Soul Stealer (15 page)

Chapter Fifteen

After delivering the McDonald’s food as promised, Voro ducked into the hospital cafeteria’s men’s room and let himself “melt” back to the other side, the trippy sensation of letting himself fall apart nearly unhinging him at first. As soon as he was solid inside that little bunker the door slid open and Jehoel was already waiting for a full report.

“Did you find him?”

“He’s at the hospital,” Voro replied, stepping out of the portal and closing the door. “Guess who his doctor is.”

Jehoel’s mouth falling open would have been funny in another situation. “Really?” Then he frowned. “Hard to tell if that’s a good or a bad thing.”

“He only knows that shadow passed through him, and it knocked him out. But he can’t read people, he can’t melt back. He’s stuck, and … it’s like he’s human now.”

Jehoel mulled that over before turning on his heel and striding down the hall. He motioned for Voro to follow. “Theoretically, we can lose our powers. They are, after all, given to us, not a part of us. They can be taken away, although we usually won’t do anything to draw that kind of punishment.”

“Yeah, this wasn’t punishment. Raphael’s never done anything wrong, has he?”

“Are you kidding? He makes most of us look like … well, like you.”

Voro took that for a compliment. To Raphael.

“So what’s next? You guys have to know this better than me.”

Jehoel stopped, turning to him. “Are you kidding? You’re the only edge we really have.”

“What?”

“This thing isn’t one of ours. It’s from your team, Voro. Maybe down there it’ll be drawn to you. Maybe you’re the only thing that can stop it.”

“I think you’re about to ask me to be bait.”

Jehoel just smiled, turned on his heel and kept walking. “Nervous in the service?”

Voro clenched his jaw and followed.

“Besides,” Jehoel continued in that all-too-friendly tone, “you don’t even think it’s a Psionic Vampire, remember?”

“But it made Raphael human. I’m not interested in that happening to me, Jehoel.”

Jehoel pushed a door open and stepped through, Voro following before he realized he’d never been allowed in this particular suite before. It was like an ethereal board room: hazy to the eye, too bright for some but he was getting used to all the light on this side. Comfortable chairs in soft colors, occupied by bodies just as beautiful and unassuming.

He’d never been around this many angels before. Voro stopped just inside the door, and Jehoel had to propel him forward to close the way behind him and manoeuver him in front of everyone else.

Voro actually gulped, for Christ’s sake.

“Everyone, you know Voro. Voro, this is … well, almost everyone.”

Voro nodded. They all just stared at him in return. He couldn’t shake the feeling that they all hated him. There was even less love from Anael, surprise surprise. Her jaw was jutting sideways as she glared at him, which was a shame because it made her look like a sullen teenager, not the angel that she was. Some women didn’t know that making faces made them ugly.

She’s not a woman,
he reminded himself as a cute red head cleared her throat and stood. Her eyes were also reddish-brown, and the effect was stunning. When she spoke he was lulled to a calmness that was like a bed with your favourite blanket.

“I am Bath Kol, angel of prophecy. I first called Peter to call on you to ask about the disturbing force before your demise was put into place. We saw a powerful evil coming, so when it came to selecting your
frustro
we had to ensure that she was entirely irresistible to you. Raphael was sent to help, and ultimately encourage you to end your own personal rotation.”

Voro was stunned further. Raphael had been in on it right from the start? That prick.

“We kept you in this arsenal until the time came. And now I see that we need to turn you loose to fulfill your part in this.”

Voro frowned. “My part? Why do I have to have a part?”

Gazardiel spoke up next. “Raphael is your friend, Voro. He’d do anything for you, and we know you’d do the same for him.”

Anael actually lost her smirk. “And as much as we hate to admit it, we lack the skills to do this kind of thing.”

“Smiting is getting a little rusty?”

“We mean being underhanded. Untrue. Decei
tful, calculating and dangerous.” This came from Zagzagel. “You know this to be true, Voro. This task might take acts that are not possible for us.”

They made him sound like a real pit of depravity. “I’ll take it on,” he finally said, straightening in his chair. “But if I need help -”

“You’ll have it,” Gazardiel filled in. Her eyes were dark but warm, and it actually made him feel better.

“Okay. When do we start?”

Detective Greg Nailor sighed, adjusting his posture again on the cold curb. Cassie should have been home an hour ago, and he was incredibly worried, especially with her boss at work making a move on her. She hadn’t been worried about it, but it made him clench his hands anyway.

When her car made the turn at the end of the block and headed towards the building he stood, waiting for her to stop. She did.

Then she got out of the car and then slammed the door, stalking towards him angrily. “Greg, what the fuck?”

“I wanted to make sure you made it home okay. Where have you been?” He knew he sounded like his old man but he couldn’t help it.

“Look, Greg, I don’t want to see you anymore. I don’t know how else to tell you this without being blatantly rude, but I can’t stand you. You’re overbearing and creepy, Greg.”

He blocked her path back to her driver’s door, hand over his chest. “Cassie, please. I’m sorry. I’m just worried about you. I mean, you told me about that thing with your boss and I came here to make sure you were okay, then it took you so long to get back here. I didn’t know what happened.”

“Nothing to do with me is your worry anymore, so you don’t have to waste the energy, okay?”

“Please, just … where were you?”  The jealousy was flaring; he couldn’t help it.

She stared at him, then her tone turned incredulous. “Okay, fine. A man was attacked in the parking garage. I found him and drove him to the hospital, okay Greg? Is that allowed?”

He frowned. “Someone was attacked here? In your parking garage? What kind of security measures do you guys have here?”

She shook her head, shoving him out of the way. “Go home, Greg.”

