by Azure Boone
What were the odds that Ezekiel would be chosen in this mission? A man with direct links to such things? How much should he reveal? "I might be able to help a little. You know I'm originally from the Middle East?" At Lucian's nod, he continued. "My mother was Israeli, and I lived there a while, and in Jordan, but I ended up in South Africa mainly, and now here. Spending the last couple years in the private security business was a real education."
"I imagine it was." Lucian's noncommittal tone implied he might realize private security was just a euphemism for mercenary.
No matter. He'd made no secret of being a gun for hire. "Anyway, over the last year and half, I heard a little about a guy working on a weapon that would crush anything. Supposedly, not even the US military could field anything as powerful, even with their drones and nuclear warheads."
Something, a whisper of sound or a shift in the air, drew his attention to the other side of the room. Toren strolled in with a lazy grin. "What are you old women plotting now?"
Right behind him, Samantha caught his remark. "Excuse me? Are you implying old women are more likely to plot than old men?" She came up alongside him and caught his arm, hugging it to her chest.
Toren dropped a kiss to the top of her short cropped hair. "No, only that feminine plots are more intelligent." He grinned and she swiped a hand at him playfully. One glance at Lucian and Ezekiel and the grin disappeared. "So what are you two up to?"
Lucian shrugged and looked to Ezekiel to explain.
Reluctant as the new guy, Ezekiel gave his own shrug and waded in, filling Toren and Samantha in on what he and Lucian had just discussed.
Toren whistled long and low as Ezekiel finished telling of the supposed power of the weapon. "That's exactly the kind of info we need. The demon over lords would give their eye teeth for something like that. Find out all you can. I'll contact Kassern and Dorn." He turned toward the kitchen, holding Samantha's hand. "And you need to eat."
Lucian rose and went to a built in cabinet near the big screen TV and pulled out another laptop. "Here you go." He handed it to Ezekiel. "We'll figure it out faster if we work together."
Ezekiel looked at the computer a long moment before taking it. "I have no idea how to do what you're talking about." He was no slouch with a computer, but the kind of stuff Lucian was doing sounded far beyond his skills.
"No worries." Lucian shrugged again in what Ezekiel realized was a habitual expression. "It's a program I use. It crawls all over the web and filters out strings of text containing specific words. Then I check and see if any of them are relevant to our mission. When I find something, I follow it back to the source and dig deeper."
Well, that didn't sound too complicated. Ezekiel followed Lucian's instructions and they quickly zeroed in on the information they needed. Adrenaline surged when Ezekiel realized the event being spoken of would take place in only a few hours, and not even a hundred miles from where they sat at the moment.
And one of the men taking part spoke in a unique manner astonishingly similar to that of the man he'd pursued for nearly a year. An unfamiliar heat soared through his blood and seemed to magnify his senses and everything about him.
Troy and his wife, Devyn, came in and took possession of two more computers and the other sofa. Four laptops? The magnificent suite with separate bedroom suites for each of the six couples, the mysterious Peggy, and still three to spare. Add in the gourmet kitchen, living and entertainment area, fitness center and pool, and he figured the place must run several grand a day.
Who the hell was financing the operation? Those kinds of accommodations usually went along with criminal activity or the extremely rich. So far, he'd seen no evidence of either. He realized in that moment how foolish his hypothesis was with archangels in the equation. He’d had his heart ripped out and patted back into place, surely these guys would have no problems getting all the money they needed.
"Can I ask you guys a serious question?" He glanced at both Lucian and Troy, trying to gauge their reactions. "Who's behind all this?"
Troy and Lucian exchanged meaningful looks, then Troy arched one quizzical brow. "What do you mean?"
Great. He had to spell it out. That made him nervous as hell. "Who's paying for it? This place is one of the most opulent hotels I've ever seen, and I admit to having been in a lot of hotels. And besides all the luxuries, there's state of the art electronics and enough weapons to start a revolution. So I'm curious."
