by Eden Crowne
He went to the water's edge and stood there for a long time, just out of reach of the bright, white foam on the breaking waves. The beach and the town were very quiet. Turning, he walked along the shore almost until the breakwater where the air blurred every so slightly around him. Pulling a glamour over himself, Trick trance jumped almost lazily across the sand heading south.
Evie followed from on high, flying in wide circles. There was no sign of the Death Mark. Roman Barracuda probably had more to do with that than a Celestial slip-up. Trick jumped past the giant power station squatting incongruously on prime ocean-view real estate. The tall towers stood like exclamation points, thick plumes of white smoke drifting up into the sky. At Redondo Beach Pier, the Reaper stopped to scatter a flock of pelicans squatting like vultures over the Korean fish restaurants crowding the wharf. Slipping off his glamour, he chatted with several of the night fishermen, sipping coffee from a styrofoam cup one of the elderly men pressed on him.
Hugging the coast, Trick came after a time to the more rugged terrain of Palos Verdes. Here, the Reaper finally stopped on a lonely stretch of beach. The inlet was inaccessible from above and only barely visible from a walking trail twisting on top of the cliff. Evie circled the beach, checking for a trap. When she was satisfied there was no one or nothing else except the Reaper, she drifted down through the few low-hanging clouds just beginning to move in, to perch lightly on a rough jumble of rocks near the water. The heavy seaside smell of kelp, salt, and sand which Evie associated so closely with California beaches was strangely absent, as though swept out with the night tide.
Trick knew she was there. He had felt her presence on Pier Street as he returned from the market. Knew she was watching his apartment from across the street. That evening he had made one of his favorite meals: pasta with a spicy arrabiata sauce smothered in pancetta bacon and parmesan cheese, with crusty bread and a robust Tuscan Chianti. He'd laughed at that, sitting in the little dining nook of his place, watching the sunset. Trick McKitrick had come a long way from his Arizona pan-fried steak and biscuits roots! Maybe that wasn't necessarily a good thing. Life and death had certainly been simpler then.
The sea always calmed him. Made him feel that his problems were small and insignificant in the greater scheme of things. Washing clean the evil he had seen and done. He gave a bitter laugh; as if that were possible. To be clean again. At the inlet he shed his clothes and walked out into the waves. Diving into the sea, he surfaced swearing as the cold hit him The bite of the water eased as he swam back and forth parallel to the beach, lap after lap until he was out of breath. Turning on his back, Trick let the sea carry him as he floated, watching the stars, picking out the few constellations he knew. The clouds were moving quickly now and as he floated, the gray wall crept slowly forward until it blocked out the heavens completely.
When he was very small, he and his mama would pull the rocking chair off the porch into the yard. There, wrapped in blankets against the chill of the desert night, they'd search the sky for the Pearly Gates of Heaven. Mama said if they were very lucky they might catch a glimpse. Sometimes they thought they did. There were always falling stars.
“Those are Guardian Angles,” she'd told him. “Soaring down to Earth to save some happy soul.”
Tonight there was a true Angel nearby. Unfortunately the last thing she was interested in was saving a soul-lost Reaper. He pushed away thoughts of his mother, gone so very long. What would she have thought of him now? Flipping over, he swam slowly back towards the shore, trying to calm himself. Trying to come to terms with what had to be. He was a Reaper, not a man, and he had made his dark bargain.
Tonight could not end well, but it needed to end one way or the other.
Trick walked out of the waves, shaking the sea water from his hair. Evie watched him. Watched the lithe, graceful way he moved. Watched as the water ran down the fine, firm lines of his body, dipping and curving along the tight abdominal muscles and running in rivulets over his narrow hips and strong legs.
Evie jumped down from the rocks and drawing her sword, walked towards him.
Vengeance is mine.
Chapter 10
The air shimmered as he summoned some of his power, warming himself in the chill air. All the remaining moisture on his skin rose in steamy waves as his body flushed with heat. He looked up and saw her.
