It sounded vaguely familiar. It was in Texas, but the problem was, she could have sworn it was nearer to Austin than to where she lived. It would take her ten hours to get home by car.
Eleanore tried to remain calm. “This state is way too effing big,” she mumbled under her breath. She hurriedly thumbed through the phone book, scribbled some notes on the back of her paper, and then went back inside to return the cashier’s pen.
Now she had the address and hours of a local pawn shop and a taxi was on the way to pick her up. She also knew the address to the only Western Union office in town. She wasn’t sure how much money she would need to purchase a used car without so much as giving a real name, but it would probably take most of what she had readily available to her.
When she’d finished folding up the paper, she shoved it into her pocket and her fingers brushed the smooth metal of the gold bracelet she’d stolen at the mansion. She blinked.
She pulled the bracelet out and turned it over in her hands. It shimmered in the quickly fading sunlight. It was really quite an extraordinary work of art. The etching and detailing in the bracelet were so tiny and wrought so perfectly that it would seem only lasers could have etched the design.... But she knew it was too old for lasers. It practically radiated an ancient air.
It was also gold. With a start, Eleanore realized that gold was one of the best conductors of electricity and that it should have melted when she’d struck Gillihan with the lightning bolt. At the very least, it should have singed her fingers when she reached down to pick it up.
But it had been cool to the touch, and it was utterly unharmed.
Eleanore gazed down at the bracelet a few moments more, feeling raw inside. This bracelet must have belonged to one of the other brothers. She wondered whether Michael and Gabriel had been planning on using their bracelets on their archesses as well. Max said it was a precaution; that they had no idea how an archess would react to the news of being made for another being. But to her it was more than that. If a woman wasn’t allowed to be angry or rally against what she felt was an injustice, then she was no more than a prisoner.
This felt like a betrayal of trust. More than anything else, it was that shady duplicity that hurt. More than anything that had been done to her, it hurt that Uriel had been willing to use his bracelet to take away what she was and render her powerless against him. To take away her freedom and her choice.
That really, really hurt.
Eleanore blinked back tears and repocketed the bracelet. She took a deep, cleansing breath, made her way out of the booth to lean against the wall of the grocery store, and let her head fall back to close her eyes.
“Lilith,” Max uncertainly greeted the young—yet
very old
—woman and took a few steps forward. “What brings you here?”
Azrael could see that the guardian wanted to go to her. His feelings over the centuries had not changed. But he remained where he was, poised between the archangels and the woman known in their circle as the Dismissed, and waited.
It was a while before Lilith replied. Finally, she lowered her hand and entered the room. She was dressed as she always dressed, conservatively and simply. She wore only a silk button-down shirt, a knee-length business skirt, stockings that were most likely gartered, and heels. The reading glasses she sometimes carried on a chain around her neck were gone and her hair was down.
Few humans knew the true story of Lilith. Eons ago, nearly before the onset of time itself, Lilith had been created as a female companion for the first mortals the Old Man placed on Earth. Those mortals were considered by many archangels to mark the beginning of the Old Man’s degeneration. The archangels thought the creation of man was a poor decision. Lilith was worse. Freshly formed, she’d been given an ultimatum: serve man or suffer dire punishment. Like all mortals, Lilith had been born with a mind and will of her own. She was fiercely strong, and she defiantly refused the Old Man’s orders. As a punishment, she’d been sent out into the vastness of the mortal realm with nothing but the ability to suffer mortal death—and then awaken once more to her mortal, yet immortal, form. She died a thousand deaths in those first years from starvation, disease, and murder.
Her petite frame should have housed a soul both horribly bitter and perhaps a touch insane. However, she was neither. Lilith was a pillar of strength and perseverance, patience, and pardon.
Azrael thought of this now, as the woman slowly, gracefully, made her way across Michael’s massive master bedroom until she eventually stood at the foot of the large iron-framed bed and stared down at the man bound to it.
“You would expect no different, of course,” Lilith said then, turning to face Max with a sad smile and a small shrug. “But for what it’s worth, I bring an offer from Sam.”
At this, the company of angels and their guardian said nothing. After several long seconds, and with determined calm and composure, Max finally took a deep breath and asked, “What is it?”
“Uriel will die if he doesn’t feed, and at this point, he will need more than human sustenance.”
At once, Max turned to Azrael. “Is this true?”
“It’s possible,” he said. It had already occurred to him, in fact. On the one hand, a very healthy human with a lot of blood might just save Uriel. But he had been up during the day, leeched by those hot, bright hours. And he had been burned by the sun; such things were more lethal to a vampire than cyanide to a mortal.
Max turned back to Lilith and she went on. “I offer my blood to him in exchange for an amendment to the contract.”
Max’s jaw tensed; Azrael could see the muscle twitch. Beside him, he heard Michael’s heart rate speed up. And behind him, he could smell the adrenaline suddenly pouring into Gabriel’s bloodstream; the former Messenger of God was incredibly angry. Azrael wondered how long Gabe would be able to hold his temper before he decided to do something rash.
“What kind of amendment?” Max asked.
“Upon completion of Uriel’s feeding, Samael wishes to be allowed to again meet with the archess.” Her tone was both weary and apologetic. “He basically wants to break his forbearance a day early.” She cocked her head to one side and waited for an answer. It was clear from her expression that she was not the proud bearer of such a request. She was simply the messenger. Azrael wondered whether Gabriel could at all sympathize.
“Let her do it,” Azrael said then, and all eyes were on him. He knew that it wasn’t what they wanted to hear. He knew they expected him to think of something else; he was the vampire, he was the one who should have known how to get out of this situation. But the hard truth of the matter was, vampirism was not a gift. It was called a curse for a reason. There was no easy way around the hard edges of it. And Uriel was dying.
