Wounded Angel (The Earth Angels)

by Gail, Stacy

  Red.

  Just a flash. Barely there, way down deep. But definitely red.

  Shit.

  The hand clasping Rainier’s tightened convulsively, making the other man’s eyes widen. That action showed off the flash of red all the more. It was something he’d never seen before, like camera-flash red-eye without the camera. Ella hadn’t reacted to any strangeness in Richard’s eyes when he’d looked at her, so it wasn’t something she could see. But even more than that, it was the sensation of piercing pain behind his eyes that made him realize, at long last, what the hell he was dealing with.

  At some crooked point along the way, Richard Rainier had done the unimaginable and sold his soul.

  Richard began to claw at Nate’s hand. “Mr. da Luca...let go!”

  Ella stepped forward. “Nate...”

  Nate barely heard them. Instinct shoved higher reasoning aside like the weak nancy it was and took control. In one move he spun the other man around and sprawled him on top of the hood of the Caddy. He then cranked the other man’s arm so far behind his back, Richard’s hand could have easily made nice with his shoulder blade. A high-pitched, almost girlish yelp escaped Richard before Nate shoved the side of his face onto the hood of the car with a resounding bang. If he wanted to see a demon, he’d be more than happy to show him one up close and personal.

  “Nate!” Someone was pulling on his arm. A voice reached him through the raging need to avenge two innocent women who should still be alive—a sweetly compelling voice that now sounded almost terrified. The searing heat that thundered through his muscles eased to a sullen simmer, but oh, he wanted to obliterate the useless idiot in the worst way. “Nate, for God’s sake, stop!”

  “I know what you’ve done, Rainier.” It would have been so easy, so ridiculously easy to keep twisting the arm until that satisfying pop signaled its dislocation from the rest of the body. The raw power sang in him, a siren’s lure to smash everything tainted by unspeakable evil, and only through sheer force of will was he able to hold it back. “I know you’ve made some kind of sick deal with a devil you don’t even know in order to get to me. I should probably care about that, but I don’t. You know why?”

  The other man made a tortured mewling sound. “I’ll... I’ll call the police! You’ll pay for t-touching me, you thug.”

  “I don’t care about the deal you’ve made, because I’m so happy you’ve damned your eternal ass. And the cherry on top of that happiness sundae is this—it’s not going to make one fucking bit of difference. Whatever you’ve traded your soul for isn’t going to happen. I’m going to make sure I stand in your way no matter what it costs. Now, you make sure you say hello to your piece of shit brother when you see him in hell, you hear? I’ll do my level best to send you there just as soon as I can.”

  A car door slammed and the pain in Nate’s head nearly blinded him. He looked through a wince to see a lovely blonde woman come to a stop. She was startling in her perfection—her long blond hair a pale cascade down her back, her golden skin warm and sun-kissed, her little Kewpie doll mouth an innocent pink and wreathed with a smile that didn’t match the occasion. And her eyes...

  The screaming neon red of pure demon.

  A snarl from deep inside burst out of Nate, all but drowning out Ella’s ragged gasp. “You.”

  “Oho. Look who can see me.” The demon’s voice grated like fingernails on a chalkboard while its red eyes widened, and that screeching voice struck a chord of shocked recognition to resonate all the way to his soul. It was the voice he’d heard in his dreams, the voice of the faceless giant. Coupled with the radioactive-red glow of its eyes, the crushing reality of its sudden presence in real life was enough to make Nate’s mind threaten to crawl into the farthest corner and never come out again. “And here I thought you’d been completely crippled.”

  Too late, Nate realized he showed his shock like a noob by dropping his jaw. “What?”

  “You think I know nothing about you and your kind, abomination? While I might not be able to see you the way I can all the other worthless beings in this realm, the presence of you and your brethren still stand out to my senses. As much as it vexes me to admit it, we were once cut from the same cloth, so to speak.”

  “You won’t be able to escape.” He needed it to be clear, just to be fair. “Make no mistake—I will kill you.”

