Paranormal After Dark

by Rebecca Hamilton

  “What?”

  A weak smile crossed my lips. “Yeah, I know. But the good news is that now we have a photo and a clue to follow. He deactivated the tracking chip inside his human body and his last known whereabouts is Cleveland. Since you’re the combat expert, you can join us if we pick up on his trail.”

  He sighed. “Alright. I’m just glad you’re okay. Well, okay-ish.”

  I snorted. “Don’t jinx it. I’ll call you when we land in Cleveland. Te amo.”

  “Igualmente.”

  He hung up. I stuffed the phone back in my pocket and pressed my forehead against the cold glass of the window, watching as we pulled off into the street to head back to the airport.

  Gabriel was studying the papers Morgana had given him with the places that the rogue angel visited before he took out the tracker.

  “So what kind of paper do you think he had with him?”

  “I’m not sure,” Gabriel said, scanning the pages. “But I have a hunch that this rogue angel may have been a Scribe.”

  “Scribe?”

  He glanced up. “Yes. It’s an angel assigned to keep track of the written records in Heaven.”

  “There are records in Heaven? Of what?”

  “Everything in existence. Only God is all-knowing. We only know what gets translated from Et Symphoniae Temporis, or the Symphony of Time.”

  I held up a hand. “Okay, wow, you’re gonna have to explain that one for the slow people in the audience.”

  The archangel chuckled before continuing. “In Heaven, the events of the universe unfold within an infinite stream of music. We have Scribes that record every strain of music and then translate it into words. This way, the people who missed out on life when they were alive may have the chance to read about it if they so desire when they enter into Heaven. The translated version is called Et Liber Tempor, or the Book of Time.”

  “Why are the names Latin?”

  “It’s a dead language, and so it’s the best method of communication in emergencies. If we need to speak about something that men need not know about, we use Latin. In Heaven, there is a universal language. I can’t really explain it to you, but you’ll understand when you get there someday.”

  I paused, absorbing this information. “Is it possible that this rogue angel stole a page from the Book of Time?”

  “It’s unlikely, but I suppose it is possible. I’ll have my resources check to see if anything is missing. It would at least explain how he is able to kill the Seers before their Awakenings.”

  He paused. “We really should invent Hoogle.”

  “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  Chapter 8

  Jordan

  “WE SHOULDN’T BE doing this, y’know.”

  “Why’s that?”

  Michael shook his head, hiding a smile that I could still see out of the corner of my eye. Craig Ferguson, lovely talk show host though he was, couldn’t keep my attention whenever Michael spoke to me in the dark. My senses were always somehow sharper at two o’clock in the morning, even with the TV on.

  “You have work tomorrow. You should be sleeping.”

  I tried my best not to scowl, but it didn’t work. “Well, we both know why I’m not. If you wanted me to sleep, you could always go down the street and get me a shot of bourbon.”

  Michael sighed. “I knew going cold turkey would make you cranky, but this is kinda ridiculous, Jordan.”

  “Deal with it,” I grumbled, sliding downward so that the base of my skull rested against the arm of the couch. The suede rubbed my shoulders, unhidden by the tank top, and felt comforting, though not enough to lull me to sleep. I’d found this couch five blocks from this apartment and paid to get it steam cleaned three times before I hauled it into my place for permanent residence. The faded maroon still looked good against the hardwood floor in the den, even after a year.

  Something about the late hour erased a few of the lines I had tried to keep drawn between Michael and myself, particularly the physical ones. My apartment was humid tonight so I was wearing boxer shorts and a tank top while Michael sported a plain white t-shirt and cargo pants. He lounged in the middle of the couch with his bare feet propped up on the coffee table while my legs were carelessly stretched out over him, bent slightly so that only my calves touched his thighs. Insomnia had consumed me in the midst of my rehabilitation from alcohol dependence. I hated it.

  “You can go home, you know. You don’t have to keep staying up late with me,” I offered in a less hostile voice after the Late Late Show went to yet another commercial.

