by J. T. Hardy
He's cute like that. I twitched. Stay out of my head, horrifically inappropriate thoughts.
I had liked it better when Pretty Boys were just vampires. A lifetime of books and movies told me how to kill a vampire. I had no idea what to do to fight an angel--no one had written a TV series about that. I sneaked a peek at Daniel's waist, but the blade wasn't there. He had to have it on him, though.
"I have a question." Libby held up one finger. "Are there any female angels?"
"Yes, but none of them sinned." He took a deep breath and turned back to me. "Kokabiel knows you're here. He won't leave until he has you."
"Does he expect trouble from us?"
He snorted, but there was no anger in it. "No. He doesn't view you as a threat, but a prize."
"What about you?"
"I view you as a gift."
Uh, not what I was asking. "I meant, does he consider you a threat."
"Ah. I'm an inconvenience, though I may be verging on irksome."
"Banish a few more of his buddies and he might change his mind about you, too."
"A worthy endeavor."
Libby sat up and walked over, then perched on the edge of the desk. She looked a hundred times better, more sure of herself and like the Libby who'd backed me up when she had no good reason to do so.
I smiled. "Welcome back."
"Thank you." She crossed her arms and fixed her gaze on Daniel. "These servants and allies--they're angels like you?"
"More or less."
Libby looked him over with a critical eye. "You seem on the more side of angel than less."
He said nothing, but I could sense the imperceptible squirm. If angels had minions and leaders, it made sense that some would be stronger than others.
She elbowed me gently. "Sister Mary Margaret was one tough nun, but she was a good teacher, and some of those Old Testament stories were better than what's on the bestseller lists. And from what she taught us, priests don't call angels demons and wave crosses in their faces."
Daniel scowled at her. "I'm not a vampire. Not every fanciful story you've heard is true."
"You're no angel either," she said, head cocked to one side.
He glowered, and the temperature in the room dropped at least ten degrees. I tensed. "Um, Libby?"
"Grace, he's a fallen angel. The ones kicked out of Heaven."
Daniel growled and the walls rippled. I scooted closer to Libby. "I can't yell at priests but you can disrespect an angel?" I whispered.
She turned to Daniel, some healthy fear finally sinking into her brain. "Oh, sorry about that. Still processing. This is weird."
Tell me about it. The only fallen angel I knew was bright red and carried a pitchfork.
"Daniel," I said, drawing his attention back to me. I really didn't like the way he was scowling at Libby. "You got kicked out of Heaven for helping humanity?"
"More or less." He crossed his arms, and the room flickered again. Maybe it wasn't wise to push the angry fallen angel.
"Then why are you helping me now?"
His tough-guy facade crumbled a bit, and his hand dropped to his lap. "Penance." Despair darkened his features, but he glanced at the empty mirror and a flicker of hope brightened it.
"Protecting me is penance?" Not sure how I felt about being someone's punishment.
"It's just."
"Just what?"
He stared at me. Libby clucked her tongue.
"Oh. Right."
Nothing Rabbi Cohen taught me for my bat mitzvah had prepared me for this. I had a million questions, and nearly every single one of them didn't matter. I had to stick with the questions that did.
"This is insane," Libby cried, hands in the air. "Angels."
"I know."
"Angels killing people and draining their blood for a ritual? It's fucked up."
I nodded. "Fucked up angels with fangs."
"Fangels?"
Daniel scowled at us both. "You're not taking the threat seriously," he said.
"Yes I am."
Libby nodded, but she still looked pale and shaken. "That's true. She's utterly ignoring the larger ramifications of this conversation, but we were ready for that fight and we saved your ass."
"He also kinda saved ours," I whispered to her.
"Shh."
"Getting lucky doesn't mean you're prepared," he said. "Or capable of fighting what we are. Kokabiel will tear the world apart to find Grace. She must be protected at all costs."
"I'm tired of living in a box."
"Please trust me. It's best for everyone if you stay here and let me protect you."
"No, not when we're this close. I don't know where you've been looking, but that haughty marble-assed freak has got to be a local boy, and I really think his evil lair is nearby."
"He's not--"
"I found red sandstone pebbles unique to Sedona outside my father's door, and more of them at the home of another victim--one of the women Eddie and Zack were watching." I smirked. Gotcha. "The minions work for you, I take it."
"I don't have minions."
"No, you're just allied with others." Two sides, one trying to find people with the right blood for a ritual, the other, trying to save the people from--no, not save. Protect. Once Kokabiel snatched them they were on their own. Stupid if one of them might actually end the world. "Are you going to help me or not?"
His threw his hands in the air just as Libby had done. "I'm trying to help you, but you won't listen."
"If it won't help me find my father it's the wrong kind of help."
I turned and marched toward the door. The crime scene was still fresh, so there might be more clues in the plaza to Kokabiel's whereabouts. If not, we'd head into the canyons where all the hikers had gone missing, and we'd turn over every red rock until we found something creepy underneath.
Daniel blurred to my side and grabbed my wrist, firm, but more gently than his zip across the room implied. "Grace, please."
"Let go." I tucked my hand behind my back and slipped on my knuckledusters.
