by Missy Jane
“Yeah. I gotta go. I’ll call you back.”
Rafe hung up, and Cam hurried out to the street. The fissure was no more than six inches wide, but it ran the length of University Avenue. All up and down the street, people were stumbling out of buildings, some with injuries, and he called out to his brother.
Mike, there’s been an earthquake.
I thought I felt something.
Cam squatted down and held his hand over the fissure. Evil and rage hit him like a sledgehammer, and he yanked his hand back and shook it out.
This was no natural occurrence. We need to check this out.
Demon?
Yes, and a fissure of this size could have mid-level demons running through the streets in no time, wreaking havoc.
I’m already above you.
The angels had the ability to hide their presence from humans, something they usually only did when flying in a clear sky.
Mike, Sel, and Uri hovered above him as Cam made his way back into his office. He left the door open and waited for them to appear.
“So, what the hell happened?” Mike asked as he walked in.
Cam crossed his arms and leaned against Eleanor’s desk as his brothers appeared before him. “Although earthquake would be my guess, that fissure out there feels like the pits of hell.”
The other three angels pulled shirts on now that their wings had disappeared. Each of them held a unique tattoo of finely etched wings on his back and could call it forth into an actual pair of wings at will.
“Any demon appearances yet?” Sel asked.
Cam shook his head. “None.”
“That probably won’t be for long,” Mike said. “Sel, Uri, check out the area and make sure no one is in need of medical assistance. Cam and I will be checking his library.”
“For what?” Cam asked.
“Geological maps of the area. There have to be fault lines here, and we need to know everything about them. We also need to check the news to see if there’s been an increase in crime in the area. A portal that size would need a lot of human blood to open.”
“I don’t remember ever reading about fault lines in this part of—” Cam froze in the middle of his sentence and stared at his brothers. “Did you hear that?”
They all looked at each other, and Uri shrugged. “Um…no.”
“Eleanor,” Cam said. “She’s screaming.”
Fear for her had him running out the door; his brothers quickly followed. The blood rushing in his ears didn’t drown out her screams, and his speeding pulse matched his footsteps as he pounded down the pavement. She wasn’t far away, so he didn’t bother flying, just ran inhumanly fast until he made it to a collection of abandoned buildings a few blocks away. Just ahead, he spied her car and the man trying to pull her from it. Even as she kicked and hit out at him she screamed.
“Hey!” Cam hollered. “Hey, stop!”
The vagrant didn’t seem to hear him as he yanked on Eleanor’s arm and hair, which had come loose from her bun, the brown and copper strands shining in the sunlight. It almost distracted Cam, but he ran right at the man and grabbed his wrists. The look of shock on the man’s face was almost funny, until Cam squeezed.
Bones cracked in his grip, and the man cried out as he let go of Eleanor. He tried to pull away, but Cam was in too much of a rage to let him go.
“Cam, let him go.”
Mike’s voice barely penetrated Cam’s anger, but he finally heard the command from his brother and complied. Sel and Uri each grabbed the old man and dragged the vagrant away.
Mike stepped in front of him. “Check on Eleanor, and we’ll deal with him.” Then he turned away.
Eleanor. Cam spun to find her still in her car, sobbing uncontrollably. He rushed to her and pulled her out and into his arms. “Shh, I’ve got you. You’re okay, Eleanor, I’ve got you.”
Her trembling body fit against him perfectly. As she continued to cry, he held her tight against him.
“H-he h-hurt me. He tried to…to… Oh God, I don’t know.”
Small fists held his shirt in a death grip, but he barely noticed. He brushed her hair from her eyes and looked her over. Glass littered her hair, shirt, and jeans. Small scratches covered all of the exposed skin on her left side. Gently, he brushed the glass away and checked her neck for any serious cuts. Overall, she seemed to be relatively okay.
“Do you want to go to the hospital?” he asked.
More glass fell from her hair as she shook her head. “No. No, I think I’m okay now.”
The flood of tears had slowed to a trickle and her breathing calmed, but she was still trembling. Slowly, she released his shirt. He found her glasses sitting on the console between the driver’s and passenger’s seats and helped her slip them on with shaking hands.
“Come here,” he said, even as he pulled her back into his arms.
Then, he just held her as they both settled down. It took a moment for his pulse to steady, which surprised him. Sure, she had been his secretary for four years, but nothing more intimate. The wealth of emotion over her blindsided him.
The rage that had filled him when he saw the vagrant pulling on her was another shock. Why was he feeling so intensely over her? Probably because she’d seemed so helpless and frightened. He ran his hand over her trembling back and released a deep breath.
“What happened?” he asked after a couple of minutes.
“My car died during the earthquake or whatever that was. Then it wouldn’t start. He came out of nowhere and asked if I needed help. I said no and thought he walked away, but he shattered my window.” A shudder ran through her small frame, and he tightened his hold.
“Well, we’re here now. My brothers are taking care of him, and I’ll take care of you.”
A sigh eased from her as she seemed to snuggle into him. Her unique scent of fresh lilies and spring rain filled his lungs, causing a physical reaction he’d never had around her before.
What the hell?
