by Michele Hauf
“Do you know what a Grigori is?” she asked, hoping he’d grabbed the wrong term.
“I do.” He bowed closer to her, his massive frame shadowing her and making her feel so small. “And you, my lady, do you know what a Grigori is?”
“I most certainly do.” She squeezed her forearm because if she scratched any more she’d tear skin. “Next you’ll be telling me you carry a flaming sword and—”
Glass crackled from above. A row of windows along the second story shattered. A rain of glass shards poured downward.
Ashur slammed into Eden. Her breath gasped out. He shoved her into the darkness near the far wall, away from the falling slivers of deadly glass.
“He’s here. Stay put,” he said in a low command. “Don’t get in the way.”
If he was speaking about the punk being here, Eden didn’t see him.
“Where is he?” she called nervously. “How could he have possibly followed us?”
Ashur tilted his head aside and lifted a hand to silence her. She could sense his anxious alertness. But he wasn’t half as tense as her muscles were. They felt ready to snap.
She scratched her forearm.
Suddenly Ashur approached her. He gripped her wrist and looked at the red skin right below the birthmark. “This is how he follows. The angelkiss. It is a beacon. Scratch again, my lady. Lure him to me.”
“But he just—” A beacon? Scratching where he had licked her lured the crazy druggie to her? No way was she going to continue. “No, I—”
What sounded like wings, yet sharp and cutting as if metal, sliced the air. Eden searched the broken window frames overhead. She could only huff and try futilely to settle her frantic heartbeat.
“This is not proving successful. He will not approach when he knows I am guarding you.” Ashur twisted to look at her. “I must lead him to believe I’ve left you to your own devices.”
“No! Don’t leave me alone.”
Her outburst caused him to pause. Had he intended to leave her here? Obviously he was weighing it in his mind right now. And had she just asked for help from a man who scared the crap out of her?
All her life she’d wondered about things like angels and the fallen and what they might look like, and now… This could not be happening.
Finally Ashur nodded. “I will not leave you. But my intentions cannot be fulfilled here and now. Give me your hand.”
She tucked her hands behind her hips.
Ashur lunged and gripped her wrist, roughly forcing her hand forward. And then he bent and dragged his tongue over her skin, right over the itchy spot where Zaqiel had licked her.
“What the hell?”
“It counteracts the angelkiss,” he said. “For a while. Don’t scratch until I tell you to do so.”
He grabbed her, sweeping her into his arms as effortlessly as if she were a doll. He deposited her on the back of the motorcycle again. Tears rolled down Eden’s face as he kicked the bike into gear and they rolled over the litter of glass.
“Tell me where you live. I want the angel to think you are alone and waiting.”
“Oh, hell. An angel? A real…? This can’t be happening.”
“Your address, my lady.”
If she had known the address for the police station, Eden would have rambled that one off. Yet the idea of being dropped off at home, where she felt most safe and could lock the doors and keep out all the crazy men after her, sounded too good to be true.
She gave him her address, and the motorcycle picked up speed.
He’d spoken of Fallen angels, and kisses from angels, which made her think he was talking about real angels. She believed in angels. They weren’t all glowy and peaceful and full of grace as modern media would have a person believe. Some were positively evil—the fallen ones.
Something the cabbie had said returned to her. When they were in the tunnel, the cab had slowed and he said he saw an angel.
Had Zaqiel been that angel?
But why would an angel be after her? Had it something to do with the dreams she’d been having all her life?
As they sped down the pier, Eden glanced over her shoulder and saw Zaqiel keeping track with them on foot.
Chapter 3
Bruce speed-dialed Antonio in Paris, then checked his watch only after he’d done so. It was 6:00 p.m. in New York. That made it something like midnight in Paris.
The receiver clicked. “What?”
“Er, sir, hey. I’m here in New York.”
“Obviously. What do you have for me, Bruce?”
“I tracked the Fallen to an art gallery.”
