Savage Angel

by Stacy Gail

  Besides, she wasn’t sure what she had seen. Maybe she was wrong. Maybe there was nothing to worry about and she was simply exhausted and lagging behind in the recovery department. Before she sounded the alarm, she had to be sure.

  Her phone suddenly vibrated, and with a quick glance at the screen she let out a hiss and put it up to her ear. “I’ve been texting you ever since I managed to get Gideon out the door, Marcel. Where the hell are you?”

  “Right behind you.” Marcel’s voice sounded playfully beside her ear. “Had I been an enemy, you would be dead by now, little one.”

  Sara whirled, just managing to stop herself from snapping his neck like a toothpick. “Marcel. I don’t have time to play games right now.”

  Apparently she was wearing her scary-face, because Marcel’s easy expression vanished as if it had never been. “What is it? What has happened?”

  For an answer she grabbed his arm and pulled him into a recessed area leading to a bank of elevators. “I just saw...something. And it triggered...something.” And apparently that something was babbling stupidity.

  Marcel stared at her as though he suspected she’d contracted rabies. “Go slowly and explain it all. Leave nothing out.”

  “Before I do, I need to know something. When your life was saved by my grandfather...he was protecting you from your brother, correct?”

  His expression went from concerned to alarmed. “What does that have to do with anything?”

  “Your brother was possessed before my grandfather managed to pull the demon out of him, but they’d both sustained mortal wounds in the battle. According to witnesses, the last act of my grandfather was to banish the demon from this world by burning it up, right?”

  “According to me. I was the witness who saw everything, though I was only a boy at the time.”

  “Before my grandfather showed up for that final cleansing, can you recall if you ever saw anything in your brother’s eyes that told you he was possessed?”

  He reared back as if he smelled something bad. “You are talking about...about the red veil.”

  Her hands were shaking again. She balled them into fists to control the sweaty, teeth-grinding violence inside her. “Did you see it in his eyes?”

  “I am not blessed with such sight, then or now. I do not possess any supernatural abilities to see beyond what ordinary human eyes can see.”

  Her heart sank. “I’ve heard my father describe that telltale sign of demonic possession as a red veil covering the eyes completely, but he’s never mentioned something like a...a faint glimpse of it. I thought maybe you, someone who’s not a Savitch, might have been able to see something like that, but apparently that’s not the case.”

  “What are you talking about, Sara?”

  “I saw something,” she said again, more baffled than ever. “Earlier today when I looked into Father Vargas’s eyes, for a moment I saw...”

  “What?”

  “A small flash of red, deep within the eye itself.”

  Marcel’s face pinched in on itself. “You know what that means.”

  “No, I don’t know what that means. I know a solid red veil covering the eyes means demonic possession, and glowing red eyes denote a demon that’s manifested in the human realm. But I sure as hell don’t know what to do with a fleeting flash of what looks like camera red-eye without the frigging camera.”

  “You will allow yourself to be bogged down by trivialities? You are a Savitch, Sarafinah. Countless generations before you have known what to do when confronted with such a being—demons are the natural enemy of the Seraphim. There is no excuse for hesitating. Do not think you probably should strike. Strike. Strike, and destroy.”

  The words called to the violence seething within her like a siren’s song, and her muscles quivered under the leash of ferocious control. What she wouldn’t have given to fly at Father Vargas with all weapons blazing. “I know what my obligations are, both as a bodyguard and as a Savitch.”

  “Then why are you hesitating? Why are you questioning me now when you know what you must do?”

  “It was only a flash, Marcel—it wasn’t a veil. It was unlike anything I’ve heard of.”

  “Does this matter?”

  “It does when you add the fact that not only is Vargas associated with the FBI and virtually untouchable, I also sensed no otherworldly evil emanating from him. Before I saw that flash, he was just another ordinary person, if slightly weird. According to our family’s history, a Savitch is supposed to turn into a raging savage in the presence of a demon—we’re hard-wired for it. But none of my internal alarms went off until I saw that fleeting red flash.”

