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Authors: Heather Killough-Walden

Avenger's Angel: A Novel of the Lost Angels (22 page)

BOOK: Avenger's Angel: A Novel of the Lost Angels
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She turned and glanced up at the building she had just escaped and was shocked to find herself staring at the door to an old, weathered barn. There was no mansion in sight.
Eleanore gaped for a few seconds, utterly befuddled. At last, she shook her head, decided to chalk it up to yet another supernatural impossibility, and turned back toward the dirt road.
The land across the street was undeveloped and dense with scrub brush, Russian thistle, and low-lying trees that were more thorn than leaf. Foliage was like that in West Texas.
Eleanore wasted no time in sprinting across the long, manicured lawn of the mansion . . . or barn. The desert air was cold and damp in the post-rain twilight and she was already beginning to feel its chill through her clothes. Temperatures dropped drastically at night in Texas. She needed to get into town, find a phone, and call someone for help before she got hypothermia.
Too bad her car was stuck in the garage in the mansion. Wherever the hell that was.
She knew she needed to act before the sun went down, because something told her that when it did, Uriel the vampire would not be in pain any longer. And she was willing to bet he would come after her. The look in his eyes had more than assured her of that much.
 
“Holy fuck, what happened to you?” Gabriel asked.
Max pushed off the wall of the archway that led to Michael’s bedroom and removed his hand from his mouth where he’d been holding a white handkerchief against his lip. It was stained with blood. “I was struck by lightning.”
Gabriel frowned and then craned his neck to peer around Max’s still-smoking body. “Where’s Granger?”
“She’s escaped.”
Michael slowly stood from where he had been seated beside Uriel’s semiconscious form. The archangel-turned-vampire was spread-eagled and manacled, thick chains trapping his arms and legs to the head- and footboards of a metal-framed bed.
“What do you mean she’s escaped?” Michael asked.
Max tossed the handkerchief onto the bedside table and then froze when Uriel’s eyes snapped open and his head turned toward him.
“You’re bleeding,” Uriel said. His voice was not his own. It was still eerily deep and held a strange echoing quality. His eyes also still burned a bright, fiery red.
“Indeed,” Max said softly. He watched his charge with a wariness that he was not in the mood to exhibit at that moment. He was feeling rather sore and burned out just then. Literally.
Pieces of his suit shirt and trousers were missing in dark, smoking patches and his hair was also rather darker than it should have been. If he’d been human, he would have been dead, of course. As it was, however, his recovery was taking a tad longer than he liked.
“Your girlfriend zapped me with one billion volts of electricity. I’m afraid I bit my tongue in the process.”
Uriel said nothing. He simply continued to pierce Max with those burning eyes until Max could take no more and turned away. He addressed Michael instead. “She’s afraid of us now. She used the last of her power to hit me with the lightning and then took the bracelet I had been about to place on her. She ran out the broken window of the garage.”
“She cut herself,” Uriel said then, drawing everyone’s attention. The angel-turned-vampire was staring up at the ceiling now. “You got some of her blood on you when you were looking out the window, no doubt.”
“It’s Sherlock Holmes, the bloody undead,” Gabriel muttered, his eyes wide.
He, Max, and Michael exchanged glances, and then Max waved them toward the open door that led to the hall beyond. They got the hint and followed him out. Once outside, they closed the door behind them even though each of them was well aware that if Uriel truly had become a vampire, it would do little good.
“You were going to bind her?” Michael asked, right off the bat.
“She knew about the bracelet; I imagine Uriel blabbed. And she figured out that he was carrying it to use on her. She was in shock and I didn’t trust her to react rationally any longer. With good reason, apparently,” Max explained.
Michael and Gabriel said nothing.
Max changed the subject. “I know what happened in the garage. The contract that Uriel signed must have had some kind of stipulation within it—a hidden clause, if you will—which prevented him from speaking about Samael.”
“I’m sure he read it before he signed,” said Michael.
“That’s why I suggested it was
hidden
,” said Max.
Michael ran a frustrated hand through his hair and Gabriel swore under his breath.
“Therefore, when he began telling Eleanore the truth, he also began to change,” Max explained.
“I’ll say this for the bugger. ’s got a fucking good sense of humor.”
Max nodded and took a deep breath. “What did Uriel do with the contract after he signed it?” he asked Michael.
Michael shook his head and shrugged. “He said that it disappeared.”
“I was afraid of that. I’ll have to go and retrieve a copy. Luckily, I happen to have such jurisdiction when dealing with Samael.” Max straightened and added, “Until then, you two will need to watch over him closely. Azrael had to go under again after wrenching us all into action. When he awakens, have him take over for a bit. He’ll know far better than you will how to deal with one of his own kind.”
“I think it’s fairly easy to tell that he’s hungry,” Gabriel suggested.
“Yes, and what do you propose we do about it?” Max asked.
Gabriel shrugged and shook his head. “I’m only saying.”
“We’ll figure it out,” Michael said. “Now, what about Eleanore?”
“She took off somewhere around the outskirts of the town she lives in, as far as I could tell,” Max remarked. “The mansion repaired itself almost immediately after her departure and it has shifted since then. It must have known that she wanted to go home, so it took her there.” He paused and considered his next words before he said, “I think the best man for tracking her down would be Azrael. It’ll be night soon. No one is better at finding prey in the dark than he is.”
Michael and Gabriel digested this in wary silence. It was a long while before Michael sighed heavily and nodded. “Go get the contract, Max. Find out what the hell is going on.”
CHAPTER TEN
 
