The Archangel Agenda (Evangeline Heart Book 1) (11 page)

Ralph grinned and leaned back in his chair. “All right girl, now we’re getting somewhere.”

Chapter Eighteen

“I wondered about that last vision of mine,” Ralph said.

I’d told him all of it—from the moment Metatron appeared at my side in the dive bar off of Times Square to his latest visit in Clay’s apartment, and he’d listened intently, not dismissing a thing, even the unbelievable, which … yeah … I completely understood was most of it.

Ralph cleared his throat and sat up a little straighter in his wingback chair. “Right before you showed up at my doorstep seeking the relic, I’d had a vision. I get those sometimes. It was clearer than my usual dreams and visions. Metatron himself showed up in my dream and we walked. We went to the sea. Oh how I do love the ocean.” He smiled. “We walked a good long time and he told me that he needed my help again. I grabbed some shells while we were there. I’ve been of service to the great angels in my years. I’m a true believer and as you are now aware, there are times when the divine needs the help of a human.”

His face softened and he smiled. “Your mother often helped.”

I tried not to look shocked.

“I missed it at first, the resemblance, but now I see it clearly. You have her eyes.”

“You knew her?”

“Not well, but I met her. Only once, at a religious conference, but she was so kind. We spent most of the evening discussing some of her rarer finds.” He tapped his temple. “I apologize for not making the connection when you were here last time. This brain of mine doesn’t always connect the dots like it used to.”

“And she helped the angels?”

“She and Metatron had a special relationship. He didn’t mention if she worked with others, but I know of many other instances with other people.”

I nodded and glanced at Clay, looking totally awed and hanging on Ralph’s every word, as though he’d come face to face with the archangel.

“Did Metatron tell you anything else in your vision—anything else besides Mom?”

“Yes, Metatron asked if I would please help a fellow human out. When you arrived on my doorstep, I thought it was this old-man mind of mine being tricky, because there you were, a beautiful young woman asking for my help.” He shook his head. “Quite a coincidence for most people, but… Well, you spend as much time as I have in the Book of Enoch and helping out those of The Divine, it’s hard to dismiss these things.”

He leaned over and clasped Clay’s shoulder. “You keep alert. People will be after you. Bad people.”

For once, Clay didn’t brush it off with a cocky comment. He sat up straighter.

“We have to take the risk,” I said. “Bad people, demons, or what not.” I thought of Griffin. Where was he in that moment? What was he suffering through?

Ralph turned his serious gaze on me. “Yes. You must not fail at this.”

“Will you help us?” I asked. “We need to get into The Smithsonian, Ralph. It’s what has to be done.”

“I’m not sure how I can assist you. I’m an old man who used the front entrance every time…” He smiled. “Well, not every time. My friend, Ferdinand, he’s been a security guard out there since he dropped out of high school, he used to leave the back door open for me. I can’t believe I forgot about him for a minute or two. Good chap. He struggled some when we were children. You know that my family lived in Washington D.C. for many years. My father was a diplomat. I went to school at Georgetown but came back here and furthered my studies at Cornell where I met my lovely Sarah…”

He frowned and his eyes glossed over. He waved a hand at us. “Anyhow, my father loved the Smith and it is how I made some friendships with the rather well-to-do. However, my friend Ferdinand was not of that lot. No. But he made me laugh. Oh did he make me laugh! My Sarah, when he came to visit, oh no … she was not impressed at all by him.”

He smiled and again that faraway look shrouded his features.

No way was this going to be that simple, that Ralph’s friend Ferdinand would be able to get us inside. Clay stayed relaxed and drew the story out of Ralph. “Oh yeah? You guys get into some trouble? The kind your Sarah wouldn’t have approved of?”

Ralph laughed and shook his head at the memory. “Oh brother, you could say that. Well, we never got caught. That of course was before my Sarah, and I could never tell her of our adventures.”

“What kind of trouble?” Surely Ralph hadn’t found some of his relics by ill-gotten methods.

