by Elise Marion
“You go across the street and wake Carmen and Nathan. We’ll need her to keep this guy down until we decide what to do with him. I’m calling Jack right now.”
“I’ll just put some pants on,” she murmured, turning to re-enter their room.
“Cass, I need you to get my gun,” he said, prying the girl from his side. “It’s under your bed.”
As she did what he asked, he re-opened the hall closet, replacing his Glock inside the safe. He accepted the Desert Eagle from her, confident in allowing her to carry it when the weapon was made to respond to his touch, and his only. She couldn’t have accidentally fired it if she’d tried.
“Thanks, Baby Girl,” he said, reaching up to slide it in beside the Glock.
“Are you okay, Daddy?” she asked when he winced and groaned as the overextension of his arm caused more pain in his ribs.
“I will be,” he replied, following Sarah upstairs and into the bedroom.
She breezed past him, sweatpants covering her legs and a sweater over his T-shirt. Now that the demonic presence had been banished, the house had cooled off considerably.
“I’ll be back with Carmen, Nathan, and Elian,” she shot over her shoulder before disappearing down the steps.
Jackson settled onto the edge of the bed with a groan, taking his phone off the nightstand and unplugging it from the charger. Cassandra remained in the doorway, seeming afraid to be out of his sight even after the danger had passed. He patted the mattress beside him, inviting her to join him as he dialed his son’s number and waited for him to pick up.
Jack’s voice came over the line, thick from sleep. “Dad?”
“Something’s happened. I need you here, now. As fast as you can. Get Reniel, tell him to gather Micah and Daniel, and get you guys here.”
His son’s deep voice became clearer as he seemed to snap awake at Jackson’s words.
“Wait … you need … what’s going on? Why do you need Daniel? Is someone hurt?”
“You heard me. Something’s happened here, and I need a healing. You need to be updated, and then we need to decide how to proceed. Is Addison with you?”
Silence greeted him as Jack hesitated.
“She’s … no, she’s not with me. But I know where she is. I can get to her.”
Jackson nodded. “Good. Find her, and don’t let her out of your sight. I have it on good authority that she’s in danger. Oh, and you may as well warn her before you come … I’m pretty sure your sister just beat the shit out of her little brother.”
Ending the call, he tossed his phone aside and braced his knees against his elbows, burying his face in his hands.
Daniel, an angel of healing, could not arrive fast enough for him. His entire body ached from his fall down the stairs, and a persistent ringing in his ears told him he might have hit his head harder than he’d thought. A soldier and a Guardian, Jackson Bennett, Sr. had seen his fair share of combat and sustained plenty of injury.
Now in his fifties, he found recovery to be much harder than it had been in his twenties and thirties. Running a hand over his hair, he sighed.
“I’m getting too old for this shit.”
Chapter One: Broken Brotherhood
The smooth, glassy surface of the river became disrupted by the little airboat slicing across it like a knife through butter. The spinning blades kicked up geysers of water at its rear, creating a mist that rained down over Jack Bennett’s head in a shower of tiny droplets. Running a hand over his face, he blinked the moisture away, his gaze focused on the old house looming on the approaching bank.
Surrounded by open, grassy field and moss-covered weeping willows, the old Boudreaux family home held a sense of nostalgia for him. At the moment, the sensation of arriving at one of the places he called home held a twinge of bitterness along with the sweet. There had been a time he would arrive to this house to be greeted by the little old woman who lived here, along with the aroma of beignets and gumbo. Memories of Sunday dinners alongside his battle brother and family made him wistfully long for the days when his Guardian assignment had first brought him to New Orleans, and a Yankee kid had been taken under a country boy’s wing.
Just now, however, the sight of said country boy caused his gut to churn and his throat to grow hot from acidic bile.
Sprawled at the bottom of his own airboat—which sat tethered to the dock jutting out from the grassy bank—Micah Boudreaux lay surrounded by empty pizza boxes and beer cans. With his cowboy hat pulled low over his face, the coarse rumble of his snores echoed in the quiet of the morning, his massive chest rising and falling with each breath. Clutched in one beefy hand, a half-empty mason jar contained moonshine distilled in the bayou—the strongest stuff Jack had ever tasted.
