Avenging Angel

by Cynthia Eden

  The ground seemed to shake beneath him. Not stopping. He dove for the side of the road.

  But those bright lights—that big vehicle—followed him. The front fender slammed into him, and Paul went flying. When he hit the ground, he heard the snap and crunch of his bones.

  And the vehicle stopped. Reversed.

  Paul tried to drag himself farther across the road. He tried to call out because someone might still be on the radio. “Officer down! Officer—”

  The vehicle—an SUV—hit him again. The tires rolled right over his legs, and Paul screamed. Everything went black and all he knew was agony. So much pain.

  Too much.

  Someone hit him. Punched him in the face. His eyes had been closed—had he passed out?—but Paul’s eyes flew open at that impact.

  “You’re not dying, kid.” That voice. He knew that voice. Detective Chance had come back to help him. He must have seen the accident! He must have—

  “I’ll let you live a few more hours.” Tanner Chance smiled down at him, and Paul’s blood iced. “But you won’t escape me for too long.” Then Chance drove his foot into Paul’s side. “That’ll fucking teach you,” the detective snarled, “to ever question me!”

  Paul spat up blood.

  Chance kept smiling. And kicking. And Paul realized Tanner wasn’t there to save him.

  He’s the one. Only one vehicle was at the scene. An SUV. Tanner had come back all right.

  The detective had come back to kill him.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  “So what happens now?” Marna asked. It was still dark, and she still wanted Tanner.

  Wanting him was becoming natural for her. She didn’t think about it. Didn’t question it. She just . . . did.

  “Now it’s our turn to hunt.”

  She glanced at him. Saw the hard line of his jaw. “What do you mean?”

  He was driving fast, his eyes on the road, not her. “It means we both know that vamp has info on what’s happening in this town.”

  That vamp. Riley Kane. “You want me to give him my blood.” She hadn’t expected that. Marna swallowed. She didn’t know if she could do it. The guy’s teeth, in her flesh? “Tanner, I—”

  “Hell, no.” He tossed her a fast glance that called her crazy. “We’re gonna track that vamp down to his hole, and we’re gonna make him tell us everything he knows.”

  Oh, yes, she liked that plan much better.

  His stare slid back to the road. “It’ll be daylight soon. We’ll wait for the sun to rise, then we’ll find him.”

  Because vamps were always weaker during the day. So weak, they were almost human.

  But weren’t they overlooking kind of an obvious point? “How do we find him?”

  He laughed, and the deep rumble had her tensing. Had she ever heard him laugh before? Marna couldn’t remember him laughing. She liked his laugh. It made her almost want to smile.

  “Easy, baby. All I have to do is follow my nose.” Shifter senses. She realized that he was taking them back to the Quarter. He’d circled down some narrow streets and was returning to the city. “I’ve got his scent. I won’t be forgetting it anytime soon.” Anger roughened the words. A promise of retaliation. “All we have to do is follow the smell of blood and death all the way back to that vamp’s hiding spot.”

  Then they’d find out what secrets the vampire held.

  Two police cars raced past them, lights flashing.

  Tanner frowned, but kept driving.

  And Marna wondered just what they’d have to do in order to make Riley talk.

  She’d seen plenty of tortures in her time, and they’d always made her . . . sick.

  The other angels hadn’t seemed to care what they saw. They’d witnessed carnage. Hell on earth. Heard screams and pleas.

  They’d been unaffected.

  She hadn’t.

  “Bastion, please, I don’t want to do this.” Her broken confession from so long ago. He’d been the only one she told. She’d turned to him because she’d thought he could help her. He’d been higher in the angel rankings. So powerful.

  But there’d been nothing he could do.

  “What, Marna? Do you want to fall?” He’d shaken his dark head. “Life down there, for us, it’s agony. You would never survive being earthbound.”

  Her hands fisted.

  They were snaking through the back streets now. Tanner had lowered his window.

  The better to catch the vamp’s scent?

  Shifters and their noses.

  “What was Bastion to you?”

  Marna blinked, surprised by the question—and the deadly intensity that had entered Tanner’s voice.

