Soul Stealer (41 page)

Raphael let his body relax onto his back, taking a breath, feeling all the pains and agonies that having the shit kicked out of you can cause. Then there was something else.

It sounded like papers on the wind. Little flutters washed over him, cool and comforting, whispering as they went, making him open his eyes and breathe deep.

It was like invisible but tactile sunshine. He was smiling. He wanted to laugh, but his cheeks were wet. He was sobbing with almost an ecstasy born of brightness and forgiveness.

The souls. They were free, they were released and going to where they deserved to be, and they were happy. Thankful. Joyous.

Raphael covered his face with his arm, whispering “Thank you, thank you God,” but whether it was his thought or the accumulations of their relief he wasn’t sure. Everything was as it was supposed to be, and that was all that mattered.

Almost, anyway.

He lay that way for who knew how long. He thought he heard Claudia ask if he was okay, then something else hit him. His chest ached, and it felt like his ribs were opening to let something in. It was warm and familiar, yes, but it hurt like a son of a bitch, too. His muscles and bones felt like they were being reknit from scratch, and he rolled into the fetal position, too pained to even cry out.

All Raphael could do was breathe through his mouth and wait for it to pass. Was this death? Was this the end? He wasn’t scared, just tired of hurting this much.

Someone was holding him, pulling him into their lap and muttering lovely, soothing things. He focused on that, feeling the pain let go slowly bit by bit. He opened his eyes, found himself looking up into Patrice’s face. She was crying. She was worried. And she kept repeating, “I love you – I’m sorry Ralph. I love you too. I do – I love you.”

He smiled again. This had to be the feeling of heaven. It warmed him, thrilled him, made him want to weep. “I love you, too,” he said softly.

She leaned over, planting a kiss on his lips. He wanted to respond, but before he could she was jumping back with a shriek, covering her mouth, and he was wondering where the lightning had come from.

His lips stung. Electricity was running through him like acid. Patrice’s eyes were wide, tears forgotten as she stared at him from a few feet away.

Humans and angels, he remembered. They cannot touch. And he was an angel again.

Relief was gone. All he felt now was anguish worse than anything he’d gone through in the last twelve hours.

He beat his fists in to the ground in fury, bent his back and screamed.

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Vinnie put the sword down and made a move to embrace her, but Iola stepped back, quaking. His eyes had returned to their normal clear blue color, but the sight of them red made her remember something. Jasper, his eyes the same red color, ready to kill someone. In his apartment.
Damien.

Vinnie’s face fell as she winced away, looking down at the headless man on the ground.

He’d been about to hurt her, Iola knew that. Vinnie had saved her from him. Iola remembered this bald, now dead man from before too, like he’d been an apparition haunting her before she was ever in close quarters with him. His voice had been in her head, and it was flooding back in quick succession, not making a lot of sense. It was all clear as day, no headaches at the remembrance of that day.

A horrible male scream sounded, and Iola jumped. The beautiful man Vinnie had brought over for dinner, Ralph, was curled up on his side, sobbing. Patrice was scooting to her feet, hand over her mouth, crying as well. The darker-skinned man that had helped Claudia hold the one called Praesul was putting a hand on Patrice’s shoulder. Iola doubted the woman even knew he was there.

Claudia was watching this all with great sadness. She was somewhat splattered in blood and looked like she’d taken a couple of good hits to her mug, but she looked exhilarated as well. A fight won. Not that Iola understood any of it.

Claudia’s eyes flicked upwards. Iola felt as though it had been decades since they last spoke. Her last memory was running from Claudia like a scared child. All because she couldn’t deal with getting serious with Vinnie.

She’d love for that to be her biggest concern again.

Like any true friend, Claudia just nodded. Iola returned the gesture and she knew they were good now.

Iola sighed and glanced back at Vinnie.  He was watching her, looking exactly as though his heart was breaking. But he was back; she could sense it in his posture, his eyes.

Iola held her arms out and he nearly collapsed in to them, wrapping her up tightly. Jesus, that felt wonderful.

All too soon Vinnie let her go, tucking her under his arm as she became aware again that Damien was there. Iola could only stare at the man she thought was dead.

“Good work, Doc,” he said in that low, smooth tone, offering a hand. Vinnie shook it, nodding.

When Damien looked to her, she could only blurt, “What the fuck just happened?”

Damien swallowed. “You’re not losing your mind. But if I tell you everything that just went down, you’ll wish you were crazy. It’s better to not know. Trust me.”

