I haven’t fallen,” he said, scowling again. “Who was here?”
“I said falling, not fallen,” she said. “There is more than one way to fall.” As if to underscore her point, a man came out of the apartment.
“Should I call the police?” He was definitely human, small and balding, dressed in baggy flannel trousers and a shapeless sweater. But there was an aura of magic about him, too, a light beyond mere mortal intelligence in his eyes. And like his immortal wife, he knew an angel when he saw one. “Oh my…”
“Who was here yesterday morning?” Asher demanded.
“Lucifer, of course,” the wizard said. His wife shivered, and he drew her close to him, patting her hand. “Pretending to be a policeman.”
“Investigating a mess in the alley that he made himself, no doubt,” the nymph said, cleaving to her husband. “A homeless woman murdered.”
“No,” Asher said. “She’s not dead. I took her to the hospital. She was possessed, and I cast the demon out.” He broke off, looking away from their smiles to look down at Kelsey. Whatever the fae had done had put her into a deep, apparently peaceful sleep. One hand was curled around the lapel of his coat, clinging to him, and he shivered. “Did he see Kelsey?”
“He spoke to her,” the nymph said. “Nate was in class, but I had followed her downstairs. I heard them talking. I was ready to intervene.”
“Which would have been madness,” her husband interjected.
“But she resisted him,” she finished. “I kept her with me most of the day, watching over her, but she seemed fine.” She stroked Kelsey’s hair. “The question is, angel, what is she to you?”
“I found her at her husband’s grave,” he said. “I was afraid she was going to kill herself, so I….” Suddenly her piercing gaze was too much. “I’m taking her inside.” Pushing past her, he carried Kelsey to her own apartment door.
“You had no right,” the nymph said, following him as he went inside, ignoring the lock. “No right to approach her, to charm her. You’ve put her in danger, not just in body, but in soul.”
“I never charmed her,” he said, laying Kelsey on the sofa.