“Who was this guy? Did you know him?” He couldn’t stop his mouth. It was like his old man pulling his strings from the grave.

“Yeah Greg. He’s this big, tall, dark drink of water from down the hall. I fucked him in the waiting room at the hospital and now I likely have VD.” She smacked him full in the chest. “Get the fuck away from me. We’re done.”

Greg wanted to stop her, but her anger was ugly and it stopped him. He let her get in the car, asking pathetically, “Did you like me at all, Cassie?”

Her car door was open, her back to him, and she put her hand to her forehead. “I thought you were good-looking, Greg. It was hot that you were a cop. You were kind to me at first and then … you were just too much at once. You gotta learn to ease up.”

Without a backward glance she got in the driver’s seat and was gone, pulling into the aforementioned parking garage.

He closed his eyes, trying to figure out why he always went so nuts with women. It couldn’t just be his sister. Could it?

Tracy Nailor had been beaten to death as a teenager by her boyfriend of all of four months. That was bad enough. The fact that she’d known that kind of violence already from her own father made it an extra-sad footnote in Nailor’s essay about his personal knowledge of domestic and dating violence.

He’d never hit a woman, though. He hadn’t inherited that from his father, thank God. But the possessiveness and paranoia seemed to be genetic, and even as he fought to hold back the urges he knew they would always ruin any attempt at a relationship he had.

In a moment of complete drunken insanity he’d vowed to get even with his father. And he had.

It was a month after Tracy’s funeral. One of her life-long friends had found him at their high school, tearful and torn by guilt. She’d kept a secret for Tracy because they were friends, but she had to tell Greg now.

The moment was forever ingrained in his memory. At a sleepover at her friend’s house Tracy had a horrible nightmare, wetting her bed. The friend had gotten it out of Tracy that their father had been molesting her for years. Now that Tracy was dead, she thought that Greg should know.

Time had narrowed to a sharp point, the amount of time it would take him to get home and wait for his father to go to bed.

Greg had already hoped to become a cop, but that night he forgot all of that. His father fell asleep around eleven, or passed out would be more accurate. He’d jimmied with the front door lock, yanked open the silver drawer and dumped it. He “accidentally” on purpose broke a crystal vase. No need for gloves; he lived here after all.

He shoved everything of value in a couple of grocery bags, then threw the bounty over the fence into the neighbor’s yard.

He returned inside, took off his shoes and hid them in boxes of old clothes in the basement. Then he ran his face into a corner of the living room wall, knowing it would swell up fast, giving himself a black eye. Next he wrapped his hand in a dishtowel and smashed the glass on the gun cabinet, throwing the towel to the ground.

At no time could he stop. He knew it was wrong. He meant to kill his father; nothing, not even his own sense of right or wrong, was going to stop him.

Greg grabbed his father’s shotgun, unloaded a round in his dad’s face while he slept, then called 911.

They believed he’d fought with the intruder before the stranger escaped out the back door, jumping the fence and running through the Clarkson’s yard, who unfortunately were on holidays and wouldn’t be available to corroborate the story. They must have dropped the loot when they heard the sirens approaching.

He’d gotten away with first-degree murder. At the age of seventeen.

Once the numbness wore off he’d even been able to cry while giving his story. His own calculating nature was still a shock to him after all these years, but he’d never regretted it.

He just didn’t want to come to anyone’s rescue too late ever again. So he was always seeing horrible offenders before it was proven to him. That kind of proof usually meant someone was dead.

He walked back to his car, ashamed of his own behavior, the regret of his own ghosts weighing heavy on his shoulders.

Anael had to admit: Voro took the news well. He listened to them as they explained how they operated on the human level, what they were allowed to intervene in and what they weren’t, and he absorbed it like a proper student.

She knew then he clearly cared for Raphael. And while she could fight down the base urges he kicked up in her, she couldn’t overlook the tug on her heart when she realized that he did have concern. He was capable of feeling something for one of them.

Ridiculous. Had she learned nothing from her time with people? She was better off alone.

She excused herself early, no one missing her. If Voro thought he was making her leave she couldn’t care less. She went to her chamber to clear her head and think.

She could take a nap if she wasn’t so worried about Raphael. And the night before had not been restful. Her Sin Eater, Onis, had returned in her dreams again, initiated by Voro, she was sure. It started simply enough: she was in a gorgeous meadow in her usual heavenly robe, the skirt tossed this way and that by a warm and luxurious breeze that was low to the grass. She was happy, content.

The temperature dropped and something moved across the sun, darkening the meadow and making it appear like something a bit more sinister. There were things living in the grass. Animals were calling out that she couldn’t see. This wasn’t beautiful. It was raw and scary. And
thrilling.

When she became aware she wasn’t alone it was too late. Hands fastened themselves to her hips, and she was held from behind by someone large, intent and exciting. She closed her eyes, knowing it was just a dream, so she didn’t fear anything. She relaxed.

The man turned her, and she opened her eyes to see Onis gazing at her with affection. His warm hand slid along her cheek to cup her face, and she was smiling up at him as wind tossed his jet-black hair around his pale face. Those eyes were almost hooded in this dim light, but she was very familiar with what they looked like. She didn’t need more light than this.

“Anael,” he whispered, and it made her close her eyes again as a tremble surged through her. His lips pressed to hers and without another wasted moment she cleaved to him, running her hands around his high shoulders, plunging her fingers into his warm and soft hair. His hands held her lower back close to him, his lips teasing a moan from her. When he slid his tongue into her mouth she was undone, all but collapsing as something quaked low inside, heat and dampness making itself known between her legs.