  “He meant something, I could tell.” He wasn’t looking at her. “I couldn’t see the bastard, but I smelled him.” A muscle jerked in his jaw. “And I recognized that scent. That one, he came to Cody’s when you were hurt.”

  Yes, Bastion had come to her during those terrible days. He’d promised to help her.

  But what could he do? He still had heaven.

  She had hell.

  “Bastion.” She sighed when she said his name. Was she sad about what she’d lost? Or sad that her friend had seemed pained just to look at her?

  “You . . . care for him.”

  “Yes.” Another fault. Angels didn’t form attachments, but she had. Humans could love. Why couldn’t angels? “He tried to watch out for me.” How many times had he covered for her? When she’d been afraid? Weak?

  “And now he’s following you.”

  That had her shaking her head, then realizing he couldn’t see the move. “No, he was just there—” Because you killed a vampire. Ripped his throat wide open. Um, better not to think too long about that particular visual. Her stomach was already clenching. “He was just there to ferry a soul.”

  “And the other times?”

  Now she was lost. “What other times?”

  “I’ve caught his scent before. At my house. In that bar last night. He’s been watching you.”

  Tanner was wrong. “I didn’t see him.” And she would have. She could always see her own kind, even without her wings.

  “Maybe he didn’t want you to see him.” He parked the SUV on the side of the road, near a line of broken down buildings that hadn’t recovered after the storm. “Maybe he just wants to see you.” There was an edge in Tanner’s voice that had her tensing. Then he glanced at her, cutting her with his bright stare, and said, “The same way I did.”

  “Wh-what are you talking about?” The sun was rising, sending streaks of pink and gray across the sky.

  “I had to watch you, too. You didn’t know. You never know when danger is close.”

  He’d been watching her? “Why?” Her nails dug into the leather seat.

  “Someone had to make sure you were safe.” He turned away. Climbed from the vehicle.

  She hurried out and rushed to confront him. “Making sure I was safe?” Marna shook her head and stabbed her finger into his chest. “Or making sure I wasn’t killing?” She knew how the guy’s mind worked. He was a shifter, a paranormal, but a cop, too. He’d been staking her out, just like he did the other criminals he hunted.

  One shoulder lifted in a shrug as Tanner admitted, “Maybe a little of both.”

  Right. Figured. She turned away and rubbed her arms. Her gaze raked over the dark lines of buildings that rose into the sky. So many boarded-up windows and doors. Giant KEEP OUT signs. Yes, this place was a vampire paradise if she’d ever seen one.

  “Or maybe,” Tanner’s voice drawled, “maybe I just wanted to make sure you weren’t fucking anyone.”

  Her jaw dropped. She snapped it closed and whirled on him. “What I do isn’t—”

  He put a finger to his lips. “He’s close.”

  Her eyes narrowed. He was just trying to—

  “There.” He pointed to the second building. Tanner’s nostrils flared. “I can smell him.”

  She could only smell the scent of decay and garbage. No
t exactly pleasant.

  Tanner marched toward the building. He grabbed the heavy wood in front of the door and yanked.

  It broke away like a twig snapping. Sometimes, she forgot just how strong the panther was.

  He shoved open the door with a push of his hand, splintering any lock that might have been there. “So much for going in quietly,” she muttered.

  But Tanner was already lunging forward, racing into the dark interior, and she scrambled to keep up with him.

  Hurry. Hurry.

  Tanner didn’t waste time. Just ran straight for a door on the left side of the building. He kicked it open, and when Riley lunged for him with a silver blade, Tanner just laughed.

  Marna lifted her hands, ready to send fire racing toward the vamp, only . . . nothing happened.

  What? Where were the flames?

  Riley sliced out with his blade. Tanner kicked it aside. “That the best you got?” Tanner wanted to know.

  Marna’s head jerked back toward them. They were in an apartment, of sorts. Big bed. Heavy oak desk. No other vamps that she saw, but wasn’t Riley enough of a threat?

  The blond’s brows rose. “I was wondering when you’d get here.”

