Her parents’ picture.
She had to give him credit. He didn’t move or flinch away from her approach even though she was sure her eyes showed her contemplating kicking his ass. Angel or not.
“What about Devyn?”
She froze. Low blow. Bastard.
Her mouth opened and closed several times. Great, now she looked like a fish. “I haven’t forgotten about her.” Lexi lowered her chin slightly.
Time for some compromise.
“Listen, I only need a few of my personal things. You can allow,” she choked mentally on the word, “me to make myself comfortable with some of my items or we can keep fighting.” She gestured, her arm encompassing the room. “I know I promised, and I plan to keep it as long as you keep your side but I can’t stay here without my stuff.”
“Very well, I will go with you.”
For the second time, her mouth dropped open. This time, she left it there. What the hell had just happened? She’d thought for sure they’d be coming to blows again, but the damn angel had just capitulated without further argument.
Lexi didn’t want him anywhere near her apartment, but she had a sneaking suspicion she’d not win this battle. So, she lifted her shoulders. “Whatever. Let’s go.”
Mikos walked over to the weapon’s wall and pulled down a short blade. Bigger than a knife but smaller than a sword, the metal shone in the light. He tucked it into a scabbard, which he affixed to his hip.
“Is that necessary?” She tapped an impatient foot. “Do you expect to be attacked by a horde of knights?
“The demon could be waiting for you.”
She sighed. “Do whatever you want. One question. Where the hell are you going to hide that thing? Someone is going to notice it. I don’t think you want the police asking questions.”
Mikos nodded. Once the scabbard was buckled, he waved a hand over the weapon. Both blade and scabbard disappeared. He looked up and met her questioning eyes. “It is still there. Just invisible.”
Just invisible, huh? He said that as if was of no consequence. Maybe it wasn’t for him. For her, it was amazing. And bewildering.
While Mikos continued to choose and discard other items, Lexi thought about Beliel. The demon had offered her everything she’d always wanted if she’d give up something she didn’t have. She’d half thought his visit had been some kind of dream. But, if Mikos was real so was the demon.
That put a whole new perspective on the whole bargaining concept.
Chapter Twelve
“Circumstances rule men and not men rule circumstances.”
Euripedes
Lexi stared out the car window, her breath misting up the inside. Mikos’s car, which he’d insisted on taking instead of a taxi. Neither had said anything in the past ten minutes while his vehicle struggled to get through Chicago during rush hour. For herself, Lexi didn’t know what to say. Or ask.
There were so many things whirling through her head. After years of comfortable familiarity with the people and places around her, suddenly, everything and everyone was different. Like roaches when the lights go out, hidden agendas scampered out of the psyches of people she thought she knew.
“Lexi?”
Lost in thought, she vaguely heard Mikos call her name. Twice.
Her mind shifted gears, returning to the moment. “Yeah?”
“I understand your confusion.”
“Do you?” She deliberately kept her inflection mild, yet tipped with sarcasm.
“It was never meant for you to learn about your heritage as an adult. Your training should have begun while you were a child.”
Lexi faced him. Or, at least his profile as he kept a vigil on the bumper-to-bumper cars ahead of him. “So, why now? Why even bother?”
Lines furrowed his brow. “Do you know the significance of October thirty-first?”
“Is there anyone in America who doesn’t? It’s Halloween.”
A hint of a smile pulled at the corner of his mouth. Hmm. She studied his face. Mikos had a stubborn, arrogant profile, highlighted by a patrician nose and assertive chin. The shadow of a beard accented his square jaw line. She had to admit. God, if she believed, had put together quite an attractive package when he made this angel.
Her gaze roved over the rest of him. Dark hair curled about his ear, the midnight strands teasing the top of his collar. The longer she stared, the more she realized what drew her to him. Not his powerful profile or the muscular, compact shape of his form barely hinted at under his clothing. None of that left her insides aching for his touch.
It was his lips.
