The Bound Angel (Sacrilege Rising: Book 1)

Chapter Eleven

The sound of an alarm jerked Mike upright and set his heart racing. It was high and shrill and made his skull throb. The bed was empty. How had Lana gotten up without waking him? The alarm made it impossible to think straight. What was it? Where was it? Thoughts struggled to put themselves in order.

Finally, he recognized it as the smoke detector, and raced into the kitchen. Lana stood there holding a pan outstretched. It was on fire. Flames licked high in the air and reflected off her golden armor, casting the small kitchen in a smoky orange glow. He couldn’t breathe without coughing.

She shouted, “There… something… cookware!”

This close to the alarm, the throbbing screech was making his teeth ache, and he couldn’t make out what she was saying. The faucet caught her eye. She held the pan under the sink and was about to turn the handle when he dashed forward and grabbed it from her, pulling it back before she could turn the water on.

Mike dumped an entire box of baking soda over the flames and covered it with a sheet pan. Choked, it only took a second for the fire to die, and leftover whisps of smoke uncurled angrily around the edges.

The alarms in the building were connected, and if this wasn’t dealt with soon the whole building would be evacuated. With one knee on the counter, he lifted himself up and pulled the round device from the wall, careful not to disconnect the wires. There was a button to turn it off… somewhere.

The beeping was so loud he could feel his head physically pulsing in time with its piercing shriek. He finally found the button and held it down until the wailing fell mercifully silent. Without stopping, he turned on the hood vent, opened the windows, and pulled an old box fan from the closet. After the alarm, its humming woosh was soothing.

Lana looked like a fish out of water. “There is something wrong with your cookware,” she repeated, quieter now.

Mike checked the stove settings and adjusted them. “It’s just turned up a little high is all. No big deal.”

“Why did you not turn on the water?”

“Water only makes a grease fire worse. You need to smother it.”

She grimaced at the charred, blackened lump in the pan. “I fear breakfast is ruined.”

The earnest innocence in her voice was endearing. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll clean up later. And thank you for trying, I appreciate the effort.” He smiled and checked the time. “I have to get to class though. As always, feel free to stay or go.” Before he turned to get dressed, he watched her, waiting until her eyes met his, and said, “Hey. Last night was really nice.”

Lana agreed. “For me too.”

Mike only had two classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and thankfully neither of them were Econ. Shuffling into Psychology, he wondered what would happen the next time he saw Allie. Would she avoid him? Or maybe Lana was right, and she would be interested in getting together again. Speaking of which, he remembered he’d never answered Meredith’s text.

“Hey, sorry, yesterday was a little crazy. Tom gave me some time off, so I’ll be in next week. Hope that doesn’t mess up your schedule!”

She responded almost immediately. “No problem! What about the other thing? Do you want to grab a bite tonight?”

Meredith was great. He just didn’t know where they stood. She said she wanted to keep it casual but already wanted to get together again.

A sheet of paper slid into view. It was starchy and white, with a column of numbers down the left side and countless rows of little blue circles, a sight every college student was familiar with. There was an exam today. Shit. He was distracted. Again.

“I’d love to.”

They made plans for dinner that night.

While Mike fumbled through the exam, trying to choose answers that seemed the least wrong, thoughts of Meredith and Allie tumbled through his head. He’d just hooked up with Allie, literally the day before. They hadn’t had a serious conversation about, well, anything, but he was wary of what Lana had said, and how her boyfriends treated her. The last thing he wanted was to make her feel used. But, man, did she know how to piss him off. And turn him on. The thought that the two might be connected complicated matters.

He answered the last question and sighed. His fate was now in the hands of the exam gods. He was trying to figure out how low of a grade he could get and still pass the class when something tickled at the back of his neck. It was the invisible pressure of being watched.

He looked up. Someone was staring at him. She was pretty, with red hair and lips that looked like they would be wonderful to kiss. When their eyes met, she looked away and quickly packed her bags.

Marketing Research was next. The topic of the day was branding trends and the shift to round logos, but all Mike could think about was the girl sitting ahead of him. She was wearing a tight tee shirt and short skirt. The shirt rode up, revealing a tattoo on her lower back of a heart surrounded by little twinkling stars. When she crossed her legs, his eyes wandered to the dimples on her lower back.

He shook his head to clear it. This was getting ridiculous. He refocused his attention and tried to sort through everything else going on. He’d just been with Allie and now he was going on a date with Meredith. Lana said not to feel guilty, and that as long as everyone was communicating it wasn’t a big deal, but that was exactly what the caveman part of his brain wanted to hear. Could he really hook up with both of them at the same time? And maybe also the girl with the heart tattoo?

Then again, Lana was proving to be hopelessly, adorably naïve, and maybe not all that reliable when it came to relationships. These thoughts wrestled in his head on his way back to his apartment.

Lana was pacing the room when he walked in, all trace of playfulness and innocence gone. Instead, her brow was furrowed and her blue eyes intense.

“What’s up?” Mike asked.

She stopped for a moment and stared at him. Hard. Then she resumed pacing. Her hands never stopped moving, from behind her back, to crossed over her chest, to on her hips. It reminded him of a tiger he saw at the city zoo when he was a kid, tight muscles bunching as it prowled along the fence.

“Lana?” he asked again.

“I am trying to decide whether to bring you.”

“Bring me where?”

