Death's Angel: A Novel of the Lost Angels

by Heather Killough-Walden

  The hardwood beneath her knees pressed into her kneecaps. Her gaze took in a knot in the wood, the gaps in the slats, a dust bunny she’d missed the last time she’d swept. She blinked, sitting up and looking around. She was in the bedroom of her apartment on Hemlock.

  Sophie swallowed hard and closed her eyes, wondering if everything she’d gone through over the last twelve hours had been no more than an elaborate psychotic dream. Maybe she was under too much stress. Starting school at her age, with classmates who were much younger, wasn’t going to be easy. Maybe she’d forgotten how to study and would flunk out and lose her scholarship. Maybe being back in San Francisco, her mother’s favorite city, was too hard on her. Or maybe it was Juliette and her band of angels who were screwing with Sophie’s head. It all seemed a mishmash inside her, fooling her subconscious into reveries of spectacular proportions.

  She’d always had a wonderful imagination. Maybe it was a dream.

  A knot of foreboding pulled her stomach muscles taut and she gritted her teeth as images of guns and foster fathers and graveyards skated through her mind. But how much of it was a dream?

  Not that, she thought. In her heart of hearts, she knew that much had been real. She knew she’d been attacked by her foster father at the age of fourteen. She knew that he’d taken her to the ground in the middle of the cemetery where her parents were buried. And she knew that rather than allow him to rape and murder her on her mother’s grave, she had had taken his gun from him and shot him.

  With an odd, choked sound, Sophie opened her eyes and looked down at the cuff of her sleeve. It was stained red with the blood of the girl she’d just saved.

  None of this was a dream. All of it had been real.

  With a start, Sophie realized that some of the blood staining the cuff was actually her own. It streamed in two thin rivulets down the meat of her palm to the wrist of her sleeve. Sophie blinked and uncurled her clenched fist. She’d been squeezing so tightly, her short nails had carved scarlet moons into her lifeline. She fully expected the dandelion she’d been holding to be squashed and lifeless now.

  However, the dandelion was gone.

  Lying within the rising crescents of blood on her palm was an artfully painted tattoo. At first glance, it looked like the black dandelion with a host of perfect petals. But as Sophie opened her palm and looked more closely, she realized she’d seen this shape before. It was a many-pointed star, as black and bottomless as Gregori’s fathomless pupils.

  * * *

  There was no telling where the mansion would leave them in the labyrinth that was Alcatraz the prison. The best they could do was hope to open a door that didn’t lead them directly into an ambush.

  The portal swirled to life before them, waiting for them to step through. Michael turned back to glance over his shoulder at his brothers and their wives. Eleanore’s deep indigo eyes had never been more serious. She was dressed as usual, which meant she was ready for battle in jeans, a black sweatshirt, and combat boots. Uriel’s left hand was wrapped around her waist. In his right fist was a gun with gold bullets. None of them knew how much of an effect the gold was going to have on the Adarians now that they were becoming vampires. But the archangels were going to try every tactic they could think of.

  Gabriel and Max both had black bags slung over their shoulders; the bags contained everything from gold grenades to cartridges with more gold bullets. Michael turned to Juliette, who met his gaze unflinchingly. The green in her hazel eyes was more pronounced when she was angry, and right now they were more green than he’d ever seen them. There was also a darkness beneath them that hadn’t been there before. In the beautiful frame of her lovely face, it made her look like a Luis Royo painting: angry and frightened, but tough as nails.

  Sophie Bryce was Juliette’s best friend. Michael’s gut clenched at the thought. Juliette stood to lose too much here. Azrael stood to lose everything. This was a waking hell.

  He turned back to face the portal and stepped through. At once, he was enveloped by the twisted light that manipulated space and time. He was used to it, so he knew to adjust his step as he moved through the magic and exited into the cold and damp of Alcatraz’s inner sanctums.

