Adrian: Bonus Material for A Touch of Crimson (2 page)

Adrian Mitchell tossed the crime scene photos
on the dining table in his hotel suite, watching them fan outward
as they slid across the glass. “We’ll be staying a while.”

The two lycans seated at the table reached
for the images, dividing them between them.

Unable to look at them anymore, Adrian
pivoted and walked to the massive window overlooking the city of
Phoenix, Arizona. Fighting his unwelcome agitation, he unfurled his
wings, the pristinely white feathers with their crimson tips
emerging first as tendrils of smoke, then solidifying into shape.
He stretched and flexed them, the only sign of his disquiet hidden
in what would be perceived by the lycans as a simple bid for
comfort.

“Black Agnes,” one of them said behind
him.

“Excuse me?” Adjusting the angle of his
position, he looked at the two men examining the photos. One was
stocky, built for brute force. The other was taller, leaner yet
stronger. He’d watched them work, noting their strengths and
weaknesses. They were a good team and a good match for him.
Together they’d taken down three rogue vampires in less than two
weeks. He expected to add this latest one to their kill sheets
before they headed home again.

The taller one—Elijah—lifted his head and
looked at Adrian with the luminescent green eyes of a creature
tainted with demon blood. It was that touch of demon that enabled
the lycans to shapeshift between man and beast. It also indentured
them to Adrian. “An urban legend. There’s a cemetery statue—two of
them actually—of a hooded figure. One was rumored to have
supernatural properties. College kids used it as a pledge to join
sororities and fraternities. The initiate was supposed to spend the
night sitting in the statue’s lap, but one of them was found dead
in the morning, with bruises and marks that suggested the statue
had come to life and held her until she croaked.”

“That’s not a shrouded figure,” Adrian
pointed out, his voice kept carefully neutral to hide his roiling
fury. He was a seraph, a Sentinel. He was expected to stand above
the vagaries of human emotions. But he couldn’t fight his reaction
to the pictures spread out before him, those of a once beautiful
young woman laid dramatically upon the lap of a massive marble
statue of an angel. An angel whose head was bowed as if weeping
over the bloodless body draped across its thighs.

A taunt. An undeniable “fuck you” from the
vampire who’d taken the very last drop from a promising life.

“No,” Elijah agreed. “This rogue is a young
one. Too stupid to know better.”

Only one who was young and foolish would
deliberately attract the attention of a Sentinel. Adrian’s mouth
curved grimly. “And he’ll get what he’s asking for.”

* * *

When night fell, they split up and cruised
the college parties and local hangouts. They attracted attention,
predators prowling through gatherings of their prey. Men shied away
from them instinctively, but the women were drawn to that edge of
danger. With focused attention and flattery, it was easy to get
them to talk. By the time Adrian regrouped with Elijah and Trent,
they’d each gathered intel on upcoming pledge initiations, many of
which now included the cemetery statue due to its morbid
notoriety.

Adrian looked up at the moon. “Our vamp isn’t
going to wait. We’re here, and now that we’ve canvassed his haunts
he knows it. My bet would be on another strike tonight, one last
show of arrogance before moving on.”

“The cemetery, then?” Trent asked.

“Right. Let’s go.”

* * *

Having lived for millennia, nothing surprised
Adrian anymore. He’d seen everything, countless times. Or so he’d
thought.

From his vantage in a tree a half mile away
from the statue, he tracked the young couple crouch-walking toward
the massive angel, laughing softy and pausing occasionally for
breathless kisses. He watched them reach their destination and lean
against the marble in a passionate embrace. Her hands slid through
the young man’s hair as he took her mouth with more enthusiasm than
skill. Then he lifted her onto the angel’s lap, putting her at the
perfect height for him to step between her legs and push up her
pleated mini-skirt.

