"Yes!" Excitement flushed his cheeks, and he knelt beside me and rested his chin eagerly on the table's edge. "I knew you'd understand. Explain this . . . thing wrong with me. I must know!"

"Look, I've got no clue what you're on about, but if you want me to say anything that doesn't begin with f.u.c.k f.u.c.k and end in and end in off off, you'd better untie me right now."

"I cannot. You will try to escape. The others did."

Dread spiked my joints, spoiling my snarky facade. "What others?"

"The others. They were useless to me." He waved his silver-ringed hand at the darkness. His fingernails were spotless and white, and that incongruous fairy flame flickered again between his knuckles.

I lifted my head and strained to see. Vague outlines of boxes, wooden from the nailheads glinting in the ever-swinging light. Splintered edges, broken or torn in half. For the first time, I noticed the groans, the wails, the scratching. And on the ground, a dark shape, muddled like a heap of cloth, something silvery gleaming. . . .

I gulped. Wings. A body. Holy s.h.i.t. Holy s.h.i.t.

"I asked the fairy. He told me this." Fire licked lovingly around Akash's forearm, and nothing burned. He smiled, shattering and cruel. "Now I'm asking you."

Icy chill seeped from my pores. He'd stolen it all. Sucked up their power like a leech. The banshee's voice. The fairy's flame. Who knew what else? And what did he want from me? I couldn't sing a lover or spark a fire or do anything particularly cool. I just leaked. He couldn't want that. Could he?

I squirmed. My ropes weren't loosening, not with him watching. Time to play nicey-Ice. "No need for unpleasantness. Just tell me what you want and I'll play nice and we can all go home."

"You have power over Kane, my enemy. I must learn that. Show me."

Understanding glittered, and helpless laughter bounced from my lips. "You so have the wrong end of the cactus, loverboy. I don't have power over Kane. He had a hard-on for his ex-girlfriend. I helped him out. That's it."

"Girlfriend." Akash's eyes blazed whiter, and savage compulsion spelled my heart like a poisoned thorn.

My vision bubbled, and fear sc.r.a.ped in my teeth. Discomfort thickened my tongue with the urge to speak, and my words slurred in a rush. "Yeah. Y'know. Lover. Chicky. Arm candy. She dumped him. Look, why am I even telling you this-?"

"Kane has a lover?"

"Sure. I mean, I don't know him very well. But he's just like an ordinary g-Hyypf!"

Akash grabbed my throat, nails slashing. My tongue crushed, strangling my words and my breath, and black flecks dizzied my vision. My lungs jerked instinctively, longing for air. He thrust his face within an inch of mine, and his breath left a warm damp spot on my lips. "I am Akash from the sky. Kane is my enemy. You will tell me everything, or I will drink it from you as I did the others. Do you understand, yellow girl?"

My bones shuddered in trepidation and rage. I'd kill the b.a.s.t.a.r.d for this. But drinking didn't sound good. The others certainly hadn't fared well out of it. Compulsively I swallowed, bile scorching my membranes. I forced a nod, as much as I could manage in his grip.

He loosened just a little, and I dragged in delicious flower-tainted air. Relief cooled my skin. I gulped, and swallowed, and gulped again, my composure ripped ragged. "You're an a.s.shole, Akash from the sky. Beating up on fairies for fun. Hope you're proud of yourself."

He ignored me. "Tell me how you seduced Kane."

"Oh, so now with the personal questions, you f.u.c.king fr-"

"Tell or drink, Ice." He licked his lips, a hungry gleam in his eye, and caressed my throat, warm fingers running lovingly over my collarbone.

I shivered. "I didn't, okay? He seduced me."

"Why?" He slid his hand to my chest, fingering my skin.

"h.e.l.l, I don't know. Because he thought I was easy. Can you please not do that?"

"No. What power of yours did he wish for?" He peered closer, lifting my cotton top's neckline to examine me.

My nipples jerked tight under his scrutiny, and ire tangled with my frustration like sprung wire ripping at my nerves. I banged my fists against the table, maddened. "None! I told you! I don't have powers. I'm just a stupid little fairy girl."

He sniffed my breast, curious, and followed a scent trail down to my exposed belly. His breath tickled me, warm and peculiar. "You're a very pretty fairy girl."