  Michael stepped to the side to make room for the others even as he took a moment to look around. One of the few vampires Azrael had created that Michael really got along with had actually put a few men on the Rock himself. Randall McFarlan had traversed the passageways of Alcatraz many times. It was one of the things he and Michael spoke about on the very rare occasions when they both possessed the leisure time and proper mind-set for casual conversation about law enforcement. Cop talk. San Francisco’s cop talk somehow always found its way back to the Rock.

  Now the dawn light cast dusty beams through the filthy windows of the large open chamber in which Michael stood. A chain-link fence painted a dull beige caged the room in on two sides. Up against the other two walls were the remains of wooden bookshelves. This was the Alcatraz library. If the bookshelves hadn’t made it obvious, the signage would have. A poster-sized photograph on one of the chain-link walls showed what the room had looked like fifty years ago, complete with the portable bookshelves that had once filled its now empty space. And on the support beam at the center of the room hung a single yellow sign that read LIBRARY.

  At this time of morning, before the arrival of the first tourism ferries, the silence in the prison seemed amplified by the sounds of sea life beyond its walls. There were no footsteps and no voices, but the halls were nonetheless filled with echoes of the past.

  There were three exits from the library. But only one of these had a trail of stark red blood.

  That blood stained the floor in splotches and left grisly designs along the walls and gate, reminding Michael of the scene in the missing girl’s bedroom. A hard, cold chill began to settle deep inside the Warrior Archangel.

  Once Michael’s brothers, the archesses, and Max came through the portal and it closed behind them, Michael made his way toward the winding chain-link fence that would take him out of the library and into what was once the D Block of the prison. This was where Alcatraz’s more infamous and violent prisoners had spent their hard time. As he moved down the corridor, the blood became more plentiful.

  “Oh my God,” whispered Eleanore.

  “This bodes ill,” Gabriel muttered. Michael glanced at him to see that the former Messenger Angel had pulled out his own firearm and his body language was rather more protective of the archess beside him than it had been moments ago.

  Michael turned back to face the row of open cells to his right. There were two kinds of rooms on D Block. Those to his right were isolation rooms.

  These doors were never closed any longer, not unless a tour guide was jokingly locking some tourist in just for the fun of it. These were the roomiest, most state-of-the-art cells in Alcatraz and always had been. They were also the most miserable.

  Though their occupants would have had twice the space they would have had in A, B, or C Block, the rooms were so cold and damp that life within their walls had been unbearable. The wind whipped through the windows and across the cells with a moaning, whistling vengeance, tearing through the inmates’ thin clothing and chilling them to the bone. It was never quiet here, not even on the calmest of days. The wind always sang its eerie song.

  To make matters worse, though regulations stated that the lights were to be kept on, they often weren’t. The prisoners were left in the dark for endless hours. Day upon day, night upon night. Alone.

  Michael stopped at the entrance to the final isolation cell on the right. At one time, it had housed a single unlucky soul. Now it housed three.

  “Jesus,” Uriel muttered.

  “What happened to them?” Juliette asked, her voice a monotone. Michael glanced at her, noting her pale complexion and widened eyes. She was staring fixedly at the mess that waited beyond the large metal door and sliding metal bars of room number nine.

  Three Adarians lay dead on the damp, bl
oodstained floor. Their bodies were mangled, their clothes drenched with red. So much blood had been spilled, it pooled beneath them and dripped through the drain at the center of the room. Michael could hear it hitting the sewage pipes in the corridors below them. Drip. Drip. Drip.

  Michael recognized the men inside, though barely. Having gone up against the Adarians a number of times before, the archangels were now familiar with each one and his abilities. One of the dead had been capable of creating ice. Michael was fairly certain he’d also been able to fly. Another had possessed odd abilities such as creating magnetic force fields and the like. Azrael seemed to think that it was this same Adarian’s ability to find people that had helped Abraxos locate Sophie. Michael believed the third one went by the name Astaeroth and had been the most powerful of the three, capable of creating and using fire against his enemies. Azrael had feared this Adarian a little more than the others. But he wouldn’t be fearing him now.