  “But when you did see it?”

  Sara hated the audible tremor in her breath. “I had to take a step back. It was either that or find out how quickly I could detach his head from the rest of him.”

  “And there you are.” Marcel nodded as though she’d gotten the answer to a tricky math problem. “I have trained you from the time you were a toddler, little one. I have made sure you would be ready for when your time came, as it always does for your bloodline. Nothing is more important now than for you to do what you were born to do, and that is to protect mankind from this unnatural corruption.”

  “He’s not possessed, Marcel. The problem is, I don’t know what he is.”

  “Do you trust him to be around Noah Mandeville?”

  “No.” She didn’t even have to think about it.

  “And so you have your answer. Just remember one thing. If you sensed him, there is no doubt he sensed what you are as well. The Seraphim and the Fallen are natural enemies—if you do not go for him, it is an inevitability that he will come for you. Or worse—someone you love.”

  * * *

  If there was one thing that got under Gideon’s skin, it was being shut out.

  His footsteps stomping up the veranda steps sounded as angry as he felt, and he took absurd satisfaction in slamming the front door to his father’s house. But that satisfaction was short-lived in the face of the real, at-its-root problem, and the edgy temper digging into his gut grew that much darker as he went in search of Noah. It wasn’t his damn fault he didn’t have super powers to keep up with Sara and her posse at Lynchpin. No wings of fire meant No Admittance apparently. Shit, maybe it was better to know that now rather than later before he got in too deep.

  Yeah, right. Like he wasn’t already in way over his head.

  “And here I thought you and Sara would arrive together to update us,” Noah cheerfully greeted him when Gideon’s ears led him to the sunroom overlooking the back deck and garden. Seated at a whitewashed wrought-iron table across from him was William, whose stormy-gray eyes flicked over him with the thoroughness of an X-ray. “How did the meeting with the Feds go?”

  “Not well, from the look of it.” William remained seated as Gideon joined them, and he had to give the older man credit. His poker face was at least as good as Sara’s. “You look less than happy.”

  “The Feds have nothing to do with my mood.” Well aware he still wasn’t on William’s list of favorite people, Gideon decided honesty was the best policy. “At the risk of having you kill me where I sit, I’m thinking of strangling your daughter.”

  For his part, William didn’t blink. “That probably wouldn’t end well for you.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m not sure how things are going to end at this point.” And there it was, the elephant in the room. He and Sara were great together—better than great. When he was with her both in bed and out, he finally understood what it was to be in a place where he belonged. The world and everything in it suddenly made sense. That was a gift he’d never even known he needed, but now that he had it there was nothing more important to him.

  But if she was going to make a habit of closing doors in his face whenever she decided he was inconvenient to have around, it was a gift he wasn’t sure he wanted.

  Noah frowned. “That doesn’t sound good.”

  Belatedly Gideon realized what
he said. “There’s nothing to be alarmed about regarding your case, Dad. There’s nothing new to report on that end.”

  “I’m not talking about that, I’m talking about you and Sara. What happened?”

  With a shrug, Gideon briefly sketched out Sara’s inexplicable reaction to Father Vargas and watched the faintest flicker of understanding ripple through William’s professional mask, and it ratcheted his internal heat up another notch. Something had happened. Without words William had just confirmed it, but since Gideon wasn’t a member of the Super Friends he was no doubt going to be left in the dark. Again.

  That was frigging unacceptable.

  “I know Sara is a professional,” he concluded, and the granite-hard edge of his tone matched how he felt—cold and unyielding and ready to flatten anyone who got in his way. “I’ve seen her in action, and I have the greatest respect for her and her abilities. If she’s clamming up because I’m the client’s son, then fine. I get it. But if she’s hitting the eject button on me because it hasn’t even occurred to her that she can trust me to cope with the good, the bad and the ugly that rolls through life, we’re screwed.”

