Chicago

by Tiffany Aaron

  “I wasn’t thinking, obviously. I just get so tired of being manipulated by Mika’il.” William glared at Celeste and rubbed his chest.

  “These manipulations aren’t his choice,” Dominic pointed out. “He takes orders from a higher power. He lobbies God every minute of each day to allow us back in. I, for one, will never forget that, even on days when I’d rather strangle him than talk to him.”

  William hung his head. “I’m sorry. I know he does a lot to help us.”

  “As for challenging Christian?” Dominic slapped William upside the head. “What the hell were you thinking? If he chose to, there is no way we could have stopped him from hurting you. Tread carefully around him. Each day I see the darkness growing stronger in him. You do realize that if he ever goes over the edge, we’ll be sent to kill him. Lucifer must never have all that power at his command.”

  Adam spoke up. “I think we’re all tense waiting for the other shoe to drop. I think we need to go out and relax. Find a nice restaurant, go to a club or two and dance.”

  Danielle agreed with him. “I’ll make reservations at Maggiano’s for eight. That’ll give us all enough time to get ready. You all feel like Italian?”

  The rest agreed. She made the reservations while the others put away the skeleton. When they were all ready to go, everyone was laughing and looking forward to a relaxing night.

  * * * *

  Grant woke, reaching for the angel in his dream. Danielle touched his cheek.

  “You’re crying. What’s wrong?”

  He pulled her close and settled back. “When I found Ferguson’s skeleton, I was overwhelmed with a feeling of déjà vu. It was as if I had been in that position before, but I don’t ever remember being on my knees like he was. Also, there seemed to be almost desperation in the way his hands were pressed together. That night after we had documented and moved the bones, I fell into a deep sleep. Then I started dreaming.” He fell silent.

  “Dreaming about what?” She ran her hand over his chest in soothing strokes.

  “I’m kneeling in the middle of a large white room. There’s a desk at one end and two windows in the wall at the other end. In front of me stands an angel dressed in armor. He has dark hair and silver eyes.”

  She gasped. “Mika’il.”

  “Yes, but I didn’t know that at the time. We don’t talk. He just stands there staring down at me with the saddest expression. Then he disappears along with the room and I wake up crying. I always feel like I’ve lost something.”

  “What happened this time?”

  “This time I knew his name, so I told him. He nodded and told me I had forgotten my name, but I’d remember when I got to Heaven.”

  “Remember your name? That’s strange.” She looked up at him with a frown.

  “I know. He said my name was Grant for now and that I loved you.”

  Her blue eyes widened and she looked stunned. He cupped her cheek, smiling down at her. “He was right. I couldn’t argue with him. I love you and it doesn’t matter about all of this other shit. We’ll get all these strangers out of here, then we’ll focus on ourselves. There’s so much I want to learn about you. Imagine all the history you’ve been through. I want to know everything.”

  Tears trailed down her cheeks and he wiped them away with his thumbs. He laid her back and leaned down to kiss her. He worshiped her lips with tender licks and soft nibbles. He took his time tasting every inch of her body. He kissed, teased and suckled her breasts until her nipples were hard and red. He moved down and dipped his tongue into her belly button causing her to giggle. When Grant passed over her pussy to start kissing her toes, Danielle pouted, but soon she was moaning as he trailed his tongue along the sensitive skin at the back of her knees. He nipped the silky skin on her inner thighs as she spread them.

  He settled down between her legs and started to feast on her. He nibbled her clit with delicate nips. She pleaded with him to take her. He savored her, imprinting her taste and scent in his mind. With his tongue and fingers, he drove her over the edge and into her orgasm.

  As she was coming down, he slid his cock into her warm pussy. Rocking in an easy movement, he showed her how much he loved her with his body and his lips. He told her of his love as he rode her into her second climax—this one was soft and tender.

  Grant’s climax snuck up on him, exploding throughout his body and nerves. He cried out his love to her as he spilled into her.

