Sins of the Angels

by Linda Poitevin

  Would she talk about what happened back there in the alley? Or the recognition that had flared between them? Or the way her hand had brushed his wing? Aramael resisted the urge to reach up to the spot she had touched, where a tingle still warmed the flesh beneath the feathers. He wrenched his thoughts back to the question of how much she might have figured out. If only she had a Guardian he could ask—

  He ruffled his wings irritably. Hell, if she had a Guardian, he wouldn’t be in this mess to begin with. Wouldn’t be shackled by an obligation he’d wanted no part of in the first place and now found himself unable to surrender.

  Wouldn’t be torn between his purpose and a desire he should not—could not—feel.

  His purpose. Did he even remember what that was? Did he remember that he existed only to hunt the Fallen Ones, to do what the rest of Heaven couldn’t do, what none of them had the stomach for?

  A tiny bird, black-capped and bright-eyed, flitted onto a branch near his head and regarded him with interest. Overhead, the evening sky darkened with premature gloom. Aramael glowered at the gathering clouds. A natural weather occurrence, or Caim at work again? His mouth twisted. He shouldn’t need to even ask that question, damn it. He should be so attuned to his brother’s energies that he knew exactly when Caim became active again, the very instant his brother targeted another mortal.

  He should be, but he wasn’t. Because a woman, a Naphil, had become more important.

  The front door of the house opened and the bird departed in a flutter of feathers. Aramael drew back behind the tree as Alex emerged and descended the stairs toward the driveway, her jaw set and her face clouded. She passed by on the flower-bordered walkway, unaware of him, a bottomless weariness in her eyes. Reaching her vehicle, she stopped, back turned to him, and inserted a key in the door lock.

  Notice me.

  The thought slid through Aramael, unbidden, making his breath catch in his chest. The gossamer thread of awareness that stretched between them suddenly took on the strength of spider’s silk, wrapping around him, entangling him in steely softness. The thought came again.

  Notice me. See me.

  He stared at Alex’s abruptly taut back. Disbelief joined the seething mass that had once been coherence. She’d heard him.

  But she couldn’t have. He hadn’t spoken aloud, couldn’t have said what he hadn’t even known he felt—

  He stepped farther behind the tree as Alex turned. Felt her puzzlement, her indecision, the faint uneasiness that ran through her. He held himself rigid, waiting for her to decide she had been imagining things, to get into her car and leave so he could follow, undetected—

  And then he felt Caim.

  THIRTEEN

  Caim watched the bloody heart quiver into stillness, life fade from blank, staring eyes. Distaste sat thick and bitter in his throat—not for what he’d done, but for how he’d done it. Killing without the rush of anticipation, the expectation that this might be the one he sought—fuck, what a letdown.

  He scowled.

  Fat raindrops began to fall, making tiny explosions in the blood pooled at his feet. There had to be a happy medium. Something between the passionless act he’d just committed in an effort to needle his hunter, and the impassioned one that would bring that hunter down on him in a heartbeat. He shook his head and wiped his hands on the mortal’s jeans. He’d never before killed for the sake of killing. Never gone about the act without real purpose.

  Sure as hell had never dreamed doing so would bring so little pleasure.

  Caim turned his face toward the sky, squinting against the rain’s increasing onslaught. See? I’m not entirely beyond redemption, he thought to her. You would have known that if you’d just let me come home.

  No answer came. He hadn’t expected one. She had never answered. Not once since he’d left. Not when he had begged her forgiveness; not when he’d professed remorse; not even when he had sworn his undying loyalty … if only she allowed his return.

  Such was her love.

  Unconditional, my ass.

  He cocked his head to one side and made his thoughts go still. Nothing. No sense of impending pursuit. No frisson along his spine warning him of a Power’s approach. Right, so now he had a baseline. Knew how much control was too much. He’d let go a little on the next, a little more each one after that, until he found the perfect balance: enough passion to incite Aramael’s hunting instincts, and enough control to allow himself to withdraw to a safe distance before Aramael arrived. Enough that his brother wouldn’t feel him watching, waiting for—

  “Hey! You! What the hell are you doing?”

