Death's Angel: A Novel of the Lost Angels (14 page)

He turned away from Randall and took the few steps necessary for him to be flush with the ledge of the garage’s roof. He gazed down at Sophie as the wind caught her lustrous hair and blew it around her perfect face. He caught the scent of her shampoo and swallowed hard.

So . . . she liked vampires.

The dark part of him—the slowly rumbling, glowing-eyed monster part of him—smiled cruelly and inhaled deeply, absorbing her scent until he knew that he no longer appeared even remotely human. His little archess fantasized about being taken by him, pierced by him. She imagined having an orgasm beneath his fanged ministrations. She wondered what it would feel like, even as she “knew” it wasn’t possible. Such things as vampires didn’t exist.

Azrael understood that it was a fantasy and was meant only to be such. Humans often imagined things that were pleasant in a make-believe world. However, to believe that vampires didn’t exist was a shortsighted assumption on Sophie’s part. She, in particular, should have known better. She already believed in the supernatural; Juliette had introduced her thoroughly to their world.

Sophie thought him an angel.

“Little fool,” he whispered. There was more than one kind of angel.

Chapter Thirteen

S
ophie shook her head and pushed the images out of her mind. Her body was uncomfortably flushed now. It was a cool night, as it almost always was in San Francisco, but she was warm. All over.

She sighed heavily and shoved a mass of golden locks out of her face with an impatient hand. She’d thought that moving to the coast and not having any contact with the rock star archangel would get Azrael out of her head, but it appeared that wasn’t the case. She had to admit to herself now that she had it bad for him. Which was just pathetic. She’d never imagined that she would become obsessed with someone, but that seemed to be the case.

She was even taking liberties with her little obsession. She’d imagined Azrael doing so many different things to her in so many different ways, it was becoming crowded in her head. Now she’d turned him into a vampire and was including his band mates? She made a frustrated sound, stopped in her tracks, and pinched the bridge of her nose. She couldn’t help it! They were so
hot
! And she knew damn well that she wasn’t the only woman in the world to harbor such thoughts about certain men. It was natural—it was what imaginations were
for
!

She dropped her hand and turned to peer out over the dark, bottomless bay once more.
I’m just daydreaming
, she told herself soothingly. Wasn’t a girl allowed to daydream?

Alcatraz Island winked at her, flashing its signal and then going black once more. Sophie blinked. She pushed up the sleeve of her jacket and glanced at the oversized watch that dangled from her left wrist. The cable car would be leaving any minute now. She’d been caught up in her reveries and moving a little slower than she’d thought.

Sophie turned and sprinted down the Embarcadero toward Ghirardelli Square. She’d been blessed with long legs that now came in handy, helping her to eat up the ground at a quick pace. She was also lucky that there was almost no one else on the piers at that hour, so no one got in her way to slow her down.

She made it to the cable-car stop with several seconds to spare and slipped onto one of the outside benches. There were about half a dozen other riders at this time of night, as opposed to how it was in the middle of the day, when every available inch of the transportation device was occupied and ten people stood clinging to the poles on either side of the car.

Sophie was about to pull the monthly public transportation pass she’d purchased out of her messenger bag when the cable-car operator boarded the car and saw her sitting on the end.

“Well, hey, girl,” he said, smiling. “I don’t need to see your card again; it hasn’t changed, right?” He cocked his head to one side, teasing her.

She smiled, shook her head, and closed the bag.

“I was wondering if you were gonna catch this last run,” he told her as he looked around to make certain everyone who wanted to ride was on.

“Am I that predictable?”

“You
are
making kind of a habit of this,” he said, chuckling. He was a big guy; it took a lot of muscle to work the deadweight of the cable car. Sophie watched him pop the massive clutch-like brake out of its locked position, and the cable car started to roll forward. “But I’m glad to have you aboard,” he added once they’d cleared the exit. He winked at her, his middle-aged, dark-skinned face wrinkling merrily under the expression.

Sophie hid her blush by looking away and focusing her attention on the row houses and streets as they passed by. San Francisco was all hills and coastline; every intersection they reached went up sharply one way and down just as sharply the other. But despite the attention-grabbing inclines, one distinctive detail remained easily visible, appearing in shop windows and taped to the walls outside of apartment complexes.