Lucian shrugged and turned his attention back to his screen, unconcerned. "Man, have you not noticed our bosses are archangels? I haven't asked where the bucks come from, but there never seems to be a shortage and I’m certainly not thinking they’re stealing it."
Ezekiel let himself relax a little. After some of the shit he'd seen, coming up with money didn't seem all that big a miracle. But hadn’t he just told himself that very thing before making a fool of himself by verbalizing the question? Having confirmation for his logic comforted him anyway.
Devyn looked up from her computer. "Ezekiel, what's the name of Sam's ranch? The C-Bar?"
"Yeah why?"
"Shit, there's something here she needs to see." She rose and headed into the kitchen in search of Samantha and Toren. A moment later, she returned in a rush, Samantha following close behind. Devyn held the laptop out to Samantha, who quickly scanned whatever was on the screen.
"Oh God, no.” She looked at Toren, face deathly pale. “What has Joe done? I need to call home, see if Kassie is okay."
Lucian and Troy looked up with concerned expressions. "That might be a problem," Troy said in a careful voice. "The demons know who we are, who our families are, and monitor communications so they can track us. We can't just call home to check on things."
Samantha's stunned expression warned of a coming storm. "What?"
"Hold on." Ezekiel couldn't help stepping in. "Samantha, by 'fake mystic' you mean the cowboy called Joe?" At her nod he continued. "What did he do?"
She began pacing, her eyes looking eerily whiter. He had a hard time looking at her since the freaky eye change. And since she frequently shut them, he guessed she was still seeing too much. That was one fucked up angelic trait to inherit. Although in a war like this, he could certainly see the advantages of such a thing.
He and Skylar had gained a bit of strength and speed. For Skylar, it was impressive, for him even more so since what he gained was added to what he already possessed. And if he wasn’t mistaken, whatever change happened in him wasn’t done happening. Unless the hot flashes he was having were merely an annoying side effect.
Sam paused and shut her eyes, holding on to the back of a chair. "That article says he had a psychotic break after his long-term fiancé, the ranch owner's daughter, eloped with a drifter." She paused to put a shaking hand over her mouth and take a deep breath. "He… He—" Toren appeared at her side, silent, and took her into his arms. Ezekiel had to strain to hear the rest. "He strangled my father then poisoned all the men, including himself, with something he put in the woodstove. Kassie came back from her evening church service and found them all." She clung to Toren while tears rolled down her cheeks.
Holy shit.
Devyn laid a sympathetic hand on Samantha's shoulder. "I'm sorry." She drew back, looking uncomfortable.
Samantha took a deep breath and swiped at the tears. "Toren, I have to be sure Kassie is okay."
The angel nodded. "Of course." He led his distraught wife from the room, pausing at the door. "Lucian, Ezekiel, I checked with Dorn and Kassern about the next step in our plans. Dig up everything you can. We'll talk in a couple hours. Just in case, find a way to get us into that auction." He turned back to the hall, half-carrying his now-sobbing wife.
Devyn returned to her seat beside Troy and took up her laptop again. "That kind of thing makes me really glad I don't have any family. I don't think I could deal with something like that happening back home and not be able to at least call."
Ezekiel shook his h
ead. "Toren will make sure she can call, or take her there. He won't deny her anything." He should know. He'd never be able to turn Skylar down, even if it put them all in danger. Thoughts of her drifted into his mind, and heat flashed through his body. Hope he wasn’t just coming down with something. Besides that, he was a little too young and too male to be having hot flashes.
He forced his attention back to the illegal arms business and finding a way to get into the auction. Come hell or high water, as the Americans were fond of saying, he intended to be there.
** ** ** **
Toren was tempted to just flash Samantha back to the C-Bar without bothering to let Dorn and Kassern know what had happened. Contradictory to his usual impulsive nature, common sense and caution won out and he buzzed the other two archangels telepathically and convinced them to meet with him about it.
"Toren, I have to call Kassie right away. She's all I have left." Samantha had calmed considerably but her voice still wavered.