Full and sensual, they begged to be caressed. She wondered how his lips would feel against her own. Would they be soft or firm? Gentle or punishing?
Once upon a time, she might have found out. Lexi tilted her head slightly. Maybe she still would. But not now.
Somehow, the whole dark and dangerous package fit. He didn’t look like the blond-haired, blue-eyed, almost feminine-featured figures so frequently portrayed as the angelic stereotype. No shining innocence for Mikos.
Enigmatic. Mysterious. Deliciously appealing.
“Hmm?” Lexi dragged her gaze away from ogling over Mikos’s appearance. While she’d been cataloguing his features, he’d apparently been talking. Get your head together, Lexi. “I’m sorry. What?”
“October thirty-first is much more than a night children dress up and get candy. The Celts called it Samhain, which means summer’s end. The end of their year.”
“And this relates to me how?”
“Because Samhain is one of the most liminal times of the year. The threshold, or veil, that separates the physical world, your realm, from the Otherworld, is at it thinnest.”
“Blah, blah, blah, Mikos. Speak English. I only took a couple of classes in magical studies. We didn’t cover that much detail.”
He opened his mouth to respond, then paused as a taxicab, horn blaring, swerved in front of him about a foot from Mikos’s bumper. Lexi would have blown her horn and flipped the driver off.
Mikos did neither. He simply jerked his wheel to avoid the collision. Other than the slight smile that tipped the corners of his lips, no other expression crossed his face. He didn’t even appear to be angry with the rush hour drivers.
Lexi didn’t drive much. The antics of her co-occupants of the road tended to leave her with a very sour stomach. Everyone was out for himself or herself which seemed to become more apparent on the road. Proof positive the human race sucked. And she was supposed to protect them?
Turning off her morose thoughts, she concentrated on Mikos’s words, not his chiseled jaw and sensual lips.
“Samhain is also the most magical night of the year. Beliel will use both Samhain’s power and the thinness of the veil to release seventy-two demons from their prison.”
“And this, uh, book he thinks I have? What does it do?”
“The book, the Key, contains the summons and invocations to release the demons. And to control them.”
Terrific. She’s supposed to have a book to bring more demons into the world? Didn’t the world have enough human demons without bringing supernatural demons into the mix?
Didn’t matter. Lexi snorted. “Beliel is barking up the wrong tree. I don’t have such a book.”
Mikos cocked his head, his eyes leaving the busy road for a brief moment. Long enough for her to recognize the question in his dark eyes. “Barking up the wrong tree. I do not recognize that phrase.”
“Basically it means looking for something in the wrong place.” Lexi shrugged. “I can’t help him.”
“You know where the book is, Lexi.”
“Aren’t you listening? I said I don’t. I’d think I’d remember something like that. Besides, my parents didn’t leave me anything except my name.”
“The location of the book is something each protector is born with. It’s in your blood. Figuratively and metaphorically.”
“Yuck. He needs my blood?” Lexi felt her nose wrinkl
e. Again, the theme from The Twilight Zone rang through her mind. “What is he? Some type of vampire?”
A small smile pulled at the corner of those full lips. “No, he’s not a vampire.”
“Then what do you mean? What does he want with me?”
“Your memories.” He turned his head to briefly to glance at her. “I’m not talking about what you recall from your childhood. The memories I’m referring to are the imprints your heritage left in your mind. Even to the point of knowing where the book is hidden.”
“Hidden?”
He shrugged. “If you do not physically possess the book, then it must be hidden. You’ll have the knowledge in your mind. I will help you remember.”
“If he needs me, needs my memories, then why did he try to kill me?”
“That night Beliel possessed a human male,” Mikos explained, “I was unable to determine which one. This allowed him to get close to you. Likely to determine what you knew.” He frowned. “As to why he tried to kill you, I suspect he momentarily lost control of his human host.”
“You suspect he lost control?” Lexi scoffed, “So the mighty angel doesn’t know everything?”