  The shout ripped through Caim’s skull, shredding his thoughts. A hand grabbed his shoulder and spun him around. Caim staggered, caught his balance, straightened to his full height, and extended his wings, bringing his focus to bear on his attacker. The man’s eyes went wide. Caim reached for his throat. Then more loud voices. Clumsy, heavy steps. Grotesque shouts.

  The man turned and fled. Caim saw a cluster of people running toward him. He hesitated. He could easily kill them all, but he could already feel his control slipping into the state where he would be unable to feel Aramael’s approach and might not escape in time.

  Hell.

  He clenched his muscles against the urge to pursue the man. Flicked a last look at the approaching mob. Then, with a snarl, ramped up his energy vibration and left the scene.

  ALEX FELL BACK against the car door as Jacob Trent exploded from behind the giant maple tree in her sister’s front yard. Even as her heart stuttered its shock, however, part of her wasn’t surprised. Pissed, yes. But not surprised.

  She focused on pissed.

  “What the hell are you doing? Stalking me?”

  “He’s made another kill.”

  Alex’s heart stalled. Christ, not again.

  “Did you hear me?” Trent demanded.

  Alex rubbed her hip where it had connected with the side mirror. She didn’t want to answer him. Didn’t want to believe him. Hell, if this kept up, she didn’t think she even wanted to be a cop anymore. Not on this case, anyway, and sure as shit not with this partner. She stooped and snatched up her keys from where she’d dropped them. Metal ridges bit into her fingers.

  She glared at Trent. Later, she’d have questions about how he’d followed her. Why he’d followed her. Why in God’s name she felt a frisson of pleasure at the idea in spite of her anger. Right now, however, she was a cop, and no matter how much she might dislike his uncanny ability to feel the killer, she couldn’t deny its existence. Not after this afternoon.

  She unlocked the car. “Where?”

  Heading around the vehicle, he pointed west. “And no, I can’t be more specific,” he growled. “Just drive.”

  Alex’s cell phone trilled at her waist. Ignoring Trent’s mutter of impatience, she pulled the phone from its case and flipped it open. “Jarvis.”

  “We have another,” Joly’s voice told her. “With witnesses. Lower Sherbourne at the Gardiner underpass.”

  Due west of where she and Trent stood. A spatter of rain hit Alex’s cheek, another the hand she rested on the car. She met Trent’s eyes across the car roof.

  “Jarvis, you there?” Joly asked.

  Nope. She really, really didn’t want to be on this case anymore.

  “We’re on our way,” she said.

  Twenty minutes later, Alex pulled up beside a cluster of police vehicles, turned off the windshield wipers and the engine, and climbed out of the sedan into the exhaustscented, headlight-lit underpass. She scanned the heavy equipment parked beside the scaffolding rigged for repair work on the hulking structure.

  Trent slid out of the passenger seat. Alex turned her back on him. She’d made no effort to break the silence between them on the drive over and wasn’t ready to do so now. Given the kinds of questions looming in her mind, it just seemed safer that way.

  Not to mention saner.

  She spotted Joly examining the ground beside a massive concrete
pillar and headed toward him, leaving Trent behind.

  “Well?” she asked. “Do we really have witnesses?”

  The radio chatter on the way over had been fast, furious, and frustratingly conflicting. One witness, several witnesses, victim still alive, victim DOA—by the time she’d made it halfway here, she’d been ready to rip the radio out of its housing and toss it out a window.

  “Witnesses, forensic evidence, guy running from the scene.”

  “Dogs?”

  “For all the good it will do in this rain. They just got here.”

  “Where’s Roberts?”

  “Over there.”

  Joly nodded in the direction of the taped-off crime scene and Alex saw her staff inspector in conversation with one of the dog handlers. She looked down at Joly, who was crouched to turn over a clump of soil with his pen.

  “You okay here?”

