Messenger's Angel: A Novel of the Lost Angels (8 page)

Her boots clicked loudly on the smooth, weathered stone, adding to the eerie cast of her surroundings. Juliette’s breathing was harshly loud in the thick, ominous silence. She turned another corner, ran half a block, and then paused to rest against the storefront of a shop that sold Harris Tweed.

Juliette bent to catch her breath and a wave of horrid dizziness washed over her, bringing her to her knees. She hit hard, but barely felt it. Her legs had gone numb. It was then that she realized she was really in trouble. She had no idea where to go or what to do, and wouldn’t be able to stand back up even if she did. She had no phone, she didn’t know where she was, and it was two in the morning. Every window was dark.

She really was alone. No one was there to help her. And as the mist that surrounded her grew thicker and clouded her tunneling vision, she realized that she was going to pass out right there, on that empty sidewalk, without another soul in sight.

CHAPTER EIGHT

G
abriel watched the archess leave the room out of the corner of his eye and then returned his full attention to his opponent. He remembered now how hard it was to fight an Adarian. Those fated first archangels had been kicked out of their realm and thrown to Earth for a reason. The Old Man had made them too powerful, too strong, and then he’d grown wary of their strength and gotten rid of them.

Fighting this Adarian now was like fighting Superman. Gabriel could see the man was struggling; sweat beaded his brow and soaked the collar of his shirt. And yet, he wasn’t losing either.

With a great deal more effort than it should have taken, Gabriel grabbed the front of the man’s shirt and shoved him back up against the wall. The room shook from the impact and the Adarian merely gritted his teeth. Gabriel leaned in and hissed across the man’s lips. “Where the fuck is Abraxos?” he asked, assuming the leader of the Adarians must be nearby. He must have sent this soldier in after the archess; Abraxos had wanted to get his hands on an archess for years; he wanted their healing ability for his own.

But the Adarian merely smiled then, his cruel and handsome face breaking into a truly nasty grin. He shook his head. “You’re clueless, Gabriel.” His laughter was out of breath and vindictive. “You have no
idea
what’s going on.”

With that, the Adarian reared his head back, then jerked it forward, smashing his forehead against Gabriel’s nose. Pain exploded before his eyes, a red blossom of confusing agony that caught him off guard enough for the Adarian to shove him away from the wall.

He stumbled back, blinded, and tumbled over the edge of the nearest bed. As he spun to catch himself, the doorway to the hall filled with shadows and the sounds of footfalls and raised voices.

Gabriel braced himself against the mattress, shoved himself back to his feet, and spun around. The Adarian was gone. A flashlight beam momentarily blinded him, and Gabriel realized the power must be out again. He hadn’t noticed the darkness until someone was shining a flashlight in his face. He ignored the spearing light and frantically searched the shadows of the room for the man he had been sparring with only seconds earlier. There was no sign of him.

Invisibility . . .

“Well, wha’ ’ave we here?”

Gabriel turned back to the doorway and shielded his eyes once more as the man behind the familiar voice continued to point the flashlight directly at his face.

“Gabriel Black,” the voice taunted,
tsk
ing him reprimandingly. Gabriel knew that voice. It was Angus Dougal—Edeen’s brother . . . and chief inspector for the Western Isles command team police force.

Christ,
he thought. He wasn’t surprised. The women in the hall had seen him break the door down. They’d heard someone inside scream. One of them must have made the call.
This isn’t good.
He could go through Dougal in a heartbeat and take care of his men as nothing more than an afterthought. Then he could go after the archess.

But he might hurt the man in the process. He might even kill him.

And the hall was full of onlookers. Everyone would witness his actions—and everyone had a cell phone these days.

Max might not catch everything in the cleanup. And then what?

He almost didn’t care. But the fact of the matter was, even if he took down all these men and went after Juliette himself, chances were he wouldn’t find her. Not alone. There were Adarians out there. He needed help. He needed to call Max.

In the hall, the police turned to get the crowd to stand back, but it was too late. Gabriel and the mess he was in had been noticed by too many people.

“Turn around, Black,” Angus commanded calmly. Gabriel thought furiously and tried not to glare at the man. His archess had caused the storm; of that he had no doubt. She’d thrown things around the room with telekinesis. She would be weak.

She was fodder for the General at that moment and the last thing Gabriel needed was to have to deal with Angus Dougal and his minions.

