“I’m going to take a look around, just to be safe,” Brion says, disappearing into a room off the open kitchen.
Always my protector, I think with a smile.
This moment is nice, in a strange way. Even though I’m in a kind of danger my brain can’t fully wrap itself around, I feel less lonely than I have for years. It’s not just Brion, although I feel connected to him in a way I’ve never felt with any man before. It’s Cas and Zakiel. After all we’ve been through together, we almost feel like family.
It’s strange to know this sense of peace can’t last forever.
“How long do you think it will take them to find me?”
“All of our safe houses are centuries, even millennia old, and have never been discovered by demons.” Zakiel’s gaze is penetrating. “But they’ve never had this much reason to find them, either.” He sits back with a sigh, gazing fondly around the room. “I must admit, I do hope they don’t find this place. It has sheltered me since the reign of Genghis Khan and, of all the places on Earth, it is my favorite.”
Cas and Brion have finished their own investigations and joined us on the couches. It’s very surreal to see them all relaxed, reclining against the backs of the sofas with their arms outstretched.
Even though they are relaxed, I’m still nervous. I feel like we should be preparing for whatever might be coming. “So, what do we do now?”
“Now?” Cas picks up what looks like a TV remote control. “We wait.”
“Are you serious?” I search all three of their faces.
They are. They actually are.
“That can’t be all!”
Cas shrugs. “Later, we’ll gather all the angels for the final battle. We just have to wait until the last minute to call them.”
“Why?”
“We can’t congregate because the demon horde will sense the energy of a flock of angels together.”
So they are just going to watch TV and wait for a demon horde attack? Sorry. Not this woman.
“So then, we’ll focus on getting answers to some of my questions. Answers that can give us the most powerful weapon of all… knowledge.”
All three angels look at me as if I’ve grown a third head.
“Knowledge about what?” Brion asks, his brows furrowed.
“Knowledge about what we can do to win a war against demons.”
It’s Zakiel who answers me this time. “I understand your compulsion. But you must understand that knowledge is relative. It differs on every planet, in every decade, and in every dimension. Most things that truly matter aren’t won by knowledge. They are won by making the right choice.”
I process his words for a moment. “I agree that knowledge changes, and choosing good over evil is the ultimate victory. But knowledge is still power, especially in war. And more of it is always better.”
“There is also a saying that ignorance is bliss,” Cas interjects, and Brion silences him with a glare. He goes back to pushing buttons randomly on the remote.
“Look, maybe none of you have studied science. But if they’re tracking us through energy, there is a way to shield it. And it isn’t just with charms and tattoos.”
Silence follows my words.
Brion looks at me as if he’s seeing me for the first time. “You know what? You’re right. And I’m going to help you find out more.”
A rush of relief comes over me. This is why I love Brion. From the very first moment we met, he seems to understand me in a way that no one ever has.
He might not view the world in the logical way I do. He might not see research and answers as the method to winning this war. But in his eyes, I know he believes in me. And that nothing else matters to him.
My heart swells.
Cas drops the remote in his lap. “If you really want answers to her questions, you know who to ask.”
Brion shrugs. “At this point, I don’t mind. If Michael had to steal her scientific device to protect his homeworld from demons, Gillian is probably correct in saying we can build other machines that are just as powerful and will protect us in other ways.”
Brion looks at me for confirmation, and I realize I’m staring at him with my mouth open. I can’t believe what he just said.
This is the first time someone’s ever defended me. And he doesn’t even know if I’m right. He just believes me.
Finally, my jaw snaps shut. I’m so off balance I don’t know what to say. “Yes. That’s right. I can build other machines very easily if I just have the parts.” My brain is starting to function again. “You said you can’t congregate together, right? But I assume we’re going to need more than three or four angels to defeat a horde of demons. Let’s find out what they’re tracking. We may be able to build a machine to nullify it, put a barrier around it, or block them from tracking it.”
Brion claps his hands on his knees and rises from the couch. “All right. Come with me.” He leads me into another room that looks like an office. I see my box from the lab sitting on a desk and realize he had always meant to give me this room to work.
Can he read my mind? Or does he just really care about my work?
As I look over at him, he’s studying the box intently, waiting for me to open it.
A little voice in the back of my mind whispers, Or maybe, Gillian, he actually loves you.
3
Brion
For all the time I’ve spent with Gillian, I haven’t really had a moment alone with her since the night I slept on her couch. I’m eager to watch her work, to find out more about her. I turn on one of the lamps on the desk. “Let’s make this a lab. What do you need in here to begin your work?”
She opens the lid and ruffles through the box. “This stuff. A couple of computers. My USB. And a bunch of other stuff I don’t have.”
“That’s why you have me.”
She looks up in surprise. “That’s right. I have you.” She starts setting notebooks and instruments out on the table. “I still can’t believe this is all I have left of my lab.”