A wave crashed around them, the sand shifting beneath their feet. Neither the Reaper nor the Angel moved.
“You murdered four innocents in Hungary and now you must pay the price, Reaper.”
He stared from the burning sword to her face, the question in his eyes obvious.
That question, more than anything else, stayed her hand when she could have struck. When she should have struck. He knew what she was: vengeance, not mercy, her mandate. Yet he didn't run. In the alley he hadn't run either. He'd protected her from the Fallen and held her while she healed. She had attacked him in the hotel room, not the other way around. After binding her with the flaming lasso, he fled.
The only thing Trick McKitrick had injured was her pride.
“I'm not going to hurt you.” He spoke in a slow, measured tone as though to calm a wary animal.
His words took her by surprise.
“Why would you want to?” She raised her sword a little higher, “I mean, aside from this.”
There was a heartbeat of hesitation before he answered, “Indeed.”
“My Death Mark is still upon you. Despite your protestations of innocence and your attempts to blur it with Voodoo magic.”
He gave her his dimpled smile. “Oh, you know about that, do you?”
She nodded, “I have met Mr. Barracuda.”
“He's quite a character, isn't he? A real powerhouse in the magic department. Though he follows a very different celestial pantheon than you or me.”
“Don't change the subject.” She pointed up. “Death Mark. Above your head.”
Craning his neck, he looked, “Can you really see it? I thought the magic was still in effect.”
“Look harder.”
Narrowing his eyes, Trick summoned a measure of power, peeling back the layers of reality around him to really see. And with his vision, the night came alive. In the waves he heard the resonant bark of a selkie, still in seal form, calling to her family. Farther out in the deep water, the trilling song of sea nymphs mixed with the sound of dolphins laughing. And above his head, there it was, burning very faintly, still only a shadow of itself, a fiery cross within a circle. Barracuda's spell was working, but it was no match for the Angel's vision this close.
"How did you find me?” He pointed up, “Not with the Mark, I wager."
"I used to be a detective."
He laughed at that, how ironic. “Really? I mean really, really?”
She nodded, “New Orleans police department. Seven years. Vice squad.”
“Well, I'll be damned."
“You already are if you killed those four people.”
“What people, god damn it!” The question in his eyes was back.
“The ones guarding the Relic.”
At the word “relic” all the hair on the back of his neck stood and he shivered.
Evie lowered her sword, pointing it directly at his heart, “Why were you in that alley?”
His face grew suddenly wary. Ah, Evie thought, that was the right question to ask the Reaper here on this empty Southern California beach.
Trick channeled what energy he could into his shield, trying to deflect that damned Angel vision of hers from boring a hole into his heart; seeing the truth and the lies hidden there. His Master had promised to end his contract, free him to live a normal life span as a human again. Just this one, last, dirty job.
Kill an Angel.
The promise of freedom so very sweet. What was one more death? There had been so many in the darkness since he met the demon. Angels weren't really human, were they? And then he saw Evie in the alley with the Fallen and the rich taste of freedom tu
rned to ashes in his mouth.
Another wave crashed, the water up to his knees. He moved closer to her, through the wet sand until the sword point pressed against his chest. A small trickle of blood ran down the fine, fair skin of his belly.
Her sword glowed more brightly as if sensing its quarry. Ready to strike.
“I'm going to come up the beach and get my clothes, Evie. Please don't smite me, at least not yet.”
Focusing her power, she rose up into the air on the downswing of her great wings, tossing the sand in a whirlwind. There she hovered warily, sword still ready.
With one of his crooked smiles, he said almost to himself, “I'll take that as a 'yes'. I hope.”
Evie attempted to keep her concentration on his face as he walked naked across the loose sand towards the cliff face. He kept his hands at his sides. Weaving no spells, summoning no weapons. He was exposed to her completely, knowing she could strike him down. Almost daring her to. She let her attention wander to his chest and then elsewhere. Damn. She dipped in the air as her wings suddenly lost their lift. Landing clumsily, she tried to cover her lapse by clambering onto another tumble of rough, weathered rocks, taking the high ground.
