by Michele Hauf
“It lets my dangly bits dangle,” he answered. “It’s a freeing feeling. You should try it—er, oops. You’ve no bits to dangle.”
“Are you mocking me, Fallen one?”
He turned and slipped his gaze down her torso and legs. An assessing look that unsettled her.
“Do you have issues with your sexuality, then? Because it seems as if you’re not overly pleased with the mortal costume you wear. Usually chicks wear dresses, or something feminine when out clubbing.”
A deeper blue edged the man’s gray eyes, and they pierced Pyx right through the heart. Which was strange because her heart was metal and nothing could penetrate it. The burn she felt in her chest must be residual effects from the whiskey.
He snapped his fingers before her.
“I do not have issues,” she returned. “I’m perfectly fine with the bits I’ve got.”
“They are lovely bits.” Now his eyes strayed to the V in her shirt where her breasts rose in soft globes. “Plan to take those babies for a spin while you’re here on earth?”
Pyx clasped the shirt opening. “Meaning?”
“Well, I know you, Sinistari. You’re all about the sin. Lust, pride, greed, vanity and gluttony. If you’re in the mood, I can help you with the lust.”
“You’d sleep with a demon?”
He shrugged. “I find my own desires are immense. And I do like redheads. Care for a kiss?”
Pyx shoved her fingers through the hair she wasn’t so sure about. It was too long and silky. It hung in her eyes. She blew at the bangs dipping over her brows. She couldn’t look at Cooper. And his question put her off. What to say?
“Kidding,” he said. “I’d like to keep you at arm’s distance if that’s all right with you.”
“Fine with me. I only need to stretch to poke you with my blade. But we’ll worry about that when the time has come. Back to the vamps,” she said. “You going to amble on out of here without backup?”
“I don’t understand your worry. And yes, I intend to amble without a care. Not even for the demon.”
“Fine.”
“Great.”
“It’ll serve me well enough.”
“Why’s that?” He scanned the crowd, not looking at her.
“You leave first, and I’ll follow the vampires as they track you.”
“They’re not going to— Why am I arguing with a demon? Good riddance, Sinistari.”
He skipped down the steps in his clunky boots and landed on the main floor with a jump. Without a glance up at her, he then danced his way along the crowd and into the darkness toward the back exit door.
“Leaving without a woman on his arm?” Pyx tapped the railing. “Interesting. He’s freaked now. I’m sure of it. The angel has more than a demon on his ass. Just you wait, Fallen one, I’ll be tracking vamps on your wake in no time.”
Cooper went down the Metro stairs to the train. He kept one eye scanning his periphery and over his shoulder. Two dark figures followed him.
Vampires? He didn’t have bloodsucker radar. The demon would know for certain. Their earthly connection to those things could sniff out any paranormal by vibration alone.
He’d allowed the sexy, sexually confused demon to put stupid thoughts into his brain. He wasn’t being followed. And if he was, they sure as hell were not vampires. Maybe a couple of pissed-off mortals who’d been dumped by their women after Cooper had flirted with them.
Turning a curve in the long cement tunnel stretching underground toward the Metro station, Cooper listened as the probably-not-vampires closed in on him. He knew this was a longer stretch and made a left turn to the C line instead of walking straight toward his usual train.
Pressing his back to the wall, he waited.
On the slight chance they could be vamps, he had no wooden stake, not even a weapon, and he knew vamps weren’t so easy to take down. He was stronger than mortal men, but he wasn’t sure how his strength matched up with a vampire.
Earthbound or not, he still retained a few tricks up his sleeve.
The first man rounded the corner and Cooper swung out his arm, clocking the bastard across the throat. The man took it with a gasp and a growl, revealing fangs.
So the demon had been right.
Cooper tossed the vamp against his cohort, who shoved him back at Cooper. Both charged him, fangs extended.
He could flash out of here, but that wouldn’t be any fun.