“Of course,” he muttered, not the least bit surprised to find his partner in such a state.
The driver of his airboat, a big man named Abel—who would take you anywhere you wanted along the river for twenty bucks and a pack of cigarettes—killed their vessel’s engine, floating right alongside Micah’s.
“Thanks, Abe,” Jack murmured, reaching into his back pocket for the pack of Marlboro 100s and the bill he’d reserved for his airboat captain. “No need to wait. I’ll make my own way back.”
Abel muttered a response in a barely intelligible mixture of English and Cajun French, his voice a deep, gravelly wheeze. He took the money and the cigarettes, putting one between his lips and lighting it as Jack stepped off the boat and onto Micah’s.
The engine started up with a loud sputter, hitting Jack with a light spray as it turned and made its way back up the bayou.
Left alone with Micah, his snores, and the river, Jack nudged aside the pizza boxes and approached. Scowling, he drew one leg back and kicked the bottom of Micah’s foot, not bothering to hold back.
One of his snores choked off on a snort, but the big Cajun slept on, one hand over his belly, the other maintaining a death grip on his mason jar.
“Micah!” he bellowed, giving him another nudge. “We don’t have time to screw around. Get up!”
The snores grew louder, and if he wasn’t mistaken, it was almost as if Micah did it on purpose just to get a rise out of him. Huffing in annoyance, Jack searched the boat until he struck gold. A metal bucket hanging from a nail jammed into a pole jutting up from the side of the vessel. He took it up, then knelt and hung it over the side. After he’d pulled it back up, heavy and brimming with swamp water, he stood and turned, flinging every drop in Micah’s direction.
The boat rocked, tossing him off-balance as Micah came awake, thrashing and bellowing slurred profanities. Finding his footing once more, Jack folded his arms across his chest, waiting for Micah to come fully awake and discover him.
“Merde! Files-putain!”
Jack raised his eyebrows while Micah flung his wet hat aside and stared up at him through a tumble of soaked blond curls.
“Damn,” he said, not bothering to temper the sarcasm tinging his voice. “That wasn’t very nice. ‘Son of a bitch’ … a bit harsh, don’t you think?”
Micah glared daggers at him, staggering to his feet and causing the boat to rock and sway. “You just doused me in alligator toilet water … I don’t think I was harsh enough.”
Swiping the sleeve of his plaid shirt over his face, he turned his head and spat, grimacing at the taste of the water.
“Why are you here? Ain’t this place a bit beneath you, city boy? Didn’t think you’d wanna come back down here with us rednecks.”
He followed when Micah stepped from the boat up onto the little dock. Jack supposed he wanted an apology for having called him a good-for-nothing redneck during their recent fight, words spoken in the heat of the moment. No way in hell that was happening. Micah had called him a self-absorbed prick, and the exchange had led to a brawl he hadn’t quite recovered from. Neither had Micah. The shiner Jack had given him had begun to fade, but now, ugly yellow and purple tones mottled his tanned skin.
Jack still had a bruise on
his cheekbone, a ring of angry purple contrasting against his dark skin. His knuckles had almost returned to normal, the tenderness a distant memory though the scabs remained.
“Reniel sent me. Time to strap on a pair and get back to work. It’s important.”
“You can tell that big fairy the same thing I’m about to tell you. I ain’t goin’ nowhere with you. Either you’re off this team, or I am. End of story.”
Jack ground his teeth, heedless of the pain it caused in his tense jaw. “You think I want to be within spitting distance of you? Think again. But this isn’t about us. Get your head out of your ass, and let’s go.”
Micah swiveled on him abruptly, hands clenched into fists at his sides. For a moment, Jack thought they might get physical again, and without anyone here to stop them, it could much uglier than last time. But Micah simply glared at him.
“You made it pretty clear what you think of me. I’m useless, and your high-and-mighty ass could do much better. Right? So, why don’t you go out there and prove what you’ve thought all along … that you don’t need me.”
