Avenger's Angel: A Novel of the Lost Angels (46 page)

Read Avenger's Angel: A Novel of the Lost Angels Online

Authors: Heather Killough-Walden

His body was exhausted.
The general’s men possessed truly malicious powers. They were all supernaturally strong and they had all been trained to hit where it hurt. But a few of them had the vile ability to simply cause pain with no more than a touch. Or a glance. One of them had demonstrated his aptitude for causing someone to bleed through the pores, soaking Uriel’s shirt with the blood he desperately needed to remain within his vampire veins. Yet another possessed the ability to enter Uriel’s mind, flashing torrid, sickening images of Eleanore, tied down and suffering through all manners of torture, each of them blatantly sexual.
Their combined manipulations over the past several hours had drained Uriel both body and mind. He had tried to defend himself so many times, but he failed and in the end, he was left devoid of strength or power. He couldn’t even fix his clothing, and should he ever see Eleanore again, he desperately didn’t want her to see him covered from head to boot in his own blood.
He had never felt so helpless—so hopeless—in his entire, long life.
But the rain . . . Maybe it was his imagination; maybe he was delirious and his mind was playing tricks on him. But he could have sworn that the rain was taking the pain away. It felt different; it felt
good.
In the fever of his weary brain, it reminded him of Ellie.
Uriel glanced down at his torn black shirt and noticed the rain washing the blood off of him in pink-tinged rivulets. The red streams were becoming clearer and clearer with each passing moment. He caught a glimpse of his skin and, to his blinking surprise, he didn’t see the cut that had been there moments before.
It was gone.
“Get him in quick,” a guard ordered. Uriel was shoved forward until his shin hit the van’s doorframe and he fell onto his manacled wrists and across the metal floor. The handcuffs once more bit into his skin, but this time the metal scored fresh slices into his flesh. Which meant that the wounds he’d had before had healed.
Again Uriel blinked, astonished. He could barely fathom how this had occurred. Somehow, the storm that raged outside had healed him. At least to some physical extent. He was still drained of precious blood—and as a vampire, that was particularly dire.
But the cuts and bruises were gone, and the few bones they’d managed to break felt as if they’d mended. He wondered if the guards had noticed his miraculous recovery.
Uriel thought fast. In an effort to keep his mending hidden, he curled in on himself, as would a man in great amounts of pain. Someone standing above him laughed. Another man snickered. The door to the van slid shut.
His captors made a few rude comments about “vengeance” and “comeuppance” and the van started up and pulled out of the empty, private lot. Uriel lay still and listened to the sound of the tires on the wet asphalt and the rain pelting the van’s roof. His mind was spinning in a mad, frantic attempt to formulate some sort of plan.
He had no idea where they were going. He only knew that, wherever it was, the men who held him prisoner, along with their general, were positive Eleanore would be waiting for them there.
If Uriel’s attack on her had indeed sent her to Samael, as he’d planned, then she wouldn’t be alone. Samael might not care what became of Uriel, but he sure as hell cared about what happened to the archess. Archangels were a dime a dozen to Samael, but an archess was precious.
And his brothers . . . Would they be there? Were they even alive?
Uriel’s chest felt tight at the thought, but he shoved his doubt away and forced himself to think positively.
They are alive.
He would know if they weren’t.
In which case, it was possible that they might be able to help. Not probable, but possible. All it would take was a little cooperation between them—and Samael.
Uriel closed his eyes and forced his negative thoughts away. It was a long shot. Like rain healing your wounds.
There
was something that didn’t happen every day.
It’s Ellie.
The thought struck him from nowhere, but it echoed in his mind clear as a bell. Eleanore was causing the storm. She must be somewhere nearby. She had called up a gale—and, somehow, it had healed him.
She
had healed him.
As impossible as it seemed, he knew it was true. And whatever the reason, it only strengthened Uriel’s resolve to be free of these monsters and save Eleanore from the fate he’d endured for the past several hours. He would not let them touch her. She was more precious than the sun and moon. And she was his alone.
From beneath the cover of the arms he had folded over his face and head, Uriel opened his eyes and glanced quickly around the van. There were three men in the back with him. All were armed with the strange, horrible guns. Uriel’s wrists and ankles were still bound with cuffs made of the same metal as his cell and prevented him from using any of his supernatural abilities. And he desperately needed blood. Now that the rest of his body was healed, it was easier to feel the gnawing pain in his gut that told him he needed to feed—and soon—or he would die.
Think, Uriel. Think!
He shut his eyes again and saw the van’s interior behind his closed lids. Three men. All armed. He envisioned them all, their positions, their weapons. His powers had not yet worked against any of these “first” archangels. He knew that well enough now not to waste his energy even trying. If he was going to defeat them, he would have to do it without any supernatural ability.
Like a human.
Think like a human,
he told himself.
Think.
 