  The demon smiled, her Kewpie doll lips parting to show pretty white teeth. “You can’t kill what’s already dead. Isn’t that right, Gabriella?”

  “Lana?” Ella’s voice sounded to his right, surprisingly close yet so weak it could barely be heard. He jerked his head around to find her staring at the demon with a feverish mix of horror and hope, and he was instantly furious with himself for being so locked on the demon he hadn’t even noticed Ella had moved right into the line of fire. “I thought... I thought you were dead, I thought Charles Rainier killed you. I... Oh God, I’m so happy to see you.”

  Icy dread filled Nate as Ella stepped toward the demon in human clothes. “Ella, no!”

  But even as he spoke Ella faltered, her happiness clouding over in confusion. He glanced back at the demon Ella thought she recognized, only to have his stomach turn over queasily at the sight of shifting skin and bone. Hastily he dropped his hold on Richard, who crumpled to the ground clutching at his shoulder as though mortally wounded. Weak and spineless, he posed the littlest threat to Ella, whereas there was no telling what an unknown demon could do to her. Nate stepped in front of her, but not before she had the chance to see the melting, shifting face of the thing that was once the woman she’d called Lana.

  “What is that?” Ella’s voice was high and thin, as thin as the razor’s edge that existed between lucidity and hysteria. “What the hell is that thing?”

  Nate couldn’t begin to guess, and though he didn’t want to he glanced back over his shoulder to where the demon stood. Its face was now seemingly stuck in a half-formed state, as if it were a modeling-clay likeness of something humanoid but not yet finished. Then Ella sidestepped, staring in horror at the monstrosity that greedily looked back, and in a heartbeat the unfinished face hardened into crystal-clear focus. New horror slammed into Nate when he saw the face of the man Ella had been forced to kill—her abductor and torturer, Charles Rainier. The monster smiled back at her with hellish eyes brimming with malice, and it was enough to draw a ragged whimper from Ella.

  “You thought you killed me, but you didn’t, Gabriella.” The demon that now looked like the deceased serial killer still sounded like an ear-bleeding screech to Nate’s ears, but the cry of recognition that escaped Ella told him it wasn’t the same for her. It was much, much worse. “That’s right, it’s me, your old pal, Charles. You must know you can’t kill something like me. Like those scars I gave you, I will always be with you. Always. No matter where you go or how far you run, you will never escape me.”

  “No.” Paper-white, her eyes blank with a maddening terror so deep it was like an open wound inside her soul, Ella held up shaking hands to ward off what had to be her cruelest nightmare. “No, no, no!”

  A rumble of a city bus entered Nate’s consciousness a split second before he realized the danger. Uncaring that it would no doubt be the death of him, Nate turned his back on the demon to get a hold of her, but it was too late. Already she was backpedalling into the road, a keening wail of tormented fear ripping from her stress-corded throat.

  “Ella!”

  Deaf to everything around her, she turned and ran straight into the path of the bus.

  Chapter Ten

  Ella surfaced slowly.

  Tumbled thoughts and fragmented memory tangled into one hellish ball of white noise. Instinct had her cringing away from full wakefulness, but it was a losing battle. Sweat broke out along her skin and a maddened scream echoed deep inside her mind, the scream she wanted to let out
when she’d seen...when she’d seen...

  Charles Rainier.

  Her eyes slammed open and nausea churned up hard and fast. Blindly she rocketed from an unfamiliar bed and into a bathroom that her brain had somehow registered was close by. Without turning the lights on, she fell to her knees just in time and emptied her stomach, straining with all her might to remove the poison that was Charles Rainier from her system. If she could just get him forever out of her existence she would be okay, but no matter how hard she tried he was still there. Still alive. Smiling. Torturing. Killing...