Dropping from the tree, Adrian approached
carefully, eyes on the prize as he waited for a sign that he was
dealing with more than just an ordinary set of horny college kids.
He was distantly aware of Elijah and Trent on the perimeter,
holding back to keep their scent from reaching the sensitive
nostrils of their vampire quarry.

The girl’s head fell back with a sigh of
pleasure, exposing the creamy expanse of her throat to the greedy
slide of her boyfriend’s parted lips.

Then Adrian saw the soft amber glow of her
irises.

His brow arched.
Well, then.

Her furtive hand signal alerted him to the
presence of the others, warning him to shift into the shadows of a
massive tree for cover. The pack converged from points behind the
young man, four vampresses, their fangs gleaming in the moonlight.
Their gender took him aback, although he would later wonder why it
had. Although they hid it well, females were usually more vicious
than males.

The girl on the angel’s lap shoved her
would-be lover back into the waiting arms of her laughing friends.
Adrian engaged, darting forward, going for the victim. Catching him
up in the center of the pack, Adrian snapped his wings free,
spinning fluidly. The razor-sharp tips of his feathers sliced like
a circular saw, halving the vampires at the waist in less than a
second. As the pieces fell to the ground with sickening thuds, he
delved into the young man’s mind and removed all memory of the
night, resetting his recollections back to the point when he’d met
the vampress at a frat party.

Then he faced her, the ringleader. She
cowered into the arms of the angel, caged by Elijah and Trent in
their lupine forms. But when her gaze met Adrian’s it was hot with
defiance and swirling with madness.

  Plucking her off the statue, Adrian
rifled through her memories, confirming her guilt in the previous
attack and discovering the tragedy of her Change. She’d been caught
just this way by a young rogue and his friends. The attack had
stolen her sanity; the Change had taken her soul, as it did all
minions. What was left behind was one of the monsters he
hunted.

Nevertheless, pity stirred in his chest.

“I’ll find the ones who did this to you,” he
promised softly. Then he ended her.

In the morning, several dozen white lilies
were found in the lap of the mourning angel statue. And in the
years that followed, it became known as an unusually peaceful spot,
one where visitors felt a joyous equanimity and departed with a
renewed sense of hope in the days to come.

The following interview appeared on
UnderTheCoversBookBlog.blogspot.com, Oct 2011.

AUTHOR OVERRIDE

Interview with Adrian Mitchell

I’m not overly surprised to find Adrian in a
pensive mood when I visit him for this interview. I know he’s under
a great deal of pressure now, although he hides it beautifully, as
always.

I find him in his office, looking out the
window at the native Southern California landscape. His hands are
clasped beneath his wings and his inky black hair touches the
collar of his dress shirt, having grown longer over the last few
weeks as his world has steadily unraveled. Those beautiful wings of
his, so pristinely and blindingly white except for the crimson
tips, reveal so much about him. I wonder if he realizes that. He
can hide them at will and the fact that he’s chosen not to do so
today tells me how agitated he is. They stretch and flex when he’s
of a mood, the only visible sign he gives of how he’s feeling.

I know it’s those feelings that are
exacerbating his problems now. He’s a Sentinel, after all. An angel
created to hunt and punish other angels. He was designed and built
to feel no emotion, to function almost like a machine. A
Terminator, perhaps. One mission, one purpose, no deviations. But
he’s deviated a lot over the years. Now more so than ever before.
And he’s paid the price. He’s paying it even now.

“Hi, Adrian,” I say in greeting, although he
knows I’ve been standing here watching him.

He faces me and I’m struck, as I always am,
by the brilliance of his cerulean eyes. All of the Sentinels have
blue eyes and he explained why when I asked him previously. The
Sentinels are seraphim angels—the “burning ones.” The blue of their
irises is literally the flame inside them. Pure and hot. Beautiful
in an eerie, preternatural way.

“Ms. Day,” he returns, in his smooth deep
voice with its unique resonance. He can compel with that voice, but
so far he’s resisted compelling me to do anything. At least I think
he’s resisted... “Ah, you’re dressed today. I’d almost forgotten
how you look when you’re not wearing your pajamas.”

