by C. L. Coffey
Angel
Tormented
Book Three
of the
Louisiangel Series
C. L. Coffey
Copyright © 2016 C. L. Coffey
ISBN: 1530544327
ISBN-13: 978-1530544325
Cover design by Amalia Chitulescu
Edited by Patrick Gilhooley
Proofread by Naomi Jones and Emily Knight
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, distributed, stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval systems, in any forms or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, without express permission of the author, unless for the purpose of a review which may quote brief passages for a review purpose.
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locations are used fictitiously. Other characters, names, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblances to actual events, locations, or persons – living or dead – is entirely coincidental.
DEDICATION
For Özgür
ALSO BY C. L. COFFEY
The Louisiangel Series
Angel in Training
Angel Eclipsed
Angel Tormented
Contents
DEDICATION
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
EPILOGUE
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
WAYS TO CONNECT
Our life is made by the death of others
- Leonardo da Vinci
CHAPTER ONE
Headlines
November 18th
New Orleans
ANGELS AMONG US?
Luke Goddard’s much anticipated Believe in Me tour kicked off in his home town of New Orleans. Thousands of Followers hit the street to try to catch a glimpse of him before his show in local bar and live music venue, Bee’s. Although ticket sales would have been enough to sell out the Super Dome twice over, Goddard chose the much smaller venue to give his audience a more intimate performance.
Focus was not on Goddard, but rather the strange apparitions outside the venue. Evidence has emerged that we are not alone in this universe. Not long after the show began, a woman was seen falling from the venue through a second story window. A fall of this height would be enough for paralysis, if not death. Yet, far from being injured, she got up, just in time for a second, younger girl to fly from the ground and catch a grown man who also appeared to have been thrown out of a window. What makes this even more extraordinary is that the young girl had wings, as shown in the photos below.
“And there are photographs,” I added in a huff. I threw the paper across the room, watching as it hit the wall and the pages separated across the floor. That article had been written three weeks ago and I had gone from being upset about it to downright angry.
Joshua was sprawled out on his bed, his arms behind his head, watching me with mild amusement. “You have gone from reciting that to me, to actually conjuring a paper. Is that another power which angels have?”
We weren’t really in his bedroom, and I wasn’t really pacing back and forth at the foot of his bed. This was a dream. Or at least, the location was a dream. I was actually an angel, and the story in the paper really had happened.
Nine months ago a fallen angel had killed me. I had been out partying one night and the next thing I knew, I had woken up in a convent with the Archangel Michael informing me that although I was dead, I had been given a second chance. I could exist by earning my wings and becoming an angel – hopefully an archangel like him one day. Part of this meant I was given a charge: someone important to protect. That was Joshua Walsh. He was a trainee detective who I had helped to investigate my death, and a series of others across New Orleans, all of which led back to an archangel, Lilah. She was trying to find a key (Joshua) and the angel to use the key (me, by killing Lilah and the innocent human she was possessing). All of this was to let Lucifer free from Hell.
For the longest time, thinking about Lilah caused me a lot of pain – the physical manifestation of the guilt I was feeling from killing an innocent person. I still feel guilty, and while there are occasional flashes of that pain, I now mostly feel angry: angry at her; angry at Lucifer; angry at the cherubim (Veronica in particular); angry at Michael; and angry at myself.
Veronica was the girl, the angel, who had revealed herself to save Joshua. That wasn’t what made me angry; for that I will be eternally grateful. No, my anger with her was directed at the fact that she and the other cherubim had walked out of Michael’s House and left us. They’d been convinced for years that Lucifer was going to come back, to the point that they had been happy to be the ‘help’ in the convent, performing all the menial chores. They wanted to be on the front line and fight when the time came. Sure, Michael didn’t believe them – he didn’t even believe me – but the moment they had the chance, they’d upped and left without leaving a forwarding address, only minutes after we had discovered that there was a second Prince of Darkness, Beelzebub, in New Orleans. That pissed me off.
“You know it’s not that bad, right, darlin’?”
Joshua’s voice snapped me from my internal rant, and I glanced over to see the concern in his dark blue eyes. “And yet I’m still trapped in that convent,” I responded with a huff.
He patted a spot on the bed next to him, and I got on the bed using my knees to crawl over and curl up beside him. “Seriously though,” he said, wrapping an arm around my shoulder to pull me close. “You created a newspaper.”
“A newspaper with the same story on every page,” I grumbled.
“You should use that phone I gave you to look at the news pages, darlin’,” he suggested. “You will soon see that the only paper still running with that story is the same rag which published it in the first place: the one you told me was written by a nephilim’s girlfriend. Most people think it was a hoax, a few loons think it was aliens.”
