A tingle up my spine wakes me. Someone’s here. I’m a light sleeper. Have to be when you spend your childhood partially homeless. Vampires don’t play nice, no matter the age. They’ll go after something weak and unassuming so the meat is more tender and none of that bitter-tasting adrenaline floods our veins. I stay perfectly still, not even daring to breathe or move an inch. I slowly move my fingers off the table and toward my thigh. Unclip the gun, take it out of its holster, and keep my hand low as I slowly sit upright. I turn. Nothing. The metal man is stiff and rusting where I last left him. The skeleton hasn’t moved an inch. Outside. But that’s what woke me first: the bitter winds.

  The door is wide open, creaking on its hinges. Silvery moonlight trickles through the bullet holes in the walls and gushes in through the open doorway. Then I hear a crunch. The skitter of stones and the movement of dirt.

  Mortimer stirs awake when I slide off the stool, staying low. I put a finger to my lips then inch toward the door, my back against the wall and just inches away from the milky moonlight illuminating the shack. I breathe slowly, not letting my nerves or cotton-filled head get the better of me. I’m barefoot on the cold concrete floor. Have a body that’s aching and complaining the more I move. What’s that smell? Foul, bitter—something metallic and disgusting. It’s the saccharine after-smell that gives me a clue: Fallen Angel. Has to be. Angels smell terribly sweet, no matter what they’ve been doing, like their Holy Magic simply denies them getting dirty or looking like it, either.

  Their distant cousins, though, are a different story, because they’ve got just a droplet of Holy Magic.

  And a bucket load more of pent up ferocity and a taste for the more tender, human variety of meat.

  A shadow passes by the window, darkening the light shining on the old Droid. Closer. I swallow, getting saliva down my throat. No sword. One more magazine in my backpack to spare. Go for the legs, the stomach, then their head. Hoping it’s one. More than that, and I’m pretty fucked. An Angel’s junkie cousin doesn’t play fair.

  And neither do I.

  I grab a heavy metal wrench in my free hand, and swing it the moment the shadow gets close to the door. It connects with wet, gristly tissue. Teeth skitter out of its mouth and languid black saliva splatters onto the wooden table, burning holes right through it and spooking the life out of Mortimer. The Fallen Angel shrieks, its jaw now a cracked mess of blood and broken flesh. I stand several feet away from it. The thing leans against the doorframe, holding something tightly to its chest. A bundle of filthy rags that smoke and smolder and burn the second its spit touches it. But it doesn’t charge. It barely moves. It sways, bleeding, hunched and ugly. Never look a Fallen Angel in the eyes. Not like you would a Gorgon, but in the kind of way they’d make you go insane. Rumor has it that God (which one, who knows) didn’t much like when they sided with the humans, and for that, their souls were taken.

  And when that happens, the Underworld takes a keen interest in using your body as an amplifier.

  I use that word in a loose sense. A really loose sense. In actuality, you’re like a blister. A blister filled with pourings of Dark Magic and foul smells, rotting flesh that never sags off their bones entirely, and organs that rot inside their own bodies until they’re liquified messes slushing around in their sack-like guts. Even now, that’s all I can hear as it stands in front of me. I’ve got the gun raised and my eyes at its feet, because that’s what’ll give me—

  The Fallen Angel collapses in a heap, and then I hear the wail of something weird.

  Something that kind of sounds like a baby.

  I finally let myself pant and lower my arm, but I still train the AngelWeight at the thing’s head. Its long black hair splays around its skull, loose and filthy and reeking when I crouch close to it. It’s missing a wing. One of them is large and bony, with most of its feathers missing and littering the floor. The other is a stumpy mess, looking a lot like someone tore it out from the root, shredding bone and muscle and all kinds of ligaments. Old blood scarred the wound, and so do split stitches and busted thread. The crying, though, continues, wailing like I’ve never heard before, and mostly muffled. It’s coming from underneath the creature, who’d landed almost in a ball, its arms around the rags and its broken black claws gripping onto it tightly. Its head cracked open when it hit the floor. Black blood is burning into the concrete, making everything stink. Soon enough, its own body will eat itself up.

  And considering the amount of gunshot wounds, arrows, and deep, gushing claw marks littering its arms, its chest, its back and its gut, it’ll be a pile of grey sludge by the time I leave this place in the morning, too.

  For now, I very gingerly, using a metal rod, pry away the bundle of cloth and put the gun in my shorts’ waistband. I glance at the Fallen Angel one more time, then look at the bundle of shrieking, shaking pieces of cloth.

  Mortimer circles the thing, then says, “Well, are you gonna open it or what?”

  I suck air through my teeth. “If I do, it’ll become my problem.”

  “I think you’re one dead Monster too late for that.”

  I look at the bundle of cloth, really, really weighing my options. Don’t look at me like that! So what if it really is a baby? I can barely feed myself out here in the Barrens, what the fuck am I meant to do with a baby?

  Besides, a Fallen Angel playing stalk and delivering a baby to me is kinda nuts.

  Usually, they eat babies like you would chicken nuggets.

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  But the thing just won’t stop crying, and…Oh, fuck it.

  I unwrap the bundle of raggedy, filthy cloth as best as I can without touching the Fallen Angel’s blood. It takes a while, and whoever put this baby in here made sure nobody would be getting in here that easily, but finally, I had the bundles free, and I had a baby wearing an oversized t-shirt on the ground, and not just any baby, too.