He ran his hands through his hair, shaking out the last of the sea water. A gesture Evie could not help find very attractive. Damn it again.
By the cliff face he grabbed his jeans and tugged them on. He stared at Evie, silhouetted against the sky. Tall and strong, yet purely feminine in form. A woman, not a girl or a bundle of sticks pretending to be one. Her dark brown hair, tangled and twisted from the flight, partially hid her face. He clenched his fists, overcome by a sudden, powerful desire to go to her. Kiss her deeply. Run his hands through her hair, over her shoulders, down her back to the soft swell of her bottom and thighs.
He faced her, “I didn't kill anyone in Hungary, no matter what your Death Mark claims. I've killed plenty of things since my transition, not them, Evie. Not them. I was in the alley for another reason.”
“The Fallen?”
He gave her a swift, searching glance. “Partially. They call him the Baron. He and my Master currently have shared interests.” Trick paused, searching for the right words. “Have you heard of Gogmagog, the land of the demon clans?”
She shook her head, “Is that another word for Hell?'
He laughed, “Good lord no! What are you thinking? It's an actual place, though not in the mortal world. There's a far wider pantheon than the one you serve and the Universe, no the Multiverse, is a complex place. The spiritual plane even more so.”
“That is only slowly being made clear to me.”
“Think of the demon world as Europe in the seventeenth and eightennth centuries. A crazy quilt of fiefs, kingdoms, and principalities always looking over their shoulder waiting for the neighbors to pounce. Things would probably be a lot worse here in the mortal realm if the demon lords and ladies weren't so busy scheming and stabbing their allies in the back, quite literally. My Master needs the Baron's help in his interpretation of Manifest Destiny and a big land grab.”
She cocked her head to one side, thinking more about the connection between Trick and his Master than demonic politics. “Do the two of you share a blood bond? You and your boss.”
“How do you know about that?” He was surprised. Her connection as an Avenging Angel was very much to the natural world – despite her spiritual state.
“I saw it in a movie.” And she had.
“Well, the screenwriter had it right. To take on my powers I drank his blood and to seal the contract he took mine. Quite a lot.”
“So you're linked.”
And he understood. His Master killed those guarding the relic in Hungary himself, knowing an Angel would be sent. The Death Mark would sense the blood and seek Trick out, bringing him or her right to their trap.
No one could have predicted what had happened next.
Not the demon who held his soul prisoner and certainly not Trick.
His heart, which had been racing when the Angel appeared in front of him on the beach with her flaming sword, began to pound again. This time for a very different reason. Just like in the bar, he felt the attraction pulling him towards her. She was too far away. He moved closer, walking across the loose sand, needing to touch her.
Warily, Evie inched back on her perch. One of the rocks shifted and losing her balance, she started to fall. In an eye-blurring burst of speed, before she could even flap her wings, he was there, catching her up in his arms.
Holding her tightly, he stared into her eyes. They were the color of antique mahogany, each iris edged in gold. The gold seemed to flare and burn with a tiny heavenly fire just like her sword.
She didn't struggle against him, saying only, “Put me down.”
He set her in the sand. They were standing very close. The Reaper didn't smell like smoke any more.
For the space of several breaths they stood there, moved yet unmoving.
She was glowing. Trick saw it, could almost touch it. That pure, clean light. With her he felt like the man he had once been, his humanity so tantalizingly within reach. Perhaps that was why he was attracted to the Angel.
Was she redemption?
He had such layers of darkness. If she looked into his eyes with that uncanny vision of hers, she would see them. Could she burn them away? Make him clean again?
He reflected back on his life since he sold his soul. The terrible things he had seen and done. No, there was no way to erase that. She would see. Evie would hate him. What had he been thinking. How could he even touch her with these hands?
Feeling dirty and ashamed, he began to walk away. He would run. To Gogmagog. She could not follow him there. Maybe his master would give him another chance. Find a different Angel. He probably could make himself do it. He could. He had done such dark deeds. Yet he couldn't kill this one. No matter what the consequences.