  Chapter Twelve

  “The crate’s here,” Grant told them all after he hung up the phone.

  They had been wandering in and out of the museum while waiting for the bones and jewels to get there. They gathered around as the crate was brought in. Signing for it, Grant smiled at the look of anticipation on the others’ faces. He was just as eager as they were to see the emeralds.

  After the delivery men left, he gestured for Dominic and William to open the crate. They lowered the top to the floor. Everyone had cotton gloves on so they could handle the bones without worrying. He didn’t want the oils from their hands destroying the skeleton. Nevan was standing by, keeping an eye on everything.

  Each piece of the skeleton was unwrapped and checked out, but Abby was the one who hit the jackpot when she picked up a slender wing bone to unwrap it. A package fell out of the wrapping paper and Nevan grabbed it before any of the rest of them could get to it. They gathered around him as he stood at a table, carefully revealing what was hidden beneath the paper.

  Abby gasped as the emeralds began to shine under the lab lights. “They look like my necklace.” She pulled a heart-shaped pendant from under her shirt.

  The clarity of the gems outshone anything Grant had ever seen. The stones themselves weren’t large, but each was equal in size to the others in the set. Picking the ring up, Adam held it up to the light, studying it.

  “I’ve seen some nice jewels in my life of crime and these are some of the nicest. I can see why the buyer would want them.” His eyes gleamed.

  “Give that to me,” Nevan ordered, jerking the ring from Adam’s hand. “Never trust a reformed thief. Never know what might pull them back to the dark side.”

  Adam glared at him, then smiled. “That’s okay. I’ve got nicer jewels than that in my safe at home.”

  Celeste shook her head. “Can we get back to the business at hand? Now that we have the jewels, the trap is set and Adam’s given them the bait. Should we all meet back here right before closing? We need to be in place before the museum empties for the night, so Diggston doesn’t get suspicious if he’s watching.”

  “The rest of you can come back if you want,” Grant said. He pointed to the rest of the bones in the crate. “I need to finish unpacking these, then see about getting the skeleton laid out with the bones in the right places.”

  “I’ll be here with some of my men around four-thirty. We’ll come in separately and rendezvous here.” Nevan waved to them before leaving to get his officers ready.

  “We’re taking Abby and Teresa to a ball game, but we’ll be back in plenty of time,” William said as he and Dominic led their fiancées out of the lab.

  Adam and Celeste had made plans to meet up with some friends for lunch. Soon it was just Danielle and him. She smiled at him, then touched Ferguson’s skull gently.

  “You’re so careful with him,” she said.

  “He might be dead, but he still deserves respect. I’d do the same with any skeleton I found.” Looking down at the fragile wing bone he held in his hand, he admitted, “There seems to be something different about this one. It’s almost like he’s family. I don’t want to do anything to destroy the bone or damage him in any way.”

  After setting the bone down, he reached in the crate for another one. With a nonchalance he didn’t feel, he asked her, “Do you know what will happen to the skeleton once everything is taken care of?”

  She shrugged. “I’m not sure. If Mika’il can come back, he’ll probably take the bones with him. They’ll be buried somewhere no one will ever
find them. I’m not sure the world is ready for proof that angels exist.”

  “Wouldn’t it be easier for you if people did believe in you?”

  “I doubt it would. Mortals have been taught since man first thought about God that fallen angels are pure evil. There are no gray areas in their minds to accept the fact that fallen angels might be just like them. We have the unrepentant, the neutrals and the Enforcers. As you’ve seen with Christian, some of the Enforcers are only steps away from insanity, and not all the unrepentant are evil.”

  Grant could tell talking about her brethren bothered Danielle and he assumed it was because of Christian. He decided to change the subject. “How long have you lived in Chicago?”

  “I came in 1893 for the Columbian Exposition and never left. It was a great town, rowdy and bursting with life. I had lived in Virginia during the Civil War, risking my life to help runaway slaves. I needed a rest from Reconstruction.” She pointed to a poster of the Chicago skyline on the wall. “I stayed and watched that skyline take shape. It’s my city. The only place, besides Heaven, where I’ve ever felt at peace.”

