Dark Wings, Bright Flame Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Introduction

  Higher Justice

  Be Not Afraid

  A Spark of Light

  The Coward's Way

  Pure Wicked Heart

  These Long and Winding Roads

  Author’s Note

  Want more?

  About the Author

  Dark Wings, Bright Flame

  An Angelic Urban Fantasy Collection

  Zoe Cannon

  © 2021 Zoe Cannon

  http://www.zoecannon.com

  All rights reserved

  This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and events are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.

  Introduction

  For a long time, vampires were the reigning kings of the supernatural in the fiction world. No other supernatural creature could come close to their popularity, and each new reimagining made people fall in love with them all over again. But with the explosion in popularity of urban fantasy and related genres, other types of entities have gotten their day in the sun—or the moon. Werewolves and other were-creatures take a solid second place in terms of popularity, but pretty much every creature of myth and legend that can be written about has been written about at this point. These days, there’s enough room for everyone’s favorite.

  Me, I love a good vampire or werewolf story—or fae, mermaid, siren, gruff but kindly bridge troll, demon with a heart of gold… But mostly, I’m over here snapping up every angel story I can find.

  Angels have been my favorite supernatural creatures for a long time. If vampires are cold and aloof, and werewolves are rough and animalistic, the core of angels is that they are fundamentally good. They fight on the side of the light. That’s what they do; it’s what they are.

  But that doesn’t make them sweet and gentle. Far from it. In fact, they’re often downright terrifying. Why else would so many angels need to say, “Be not afraid,” as soon as a human catches sight of them?

  That contradiction, I think, is what I find so compelling. That and the inevitable question: what is ultimate goodness, anyway? When you’re uncompromising in your pursuit of what is good and right, how exactly does that work in a messy world where nothing is black and white? When faced with a world that doesn’t match your ideals, do you lose your inner compass? Do you learn to love the world as it is? Or does your single-minded quest for the light end up bringing you closer to the darkness within yourself?

  This collection has a little of all of those. There are angels who learn how to see the light shining through the muck and shadows of the world. There are angels who dive deep into that muck, embracing their own inner darkness, for the sake of the greater good. There are angels whose pursuit of their ideals puts them at odds with heaven itself.

  I hope you enjoy these six stories. Remember, there’s nothing to fear from the light. At least that’s what they say. Be not afraid…

  Higher Justice

  If the sticky rings on the bar counter and the thick film on the windows were anything to go by, this bar hadn’t gotten a good cleaning in at least two decades. Probably around the same time most of its regulars had peaked. Now they looked like they weren’t in any better shape than the rest of the place. They sagged on their stools, wiping greasy fingers on rumpled clothes, looking down at their drinks with the flat, dead eyes of people who had stared into the abyss and seen themselves staring back.

  The music playing on the speakers was from thirty years ago, the high-school glory days of most of the people here. Or maybe I should say it was playing on the speaker, singular. The left speaker had cut out entirely, and the one on the right was well on its way. The music sounded as tired and faded as the regulars looked.

  The man to my left stank of beer and desperation, just like the rest of the place. The man to my right, though, smelled like expensive cologne, the kind that was basically bottled money and sex. He wore a tailored suit, with the tie loosened just enough to keep him from looking like a stuffed shirt.

  He watched the other patrons hungrily. He had a drink in front of him, something dark and cloudy, but he hadn’t so much as glanced at it for as long as I had been here. His fingers tapped lightly on the bar, but his face was patient. Like an angler who had cast his line and was willing to wait all day—or all night, as the case may be—for a nibble.

  He didn’t pay me any more attention than he did his drink. His gaze had drifted over me for a fraction of a second when I had first walked in, and he hadn’t glanced my way again since. I must not have looked desperate enough for his purposes.

  Appearances could be deceiving.

  I turned to him and cleared my throat. “I hear you’re the person to see if I want a job done.”

  It took a moment for the man to remember I existed. Slowly, he dragged his gaze to me, and blinked until his eyes came into focus. The irises were black—not the dark brown that people sometimes described as black, but pure obsidian, darker even than his pupils. The faintest hint of red flickered in their depths.

  “That depends on the job,” he said. “And the payment.”

  I lowered my voice and leaned closer. “I need someone dead.” No sense in beating around the bush about it.

  The man—although I supposed I shouldn’t call him that, since he was no such thing—smiled. “There’s no need to whisper. Nobody here cares enough to listen.” He gave the bartender a cheery smile, and motioned him closer with a flick of his fingers. “Want to know something?” he asked in a voice loud enough to carry from one side of the room to the other. “This guy here is looking to have somebody killed.” he jabbed a finger at me.

  The bartender blinked. “You want another drink?” He asked, his gaze flicking first to my companion, then to me. When I shook my head, he shrugged and went back to smearing grease over a glass with a filthy rag.