“You tag him?”
The GPS injection gun Bruce wore in a holster was still loaded with a cartridge. “No. But I did discover something very interesting.” He turned and eyed the gallery, still swarming with mortals oohing and aahing over its contents.
“No tagged vamp? What the hell are you doing? Traipsing through Times Square?”
“Listen, Antonio, I found some paintings you’ll want to see.”
“Paintings?”
“Yes, they were painted by a chick named Eden Campbell. They are all of angels. I think she knows something. They are remarkable.”
“You’ve never seen an angel, Bruce, what the hell makes you think some woman painting fluffy-winged angels knows something? I’m very disappointed—”
“In each painting the angel wears a sigil,” Bruce hastened out. “And I know I’ve never seen an angel, but I have seen those symbols in that ancient book you used to summon Zaqiel and the other. They are the same. I know it.”
He heard shuffling. Antonio must be sitting behind his desk in the cavern. Bruce called the guy’s home a cavern because seventy percent of it was located underground. Five hundred years old and sunlight had never touched his skin. Holy water burned him and he seriously could not see his reflection in a mirror. He was old world all the way.
“You swear this is serious?” Antonio asked.
“I’m sure of it, boss.”
“Who is the woman? How does she know this?”
“I have no idea. Some society chick. I missed her. I guess she left before I got here. The gallery closes in a few minutes.”
“Buy them all,” Antonio ordered. “Ship them to me overnight.”
“Will do, boss.”
A thousand years sitting Beneath, doing nothing more than contemplating emptiness, tends to steal a demon’s energy, if not his sense of what is.
What is, is the world had changed, Ashur told himself. Drastically. He hadn’t afforded the time to look at his surroundings upon arrival here on earth. Immediately he focused on tracking Zaqiel. It was what he did; nothing else concerned him.
So why was he cruising through an overcrowded city on a strange two-wheeled vehicle with a muse clinging to his back?
He never got involved with the muse. The woman was merely bait, a necessary lure to bring the Fallen into its half angel/half human form—the only form in which it could be killed. As well, the form it assumed to impregnate the muse.
Generally Ashur arrived just as the Fallen was going to attempt the muse. Then he slayed the angel.
His timing was irritatingly off. He should not have been summoned until the very moment of the attempt. Had the rules been altered? And why were the Fallen walking earth again? Hadn’t their ranks been swept away with the great flood?
He had no concept of how much time had passed since the flood, or since he’d been banished Beneath. Millennia, surely, for the world had changed drastically.
“Take a left!” the woman yelled over the roar of the motor.
Ashur liked the noise of the engine as he revved it, but he did not care to take directions from a female. However, he did turn because he had not navigated this city before, and her directions had given Zaqiel the slip many city blocks earlier.
So long as Zaqiel knew a Sinistari was with the muse, the angel would not approach her. But it was in the angel’s interest to keep his muse in sight, for he c
ould not track her by scent but only by the identifying mark. Though the angelkiss made all senses unnecessary.
If the muse irritated the angelkiss, it acted like a beacon.
Ashur did not want to use the angelkiss until he had the woman in a space he could control.
Slender fingers gripped him tightly about the waist, clinging to the front of his shirt. He’d gained a mortal’s raiments after surfacing from Beneath. Upon arrival following his summons, Ashur had taken a look around, seen what the mortal men were wearing and had assimilated the trousers, shirt, jacket and boots.
A few minutes observing the men and their motored bikes, and he had learned the driving technique. He’d stolen a bike, leaving behind a crew of leathered bikers shouting at him as they struggled to start their own vehicles. Only one had managed to follow him, but he’d given him the slip.
He’d sacrificed valuable time gathering a few essential tools of this realm, and because of his delay the Fallen was still alive. Yet the angel would have never attempted the woman out in the open with witnesses. Or would he?
The world had changed. Ashur expected everything else—including the Fallen—had changed, as well.