  Joly straightened again and wandered around the pillar. He waved her off. “Go,” he said. “Find clues. Catch the prick. Make sure he suffers in the catching thereof.”

  Roberts was alone when Alex joined him. He looked up from his notes and jutted his chin toward Trent. “So how’s it going?”

  That would have to be his first question. She thought about how she’d abandoned Trent earlier and averted her gaze. “Fine,” she lied.

  Her staff inspector raised an eyebrow. “You are clear on the working it out part, right? I don’t need a personality conflict getting in the way of this case, Alex. Especially not now.”

  How about a psychotic break with reality instead?

  She nodded. “I know. We’re good. So, where do you want me?” She saw his eyebrow lift again. “Us,” she corrected. “Where do you want us?”

  “The dogs are trying to pick up a trail, but it’s not looking good. We’re working on compiling a description from the witnesses, but so far our perp is every color from black to green, could be anything from an elf to a giant—”

  “Elf?” Alex interrupted. That was a new one.

  “Don’t ask. About the only thing anyone can agree on is how he left the scene.” Roberts scrubbed his hand over his short-cropped hair, a tension in his manner that she hadn’t seen before. “Poof.”

  “Poof?”

  Her staff inspector’s gaze slid past hers and his mouth pulled another fraction tighter. “According to seven eyewitnesses,” he said flatly, “our perp vanished into thin air.”

  The day before, Alex would have responded to that kind of statement with complete contempt. After lightning bolts and wings, however, she swallowed and kept her attention on the scene and very carefully did not look in the direction of her new partner. “I see,” she murmured.

  “I’m glad one of us does. Anyway, I put Bastion and Timmins in charge of the canvass—you and Trent can work with them. I’m heading back to the office to work on a press release. I don’t want to see any of you until you’ve hit every door within ten blocks.”

  Wonderful. A canvass of that magnitude should only take them the better part of the night, Alex thought. But one look at the strain in Roberts’s face and she decided to keep her opinion to herself. If she and the others were feeling the demands of this case, it was a thousand times worse for their supervisor, who had to coordinate the investigation, keep a rein on the press, and answer to every higher-up and politician in the city, if not the province. If Roberts wanted a ten-block canvass, then that was what they’d give him. Besides, it would keep her and Trent occupied. Perhaps enough so that they wouldn’t have to speak to one another. She shivered.

  Or touch.

  CAIM STOOD TO one side of the group that had gathered roadside to stare down on the murder scene. A gray car had pulled up beside the police vehicles, and he watched first a woman emerge, and then a man. His heart skipped a beat, then began to race. It was him. It was Aramael—and the woman from the alley.

  The Naphil.

  Anticipation lanced through his veins and his breathing quickened. Beside him, a young woman looked at him uneasily. Caim glared at her, then caught himself.

  Restraint. You can’t draw attention to yourself. Especially not his attention. Not yet.

  He made his wings relax and formed his expression into one of concern and compassion—or as close as he could come, never having felt either—and then turned back to the scene in the underpass below. The woman beside him settled again.

  Stupid bitch. Her Guardian would be doing backflips right now, screaming at her to move, to get as far away from Caim as she could possibly manage. But like most mortals, she would have been taught to value thought over internal voice, reason over instinct. Seeing no sign of the blood and gore on Caim that he hid from human eyes, she would decide no threat existed and shut out the immortal guide that might one day save her life. Perhaps from someone like Caim.

  He snorted. Really, he almost did the One a favor, taking the lives he did. Useless, every one of them. A waste of energy, better off returned to her greater life force. So arrogant in their presumption of their superiority, their invincibility. Pathetic in their ignorance of the multiple layers of the world they inhabited, the role they would play in their own inevitable downfall.