“If that’s the case, why can’t I go outside? I’m stuck in my room day after day” I muttered. It was almost ironic that, after killing Lilah, the guilt and pain I felt made me feel like I couldn’t leave my own bed for almost six weeks. Now I was trapped in the same building because Michael had told me I needed to keep a low profile.
My appearance wasn’t exactly subtle. Just before I had been killed, I had dyed my hair a bright cherry red and there was nothing I could do to make it fade – or stop me from standing out. It was only when I was in Joshua’s dreams that I could revert back to my normal blonde. Honestly, if it had been on anybody else’s head, I would have thought it was cool, but the prospect of it being part of my appearance for however long I got to stay in this vessel killed me a little.
“I’m really not complaining about tha
t,” Joshua assured me, smirking. As if to prove it, he leaned over and claimed my lips with his own.
As well as being my charge, Joshua was also my… Actually, I don’t know what Joshua was. I cared for him. A lot. I wanted to be with him and he certainly wanted to be with me. Not that that information was currently public. According to Michael, a relationship between a human and an angel was forbidden and the consequence was the angel would lose their wings. Frankly, I cared too much about Joshua to risk sleeping with him – and I was standing firm on that decision; one which Joshua fully supported me on.
I pulled away from Joshua and frowned. “Why aren’t you suffering from cabin fever then?” I demanded. “You’re under house arrest too.” For the first time, he looked uncomfortable. I cocked my head as I stared at him. The first Prince of Darkness we’d discovered was Asmodeus, also known as Joshua’s Lieutenant. According to Joshua, he had ‘transferred in’ about fifteen years ago. Although Michael’s House had been based in New Orleans for the last couple of years, because he wasn’t in his original vessel, he had gone unnoticed. Joshua was not going into work while I was under house arrest.
“Angel,” he said, patiently, despite his obvious discomfort. “If I refused to leave New Orleans during Hurricane Tabitha, you couldn’t possibly think I’m going to stop working when I find out that a high ranking member of the police department is one of the Fallen; a high ranking fallen angel at that.”
I couldn’t help but let out a long sigh as I sat down opposite him, crossing my legs. “No,” I admitted. If I was being honest, I knew he was back at work. As my charge, I have an inbuilt tracking system that lets me know where he is at all times. Sadly, it doesn’t come with Google Maps so I only know a general area, rather than a street address. That being said, it was quite easy to tell when he was at work or when he was at home: I was choosing to ignore when he was at work.
“We said we weren’t going to do this,” he said, watching me.
“I’m not going to lie and say I wouldn’t find it a hell of a lot easier to protect you if you weren’t working for the police,” I shrugged. “But I don’t trust Asmodeus.”
“Neither do I,” Joshua agreed as he pulled himself upright and leaned back against the headboard. “That’s why I’m not leaving him alone with Leon, who, thankfully still doesn’t remember being possessed or the exorcism, and is putting his memory loss down to working too much. Not that he’s taken time off,” he added.
“I need to get out of this convent,” I told him, my shoulders sagging slightly.
“Like I said darlin’, I don’t think you being spotted will be a problem. That story has died a death and no one really believed it anyway,” he said, repeating his earlier observations.
I closed my eyes and focused. Awake, regardless of the time zone, I knew what time it was. Dream walking, it took a bit of concentration, but I was still able to tell. Of all the ‘gifts’ I had as an angel, this was as weird as it was cool. “I will be waking up soon,” I said. It was about half past five.
“Then let’s put this time to better use,” Joshua suggested. I opened my eyes to find him smirking at me. Then, with no warning, he lunged at me, pushing me backwards. I let out a girly squeal before his lips silenced me. This was definitely better use of our time.
* * *
The sun didn’t make an appearance until after my shower. I pulled back the thick claret curtains in my bedroom and stared out of the window. Despite it being November, it looked like it was going to be another hot and humid day. I couldn’t remember the last time it had rained. It had to be weeks ago now, judging from how brown the grass was looking.
I made my way downstairs into the convent’s large kitchen, flicking on the lights. I scanned the room, my eyes coming to rest on the lack of plates on the shelves. Before I could even think about cooking, I needed to clean up. I walked back into the dining area and stared at the messy tables, grinding my teeth.
Angels don’t need to eat. Prayer, faith and belief – that’s what gives angels the energy to power their vessels. With the exceptions of me and Michael, the other angels eat out of habit, more than anything else. Yet, even though the cherubim were no longer in the convent, none of the angels were prepared to give up food. They also weren’t prepared to pick up the slack.
Being in the convent I had little to do to occupy my time outside of training. Bored, and unable to cope with the mess that had quickly built up in the place, I had taken it upon myself to look after the communal areas – and if this is what they looked like, there was no chance in hell I was going anywhere near their bedrooms.
