by Jenn Stark
“She’s pissed off the wrong people.”
“It’s the most likely situation. Interestingly, she doesn’t realize that she’s pissed off the wrong people, to use your terminology. She seems genuinely surprised at being targeted. Her response to both the police and the media was not one of a resolute fighter determined to continue championing her cause. It was a bewildered, horrified reaction to a senseless attack. That’s important.”
Gregori scowled. “You think she’s a stooge,” he said gruffly.
“I think it’s possible. I think it’s also possible that she’s not yet been brought in on the full truth of the scheme in which she’s becoming embroiled. Which takes us to our second option, which is that this little demonstration was orchestrated by the very people who want Stanton’s vote.”
“By killing people? That’s hardly going to win them favor, especially with a junior congresswoman serving her first term.”
“It is if they’re trying to urge Stanton to recognize some security threat that US citizens face. If she’s frightened, she may vote with her fear. That may have been the goal.” The archangel spread his hands. “As you can see, we know so little that we’re forced to speculate, and poorly. We need somebody on the inside.”
“As a security guard.”
“It’s the easiest way to ensure your access to the congresswoman, even in delicate situations, without having to give you a complete crash course on American politics. You also tend to stick out, except in a situation requiring security.”
Gregori narrowed his eyes. Though every demon had some say in their final glamour, there were elements to that glamour that were beyond their control. In his case, Gregori’s sheer size had been accorded to him before he could even fully understand that he’d been transformed from a Fallen angel to a demon. It wasn’t a transition that ever went well, and his had been particularly traumatic. But once he’d gotten past his horror, anger, and self-loathing, or mostly gotten past it, anyway, he’d used his size and strength to his advantage. Especially since joining the Syx.
A knock on the door had him turning, even as Michael whisked out of sight, for once not leaving Gregori with parting instructions. Gregori’s thoughts were immediately diverted from that, however, as the door lock snicked open electronically and his room was breached. Who the hell had such easy access to his room?
Then again, he was a demon. It wasn’t as if the humans could hurt him.
Right?
He stood at attention as a man and a woman in crisp military attire stepped inside his room, followed by Congresswoman Stanton.
Oh…no.
Gregori’s knees nearly buckled.
Clenching his hands tight against the sudden, heart-wrenching surge of emotion that pounded him from all directions, he forced himself to keep his expression neutral. Sucking in a quick, choked breath, he desperately strove to clamp down his instant and confounding reaction and concentrate objectively on the woman in front of him.
No small task, given the roar of blood thundering in his ears.
Focus.
Angela Stanton was a deceptively ordinary female, tall and fit, with dark hair, blue eyes, and fair skin. The kind of woman who’d blend into any crowd, especially in the low-key gray sweater and trousers she currently wore. But her eyes set her apart. They weren’t merely blue, they were a light ice blue that seemed a little too pale for her skin coloring, a little too hard, a little too knowing. They arrested your attention and drew you close, but not too close. The congresswoman would always put on the proper appearance, Gregori suspected, but there was an unquestionable reserve she carried about her person. It was completely at odds with the type of optics-obsessed media courting that was necessary to stage a successful political career. So why was she in politics? Who had gotten her there?
More to the point…what was it about her that pulled at Gregori so fiercely? It was all he could do not to cross the room and take her in his arms. She was attractive, certainly, but humans held no allure for him. Her spirit was strong and vulnerable at once, but how many of God’s children had he encountered in the past six millennia who could claim the same? She was smart, capable, and shimmering with barely controlled pain, and…
And she flat out took his breath away.
Here, in this hotel room bare hours after her life was put in terrible danger, Angela Stanton stood with consummate ease, clearly prepared to execute some cool and calculated agenda she’d already constructed in her mind. Yet all Gregori wanted to do was roar with mindless, primal need and rip apart the entire seething demon horde who’d dared to try to kidnap her.
What was going on?
Behind Angela Stanton, Joe Reynolds bustled in, scowling as he waved the other guards back. “Stand down, stand down,” he muttered before he met Gregori’s gaze. The human’s eyes immediately brightened. He seemed to physically restrain himself from bolting across the room and hugging Gregori, but his smile told the story well enough. “You saved my men, Mr. Stearns. I don’t know how, they don’t know how, but that doesn’t change the truth. I owe you everything for your efforts today.”
The fact that he made this declaration in front of his congresswoman was a testament to the man’s emotions, which struck Gregori like a rolling tide, finally shaking him free of his Angela Stanton thrall. He refocused on Joe, for once welcoming the pain of extreme human sentiment. After so many millennia serving mortals in the direst circumstances imaginable, he had learned to gird himself against the flow of ordinary human feelings. It was only when he was mired in a crowd in the midst of mass hysteria or handling a human whose grief was a keening cry that he felt flayed alive. Still, it wasn’t easy managing any intense emotion, and there was no questioning Joe’s loyalty to his men.
“I’m sorry for your loss of the other two,” Gregori said, dipping his head slightly.
Joe straightened. “They were good men. Eric didn’t have much in the way of family, but Jim did, and they’ll be taken care of. That’s all a man can ask for in our line of work.”