I grin. “Hey, it’s one of the perks of being
a writer. How are you today?”

“As well as can be expected.”

“Where’s Lindsay?”

“Training.”

I nod, understanding. The woman he loves can
kick some serious ass, but she’s still fragile compared to the
vampires she hunts and the Sentinels who are training her. “Are you
ready for the interview?”

“No.” But he moves to his desk, gesturing for
me to take a seat.

His wings dissipate like mist just before he
sits, which always fascinates me. They’re so much a part of him and
yet he can tuck them away where mortals like me can’t see them.

I eye him as he gets comfortable, admiring
the savage beauty of his face. He’s stunning, with a dark and edgy
sensuality that makes him seem more fallen angel than not.

“What do you like most about yourself?” I
ask.

His brows rise. He leans back in his chair
and studies me in return. “Is this part of the interview?”

“It can be.”

“Hmm... That I can still learn, I suppose.
That I can change my mind, be surprised, discover something
new.”

“You’re evolving.”

“Yes, perhaps that’s the way to say it. After
all these years... after all I’ve seen, I’m not done formulating
new opinions of things that should be old hat to me.”

“What do you like least about yourself?”

His lips curved wryly. “How much time do you
have?”

Now it’s my brows that rise. “Really?”

“Part of evolution is trial and error, and
I’ve made more than my share of mistakes. Unfortunately, I also
keep making new ones.”

“That’s part of being human,” I point
out.

“But I’m not human.”

Right. I consider him further. “What haven’t
you done that you would like to do?”

“Take Lindsay away,” he says without
hesitation. “For a week at least, longer if we could manage
it.”

“Where would you go?”

“She likes the water. I like the
mountains.”

“So you can fly.”

“Yes.” He smiles, which is a sign of how
Lindsay is changing him. “So I suppose it would be somewhere with
mountains overlooking the ocean.”

“Something to look forward to.”

“Yes.”

“What are you most afraid of?”

“Failure,” he responds, with the same
alacrity as the previous question. “Too much is riding on me... too
many people are dependent on my getting the job done. There’s too
much at stake. And I have Lindsay now.”

“You won’t fail.” I have no doubt about
that.

“No,” he agrees with conviction. “I
won’t.”

And really, that’s the number one thing there
is to know about Adrian right there.

The following interview appeared on
DarhkPortal.com, Oct 2011.

Monday MANdy

Interview with Adrian Mitchell

Have you ever melted a trackball on your
Blackberry?

No, but I’ve crushed a few in my fist when
I’ve been aggravated enough.

What is the one thing you find most
interesting about mortals?

Decisions are so mutable to mortals. Sayings
such as, “Rules are made to be broken.” Even when the lines are
clear and it’s apparent they’ve been crossed, emotions guide the
response to those transgressions as much as the law does. That
fascinates me. There are so few hard and fast rules in mortal lives
and so many reasons you come up with for why a particular rule
applies in one instance and not another.

Looking back, now that you have Lindsay in
your life, is there anything you wish you had done differently
regarding Helena?

I’m torn by this question. Helena came to me
for two things: permission to break a law and help in doing so. It
was rather like one police officer approaching another to ask for
permission to rob a bank, assistance with disabling the alarm
systems, and then a promise that she’d face no consequences for the
theft. Can you see how impossible it was for me to give her what
she wanted?

There’s precedence for what could happen if
I’d made a different decision. Syre was faced with the same
situation when he fell in love with his mortal mate and he
responded differently. He gave the Watchers permission to do as he
did and the result was that they all fell, even those who hadn’t
taken mates. He damned them all for his mistake. In his situation,
most of the Watchers had fallen in one way or another—certainly his
permission was encouragement for some—but my Sentinels have stayed
true to their mission. Aside from Helena and me, the rest have been
inviolate. How could I risk all of them for the transgressions of
just two of us?