She shook her head. “I can’t accept that.”

Vinnie rubbed her shoulder blade. “Maybe we should listen to him on this,” Vinnie murmured, kissing her forehead.

“Then what do we do about him?” Iola gestured to the decapitated man at their feet. “And that other one over there?”

They all turned to look at the other corpse, but to Iola’s shock it was melting into something that resembled dust. Claudia and the other man backed away from it, pulling Patrice with them. The particles tried to clump together, but with a built-up whoosh a burst of intense wind hit them all, radiating outwards from the cloud. 

Iola closed her eyes and Vinnie tucked her in tighter to him, but she felt nothing. Opening one eye, then the other, she looked up to Vinnie, saw he was okay, then checked for Claudia. She was fine – her new friend had grabbed her and sheltered her much as Vinnie had just covered Iola.

“They tend to be self-cleaning,” Damien said wryly, picking up the sword Vinnie had dropped. Still stooped over, he picked up the headless man’s left hand and pressed it to the sword, then repeated the action with his other hand. Then he handed it back to Vinnie.  “Call the police,” he instructed. “Say you were out for a stroll, getting fresh air after a terrible headache hit. That’s why you left early – and apologize for not giving notice, but you remember telling someone you were leaving. You were cutting through here on your way to Iola’s and this guy jumped you. He only had this sword. You got it away from him and were only trying to scare him off, but you got a lucky hit. It was much sharper than you thought.”

Iola raised a skeptical eyebrow. “Will that hold up?”

Damien shrugged. “I can’t imagine anything about you two that would make a cop question your story. It’s ridiculous enough to work.”

Vinnie held the sword up, the reddish-gold metal glinting. “This isn’t a regular sword,” he pointed out. “What if … what if they wonder where it came from?”

Damien smiled. “I have a way of making sure that sword disappears before it can be too closely examined, don’t worry. It’ll vanish from the evidence room.”

“Why?” Iola wanted to know. “Where’s it from?”

“Again, it’s better if you don’t know.”

Iola was going to demand a better answer, but Vinnie squeezed her. She decided to let it drop.

“Now,” Damien continued, much too calm. “Give me a minute for us to all get out of here, then go get those two cops and tell them the same story I just told you.”

“What cops?” Now Iola was supremely confused.

“I will,” Vinnie promised, then Damien nodded to both of them, even giving a little bow before turning on his heel and walking away.

Claudia removed herself from Saleem’s embrace, catching his gaze. He kept his hands on her arms. “Are you all right?” he asked, genuine concern in his tone.

“Yeah. I think so.”

He kept staring at her, she was staring right back. Her blood was flowing with the fight they’d just won, her heart beating triple time. Adrenalin was making her light-headed. She felt downright horny, actually.

She took a step back, and he let her go then. She felt more herself without him touching her.

The nurse was still sobbing, her face a picture of hurt and confusion. The guy on the ground, Raphael, was calming down and standing up, but he looked like someone had just killed his mother before beating him up.

“What’s wrong with them?” she asked Saleem.

“You didn’t feel that? When they touched?” She shook her head no. “It felt like we were too close to a lightning strike. I nearly jumped out of my skin.”

Voro, or Damien, or whatever the fuck his name was, joined them, taking Raphael by the shoulder. “Jesus – Raphael, you okay?”

Raphael was dazed and heartbroken, but he nodded and Voro hugged him tight, slapping his back.  “I thought you were a goner, man.”

“I nearly was,” Raphael admitted, stepping back. “These two sure came in handy.”

They both looked to Claudia and Saleem, and suddenly things were crystal clear to Claudia.

She was made for this. If she ever felt odd or different before, it was because she was odd and different. Her purpose was higher than living day to day and rat-racing it up with the rest of the human horde. There were more than just people in their midst, and she was one of them.

It wasn’t a great feeling but it sure explained a lot.

“We have to get out of here,” Voro said, nodding from Claudia to Patrice. “Take her to her place. Patrice – if anyone asks, you went home after the hospital. After all, you were knocked out.”

The nurse nodded, and Claudia recognized that she was in shock. “Come with us,” she said, taking Patrice by the hand and nodding to Saleem. “We’ll take her back to her place.”

“They have their story,” Voro said, indicating Iola and Vinnie. “You don’t need to know it. Just get the hell out of here, go the back way.”

He leaned down to scoop both halves of the arrow, left behind when the body did its little magic act.