"If you pursue him, he'll--"
I swung, cracking him right across the jaw. He flew back with an ooof and landed on the bed.
"How did...?" Daniel rubbed his jaw, eyes and mouth wide. The fact that he'd stayed down proved he was weaker than he'd let on, despite the showy zipping about. No wonder he didn't want me leaving.
"You should see her left hook," Libby called back, and we stormed out of the room.
Chapter Sixteen
As we rode the elevator down, Libby and I just stared at each other. Eyes locked, a kind of shared insanity that transcended society, family, even friendship. A new reality clicked into place around us.
"Holy crap, what did we fall into?" I asked.
"Looks like holy crap to me."
The doors opened into the lobby. The chaos outside had calmed down a little. News crews were still wandering around, but the police presence was small considering what had just happened. It was odd, but maybe without evidence that anything had gone down, there wasn't much they could do.
I cut through the lobby and went out the door. The valet handed us both bottles of water and we took them. Dehydration was just as dangerous as Pretty Boys in the desert. We cautiously made our way back to the plaza. The big clock above the courtyard read eight twenty-five, and it seemed busy for a Tuesday night that had just experienced a supernatural event.
"What do we do about Daniel?" Libby ducked around a trio of elderly women in straw hats. "I admire a good storming off, but he does make strong backup."
"I know, my temper got away from me. Don't worry, I'm sure he'll be lurking around before long." Lurking was unfair. He was protecting me. I should be grateful someone was watching over us, but it ticked me off anyway. "I'll apologize later."
Dad must have known all these years who Daniel was. Maybe he didn't know he was a freaking angel, but he'd considered himself a good Catholic and rarely missed a Sunday at church, even when I'd stopped going to t
emple. His old Bible showed up at every apartment we stayed at, same as his crucifix and rosary beads, plus all those trinkets in the glove box. Oh sure, he downplayed it all and claimed they were weapons against the Pretty Boys, but obviously that had been bullshit.
Libby trotted along beside me. "Where are we going?"
"Scene of the crime to look for clues." A mundane task after revelations of, well, Revelations, but hitting the pavement and following the evidence had gotten us here.
I stopped where time had frozen and scanned the area, then gave it a good sniff. Nothing smelled burnt, but Southwestern spiciness drifted through the air. Libby stood back-to-back with me and we rotated slowly as one.
It looked normal, which was weird all on its own. People ought to be scared, freaked out, hiding in their rooms and terrified to come out, but everyone shopped and walked and talked like there hadn't been a huge angel throw-down right here less than half an hour ago.
How powerful were those time stops?
"Is it me," Libby said, "or is it too calm out here?"
"I was just thinking the same thing. Maybe it was the time stop."
"Come again?"
"You didn't notice that before? Kokabiel froze the whole plaza right before he jumped us."
She turned back around and faced me. "I don't remember that."
"You remember a bunch of Pretty Boys appearing out of nowhere and starting a fight, right?"
Her face wrinkled, eyes troubled. "Yes, but it's fuzzy. I remember you were in trouble, and we got the holy water, and I shot that guy. I don't remember them showing up."
This was new. I'd never spoken with anyone who'd witnessed a time stop before. I had theories, of course, but they were just that. What else could the Pretty Boys do?
"The legends say Pretty Boys can cloud men's minds." That would explain why no one was running around crying the apocalypse was upon us. And why so few people throughout history had ever seen a vampire or an angel.
"I think that's The Shadow."
I huffed. "Same principle. They put the whammy on everyone so people forget they were here and what they did."
It didn't, however, explain why it hadn't affected me. I'd never been frozen, not even when it had been one on one. I didn't think Dad had either, otherwise I'd have noticed it long before this. And Mom? Had she been "special" like us, too?
"Well that's disturbing," Libby muttered. "I don't like having my mind messed with."
Very disturbing. I'd never felt normal in my life, but I never suspected I had a legitimate reason for it. "Uh, I don't think they did anything to your mind, it's more like your perception they screwed with."
"Just as bad. I see a few security cameras," she said, pointing them out to me. "Maybe they didn't affect digital perceptions. We might get a license plate number off the van." She brightened a little. "Though if no one remembers the fight, then the police have no reason to check the security footage, so we won't show up on the news."
"Maybe we can get a peek at those recordings." The right sad story could get us access. We could claim a missing sister. The truth might even work if a missing father tugged at the heartstrings.
Not that getting a license plate number would help. I didn't know a single person who could run it for us.
Libby walked to the edge of the street and stared out toward the mountains. "Do you remember which way they went?"
I pointed. "Only one way to go, really."
"There was a van?"
Oh boy. "A white one."
"I hate this. I can't trust my own brain."
"Maybe it'll come back to you."
I didn't know how many traffic cameras covered the streets between here and Boynton Canyon, but someone with connections to law enforcement could access them and see how far the van drove, and maybe pinpoint where they'd turned. That could help narrow our search area.
If we were incredibly lucky--and Kokabiel was incredibly stupid--there might even be an address on file at the DMV. The van had to come from somewhere.
Of course, the odds of that were the same as the odds of me gaining access to such records, so it was a moot point. We needed resources we didn't have.