Cooper set his shoulders and bounced on the balls of his feet. He welcomed the fisticuffs. And if he got the chance to bash up a few vamps, that suited him fine. He carried a lot of aggression stored in his bones and since he’d been on earth he had found little opportunity to let it out, save on that one now-dead Sinistari.
Slammed against the wall, Cooper choked out his breath as one vamp pummeled him in the gut. The other vamp drew out a dagger, which was cheating, really. And didn’t they know only one kind of dagger could kill an angel?
Maybe they didn’t know he was an angel? Maybe they were just jonesing for some blood? Not that angel blood would do either of them any good—it would freeze them solid, and then—kablam.
Out of all the people in the nightclub, Cooper suspected he had not been the most appetizing. There had been plenty of women with soft necks and warm, adrenaline-spiked blood. This had to be because he was an angel.
He kicked his attacker, but only landed high on his thigh. Didn’t move the bastard an inch. A flash of steel careened toward his shoulder, yet the blade suddenly soared backward, away from its target.
A sweep of red hair brushed Cooper’s cheek.
“Oh, enough, bloody enough!” He did not need to be saved by a woman!
Cooper bashed his forehead against a vampire’s skull. His brain reverberated in his head. The bloodsucker’s skull was hard! A shove of his hand—he didn’t touch the vamp’s chest—sent the creature flying away and crashing against the ceiling. The vamp dropped hard.
Pyx gripped the other vampire by the throat and slammed him against the cement wall. “Who sent you?”
Interrogation. Good idea, Cooper thought. Glad he’d thought of it.
The fallen vamp lunged, aiming toward Cooper.
He made a tight, straight spade of his fingers and shoved them into the vampire’s chest. The creature yowled. Cooper gripped the heavy mass of hot muscle. A gut kick sent the vampire stumbling backward.
Blood oozed over Cooper’s fingers and dripped onto the floor. The vampire whose chest was now empty of his heart ashed, as did the heart in Cooper’s hand. Slimy ash-drenched blood oozed in splats onto the cement floor near his boots.
The other vampire spat in Pyx’s face. She swiped the bloody spittle away and then pounded a wooden stake into the vamp’s chest. It took a lot of force to put a piece of wood through ribs and muscle. Pyx made it look as if she was spearing an olive with a toothpick.
Ash spattered into the air. The Sinistari shook off the gray dust and delivered a triumphant smile to Cooper.
“I do have a stake,” she said, then glanced at Cooper’s bloody hand. “Oh. That’ll work, too.”
Careening around the corner flew two more vamps. Or Cooper confirmed they were of the vampire persuasion when one jumped on Pyx’s shoulders and sank his teeth into her skull above her ear.
Cooper gripped the wood handrail and tore it from the industrial bolts securing it to the wall. He broke it in half and caught the charging vampire in the chest with it.
Pyx spouted every oath in the book as she struggled to detach the fangs and fingers digging into her scalp and throat.
Cooper twisted the thick wooden stake and kicked the dead vampire off from it. Ash dusted Pyx. The vamp gnawing at her skull inhaled a mouthful and choked.
Pyx smashed the vamp against the wall. “Suck on that, longtooth!” It released her, and she scrambled away the direction it had come. A new vampire appeared, saw his retreating cohort, and joined him.
Wielding the stake like a spear, Cooper threw it after
the vamps and caught the tip at the back of one’s head. His strength had given the soaring wooden stake rocket power and it entered the vampire’s skull with ease, dropping to the ground in a clatter as the vampire became dust.
Cooper caught Pyx by the shoulder, and when she struggled to race after the final vampire that had gotten away, he twisted her arm around behind her back.
“Get your bloody hands off me!” she cried.
He released her and flicked the blood from his hand against the cement wall. Taking in the surroundings, he listened, confirming no mortals within hearing or eyesight. The bloodstains would raise questions. At least the vamp had ashed and hadn’t left a mangled body behind for someone to freak over.
“Let the longtooth go,” he said. “It’ll run to its master and tell them what a force we are to deal with.”
“It’ll return to its master and give him details,” she hissed.
“Details of what?”
