The Archangel Agenda (Evangeline Heart Book 1) (2 page)

Chapter Two

Malcolm bid me goodnight after I promised to check in with him daily.

So I was alone again. As much as I loved Griffin’s family, I knew that I didn’t want to spend any time with them going forward, and I felt sure they wouldn’t want me around. I was a painful reminder—as they would be for me.

I avoided my bedroom and pulled my favorite jeans and a black T-shirt from the laundry basket, then tried my best to do something normal. In the living room, I ran my fingers along the spines of my records, looking for the right album to help me through the night and over this first hump of being without Griffin.

Funeral plans had kept me busy and I’d come home every night too exhausted to think, but now that I didn’t have the bustle of activity to distract my mind, I noticed everything in the room. His favorite chair, the book he’d been reading, his slippers by the door, all heavy reminders that he was never going to use any of them. I’d lost my drive to pack them up. Seeing Malcolm had jostled my momentum and I couldn’t get up the energy to return to the bedroom and that first box.

I inhaled the vintage papery smell of the covers and moved further along the wall of records. Music had long been my lifeline to sanity. Even before I’d become a hired assassin, I’d turned to music to help me over Mom’s and Dad’s deaths, the horror of the foster system, and months of lonely nights in Paris during college.

I skipped over Janis Joplin and Leonard Cohen. They’d take me deeper into the abyss of depression. I needed something as comforting as a home-cooked meal and as uplifting as a church choir. My heart ached and I needed a thick rope to tie around my waist tonight so I could let go and know that when I woke in the morning, I’d still be there, dangling on the side of the cliff.

I skipped another dozen records and paused at John Denver’s first album. My peers (if I’d had any) would have mocked my choice. Johnny D. had always been too old for me, but his voice was the salve I needed for my heart right now. I pulled the jacket carefully from the shelf and slid the record out, gently carrying it to the player. This was another one of my quirks, and one I could blame Malcolm for. Most of this collection was his, and he’d let me pick my favorites when I’d moved out. Griffin had teased me relentlessly about it and I’d tried all the new technologies but none of it sounded as rich as vinyl, it just didn’t.

I lowered the needle and went in search of a bottle of wine. I had nowhere to be tomorrow, and getting wasted with Johnny D. seemed like a fantastic way to try and close this chapter of my life, if that was even remotely possible. How do you adjust to the loss of someone you loved with every fiber of your being? I had been asking myself those questions as soon as I began to accept the reality that Griffin was gone.

My search for that bottle of wine was futile. I’d forgotten that Griffin and I had finished our last bottle a couple of weeks ago when I’d come home from Southeast Asia. We’d started the evening at a sampling for the reception and had come home liquored up and drunk on each other. I slammed the cabinet closed. Life was pretty damn unfair.

I turned and every single piece of furniture screamed at me. Not even John Denver couldn’t pull me out of this funk. I needed people and tequila.

I slipped on shoes and my sidearm and headed down the back stairs to the subway. I wasn’t sure where I was headed, but getting lost amongst the tourists in Times Square seemed like the ultimate alternative to my suffocatingly silent apartment.

Friday night on the subway is always an adventure and tonight did not disappoint. By the time I got off, I’d been serenaded, hit on, and heard a new twist on the apocalypse. I love The Big Apple.

The smells and heat of the subway on a hot summer night hurried me above ground and I stood for a moment on the top step, soaking in the life and chaos. Grease and pork wafted my way as I walked past a hot dog vendor. A dude with some serious dreds had set up shop on one of the corners and was peddling the famous NYC T-shirts and fare that tourists simply couldn’t resist.

Off one of the side streets, I inhaled and walked half a block. A sign out front of a crumbling brick building read
Bar
. I peered in the large bay window and was sufficiently satisfied that it was a dive, and therefore, the tourists would be kept at bay.

Dark, eclectic art with cryptic religious themes framed the walls. I wouldn’t go so far as to say I was looking at some voodoo crap, but it came close. I could see an
American Horror Story
scene being filmed in the place. The smell of beer, dank, and perfume filtered through the air. The crowd was just as eclectic—a smattering of business people that may have come over from the financial district just because they enjoyed the dive thing, hipster twentysomethings starting their evening shenanigans, and old dodgers who appeared to be regulars sipping on gin and juice.

