There had been no coincidence in them coming to the Gasoline. He’d probably called the bar from the parking lot while she was showering and changing. Nor was it a coincidence that the bartender knew what to bring them and that the server continued a steady supply. Least coincidental of all was Gabriel’s interrogation.
He’d planned this all along, and she’d just given herself away then and there. She had it bad for Jacob Crow, a fellow warden. And now Gabriel – her boss – knew all about it.
By the flash of victory and disappointment that passed through Gabriel’s eyes, it was clear he snatched up the evidence of her guilt with keen perception. Angel cursed herself for daring to drink anything at all in his ultra-sharp presence, especially when she was already tired, and extra especially three whole beers.
He didn’t say anything. But his eyes sparked like amber fireworks in a shaded gaze that darkened further as he sat back in the booth across from her. Angel swallowed hard, suddenly feeling all too sober. She couldn’t help but wonder what his look meant. It made her uncomfortable, like she was playing with fire, and Gabriel was walking, talking lighter fluid.
But the pregnant silence between them was interrupted when Gabe’s phone emitted a unique ring tone from his jacket pocket. Angel’s eyes widened a little. That ringtone was reserved for calls coming from up top.
Gabe gave her a meaningful look that was completely different from the one he’d been wearing a few seconds ago. He pulled his phone out quickly and answered it. “Mr. D’Angelo,” he said calmly.
Angel could hear the Vampire King on the other end of the line. He had a distinctive, deep, and decidedly sexy voice. She might not be overly fond of vampires, but she’d been a warden for a long time and she wasn’t uneducated. She recognized and admitted that vampires were virtually composed of sex appeal.
“Santiago,” D’Angelo replied. “I have a priority job for you. The file will hit your desk tomorrow morning. I’m requesting certain members for your team. I’m also sending an addendum that you’ll need to discuss with a specific subordinate.”
“Understood.” Gabe said when D’Angelo had finished. He hung up, re-pocketing his phone.
Angel stood up and pulled a twenty from one of her jacket pockets. But Gabriel shook his head. “It’s on me.”
No, she thought, because then I have to admit you were in charge here the whole time and you just played me. “I’m covering the tip,” she insisted, turning away from the table before he could argue. She heard his boots right behind her on the wood flooring, so she wasn’t surprised when he reached a strong arm around her to open the bar’s front door for her.
“Thanks,” she said, stepping out into the cool night air.
The ride home was relatively quiet and tense. Angel felt weird. She’d had enough alcohol to still be under its influence, but not in the way she would have liked. She felt slow and a touch sick, but still worried. Still stressed. Even more than before maybe, since Gabe had caught her out. She really, really didn’t want to lose her job.
When they pulled up in front of her apartment, Angel reached for the door handle, but he stopped her with a hand around her wrist. It was firm but gentle. “Hey,” he said, pulling her back on the seat and drawing her gaze to his. “Please get some sleep. You need it.”
“Gee, thanks,” she said with a wry smile.
“I mean it. I might be good at what I do, but I trained you. You normally catch onto things a lot quicker than you did tonight.”
Angel blinked, frowning. “Were you testing me?”
Gabe shook his head; the dashboard light reflected in his amber eyes. “No. I was grilling you,” he admitted, his voice deep and calm. “I wanted information that you hadn’t been willing to share.”
She swallowed hard, glancing at his hand around her wrist. He kept it there a little longer, and that sent a strange warmth through Angel.
“And you gave it to me,” he rubbed in. “The thing is, under normal circumstances you wouldn’t have. Whatever is happening with you….” His tone lowered, becoming quieter but harder. “Whether it’s Crow’s doing or not, it has to stop. You need rest. Don’t make me pull rank on you.”
She stared up at him, and after a few seconds, his expression softened. He smiled a small smile, easing the tension in Angel’s gut. “Okay?” he asked, as if he was joking about the last part. But she knew he wasn’t. And she also knew he was right.