“Oh, you name it. We played poker into the wee hours beneath The Spirit of St. Louis, we polished off a bottle of whiskey staring up through the T-Rex’s ribcage…”

Clay laughed with him. “Is he still there? Sounds like the kind of guy I’d like to meet.”

Ralph sobered. “I believe he is. It’s been some time since we spoke. Maybe a couple of years even. But I do believe that Ferdinand is going to work there until they find him dead and propped up beneath one of the displays.” He wiped the corner of his eye. They’d teared up while he’d been laughing.

Anna came in with lunch, stalling out the boys’ storytelling. The two of them flirted with Anna and made a fuss over the sandwiches she’d brought in. She acted like she had to suffer putting up with them, but I think she secretly liked it.

I grabbed a sandwich, thanked her and wandered away, pretending to look at one of Ralph’s dusty pictures while I wondered if Metatron had bothered to mention Azazel and his involvement in this whole thing to Ralph. Clay laughed loudly at some comment of Ralph’s, making Anna blush. She slapped Clay playfully on the arm and left.

I couldn’t help thinking about how different Griffin would have been in this whole scenario. One, he’d have
never
bought the surreal aspects. As a lawyer, he was serious about tried and true proven facts. He’d have checked out in the first two minutes of this conversation and begged me to stop talking nonsense. But I’d loved that about him, too. He was down-to-earth, the rock to my crazy, always-moving life. Two, he would have cross-examined Ralph and Anna as if they were on the witness stand. He’d never have thought to take Clay’s soft approach—that, whether or not I wanted to admit it, was working.

Clay stuffed the end of a sandwich in his mouth and brushed his hands on his pants like a complete heathen. “I’d love to hear more about Ferdinand.”

Ralph was quick to oblige. “The last we spoke, he’d been put on grounds patrol. Relegated him to a golf cart and a radio. He has to report suspicious activity to the ‘real’ security guards now … men trained by the military with special certifications.” He shook his head in disgust. “No respect.”

His intense gaze turned on me and his eyes cleared, like the rest of the past was falling away and he was realizing why Metatron had sent me to him.

“Like Azazel’s lack of respect.”

“Tell me about Azazel.” I lifted my chin. My thoughts about Griffin were safely tucked away now, and I was ready to learn. “How does he kill, how does he get what he wants from his prison?”

He’d become my target and I needed to know him. I needed to know how they’d taken Griffin’s life and if they’d done it on purpose. I’d trusted my industry sources that had chalked up his death as a retaliation killing for the South Asian kingpin I’d killed the month before. Though I’d never been compromised until then, the math had made sense and I knew the organization sought to hit me where it hurt the most. I’d torpedoed a hole in their entire operation, but I’d always been confused about why they’d come after me instead of the CIA, which had hired the hit.

The CIA operative who’d hired me hadn’t meant for me to see the photos of Griffin, but I’d been running early for the appointment, and his assistant had let me into his office. I’d glanced casually at his desk as I’d sat down, not looking for anything, but I did the usual sweep of details I always did when I walked in the room. It was the scar on Griffin’s left hand that had caught my attention. The one from when they pinned his hand back together after his career-ending injury as a college quarterback.

I’d traced that scar a million times, with the pad of my index finger, my tongue... Overcome with my grief, I’d shifted the stack of photos to see his face again.

But the face in those photos didn’t belong to Griffin anymore. It was mutilated nearly beyond comprehension. Both eyes had been swollen shut, blood had matted the hair at his temple and his throat...

His throat had been slit ear to ear.

The operative had rushed into the room just in time to catch me as I’d passed out. When I’d come to he’d apologized profusely for leaving the photos where I’d been able to find them. But I couldn’t unsee them. My Griffin, a man so gentle and kind and who lived firmly on the right side of the law, tortured to glean information about his “freelance journalist” fiancée. As I’d passed out, my last thought had been that he’d probably died hating me, knowing I’d lied to him about so many things.

About everything.

