Archangel Rafe (A Novel of The Seven Book 1) (15 page)

Rafe put a hand on Uri’s forearm. “What is it?”

“There is new evidence.” Uri glanced around, nodded again...and disappeared.

“What does that mean?”

Rafe ignored her question. “You need to learn how to protect yourself against too much healing. And you need to learn how to disengage if the process is too much.”

“Is that why he was so adamant about me finishing?”

“No. He is worried about me,” Rafe finally said.

“Why?”

“We are forbidden.”

Right. Forbidden. Damn but she hated that word.

TWENTY-TWO

“Is it done?” Uri’s voice was hard, unforgiving.

“Not yet.” Angelina had requested one day to come to terms with her grief and help her sister with the myriad of details associated with burying her grandmother. Rafe had reluctantly granted the request. But they needed to finish her training. And soon.

In the meantime, he had worked on educating Tomasz, Stanislaus’s son. Luckily Stas had already explained some of the process to Tomasz, so Rafe’s job there was less intensive. Rafe had spent the morning working with Tomasz whose power was nowhere near as strong as Angelina’s and still he was grateful for the gift of his power.

“You need to stay away from her.”

“I know.” Rafe ran his fingers through his hair and wished he could pull it out. Wished for a solution to the indefinable attraction he held for her. “You saw how powerful she is.”

Uri sighed. “She is like poison to you.”

“I have this feeling that she is important.” Rafe couldn’t define why or even how, but this sense of destiny had grown stronger with every moment they spent together. She was extremely powerful. And her instinctive ability to heal was incredible.

“You are thinking with the head in your pants.”

“Screw. You.”

“I only speak that which is true.” Uri shook his head sadly. “And you don’t want to screw me, you want to screw her.”

Which only made it worse because Uri was right.

“If it’s any consolation, I see why you want her,” Uri said. “She has a sensualness in her movements that is very appealing.”

Rage rumbled through Rafe. No one touched her.
No one
.

He shoved Uri up against the marble walls of the Realm Library, his hands were fisted in Uri’s shirt, the veins in his arms purple with rage. Fury caromed through him like a race car on the straightaway, a red mist hazed his vision. “Don’t even think about it.”

“I am not crazy.” Uri held his hands up at his shoulders, his posture one of surrender.

“She is....”
Mine
. Rafe wanted to shout, he wanted to roar to the entire Angelic Realm. Reality defeated his jealousy. The fight left his hands and arms and mind, instead of head butting him, Rafe dropped his forehead to Uri’s shoulder. “I have a very serious problem.”

“I know, my friend.”

“She is important.”

“You cannot have her. In any sense of the word.” Uri continued to speak softly, barely breathing as Rafe held him pushed up against the wall, “Would you risk your future, your life, for her? And more importantly, would you risk
her
life?”

Rafe shuddered. “No.”

Uri clapped Rafe on the shoulder. “It’s time for the council meeting.”

Rafe nodded once.

“You need to get it together.” Uri cautioned, “The entire council will be there.”

“Yeah. Let’s go.”

They walked into the conference room together. The big mahogany table was occupied except for Uri and Rafe’s chairs.

“You look like hell,” Michael commented. “What’s wrong with you?”

“Complications with the transition.”

“Figure it out,” Michael ordered. “We need you for this.”

Rafe slouched in his council chair, one leg thrown over an arm, his shoulders angled toward Michael, and waited for everyone to quiet down. The usual taunts and insults flew across the massive conference table as the Archangels joked with each other. Rafe stayed silent. He just wanted this meeting over.

Michael called the Archangels to order and moved straight to business. “The fact that the Angels were killed in the old way is troubling. How could someone gain that knowledge and why would they use it? Any new information?”

“No information on the death blow. However, I found a symbol in the archives....” Jed, Archangel of Illumination, paused. “I believe it is significant.”

Jed opened the doors on the box on the wall. Behind the doors were a white board and a rack with a multitude of dry erase markers. He drew a symbol that looked a lot like a cursive capital N on the board. “Does anyone know what this is?”

The room fell silent as they all took time to study the symbol. Rafe finally spoke, “I’ve never seen it before.”

“Me either,” Uri said.

A chorus of agreement rang out in the room.

“What makes you think it’s significant?” Gabriel asked the question that bugged them all.

