Page 21 of Wolf of Ashes
It’s a place for cooking. My mother would have called it a ‘kitchen.’ I recognize the shapes of electrical appliances that could be ovens and stoves, although they’re more streamlined than the ones my mother described. She did warn me that technology was rapidly changing and that it would likely continue to change over the years.
A very large table is located in the center of the room, and on the other side of it stand two women.
One of them is holding a knife and chopping what I think are potatoes.
The other is mixing something I can’t yet see in a large metal bowl.
As soon as the door opens, their heads snap up and their white wings extend, gorgeous wings that beat suddenly and sharply, carrying the women up into the air even as the keeper’s dark light drifts toward them.
Whatever magic he’s conjured, it’s going to reach them too slowly for my liking.
I’m not about to wait for his dark light to do its work.
Even in my weakened state, I prepare myself to fight.
CHAPTERSIX
My black claws extend with asnap, their muted color making them harder for any opponent to see.
I know the basics of cutting throats and disemboweling bodies and how to avoid both happening to myself. Mom taught me how to fight dirty. If only I could have used those techniques on our jailer.
The younger of the two angels, despite lifting off the ground, is still holding on to her mixing bowl. It sits snugly against her left side while she grips the wooden spoon in her right hand as if it were a blade.
Some sort of milky-looking sauce splashes from the spoon as she points it from me to the keeper. “Stay back, dark beasts.”
Her voice is sickeningly ethereal. I can’t help but wrinkle my nose even as I stride toward her.
The older woman is far less outspoken, her hand shaking where she brandishes her knife in our direction. Maybe, despite the keeper’s assertion that these angels are fierce, she doesn’t know how to use the blade.
“Bright saints, have mercy on us,” she whispers, her wide eyes seeming glued to the keeper, her trembles extending all the way out to the tips of her wings.
A glance at him tells me why.
His features have morphed in the space of seconds.
Two blood-red horns project from the top of his head; his eyes have become glowing, crimson orbs; black clothing covers him from his neck to his ankles; and a scaled tail with a sharp tip at the end rises up behind him and flicks in the air.
Pure devil.
I can’t help my crooked smile as I draw to a halt only a few paces from the table. I was planning to leap up onto it and launch myself through the air at the angels, but my weak body defies me.
I brace for them to come at me, but it seems the keeper’s appearance has frozen them in their tracks.
As the younger angel coasts the air, edging backward, her gaze flies wildly from the keeper to the panthers. Then to the blade shaking in the other angel’s hand. Then to her wooden spoon—which she seems to finally realize is less-than-adequate for this task—before her darting gaze lands on me.
Her eyes widen even further when she seems to recognize the sash I’m wearing around my waist, her jaw dropping a little. “That doesn’t belong to you!”
Hmm.Interesting that she’s more outraged about the sash than she is worried about her life.
She brandishes the wooden spoon at me and I raise my eyebrows at it. “Really?”
Her cheeks flush bright red and her lips part as if she’s about to issue a retort.
Well, she has pluck, I’ll give her that.
Before she can make another sound, the keeper’s dark light reaches both angels.
The tips of the tendrils brush their chins and curl around their necks.