  An Angel.

  “Hm,” I hum quietly, resting there on my knees, hands on my thighs.

  Mortimer peers at the baby, at its tiny fluttering wings underneath it and its almost iridescent skin. It glows a soft white-golden hue, and has purely golden eyes, too. Never seen one of them this up close before. Usually, Angels make sure nobody—especially Mages—see any of their children being born. Hell, I once met a guy who told me they don’t even give birth, but they kind of just make them in a magical stew of ichor and special herbs. But don’t take his word for it. The guy was on pixie dust at the time and barely had the sense of mind to piss without getting it on himself, too. But I guess how this little guy came about isn’t really my problem, you know?

  I look at the Fallen Angel. “Bastard gave me a job without paying me and then died.”

  Two days in a row of Kacey Summers getting scammed.

  “What the hell am I meant to do with this thing?” I ask. He’s still wailing, if only a little less now. Still fussy and annoyed, moving from side to side, but with a head that big, I doubt he’s going anywhere. “Like, really?”

  “Dunno, kid,” Mortimer says, sitting down beside me. “Maybe you need to take him somewhere.”

  “Yeah, sure, that could be Greater Europa or the freaking New Asian Republic.” I sigh and start to slowly get annoyed listening to all this wailing, like a drill going right through my ears. “I swear, maybe I’ll just throw—”

  “Did it cross your mind that maybe because of your Blessing, he got brought to you?”

  I spread my arms, exasperated. “How does that work?”

  “What’s with you sword types and not reading contracts and small print?” he mutters. “Like I said before you rudely interrupted me a few hours ago, the Knight Blessing was one of the First Mage’s Blessings out of Seven. You literally have the magic of someone who lived millennia ago and hasn’t been seen by Monster-kind ever since she died.” I keep staring at him. He sighs, then says, “Since I’m not getting through to you, let’s put it like this: you mean a lot of things to many different churches, religions, and races now. And that”—he says, waving his paw at the baby—“is a bi-product of that, because some Monsters are gonna want to gut you, others are gonna stay clear of you, and most of them are going to come looking for you, just so you can help them out with something, too.”

  So that’s why I didn’t come across as many Monsters as I was expecting? They were afraid?

  This is kinda awesome.

  But there’s also a baby here with me now, so not entirely awesome.

  “And what if I don’t want to take care of the freaking thing?”

  “You’re a Knight Pledge, you’re meant to—”

  “I think now is a good time for you to know that I haven’t pledged anything, so…yeah.”

  Mortimer gapes up at me. “Excuse me?”

  I shrug one shoulder. “I’m not liquid enough to pay for a Magic Grade test.”

  He springs onto his feet. “What?!”

  “Chill!” I say, scratching the back of my head. “I was workin’ on it, but then something came up. As soon as I get back home, I’ll scrape together some cash and head down to a facility to get tested, are you happy now?”

  “Am I happy?” he asks. “Of course I’m not! The fate of the world depends on you, and—”

  “Okay, look,” I say, putting my hands up in defence. “We’re not gonna get anywhere shouting at each other, and the more you shout, the more this little guy keeps crying, so how about we relax for once, alright?”

  He looks like he’s about to explode. “I’m calm. I am very calm. So calm, I’m freezing.”

  “Good,” I say, leaning over the baby. “Stay like that, and help me figure out how to get rid of it.”

  The hairs on his back stand in an instant. “You’re gonna kill it?”

  “Would you keep your voice down?” I hiss. “There are Monsters out there, alright? I don’t have enough bullets with me to keep myself alive if things go to shit, and I’m not looking forward to dying any time soon.”

  Mortimer, tubby bastard, keeps pacing back and forth. “Oh my Gods, this has to be a mistake.”

  I grab him by his ruff and shake him a little. “I need you focused and ready to dig a hole.”

  “I don’t even have the thumbs to hold a shovel!” he cries. “How did they pick you—”

  “I don’t know!” I snap. “I don’t fucking know, alright! But a baby Angel is gonna be a magnet for other Monsters who want a quick meal or something to stick their members into, and fuck me, that’s a lot worse than having to kill the baby myself, because trust me, cat, if a horde of Monsters comes my way, and I lose the baby, then you’ll be praying that I just killed it instead, because I’ve seen what they do to Angels, I know what they do to Angels, and sure, I hate them like everyone else, because they’re so up their own asses, thinking they’re just so great all the time, but I’m not heartless enough to let some Orc turn this baby into a meat pocket!” I’m panting. Breathing so hard that my throat burns. I swallow, then drag my forearm across my mouth, wiping away the spit. Sweating, too, and now I feel kinda woozy, so I drop him and put a hand to my forehead, letting my heartbeat really slow down. He stopped crying. I look at the baby through loose strands of my hair, through the sweat stinging my eyes, and he’s got his eyes on me, too, most of his tiny fist in his mouth and a giggle slipping past it. Little glowing bastard.

  I sit back and sigh to the ceiling, shut my eyes, then say, “I need you to tell me something.”

  “Sure,” he says quietly.

  “Why’s he got a small symbol floating above his head?”

  Mortimer gets onto my thigh, pressing his two front paws on me. “What kind of symbol?”

  I open my eyes again, staring at it. “A white crown,” I say, “with a golden laurel around it.”

  He looks at the baby, then back at me. “It’s your lucky day,” he says. “You just found a Marked.”