“You’re right,” Jack replied. “I don’t … but Addison does.”
His stony expression faltered at that, giving in to worry. “Addison? What happened to her?”
Jack shrugged. “Nothing, as far as I can tell. She’s just … gone. I got a phone call from my dad last night. Apparently, some Naphil kid showed up at his house with a gun looking for Elian. The recruitment of the Nephilim is beginning, and it’s time for us to go on the offensive. I went to the trailer to find her and tell her what’s going on, and she wasn’t there. No one at Temptations has seen her—she even missed her shift last night.”
Micah shoved his hands in his pockets, avoiding Jack’s gaze. “Maybe she doesn’t want to be found. She needed space … from both of us.”
Jack shook his head. “Without her journals? Without feeding her mom’s cats? I went by the trailer, and she wasn’t there, either, but all her stuff was left behind. Something’s not right.”
Jaw working back and forth, Micah seemed to wrestle with indecision.
Jack scoffed. “Whatever, man. Stay here and drink yourself to death. I see now that I was right about you and her. You got what you wanted from her, and now you get to go back to being a selfish idiot. I think I’ll take your advice and go after her on my own.”
Micah’s heavy hand came down on his shoulder when he turned to walk away, catching him up by the back of his jacket.
“Like hell you will,” he growled. “Come up to the house so I can change clothes, then we’ll go.”
He released Jack, turning to trudge up the sloping lawn, leaving him with no choice but to follow.
“Oh, and by the way,” Micah called out over his shoulder. “You ever accuse me of not carin’ about her again, I’ll break every bone in your body.”
As Micah stood in the doorway of the dilapidated trailer where Addison had grown up with her drugged-up mother and abusive stepfather, he realized Jack had been right. In the living room, her shoulder bag lay in front of the couch, open and spilling her textbooks out onto the floor. Her journals—where she scribbled her most private thoughts—remained on the small coffee table, a few of her favored blue, ball-point pens strewn beside them. Gabriel, an orange tabby cat, sat curled up on the sofa, staring at them over his fluffy tail. About three more cats had lived here with Elizabeth, but at the moment, they seemed to be hidden out of sight. The odor of the litterbox couldn’t be ignored, nor the empty food and water bowls.
“She was about to eat,” he observed, striding into the kitchen. “There’s a frozen pizza out on the counter, unboxed but still in the plastic.”
Jack nodded. “When I came last night, it was a sauna in here. The oven was left on.”
Furrowing his brow, Micah walked back into the living room, taking the time to soak in every detail. “So … Addison leaves the apartment and comes here. Maybe she sits and writes in her journal or somethin’.”
He sat on the couch, catching sight of the urn containing Elizabeth Monroe’s ashes beside Addison’s journals. The woman’s death shouldn’t have come as a surprise given her history of drug abuse, yet Micah had seen Addison’s face when the news had been delivered. He’d held her in his arms to comfort her as the shock had given way to grief. He’d kissed away her tears, and for a moment, forgotten his own pain, as well.
Grunting, he pushed the thoughts aside. Dwelling on them wouldn’t help Addison if she was in trouble.
“She slept,” Jack murmured, kneeling beside the couch and lifting a blanket. “Maybe something woke her up?”
“There’s no sign of forced entry or a struggle,” Micah said, standing again and rounding the coffee table. “Maybe she hears something and goes outside.”
His throat constricting, he glanced up and met Jack’s gaze. “Somethin’ took her.”
“What … who?”
Micah shrugged. “I don’t know, and we ain’t gonna figure it out standin’ around with our thumbs up our asses.”
Striding back toward the door, he threw it open. The flimsy thing flew against the side of the trailer with a loud clang, and his heavy footsteps rattled the porch stairs as he descended.
“Where are you going?” Jack asked from the doorway.
Micah retrieved his phone from his pocket. “Nowhere. Just lookin’ for better reception. We have need of an Oracle, I’m thinkin’.”
