Death's Angel: A Novel of the Lost Angels

by Heather Killough-Walden

  She was sitting on the steps in front of the Caffe Cento and more or less staring off into space when the sound of footfalls beside her drew her out of her reverie. She looked up . . . and up. Shock hit her system and her adrenal glands began pumping like mad. Her heart thudded hard, almost painfully, and she shot to her feet.

  “Az!” she exclaimed, not knowing what else to say. At once, she shoved her hair out of her face again and wondered if she looked as much like a rag doll as she felt in that moment.

  Azrael was standing just a few feet away, gazing down at her through those amber eyes that scorched her to her core. His perfect lips were turned up in an enigmatic, absolutely beautiful smile. As always, he was dressed in dark hues and, as always, they flattered his tall, strong figure in a way that made her chest ache and her stomach coil with warmth.

  To make matters worse, he wasn’t alone. Uro was with him, and the gorgeous guitarist was watching her with the same mysterious and oddly flattering expression that graced Azrael’s perfect features.

  She could barely stand it. Hell, she could barely breathe.

  “Sophie,” Az said, allowing her name to roll off of his tongue with such deep, delicious clarity that Sophie could have melted. He bowed his head in a respectful nod, his eyes never leaving hers. The sound of his voice instantly brought to mind the images she had been entertaining only minutes ago on the pier, and her blush was back, but this time it was furious.

  Pull yourself together.

  Her inner voice had grown stern, managing to override the chattering of nervous twitters echoing through the remaining chambers of her brain. She rolled back her shoulders and offered Az a lopsided smile. “What are you doing here?” she asked, truly curious. How the hell did they keep managing to meet up?

  Azrael hadn’t stopped watching her. His eyes glittered with untold emotion. His smile broadened before he gestured to his band mate beside him and said, “It’s rather difficult for us to get out during the day.” He looked beyond Sophie to the few people remaining on the streets. “But right now, we’re more free to relax,” he explained.

  “We needed a break,” Uro added. Sophie glanced at him and felt her blush deepen. He’d featured rather prominently in her last little daydream. And with the way he was looking at her right now, she could almost swear that he knew that.

  “You’re setting up for the concert this weekend,” she supplied, figuring it out despite the befuddled feel of her brain. Anyone who knew Valley of Shadow would recognize Uro on sight. And if they spotted Uro with a tall, handsome man with long black hair and an angelic voice, they would put two and two together and figure out that Az was the Masked One. His cover would be blown.

  “Indeed,” Uro said in reference to the concert.

  “I understand,” said Sophie, as if she weren’t at all affected by their sudden presence. “You’re playing at the stadium.”

  “There’s quite a bit of work to do to get it ready,” said Uro.

  “I can imagine,” Sophie said. The AT&T Giants baseball stadium was an enormous venue capable of seating more than forty thousand people. Once again, Valley of Shadow was following in the footsteps of some very notable greats such as Metallica and AC/DC. And she expected that, unlike shows by other bands who more often than not encountered acoustical problems as they tried to find ways to make themselves heard across that many seats, Valley concerts were always perfect, always mind-blowing. Nothing ever went wrong. Sophie figured she probably had the inside scoop as to why Valley of Shadow always succeeded in impressing its enormous crowds. Azrael was an archangel. He could do anything.

  She wondered if his band mates knew. She realized just then that she would feel so much better if they did. It would mean she wasn’t really a ninth wheel after all. She would simply be part of a circle of trust.

  “Sophie.”

  Sophie’s head snapped up to meet Azrael’s gaze. He never failed to yank her attention back to him, as if she were a puppet on a cord.

  “It’s fortunate that we should meet tonight,” he said softly. “I’d been hoping you would attend Saturday’s concert.” He had either the audacity or the raw talent—or both—to look genuinely coy in that moment as he shoved his hands into the pockets of his trench coat and offered up a slightly crooked smile. “In fact, I’d planned to have an invitation and a backstage pass dropped off at your new place, but since we’re both here right now . . .” His voice trailed off and his eyes filled the silence. “Perhaps you’d consider joining Uro and me for the evening?”

