Then he fell quiet. He silently absorbed Gabriel’s words while Uriel looked on. In his peripheral vision, Max saw the stagehands waving at him and could make out the muffled, staticky sound of someone communicating through headsets. But it became background noise to him, at once trivial compared with the man speaking to him on the other end of the line.
“I understand.” Max closed his phone and pocketed it. Then he turned to Michael, who had just walked backstage and had made his way to Uriel and Max. The former Warrior Archangel stood tall and strong and proud. His thick blond curls and sapphire eyes were striking, his jaw strong, and his morals stronger. He was a police officer for the NYPD, currently off duty.
Michael arched a brow at Max to convey his interest as he prepared to pull off his jacket. Underneath would be a double shoulder holster, two police-issue firearms, and a badge tucked into the waistband of his jeans.
“That was Gabriel,” Max told them both. “He’s found his archess.”
Michael froze, the jacket half-off. “Come again?”
“Gabriel has found his archess,” Max repeated, more slowly this time.
Michael shrugged his jacket back on and put his hands on his hips. “No shit.” His blue eyes glittered beneath the recessed lighting.
“You’re kidding me,” Uriel added. Beside him, Eleanore nudged her way in to be part of the conversation.
“Spill,” she said, obviously having heard enough. “Is she okay? What’s her name? Is she in Scotland? Does he need our help?”
The men blinked, absorbing her questions; then Max braced himself. “He thinks her name is Juliette,” he said, “but he doesn’t have a last name. Right now, the fact of the matter is that she might be in trouble. He was speaking in our tongue, which can only mean one thing. He told me that the archess ran out into the night with an Adarian hot on her tail. He’s currently in police custody.”
“What?” the men all asked at once.
Max grimaced. “He was calling from a jail cell in Lewis.”
“Then Lewis is where we will go,” came another voice, this one deeper and more melodic than the others. The men turned to see an extremely tall man dressed in black boots and jeans, a black button-up shirt, a black leather vest, and a black sport coat coming down the hall that led from the backstage to an exit into the alley behind the studio. His shimmering jet-black hair was straight and shoulder length, his mesmerizing eyes were starkly amber-colored, and his features harshly beautiful. His presence was frankly stunning—which was fitting. He was the former Angel of Death, Azrael.
The sun had set two hours ago and Az had no doubt just finished feeding. Unlike his brothers’, Azrael’s transformation upon reaching Earth two thousand years ago had taken a rather dark turn. Max was sure Azrael’s past had something to do with it: that the inherent tenebrousness of what he had done for so long somehow warped his essence. Unlike his brothers, Azrael was not merely a displaced archangel. He was a vampire. He’d been the first of his kind.
“What time is it there right now?” Michael asked, obviously concerned about Azrael and the sun. Direct sunlight was out of the question.
Max looked at his watch, did a mental calculation, and said, “Roughly three in the morning. We have a few more safe hours.”
“Ellie.” Uriel turned to Eleanore and took her gently by the upper arms. “Please do me the favor of staying here.”
Ellie instantly stiffened and it was clear that she wanted to argue. But Uriel was asking nicely; he knew he couldn’t make her stay if she chose not to.
“You might need me,” she reminded him, raising her hands as if to show him her healing devices.
Uriel nodded and Max was impressed with the archangel’s learned patience. “I know, baby, but wait until we know for sure that we need you there. I don’t want you walking into a trap or something.”
Ellie seemed to consider that a moment. She lowered her head, closed her eyes, and nodded. “Fine, go fast. I’ll be here if you need me.”
Uriel kissed her on the forehead—and then kissed her on the lips. And then he and his brothers and Max turned and made their way across the backstage area. None of them mentioned Jacqueline Rain or the show they were missing as they came to the stage’s exit. This was more important. It was the reason they were there on Earth to begin with.
Azrael easily dealt with the minds of the humans around them, hypnotizing them into stunned acquiescence as he moved past them. At the same time, he used another of his powers to scramble the electrical field in the building. The lights went out as the group reached the exit and pushed through the metal door. Chaos ensued behind them, but they ignored it.
