If Daniel acted fast enough, he would gain the upper hand on every player on the board, archangel or Adarian. He would have Anderson in his possession and he could use her as the evidence he needed to prove to Abraxos that he was a valuable member of the team.
That was why he was here, in this hotel room in Scotland. It was why he now tossed Juliette Anderson’s stolen suitcase on the hotel bed and unzipped it, pulling the lid up and over to let it drop against the comforter. It had been ridiculously easy for him to steal from the baggage car on the tarmac, as any nonliving item he was carrying also turned invisible when he used that power. He wondered what she must have thought when her suitcase never came down the chute onto the baggage claim carousel. He let his eyes graze over the contents, slowly taking it all in. The first thing he noticed was the plush elephant in the center of the cushion of clothing. It looked a tad worn, its stitching weathered, its dark gray color faded in spots. Around its neck was a makeshift collar sewn out of scraps of velvet. Lettering on the collar read, “Nessie.”
Daniel grinned, unable to help himself, and lifted the animal out of its nest. “Nessie, huh?” he said to no one. Juliette was sure to miss the stuffed animal. It had a distinctly personal feel to it, and for a moment, Daniel felt a touch guilty for the theft. But it was fleeting and passed quickly. Out of curiosity, he placed it to his nose and inhaled. It smelled like Parma Violets. It was a distinct candy-flower scent and surprised him in its rarity. Gently, he laid the elephant on the quilt and returned to the contents of the suitcase.
There were a few trade paperbacks on the subjects of archaeology and Caledonia. Among the books was one on the interpretation of dreams. Daniel frowned at it, wondering at the oddball subject, and then tossed it aside. After a few minutes of sorting through decidedly delicious undergarments and petite-sized clothing, he found what he was hoping to find. He pulled it out of the suitcase and held it to the light.
A USB memory stick.
With a smile, Daniel tucked the memory stick into his pocket, then lifted a soft white pair of cotton panties from the pile of messed-up clothes. This, too, he shoved into his pocket before he pulled on his Belstaff jacket and headed toward the door. Divinations regarding a certain individual were more easily performed when he possessed something that belonged to the person he was divining about.
As Daniel passed the bathroom, he glanced at the man reflected in the mirror. The blond stood six feet three with broad shoulders, a strong chin, and ice green eyes possessing deep, dark pupils like inky black pools. Daniel stopped and smiled at his twin, noting the cruel tilt to his lips. It was a reflection he’d seen millions upon millions of times and yet it gave him pause for the simple reason that it was there. When your most valuable Adarian power was invisibility, it felt reassuring to know you became solid once again at the end of it all.
The lobby was grandly decorated, sporting marble flooring, gold-veined mirrors, and vase upon vase of real, live orchids. Daniel made his way past several hotel workers, nodding at the women who openly ogled him, and slipped into the business center where the hotel kept several desktop computers for guests to use.
The room was empty, which was fortunate. Daniel sat at the computer farthest from the door and slipped the small memory stick into the drive slot on the computer’s tower.
The smile on his lips spread as he opened the drive and began perusing the titles of the files within it. There were several working papers on the drive, old articles, and even a few electronic books. But what interested him most was the file labeled “Journal, 2000–present.”
With the slow deliberation of one who not only needs to absorb what he is learning but enjoys it immensely, Daniel clicked the file open and sat back to read.
CHAPTER FOUR
She had to tell someone. She had to confide in someone or she was going to . . . she was going to . . . “I’m going mad,” she whispered in frustration, as she ran a shaking hand through her hair and then held on to it, fisting it in agitation.
The hotel’s Internet connection was down, so going online and using chat or e-mail to talk to Sophie wouldn’t work. And though it would give her time to sort through her thoughts as she wrote them down, it was way too impersonal for what she had to share. She’d have to call her best friend, but even that seemed wrong for what she wanted to say. What if Sophie just hung up on her? Not that she ever would. Soph wasn’t like that. The girl had gone through so much in her own life, it had left her mind wide open to the eccentricities and “impossibilities” of the world.
