by Margaret
“I am not in love with her,” Derek said angrily.
William eyed him a moment, then said, “Good. Have you considered the consequences of what would happen if she fell in love with you?”
“I do not think there’s much chance of that,” Derek muttered.
“You’re probably right,” William said.
“You do not need to agree so fast,” Derek said, casting the angel a reproachful glance.
“Derek,” said William severely, “you want to gain her trust, not her affection. You are only on Earth for a short while. When this assignment ends, you will return to your duties. You will disappear from her life and she won’t understand how or why. You could hurt her terribly.”
“I think I can safely assure you, William, that there is no danger of Rachel Duncan falling in love with me—” Derek began.
He was interrupted by a banging on the door. It was two of the tenants. By the angry expression on their faces, they had been standing there for some time. Derek, glad to be able to avoid William’s piercing gaze, hurried off to let them inside.
“What do they want?” William demanded irritably.
“They want to come into the building,” said Derek, over his shoulder. “They live here. This is my job—”
“Oh, right.” William began to twirl his hat around in his hands. He was shaking his head in consternation and muttering to himself.
The couple, both dressed in tennis attire, swept through the door in an icy blast of chill displeasure. Derek made his apologies, but the man brushed those aside.
“Do you realize how long we’ve been standing there?” the man asked Derek angrily.
“Not to mention the fact that you weren’t there to help us out of our limo,” said the woman.
“All because you were too busy conversing with a…a vagrant!” The man cast William a scathing glance.
“This person should not be here.” The woman took a handkerchief from her purse and held it to her nose. “This building is not a homeless shelter!”
“Well, maybe it should be, lady!” William cried, bounding to his feet.
Derek tried to intervene, but William shoved him aside. The archangel was incensed.
“I’ll have you know that the way you people treat the homeless in this city is a disgrace.” William shook his finger at the couple. “An absolute disgrace! Particularly for you, Jimmy Raye Cyrus.”
The man’s mouth sagged open. He had been red with rage, but now all the color drained out of his face. He was as pale as the underside of a dead fish. He swallowed.
“You must have me mistaken for someone else. That’s not my name—”
“Oh, yes, it is. That’s what they called you back home. None of this high-falutin James Raymond Cyrus the Third malarkey. You were born plain old Jimmy Raye and your own grandfather was a homeless vagrant, though they were called hobos in the days of the big Depression. Your grandfather rode the rails when he was young, working odd jobs here and there until he scraped together enough money to start the little garage business. Then came your daddy and he took over and by his hard work he turned that little garage into a chain of fancy auto parts stores that can be found in every major city from here to California. Not that you would know, would you, Jimmy Raye? You haven’t paid any attention to the business that’s been in your family for years! You’re too busy playing tennis.”
“I’m very sorry for this, Mr. Cyrus,” Derek said, as he grabbed hold of the furious archangel and tried to drag him out the door.
Mr. Cyrus didn’t say anything. He was staring at William, a dazed expression on his face. His wife was making up for his silence. She was sputtering with rage.
William broke free of Derek and charged back to the attack.
“And let me tell you this, Jimmy Raye,” William went on. “If it hadn’t been for your daddy fixing things up with the draft board during Vietnam, you might be one of those homeless vets sleeping out under the el.”
“James! Why are you standing there listening to all this?” his wife demanded. “The man is obviously crazy.”
“Yes,” said her husband weakly. “He’s…quite insane.”
“Come along, James,” said his wife. She gripped his arm and started him heading toward the elevator. He went with her, but he continued to look back at William, at one point even stumbling over the trash can.
His wife glared back at Derek. “This is all your fault. I’ll be speaking to Mr. Fraym about this.”
“I am very sorry,” Derek said for the sixteenth time. “It won’t happen again, I assure you.”
He finally succeeded in wrestling the archangel out the door.
“Well done,” said Derek. “Now I will lose my job.”
“I’m sorry, but that pompous south-end of a northbound horse had it coming,” William fumed.
“It’s not so easy, dealing with mortals, is it?” Derek asked dryly.
The archangel gave him a sheepish grin.
“No, I guess it isn’t.” William cast his eyes heavenward. “Now I’m the one who’ll be in trouble with Archangel Michael. You don’t think Jimmy Raye will get you fired, do you? We need you here.”
“Fortunately Mr. Cyrus is always half soused. You could smell the whiskey on him. Must do wonders for his tennis game,” said Derek. “He probably won’t remember much.”
“More’s the pity,” William growled. “Now, what are we going to do about Rachel? I didn’t fully understand her precarious position until now. Did you talk to her last night? What did she tell you?”
“She’s been completely taken in by that Zanus.” Derek started to pace around the sidewalk. He told William all about their conversation. He also told William about Zanus’s threats.
“This is bad,” said William. “Very bad.”
“Bah, I’ve dealt with the likes of him before.”
“You don’t understand,” said William gravely. “It’s worse than you imagine. I came to tell you that I received information from Archangel Michael only this morning that the demons are planning something big.”
“Something big? What is it?”
“Unfortunately we don’t know,” said William.
