Samael.
And the deal that Michael had made with the Fallen One in order to save his archess.
Everything you love, everything you worship, all that you hold dear, oh Favored One, you lose here and now. All that you loathe and fear and unfairly judge shall become your burden.
A thrum of hard, painful understanding went through Michael. And at once, he understood everything, and he knew just what it was that Samael had done.
He’s turned me into a monster.
The son of a bitch was fond of that – turning people into vampires. Uriel was a perfect example. Sam had turned him into a vampire for breaking a verbal contract. And now he’d done the same to Michael in order to exact some petty form of revenge.
He’d given him fangs and a weakness for the sun.
A pang of yearning shot through Michael’s gut, hard and sharp, and his mouth watered. Oh, and there’s that lovely thirst for blood. He was surprised he hadn’t been expecting it.
So I’m a vampire.
But… no. There was something more.
Michael bared his fangs and frowned. There was something else. All that you loathe and fear and unfairly judge….
What did Michael loathe? Not vampires. He certainly didn’t hate his brother.
Azrael was the king of the vampires, the first vampire ever created, and the lord and master of every vampire that existed on the planet today. Azrael was also the former Angel of Death, and one of the “Four Favored” archangels who’d come to Earth in search of their archesses two thousand years ago. He was Michael’s brother. And Az had never done anything that would make Michael hate him.
What did he hate? What did he “unfairly” judge?
He peered more closely into that mirror, searching for the answers to those questions.
The flames at the centers of his pupils leapt, casting the rest of his ominously vivid eyes into shadow, and the corner of his mouth drew up in a smile that was almost… wicked.
Wicked. He recognized the face he was looking into now. He’d seen a smile like this before. He knew the men who bore it. In fact, just last night, Hesperos, the king of their kind, had come to aid Michael in the battle at Central Park.
And he knew.
There were parts of Michael now, and that was all. He was no longer a whole, no longer the Warrior Angel, but an amalgamation, a Frankenstein’s creation, a beast. He was part vampire – and he was part Nightmare.
Oh, you’re good Sam.
Michael had been on the trail of a serial rapist that was carving his seductive path through New York and whom Michael had since learned was no other than an incubus. Otherwise known as a Nightmare. The man had broken up couples, destroyed marriages, and ruined lives. He’d been royally pissing Michael off.
All that you loathe and fear and unfairly judge.
“Son of a bitch.”
But when Michael spoke, it wasn’t with as much vehemence as he probably should have felt. On the contrary, there was a tinge of something amused to his voice. When he spoke, it was with a bit of anticipation.
The hunger of the vampire within him was growing stronger, but so were other urges. Samuel Lambent, otherwise known as Samael, no doubt thought he had created in Michael the epitome of everything Michael despised in the world: the predator who fed off the innocence and beauty that was already so rare in life.
But he’d acted too quickly. And he’d made a very big mistake.
Michael laughed. The sound came from deep within his tightly clenched gut and rode through his broad chest like wicked, echoing magic. Which was what it was. A Nightmare’s laugh could get under a woman’s skin like a drug. His voice could wrap around her like silk ropes. His touch could unravel every inhibition she had ever tied tightly to protect herself in her entire life.
And a vampire’s bite would take her all the places she ever dreamed of going.
A vampire and an incubus together? Michael smiled, and it was, despite everything, a decidedly alluring smile. There was danger in it – oh so very much danger. But it was a beautiful, charming, and undeniable danger.
Samael had managed to do something wrong for once. He’d meant to punish the Warrior Archangel, make him weak, make him hate himself. Sam probably expected Michael would crawl into a hole and wait to live out the rest of his eternal days as something he despised.
But what Sam had actually done was give him an incredible gift.
“We must make sure to thank him,” Michael said now, in that voice so deliciously enhanced by darkness, it filled the space with shadows and promises. He turned away from the mirror, and with a confidence fitting of what he’d become, he stepped through the door of the bathroom – through it – using it as a portal.
The portal took him with impossible speed away from the ratty hotel room Samael had no doubt deposited him in last night, through the Mansion that was the magical, morphing home he shared with his archangel brothers, and then deposited him out the other side somewhere nice and dark.
Michael stepped through a second doorway and into an alleyway in New York City. By the way the shadows played on the ground, he guessed it was approximately six or seven o’clock in the afternoon. The sun would be setting within a few hours.
He had work to do.
With a quick thought, he tested his plan on a nearby discarded beer bottle, waving his hand in its direction. It rolled a bit as his magic touched it, before turning to pure gold.
Michael’s smile grew, and his eyes burned. Not only did he now possess the powers of a vampire and a Nightmare, his archangel abilities were intact. Save the ability to heal, of course. Because Sam wasn’t about to make his life easier on purpose.
Michael shrugged that off, picked up the heavy, gold beer bottle, and stepped back to the door he’d come out of, which appeared to be the backdoor to a restaurant of some kind. He waved his hand, turning the door once more into a portal. This was how the archangels were able to move from one place to another in the blink of an eye. All they needed was a door, any kind of door, and the Mansion would do the rest, whisking them through space and time to their desired destinations so long as there was also a door on the other side.
