The Archangel Agenda (Evangeline Heart Book 1) (9 page)

“What if we’re after the same thing? And I find all of this such a huge coincidence.”

He took a step closer and I stiffened, but didn’t move away.

“We’re done here.”

I wanted to know what he was after, but not at the cost of having to reveal my own treasure. Plus, he’d avoided my accusation of “right time, right place—sort of.”

“Why were you at Felt’s when I was, and why are you out here now, acting like you knew that I was coming for you?”

“In the magical universe there are no coincidences and there are no accidents. Nothing happens unless someone wills it to happen. That’s according to William S. Burroughs. I like my essayists, hashtag novelists, etceteras.”

“You’re an ass.” I swung a right hook but didn’t connect. He’d had some training.

              He lunged and I parried, but his strong fingers encircled my upper arm and he made no other move to toss me, hit me, or incapacitate me. The hold was a request, not a threat. Though I could have stepped away at any time, I didn’t. He’d made me curious and I still wanted answers to my questions.

“Tell me what you’re after, and tell me all about these coincidence, because I’m not one to believe in such things.” It was a gentle request, like his hold on my arm.

“You first.”

His gaze slid across my face, down to my waist, then back up. “Let me buy you a drink and I’ll tell you everything you want to know.”

Chapter Fourteen

I narrowed my eyes. I seriously doubted he’d give me everything, especially if he knew who I was. But asking him directly would give me a lot more details than my online searches had turned up.

              “Fine.”

He let go and we walked through the park across the street to a dive. It was a bit early for drinks, but a few diehards occupied seats. An old war veteran snuggled a pint at the bar and an older woman sat at a small table in the corner. The bartender was a grizzled old biker who barely looked up from washing glasses when we came in.

I spotted my exits and threats. Clay was the only one to worry about and I had no intention of letting him out of my sight.

He picked out a table in the far corner and sat with his back to the rear exit. I adjusted the chair on the other side and sat with my back against the wall.

He smiled at that. “Got your six covered?”

I ignored him. A thief probably had the luxury of moving oblivious throughout the world, only concerned about exits and threats for the few minutes he was on a job. With Griffin’s death so fresh on my mind, I’d become extra aware of threats. I’d pissed off a lot of people, and that didn’t include the new set I’d riled now that I was going after the relics.

He ordered us shots of tequila and I wanted it to be another coincidence. A lot of people drank tequila, and it didn’t have to be because he’d re-conned me. I ordered a beer to go with my shot.

He lifted his glass. “To successful missions.”

I touched the mostly clean rim of mine to his. “To the truth.”

We drank our shots and I winced. “Jesus, that’s awful.” I took a pull off my beer to wash down his choice of rotgut tequila and carefully set the bottle on the coaster, precisely in the center. “Tell me what you’re after. And, why you were at Felt’s place when I was, and why you were in Central Park when I was.”

His gaze roamed over my face like he was trying to figure me out. I’d had too much training to reveal anything over drinks, but let him think that he’d get something out of me in trade for his. “I’ve been a thief for a long time. I’ve fenced everything from the ridiculous to the extraordinary. As far as being at Felt’s, well, I like Tuesdays for one thing, and that night was a Tuesday. The real reason though is that Felt’s number-one security guy, the only one who might have been a threat, takes Mondays and Tuesdays off. I hate Mondays. So, there’s your coincidence numero uno.

“Second, I jog through the park every day at the same time. Been doing it for three years now since I got on an exercise kick. Maybe the question should be turned on its head, and I should be asking you why you were at Felt’s when I was, and why you were in the park when I was.”

Only my training kept me from rolling my eyes.
Blah, blah, I’m good, yeah, yeah
…
I wanted details, not his percentage of completion.

“I’m the one asking the questions here. But I guess I can answer that, sort of… I had a job to do at Felt’s and my time frame is limited. Maybe us being at the same place and same time is a coincidence. Me finding you in the park, well, let’s just say that I have my ways. I even know your address, Clay. Who were you stealing for, and what were you stealing?”

He smiled widely. “Okay,” he sighed. “This is how it’s going to be. You women are so good at manipulating and maneuvering. I’ll give you the info that I have because something tells me that you’ll be able to find it no matter what. A few years back, I had a buyer come to me with the strangest request to date.”

