Death's Angel: A Novel of the Lost Angels (13 page)

“Not a good idea to go all Champion of the Winged Warriors in here, my friend,” he whispered, pointing at his own eyes. Michael blinked. He realized that his eyes felt hot in his face and that they were most likely beginning to glow.

He closed his eyes. With a deep breath, he forced his shoulders to relax.

In the realm he’d come from two thousand years ago, he’d possessed an army of angels to lead into battle. Now if he wanted to charge headlong into a fight, he would have to drag his brothers into danger along with him, to say nothing of their soul mates. So he held back. He had no right to put their lives on the line simply because he felt impatient, especially now that they had so much more to live for.

“So what do I do now, Randy?” he asked, talking to the ex-cop–turned-vampire as he would a close friend. He needed to find the human girl who had been taken. But where did he start?

“That’s a good question,” said Randall. “But on the upside, I have a feeling you won’t have to answer it.”

Michael opened his eyes, no longer burning in his face, and fixed them on Randall.

“You’re not going to have to track down whoever did this,” Randall continued.

Michael realized he was right. Something in his gut was telling him that whoever was responsible for this incident wouldn’t need to be found.

Because he would find Michael first.

Chapter Twelve

T
he night was calm, the fog hadn’t yet rolled in, and because it was Tuesday, the normally thriving tourist attraction that was Pier 39 was quickly winding down.

The street performers, beggars, and tourists were all packing it in and heading home or to their hotels. Though the fog remained nestled just beyond the Golden Gate Bridge, the air was already thick with the scent of it; it muffled the clanging of mast and rigging. The tide was rising. The seagulls were quieting down, making room for one another on crow’s nests and the wooden beams of the pier.

Out on Alcatraz Island, the lighthouse winked its eternal message, its light temporarily piercing the graying darkness in unhurried rhythm. Somewhere in the distance, a cargo ship sounded its horn. The sea lions, from where they vied for space on the wooden rafts that had been left for them long ago, replied.

Alone on the lookout point beside one of the many pay telescopes that lined the north side of the pier stood a woman with beautiful hair. It curled more than usual in the damp air, a waist-long mass of thick waves and spirals that shimmered like gold beneath the pier lights. She leaned casually against the wooden railing before her and peered out into the bay. Her mind had been spinning until now; he could hear it grow steadily calmer as she took a deep breath, pulling in the salt air. She closed her eyes as she let it go.

Azrael noticed the drops of moisture on her long, full lashes as they rested on the tops of her cheeks. He’d been watching her since sundown—he and his band mates, who were stationed, unseen, at intervals across the wharf and the piers.

When she opened her eyes again, she did so with a smile. That smile was like a sunbeam and brought to mind an image of the fiery orb that he hadn’t seen in two thousand years.

Azrael’s body flexed beneath its dark garb, his hunger spiking once again. He’d had to feed more than normal lately. Sophie Bryce had awakened the monster within him, and that monster was voracious.

“You okay?” came a gravelly voice beside him. Azrael tore his gaze from the object of his desire and glanced at his old friend. Not much escaped Randall McFarlan. Not much escaped a vampire in any case, but Randall’s skills of perception were especially fine-tuned.

Az could have lied. But it would have done no good, and in all honesty he wanted to tell someone how he was feeling. He wanted to get it off his chest. So he didn’t say anything at all, knowing that his silence would be more telling for Randall than a lengthy confession.

Randall nodded once in understanding and his stark vampire gaze returned to the profile of the young woman standing alone on the boardwalk. “A funny thing about young Miss Bryce,” Randall said. “She doesn’t seem to be opposed to the night.” He smiled slowly, glancing back at Az before he continued. “In fact, I would say she seems quite fond of it.”

Azrael turned his attention back to Sophie. She straightened from where she had been leaning against the wood railing and sighed. Then she tucked a curly lock of hair behind one ear and began digging into the large leather messenger bag she had slung across her body.

It had been a few weeks since he’d seen her last. Their brief “date” had ended so quickly and on such a sour note for him—he’d never been more furious with the Adarians. As Sophie slept that night, Azrael entered her dreams and manipulated her memory of their date so that she would assume Az had simply brought her home after dinner and said good night.

The next day, Sophie awoke to a single bloodred rose on her pillow and a handwritten note:
Sweetest Sophie
, it read.
I thoroughly enjoyed getting to know you a little better tonight. I hope you will allow me to do it again very soon. Always, Azrael.

