by C. L. Coffey
I stopped resisting him and glanced from side to side. Then, with a sob, launched myself at him, clutching tightly to his shirt as I tried to control the shivering that had taken over me. I didn’t like this dream and I wanted to wake up, but as Joshua stroked my back, holding me as tightly as I was holding him, I knew I wasn’t about to wake up yet.
“I'm sorry,” he muttered, one arm leaving my side to brush my wet hair from my face. “If I had known you were scared of alligators I would never have thrown us in like that.”
The water wasn’t deep – it came just above my chest. I planted my feet in the muck below us (which made me cringe inwardly), and stepped back, shaking my head. “I'm not scared of alligators,” I told him, adamantly.
He arched an eyebrow. “Really?”
“I'm not!” I objected. “I don’t mind if the alligators are behind a wall or a fence – I just don’t like swimming in alligator-infested water, alright?”
“There are no alligators,” he told me again, his added laughter causing me to cross my arms and scowl at him. “It’s my dream and I'm telling you, there are no gators in this water.”
I found myself closing my eyes taking some deep breaths in through my nose and out through my mouth. I could feel him moving closer to me so I shook my head at him. “I can’t stay in here.”
I turned to make my way back to the shore, ready for the shakes and the racing pulse to leave me, but Joshua grabbed me, pulled me to him, and before I could blink, he was kissing me.
For a length of time that could have been seconds, minutes, or hours, everything else was forgotten about. All I was aware of was his tongue on mine and the heat of our bodies pressed up against each other. His lips moved from mine and began nibbling on my neck and I couldn’t help but make a low groan of pleasure as my hands snaked up into his hair.
His mouth moved to my ear, which he gently nipped. “You want to know what we normally do in my dreams?” he asked, his voice low and throaty. I nodded. “Hot. Dirty. Sex.”
My eyes shot open. “No,” I told him, weakly, only half meaning it as his mouth made its way across my collar bone. When his hands slipped up under the shirt and began tugging at the bikini strings I knew it was either now, or never – and never wasn’t an option.
I'd stopped Joshua kissing me once before because I wasn’t prepared to face the wrath of an archangel – and that was when I had been awake. Dream or not, this shouldn’t be happening.
“No,” I repeated loudly.
* * *
I sat bolt upright in bed, breathing heavily. The dream had felt so real, that my lips felt swollen underneath my fingertips. I pushed back the covers and stepped out of bed and into the bathroom. It was still dark. I couldn’t have been sleeping long, so I flicked the bathroom light on and peered back at the small hands on my alarm clock in the dim light. I was right. It was just going on two.
I padded over to the sink, running some cold water to splash over my face, and then peered at my reflection. Hot, dirty sex? That was what we got up to in his dreams? I was never going to be able to look him in the face again – my face was already flushing and I was only looking at myself.
I glanced up at the ceiling. “I think I hate you a little bit more,” I muttered, before I switched the light off and returned to my bed.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Detective Work
I awoke at a decent hour to Cupid opening my curtains, the bright morning light exploding into my room. I groaned loudly and pulled the covers over my head in protest. I felt like I hadn’t slept at all, and all I wanted to do was stay in bed for a couple more hours.
Cupid had other plans. “Breakfast time,” he sang at me. “Michael wants you in the gym afterwards.”
“Yes, because that’s the way to get me out of bed,” I muttered.
“You want Michael in your bed?” Cupid asked.
I yanked back the covers and scowled at him. “I said, that’s…” I trailed off when I spotted the grin Cupid was giving me and reached for my pillow, launching it at him.
With ridiculously fast reflexes, he batted the pillow away. “I heard you perfectly well,” he told me. “We archangels have excellent hearing.” He leaned forward. “So you might want to try not muttering under your breath around Michael as much.”
“Oh crap,” I muttered, slumping back against the uncomfortable wooden headboard.
“You’ll understand when you get your archangel status,” he said, sympathetically patting my knee. “In the meantime, you need to get dressed.”
