Death's Angel: A Novel of the Lost Angels (3 page)

Her mom was gone. She’d lost her flowers. And the grave marker stood empty on her mother’s birthday.

Alan Harvey stared at Sophie with wide eyes. Something strange flickered across his unshaven features. Maybe it was surprise—maybe something else. His gaze shot to her neck and then to her shoulder, exposed and white where he had ripped her shirt free of her body. “Why, you little tramp,” he hissed, his voice different now, too. It had lowered and was gravelly with an emotion that sent nausea roiling through Sophie’s belly. “You wanna fight me?”

Sophie’s legs flooded with numbness. Her stomach cramped and her heart began to beat between her ears. It was the
whoosh-whoosh-whoosh
of utter terror and it threatened to overwhelm her. She was alone with him. This part of the cemetery was deserted.

She’d pushed him too far.

Her vision tunneled as Harvey took a threatening step toward her. This was it. He was going to rape and kill her out there. He wouldn’t have to travel far in order to bury her body.

I’m gonna die
, she thought.
This is it.

When he lunged at her, she was too numb, too heavy with fear to move out of his way in time. Her world became a thump and a whir of pain and motion. Something crunched beneath her as she went down again. She felt the corner of a burial plaque bruise her spine and hip.

Harvey’s fingers curled into the waistband of her jeans—and suddenly, Sophie’s fourteen-year-old body was moving of its own accord. Her leg came up as if controlled by someone else. Her bloodied, bruised knee connected with his groin, digging hard and fast and deep.

But it wasn’t enough to dislodge his body from hers. Harvey grunted as he continued to paw at her. He always grunted. He was so heavy. Her wrists twisted and her fingers went numb as she dug her fingernails into his skin, trying to claw him off of her. Her hands slapped and pulled and punched. Harvey’s palm found the side of her face, but she felt no pain. She heard the impact and her head moved a little and there was warm metal in her mouth running rivers over her tongue. But there was no pain.

She just kept fighting. Finally, her right knuckle banged something hard and cold. Metal. She knew instantly what it was. It was Harvey’s gun—he owned a gun. She didn’t know where he’d gotten it, but he loved to take it out and clean it and load it and unload it and wear it tucked into his pants. Like it was now. It formed an indentation in the pudge of his belly where it separated flab from denim. Sophie wrapped her numb fingers around it, forcing them to grip it tight. She yanked and knew that the hammer sliced into him as she pulled it out.

She didn’t get it far before he realized what she was doing and tried to grab it out of her hands. So she took a chance. Anything was better than this. If the barrel was pointed at her, so be it.

Sophie pulled the trigger.

Chapter One

Present day

He’s an archangel,
Sophie told herself sternly as she tried with all her might not to fidget. She stared up the long aisle of decorated chairs to the altar before Slains Castle in Scotland. Azrael stood there beside the groom, and to her, he was the epitome of everything desirable in a man. His incredibly tall, imposing form was draped in the color of night and it was tailored to fit his extraordinary physique with absolute perfection. His sable hair fell in gentle waves to his shoulders and made Sophie’s fingertips itch with the need to touch it. His skin was so fair it was nearly translucent. He looked like a vampire lord in his expensive tux, his gold eyes nearly glowing in their intensity, and it was making her a little nuts inside.

Juliette Anderson, Sophie’s best friend, was getting married. Sophie was the maid of honor. It was her job to stand there and be supportive, to take the bouquet and carry the train and all of that business. But as the vicar gave his Gaelic blessing to the gathered members of the wedding party and the pipers poured their bittersweet music across the castle grounds, Sophie could concentrate on nothing but Azrael.

Azrael, the archangel.

Juliette had told Sophie all about him. He and his three brothers were the Four Favored, the Old Man’s favorite archangels. Jules had hammered Soph with the news about them mere hours after Sophie had stepped off the plane in Edinburgh. Sophie had had her own news that she’d been wanting to share with Juliette for the last three weeks, but when she’d seen the look on Juliette’s face and caught the frantically anxious tone in her voice, Sophie’s affairs had instantly taken a backseat to Juliette’s and they’d remained there ever since.

Gabriel and his brothers were none other than the four most famous archangels in existence: Michael the Warrior Angel, Uriel the Angel of Vengeance, Gabriel the Messenger Angel, and Azrael—the Angel of Death.

He looks the part
,
Sophie thought now as she again stole a surreptitious glance at the beautiful man. He was too handsome. It was the kind of handsome that was difficult to look at. He had a Dorian Gray appearance about him that made her wonder whether he’d sold his soul so that he could look the way he did.

According to Juliette, the Four Favored had come to Earth two thousand years ago in order to find something very precious to them: their mates. It sounded like something out of a werewolf romance, but there it was. Apparently the brother archangels had been given gifts by the Old Man in the form of four perfect
female
archangels. These he called archesses. Before the archangels could claim them, however, the Old Man sent the archesses to Earth, and there they were scattered—lost to their mates for centuries. Lost, until now.

