Strange Angels

stRange Angels

ANDREA SPEED

Brendan is having a really bad day—well, life actually. It turns out his deadbeat dad was actually a god, who is now dead, and Brendan has inherited his powers. Also his enemies. With the help of a handsome, fire-winged angel and a fallen god turned bartender, he hopes to figure out his powers before rival gods kill him. But the course of godhood, much like love, never runs smoothly.

Strange Angels

By Andrea Speed

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission of the publisher, except for the purpose of reviews.

Edited by Constance Blye

Cover designed by Natasha Snow

This book is a work of fiction and all names, characters, places, and incidents are fictional or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people, places, or events is coincidental.

Second Edition February 2019

Copyright © 2019 by Andrea Speed

Printed in the United States of America

One

He came to with the taste of blood in his mouth and a certain sense that he was about to be killed.

He lay on the cold asphalt, content with playing dead, until he realized he was hearing the sounds of battle—metal against stone, pained grunts—very close, and thought he might be in actual danger. He opened one eye halfway but couldn't see anything except filthy ground. He braced himself and opened his eyes all the way.

It took a long moment to understand what he was seeing. Two men with ornate swords were being held off by a man wearing a metal mesh shirt and leather pants wielding a flaming blue sword. The sword didn't appear to be on fire—it was fire, the blade translucent blue flames he could see through, even as it chopped through the metal swords like they were made of ice. The broken metal shards bounced on the pavement, and when they came to rest, they were melted.

What he was seeing was insane, but that really wasn't a surprise somehow. Perhaps because the man wielding the flame sword looked like he was carved from bronze, reasonably muscled but hard in some instantly quantifiable way, his shoulder-length hair a metallic copper like finely spun wires. In other words, totally fucking crazy. He was both strange and beautiful, and also…familiar? And looking at him evoked feelings of…protection. And love. Yes. The word—name?—Dar occurred to him, and it seemed right. That man who looked like a living statue was named Dar.

So who was he?

He sat up, his back to a cold brick wall, and looked at his hands. Some kind of dark marks circled both wrists, thick black lines he understood to be tattoos, even if he wasn't sure what those were. His skin looked to be a lighter bronze than Dar's but didn't seem to have the…what? Grace? Hardness? Neither made sense. Oh hell, nothing made sense right now.

The men attacking Dar looked unremarkable, save for the fact they had swords, which struck him as weird. Dar was having no trouble taking them on with his fire sword (how was he holding it? Or, more specifically, how was it not burning him?), but he felt he should do something besides sit here.

He stood up with help from the wall and realized someone had already noticed him—a woman who had been lurking at the mouth of the alley, wearing a dark coat and built like a refrigerator. The Fridge started lumbering toward him, holding a knife that gleamed silver, even in the dark. How was that possible?

A sickly purple-black glow emanated from him, and he looked down to see it was coming from a pendant around his neck. It was just a chunk of crystal or glass, but it seemed to be pulsing with the sickly, ugly light. He grabbed the pendant, and the energy radiating through it gave him courage he hadn't realized he'd needed until then.

He glared at the approaching woman, only vaguely aware that the tattoos on his wrists were starting to glow. The Fridge finally noticed and paused, looking as puzzled as he felt.

Then Dar threw something, a small spike of blue fire that sizzled right through the woman's chest and buried itself in the wall barely a foot away. The Fridge wavered on her feet, then collapsed, first to her knees, then onto her face, the knife falling from her hand and bouncing across the asphalt. After a second, the knife dissolved into a puddle of liquid silver.

The last of the sword-wielding men fell, leaving him and Dar all alone in the alley. The crystal around his neck was no longer glowing, nor were the tattoos around his wrists.

What the fuck is going on? he asked. And who the fuck am I?

Dar stared at him, his eyes a startling, deep crimson, like the irises were made of garnets, and he felt strangely lightheaded. These had to be trackers sent by Eris, but I think they just lucked on to us…oh, you lost your memory again.

Trackers? Eris? He was pretty sure he knew what the first word meant but not the latter. He got a sense he should have, though, and scowled. Again? Do I forget a lot?

