I sighed. This is going to be a long day.

“All right, let’s move out. This is a time-sensitive mission,” Lincoln barked.

With a flurry of activity, I was hauled into a row of four blacked-out SUVs. Darren sat on my left, Noah on my right while Lincoln drove and Blake sat shotgun.

“Dude, where is Marleen going to put four tats?” Darren asked Lincoln, leaning forward as he made a hard right turn onto 7th Avenue.

Lincoln’s eyes flicked to the rearview mirror at me for a split second. “I dunno. She’ll figure it out.”

Blake was balancing the tray of blood-filled goblets on his lap, each one having been fitted with a lid to keep the contents from spilling.

“Is this a bad time to mention that I’m scared of needles?” I announced.

Noah was the first to laugh, but soon everyone joined in, minus Lincoln. “Don’t worry, I’ll be there to take your pain, darlin.” Noah winked at me. Mr. Winky wink, was a wink-happy dude it seemed.

Lincoln groaned from the front seat. “Noah, are you capable of not hitting on a female? I mean, is that within your realm of skillsets?”

Darren and Blake snickered, but Noah just shrugged. “Sure. I don’t hit on Mrs. Topeka.”

Lincoln took a hard right turn and then I was totally lost. I didn’t know the area, but it was looking seedier and seedier the more we drove.

“She’s the seventy-year-old librarian!” Lincoln countered.

That time I smiled. I was gathering from their banter that the boys were all close friends.

“Besides, Brielle is too stubborn to accept your help,” Lincoln continued.

I’d always wondered if I was capable of murder, one of those weird thoughts that sometimes cross your mind. Now I was quite sure I was capable of killing Lincoln. I had actually been starting to loosen up and not think about the impending angel blood tattoos when he went and ruined it.

“Oh, Noah, I’d love a healing from you. It’s Lincoln who makes me shiver just to think of him touching me,” I snapped back.

“Ohhhhh.” The car burst into frat boy noises of shame at my smug glare. When Lincoln’s murderous eyes flicked up to the rearview mirror, I kept mine forward.

Take that, you venomous, judging bastard.

He took another hard right, the SUVs behind us following, and then pulled up to a shoddy-looking tattoo shop with literally no one on the street. It looked like a vacated and half-condemned street block.

“Where are we?” I asked, mystified.

“This street is spelled to look like a shithole, so no one will come down it. We call it Angel Avenue. It’s where we do all of our magical shopping.” Noah winked.

The boy was an expert winker. I was venturing to guess he did well with the ladies.

Lincoln scanned the street. The other three SUVs had parked, Fallen Army officers spilling out of them. My eyes roamed over their weapons, guns, swords, bows and arrows. They were varied, and totally badass.

“Blake, you get those goblets’ inside,” Lincoln ordered. “We’ll protect her.” His tone changed with the word “her,” like I was a venomous snake.

“Let’s move out.” The doors popped open then and we rushed out of the vehicle. The second my boots landed on the curb, the tattoo shop door flew open to a woman in her mid-thirties, with tattooed sleeves, and long red hair.

“Linc!” she shouted excitedly.

Blake had just reached her with the goblets when a dark shadow passed overhead, momentarily blotting out the sun.

“Incoming!” Lincoln shouted, wrapping his big arm around my waist and tucking me into his body as his huge white wings snapped out. He crouched, bringing me to the ground with him while his wings curled around us to shield me. Bullets and shouts rang out as I stayed pinned beneath his body, eyes wide as saucers.

I grew up in the hood. Demon gangs were the vilest creatures on Earth, and Shea and I’d had our fair share of run-ins with them. I was robbed quarterly, so I knew we were totally getting jumped right now, and I wasn’t going to hide beneath this asshole and get killed. He smelled good, and his pecs against my back were making my stomach do somersaults, but he was still an asshole nonetheless.

I must never forget that.

Lincoln pulled his sword and popped up on his knees, keeping his wings curled forward to protect me. Or cage me in, depending on how you were looking at it.

Reaching into my boot, I pulled out my switchblade and prepared myself to throw down. I wasn’t going to have any luck against the guns, but I could gut someone if they got within two feet of me. I was good with blades.

“Lincoln, look out!” I recognized Noah’s smooth voice.

Lincoln stood to his full height then, his wings snapping back to reveal me, and I came face-to-face with a Monkshood demon.

Shit.

The Monkshood demons were by far one of the creepiest kinds. They didn’t have tongues, so they couldn’t speak. They wore hooded cloaks to cover their misshapen bodies, but their red knobby horns stuck out through the top, and they were masters of mental compulsion. The demon’s eyes were glowing blue, which I knew meant he was using his gift of compulsion. Lincoln was staring at him dreamily and lowering his sword. They didn’t even need to speak to use their gift, that’s how powerful they were. They only needed eye contact to get the job done.