When she didn’t answer, he moved closer and held his hand out to catch her arm on the next pass. The instant he made contact, she tensed and glared at his hand. Something raw and primal was barely contained in that glare, and he was reminded of the strength of the golden warriors that night at the church, and Lana barreling through barred doors without breaking a sweat.

“Whoa,” he said. “You have to tell me what’s going on.”

Their eyes met, and she hesitated before answering. “Something is happening. Here. Now. I can feel it.”

“Okay. Got it. Something. Can you be a little more specific?”

“Darkness. Shadow. It is growing, calling, screaming.”

“Where?”

Lana turned. She looked off into the distance and lifted her arm, fingers outstretched. “There,” she breathed. “Corruption. Depravity.” She inhaled and closed her eyes. “A husband with too much drink hurting his wife. A woman, desperate, selling her body. A child sliding a pillow under her mother’s head as she drifts off from another injection.”

Mike was alarmed by what she was saying and spoke slowly. “Those are all terrible things, but they happen every day, in every city, town, and community in the world. Are you saying this is different?”

“Yes,” she said simply. “Man may fall to temptation with no assistance from the Abyss. But here, now, I can feel the sons and daughters of the night whispering corruption. They promise relief from the pain and suffering for just one more step down the broken path.”

“I thought you said demons couldn’t make anyone do anything they didn’t want to?”

She shook her head. “They cannot. But it is not their way to force or demand. They find the weakest, the most vulnerable, and offer glimmers of false hope. A cup of water in the desert. They do not reveal the water is poisoned until it is too late.”

Mike turned her words over. “And you can stop them?”

“I… do not know.”

“But you can make a difference?”

Lana nodded.

“Then you should go.” He felt guilty for telling his friend to charge off into danger after what happened to her companions at the church. But it felt right.

She slowly shook her head. “It is not so simple. I do not know what waits for me in the shadows. Should I fall, I do not know what will happen to you, and the binding prevents me from taking that risk. Even the thought of leaving you keeps me rooted here.”

So that was it. “Then we’ll go together.”

Lana hesitated, staring at him for a long moment. “You know not what we face.”

Mike shrugged. “I can guess. I was at that church too. If something supernatural is happening to people then we should try to stop it.”

She still looked undecided, and he realized what was making her pause. “I’m going. It’s up to you if you want to come.”

Before he made it more than two paces out the door, Lana was by his side. She was watching him from the corner of her eye, and he hoped it was pride he saw on her face, but it just as easily could have been annoyance.

Mike tried to go in the general direction she’d pointed, but it wasn’t long until he was turned around and Lana was leading the way. The sun fell while they walked. As it dipped beneath the roofline, a chill creeped into the air. They left the part of the city he was most familiar with behind, and soon he didn’t recognize the street names anymore. As daylight faded, the corners grew more active.

Heavy bass thumped from open windows, growing louder, then fading as they passed. Men in baggy jeans and hooded sweatshirts leaned against buildings of brick and stone. They carried themselves in a way that seemed relaxed, but their heads drifted side to side, almost too casually, constantly scanning their surroundings. Hands reached in and out of pockets as customers approached. Somehow, they didn’t stare at the odd pair walking down the street. Surely Lana’s golden armor should have drawn more attention.

She murmured, “None will notice our passing.” She must have sensed his thoughts.

It wasn’t only adults on the corners, either. Kids darted in and out of view. From a distance it looked like they were playing tag or hide and seek, but Mike knew better. He saw one boy, maybe ten or twelve, run from a black sedan’s open window to the steps of a nearby porch. The boy reached into a hole in the concrete under the steps, pulled out a small paper bag, and ran back to the car. The exchange took less than thirty seconds, all under the supervision of a trio of hooded men watching from half a block away.

“The authorities must step in,” Lana growled. “Children should be off limits.”

Mike sighed. He’d had this conversation before. Everyone who grew up in the city had. “There’s nothing they can do. It’s not illegal to stand on a corner. Should they arrest the kids?”

“Then the parents. They must intervene.”

“What parents? Most of them are either working a triple shift or are in the cars themselves. And if you think they should be in the foster system then you haven’t seen the foster system.”

Lana muttered under her breath, “Then an eye for an eye.”

Mike tried to keep his anger from flaring. “It’s one of the things that makes me fume when rich people talk about pulling yourself up by your bootstraps, or cutting social programs, or,” he made air quotes, “entitlements. Drop a spoiled ivy-league kid off here and see how they do. Anyone would turn out bad if all they knew was this,” he gestured.

The topic weighed on his mind constantly, and the words just spilled out. “By the time they’re ten all their friends are working the corners. Imagine you’re sitting on the porch after school, home alone for the third night in a row while your dad is gone and your mom is at work, knowing the pantry inside is empty. An expensive car pulls up. A guy walks up to you wearing nice clothes. He buys you a burger and a new pair of shoes, and you talk for a while. It’s the first time someone’s ever talked to you like an adult. He asks if you want to make some money, real money, for the first time in your life. To help out your family, he says. These kids don’t have a chance.”

Lana didn’t have an answer because barring a systemic change to the system there was no good answer. So they continued in silence.

As they moved past the residential part of town, the crowd began to thin. The yelling and music and constant background noise of the city faded behind them as the fringe of the residential district met the beginning of the industrial. There were still pockets of rowhomes, but they were more spread out, with commercial buildings mixed in. More patches of overgrown weeds sprouted up in the empty lots between them.

Up ahead, an old warehouse loomed in the distance as the sun continued to fall and the night grew colder.

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