Valley of Shadow was coming to San Francisco. The band’s posters were enormous Gothic-inspired black-on-black works of art that featured the group in agonizingly tempting detail. Five pairs of piercing eyes stared out at the world with dark promise. Sophie could barely bring herself to look at them.

The band would be playing this weekend—and the concert had been sold out for months. Sophie knew because she’d actually looked into acquiring tickets. She didn’t normally spend money on anything that could be considered “frivolous.” She purchased her clothes at second-hand and vintage stores; she
loved
the shops along Haight-Ashbury. She never went to a professional hairstylist, instead choosing to trim her own ends. She slept on a futon, and bought her table and chairs at Goodwill.

But she loved music. She always had. Valley of Shadow was up there at the top of her list.

For so many reasons.

Sophie thought about her “date” with Azrael and the note he’d left on her bed before apparently leaving town. On the one hand, it hurt that she hadn’t seen him since then. She hated that she felt a little like a one-night stand, despite the fact that there had been no sex involved.

On the other hand, she felt awkward enough as it was. Forget the third-wheel thing. Sophie felt more like a
ninth
wheel. There were four archangel brothers and each one had an archess. She might be Juliette’s best friend, but Jules really had made a new life for herself and it included being a part of a family that contained four very definite, fated-in-the-stars couples. She wasn’t a part of that.

She and Jules had spoken over the phone a lot since the wedding, but even during those conversations, Sophie couldn’t shake the feeling of being an outcast. It would be strange when she visited Juliette.
If
she visited Juliette.

Sophie closed her eyes just then and swallowed back the swell of sadness that rose in her throat. She didn’t like that thought. So she shoved it away and opened her eyes to stare out once more at the up-and-down streets and the bay that stretched dark and misty beyond.

As the car started up Hyde, a street that was decidedly non-horizontal, Sophie held on to the bar beside her to keep from sliding across the bench and smashing into the couple seated a few feet away. It was fun; it cleared her mind of her previously unpleasant thoughts. She loved the cable cars; they were a carnival ride, a nostalgic history lesson, and reliable transportation all rolled into one.

As always, once they reached Washington, Sophie had the choice of getting off and walking the seven blocks to her apartment on Hemlock—or staying on and taking the cable cars out of her way so that she could catch another on California and get a little closer to Hemlock without walking through alleyways. It took longer to stay on the cars, but it was safer and she certainly didn’t mind the ride. She was never tired at this time of night. If she had her way, she would wake up at ten or eleven in the morning and not go to sleep until four a.m.

In fact, she’d been presented with that choice of late. She would begin classes in the fall, but that meant that she had the whole summer in San Francisco. Her parents’ inheritance money, combined with what she’d saved from working over the last ten years, was enough that for once, if she chose to, she could go without working for a summer or two. She could kick back, sleep in, roam the streets of Frisco—er,
San
Francisco
—without having to worry about getting to work on time.

No alarm clocks. No curfews. Just life to live, time to live it, and a beautiful place to live it in. It was somewhat stunning to realize that she suddenly had this freedom. Where had it come from? Had it always been there, waiting for her to take it? Or had she earned it herself?

Sophie smiled and shook her head. She felt scared—but all in all, pretty happy with life at that moment.

She stayed on the cable car until they reached California, and then she waved to the operator and hopped off. It was a little after one a.m. and a few minutes before the second cable car would come along, but there were other people waiting at the junction as well, so despite the late hour, she never felt that she was in any danger.

She was sitting on the steps in front of the Caffe Cento and more or less staring off into space when the sound of footfalls beside her drew her out of her reverie. She looked up . . . and up. Shock hit her system and her adrenal glands began pumping like mad. Her heart thudded hard, almost painfully, and she shot to her feet.

“Az!” she exclaimed, not knowing what else to say. At once, she shoved her hair out of her face again and wondered if she looked as much like a rag doll as she felt in that moment.

Azrael was standing just a few feet away, gazing down at her through those amber eyes that scorched her to her core. His perfect lips were turned up in an enigmatic, absolutely beautiful smile. As always, he was dressed in dark hues and, as always, they flattered his tall, strong figure in a way that made her chest ache and her stomach coil with warmth.