…
Eleanor really liked Cam taking care of her but knew it didn’t mean anything to him. Not really. Cam and his brothers were just such good people, even Zerach, despite his crazy reputation as a seedy nightclub owner and playboy. Their parents had really raised them right.
Unfortunately, she’d learned the hard way not to rely on people, despite all she knew of his generous nature. She pulled back. Cam took the hint and dropped his arms, but he didn’t step away until she did. Placing her palms flat against his chest, she smoothed the wrinkles she’d put in his shirt and moved until at least a couple of feet separated them. The temptation to keep her hands on his hard chest was just too great, and she didn’t want him to see the desire on her face.
Then she looked past him to where his brothers had the homeless man. “What’s he doing?”
Cam glanced over his shoulder, then immediately did a double take.
His brothers were standing back as the man knelt on the ground doubled over. As they watched, black smoke poured from his mouth and ears, then he sat up, threw his head back, and screamed. Eleanor blinked. Cam’s brothers were no longer in jeans and T-shirts. They all wore a gleaming set of armor straight out of a medieval movie. Michael pulled a sword from the sheath on his hip, and she would swear a light-blue flame licked up and down the blade.
“Oh my…God,” she whispered as fear raced up her spine.
“Shit,” Cam said. He turned back to her. “I need to get you out of here.”
“But—”
A sudden explosion shoved Cam into her, and she was slammed against her car. Cam seemed to retain his senses because he pushed down on the top of her head and folded her back into the driver’s seat, where she collapsed, dazed and still trying to catch her breath. Cam stood again and looked back to where his brothers had been.
“I have to check on them. Wait here!”
Then he was gone. Pain arched through her back where she’d landed hard against the armrest. She waited until she could take a full breath then
sat up gingerly and straightened her glasses. With a groan, she moved her head around to stretch the kinks out of her neck and looked out the back window. The glass was gone. All of the glass on her car had shattered. Through the window, she saw Cam helping first Mike, then Sel to his feet. Uri was…floating?
She shut her eyes and rubbed them beneath her glasses, then looked again to see that, yes, Uri was floating about four feet above his brothers. When he turned and pointed at something a few feet away, she saw wings.
“N-no…”
Slapping her hands over her glasses, she counted to ten. Then she counted to ten again, more slowly, before wiping her fingers down her face and opening her eyes. Uri landed, and his wings disappeared. Then the brothers all walked over to a burnt spot on the ground where the homeless man had been kneeling a few moments before.
“No, no, no,” she whispered.
She shut her eyes once more and rubbed her temples. When she looked again, the brothers were all back in jeans and T-shirts. Thank God. The last thing she needed right now was to start hallucinating like she used to when she was little. She hadn’t had an episode in over ten years, but fear used to trigger them. Or maybe it was just stress. This had proven to be an exceptionally emotional day so far, and it wasn’t even half over. She hadn’t been attacked like that since— No. She wasn’t going to think about that part of her past. It was long over, and those people no longer knew who she was or where to find her. Shaking her head, she cleaned her glasses, then left the car and started walking toward the Maxwell brothers.
…
Cam stood staring at the scorched pavement when Mike’s head shot up.
“Eleanor,” Mike said.
Cam stiffened and huffed out a breath—he had nearly forgotten about her, which was weird. He shook his head and spun on his heel to meet her halfway to where his brothers studied the ground. The usually unflappable Eleanor looked adorably disheveled. It was sexy in a well-pleasured woman sort of way that made his palms sweat. Why was he suddenly thinking of her this way?
“Hey,” he said. “Are you all right?”
“Um, yeah. Yes. I think so.” She rubbed the back of her head. “I think I must have hit my head. Thought I saw something weird.” With a laugh, she waved it away.
That definitely piqued his curiosity. “Yeah? What?”
Her smile slipped as she hesitated, but then she just shrugged. “Uriel, flying. Can you imagine?” She grinned and shook her head. “And your brothers were all in gleaming armor. Guess I shouldn’t have watched Excalibur last night before bed.”
One brow went up at that. He didn’t think she watched those types of movies. “Yeah. I guess not. Let me check your head.”
Smoothing his fingers into her silky strands, he ran his hands over her head gently, checking for any bumps or serious scratches. The luxuriously soft tresses distracted him for a second, but luckily he found nothing.
“You have a small knot behind your right ear,” he lied. “But it’s not that bad. I’m sure you’ll be fine.”
“Do you think I have a concussion?”
Guilt hit him at his lie because she looked so worried. But then he remembered what he was trying to cover up—that she’d seen his brothers in their angelic armor. “Nah. Are you dizzy or nauseated?”
“Um, no. No, I actually just feel a little shaken up. What was that explosion?”
With a shrug, he grasped her arm, turning her as he started walking back to her car. Thankfully she let him pull her along. “No idea. My brothers are checking it out. For now, let’s get you home.”
“But my car—”
“I’ll look at it. I’m pretty good with cars.”
“Really? I never knew that about you.”
The surprise in her voice amused him. She probably thought she knew almost everything about him. Well, there was a doozy of a secret he couldn’t let her know.