  The archangel shrugged. “It wouldn’t be very angelic of me.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Right. My fault. But you’re still wasting your time. It’ll be about four o’clock before I conk out and you really shouldn’t put yourself through that.”

  “Well, that won’t do.” He shifted over a bit and, to my complete surprise, took hold of one of my feet, and started to massage it.

  I stared. “What the hell are you doing?”

  “What? You’ve never gotten a foot massage?”

  I licked my lips, trying to figure out how to explain my predicament to him. “Yes, I’ve had them before, but never from someone who wasn’t trying to have sex with me.”

  He laughed, clearly startled by the bluntness of my comment. But he also didn’t stop massaging my foot. Hmm. “Oh. I didn’t know foot massages had that connotation to them.”

  “That would be because you still haven’t seen Pulp Fiction. But back to my original question…what the hell are you doing?”

  “It’s supposed to relax you.”

  His thumbs moved in circles over the arch of my foot. I had to bite my bottom lip to keep from sighing. Damn him. Did he have to be perfect at everything?

  Eventually, the will to argue drained out of me. I flopped backwards on the couch, tossing one arm over my eyes.

  “Fine, but I’m telling Gabriel that you’re trying to seduce me.”

  “Are you seducible?”

  “You’ll find out if you keep that up.”

  He chuckled again, a low sound, and everything seemed to click—the atmosphere, the low Scottish voice and canned laughter in the background, Michael’s long rough fingers against the thin cotton of my socks. I drifted off. I had always thought sleeping in front of the TV wasn’t really sleeping because while most of my senses shut down I could still hear and feel things on some level.

  By the time the show went off, Michael had figured I’d gone to sleep and turned off the TV. Gently, he deposited my legs on the couch and stood up. My left arm dangled off the side of the couch cushion while the right was curled up by my face. I had twisted half my body in mid-slumber so it probably looked odd to him. Faintly, I heard the rustling sound of cloth and then a heavenly weight over me, almost feather-light. He’d draped the blanket over me.

  I was still conscious enough to feel his hand brush the hair away from my forehead and the quick press of his lips at the spot between my brows. Footsteps echoed across the room and the front door closed. I cuddled a throw pillow in the warm darkness and slept on.

  From then on, Michael and I fell into an unspoken routine. It didn’t matter what time either of us got home—he had a key, after all—we would collapse in front of the couch watching TV and he would give me a foot massage until I fell asleep. Every night, I told him he didn’t have to wait up with me and every night he ignored me. I never told him, but his devotion meant as much to me as his protection from demons.

  After a while, I realized that sleeping on the couch hurt my back so we migrated to my bedroom. I didn’t realize it then, but those couple of weeks were a way for us to skirt the rules we knew all too well. Intimacy without sex. Closeness without wrecking the system. A kiss on the forehead, the soft touch of his fingers on my skin, were substitutes for what we really wanted, but could not have.

  Eventually, my insomnia faded and the other withdrawal symptoms began to dissipate and so our nightly ritual en
ded, but something else filled the hole. Michael kept showing up and I kept letting him in. Unconsciously, we made the decision to walk that dangerous path step by treacherous step.

  “Jordan?”

  I stirred as I felt a warm hand on my shoulder. Gabriel stood over me.

  “We’ll be landing soon.”

  “Mmkay,” I yawned, sitting up in my chair.

  He sat and buckled his seatbelt, looking at me with a fond expression. “Sweet dreams, I trust?”

  “How’d you guess?”

  “You were smiling.”

  Heat washed over my cheeks. I was blushing. Good Lord. “Really?”

  He chuckled. “Really. Why do you look so bashful about it?”

  “It just sounds cheesy that I was smiling because I was dreaming about my husband.” I fiddled with my wedding band. Michael smelted it himself. The craftsmanship was lovely, to the point where people at the restaurant asked me where I’d gotten it and I had to fumble for a reply. Couldn’t tell them he made it out of his battle armor. I imagined they would send me to the funny farm.

  “You’re supposed to enjoy domestic bliss, you know,” Gabriel said, arching an eyebrow.