  She was sick for what seemed like hours, her body’s agony mirroring the state of her fractured mind. Dimly she picked out the sounds of movement in the next room, and behind her closed lids the darkness shifted as a light was turned on in the other room. Shaking, every cell of her body inflamed with misery and wishing she could go numb and never feel anything again, she wiped her mouth with some toilet paper, flushing the mess away as she wedged herself between the commode and tub. If she could have pushed herself into the tiled floor and disappeared forever, she would have done it without hesitation.

  “Ella.”

  Again the need to scream quivered in her chest.

  “Ella, can you hear me? You’re safe now. You’re safe.”

  Safe? That was an illusion, fate’s sick little joke for poor slobs like her who fell for it. No one was safe in a world that regurgitated evil like Charles Rainier. He had come back from the grave she’d put him in so he could finish her off. There was no place in the world that was safe for her.

  Strangled gasps, like voiceless screams, hit her ears. Eventually she realized they were coming from her. She clapped her hands over her mouth and squeezed her eyes shut, terrified he would hear her. If he heard her, he would find her and carve into her like before, make her into his latest masterpiece, like Lana before her—

  “Ella, please listen to me. Listen to my voice. It’s Nate. Try and remember who I am. I swear I’ll protect you, but you’ve got to help me, babe. You’ve got to hear me and understand me, please.”

  Nate. She knew that name. He’d come looking for her when she’d been taken. He’d come to rescue her, when she’d thought she had to rescue herself. Sensation hit her all at once, punching through the wall of agony and madness crashing down on her. Nate. Big. Solid. Safe.

  I’ve got you. You’re safe now...

  Hands still clamped over her mouth, she took the last of her courage and peeled her eyes open, blinking tears she didn’t even know she was crying out of her vision. On the corner of the bed in the next room and framed by the open doorway of the bathroom, Nate rested his elbows on his knees with his hands clasped as if in prayer between them. But he wasn’t praying. He was looking at her through the shadows with an expression that could only be described as anguished.

  “I’m sorry,” he gritted out, the ragged words pushed through the barrier of his teeth. He bent his dark head and rubbed a hand over his face. It was the weariest gesture she’d ever seen. “It’s my fault you’re being dragged through this hell. If I had known taking this inheritance case would lead to what happened today, I never would have touched it. You’ve been through enough.”

  The sound of his voice had a miraculous effect on the tangle inside her. The taut cords pulling her in a thousand different directions eased enough to allow her to breathe. Her muscles sagged in relief, and at last she was able to take in their surroundings—the unfamiliar white-tiled bathroom, a mirror on the door, the generic bone-colored Berber carpet and massive king-sized bed Nate sat on.

  “Where are we?”

  His head came up at the sound of her hoarse voice, looking as shocked as she was that she’d managed to cobble together something coherent. “Fairest View Suites, the Financial District hotel where I’ve been staying. You can see The Bean from my window.”

  It was absurd, how normal that sounded. “Just what I always wanted—an unfettered view of a metallic legume the size of a tugboat.”

  “Stick with me, kid, and I’ll show you the world.”

  “How could the world compare next to a giant silver bean?”

  “Sorry to hear you’re so attached, because I don’t know that I’m comfortable staying here indefinitely.”

  Why?”

  “If Archibald’s paying any attention to my travel expenses, he knows where I’m staying. Though I’ve already been in contact with him to insist my whereabouts are kept confidential—even going so far as to point out his loose lips are responsible for the deaths of Briella Fields and Gabrielle Litte—I don’t know how strong his professional integrity is. The smartest thing to do is assume Richard Rainier and that thing he had with him will eventually worm our location out of Archibald. As soon as you’re strong enough to travel, we need to hit the road and get some distance between them and us so we can regroup.”

  At the mention of Richard Rainier, her stomach threatened to toss out whatever was left. “Actually, I think it might be best if you drop me off at the nearest hospital.” It was gratifying to hear how solid her voice was. At least she sounded sane. “I’ve, um... I’ve suffered some kind of psychotic break. I thought I was okay, you know? I thought I was handling seeing Richard Rainier just fine. But obviously that was the straw that broke the camel’s back.”