According to her watchers, Sophie had smiled winsomely, inhaled the rose’s heady scent, and then set herself to the task of packing up her meager belongings and preparing for her flight to San Francisco. The apartment she was leaving behind was furnished, and almost nothing of what she’d been using for comfort actually belonged to her. The rest—the blankets, the clothes, the shoes, and the books—she’d managed to fit into two large suitcases and a carry-on for the one-way trip.

As Sophie left her key with the building manager and caught her flight, the human vampire servants entrusted with her safety continued their task of watching over the future vampire queen. Randall had called in the big guns for Sophie. She was being watched twenty-four/seven.

A part of Az felt decidedly strange about all of this. He felt uneasy, jealous even. But the bigger part of him was well aware that it was necessary. She was too precious and far too vulnerable during the day. And he’d been careful. He had made certain to scour the minds of the men who guarded her, searching for any signs of unwanted emotion or duplicity. They were clean.

The network of human servants who were loyal to the vampire nation spanned the globe like a massive spiderweb. These people were more carefully chosen than the vampires themselves. They had to be. It was because of them that many of the vampires who roamed the night now were alive to do so.

Randall was the man in charge when it came to the humans. He, Monte, and Terry led the network of day walkers with perfect efficiency. Randall’s wisdom and patience made him the ideal head of the operation. Monte’s attention to detail made certain that nothing ever slipped through the cracks and that no human servant ever went rogue. Terry’s easy nature and people skills made communication with the humans painless and reassuring.

It was fortuitous to a supernatural degree that Randall, Terry, and Monte currently resided in San Francisco, where the third archess now lived. Azrael had never been more convinced that something greater than him was at work of late. Everything was too interconnected for him to think otherwise.

Out on the pier, Sophie pulled a chunk of leftover sourdough out of her messenger bag. It was still wrapped in the paper bag from the Boudin Bakery, and Azrael could smell it even from where he watched, on the garage roof across the street.

He knew she was about to toss it to the birds. According to the day walkers on her guard, she was always giving away what she had. Whether to the homeless who dwelled on the streets of San Francisco or to the pigeons, Sophie was a sharing soul.

“All right, boys,” she said softly. No other humans were around. She was alone where she stood on the damp planks of the boardwalk. “Here’s your supper, but I’m not supposed to be feeding you, so this is our little secret.”

She tore off several small chunks and tossed them to the seagulls nearby. There was a brief white flutter, several more seagulls joined the first group, and they commenced to fighting over the pieces of bread.

Sophie’s smile broadened as she fed the birds what remained of the day’s lunch.

“Think she was talking to you?” Randall’s gravelly voice cut through the silence beside Az. Azrael shot him a dark look and Randall chuckled, ignoring him. The smug look on his face said everything.

Azrael turned back to Sophie. She began to move away from the birds, allowing them their privacy. As she did, she shoved her hands into the pockets of her vintage military-style jacket and her look became distant. At once, he wondered what she was thinking, and without the slightest restraint, he entered her mind to find out.

As usual, her thoughts were more difficult to infiltrate than those of a normal human mind. However, Az managed to breach her outer walls without allowing her to suspect that he was there, and as she made her way down the boardwalk toward Pier 41, he listened in on her inner musings.

She was thinking about Alcatraz. She kept glancing at it across the water. Not much of the dark island was visible through the black and gray of the slightly misty night, but the lighthouse sliced through the dimness faithfully, marking its location. Sophie was wondering what it would feel like to go sailing through a dense fog out on the bay. She imagined herself on a boat, surrounded by the mists, somewhere between Alcatraz and the Golden Gate Bridge. Her inner thoughts listened, picking up the sound of nothing but the silence and the lapping of the waves upon the hull of her imaginary vessel. She felt at peace as she imagined this, and because a part of him was with her in that moment, he felt it as well.

It was something he had never experienced before. Being inside someone’s mind while that person so clearly pictured something that was felt so deeply was a little like taking a really deep breath while underwater and getting nothing but clean air. Azrael watched his archess with a mixture of pride and burgeoning impatience. Over and over again, she took an existence that he thought he knew everything about and introduced it to something new.

He was falling in love with her.

