Angel in Training (The Louisiangel Series, Book One) (24 page)

Cupid had other plans. “Breakfast time,” he
sang at me. “Michael wants you in the gym afterwards.”

“Yes, because that’s the way to get me out of
bed,” I muttered.

“You want Michael in your bed?” Cupid
asked.

I yanked back the covers and scowled at him.
“I said, that’s…” I trailed off when I spotted the grin Cupid was
giving me and reached for my pillow, launching it at him.

With ridiculously fast reflexes, he batted
the pillow away. “I heard you perfectly well,” he told me. “We
archangels have excellent hearing.” He leaned forward. “So you
might want to try not muttering under your breath around Michael as
much.”

“Oh crap,” I muttered, slumping back against
the uncomfortable wooden headboard.

“You’ll understand when you get your
archangel status,” he said, sympathetically patting my knee. “In
the meantime, you need to get dressed.”

Knowing full well he could hear my
mutterings, I got out of bed, complaining about his far too
cheerful attitude so early in the morning and disappeared into the
bathroom to get changed.

By the time I had arrived in the gym, my mood
hadn’t improved much. Cupid left me, heading straight outside to
where I could see the equipment already set up and waiting for him.
What I would have given to go out there with him, rather than face
the onslaught from Michael I knew was coming.

He was already waiting for me, dressed
impeccably, as usual, in his gray suit, sitting in what I had
determined was his regular seat, and of course, still reading
Paradise Lost. “Oh the joy,” I couldn’t help but mutter as I
stepped on the machine and braced myself for whatever pace Michael
had already pre-programmed into the treadmill.

“You still think you don’t need to do this?”
he asked in his melodic tone without lifting his eyes from the page
he was reading.

“I think you’re trying to kill me,” I sighed,
hitting the start button. As the machine jumped into life, I
realized that today’s run would be short. He had set it to its
fastest speed, which meant, at this pace, I'd have about fifteen
minutes in me.

Michael shut the book and rose, placing it
where he had just been seated. “Turn that off,” he commanded.

I wasn’t going to argue. While I did as he
said, he disappeared from the room, returning seconds later at
supernatural speed, carrying something. A sword. Not one of the
weapons that hung above the fireplace, but a sword nonetheless.
Silently, he held it out to me.

“What’s this for?” I asked, taking it from
him, eyeing him suspiciously.

He turned his back on me and slipped out of
his suit jacket, laying it gently across the back of the chair,
before turning back to me, rolling his sleeves up as he did.
“Attack me,” he told me.

“What?!” I exclaimed in surprise. “I'm not
about to attack you!”

“Scared?” he asked, a slight teasing smile
spreading across his lips.

I glanced down at the heavy weapon in my
hands and ran a finger over the blade. It wasn’t a toy – the blade
was sharp enough to cut my skin. “Of hurting you,” I nodded.

“That is a human weapon,” he informed me.
“Should the impossible happen and you manage to get the metal to
touch my skin, I can assure you, I will be able to recover from the
injury.”

“The impossible?” I choked. “You’re
unarmed!”

“I know,” he nodded with a frown. “And that
is still an uneven battle.” He stuck his hand into his pocket and
pulled out a long piece of white fabric which he then proceeded to
wrap around his eyes.

“Are you insane?” I cried in alarm.

“I am proving a point,” he disagreed. Then,
before I even knew what had happened, I was lying flat on my back.
The sword tip was close enough to my throat that when I swallowed,
I could feel just how sharp it was.

“That’s impossible,” I muttered in disbelief
as Michael removed the blade and offered his hand to me. I took it
and he pulled me to my feet before handing the sword back to
me.

At a normal, human pace, he took ten steps
back and stopped. “That’s the point, Angel. It’s
not
impossible.”

I was expecting the next attack so I wasn’t
surprised when I ended up with my back pressed up against Michael’s
chest as one of his arms wrapped around my waist with an incredible
tightness. His other arm was controlling my own arm, angling the
sword blade up, with its edge against my neck.

“Can you see yet?” he asked me, his lips
close enough to me that I could feel the warmth of his breath on my
neck. “If it were my intention, you would be dead.”