As it was, his heartbeat was barely discernible.
“Do it.” He turned to Lilith, knowing that his gold eyes were now glowing with determination and resolve. “Do it before it’s too late.”
Lilith squared her small shoulders and nodded. She looked so fragile there, beside the bed, as she resigned herself to her duty.
Azrael prepared himself to stop his guardian should Gillihan decide to interfere, which he could imagine the man absolutely wanted to do. But Max surprised him by keeping his distance. He was tense and he was angry; Azrael could tell that much easily. But he remained where he was, wisely deciding not to do anything that might endanger Uriel.
And as Lilith sat beside Uriel on the bed, pulled her thick dark hair from one side of her neck, and exposed the long, slim column of her throat, Azrael’s eyes continued to burn.
He, too, had yet to feed for the night.
It took only a gentle nudging and urging for Uriel to open his own glowing red eyes. He took one look at Lilith and at the pale, taut flesh that she offered him, and the chains holding his wrists pulled tight as he sat up in the bed. If he hadn’t been wearing the bracelet that trapped his superhuman strength within his body, they would have snapped.
At once, Michael and Gabriel were mobile, both of them coming forward to try to stop Uriel from whatever it was he planned to do. But Max held up his hand and Azrael moved forward to unlock the chains. Then he turned to pin both Michael and Gabriel to the spot with hard eyes.
“Leave him,” Max told the men. “He won’t hurt her. He can’t,” he added softly, his voice dropping to a whisper as he turned back around to watch.
Azrael could not afford himself the same luxury. Instead, he stepped back from the carnal scene and turned toward the window that had been covered in heavy drapes. He strode toward it and tore the drapes open, revealing a deepening night beyond. Azrael deftly clicked open the latch and lifted the window, allowing a cool breeze to waft into the room. It carried with it the faint scent of honeysuckle.
In stoic silence and without a farewell, he allowed his form to mist and evaporate and then shot out through the open window into the waiting darkness.
Eleanore pushed away from the wall and scanned the parking lot, looking for any sign of yellow that would signify that the taxi had arrived. It had been at least five minutes since she’d called. But as she stepped off of the curb and onto the asphalt, her hand shielding her eyes from the streetlights coming on, she began to notice something. It felt like teensy pinpricks on the back of her neck and a fluttering in her stomach.
She was being watched.
Eleanore set off across the lot, the feeling growing stronger. She stopped in between a blue Jetta and a yellow Jeep Wrangler and slowly turned in place, her gaze scanning the far corners of the lamp-lit parking lot.
She stopped when her eyes met those of a tall brown-haired man with green-blue eyes. He was wearing a black trench coat over dress clothes. The tips of his black leather shoes were shiny beneath the reflected lamplight. The man lowered his head a touch and peered at her through the tops of those strange eyes—and then he raised his hand to his ear and his lips began moving, almost imperceptibly.
An earpiece
, Eleanore thought.
He’s communicating with someone.... Oh no . . .
Eleanore tried to calm the frantic beating of her heart as her gaze pulled away from his and continued around the lot. Another man, just as tall and striking, dressed similarly, stepped out of a windowless white van parked at the edge of the lot. She watched him extend his arm so that it was slightly hidden behind his coat and the shadows afforded by the still-open door. But something within his gloved grip glinted evilly.
A needle. There was no mistaking that wicked gleam of metal.
Eleanore’s stomach lurched, the world growing static-like and numb around her. Flashes of her childhood played before her mind’s eye. A mad dash down a rainy alleyway, another white van, a man with a needle . . .
He, too, raised his other hand to his ear and began communicating. Both men were watching her steadily.
Eleanore swallowed hard, tasting bile. She could remember only one other time in her life when she had been so frightened. Not even in that mansion, watching Uriel turn into a monster—not even then had she been as terrified as she had been that night when she was fifteen. And as she was right now.
This was her very worst fear.
They knew about her now. They’d found her
again.
And they’d come to collect her. Max Gillihan had been right; he’d missed someone at the accident site. Someone must have gotten pictures of her—or video. Footage of her healing two people with nothing more than her bare hands.
Oh God, oh God, oh God
. She needed to concentrate.
Focus,
she thought.
Focus, goddamn it! Two on the left of the parking lot
. She forced the observation through her brain. But the right exit was empty. She saw no one beneath the lights and there were no strange cars parked on that side.
With a burst of energy she hadn’t known she possessed, Eleanore broke into a run toward the opposite end of the parking lot. Her boots pounded the ground beneath her, her long legs eating up the distance with efficient speed.
But as she neared the wide drive that accessed the street in front of the store, a black SUV skidded to a halt before it, swerving violently to bump the curb. Its black shining paint streaked brightly beneath the streetlights, bringing Eleanore to a sudden, violent stop. The SUV came to a screeching halt and blocked the exit directly before her.
Eleanore gasped and backpedaled, knowing all too well who was hiding behind the illegally dark-tinted windows. She didn’t have to wait long for a confirmation as the door to the SUV swung open and a man who could have been a carbon copy of the other two spoke loudly enough into his earpiece that she could hear him this time.
“She’s right here; we have her.”
Eleanore didn’t wait. There was no more rational thought processing involved. She simply spun in place and broke into a sprint directly toward the trees on the other side of the parking lot. She felt no pain, no weariness, nothing but adrenaline-induced numbness as she hit the mass of black thornbushes and trees. Her arms shielded her face as her long legs carried her through the closest break in the wicked foliage and into the dark and treacherous wilderness beyond.