Only when it's an arduous transition between dimensions.

Huh? Was Dar making sense, or was this all just completely insane?

Confirming he was insane, Dar pressed the flaming sword to his own leg, and not only did he not burst into flame, but the sword disappeared. It'll pass, it always does. Just relax. Dar walked over to the small flaming spike, which was still sticking out of the wall, and plucked it out like it was made of cold steel, even though it was fire all the way through. He pressed it onto the back of his hand, where it seemed to melt into his skin and become a light blue tattoo, a tiny outline of a knife etched in cobalt.

How the hell did you do that?

Dar looked down at his hand, then frowned at him. I'm not explaining this again.

How are you not burned? Where did those tattoos come from? I don't—

Dar grabbed his face and yanked him into a kiss.

Their lips had barely made contact when the energy hit him like an explosion in the middle of his brain, a hot rush of power, white light bursting behind his eyelids. The light became images—flying, fighting very strange creatures, snuggling up with Dar—knowledge engulfing him like a tidal wave and carrying him away.

Dar let go of him, and he staggered and fell against the wall, feeling like he was going to pass out.

Sorry, but that's the fastest way to get you up to speed.

My name is Bren? What kind of a name is that? he wondered, just as it popped into his head that it was short for Brendan. Okay, maybe that made sense.

He understood things now, but in a jumbled, random way, and his head was pounding like the world's worst hangover. He understood Dar's swords and knives were literally energy he pulled out of his own body and put back when not in use because his people could do that. His people? Wow, he didn't know who they were right now. But they were not human. Bren thought of himself as half-human, which was a little disturbing because if he was only half-human, what was the other half? Not what Dar was, but that hadn't stopped them from being together, even though it should have. He had the sense that Dar was really weird, although compared to what, he didn't know.

Dar was standing in front of him, looking remarkably normal for a person who appeared to be an S&M robot. Can you walk?

Bren nodded carefully so as not to aggravate his headache. Why are you barefoot?

I like to keep in contact with the ground. Although I do see your point that Earth is not the place for such things.

Not unless you like tetanus.

Dar looked confused. What's that?

I have no idea.

Dar held Bren's arm and helped him as they walked out of the alley and onto a rather quiet street. In fact, it was an all but abandoned urban landscape of cracked sidewalks and slowly crumbling buildings, and Bren wondered if they'd returned to Earth after an apocalypse. Then a rusty Toyota drove by, blasting some loud, repetitive bass line, and he realized that no, they were simply in a bad part of town where no one in their right mind would be out on the street. Luckily, he was pretty sure right minds didn't apply to him and Dar.

Slowly, he was making sense of what Dar had transferred to him. They were on the run from…something—what, he had yet to figure out—and they'd come here searching for a particular kind of help. Bren was at a loss for details, but at least he knew more than he had a few minutes ago. He also knew he trusted Dar. After three months on the run together, two of them spent as…what, boyfriends?…Dar had earned that much.

Eventually they passed people on the street, people who never gave them a second look. Why not? At the very least, a barefoot guy should have attracted attention. Even a guy who looked like a potential mugger ignored them completely. Not that Bren would have ever mugged a guy who could pull a flaming sword out of his leg, but presumably this guy didn't know Dar wasn't human.

We're here, Dar said, pulling him toward a sagging ruin of an abandoned building, his hand lingering a moment longer than necessary. Where windows should have been were plywood planks, as well as graffiti and police crime scene tape. The door was hidden behind a metal plate and an industrial padlock, as well as a rather large Condemned sign.

You're kidding, right? Bren pulled back on Dar's arm. He was almost overwhelmed by a bad feeling as they neared the place. His skin was crawling. He wanted to leave as fast as possible.

Dar raised an eyebrow at that. Right, you can't see it. Just hold on to me—you will.

See what? A crack den?

Good, you're getting your memory back.

Was that a joke?

Did it sound like one?

Good question. I don't know.

Dar paused and looked him straight in the eyes. It seemed as if there were glints of energy inside his