“I thought I was already dead,” I muttered,
my stubbornness rearing its head.

“Your human body is dead,” he told me, a
touch of impatience in his tone. The arms around me tightened
slightly. “This,” he said, giving an extra squeeze. “This is a
vessel, a suit, an item of clothing, and you are treating it like
the body it once was.”

“
Well I'm sorry if I have spent twenty
years of my short life with it
being
my body, and less than a week with it as my vessel,” I shot
back, trying to break free of his iron clad grasp. “That maybe an
inconsequential length of time to you, but it’s a lifetime to
me.”

Michael finally let me go. I threw the blade
to the ground and began marching for the door.

“Angel, stop,” he called after me.

I sighed and turned, finding him folding his
blindfold. “What?” I asked wearily, crossing my arms as I awaited
his response.

“I'm not doing this to try and make you feel
bad,” he told me.

“Oh, there’s no trying involved,” I said. “I
feel awful, Michael, and I'm sorry I'm a walking
disappointment.”

“You’re not a disappointment,” he responded
quickly, striding across the room to me. “You’re rather
exceptional.”

“But?” I demanded, staring up at him.

“But you’re not meeting your potential. I
admit, it is unfair pitting myself against you. There is no way you
would ever be able to defeat me,” he explained. There was no hint
of cockiness or arrogance in what he said. He was merely stating a
fact. “But you should, at the very least, be able to keep up with
my movements, to be able to see what I am doing. And until that
happens, I will push you and push you.”

“And that is the reason why I never joined a
gym,” I told him, pulling a face. While he looked confused, I
stalked back to the treadmill and smacked the start button. “I will
do your stupid running exercises,” I told him, watching him in the
mirror as he considered me. “But you have got to acknowledge the
fact that I. Am. Trying.”

Michael gave a long sigh. “Yes, you are very
trying,” he told me, returning to his seat and taking up his
book.

I just poked my tongue out at him, earning a
small smile, then he turned his attention to reading, while I
concentrated on attempting not to die.

* * *

A couple of hours later, I had climbed out of
the shower and collapsed on the bed. I had done exactly what I had
predicted and lasted fifteen minutes on the treadmill. I had barely
had a chance to catch my breath before I was claimed by Cupid and
taken outside to my awaiting bow, and put through my paces
there.

After an hour outside my arms ached so much I
was barely able to carry the bow inside, but my shot had improved
considerably. The arrows were hitting the outer rings of the
target, although only a small proportion of them were sticking
in.

Now, I was too tried to move, and all I
wanted was to grab a quick nap, but a glance at the clock told me
it was probably time to be heading to the precinct to see what
Joshua had uncovered. With a lot of effort, I pulled myself off the
bed and dug out a fresh uniform from the wardrobe, opting for a
pale pink three quarter length shirt, before I headed downstairs,
stopping at the front desk. “Keys, please,” I asked Cupid.

He reached into the drawer and pulled a set
out, tossing them to me. “I don’t envy you,” he grinned.

“No, I'm sure you don’t,” I agreed. “I'll
leave you to the celebrity gossip,” I said, rolling my eyes at the
magazine spread out in front of him. He gave me a cheeky grin and a
wink. I couldn’t help but shake my head in amusement as I headed
outside into the heat.

Yet again, it was a scorcher, and yet again,
although I was aware of the heat and humidity, it still had yet to
affect me like it used to. I got in the car and turned the radio on
before pulling out of the parking lot.

There was something different about the
traffic today. Most of the time, around this area, people traveled
like they were tourists – slow, looking out the window. Today,
people were on a mission, moving with purpose. Maybe there was a
sale on somewhere.

It seemed busier than normal when I got to
the station too. It took a while to find somewhere to park, and
inside there seemed to be more officers than there had been on
previous visits. When I told the woman at the reception desk that I
was there to see Joshua, she was distracted enough to let me head
through by myself.

He almost knocked me over, hidden behind a
stack of boxes, and I took a few off him, so I could actually see
his face. “What the hell is going on in here?” I asked, still
confused.

