Reaping Angels

  “You might as well just say it.” I folded my arms and leaned against a counter as I spoke. “Sex. Knocking boots. Hiding the sausage. Screwing. Making love. Or,” I eyed him, “in your case, fucking. Definitely fucking.” He had so much anger. I couldn’t imagine anything less with him.

  Abruptly the Executioner’s attention shifted away from me, his gaze trained on the counter. His muscles tensed. My eyes flicked from him to the unoccupied surface, then back to him.

  “Something amiss?” I asked. The words had only just left my mouth when a blast of icy air slammed into me, throwing me against the far wall. My head and shoulder smashed through plaster.

  You know what? Screw this day.

  The unnatural wind pushed upwards, wrenching my body from the plaster and forcing me up the wall. At least from this vantage point I was able to survey the room. At the far end, where the living room was, stood the man responsible for the wind. His hand jutted out at me, but even without that obvious gesture, I’d still recognize his scarred face.

  Hurricane. Another one of the Cruel Countess’s minions here to do her bidding.

  Spread around him were Torment, who could influence with his words, Mirage the illusionist, and Chameleon, who could climb just about any surface and blend into his surroundings at will. Unfortunately, this latter power required complete nudity, and the man took advantage of it. Frequently.

  At least he wore pants at the moment.

  I’d never been around so many supervillains at once, and I had to say, it felt like bringing a knife to a gunfight.

  The Executioner didn’t move, but his muscles tensed.

  “Still your idea of a good day?” I asked him.

  He stared down the villains. “Fun’s only getting started, Angel.”

  Chapter 14

  Executioner

  “Could’ve called before you invited yourselves into my home.” I kept my voice even.

  Hurricane tilted his head. “So you’d have time to escape with the girl? I don’t think so.”

  They already knew I’d gone rogue. The Cruel Countess must’ve figured it out after our call. God knows she had the resources to do so.

  “Hey fuckface,” Angel said, “I went through puberty a decade ago. It’s ‘woman,’ thankyouverymuch.”

  Now she was okay with “woman.” Confusing female.

  Hurricane raised his brows at me, a smile playing on his face. “She was the one that broke you?”

  Yes, and I hate how desperate she’s made me.

  “You have ten seconds to leave my home,” I said, my gaze touching each one of them. “Then, friend or not, I will kill you.” I was girding myself for that reality. Angel and I wouldn’t be getting out of this without spilling some blood.

  “The Cruel Countess knows.” Hurricane’s eyes softened with pity.

  Bzzzz … bzzzz … bzzzz …

  My phone vibrated in my pocket.

  “Answer it,” Hurricane ordered.

  I retrieved the phone, the Cruel Countess’s face lighting up the screen.

  I accepted the call and put the cell to my ear.

  “Hello, X.”

  “Countess.”

  “A little birdie told me you’d taken your work home with you.”

  I had nothing to say to that.

  “This was to be a routine extraction,” the Cruel Countess said. “Now it’s not, and I’m losing money because you had a change of heart.

  “You will be punished for this insurrection,” she continued. “The longer you withhold Angel, the steeper the price you’ll pay.

  “That is all—oh, and X? Don’t ever fucking think of crossing me again. I’ll know.”

  The line went dead. My grip tightened on the phone, the plastic cracking. A shout built up in my throat, but I forced it back down.

  Thank God I was in my hometown. I’d need to make certain arrangements while I was here. Soon Angel and I wouldn’t be the only ones on the run.

  “You know what has to be done, X,” Hurricane said. “Are you and the girl prepared to come quietly?”

  I glanced up at Angel, who was still pinned to the wall. Would she be ready to act when shit hit the fan?

  High above me she waited, looking bored and haughty despite the fact that our lives were on the line. Her eyes met mine, and I saw steely resolve. Damn me, my opinion of her just increased. She’d pull through.

  “Yes.” The word burned coming out. I made it a habit not to compromise; doing so now chafed, despite the fact that I planned to attack once the opportunity presented itself.

  Hurricane nodded. “Torment, Chameleon, bring the van around.”

  They hesitated, I’m sure understanding that their absence left us evenly matched, and that was a dangerous thing, no matter how incapacitated Angel and I were.

  “Now.”

  It took them several minutes to find the front door. As soon as it clicked shut, Hurricane eased up on the wind, gently lowering Angel to the ground. Both she and I wore identical, confused expressions.

  “We’re letting you go,” Mirage said, stepping aside.

  I loosened my muscles. “Why?” They owed me no allegiance.

  “Because you alone can kill her.” Hurricane didn’t need to clarify whom he was referring to. The Cruel Countess was a menace to heroes and villains alike.

  That was questionable.

  “She’ll know you helped us,” I said.

  “When we’re questioned,” Hurricane said, “we’ll tell them you attacked us and got away with the girl.”

  “Not a girl,” Angel reminded him.

  He gave her a look that plainly said he was reconsidering freeing her.

  I glanced over at Angel. “You going to cooperate?”

  She folded her arms over her chest. “Only as much as usual.” Difficult, infuriating woman. Of course the one person who could resist my touch would be my equal and opposite in so many ways.