“It is significant.” Jed’s unearthly eyes glowed almost gold in the evening air. “I just can’t see why.”

“Hate it when he does that Jedi shit,” Uri muttered.

“Yeah, especially when it doesn’t tell us anything,” Rafe replied, frustrated with everything. Angelina’s transition, Stas’s death, the unrest in the Universe, and the rift between him and Uri.

Jed slowly turned to glare at them. His posture was suddenly more menacing and his face an impenetrable mask. “Your strife serves no one. Your friendship must be stronger than a temporary disagreement.”

Rafe flushed with embarrassment and the worry that Jed had noticed that he and Uri were at odds. He couldn’t afford for anyone to question why.

“Do you really think that when I find an object or symbol and
know
it has meaning, but I have no idea
what
, is fun for me?” Jed asked.

Michael slammed his palm down, and the impact reverberated through the massive mahogany table. “Knock if off, boys.”

Zach kicked his feet up onto the table. “Yeah, knock it off,
boys
.”

Uri shoved his chair away from the table and stood. “This is a waste of time.”

Michael pointed at Uri. “Sit down.”

Uri sat, fists clenched, face unhappy.

“What happened between the two of you when you went to make sure the embers were out?” Rafe asked under his breath.

“Jerk left me,” Uri said. “Just disappeared. I haven’t seen him since and frankly I don’t care.”

Rafe didn’t like Zach’s attitude. He also didn’t like the way Zach stared at them. Zach either thought he knew something or he did know something.

“Why not ask ol’ Uri where he went when we got back to the fire site?” Zach sneered. “Maybe that’ll give us a lead.”

What was this? Uri had said Zach left.

Uri didn’t say a word.

Uri was protecting Rafe. He needed to do the same for his bud. “Just spit out what you want to say, Zach.” Rafe strove for patience.

“The Angels were killed but so were humans and the chickens.” Zach tossed a dead chicken onto the table.

Everyone in the room groaned at the smell of partially decomposed animal carcass. “Did you have to do that?”

“That stinks.”

“Ugh, what a crappy smell.”

Uri threw up his hands. “What is the significance of the dead chickens?”

“The fire is not what killed them,” Jed surmised as he wrapped the prongs of his whip around his hand, the leather sliced into his hand, and left tiny cuts on his palm.

“Correct,” Michael said. “The chickens were all dead before the fire was started.”

“How many are we talking?” Gabe asked. Ever since the flood, he’d had a softness for animals. Between him and Noah, they’d saved many species, but he still hated to see animals killed.

“Tens of thousands,” Uri confirmed. “The word in the village is that the owner went crazy. But I don’t buy it.”

“Can we talk to him?” Michael asked.

Uri responded, “No, he perished in the fire.”

“Examine this.” Zach seemed almost defiant as he challenged Rafe.

“Okay.” Rafe leaned over the table and held his hands over the decaying bird. Although humans were their main focus, some angels had the ability to heal animals as well. They tended to become veterinarians.

Rafe submersed in the cell structure of the dead chicken. A virus had killed the chicken. He frowned. He didn’t recognize the strain, the mutation. He hadn’t seen this specific virus before. Although the strain seemed familiar, he’d really need to get into the lab to do the analysis justice.

“Well?” Zach demanded.

“The virus killed the chicken,” Rafe said slowly.

“Avian bird flu?” Shadows darkened Michael’s bright blue eyes.

“I’ve mostly studied biological warfare threats.” Rafe wanted that point clear. “However, I did review the avian flu after the swine flu pandemic. It could be bird flu. But it isn’t typical. It isn’t a variation on the swine flu either. The mutation is different. And there are all sorts of strains of existing bird flu. The worry is when they jump to other species.”

“Explain.”

Rafe launched into a mini-lecture. “There are hundreds of strains of avian influenza A viruses but only four are known to have caused human infections: H5N1, H7N3, H7N7, and H9N2. Usually, human infection with these viruses results in mild symptoms and very few severe illnesses, with one exception, the highly pathogenic H5N1 virus.”

“The Dummies version, please,” Michael commanded.

“This is similar.” Rafe studied the chicken and the mutation. He needed to examine the virus in the lab. If he was right, it was the H7N1, but this virus was different from the H7N1 he had analyzed before. The protein strain was different.

