The Fallen 03 - Warrior (2 page)

Martha had greeted her first vision, just three short years ago, with joy, even though it warned of trouble. Each succeeding vision had warned of more and more danger, though there had been the occasional
happiness, a new mate joining them in Sheol, or a difficult situation they could avoid.

This morning was the same, good news and bad. And Allie would be waiting for her.

There were no children in Sheol. The women were barren, and they had all accepted it. But Allie, the Source, the wife of their leader, was secretly mourning that loss. Grieving it, hoping that, after all the millennia the Fallen had been relegated to earth, some miracle might happen. Rachel’s arrival had started those vain hopes. Rachel, who was, in fact, the demon-goddess Lilith, providing comfort and hope for infertile women throughout history.

But Martha was bringing no good news to Allie’s bedside. She had searched, done her best to force a vision, which never seemed to work, and she had seen nothing but new disaster on the horizon.

She climbed the many flights of stairs swiftly. Allie would be alone, awaiting her. Waiting for hope that wasn’t coming.

But Allie wasn’t alone. The door to their aerie was ajar, and Martha knocked before pushing inside. To her surprise, Raziel himself was sitting on one of the colorful sofas in the living room, a cup of coffee in his hand, a cool expression on his angelically beautiful face.

She had never felt entirely comfortable around Raziel. He had always been too stiff, too cold, though she supposed that leading the fallen angels didn’t call for someone warm and fuzzy. They
were an obstreperous bunch; there was a reason they had fallen. They had questioned, they had rebelled, they had done everything they were proscribed from doing, and done it flagrantly. In truth, her beloved Thomas had been the calmest of the bunch.

“Martha.” Raziel’s rich voice greeted her evenly.

“Alpha,” she said respectfully, bowing her head, trying to hide her surprise. “I thought you would be gone by now.” Raziel was usually up before dawn and flying over the compound to make sure all was well. Seeing the shadow of his iridescent blue wings overhead always made her feel oddly comforted. She’d feel a lot better if he were there now.

A wry smile flitted across his face. “I’m sure you did. However, I decided to keep my wife company a little longer.”

Allie emerged from the bedroom, wrapped in a tie-dyed lounger that almost brightened her wan face. She put on a cheery smile, enough to fool most people. “Good morning, Martha. I’m so glad you could take the time to help me . . . learn to knit. I’ve been longing to.”

Martha tried to keep the dismay from her face. There were half a dozen women who were master knitters in Sheol, and two of the Fallen themselves were no slouches. Logically, Allie would have turned to one of them.

Raziel’s eyes were flitting between the two of them. “Yes, I’d be very interested in these lessons.”

The Alpha adored his wife. He was, however, not above taunting her, and Martha decided to change the subject. “We’ll show you the results,” she said repressively, wondering at her temerity. “It’s better not to have someone watching.”

Raziel said nothing as Allie got coffee for herself and Martha. By the time his wife had taken a seat on the opposite sofa, she was entirely composed. “Don’t you want to begin your morning duties?” Allie asked.

“After you tell me the truth.” His voice was pleasant but inexorable. “Why is Martha here?”

Allie’s composure crumpled. “It’s my business.”

Raziel’s cold features softened. “My love, why are you shielding your thoughts? What is troubling you, and how is Martha supposed to help? And don’t try to convince me that Martha can knit. She is a most estimable member of our society, but if she has any skills in that area I would be much surprised.”

Oh, drat,
Martha thought. It was never wise to try to outwit the Alpha. Raziel was far too observant. Husbands and wives shared thoughts easily, but if Allie was shielding her distress, Raziel would know it. And he was the kind of man who didn’t let go of a mystery until he’d solved it to his satisfaction.

And how the hell did he know she couldn’t knit? she thought belatedly. The first thing she was going
to do when she left here was find someone to teach her.

“In truth,” Martha prevaricated, “I must speak with you, Lord Raziel. I have had another vision.”