  I nodded to Hurricane and Mirage and strode out of the room, figuring Angel would follow. A glance over my shoulder proved that she was, in fact, sauntering behind me.

  “Hey, X,” Hurricane called out, “put on some goddamn gloves. You’re going to inadvertently kill the girl.”

  He didn’t know I could touch her. It wouldn’t take them long to figure out—maybe the Cruel Countess already had—exactly why I’d never deliver Angel to them.

  Angel

  We peeled out of the Executioner’s driveway just as the van pulled around the corner. Next to me, the Executioner reached into the side console. He came away with a Desert Eagle.

  “A gun?” Derision dripped from my voice. “You can kill people with your touch and yet you carry a gun? I’m judging you.”

  He rolled down the window, flashing me a look before aiming the weapon at the van. “Hand-to-hand combat is overrated,” the Executioner said.

  I winced when he fired off two shots. I couldn’t help it; I healed for a living.

  The glass of the van’s front window spider-webbed as the bullets entered. Blood sprayed inside. A moment later the car swerved across the road.

  I tensed. “Are they dead?”

  “Doubt it,” he said, steadying his hand once more. “A supervillain will live long enough to carry out a vendetta.”

  That, I could attest to.

  The Executioner shot at the car’s front tire. Rubber split away from metal, and the van lurched as it peeled away from the vehicle, leaving the bald rim to spark against the asphalt.

  The van came to a shuddering halt ahead of us.

  I stared at the Executioner for a second. He wore the face of a torturer—calm and unaffected. Like he hadn’t just possibly killed one of his associates.

  He swerved to pass the stalled van.

  A bullet tore through the window, and I felt the air shift as it whizzed by. I clutched my temple. “Holy mutha-effing unicorns and leprechauns,” I said. “Those two better be glad they hadn’t hit me. I get mean when I get shot.”

  Aiming behind
us, the Executioner fired off the rest of the round. “If they caught us, bullets would be the least of your worries.”

  I didn’t doubt it. The Executioner was renown for being the killer of superheroes, the Cruel Countess’s most loyal and brutal weapon, and this was how she rewarded his first slip up.

  The Executioner revved the engine, and his sleek sports car careened down the mountain. We passed by his abandoned Lotus. He didn’t spare it a glance.

  “Your boss sounds real nice,” I commented when the silence stretched on.

  “She’s not my boss.” The hood, which I was so used to the Executioner wearing, was down, and his hair dusted his cheekbones. Gorgeous man.

  Wicked man.

  “Then what is she?”

  “A captor of sorts.”

  I peered at him, noticing his troubled look. “You mean to tell me that someone can control you?”

  He glanced over, eyeing me up and down. “Anyone can force another’s cooperation with the right incentives.”

  “And how does one incentivize the Executioner?” I asked, propping my feet up on the dashboard. “Promise him healers?”

  “In case you didn’t notice back at my place,”—his eyes flicked to my feet—“I diverged from script. I was supposed to hand you over to the Countess. I didn’t.”

  He fell silent as we turned onto another street.

  “She leverages loved ones to control supers,” he finally said.

  A nightmare situation.

  My eyes widened as his words sunk in. “You have family?”

  The Executioner gave a jerky nod. “In this very city.”

  “They live in L.A.?” Another surprise.

  “I grew up here,” he admitted. When I continued to stare at him, he elaborated. “I left, they lingered.”

  “And the Cruel Countess knows where these relatives live.”

  A frown. “Unfortunately.”

  “You fear she’s going to use them against you.”

  The Executioner took a hand off the steering wheel to rub his chin. “Him—there’s only one. And I know she will.”

  Even after divulging this information, the Executioner stayed calm and collected.

  That’s what it must take to live the life of a supervillain. Never showing weakness.

  “Do you have a safe house your relative can go? Someplace strong enough to keep the Cruel Countess out?” I asked.

  Silence. Then, “I’ll drag him along with us,” he said.

  Us. Crap, this guy was going to haul me around while this all went down. Not to mention his relative. That was a very bad idea.

  “I have a proposition for you,” I said.

  The Executioner eyed me up and down, a brow arched. “Whatever it is, I’m game.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Listen Don Juan, you and me are not happening.” So long as my legendarily weak will power held out.

  Chapter 15

  Angel

  We pulled up to a rundown apartment complex in Westwood, both of us scrutinizing the area for signs of the enemy. Around us, teenagers and twenty-somethings congested the pavement and bike lanes, most wearing backpacks.

  “Does your family member go to school at U.C.L.A.?” I asked, watching several students as they passed. We were less than a mile from the university.

  Next to me, the Executioner nodded.

  I still couldn’t get over the fact that I had spent a day with the Executioner, one of the world’s most dangerous and infamous supervillains. Even more surprising, neither of us had managed to kill the other.

  Not that we hadn’t tried.

  “How long has it been since you last saw him?” I asked, turning my attention to the apartment.

  Being a super—hero or villain—meant that you had to bury your past. That was why all of Los Angeles’s superheroes lived in one house. It wasn’t like any of us picked our ridiculous names for the fun of it. Pasts and private lives could and would routinely be exploited. All of us had someone who meant something to us. The deeper those details were buried, the better. Otherwise crazies like the Cruel Countess would incentivize us all to do their bidding.

