I’d fought the fallen before?
My heart clenched as I understood at least part of what she was telling me. “Bazixal.”
The demon I’d sent back to Hell; could that be who she meant?
The air around us crackled with rising electricity and the hair along my arms stood.
My grandmother—Jesus Christ, I couldn’t even think it without my jaw wanting to drop—looked upward. “We are about to get company. I do believe the fallen have realized I am here, talking to you. Forbidden and all that nonsense, though it matters not to me, my life is near its end.” Another wave of her stick and the sky above us opened as though she were parting the clouds.
Drenched in a matter of seconds, I stared at her through the rain, watching her as she turned to face three of the fallen on her own.
Before I could ask, she pointed her stick at the door that led into the Empire State Building. “Off you go, find your team, stop the fallen, and get those babies back.”
I didn’t hesitate, though part of me wanted to see my grandmother kick ass. I picked up speed as I made my way through the upper souvenir shop to the stairs. No way was I taking the elevator and getting trapped in a steel box headed south.
A push of my hip against the bar of the stairwell door and I looked back in time to see two of the fallen being held at bay.
The third, well, he was creeping through the souvenir shop on his hands and feet, hunched like an oversized dog. Ruby let out a low growl, her back tensed, and the fur along her spine stood up. I touched her collar and brought her with me. “We can’t kill him, which means we need to outrun him.”
“What about the sedative?” Diego offered. “Please let me shoot him.”
I pulled my T-shirt off and brought the AK-47 around, pointing him at the fallen one. I barely sighted down the barrel before I squeezed off two rounds, both hitting the monstrosity clean in the upper chest.
He roared and stood, wings spread wide for a half a beat. The sedative darts dangled from his flesh and then he wobbled and crashed sideways into a stack of snow globes that shattered.
I turned and bolted down the stairs, Ruby’s nails clicking on the cement stairs. Eighty-six flights ahead of us. I pushed hard, grabbing the railings as I went even knowing that I was leaving behind fingerprints. It would give the NYPD a thrill if they dusted.
We reached the bottom in under ten minutes but, of course, the main door was locked. I yanked Dinah out and blew a hole in the doorknob. Alarms blasted through the air as I pushed the door with a hip and slid out onto the street.
The city was never really quiet, so I got a few looks as I walked away from the famous building, a gun on my back and one in my hand, wearing a corset and leather pants. I didn’t care. The first good alley we came to I ducked down, heading off toward the abandoned rail station.
That was as good a place as any to start, a known messaging site for a lot of the underbelly.
Using back alleys and dodging sirens, I made my way down to the subway and hopped a ride that would take us to the Lower East Side.
I could have leaned back in the seat as we chugged along, closed my eyes for a few minutes and snagged some rest, but I couldn’t close my eyes and not see . . . my grandmother.
Dinah squirmed. “I can feel you thinking.”
There was no one close enough to us to hear our discussion. “This is fucking messed up.”
“Yes and no,” Dinah said. “Like, are you surprised that you’re being called on? I’m not.”
Ruby placed her chin on my knee, and I put my hand on the top of her head. My grandmother thought I was the one to stop the fallen, and in part, she wasn’t wrong. There was really no one else strong enough left.
But finding a fallen to kill another fallen . . . the only possibility I kept circling back to was that she had put emphasis on the word hell. She had to mean that I needed a demon to help me. Why though? Why a demon? Circling, circling, I knew I was getting closer to the answer, I just had to find it.
Maybe the tablet would give me the answers I needed. Maybe Rio would have someone like Harden who could hack the tablet and find the answers we needed. That I needed.
“Wonder if Cowboy is okay,” Diego mused.
I blinked. “It never even crossed my mind.”
The subway car began to slow and I stood, bracing my legs as I scanned the car.
“This our stop?” Dinah asked.
“No, it’s not,” I murmured. “We’re stopped in the middle of the tracks.”
Which to me could mean only one thing.
We’d been found.
21
I hurried to the far end of the subway car and got my hands on the doors. They were locked tight, which was not in my favor.
I pushed on them and was about to pull Dinah when the door at the other end slid open. I turned and dropped to a crouch as I raised Dinah and held her steady. Two figures stepped into the subway car and the first gave me pause.
Tall, blondish, super nerdy with glasses and bright blue eyes that were full of fear. He quickly ushered the few humans out of the subway car with a soft voice and a quiet demeanor.
“Eligor.” I stayed where I was. “That was quick.”
“Your discussion with Namaa alerted us,” he said as he stepped