Her lab. Her research. The things she cared about most, gone. How she must be hurting.
I put my arm around her shoulders for a moment. “It is hard to lose everything all at once.”
Her deep blue eyes search mine. “I never really thought about it until now, but you lost everything, too, didn’t you?”
“I guess.” I don’t really want to talk about it. I’m more interested in you, my little scientist.
I think she senses that because she goes back to pulling out notebooks and various odd bits of electronics from the box. She places each thing very specifically. She stares at one page and adjusts it slightly to the left, stares at it, and then reaches for the next notebook.
There’s a purposefulness to her movements that intrigues me.
“How do you remember where you put all of everything?”
“I’m not sure.” She gives a half shrug. “I think they call it good spatial memory.”
“I think I have that, too.”
She pauses and looks up at me again. “Really?”
“Yes. But not with papers,” I add hastily. “More like with weapons and strategic vantage points.”
She tilts her head, staring at me with wide, curious eyes. “You’ve never told me what you did on Earth. Before you died.”
I hesitate. It’s hard to talk about the days before I became an angel. A big part of me just wants to forget it because each memory is tinged with a hurt that’s hard to understand.
As much as I don’t want to recall the past, I want her to understand who I am, just like I want to understand who she is. In my heart, I know, eventually there will be no secrets between us, no stories left untold.
I take a deep breath. “First I was in the army.” Those days were filled with more blood than I ever could’ve imagined. I clear my throat and continue speaking, “then I started my own security agency. Mostly protecting people who were due to testify in court but wanted more than the usual witness protection
.”
The familiar pain flares to life in my heart. What happened to all those people when I was gone? Yes, now I protected people that Heaven deemed important, but what about the ones that were important only to their loved ones?
“I see.” She studies me and I can see the questions still in her eyes.
I rub my hands together, feeling the deep calluses as I try to describe a life that I still didn’t quite understand, even in death.“When I protected people, part of my job was to find defensible locations, those with few sight lines for snipers and few ingresses and egresses to protect. Another part was to protect locations we had no choice about.” I paused, lost in thought. “That’s why I was thinking about spatial memory. I used to have a 3-D image in my mind of the location.”
She smiles. “That’s amazing spatial memory, all right.”
I feel relieved, but I don’t know why. “A scientist and a soldier. Who knew we had anything in common?”
She laughs, and she seems to sparkle. The sound is pure and utter music to my ears. How long has it been since I made a woman laugh like this? How long has it been since seeing a woman happy filled me with such pride?
Never, a tiny voice whispers in my mind. And I know it’s true.
Gillian is special to me. Not just after three decades as an angel, never feeling a connection in this way to a woman, but when I was living, too. Yes, I thought I’d loved then. But no, it was nothing like this. Deep. Powerful.
She smiles, drawing my gaze to the dimples in her round cheeks. “How is it that I had less in common with other scientists?”
I close the distance between us and run a hand along her arm. I’m immensely pleased when she shudders. “I’ve never met a woman like you. In life or in death.”
The smile disappears from her eyes. “Have you been with a lot of women?”
I’m tempted to lie to her, to tell her she’s the first, but I can’t. I don’t think she’d believe me, anyway. “I married my high school sweetheart, and I loved her more than I loved myself. But being married to a military man was too much for her. I was gone too often. One day I came home and she was just…gone.”
“I’m sorry,” she whispers, placing a hand on my chest.
I wrap my hand around her smaller one. “I was young then. Even though it hurt, I realized later it was for the best. Better for her.”
She leans her head against my chest. I love holding her like this. We fit together perfectly. Our hands lock against my heart, and I rest my chin on the top of her head.
A thought comes, bringing with it a spark of jealousy. “What about you? Have you been in love before?”
She’s quiet for a moment, then speaks slowly. “I’ve dated. But…my research always came first.”
“I can’t imagine many men were willing to share you like that.”
It took her another long minute to answer. “I told myself for the longest time I was just too busy for love. But now I’ve realized something. There was never anyone important enough for me to focus on. None of them made me feel… they were just all the same.”
I use my free hand to grasp her chin and slowly tilt her face up. Our gazes meet. She leans toward me, and I can’t wait another second. I kiss her. Our mouths meet softly at first, then harder and more forcefully. Her mouth opens, and my tongue slides in.
We both groan.
Someone clears his throat by the door.
There’d better be demons, or someone is going to die.
I look up to find Cas holding two drinks. “I thought you might be thirsty.”
“You thought wrong,” I growl.
Gillian laughs, her cheeks bright pink. “Thank you, Cas.”
She moves away from me, and I already miss the feeling of her curvaceous body pressed so firmly against mine. I’m going to have to thank Cas for this later. Personally.
She puts our drinks down on the table, and the door shuts softly.
I put my hands on her hips, pulling her back to me. “Where were we?”
Laughing, she raises a brow. “You know, I might have to ban you from this room, or else I won’t get any work done.”
