Death's Angel: A Novel of the Lost Angels

by Heather Killough-Walden

  Or maybe it would. If Sophie hadn’t been born, then Juliette would still be an archess and the Adarians would still be out there and the man in white might still be playing whatever game he was playing, but playing it with Juliette instead. Or Eleanore. Or some other woman who had been born the archess instead of Sophie.

  And Azrael would be chasing after someone else.

  Sophie felt a rush of heat go through her at the thought of the tall, dark archangel. She was powerless against the image of him, dressed in black, surrounded by an aura of power and calm and unimaginable strength. She caught a whiff of his scent, like night—sandalwood and leather and soap, and her mouth watered. She saw his long, thick jet-black hair and felt his vivid eyes bore into her. The chiseled perfection of his features threw her for a moment, as she imagined him staring at her from behind her own lids . . . and speaking her name.

  “Soph?”

  Sophie jumped a little and opened her eyes, realizing that she’d shut them in the first place. “Yes?” she asked, blushing as if Juliette had been privy to the scene in her head.

  “Where were you planning on going?”

  Sophie turned to look at her friend and noticed that Juliette was staring at something down the hall. Damn, she thought as she glanced back and caught the edge of her suitcase on the bed. It sat open, its contents partly folded.

  The truth was, she’d had no idea where she was going to go. She only felt that she needed to get away—from Frisco, from the bay, from . . . Azrael.

  She was positively obsessed with him. Her most recent thoughts proved as much. She had hated being obsessed when she’d thought it was her own doing, her own weak will that left her drooling over the lead singer of Valley of Shadow like some lovesick teenager. But now that she knew she was an archess and that she was destined to feel this way about the man, it was worse. It was worse because she realized that she had never had any control over the fact that she would one day end up lusting after the Masked One. She’d never had any say in whom she was going to fall in love with. She’d never been given any freedom.

  And that pissed her off.

  Thunder rumbled overhead again, closer still. A storm was coming.

  Juliette glanced up at the sound, her brow furrowed. Sophie ignored her. She was too wrapped up in the feeling of helplessness that she had where Azrael was concerned.

  She resented him. She lusted after him and dreamed of him and fantasized about him . . . and a part of her felt as though it hated him. She needed to get away from the power he had over her. And the only way she knew to do that was to run.

  The heat in her wrist spread up her arm, tingling pleasantly. She ignored that too, despite the fact that she could see Juliette staring at her hand. She was caught up in her emotions now—damn everything else to hell.

  Running was what Sophie had done when she was fourteen. She killed her foster father, and when it was done, she awakened on that cemetery hill to find herself alone. She didn’t remember how she’d gotten there. There was a smoking gun still hot in her hand. She had no idea where it had come from or what she’d used it for, but a horrible feeling crept along her skin and brought her to a decision: whatever she’d done, she wasn’t going to hang around long enough to find out.

  She took off then, shoving the gun into her jeans and heading into the woods that surrounded the graveyard. She buried the gun, not knowing what else to do with it. And then, when she was finished, she went back to her foster mother’s home.

  Sophie realized now that when she’d gone home, she’d expected to find only her foster mother. No father. It was like it had always been that way. And the truly bizarre thing was that her foster mother felt that way as well. Neither of them mentioned Sophie’s torn jeans or the grass and mud in her hair. It wasn’t like her foster mother would have noticed these things anyway, but in the light of the reality Sophie was now faced with, there was no denying that her foster mother’s actions that day had been beyond bizarre. It was as if Sophie’s trauma-induced amnesia had been infectious. Neither of them mentioned anyone named Alan Harvey. No one did. Not the neighbors, not the unemployment office or the utility companies, not the orphanage—no one. As far as the world was concerned, Alan Harvey had never existed.

  Life went on and, for a change, there were no horrible men in it. At sixteen, Sophie’s foster mother moved to Pennsylvania and Sophie enrolled in high school there. On the side, she landed a job in Pittsburgh as a maid to make extra money. Two years later, she met Juliette.