I arched an eyebrow.

“He wasn’t interested in the usual like diamonds or art. He wanted religious relics, but oddball ones. Things that hadn’t shown up on a single manifest. Strange things that held little monetary value.”

He lifted his hand and ordered two more shots. I hoped he wasn’t hoping to get me drunk so I’d spill my guts. We’d have to kill a fifth and I wasn’t sure he’d convince me to do that in the middle of the day.

He leaned forward, stretching his arms closer. I picked up my beer and sat back in my chair. The wood creaked beneath my movement and a chill raced up my spine. I tightened my hold on the cold bottle and watched his face.

“He pays me ten times what my diamond buyers do. This guy wants these things bad.”

The chill on my spine became spikes.

“Is that who you were working for the other night?”

“Yes.”

“Which relic? Who is your buyer? What’s his name?”

The bartender set our shots on the bar and Clay picked that moment to go get them. I watched him walk away and my attention slipped to the edge of his running shorts before I could jerk them back. The other night, it had been impossible to miss the high level of fitness his move had required, but now, seeing his bare legs, I was ashamed at the base need to admire them.

He came back and I didn’t wait for him before slamming mine back. I took the final pull off my beer and set them both on the edge of the table.

He arched an eyebrow. “You okay?”

“Finish your story. Name? Relic?”

“I don’t know his name. The contact that always finds me is a funny dude. He’s like all clean cut, maybe forty, maybe fifty. He’s one of those guys you can’t really tell his age. He always wears a bow tie, dark brown slicked-back hair, brown eyes, I think. Medium size and medium build. But something tells me that guy could kick my ass. I think he’s lethal. I can’t put my finger on it. But, it’s a feeling that I have. I don’t want to fuck with him, you know?”

I searched my memory bank for any of the pros out there that I knew who might fit that description. “I know. Do you have his name? How do these deals work?”

“I call him Mr. Smith. I doubt that’s his real name. He reps the buyer. They wire in a deposit to a bank account I have in the Caymans. When the job is finished, there is another wire to an account in Switzerland.”

I nodded. “Nice. What did they want this time?”

“He wants me to grab a stone, but nothing valuable. I’ve researched the hell out of this thing and it’s basically colored glass. There are things in Felt’s collection worth a thousand times that one, but he’s not interested in anything else.” He drank his shot. “He
forbade
me from picking up anything else.”

I pressed my fingers to my temple. “Describe it.” My vision blurred as he painted a picture of Mom’s piece. Telling Clay that he couldn’t have it wasn’t going to work. I was going to have to appeal to the only thing that mattered to a thief.

“How much is he paying you?”

“One point five.”

I blinked. That was double what I’d figured. Ah hell. I reached for my empty beer bottle and peeled the corner of the label. The old man at the bar stood up and his stool screeched across the floor. He mumbled his goodbyes and left, letting in a sharp sword of light that vanished as the door slammed behind him.

Assassins made good money and I lived frugally. Even Griffin had no idea how much money I’d squirreled away and I’d never figured out how to tell him what I’d put away for the rainy day when we (I guess now I) could retire. Considering my cover as a freelance journalist, there weren’t a lot of ways to explain the size of my bank balance. I’d always figured that I’d explain it as a trust fund, though my parents had left me with nothing other than the debt at the morgue.

Now Clay was going to take half.

But I didn’t see how I had any other choice. He wasn’t going to turn over a lucrative sale so he could help me. We were still opponents and I still hadn’t admitted that he was going after my piece.

“I’ll pay you another two-fifty to walk away. I need the piece.”

He grinned. “I knew it. What’s the deal with this shiny glass? What’s it do?”

I shook my head and the label on the bottle ripped, sending tattered bits of paper to the table. “Can’t tell you. I don’t know all of it, but I have to have it.”

“Why?”

“Do we have a deal or not?”

He glanced at the door like he was thinking about taking off and beating me to Felt’s place, but then he turned those pretty blue eyes on me. “Two.”

“Two what? Two
million
?”

He leaned back in his chair and crossed one foot over his knee, lazily negotiating his way through my bank account. “Yep.”

I shook my head and made a face. “Screw you.”

He shrugged. “I guess, but I still want the two.”