I tense. No way in hell. “What can I do to help?”
She pushes me away gently and opens one of her notebooks to a blank page. “I’m going to make a preliminary list of things I need you to pick up. Once you get these things, I can start working while you collect others.”
For a minute, I don’t hear her. My gaze is squarely focused on her ass. My woman looks good in a pair of jeans.
My own jeans tighten in response. Dammit.
She turns to stare at me, and suddenly, I process her words.
“Uh. Sure. Anything you need.”
She clears her throat. “I’ll need those parts as soon as possible.”
Focus, man. Your hormones can’t take over the first second we aren’t at death’s door. “What are we going to make first?”
She responds without taking a breath. “I’m going to build a second gravity wave reverser. The same one Michael took.” She taps her forehead with her pencil and writes a few more items on the list.
“I thought you said it took six months to make it.”
“Yes, I need to correct that. It didn’t take six months to build. It only takes two days to build, but six months for the moon rock.”
The what…? “The moon rock?”
“Yes,” she says idly, tapping the pen against her forehead again. “The machine works on Helium-3, which is only found in the moon rocks the Apollo astronauts brought back in 1969. I needed permission from the Smithsonian to get a piece of it last time, which took quite a while.”
Ah! Realization dawns. “Oh. No problem. You tell me where to go, and I’ll get it for you. No permission necessary.”
“Nope.” She says matter-of-factly. “I don’t need another one.” She rummages through the box and pulls out another device.
“Why not?”
She looks up and sighs. “Because I still have the one they gave me. It’s in my USB case.”
Holy shit. “You mean, the machine Michael stole…”
“…doesn’t have a power supply,” she finishes for me. “Right.”
I want to smack my head against the desk.
“Gillian, remember that talk we were supposed to have about what information to share and when?”
“Yep.” She gives me a cheesy grin. “We never had it, did we?”
I really want to kiss that grin off her face, but this is too important. “You know this changes everything. He’ll be back.”
“Unless he can find another way to power it.” She picks up one of her small mechanical devices and turns it over to examine it. “I know.” She puts the device down and writes down a few more items in the notebook. “All right. This list is finished. How long do you think it will take to get all this stuff?”
I look down the list. “Most of it is simple, hardware store stuff. Probably an hour or two.”
She nods. “All right. I’ll finish setting up.”
A second later, she’s back to jotting things down at her desk. I try to hold in my sigh. I have the feeling it’s going to be quite a while before I get another taste of my little scientist. And until then, I have a feeling it’s going to be hard to concentrate. Literally.
My lower extremity gives a little twitch, as if in agreement.
4
Gillian
I need the parts from Brion before I can build my gravity wave reverser, but that won’t stop me from working on my next project. How are the demons tracking the angels? They’ve got to be giving off some kind of energy, but I need to figure out exactly what kind of energy if I have a hope in hell of tracking it. Or maybe that should be a hope in heaven.
And for that, I’ll need test subjects. I grab two small pieces of equipment and head out the office door.
Zakiel and Cas are still sitting on the couches, watching TV and drinking soda.
If only they knew what I have planned for
them. I can’t help but grin.
I try to sound professional. “Would you mind if I try to detect what energy you’re giving off? I’d like to start thinking about making a blocker for it.”
They both exchange a look.
Cas takes a sip of his soda. “I’ve never really liked the idea of being a science experiment.”
I roll my eyes. “It won’t hurt.”
He set his drink down. “I’m pretty sure Angel 101 warns against this kind of stuff.”
I perk up. “You guys take classes for this?”
Cas laughs, throwing his head back. “It’s more like boot camp. But you could call it Demon Killing 101 if you really want to.”
Zakiel stands. “What he means to say is that we’d be glad to help.”
I give Cas a pointed look. “They must teach better manners on Celeron.”
Zakiel looks pleased.
“They also teach them how to be condescending, know-it-all—“
“I am not a know-it-all!” Zakiel interrupts, golden eyes flashing with indignation.
Cas puts his hands up in surrender. “Not you. I just meant Michael and his ilk. He’s always been a pretentious ass.”
The fire goes out of Zakiel’s eyes. “You’re right. Apology accepted.”
“All right.” I hold up the first of my detectors. “Can we get started, gentlemen?”
Cas gives a loud, dramatic sigh. “What do you need first? Blood? Urine? A stool—“
“No! I just need to scan both of you.” Flustered, I come to stand in front of them. “This might seem a little sci-fi to you when I’m using these, but they’re just detectors.”
I try an analog frequency detector first, but nothing registers. Then an RF detector. Then a general transmitter detector. I can’t find energy of any sort emitting from them.
Then suddenly, it hits me. The way I detected the demon portals was to use a mini gravitational wave antenna, or mini-gwa. Once I detected them, I would use the machine to reverse the gravity. But what if I wasn’t detecting the portals? What if I was detecting the demons themselves?
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