Max closed the exit door and stepped to the side. Azrael was already raising his arm toward the very same door. As they watched, a portal swirled to life around the exit, expanding to reveal the foggy darkness of the Scotland night beyond.
* * *
Gabriel got up from the bench in the small cell and walked to the bars. There, he held out the phone he’d been given and Constable Fields, a young Englishman who had turned Scot when he’d fallen in love with the nation in his teens, took it back with a nod.
Then, as was expected of him, Gabriel turned and allowed the officer to cuff him through the bars once more, on Dougal’s orders. It was useless, of course, but humans wouldn’t know that.
Gabriel made his way back to the bench and sat down. Then he took a very slow, very deep breath and let it out through his tender nose. It was still healing from the Adarian’s assault. He glanced up and surveyed the room. There were three guards beyond the bars to his cell: one doing paperwork, another taking a phone call, and a third drinking coffee as he carefully watched the prisoner, which his chief inspector had told him was top priority.
Even if Gabriel had possessed the use of his hands in that moment, he would not have been able to call a portal to the mansion. There were too many witnesses and that was something the archangels had decided on preventing at all costs long ago.
Angus Dougal had left promptly after delivering Gabriel to the jail. He’d said he was going after the girl who had rented the hotel room. She was a witness in this affair.
Though Gabe had made a call to Max, he’d had to be covert about the details, using the language they’d spoken before coming to Earth two thousand years ago. He only hoped Max would remember enough of it to understand what was really going on and respond to the urgency of the situation. He was almost positive he would, but almost positive wasn’t good enough to quell his fears.
Juliette.
He closed his eyes and spoke the word softly, a whisper only he could hear. It felt like a promise across his tongue, sweet and smooth and perfect. It was such a beautiful name. Gabriel had fallen in love with the character from Shakespeare’s play immediately upon reading the work more than four hundred years ago. There had been something ethereal and yet strong about her. William had captured it sublimely.
“Comfy, Black?”
Gabriel opened his eyes again and stared out at the man on the other side of the bars. Jake Campbell was a sergeant in the constabulary and the kind of man who thoroughly enjoyed pulling his rank as often as possible. Even Angus Dougal wasn’t overly fond of the sergeant; Campbell’s pale face and somewhat watery eyes reminded Gabriel of the sticky, slithering features of a cave creature, trapped without light for too many years. As if to make up for an appearance he knew was less than perfect, Campbell used steroids and worked out at the local gymnasium nearly every day of the week. As a result, he was a walking combination of resentment and testosterone wrapped in the skin of a fish.
“Sod off,” Gabriel muttered, all but ignoring the man.
Keys instantly jangled in the lock of the cell, and Gabriel knew well what was coming. It wasn’t anything he couldn’t handle. Over the past two millennia, he’d been through much, much worse.
Still, it was irritating to know that he couldn’t knock the rat unconscious. He certainly couldn’t kill anyone—that went with
out saying. Maintaining a normal profile and hiding his archangel heritage aside, it was essential to appear all but human if you planned on returning to the same locale century after century. He’d managed it so far. He didn’t want to screw it up now.
Then again.
Juliette was out there in the cold and she was his archess, and a man reached a point in his life when he both knew what he wanted and had it, and if he didn’t hold on with tooth and nail in that moment, he could lose it forever. He could so easily break out of here. He could use any number of his powers to either melt the bars or send objects flying around the room with telekinesis or open a portal through the jailhouse door into the mansion.
And Max would be obligated to clean the mess up. That was what he was there for. He could wipe the memories of these officers, clear records, and destroy footage and no one would be the wiser.
So. Easy.
Just as he was making up his mind to do it, the sergeant entered the cell like a righteous storm and pulled the truncheon from his belt. Gabriel stood and broke the cuffs behind his back.