Patrice came along without any arguing, and Claudia remembered too well where her apartment was. After all, that’s where she found out Damien - fuck, Voro – was still alive. He’d knocked her unconscious there.

It felt good to be doing something. It took her mind off of how badly she wanted to fall into bed with someone, quite frankly. Seeing Patrice so shaken was giving her something more important to focus on.

They found Saleem’s car, piled into it, and with Claudia providing instructions he deftly steered through late night traffic to Patrice’s sleek concrete and glass high rise.

She helped Patrice through the lobby, into the elevator then up to her floor. She kept the poor thing on her feet while Patrice kicked her shoes off at the front door, and Claudia helped her down the hallway to her bed. The woman fell into the mass of white cotton, pulling blankets over her head and weeping all over again.

Claudia left the apartment feeling sick. The vacant look on the woman’s face had made it appear as though she was just in shock but the sobbing proved that she wasn’t as numb as she looked. She was in heart-broken agony, and even though Claudia just met her and Raphael she still knew enough to classify them as a tragedy of Greek proportions.

The night air felt better. She took a deep breath, then climbed back into the Audi next to Saleem. He was staring out the front windshield and he wasn’t going anywhere.

“Is everything okay?” she asked, fastening her seatbelt.

He shrugged. “I would have no way of telling if it wasn’t. Claudia … what the fuck just happened?”

Claudia could almost smell the gears burning in his mind, and she knew he was trying to make it make sense to the world as he knew it.

She had done the same thing months ago, regaining consciousness in Jasper McKay’s apartment, Voro dead on the floor and the rest of them stuck with a terrible case of amnesia that brought on headaches any time they thought too long on it.

It was impossible for them to understand because they were in this world. But she’d heard talk of angels and demons and trapped souls over these past few hours, as well as words like
jinn
that made her realize she had to accept that things were weird or she would completely lose her mind.

So she chose to accept what came. Voila – no headaches.

This was Saleem’s first rodeo, however. He was struggling to understand.

“I don’t know what happened,” she said slowly. “But … I think those two men who brought us to Iola’s were angels, and so were those other people Voro kicked out of the apartment before we went to the garage. That thing Voro killed was evil. That was the big bad guy. The one that Vinnie killed, that was a smaller evil. Raphael had been an angel. We thought he had amnesia but it’s like he was humanized, like the bad guy took his soul or something. Everyone kept talking about souls.”

Saleem made a frustrated sound. “This is lunacy. Insanity.”

“And yet … what other explanation is there?”

He met her gaze. She sighed inwardly as she was reminded again right then he was beautiful. His eyes were the best part, Claudia decided. She had brown eyes as well but she was willing to bet hers had never been as warm and caring and comforting as his were right then. And yet Saleem needed her to comfort him and tell him he wasn’t going mad.

“Saleem, we both saw the same thing. There is more to this world than we first thought. And no one else can know about it.”

They shared a warm gaze for a beat then Saleem put the car in gear. He pulled away from the curb and she settled back in her seat, watching the world go by.

When she realized they were going to his building she sat up straight. “Where are we going?”

Saleem answered without looking at her. “I don’t want to be alone. But, no offense, I don’t want to be at your building tonight, either.”

When Claudia remembered how comfortable the cuddling had been, before recent events had blown the windows and doors off her world, she had to lean back and smile to herself.

Saleem’s apartment was dark. He only turned the hall light on for her benefit and led her to his room. She pulled off her jeans. He took off his shirt.

There was a strange moment while they just looked at each other. Claudia felt her body warm at the sight of him, and she didn’t bother hiding it as her gaze trolled over that taut, dark, male skin.

Her blood was still thrilled by the fight they’d had that night. Her dream returned; a man like Saleem taking her to the ground before an army’s blood could soak into it. The rough invasion of his body in hers, all too excited to be alive after such a fight. The flicker of excitement that ran through her came from her memory of immediacy, of pleasure stemming simply from the realization of a living pulse, breathing lungs, a living body.

He was looking at her, too. He was staring at her legs with heat, and she remembered the feeling of kissing him and holding him and how her entire being had been ready to completely join with his to bec
ome one; as natural as the color of her hair or the comfort of a good friend. It was enough to make her breathe through her mouth.

She knew it was not entirely her choice. It had sounded like they were made to find each other and partner up; but whether that was for survival or sexual attraction she couldn’t be sure. She would have sex with him, she knew that much. And if all they did was sleep next to each other that would be just as good.

Maybe.

He exhaled slowly, then pulled back the comforter, motioning for her to climb in first.