“Drive under there,” she said, pointing toward a slope in the street that lunged beneath a towering cement building. “It’s my building. You can park underneath in the garage.”
Ashur took in the rows of shiny metal vehicles as he rolled slowly down into the cool, lighted garage. Man had come a long way from the horse-drawn carts he recalled. The improvement was unnecessary to judge from the huge, dense city where he suspected most could walk to and from their destinations.
And yet the motorized vehicles were bright and loud. He must get one of those if he were to spend any amount of time here. He slowed and read the words on the back of a vehicle that appealed—Ferrari.
Concentrate, Ashuriel. Do you fall to the old sins so quickly?
Heh. Sins? He’d mastered them all. And with ease. Mortal sins were not considered evil or wrong to his kind. In fact, indulgence was a way of life.
Theft had come easily, without thought. Vanity, well, he wasn’t sure if the clothing he wore was the finest, but he was clothed.
Lust? Well, that suited him fine. He vaguely recalled that particular mortal sin now as the woman’s fingers impressed upon his chest. Though the particular elements that designed the sin had been lost to him over years of desolation. He knew it had involved touch and emotion and intense physicality. It would come to him, surely.
Violence would be granted when he shoved Dethnyht into the angel’s glass heart.
Parking the motorbike, he pulled out the key, sensing he’d need it to restart the thing. He waited for the muse to slide off behind him. He could feel her head pressed against his back and her fingers didn’t so much dig into his chest as affix themselves to it.
Touch. He pressed a palm over her narrow fingers. Yes, he’d forgotten the pressure of another person’s flesh against his own. So odd how he could feel her warmth even through the shirt. It shimmered through him and— He must stop regarding the sensation.
“We’re here,” he said. “It is safe now.”
An easy lie. One thing he did remember was the muse was always frantic and inconsolable upon learning her fate—which was usually seconds before the Fallen attempted her. “My lady?”
“Huh? Oh.” She slid off and tugged at her torn skirt. It revealed so much of her fine, long legs, Ashur had to steel the sudden desire to stroke his thumb along her thigh. “Sorry. You were…nice to hold on to.”
Ashur lingered on her smile, knowing it was a distraction, but unable to resist.
He slid from the bike and tugged off the heavy leather jacket to offer to her. “Here. Your skirt is torn. This will cover your legs.” And keep his eyes from straying.
“It’s not torn.” She dashed a finger along the hem, which upon closer inspection didn’t look torn, rather straight, but it was above her knees. “You’ve never seen a miniskirt before?” She smirked. Somewhere she’d lost her shoes and she stepped on the balls of her feet. “Would you, um, give me back my blade?”
“Why?”
“It’s mine. And if you don’t, I’m going to scream.”
She sought a show of trust. Ashur handed her the blade, and she clasped it to her chest, yet not in defense. Foolish woman.
“Thank you. So, that man… He’s a real angel?”
Ashur detected a lightness in her tone that didn’t seem right after what she’d been through.
“I mean…” She absolutely beamed at him. “I’ve always wanted to see one. And everyone has always made me think I’m a nut for believing in them. But if he was the real thing I really need to know because that would mean I’m not crazy, and—”
“Yes,” Ashur blurted out, mostly to stop her from rambling. “Zaqiel is a real angel. A Fallen one.”
She sucked in the corner of her lip and her eyes flashed brightly. The shadows and shades of gray the world offered him shimmered about her and expanded into a brilliant aura of white. Something inside her wanted to explode, Ashur felt, yet she restrained it by tensing her muscles, and then she did a strange move by bending her arm up and pumping it once. A triumphant gesture?
“Come on,” she said, turning and rushing away from the parked motorbike. “I suppose I at least owe you a drink for saving my life. If you could call that a save. You coming?”
He followed her into a small box with doors that closed automatically behind him. The interior was lined with mirrors and a panel of blinking buttons. He recognized the numbers and assumed she knew what she was doing.
“You called this an angelkiss,” she said, stretching out her forearm.