  Eleanore was the first to turn away. Her hand was over her mouth and her eyes were closed. It hadn’t been long ago that these same three men had tried to rip her apart from Uriel. They’d tortured her husband and kept him confined in a prison no better than this. And yet to see them destroyed in such a manner was traumatic.

  “What in bloody hell are we dealing with?” Gabriel asked, his brogue in full, emotional tilt.

  “There’s a note,” Max said, his voice cutting through the silence. He moved past the brothers and lifted a small Post-it off a sewing pin that had been pressed into the dead Astaeroth’s chest.

  The yellow square of paper was dotted and curled with blood, but still legible. In neat black print was the word: “Check.”

  Max studied it for a moment and then lowered his arm to look carefully around the room. “Where do you suppose the others are?” he asked.

  “Sleeping, if Az was right about the vampire thing,” Uriel said. He had his arms around Eleanore, whose face was buried in his chest. His green eyes flashed with dangerous emotion.

  “And Sophie?” Michael asked. Someone had to do it.

  “I’m guessing she’s back at her apartment,” said Max, who then handed the Post-it note to Michael without looking at him. He was too busy taking in their surroundings with the careful attentiveness of someone who needed to know who and what they were dealing with.

  Michael looked down at the note. Something was written on the other side. It was an address. “Sophie’s address?” he asked, not knowing it himself.

  “Yes,” said Max. “Whoever did this is not only capable of easily overpowering the Adarians; they also have the ability either to move through the shadows as a vampire would or they have a portal of their own.”

  “Or they don’t need a portal,” said Eleanore in a muffled voice from behind Uriel’s T-shirt.

  Max glanced at her. “Indeed,” he agreed.

  “I know we’re all thinkin’ it, bu’ I’ll say it anyway. This was no’ Sam’s doin’.”

  “No, it wasn’t,” said Max. “It doesn’t fit him.” He shook his head and sighed. “And he was the one who tipped Azrael off as to Sophie’s location. In fact, I’d wager a guess that Samael doesn’t know she’s no longer here.”

  “She’ll be alone,” said Uriel, clearly speaking of the fact that Sophie was at her apartment now.

  Michael had to agree with him. If the beings responsible for the Adarian killings had wanted to hurt Sophie, they would have done so here, on Alcatraz Island. There was no reason to draw the fight to the mainland. Sophie was most likely unaccompanied, and this was all some kind of elaborate game to someone much more powerful than they were.

  “My thoughts exactly,” said Max. He looked at Juliette and his expression softened. “Juliette, I think it would be best if you go to her alone. I cannot even imagine what must be going through her head at the moment.”

  Juliette nodded resolutely. “My thoughts exactly,” she echoed. “If I can’t convince her to come back to the mansion with me, I’ll let you know.”

  “And we’ll bring her back ourselves,” said Michael. Whether Sophie could see the reasoning in it or not, she wasn’t safe anywhere else.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Sophie jumped when there was a knock on her door. She looked up toward the living room and a thousand thoughts chased each other through her head.

  “Sophie?” came a gentle voice from the other side. It was Juliette!

  Sophie’s chest swelled with warmth, but she remained where she was, frozen beside the bed. She glanced down at the suitcase and large leather messenger bag she’d been packing and blinked. The inside of her right hand throbbed. She opened it and gazed at her palm She’d healed the crescent marks her nails had made; it had been easy. But the dandelion dark star remained. She’d forgotten about it; it hadn’t hurt until now.

  “Sophie are you home?” Juliette called again.

  A frisson of irritation thrummed quickly and unexpectedly through Sophie. Her palm twinged with a quick, mild pain, and she blinked. “Yes,” she replied, her mind spinning furiously. “Yeah, give me a sec, Jules! Just getting out of the shower!”

  That was stupid, she berated herself. Your hair’s not even wet.

  Thunder rumbled over the apartment building. She wasn’t thinking clearly. She felt strange. With a frustrated sigh, she ran her hands quickly over her face, shoved her hair out of her eyes, and turned to the hallway that led to the living room. Her leather-soled boots sounded loud on the hardwood floor. A few seconds later, she was unbolting the door and opening it.