  But the people here weren’t the eavesdroppers I was worried about. I was more concerned with the one who held my leash. I was off the clock for now, with Dennis asleep and alone. But all it would take was a single moment of wakefulness, or an intruder pushing open his bedroom door, and the mantle of my duty would return again. The keeper of my chains would know where I was, and that I wasn’t with my charge. He would see everything I saw, and hear everything I heard—and everything I said.

  Maybe I would get lucky and he wouldn’t be paying attention. He had a lot to keep him occupied, after all. But I had learned, over the centuries, that it was never smart to rely on luck.

  I kept my voice low. “Can you do it?”

  The demon in front of me smiled. “The real question is whether you want me to. Do you know what I am, and what price I’ll ask? A human assassin would cost you a lot less.”

  “This will take more than a human,” I said. “The target has a guardian angel.”

  The demon whistled under his breath. “Then he must be in good with the man upstairs. That means big trouble for me if I get caught. Do you have any idea what those angelic types can do to my kind?”

  I gave a short nod. “I’ve seen it up close and personal.”

  “Then you know that’s not a risk any of us takes lightly. One lucky strike from one of those angelic swords of theirs, and…” He snapped his fingers. “Wiped out of existence, just like that.” He shook his head. “Don’t get me wrong, hell isn’t exactly a bed of roses. But I’ve worked my way up. Brought in enough human souls to earn myself some respect. It’s a good life. And I’m not willing to risk being erased from the board for one more measly soul. Not when any one of these sad sacks would hand theirs over
for the price of a good job or a beautiful wife. Or even an ugly wife.” He laughed.

  I didn’t return the laugh. “I’m not offering you a soul.”

  “In that case, we have even less to talk about.” He turned his back to me.

  “I’m offering you something better,” I said to the back of his head. “An angel feather.”

  He whipped around so quickly his elbow caught the edge of his glass. Dark liquid sloshed over the side. He took a deep breath and schooled his face to blank neutrality. But it was too late. I had seen the flash of hunger there.

  Hell had no shortage of angels. At least not the fallen kind. But their wings had all been destroyed on impact, bones charred and broken, feathers burned to ash. And the other inhabitants of hell, the demons who had been born and raised there like the one in front of me, had never had wings at all. For how crowded the place was, there wasn’t a single working set of angel wings in the place.

  And angel wings were the only things that had the power to carry someone out of hell.

  But it wasn’t a matter of flying. Hell wasn’t a place so much as it was a state of being. Any demon with enough time and determination could hike their way to the mortal realm, like the one in front of me had. But he would always be in hell where it counted. The hellfire would always burn under his skin. He would always feel the despair creeping in at the corners of his mind.

  Someone who knew the trick of it, though, could use a single angel feather to break hell’s hold on them. Which meant most demons would do anything for the chance to get their hands on one. The last angel who had been sent down to hell on one of the big guy’s errands had never made it out. I heard a rumor that his body had appeared in a human morgue later, with broken shards of bone jutting out from his back, all that remained of his wings after the denizens of hell had picked him clean. I didn’t envy whoever had gotten the job of covering that one up.

  The demon shook his head. “You’re lying. Where are you going to get your hands on one of those?”

  In answer, I let the disguise drop. For half a second, I was no longer a jowly middle-aged man in yesterday’s clothes, indistinguishable from everyone else in the bar. Behind me, my wings unfurled. I glowed from within with divine light. It refracted off the glass in front of me, shooting tiny points of light out in every direction.

  A few of the regulars cast startled glances toward me. But I had already faded back into the disguise. One by one, they shrugged and went back to their drinks. They had probably already written it off as an alcohol-induced hallucination.

  I held out my hand to the demon. In my open palm rested a single feather. I had plucked it from my own wing. The spot where I had ripped it free still stung.

  The demon stared at it without blinking. Slowly, he reached a hand out toward it.

  I pulled my hand back, and closed my fingers over the feather. “On the other hand, maybe you don’t want this. You’ve built a good life for yourself in hell, after all.”

  With what looked like a great deal of effort, the demon brought his gaze up from my hand to my face. “That guardian angel you mentioned. That’s you, isn’t it?”

  “Astute of you,” I said. “Most people can’t tell the difference between one angel and another at a glance. You had me pegged as a guardian in less than a second.”

  “A survival skill.” He looked at me like I was a puzzle that needed solving. “Why, though? Why would you do something like this? Do you know what it will mean for you if your boss finds out? You’ll end up down below with the rest of us.”

  I shuddered, and tried not to linger on the thought. “That’s not something you need to worry about. The part that concerns you is that I’m good at what I do. So when you come after him, you need to make sure I don’t see you. The mantle of a guardian angel…” I paused, searching for words, for a way to explain the sensation of the power settling over my body and using me however it saw fit. “I don’t control it. I can’t. I’m just the vehicle. If I see a threat to my charge, I won’t be able to stop myself from doing whatever is necessary to protect him.”

  I knew. I had tried.

  “You’re asking a lot,” said the demon. “I’m good, but I can’t work miracles. That’s the other side’s department.”

