Destiny Strikes (9 page)

CHAPTER 13

Fallon lazed in one of the deck chairs situated on the back porch.

The sounds of birds chirping and neighboring farm animals were not sounds of the city, but noises she’d grown accustomed to. The longer she stayed here, the more she found herself enjoying the tranquility and sense of peace it brought. Another hedonist aspect she’d come to appreciate with her newfound freedom was her penchant for nudity. The feel of early-morning sun stoking her skin without the fear of unwanted attention: heavenly.

In a good mood and relaxed position, she let the answering machine pick up when the phone rang. A familiar voice filled the house and reached her outside.

“Hey, sis, I don’t know what happened last night, but give me a call when you get this.” A few seconds passed before Michael added, “All right, if you’re not there, I guess I’ll talk to you later. Love you.”

Fallon was tempted to get up when a second long pause followed without her hearing the beep.

“Damn, that’s right.” She groaned. “I needed to call Michael.”

Thinking over the prior evening, the only thing she truly remembered about last night was a deep-seated need to feel Earth’s currents under her feet. She remembered stripping. What happened afterward was a total blank.

She’d found herself on the couch this morning with a blanket wrapped round her body. How she had gotten away from the storm’s grip and into the house remained a mystery. It was ludicrous to think of any human touching her unawares without receiving a low-level distribution of her gift. Deadly results were always instantaneous for anyone besides her family who touched her when she was incapacitated.

Pushing the troubling topic of family to the back of her mind, she wondered what to do with herself. With her need to keep her head down, her trips into town had so far been unsuccessful. A few people from the town had tried to engage her, but she ignored them. She hadn’t been sent here to make friends. Therefore, her only friends had become the weeks of loneliness, quiet, and the soothing sounds of nature.

With every depressing thought ruining what had started out as a wonderful day, she found it a welcome distraction to see her first real chipmunk pause for a stray acorn that escaped the landscaper’s attention. The tiny head on its short squat body brought an unbidden smile. A shade browner than the rest of its body ran the length of its head, down the middle of its back, to its fluffy tail.

The chipmunk’s antics of pause and step, to go for the acorn or let the human he sensed have it, evoked a memory of what had to be a dream. She closed her eyes as she tried bringing brief flashes of the officer from a few nights ago closer to her mind’s eye. Down the rabbit hole into sleep, she traveled to find him. When she did, he filtered in and out of her sight as he moved forward slowly. Then, a startling burst of speed carried him to her within a blink. His large hands caressed her skin, and every erogenous zone exploded to life.

She hadn’t realized she’d closed her eyes until someone seized her then shook her, violently. A breath she wasn't aware of holding released as she stared into the face of a man who wasn’t Travis. His warrior build took him over seven feet and he was quite handsome with dark shoulder-length hair.

“I’ll not let this man you think of disrupt your course,” he roared. “My arrow will always remain true.” His glowing eyes and upturned lip indicated a scorn she wondered how she deserved. The contemptuous voice added to her confusion. “Despite your puny attempts to control what you cannot, you will judge the world as I have. However, you may judge what I cannot: The fate of heaven’s punishment granted my offspring. Not I. My people will die without aid. You will fulfill the prophecy.”

Her gaze darted around, anywhere but the stranger’s face. Frantic, she couldn’t pinpoint a way of escape.

“Who the hell are you? And why are you fucking with me?” She tried to loosen his grasp on her arms with a hard jerk.

In answer, thunder rumbled a distance away and darkening clouds blotted out any lingering signs of what had started as a beautiful, sunny day. Lightning lit the sky around her, and one thin vein, so bright the purple appeared blue, struck her sensitized, naked body. Weightlessly, she floated up from the lounger into the air with the force of her need and the power coursing through her veins. Rain drenched her skin in layers of fire and ice. As close to orgasm as she’d ever get, she made the mistake of looking down.

Her whole body quivered over the unrelenting temptation of destroying everything around her. Fighting off the strong impulse robbed her of breath. Thankfully, after long minutes of deep breaths, she came to her senses and denied the presence within her the release it wanted.

“I won’t do it. I won’t do it,” she chanted, taking several deeper breaths.