He slowly turned in place and waited with his hands splayed at his sides as Dougal’s flashlight beam made its way around the room.
I need to get ahold of Max.
He would get a phone call once he was arrested. It was the best way to go about things. It was easier than erasing the memories of a hundred revelers and possibly burying innocent bystanders. But impatience burned his blood.
Get it over with, Dougal.

“Where is the girl who rented this room?” Angus asked, a hard edge to his voice.

“I’m no’ answerin’ any of your questions, Angus. If you’re goin’ to arrest me, do it an’ shu’ the hell up.”

There was a brief period of silence as Dougal and his men no doubt absorbed his comment. And then Angus was behind him, a body as hard and tall as his own, and his wrists were being cuffed none too gently. “Have it yer way, Black,” Dougal hissed behind his right ear. “Ye’re in for a long night.”

* * *

“Uriel, you need to stop staring at your wife and pay attention.” Max waved a hand in front of Uriel’s face, then snapped his fingers.

Uriel blinked. “Get your fingers out of my face, Max. I’m fine.”

Max rolled his eyes. “So is Eleanore. Now pay attention.”

Max was a tall, slim man who appeared to be in his late thirties. He had brown hair and brown eyes, wore spectacles, and had an undeniable preference for three-piece suits. Also brown. He was Uriel’s agent. He was also the guardian to Uriel and his brothers, and had been sent by the Old Man to help the four favored in any way he could. Max’s abilities were not as flashy as theirs, but he served a very real purpose and the abilities he did have luckily reflected as much. Anytime the archangels caused enough trouble to be “noticed” by the world, in general, Max was there to erase minds, destroy evidence, and turn everything right again.

Uriel shot Max a dirty look, then sighed. “Do they have to stand so close to her?”

Max turned to glance at the bodyguards who stood around Eleanore. She seemed oblivious to them; she was reading something on her electronic reader. She was fond of vampire romance stories written in a much darker tune than
Comeuppance
. Lots of erotica.

In a way, it was good that Eleanore was less shy about her sexual preferences now. Being with Uriel had opened up her self-esteem and truly brought out the power of her sensuality. On the other hand, she was an archess and already attractive enough. Add the new sensuality to that beauty and she was a veritable magnet for men. Including the bodyguards that Uriel, himself, had assigned to her.

“You hired them.” Max smiled wryly. “Maybe you should specify that you want eunuchs next time.” He shrugged and turned around. “Besides,” he added with a lilting, sardonic tone, “
Christopher
Daniels’s
fans get a lot closer to
him
.”

Uriel had the good grace to look the slightest bit chagrined. But it didn’t last long. His gaze once more cut to the black-haired beauty sitting on a crate against the back wall of the backstage area, and as if sensing that he was watching her, she looked up. She gave him a coy, teasing look—then winked.

Max watched as Uriel’s eyes widened slightly, and it wasn’t until Max’s grip on his upper arm tightened painfully that the archangel realized he had begun striding toward her.

Uriel looked down at Max’s hand and then back up at Eleanore. She was laughing, her gorgeous blue eyes glittering merrily under the backstage lights. Uriel’s gaze narrowed, but he returned the smile. Max knew he couldn’t help but do so. She was everything to him and Max could understand his protective streak. It was a mile long and twice as wide.

“Mr. Daniels, we’re on in two minutes.” A young man with a headset waved, got a nod from Uriel and Max, then disappeared back into one of the wings of the set. It was nearly nine o’clock and Jacqueline Rain’s show would begin any minute. She’d become so popular, she’d gone from a daytime talk show to nighttime entertainment, where her tendency to prefer guests in more notoriously gothic movie roles admittedly fit in a little better.

“You know, Ellie’s more than capable of protecting herself,” Max said then, speaking under his breath so that the conversation included only him and Uriel. “And if she can’t protect herself,” he continued, gesturing toward the two guards standing beside her, “they’re not going to do any good.”

“I’m aware,” Uriel said. Then he sighed and looked guilty. “They’re meat shields,” he admitted, which meant that if they were attacked by someone who could actually harm Eleanore—such as the Adarians—then the men around her would slow the enemy down long enough for Uriel to get to her. Hopefully.

“Ah.” Max smiled. Then he grinned. “I knew that already. But I’m proud of you for admitting it.”

“One minute!” someone called.

“Jacqueline Rain really loves it when you come on,” Max mused. “You increased their ratings by twenty percent with your last stunt.” The last time Uriel had gone on Rain’s show, he had asked Eleanore to go out with him on national television. Eleanore hadn’t been pleased, but the public had eaten it up. And the fact that Christopher Daniels was now a married man hadn’t seemed to deter their affections any. In fact, they’d taken to calling Christopher and Eleanore “Christellie,” and that amalgamated word had found itself on the front cover of dozens of magazines and newspapers across the nation.