  He understood how she felt because from the moment he stepped foot in the Field Museum, he’d wanted to work there. “I feel the same way about the museum.”

  “Things have changed lately. Now if I had to leave Chicago, I’d be fine. As long as I was with you, it wouldn’t matter where I lived.”

  Her smile beckoned him and he kissed her. Pulling back, he said, “Let’s go to the aquarium and grab lunch.”

  “Okay.”

  He secured the bones in the vault, then locked the lab. A plainclothes police officer stood guard at the end of the hallway. He nodded at them as they walked by.

  “I meant to ask you. If fallen aren’t supposed to interfere in the problems of mortals, why are your friends helping out?” He held her hand as they walked over to the Shedd’s Aquarium.

  “Some rules are made to be broken especially when the problem involves someone you care about. It’s as simple as that, and I think Mika’il knew that when he made the silly rule.” She waited until they were done paying before she continued, “Of course, he could have figured the best way to get us to help out is to tell us not to. We’re a contrary bunch sometimes.”

  He chuckled. “I’d have never guessed.”

  “It’s what got us in trouble in the first place.”

  They wandered around, looking at the tanks that held all the different fish. They didn’t really talk about anything important, just causal things. He told her about his family. Mom and Dad were living in a retirement community down in Florida. His younger sister was working as a waitress out in L.A. waiting to be discovered. He told her how he had always wanted to be an archaeologist after visiting a museum that had an archaeologist on staff in his hometown in Michigan. The guy had made archaeology seem fun, even though at the time, he’d been disappointed that it wasn’t more like the Indiana Jones movies. He’d become fascinated with the journey of discovering things left behind by ancient people. Never once through his long schooling to acquire his PhD had he ever think about changing his mind. Digging in the dirt was his idea of a great day.

  When they got their food at the café and sat down to eat, his throat was sore and he realized he had done all the talking. After taking a sip from his drink, he smiled at her.

  “Is there anything you want to tell me about yourself?”

  Her eyes had been sparkling with laughter. Now the light died out, leaving only seriousness. “I’ve lived for so long, I can’t begin to explain to you where I’ve been and what I’ve done.”

  “How did you get an original Da Vinci? It’s not one I remember being listed in any books on him.” He thought he’d help her out. He imagined thousands of centuries of life would get wound together.

  “Leonardo drew it for me. I was living in Florence and happened to be a friend of the lady who sat for his famed Mona Lisa. I was always present when she sat for him. We got to be good friends. He was a genius and so far ahead of his time—if people knew everything he did, he would have been burned at the stake as a witch.” She looked down at her food, then back up at him. “Leonardo knew what I was. Somehow he saw through the façade I showed to the world and saw the wings that I used to wear.”

  “The angel in the drawing? It’s you.” Thinking about it, the shape of the woman’s face and the color of her eyes were just like Danielle’s, but it was the heart wrenching sadness hidden in her gaze that he recognized.

  “Yes. It was shortly before he finished the Mona Lisa that I decided to leave Florence. I had been there too long. It was time to move on and I hadn’t planned on telling anyone I knew. I went with my friend to his studio for the last time. Right before we left, he pulled me aside and gave me the rolled parchment. He told me it was so I’d never forget what I once was and to keep me striving to retain what I’d lost.” Tears shone in her eyes.

  “And the statue on your end table? Adam told me it was a real Michelangelo.”

  “He didn’t like the statue. Thought it was the worst piece of sculpture he’d ever done.” Shaking her head, she grinned. “I met him early in his career. He was perfecting the magnificence you can see in every piece he has made. I begged him to allow me to keep it. He gave it to me after making me promise not to tell anyone it was one of his.”

  “You’re telling me now.”