  To his surprise William’s poker face dissolved as if it had never been, and a corner of his mouth curled in a near-grimace. “We’re not the easiest people in the world to get along with, Gideon. It’s in our nature to protect what is most important to us.”

  “Newsflash, William—most people are like that. The Savitches don’t have a corner on that particular market, so that’s no excuse.”

  “Did you catch the part where you are important to her, or did that skip by without your notice?”

  “No. Damn it, no.” With a rough sigh, Gideon plowed a hand through his hair. “Lynchpin has always been Sara’s main focus in life, so I understand she doesn’t have a ton of practice when it comes to dealing with people outside of that context. And because she’s important to me too, I can be patient. What frustrates the hell out of me is that she didn’t even seem to be aware of what she was doing.”

  William was about to respond when his cell phone went off, and with a quick glance at the screen he excused himself to head out the sliding glass door. Still seated at the table, Noah sighed as he glanced over to his son.

  “These Savitches are a tough bunch, Gideon. Self-contained, self-reliant. Self-everything. It would take one hell of a man to keep up with a woman like Sara and not feel a fleeting twinge of inadequacy every now and again.”

  “That’s not what this is,” Gideon denied, and in his heart he knew he spoke the truth. “This isn’t a pissing contest to see who has the most power in our relationship, or whether or not I feel we’re equals. Sara’s got flaws just like I do, and it’s those flaws that make her so incredible. Except for that little hiccup of shutting me out whenever the whim strikes.”

  “I doubt she did it on a whim. Something triggered her.”

  “Which is the point—I don’t know what it was about Father Vargas that got to her. The only thing I do know is that she’d never let me get away with shutting her out like that. Why should I feel any different?”

  Noah sighed. “I knew this was going to be a bumpy road when I brought you two together, but I’ve never had any doubts that it’ll be worth it in the end.”

  Gideon scowled. “Brought us together? What are you talking about?”

  “Don’t tell me you haven’t figured it out yet.” His father’s grimace was more than a little self-conscious. “I specifically asked William to bring Sara to your going-away party last year because I thought the two of you might hit it off, and when I saw that photo of you and Sara together, I knew I’d been right. Looking at the two of you is like seeing two halves of a whole. From the first moment you met, I had high hopes you might make some sort of match. But then when you came home and were so unreachable, I had no idea what to do. You seemed like you wanted to be left completely alone.”

  “I did.”

  Noah nodded. “That’s why, when the FBI first contacted us, I followed my instincts and chose Sara to be my bodyguard instead of her father or someone else within LSI. She is a Savitch, after all, which means she’s the best of the best. I knew I’d be safe with her heading up this job. But I also had the hope that while she was put in a position where you couldn’t ignore her, she might be able to help you heal.”

  “I have healed,” Gideon said after a moment, trying to drum up some resentment that his father had used the situation to manipulate him. But the only thing that came to the surface was gratitude. “The scars are still there, but Sara’s helped me cope in ways I can’t begin to count. So not only am I not going to give up on her, I can guarantee you I’m not going to let her get away with shutting me out.”

  “Glad to hear it.” William came back into the sunroom, leaving the sliding door open as he held up his phone. “That was Sara, letting me know she’s here. Why don’t you meet her out on the deck for some privacy before we debrief you on your meeting with Tuttle and Vargas?”

  Gideon’s surprise lasted only as long as the trip to the deck awash in brilliant summer sunshine. By the time he saw Sara rounding the corner of the house to climb the deck stairs, looking grim and untouchable, he was ready to chew nails. “Fair warning,” he said by way of greeting. “If you ever again attempt to tell me I’m imagining things when you heat up a room to the point of spontaneous combustion, I won’t be responsible for my actions.”

