protected.
Feeling confident that her mother was in good hands, she left the clinic through the Harrowgate rather than the main exit to the tube station. If angels were watching the hospital and the clinic, they could easily nab anyone exiting into the human world, but there was no way to track people through Harrowgates.
The Harrowgate opened up a few blocks away from Deva’s Key West home, in an alley behind a touristy seafood restaurant and bar. Once more, Blas wished she could use her
vyrm
powers to flash directly where she needed to be. She did
not
want to get caught out in the open, blocks away from a Harrowgate.
Cursing her mother’s poor choices, she slipped out of the alley and fell in with a group of rowdy tourists enjoying the last remnants of evening twilight. Key West was one of the few places that had escaped most of the recent apocalyptic mayhem, and because of that, it had become a popular getaway for those seeking temporary asylum from the disaster that was the human realm.
Deva’s pastel green and orange beach house sat at the end of a quiet drive, goofy plastic pink flamingos dotting the manicured lawn like fleas on a dog. As Blas approached, she engaged the False Angel ability to go invisible, one of the False Angel gifts Blaspheme rarely used. But as she slowly opened the front door, an uncomfortable vibration rattled her, and she looked down to see that she was flickering in and out of invisibility.
“Damn,” she breathed. How much longer did she have before she was going to be exposed for what she really was?
She took a deep, bracing breath to keep panic at bay. The door swung open with a squeak, and holy shit, the place was trashed. She’d expected a scene from a battle, and sure enough, furniture was turned over and broken, dishes were shattered, and blood spatter and smears left ugly stains on the once-pristine white walls and bamboo floors.
But what she hadn’t expected was the ransacking. Books had been knocked off shelves, drawers had been emptied, and papers were scattered all over the place. Someone had been looking for something, but what?
Letting go of the invisibility enchantment since it wasn’t working anyway, she grabbed a butcher knife off the kitchen counter and tested the blade. The stupid knife was dull and chipped, as if Deva had been using it to chop wood. How handy it would be right now to have the
vyrm
ability to summon powerful weapons instead of relying on what amounted to a large butter knife for defense.
Dull-ass weapon in hand, she tiptoed to the bedroom, checking all of the closets to make sure she was alone – not that the angels who did this couldn’t flash inside again at any moment.
As she moved to the bathroom, a crash rang out. Heart pounding, she whirled, blade poised to strike. Across the room, the blinds crashed again, blown through the open ocean-facing window.
“Damn,” she muttered. She was going to have a heart attack before she got out of here.
Feeling a little foolish, she went to the den and sat down in front of the glowing computer screen on the desk. When her mother wasn’t out partying and causing trouble, she was on the computer, which meant that somewhere on the hard drive there had to be information about the False Angel she planned to trap.
A hasty scan of the computer’s history showed that on the day of the attack, her mother had been reading articles at theCHIVE and downloading some disturbing fetish and vampire porn that would never allow her to look her mother in the eye again. She’d also been instant messaging someone named SexySweetXOXO. A lover, maybe? Did she have a partner in crime?
She opened up the app, and right away, a message popped up.
SexySweetXOXO: Hello, darling. You left our chat so abruptly yesterday. Is everything okay?
Blas had no idea how to respond to that, and seriously, couldn’t her mother have chosen any name but HornyAsHell69? Ew. Just… ew. And why in the hell was her avatar a
Feeling confident that her mother was in good hands, she left the clinic through the Harrowgate rather than the main exit to the tube station. If angels were watching the hospital and the clinic, they could easily nab anyone exiting into the human world, but there was no way to track people through Harrowgates.
The Harrowgate opened up a few blocks away from Deva’s Key West home, in an alley behind a touristy seafood restaurant and bar. Once more, Blas wished she could use her
vyrm
powers to flash directly where she needed to be. She did
not
want to get caught out in the open, blocks away from a Harrowgate.
Cursing her mother’s poor choices, she slipped out of the alley and fell in with a group of rowdy tourists enjoying the last remnants of evening twilight. Key West was one of the few places that had escaped most of the recent apocalyptic mayhem, and because of that, it had become a popular getaway for those seeking temporary asylum from the disaster that was the human realm.
Deva’s pastel green and orange beach house sat at the end of a quiet drive, goofy plastic pink flamingos dotting the manicured lawn like fleas on a dog. As Blas approached, she engaged the False Angel ability to go invisible, one of the False Angel gifts Blaspheme rarely used. But as she slowly opened the front door, an uncomfortable vibration rattled her, and she looked down to see that she was flickering in and out of invisibility.
“Damn,” she breathed. How much longer did she have before she was going to be exposed for what she really was?
She took a deep, bracing breath to keep panic at bay. The door swung open with a squeak, and holy shit, the place was trashed. She’d expected a scene from a battle, and sure enough, furniture was turned over and broken, dishes were shattered, and blood spatter and smears left ugly stains on the once-pristine white walls and bamboo floors.
But what she hadn’t expected was the ransacking. Books had been knocked off shelves, drawers had been emptied, and papers were scattered all over the place. Someone had been looking for something, but what?
Letting go of the invisibility enchantment since it wasn’t working anyway, she grabbed a butcher knife off the kitchen counter and tested the blade. The stupid knife was dull and chipped, as if Deva had been using it to chop wood. How handy it would be right now to have the
vyrm
ability to summon powerful weapons instead of relying on what amounted to a large butter knife for defense.
Dull-ass weapon in hand, she tiptoed to the bedroom, checking all of the closets to make sure she was alone – not that the angels who did this couldn’t flash inside again at any moment.
As she moved to the bathroom, a crash rang out. Heart pounding, she whirled, blade poised to strike. Across the room, the blinds crashed again, blown through the open ocean-facing window.
“Damn,” she muttered. She was going to have a heart attack before she got out of here.
Feeling a little foolish, she went to the den and sat down in front of the glowing computer screen on the desk. When her mother wasn’t out partying and causing trouble, she was on the computer, which meant that somewhere on the hard drive there had to be information about the False Angel she planned to trap.
A hasty scan of the computer’s history showed that on the day of the attack, her mother had been reading articles at theCHIVE and downloading some disturbing fetish and vampire porn that would never allow her to look her mother in the eye again. She’d also been instant messaging someone named SexySweetXOXO. A lover, maybe? Did she have a partner in crime?
She opened up the app, and right away, a message popped up.
SexySweetXOXO: Hello, darling. You left our chat so abruptly yesterday. Is everything okay?
Blas had no idea how to respond to that, and seriously, couldn’t her mother have chosen any name but HornyAsHell69? Ew. Just… ew. And why in the hell was her avatar a
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