  “And Michelangelo has been dead for centuries. He won’t be back to haunt me. A master craftsman has created each piece in my house. The quilts on the beds were hand-stitched two hundred years ago by women traveling out to settle the west. I know the stories attached to each piece because I was there and lived it with the people who made them.”

  “Have you ever been in love before?” He wasn’t sure why he had to ask and he didn’t know how he would react to the answer, but he had to know.

  Danielle took his hand, brushing her lips over his knuckles. “Since I’ve been around so long, you would think my heart might have been broken before. No, I’ve never fallen in love with anyone. It’s been easier to skim through life. My friendships might be strong, but I don’t stick around long because people notice when you don’t age like they do. My girlfriends here are wonderful. I’ve gotten to the point where I’m willing to risk a little to have people to talk to and hang out with. The ache when you lose a friend is a little smaller than the hole that’s in your heart when you lose a loved one.”

  Relief raced through him then another thought hit him. “What happens when I die?”

  Sorrow touched her eyes for a moment. “I go on without you, I guess. It’ll hurt and I’ll miss you every day for the rest of my life, but I wouldn’t miss loving you to save myself from the pain. I figured that out while watching Dominic and Teresa overcome their problems. Love isn’t love unless you’re willing to risk having your heart broken.”

  “That sucks,” he said.

  “I know.” Glancing down at her watch, she commented, “We need to get back. The others will be filtering in soon.”

  Nodding, he took their trash to throw away. While standing at the trashcan, he looked up and saw a tall, dark-haired man standing by the dolphin pool. As if he knew he was being watched, the man turned and looked up at him. Sunlight streamed through the glass walls and highlighted the silver of the man’s eyes. With a smile and a nod of the head, the man disappeared. Grant met Danielle at the entrance of the aquarium.

  “I think I just saw Mika’il,” he told her as they made their way back through the park to the museum.

  “I wouldn’t doubt it. Just because he can’t interfere doesn’t mean he won’t be around watching. He hovers like a mother hen sometimes. I’ve often gotten the feeling that Mika’il has another secret agenda that he’s pursuing along with all these other adventures he puts us through.” She smiled fondly. “Mika’il does his best to keep us out of trouble.”

  “Why did you rebel?”

  “I listened to Lucifer’s diatribes about angels being superior to
mortals and how we needed to unify and show God that we were more precious to Him than humans. It was stupid, because God is like a parent who has several kids. Sure, He might have a favorite among them, but that doesn’t mean He loves the others any less.”

  “I never thought of it that way.” It made sense to him.

  “I know, and none of us did either until it was too late.” She looked at him and shrugged.

  * * * *

  As they walked in, Celeste and Adam were returning as well, and Celeste pointed out the dinosaur.

  “When we got here the other day, I was telling Adam that I ran into one of those a long time ago.”

  Grant looked surprised and Danielle laughed.

  “We’ve been around a long time, love.” Danielle kissed his cheek.

  “I know, but for some reason, I’ve never associated you with dinosaurs.”

  “We stayed out of their way and they ignored us. We didn’t even register on their radar.” She shook her head and exchanged a wry smile with Celeste. “It was tough living through the climate shift that killed them.”

  “Do you believe in evolution or creation?” Adam asked Grant with a smart-ass grin on his face.

  “Well, before I found the skeleton and met Danielle, I’d tell you I was a strong believer in the evolution theory. Now, you’ve all proven that there is a God.”

  “God breathed life into man. What form man had when he took his first breath isn’t important. You should all be thanking Him every day. He chose to give you life.” Danielle winked at Grant.

  He laughed. “You’re right.”

  Nevan was talking to the plainclothes officer who had been guarding the door. He followed them in after Grant opened the lab.

  “Davidson out there said no one came by while he was here. He’s going to move into one of the rooms across the hall. My men have all moved into position as well. Where are the rest of your people, Danielle?”

  She wasn’t worried—they would show up before long. Grant had the skeleton pulled out and the crate opened up when Dominic and William appeared.