“Shame.” The newcomer rested a heavy hand on the hilt of his sword. He feigned a protruding lower lip in the briefest show of performative sympathy. “His first day on the job, too. You think after a millennium of training, you’d know better than to leave yourself open to so many points of vulnerability.”
I took one step back, claws still extended, teeth bared.
A shrug. “Oh well. Eliminate the weakest links in the chain.”
The snarl sat in my throat, an unrelenting rumble.
He looked me up and down, eyes sleepy, as if he found the interaction tedious. “You’re outnumbered, Your…Highness.”
My ear twitched with the sound of a new set of footsteps. The big cat’s body was mighty, but its muscular neck prohibited a quick glance over my shoulder. I twisted to see two men emerge from either side of my human’s home, all dressed in pale neutrals, all armed to the teeth.
“Come on. Step out of that tiger. Let’s have a talk. Man to…well…whatever we are.”
Even with my shapeshifting abilities, I didn’t think I could take three of them at once. The first takedown had been fresh blood to chum the waters. Between their swords and untested skills, my best bet, at least for the moment, was negotiation.
The terracotta roofs slowly populated with shadow as my legion congregated. Dozens became hundreds, became a darkened sea, two thousand deep. They stacked, piling, arcing overhead until they blotted out the sun. Perhaps they didn’t exist in corporeal form, but they were no more smoke than I was tiger. I could change my being, as could my fragments.
I liked our odds.
Another step back, and I shifted onto two legs, black on black, and hair as snowy as the newcomers’ rich glints of sand.
From over my shoulder, one of the others called, “We’re not here to kill you, for better or for worse.”
The last scoffed. “Your lucky day. Don’t fuck it up.”
I was no longer snarling. I had a legion, the patience of a hundred lifetimes, and the nonchalance of a god-killer. They had…sparkles.
I pointed to the third speaker. “I’m going to call you Lucky.” Rotating slightly, I jabbed my index finger toward the one in the center, announcing to the second speaker, “BW. Better or worse. It’s cute. I bet it’ll catch on.” Then, tapping my chin, I sized up the one posturing as their leader. The vanity required to build structured shapeware around your bulging muscles really was something. “And you, rippling pectorals, will henceforth be known as Tits. You’ve got a nice rack.”
Lucky chuckled. BW hissed at his brother in arms. The leader’s boredom evaporated. Tits lit up, as if truly enjoying the shift in energy.
He planted a foot over his fallen comrade. I matched him step for step as he moved, keeping the space between us equidistant.
“My friend here wasn’t lying. Today’s little meet and greet isn’t an attack. Consider this…a courtesy.”
We’d paced until Tits was poised between Lucky and BW. I wanted to be comforted that I’d corralled my enemies into one corner, but for all I knew they had a new set of armed meatheads wrapped in leather ready to storm in from the market behind me.
I was skilled in hand-to-hand combat, I had thousands of other-worldly loyalists ready to throw themselves on a sword for me, and should I need to live to fight another day, I could turn into a bird and dart from the scene before they’d even comprehended the unexpected flutter of wings.
I didn’t recognize the entities as native to Byzantium. They were too polished to be cryptids. Too confident to be fae. Too informal to be gods. I faced soldiers, to be sure, but the swords, the leathers, the hauntingly familiar perfume…
The memory connected to the smell hit me all at once.
My father’s old clothes.
His leathers, the white feathers he’d plucked from the ground, the weapon he’d encased in his office.
He spoke seldom of his past life, but the visual reminder strummed at my heart strings as I watched him move through the realm. He was kind, self-possessed, powerful, respected. He was a dreamer. A visionary. But the display reminded me: he hadn’t left from hate, or corruption, or anger. He’d been cast out, rejected by his King, abandoned by his people. I was certain some vestige of him still held a candle of that love, or the armor, the feathers, the reminders of a life he would never have back, would have been cast into the fire long ago.
Angels.
I slipped one foot behind, shifting my weight to the balls of my feet. “Ah, Tits, you came all the way down from Heaven to pay your respects? A letter would have done just fine.”
Lucky seemed to find me funny, which I appreciated. What was a comedian without his audience? BW shot him another scathing look, but Tits had no idea as to the disorganization in his ranks.
There it was.
Over the gore of spiced angel blood, stronger than the food stalls, more powerful than the old scents of Byzantium and the new odors of Constantinople combined. Clean air, higher than the mountain tops. Her soul’s shimmer had moved away from the topmost window, but she was in there. I knew it.