The first number he called yielded no answer. The abilities of Antoine, the Oracle who had been part of the four-man team Reniel had put together to help train Addison, would have come in handy. Dialing Alice, the second member of the team, he was stunned when answered by yet another automated voice telling him the person he called was unavailable. While Jack looked on, he dialed Derek, their resident Guardian brainiac. Almost annoyingly responsible, Derek would never miss a call from another Guardian. He took his duties seriously.
“Something is definitely up,” he muttered when Derek failed to answer. “None of Addison’s goon squad is answerin’ their phone. I was hopin’ Antoine could get here. He’s one of the most powerful Oracles in the city.”
Jack reached for his own phone. “I’ll call Reniel. He’ll have someone over here in five minutes.”
While Jack made the call, Micah went back inside to feed the cats. Three more of them appeared from somewhere in the trailer, joining Gabriel once they realized their bowls had been filled.
Once that had been done, he re-emerged from the trailer and stomped back toward his truck, parked a few feet away. Opening the bed, he hoisted himself up on it and sat, left with nothing else to do but wait. Being a man who could smash through brick walls, he wasn’t very patient, nor was he good at standing back and letting other people take the lead in any situation. Every minute that ticked by, he became more and more aware that he had no idea where Addison could be. Not knowing meant he couldn’t help her, couldn’t knock down whatever stood between him and her. For all the strength he possessed, he’d never felt weaker.
Closing his eyes, he tried to refocus his thoughts, but could dwell on little else. His last encounter with Addison stood foremost in his mind, her words echoing through his memory with startling clarity.
You deserve to be loved …
He’d been foolish enough to hope that maybe the person who loved him could be her … had even gone so far as to confess that he loved her, knowing she didn’t feel the same way.
Micah couldn’t help the bitterness he experienced as he realized that, wherever she was, he would fight to bring her home so she could go back to Jack. It was inevitable, no matter how much he might wish for things to be different.
“Reniel is on his way with someone,” Jack informed him.
He gave a curt nod, not bothering to spare Jack a glance or respond. Silence stretched between them, the tension growing thicker by the second.
Finally, Jack spoke again. “She would have been safe with us, if you hadn’t screwed everything up.”
“You screwed my girl!” Jack bellowed, rounding the truck until they faced each other. “You’re damn right I threw the first punch!”
Dropping to the ground, Micah braced his hands on his hips to keep from wrapping them around Jack’s throat.
“You were dead. For four months! She had a right to move on with her life, to have somethin’ goin’ for her that didn’t revolve around the Seal or you!”
“And you were all too happy to step up and give it to her, weren’t you?”
“Because I was here!” he bellowed. “Who do you think picked her up off the ground when she lay there crying in a pool of your blood? Who do you think propped her up, and kicked her ass every step of the way so she could be strong enough to fight? Who do you think reminded her to think of you when she needed to find her inner light?”
Jack started, seeming taken aback by his last statement. “You did that?”
Micah nodded, his jaw clenched. “Yeah. I did it for you as much as for her. But things happen, Jack. I let my guard down so I could be there for her, and she got to me. I tried to fight it … hell, so did she. In the end, it happened. We couldn’t have known you would come back from the God-dang dead. Don’t blame her.”
Narrowing his eyes, Jack shook his head. “I don’t blame her one bit. I blame you. It’s the one line you’re not supposed to cross … you don’t mess with your friend’s girl. Ever. You took advantage of her, and you crossed the line.”
Micah shrugged one shoulder. “Well, it’s like you said … it’s what I do. The fact is, if you think me capable of bangin’ your girlfriend just for shits and giggles, you never thought too highly of me in the first place. Now I know where I’ve always stood with you.”
Before Jack could reply, the unmistakable sound of an angel’s wings warned them of Reniel’s approach. The angel swooped down over them, circling once before coming in for a landing. A massive cloud of dust billowed up under his feet as they touched the ground, causing the earth to shake a bit beneath them. Standing twelve feet tall with skin that shimmered like brilliant gold, the Angel of War made a bizarre sight in the bright light of day. Dressed in gold-plated armor, he possessed long, coiling locks of white-blond hair that fell from beneath his gleaming helmet. His pristine white wings folded behind him as the dust cleared and he set the woman he carried in his arms on her feet.