He took a deep breath and sat down, motioning for her to take a seat on one of the guest chairs in front of his desk. He steepled his fingers. “You win, Cherie. I’m listening,” he said. “What’s your plan?”
“We hunt our prey away from the Guardianship, where there isn’t safety and invincibility in numbers. We target the Trinities,” she said, wearing a wicked smile, “using your pet Nephil as bait.”
Chapter 4
SAMUEL
KEYS RATTLED ON THE OTHER SIDE of the dungeon door for a second time that day, pulling Samuel out of his meditation. The door creaked open. Emanelech’s twin humanoid ice minions filled the doorway . . . again.
“Come with us,” said one of the pair.
Samuel drew himself up to his feet and followed.
They stopped at the crude communal shower room down the hall.
“Wash.” They gave him a shove toward the door and posted themselves outside. Unlike the dungeon of his childhood in France, this one was cut into the side of a mountain. The room was solid stone with a drain in the center of the floor and rows of shower heads along the wall.
A coarse bar of soap sat on a ledge protruding from the wall while rags for drying himself lay in a basket at the door.
Removing the leather tie from his hair, he let it fall free, and then shed the filthy fabric covering his body. He turned the knob and stood naked under the cold spray. The temperature didn’t bother him, although the steam from a warm shower would’ve been more pleasant. At least he was alone. It had been a few years since he’d had any prison mates.
He glided the soap over the whip scars on his chest. His back bore the same lumpy crisscross patterns that started below his neck and traveled down to the top of his buttocks. He soaped his hair and the places he could reach.
A sigh passed through his lips as he savored his cleanliness.
He turned off the water. Fresh garments had been slipped on a hook inside the door to replace his discarded rags.
She must’ve succeeded, he thought, his pulse quickening. He put on the loose white pants and matching tunic. After drying his hair as much as he could with the rags provided, he secured it at the base of his neck with the leather tie and slipped on his sandals.
Outside, his guards stood waiting. “Come.”
As they ascended the stairs, the surroundings transformed from dank to luxurious. Ultra-modern artwork, expensive carpeting, and shiny objects that must have cost a demon’s ransom lined the path down the familiar hallway to the heavy wood door of Achanelech’s study.
Samuel hung behind the Sphinx twins as they entered the room. Once inside, they parted, stepping to either side of the doorway and exposing him.
Achanelech stood in front of the desk next to Emanelech, leaning on his jewel-topped cane, an evil glint in his eye. Slowly, his lips twisted into a snarl, the angry V-shaped scar blazing on the demon’s cheek.
Samuel cast his gaze downward and prepared himself for a dose of the archdemon’s cruelty. His shoulders stiffened before he passed through the threshold. He forced his feet to move, one in front of the other.
“Father,” Samuel said softly.
With a mirthless cackle, Achanelech replied, “Mongrel, you’ve just been promoted. Let’s see if you can prove your worth as more than a lab rat. I have an . . . assignment for you.”
Samuel suppressed any outward reaction as he glimpsed a chance for freedom. He clasped his hands tightly together. “I’m at your service,” he said in a deferential tone. “Whatever it may be, I’ll give my best effort.”
His demonic captor looked at him with disgust and then pointed his finger. A sizzling burst of energy landed on Samuel’s chest, burning a hole through his new tunic and crackling the skin underneath. Samuel bit down as a quarter-sized welt rose and blistered under his shirt. At least it would heal, unlike the whip scars.
“Make sure you do,” Achanelech said. “Otherwise, the worst torture I can think of will befall you.” He glanced at the Sphinx twins. “Take him to get a tracking device implanted.” Samuel’s hopes momentarily flagged.
A grunt emanated from one of the ice minions, and Samuel was led from the room. He’d worry about the implications of the tracking device later. With a quick guarded glance, he saw a small secret smile meant for him play across Emanelech’s lips.
Despite misgivings, his spirits lifted for the first time in over a century.