He returned the look. “Have you been watching
the news?”

I shook my head and followed him to the
conference room we had been in the day before. “Nope. Is everyone
panicking about this serial killer?” I asked, setting the boxes
down on the table.

“Alleged serial killer,” Joshua frowned. “And
no, they’re worried about the hurricane.”

“What hurricane?” I asked.

“Hurricane Tabitha,” Joshua explained. “She
was off the coast of Florida and looked like she was going to head
up the east coast, but a warm front came in and she’s changed
direction, and she’s getting more powerful in the Gulf. Looks like
there’s a good chance she’s heading this way.”

Crap
. “So what’s everyone doing?”

“Pre-Katrina, we weren’t brilliant at backing
work up, and we lost a lot of evidence. They’re making sure all the
paperwork is up-to-date and backed up to the server.”

I glanced down at the boxes, then back to
Joshua. “And what about you?”

He pulled a face. “I was catching up, but
then this arrived,” he gestured to the boxes.

“This is it?” I asked, looking at the four in
front of me.

Joshua laughed. “This is the rest of it,” he
told me, pointing to the eleven behind the table I hadn’t
noticed.

The door behind us burst open and a tall man
entered. “Walsh, you done with your paperwork yet?” he asked,
before spotting me. The guy was probably in his fifties, with
pepper colored hair, caramel skin, and a thick moustache, showing
the same signs of gray as his hair. “Who’s this?”

“Angelina Connors,” I responded with a
nervous finger wave. There was something about this man which was
making me feel uneasy.

“The psychic?” he asked Joshua, eyeing me
suspiciously.

Joshua nodded. “You signed off on her this
morning, Sir.”

“She needs an ID,” he told him, still
regarding me with suspicion. “And you need to get on with your
paperwork. There’s a storm coming.”

“Yes sir,” Joshua agreed as the man left the
room.

“Who was that?” I asked, pulling a face.

“Lieutenant Asmodeus,” he replied before
sighing. “I need to get my paperwork backed up. Do you want to make
a start on this?”

I glanced back at the boxes. “All of
them?”

Joshua shrugged and gave me a smirk. “You’re
the one that wanted all the local murder victims.” I must have
looked as out of my depth as I felt, because he patted my shoulder
sympathetically. “Look, start by digging out all the stab victims –
gunshot, vehicular, poison... anything else can go back in the
boxes.”

“Vehicular?” I repeated in surprise. “Isn’t
that just a car accident?”

Joshua, halfway out the door, laughed. “You’d
be surprised.”

“I am,” I muttered as the door closed, and
turned my attention back to the boxes. With a sigh, I pulled the
lid off the box closest to me and took out the first file. At the
sight of a face beaten beyond recognition, I quickly closed it and
flung it to one side, already feeling my stomach churning.

The first part was somewhat easier than I
expected and it only took me a couple of hours to weasel out the
stab victims from across the city and surrounding suburbs. The
thing was, by then, I had had enough of looking at files of murder
victims – it was breaking my heart to see so many dead people. I
pushed the last file to one side – unfortunately on to the ‘stab
victim’ pile and, with my elbows on the table, slumped my head in
my hands.

Behind me the door opened and I could barely
bring myself to look up. I did, just in time to see a paper cup of
steaming tea pushed in front of me. I couldn’t help but wrinkle my
nose up at the smell.

“You don’t like tea?” Joshua asked me,
sliding into the chair next to me.

I pulled a face. “Yuck.” Wordlessly, Joshua
slid the tea towards himself, swapping the cup for his coffee. “I'm
not taking your drink off you.”

“I don’t think it’s classed as taking if I'm
giving it,” Joshua responded with a half-smile. “And no offence,
but you’re not looking so good. Get something hot and sweet in
you.”

I reached for the cup, blowing the top of the
liquid. “Your job sucks,” I muttered before taking a sip. “Jesus
Christ!” I exclaimed in surprise, swallowing the burning liquid too
quickly. “How much sugar do you take?”

Joshua laughed. “It’s not that bad. There’s
only five spoons in there. And trust me, with the crap we have in
here, you need it to cover the taste.”