But what Juliette had to tell her was so unbelievable, Sophie would at least think she was joking. Unless Juliette could sit Soph down and stare into her friend’s beautiful gold eyes as she told her the truth, there was no way Soph would recognize her seriousness. She would have no real reason to believe that Juliette could not only heal people but control the weather as well.
There was no doubt remaining in her mind about these supernatural powers now. Once Juliette had made it to the nearest grocery store after the lightning bolt incident, she had pulled into the lot and parked the car in order to steady her nerves and catch her breath. She checked her location on the map against what the navigation system on the dashboard was telling her.
The storm had more or less stopped where she was and only a few errant raindrops splattered against her windshield.
Juliette had decided to conduct a little experiment. She gazed out the windshield and paid close attention to the patterns of the waning storm. There was a house next to the grocery store and in the yard in the back was a large tree with a wooden swing.
She had closed her eyes and imagined a strong wind blowing the wooden swing. When she’d opened her eyes again, the swing was rocking wildly back and forth in a sudden and isolated wind.
After that, she tried calling a single rain cloud. It reminded her of that Winnie the Pooh song “Little Black Rain Cloud” as she imagined it, but when she had finished, there it was, hovering right above the car. It drenched her rental and every patron unlucky enough to choose that moment to leave the store.
At last, Juliette had attempted one final test. She wanted to know whether the lightning, in particular, had really been her fault. Squeezing her hands into painful fists in her lap, she imagined a single bolt of lightning shooting from cloud to cloud above her. She was very careful not to imagine the bolt coming anywhere near the ground or its buildings or treetops. A split second later, a boom of thunder rocked her vehicle, set off several car alarms, and surprised a dog down the street, who began barking furiously.
So, now she knew. It was official. She was a weather-controlling freak of nature, with the ability to heal the injuries caused by her horrid meteorological mistakes.
Juliette’s teeth clenched as she continued to briskly pace the same path that she’d already carved across the hotel room’s carpet. Her cell phone was clutched tightly in her hand; she just didn’t know whom to call.
And then it rang, vibrating weakly in Juliette’s death grip. She stopped in her tracks and stared down at the instrument. The LCD screen read “Dad.”
Juliette took a deep, steadying breath, then flipped open her phone and placed it to her ear. “Hi, Dad!” She tried her best to hide her mounting unease behind faked excitement.
“Hi, sweetie, how was the flight?”
“Long,” she answered easily. That much was true.
“I bet. Did everything go well? Do you have your luggage?”
Another easy one. “No, the luggage is MIA, but I’m fine. I just got to the hotel.”
“Ah, good. Sorry about the luggage, sweetie. With as much as you travel, it was bound to happen eventually. How is the jet lag treating you?”
“Like a war prisoner,” she replied. That was true, too. She’d only just gotten over the jet lag from Australia before she’d had to fly to Scotland. Her body was confused, to say the least.
Her father laughed. “I bet.”
“How’s Mom?” Juliette asked, desperat
ely wanting to talk about something that would take her mind off her present predicament.
“On another bicycle tour. She’s been gone six days. She’ll be back before you leave, though, and when she checks in tomorrow, I’ll let her know you’re safe. We’re not that far away now; maybe you can hop a train and come see us sometime soon?” Her parents taught at the university in Gmunden, Austria.
“I’d love to, Dad.” She really would. She could tell her parents about her new abilities. They would believe her—wouldn’t they? A hard shiver went through Juliette and she had to close her eyes. “Let me get some things squared away here first and I’ll let you know,” she told her father.
“Okay, sounds good. Love you, sweetie. Get some sleep now. Bye-bye.”
“Love you, too.” Juliette hung up, feeling strangely bereft on top of the fear and anxiousness she was already suffering. The silence in the hotel room sounded hollow and gave her the sensation of cold. She was probably overly tired, she knew; she felt gritty from all the travel, and the promise of more of it didn’t help matters.