Raziel was suddenly alert, all hard focus, and Martha could see the hope light in Allie’s eyes. It broke her heart.

She gave Allie a quick, short shake of her head, one she could only hope Raziel wouldn’t notice.

“It concerns the Archangel Michael,” she said hurriedly, before Raziel could call her on it. “He has a mate.”

Raziel looked dubious. “Michael has had only one mate in the two hundred years he’s been here, and she was killed in a raid by the Nephilim just two days after they were married.”

His casual words brought a wave of pain, surprisingly fresh, at the memory of Thomas, ripped into pieces and half-devoured by the foulness known as the Nephilim. She pushed it away.

“Nevertheless, there is a woman waiting for him, and if we are to prevail against the Armies of Heaven, she must join us. There’s no choice.”

She was just glad she wasn’t going to be the one to break this news to Michael. Raziel was scary enough, but he was a pussycat compared to the warrior angel who wielded the flaming sword of justice.

“And who is it? I hope your vision was specific
enough to tell you how to find her.” Raziel’s voice was caustic. Her visions had been less than clear in the past, and this one wasn’t a whole lot better.

“My lord, I can’t control my visions, I can only report them,” she said. She didn’t like being bullied.

Raziel took the veiled reprimand well, reminding her that he wasn’t, in fact, a bully. He was a hard man, but a fair one. “I understand, Martha. Do you know who and where she is?”

“I do. She is the Roman goddess of war.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Fitting. Where?”

This was a little trickier. “I’m working on that. I know her name is Victoria Bellona, and I believe she’s in seclusion somewhere in Italy.”

Raziel nodded, rising. “I’ll go talk to Michael. He won’t like the news.”

“No,” agreed Allie, sipping at her coffee, “I imagine he won’t.”

“And later, perhaps, you’ll tell me your reason for meeting with my wife,” he added in a silken tone.

Martha felt a flush rise to her face. She couldn’t lie directly—he would know.

“Leave her alone, Raziel,” Allie said. “It’s nothing important, I promise you.”

He turned to look at his wife for a long, contemplative moment. And then he nodded. “Later,” he said to her. “Martha, you will accompany me to speak to the archangel. I imagine he will have some questions.”

She froze. The Alpha wasn’t giving her any choice. “Yes, my lord,” she said meekly enough. She cast one last glance at the Source, trying to give her the bad news as subtly as possible.

Allie nodded, her face impassive. She was a strong woman, and she’d been dealing with this a long time. Perhaps the next vision would bring hope.

M
Y MOTHER WAS GOING TO
kill me.

I looked out the window into the desolate countryside and I wanted to laugh at myself. How many teenagers had said that through the millennia? It should have been comical in a woman nearly twenty-five.

Except that Contessa Carlotta di Montespan seemed to have every intention of ending the life she’d reluctantly given birth to, presumably with the help of Pedersen, the teacher, the trainer, the guard who had haunted nearly my entire existence. They were going to murder me before my twenty-fifth birthday, and there was no one I could turn to. There never had been.

I pushed away from the window, looking around the lavish bedroom. The large bed was covered with the finest of Egyptian cotton; the rugs were ancient
and beautiful, with soft, muted colors; the fresh roses were pale yellow, my favorite color. The walls were painted a soft cream, and the mullioned windows looked out over the mountainous countryside of what apparently was Italy. But the view was spoiled by the iron bars across the windows, and the door to my room was solid, ancient oak—and locked. I was a prisoner in a gilded cage, as I had been for almost my entire life, and now I’d been given a death sentence.

It shouldn’t have come as a surprise. My cold, exquisitely beautiful mother was a woman totally devoid of maternal feeling, or any feelings at all, as far as I could tell. Even Pedersen, who was most likely her bed partner as well as her partner in crime, merited not a sign of warmth.