He swiveled. Lexi started to chew him out about paying attention to his driving when she realized he’d parked in front of her building. She’d been so focused on what he said she hadn’t even noticed he’d stopped.
“I never said I was God.” His lips twisted. “Just an angel.”
Lexi opened the door to her apartment. Before she crossed the threshold, Mikos put an arm across her front. He stepped in front of her, and then entered her apartment.
Miffed, she frowned and fidgeted, but let him do his macho, protect-the-woman thing. Apparently even angels of the masculine persuasion felt the need to be protective. He’d learn. She didn’t want or need his protection.
When Mikos called out it was safe to enter, Lexi followed and found him standing in the center of the room, his head raised. Was he sniffing? She neared. His gray eyes were sparking again. Pulling on angel powers? She barely kept from snickering.
He slanted a look at her. His eyes continued to spark, teeming with power. “The demon was here. Not recently.”
“Good to know.” She could have told him that. In fact, she had. Some angel powers.
Lexi walked around him then stopped when he barred her access with his body. “What?”
“Do not take long.”
She simply stared at him until he moved away. Yep, he was going to be quite a joy to live with. If he survived training her.
Once in her bedroom, Lexi grabbed an old battered suitcase from under the bed and started shoving some workout clothing and various other delicates and sundries into it. She started to zip the bag closed, but hesitated, her glance caught by the small, framed picture of her parents.
The tarnished brass frame sat on her dresser, the flowers she’d forgotten to replace, dropping petals over the wood. The rest of the dresser lay half buried behind books on martial arts and anthropology.
She walked over to the bureau and picked up the single thing she had of her parents. Really, how had she managed to keep the picture with her all these years?
Certainly not something she thought of each time she had to pack for another home. And after Tom—well, somehow, this remaining link to her parents continued to stay with her.
Lexi studied her parent’s faces. Her mother, petite and blonde. A stereotypical California girl. Bronzed by the sun, streaks of light in her honey-colored hair, her blue eyes laughed up at the tall man standing beside her.
Alexander Thermopolis Harrison. Her father. While she looked nothing like her mother, she could have been her father’s twin. The same exotic coloring, amber eyes with a slight cant at the corners, and coal black hair.
Except where her thick locks were long and straight, her father’s had a slight wave, which showed itself in the dip of hair at his brow.
Lexi knew nothing about them except their names. No relatives or friends. No background or history. Nothing. And if the stories Mikos told were true, one of her parents had left her with a destiny she didn’t want.
Despite that, the portrait of her parents was all she had. She tossed the frame into her bag and finished zipping it closed. Taking one last look around, she walked into the living area. The angel, she felt like giggling when she thought that, stood in front of her bookcase. He seemed to be perusing the vast array of books.
Her mind inventoried what he saw. An eclectic collection of books on anthropology, magic, martial arts intertwined with fiction in a sampling of various genres from mysteries to science fiction to romance. She liked to read. The written word was a beautiful thing and she enjoyed their complexity in all their forms.
Mikos reached into the shelves and pulled out The Book of the Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage translated by S.L. MacGregor Mathers. During one of her forays into used bookstores for reference material for a research paper, she’d found this grimoire, which professes to be the primary source of modern ceremonial magic. He turned his head slightly. “Interesting collection you have.”
Lexi hadn’t made any noise, yet he’d known she was there. “School.”
He nodded then turned to face her. “Still, your choice of subjects points to a subconscious acknowledgement of your destiny even if your conscious won’t let you believe.”
“If I understood what you just said, would I be insulted?”
A quirk of his full lips flashed before he smoothed them in to his normal closed mouth expression. Hmm. She’d wondered if the angel could smile. Those lips were too magnificent to be compressed.
“Do you have everything you require?”