I swallowed the bitter guilt and focused on Ralph. “Why”—my voice cracked—“why Griffin?”

“Angels are forbidden to take life. However Lucifer and Azazel are both brilliant at manipulation. Quite the masters, actually. If they wanted Griffin specifically—and I imagine they did—they would have found a way to misdirect a human.” His face softened. “Perhaps one who didn’t like you, one who wanted to hurt you. They’d make that dislike fester and boil until they lashed out, taking Griffin in the process. Problem solved, and they didn’t disobey God’s order directly.”

I stood up quickly, upset by what Ralph was saying, especially with the thoughts of Griffin’s horrible death so fresh in my mind.

“Is there anyone in your life who would have wanted to hurt you?”

Clay leaned back in his chair, watching me intently. All joking was gone from his features.

I paced and ran a hand over my hair. “Yeah. Quite a few, actually.”

Ralph’s eyes widened. “
Really?”

My gaze darted to Clay’s but he hadn’t flinched, not about to give anything away that I didn’t want to reveal. It was a surprising peace offering from him.

I exhaled and clasped my hands behind my back. “Ralph, I haven’t been entirely honest with you. I’m a hired assassin and there are a whole mess of people who’d like to have me killed in retaliation for what I’ve been hired by governments to do.”

He leaned forward and patted my hand. “I was a soldier, dear. I understand having to kill for purposes contradictory to our hearts.” He straightened and winked at Clay. “You’re probably quite fantastic at it.” He laughed and slapped his knee. “Good God, they probably never see you coming!”

I smiled, relieved that he hadn’t kicked Clay and I out.

“All right then, so your connections made it easy for Azazel to manipulate your enemies so that he could take Griffin’s soul,” Ralph said.

“Neither Lucifer nor Azazel have ever followed any of God’s rules. Why would they follow that one?”

“That rule isn’t a matter of disobedience because the archangels literally can’t cause murder. Doesn’t mean they don’t try, mind you. Every close call a human has ever had is God and His army preventing an attempt on a human’s life. Lucifer is relentless if nothing else.”

“Really?” Clay said. “These bad-guy angels can’t kill us?”

“They cannot cause death, but that doesn’t prevent them from using humans to do their bidding. They’re successful more often than I’d prefer.” Ralph took a step back and sat in his creaking chair.

“War is a perfect example. A single man’s desire to eradicate life becomes a wicked scythe for Death, and a win for Lucifer. Except that every innocent life killed in battle is one that gets escorted to heaven. So by starting war, all Lucifer and the fallen angels do is eliminate more people to corrupt.”

He shook his head sadly, like a teacher disappointed in a student.

“Azazel never thinks these things through. Sometimes he gets too giddy at the prospect of wiping human life off the planet. He thinks that will get him to the end result and God will have to repopulate the earth with angels and their offspring like they did back in Genesis.” Ralph sighed. “War everywhere, ones I’ve even participated in, many that I’ve cleaned up after, looking to help the locals make sense of what’s left over. Your mother too, I think.”

I nodded. “She said that all the time, that she felt a responsibility to help the people understand their past so they could make better decisions about their future.”

Clay straightened. He’d been listening intently while Ralph and I discuss the relics and their impact on life, and I was curious to hear his reaction. “So we can’t be killed by angels, but they can hire people to do it and Ferdinand can’t get us in to steal the first relic we need in this new Holy War, and the Smith grounds are patrolled by trained military.” He ticked them off on his fingers. “Anything I missed?”

Ralph nodded. “The true enemy. Azazel’s servants are masters at this game. They orchestrated Griffin’s death and will not be pleased that his soul mate—the only one who will be able to retrieve his soul—is armed with holy knowledge. Your upcoming attempt at intervening will not sit well with them. They will be after you the moment you’re in possession of the ring, possibly even before. If they know that Metatron has visited you, you may even be under intense scrutiny now.”

“How will they know that I’m involved?” I asked, drawing Ralph’s attention off Clay.

“Metatron hasn’t told you much, has he?”