She didn’t say anything, but she nodded.
Gabriel finally released her wrist, and Angel turned away from him. She opened her door, dropped out of the Rover to her booted feet, and shut it firmly behind her. Then she made her way to the downstairs entry to the building and fished for her keys. Normally she had them already out and ready in her hand, but she was off her game tonight.
She could feel Gabriel watching her from parking lot, making sure she made it safely inside like he always did. She was torn about that. As usual.
But once she had the door open, she turned and waved. He waved once back and pulled out of the lot, and Angel trudged upstairs as if weights had been tied to her ankles. By the time her head hit the pillow a few minutes later, she was easily ten times heavier than usual… and sleep claimed her with a greedy embrace.
Chapter Seventeen
… I’m here… Angel love….
Angel came awake with a start. Again. It marked the hundredth time that night.
She lay breathless a moment, trying to remember the words that had just moved through her mind, but they were muffled and faded and eluded her grasp.
So she stayed on her back and allowed her eyes to adjust until she could make out the shape of the exposed piping on the loft ceiling above her. Her apartment building had once been a cannery. And her room was on the third floor, where the meat used to be. The holes where chains for meat hooks once hung were still there. For some reason, she always searched for them, even though they made her feel eel-like and wriggly inside.
Eventually she rolled over onto her side and closed her eyes in that familiar but useless attempt to slide back into sleep. But a general and strong feeling of unease had by now settled fully over her, and this time it was too much.
She finally kicked impatiently at her covers, trying to get them to straighten back out around her feet. But that only pulled them down around her elbows so her shoulders were too cold. She lifted the sheet and quilt, eyed them maliciously in the dark, and noticed they were rotated ninety degrees. That tended to happen with the amount of wrestling she was doing in her bed.
With a cry of frustration, she tore them both completely off the bed and let them crumple into a white pile on the floor. Then she sat up. Her hair feathered all around her face, and her heart hammered in her chest.
Suddenly flashes of her dreams played in the darkness. The white wolf. The trees. The moon. The crow.
Most of all, she saw light green eyes that branded her as they penetrated her mind. She shivered violently, trying to shake their hold over her, but failed. She was well and truly haunted.
Angel gritted her teeth in frustration. “Stupid covers,” she mumbled, kicking her legs over the side of the bed to stand. “Stupid dreams!”
Dressed only in underwear and a white tank, she made her way out of her bedroom and down the hall, running an exasperated hand through her long dark hair. It tangled around her fingers toward the ends, and she swore again as she yanked her hand free. Her hair was too long; she needed a trim. She was already starting to get it caught in things like hoodie zippers and her Jeep door. But she’d been so busy.
Angel stopped in front of the fridge, opened the door, and then froze, shutting her eyes tight and muttering another curse. Speaking of Jeeps, she’d left her Jeep at the gym! Gabriel had dropped her off at her apartment after their drinks at the Gasoline, and now she was without transportation!
She needed her Jeep!
“Damn!” she hissed vehemently.
Tomorrow was supposed to have been her day off, hence her deci
sion to have drinks with Gabriel. She would never have agreed had she known she would be called in to work. Angel made a sound of exasperation that ended in a kind of groan. She ran a hand over her face and the refrigerator light illuminated her world.
“I’m so tired.” It was a sigh and a moan and a whisper. It was also very true. Gabriel had hit the nail on the head.
She and the other four wardens charged with tracking Vicium Mehemii had worked two weeks of eighteen to twenty-hour days to find him. They’d used every resource available, and the damn job had been draining in every possible way for Angel. They’d only finished a few days ago.
Once it was closed, Angel caught up on training sessions with new recruits and trainees because the kids relied on her. She never talked about it or brought it up; she didn’t want to seem conceited. But she naturally enjoyed teaching, and she was good at it. Trainees never failed to score better on warden tests when she’d been the one to teach them.
Gabriel hadn’t been happy about her returning to work so quickly, but when one of the younger children ran up to hug her right in front of him, he’d acquiesced with a small but sincere smile.