  “Yeah.” Tanner’s claws tore from his fingers. “And I bet you were hoping we’d be dumb enough to arrive before dawn.”

  The vamp’s mouth kicked up on the right. “I was.”

  Tanner inhaled. “You’ve got no backup in this place. No other vamps for you to throw in my way this time.”

  Marna dropped her hands and stepped forward. “You’ll tell us what we want to know—”

  Tanner lifted his claws. “Or you’ll be losing that head of yours.”

  The vamp’s half-smile didn’t fade. “You think death is going to scare me?” He laughed then. “I watched my whole family get slaughtered by vampires. My father, mother, my wife. Everyone died, and guess what? I got to turn into one of the murdering bastards. For two hundred years, they led me around on a puppet string, had me killing . . . torturing.”

  He grabbed his head between his hands and closed his eyes. “I got as fucking far away from the Born as I could, but I can still hear him in my head!”

  Marna’s breath caught. Born. She knew the term. Most vampires were humans who became infected with the vampire virus. That’s all it was, too—a virus. One that had been transmitted through a very, very bad mistake millennia ago.

  Those humans who were transformed, they were called the Taken. But every Taken was linked to the vampire who’d made him or her. All Taken could be traced back to the Born.

  A rare few were actually born as vampires. They aged like any other human, until about their twenty-fifth year. Then the change came. The virus in their bodies activated, and they became immortal.

  “They were supposed to be guardians.” She’d heard this whispered story once, from Bastion. Stronger than most of the other paranormals, the Borns should have kept the others in check. They hadn’t.

  Power and bloodlust had driven most of them insane.

  Now those unlucky enough to be Taken were bound to their Borns. Linked through the blood. They had to follow every command given by their Born. Do every task, no matter how dark.

  The only way to break that bond? Kill the Born.

  Not so easy.

  That had been where everything went wrong.

  “I’m tired of killing,” Riley muttered. “I’m ready to just . . . stop.” His head had sagged forward, and she couldn’t see his face. His shoulders hunched. “But he won’t let me.” Then he lunged forward, fangs bared, and tried to sink his teeth into Tanner’s throat.

  Tanner sighed. “Sad fucking story.” He punched Riley in the face.

  The vampire staggered back.

  “Now let’s hear another story. One that involves two dead shifters in an alley.”

  Riley swiped the blood off his chin. “Make me a deal first.”

  He watched his family die. A whisper of memory teased at Marna. Two hundred years ago? And the vampire . . . with his slanting cheekbones and that sharp nose. He’d seemed so familiar to her.

  Two hundred years. A bloody night. A man’s screams.

  And she remembered.

  A man on the ground. Begging. Screaming. Shaking the bloody body of a woman. That woman, with her blond hair stained red, had been so still.

  Victoria! Don’t leave me.

  But Marna had already taken her away. She’d taken her as quickly as she could, so the woman wouldn’t suffer any more.

  Victoria had suffered too much during those last moments of life. She hadn’t needed the agony to continue in death.

  “There’s no deal. You talk or die.” Tanner’s brutal words pulled her from the past.

  Riley nodded. “That’s what I want.” A rough sigh expelled from him. “Kill me, so I can finally be free.”

  She’d taken Victoria and left the shattered man behind. There’d been nothing that Marna could do for him.

  She’d wanted to help him, but that had been forbidden. A different fate waited for the man who’d mourned so brokenly on the bloody field.

  This? This is what waited?

  Riley lowered himself to the edge of the bed. “Cadence was in the alley that night when the two shifters were killed. She told me that she saw a blond, just like you”—he motioned to Marna—“heading after those shifters.”

  It wasn’t me.

  “Cadence said she’d never seen an angel, not until that day. But when the blond touched and killed, she knew just what she had to be seeing.”

  How many times would she have to say it? “I didn’t kill them.”

  “Cadence just wondered . . .” He kept talking as if she hadn’t spoken. “. . . why the angel didn’t have any wings. She’d heard that even if angels fall, demons can still see the shadow of their wings behind them.”