  “I’m sorry,” came the immediate response, and he took some comfort in the contrition written all over her exotic face. One of the great many things he admired about Sara was that she had no clue how to lie. “I’m no good at...at people things. Give me a terrorist threat assessment for a foreign dignitary making a public speech at the Arboretum during rush hour, and I’m golden. But when it comes to the personal stuff, I’m hopeless.”

  “Yeah, you are.” Gideon nodded, and though he still wanted to hold onto his temper, a reluctant smile tugged at a corner of his mouth. “Lucky for you, I’m tougher than most. I’m more than happy to offer you people-lessons at a highly discounted price, just as long as we follow some basic ground rules.”

  “Ground rules?” A leery frown appeared between her slanted brows, and she struck the parade-rest position she seemed to favor when she didn’t know what else to do. “What do you have in mind?”

  “Nothing huge. We can start with a little more transparency, a little more give and take when it comes to sharing the details of what the hell is going on, and go from there. I can guarantee you won’t be disappointed in the results if you have the guts to rely on me.” At last he gave in to the need to touch her, moving close to cup her cheek in his palm and turning her face up to his. Damn, he’d never get over the shock of how silk-soft she was when everything in her was made of steel. “The last thing I’m going to do is let you down.”

  She made a sound he couldn’t begin to decipher. “I think I can follow those ground rules well enough. Though I might need to add one or two as we go along.”

  “I’m all about equality.”

  “All I ask...” She cleared her throat, as though the words she wanted to get out were made of glue and glass. “All I ask is that you don’t give up on me.”

  There had to be something wrong with his hearing. There was no way his smart, savvy Sara would say something so unbelievably ridiculous. “Lady, I wouldn’t even begin to know how to do that.”

  She made another little sound, and at last it dawned on him that they were near-whimpers of distress. “The thing is, I know how difficult your life has been lately, and I don’t want to add to that burden. The moment I saw a red flash in Vargas’s eyes I went off into hyper-protect mode without even—”

  “Wait.” Alarm sprinted through him before he could get a handle on it. “What red flash? I didn’t see anything in Vargas’s eyes.”

  “Apparently I’m the only lucky one who saw it.”

  “What does it mean?” When she hesitated, his other hand came up to frame her face. “A litt
le transparency, right? Come on, now. You can trust me with this.”

  She closed her eyes. Clearly, a last-ditch effort to shut him out. “It’s really, seriously not normal.”

  “Normal’s boring.” For added incentive, he brushed her mouth with his. “Come on. Spill it.”

  “I think Vargas may have a teeny demonic problem, though I’m not sure what. Not even my father knows what it could be.”

  A teeny demonic problem. If Gideon weren’t so stunned, he would have laughed at the phrasing. “Ah. Sara?”

  “Yes?”

  “How does anyone have a teeny demonic problem? Is that like being a little bit pregnant?”

  “Probably.” Warily she cracked her eyes open. “Are you okay?”

  “With teeny demonic problems?” The word no slammed up his throat, but he clamped his lips on it. Horse’s ass that he was, he did tell her that she could trust him with this, after all. If he could talk the talk, he sure as hell could put on his big-boy pants and walk the walk. “I guess so. I mean, it makes sense they’d exist, right? Seraphim and Nephilim exist, so naturally the counterpart—demons—would be around as well. What’s the next step?”

  She looked as stunned by the pragmatic question as if he’d claimed he was the devil’s own spawn. “Well, it’s not like we can tell Tuttle that his expert should be booted off the team because there’s a whiff of demon around him.”

  “Yeah, that’d go over like a lead balloon. I do know one thing, though—there’s no way that guy’s getting near my dad again. Or you.”

  The look she gave him was usually reserved for mothers who overheard their children spouting foul language. “Don’t forget that Seraphim are heaven’s warriors, created for the purpose of fighting demons, Gideon. It’s one of the duties of the Savitch clan to confront this kind of unclean contamination wherever and whenever it presents itself. That such a thing is so close to this case is all the more reason to make sure it’s taken care of before it can do even more damage.”