  “I know, but…” I hesitated, shrugging and glancing down at my hands. “…when you’ve had a lot of bad stuff happen to you in rapid succession, you get a little cautious about enjoying things. I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop. Wondering what the next horrible thing will be and if I’ll be able to handle it.”

  Gabriel’s expression softened. “You will. You underestimate yourself, Jordan. Your resilience is something that I admire more than any of your other traits.”

  His energy—a soothing aura—filled the air around me. I let it in. My nerves slowly relaxed until the anxiety was gone. He had always been good at keeping my paranoia at bay.

  “And your gift for flattery is what I admire most about you.”

  “It comes with the territory of being God’s Messenger. Make sure you call Michael when we land. I’ll take care of contacting the demon.”

  “Thank you. Belial is unsettling enough in person. I don’t want to hear that voice of his coming out of my cell phone,” I said, making a face. “Besides, I doubt he’ll flirt with you.”

  Gabriel arched an eyebrow. “You really don’t know him, do you?”

  My mouth dropped open. Before I could get a question out, the pilot came on the intercom again and instructed us to prepare for our descent into Ohio. We had two destinations on our list: the Cleveland Clinic, then the Cleveland Police Department. We needed the medical records of whatever the rogue angel had done to remove the tracker implant and the police department would allow us to fax all the information we had about him to the authorities as well as our own sources. If we got a name to go along with his face, even if it was a fake one or an alias, we’d have a much better chance of catching him. The angels had eyes everywhere and even though he seemed like a ghost, someone would spot him sooner or later.

  I called Michael when we landed and told him to head to his place so we could send him the information via fax machine. Gabriel called Belial and told him to meet us at the clinic on Euclid Avenue, where the Health Data Services were. Gabriel had a friend in the department who could get us what we needed without too much of a fuss. Luckily, it was only ten minutes away from the police department so we wouldn’t have to go too far. It was a little past four o’clock and we were going to have to get a hotel for the night before heading back to Albany in the morning—a four and a half hour flight. Too bad I didn’t fly commercial. I could get some killer flyer miles on this trip.

  We took a cab to the hospital, a modest thirty-minute ride, and arrived to find the demon waiting outside with a cigarette clutched between his lips. He had shed his enormous parka and instead wore a tasteful grey trench coat over a black suit with a red tie. The ensemble brought attention to his white skin and dark hair, still braided, and I suspected he had taken great care in picking out the outfit. I had met many demons in my time, but he was by far the most preoccupied with his appearance.

  He smiled when we walked up, exhaling a long stream of smoke from one corner of his mouth. “Shall we?”

  “Why do you look so happy?”

  Belial tossed his cigarette onto the concrete and stomped it out. “I’m a hunter by instinct, my dear. We’ve got ourselves a trail. There’s nothing I find more thrilling than pursuit.”

  I shook my head. “Figures.”

  He arched one thin eyebrow. “And what does that mean?”

  I cleared my throat, my cheeks filling with hot blood. That hadn’t come out right. It sounded like I was implying that he enjoyed chasing me. “Nothing. Let’s go.”

  Belial followed us inside the clinic. The glass doors parted and frigid air smacked me in the face, brushing my hair back for a second. Hospitals were always bone-chillingly cold. I could feel my pulse racing. I tried to breathe slowly. This place wasn’t a psychiatric hospital like the one I’d been dragged into when they took my mother, but all hospitals made me feel uneasy. Something about the shiny floors, non-descript paint on the walls, and the unnervingly calm medical staff bugged me. It probably always would.

  Gabriel stepped up to the front desk and began talking with one of the nurses. I stood out of earshot with my eyes closed so I could concentrate on breathing normally. Naturally, the demon next to me spoke up.

  “Something wrong, my pet?”

  I opened my eyes and glared at him. “You know damn well what’s wrong.”

  “So the mighty Jordan Amador has a weakness,” he mused. “Though I suppose you do have a good reason for not liking hospitals. The irony is quite amusing. Hospitals are places of healing and birth yet for you, they have always meant harm and death.”