  Juliette stood on the threshold, her face pale, her eyes enormous in her beautiful face. She was alone.

  For several long moments, the two young women simply stared at each other. Sophie thought about telling Juliette everything—everything. A part of her was screaming inside, begging to be released so that she could tell Juliette about her foster father and the gun she’d used on him and about Azrael being a vampire and the fact that she was his archess and the bridge and the Adarians and Uro and the fire and finally about the stranger on Alcatraz Island. The man in white.

  But the rest of Sophie was wrapped in silence, strapped down in indecision and a strange, uncomfortably building ire.

  And so she said nothing.

  “Sophie, are . . . are you okay?” Juliette asked, her expression one of baffled hurt and a little fear.

  What am I doing? Sophie asked herself, suddenly realizing that she hadn’t said anything and that there was far too much to say for her to be remaining silent.

  “I . . .” She fumbled for the right words, but her palm ached now and the thunder outside was drawing closer and her mind felt stuffed with cotton. “I don’t know.”

  With that, Juliette was moving forward and pushing Sophie back into the apartment at the same time. Jules shut the door behind her and led Sophie to the couch. Sophie didn’t argue.

  They both sat down and Juliette turned to face her, all seriousness now. “What happened on Alcatraz?” she asked.

  On Alcatraz, Sophie thought. She stared into her best friend’s eyes and it seemed that a bit of the murkiness in her head cleared up a little. She saw the teenage girl . . . and the man in white slitting her throat. And suddenly, without warning, she felt a shuddering sob shake her slim frame to her core.

  Thirty minutes later, Sophie was blowing her nose for the twentieth time and Juliette was handing her a freshly brewed cup of chamomile tea. Juliette had brought a stash of the tea in her purse; obviously she’d known what kind of state Sophie would be in. Juliette was good at that kind of thing.

  Over the course of the last half hour, Sophie had told Juliette everything that she’d wanted to tell her upon seeing her on the threshold of her apartment. She told her about her foster father and her life afterward, about Azrael and the accident on the bridge, and about Gregori and what had happened on the Rock. And then Juliette had told her about the three murdered Adarians found in the jail cell in the prison, which brought the subject back to Gregori.

/>   “He has stars for pupils,” Sophie found herself saying. She’d already told Juliette about how Gregori had nearly killed the innocent teenage girl. She’d described the occurrence in vivid detail; she couldn’t help it. Everything about the incident was painfully clear in her mind’s eye.

  “Jules, you just can’t imagine what he was like. He was simply overwhelming.” She felt out of breath just thinking about the man in white. The way he’d crossed space and time in the blink of an eye, the way he’d gotten into her head, to say nothing of the way he looked—and what he’d done to that girl. She shook her head and shivered violently before closing her eyes and running a shaky hand through her long blond hair.

  Juliette watched her in silence for a moment and then her already troubled expression became decidedly more so. “We have to tell Max about him,” she said. Then she took a deep, bewildered breath and shook her head, briefly closing her eyes and pinching the bridge of her nose. “Now we have a name and a face to put behind the Adarians’ murders. It’s not much, but it’s something.” She sighed, dropping her hand. “Who the hell is he, and what does he want?”

  Sophie watched her friend, taking in the small changes that had come over Juliette in the last few weeks. Jules was a small woman, but her stature seemed to have grown. She radiated a kind of power and confidence that Sophie was fairly sure she herself would never have. Juliette had found where she belonged in the world. She’d learned who she was meant to be and had moved into that role with flawless ease. She’d found happiness. . . . that much was clear. And now something threatened that happiness.

  Sophie couldn’t help but wonder how much of it was her fault. If she hadn’t been born an archess, if she hadn’t somehow found her way to Juliette’s side, if she hadn’t been as messed up as she was, as much of a magnet for trouble as she was—none of this would be happening.

  Her hand tingled, the pain that had been ever present in her palm over the last half hour spreading and lessening, becoming more of a warmth that inched up her wrist.