Samuel broke at the first act of kindness paid to him and screamed his anguish for all creation to hear only to discover his voice didn’t bring down mountains anymore, it barely had the power to annoy the demon standing nearby. He then followed Peter to the Middle Plane where he would decide if he wanted to forget his past and become a demon without wings but with the use of some of his powers, or retain his memories, stay fallen, and keep his mangled wings but renounce his powers. In an unprecedented decision, he kept his memories and his wings. That resolution made him the Fallen, as in the only one in the history of fallen angels who didn’t apply for the Hades citizenship. He spent several decades in the Middle Plane getting used to his condition—unwanted by both his brethren and the man he had once thought loved him enough to wait for him.
Samuel blinked back to the present. “Let’s hope the shifter brigade arrives soon.” He waved at the controller, who was at their side a moment later.
“Ludwig.” Peter nodded at the two, then turned to Samuel. “We just passed each other at Alexander’s, but you didn’t see me.”
Samuel nodded. “I left in a hurry.”
Peter waved a hand and offered him a small smile. The same small smile he had given Samuel while waiting for him to scream away his pain long ago. “Think nothing of it. I was about to leave too.” He then removed one of the black leather gloves he was wearing, and bent to examine the dead woman. He raised the plastic sheet from over the face, and stared into those eyes for a moment before gently touching her forehead. He breathed slowly as he focused on reading the dead—the demon’s specialty. Several minutes passed before he shook as if feeling cold and looked up. “They made her suffer.” Reaching down with two fingers, he closed her eyelids. “I hope you catch the ones who killed her.”
There were times when Samuel regretted having lost his powers, so similar to the ones the demons maintained, but looking into the eyes of the dead and knowing what they had felt before leaving the mortal realm wasn’t a gift he wanted.
Peter took his cell phone from one of his jeans’ front pockets and began recording in a low, monotone in Sanskrit. “She was twenty-three in human years, barely out of her teens as a shifter. Her name was Lara Scalzi. She was a good person and she loved her baby’s father.”
Samuel hadn’t had many occasions to witness the controller’s many talents, but he was still impressed by how professional and even compassionate he was.
Meanwhile, two officers from the shifter brigade had arrived, but kept a distance while waiting for the demon to finish his examination. The rest of the paranormal society tolerated the demons’ presence only because the services they could provide were invaluable. Yet, sometimes Samuel had the feeling even they were treated better than he was.
“The baby was full-term when they cut her.” The monotone continued for a few more sentences, but Samuel didn’t want to know the details.
She had been a mother.
Peter finished, nodded at Samuel, and left after exchanging a few words with Barnes. As soon as he disappeared around the bend in the path, the two men from the shifter brigade stepped up, did their own investigation, then gave Barnes and Samuel two forms to sign, and finally—making an exception to regular protocol—released the body back to the Immortal Council for the autopsy.
Samuel left a moment later with his boss’s blessing. While driving to Alexander’s gym, he called Quintilius and briefly informed him about his suspicions regarding the were-baby found in his nephew’s car and asked for the infant’s DNA.
“Sure. You’ll have it before the end of the week.”
****
“So, what’s going on between you and Samuel?” Ravenna looked at Martina with a barely disguised grin.
Martina noticed how Ophelia had stiffened on her chair at Ravenna’s question. “I—” The gym’s door opened and Martina turned to look at it, knowing it was Samuel. She felt a strange tinge of both anticipation and fear at his sight, which added to the confusion of her awareness of him.
As soon as his eyes made contact with hers, he smiled, warming her from the inside.
“I think that look over there just answered my question.” Ravenna softly chuckled.
A shadow passed over Ophelia’s expressive face, but she was fast in joining Ravenna in the playful banter. “Samuel’s got a girlfriend.”
“Has he now?” Alexander stepped behind Ravenna.
“He has a long conversation coming,” Martina muttered under her breath, but Ravenna heard her and gave her a questioning look she decided to ignore. The whole time Martina had spent conversing with the women, she had kept thinking of Samuel, at what she thought she had seen back in her apartment. Despite having a great time with Ophelia and Ravenna, she couldn’t wait to be alone with him.
“Hi.” Samuel walked to their corner, keeping his focus on her, making her feel as if they were alone in a room full of people.
“Hi.” She blushed under his unwavering gaze.
“Would you like to accompany me somewhere more comfortable?” Samuel reached out his hand for her to take.
She grabbed it and let him pull her up, his eyes widening when she came so close to his chest they almost touched.
After thanking his friends for taking care of Martina, Samuel took her outside, his pace becoming faster and faster as they left the gym behind, only to stop abruptly a moment later. He radiated uneasiness and she was affected by it.
She stopped and pulled him back to her. “Why are you so tense?”
So close, he seemed to loom over her, despite their similar height. “Nothing… Just my job. Sometimes, I must deal with the worst nightmares.”
“Tell me about it.”
His expression softened and he brought her hand to his lips. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be brusque. How do you feel?”
“Better now that you’re around, but we must talk.” She wanted him to sweep her in his arms and kiss her, but they had to have that blasted conversation before anything could happen between them. She wouldn’t even start a friendship with the hint of lies or deception behind it.