But her secret hung over her just like Pooh’s little black rain cloud, and it wasn’t going to go away. She knew that. It wasn’t so much the abilities, themselves, that had her worried. It was the fact that she had them in the first place.
Why? Why did she have these abilities? Why were they cropping up now? What was next? Did she have some sort of brain tumor or something? Like a main character in a science fiction novel who discovers superpowers right before he has an aneurysm and croaks?
She wanted to tell her dad. She really did. It just wasn’t doable. She could just imagine the conversation: “That’s great about you getting tenure, Dad, but you know what really trumps that? I can heal people! That’s right, just like Jesus!”
No, no.
Talking it out with Soph would help. But not here, and not on the phone. She was going to have to wait until she returned to the States.
Juliette fell onto the hard wooden chair at the desk in her hotel room and sighed heavily. She only hoped she could survive holding it in that long.
* * *
Gabriel finished hammering the board into place and then stepped back to survey his work. As he did, he was slammed into from behind by a small but determined body that then proceeded to wrap itself around the bottom half of his leg.
“Go now!” came a small cry from below. Gabriel smiled and looked down into the eager, bright face of one of the children who would be living in the home once Gabe and the other men finished constructing it. “Go on, now, ye promised!” the boy insisted, his broad five-year-old’s smile devoid of two front teeth.
Tristan was a wiry, strong little towheaded boy with bright blue eyes and a slight sprinkling of freckles across his nose. He was forever growing out of what clothes the town could supply him with, not because they were slow to clothe him, but because Tristan was too quick to grow. His twin sister, Beth, was a hand shorter and had slightly darker hair but slightly lighter eyes. In the frame of her pale face, they looked like ice, cold and clear and older than her years.
Gabriel set down his hammer on a nearby pile of rocks and put his hands on his hips. “Aye, Tristan,” he admitted. “I did tell you I’d give you a ride, did I no’?”
Tristan nodded emphatically.
“Well, where’s your bonnie sister, then?” Gabriel asked, referring to Tristan’s twin.
“I’m here!” came an exuberant cry. A moment later, a second small body slammed into Gabriel, drawing a deep laugh from within his chest. Beth quickly seated herself on Gabriel’s other boot and wrapped herself tightly around his leg.
“Go now! Go!” the two cried.
Gabriel shook his head and began making a show of lifting their tiny weights as he lumbered around the kirkyard that bordered the small plot of land where they were building the children’s home. The siblings giggled and squealed and held on for dear life as he picked up the pace and trotted in between the gravestones of men and women he had actually known while they were alive—all those years ago.
He knew the other men were watching him and judging him. In their eyes, he was a newcomer, having arrived on Hebridean soil only a few months ago. He was the “son of Duncan Black,” a man whom many of the older inhabitants of the Western Isles had come to trust and call friend. Would his son fit in as well?
Gabriel knew that he would. He always did. And at the moment, their opinions were but faint worries as little Beth giggled in that way that was completely contagious, drawing laughter from Gabriel as easily as one drew water from a well.
Tristan and Beth were two of nineteen children who had been recently displaced in the economy’s downturn. Their orphanage in Luskentyre needed so many repairs that it had been virtually falling down around them. Gabriel had decided that instead of turning a few of the mansion’s items into gold to fund repairs that would amount to no more than Band-Aids, he would simply pay for the building of a new home.
It was easier to pull such a trick on the Western Isles than it would have been on the mainland. The people in Harris and Lewis were tight-knit and down-to-earth. They were well accustomed to doing whatever had to be done in order to help one another get through. So, when Gabriel Black, son of Duncan Black, arrived on the islands several months ago with a certain amount in “savings” and stated that he wanted to use it to help the community get back on its feet, not one of them blinked an eye before offering to lend a hand. The new children’s home was one of several projects he had helped get started across the Hebrides, but to him, it was the most important.