  Below, in the underpass lit now by floodlights, Caim watched Aramael move away from the Naphil and pace the taped-off police perimeter. Knew his brother searched for lingering traces of energy. A tremor ran through him. He thought again of the risks inherent in coming back to the scene like this. If Aramael sensed him, if he looked up here and saw him—

  Caim stepped to the rear of the cluster of people and paused to steady himself. It would never occur to the Power that he might remain at a kill like this. Caim just needed to stay calm, remember why he was here, stay focused on his goal. He watched the woman stalk away from his brother. How much did she know? Had Aramael told her she was Nephilim? Did she know the Power protected her?

  He studied the rigid, defensive lines of the woman’s body and the way she didn’t look in Aramael’s direction. He gave a soft snort. Damned if she didn’t look downright antagonistic toward his beloved brother. How intriguing.

  Feeling a sudden shift in the energies around him, Caim cast a sharp look in Aramael’s direction and saw that the Power had looked up toward the crowd with an expression too watchful by far. Without hesitation, Caim turned and walked away. He had more questions now than when he’d started, but if there was one thing he had learned, it was patience.

  The thought made him smile. How ironic that the lessons from his years in Limbo should stand him in such good stead now. Even more ironic that Aramael had been responsible for him learning those lessons.

  He strolled down the roadway, shifted his energy vibration upward, and, in a blink, continued along an entirely different sidewalk in the neighborhood of his residence. He’d have to give some thought to his next move, he decided. Random killings held limited benefit and, as he’d just discovered, even less satisfaction. He needed a strategy. A way to make things more fruitful, more interesting, and definitely more enjoyable.

  Caim rounded the corner onto the street leading to his appropriated residence. His steps slowed and he frowned at a car parked in front of what he’d come to think of as his home. An umbrella-sheltered female stood on the sidewalk beneath a streetlamp, with the air of someone who had knocked and waited now for a response to her summons.

  Wings tensing, Caim hesitated. He could just bypass whoever it was and let her wander off when no one answered, but then he risked having her return. He could also simply deal with her—another murder this soon after the last might even irritate Aramael into lowering his guard, giving Caim some of the answers he needed.

  Even as he debated the possibility, however, the woman turned toward him, moving the umbrella so the light from the streetlamp fell across her face. An unexpected heat tightened his groin. Oh, my, but she was lovely. He ran his gaze over her, from the confident tilt of her head to the way her suit followed the lines of a body that invited a man’s attention. Demanded it.


  Relaxing his wings again, he resumed his stroll, giving himself time to observe her. Admire her. Appreciate her. And consider a third option. He smiled and took his hands from his pockets, and then stepped up to greet her with a warmth not entirely feigned.

  She wasn’t quite what he’d had in mind when he’d thought to make things more enjoyable, but she would do nicely.

  FOURTEEN

  Alex found Trent standing to the left of the cordoned-off scene, his attention on a group of people clustered behind a concrete barrier at the roadside above them. No, not just his attention. That weirdly intense focus he had.

  He turned his head as she walked toward him and, for a moment, his gaze seemed to skewer her in place, making her heart flutter in her chest like a captured butterfly. Alex’s steps faltered. Then, eyes hardening, Trent turned back to the onlookers.

  Damn, but she hated how he could do that to her.

  Alex took a moment to remember how to breathe, watching her partner study the crowd. Personality conflict, my ass. Whatever there was between her and Trent, it was no mere conflict. Not that it mattered, because regardless of the issue—and whether it was real or imagined—she was still going to have to suck it up and deal with it.

  And somehow find a way to keep it separate from the chaos that had become her psyche.

  She adjusted her gun where it pressed into her hip bone, gathered her resolve, and picked her way across the uneven ground to Trent’s side. She looked up at the vultures watching them, as always a little sickened by the way her fellow humans were drawn by another’s tragedy. They should do her job for a while and see how fascinating they found death then.

  “See anything?” she asked.

  Trent said nothing for a second, then turned from his study. “No.”

  She hadn’t thought he would. Their killer, if he had been in the crowd, would have caused a considerable stir, covered in blood as he had to be. Alex watched the cluster of people for another moment. Then, driven by a perversity new to her, she asked casually, “Feel anything?”