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Authors: Heather Killough-Walden

Avenger's Angel: A Novel of the Lost Angels (6 page)

BOOK: Avenger's Angel: A Novel of the Lost Angels
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It was a given that Eleanore would never be able to use any of her homeschooled education for a career that required her to stay in one place. Hence, she was damn lucky that her family was wealthy enough to provide her with an ever-full emergency fund.
Eleanore thought of this now as she listened to the sound of the rain pelting the top of her car. She wondered if she would have to use that fund in order to escape one strangely determined, dangerously handsome Christopher Daniels.
None of her abilities would help her with this particular problem. They were no good when it came to keeping her from being found out. That was the curse part of the gift—as Adrian Monk would put it. She could do loads of very impressive things, yes. But each of them was
so
impressive that she couldn’t really do them at all. Because when she did, she gave herself away.
As she possibly had done tonight. With the storm. And the little girl.
So now she had another choice. Leave? Without a two-weeks’ notice or any indication of where she was headed? Or stay . . . and take her chances with the incredibly hot actor who cornered her in the bookstore—and might be the one who was about to give her away.
She blew out a sigh and lifted her head to stare out the windshield. “I can’t do this anymore.” She shut her eyes again and shook her head. “No more.” She made her choice then and there, in that moment, as lightning flashed in the distance and thunder once more rolled over her car.
Whatever danger Daniels might or might not pose, she would face it and figure it out. It wasn’t that she was opposed to moving out of Texas. That wasn’t it—at all. It was that she was tired of running altogether.
The next time she picked up and moved, she wanted it to be because she liked the place she was moving to. Not because she was desperate or afraid. Besides, she might be wrong about the actor. Maybe he
hadn’t
put two and two together and figured out that she’d healed Jennifer. And maybe his comment about the storm was existential. Maybe she would never even see him again and he’d just been toying with her.
Asshole.
With that liberating thought, Eleanore shoved the key into the ignition and turned on her car. As she drove, she willed the storm away, and within a few minutes, the clouds dissipated and a few stubborn stars reclaimed their places in the heavens.
When she got to her apartment, she parked under her assigned awning and headed up two flights of stairs to her door. Then she went inside, shutting and locking the door behind her.
Down below, in the quiet courtyard, a tall figure slid his hands into the pockets of his expensive trench coat. He nodded once, to himself, and then strode through the grass and out into the parking lot without making a single discernible sound.
 
Uriel was going crazy. He was certain of it. For two thousand years, he’d managed to keep his wits about him, through disease and famine and wars and a world culture that was changing so rapidly, it literally boggled the mind. He’d taken it all in stride and tried to remind himself that he was there for a reason. And a good one.
It was more difficult some days than others. He’d learned the hard way that being down amidst the pain was a hell of a lot different from experiencing it from up above. Up there—
out
there—he’d been disconnected. Detached and withdrawn. Truth be told, he’d always wondered why humans whined as much as they did. Apathy was the way of the archangels. How can one possibly empathize with something that they possessed no means of feeling themselves?
But once they were living with the humans, all that had changed. Uriel had felt anything but apathy when he’d helped pull bodies out of floodwaters or when he’d walked alongside Michael as the poor man had tried to be everywhere at once when the plague had killed so many, or more recently when he’d handed out bread and cheese in government lines.
And he sure as hell wasn’t feeling it now.
Right now, he was anxious and frustrated enough that he actually contemplated calling his brothers to help him get out of this signing. He’d already been there for hours—and from the look of the line of fans, he had hours to go. He would be there right up until the damned store closed. Now that he’d found his archess, he was wasting precious time.
When he looked up from yet another “Best wishes” and spotted Max in the crowd, he signaled the man over and asked the next person in line if he could just have a moment. The girl nodded and smiled, probably feeling just as anxious as he did at that moment.
Gillihan moved to the table and then met Uriel on the other side.
“Well?” Uriel prompted.
“Her full name is Eleanore Elizabeth Granger,” Max supplied.
“Is she okay?” Uriel asked.
“She got home safe,” Max told him, whispering as he turned his back to the crowd. “And I have her address.”
“So get me out of here. I need to see her again.”
Max considered this a moment. “I know you’re anxious. It’s understandable. But I highly recommend waiting until morning. She wasn’t in the best mood when she left here and if you go knocking on her door tonight, you’ll most likely frighten her half to death.”
Uriel’s gaze hardened. “You want me to
wait
?” The thought was more than distasteful for him.
Max sighed, shrugged off his coat, and pulled off his glasses to pinch the bridge of his nose. “Yes, wait. We can have Azrael watch over her tonight if you’re worried about her.”
“Why would I be worried?” Uriel’s no-nonsense look had intensified, his eyes now sparking with warning.
Max’s eyes widened defensively. “I don’t know.”
“What aren’t you telling me, Max?”
Max shook his head and gave up. He pulled Uriel a little farther from the waiting crowd and lowered his voice. “It’s just a feeling I have. I saw the interior of her apartment through her windows just before she arrived. It’s rather minimalist. As if she’s the type who doesn’t like to be tied down. I think the girl scares easy.” He shrugged. “Which is why I suggest you wait until morning.”
Uriel sighed heavily, turned way from Max, ran a frustrated hand through his hair, and then put his hands on his hips. He turned back to Max. “It’s also why I probably
shouldn’t
wait.”
“You can’t go into her apartment, throw her over your shoulder, and expect to have any kind of lasting relationship with her.”
“She’s my archess. This should be easier.”
“Nothing is easy, Uriel. Especially nothing that counts.”
Again, Uriel sighed. “Fine. At least get me out of here so I can speak with my brothers about this.”
Max looked from him to the line of fans waiting to get his signature. Uriel knew what he was thinking. Normally, Max would demand that Uriel face up to the life he had chosen and see it through to the end. It was part of his job as guardian—making sure the boys behaved. However, this was clearly different. Eleanore Granger was the entire reason Uriel was here on this planet to begin with.
“Very well. Just this once.” Max adjusted his glasses and went on. “And since you’ll be speaking with him anyway, have Azrael track Samael’s current location. I’d like an idea of how far ahead of the game we are.”
Uriel was reaching down and pulling his jacket from the back of his chair before Max had even finished speaking. “I’m out of here.”
Behind him, he heard a sharp intake of breath. He turned to see the girl who was next in line clutching her book tightly to her chest. Her cheeks were red and her eyes were shiny with unshed tears.
Oh, Christ,
he thought.
I’m such a bastard.
He forced a warm smile to his face and reached a hand out to take her book. “One more,” he said softly.
The girl blinked and swallowed audibly and then she, too, smiled. “Thank you so much, Mr. Daniels. This one’s not for me; it’s for my niece. She’s thirteen and has strep, so she couldn’t be here.”
Uriel glanced up at her, and, as he often did when faced with news that surprised him, he scanned her soul for any trace of a lie. It was something all archangels could do if they thought to concentrate on it; it was a little like possessing a sixth sense. He studied the woman closely and found that she was being genuine. And he really was the biggest bastard in the world.
“It’s my pleasure,” he told her sincerely. “What is your niece’s name?”
As Max Gillihan prepared to make excuses for Christopher Daniels’s sudden departure, Uriel penned a heartfelt get-well wish and slipped a photograph of himself in between the pages of the autographed book. Then he handed the book back and thought of Azrael, the archangel with fangs and glowing gold eyes.
“Don’t let the vampires bite,” he told the girl. “They really do exist, you know.”
 