Evie was the one who set all that was to come in motion. She shivered, fright and flight raging in her heart in equal measure yet unable to stop. Woman now, not Angel. Enchanted, spellbound; her will no longer felt under her control. It was like being alive again. Evie was crossing a line, she knew it. Whether it was the right decision for all the wrong reasons as she had told the young Guardian Angel or the wrong decision for all the right reasons, she didn't know. At this moment in time, it was the only one she could make.
She reached out, grasping his wide palm with her slim fingers and pulled him back beside her. She ran her fingertips along the line of his jaw. His skin was hot to the touch. He stiffened, almost, though not quite pulling back. He could have resisted. Jerked out of her grasp and jumped away.
He did not.
He came to her with almost a moan of surrender.
Trick reached up, putting his hands on her shoulders, running his fingers along the thick bones of her wings. Swallowing his doubts, he met her eyes. Let her see the raw emotion raging inside. His need. His longing for what he could not, should not have. Ever.
What she saw in his face only fueled her own desire. Tilting her head, Evie brushed her lips feather soft along his cheek, feeling the rough stubble of a night's growth. He smelled clean and strong and pure, no longer brimstone, only the searing desert heat of the canyon floor. Was it his magic or her own that held her here? She dropped her sword and unbuckled her belt to gather him closer, crushing her breasts against his chest, feeling his arms tighten with equal longing.
She was Earthbound and down. Falling, falling into such sweet sin. Flexing her beautiful white wings, she brought them around to shield them both from the worlds above and below.
Chapter 11
Almost hesitantly their lips sought each other's. The complete vulnerability of that first kiss held them, each helpless to defend themselves. Dead or alive or somewhere in between, they could no longer stop even if they wanted to.
Evie felt the shape of his mouth, the sensuous lift to his upper lip before Trick could hold back no longer. He had to taste her, feel
her tongue dancing with his. Hesitantly, then with growing confidence, he pressed his mouth to hers. The passion was so strong she could taste it on his lips, savor it running down her throat.
He burned and she burned with him.
Tugging at the velcro straps, her top came away in Trick's hands. His Master's own Death Mark glowed bright crimson on one round, full breast. A mark she could not see. He covered it with his mouth, kissing the evil away. Sealing his own fate. Her boots and leggings came off and he paused to stare. How perfect is a woman's body to a man, he thought. Breasts, belly and below, like a ripe peach peaking out from between soft, round thighs. Was there anything more beautiful? Then she was tugging at his jeans, sliding them down, revealing his desire for her hard and strong, knocking against his flat belly. She touched him, running her long fingers across the skin and he moaned. The feel of her touch set off waves of bliss that rippled across his body, surging in waves of pleasure.
Under her hands, he throbbed. Evie pressed herself to him, pushing against his belly. Holding tightly, he turned her around, her back against him. Trick ran his hands over her breasts, feeling the full heavy flesh nestle into each palm, lightly stroking her as she sighed with pleasure.
He pushed her against the rocks so she supported herself on her hands. Spreading her thighs, he ran his fingertips through the exquisitely soft skin, gently touching her as his lips played over her neck and shoulders. She lifted herself higher, arching her back instinctively so he could reach further. For a time he just stroked her, running his mouth over the soft skin of her back, around her wing bones, feeling her shivers of anticipation.
Evie moaned, low and long, reveling in the delirious sensations of his breath, lips, tongue, and fingers playing over her. His tongue circled and darted; his hot breath making her shiver, the tantalizing touch of his fingers setting off a chain reaction of sensation that swiftly built to explosive levels. Turning her to face him, he slowly slid down to his knees in the sand. Nipping at her, blowing and circling, he could feel her excitement building, taste the sweet essence. She began to cry out, quick sharp bursts that sounded almost like cries of pain. But they were not. The pleasure surged from to every part of her body and she clutched at the rocks to keep from falling, her legs suddenly weak. He thrust his tongue further, into that beautiful secret place and the feelings built again to an unbearable level.