  And now here she was, in a life that seemed utterly foreign to her. She felt like she should consider herself the luckiest woman in the world. She had magical powers, she was an angel, she had an awesome best friend and a love interest who was quite literally the most famously charismatic man on the planet.

  She also felt completely confused and positively furious. What the fuck had happened that day? What was going on with her life? Who the hell was in charge here?

  Her existence was a circus, replete with a smoke-and-mirrors magic act, and she was both clueless and powerless as to how it played out.

  How dare the world do this to her? How dare it leave her to fend for herself as a child and then, when it mattered least, pop her with powers she’d always needed? Just when she was about to be strapped to someone who would still be more powerful than she was?

  And that was why she had been planning to run.

  When she turned back around, it was to find Juliette staring fixedly at her. The hazel-eyed archess glanced down at Sophie’s hand. Sophie followed her gaze to the dandelion star on her palm. Reflexively, she curled her fingers and tucked her hand under her leg.

  Lightning crashed just outside the windows. It was time for Juliette to go.

  * * *

  Sophie had every reason to be angry. Juliette had always known that her best friend’s life had been hard—very hard. But now that she knew the whole story, she was baffled by how well adjusted Soph had always been. That Sophie could even function like a normal human being after having killed the man who nearly raped her at fourteen was beyond Juliette. She’d always had immense respect for Sophie Bryce, for her strength, her will, and her refusal to let life get her down. Now that respect was amplified to a heartrending degree and Juliette could not blame Sophie for her fury and resentment at all.

  But . . . something was wrong. There was more to this. Not only did the fact that no one remembered Sophie’s foster father’s existence spell “supernatural” in Juliette’s book, but there was an aura around Sophie now that was distinctly un-Sophie-like. Granted, the girl was no doubt beyond stressed out. But this was different.

  The man Sophie described—the man in white—well and truly frightened Juliette, and she had never even met him. What he’d done to the Adarians would have been enough. But when Sophie told her what he’d also done to the innocent teenager, coupled with her description of the white, perfectly tailored suit, and the nearly white color of his ice-blue eyes, Juliette had felt an unpleasant sensation unfold within her. It felt a little like the beginning of a panic attack. There was a buzzing sensation, a tightening in her chest, and her heart felt heavy, as if it was turning to lead.

  She didn’t like Gregori. Hell, she didn’t even like thinking his name.

  She would rather refer to him as the man in white.

  To make matters worse, it was becoming increasingly clear to Juliette that the man in white had done something to Sophie. The mark on the inside of Sophie’s hand had never been there before. Unless Soph had gone out and tattooed a dark star on her palm at some point after the wedding at Slains Castle, the mark was new—and it wasn’t Sophie’s doing. In fact, it looked an awful lot like the stars-for-pupils that Sophie had said Gregori possessed.

  It was unnerving. And so was the way Sophie was behaving.

  Anger would have been one thing. Juliette could have understood that—empathized with it—and forgiven it easily. But Sophie was distracted and becoming more so by the second. Sophie Bryce
had never been the airhead type. She’d never been anything but quick-witted, full of energy, and sharp as a tack.

  Yet even that, Juliette could have dismissed as probably having to do with lack of sleep and an overwhelming boatload of information and nastiness being dumped on her best friend’s head.

  What she couldn’t forgive or dismiss or even understand was the way Sophie was closing herself off from Juliette.

  Right now.

  “Jules, I just need some time to think. Please.”

  Juliette wasn’t stupid. Sophie was trying to get rid of her. “You do know that if you leave, you won’t get far. Not with Az on your tail.”

  Sophie blinked, and her expression hardened. Her beautiful golden eyes felt like amber in that moment, and whatever intentions she’d had were now frozen within them. “Please leave, Jules.”