Yep. This would work. Griffin would’ve enjoyed it, too. Although, he wasn’t quite as—how can I say this?—earthy as myself. I can get dirty with the best of them, and it doesn’t bother me a bit.

I pulled up a stool and surveyed the top-shelf options.

“Ev’nin.’” An old Irishman barely taller than the bar handed me a bar napkin and wiped the space between us with his wet towel. “What can I getcha?”

“I’d love a shot of Patron.”

“Comin’ right up.” He disappeared, which wasn’t tough for a guy his size and I watched the other people through the mirror over the bar. New York certainly was interesting.

My bartender came back and set my glass on the bar. “Name’s Pete, let me know if ya’ need anythin’ else.” He winked at me.

I cracked a smile for the first time in days. This had been a good idea. I held the glass for a heartbeat and toasted Griffin, then slammed it, desperate to take the edge off.

“Can I buy you another?” I twisted slightly on my seat and tried not to be shocked at a striking gentleman who’d taken the spot next to me. My assessment training kicked in instinctually. His dark blond hair was neatly trimmed over the ears and combed precisely to the side, crisp part, jaw freshly shaved. Aftershave applied recently—spicy, citrus. The mint-green dress shirt was open at the collar, revealing the right amount of skin without being skeevy. The cut of the shirt was expensive, but not blatantly rich. Nails neatly trimmed. Breitling watch and Lucchese shoes revealed that the guy worked for his money and had done well. He’d either just come from impressing a big client or was trying to impress the women here. Small pickings.

Either way, I was going to let him distract me from my day.

I returned his smile and gentled my attitude. “Thanks, I’ll have another tequila, but the Casa Dragones. I’m Lina.”

“Beautiful name. Blue agave? Nice choice. Good taste.” He motioned Pete over. His was a whisky, neat and I added that to my assessment. Not that I was going to do anything with the information. I just didn’t know how to stop. Years of training were habit and even if we sat here for another hour slamming drinks, I’d still be able to fully assess anyone in a split-second.

The bartender brought our drinks and I swirled the sipping tequila in the glass. He lifted his glass in a toast. “To beautiful ladies and fine alcohol.” On any other night I wouldn’t have given this guy the time of day, but he was easy on the eyes and I didn’t mind the company. I felt bad leading him on because I was most definitely not going home with him tonight. But I didn’t feel badly enough to care when he ordered another round.

He sipped his drink and cradled the tumbler between his hands. “Dare I ask what a pretty lady is doing here drinking alone?”

What would have been a creepy line from anyone else came off as charming and genuine from him. So I answered in kind. “A funeral left me both alone and with a deep desire to get loaded.” I gave him a rueful grin and took a healthy swallow of the tequila.

He touched the rim of his glass to mine. “To the deceased. May they live on in our hearts.”

I swallowed the emotion and nodded once. “Realistically, that’s the only place they do live on, isn’t it?”

He took another drink. “Heavy conversation for the setting, my dear.”

I shrugged. “Heavy conversation for any setting, don’t you think?”

He drained his glass and set it loudly on the bar. “No belief in heaven then? Archangels, God, Metatron, Sandalphon? Are those fairy tales to you?”

My breath stilled and I flattened my palms against the bar to quell the tremor he’d just sent through my body. Most people when bringing up God didn’t go straight to Metatron or Sandalphon. At least not anyone beyond my parents, and their interest in archangels had been founded in a lifetime of research and study. I didn’t like that I’d prayed to both less than an hour ago and I hadn’t checked my apartment for bugs since before Griffin’s murder.

Something wasn’t right here. Had I been way off in my assessment of him? If so, I really hoped it wasn’t about to get me killed. I eased my feet to the floor and slid one hand to my stomach, inches from my piece. Thank god I hadn’t been stupid enough to forget that, though I really didn’t want to start a shootout in a crowded bar either.

“What did you say?”

He turned on his stool, made a big production of looking at my hand placement, then lifted his gaze to mine. “Archangels. Ever heard of them?”

More than I cared to let on right now. My preference was to turn and walk slowly out of the bar with the hope that I’d just been in the wrong place at the wrong time and this attractive gentleman wasn’t anything more than a crazy loon. Never mind that my life never, ever worked that way.

