Angel Bait (Angel Assassins #1)

by Tricia Skinner

  Tanis folded his arms. “Start talking, or I’ll have to give Ionie to the Directorate.”

  “Touch her, and I’ll finish the job on your wings,” Jarrid replied.

  Cain hissed. Nesty whistled.

  “I think he’s in love with her.” Kas rubbed his temples. “How the fuck did that happen? I thought she had better sense.”

  Tanis ignored them, lost in his memories. The last time Jarrid threatened him was the day a younger version learned why his mother would die.

  “These children didn’t choose to walk in two worlds,” she said. “How can you harm innocents who should be treasured and loved?”

  “Those bastards are worthless to Heaven,” Kaonos answered. Aean nodded his agreement.

  “Then what use is Heaven?” She raised her chin. “Why should I fear death when angels fear children?”

  Aean raised his sword to strike the woman down. Tanis was faster. He shot his sword arm out, deflecting the killing blow.

  “Leave. Now,” he said. His soldiers gaped at him. “Disobey my order at your peril.”

  “The Directorate will hear of this,” Kaonos said, but the soldiers extended their enormous wings and launched themselves into the sky.

  Tanis watched them go with unease. He’d made two enemies this day.

  “Heavenly master,” the woman said, “please spare the lives of these poor children. Imagine how useful they could be to you.”

  He craned his head, intrigued. “Continue.”

  “They understand both races. Wouldn’t they make it easier to gain allies among my people? All we know now is fear if we disobey your laws. Train them. My heart knows they will serve you true.”

  Her words struck him like an arrow. Could he save these children? The Directorate would be difficult to convince. He rubbed his chin. He wanted to try.

  “I’ll trade your son’s life for yours,” he said, sadness lacing the words. “I’m sorry, but I cannot disobey all of my orders.”

  Her wide smile surprised him. “God bless you.”

  “No!” The boy turned his wild eyes on Tanis. “Why can’t you let her go? She could run away and hide. Please!”

  Tanis stared back. “There is nowhere she can run, child. With me, she will gain a painless end.”

  “I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you!” Jarrid’s small fists pummeled his armor.

  “Sshh, Jarrid,” the mother said, grabbing him. “I broke Heaven’s law when I loved your father. I did so willingly, and for eight years, I’ve lived in paradise because I had you.”

  “Mother.” Jarrid’s body shook with his grief. “Why hasn’t father come for us? He won’t allow you to die. He can’t.”

  Tanis caught the woman’s gaze. She knew Jarrid’s father wouldn’t return. He was already dead. The sun glinted off the long blade of his sword, and she stood to face him.

  “I’m sorry you have to suffer my death,” she said. “You are not like the others. You feel.”

  Tanis pulled himself from his memories and looked at Jarrid. The man appeared lost. He walked over and swung his fist. The punch struck the assassin against his left jaw. Jarrid turned his head, a thin trail of blood trickling from his lip.

  “Now I have your attention. I want answers.” Tanis flexed his hand. “How do you know Ionie has Grace?”

  Jarrid wiped his bloodied lip. “I felt it when she reached for mine. It was older than me, and it burned.”

  His wings spasmed against his back. Only angel Grace was connected to the element of fire. By virtue of their mixed genes, nephilim Grace was weaker, colder.

  “She can’t be an angel,” Cain said, his voice a whisper. “She’s human. Kas ran the background check after we found her.”

  “I know what I felt,” Jarrid said. “She’s tainted.”

  Nestaron rose from his chair. “Descendent?”

  Tanis turned the idea in his head. Somewhere in the reporter’s ancestry her people joined with an angel. The offspring would be nephilim unless … Unease twisted his gut.

  Unless the offspring had children who kept breeding with humans. The line would thin, weakening the Grace until it lay dormant behind a human soul.

  Ionie was a female nephilim — hundreds of years removed.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  “You say the taint inside her was fire,” Tanis said.