W
hen life is uncertain and you find yourself repeatedly on the run, you learn to take certain precautions. You make plans. If you think you might be stuck somewhere suddenly, without any money, you invest in a piece of jewelry that you can pawn at a moment’s notice. Then you formulate a plan that includes the procurement of transportation, food, and lodging.
Long ago, Eleanore made sure to leave a standing account at Western Union and memorize the pickup number. Then she’d strategized what her next moves would be so that she now knew to use library computers, Craigslist, and taxicabs.
Eleanore was furiously planning her next moves even as her feet pounded through the mud beneath her. Her body grew increasingly cold on the outside and increasingly hot from within. If she’d had any of her powers left, she would have made the sun shine—but she was tapped out and night was moving in anyway.
As it was, she knew she’d be lucky if she reached a phone before someone from the mansion managed to locate her. As she ran, she struggled with the notion of contacting her parents. It was her instinct to turn to them. They had always been there for her and were the only people in the world she wholly and purely trusted. However, she wasn’t certain she wanted to involve them in this mess. And she wasn’t even sure that she truly needed them.
She had a diamond on a long chain around her neck, given to her by her mother for just such an emergency situation. She wore it hidden beneath her shirts and had been sporting it for so long that she normally forgot it was even there.
She knew to use a public computer to find a local car for sale within her price range. And she knew to use taxis or public buses and aliases as she was transporting herself through town on these different emergency errands.
She might not need to call her mother or father. Uriel had told her about their mansion and its magical ability to transport people across vast spaces, and all of the Southwest looked pretty much the same with its scrub brush, dirt, and flat lands, so she couldn’t be certain whether she was in the right state or not. But if she
was
somewhere close to home in Texas, then she could do this on her own. On the other hand, if she was on the other side of the state, or worse, in Arizona or New Mexico, then there was too much ground to cover before daylight; she would never make it home before . . .
Eleanore pushed the image of Uriel and his fangs from her mind. She suddenly felt so tired. She didn’t know whether she entirely trusted herself to think clearly enough to keep from getting caught this night.
She didn’t even know what had happened back there. It was so freaking confusing. She only knew that Uriel was more than he’d claimed to be and that the look in his eyes when he’d peered down at her in the garage had been life-threatening.
He listened to me, though,
she thought erratically
. He listened to me when I spoke to him telepathically. Whatever was happening to him, he tried to calm down for me. . . .
She didn’t know why that was important. She was simply terrified and that was about all she could discern at the moment. Her stomach was cramping with hunger, her feet and hands were cold, she was more than a touch thirsty, and her side was stitching. It was hard to contemplate reality and a deeper truth when you felt like crap.
Up ahead, the dirt road became gravel, and just where the atmosphere misted with fog around the edges, Eleanore could make out the beginnings of paved tarmac. She headed in that direction, hope blossoming inside of her.
 
Azrael gazed down at the man chained helplessly to the metal bed before him. There were dark, deep circles beneath Uriel’s closed eyes and his lips were pale and drawn.
“Time is not on our side. He must feed soon or he will die,” Azrael said softly. “He’s already far gone.” In truth, he looked good and dead already, but Azrael knew otherwise.
“What do you mean?” Michael asked, coming up beside him. “I know he looks bad, but isn’t that just the vampire thing?”
“A vampire must feed every night or he won’t survive,” Azrael told him. “And he was awake during the day. You have no idea how taxing that is; if he doesn’t consume human blood very soon, there will be no saving him.” He wasn’t entirely certain that even that was enough to save him.
“You’ve got to be joking,” Gabriel grumbled, running a hand through his pitch-black hair. Nearly all traces of his accent were gone now; it changed according to his mood and the gravity of the situation. “He’s going to bloody die?” he asked, gazing steadily into the fire.
Azrael knew his brothers well. He recognized the pain in Gabriel’s slumped form. He and Uriel had never gotten along very well. And yet he would wager that they were the closest, deep down, of the four of them. Azrael was the black sheep of the bunch, and close to none of them. Michael was the born leader of the crew and tended to set unreachable standards. Uriel and Gabriel were on an even footing and always had been. They could empathize with each other, and though it made it easer for them to fight, it also made their bond stronger. You always hurt the ones you love the most.
He contemplated what had to be done. He knew that Eleanore was out in the coming night alone, and that he needed to go after her. But far more pressing, at the moment, was obtaining sustenance for the newly created vampire dying before him.
He would have to go hunting on Uriel’s behalf. None of the other angels would understand this, nor would they be able to bring themselves to such a task. It was up to him.
Azrael nodded once and prepared to take his leave of them.
But then he smelled her. It was a distinct scent, soft and warm and subtle. There was a tentative aspect to it, as much as there was to her character. Vampires eventually detected such notes and learned to unconsciously assign such characteristics to the things that they smelled, as an individual’s scent became as much a signature of who they were as the lines of their face or the sound of their voice. So he was not at all surprised by the gentle footfall at the door behind them.
“I may be able to help you,” came the voice of a woman.
The others turned, and Azrael joined them in looking upon the slight, petite form of Lilith where she stood in the doorway, one hand braced casually against the frame.
 
The road had, indeed, solidified beneath her feet and, fifteen minutes later, Eleanore was wholeheartedly thanking the couple that had given her a ride to the nearest grocery store.
There was a phone booth against the wall on one side of the parking lot.
Eleanore stepped inside the store and took a few minutes to warm up. She bought the nearest thing to a protein bar she could find and downed it with a bottle of Dasani water. Once she was semicomfortable again, she borrowed a piece of unused receipt roll and a pen from the nearest cashier and returned to the phone booth. She pulled the very thin phone book out of its shelf and stared at the name on the cover: Rockdale.
BOOK: Avenger's Angel: A Novel of the Lost Angels
11.95Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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