Michael stepped into the portal. He had things to do. There were a few things he needed to sell, and a few more he needed to buy. And somewhere out there, in this city he’d come to know so well, there was an archess with thick red hair and full, pink lips just waiting for him to make her life more interesting.
Laughter, sinful and low, followed him as he moved through the portal toward his destinations. But this time, it was his own.
Chapter Three
The warehouse was in a state of disarray that it had most likely never known. The plyboard boxes that had at one point been stacked neatly up along its walls and on palettes throughout the vast space were in splinters. Packing material and the remains of what had once been placed inside – coffee grounds, bars of soap, bananas, and the white powder they were all there to hide the scent of – were squished and burned and destroyed throughout the warehouse.
Scattered amongst the debris were the unconscious bodies of half a dozen men.
One single man remained conscious, and he knelt now before the woman he had most likely decided was some kind of masked god. Or a bad hallucination.
With all the cocaine dispersing itself into the air around them now, the latter would later be considered a distinct possibility. Rhiannon realized she was fortunate she’d chosen the mask and concealing clothing that she had.
When the man woke up again hours from now and started jabbering about boxes flying around on their own, lightning coming in through the windows, and fireballs sailing through the air, no one would believe him. He’d been the only one she hadn’t managed to instantly knock out with her abilities, but the coke would make his stories seem hysterical.
She took a minute to catch her breath. The night had taken a lot out of her. She’d infiltrated a slave house, forced her way through four floors of horrible rooms
filled with horrible conditions and little girls and their adult male guards, and then she’d come here – directly to the main source of funding for the criminals who’d owned and run the black market slave ring.
As far as she was concerned, there was just no point in doing a job like this if you didn’t do it all the way. It was like cutting the top off a weed. If you didn’t pull it from the roots up, there was just no point.
The man kneeling before her was already bleeding. A gash in the side of his head emitted a small but steady trickle of blood where she’d attempted to simply knock him out but had failed. Now he stared up at her with eyes the size of saucers and a face as pale as snow. “Holy Mary, Mother of….” he whispered.
“Save it,” she interrupted – and then she whipped out to kick him in the chin hard enough to finally finish the job and send him careening into oblivion.
His head snapped back before he teetered and fell forward onto his face. She knew he was still alive. She knew everyone there was still alive. It was something she’d always been able to tell about those around her. She could ascertain what their state of health was with no more than a glance and a reaching out with her healing powers.
When she’d been younger, she’d had to physically touch those she wanted to read. But over the years, she’d honed her skills, strengthened and focused her abilities, and now – well, now things were easier. To some degree, anyway. She was still quite exhausted by the night’s tribulations.
A steady weakness was forcing its way into her system, and bits and pieces of what she’d experienced were sticking to her like fly paper. Images of the girls’ faces, of their emaciated bodies, of the smell of infection, were holding her captive.
Rhiannon hoped she’d done everything necessary to right this wrong. She always hoped so. But this time, it was harder. Some of the girls had been pre-teens. Nine years of age. Ten, at most. They’d already been raped repeatedly….
Rhiannon had dispatched the men in the house, not even caring whether she killed them as she went along. Then, amidst the silent, amazed gazes of women who huddled in corners, wrapped in bed clothes and curtains, she had gone through file folders and boxes and brief cases in order to locate passports and identification cards so that these women would have what they needed in the following hours.
Once she’d done this, she’d called the authorities, leaving an anonymous tip to the slave house’s location.
As she stood in the decimated third-floor hallway of the disgusting house and used a disposable cell phone attributed to a made-up name to make this call, one of the women, who appeared to be in her mid-forties but who was probably no older than twenty-five, had shuffled a little closer to her and said something. She’d no more than whispered it between cracked lips. It was so quiet. Most of it, Rhiannon couldn’t quite catch, but one of the words, as odd and foreign as it had sounded, remained with her. She had no idea what it meant, yet it rang through her ears.
Uhrangialome…. Something like that. Maybe she would Google it later.
Now Rhiannon did a slow turn in the warehouse, took in the destruction, and let out a deep breath. With any luck, at this very moment, those slave girls were being helped into ambulances and would receive the medical attention, food and clothing they so desperately needed.
She wasn’t worried about them telling the authorities about her.
So far, no one she’d helped like that ever had. Rhiannon had sometimes wondered why – why did they keep her secrets? Why, after witnessing her let loose with lightning called from the sky, with fireballs formed from a lighter in her hand, with telekinetic powers that would rival Hollywood’s, did they silently “forget” she had ever been there?
She’d often seen news reports after some of her rescues. Reportedly, eye-witnesses spoke of small armies of liberators or rival gangs turning on each other, and things of this nature. No one ever spoke of a red-haired woman with god-like powers singlehandedly defeating bad guys or liberating the oppressed.
They kept her secret. As if they knew they needed to. And perhaps they felt they owed her at least as much.
“You don’t owe me anything,” she whispered to herself now from behind her concealing mask. But she was immensely grateful for their silence nonetheless.