  Jarrid nodded, wary. He didn’t want to believe what he’d felt fighting inside Ionie’s body, but his Grace couldn’t lie. He’d sensed an energy greater than his own, and his power had struck out. Whether it intended to protect her or kill her, he didn’t know. Shit. He had felt his power slam into her defenseless body. He had watched in horror as her eyes flashed silver.

  “If the thing inside her is a remnant of its maker — ” he said, “ — it belongs to an angel.” Then his brain made the final connection. Son of a bitch. His head shot up. “The Renegade.”

  “Holy cluster fuck,” Tanis said.

  Jarrid’s breath clogged his throat.

  He’s tracking Ionie because she’s his descendent! His whole world screeched to a halt. The rest of the team cursed as they made the connection, too. Their bait had become as priceless as an ancient artifact.

  “Will she recover?” Kas asked. The tense silence made Jarrid want to blow holes in the wall with his Desert Eagles. Nothing like this had happened in the long history of The Order. They were flying blind.

  “Leshii.” Every bewildered eye focused on Nestaron. “Those shifters are Pagan gods.”

  “Tree huggers,” Jarrid said. “How does that help?”

  “Their power is derived from the elements,” Tanis said, wearing a path in the rug. “In ancient times, Leshii commanded air, fire, earth, and water, to help their followers.”

  “Ionie was hit with ice — or frozen water — and fire,” Kas said, chiming in. “Can they fix damage caused by the elements?”

  “No clue,” Tanis said. “They used their power to heal crops, which was the only reason Heaven didn’t order angels to smite them. Had the Leshii tried to control men, the planet would be minus one race.”

  Jarrid jumped up from his chair. If there was a chance to save Ionie, he’d take it. Tanis stepped between him and the door. “Your diplomatic skills are not in top form right now. I’m sending Cain to bring back a shape shifter. You stay with your woman.”

  My woman. Jarrid caught the glimmer in his mentor’s eyes and his chest tightened at the raw sympathy. He turned and read similar expressions on his brother’s faces. They accepted the impossible that he, an assassin of The Eternal Order, was in love with a human woman.

  Each man stepped forward, laying their hands on his shoulder in solidarity. Ionie was his woman. The Order would never abandon her.

  • • •

  Saul watched Beleth soar high above Detroit’s skyscrapers, gliding with ease around telecommunication towers and under neon signs, until he arrived at the prearranged meeting site. Strong wind buffered the Renegade as he landed atop the Greektown Casino Hotel. Saul peered over the edge to spy on the oblivious gamblers and eager tourists clamoring on the street below. Beleth spat at the rabble.

  “Lost your affection for the mongrels, I see,” Kaonos said.

  Saul turned to face the third member of their meeting. He glanced at Beleth, whose gaze lingered on the multiple races below. Probably imagining a world without them. He kept the thought to himself.

  “A momentary weakness a lifetime ago,” the Renegade said over his shoulder. “I dallied, then came to my senses.”

  “Yes, you have. Which is the one reason you’re still alive,” Kaonos said.

  It was clear to Saul the two angels had history. He faced the mouthy messenger. “We don’t have all night.”

  The messenger stepped forward, his white flight feather
s suspended above the tarred roof. As a loyal servant of the Directorate, Kaonos’ appearance always made him anxious. Would the others notice his frequent absences and follow him? Saul didn’t trust the guy, but Beleth assured him the angel was smart enough to keep his actions unnoticed.

  “I checked on The Order as requested,” Kaonos said. “The woman is in their keeping.”

  Beleth fisted his hands. Well, shit. Saul didn’t need the complication, not when they were close to attaining their final goals. With the woman out of reach, everything was a breath away from unraveling.

  “My human links must be erased before I can regain my place as a general in Heaven,” Beleth said. “Centuries of hiding from final judgment will end and I’ll leave this shit hole.”

  Good riddance. Saul needed Beleth’s army to back him when he moved against the other vampire bosses. He didn’t need the man breathing down his neck. “Does the Order know of her connection to you?”

  “No, they’ve not uncovered the link,” Kaonos said. “You bloodsuckers were careless. The Order knows you want her.”