She’d also had to join her friends for Cass’s birthday. Though she loved them dearly, she had to admit it took more of Angel’s time and energy. Especially when he’d shown up at the coffee shop…. The man who was frankly driving her to distraction. Seriously, what were the chances that Jacob Crow would walk into that same café while she was there?
Then there was that Terror job. She had the bruises and sore muscles to show for that one.
Angel pinched the bridge of her nose as pain shot from the base of her skull, through her head, and threatened her right eye. Great. A migraine. The beer probably had something to do with that.
Then there were the dreams. They were strange, dismantled, and disturbing. Actually, they weren’t dreams. It was one recurring dream. It came to her every night, and it was always the same. She saw a white wolf watching her from the shelter of tall trees and shadows. Then she heard the distinctive rumble of a cruiser motorcycle. And then she saw the crow. It took wing as she watched, alighting against the full moon with spread wings, blue-black and magnificent.
And last came the eyes. Always those eyes. His eyes.
Light green irises, vivid and stark against the tanned skin of his face, pierced her spirit and pinned her to helplessness like an insect on a collector’s board. She was immobile in that gaze. She couldn’t run away. She couldn’t flee.
Her heart would begin to race and she would become frantic. She would try to move over and over as the sound of the bike drew closer. And closer. When she knew it was right there, and she could no longer hide, she would wake up sweating and tangled and exhausted.
So for her day off, she had planned to sleep, take an extra long hot shower, work out a little, and sleep some more. But that was thrown to the wind when D’Angelo had called Gabriel with that special job. Apparently the sovereigns were pleased with her performance with the Victor Maze assignment and wanted her on this new case. Now she had to be back at the safe house later this morning.
Angel looked up at the clock on the microwave, squinting when her migraine blurred the numbers. She was hoping the time would tell her she could take some medicine and crash a good four or five more hours. But it didn’t. Time hated her.
“Crap.”
The sun was going to be up any second now. She sighed. She needed to get ready. And she would have to take an Uber to work. She hated taking an Uber, she didn’t care what people told her about wasting gas. She recycled and reused; driving was her freedom. It was her control over her own life and she needed it.
Now she didn’t have it. What’s more, she had to face Gabriel again after what had turned out to be a somewhat trying night together at the club. Angel sighed, leaning her head on her arm against the fridge. Her forehead burned the skin on her arm. She closed her eyes. She really didn’t want to meet up with Gabe again just yet.
She was pretty pissed at the sovereigns for requesting her on this case. Yes, it showed they respected her. But did they not know humans needed sleep? Had they been inhuman for so long they’d forgotten what it felt like to be exhausted?
She shivered again. This one was stronger than the last, and felt like a flu chill. “Ugh,” she muttered. “I don’t feel good.” It was just after four in the morning, and her skin was covered in goosebumps. Her mouth was dry, her head hurt, and she was stuck between being hungry and being too anxious, nauseated, and tired to eat.
The beeping inside the fridge alerted her to the still-open door. The sound brought Angel back to herself and into the moment. She swore in absolute misery at last, slamming the door shut so hard the fridge shook.
“A shower. That’s what I need.” A long, hot shower would help.
Darkness engulfed her in the sudden absence of the fridge light.
And piercing green eyes sought her out in that darkness. She felt like a deer in headlights; they would hypnotize her, she was sure. Then they would strip her down to her soul.
She gritted her teeth. “Maybe a long, cold shower.”
Thirty minutes later, she finally stepped out of the shower and into a fog-filled bathroom. She loved it when it was like this, cocooning and secretive. She loved fog in general, actually, which was why she’d chosen to live in San Francisco. Plus it made it easier for work. Many supernaturals lived in the Pacific Northwest. The Redwood Forest was where one of Roman D’Angelo’s safe houses was located. It was where she’d met up with the other clan members and the sovereigns for the Victor Maze case.