Early mornings, Gabriel sailed out with Stuart Burns on his fishing boats in Ardvey. In the afternoons, he traveled to Luskentyre, picked up a hammer and a pack of nails, and got to work building the future of the land he had long ago decided to call his home. And that was what he was doing now, on this Friday afternoon.
Sundays in Harris were sacred and kept with strict adherence. Nothing was open on Sundays, so Gabriel spent those days with the children as well. Beth and Tristan tended to monopolize that time; the two had taken to him like glue. He didn’t mind at all. He was quite fond of them as well.
He would have adopted them long ago—along with all the other children at the home—if it weren’t for the fact that he didn’t age. It was a hard supernatural truth that there were no easy ways to skirt around. He would remain young forever to watch his children grow old and die.
On Gabriel’s left leg, Tristan issued a challenge to his sister, claiming that he would beat her to the next headstone. Beth excitedly took the challenge, but not before she turned in her perch on Gabe’s right leg and studied the distance between herself and the MacDonald headstone twenty paces away.
“Ye’re goin’ tae lose, Trist!” she shot back at him, her smile broadening. She, too, was missing teeth. “I’ll get there before yae do!”
Gabriel tried not to encourage them. He simply took the steps to the headstone, and of course, Beth was right. Gabe’s right leg was the first to close the distance, much to Tristan’s chagrin. But Tristan got over it quickly; he was used to his sister winning. Beth was a very smart five-year-old.
“Black!”
Gabriel turned to see one of the workmen striding toward him across the kirkyard. There was a worried frown on his face. Gabe bent and patted the children on their backs. “Off with you, now,” he whispered. “An’ stay away from the bogs, do y’hear?”
The twins nodded and though Tristan made a very disappointed face, they both stood, releasing Gabriel’s legs. Then Tristan issued another challenge to his sister, and the two were off like lights, running helter-skelter across the cemetery.
“Timothy,” Gabriel greeted the man who hurriedly approached him. “Wha’ is it, then?”
“Black, someone’s got tae speak with the debtors on the mainland,” Timothy told him, somewhat out of breath. “People are beginnin’ tae ask questions. They want tae know about yer money an’ . . . taxes an’ all that.” Timothy gave a help
less shrug, took off his hat, and then nervously glanced behind him.
Gabriel followed his flick of a gaze to a tall, broad-shouldered man standing against the wall of a nearby building, his thick arms crossed over his chest. Angus Dougal.
“And wha’ people exactly would these be, Timothy?” Gabriel asked, not taking his eyes off Dougal’s watchful form.
Timothy didn’t answer, which told Gabriel everything he needed to know. Dougal had been asking questions about him. The townspeople knew that he’d been a firefighter in New York because that was the story he’d given them upon arrival. Dougal no doubt wondered how a firefighter could afford the things Gabriel was paying for. Not that he couldn’t handle anything the man threw his way, but it was irritating, to say the least. Gabriel would have to set things right now, quiet people down, and cover a few things up. After all, Dougal was a smart man—and the money had come from a strange source, indeed. Gabriel was a firefighter in New York City and as such, he didn’t make a millionaire’s living. The money he had donated for the rebuilding projects had come from his ability to take any item in the world and turn it into gold. He was an archangel; it was only one of his many powers.
Dougal was on to him.
Gabriel gazed across the distance, his silver eyes locked with Angus’s emerald glare. He wished he didn’t have to have this trouble with a fellow clansman. Dougal was a good man and a good cop. His soul was clean, but there was an aura of bitterness around it these days. Gabriel could guess as to what that was all about.
Angus and his longtime girlfriend had recently split up. Unfortunately, right after that event, Gabriel had slept with Dougal’s sister, Edeen. The compounded situation had ignited a would-be hatred in Angus for the former Messenger Archangel.
Gabriel sighed. He would have to travel to Glasgow now and might even need his guardian, Max Gillihan, to help set the records straight and wipe memories. With a set jaw and clenched teeth, Gabriel nodded at Angus Dougal.
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