Her words echoed in the vast, empty, destroyed space of the warehouse, reminding her that her job was done. For now. The growing weakness flooding her muscles was the other reminder. She needed to get to the hotel, eat, and rest.
Rhiannon pulled several items out from beneath her black leather jacket. Among them were a handcuff key, a lock of silky black hair tied with a ribbon, and a strip of nude photographs of young girls. They were items she’d taken from the slave house. She placed them quickly and strategically around the warehouse, leaving no doubts as to the link between these men, these drugs, and the slave trafficking going on across town.
The cops would be here soon as well. There had been more than one anonymous tip-off to the stations that night.
Rhiannon left the warehouse. She stayed to the shadows as she more or less ran several blocks, putting distance between her and the mess behind her.
Once she’d gotten far enough away, she ducked into an alley. A quick self-inspection revealed no blood stains or rips or tears in her jeans – that was good. She always tried to be careful, but the occasional slip-up did happen.
She removed her leather gloves, took off her mask, and stuffed the garments into her jacket’s inside pockets. Then she bent, turned her head over, and finger-combed her light auburn hair, returning it to its natural volume and wave.
Next, she unzipped her jacket, a Burberry Brit, to reveal a rich satin top underneath, and a small but striking diamond necklace by Bulgari. She never had to worry about her boots matching her outfit, as she was most comfortable in boots anyway, always black.
She pulled a sample spray bottle of Tom Ford perfume from another jacket pocket, spritzed a bit on her wrist, and rubbed her wrists behind her ears.
Her final touch was lipstick, a rich shade of red that matched her hair and complexion, and which she expertly applied before re-pocketing the tube, rolling back her shoulders, and heading out of the alley shadows to the nearest busy sidewalk.
There was nothing quite so effective at disguising the fact that you’d just infiltrated two massive buildings, taken out dozens of armed bad guys, destroyed millions of dollars worth of contraband, and freed twenty slave girls from a hellish life of prostitution and torture, as looking like a million bucks. Fortunately for Rhiannon, her employer could not have agreed more on this point.
The very first taxi to come by possessed a light that was completely lit up, signaling the driver was off-duty. But when the man behind the wheel saw Rhiannon move up to the curb and raise her hand, he switched off the outside lights so that only the medallion number was lit, and then he veered directly over to meet her.
Rhiannon smiled, opened the back door, and slipped inside. “The Four Seasons, please.”
The driver pulled away from the curb without a word and made his way expertly into traffic. Rhiannon settled back in her seat and began daydreaming about diet root beer. She loved diet root beer. Chilled to the point of near freezing, it was the perfect, refreshing drink after a difficult job.
Ten minutes later, the driver let her out, she left him an enormous tip, and the door greeter opened the door to her hotel. “Good evening.”
She smiled back and made her way to her room. Once there, she double-locked it, throwing home every latch available. Then she pulled off her clothes and stepped into the shower. She had never so badly wanted to wash a night off her body and out of her mind.
Forty-five minutes later, she at last shut off the water and stepped out into a steam-filled bathroom. Her form reflected through the fog in the floor-length mirror across from her. She paused and froze in her reflection, strangely alarmed at the number of bruises taking shape across her body.
“Fine,” she sighed. She wasn’t planning on
going out again tonight. She probably wouldn’t need what was left of her abilities to heal or help anyone else. She could afford to use them on herself instead.
Rhiannon closed her eyes, imagined herself healed and whole, her skin unmarred, and her muscles not quite as sore as they were now. Moments later, she opened them again and took another look in the mirror.
Not a bruise to be seen.
Next, she bent and attempted to dry her long, thick hair with the nearest towel. When it was mostly dry, she hung the towel back up on the rack before she made her naked way into the sprawling, richly appointed suite beyond.
She dressed in a pair of underwear and an oversized white tee-shirt, and stopped in the kitchen long enough to extract a diet root beer from the fridge. When she’d downed half of it, she re-fridged what was left and returned to the bathroom to brush her teeth. Moments later, she was back in the bedroom, crawling between the sheets of the king sized bed.
She took a moment to enjoy the feel of them against her skin, and drew a deep, cleansing breath. Then she closed her eyes once more.
As exhausted and drained as she was, sleep came nearly at once.
But it was troubled.
In the midst of the shadows that invaded her mind was a shape… tall…and strong.
She saw it through a fog, at the end of a tunnel, just around a corner. She chased the image, curious and frustrated. And then she saw it clearly, but only from behind.
He was standing at a cliff’s edge, wearing some kind of uniform that she didn’t recognize. It seemed partially constructed of metal, like armor, with scorching and scarring that spoke of a great battle. His fair hair was wind-blown, and blood, bruises and cuts of varying degrees marred the thick, corded muscles of his arms. He was carrying a sword that gleamed so sharp and bright, it hurt her eyes.
She wanted to see his face.
And she also didn’t.
The dream had an aura to it, one of frightening finality, one of warning.
Rhiannon found herself standing on dry, cracked ground behind the stranger. She stepped back, but her legs moved slowly, tied invisibly to the planet of her dream as limbs so often were. She forced them, though, pushing harder, and managed a foot. Two.
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