  The Executioner—or X, as I was starting to refer to him in my head—drummed the steering wheel. “Too long—over a decade since we last saw one another.”

  “Did you leave on good terms?”

  He appeared impatient, but I’d bet he was nervous. The Executioner had to be worried that this family member might be terrified of him.

  “He saw me kill our father.”

  The Executioner unbuckled his seatbelt.

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa amigo,” I said, placing a hand on his chest. A man who’d committed patricide. In front of his brother.

  Just when I was beginning to think of him somewhat decently …

  The Executioner’s dark eyes flashed, and within them I saw both a killer and a wounded creature. The most dangerous combo.

  “Ease up. I’ll get your brother,” I said.

  “And chance you two running?” he said. “I think not.”

  Damn. It had been worth a shot.

  “So,” I said, “you were just planning on showing up after ten years and convincing your brother to leave with you, the notorious Executioner? Me thinks that won’t end well.”

  “I managed to get you in the car with me.”

  My eyebrows hiked up. “So you’re planning on kidnapping him? Oh hell no.” I unbuckled my seatbelt and got out of the car. I was so not letting this guy threaten and manhandle his own brother.

  I marched purposefully towards the building. Arms snaked behind me, and then the brilliant blue sky swam across my vision as the Executioner hauled me over his shoulder.

  “If we do this,” he growled, “we do this together. No running.”

  “You have three seconds to put me down, or it’s goodbye to your gonads.”

  A moment later my feet touched the ground. Big surprise. You threaten the royal jewels and suddenly men get real cooperative.

  I followed the Executioner up to the third floor, and we stopped in front of Apartment 6A.

  My gaze moved over the Executioner, his dangerous hands shoved deeply into his pockets. He’d pushed his hood back over his face as soon as we were inside the building, and now his hulking frame loomed behind me.

  “I better do the introductions,” I said, stepping up to the door.

  The Executioner grunted.

  I pounded on the door.

  After several seconds I heard shuffling on the other side of the door. The footsteps paused while someone likely gazed through the peephole.

  A moment later the door swung open. A handsome twenty-something eyed me up and down, looking both shocked and wary. Superhero house visits usually got these types of mixed reactions; we went where trouble lurked, after all.

  “Hi,” I said, “are you … ?” I’d never caught the brother’s name.

  “Marc,” the Executioner supplied.

  Marc glanced beyond me at the man who’d spoken, and his whole body froze as he took in the dark figure leaning against the hallway wall.

  “Sam?”

  Sam is an All-American boy, the kind of untroubled, attractive guy who also happens to be genuinely nice. Sam is a good guy. Sam is not a stone cold killer. Sam is not the Executioner.

  “Sam?” I raised my eyebrows as I turned to the Executioner. “Really? Never would’ve guessed that one.”

  Marc stumbled back, his gaze drawn first to the Executioner’s hooded face, and then down to his exposed hands. “What are you doing here?” Fear had threaded its way into his voice.

  “Time for a reunion, brother,” X said. “You’re coming with us.”

  I rolled my eyes at the Executioner. “You really need to work on easing people into—”

  Apartment door 6A swung closed as a frightened Marc tried to shut us out. Reflexively my foot snapped out to catch the door before it latched. It slammed into my foot and I suppressed a yelp.

  The Executioner’s palm slapped
against the door, pushing it wide open. Behind it stood a pale-faced Marc. “I’m done waiting,” X growled. “Out. Now.”

  Marc slumped in the backseat of the Executioner’s car. “You can’t just kidnap me,” he said sullenly. Someone had already accepted his fate.

  The Executioner had in fact threatened to touch Marc if he didn’t cooperate. That got the morning moving along quite well.

  “Your brother’s an asshole,” I said to Marc, “but, in his defense, for once he’s actually trying to help.”

  “Help with what? He kills people for a living! Why drag me into it? And why are you with him?”

  “Good question.” I swiveled to face the Executioner. “Sam, care to explain this one?”

  The Executioner’s hands tightened on the wheel. “No.”

  I leaned over the seat. “Essentially, Marc, your idiot brother works for a bad woman, and he pissed her off when he kidnapped me—”

  “I saved your life,” X growled.

  I swatted his shoulder. “Only after you tried to charbroil me from the inside out!”

  “Wait,” Marc interrupted, his gaze darting back and forth between X and me, “he tried to kill you, then he kidnapped you, and now you’re working alongside him?”

  “It’s complicated,” I said, staring at the Executioner.

  The car fell silent.

  “I still don’t understand how I’m involved,” Marc said, leaning forward. “Sam doesn’t even care about me.”

  The Executioner white-knuckled the steering wheel, his mouth pressed into a thin line. “I do care,” he said gruffly, his voice low.

  “Then why did you disappear out of my life—no calls, no texts, nothing? I haven’t heard from you in over a decade!” Marc ran a hand through his close-cropped hair, hair that was dark like his brother’s. “I didn’t even know you were alive until—” His voice caught in his throat. “When your victims started to appear. They died just like Dad.”

  I so did not want to be here right now.