After they reached her car, he brushed glass off the driver’s seat. She got in and popped the hood, and he pretended to fiddle with a couple of things before mentally calling to his brother.
Uri, get over here and help. Uri jogged over and pretended to help Cam with the engine.
Uri was the one with an affinity for electricity.
“Okay,” Cam called out. “Try it now.”
Just as Eleanor turned the key, Uri touched one finger to the engine and sparked it to life. The car purred better than it had before the quake. Uri grinned and walked back to their brothers.
Cam shut the hood and walked back to the driver’s side. “All right, you can head home now. You feel okay to drive?”
“Yes. Thank you. Please tell Uriel I said thank you, too.”
“I will.” He waited for her to put on her seat belt, then he shut her door. “Text me when you get home, okay? And let me know if you need help getting the windows and lights replaced.”
“Oh…crap. Okay.”
A quick check with his angelic senses told him she was uninjured, although she still seemed a bit dazed. He stepped back as she put the car in gear and drove away. His sense of unease hadn’t completely disappeared, but he shook his head to clear it. She was fine and would be okay once she got home. He forced himself to spin on his heel and head back to his brothers.
“What the hell was that about?” Mike asked as he walked up.
“I think she was just in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Cam said.
“What luck.”
“Tell me about it. What the hell happened with that vagrant?”
“He stank of demon taint and he exploded like a bomb, but there’s no blood or guts anywhere.”
Cam grimaced. “Yech.”
“Yeah, but it’s telling. No human blood means no human.”
“He sure as shit looked human.”
“You know as well as I do a mid- to high-level demon can.”
They walked back to their brothers, where Sel was saying a prayer over the burnt spot while Uri blew away the ashes to the four winds. Soon there was nothing more than a dark spot in the pavement that could’ve been anything from tire marks to deeply caked mud.
Cam suddenly laughed, and they all watched him with curiosity.
“She thought she was hallucinating,” he said. He looked at Uri. “Eleanor saw you flying and all of you in armor. She thought she’d hit her head.”
Uri snorted and Sel grinned, but Mike didn’t seem to find it funny. “Are you sure she didn’t think it was real?” he asked.
“I’m positive. I told her there was a small bump on her head, too.”
“And if she goes to the hospital?”
“No. I offered to take her, and she said she was fine. She’s headed home now.”
That seemed to satisfy Mike, and he turned his attention back to the burnt ground. “For all we know, this might have had something to do with the earthquake. We need to investigate that fissure.”
They all stepped in beside him to head back to Cam’s office.
“Still want us to check the area?” Sel asked Mike.
“Yes. Cam and I will look at the fissure before going to his house. Meet us there in an hour if you’re able.”
Sel and Uri headed off in opposite directions while Mike and Cam went straight to the long crack in the ground. People were standing out in the street now, looking at the fissure but not venturing too close to it. Emergency vehicles lined both sides of the street.
“This place will be crawling with reporters soon,” Mike said.
“These few humans must feel the evil,” Cam said. “Even the ones I know to be a bit daring aren’t getting very close.”
One corner of Mike’s mouth turned up a bit as if he almost smiled.
They reached the fissure and squatted down to peer inside. Though it wasn’t very wide, it ran deep. Their angelic sight gave them both an eyeful of minions barely held back by the natural barrier between realms. Though the hell realms weren’t technically within the earth, the demonic races liked to use the human concept of hell and
swarm from below when they could manage it. From the looks of it, someone had found a way to create a portal that would crack open this street like a nutshell for the minions to pour through. But something must have gone wrong for it not to open all the way.
“How long do we have before they break through?” Cam asked.
Mike shrugged as he studied the barrier that was at least a mile below them. “That entirely depends on whoever opened this portal, what stopped him, and whether he has the means to try again.”
“It’s bigger than the few we had last year, but at least it doesn’t rival that time in Europe.”
Mike groaned. “I’d rather not remember that one. If I slept every night, I’d probably have nightmares about the minor demons shaped like hellhounds.”
Cam grinned. “Beady red eyes coming at us from every direction…”
Mike gave him a look, and Cam laughed.
“Anyway,” Mike said. “This doesn’t seem to be as large of a portal, but depending on which demon initiated its opening, it could be just as bad for the humans in this city. Huntsville could easily be overrun by a single portal opening.”
Cam looked around at the small gathering of people standing in the street talking to each other. They threw wary glances at the portal without seeing the angels nearby. The locals had come to mean something to him, though he was careful not to form relationships with any of them. Not only was it his duty to take care of them, he felt it was his privilege.
“I’ll be damned if I let demons overrun my city.”
Mike’s approving gaze warmed him. All of the Archangels took their obligations seriously, even without the Source’s voice to command them. Cam’s attention returned to the demons gathered in the deep recess, and he clenched his fists. As always, the angels would win this fight, but he worried about the cost.
Chapter Two
Two hours later, the four brothers were gathered in Cam’s kitchen, poring over geological maps of the area.
“There isn’t a single fault line in Huntsville,” Cam said.
“No, but there are a few in Houston,” Mike replied.
“According to the news reports, the humans seem to be as baffled as we are,” Sel chimed in.