He straightened his back and sighed. “I agree.” He cupped her cheek with his hand. “Do you mind a few minutes’ drive to reach the Orange Trees Garden?”
“No, I don’t mind at all. It’s one my favorite parks here in Rome.” She followed him to his car.
He drove without hurry, his right hand on hers anytime he could do without it at the wheel. He hummed a tune and she found herself humming it back in perfect sync. She leaned on his shoulder, and he kissed her head.
She sighed. “Can it be that simple between us?” They had almost arrived at their destination on the Aventino Hill.
Samuel didn’t answer immediately, but when he did, his voice was barely a whisper. “Yes. It could. If you let it be.” He drove around the church of Saint Sabina, then looked for a parking spot not already occupied by teenage couples stealing kisses in the shadows.
Martina thought of when she was that young and would defy curfew to sneak out of her bedroom and meet boys. Then she looked at the man sitting beside her, looking at her with a hunger in his eyes that made her feel alive again, and her heart beat with the same frenzy it had beaten when she was sixteen.
Samuel exited the car, then walked around to open her door. She took his hand and felt him shaking as badly as she was. They walked in silence, passing couples strolling by. He led her through the park’s entry, then steered her toward a metal bench under a green canopy where they had an unobstructed view of Saint Peter’s dome. Sitting side by side, their legs touching and their hands united on his thigh, they stared at the sight for a while before Samuel broke the silence.
“I don’t know how it happened, but for the first time in a very long time, I’m terrified of losing someone.” He squeezed her hand. “I know it’s early and we barely know each other, but I’d hate to lose you now.”
Martina brought their united hands to her cheek and tilted her head toward him. “Why wo
uld you be afraid of losing me?”
He angled his body on the bench to face her. “Because you might not accept me once I tell you everything there’s to know about me.” He paused for a long moment, then took her hand and his away from her face to relocate them over his heart.
Martina waited for him to finish his halted speech, but when he shut his eyes as if in pain, she hurried to put him at ease. “If it’s anything regarding your body you’re worried about, don’t be. I wouldn’t deny us the possibility of something more because of—” She didn’t know how to finish that sentence without offending and humiliating him. How would she broach the subject of his ability or inability to have sex?
“I’m broken.” He looked at her with his aquamarine eyes, and she saw the shame and the hurt behind them.
She leaned closer, put both hands on the side of his face, kissed him on the lips, then touched his forehead with hers. “I don’t care. We can find a way to be physically together if that’s what you want. And we don’t have to if it’s not something you’re interested in. I don’t want to lose you over this.”
He gently extricated himself from her hold, taking her hands away from him, and gave her a puzzled look. “I’m not sure—”
She stopped him. “There’s no need to talk about it.”
His lips turned up as he shook his head. “I actually think we should—”
Martina never heard the rest of his sentence because something grabbed her and pulled her away from the bench. Everything happened so fast, she found herself slammed against the wall behind them before she could even blink. Air was pushed out of her lungs at once as pain exploded behind her eyelids.
A wild roar exploded into the night, and streetlamps shut off, their lights going out in sparkles. Martina crumbled at the foot of the wall, and she watched without understanding what she was seeing. Two beings straight from her worst nightmares faced each other. One was tall and lean with claws instead of hands. The other was huge, both big and tall, and had black, clipped wings trailing down his back. They were engaged in a fight that defied reasoning and the laws of physics. They moved too fast and they seemed to hover over the ground at times.
Martina was so scared she was beyond screaming. Part of her brain told her she couldn’t be seeing what she was seeing, which meant she was in shock from her crack against the wall. Another part of her brain wondered how she could be so calm. She closed her eyes, hoping the two monsters would disappear.
When she reopened them, the two were still fighting. She could see blood blossoming on both creatures’ clothes, but neither of them slowed his attack against the other. Amidst the whole hellish experience, the aspect that astonished Martina the most was that not one of the visitors in the park seemed to notice the ongoing battle. She could see couples talking and holding hands in the distance.
The winged creature threw the other to the ground and pummeled him with punches that seemed to pack so much anger in them, Martina was surprised the face of the opponent hadn’t caved in at the first hit. The dark angel—his broken wings were dark as the night—didn’t stop beating the other until he lay still for more than a few counts.
Then, if what had just transpired wasn’t surreal enough, the massive, dark angel, a figure who couldn’t possibly exist and was a fruit of Martina’s overtaxed mind, reached for the rear pocket of his pants and with two fingers picked up a mobile. The muscle in his arms flexed as he brought the phone to his ear with one hand, and brushed the stubble on his jaw with the other. All the while, he kept his enemy firmly pinned to the ground by sitting on him.
Martina kept looking, fascinated by the quality of her hallucination, combining the impossible with the mundane. The dark angel looked at her and she saw his aquamarine eyes. Then he talked on the phone with Samuel’s voice.
Chapter Seven
Samuel saw Martina faint, but he couldn’t leave the vampire unattended. “Pick up, damn it.” Ludwig Barnes must have a life besides the office after all. Samuel let the cell phone ring until it went to the answering machine. He had called back twice already and would give up if his boss didn’t answer at the next ring.