“You!”
Wiping the blood from his hand on his white shirt, Cooper smirked. “They were following you too, sweetie.”
The shirt was a loss and the blood stank. He couldn’t walk around mortals with it in this condition. He shrugged it off, and balled it up. “I’m out of here.”
Pyx kicked the cement wall and growled in frustration. “You’re welcome!” she called in his wake.
She thought she’d saved him? Poor misguided demon.
But Cooper had no intention of hanging around to convince her of her mistake. The day had taken a very wrong turn. And he was not stupid. He needed to put as much distance between himself and the Sinistari as possible. A schush and clatter signaled the arriving train. Cooper slam-dunked the bloody shirt into a trash can, and jumped onto the train, insinuating himself within the crowd.
It was after midnight. The club rush, both standing and seated, filled the train. Sure he was shirtless and sporting an ash-dusted kilt, but he didn’t raise any eyebrows from those with spiked hair, elaborate makeup or high-cut skirts that dared to show more than tease.
Cooper let out a breath. He’d never run from danger. He had once been the instigator of danger and chaos, and…death.
Those were innate characteristics he wished to change. And he would. He must if he wished to belong. Walking away had been the right thing.
Focus on what can be yours.
Now that his nervous energy had begun to relax, his senses opened wide to his surroundings. He liked the close quarters and the mingling of scents and bodies. A man could fall in love with someone if he closed his eyes and breathed the exotic spice of flesh, perfume and life. Humanity was a marvel.
The doors clattered shut and the car tugged into motion.
Bye, bye, vampires.
Seriously? Vampires? They couldn’t have known they pursued a Fallen one and a demon. Only vampires who would do that were stupid, or ash.
He noticed a smear of vamp blood down the side of his kilt, and turned so that thigh was concealed against the train wall.
A long slender body pressed along Cooper’s backside. She wrapped her arms about his waist and spread her fingers up his chest. The Parisians were so friendly.
Turning, he huffed when he saw Red smiling at him.
“What the hell are you doing?” He tried to shove her off, but it was too crowded. “Don’t press your bits against me,” he whispered by her ear. The man next to him smiled and waggled his brows. “You’re a crazy one.”
“There’s nothing else to hang on to. You don’t want me to fall on top of the old lady sitting behind me, do you?”
“Won’t happen. And don’t try that pouty, innocent look with me. Where do you live? You can’t possibly be going the same direction as me.”
“Nowhere. Only been here a day.”
He’d been here a couple weeks, but already he’d found himself a sweet little place tucked away from the world in the 16th arrondissement, yet still within Metro distance of all the hotspots. And in that time, he’d already slain one Sinistari in much the same method he’d employed against the vamp. Though Sinistari hearts did not bleed and were as strong as steel.
Much as he liked the feel of this female’s body warming up against his—and making things very hard—he didn’t want the trouble that accompanied her. Or the confusion over whether to slay her or to turn around and kiss her.
“They were after you,” he said. “I’ve had no problem with vampires until you showed up.”
“Says the guy who needed rescue from two vampires.”
“Rescue? Are you mentally unbalanced? Oh, right, you are.”
He flicked some ash from the shoulder of her men’s shirt that sported a design of blood and now some of her own black demon blood. She fluttered her lashes at him.
Not going to work on him. Not even when her pupils dilated, pushing the kaleidoscope perimeter of iris to a narrow band.
He averted his attention to the wounds above her ear. “You’re bleeding.”
“That’s the vampire blood.”
“No, sweetie, that stuff is black.”
She touched her head in a moment of panic. “Is it bad?”
“No,” he said under his breath. “You don’t feel pain?”
“A little, but it’s healed. Hope you can’t catch rabies from vamps. Ugg. That thing was hungry.”
“It’s all over your shirt. You’re not being very covert.”
“Didn’t know that was a requirement. You want me to take my shirt off, too? That’ll show ’em how covert I can be.”
“I’ll give you all the attention you need if you play it cool around mortals and keep your shirt on.”
