Warrior's Angel (The Lost Angels Book 4) (12 page)

That was
exactly what he had told her the last time she’d been sitting across from him in this atrium.

Rhiannon bl
ew out a breath and shrugged. “Alright, I suppose that he does outwardly and in some ways resemble the stranger from the gala. And the thought had occurred to me, but I didn’t mention it because in all honesty, the idea now seems preposterous. This guy is a
detective
with the NYPD. He probably gets paid squat. He’s out and about during the day, doing his thing…. Once I thought about it, it just didn’t seem to fit. What sort of supernatural creature who can trans-mutate basic metals into gold would willingly subject himself to the horrors of being a police officer in New York City? He’d have to be some sort of saint or something. And that man on the dance floor was no saint.” Of that, she was deep-down certain.

When she’d finished,
Mr. Verdigri watched her in silence for some time. At length, he sat back once more and said, “Christianity believes that their devil, Lucifer, was once their god’s favorite angel.” He smiled a small smile. “Miss Dante, if angels can fall so far out of grace, I’m willing to bet saints can as well.”

“Then he wouldn’t still be a cop. Only a man who truly cares about helpi
ng people would dare to take that job in this town.” It wasn’t like driving around in a posh, tax-payer-funded SUV in some West Texas town in the middle of nowhere where nothing dangerous ever went down, and if it did, there were thirty-five overweight, bored, and under-trained officers to deal with one criminal. “This is Manhattan.”

Her employer seemed to consider this for a bit. He touched his thick, white, bushy mustache, and finally sighed again. “Nevertheless,
I want you to consider returning to your room here. Whether or not Detective Salvatore is our mystery man, he isn’t the only one with you in his sights.”

Rhiannon said nothing.
What went unsaid was the knowledge that Verdigri and his foundation wouldn’t exist in their entirety if it wasn’t for her and her… special abilities. He was worried about her for a good many reasons.

“In the meantime,” he went on, sparing her from having to give him a reply. “W
e’re meeting with Lambent’s people tomorrow morning at 9 a.m. Try not to burn the midnight oil away tonight. We’ll be needing it to light fires soon enough.”

Chapter Eleven

It was a child’s scream, a higher pitched, distinctive sound capable of reaching down deep into a woman’s chest, wrapping around her heart, and squeezing. It forced the instant release of adrenaline and cortisol into her bloodstream and flushed her limbs with immediate speed and strength. It was a cry for help from an innocent female, and no one worth the soul their body housed could ignore it. Especially not Angel.

She spun in the dream, her hair a bright halo around her, blurring her already blurred vision in the chaotic scape around her. There were lights flashing, the sound of snakes hissing, and men shouting.

Angel caught a flash of red and at once assumed it was the hair of the last of the four favored archangel’s archesses, Rhiannon. Lightning played down upon the ground below with reckless abandon, objects large and small went careening through the fuzzy dream-space to smash into walls or cars or people, and the heat and blaze of fire sporadically burned at Angel as she stumbled through the atmosphere.

The child’s scream was at last silenced, cutting off Angel’s only directional guide to the girl, and Angel made a frustrated sound as something hit her from the side, knocking her down to further disorient her. She reacted, leaping up and lashing out with whatever power was there at the ready. She didn’t even know what it was or what she’d managed to do before she was
awakening to find a sunbeam slicing across her pillow and piercing her directly in the eyes. She sat up at once, brushed her hair away from her face, and looked around, trying to get her bearings.

It was still early. The garbage truck hadn’t come yet; through the window, she could see the trash overflowing from the green bins three stories down. Her neighbors weren’t up yet either. If they had been, she would be hearing cartoons through the thin walls.

Angel shoved her covers aside, got out of bed, and made her way quickly into the other room, where her laptop was plugged in on her desk against the wall. She nudged the chair aside with her leg, bent over the desk, popped open the computer, and waited for the screen to light up.

When it did, she entered her password, opened a familiar chat room, and sent a message to one of her friends.

Rhee! Guess what? I just got word that I’ll be in your neck of the woods later today to check out some property for our corporation. Wanna meet for coffee or dinner?

She sent the message, then stood up and stared at the screen. There was no answer right away, of course. Conversations between herself and the other archesses were rarely immediate any longer. Everyone was busy these days. Getting married. Saving the world.

Plus, again, it was early. And to this date, no archess on Earth had been a morning person. In the case of Sophie Bryce, who was Azrael’s archess, Angel could understand this most of all.