The storm calmed. Stars winked out from behind clouds that dissipated as quickly as cotton candy melted on the tongue, and the pounding rain became a light sprinkle.

Fallon landed softly on wet grass and wrapped her arms around her shivering body, which had nothing to do with being cold.

Whomp. Whomp.

An unfamiliar weight settled onto her back. Stretching her arms overhead, the heaviness there wouldn’t ease, especially in her shoulder blades. In the middle of reaching behind her to rub the sore spot, her hand connected with downy softness. She froze then moved again. It wasn’t skin. She twisted this way and that for a better view. Wings. She had fucking
wings
! They spread across her flesh as soft as any cashmere scarf as she slid them forward. Black gossamer feathers ruffled, the faint breeze lifting them.

Fully charged electricity was the least of her issues. She’d gained freaking huge extensions to her body, and she never needed her family more. Yet, involving them would be like life before she left Seattle: more babysitting she didn’t want to put them through.

She could imagine that call. “Hi, Michael, I’m staying out of trouble because I’m fighting an inner demon, literally. Oh, and before I go, you should really check out my new wings.”

Yeah, good times.

CHAPTER 14

“In another couple of days, Mrs. Richardson, hundreds of atmospheric researchers are going to be camped everywhere.”

Dennis’s companion listened intently to the conversation coming from the table behind him. She raised her slim fingers and brought them together in a duck's beak fashion, ending their earlier discussion quite effectively.

He stiffened at the nonverbal command. “Hey, you found me, not the other way around.”

Yes, since learning what line he belonged to, he’d toughened up. However, looking into her confident gaze and the malevolence lurking from the shadows of the beautiful shade of intense violet, he wisely closed his lips.

The woman voicing her exuberance over the subject caught the attention of many of the small restaurant’s patrons. A server had even lingered at their table to listen. However, the facts remained the same. The woman who’d introduced herself as Anbesi was here to see him.

“If you wanted to listen to someone talk about the weather, why are we here? Because, people only do that when they’re bored, and I can take a hint.” Dennis spoke under his breath to avoid causing a scene.

She rolled her eyes and continued to listen to the conversation behind them.

“I mean, can you believe it? Weather like this usually occurs in places like Florida, but never in North Carolina. I’ve witnessed a similar pattern of lightning in regional storms in Africa. We had our theories, but this could be another hotbed. It’s a truly amazing phenomenon, actually studying a place where lightning rises from the ground on a regular basis. This kind of breakthrough could decode one of the top mystery’s the earth holds.”

Just when Dennis believed the remainder of his evening would be listening to other people talk, Anbesi rose from her seat. She nodded in the direction of the exit. His pride stung. The single most interesting thing about this dinner was the steak. It would have been the woman if she had paid any attention to him.

On the way out, he heard the comments following him.

“How the hell did he pull that off?”

“I’ve never seen her before. Maybe she’s from outta town and they hooked up on one of those dating sites. Poor woman.”

“Hope he’s not taking her back to his momma’s place.”

Dennis looked to the sky when the woman with him pulled out her cell phone and started talking in a hushed tone. He pricked his ears and caught the beginning of her conversation.

“I don’t know who he’s working with, but from what I’ve just heard it shouldn’t be too much longer.” The rest faded into the breeze as she moved away to prevent him from overhearing her conversation.

There was a heavy mist over the darkened parking lot. Dennis slowed while she maintained a quick pace straight to her vehicle. The people inside were right. No one like her would give a man like him, one who’d spent most of his life at home protecting his mother, the time of day. Other than his three years at the community college, there weren’t many accolades Dennis could ascribe to his life.

Then Raphael had found him and taught him exactly who and what he was. The news went to his head, a little. Tonight put him back in his comfort zone. “The fuckup, the failure, and the one everyone felt sorry for, instead of respected,” he whispered. He might be depressed, but it wasn’t a quality he wanted to advertise.

He glanced up when her voice rose in anger. “But we know the Guardian can’t interfere. Don’t worry. I’ll find out what’s going on here.” When she hung up, she appeared so deep within her thoughts he assumed she’d forgotten him.