“What is it?”
By the lack of formality and the brusque way Barnes answered, Samuel surmised his boss indeed had a life. He didn’t care to anger him at the moment. “I’m at the Orange Trees Garden and I have an unconscious vampire for you. Before you ask, I was attacked in a public park, but I raised the shield in time. None of the passersby saw anything. Send someone to pick him up.” He hung up and focused on Martina who was stirring awake.
She opened her eyes, but they were still dazed. Before, while he was fighting, she had looked at him with a distant stare.
“Martina?” He needed her to react and fast. “Can you hear me?”
She slowly straightened her back against the wall and pushed herself up to a sitting position.
“Are you okay? Can you stand?” He couldn’t move. Samuel knew the vampire was taking his time to recuperate from the fight to overthrow him and escape.
Martina frowned.
“You must leave. Someone is coming and I don’t want them to see you here. Do you understand?” The vampire’s arm moved ever so subtly and Samuel punched him in the face and knocked him out once again. “Martina, please, listen to me. You must go back to the car.”
She didn’t react. If anything, she seemed to slump back into a heap. Samuel swore, punched the vampire one last time for good measure, dismounted him, and reached Martina in two steps. He bent to put one arm around her back and the other under her knees, then hauled her to his chest and walked away from the vampire, hoping the man was truly unconscious and not just feigning it. Martina cradled close to his heart, he ambled toward a shadowed corner and gently laid her on the bench. Then he hurried back to the vampire, and from there checked that the hiding spot where he had left Martina was in fact concealing her from sight.
Both eyes on the tree behind which Martina was resting and one booted foot over the vampire, he waited for the paranormal police to arrive and take care of his prisoner. Normally, he would have personally attended to the vampire’s interrogation, but he had different priorities tonight, and was confident the truth serum concocted by the witches working at Castel Sant’ Angelo would work miracles. Not later than tomorrow, he would know why the vampire had been following him through Rome. With his mind occupied by thoughts of Martina’s wellbeing, Samuel strained his already depleted energies to keep the occlusion shield up.
By the time the paranormal police arrived, Samuel had already let the shield down twice, but no permanent harm had been done. At that time of the night, the park’s visitors were mostly teenagers looking for privacy. One couple had walked by close enough to notice something strange going on, but Samuel had reinforced the shield and they had steered away, mildly confused.
After the police—one werewolf and one immortal whose patrol car had been the closest to the scene—had taken Samuel’s statement and checked the still unconscious vampire’s credentials by looking into his wallet, they relieved Samuel from duty. He still had to wait for them to carry the vampire away and disappear behind the park’s gate before he could run back to Martina.
She was where he had left her and hadn’t moved a muscle. She was awake though and looking at him with eyes that didn’t give away her thoughts.
“Martina?” He sat on the bench and pulled her on his lap. He had to touch her, to feel her close.
“Samuel—” Her eyes trailed toward his shoulders and widened.
Samuel didn’t have enough power to raise an occlusion shield and keep his disguised form at the same time. He would have preferred to reveal the truth to her gradually, but he didn’t have that option anymore.
Martina’s right hand reached over and brushed one of his feathers. He shivered at the intimate contact.
She stopped. “Have I hurt you?”
“No. I like it.” He waited for her to resume her caress, but she kept staring at him.
“I’m afraid it is.” He wanted to hug her closer and rock her. He had never felt farther from her even though she was sitting on his lap.
She got off of him and sat by his side. “Are you…? What?”
“I’m an angel.” Samuel, who wasn’t affected by atmospheric changes, felt as if he were freezing from the inside out.
“You’re an angel.” She hugged herself. “What is the one you fought?”
He could barely comprehend what was going on in her mind, but was too scared she would bolt any moment now. “A vampire.”
“Of course.” For a moment it looked like she would start laughing. Instead, she closed her eyes and left them closed for several heartbeats. “You’re an angel,” she repeated softer.
“A fallen angel.” He turned his chin toward his right shoulder and let the wing on that side flex, hoping she would reach to him.
She tentatively raised one hand, but only when he nodded did she dare touch it a second time. He tried not to move under her perusal, but the sheer pleasure of showing himself to her was enough to make his feathers glow. He was glad she didn’t know what it meant or he would be too embarrassed.
Martina sat with her knees on the bench and leaned over his back, both hands trailing down his shoulders, caressing his black feathers. He noticed how she carefully avoided ruffling them by only brushing the feathers straight down.
Her fingers reached the truncated end of his right wing. “Your wings are broken.” She sat back on her thighs and faced him, her hands on her lap. “How did that happen?”
“I was in love with a man and left heaven to be with him, forfeiting my powers. My wings broke when I fell to earth.” Again, Samuel didn’t know how much he could tell her before she would snap, and he had heard her intake of breath. “Let’s go somewhere else where we can talk more comfortably.”
Martina’s eyes were hooded, but she nodded. “I want to go to I Girasoli.”
The Broken Angel Page 12