Inferno teaser

I am just going to post a lovely UNEDITED teaser for Inferno then I am off to write, quick like a bunny. 

Olivia walked out of a smoldering building glowing bright. Wisps of smoke trailed behind her, a train of destruction.

“Clear,” she said in a voice that was hardly recognizable. Her eyes flickered in my direction where I held a low level demon, waiting to for her to question him. “Did he tell you anything?”

“I got another location.”

“Kill him,” she said, walking past us without slowing.

I nodded and slid the blade of an angelic knife across its throat. Blood gurgled through the cut and arterial spray went up like a geyser before black smoke poured from every opening in the body. The demon was dead and so was the human it inhabited. Wiping the blade on a dark rag, I slipped the knife back into its holder beneath my shirt and fell into step with her. She moved fast her eyes always focused ahead of her, always focused on our next move. The angel was a warrior through and through. She never stopped, she never rested, and she never relaxed. We were at war.

She stepped over a homeless person—not seeing him or not caring, hard to say. The man didn’t see her at all. No humans did. She hadn’t retracted her natural light since Marge died, not once. Olivia wore the angel like a blanket, reveling in its power and hiding any softer feelings deep beneath the angel’s strength and experience.

Be careful what you wish for was the phrase that most often went through my head. On one hand, I didn’t have to worry about Olivia anymore. The angel would take care of her, if her human soul had survived at all. We no longer had to run from Hell or demons. These days we took the fight to them, leaving nothing but smoke and ashes in our wake—no survivors human or otherwise. The angel had produced a small, plain dagger and gave it to me with the instructions to only use it on Heavenly creatures or abominations—aka demons and jinn. Where she kept these weapons, or how many she had, was anyone’s guess, but their existence certainly had changed our position from a flea on a dog’s back to the dog catcher. Hell was on the run, but I couldn’t help thinking it was temporary. Eventually they would find something she couldn’t defeat. She had no such concerns.

On the other hand, though, I barely caught glimpses of the woman I loved and even those felt more like 

figments of my imagination grasping at the smallest threads of hope that she was still in there. The love and warmth for everyone she exuded before had vanished. Our connection had been silent. It was definitely still there, but where she used to glow in my mind it was darkness now, a gaping hole completely shut off to me, but silently monitoring every thought I had. If I stepped out of line, would she kill me? 

-Liz