PART 2: HOPE’S PRELUDE
Chapter 5
SANDRA
Haight-Ashbury, San Francisco.
SANDRA STARED OUT their bedroom window, not at the twinkling San Francisco skyline, but at the faded stars in the night sky. She felt the gentle pressure of Isa’s fingertips on her upper back as he traced the invisible, nerveless scars beside her bare shoulder blades before tucking her into his chest. She shuddered against him from the chill in the room and the jarring vision that had awoken her earlier before they’d made love. Though absent this time had been the exhaustion from playing conduit for these moving picture shows.
Isa clutched her tighter. “You’re worried, my beauty.” His breath warmed her cheek as he spoke. It was a statement, not a question. How well he knew her. But then they’d had three hundred years—give or take—to attune to each other’s thoughts and feelings. They fell just short of reading one another’s minds.
“Isa . . .” she whispered his name with pained resolve. “It’s almost time.” The visions were intensifying and coming more frequently, leaving her to sift through a mountain of revelations for clues meant to guide her.
“I know,” he said softly and kissed the top of her head.
He did know. Just not all of it, and he accepted that fact—she hoped. Her entire burden couldn’t be shared without violating her oath. Instead, she let go only the bits and pieces she was sure couldn’t impact his—or anyone else’s—free will or destiny. To this day, he didn’t know she’d likely not survive their mission. That knowledge was hers to shoulder alone. Grateful her gift wouldn’t reveal the future of those closest to her, she had no idea if he would live or die. A small but welcome mercy.
She willed her shoulders to relax and melted back into his warm, naked embrace, looking for solace only he could give. His spent arousal lay nestled between them in the hollow at the small of her back, giving off a pocket of delicious heat. Her skin pebbled with gooseflesh everywhere but there and where his smooth chest and the two columns of his muscled arms surrounded her from behind.
“I’m cold,” she said.
Though unable to feel normal variations in temperature himself, Isa hugged her tighter as if it would help. She’d been born a Nephil like him, but with her sacrifice to hide her origin she had acquired human weaknesses—the heightened ability to feel cold was one of them.
She stared with longing at the sliver of December moon through the parted lace curtains. She’d never be able to feel the exhilaration of flight again either. Her sacrifice bothered her more some nights than others. Tonight, the ache for her lost wings was particularly burdensome. Sexual release could only take her so far while flight was wholly another pleasure. Nothing compared to soaring up into the night sky with the feel of wind in her face and air coursing over her feathers. Like an amputee, sometimes she could still feel her phantom plumage.
“There must be something I can do beside hold you, my love,” he said.
She turned in his arms and snuggled into the warmth of his chest. Even though she was tall at six feet, she had to look up to meet his gaze. His snow-white hair, captured in a ponytail at his nape, contrasted with his still youthful face. Eyes of the palest blue connected with hers in the darkened room. She may have sacrificed her wings and lost many of her physical abilities, but at least she retained her visual acuity in the dark.
“You’re already doing it,” she said and placed a soft kiss on his lips. Closing her eyes, she rested her head just above his beating heart. If the Angelorum High Council had not approved Isa to accompany her on this mission fif
teen years ago, she would have refused—or at least she would’ve tried. His presence grounded her as she wove a life based on a false identity, waiting in a sleeper cell for the Angelorum’s call.
A mission with a goal to protect the one soul whose future rode on her Trinity’s success. That soul would deliver them all.
In the meantime, she waltzed in a careful dance to maintain the delicate balance between ensuring the future without breaking the rules of noninterference, and trying to include Isa in whatever she could share.
“Just keep us safe, Isa. That’s all I can ask.” She sighed and stared up into his pained eyes. “I love you.”
“I love you too, Hope,” he said, using her angelic name. A name he could only use in private. To the outside world, she was Dr. Sandra Wilson. Unlike her, his name could be spoken to all. Isa, the affectionate nickname she’d given him three centuries ago. The name he’d chosen for his identity. Her lover and her mate. And, in this special case, her Guardian.