My stomach roiled. "Oh, please. I mean, I'm flattered, but can you not-?"

"If you have no power, then why did Kane pleasure you? In return for what?"

"Jesus. You really are from the sky if you're asking me that."

"Yes." He flicked me his cosmos-blue gaze. So clear, so empty of pain or experience or life. Like he'd seen nothing, felt nothing. Never loved or hated or hurt. He just hungered. For knowledge, sensation, emotion, anything he could get.

Curiosity gnawed at my bones, and I wriggled and kicked, but it wouldn't let go. Danger clanged in my head, warning me, but I itched and I yearned and I couldn't help it. I strained my twitching nose forward and inhaled.

His flowery scent slammed into my sinuses like hot water, drowning me. My vision flickered, and images whirled and tumbled like a sandstorm.

The sun, dazzling in empty blue sky, the blinding white sweep of feathered wings. Disembodied whispers a bright comfort in his head. A cool white hand slides in his, soothing. Endless hours of reading, thinking, brooding in silence, a long sunlit room full of identical blond others dressed in white. He can draw beautifully, flowers and birds and waterfalls and dragonflies and the sun, always the sun. Now he sketches himself, the strangest thing, standing in a dark starlit garden alone. And then a cell, cool white walls only a few feet wide, a door that won't open no matter how abjectly he begs, the oppressive weight of silence like poison in his ears. Tears, cold on his cheeks and painful in his throat. He knows what it's like to cry. The cold blue eyes of his master, burning with rage beneath feathery white wings like an angel's. Jagged lightning flashes, blinding. Screaming in free fall, wind scorching his face. And then he's on his knees in black city dust, where a new h.e.l.lcrimson sun burns his skin and the air stinks of s.h.i.t and blood. He can't fly anymore, and he stares sh.e.l.l-shocked at the silent sky and doesn't know what to do.

The pictures shattered and swept away. I choked. Holy s.h.i.t. Holy s.h.i.t. Akash-from-the-sky was an angel? Did that mean heaven existed after all? What was it like? Were there fairies there, or was it just for humans, like everything else? Akash-from-the-sky was an angel? Did that mean heaven existed after all? What was it like? Were there fairies there, or was it just for humans, like everything else?

Thirst for answers parched my heart, before another, nastier thought struck me. Maybe heaven existed, and They didn't like us very much, having all that fun and selling our souls to demons and all. Maybe the folks upstairs really had come for Kane.

And They'd sent Akash, who for all his strength and wiles and pretty inked muscles didn't even understand why people slept with strangers sometimes.

They were so screwed.

I almost felt sorry for him, even if he had killed the guy who really owned that body, as well as the poor fairy on the floor and who knew how many others. I swallowed. "Look. It's not always an exchange, okay? Sometimes people just do it for fun. Because it feels good. Having someone you don't know . . . Well, that's part of the point. You can really let yourself go. No regrets, no after. Just now. Get it?"

His eyes brightened as he studied my hipbones. "So . . . Your power is that Kane did not know you?"

"I guess. Kind of."

He poked at my skirt, dubious. "I do not know you. Show me."

Dread crept beneath my skin like a p.r.i.c.kly rash. "You what?"

"Show me how you tricked him."

Horrid light dawned. I swallowed cold nausea. "You want me to . . . ?"

He grabbed my hand and kissed it, his lips a warm tingle on my knuckles. "Touch me like you did him. Trick me so I know how it's done. I must know."

I tried to yank away, but the rope savaged my wrist and his lips lingered, tasting me, his tongue curling sweetly around my thumb. I struggled, anger flaring. "That's got to be the worst line I've ever heard. Custard mountain, loverboy. In your dreams. No way."

He did something swift and hard under the table, and my wrist ropes jerked free.

My wings sprang tight and ready before I realized what was happening. I had only a second of freedom, and I wasted it stunned.

He grabbed my hands and jammed them down beside my head, pinning me harder than the ropes and just as effective. My wrists k.n.o.bbled on the table, bruising in his smooth fingers. His strong chest crushed my b.r.e.a.s.t.s, squeezing away my breath. His full mauve lips hovered close to mine. His eyes dazzled me, and that crooning banshee voice twinkled with persuasion. "Obey. Obey, or I drink. I'll have your secret one way or the other."