“Mmm…” She slid closer to him, and if he didn’t know better, he’d guess she was angling for some touch and man, did his body react. The brush of her shirtsleeve across his nipple did not preach patience.
But he did know better. She was Sinistari. She had come to kill him, not snuggle with him.
His stop was next. No doubt, she would follow him out no matter where he got off. The demon was like a tick. But she wouldn’t find nourishment from him because he had no intention of giving her what she wanted. If his muse were in the vicinity, Cooper intended to walk the opposite direction.
Just because a Sinistari had found him didn’t mean he was close to his muse. He’d actually landed on earth in New Jersey. Upon feeling the compulsion to stay there—and seek his muse—he’d immediately flashed across the ocean.
The doors opened and he nudged the demon’s hip with his. She took the signal, wrapping her arm around his back and leading him out onto the platform.
“I don’t need an escort,” he said as he plodded under the sorte sign toward the stairs.
The tick clung. At the very least, she was hanging on to him on the side of the blood smear.
Surfacing on the sidewalk in the center of the 16th arrondissement, Cooper sighted the distant lights twinkling down the always-busy Champs Elysees.
“You’re not coming home with me, so shove off,” he told her. “You are like one of those sad-eyed puppy dogs, aren’t you?”
“Fine. I don’t need to see where you go, I can track you by vibration.” She leaned against a metal street post and crossed her legs at the ankle. The cowboy boots pointed toward the sky. Drawing her finger along her lower lip, she looked up through her thick ginger lashes. “Nightie night, Cooper.”
That lip demanded a nibble. Or two. And those lashes. What would it feel like to brush his mouth over them?
Cooper huffed, and marched down the narrow cobblestoned street toward his building. This quarter of the city boasted homes from medieval times sandwiched between twentieth-century buildings. The eclectic mix appealed to his sense of craft and artistry.
He forgot about demons and vampires—until he thought of them—and he scanned all around him and searched the darkness in between buildings.
At the door to his building he punched the numbers into the digital security box, then jogged the three flights up to his apartme
nt. Listening acutely before he closed the door, he reassured himself she’d not followed him. But then, before he did close the door, he heard the street-level door creak.
“You can’t sleep in the foyer!” he called down.
“Says who?”
Rolling his eyes, he slammed his door and stalked through the darkness to the bedroom.
The moon was high and it shimmered through the tall window facing the distant Seine. He kicked off his boots, then landed the bed on his back, arms spread. A pillow wobbled onto his face and he punched it away.
He’d thought his existence on earth would go easy if he kept a low profile and didn’t answer the compulsion to seek his muse.
Someone had different plans for him. And it wasn’t the Sinistari that worried him most.
Why in Beneath were vampires after him?
Antonio del Gado strode at a quick pace through the limestone halls of his underground sanctuary. Here in Paris he owned an exquisite mansion, the Hôtel Solange, which was underlined with a network of tunnels. The medieval and rococo centuries had been a time of necessity for secret escape tunnels thanks to the political maneuvers that tested the resilience of kings and their subjects.
During evening hours he lived aboveground, but when daylight reigned, he was forced belowground.
Vampires could walk in the sun. Ninety-five percent of them. But the rare ones who had descended from an angelic race could not, only because their bloodline had not been rejuvenated with their ancestors’ blood for millennia.
Antonio was going to change that, for him, and for his entire tribe Anakim. He wanted the daylight, and he would not stop at anything until he had it.
Behind him he was flanked by Bruce Westing and Stellan the Pale. Bruce was Anakim’s Fallen hunter, and Stellan’s expertise had uncovered half a dozen angel halos over the past year. As well, Bruce had secured the eight paintings lined along the north wall in the dungeon, each of them depicting a different Fallen angel, complete with sigil.
Yet Antonio had no names to match to those sigils.
“You’re sure it was a Sinistari with the Fallen?” he asked as he entered his underground office. The cave walls were hung with medieval tapestries depicting scaled dragons and knights with bloody spears. “I thought you said he was with a female?”