  “It isn’t safe out there, Soph. The Adarians are bad enough. But this Gregori guy?” Juliette flinched, unable to help herself. She couldn’t stop seeing what he’d done to the Adarians in that cell on Alcatraz. “Azrael will never leave you unprotected. Not now. I’m sorry, Soph, but you just happen to have gotten paired up with the most intense archangel in existence. The man was willing to go after you during the day.” She shook her head, her eyes wide. “It would have killed him, and Max had to seriously talk him down.”

  Sophie stared at Juliette, and as she absorbed what Juliette had told her, the expression on her face softened a little. The amber in her eyes melted, appearing warmer, like honey. She seemed to be momentarily at a loss for words, but then she flinched and Juliette noticed that she clenched her fist harder where she hid her hand beneath her tight blue jeans.

  “Jules,” Sophie said, looking away. “When you first met Gabriel, did you warm to him right away?”

  Juliette realized that Sophie already knew the answer to that question. Soph was well aware of the power struggle Juliette and Gabriel had gone through in Scotland a few months ago. She was only asking the question to make a point. Juliette wasn’t sure she wanted to know what point that was.

  “No,” she replied.

  “No,” Sophie echoed. “And he wasn’t a vampire.”

  “No,” Juliette admitted.

  “And you had never killed anyone,” Sophie added.

  Sophie looked back up at Juliette then, and saw a new expression on her lovely features. It was a look Juliette had never before seen there.

  “No.” Juliette’s voice fell, along with her hopes. “I had never killed anyone.” She’d never had real cause to feel fury toward Gabriel the way that Sophie might feel toward Azrael and the archangels. As an archess, Sophie had possessed the intrinsic ability to stop her foster fathers from attacking her all those years ago, but her archess powers hadn’t actually appeared until now. She most likely felt cheated. She probably felt as if she’d never had control over her own life. And she no doubt blamed the archangels and their creator for this sense of helplessness.

  Juliette fell silent, unsure of what to say or how to say it.

  “Jules, I need some time alone.”

  Juliette straightened, gazing long and hard into her best friend’s beautiful eyes. She saw a desperation there, a sadness, and a pain. Maybe Sophie was right. Maybe the solitude and time she was asking for were what she needed more than anything else right now.

  But Juliette couldn’t overlook the fidgeting and the twitch of Sophie’s right hand. The man in white was pulling her strings; Juliette would have bet her castle on it. This was beyond her capabilities. It was something she couldn’t handle alone. It was time to call in the big boys.

  “Okay,” she said softly, rising from her seat on the couch. “I’ll leave you. But please remember that I love you, Soph. You’re a part of us now—and you’ve always been a part of me.” She leaned over and pulled Sophie into a fierce hug. She felt her friend relax against her, absorbing the warmth of the embrace. And then Juliette let her go and headed for the door.

  She didn’t wait for Sophie to walk her out or close the door behind her. Instead, she left the apartment and went directly to the nearest alleyway. Once there, she glanced over her shoulder to make certain she was alone. Then she turned toward a metal door in the wall that led to a small shop beyond. The door was for employee use only, according to the white and red metal sign hanging above it.

  Since Eleanore and Juliette had each “earned their wings,” they had been capable of using the mansion for transportation, just as their archangel mates could. Max’s thoughts on the matter were that the mansion had been created for the archangels to use as they searched for their archesses. It wouldn’t make any sense to limit its use to the archangels once the archesses had been located; therefore each archess was able to use it as well.

  The mansion’s transporting powers were available for Juliette to use now, just as they were for Eleanore. All she needed was a door.

  Juliette raised her hand toward the door in front of her in the alley and opened a portal to the mansion.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  The sun would soon dip into the Pacific, but no one could tell. The sky was laden with clouds, heavy and dark. Thunder rumbled along the West Coast and the wind sent sailing ships scurrying for the harbor.

  Azrael tossed in his sleep as images flashed across his mind. He felt an anger stirring his blood as if it were his own—but it wasn’t. It was Sophie’s. He knew it as if she were a part of him, body and soul.

  In the distance of his dreamscape, lightning split the sky and tore holes in a land parched and destroyed. Wind howled, rushing through his hair. He reached out to settle it and it fought him, but eventually obeyed.