I gathered up the dirty plates, grumbling to myself at how it wouldn’t have killed any one of the thirty angels to have at least carried their plates to the kitchen, much less do the dishes for once.
I ran a bowl full of hot soapy water and scraped the plates while I waited for the bowl to fill. The kitchen had an industrial dishwasher, but as the plates had been left out all night, they were going to need a soak before a cycle would have any impact. While the dishes were soaking, I hurried around the dining area, wiping the tables down. I was thankful I had the supernatural speed but it also just made me angrier that the angels couldn’t have managed this simple task themselves.
Once the dishwasher was running, I turned my attention to breakfast. Not a single angel knew how to cook. Unfortunately, my skills in the kitchen weren’t great either: I could manage for myself and my aunt on occasion, but it was a limited number of dishes for a limited number of people. Breakfast was easy. Once I’d worked out how we got the groceries (a local store delivered twice a week), I’d ordered a vast selection of cereals and ignored the complaints at the lack of pancakes. I poured the various cereal brands into the bowls at the service hatch – something that had quickly become self-service – and got the jugs of milk ready.
Finally, I focused on the drinks. Two big urns of hot water so that tea or coffee could be made (I had been amazed when I’d had to teach the angels how to make a cup of tea!) and some juice.
By the time I was ready to consider preparing the evening meal, I was staring at the nearly empty fridge to a soundtrack of complaints at having the same breakfast for the last three weeks. I was trying to be as patient as I could be: Cupid and Veronica had constantly called the angels vain and shallow, and they were right. They all looked like they had just walked off a catwalk, but they were the laziest bunch of people I’d ever met. They’d also spent a couple of centuries being waited on by the cherubim, so they had naturally fallen into some pretty idle routines.
The lack of contents in the fridge didn’t inspire me. I was still trying to judge how much food was needed for the meals I was capable of making. There was plenty of rice and ground meat, but I had already made Dirty Rice three times this week alone. Chili Con Carne was supposed to be a simple meal, right? I rummaged through the pantry, frowning. I had enough of everything except for onions.
I backed out of the pantry, closing the door behind me, before turning around and letting out a scream. Cupid had managed to sneak up to me without me noticing. He winced slightly and pulled a face. “We need to work on your observational skills,” he declared.
I wanted to tell him what he could do with that suggestion, but he was right. If I couldn’t sense a friend sneaking up on me, how was I going to sense someone with ill intent? Instead, I sagged against the door. “Please tell me you’re not here to complain about breakfast?”
“No, although I am hoping it’s not Dirty Rice for dinner again?” he asked hopefully.
“Chili,” I responded.
He brightened, and looked around the kitchen. “It’s weird like this, isn’t it?”
It was fair to say that Cupid was my only friend these days. We had been spending a lot of time together recently, outside of the archery training. I had finally introduced him to The Vampire Diaries, and we’d spend several hours squished up on my single bed, watching the DVDs on my old laptop. If not there, we were in the librar
y. We craved each other’s company: if I was bored, he was lonely. Veronica had been his inseparable sidekick. I didn’t need detective skills to see he missed her.
His gaze was on the angels complaining at the hatch and I took the time to study his profile. Cupid was tall, lanky, and like every other angelic being, good looking enough to be on the cover of any magazine. To look at him, you’d think he spent most of his time studying. You certainly wouldn’t expect him to be insanely skilled at archery. He would happily watch an episode of Arrow with me and claim that he had a lot to live up to, but the truth was the Green Arrow had a long way to go before he was a patch on this archangel.
But it wasn’t his looks which caught my attention. It was his overall demeanor. There were currently three archangels, including Cupid, living in the convent. Michael, who looked like he had been sculptured into existence, was slightly taller with the most incredible set of abs I’ve ever seen (sorry Joshua), and Raphael, who was equally good looking and built like a quarterback. The thing the three of them had in common was their presence. They could command the room in a way I could only dream of, and with a weapon in their hands – I couldn’t understand why any fallen angel would stay in the same city and think they were safe.
Right now Cupid looked miserable. He still stood upright – centuries of excellent posture wasn’t going to disappear in a few weeks – but the way he held himself, like the sole purpose of his arms was to try to act like a bandage to hold himself together… If I ever met up with Veronica again, I was going to kick her ass for just disappearing on him.
When something in me twinged, I sprung forward and wrapped my arms around him. Unlike Michael who really doesn’t know how to respond when I hug him, Cupid pulled his arms out from under me, only to return the hug, squeezing me back just as tightly. “I’m okay, Angel,” he muttered.