"Damn," I said.
Libby tensed, eyebrows raised. "Problems?"
"If Cavanaugh really is an investigator working for a larger organization, he might have law enforcement connections who could get us that footage, and find out who owns the van--maybe even track it if it passed enough traffic cameras. He did say he knew a cop in Florida who'd helped him."
"You may have burned that bridge."
"I don't know. He wants to find his missing woman--I want to find my dad. He has to be as frustrated as we are." He'd followed me to another state, so clearly he wasn't giving up yet.
"What do you have against him?" Libby asked.
"He's arrogant. Doesn't like to share."
She chuckled and held up her hands. "And you do? He's chasing monsters. I had to threaten you to get any information and I'm your friend. You've disliked the poor guy since you met him."
"He asks too many questions."
"He's looking for a missing person, same as you."
I bristled, turning away and taking refuge on a nearby bench. I had no answer for her. At least none that made any sense. Cavanaugh set off every one of my warning flags, made me want to sneak out the back door and disappear, put me on my guard the moment I heard his name let alone his voice.
"I don't trust him," I said at last, weak as the answer was.
Libby wrapped an arm around my shoulders and gave me a squeeze. "You don't have to trust him to work with him. You need his intel, and the woman he's looking for needs your help same as your father does."
No way I could argue with that without looking like a heartless witch. Anita Rosenberg was in trouble, and as much as I pretended I didn't remember her name or that she wasn't important, painful questions had been slithering into my mind for days now. Did she have a family? A daughter who missed her and wondered what had happened to her? I knew Ivy Helgarson's family was out of their minds with worry.
Besides, Cavanaugh had found me in Lauderdale, and made the blood connection, so he was a decent investigator. I supposed I did owe him the benefit of the doubt.
"Okay, fine, you win," I mumbled. His phone rang four times before he answered.
"Good evening, Ms. Harper. Apologies for not getting back to you yet. My colleague is still being difficult, so I thought it best if we had a face-to-face conversation. It's taking longer than anticipated."
"That's fine. Listen, I could use a little help getting some security footage from local street cams. Could your contact at the Tallahassee police department help us out?"
"I could ask, though I don't know how much pull she has with the Vegas police."
"It's not Vegas. I'm in Sedona now."
Dead silence for far too long. "Sedona."
Not a question, and he sounded as wary as I now felt. "Yes. That mean something to you?"
"I had no idea you'd left Nevada."
And that wasn't an answer. "The blood trail led to Sedona, so we followed it. I think our missing people are here or close by."
More uncomfortable silence. "I see."
I covered the mic on the phone with my hand. "Something's off," I whispered. "He's quietly wigging out about us being here."
Libby's eyes widened. "He knows something, then."
I agreed. I hesitated a breath longer. Maybe I was going about this the wrong way. "You know what? Why don't we work together on this. Compare notes, consolidate clues. We're basically on the same case, so we might as well share." Especially any clues he was holding back about Sedona.
"I think that's a very good idea," he said without pause. "Meet you in the morning?"
"Meet me?" I'd expected to share info over the phone. This was starting to feel a little stalker-y. First, he tracked me down in Lauderdale, then he followed me to Vegas, and now this?
"If Anita Rosenberg is being held
in Sedona, I should be there to help find her, don't you agree? After all, we are on the same case."
"Yes, that does make sense." So why didn't I like it? My natural distrust of everyone, or a lifetime of sniffing out danger? I could make this work, though.
I glanced around. A café sign on the tour shop on the corner said they served breakfast and opened at seven. "Is seven-thirty too early for you? We have another lead to chase down and need to get moving at first light."
"Tell me where to be."
I gave him the address and hung up. "He's meeting us in the morning."
"He's coming here?"
"I know, it's weird, right? He says it's to help find the Rosenberg woman."
"Could be true. He acts like he cares." Libby scanned the street like a pro. "We really ought to continue this in private though. We're too exposed out here."
"You're right." I really needed to get more sleep. "But there's one stop I'd like to make first."
"For?"
"If we're going after big game, we'll need bigger guns."
She grinned. "I'll call Uncle Roberto."
"I have a better idea."
Chapter Seventeen
Morning dawned gray and pale. The temp had plummeted overnight, and a bite in the air promised either icy rain or a light snow before the day was over. The bright red rocks of Sedona stood dusky and dark, foreboding more than majestic. Even the birds sang softly under their little bird breaths.
I still hadn't seen Daniel, but I caught a hint of spice and smoke when the wind blew strong. I couldn't tell if after all these years of watching me he knew well enough to stay out of sight, or if he just didn't want to argue with me anymore.
Libby and I waited for Cavanaugh at the barely-more-than-a-coffee-shop café I'd seen last night, right next to a small public parking lot. Our breakfast had come and gone before the sky changed colors. I hadn't spotted anyone suspicious so far, and neither had Libby.
We were fairly certain we didn't look suspicious either.
No sign of Pretty Boy activity, but then, there never was until the world froze around you.
The café might have been tiny, but the coffee was top-notch. I'd only had generic coffee before, but this was silky and smooth and everything you want when you need a moment of caffeinated bliss before the day starts kicking your ass.