“So let me get this straight,” Eleanore ventured, licking her lips and drawing the glances of several of the men around her. Not that she noticed. She stared at the tabletop as she concentrated, her focus one of stark determination. “The boy I communicated with through my bedroom window when I was a teenager isn’t actually named Kevin. His name is Abraxos?”
Lilith nodded. “Yes, though he does go by Kevin for the most part these days. He has changed his name many times over the years, as you can imagine.”
Eleanore nodded her understanding.
Lilith continued. “At first glance, and to an outsider, this appears to be some kind of military operation as he has colonels, lieutenants, and captains working beneath him. But most of them aren’t even human, much less belonging to any army on Earth. The ones that
are
human obviously come and go. They act as servants to the Adarians—pawns, if you will. But they do so of their own free will and usually for the rewards that come with the service. The general has amassed a hefty amount of wealth over the years. Not one of his human soldiers has ever betrayed his trust, and I’m sure you can guess why; it would be suicidal. The rest of his men are Adarians. All of them, human or not, are aware of what he is and are loyal to a fault.”
“So what are their weaknesses?” Michael asked, a tad impatiently.
Lilith thought carefully. “They can’t heal themselves, so if they’re injured, they have to heal at a normal, human rate.”
“But Samael can heal,” Eleanore said with a slight frown. “I don’t understand.”
“He was determined different from the other Adarians for several reasons,” Lilith explained, as if Samael were not actually sitting there with them at the dining room table. Much to everyone’s surprise, though, Samael simply sat back in his chair, crossed his arms over his chest, and listened quietly as a small smile curled the corners of his lips.
“There are a few powers that the Adarians possess that Samael does not. And vice versa,” Lilith said.
There was a brief moment of silence after this, and then Michael leaned forward on his arms and laced his fingers together on the tabletop. “So they can’t heal themselves, they can’t control the weather, and they can’t read people’s minds. So far, this is a list of
non
-powers, not a list of weaknesses. What the hell can we do that will actually
hurt
these guys?”
“Gold.”
The room went still at the single word Samael uttered. He smiled at the response and exchanged a knowing glance with Lilith.
“Come again?” Gabriel said, his voice gruff with the anger he’d managed to keep in check for the past half hour.
“Gold is caustic to the Adarians,” Lilith said.
“You mean in the way that silver is caustic to werewolves?” Eleanore asked.
“Silver is not caustic to werewolves,” Azrael told her gently. “Again—humans have their myths confused.”
Eleanore supposed she shouldn’t be surprised by anything at this point.
Michael turned his gaze to Lilith. “So gold will harm them. And all it has to do is touch them?”
“I believe so. Mind you, my knowledge of the Adarians is limited,” Lilith replied.
Max sighed heavily. “So we need a boatload of gold and we need it fast. You’d best get to work, boys. We’re supposed to meet the Adarians somewhere just outside of Dallas in little more than half an hour.”
“No problem,” Azrael, Gabriel, and Michael all said at once. The three archangels turned to face the living room behind them and, as one, they focused on the coffee table at the center of the room.
A flash of light, a buzz in the air, and the oak coffee table was solid gold.
Eleanore’s eyes widened. She remembered the thick gold “paint” that Gabriel had created over the window in the bed-and-breakfast in Trinidad. Now she realized he had actually turned the window to gold. “Ok
aaay
,” she whispered. “Why isn’t every piece of furniture in your house made of solid gold, then?”
“What, like a King Midas kind of thing?” Michael asked, turning a friendly smile on her. “Not our style. Besides,” he went on, shrugging his broad shoulders, “gold is cold and hard and blinds the crap out of you when the sun catches it.”
“So we have our gold,” Max said. “Now we need to figure out what to do with it.”
“I say we try this out right now and see if it works on Adarians like he says it will.” Gabriel cut his eyes to Samael and narrowed his gaze. Then he reached his hand out and a carving knife from the kitchen countertop slid from its resting place in a wooden receptacle and flew into Gabriel’s grasp. Another small flash of transforma-tive light and it, too, was solid gold.
“Control yourself, Gabriel,” Max warned, coming to his feet to stand between the two archangels. “We don’t have time for this.”
Gabriel shot Samael a warning look of pure silver and the golden carving knife flew back to its place in the block.
Max turned to face Samael. “For hand-to-hand combat, solid gold bends too easily. We need weapons constructed of some kind of alloy; I would say ten carats or less?” He looked to Lilith for confirmation and, after brief consideration, she nodded.
“Good. Can the four of you handle that while I speak with Eleanore?” His gaze slid from Sam to Michael and his brothers.
He didn’t wait for them to reply, but instead he offered Eleanore his hand. She looked up at him with uncertainty. Then she took his hand and he led her out of the dining room, through the living room, and into one of the long hallways beyond.
Once they were alone in one of the guest rooms, Max closed the door behind them and waved his hand over the face of it. It rippled slightly and then settled back into place.
“What did you do?”
“Soundproofed the room. I don’t want Samael hearing what I have to tell you.”
Eleanore fidgeted nervously as he turned his full attention on her.
“If what Lilith told us is true about Samael and the Adarians, and I have no reason to doubt her, then Samael is incredibly powerful, Ellie. More powerful than we had imagined. If he’s determined that he’ll claim you as his own archess, then you and Uriel both have a terrible fight on your hands.” He shook his head. “A fight you have almost no hope of winning.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Because it’s a possibility.” He waited a moment before continuing. “It’s also possible that it’s not you in particular that Samael is after. It’s possible that he has his sights set on an archess in general. You’re just the only one we’ve managed to find so far.”

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