Knowing full well he could hear my mutterings, I got out of bed, complaining about his far too cheerful attitude so early in the morning and disappeared into the bathroom to get changed.
By the time I had arrived in the gym, my mood hadn’t improved much. Cupid left me, heading straight outside to where I could see the equipment already set up and waiting for him. What I would have given to go out there with him, rather than face the onslaught from Michael I knew was coming.
He was already waiting for me, dressed impeccably, as usual, in his gray suit, sitting in what I had determined was his regular seat, and of course, still reading Paradise Lost. “Oh the joy,” I couldn’t help but mutter as I stepped on the machine and braced myself for whatever pace Michael had already pre-programmed into the treadmill.
“You still think you don’t need to do this?” he asked in his melodic tone without lifting his eyes from the page he was reading.
“I think you’re trying to kill me,” I sighed, hitting the start button. As the machine jumped into life, I realized that today’s run would be short. He had set it to its fastest speed, which meant, at this pace, I'd have about fifteen minutes in me.
Michael shut the book and rose, placing it where he had just been seated. “Turn that off,” he commanded.
I wasn’t going to argue. While I did as he said, he disappeared from the room, returning seconds later at supernatural speed, carrying something. A sword. Not one of the weapons that hung above the fireplace, but a sword nonetheless. Silently, he held it out to me.
“What’s this for?” I asked, taking it from him, eyeing him suspiciously.
He turned his back on me and slipped out of his suit jacket, laying it gently across the back of the chair, before turning back to me, rolling his sleeves up as he did. “Attack me,” he told me.
“What?!” I exclaimed in surprise. “I'm not about to attack you!”
“Scared?” he asked, a slight teasing smile spreading across his lips.
I glanced down at the heavy weapon in my hands and ran a finger over the blade. It wasn’t a toy – the blade was sharp enough to cut my skin. “Of hurting you,” I nodded.
“That is a human weapon,” he informed me. “Should the impossible happen and you manage to get the metal to touch my skin, I can assure you, I will be able to recover from the injury.”
“The impossible?” I choked. “You’re unarmed!”
“I know,” he nodded with a frown. “And that is still an uneven battle.” He stuck his hand into his pocket and pulled out a long piece of white fabric which he then proceeded to wrap around his eyes.
“Are you insane?” I cried in alarm.
“I am proving a point,” he disagreed. Then, before I even knew what had happened, I was lying flat on my back. The sword tip was close enough to my throat that when I swallowed, I could feel just how sharp it was.
“That’s impossible,” I muttered in disbelief as Michael removed the blade and offered his hand to me. I took it and he pulled me to my feet before handing the sword back to me.
At a normal, human pace, he took ten steps back and stopped. “That’s the point, Angel. It’s not impossible.”
I was expecting the next attack so I wasn’t surprised when I ended up with my back pressed up against Michael’s chest as one of his arms wrapped around my waist with an incredible tightness. His other arm was controlling my own arm, angling the sword blade up, with its edge against my neck.
“Can you see yet?” he asked me, his lips close enough to me that I could feel the warmth of his breath on my neck. “If it were my intention, you would be dead.”
“I thought I was already dead,” I muttered, my stubbornness rearing its head.
“Your human body is dead,” he told me, a touch of impatience in his tone. The arms around me tightened slightly. “This,” he said, giving an extra squeeze. “This is a vessel, a suit, an item of clothing, and you are treating it like the body it once was.”
“Well I'm sorry if I have spent twenty years of my short life with it being my body, and less than a week with it as my vessel,” I shot back, trying to break free of his iron clad grasp. “That maybe an inconsequential length of time to you, but it’s a lifetime to me.”
Michael finally let me go. I threw the blade to the ground and began marching for the door.
“Angel, stop,” he called after me.
I sighed and turned, finding him folding his blindfold. “What?” I asked wearily, crossing my arms as I awaited his response.
