Chloe's Guardian (The Nephilim Redemption Series Book 1) (4 page)

“No, really. I signed a contract with my orchestra. We all did. Not to drink alcohol on the trip. We had to for insurance or something.”

“Who will know?”

“Well, I will for one. I made a pledge.”
Man, was he for real?
“Right now I wish I had a strawberry shake to go with my chicken burger.”

He winked at her then opened his pack again. “All right then, oh Virtuous One. A shake ye shall have.” And out came a frosty super-sized cup from the back pack. “It’s not seven-thousand dollars, but I can assure you, it’s a good one.”

Chloe couldn’t help but laugh. “Are you kidding me? And it’s strawberry?” She was too delighted to be cautious. A hard pull on the straw confirmed the flavor for her. “That is so cool! I can’t believe you had that in there.” She pulled the lid off and dipped in a waffle fry. The salt sizzled on her tongue around the berry sweet. “Oh my god! The flavor. Mm, it’s heaven.”

After a long draw off his bottle and a deep sigh, he leaned back on his elbows and shut his eyes like he was in bliss.

“Want one?” Chloe extended a fry to him.

He shook his head without opening his eyes.

She tore down along each side fold of the Chick-fil-A bag and flattened it to spread the meal in front of her. The first bite was still in her mouth when she bit off the second. “This is the best chicken in the world,” she said around a full mouth. “I didn’t know they even had Chick-fil-A over here.”

“They do now.” He took another long swig of beer. “What would you like for dessert?”

“Dessert? I’ve barely start—” Chloe jumped to her feet. Out in the sky over the sea a bright light flashed. “Look! There. Did you see it?”

“Probably an aeroplane,” he said.

“You didn’t even look.” Chloe guarded her eyes and studied the spot. “I think it’s the
thing
.” The food had distracted her, and she had almost missed it. “See? Right there.”

“It isn’t.”

“You’re not even looking. Look. It might be it!”

“No.”

“See where I’m pointing? Would you look?”

He glanced for less than a second and shook his head.

It flashed again. She concentrated on the spot. And it clearly
was
a plane. Disappointed, she sat back down. Her appetite was gone. She was there for another sign, not to gain five pounds on junk food. This guy didn’t seem that intent on finding anything
.
Maybe she
should
be more careful.

“Do you think we could do something to summon him?”

“I don’t imagine so. Do you like to dance?” Another bottle rattled from his pack and he popped the top with a church key.

“Dance? No, not really. Well, sometimes. Not now. Anyway, how do you think we can find it?”

“How about hang gliding? Or bungee jumping?”

“What? No. I’m talking about the
thing.
”

“But I want to know about you. What do you like to do? Do you enjoy revelry? You like beer, yes, when you have not signed away your right to drink it?”

“I was hoping you were going to help me here.”

“You are being obsessive. Let’s talk about something more interesting. Did you know this ale is one of the most expensive in the world? What do you think of that?”

What did she think? That all she hoped for was to see it again, to be reassured that life was okay, that someone would have noticed if she wasn’t going to be around anymore, that some supernatural wonderful being wanted her to know she mattered.

“You like eating, yes? I know some excellent restaurants. There is one in Paris—”

“Stop it. I have a boyfriend.”

He shrugged. “That won’t be a problem.”

“What’s wrong with you? Of course it’s a problem.”

“It doesn’t have to be.”

“All that beer is going to your head.”

“I was just thinking of something enjoyable we could do together. I thought we might keep each other company.
Dum viviumus, vivamus.
I could show you a good time.” His voice was grumpy now. His words were slurred and unhappy.

“You’re too old for me, for one thing.”

He made a disgusted sound. “How old are you?”

“Almost eight—seventeen. I’m only seventeen. I’m still in high school for your information. How old are you? Twenty-two? Three?”

“Where I come from, almost eighteen-year-olds have families, run households, know how to
have fun
.”

“Like I said, I’m taken.” If he hadn’t seen the
thing
too, she’d be out of there so fast.

Horatius studied the girl while he sipped another beer. She was truly quite beautiful, in an unusual way. Not like the women who tried to look like a thousand other women, with the same straight flat hair, the same painted face, the same sameness. This girl was different. With a spark in her eyes. She might be a fun companion for a time of frivolity.
If she’s not too impertinent.

But her eyes would not turn from the sky. She truly was obsessed. Maybe it was a bad idea to say he’d seen the angel. His brain was not functioning at its best. Yesterday after he saved her and transfigured back to his human form, he went down off the headland and ran into a group of traveling graduate students. They befriended him in exchange for his endless supply of alcohol and exotic weed. Compliments of his powers of transmutation. He could change any matter into other matter.

In the wee hours of the morning, he’d fallen asleep next to their van in the car park, but when he awoke, they and their van were gone. How could he have been so weak? He had vowed to himself after the last debacle when he nearly lost his head that he’d never touch drink again. But the group’s joviality was contagious and swept him up. Just one bottle turned to many, and before he realized, he had failed. Again.

He looked down at the bottle in his hand and had to banish the impulse to feel self-loathing.

It was when he awoke next to the empty parking spot—with a raging hangover—that he saw the girl again. She dashed out of her car and toward the castle so fast that, with his head pounding, he could barely keep up. Her eyes had captivated him when he’d caught her midair and set her down on the ruin ground. The connection they’d shared in that brief encounter intrigued him enough to go after her today. Watching her from behind a crumbled stone wall, he realized what she was doing and intervened before she threw herself off the precipice again.