For some reason, archesses seemed to be popping up all at once.
Well, maybe not all at once
, Sophie reasoned as she dutifully lifted the train of her best friend’s gorgeous wedding gown and followed her down the aisle toward the altar. After all, Juliette was only the second archess to be found of the four that had been created. Maybe it was only coincidence that she and the first archess had both made their appearances within months of each other. Still . . . two thousand years without anything, and then in the course of a few months, two archesses appear?

Sophie glanced furtively toward Uriel, the first archangel of the four brothers to have met his archess. He also looked unbelievably handsome in his fitted tux, with his piercing green eyes and wavy dark hair. Uriel had been surprising enough for Sophie to take in because he was also Christopher Daniels, the famous actor who played Jonathan Brakes, the “good” vampire in the hit movie
Comeuppance
.

Azrael was harder for Sophie to come to grips with. Not only was he literally the most handsome man she had ever laid eyes on, but he was supposedly the lead singer for Valley of Shadow, which was at that moment the most popular rock band in the world.

Once she’d processed the information, she’d realized it made a lot of sense.
“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death” . . . .How fitting,
she thought.

As the enigmatic lead singer of Valley, Azrael always took the stage wearing a black mask that hid half of his face from his fans. His voice crooned and hypnotized, pouring out over his audience with immense influence. His identity remained hidden.

Sophie had been a breathless, swooning fan of Valley of Shadow since its inception. She’d been as mesmerized by the Masked One’s physique, charisma, presence, and otherworldly voice as every other woman in the world. When she downloaded his songs to her iPod, she was able to close her eyes and pretend that he was singing to her—and her alone. Hell, she even dreamed of him.

Oh jeez
, she thought as she flushed with both embarrassment and baffled anticipation at the memory. The bride took her place in front of the altar and Sophie held her bouquet as the ceremony began. Sophie couldn’t believe she was actually standing there, a few feet away from the Masked One. To say nothing of the fact that he was also an archangel. The Angel of Death, no less! Her mind spun with the implications.

He’s looking at me
. She could feel the archangel’s golden gaze searing into her from where he stood opposite her. She forced herself not to meet his gaze. She couldn’t do it again. Every time she glanced up at him, she felt that he was staring right through to her soul, reading her from the inside out, absorbing her very spirit with those piercing orbs of his. It was too much. And yet, even as she knew she shouldn’t because of the way it made her feel—she wanted to for the same reason.

She was a moth to the flame.

The vicar called for the rings and Sophie actually felt Azrael’s gaze lift. He gracefully pulled the set of heavy gold bands from the inside pocket of his black tux and handed them to the handsome groom. Gabriel took the rings with a very real smile and turned to face his bride.

Sophie found herself transfixed by the image of Gabriel sliding the band onto Juliette’s slim finger. The knotted gold Celtic design winked in the moon – and candlelight. The ring fit Juliette perfectly, resting on her hand like a brand, final and complete, and Sophie imagined the tall and enigmatic Azrael sliding a ring on her own finger in the same fashion.

And then she blinked. Her heart thudded hard behind her rib cage. She could almost feel the physical weight of the metal on her finger—and the heat of Azrael’s touch on her hand. Where the hell had that image come from? It had appeared out of nowhere, clear as day, and now it was refusing to fade away.

Sophie felt her face flush with embarrassment at the thought. If he only knew what she was fantasizing about in that moment!

With a start, she realized that the ceremony was over. The piper began to play “Amazing Grace,” and Juliette and Gabriel kissed. The vicar said a few more words in Gaelic—which Juliette seemed to understand—and then she and Gabriel turned to head back down the makeshift aisle.

It was the last night of the full moon. Its blue-white light cast the decorated castle and its grounds in stark, beautiful contrast. Streamers and ribbons of lace and satin had been strung between stone columns and draped over the battlements of Slains Castle so high above them. The waves of the waning tide crashed against the rocks far below, and seagulls sang the last piercing notes of their nightly lullabies.

Roses and lavender scented the air, which was unnaturally warm for this time of year. While the rest of the people who had gathered to see the wedding—namely members of Gabriel’s clan—were unaware of the reason behind the unseasonable pleasantness, Sophie knew that the warm weather was due to Eleanore Granger, the first archess found by the Four Favored.

Eleanore was Uriel’s archess and possessed powers much like Juliette’s—which Sophie was still trying to wrap her head around. Ellie and Jules could both control the weather to some extent, throw things around with telekinesis, manipulate fire where it already existed, and most important, they could heal.

It was this power to heal wounds and sicknesses with no more than a touch that really set the archesses apart from every other supernatural creature in the world. And that was another thing Sophie had been forced to take in rather quickly. Apparently, archangels and archesses were not the only ones to inhabit the planet alongside unsuspecting humans. There were others out there—other beings with powers.

Still, none of the other paranormals possessed the ability to mend injuries and pain. That power belonged to the archesses and to Michael and seemed to be limited solely to them.