Angel dried off, brushed her teeth, and gargled with mouthwash, then hung her towel on the hook and shook out her hair. She didn’t feel like blow-drying it. She felt like letting the wind dry it for her.
She smiled to herself as she dressed in her regular outfit of jeans, tee-shirt, boots, and jacket and made sure her weapon was loaded before she holstered it at her back. Then she grabbed her phone and ordered an Uber.
The Uber driver dropped her off in the parking lot of the Gasoline bar. Her Jeep was still here. Thank goodness for that at least.
The dark army green 2005 Special Edition “Willys Project” was a treasure to her, despite its simplicity. She especially loved the army white star on its hood. The Jeep was a six-speed standard and had no electronic locks, no automatic windows, nothing but the basics. It was what she considered to be the automobile’s equivalent to the motorcycle’s hooligan: built rudimentary but strong, ideal for what it was made for.
Angel checked it over for damage or hiding creeps, then unlocked the door and got behind the wheel. The smell of leather engulfed her, making her feel safe and warm. She inhaled deeply. Originally, the Jeep had come with cloth seats, camouflage and black to match the “army” feel of the vehicle. But as a warden, she knew she would have to change that at once. All too often, her kind tended to climb into their vehicles covered in blood. Cloth seats wouldn’t clean easily. And leather reminded her of –
“Damn it,” she hissed, closing her eyes and shaking her head. Her eyes stung.
If it wasn’t a biker bad boy here in the present, it was one from her past who haunted her. Men on motorcycles wouldn’t leave her sanity alone, it seemed.
Angel leaned over and rolled down the passenger-side window, then rolled down her own. She turned the key in the ignition and chose a song from the thumb drive lodged in the stereo. That, too, had been switched out in place of the original.
She took a moment to let the guitar riffs roll over her, smiled when the drums kicked in, and pulled out of the lot. As she stepped on the gas, the wind hit her the way it used to on her own bike, long ago, in another lifetime.
Chapter Eighteen
Angel ran her hands one last time through her mass of locks and made her way down the hall to the briefing room at the end. She’d gone in that morning as instructed, but the meeting had been postponed due to emerging evidence.
After she’d stifle
d her grumbles that she could have slept in after all, Angel decided to make a coffee run, order lunch for the Vega wardens on duty, and catch up with some of the kids in training. The meeting was rescheduled for eight p.m., as they were apparently waiting for lab results on something.
Now she was just a little early for the second meeting, but she preferred to be early rather than late, so she’d foregone her third cup of shop coffee in favor of heading back to the safe house.
The door at the end of the hall was open and three other people were already inside. Gabriel was one of them. The other two were Hannah Peabody and Casey Graham, probably two of the best Vega wardens in the thirty-five man clan. Apparently she wasn’t the only one who wanted to get this meeting going.
“What’s up boss?” Angel asked as she entered.
Gabe looked up at the sound of her voice and nodded at her in greeting. “You’re early too, but it’s just as well,” said Gabe. “Close the door behind you.” The three of them watched her enter the room, Hannah and Casey nodding a greeting to her in turn.
At once, Angel had a strange feeling. She closed the door, then turned back to them, suddenly and inexplicably afraid of the impending meeting. She’d been through hundreds, if not thousands of job briefings, and she’d always faced them head-on. But now she found herself short of breath, of all things. It was like there wasn’t enough oxygen in the room.
Gabriel was turning to a screen on the wall, the control in his hand, when he must have noticed something strange about her because he stopped, his arm mid-raise toward the screen. A furrow creased his brow. “Clemens. You okay?”
Angel opened her mouth to reply that she was fine when a fifth clan member ran into the briefing room, slamming the door open without knocking. The four of them looked over, and Gabriel turned a hard eye to the door. But it was Harold, the clan messenger, and Harold was allowed anywhere he needed to go at any given time, if the situation called for it.
Monsters, Book One: The Good, The Bad, The Cursed Page 11