  Beleth leveled a glare of death at him. Saul bore it even though his knees threatened to buckle. His blundering search put The Order on their trail. His stomach churned. He imagined the many painful ways the Renegade could make him suffer for the mistake. The muffled laugh from the other angel surprised him.

  Beleth’s eyes flashed. “Have I fallen so far you find this amusing, Kaonos?”

  The messenger paled, then bowed his head. “I’m displeased to see you among lesser beings, my General. Heaven is weaker without you guiding its forces.”

  What a pussy. The groveling did the trick though. Beleth accepted the man’s submission, perhaps reminded of the multitudes of angels who would again follow him without question.

  “Mankind was never meant to rule Earth,” the Renegade said, staring up at the sky. “That fallacy was perpetrated only after the First angelic War.”

  “What are your orders?” Kaonos asked.

  Saul contemplated his next move. The assassins hunted him. His inept lackeys would begin causing chaos in the streets tonight. Would it be enough to force The Order to abandon the woman to protect the city?

  “The assassins won’t choose one insignificant human over a million other lives,” Beleth said. “The vampires will draw them out. Saul will find her.”

  “Then what?” Saul asked.

  Beleth shrugged. “Then I’ll wipe the last of my line from this living purgatory, and Ascend.”

  • • •

  WDIV was the first news station to report the fires burning through the popular Mexicantown restaurant district. Flames engulfed Mia Santos Eatery in red-yellow waves. The roof of Gloria’s Tex-Mex next door resisted the water and foam the Detroit Fire Department poured on its blazing surface.

  Saul clicked the television remote. WXYZ’s cameras fed images of a horrific twenty-car pileup on I-75 in gruesome clarity. Even as he cast a bored eye at the news helicopter’s footage, he wondered if his enemies also watched.

  • • •

  A follow-up to the story we first reported yesterday. Police have confirmed the mutilated body found in the Detroit River this week is that of Russ Anderson. The Livonia resident was reported missing by his family when he failed to return home after his early morning shift at his Woodward Avenue newsstand. Sources close to the investigation believe foul play is involved, but would not elaborate.

  Police have no suspects in the killing.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Kasdeja rubbed his palms into his eyes, weariness etching his features, and then he released a drawn out sigh. Jarrid didn’t need to ask. His brother had spent hours attempting to read Ionie’s blank mind. Still nothing.

  “If she’s in there she’s buried so deep I’ll need a cave digger to find her,” Kas said, swiping sweat from his forehead. “It’s simply lights out, man.”

  Jarrid hunched his back. The last of his energy and hope fizzled out like fireworks left in the rain. He slipped his hand under Ionie’s. The elegant brown fingers that intrigued him lay inert in his palm. His gaze traveled over the feminine body resting in his bed.

  Two days of slumber hadn’t diminished Ionie’s remarkable beauty. Her coils of dark-brown hair shimmered in the room light. The gentle slope of her nose pulled in quiet breaths. The lushness of her lips …

  An unfamiliar ache clawed inside his chest. He rubbed the spot over his heart to ease it.

  “Damn, Jarrid,” Kas said. “I wouldn’t have wished this on you in a billion years. You got snared in a fucking Greek tragedy, bro.”

  Jarrid glanced up, his vision blurring at the edges. He’d seen a chance of flipping off Heaven by taking down a Renegade with human bait.

  A touch of hubris. The bait turned out to be a vivacious and bewitching woman who’d hit him broadside. “Didn’t see this coming. She struck at my blind spot.”

  “We’re assassins, man,” Kas said, frowning. “We don’t have blind spots.”

  Jarrid coughed up a humorless chuckle. “The joke’s on me.”

  He thumbed the smooth skin he held, relishing the contact. Angels taught him every way to kill without leaving a trace, to move like air, and to strike with a precision that left a poor bastard dead before his brain registered the fact.

  What they hadn’t taught him was how to defend himself against a charming young woman who believed angels were the good guys.