He was incorrigible. I’d never, not in my whole life used that term to describe another human being. But it fit perfectly. He was an impossible grinning fool with no idea what he was meddling with. And I couldn’t exactly tell him either. “Two million and you walk away and I never have to deal with you again?”

He laughed. “No way. Two million and I help you get it.”

It was my turn to laugh. “I don’t need your help.”

“Bullshit. If you were any good, you’d have had that thing and been out of there before I even set foot on the carpet. You had a two-minute head start.
Two minutes
. Christ, I could have cleaned the place out with that much time.”

I glared at him, dead-set against admitting that he was right. I’d already told Malcolm that I’d been out of my element going in the first time. Now that we’d screwed up the first attempt, security would be even tighter. I did need him, but damn if I didn’t want to admit it. Why did Malcolm have to pick now to have hip surgery?

He winked at me. “You know you need me. I can see it on those pretty icy blue eyes of yours.”

“Icy, huh? Okay. Maybe. Two million, payable
after
we get the piece and we’re in the clear.”

“And you need me. And, I didn’t mean icy in a bad way. Your eyes are like glaciers. I don’t know. They’re beautiful. Like…”

I held my hand up. “That’s enough, Romeo. I’m not going to bed with you. I’ll take icy.”

He shrugged. “I’m a man. Can’t blame me for trying. You know you’re hot. Besides that, you need me for this job. Come on, say it.”

I don’t blush, but there was a little heat rising to my cheeks. I tried hard to remain cool and not let him see that, in a way, I was flattered by his obnoxious behavior. I set my bottle on the table and crossed my arms. “And I will allow you work with me on this.”

He grinned. “You need me. I knew it.”

I hated him so very much in that moment.

Chapter Fifteen

“What’s your brilliant plan to get back in?”

The lights flickered, then dimmed the bar’s interior to near blackness. I startled and my chair squeaked. Clay cursed softly, then the lights came back on.

“That was weird,” he said.

I waited tensely for Metatron to show up. The archangel had already told Malcolm that he couldn’t help me. Had I broken some rule by agreeing to work with Clay?

Clay looked around with a tension in his shoulders I hadn’t seen before now. Did he feel it too, the strange spirit world that now seemingly lingered wherever I went? He drained his beer and stood. “Let’s go back to my place.”

I laughed. Hard. I hadn’t meant to, but my nerves and the tequila were just enough to soften my filter. Like hell I was going to let him take me back to his place. Drinks had been a huge concession for me.

He held out his hand and winked. “I have maps and the internet… I wanted to make a plan somewhere a little more private, but…” His gaze dropped to the open V of my shirt, then lower. He flashed a grin and shrugged. “I like the way you think, though.”

Ooh! I narrowed my eyes. “As if.” I brushed past his outstretched hand and stormed out of the building. While we’d been in there, the sun had come out and the humidity had to be nearing ninety-five percent. My clothes instantly stuck to me and a blast of car exhaust caught me full in the face. I raised my arm to hail a cab.

Behind me, the heavy bar door opened and shut. I was so embarrassed that I’d let a reaction slip. Malcolm had been right to suggest that I was too raw and emotional to be on a job.

He stepped up beside me on the curb and I shot him a look. He grinned and jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “I’m just down this way a block. Want to walk?”

Nothing about him worried me. He was too casual, too much of a thief. If he’d wanted to hurt me, he’d had ample opportunity before now. To him the chase and the steal was the fun part, and worth doing even though I’d already agreed that he’d get paid. This was a tenuous alliance, but an alliance just the same.

I made a point of looking him up and down, like he’d done to me in the bar moments ago, but my look held every bit of my disdain for his flippancy and blatant flirting in it. I wanted him to know that he didn’t scare me. I’d already bested him twice.

His place was exactly what I’d pictured, sparsely furnished and barely used.

What I didn’t expect was the giant Malamute that came barreling out of the bedroom straight for me. I braced myself. It skidded to a stop in front of Clay and stood on its hind legs, pink tongue flashing between its giant teeth.

“Marvin, meet, uh... What is your name?” He dropped his keys on a rickety table, patted the dog on the head, and grabbed us beers from the fridge.

“Lina. Remember, I already know yours.” I flashed a wide smile.

“Right. Marvin, meet Lina.”