The words were simple, quiet, but they struck Gregori with unexpected force, and this time, he did grimace, taking back a step as he physically absorbed the spear of human emotion that Joe had unwittingly thrown at him. The mortal believed his words through and through, and the image that attended them was unmistakable—Congresswoman Stanton.
Gregori refused to look at her, but he didn’t need to. At this point, her essence had practically been imprinted on his soul. Nevertheless, he refocused on what he knew about the congresswoman.
According to the archangel, in addition to being a highly skilled problem solver whose mental acuity was noted first at the college level, then the CIA, and then at a multinational consulting organization that styled itself as a market research think tank, Angela Stanton had also been a shrewd investor for the past ten years. Regardless of whatever insurance she carried, Gregori suspected she had personal funds to take care of the family of the fallen security guard. The fact that it was a foregone conclusion to Joe that Angela would take care of her own spoke more about the woman than any glossy campaign flyers ever would.
As if she was the one reading him, Angela spoke. “You told one of my aides that you wanted to take the job that I had to offer, but we haven’t discussed any of the details of that job. How do you know I don’t need an extra cook?”
Startled, Gregori shot a glance to her, only to find her studying him intently. He quickly allowed his gaze to slip past her and fix on the far window. “The better question should be, why are you willing to hire me without checking out my credentials? For all you know, I could be a plant, solely positioned at that rally to take advantage of your moment of weakness.”
“Covered that already.” Joe spoke up, waving his cell phone. “You keep a low profile, Mr. Stearns, but I have contacts of contacts, and they have contacts too. Took me a minute, but when the information started coming in, it was rock solid. Military service, contract NGO security, and some freelance work—not to
mention some super questionable time with an organization called DEM Enforcement. Can’t say I’ve ever heard of that group, which scares me a little bit.”
Gregori lifted his brows. Though the members of the Syx rarely needed its help, Michael the Archangel’s earthbound affiliate organization, the Arcana Council, boasted a sizable network of connections worldwide and had a computer genius on staff. Clearly that genius had been put to work this morning to set up Gregori’s fake identity.
“I think it’s safe to say that if you ever have to hear about DEM Enforcement, you’re not in very good shape. So it’s just as well you’re not familiar.” Gregori lifted a hand to rub his jaw. “Can’t say that I’ve ever put that work on any of my résumés, though.”
Joe cackled and waved his phone again, clearly pleased with his research work. “And I’m telling you, you don’t work as long as I have in this industry without making some friends in both high and low places. Bottom line, we’re good.”
“So what would the work entail?” Gregori asked.
Angela’s energy changed just slightly, alerting Gregori to the fact she was about to lie in some way as she began speaking. “As you know all too well, I’ve lost nearly my entire security team today, so we’ll be gearing up on a couple of different fronts. But I assure you, I don’t expect today’s excitement to be a regular occurrence. Most of the time, Joe’s bored out of his mind. I’ll need you to accompany me to press events, steak dinners, traveling back and forth through Washington as needed, especially for the next little while until this all dies down. You’re going to attract some attention because of your size, but I don’t mind that so much. After today, I want people to have to think twice before they use my presence as an excuse to harm people.”
Joe sighed. “Angela, it’s not your fault,” he said quietly, and she shook her head.
“It’s close enough to my fault that it doesn’t really matter,” she replied, her voice clipped. “There’s absolutely nothing that I’m working on that should have occasioned this kind of response. And I am not a touchstone for most hate groups. I’m very aware of my privilege and I’m grateful for the safety that has accorded me, but I am exactly what I appear to be: middle-class, overeducated, fortunate.”
Gregori didn’t miss Joe’s eye roll, but Angela’s attention remained focused on him. “Are you available right away?”
As if compelled, he met her gaze, and something shifted in his chest, hard and deep. He could barely breathe for a long, harrowing moment, but Angela blinked and glanced away first.
“I can start this second,” he said.
5
Angela waited for the security guard to scan her and Gregori, then continued down the walkway toward the nondescript series of conference rooms where she typically met with the members of the House Disaster and Defense Technology Committee. Like everything else in her freshman year as a representative, she’d been surprised to be tapped to join the committee, but she’d wasted no time saying yes. She’d waited for weeks after accepting the position to get some clue as to who had recommended her to the position, but no one had come forward. No one had called her phone, then mysteriously hung up after breathing heavily either, or eyed her oddly in the House cafeteria.
So she’d begun attending meetings, reading all the endless reports on the technological underpinning of federal disaster relief efforts and domestic terrorism defense case studies, while her mind remained on absolute overdrive to figure out the mysterious benefactor who was guiding her so obviously on this track. In truth, it was the obviousness of her positioning that made it the most intriguing. It wasn’t a question of whether her suspicions were correct, it was only how long it would take until the next shoe dropped. And whether that shoe would be a stiletto or a steel-toed boot.