"I know. As bad as I hate it, I have to ask you to wait a little. Kassern and Dorn will be here in a few minutes and we can decide the best way to handle it."
Her eyes widened. "It's a phone call. What is there to handle?"
Toren lifted her hand to his mouth and kissed her knuckles. "I'm sorry, baby. We're in a complicated situation. Remember those things in the field? And back at the cabin?" At her reluctant nod, he continued. "Those are best case scenario. We can't take a chance of their creators monitoring communications and using a phone call to follow us back here. It would put us all at risk. And we don't want to put Kassie in danger either. They can use a phone call to find her as easily as they can us."
The remaining anger faded from her face. "I never thought of it that way."
"We also have to consider that it could be a trap. The enemy may have engineered the situation to draw us out."
"So what do we do? How do we make sure to keep Kassie safe? We can't leave her there to face those things alone."
Before Toren could remind her about Kassie’s guardian, a flurry of mist rose in the room and Dorn and Kassern materialized side by side. "What's going on?" Dark hollows rimmed Kassern's eyes, as if he'd been under an usually vast amount of strain.
Toren explained the situation with Samantha's home as succinctly as possible. "Samantha and I are concerned for Kassie and need to find a way to ensure her safety."
Kassern started to pace as if his mind were elsewhere and left Dorn to figure things out. "Does she have family she can stay with? Perhaps in another state?"
Samantha shook her head and wrung her hands. "Kassie was an only child and her parents were drifters so if she had any extended family, she didn't know about them. Her husband died four years ago and they never had any children. The ranch was her life. She brooded over the hands like an old bossy hen and treated me as the daughter she never had. My father, she just tolerated mostly. She just didn't make any other close connections, even with the women in her church groups." Samantha paused to swallow a sob and straighten her shoulders. "She's all alone now, grieving for her dead and in terrible danger. I can't leave her to that."
Dorn nodded and appeared to consider the facts and get nowhere. Toren snapped his fingers. "I've got it. Uriel mentioned that we need to establish a semi-permanent base to come back to between operations, a safe place for Peggy and her brood. Some of us will have work to do that requires some stable resources, like Lucian and his internet searching. And no doubt, we'll eventually have humans who are unsuited to active roles in battle."
Dorn nodded once more in agreement with Toren's reasoning thus far. "And?"
"So what if we bring Kassie here and make this the operational base until something else is arranged? She's a gifted cook and accustomed to preparing food for a group, so she could take over that task and spare us Devyn's culinary efforts. She'd probably also be willing to assist Peggy with her kids."
Samantha nodded eagerly. "That's the perfect solution! Kassie would love taking care of stuff like that."
Dorn lifted one hand in a signal to pause and turned to Kassern, still pacing. "Brother, go. Take care of her. We'll handle this."
Kassern's eyes glowed red with his gratitude. Rather than reply, he nodded and disappeared in a tornado of blood-red mist.
Dorn continued. "What are you thinking of for this arranging something else you mentioned?"
Toren ran one hand over the stubble growing back on his scalp. "Uriel mentioned working on setting up a main base of operation for us. To come and go without being seen, where we can do some serious training off the radar, set up a heavy defensive position. I’m thinking, as Peggy's young grow, they’ll need space to move and grow strong and not be seen. And through all that, we need someone we can trust to manage this base of operations."
Dorn studied his immaculate nails for a moment then gave a single nod. "I just got word that our compound will be ready in a week. I see no reason why that idea couldn’t work.” He turned to Samantha. “She can…make coffee? And cook?”
Sam’s eyes lit up bright white and Toren felt her joy all the way to his phallus. “Oh, yes the best, I assure you!”
“We'll give it a shot,” Dorn said. “Pending Uriel's approval, of course."
"You think he'll say yes?" Samantha's brow furrowed with worry.
Dorn nodded. "I don't see why he wouldn't. It's a logical plan and Uriel is nothing if not logical. But since we're talking about what the humans call operational security, we can't move ahead without approval. In the meantime, I'll send word to her Guardian to contact us immediately if anything looks wrong."