There was a scuffling sound beyond the bars of Gabriel’s cell and he knew that the other men were mobilizing. Someone rushed forward to pull Campbell backward, away from Gabriel, and Gabe looked up toward the doorway behind them in time to see a Colt .45 materialize out of thin air a split second before the invisible Adarian used it on one of the officers.
In the blink of an eye, the weapon was fired at Fields as the confused constable turned a stunned look on the floating firearm over Campbell’s shoulder. The Adarian pulled the trigger twice and Fields jerked backward, releasing Campbell to land on the desk behind him, then roll over it.
Gabriel rushed toward the Adarian, but was knocked viciously backward as the gun was turned on him and a bullet sliced through the air. The impact took him by enough surprise that he had to catch himself on the bars of the cell to keep from falling.
A few feet away, Campbell stared at the floating weapon, horror shaping his features. The weapon was then turned back on him and fired three more times.
Gabriel ignored the pain in his jaw and shoved himself away from the bars. He was on top of the Adarian then. There was a flicker, a blinding flash of light, and the Adarian was solid again.
His green eyes flashed malignantly. “How will you explain this one, Gabe?” he hissed as Gabriel tried to wrestle the weapon out of the man’s hand. “You’ve attacked two officers and escaped from your cell.” He tsked reproachingly, gritted his teeth, and then roared with rage as he grabbed Gabriel by the front of his shirt and spun with him until he could slam him up against the wall.
Gabriel hit the wall hard and heard the plaster crack beneath the impact. “It’ll be easy with your dead body as evidence,” he hissed back, taking one from the Adarian’s book and slamming his forehead into his opponent’s nose.
The blond man reared back, eyes closed, and dropped the gun as he covered his nose with his hand. Gabriel took the opportunity to lunge at him, ready to end this fight once and for all.
And that was when the Adarian reached his free hand behind his back, took the shard gun from the waistband of his jeans, and aimed it at Gabriel’s head. It happened so fast, Gabriel found himself literally skidding to a halt, his breathing ragged, his eyes burning in his face. He knew they must be glowing.
He hated shard guns. They were an Adarian invention, and evil to the core. Their bullets—if they could be called that—solidified flesh into stone upon contact, and the horrible poison of their effect spread until it encompassed a good portion of a victim’s body. The pain was immense and unrelenting, and being healed from such a wound was nearly worse. He should know. He’d been shot with the infernal weapons numerous times.
“Do you have any idea,” the Adarian asked as he wiped the blood from his nose on the back of his hand and cocked his weapon, “what it’s like to have all the power in the world but the one you need most?” With this, he quickly swung the gun down at Gabriel’s left leg and pulled the trigger twice. The gun flashed, the air warped, and Gabriel’s lower body was wrapped in horrid, solidifying pain.
He fell to his knees.
“Hurts, doesn’t it? Imagine you had no one to heal you from that pain,” the Adarian sneered, his green eyes glowing now as well. “No Michael, the fucking blessed. But someone out there could help you. And she was destined to be with someone else.” This time, he swung the gun to his left, put two shard blasts in Gabriel’s right leg, and again leveled the weapon on Gabriel’s head.
Gabriel’s heart hammered behind his ribs; he could hear the flow of blood through his eardrums. This isn’t happening, he thought. Az! he called out, wondering whether Max and his brothers were close enough yet for Azrael to hear him with his vampiric mind-reading ability. Azrael! He was in so much pain. There were no words for this kind of pain. Flesh was not meant to be petrified. . . . Az, for fuck’s sake! People are dying!
We’re here, came the calm reply. We’re coming.
And then the Adarian pulled the trigger again and Gabriel knew it was coming. There was a split second of warning in his opponent’s green eyes—it was enough. Gabriel lunged to the right and took the shard blast in the shoulder as he went down, hit the ground, and rolled to a stunned, heavy stop a few feet away.
“You’re a bloody coward,” Gabriel told him with as much calm as he could maintain. Agony was warping his senses, but on the sidelines of his consciousness, he knew human lives were fading. Hearts were slowing and blood was going stagnant in emptying veins. What the hell was taking Max so long? These men needed Michael!