The layout of the archangels’ mansion had changed many times over the years, as the tastes of the men who lived within it seemed to alter according to boredom, convenience, and style preferences. It could look like anything, really. It had been sent down along with their guardian, Max, when the angels had first come to Earth in search of their archesses. It was a living space and a transportation device rolled into one. Its superdimen-sional properties allowed travel through its doorways as if it were a teleporter, which allowed them to go nearly anywhere at any time they desired.
However, just as the archangels had been separated during that first descent, Max and the mansion were lost on the wind and it wasn’t until many years later that the five of them and the mansion were reunited.
At the moment, the four brothers were gathered in a relatively small, utterly normal-looking kitchen that sat just off a likewise normal-looking living room. The archangels all preferred their living space on the more modest side these days. Having been around for as long as they had, they already felt as if they’d literally seen everything.
Uriel had given them each a buzz on his cell as soon as he’d left the signing and, through the use of the mansion and its magical properties, they’d all managed to head home right away. Any of the archangels could call up a portal to the mansion from anywhere in the world, so long as they were standing before a door. It didn’t matter what kind of door it was. Even a car door or the door to a refrigerator would work.
“All right, so we’re all here,” Michael said as he sat forward over the table and laced his fingers together. He was a tall man and his muscles stretched the material of his T-shirt taut across his chest as he leaned forward. His blond hair was probably a touch long for what they preferred on the police force, and it curled across his forehead. As with all of the archangels, his chin was strong, and his sported a five-o’-clock shadow. His blue eyes were the color of clear sapphires.
Michael glanced at the black-haired man at the head, whose gold-flecked amber eyes glittered beneath the lamplight. Azrael met his gaze and held it easily. He was the opposite of Michael in many ways. Though Michael was tall, Az was taller by several inches and his hair was black as pitch and quite a bit longer. It fell well beyond his shoulders. His face was clean-shaven and pale—a stark contrast to the darkness of his hair.
“Even the Masked One has afforded us the pleasure of his happy-go-lucky presence,” Michael said in a sarcastic tone. He turned back to Uriel. “So spill. What’s the big news?”
“I found her.” Uriel could hold it in no longer. He loved the stunned expressions that crossed his brothers’ faces in that moment.
It was unnaturally quiet in the kitchen for a few seconds. And then, in a voice so resonant and charismatic that it had won him millions of screaming fans worldwide, Azrael spoke up. “You’re speaking of your archess.” His amber eyes began to glow.
The other three looked over at him. Michael’s gaze narrowed and he turned back to Uriel. “Is he right? Are you talking about your archess?”
“Yes.” Uriel pulled out a chair and spun it around, lowering himself gracefully into it and lacing his arms over the back. “I knew her the moment I saw her.” Uriel briefly closed his eyes, recalling his first impression of the archess. Dressed in jeans and a bookstore apron, she’d appeared to him as a shining beacon clothed in a thin veil of normalcy. To him, everything about her was otherworldly. “She’s beautiful. Stunning, really,” he told them. “I caught her healing a little girl in the restroom at a bookstore.”
At this, his brothers straightened and he caught them glancing at one another knowingly.
He smiled, unable to prevent himself from feeling proud of Eleanore. “She has a kind heart.” He turned to Azrael. “Max wants you to find out what Sam’s doing right now.” Azrael was the only one among them capable of performing a scry to determine the whereabouts and actions of an individual. In fact, there was much Azrael could do that the other brothers could not. His altered form was often as much a gift as it was a curse.
Michael sat up and took a deep breath. He ran a hand through his thick blond hair and shook his head. His eyes were wide. “I can’t believe this. After so long, for one of us to actually see our mate is like . . .”
“A bloody dream?” Gabriel piped in.
BOOK: Avenger's Angel: A Novel of the Lost Angels
9.22Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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