“I'm not doing this to try and make you feel bad,” he told me.
“Oh, there’s no trying involved,” I said. “I feel awful, Michael, and I'm sorry I'm a walking disappointment.”
“You’re not a disappointment,” he responded quickly, striding across the room to me. “You’re rather exceptional.”
“But?” I demanded, staring up at him.
“But you’re not meeting your potential. I admit, it is unfair pitting myself against you. There is no way you would ever be able to defeat me,” he explained. There was no hint of cockiness or arrogance in what he said. He was merely stating a fact. “But you should, at the very least, be able to keep up with my movements, to be able to see what I am doing. And until that happens, I will push you and push you.”
“And that is the reason why I never joined a gym,” I told him, pulling a face. While he looked confused, I stalked back to the treadmill and smacked the start button. “I will do your stupid running exercises,” I told him, watching him in the mirror as he considered me. “But you have got to acknowledge the fact that I. Am. Trying.”
Michael gave a long sigh. “Yes, you are very trying,” he told me, returning to his seat and taking up his book.
I just poked my tongue out at him, earning a small smile, then he turned his attention to reading, while I concentrated on attempting not to die.
* * *
A couple of hours later, I had climbed out of the shower and collapsed on the bed. I had done exactly what I had predicted and lasted fifteen minutes on the treadmill. I had barely had a chance to catch my breath before I was claimed by Cupid and taken outside to my awaiting bow, and put through my paces there.
After an hour outside my arms ached so much I was barely able to carry the bow inside, but my shot had improved considerably. The arrows were hitting the outer rings of the target, although only a small proportion of them were sticking in.
Now, I was too tried to move, and all I wanted was to grab a quick nap, but a glance at the clock told me it was probably time to be heading to the precinct to see what Joshua had uncovered. With a lot of effort, I pulled myself off the bed and dug out a fresh uniform from the wardrobe, opting for a pale pink three quarter length shirt, before I headed downstairs, stopping at the front desk. “Keys, please,” I asked Cupid.
He reached into the drawer and pulled a set out, tossing them to me. “I don’t envy you,” he grinned.
“No, I'm sure you don’t,” I agreed. “I'll leave you to the celebrity gossip,” I said, rolling my eyes at the magazine spread out in front of him. He gave me a cheeky grin and a wink. I couldn’t help but shake my head in amusement as I headed outside into the heat.
Yet again, it was a scorcher, and yet again, although I was aware of the heat and humidity, it still had yet to affect me like it used to. I got in the car and turned the radio on before pulling out of the parking lot.
There was something different about the traffic today. Most of the time, around this area, people traveled like they were tourists – slow, looking out the window. Today, people were on a mission, moving with purpose. Maybe there was a sale on somewhere.
It seemed busier than normal when I got to the station too. It took a while to find somewhere to park, and inside there seemed to be more officers than there had been on previous visits. When I told the woman at the reception desk that I was there to see Joshua, she was distracted enough to let me head through by myself.
He almost knocked me over, hidden behind a stack of boxes, and I took a few off him, so I could actually see his face. “What the hell is going on in here?” I asked, still confused.
He returned the look. “Have you been watching the news?”
I shook my head and followed him to the conference room we had been in the day before. “Nope. Is everyone panicking about this serial killer?” I asked, setting the boxes down on the table.
“Alleged serial killer,” Joshua frowned. “And no, they’re worried about the hurricane.”
“What hurricane?” I asked.
“Hurricane Tabitha,” Joshua explained. “She was off the coast of Florida and looked like she was going to head up the east coast, but a warm front came in and she’s changed direction, and she’s getting more powerful in the Gulf. Looks like there’s a good chance she’s heading this way.”
Crap. “So what’s everyone doing?”
“Pre-Katrina, we weren’t brilliant at backing work up, and we lost a lot of evidence. They’re making sure all the paperwork is up-to-date and backed up to the server.”
I glanced down at the boxes, then back to Joshua. “And what about you?”