  “You’re really not helping.”

  He shrugged one shoulder. “Wasn’t trying to.”

  I quelled the anger building in my gut and focused on keeping my heart rate normal. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Belial looking around with a contemplative expression. It instantly made me suspicious. Gabriel and I had been looking for a trap ever since we got here and it would be so very like Belial to spring one in a hospital. After all, he’d done it before.

  There was a pretty brunette nurse talking to a patient seated behind us and I could tell he was checking her out. She finished speaking with an older man and caught Belial’s gaze as she straightened. He smiled, and I recognized that smile. It was pure seduction. Nothing overt—just a smile that promised a good time.

  She walked over, clearing her throat, and I could tell she was trying not to seem eager. “Can I help you with something?”

  “No,” I answered, hoping I’d be able to break the spell he’d cast on her. “We’re good. The nurse at the desk is calling someone for us.”

  “Oh.” She faltered a bit. I prayed for her to run as fast as she could in the opposite direction before the demon could get his hooks in.

  As if reading my mind, Belial spoke. “Thank you for offering, Nurse Ramsey. It was very kind of you.”

  She smiled, exposing twin dimples. “No problem. It’s my job.”

  “Well, if you don’t mind me asking, do you get a coffee break sometime in the next half-hour?”

  “Yes. Why?”

  “I’ve been doing some research about hospital personnel and I’d be grateful if you would give me a little insight into your job,” he asked with picture perfect politeness.

  “That’d be fine. I know a nice place around the corner—”

  “Oh, damn,” I interrupted, throwing up my hands. “I just remembered we have an appointment at another hospital in ten minutes. Maybe a rain check, Nurse Ramsey?”

  She seemed a little crestfallen, but she nodded anyway. To my dismay, she handed him her card and hurried off down the hallway. I sighed, hoping the interaction would put her off of him, but I knew better.

  Belial watched her go, stuffed the card in his pocket, and then gave me a nasty glare. “I cannot believe you
just cockblocked me.”

  “That doesn’t count,” I hissed. “For all I know, you’ll take her back to your hotel and eat her throat out. I’m not gonna let some innocent woman die because of you.”

  He stepped closer, a smirk sliding across his lips. “I rarely kill my prey. You should know that better than most. I draw power from corrupting the innocent. She was not in mortal danger.”

  “Like hell.”

  The demon let out an amused snort. “You seem quite protective of people you don’t know, Jordan. How do you know I wasn’t merely going to invite her back to my place for sex? Or is that why you stopped me? Because you’re—”

  I held up my hand. “If you say ‘jealous,’ I swear I’ll jam my rosary so far down your throat that you’ll shit a cross.”

  “Very well. Envious, then.”

  I moved towards him, but Gabriel stepped between us. “Our contact has asked us to come to the records lab. Can you two stop bickering enough to join me?”

  Belial swept a hand in the direction of the hallway. “Ladies first.”

  “Bite me,” I muttered, walking past him.

  “Is that a request or a command?”

  I glanced at Gabriel. “Can I shoot him? Please?”

  The blond archangel shook his head at me. “I swear, you are almost as bad as your husband sometimes.”

  “I take that as a compliment in this case.” We continued down the hallway to the lab where the records were held. When we walked in, I spied a gentleman in his late fifties with curly white hair and a mustache.

  He smiled when he spotted us, rising from his seat in front of a computer. “Gabriel. It’s been a while.”

  Gabriel shook his fellow angel’s hand. “Too long. Jordan, this is Dr. Robert Stanton, an old friend of mine.”

  “Nice to meet you, Doc.”

  Dr. Stanton nodded to me and then frowned when he noticed Belial standing behind us. “And what’s he doing here?”

  Belial smirked. “A pleasure to meet you too.”

  “An unavoidable complication,” Gabriel answered, ignoring the demon. “Belial was kind enough to take us to the Demon’s Door and has been assisting us on our hunt for the rogue angel.”