"No!" Samantha's eyes flared with a mixture of anger and fear. "That's not good enough! Anything could happen while you're waiting for approval."
Dorn flashed a look to Toren that clearly said control your woman.
Toren’s jaw hardened. "Right, Dorn." He fought the urge to roll his eyes. "I'm sure if your wife were concerned for a family member you would do whatever you could to help."
Dorn's eyes flared a little brighter. "Yes I would." He turned to Samantha. "I wish we could all go right now and get your Kassie. And if the souls of millions didn't hang in the balance, we would. But it's a vital point in this mission. If we don’t succeed in disrupting this operation, earth could be headed into a world war, which would give the enemy a serious advantage to turn up the chaos knob. The fate of souls is on our heads, and yours now. As painful as it is, we can't save one person at the risk of millions." He glanced to Toren for help, sincerity clear in his furrowed brow.
Toren sighed and drew Samantha closer. "He's right, baby. Going after her now could tip off the over lord that we're on to him. Samantha, he makes a lot of bad people do very bad things. Prostitution, drugs, gambling, human trafficking, weapons… Anything related to human vices."
Samantha looked up at him, tears flooding her beautiful eyes. She blinked, long and slow, and a trail of tears rolled down her cheek. Toren's heart clenched with her pain. "I understand." Her voice was so low it was barely audible. "Just promise we'll get her as soon as we can."
"Baby, I swear. We'll flash to the ranch the very second Hetarne’s operation is crushed." Toren put every iota of his honor into the words.
Dorn nodded. "We both promise it."
Toren couldn't help notice Dorn had carefully avoided the use of the more binding words swear or vow, or even pledge. That differentiation meant the aquamarine warrior would do his best, as long as the cost wasn't too great. Toren raised a brow to let the bastard know he'd caught the intention.
Troy chose that moment to tap at the door frame. "Sorry to interrupt, but it couldn’t wait. We have an update." He turned and went back to the living room.
Toren led Samantha after Dorn and by the time they entered, Troy had resumed his seat and turned toward the big screen TV where Lucian fiddled with a cable connected to one of the laptops. Dorn stopped to stand near one of the couches but Toren continued on to one of the big leath
er easy chairs and sat, drawing Samantha to sit on his lap. The TV screen flared to life, displaying an array of images and several blocks of text.
Resuming his seat, Lucian bent over his computer again to tap at the keyboard. "Okay, here's what we have. There will be a closed auction accessible by invitation only. That means the prospective buyers have been carefully selected and have certain interests in common." One of the images centered on the screen and enlarged. "I was able to access satellite imagery of the location. The auction will be held in this warehouse."
"How do we know it's the right location?" Troy placed a bare foot on his knee.
Lucian brought one of the text blocks into view displaying what looked like a transcript of a conversation. "Here." He highlighted part of one line. "These numbers designate GPS coordinates corresponding to the building. And before you ask, I verified past events and locations to ensure they use the direct coordinates." Another image came up. "And here, one of a series of pics of various cargo vehicles entering the building. Also part of a pattern."
"Do we know what's going to be sold?" Toren forced himself to participate despite being torn between the mission and worry for Kassie.
The discussion went on with Lucian fielding all the questions. Ezekiel stayed behind his computer screen, occasionally pecking a few keys. Finally, he touched Lucian's arm and nodded.
"Ezekiel's been trying to find a way for us to get in to this exclusive auction. We can't go as prospective buyers. Hetarne only deals with people he knows personally."
Ezekiel set his computer aside and stood. "I called on some connections and found out they want some exterior security. Three men. I have to be one of them, since the guy arranging it knows me. We're just back from an operation in an unspecified South American nation, running security for an unspecified drug lord who had trouble from a rival. We took care of that issue for our boss, but a new rival rose and had him assassinated before we were paid. So we need a good payday, fast."