“So it shouldn’t kill humans?”

“It’s similar, but based on what I know about the disease, I don’t believe so.”

Subtly everyone in the room relaxed.

“However, the virus killed the chickens.” He wondered if the virus had somehow jumped species. Could that be why the chickens and the humans had been destroyed? “Maybe the virus did jump to humans. I need to examine the humans in the area.”

Michael nodded.

Rafe let the conversation swirl around him. He would have to deal with this bird flu but he had more distracting problems on his hands. He couldn’t pass off Angelina’s training to anyone else. The Virtues had made it very clear that he needed to be more in touch with humans. Although Rafe didn’t think Victor would be all that thrilled with the ‘touching’ he done so far.

“What about the humans who perished in the fire?” Rafe pushed Angelina to the back of his mind. Now he needed to focus on the problem at hand.

“There was nothing left of their remains,” Uri said shortly.

Michael asked slowly, “Were they dead before the fire?”

“There is no way to tell. They were incinerated,” Uri replied. “But it was definitely deliberate.”

The destruction from the fire just reinforced what Rafe used to think. Humans didn’t have any care for life or for their own actions. It was all about them. Except he knew that wasn’t true. Working with Angelina and Tomasz had reminded him of the indomitable human spirit. He had felt Angelina’s euphoria when she’d saved Mrs. Hooper.

Here was an opportunity to use the argument to ascend now. To spend all his time in the lab and examine this virus. Away from the human condition. Away from their messy lives and even messier deaths.

And yet, Rafe found himself hesitating. Unable to say the words that would take him away from her.

Rafe took a deliberate step away from the Second Sphere and said, “We should have the Virtues look at the chickens, while we focus on the Earth.”

TWENTY-THREE

Rain came down in sheets, blowing sideways and perfectly mirroring Angelina’s mood. A serious let down after the frantic days in the aftermath of Grammy’s death. She and Janine had finished the immediate details of burying their Grammy. She was home alone and recuperating. Janine had taken the kids to her club for dinner.

This was what she wanted, right? To be left alone. She roamed the empty house and searched for peace. Wished for Rafe.

Except, no, she wanted to be alone.

As if she dragged a heavy metal ball behind her, Angelina trudged through the barren rooms. Her sister had taken Grammy’s death very hard and the effects of her anguish and depression had started to take its toll on Angelina as well. She ended up back in her own bedroom. The rumpled and twisted sheets lured her toward oblivion and the possibility of her dream angel.

As if she’d conjured him again, Rafe appeared. His face was set in harsh lines that accented the hard curve of his mouth. She wished he’d just smile or maybe...hold her hand. Because she didn’t know when the healing energy would strike, she had held herself aloof and apart from everyone. The resulting loss of human touch had affected her deeply.

“Time for a lesson.”

“Not yet.” She tilted her chin a little higher and slurped him in. His black polo fit tight enough to mold to his pectorals, his biceps bulged and strained the ribbed trim. He had on worn jeans, the material washed so many times the denim was like very soft velvet, the kind she wanted to stroke just to experience the pleasure of touch.

Her gaze skimmed down the length of his legs, and as if he knew what she was thinking, his sex grew hard, the jeans changed shape and his erection pushed at the zipper.

Desire swelled through her at the thought of that erection and what good use it could be put to. She hadn’t had sex in months. Dream sex didn’t count. Her body reacted to the visual evidence he wanted her and a rush of arousal dampened her panties.

As if he could scent the musk from her body, his muscles hardened even further. “Why not?”

Her body reacted to the soft menace with another rush of liquid and she went boneless. Since when did hardasses turn her on? “My thoughts exactly.”

He processed her words with another long, deliberate blink. The look of longing on his face evaporated. “We can’t.”

If he hadn’t spoken in a weary, disappointed tone, she would have challenged him, but as she looked him over again, she picked up the details she’d missed before. He had circles under his eyes, a beard shadowed his jaw, and his face held a fatigue obvious now that she wasn’t focused on sex. She grabbed his hand, her only thought to comfort him as she’d wanted to be comforted a moment ago. A jolt of pure sizzling attraction spread like lightening and singed them both. He let go faster than she could say, “Burning, smokin’ hot.”