I saw a glint of steel underneath the Monkshood’s cloak and acted quickly. As the demon pulled out his sword, I pushed the button on my switchblade, revealing the sharp knife. Reaching under his cloak, I slashed wildly, cutting into his thick ankles. A roar bellowed from under the demon’s cloak, and he broke eye contact with Lincoln to look down at me. The Celestial burst into action, his sword glowing a vibrant blue as he cut down the demon before us. I stayed crouched, assessing the situation, and wondering what the hell I should do.

Turning my head, I took stock of the scene. Demons and Dark Mages had rappelled from the roof, the ropes still dangling. There were a dozen of them, at least, one a Beast Shifter in the shape of a cougar, curled brown horns coming off his head. We had them outnumbered, but the Dark Mages were going to town on the Fallen Army.

A swarm of magical bees was spinning around a group of soldiers, while a demon-bound slave shot bullets, seemingly at random but in our direction. I sat there, crouched and in shock as the human with the red crescent tattoo on her forehead cut down the Fallen Army. It shook me to my core to know I had the same mark on my own head, as did my mother. For the first time, I was regretful about taking the mark. Maybe it would’ve been best to just let my father go…

One of the Fallen Army soldiers was a Light Mage, her hands were glowing a golden yellow as she built up a powerful spell between them. With a battle cry, she thrust her palms outward and the light exploded. I flinched, unsure what it would do. The demons and Black Mages left standing all began to scream and hiss, their skin growing an angry red as it smoked.

With one final attempt, a tiny twelve-inch-tall Snakeroot demon slammed against the door of the tattoo parlor. When it didn’t open, he leapt onto Noah’s shoulder and took a chunk out of it with his teeth.

“Ahh!” Noah screamed, and threw the Snakeroot demon on the ground. All of the demons were looking pretty uncomfortable—close to being set on fire, more like it—and collectively must’ve decided to ditch the plan. It might’ve helped that Lincoln was holding the bloody head of the Monkshood demon and his sword was doing a crazy swirly thing of blue light.

“Go!” Lincoln roared, then chucked the head onto the street as they scattered.

The demons and their consort scrambled then, shielded from view by a puff of black mist, and then they were just… gone.

Holy hell on wheels, what just happened?

“Noah!” Lincoln leapt to his friend’s side.

Noah was holding his bleeding shoulder with a glowing orange hand, and wincing. “I’m fine,” he stated in a gruff voice.

Lincoln turned to me then. “Are you okay?” he asked, his eyes roaming over my body for injuries, before stopping on the switchblade in my hand.

I just nodded, about all I could manage at the moment.

Lincoln seemed to be gathering himself as well. “All right, take up the perimeter and radio me if they come back. I’ll call the academy for backup. I want fifty more guards here within the hour!” he roared.

The warriors spread out, pulling their weapons, and watching the end of the street where the demons had fled with eagle eyes.

The door to the shop popped open again. “Hey, sweet thing. You okay?” the tattooed young woman asked me. I just nodded while her eyes fell to the shank in my hands.

Oops. I retracted the blade and stuffed it back in my boot.

“Dude, she sliced up that Monkshood demon’s ankles. That was hardcore!” Darren announced.

Lincoln was looking down at me like he wanted to say something but thought better of it. “Inside,” he finally snarled, and then I was being pulled up, and into the building.

If this was everyday events in Angel City, I was going to have to upgrade my switchblade, and work on my fighting skills.

Chapter Five

“Whoa.” The tattoo shop was not ghetto by any means. I’d been expecting crumbling plaster, maybe some mold, but the floors were a shiny travertine and the walls were smooth plaster with various angel-related artwork painted on them. There was a check-out counter, where a balding older man with Coke bottle glasses was reading through a magazine.

“Hey, Mr. Hensley,” Noah called out, his glowing hand still on his injured and bleeding shoulder.

Is he healing himself?

The man looked up, squinted at Noah and frowned. “Hello, son. You okay?”

Noah shrugged. “Snakeroot demon bite. I’ll be fine by tonight.”

The tattooed woman led us back to her desk. A leather massage table lay next to it, and a tattoo gun was on the desk beside the four goblets of blood. My heart started to pound in my chest.

“Four. So gnarly.” The woman grinned and looked me up and down.

I rubbed my arms. “Yeah… about that. I’m a bit needle shy. Can I get like one today and the rest next week?” I laughed nervously.

She looked at me with pity. “Hon, this blood won’t last a week, and neither will you without these tattoos. Once a Celestial goes through the Awakening, they need their tattoos of light within twenty-four hours or—”

“Let’s just begin, shall we? She’s demon bound, so we need to get her back to her side of the city by noon.” Lincoln cut her off.

Mothereffing prick! I wasn’t sure if shooting fire out of my eyes was going to be one of my gifts, but I sure felt like it right then. I wanted to burn him where he stood. I had the freaking red tattoo on my forehead, everyone and their mom knew what it meant. He didn’t need to explain it to people.

She looked down at her feet. “Yeah, I heard.”

Pity. Great. She felt bad for me. What an awful feeling to have people pity you.