  If she could have pulled her gaze from his, Sophie would have checked to see whether the earth had slipped out from beneath her feet. Azrael the archangel was asking her out again?

  Don’t get ahead of yourself, Soph. After all, he wasn’t alone. It couldn’t really be considered a date if she was with both of them, could it?

  She opened her mouth to answer, and in a dry voice said, “I’m sure you guys have your own thing planned for tonight. You don’t need me tagging along.”

  Azrael’s smile broadened

  “Nonsense,” Uro said.

  “Absolutely not,” Az agreed. The two came forward at once, moving to either side of Sophie. She froze as they effectively caged her in; it was rather discomfiting being surrounded by their incredibly strong presences. But then they turned and deftly wove their arms through hers, hooking them at the elbows. It was a friendly gesture, done gently and intimately.

  Sophie was too surprised to say anything when they began walking back down the street the way they’d come, taking her right along with them.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Her name was the Calliope. And she was stunning.

  Every inch of her was pristine, perfect white. She was a cutter ketch, with two masts and four sails, and the symbol painted in white relief on the back and sides was a pair of angel wings that matched the shape of the sails themselves.

  The Calliope was Azrael’s boat. It surprised Sophie for some reason. Maybe it was the fact that he always wore black and leather. He just didn’t seem the sailing type. And not only did he own a boat; he docked it at Pier 39, the most famous dock in the nation.

  When he and Uro had walked her from the cable-car stop, they’d put her in a limousine and driven her right back to the wharf she’d just left. From there, they walked her down to the C dock and through the gate that led to the slightly unsteady walkway and the scores of vessels lined up beyond.

  She knew she’d stared with wide eyes and an open mouth when Azrael gestured to the Calliope and welcomed her aboard. She couldn’t help it. It was just too much—too perfect. If she’d woken up and recalled everything clearly, she would have considered herself one lucky girl for having such an incredible and unrealistic dream.

  But she wasn’t dreaming. This was all real.

  Sophie looked up once again from her seat on the deck where Az had placed her. Uro was in the cockpit of the boat, an indentation at the ship’s center where the steering wheel, radar readout, and engine control were located. Azrael was at the forward end of the boat, doing something with the ropes that Sophie vaguely remembered her mother talking about.

  The bay was Sophie’s favorite part of the city. It was the reason she insisted on living in San Fran instead of Berkeley, despite the fact that she would have to take the Richmond train under the water every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for classes. She needed to have an excuse to be near the sea as often as possible. Maybe it was the bay’s connection to her mother . . . maybe it was simply that the ocean was free.

  Whatever the reason, as she had been walked out onto the pier and introduced to Azrael’s secret hobby, Sophie had found herself feeling genuinely happy. Happier than she’d been in a very long time.

  She had no idea how she’d gotten to be so lucky. She figured she must have done something good in a past life—who knew? But she’d come to a decision as he had helped her up onto the pristine deck of his boat. If Azrael the archangel didn’t mind hanging out with her while he wa
ited for his perfect archess to come along, then she wasn’t going to mind either. Granted, he was bound to ruin her for all other men, but it was worth it.

  A part of her had been initially uneasy about the idea of going out onto the dark water at night with two very obviously strong men, no matter how handsome they were. No one knew where she was. A lot of bad things could go down.

  But her fear dissipated with the first reassuring, heart-wrenchingly warm and inviting smile Azrael had cast her way. Poof. It was gone. And she found herself smiling back—almost laughing out loud—with the gleeful anticipation of what was to come.

  Once they’d lifted the ropes off the dock and Uro motored the boat out into the open waters of the bay, Azrael hoisted the sails. Sophie’s throat felt tight as she watched the sails rise and pop loudly when the wind filled them with its Pacific breath. There wasn’t much wind, of course, but at their height, it was enough for the sails to catch and hold.