  “Ella—”

  “I’m seeing things. Bad things. Insane things.” There. She said it. The sooner she accepted she’d lost her mind, the better off she’d be.

  Nate was quiet for nearly a minute before he nodded once, as if coming to a decision. He abandoned the edge of the bed to sit on the side of the tub. He reached out a big hand to smooth over her hair in a caress so achingly sweet it almost shattered what was left of her control. How beautiful this man was, to instinctively soothe someone who was so obviously a lunatic. It hurt her heart to the point of doubling over to know that he deserved better than having to deal with a crazy person like her.

  “You’re not seeing things. I saw the same thing you saw. In fact, I probably saw one hell of a lot more than you did.”

  She shuddered. “Don’t patronize me, Nate. You don’t know what I saw.”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “I saw Lana Dever, a woman who I know is dead. I was there when Charles Rainier slit her throat after he carved her face up until there was nothing left. But I saw her today, and then she...melted. She frigging melted into Charles Rainier. That alone is impossible—people can’t just change like that. But it’s all the more impossible, because I know I used Rainier’s own knife to kill him. Yet somehow he was suddenly there, right there standing next to the car, and I ran and...”

  “And nearly got hit by an oncoming bus, which was what that...thing wanted. You would have been wiped out if I hadn’t rocketed to where you were with what I’ve always thought of as my blurring speed, and knocked you out of its path. Our landing wasn’t the softest, and you’ve been in and out of consciousness ever since.”

  Nothing he said made sense. “Wait. Blurring? I don’t...what do you mean?”

  “It’s a type of movement my kind seem to have in common. You saw me do it in the first-aid room—it’s an ability to move so fast the world becomes a blur to our eyes.”

  Ella stared at him. Who would have guessed insanity could be contagious? “I’m sorry. Your kind?”

  Nate loosed a rough breath before his hand fell away from her hair. “There’s no easy way to say this, so I’m just going to put it out there. I�
�m a descendant of a race of people called the Nephilim.”

  She stared at him and knew she was slipping again. Slipping into madness. “What?”

  “If you look that word up, it’ll tell you the Nephilim were an ancient race of human-angel hybrids. Some scholars say the angelic progenitors were Sons of God, while others say they were created by The Fallen. No one knows for sure what the truth is. We do know that most of the Nephilim were wiped out by the Great Flood, as they were considered abominations in the eyes of heaven. My mother pretty much agreed with that assessment, despite being one herself.”

  Ella began to shake her head and couldn’t stop. This couldn’t be happening. “Nate...”

  “Those twin scars you noticed on my back? They were where my wings used to be. My raving lunatic of a mother had a penchant for hacking her own wings off, even though they’d re-emerge when she’d least expect it. But with me, she made sure I was crippled from the beginning. She chopped my wings off the moment I was born because she... Ella!”

  She couldn’t listen to any more. With a strength she didn’t know her overtaxed body possessed, she shot to her feet, frantic to find a way out of the madness. Strong arms came around her from behind as she cleared the bathroom threshold, and instinct and training melded into one. With the ferocity of desperation, she kicked her heel back toward his knee, this time putting everything she had into it. But somehow he avoided the blow entirely, and without warning the world blurred around her. In less than a second they somehow traveled all the way across a neat, two-room hotel suite and wound up in the tiny kitchenette area.

  What the...?

  “Now are you getting it, Ella? I’m not like the monster you saw today, but I’m not a normal human either. I can’t afford to worry about whether or not you’re ready to handle the truth, either. You need to hear it in order to get out of this mess alive.” Nate’s voice was like rough sandpaper against her ear, and with another blurring move they were transported into the bedroom to land spoon-fashion on the bed. “What you saw today was real. What I’m telling you now is real. I know it’d be easier to think you’ve lost your very last marble and refuse to accept reality, but that’s the quickest way to wind up dead. I refuse to let that happen.”