He pulled a face. “I was catching up, but then this arrived,” he gestured to the boxes.
“This is it?” I asked, looking at the four in front of me.
Joshua laughed. “This is the rest of it,” he told me, pointing to the eleven behind the table I hadn’t noticed.
The door behind us burst open and a tall man entered. “Walsh, you done with your paperwork yet?” he asked, before spotting me. The guy was probably in his fifties, with pepper colored hair, caramel skin, and a thick moustache, showing the same signs of gray as his hair. “Who’s this?”
“Angelina Connors,” I responded with a nervous finger wave. There was something about this man which was making me feel uneasy.
“The psychic?” he asked Joshua, eyeing me suspiciously.
Joshua nodded. “You signed off on her this morning, Sir.”
“She needs an ID,” he told him, still regarding me with suspicion. “And you need to get on with your paperwork. There’s a storm coming.”
“Yes sir,” Joshua agreed as the man left the room.
“Who was that?” I asked, pulling a face.
“Lieutenant Asmodeus,” he replied before sighing. “I need to get my paperwork backed up. Do you want to make a start on this?”
I glanced back at the boxes. “All of them?”
Joshua shrugged and gave me a smirk. “You’re the one that wanted all the local murder victims.” I must have looked as out of my depth as I felt, because he patted my shoulder sympathetically. “Look, start by digging out all the stab victims – gunshot, vehicular, poison... anything else can go back in the boxes.”
“Vehicular?” I repeated in surprise. “Isn’t that just a car accident?”
Joshua, halfway out the door, laughed. “You’d be surprised.”
“I am,” I muttered as the door closed, and turned my attention back to the boxes. With a sigh, I pulled the lid off the box closest to me and took out the first file. At the sight of a face beaten beyond recognition, I quickly closed it and flung it to one side, already feeling my stomach churning.
The first part was somewhat easier than I expected and it only took me a couple of hours to weasel out the stab victims from across the city and surrounding suburbs. The thing was, by then, I had had enough of looking at files of murder victims – it wa
s breaking my heart to see so many dead people. I pushed the last file to one side – unfortunately on to the ‘stab victim’ pile and, with my elbows on the table, slumped my head in my hands.
Behind me the door opened and I could barely bring myself to look up. I did, just in time to see a paper cup of steaming tea pushed in front of me. I couldn’t help but wrinkle my nose up at the smell.
“You don’t like tea?” Joshua asked me, sliding into the chair next to me.
I pulled a face. “Yuck.” Wordlessly, Joshua slid the tea towards himself, swapping the cup for his coffee. “I'm not taking your drink off you.”
“I don’t think it’s classed as taking if I'm giving it,” Joshua responded with a half-smile. “And no offence, but you’re not looking so good. Get something hot and sweet in you.”
I reached for the cup, blowing the top of the liquid. “Your job sucks,” I muttered before taking a sip. “Jesus Christ!” I exclaimed in surprise, swallowing the burning liquid too quickly. “How much sugar do you take?”
Joshua laughed. “It’s not that bad. There’s only five spoons in there. And trust me, with the crap we have in here, you need it to cover the taste.”
“Why don’t you just go to the coffee shop down the street?” I asked, taking another sip. Once I got past the initial shock of five spoons of sugar (when I normally only had one), it wasn’t too bad, and strangely, I was appreciating the sweetness.
“They shut early. The owner was busy boarding the front of his store up,” Joshua shrugged. “So you’re stuck with this poor excuse for coffee.”
I took another sip and smiled at him over the rim of the cup. “Thanks.”
“So how are you doing with this?” Joshua asked, gesturing to the stacks of files on the desk in front of me.
“I’ve got it down to twenty three,” I sighed, poking at a corner of one that lay close to me. “I'm just not sure I can get it lower than that.”
“Well, let’s start by splitting them into sex and then race,” Joshua suggested, moving his tea to one side and pulling a stack of files in front of him.