Pedersen had appeared, an enigma like everything else in my life, when I was about seven. He was a giant, six foot six at least, with heavy muscles, pale blue eyes, and the white-blond hair of his Scandinavian ancestors. I had no idea where he’d come from, and when I asked he wouldn’t tell me. But then, Pedersen wasn’t a man for talk except when he was instructing me. And those instructions had been endless.

My mother hadn’t approved of schools. Even the most selective private academies held bad elements, she’d said, and I could learn everything I needed from Pedersen. She claimed he had a formidable intellect, and he was an expert in the physical training I would require.

The rest of my education came from the movies.

I never bothered to ask why the physical training was necessary. The contessa was even less inclined to answer questions than her henchman, and the time I spent in her presence was growing shorter.

So I learned, and I trained. We started with gymnastics, and I loved it, spinning on the bars, flying through the air to land smoothly on the mats. I was the Karate Kid, I was Bruce Lee. I felt . . . free.

Pedersen had moved on quickly. Tae kwon do, karate, and Shaolin kung fu came next, followed by more arcane forms of martial art. I had been an apt pupil, more for the love of movement than a need for approval. I was fast and strong, healing from Pedersen’s brutal methods of teaching with preternatural speed, and I already knew there was no approval to be found.

Amazingly, they let me go when I was fourteen. I was small for my age, well before my ridiculous growth spurt, and my intense training had kept my period at bay, convincing me I’d never be a woman. The tiny private school in the Alps had been run by nuns, the half dozen students silent and cowed, but it had been human interaction, and I bloomed. For those three years I had no rigorous training, only the exercises I chose to do, and I’d made friends among the other exiles. And there’d been Johann.

The nuns would let me out to train in the meadows surrounding the remote convent, having discovered that my kicks and spins caused too much
damage in confined quarters. I would move and swirl and dance in the sunlight, a lethal Maria von Trapp, singing “The Sound of Music” slightly off-key at the top of my lungs where no one could hear me. I would escape in the cold winter weather, in the soft spring air, and it was there that I met Johann.

But I didn’t want to think about him right now. The memory still ripped at my heart seven years later; pain and betrayal still haunted me. When they’d dragged me back to my tower, I put all my rage into the endless training, determined on revenge—and even Pedersen hadn’t realized when I finally became stronger than he was.

I kept that knowledge safe in my heart. I could best him in a fight. I almost had, during our sparring, but at the last minute I’d instinctively pulled back, not wanting him to see my strength. There were few enough weapons that could defeat the people who’d raised me, and Pedersen could be a dangerous man. I intended to guard any advantage I had.

As for Pedersen’s impressive intellect, I’d outstripped that years ago, and no one even made the pretense that he could keep up with me. The library was endless, and they put no restrictions on my reading or the movies I watched. Unfortunately, there was no useful guidebook to tell me how to get away from my incomprehensible imprisonment, and escape movies didn’t cover my situation. I could hardly tunnel my way out as they did in
The Great Escape
—I was surrounded by stone walls. I couldn’t
rappel down the outside of the building like Bruce Willis—I had no ropes and not enough sheets to make one. The only situations that even came close to mine were those of fairy-tale princesses locked in towers, and for me there would be no magic spell or handsome prince to rescue me.

This imprisoned princess had to rescue herself.

And I’d tried. For a few years I tried constantly, only to be hauled back by Pedersen before I got more than a few miles away. I knew better than to enlist help, after Johann.

He’d betrayed me—promised to love me forever—but all Pedersen had to do was flash money in front of him and he’d given me up like a bad habit, and I was once more a prisoner.

Now I had the strong conviction I was about to be disposed of by the woman who should have loved me. It sounded like a bad made-for-TV movie. I had no proof, of course, which made me seem even crazier. But I had learned early on that my instincts were infallible, and I’d always known she hated me, that she was just biding her time. That time was coming, and unless I got out of there I was going to be in deep shit. But I was locked in. All I could do was wait for them to come to me, and I wouldn’t go down easily.