My blood boiled, searing my veins with electric fury. Heavensent or not, he was just another bully, using brute strength to get his way. If I defied him, he'd drink me, whatever that meant, but it couldn't be good.

Sacrifice my dignity for safety. Humiliation or pain. Story of my sorry life.

But safety wasn't all it was cracked up to be. If Indigo gave me one thing tonight, he gave me that. And pain didn't scare me anymore.

Satisfaction licked in my veins like deepest pleasure, and my anger filled me, s.e.xual, stroking me inside like a lover. I jerked my head forward, pressed my forehead into his and grinned at him, defiance blazing in my heart. "f.u.c.k you, Akash from the sky. Show me what you got."

He grinned back, sharp like a spike in my heart, and mashed his lips onto mine.

Blood, salt, dust. Hard lips dragging on mine, impossibly strong. I couldn't wrench my head away. His tongue squirmed between my lips, forcing into the gaps between my teeth, levering my mouth open. I clenched my teeth, but he forced my jaw apart, and the jagged edges of his teeth jammed in mine and I couldn't close my mouth.

Oh, this was worse than Joey's slimy webbed fingers. My face hurt. My lips sliced open on his teeth, and blood ran into my mouth and down my chin. His tongue raped me, hot muscle scouring my mouth, invading, tasting, searching. I squirmed my throat muscles to avoid him, but he wrapped his tongue around mine and pulled, hard.

The skin inside my mouth stretched horribly, like a sock pulled inside out. Pain seized my throat. I yanked my wrists, but he crunched his fingers tighter, and my bones grated, hot spikes thudding in. Sickness clenched a fireball in my stomach. Perversely I willed it to explode, to splash up into his mouth and taste really bad. Drink this, a.s.shole Drink this, a.s.shole.

He sucked, a banshee growl rumbling deep in his throat. Suction yanked my tonsils taut, and at last my stomach heaved, the horrid cramp a ferocious delight.

But it wasn't vomit that came up.

It was something fat and spiky like a hot rambutan, sc.r.a.ping inside my chest with angry claws as he dragged it out of me. It fought, this spiky thing, wriggling like a trapped rat, and ghastly terror watered my guts.

He was drinking me. Whatever fairy strangeness I had, he'd swallow it whole and throw the wrapper away.

A scream swelled my larynx. I fought his awful grip, thrashing my head and my arms and everything else I could move. But he just held me down and forced his tongue in harder.

My desperate cry smothered in his mouth. My jaw wrenched tight. The spiky ball ripped up inside my neck, tearing my throat to stinging shreds. My muscles weakened like melting jelly, and I tried to struggle, but my strength was gone. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't see. The sound of my own death screeched like claws on a blackboard in my ears, sharp with cruel mirth and gla.s.sy shards of mirror.

But my last desperate rageflame flickered bright. He wouldn't get me like this. Not without a fight. Mirrorbright courage flashed my muscles with one last defiant spark, and I sucked in a shuddering flower-scented breath through my nose.

Confusion, disbelief, the oppressive silence of his beloved sky. Loneliness, the raw disgust in some dark-haired waif's blue eyes tearing at his heart. Desperate yearning for squalid sensation he doesn't recognize or understand. The awestruck realization of helplessness with a demon's claws embedded in his throat. Solitude. l.u.s.t. Fear. Despair.

I exulted, blood rushing fatally from my brain. Just like a stupid little fairy girl, Akash from the sky. Just like the rest of us you despise so eagerly from up there. You've fallen to earth, and you're one of us now. You'll never win. Just like a stupid little fairy girl, Akash from the sky. Just like the rest of us you despise so eagerly from up there. You've fallen to earth, and you're one of us now. You'll never win.

For an instant, his grip froze, and he faltered.

And then he flew off me, his teeth jolting away from mine like I'd smacked him upside the head.

Cool air flooded my bruised mouth, the bloodstained taste of freedom. The spiky magicball sprang free with a thrash and a cheeky giggle, and dissolved bubbling in my stomach. I gasped for air. Fresh, delightful dust roughened my torn throat.

Relief washed me with warm droplets. I flopped my aching head to the side, an exhausted smile stinging my torn lips, and that warm relief crackled to ice on my skin.