He cleared his throat a couple of times before saying, “You told me when we met earlier that Rafael sent you. So, what’s your deal? Why do you need me to find people with traits like ours, and kill them?”

She tilted her head and long black locks slid over her shoulder before her sensual lips pulled back over her perfectly white teeth. “Because only the descendants of the Seven Fallen can usher in the change this world needs. Babe, you have yet to see what you can do.”

CHAPTER 15

“Ma’am, I don’t know what your great-great-great, and so on, grandmother's bible had to do with your daughter’s death four years ago,” Travis said with frustration, rubbing his forehead.

Mrs. Baxter’s snort clearly indicated his ignorance, the scowl marring her seventy-two-year-old features. “Now listen here, young man, you’re the one that called me asking to come over at six in the evening to talk about my baby’s death.”

She did have a point. He had driven hell-for-leather for more hours than he could count to reach the elegant condominium off Caswell Beach. He’d been lucky to find her so quickly at one of her many vacation spots.

After leaving the morgue, he’d spent hours scouring over every website, obituary, and news article that hinted at mysterious deaths, and in particular, those with bi-colored eyes. He stopped at a newspaper posting of a woman from Minneapolis who’d been murdered in a home invasion. The mother found the body. It became a high-profile murder case with no suspects. When the mother went suddenly loco and advertised a picture she’d taken of her dead daughter, it became a public spectacle.

The picture intrigued him. Tastefully done in spite of the grisly circumstances, the victim stared at him from the computer screen with one brown eye and the other lavender. It wasn’t the smartest way to get attention. Afterward, people believed the mother, driven crazy by her daughter’s death, needed psychiatric help. The constant rants that her daughter was an angel wouldn’t seem unusual coming from a grieving parent if not for her zealousness. She claimed her daughter literally came from a long line of angels.

This was the single most important lead he had so he chose to listen.

“I know my girl is in heaven, no matter who took her from me. And, Mr. Orion, judging by your visit here, it means you found another person who carries the blood of an angel.”

Travis leaned back from his hunched position with his hands clasped between his knees.

The small sitting room wasn’t adorned with a bunch of hideous knickknacks, but sparsely furnished, which gave the illusion of being larger. Crazy talk and cramped quarters weren’t his biggest concern as she rambled on. “In the book passed down to me, it was written that Angels walked the earth before, and after, Adam and Eve left the Garden. Most people overlook that the couple’s took refuge East of Eden. Cast out, they were welcomed into the City of Angels. Later, the winged beings’ fascination with the newcomers led to their blood intermingling with ours. Eve wasn’t just known for her betrayal with Adam. She was the first adulterer. The violet eyes forever marked the offspring created by the union. Some I read about have eyes so purple they are almost black. However, the consequences of such an act against the Creator resulted in a severe punishment for those who circumvented the original design. Wings.”

Travis released the breath he held. Fallon certainly did not have wings. In the realm of supernatural events, he’d be more inclined to believe the misguided woman if he’d witnessed her sprouting them.

“Excuse me, Ma’am. Are you saying your daughter had wings no one knew about?” He hadn’t expected to be calling on her for a history lesson in religion, and a version he never before heard.

“The relevance is very important, young man. Not all progeny gained the beautiful appendages. Those who had grown wings were called to service protecting those who weren’t so fortunate. Angels weren’t meant to experience our blessing and our curse. Lucifer didn’t only deceive Eve. He deceived the Nephilim inhabiting the city. This led to our damnation, and their entire race’s banishment.”

The longer she talked, Travis felt his chest tighten as hope diminished for the break he needed. She’d have to be a little touched to believe her daughter, his conditions, or Barbara’s death had anything to do with Angels. He knew he was different, but not winged different. It was too far of a stretch. “Ma’am, I hate to interrupt your story, and I’m truly sorry for your loss, but I really must go.”

She got to her feet, and with a superior tilt to her head, she showed him to the door without another word.

He turned, intent on saying good-bye when her hand lifted to silence him.

“You think I’m loony like all the rest. Well, Mr. Orion, with twenty-two bodies discovered in the last month, and in the same condition, I’m positive I’ll be hearing from you again.”