As he had since their first outing, Gregori walked a half step behind her. He’d assured her from the get-go that his best location would be behind her, not before or even to the side, because he could see what was coming toward her on three sides, while no one would approach from behind without him sensing it. She hadn’t believed him at first, but a few run-throughs with Joe had quickly changed her mind. Gregori seemed to have eyes in the back of his head, and his speed in moving to her side to protect her from a flanking or frontal attack was astounding. He’d even managed to block Joe’s laser-strike-simulated sniper hits, though he refused to wear Kevlar. She’d eventually stood down on that request. The assailants from the rally had never taken a shot at her. She decided it was statistically unlikely they’d do so if they approached her a second time.
They reached the outer lobby of the cluster of conference rooms where her committee met. There were already a half-dozen security personnel there, standing or sitting throughout the room. Not every congressperson felt the need to have twenty-four seven security, and before this week, Angela hadn’t either. It seemed a little self-important to her, but she couldn’t deny she felt more secure with Gregori on the team and with her people dogging her heels on the regular. Though no one realized it, not even Joe, the way the intruders at the rally had moved frightened her on nearly a soul-deep level, and she didn’t know why. She’d endured far worse than being accosted by a group of thugs with guns. But something about these particular thugs had been…odd. Unnatural. And eerily familiar.
“You’ll be okay here?” she asked as Gregori scanned the room. “I’ll be in conference room B the whole time. Meetings can last up to three hours, or at least that’s been the longest so far.”
He grunted his assent. “No other exits?”
“No. If we need to use the restroom or take a call, we come through here. There’s no Wi-Fi or anything available except for on a secured network.” She grimaced. “I’m afraid it’s going to feel like you’re waiting an eternity out here.”
A wry smile ghosted across Gregori’s face. “I suspect not. Is there any threat from the people on your committee?”
Angela pursed her lips, considering the question. “It’s a fair concern, but no. No weapons are allowed through security, no electronics. All documentation is strictly paper. I mean, someone could shiv me with a ballpoint pen, but they’d still have to escape through here.”
“The guns at the rally made it through security,” Gregori observed mildly.
“True, but our security is a little more exact here—fewer people come through these halls, any one of whom could turn out to be a deep-planted terrorist. That tends to make people pay more attention.” She opened her leather bag and pulled out a thick file. “Here. I figured you might need some light reading while you were waiting.”
She handed the file over, and Gregori took it. She noticed he wasn’t wearing gloves. Immediately, she cataloged the instance in her running tally of his actions and behaviors. She’d thought at first he wore gloves constantly whenever they were out in public, but she’d amended that generality. It seemed he only wore gloves when they would be spending an inordinate amount of time in a truly public space, particularly one in which there was a guarantee of a lot of people. Walking through the park, for instance, or crossing the National Mall. Since it was June and the tourists were out in force, all the public areas of Washington, DC were particularly crowded. Angela had made a point of being seen outside as much as possible, underscoring her lack of concern about any further targeting by terrorists or whatever they were calling the assailants at the rally. Every time she did, Gregori had worn gloves.
But he wasn’t wearing gloves now and typically didn’t any time they were predominantly inside the Capitol building or meeting in places like this, where the flow of humanity dropped to a mere trickle. She’d noticed he didn’t wear gloves during the execution of random errands or when touching weapons or food, though she hadn’t seen him eat much. The sunbaked metal or leather of her limo didn’t make him flinch either. Which meant that it was exclusively human contact he wanted to avoid. Which was…interesting.
“Ms. Stanton?”
She looked up and realized that Randall Se
verin, a senior congressman who’d chaired the committee for the past six years, was solicitously holding the door open for her. She smiled, barely catching Gregori’s rumble of concern as she turned from him.
She glanced back. “What?”
“Nothing,” he said, shaking his head. His expression remained neutral, open, so there would be no reason for Randall to feel judged, but Angela’s neck prickled at the tone of Gregori’s voice. “I get a sense of people sometimes, part of the job. He serves many different masters.”
She lifted her brows. “Most politicians do, sad to say. We’ll talk more when you’ve read through everything, okay? I value your opinion.”
She didn’t miss the surprise in Gregori’s quick glance, but she knew enough not to hold his gaze. For one thing, she couldn’t police her own reactions when she met his eyes. Invariably, her heart rate increased, her face flushed, and her hands trembled for no good reason. But beyond that, meeting Gregori’s eyes truly seemed to unsettle the man. She added that piece of information to her mental log as well. Perhaps he was on the autism spectrum? She’d never heard of a high-functioning military veteran with autistic tendencies, but that didn’t mean one didn’t exist. In fact, it would be an interesting discussion to see…
She shook herself as she moved toward Randall Severin, trim and somber in his well-cut suit and wing-tipped shoes, his crisp salt-and-pepper hair the perfect complement to his aristocratic, weathered face. She needed to stay focused on the issue at hand. “Randall.”
“Angela. I’m so glad you’re safe.”
She murmured her thanks as he stepped back to let her enter the conference room. She’d heard a version of these sentiments many times over the last several days, Republicans and Democrats alike wanting to know the details of her assault. She saw a similar interest in the two other members of their committee, who both immediately started talking, each asking the same question in different ways.