Juliette had sprung a lot on Sophie, to be sure. But luckily for Jules, Soph could handle it. She didn’t have a lot of memories from her early childhood. But what she did have from those precious days, she held on to with unequaled fierceness. She’d had six treasured years with her parents. They’d died in a car accident a week before her sixth birthday. Until that day, Sophie had been in paradise.

Her mother had been an assistant curator at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. Her father had been a pilot. When he was out of town on a job, Sophie’s mother would take her to the museum after hours and the two of them would explore ancient Egyptian tombs and tell ghost stories in what Sophie called the Whale Room.

Sophie’s mom, Genevieve Bryce, had been a unique woman possessed of an open mind. Nothing was impossible to her. “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,” she would quote from Shakespeare to Sophie. It was one of the few things she could remember her mother saying. Such things as magic and miracles were not pipe dreams upon which to fantasize, but very real possibilities to Genevieve. This respect for a world greater than human knowledge was passed on to Sophie, even in the six short years she had been with her parents.

Luckily, it was enough; otherwise what Jules had told her over the last few days would have sent Sophie to the loony bin. Or convinced her that
Jules
belonged in one, anyway. If Sophie hadn’t been the person she was, Juliette would have had a much more difficult time bringing her best friend into the circle of archangel knowledge.

Now that she was here, witnessing the archangels’ immense physical presences and intensely vivid gazes firsthand, she was definitely convinced that magic could exist. To say nothing of what Ellie was doing with her powers.

There was also the small fact that Juliette had actually shown Sophie her wings. Real, honest-to-God wings. Apparently Juliette could control when they appeared and when they didn’t, which was fortunate, because the wings were massive, stretching to a good seven or eight feet on either side. Most impressive of all, perhaps, was the fact that the wings were actually
functional
.

That one hurt a little. Sophie was happy for Juliette and all that she’d found in the last few weeks. Jules deserved the best. She was a kind soul and always had been. She was empathetic, understanding and giving, and Sophie was lucky to have her as a best friend. They’d met while in high school and during Sophie’s stay with her fifth set of foster parents. As luck would have it, and like so many people who became fast friends, they’d been given lockers right next to each other. Juliette noticed the Jack the Pumpkin King poster in Sophie’s locker and mentioned that she was going solo to a Reel Classics replay of
The Nightmare Before Christmas
that Friday night. There was almost no hesitation before she went on to ask Sophie whether she wanted to tag along. And that was it. Their friendship was almost magical, it happened so fast and formed so strong. That Juliette never judged Soph for her past or her lack of a “real” family or, when they got older, a “proper” education, was like a gift from the fates to Sophie. She didn’t know what she would do without Jules.

And yet, when Juliette spread those magnificent wings of hers and beat the air with them and rose from the cliffside where they’d been standing, Sophie had experienced a pang of something she’d never before felt toward her friend. Jealousy. Envy.

It was a sour, bitter kind of feeling that left a bad taste on her tongue and coiled tightly in the pit of her stomach. She couldn’t help it. She would give anything for the ability to leave Earth’s bonds and escape all that was trapped below. To rise above it all. She would give
anything
.

Gabriel and Juliette reached the end of the aisle and Gabriel’s Scottish friends began tossing flower petals upon the couple. Hundreds of white rose petals cascaded down upon the bride and groom amid shouts of congratulations. It was a heartwarming scene, especially combined with the gorgeous music pouring forth from the pipers who stood like sentinels along the castle walls.

“My best friend’s getting married,” she whispered to herself, in awe as the enormity of the event finally hit her. Juliette laughingly pulled rose petals out of her mass of beautiful hair. And then Sophie watched as Juliette’s new husband leaned over and kissed her tenderly on the cheek. He closed his eyes, seemingly lost in the wonder that was his new bride.

And Sophie smiled. “Congrats, Jules. You deserve him.”

* * *

Azrael stood still in the men’s restroom of the portable guest – and bathhouse that had been erected outside of Slains Castle for his brother’s wedding. He was alone, and the air was filled with the hollow sound of foreboding. There was a storm brewing. It was a hurricane, hot and windy and destructive, and it was ripping through Azrael’s insides, begging to be released. He exhaled a shaky breath and pressed his forehead to the mirror in front of him, glancing up at his reflection as he did so.

Another human myth gone horribly awry. Vampires did indeed have reflections. It was the wraiths that didn’t. Azrael bared his teeth and laughed a cold, hard laugh at the thought. The most asinine things were going through his head at that moment. The thoughts were like fireflies on a pitch-black night, chaotic and useless and utterly distracting.

Sophie’s whispered thoughts echoed through his mind, taunting him.
I would do anything.
She’d been thinking about Juliette’s wings and wishing she could fly. If she’d had any idea how dangerously tempting her thoughts were . . . To say nothing of her reaction to the image he had so carelessly planted in her mind of the wedding ring sliding onto her finger. He hadn’t even meant to do it; he’d simply imagined it. However, he’d been in her head at the time, thoroughly rapt in all that she was, and she’d caught the impression clear as a bell.