“Yes, and don’t scratch it.” Not yet.
“And why did you lick it? Is that some kind of new pickup move I’m not keen on?”
“My saliva counteracts the angelkiss for a while, but it’s obviously wearing off if you are feeling the need to scratch. Whatever you do, Six, don’t scratch it. It acts as a beacon to Zaqiel. It is the only way he can track you and I’m not yet prepared to face him. I want you in a secure place first.”
“Right.”
He could sense her fear, but he also sensed her strange fascination. It put out a sweet odor that intrigued him. It had been so long since he had experienced the mortal condition. She was still traumatized. Her fingers shook minutely and she worried her lower lip. A pretty, thick lip that held his attention until the doors opened with an alarming ding.
“Did you call me Six?” she asked as she strode down a white marble hallway carved with elaborate designs. Steps bouncing, she appeared giddy. “What’s that about? I do have a name.”
“I don’t want to know your name.”
She glanced over her shoulder. Deep, dark eyes dusted by long lashes took him in. Ashur couldn’t determine if they had color; the world—which he knew should be in color—was revealed only in black, white and shades of gray to him. For now.
“Sounds kinky to me,” she said.
“Kinky?”
“Yeah, you— Sorry. It’s not every day I’m chased by an angel. Will we see him again?”
“Soon. Surely.” Ashur quickened his steps to join her before a door where she tapped in some numbers on a lighted panel. “Six.” He took her arm gently and turned it up to display the mark. The Roman numeral six sat on the surface of her skin, the color dark like her hair. “That is your sigil.”
“It’s a birthmark. It does kind of look like a six. But seriously, I’m not going to answer to a stupid number—”
He gripped the door as she pushed it in, stopping her abruptly. “Do not give me your birth name. Please. It is easier this way.”
“No commitment with fake names?” she asked. “Easier to walk away?”
“Trust me.”
“That’s a loaded statement. I distinctly recall you telling me to scratch this puppy to lure that man to us. How does using a woman to lure in a maniacal angel involve trus
t?”
She scanned his eyes for so long, Ashur had to look away, over her head and into the foyer. He’d never felt so noticed before. Easy enough when he’d just come from a long stint Beneath. It was as if she clutched her fingers about his black heart and actually squeezed the hard steel organ that kept myriads stolen souls locked away for eternity.
He was not accustomed to conversation or even the presence of another, yet he adjusted quickly. Acclimating to his surroundings was necessary to his task. But this closeness between them stirred something inside of him he’d long thought tortured out of him.
Women are dangerous.
He knew that, and yet he could not recall why. Were they not simply fine bed mates?
Tapping her lower lip with the blade, she captured Ashur’s attention, but he sensed her favor toward him had dissipated. “Maybe I don’t want you coming in.”
“But I must.”
“Must?”
“I find the day’s course of events has exceeded my grasp and you are…in need of protection.” She’d buy that one. “To be honest, it is new to me. Protection. But it is a task I will not refuse. The Fallen will not relent in his pursuit of you. And I need time to form a plan.”
“You don’t have a plan?”
“I should have already slain the Fallen. I’ve never before had to track one after they’ve made contact with the muse. As well, this world, and your need for me, is new.”
“My need for you?” she said on a nervous, chuckly tone. “Please. I don’t need any man.”
Quite a unique woman, then. What had become of the subservient, faithful and devoted women who answered to their husbands and cared for the children?
“Can you fend off the Fallen when next he shows?” he countered.
“I…” Diverting her eyes from his face, she looked away and sighed. She stepped inside the home, leaving him to follow, which he did. “Maybe I don’t want to fight him off. Maybe I want to talk to him. It’s not every day a girl gets to meet an angel.”
She may think she was strong, but he sensed her lacking confidence. Yet the tiny bit of gumption she did possess intrigued him. She had thought to defend herself with that little blade against a man twice her size and possessed of supernatural abilities.