  He heard a gunshot and turned toward the ancient cemetery sprawling behind him. Black dandelions coated the once green hills, surreal and beautiful and terrifying. Fear gripped him hard and cold, squeezing his soul in its taloned fingers. To step into another person’s mind and see the headstones was bad enough. To dream of them himself . . .

  He needed to wake up.

  It was too soon; he knew this, but Sophie’s spirit called to him, shuffled through his subconscious, and unsettled his mind. He was sinking into death, into what he once was. He needed her. His sunshine. Only she could pull him back from this precipice.

  Ten minutes before the sun set, Azrael opened his eyes where he lay on the stone altar that served as his bed. At once, the torches that lined the walls leapt to burning life as if they recognized the conscious presence of their liege.

  The shadows shifted and Azrael rose in one fluid motion, his gold eyes glowing hot in his face. Despite the instant weakening effect it had on him to be moving even this late in the day, the vampire archangel was blurring through the corridors of the mansion at an incomprehensible speed well before the final rays of sun winked out and twilight took the land.

  His brothers were waiting for him, as were Eleanore and Juliette. The curtains and blinds had been drawn tight; they’d known he would be up early.

  “Where is she?” he asked. It was all he cared about.

  Juliette rose from the couch. Her expression was pained, worried. Gabriel stood beside her, his well-muscled arms crossed over his chest. His silver eyes flashed warily. Alarm bells went off in Azrael’s head, deafening in their warning.

  No one answered his question.

  “There is much we must discuss, Azrael,” said Max. He stood at the opposite end of the couch, once more dressed in the brown three-piece suit he normally wore. A serious expression settled over his features, and in his hands he held one of the four gold bands that the Old Man had given them so long ago. The bracelets possessed the power to trap a supernatural being’s abilities within their body, rendering them useless. The fact that Max was bringing one of the bands out now no doubt meant that Az would soon be faced with an archess who would fight him.

  “I just left her a little while ago,” said Juliette, drawing his attention. “She’s fine,” she assured him. Then she shook her head. “But the situation is not good.”


  * * *

  The final minutes of the day had taken a proverbial bite out of Azrael’s constitution, but he’d healed rather resolutely once the sun had gone down. And then he’d fed.

  Now he stood on the roof of the apartment complex directly across from Sophie’s and let the angry wind whip through his hair and trench coat. Beside him stood Michael and Max. Gabriel and Uriel had remained at the mansion with their wives. They’d insisted that the archesses stay behind, and because none of them knew how powerful their new enemy was, the archangels remained with them. The archesses could not be left alone.

  Behind Azrael on the rooftop were the members of Valley of Shadow, his oldest friends and created vampires. Uro, for his part, had been the fortunate recipient of the healing powers of two archesses and had not a single scar to show for the attack Abraxos had mounted against him. He was as handsome as ever, but the event had struck a serious chord with them all. They knew what they were up against now and it was far more powerful than any of them would have believed. It went without saying that Uro was on guard, and his band mates echoed the sentiment. If Abraxos had been more than Uro could handle, the man in white who had so effortlessly killed the Adarians was an unmeasured threat.

  Az peered down at the windows of Sophie’s second-story apartment. There had been no movement within the rooms, but he could feel her there. She was like a piece of a star, bright, volatile, and barely contained. He could also feel the presence of his other subjects all around him, on rooftops and bridges for miles in every direction.

  Down below, on the street in front of Sophie’s building, stood Randall, Monte, and Terry. Vampires preferred dark clothing, and their figures blended with the shadows around them. As one, they looked up, their eyes glowing as they locked gazes with their king.

  They were waiting. Everyone was waiting to see what Azrael would do.

  The good people of the world were tucked inside this night. The storm raged, windows rattled, and the tide brought with it froth-filled, crashing waves that beat against the piers and threatened anchored boats in their docks. The air was cold; to a human, it would have been frigid, leaving rime where the salt water coated the wood of the boardwalks.