  He swept his gaze over Ionie, his anger rising. Cain warned him to take care with her. He hadn’t. She’d been attacked by a bastard he wanted dead. He balled his hands, crushing the circulation of blood. Zero-to-one in the ass kicking department.

  He tucked her hand close to her side under the comforter. “Need to kill someone.”

  Jarrid stomped to his closet. Kas followed.

  He wasn’t in the mood for company.

  “This is the part where I act like Cain — less douchy, of course — and ask if there’s a specific soon-to-be-corpse on order,” Kas said.

  Jarrid tucked his guns into his chest holsters, then he snatched a pair of curved daggers. The blades slipped into their sheaths with a welcoming hiss.

  “The vamp’s a mark.” He strapped more weapons to his body. “If he works for the Renegade, I’ll question him first.” He slid three clips into his gun belt. “Then I’ll see if Saul can drink his own blood without an esophagus.”

  Kas whistled low. “Damn. The bloodsucker’s in for a long night. Well a body has 206 bones so I call dibs on half of his.”

  Jarrid rounded on his brother. “Sorry, bro, but this is a solo gig.”

  “No can do,” Kas said, crossing his arms. “Tanis ordered one of us to stick to you like fly paper. I, in all my devastating glory, am your new shadow until Cain returns with a shifter to help your girlfriend.”

  Jarrid wanted to argue, his temper an unlit powder keg fuse away from blowing the roof off the Stronghold. They glared at each other for seconds. Then his brother leaned forward.

  “He touched one of ours,” Kas said, his tone sharp, cold, and deadly. “I plan to correct his error.”

  Jarrid stared into his brother’s glowing eyes. A faint nod graced his head. “Let’s do this.”

  • • •

  Detroit burned.

  Tanis opened screen after screen of news reports on the computers, overwhelmed by what he saw.

  A city in chaos.

  Multiple murders.

  Arson.

  Missing persons, wailing families, broken neighborhoods, destroyed businesses.

  Death tolls unconfirmed, but vast.

  All in one night?

  The shrill of the communication orb drew his attention.

  Perfect fucking timing. The last thing he needed was the Directorate’s bitching. They
had learned of the destruction.

  No other explanation. He cursed and crossed his study. He yanked the damned orb from its case and set it on the connector stand.

  Azriel’s contemptuous tone rang through. “Report.”

  “Violence is affecting several areas,” Tanis said. “This isn’t random.”

  “Why hasn’t your team stopped it?”

  He clenched his hands behind his back. He wasn’t about to tell the group about the last forty-eight hours. One hint about Ionie, or her connection to the Renegade, and the team would be pulled. He refused to think about what Heaven would do to her.

  “My men are in the field. We’ll restore order.”

  “I’m unimpressed by your lack of progress,” Azriel said. “Reports are in from several of our sources. Lycans have set up roaming vigilantes, while those blasphemous Fey vow revenge for their losses. Humans hunt vampires with consecrated tap water and wooden stakes.”

  Tension gripped Tanis’ mangled wings and he flinched from the pulsating pain. Keep cool. “All our efforts are focused on tracking the source behind this. There were no signs of mounting trouble between the races.”

  “Yet you have children dying in the streets.”

  Like I needed that image in my head, asshole.

  “I’ll report again in a few hours,” Tanis said, praying the board wouldn’t press him.

  “Has Jarrid made progress on the Renegade?” Puriel asked.

  Tanis swallowed back a wave of nausea. “He’s tracking a vampire connected to the target. I’m confident we’re close to our mark.”

  Murmurs floated from the orb. His heart thundered in his chest.

  “How does he know the vampire is connected?” Azriel asked.

  Tanis heard the suspicion behind the words. “Jarrid is the best assassin on my team. I trust his instincts.”

  “Your trust is misplaced, as always. The abomination is no better than the creature he tracks.”

  Fury heated his blood like lava. He didn’t give a shit if the bastard nailed him with insults. Azriel hated him for saving his team from their childhood death sentences. They deserved better treatment for their years of loyal service.