“But isn’t this what you archangels do for a living—keep an eye on things, on the guardians and their charges?” Derek was grim. “I’m beginning to think all of you are in over your heads.”
He expected William to indignantly refute this, and was unpleasantly surprised when he didn’t. William only shook his head and looked even more serious.
“Archangel Michael believes we’re dealing with a powerful archfiend—one of the upper echelon. This Zanus may be the one. You must be extremely careful around him, Derek. You haven’t dealt with the likes of him before. He’s one of the generals. You are no match for an archfiend.”
Derek snorted and waved his hand in disdain.
“I mean it,” said William. “And there’s another problem. The archfiend knew who you were. How?”
“I don’t know. I guess he must have seen through my disguise. I saw through his quickly enough.”
“Because you were looking for a demon.”
“Yes, so what do you mean? What are you hinting at, William?”
“The archfiend saw through your disguise because he was looking for you,” William answered slowly. “He was looking for a holy warrior. He knew we were onto him.”
“But how did he—” Derek paused, shocked. “That would mean…”
“He was tipped off,” said William grimly. He looked suddenly terribly old and frail. “There’s a traitor somewhere.”
“Are you saying an angel told him? That’s unthinkable!” said Derek.
“We know some archfiends slipped past the holy warriors. We thought they had all gone straight to Earth, but perhaps not. Perhaps they have infiltrated our ranks—”
“I don’t believe it.” Derek was adamant.
“I’m afraid you’re going to have to, son. Which means you must be ever more vigilant in pr
otecting this woman and yourself. Removing her guardian angel was only their first step. We can’t anticipate what they’re going to do next. This is a new situation for us. The demons are using new tactics and, unfortunately, they have us at a disadvantage. They can use their powers and we can’t use ours.”
“That doesn’t make sense. I was going to talk to you about that very thing,” Derek said. “Why should it matter if we reveal ourselves to mortals?”
“Because then they would become dependent on us, Derek,” said William. “Like spoiled children. Like that Jimmy Raye Cyrus. His parents gave him everything he wanted. They leveled out all life’s bumps and filled up the potholes so that he had a nice, smooth ride. And now look at him! He has nothing to do all day but go looking for life at the bottom of a whiskey bottle.
“If mortals knew that angels were here to take care of them, they’d never do anything for themselves. ‘The poor aren’t my responsibility. Let the angels help them.’ That sort of thing.”
Derek wasn’t convinced. He had been a warrior and a strategist his whole life, and there had been times when he’d had to lead his men into battle without intelligence about the enemy’s position or strength. Derek also knew that such battles often ended badly. It was obvious to Derek that the archangels were not prepared for this type of battle. It was also obvious that he was going to be on his own. He couldn’t count on Heaven for help apparently.
But then, he never really had been able to count on Heaven. He’d always relied on himself. And that was what he intended to do now.
“If Zanus attacks me, I’ll have to fight him,” said Derek.
“He won’t attack you—at least not physically. If he’d been going to, he could have done so last night. He’s in much the same predicament we are. He knows we know about him, but he doesn’t know how much we know. He has to find out.”
“What do you mean, not physically attack?”
“He’s an archfiend. They’re much more subtle than that.”
“Zanus was not subtle last night,” said Derek, rubbing his midriff that was still sore from the punch Zanus had given him.
“He wanted a reaction from you and he got it, didn’t he?” William shook his head. “You played right into his hands. If it hadn’t been for me rushing in to save your bacon—”
“Yes, sir. I understand,” Derek said, flushing. “I admit what I did last night was stupid. But I’ll be on my guard from now on.”
“I hope so,” said William. He didn’t sound overly confident. “You’ll need to gain Rachel’s trust, convince her that you are not the threat. I hope you didn’t scare her last night.”
Derek snorted. “She wasn’t frightened. I thought for a minute in that restroom she was going to punch me and Zanus. She wanted to dice us into little pieces and feed us to the cat. Besides, we talked afterward. We went out for coffee and I apologized, and she is fine with me now.”
He shrugged and added bitterly, “She told me to stay out of her life, but otherwise than that, we are fine.”
William wasn’t listening.
“Cat…” he murmured. “Now there’s an idea.”
“What are you mumbling about?” Derek asked, exasperated.
“Uh? Oh, nothing,” said William. “Now listen here, son. You are not to ask her personal questions and you cannot confront her. You are to observe her comings and goings,” he said, laying emphasis on each word. “And especially note who she’s with. We must know more about this Zanus person and gauge how much influence he has over her.”
“I can tell you that,” said Derek angrily. “She’s in danger. We should do something.”
“We are doing something, Derek,” William said sternly. “We are doing what we have been told to do. When you command a regiment, you do not tell every soldier the battle plan. You tell them what they need to know to do their jobs and then you expect them to obey your orders. If they don’t, if they go off on their own, they could not only get themselves and their comrades killed, they could put the entire campaign in jeopardy. We don’t know Heaven’s battle plan, Derek. We only know our small part of it. If we go against orders, we could be putting everything at risk—including Rachel.”