“And you’re a selfish bastard,” the Adarian hissed in return. “You have everything.” He shook his head and something strange flickered in his eyes. His sneer softened and his expression took on a faint poignant cast. “And I have nearly nothing left to lose.”
The door to the jailhouse slammed open as the Adarian weapon went off a final time. The bullet whizzed past Gabriel and blackened the plaster wall behind him as a red-gold mist cascaded into the room on a hurricane wind.
The Adarian cried out as the gun was knocked from his hand, and his body was picked up and tossed across the room. He hit the opposite wall with tremendous force and slid down its length, knocking a corkboard and various wanted posters to the ground beneath him.
At once, he was invisible again, vanishing from sight even as Azrael’s mist coalesced and solidified into his tall, strong form.
“Don’ let ’im get away!” Gabriel shouted, knowing the Adarian would make a break for it, slip past them, and be gone without a trace. But the warning was useless. Even as Azrael lunged forward with that impossible kind of speed only a vampire archangel could exhibit, it was clear the Adarian was already gone.
So, Azrael let him go and focused on Gabriel.
Gabe watched as his brother gracefully knelt beside him and surveyed the damage. “You’re fortunate he missed your vitals,” he said calmly, even while Gabriel just wanted to curl his fingers into fists in the black material of Azrael’s sport coat.
“Where’s Michael?” Gabriel asked, his words hissing shakily through clenched teeth. Eleanore would work, too, he added mentally, knowing Azrael could hear his thoughts.
“He’s coming,” Az replied, setting a gentle hand on Gabriel’s untouched shoulder. And then the vampire turned to glance over his own shoulder at the fallen officers behind them, and his expression became very grim. “He can’t heal all of you.” We’ll need to get Ellie up here, after all.
Over Uriel’s dead body, Gabriel thought. He knew the former Angel of Vengeance would never allow his wife to get involved in something like this. Then again, Eleanore wasn’t the kind of woman to be denied something when she really wanted it. And she would claw through anyone and anything who kept her from healing someone in need.
If necessary. Azrael smiled, his own projected thought reflecting Gabriel’s internal reasoning.
CHAPTER NINE
“What the—”
<
br /> Azrael stood as Uriel and Michael came through the doorway, Max behind them. Michael surveyed the damage; his gaze fell upon the injured men, and at once he was at the constable’s side, his hand pressed tightly to Gerald Fields’s bleeding chest.
“Michael, save some of that,” Max warned softly, his worried tone drawing Michael’s attention even as the wounds in the man beneath him began to close up. Michael met Max’s gaze and Max nodded toward Gabriel.
Gabriel tried not to let his expression show how much pain he was in. His wounds were not life-threatening. The humans, however, would most certainly die without Michael’s immediate attention.
“Get Ellie,” Michael commanded calmly.
Gabriel glanced at Uriel to see the archangel run a rough hand over his face. He obviously had an objection to this. He also obviously knew they had no choice in the matter. Uriel waited two seconds more and then opened a portal to the mansion through the office door.
When he’d disappeared, Gabriel closed his eyes, unable to keep from succumbing to the pain any longer. The wound in his cheek and jaw smarted. Shard guns were an Adarian invention, and Adarian enemies were never human. The guns were made to defeat supernatural beings—archangels. And that, they did perfectly. At that moment, Gabriel felt as if he had three appendages with third-degree burns all the way down to the bone. A burning, throbbing, insistent, and horribly wrong kind of pain—that was as close a comparison as he could summon.
He heard scuffling and shuffling across the room and knew that Michael had moved to tend to the other officer. He also knew that healing mortal wounds was horribly draining for an angel. He wondered how his brother was feeling at that moment.
“Hang in there, bro,” came the sudden reply as Michael knelt over him and Gabriel opened his eyes.
Michael’s sapphire blue irises were glowing with stunning, unnatural light. He was pulling his strength from deep within at the moment. Gabriel could see that sweat was just beginning to dampen his thick blond waves.
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