  It was a relatively calm night for April and the more dangerous thick fog had yet to ride in from the west. Sophie wasn’t a sailor, but she knew enough about boats and fog to understand that the two didn’t mix. The bank of white low-lying clouds seemed stationary, at least for the moment, and she knew in her heart that even if it did decide to roll in full-swing, Azrael could handle it.

  Sophie watched the archangel leave his place at the fore end of the boat and make his way once more to her side. There, he shrugged off his trench coat and Sophie went still as he settled it over her shoulders. He knelt before her and his gaze leveled with hers. Sophie found herself holding her breath.

  “Is that better?” he asked with a killer smile.

  Sophie blinked. She hadn’t been cold. It made no sense; the San Francisco nights were cursed with wet air that cut to the bone, especially out on the sea. But Azrael’s nearness and the very fact that she was on a sailboat had honestly chased away her discomfort. She’d barely noticed it. But she didn’t want him to know that.

  “Yes,” she breathed, smiling back. The coat was heavy and made of some rich material that smelled like Azrael—like sandalwood soap and the very night that he seemed so much a part of. I’m in heaven.

  As if he could hear her thoughts, Azrael chuckled softly, again sending a warm shiver rolling through Sophie’s body. And then he stood and turned his attentions back to the boat and the water around them.

  The gorgeous, streamlined hull of the Calliope sliced through the deep, dark water with quiet precision, parting the thin streams of mist ahead of it without fear or hesitation.

  Every once in a while, Az left her side on the deck and moved to the front of the boat, where he was right now.

  Trimming and easing, she told herself, recalling the terms for what Az was doing with the ropes. In the cockpit, Uro took the ropes that Az loosened or tightened and wrapped them around a wench and then cranked the wench on his end. They were making the sails more taut or relaxed, based on how much wind they wanted them to catch. It determined direction and speed to a certain extent.

  Sophie smiled, proud of herself for recalling so much. Although her mother had taken sailing lessons, Sophie actually knew very little about it herself. Still, it seemed she had more in her subconscious than she’d thought.

  Azrael finished adjusting the sail and looked back at her and smiled. Sophie’s breath caught. In those moments, when he smiled at her like that, she felt as if she were the only woman in the world.

  She was so wrapped up in how the rock star archangel was making her feel, it took a while for her to realize that the fog had indeed decided to roll in. With a bit of a start, she straightened and looked around. A wall of white had almost entirely surrounded the Calliope and was moving closer by the second. Sophie had been watching the low, rolling waves that gave the boat gentle shoves and were mesmerizing in their constant ebb and flow. Now she looked up and over the bay to find that visibility around the yacht had been diminished to a mere fifty feet or so.

  The night was calm; what wind there was would never cut through the dense pea soup that was subjugating the bay around them. Sophie watched it approach, and as it came nearer, she recalled the reverie she’d entertained earlier that night. She’d stood on the pier and looked out over the water and wondered what it would be like to sail the sea in the fog, surrounded by only the quiet and the lapping of the waves on the hull.

  And now . . . here she was. By some fortuitous twist, she’d dreamed something and in the next hour that dream had come true. Sophie’s gaze became lost as she stared into the mist around them. They were in another realm on the Calliope, a trio of landlubbers hoping for a one-night stand with wayward waters.

  Suddenly, both Azrael and Uro were standing back and letting go of the rigging and the controls. They became still, straightening where they stood, their expressions at once as calm as the sea, as if a reflection of the water upon which they sailed. But they also appeared to be watching the mists around them.

  It was as if they were waiting for something.

  Sophie frowned. She turned to Azrael as he made his way over to her with wholly unnatural grace. Only an archangel could move the way he did. Nearly everything he did was a reminder that he was something more than human.

  Azrael stopped in front of her and offered her his hand.

  “What’s going on?” she whispered. It was so quiet, she felt that to speak any louder would be sacrilege.