“How is Gabe?” Uriel asked suddenly, changing the subject completely. Gabriel had gone back to Scotland four months ago and they rarely saw him these days, even though it would have been easy for him to call a portal into the mansion and pop in to say hello. Gabriel liked heading off on his own. He was rather brooding and preferred solitude more than the others. It was just how he’d been created.

Max knew Uriel was probably a little worried about his brother, especially now that he’d found his archess and his brothers had not. So, he took the change of subject in stride and considered how to reply to the question. “He’s holding his own, as usual. But—” He broke off as his cell phone rang. It was Gabriel’s unique ring, one that they had chosen a year ago when they’d signed on with the phone company. Max had actually never heard Gabriel’s ring go off before.

At once, he and Uriel froze and both of them looked down at the breast pocket of Max’s suit, where the cell phone was hidden. This couldn’t be good. Gabriel never called him. Max pulled the phone out of the inner pocket and flipped it open before placing it to his ear. “Gabriel. We were just talking about you.”

Then he fell quiet. He silently absorbed Gabriel’s words while Uriel looked on. In his peripheral vision, Max saw the stagehands waving at him and could make out the muffled, staticky sound of someone communicating through headsets. But it became background noise to him, at once trivial compared with the man speaking to him on the other end of the line.

“I understand.” Max closed his phone and pocketed it. Then he turned to Michael, who had just walked backstage and had made his way to Uriel and Max. The former Warrior Archangel stood tall and strong and proud. His thick blond curls and sapphire eyes were striking, his jaw strong, and his morals stronger. He was a police officer for the NYPD, currently off duty.

Michael arched a brow at Max to convey his interest as he prepared to pull off his jacket. Underneath would be a double shoulder holster, two police-issue firearms, and a badge tucked into the waistband of his jeans.

“That was Gabriel,” Max told them both. “He’s found his archess.”

Michael froze, the jacket half-off. “Come again?”

“Gabriel has found his archess,” Max repeated, more slowly this time.

Michael shrugged his jacket back on and put his hands on his hips. “No shit.” His blue eyes glittered beneath the recessed lighting.

“You’re kidding me,” Uriel added. Beside him, Eleanore nudged her way in to be part of the conversation.

“Spill,” she said, obviously having heard enough. “Is she okay? What’s her name? Is she in Scotland? Does he need our help?”

The men blinked, absorbing her questions; then Max braced himself. “He thinks her name is Juliette,” he said, “but he doesn’t have a last name. Right now, the fact of the matter is that she might be in trouble. He was speaking in our tongue, which can only mean one thing. He told me that the archess ran out into the night with an Adarian hot on her tail. He’s currently in police custody.”

“What?” the men all asked at once.

Max grimaced. “He was calling from a jail cell in Lewis.”

“Then Lewis is where we will go,” came another voice, this one deeper and more melodic than the others. The men turned to see an extremely tall man dressed in black boots and jeans, a black button-up shirt, a black leather vest, and a black sport coat coming down the hall that led from the backstage to an exit into the alley behind the studio. His shimmering jet-black hair was straight and shoulder length, his mesmerizing eyes were starkly amber-colored, and his features harshly beautiful. His presence was frankly stunning—which was fitting. He was the former Angel of Death, Azrael.

The sun had set two hours ago and Az had no doubt just finished feeding. Unlike his brothers’, Azrael’s transformation upon reaching Earth two thousand years ago had taken a rather dark turn. Max was sure Azrael’s past had something to do with it: that the inherent tenebrousness of what he had done for so long somehow warped his essence. Unlike his brothers, Azrael was not merely a displaced archangel. He was a vampire. He’d been the first of his kind.

“What time is it there right now?” Michael asked, obviously concerned about Azrael and the sun. Direct sunlight was out of the question.

Max looked at his watch, did a mental calculation, and said, “Roughly three in the morning. We have a few more safe hours.”

“Ellie.” Uriel turned to Eleanore and took her gently by the upper arms. “Please do me the favor of staying here.”

Ellie instantly stiffened and it was clear that she wanted to argue. But Uriel was asking nicely; he knew he couldn’t make her stay if she chose not to.

“You might need me,” she reminded him, raising her hands as if to show him her healing devices.