to crash about and get caught—the angels and vampires on guard within will be dangerous powers.”
She had the feeling he was talking as much to the thing inside her as explaining what they were about to do. But the otherness didn’t want to listen. It shoved so hard at her skin that she thought it was going to explode out of her like the ball of deadly energy that had erupted out of Daisy.
No. This is for both of us. Daisy, who never had a chance. And Holly, who came back from the dead.
She was a person.
Not a suitcase taking this . . . echo of Uram from one place to another.
“Go,” she said to Venom through gritted teeth, conscious that her control over the entity within wasn’t absolute.
Viper green eyes connected with hers before he moved silently down the hall, his hand linked warm and strong with hers. He broke contact only when they reached a corner and had to hug the wall before it to check if the way forward was clear. Venom looked very carefully around before jerking back his head.
He held up two fingers, then formed the shape of wings with his hands.
Holly pointed to her eyes and made a questioning face. Her mesmerism didn’t work on angels—Izak, the youngest angel in the Tower, if you didn’t count Ellie, had allowed her to try to capture him, the experiment supervised by Ash and Dmitri. It had proved a total failure.
Venom, however, was older and stronger. Now, he made a motion with his hand that she read as there being a fifty-fifty chance of success. Given his strength, it meant the two angels up ahead were old, possibly even people he recognized.
The wings inside her shoved.
Deadly cold flowed over her, her hands tingling and flexing without her conscious volition. I can kill those angels. The thought was as clear as if someone had spoken in her ear—and the voice wasn’t hers.
Fuck.
Holly wasn’t about to become a goddamn zombie. She lifted Venom’s wrist to her mouth and bit down without warning. Blood potent with power . . . blood that was deeply familiar hit her bloodstream, thrusting out the acid green mist crawling through her veins. Flicking her tongue over the wound to help close it, she released the strong weight of his wrist. Thank you, she said with her eyes when she met those of a far wilder green.
He ran his knuckles over her cheek, then took out a small mirror from his pocket. As she watched, curious, he held that mirror low by his leg and angled it—Oh. It allowed him to see around the corner without having to stick out his head.
Clever.
It was two minutes later that he said, “Now.”
Holly moved, Venom at her back. The upper arches of the wings of the angels who’d stepped off the railingless mezzanine were still visible, the central core of this part of the stronghold a vast empty space that soared to the ceiling far above. If the angels looked up, Holly and Venom were screwed, but the two men appeared to be focused on landing on the polished wood of the floor below. Holly ran with all her inhuman speed, but the passage was long and the angels landed before she reached the other end.
Falling to the carpet as close to the wall as possible, she began to crawl.
Voices drifted up from the ground floor, but the words were difficult to understand. She didn’t try, just focused on her destination and kept going. Now that she was going in the right direction, the serrated wings inside her chest had stopped trying to breach her flesh, but she could still feel them, lying just beneath her skin.
The distinctive susurration of wings, as if one of the angels was rising back up.
The end of this part of the mezzanine was too far for her to win a race against a being with wings. Holly rolled left and into an open doorway. Venom rolled in a heartbeat later and they moved behind the door to flatten themselves against the wall. Holly’s heart thudded hard, but below that was another pull far more visceral. Whatever it was that drew her, it was now so close that it was a hand around her throat that attempted to override her free will and haul her closer.
Holly thought of Mia, of their mom and dad and brothers, of Ash and Janvier, even Arabella and Zeph.