Getting her down from the cliff without leaping a second time would be his next redemptive effort. Perhaps that good deed would apply toward his penance and the Celestials would count it toward him as worthiness.
But how might I cause a girl so intent on a thing to abandon her crazy notion?

A do-over of this whole conversation would be good. If he could win her over, not only could he save her, he might even convince her to share dinner with him.

“Shall we call a truce? I’m sorry if I offended you. I am especially good at that, and for that, I apologize.”

A shrug of her shoulders was all he could elicit. He needed to get her to stop looking in the sky.

“Tell me about your family.”

“I don’t want to talk about them.” She shaded her eyes with her hand and studied a different section of the sky. She chewed on the end of her straw.

“If I may, I have a confession to make.”

“You have a problem with alcohol? You’re not single either?” The clouds had her attention and kept her distracted.

He ignored her accusations. “Don’t get upset.”

Her shoulders bunched toward her ears again.

“I dare say, I didn’t really see what I said I did.”

That got her attention. She spun around completely this time, spilling her sack of trash.

“What do you mean? You weren’t here or you didn’t see my friends? What?”

“No, I was here. I saw you. And heard you talking to your friends. You thought you saw something fly past when you started to leap. You stumbled, there was a strong upward current. The sun flashed. Clearly, you were upset. You could have imagined anything. You can’t be faulted for that.”

She was upset now, that was certain. The plan was to distract her from the sky, not enrage her.

“I. Did. Not. Imagine. It.” Her hands were on her hips. Her face contorted into sharp, outrageous furrows and ridges.

“Things are not always as they appear.”
Maybe she can be reasonable
.

“Why would you say that? What are you doing here?”

Other tourists on the hill looked their way.

“When I saw you in the car park, I followed after you.”

“You’re stalking me?” she yelled.

No, not reasonable
. A man with a family turned from his wife and three kids, watching and listening like he was thinking of coming toward them. Horatius waved at him and smiled, signaling there wasn’t any problem. It took a moment, but he turned back to his family.

“Calm down. I just recalled you from yesterday and wanted to make sure you were not distressed, that you were all right.”

She turned toward the sea, away so he could not see her face. Her voice broke when she said, “Well, I’m not all right, okay?”

This was all going wrong.
It’s the drink
. The potent brew masked his discernment and he just kept making everything worse each time he opened his mouth. He almost reached out to offer her a comforting hand, but then checked himself, realizing he couldn’t judge if that would be appropriate. He wasn’t even sure he could direct his hand in the right direction and not do something regrettable, the drink had so multiplied every image in his vision. So instead, he kept his hands to himself and brought up people he hoped would be pleasant for her to think of.

“Say, what happened to your friends? They looked liked some amiable companions.”

“Oh no!” She twisted around. “What time is it?”

“I have no timepiece. Why?”

“I have to get back. My plane!” She dashed away, then came back, grabbed her trash and flip-flops, contemplated the trash and tossed the bag to Horatius and ran away again.

Finally—she turned her mind from the sky
. Maybe now she would agree to let him take her to Paris. He tried to get up to follow after her. The ground teetered and the sky spun, but at least she wasn’t going to jump. He tried to brush pieces of grass from his Armani jeans, but he had trouble controlling his hands.
Good thing I didn’t try to reach out to touch the girl.
He looked to where she’d disappeared down the steps to leave, set his goal on reaching that same exit, and put one foot in front of the next to follow after her.

The panic inside Chloe was growing. The airport was so far away. The rental had to be turned in. She flew down the stairs as fast as her sandals allowed, back up the steep incline, and on toward the parking lot. A gaggle of camera-snapping tourists clotted the path. She pushed through them. “Does anyone have the time?”

Several shrugged and one waved his hands and spoke a different language at her.
There’s no time for charades, you people!
She squeezed past them and sprinted toward the car.

When she got to the parking lot, she couldn’t breathe anymore and had to stop running. With her hand clutching the sharp pain in her side, she limped as fast as she could, huffing and blowing, to the car door. She pulled the handle.

It was locked.

She patted her pockets.
Where are the keys?
She remembered jumping out of the car to hightail it to the ruin.

She held the flip-flops on the window like blinders to look inside and moaned. She ran around the car yanking on the handle of every door. Several times.

They were all locked.

She ran around the car again, then settled at the driver door, pulling and yanking as though it would open if only pulled enough times.

“Oh no! What am I going to do?”

The tall Arab-looking guy came lumbering through the parked cars.

“I locked the keys inside,” Chloe yelled. “What am I going to do? The plane leaves at two-ten. It’s already…Oh no! My phone is locked in the car!”

“No need to panic. I will go to Stonehaven and find a locksmith. It won’t take long. It’s not even a mile away.”

“There’s no time! Do you know what time it is?” she said, the panic keeping her from thinking clearly. “Don’t you have a phone?”

“I would guess it is probably one-thirty. Don’t fret so. I will hurry.”

“We should just break the window. Break the window! I can’t miss my flight. What am I going to do?” She sank onto the ground against the car, holding back the tears trying to spill.

He smiled a sappy grin, like her life wasn’t falling apart. “No need. You might hurt yourself. I’ll be quick. I will be back before you know it.”

He turned and disappeared behind a big SUV.

How could I be so stupid?
What if she didn’t make it back in time? Todd would be so worried if she missed the plane.
No. I can’t think like that. I’ll make it. I
have
to.