At that thought, Azrael closed his eyes. But he remained comfortably sequestered within the warmth of Sophie’s mind as she let her reverie go in order to replace it with a new one. She now wondered what it would feel like to fly out over the bay like Superman and land on the island of Alcatraz when it was quiet and dark, as it was now. She was thinking that if she had wings, the way she sometimes did in her dreams, she could wait until it was so late that there was no one around. Then she would stand on one of the wooden beams surrounding the pier—and jump. And then . . . she was wondering what it would be like to have Az, the archangel, catch her while she was in the air, and kiss her.

Azrael straightened and opened his eyes, his lips parting. Beside him, Randall stood straighter as well, his instincts no doubt going on alert at the sudden change in his sire. Azrael’s senses focused. His heart beat a little faster. He couldn’t believe the images that were floating before Sophie’s mind at that very moment.

In her head, Azrael took her to Alcatraz Island . . . where his band mates were waiting. And in her head, they were vampires.

Az could feel his gaze begin to heat up. His blood hummed to life; his gums ached where his fangs threatened to lengthen. Sophie was imagining him seducing her, toying with her. In her daydream, she ran from him, willingly playing the prey to him and his men. Uro easily blocked her path. Then Azrael was behind her once more.

Down below, Sophie suddenly stopped on the boardwalk, reached out to steady herself on the chain-link fence beside her, and closed her eyes as she imagined Azrael sinking his teeth into her neck.

Azrael’s fangs exploded in his mouth, his vision went red, and he swore softly, turning away from the sight of his archess on the boardwalk. Beside him, Randall came forward, at once concerned. But before the other vampire could speak, Azrael held up his hand to indicate that he wanted silence. He shut his eyes tight against his impending transformation, ruthlessly willing his body back under control.

Sophie. . . .
He’d already known that she thought he looked like a vampire, but she also
daydreamed
of him being a vampire. Of him coming after her! His mind spun with the implications, the biggest of which was probably that Sophie not only didn’t mind his resemblance to the monster—she
liked
it. She spent time conceiving what she thought to be impossible scenarios involving him and his big, bad teeth . . . because they brought her pleasure.

Again he swore, but this time internally.

He’d planned to take this slowly. In fact, as far as Sophie knew, he’d stayed completely away from her for the last week. He’d given her space and time to get acquainted with the school and her new apartment and the big city. There had been no sign of the Adarians, making his apparent distance possible. He wasn’t sure what Abraxos was up to, but whatever it was, it didn’t seem to be taking place in San Francisco, at least for now.

In the meantime, Az was never far from Sophie, and his men and their servants watched her twenty-four hours a day. But as far as she was concerned, she’d been on her own. He didn’t want to crowd her. He knew some of what she’d been through at the hands of men and he didn’t want to scare her off.

But now her presence, only a split second away from him as the vampire flies, was calling to him like an amplified siren song. Knowing what she wanted—what she
truly
wanted, deep down inside—was killing him.

Down below, Sophie laughed to herself, no doubt chastising herself for her wicked thoughts as she was so wont to do. Azrael’s gut clenched. He tasted blood in his mouth and realized he’d pierced his lower lip with his fangs. The taste surprised him. It had been forever since he’d done that.

“No offense, Az, but you’re a mess.”

Azrael spun to face Randall, who was watching him with an inherent wisdom glinting in his blue, blue eyes. The other vampire pulled a gold pocket watch out of his tan trench coat and flipped it open. It was vintage, having belonged to Randall’s father hundreds of years ago. It didn’t keep time as accurately as modern timepieces, and for a vampire, that was gutsy. But Randall was sentimental—and every soul deserved a vice.

“According to what she’s done every other night this week, in roughly seven minutes she’s going to leave that pier entirely and head for the cable cars at Ghirardelli,” Randall said in his rough but gentle voice. “If you ask me—”

“I didn’t ask you,” Azrael cut in curtly.

Randall continued as if he hadn’t been rudely interrupted. “It seems the perfect time for a few members of Valley of Shadow to hit the town and relax.” He nodded a little to himself and slipped the watch back into his pocket. His gaze traveled over the streets and buildings around them. “Middle of the week, middle of the night, not as many people around. It would be a believable coincidence should your paths happen to cross that of one Sophie Bryce.”

A beat of silence passed between them. And then Azrael almost laughed. Randall was cutting to the heart of the matter and simultaneously offering up a solution. It was his way. It was part of the reason Azrael had brought him over all those years ago. McFarlan was a very,
very
smart man.

He was also right. Azrael had waited long enough. He’d been planning to send Valley of Shadow tickets to her new apartment and meet up with her at the concert, but this taking-it-slow thing was turning into a jaunt through Tartarus.