  “Then maybe you don’t want this after all.” I tucked the feather into my pocket. “Not a problem. I’m sure I can find someone who does.” I stood up, leaving my unfinished drink behind.

  The demon stood fast enough that his stool almost toppled over. “Wait, wait. I’ll do it. Just give me a name and a place, and a few days to prepare.”

  I squinted at the clock over the bar. Like everything else, it had accumulated a generous layer of grease and grime, which made it hard to make out the numbers. “You have eight hours.”

  “What? No. Not acceptable. I need more time than that. If you really need a rush job—which I don’t recommend, if you want it done right—how does three days sound?”

  I let the tip of the feather poke out of my pocket. Then I pushed it down again and strode to the door.

  “All right, all right.” He hurried after me. “Eight hours.”

  * * *

  The next morning, I watched—as invisible as a ghost, and as powerless—as Dennis prepared for his latest one-on-one consultation.

  He whistled during his short drive to the church. It had snowed about an inch overnight, and someone had shoveled the main walk. But they hadn’t gotten around to the building out back, the one with the Carver City Homeless Outreach sign out front. Dennis didn’t complain. He kept whistling as he dug out a shovel from the shed and cleared it himself. He sprinkled a layer of salt down for good measure, to melt the last patches of ice.

  The building was small, only one room—or two, if you counted the basement. More than once, the church had suggested fundraising for an addition. But Dennis had always smiled and insisted this was all he needed.

  Once he was inside, he cleared a few stray papers off the desk. He pulled out a handful of books on choosing a career, and laid them out on the desk where the papers had been. He evicted a couple of stray dust bunnies with a feather duster. He poured two glasses of water and placed them precisely on the desk, one to his left hand, one to his right. To the one on the right, he added three drops from a small vial in the top drawer of his desk.

  I did my best not to keep an eye out for the demon. But any human will tell you how hard it is to force yourself not to think about something, and it’s no different for us angels. I knew the demon was on his way—at least if he hadn’t thought twice about the deal—which meant he was going to get me at my most vigilant.

  But my sources had told me he was good. He chose easy prey out of laziness, not because it was his only option. I would simply have to hope my sources had been right.

  I followed Dennis down the stairs as he descended to the basement. I wrapped my wings around him, covering his face, as if I could smother him that way. I placed my hands on his shoulders and imagined tightening them around his throat. But it could never be anything more than imagination. The guardian mantle wouldn’t let me harm my charge. After thousands of years, and dozens of charges, this was the one lesson I had learned well.

  The basement was small but cheerful, with pale yellow paint and the smell of pine from a plug-in air freshener. The air freshener did a good job of covering up any other smells that might otherwise have lingered. But I didn’t think the paint and the pine scent were responsible for the way Dennis’s mood always lifted when he came down here.

  His whistling grew louder and more cheerful as he unfolded fresh plastic sheeting and laid it out on the concrete floor. He opened his toolbox next. He laid his tools out one by one along the edges of the plastic, caressing them lovingly as he did.

  Jesus might have been a carpenter, but he wouldn’t have recognized anything in Dennis’s toolbox. There was nothing in there that could be used for building. Dennis was more interested in destruction.

  His preparations
complete, Dennis walked back up the stairs—just in time for a knock on the door. I checked the clock. Nine on the dot. I had hoped she would oversleep, or not be able to find a ride. But keeping this appointment must have meant a lot to her, because here she was, not even thirty seconds late.

  I still saw no sign of the demon. Although I supposed that was a good thing. If I saw him before he got the job done, that would mean it was too late for both of us.

  Dennis straightened his clerical collar and opened the door. He motioned his latest appointment inside. She looked just like all the others—long dark hair, big brown eyes that seemed to take up half her face. She couldn’t be past her early twenties. She was thin past the point of attractiveness, more concentration-camp victim than runway model. Track marks dotted her arms.

  But she had made painfully obvious efforts to clean herself up for the meeting. Her hair was freshly curled. Her sunflower-patterned dress, too thin for the weather, had to have been borrowed, judging by how it fit—too baggy in some places, too small in others.

  “Thank you for meeting with me, Pastor Dennis,” said the woman in a rough voice. I had seen her file, but I couldn’t remember her name. After a while, they all started to blend together.

  “No need to thank me,” Dennis said with an easy smile. “It’s what I’m here for.” He motioned to the desk. “Why don’t you take a seat, and we’ll have a talk about your future.”

  She sat down in the chair opposite his. Hunger flared in her eyes as she ran her finger along the cover of one of the career books. They all had that same hunger, when they first sat down at his desk. And that same small, bright spark of hope, as they looked at what he was offering them and began to allow themselves to dream impossible dreams.

  Carver City Homeless Outreach was Dennis’s pet project. Under his direction, his church had opened a homeless shelter, which had grown to become the biggest in the state. Mostly, Dennis took a hands-off approach. He kept the money flowing, and left the day-to-day work to the people he hired.