Akash sprawled panting on his back in the dust, spit and my blood dripping from his lips. A bleeding blue-haired banshee knelt astride his throat, one shiny black-clad knee jammed into his larynx. Her pretty lips stretched in a vicious snarl. A familiar spiked blade shone wickedly in her hand.

My skin quailed. Mina. Joey DiLuca's girl.

Joey stalked forward into the light, his bra.s.s-topped black cane tapping on the concrete. He kicked Akash in the ribs, eliciting a soggy sigh. "Mirror, s.h.i.thead. Now."

I snapped my head back around, tension stopping my breath in my lungs like a cork. Joey stood with his back to me. Mina was distracted by her prey. Maybe they wouldn't see me.

I flexed my limbs, testing. Akash had untied my wrist ropes. Only ankles to go. Quietly, I pushed myself up.

Pop.

My wing joints, crackling as the pressure came off them.

I snapped still like an icicle. My heart squeezed tight, waiting for Joey to spin around and chew my skin off.

But he was too busy kicking Akash in the guts to notice me. He jammed his sharp cane into Akash's knee and twisted, fabric and skin tearing. "Mirror. Give."

Akash just stared up at him with a b.l.o.o.d.y grin.

Cautious relief calmed my nerves. Heh. You're an idiot, DiLuca. Pain's not gonna convince this guy. Too much like what he's after Heh. You're an idiot, DiLuca. Pain's not gonna convince this guy. Too much like what he's after.

Inch by inch I stretched forward, keeping my sore wings flat to raise no shadow.

"Mirror or you die." Joey's voice slithered, reptilian, and Mina crooned happily, toying with her knife's edge at the metal studs in Akash's eyebrow. Her own were torn ragged, missing, her lip and nose scabbed. Indigo did that at Quang's. I couldn't bring myself to care.

My spine flexed, thankfully smooth and silent now, and I stretched forward, making myself as small and low as I could. My b.r.e.a.s.t.s slid down my thighs and squashed into my kneecaps, and I slid out a stealthy arm and curled it under the table. p.r.i.c.kly rope brushed my fingerpads.

Akash squirmed on the ground with a smooth, s.e.xual groan that gave me shivers. "You can't kill me, h.e.l.lsp.a.w.n. But I'd like your body. I'd peel the skin from it and let the snake out."

I strained forward, searching for the knot. There, k.n.o.bbly and damp, the rope fat with my water. I picked at it with urgent claws, my pores sweating cold despair. d.a.m.n thing wouldn't come undone.

"Just slash the f.u.c.ker," Joey ordered. Metal scythed. Blood spattered, that distinctive runny ketchup sound. Mina giggled, and Akash howled, a horrid mix of laughter and tears.

I wiggled my claws in tighter, working the knot loose. The rope inched aside, agonizingly slow.

"Last chance, pretty boy. Mirror." Shadows dipped as Joey knelt.

Akash spluttered wet laughter. "Come take it."

At last, I wormed my claw in and dragged the knot apart. The rope slackened, and I slid silently off the table onto the floor, my heart pounding a hole in my rib cage.

The table's shadow shrouded dark, and for a few seconds I lay there, blinded, my ragged breath frighteningly loud in my ears. Free, wings and spiky magic gutball intact. But Joey and Stalkerboy would fight it out and keep the mirror, and I'd be back where I started. Unless . . . What was that?

I squinted. My eyes adjusted, and shapes slowly emerged on the floor in front of my nose. Pebbles, a discarded nail, dusty tumble-weeds collecting under the table. And beside them, a shadowy, glinting steel ball.

Mirror. Tumbled from Akash's pocket when he fell. Hiding under the table for me to find.

I stared, my pulse skipping. The mirror rolled a few inches to the right and wobbled, beckoning.

Breathless, I snaked out a swift arm. The metal crooned softly in my hand, a warm and satisfied noise I now knew only I could hear.

-Knew you'd be back,- it whispered, smugness dripping like acid. it whispered, smugness dripping like acid.

The urge for revenge itched my sticky palms. Anger shook my forearm. I burned to throw the ugly thing against the wall and watch it shatter. Teach you to screw with my mind, squidgy. Teach you to screw with my mind, squidgy.