I sat on the edge of the couch, wishing he had tall barstools so I could stay out of licking range. I’d never felt comfortable around dogs, not even little ones. So many teeth. They were like mouthfuls of knives.

“Tell me about this piece. Knowing what it does will help me figure out how well they’ve guarded it.”

I shook my head and took the beer from him. He sat beside me, making the couch sag. The dog lapped the air around me and I cringed. Clay snapped his fingers and the dog hit the ground, wide muzzle on his paws. He whined and stared up at me.

I eased my toes away and tried to ignore the wolf-sized dog. “Felt doesn’t know what it does. I’m not sure anyone does.”

“Then why do you want it?”

I took a drink. I’d already agreed to work with Clay, and I still had two other pieces to find. But could I trust him? “It’s one of three relics that together open a gate to Hell.”

His eyes widened and he scratched his stubbled jaw with the hand holding the bottle. “Huh. Yeah, wouldn’t have guessed that. But it makes sense.”

“It does?” I’d tossed that out there to see where he stood on the supernatural side of things, but I totally hadn’t expected him to accept it like that.

“Sure.” He leaned back and spread his arm across the back of the couch. “This happens a lot with the religious stuff. Someone always believes it’s a
key
to some magic portal. I wondered as much when I found out it was glass.” He looked up sharply at me. “You said
a
gate? Does that mean there’s more than one?”

“From what I’ve found in my research, and what I’ve been told, there are twelve different gates. I only need to open one of them.”

“How did you find any of that info? There’s
nothing
on this piece, not even a random conspiracy theory blogger… Nothing.”

I set my bottle down on the coffee table and braced my hands on my knees. “I’m heavily involved with the rest of the steps. I have to find the other two pieces and go get my fiancé’s soul. Out of Hell, that is.”

He flinched, then recovered quickly and gave me a lazy smile. “Didn’t figure you for a relationship kind of girl.”

“That’s what you got out of that?” He really was impossible. Maybe working with him was a bad idea. I was used to the no-nonsense attitude of assassins and CIA agents and I wasn’t sure I could handle his laid-back approach. At this point he should really be thinking that I was as crazy as a loon.

“Figured you wanted to know that I heard you. You’re engaged, off limits, all that.”

I closed my eyes and shook my head in exasperation. “Can we please focus?”

He shrugged. “You do it your way, I do it mine.”

“Yes, great. What’s the plan?”

“Who’s your source?”

“Um…”

“I can handle it.”

He’d proven that was true. We’ll see just how much he could handle. “Metatron.”

“The Transformer?”

I rolled my eyes. “That’s
Megatron
, you idiot. I’m talking about Enoch, the holy man who became the archangel Metatron.”

“Oh. Well, he should have picked another name.”

“Pretty sure he came first.”

He shrugged. “Archangel still sounds cool. Can I meet him?”

I rolled my eyes. “What are you, fourteen?”

“What? You want to go back on your story and pick something a little more believable now that I want proof?”

“Not all of us need proof.” Though I sure as hell had. “Besides, meeting one isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”

He laughed and clinked his bottle against mine. “I dunno, working out okay so far.” He winked.

“Mmmph.”

“So what’d this
Metatron
tell you?”

I didn’t care if he believed me or not. I could hear the condescending tone in his voice, but if I told him everything now, then I could give him the “I told you so” when we finally saw Metatron.

“There are three relics, I don’t know what the other two are yet, but I’m sure they’ll be just as obscure and just as guarded.” He probably was thinking I was a nut job, but he still figured me good for the two million. I think he thought I had some serious cash stashed away, and I did…

He puffed up. “Cool. You’ll need me for those too.”

“I’m not paying you for them.”

“We’ll talk about that later.”

“Whatever. Let’s focus on the first one for now.”

“Okay.” He got up and grabbed a laptop from under a huge haphazard stack of stuff on the edge of his kitchen counter and brought it back. “Let’s see what they’ve changed at Felt’s place.”

With half the keystrokes it took Malcolm, he was in the security system and had Felt’s place pulled up. I scooted closer on the couch. He rapidly switched through different views of the house, making little humming noises as he saw things I couldn’t.

“Interesting.” He toggled the view of the house and the wire model showing the security sections that were activated.

“What?”