Derek stared at him in grim silence. He hated to admit William was right.
William softened his tone. “I understand. You are a man of action, rushing in where angels fear to tread. But you better tread carefully here, Derek.”
He eyed Derek, then said, “I think I’m going to ask Michael to assign you a partner.”
“Absolutely not!” Derek said heatedly.
“You have no say over this, I’m afraid, son. It’s too important. You can’t watch over Rachel twenty-four hours a day. I’ll put in a request for someone to help you guard Rachel. Someone who can be with her when you can’t and, at the same time, feed you information.”
“I do not need anyone, I tell you!” Derek had never worked with a partner before and he didn’t plan to start now. He’d learned not to trust others as a rule, and that rule had served him well. Above all, he didn’t like the thought of anyone else trying to get close to Rachel.
“Your partner will report to you daily. I know you don’t like it, but time is of the essence here, Derek. You said it yourself. Now that Zanus knows we’re onto him, he’ll have to act more quickly. Rachel will be in even greater danger.”
William regarded Derek intently, trying to read his thoughts.
Derek met his gaze defiantly. He hoped William did read his thoughts. His thoughts ran along the lines that this whole mission was going straight down the toilet. His superiors had no idea who or what he was up against. They had bad intelligence, and now he was being assigned a partner who could very well be an infiltrator.
“Your partner will be in contact with you soon. Try to get some rest, son,” William added solicitously, patting Derek on the shoulder. “I’ll be in a cardboard box under the Fullerton Street bridge if you need me.”
William wandered off down the street.
Derek worried about Rachel. She was at work. Standing in the place they called the pit. He imagined ugly dark figures hunching over her, huddled around her, wings extended to cover her with dark shadows, their sharp talons outstretched, trying to seize hold of her. He saw their eyes glowing red with demon fire and it was all he could do to keep from racing out to the Merc to check on her, assure himself that she was safe.
He restrained himself because that was the very thing he’d promised her he wouldn’t do.
Ten
Rachel struggled through her day in the pits. Fortunately this Friday was a quiet day on the market, not much going on. Zanus knew better than to call her while she was working, but sometimes he’d send her a text message or leave her voice mail telling her where he had made reservations for dinner or that he had tickets to the latest hottest play. She didn’t hear from him today.
Her phone rang almost the moment the market closed. She answered it with a fast-beating heart.
“Hi,” she said, trying to sound casual.
“Hello, Rachel.” He seemed cool. “I know we usually go out to dinner and a show on Friday evening, but I’m going to have beg off tonight. Something has come up and I need to deal with it.”
“Of course. I understand,” Rachel said. “I’m really tired after all the excitement last night. I don’t think I could have stayed out late anyway.” She paused a moment, then she asked, “You’re not still mad, are you? About what I said. I was upset—”
“No, of course I’m not mad,” he answered and his voice warmed. “As I told you, something’s come up. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
He hung up. Rachel snapped her phone shut with a sinking feeling in her heart. She told herself that Zanus was a man of business, a man with financial concerns the world over. Of course, situations were bound to “come up.” It was just odd that they happened to come up the night after the two of them had their first quarrel.
She had been extremely angry to find him parked outside
her condo last night, waiting for her like a parent waiting for a teenage daughter out after her curfew. She had also been a little worried that he would see Derek and so she had launched into her speech, telling him in no uncertain terms that the problem with Derek the doorman was her problem, not his. She was perfectly capable of dealing with him without a big, strong man rushing in to protect her. She’d had matters under control. He’d been the one to start the brawl. He had delivered the first punch and so on and so forth. She had been vastly relieved to see Derek’s cab drive off. Smart thinking on his part!
Zanus had listened to her, and then he’d had the grace to apologize. She was perfectly right. He had been out of bounds. He had even said how much he had enjoyed meeting her friends and that he looked forward to getting together with them again. Then he had given her a kiss and gone away.
And then he hadn’t called all day, and when he did call, it was to cancel their date.
She wondered if she should call him, then told herself not to be stupid. She would sound clingy and needy. If he was going to end their relationship over something like this, better she should know now. She would spend a quiet evening at home. Maybe order in Chinese and watch one of the old Doris Day movies her mother had given her for Christmas. Her mother was always hopeful that someday Rachel would come to her senses and turn into Doris Day.
She hadn’t slept at all last night and so she decided she’d go straight home, skip her daily trip to the office after market close if they didn’t need her. They didn’t. Not surprising. Mr. Freeman almost always played golf on Friday afternoon if the weather was nice, and today the sun was shining with hardly a cloud in the sky. Rachel cancelled the car and caught a cab.
On the way, she decided not to order Chinese but to treat herself. She had been so nervous in company with Zanus and her friends that she hadn’t eaten much dinner last night. She told the cab driver to take her to the Drake, a beautiful old hotel on the lakefront.
The bar was packed with young professionals. She had a dirty martini and then ordered a salad and a bowl of their famous Bookbinder Soup with sherry, along with a glass of white wine. Since the evening was nice, she decided to walk home. Perhaps the exercise would make her feel better.