  “You’ll see,” he replied, with an enigmatic smile. She placed her hand in his and he helped her stand, maintaining his gentle but firm grip on her hand once she had her legs beneath her. The boat gently swayed with the motion of the slow, rolling waves.

  As always, Azrael’s touch was electric, sending a buzzing warmth up through her arm and into her chest. She felt her cheeks redden as she looked about them, trying to make out any kind of shape or form at all beyond the wall of thick white that had formed around them.

  Sophie’s hair was now damp with moisture from the low-lying clouds, and strands of her long, golden locks had formed corkscrew curls to frame her face. She could feel their wet kisses upon her cheeks.

  Azrael’s grip on her tightened just a little and she looked up at him. His smile was predatory and perfect, and a glint of something mischievous touched his sunbeam eyes. He turned away to look up at an angle. She watched as he raised his free hand toward the sky.

  Sophie felt her jaw drop and her lips part as the wind picked up and the fog around them began to recoil from the area around the boat. Tendrils of white spun backward, as if someone had waved a massive turbine blade through their midst. The fog roiled and ebbed, clearing a path of fog-free air from the boat upward.

  The clear path climbed and climbed, spreading high above the Calliope until finally it lifted outward and revealed the rust-orange beams of a massive, glorious, world-famous structure.

  The Golden Gate Bridge soared above the sailboat, revealing itself to Sophie and her companions with a graceful, silent glory. Its tremendous support columns and cables rose to majestic, mind-blowing heights, claiming the night sky as if it were its queen and the stars above were its diamond-laden throne.

  “Oh my God,” Sophie whispered. Her chest felt at once tight and wide open. She felt choked with emotion and also wanted to laugh—to shout and dance and cry. It was probably the most beautiful thing she had ever seen, and she was seeing it from a vantage point that few were ever lucky enough to witness.

  High above, late-night travelers continued in their routes across one of the only two bridges that connected San Francisco to the rest of California. She watched their tiny headlights spear through the darkness. She watched the seagulls weave in and out of the cables. She listened as the foghorns sounded somewhere in the distance and the bridge above remained stoically proud, a gateway to the promised land draped in royal red garb, strong and true.

  She must have been staring for five minutes or more when she was finally struck with something so important she couldn’t believe it hadn’t occurred to her ri
ght away.

  She blinked and lowered her head, ignoring the twinge of pain that came from her neck as she finally changed positions. Despite the view above, Azrael wasn’t watching the bridge. He was watching her. Being the object of his attention was like being in an intense spotlight, and for a moment, she almost forgot to ask him what she needed to ask.

  “Az,” she finally managed, chancing a glance at Uro, who was staring up at the bridge. “Does this mean . . . I mean . . .” She ducked her head a little and turned her back to the guitarist so that he wouldn’t hear. “Does he know . . .” She trailed off. The fact that Azrael had cleared the fog away from the boat and opened a view to the bridge above meant that he’d used some kind of magic, not only in front of her, but in front of Uro as well. She wasn’t perfectly clear on what an archangel could and couldn’t do; Juliette had bombarded her with too much information on the subject all at once. But she was pretty clear that humans possessed no such powers.

  Azrael wasn’t so stupid that he would use his archangel abilities in front of anyone who didn’t already know what he was unless he was planning to let them in on the secret. There had been no untoward reaction from his band mate. Which meant that Uro knew—and that meant that she wasn’t alone in knowing the truth about Azrael. She wasn’t a ninth wheel after all. But she was afraid to ask for the confirmation out loud—just in case.

  Azrael’s smile was warm. He nodded. “He’s known for some time, Sophie.” The sound of his deep, throaty chuckle was so enticing, it was a veritable music of its own, and the way he said her name made her legs go weak beneath her. “They all have.” He glanced at Uro and then back down at her, and Sophie understood that he was referring to the other members of Valley of Shadow.

  Sophie tried not to let her very physical response to him show, instead turning away to once more gaze up at the bridge.