Fallen. Michele Hauf

understand your worry. And yes, I intend to amble without a care. Not even for the demon.”

      “Fine.”

      “Great.”

      “It’ll serve me well enough.”

      “Why’s that?” He scanned the crowd, not looking at her.

      “You leave first, and I’ll follow the vampires as they track you.”

      “They’re not going to—Why am I arguing with a demon? Good riddance, Sinistari.”

      He skipped down the steps in his clunky boots and landed on the main floor with a jump. Without a glance up at her, he then danced his way along the crowd and into the darkness toward the back exit door.

      “Leaving without a woman on his arm?” Pyx tapped the railing. “Interesting. He’s freaked now. I’m sure of it. The angel has more than a demon on his ass. Just you wait, Fallen one, I’ll be tracking vamps on your wake in no time.”

      Cooper went down the Metro stairs to the train. He kept one eye scanning his periphery and over his shoulder. Two dark figures followed him.

      Vampires? He didn’t have bloodsucker radar. The demon would know for certain. Their earthly connection to those things could sniff out any paranormal by vibration alone.

      He’d allowed the sexy, sexually confused demon to put stupid thoughts into his brain. He wasn’t being followed. And if he was, they sure as hell were not vampires. Maybe a couple of pissed-off mortals who’d been dumped by their women after Cooper had flirted with them.

      Turning a curve in the long cement tunnel stretching underground toward the Metro station, Cooper listened as the probably-not-vampires closed in on him. He knew this was a longer stretch and made a left turn to the C line instead of walking straight toward his usual train.

      Pressing his back to the wall, he waited.

      On the slight chance they could be vamps, he had no wooden stake, not even a weapon, and he knew vamps weren’t so easy to take down. He was stronger than mortal men, but he wasn’t sure how his strength matched up with a vampire.

      Earthbound or not, he still retained a few tricks up his sleeve.

      The first man rounded the corner and Cooper swung out his arm, clocking the bastard across the throat. The man took it with a gasp and a growl, revealing fangs.

      So the demon had been right.

      Cooper tossed the vamp against his cohort, who shoved him back at Cooper. Both charged him, fangs extended.

      He could flash out of here, but that wouldn’t be any fun.

      Cooper set his shoulders and bounced on the balls of his feet. He welcomed the fisticuffs. And if he got the chance to bash up a few vamps, that suited him fine. He carried a lot of aggression stored in his bones and since he’d been on earth he had found little opportunity to let it out, save on that one now-dead Sinistari.

      Slammed against the wall, Cooper choked out his breath as one vamp pummeled him in the gut. The other vamp drew out a dagger, which was cheating, really. And didn’t they know only one kind of dagger could kill an angel?

      Maybe they didn’t know he was an angel? Maybe they were just jonesing for some blood? Not that angel blood would do either of them any good—it would freeze them solid, and then—kablam.

      Out of all the people in the nightclub, Cooper suspected he had not been the most appetizing. There had been plenty of women with soft necks and warm, adrenaline-spiked blood. This had to be because he was an angel.

      He kicked his attacker, but only landed high on his thigh. Didn’t move the bastard an inch. A flash of steel careened toward his shoulder, yet the blade suddenly soared backward, away from its target.

      A sweep of red hair brushed Cooper’s cheek.

      “Oh, enough, bloody enough!” He did not need to be saved by a woman!

      Cooper bashed his forehead against a vampire’s skull. His brain reverberated in his head. The bloodsucker’s skull was hard! A shove of his hand—he didn’t touch the vamp’s chest—sent the creature flying away and crashing against the ceiling. The vamp dropped hard.

      Pyx gripped the other vampire by the throat and slammed him against the cement wall. “Who sent you?”

      Interrogation. Good idea, Cooper thought. Glad he’d thought of it.

      The fallen vamp lunged, aiming toward Cooper.

      He made a tight, straight spade of his fingers and shoved them into the vampire’s chest. The creature yowled. Cooper gripped the heavy mass of hot muscle. A gut kick sent the vampire stumbling backward.

      Blood oozed over Cooper’s fingers and dripped onto the floor. The vampire whose chest was now empty of his heart ashed, as did the heart in Cooper’s hand. Slimy ash-drenched blood oozed in splats onto the cement floor near his boots.

      The other vampire spat in Pyx’s face. She swiped the bloody spittle away and then pounded a wooden stake into the vamp’s chest. It took a lot of force to put a piece of wood through ribs and muscle. Pyx made it look as if she was spearing an olive with a toothpick.

      Ash spattered into the air. The Sinistari shook off the gray dust and delivered a triumphant smile to Cooper.

      “I do have a stake,” she said, then glanced at Cooper’s bloody hand. “Oh. That’ll work, too.”

      Careening around the corner flew two more vamps. Or Cooper confirmed they were of the vampire persuasion when one jumped on Pyx’s shoulders and sank his teeth into her skull above her ear.

      Cooper gripped the wood handrail and tore it from the industrial bolts securing it to the wall. He broke it in half and caught the charging vampire in the chest with it.

      Pyx spouted every oath in the book as she struggled to detach the fangs and fingers digging into her scalp and throat.

      Cooper twisted the thick wooden stake and kicked the dead vampire off from it. Ash dusted Pyx. The vamp gnawing at her skull inhaled a mouthful and choked.

      Pyx smashed the vamp against the wall. “Suck on that, longtooth!” It released her, and she scrambled away the direction it had come. A new vampire appeared, saw his retreating cohort, and joined him.

      Wielding the stake like a spear, Cooper threw it after the vamps and caught the tip at the back of one’s head. His strength had given the soaring wooden stake rocket power and it entered the vampire’s skull with ease, dropping to the ground in a clatter as the vampire became dust.

      Cooper caught Pyx by the shoulder, and when she struggled to race after the final vampire that had gotten away, he twisted her arm around behind her back.

      “Get your bloody hands off me!” she cried.

      He released her and flicked the blood from his hand against the cement wall. Taking in the surroundings, he listened, confirming no mortals within hearing or eyesight. The bloodstains would raise questions. At least the vamp had ashed and hadn’t left a mangled body behind for someone to freak over.

      “Let the longtooth go,” he said. “It’ll run to its master and tell them what a force we are to deal with.”

      “It’ll return to its master and give him details,” she hissed.

      “Details of what?”

      “You!”

      Wiping the blood from his hand on his white shirt, Cooper smirked. “They were following you too, sweetie.”

      The shirt was a loss and the blood stank. He couldn’t walk around mortals with it in this condition. He shrugged it off, and balled it up. “I’m out of here.”

      Pyx kicked the cement wall and growled in frustration. “You’re welcome!” she called in his wake.

      She thought she’d saved him? Poor