“They haven’t changed anything.” He flipped to the wire image and pointed to sections of the house. “See this? The exterior sensors are on, but they didn’t turn on any of the ones in the house.” He dropped his hand and flipped through four other images.

“Pull up the camera in the room. That’s where the piece is.” He squinted at the screen and double-clicked the interior camera feed.

I nodded. I didn’t want him to know that I’d gone into Felt’s place kind of blind. Malcom’s systems hadn’t picked up the ring, but we had figured it was there. Clay’s programs and technology was even more advanced and the surveillance he had on the place was crystal clear as he zeroed in on the room.

“Uh-oh. That’s not good.”

I saw it at the same time. Half the pieces that Malcolm and I had seen had been taken out of the room since. “When did that happen?” I doubted Felt’s staff would have had the time or inclination to move all the pieces between when Malcolm and I had done our research and driving up there. Though it was possible, neither Clay nor I had made it into the room that night and there had certainly been time.

“I don’t know,” Clay said, typing Felt’s name into an internet search. “Let’s see if there’s an article about it. These guys move pieces into museums and sell off pieces all the time to other dealers. There could be some information about it.”

The first entry was a write-up in the Times about Felt and the uniqueness of his collection. I leaned forward and skimmed the article. “
A portion of the religious artifacts will be housed in a small gallery at the Smithsonian
.”

Clay groaned. “You’ve got to be kidding me. I can’t get in there. I do houses.”

I leaned back, furious and frustrated. “How did you not know that? I’ve only been on Felt’s trail for two days. Haven’t you been planning this heist for a while?” I was pissed that I’d come so close and now the chance had been stripped.

“I don’t care what happens after I steal a piece. Felt could give away the rest of his whole damn collection and it wouldn’t affect me. I do my recon up to the moment I steal what I’m after. Those are the facts that matter to me. And, that was supposed to happen a couple of days ago. I never have complications so I don’t ever factor those in.”

Clay threw the laptop on the couch beside me and got up. “But now this does affect me because I don’t
have
the piece.”

He paced the small living room, making the dog whine, but he didn’t leave his spot on the floor.

“I’d have it if you hadn’t been there.”

“No shit. This wouldn’t be costing me two million bucks if you hadn’t shown up.
If
we even get it now. And, you should always plan for complications!”

The dog whined, feeling the tension thickening between us. I glanced sharply at Marvin and he turned away, tail tucked tightly against his butt and whimpering as he hurried from the room.

“Bullshit. You’d have still screwed it up. You’re an amateur.”

I rocketed off the couch and got in his face. “Now who’s the amateur? Do I even need you? You have no idea how to get in and out of that museum.”

“More than you.” We puffed up into each other. Damn him for being incompetent where I needed him. I was frustrated with myself for relying on him, even for a moment. All those emotions layered over the top of the fear that I’d never get it now and that we’d lost the best chance we’d had.

“We’re never going to get in there.” I shoved him and spun away.

He stuck out his foot and pushed me. The momentum let all my anger break loose. I rolled and came up swinging. “This is your fault!” I caught him on the shoulder and he leaned back and grabbed a handful of the front of my shirt and held me away. I brought both forearms down hard on his and broke the hold, then leapt backward, fists up, but I held my ground. We were in serious tight quarters and I didn’t want to fight like this.

But I did want to punch him again. It felt good.

“You
do
need me,” he growled, shoulders high and tense. “You don’t have the first clue how to breach that system. Yeah, it’s more than I’m used to, but don’t tell me what I can’t do.” He lifted his chin up a notch. “I’ll get in there.”

“Us in there—you’ll get
us
inside.”

He glowered at me. Nice to know he had it in him. Maybe that fire was what we needed for this one.

“I can handle the guards,” I said.

“Like you did at Felt’s?”

“I didn’t anticipate needing to take one out. I was supposed to be in and out without any issues. I didn’t plan on you.”

He straightened and grinned. “Always plan on me.”

I lowered my hands. “Just do your job.”

“Just write the check, baby.” He winked.

“Whatever. You need me, too. This job is way too big for one person.”

“I’ve done just fine without a sidekick.” He walked past and slapped me on the shoulder. “But I like you.”

“Sidekick?”

He grabbed us two more beers and peered in the fridge. “You hungry? I could eat.”

I threw my hands in the air. “Does anything rile you?”