Her energy sagged, drawing her eyelids to half-mast. “Can we go back to bed?” she asked from inside the warm cage formed from his arms.
He gently tipped up her chin with his finger. “Will you tell me about the visions now? And what unsettled you so much this time?” he asked, concern etched across his white brow.
She pulled away and nodded.
They nestled under the covers, and she laid her head on his chest.
He ran his fingertips up and down her arm in a soothing pattern. “Tell me.”
She sighed deeply and swallowed. “I dreamt of her . . . of Cara, the First of the Holy Twelve, and of the war.” Closing her eyes, she recounted the vision. “As the battle nears . . . humans . . . The Dark Ones prey on the unwilling, plucking them from the streets of the city after late-night dinners, on their way home from work, from bars, hospitals, everywhere except places of worship . . .”
“What city?”
Her heart sank. Dropping her practiced American accent, she whispered the name of their home, “Chez-nous. Paris.”
“Then what?” Isa asked, following her lead and slipping into French.
“They call forth demons . . . new ones, not yet come, who can be seen by many, not just the hunted. But it’s a diversion to lure out the Angelorum . . . and to hide their true purpose,” Hope said, describing the vision. Letting it draw her back in, she connected through the Flow to the higher wisdom that lay protected within the Trinity Pool hidden inside the secret Angelorum compound.
Hope’s vision shifted to the battle and a darkened sky filled with piercing cries, blood, and feathers. “We’ve always assumed, somehow, that the Archangel Michael, with the support of Uriel and the Powers, would be at the center of this. But the vision paints a much different picture.”
Isa’s chest tensed beneath her cheek and he whispered. “What do you see?”
Her finger traced the red Guardianship tattoo over his heart. “The battle will be led by the Twelve but will not only be fought by our fathers, but also our brothers and sisters—the Children of Uriel. Nephil will fight Nephil . . .”
“But how is that possible? Every living Nephil is a servant of the Angelorum. Will there be a Fall among our brethren to the Dark Ones?”
She released a breath and craned her head up to meet his gaze. “I don’t know yet, though I don’t see anyone willingly siding with the Dark Ones. What I do know is that Lucifer wants Cara. He needs her as much as we do. But first, something very important must happen.”
“What’s that?”
“ . . . we cannot let her die,” replied Sandra.
Isa gave her a puzzled look in the dark. “I don’t understand.” She couldn’t explain it all. The answers presented themselves but she still needed time to process them. Parts of her vision were symbolic and still subject to change based on the free will and future decisions of others.
“Whatever it is that I’m destined to influence, Cara’s survival depends upon it,” she whispered. That was the point, wasn’t it? Use her expertise for the greater good? Her temples ached from the effort of recalling the images. The next step would be to piece them all together into something meaningful.
A chill settled in her bones. What she couldn’t tell Isa—if her mother Constantina, an Angelorum High Council member, and the Archangel Michael himself had not made a mistake almost six hundred years ago, the ripple in destiny threatening the First would never have happened. And she and Isa wouldn’t have been implanted by the Angelorum to repair the damage . . .
Chapter 6
SANDRA
Pacific Heights, San Francisco.
“ARE YOU READY?” Isa asked her, his hand splayed on her bare back. Her evening gown hugged her curves and shimmered like light glancing over the crests of ocean waves as she walked. She’d piled her long, dark hair high on her head for the occasion, and a sapphire pendant that matched the color of her dress rested at the base of her throat. Isa followed next to her, wearing a charcoal grey suit to compliment his pale coloring.
“As ready as I’ll ever be,” she replied as they headed toward the Art Nouveau ballroom in her cousin’s family home for their annual New Year’s Eve gala. Not truly a blood relative, Paula belonged to an old and trusted Messenger family line. Messengers—humans with limited psychic traits passed through the males within families—loyally and clandestinely served the Angelorum.
At the start of her assignment, Paula’s father had secretly secured Sandra her human identity, claiming her as a distant family relative while Paula herself remained none the wiser. Handy, given Paula was married to the very man Sandra had been assigned to watch over . . .