I nodded toward Pete, who’d come to ask if we wanted another round. “Thanks for the drink, but I’m headed out.” He gathered our empty glasses and left. I turned my attention back to my companion and tried to get a new read on him. Nothing about him had changed. I didn’t see the bulge of a weapon beneath his coat, didn’t get a single hint that he wanted to do me harm. For all I could tell, he was a normal guy out hitting on random girls. I inclined my head slightly.

“Thank you for your company.”

I stepped away from him and froze.

But then … so had the entire room.

Chapter Three

I slowly rotated back toward the guy. He smiled at me and crossed his arms over his chest. We were the only two in the room not frozen. And I meant that in the most literal sense possible. Every single person in the room stood still as statues. That was such a stupid cliché, but they were the only words I had. Pete was bent over, setting our dirty glasses in the gray bin filled with others. The woman two seats down was leaning over to talk to a younger man, her hand flirtatiously wrapped around his forearm. I scanned the room, noting the posture of everyone in it, but having not a single explanation.

I turned to him. “What in the hell?”

He stood and extended his arm in greeting. “Metatron. Nice to make your acquaintance, Evangelina. My brother Sandalphon said it was a good time for us to meet. I’ve been waiting for this opportunity.”

In a flash, I pulled my weapon and pointed it at his forehead. “Who the fuck are you?”

He laughed. “Now, really, Lina. If I were a part of the rebel force, or the cartel, or involved in the sex trades, would I really pick the one archangel your mother adored above all the others? If I were going to kill you, wouldn’t I have picked someone more globally accepted like Gabriel? Or Michael? Come on, Lina.
No one
chooses to be Metatron.”

“I will ask you one more time, then I will drop you where you stand.” My thumb flicked off the safety.

He slowly lifted his hands, palms out, in surrender. “If those are your terms, then let’s not bloody the place.”

He strode confidently past me, weaving in and out of the frozen bodies and straight out the door. It banged shut, making me flinch. I stood there, weapon pointed at the door, and weighed my options. I could walk out the back and pretend this never happened, or I could go against every bit of training, logic, and common sense and go see what the
archangel
Metatron was doing outside.

I lowered my weapon a few inches and peered closer at an aging tourist who’d been caught mid-stride to the bar, empty glass in hand. A bead of condensation raced down the side of his drink and fell to the floor. I tentatively reached out and nudged him with the tip of my barrel. He didn’t flinch or move or respond at all. Once, I’d wasted good money to go check out Madame Tussaud’s wax museum and this had all the eerie qualities that had set my hair standing on edge that day too.

“Not good to keep an archangel waiting!” Metatron shouted. Though he was still outside, the sound of his voice carried through the walls like he’d piped it in with a loudspeaker. I took another look around and eased through the main entrance.

He stood twenty feet away beneath the main Jumbotron in Times Square. On any other night, there would have been no chance to see him standing that far away with the crowds of people who normally filled the square. But what he’d done inside the bar, he’d recreated in the middle of the busiest city in the world. Easily a few hundred people stood like he’d stopped time. Cars, buses, taxis—nothing was moving. Animals too, including a policeman on top of his horse in the middle of the intersection—yeah—both completely frozen. My gun felt heavy in my hand and I holstered it. No matter who he was, I was pretty sure he wasn’t here to shoot me.

However, I also wasn’t sure I wanted to believe that he was an archangel.

Because then I’d have to believe in heaven and even with Griffin’s death fresh as a new scar on my heart, that was a giant leap of faith. I believed in what I could see. I believed in truth and honor. Black and white. Good and evil.

Those delineations were how I knew that when I pulled the trigger, it was the
right
thing to do. When gray areas like faith and heaven and hell came into play that made me question. And because I killed people for a paycheck, I
had
to hold those tight rules in place. Questioning made me both a danger to myself and to every mission I agreed to.

I walked toward him, dodging outstretched arms and legs on the way. Icy chains wound around my ankles, slowing my progress, until I stopped a few feet away.

His smile was still the same genuine one he’d used on me in the bar. One slender finger lifted and pointed to the screen. “For your viewing pleasure.”