Lexi looked around. “Yeah, I don’t need much.” She cocked a head. “I don’t expect I’ll be gone long so what’s the use…”
Her further comments trailed off when Mikos jerked his head back, lifting his chin into the air. At the same time, she caught a faint whiff of sulfur. Oh shit, did that mean Beliel was returning? Lexi suspected putting the angel and the demon into the same space, at the same time, was a very bad idea.
A faint shimmer near the center of the room, about four feet from her, wavered into view. The figure solidified, and Mikos unsheathed his sword, for Pete’s sake. He leaped for Lexi’s side. Pushing her behind him, he faced the fast solidifying intruder.
“Hey,” she began. How dare he use the knight in shining armor crap on her.
Mikos slanted a glare over his shoulder, his gray eyes nearly silver. Oops. Maybe she’d keep her mouth shut.
The ebony-skinned intruder regarded them through yellow eyes. Not just yellow pupils, but sun-bright yellow on sun-bright yellow. The shape shivered, much like she’d seen birds do when settling ruffled feathers. Lexi gawked at the man-shaped form.
Shit, those were feathers showing on the exposed skin. At least they looked like feathers from where she stood. Rounded at the tips, the crow-like feathers had a scintillating display of rainbow colors dancing upon their glossy black surface.
A demon. There was a feather-wearing, freaking demon in her apartment.
And, if its appearance meant anything, a big, nasty-looking, feather wearing freaking demon.
“Malphas. You do not belong here.” Mikos lifted the sword in his right hand while he also held the palm of his left hand toward the demon.
“Phoenix. The stories are true, then. You have returned to the physical realm.”
The nasal, high-pitched but low, tone screeched against her nerves as if the creature had screamed. She didn’t have to know anything about this Malphas to recognize this was one badass demon.
“Why do you turn aside from your brethren? Let me have the woman,” Malphas continued.
His brethren? Lexi sent a questioning look at Mikos. He was an angel, right? So how could a demon claim him as brethren?
“Go back to Belial and tell him he will not find the Vessel.”
“He does not need to find the Vessel.” Malphas turned his yellow ey
es on Lexi. “The woman will.”
“She will not aid him in his quest for the Vessel.”
“Excuse me, but the woman isn’t even sure she’s taking the job.” She shoved at Mikos’s shoulder, pushing past him. No one ever spoke for her.
“Beliel said forty-eight hours and,” she looked at her watch, “I have twenty-two hours left. Go away.”
Lexi glanced at Mikos. His expression was worth everything he’d put her through. His beautiful gray eyes boggled, and horrified fascination etched deep lines in his face. A nerve twitched in the corner of his jaw. “Lexi, you—”
“Interesting,” Malphas interrupted, his guttural tone practically purring. “The Defender does not wish to be a defender?”
Wonderful, she’d pleased the demon. Bully for her.
“Truly intriguing.” Malphas nodded. “No defender has ever refused. I do not envy you her training, Phoenix.”
Lexi had just congratulated herself on the masterful way she’d handled the demon, no thanks to Mikos, when Malphas shrugged.
“Her desires in the matter make no difference. She will return with me.”
“I’m not going anywhere with you, you overgrown, yellow-eyed, feather wearing—” Lexi would have said more except suddenly, she couldn’t speak.
Her mouth moved, the words clearly spoken in her mind, but no sound spilled forth. She darted a glance at Mikos to find him glaring at her. Had he just done something to her? The question must have echoed in her eyes because he gave a quick nod before turning back to Malphas.
In a beautifully executed move of pure childishness if she said so herself, she stomped her foot. Angel or not, if her instincts hadn’t been screaming that going anywhere with Malphas would be a disastrous mistake, she would have knocked Mikos out for spelling her to be silent. As it was, she half feared he was the strongest protection she had against the freaky feather-wearing demon.
A loud caw of laughter boomeranged throughout the small space. Turning her impotent anger from Mikos, Lexi faced Malphas whose crow-sounding laughter rebounded in her apartment.
Key of Solomon: Relic Defenders, Book 1 Page 14