The air was thick with the sound of conversation and clinking glassware as they entered the room. Decorated in grand style, the old Victorian mansion had withstood the great quake of 1906 and boasted twelve-foot ceilings and original stained glass windows made by Louis Comfort Tiffany.
Sandra pasted on a smile and allowed Isa to guide her in the direction of their hostess. Being the tallest person in the room, Isa had already spotted her.
“Glass of wine?” asked a server wearing a full tux as they squeezed past groups of partygoers engaged in animated discussions.
“No, thank you,” Sandra said and continued on with Isa as they cut a path through the crowd toward Paula. Scanning the packed room, Sandra found no sign of Paula’s husband, Dr. Tom Peyton.
Her visions had intensified earlier that day, overtaking her awakened state. She and Tom working together . . . racing against the clock . . . hiding their activities . . . all with the pervasive sense of being hunted. But still missing was the one critical piece: the exact focus and delivery of their work.
“Sandra! Isa! So good to see you both,” said the petite brunette as she threw her arms out for a hug. Sandra smiled and bent to take her into a warm embrace. Both women outwardly appeared around the age of thirty-five when in fact only one of them truly was. They’d known each other for the full fifteen years of Sandra’s assignment, and Sandra had a true affection for both Paula and Tom. She and Isa had been remiss in returning their last dinner invitation.
“Paula,” Sandra said, releasing her. “Thank you for having us.”
“Nonsense, the pleasure is mine,” she said, waving her hand, and then turned to Isa for a quick peck on the cheek. “Tom will be glad you’ve finally made it. He’s been anxious to speak with you.” Paula glanced around but had no more luck locating Tom than Sandra had had a few minutes earlier. With a shrug, she pulled a passing waiter to a stop. “Have a drink and chat for a few minutes?”
They all chose glasses of California red from the silver tray.
“Did you have a nice Christmas?” Sandra asked after a sip of Cabernet.
Paula gave her a disappointed smile and settled her hand on her abdomen. “It was lovely, but we were hoping for a little gift from Heaven . . . nothing yet, I’m afraid.”
A heartfelt pang hit the center of Sandra’s chest and she reached for Paula’s arm. “I’m sorry
,” she said softly. Paula had been trying to conceive for the last year but to no avail. Being Nephilim and unable to procreate, Sandra had never known maternal desire, yet she understood its importance to human women.
“There you are!” came the deep, hearty voice of Paula’s father, Warner Shandwick, from behind them. A tall bear of a man with a shock of white hair, he clapped Isa on the back and leaned in to kiss Sandra on the cheek.
“Have you seen Tom?” Paula asked, wearing a puzzled frown. “I thought he might be with you.”
“Ah! I think your brother has him tied up at the pool table in the game room talking some blather involving gene pools and genetic predispositions. A load of bull hockey, if you ask me. What happened to the days when men smoked cigars and talked about the stock market, horses, and fine scotch?”
Personally, Sandra preferred the genetics discussion.
Paula rolled her eyes and chuckled. “Not everyone can be a retired captain of industry like you, Dad.”
Her father humphed and encircled Sandra’s waist with his arm. “Be that as it may”—he glanced at Isa—“may I steal Sandra away for a moment?”
Isa gave a gentlemanly tilt of his head. “Most certainly.” Then his gaze connected with hers. “If he doesn’t return you within fifteen minutes, I’ll follow,” he said telepathically, using their private Trinity frequency to prevent eavesdropping in a room half-filled with telepathically-gifted Angelorum Messengers.
Warner led her through the crowded room toward his private office.
Once inside, he locked the door. The comforting smell of wood smoke wrapped around her from the smoldering embers in the fireplace. Two empty glasses with melting ice sat on the small bar, explaining the earlier fire.
“How goes it, my dear?” he asked as he pulled a flat pouch of fine leather with a round silver clasp from the top drawer of his desk and handed it to her. She suppressed a look of surprise.
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