  Marna frowned and glanced over her shoulder. When she’d met Cadence in Hell, the demon had said she’d seen her wings.

  “Whoever that was killing those shifters, she didn’t have wings.” Riley rubbed his chin. “If you don’t have wings, then I guess you aren’t really an angel.”

  No, you weren’t.

  “Maybe she just couldn’t see the wings,” Tanner said, frowning as he glanced back at Marna. “Not all demons—”

  But Riley shook his head. “Cadence was a pureblood. She had enormous power. Hell, that’s why she was so screwed up in the head. She couldn’t control the voices that whispered to her. Voices that always told her what was coming.” Riley pointed at Marna. “She saw your wings the instant you walked into Hell. I was at the bar with her. How did you think I realized that you were so fast?”

  Marna rolled her shoulders and felt the phantom pull of wings that were gone. She couldn’t see any shadows when she looked over her shoulder. You weren’t allowed to see what you’d lost. That was one of the rules.

  Punishments.

  But she’d seen the shadowy images on other Fallen. On Sammael.

  So if a Fallen wasn’t doing the killing, then who was? And how?

  “That’s all I know.” Riley tipped back his head and offered his throat. “So, now, do it. Put me out of this sick-ass misery of an existence.”

  Marna tensed. “Tanner . . .”

  But he shook his head and turned away from the vamp. “Despite what you think, I’m a cop, not just a killer. And I’m not executing an unarmed man, vamp or not.” He offered his hand to Marna. “Let’s go.”

  She couldn’t walk away.

  And Riley didn’t give her the chance.

  “I’m not unarmed.” His hand had disappeared under the mattress, and, in a blink, he yanked out a gun. Only he didn’t aim it at Tanner.

  At me.

  “Dumbass move,” Tanner snapped as he spun back to face the vampire. “Bullets won’t kill her.”

  “Brimstone bullets will.” Now the vampire’s smile was just sad. Tired. “I’ve done my research. I heard about the shit that went down in this city,
just a few months back.”

  When Azrael had battled Brandt. Because Brandt had been a hybrid—the product of a rare mating between a shifter and an angel—it had taken a lot to kill him.

  Bullets made of brimstone, bullets formed from a hellhound’s claws, could kill any angel, no matter how old or strong. Brandt had learned that lesson. He’d tried to use those bullets against others of his kind, but in the end, he’d been the one to die.

  She stared at the barrel of the gun. “I’m sorry.”

  “Fuck this—” Tanner began.

  “I was the one who took your wife,” she said, cutting through Tanner’s words and taking a step toward the vampire. He deserved to hear the truth. “That night, so long ago, it was me.”

  The gun barrel shook. His hand tightened. “You bitch.”

  “Once I took her, Victoria didn’t hurt anymore.”

  “My Victoria—”

  “But I had to leave you behind.” The words were hollow. No, she was hollow. Why hadn’t she rebelled then? Tried to save this man, before he’d become a monster?

  What he was . . . all the things he’d done . . . could she have stopped this?

  “They fed on me, for hours—”

  This part hurt to confess. “I was gone by then.” The memory of his screams had chased her as she flew away. No wonder the vampire had looked familiar to her. But there’d been so many deaths over the years. So many souls. Sometimes, their memories dimmed in her mind.

  He leapt from the bed and fired the gun.

  Tanner took the bullet. Marna never even had a chance to scream. Tanner jumped in front of her, and the bullet thudded into his chest.

  He barely staggered. One step, then he lunged forward and ripped the gun from Riley’s hand before the vamp could fire again.

  “Now you’ll kill me,” Riley whispered, and he sounded so grateful. “Now.”

  No. “Tanner!”

  His claws were at the vamp’s throat. Blood soaked Tanner’s shirt. The bullet had sunk in near his shoulder.

  “I knew . . .” Riley wasn’t fighting. “If I shot at her, you’d kill me.”

  Tanner’s claws shoved into his own shoulder, and he yanked out the bullet from his flesh. “Nine caliber.” He tossed it aside. “Brimstone, my ass.”