To make matters worse, he wasn’t alone. Uro was with him, and the gorgeous guitarist was watching her with the same mysterious and oddly flattering expression that graced Azrael’s perfect features.

She could barely stand it. Hell, she could barely breathe.

“Sophie,” Az said, allowing her name to roll off of his tongue with such deep, delicious clarity that Sophie could have melted. He bowed his head in a respectful nod, his eyes never leaving hers. The sound of his voice instantly brought to mind the images she had been entertaining only minutes ago on the pier, and her blush was back, but this time it was furious.

Pull yourself together.

Her inner voice had grown stern, managing to override the chattering of nervous twitters echoing through the remaining chambers of her brain. She rolled back her shoulders and offered Az a lopsided smile. “What are you doing here?” she asked, truly curious. How the hell did they keep managing to meet up?

Azrael hadn’t stopped watching her. His eyes glittered with untold emotion. His smile broadened before he gestured to his band mate beside him and said, “It’s rather difficult for us to get out during the day.” He looked beyond Sophie to the few people remaining on the streets. “But right now, we’re more free to relax,” he explained.

“We needed a break,” Uro added. Sophie glanced at him and felt her blush deepen. He’d featured rather prominently in her last little daydream. And with the way he was looking at her right now, she could almost swear that he
knew
that.

“You’re setting up for the concert this weekend,” she supplied, figuring it out despite the befuddled feel of her brain. Anyone who knew Valley of Shadow would recognize Uro on sight. And if they spotted Uro with a tall, handsome man with long black hair and an angelic voice, they would put two and two together and figure out that Az was the Masked One. His cover would be blown.

“Indeed,” Uro said in reference to the concert.

“I understand,” said Sophie, as if she weren’t at all affected by their sudden presence. “You’re playing at the stadium.”

“There’s quite a bit of work to do to get it ready,” said Uro.

“I can imagine,” Sophie said. The AT&T Giants baseball stadium was an enormous venue capable of seating more than forty thousand people. Once again, Valley of Shadow was following in the footsteps of some very notable greats such as Metallica and AC/DC. And she expected that, unlike shows by other bands who more often than not encountered acoustical problems as they tried to find ways to make themselves heard across that many seats, Valley concerts were always perfect, always mind-blowing. Nothing ever went wrong. Sophie figured she probably had the inside scoop as to why Valley of Shadow always succeeded in impressing its enormous crowds. Azrael was an archangel. He could do anything.

She wondered if his band mates knew. She realized just then that she would feel so much better if they did. It would mean she wasn’t really a ninth wheel after all. She would simply be part of a circle of trust.

“Sophie.”

Sophie’s head snapped up to meet Azrael’s gaze. He never failed to yank her attention back to him, as if she were a puppet on a cord.

“It’s fortunate that we should meet tonight,” he said softly. “I’d been hoping you would attend Saturday’s concert.” He had either the audacity or the raw talent—or both—to look genuinely coy in that moment as he shoved his hands into the pockets of his trench coat and offered up a slightly crooked smile. “In fact, I’d planned to have an invitation and a backstage pass dropped off at your new place, but since we’re both here right now . . .” His voice trailed off and his eyes filled the silence. “Perhaps you’d consider joining Uro and me for the evening?”

If she could have pulled her gaze from his, Sophie would have checked to see whether the earth had slipped out from beneath her feet. Azrael the archangel was asking her out again?

Don’t get ahead of yourself, Soph
. After all, he wasn’t alone. It couldn’t really be considered a date if she was with both of them, could it?

She opened her mouth to answer, and in a dry voice said, “I’m sure you guys have your own thing planned for tonight. You don’t need me tagging along.”

Azrael’s smile broadened

“Nonsense,” Uro said.

“Absolutely not,” Az agreed. The two came forward at once, moving to either side of Sophie. She froze as they effectively caged her in; it was rather discomfiting being surrounded by their incredibly strong presences. But then they turned and deftly wove their arms through hers, hooking them at the elbows. It was a friendly gesture, done gently and intimately.

Sophie was too surprised to say anything when they began walking back down the street the way they’d come, taking her right along with them.