Angel left
the computer, made her way to the kitchen, and popped the button down on the kettle. At once, it began making wonderful, comforting morning noises, and they helped ease a bit of the tension from her dream out of her shoulders and neck.

She had a very strong feeling that something very bad was going to happen. This wasn’t the first time she’d had such a feeling, and certainly not the first time she’d dreamt of an archess. In fact, it was through her dreams that she’d learned what they all looked like and where they all lived. She’d been following most of them their whole lives and they didn’t even know it.

But it hadn’t been an archess that Angel had heard screaming in this latest dream. It had been a
child
. And the amount of firepower, lightning, and chaos the dream included had her truly worried. Something epic was going to go down.

The Culmination….

No, it couldn’t be that. The Culmination would have nothing to do with children, not in any direct sense. And in the dream, Rhiannon had been alone – no sign of Michael, her destined archangel mate. The two couldn’t have yet met, and the Culmination wouldn’t occur until well after that had happened.

Angel jumped a little when she heard the chime at her computer indicating that there had been a response to her chat question.

She hurried to the computer and stared at the screen. Rhiannon had given her a quick confirmation and sent her an address.

Angel exhaled in relief before spinning back around and heading to the bedroom to get dressed.

*****

The entire area was milling with people. There were sound check guys and fireworks experts and lighting guys and a ton of crews dealing with things Rhiannon had no real understanding of. But they shared two things in common. They had no idea that what they were setting up would be only half of the show, and they had been bought and paid for by the Swallowtail Foundation for the purpose of creating a display that would satisfy a customer the likes of Samuel Lambent.

Working in Rhiannon’s favor was the fact that when all was done and said and the filming was over, each individual crew member would simply assume the most spectacular “special effects” had been pulled off by some other crewmember, one they didn’t personally know and hadn’t worked with on the set-up. No one would have any idea that they weren’t special effects at all, but actual magic.

Comeuppance
was a television show spinoff of the incredibly popular vampire movie series of a few years back. Apparently, Lambent had made so much money on the venture, he’d decided to take it to his stations – and the viewing public wasn’t complaining. Buzz about the season premiere was humming through every possible grapevine, and the faces of the actors and actresses chosen for the main parts were plastered to the covers of major magazines and newspapers in checkout counters across the nation.

They weren’t the same people who had starred in the movies, such as the ridiculously famous Christopher Daniels, because the television series planned to expand upon the lives and experiences of brothers, sisters, cousins, and past loves that were only mentioned in passing during the movies.
Comeuppance
fans had no problem with this, however. In fact, they were overtly ecstatic to have anything on television at all that resembled or had to do with the movie. They were chomping at the bit to learn as much as they possibly could about this fantasy world, because they practically lived in it. For most of them, it was preferable to living in the real world.

Rhiannon could identify with that.

In short, this was a big job. It was an important job, visibility-wise. And this was why Lambent had paid Swallowtail so much up front to have it done right. A lot was riding on Rhiannon. She was the reason behind Swallowtail’s reputation for delivering well above and beyond what was expected in the special effects department.

Which was why
she was finishing off her third double-shot coffee at three o’clock in the afternoon. Mornings had never been her cup of tea; when she had to face an early one, it ruined the whole day for her.

She was tossing
the cup into the garbage can when she heard boots approach her from behind. She turned to face whoever it was, expecting an electrician or stage manager, or someone of that nature. But instead, she came face to face with someone she’d only ever met on-screen.

Her eyes widened with uncertainty and surprise. “Angel?” she asked softly.

The beautiful woman with brown hair and brown eyes grinned widely, then laughed, nodding. “Yep, it’s me!” she said nervously. “Hi Rhee.”

Rhiannon broke into a heart-felt grin. She’d forgotten. With everything spinning around her, she could
scarcely believe it, but she’d forgotten that she was finally going to meet Angel today. How? How could something like this possibly be forgotten?

Rhiannon
had no idea, but she had a feeling Detective Salvatore might have something to do with it. And Samuel Lambent didn’t help matters. The man was far too charming; her meeting with him this morning had thrown her for a loop. The whole day had pretty much gone haywire since.

Rhiannon shook her head in wonder. In the twis
ted round-about mega-social yet anti-social way the world had become, Rhiannon had both known this woman for more than half a decade, and never met her in person. There had been nights that they’d chatted for hours, opened up in crying fits, laughed about mutually embarrassing moments that all the world seemed to share but no one dared talk about. They’d used each other for character references, sent care package to one another time and again, and had even pulled a virtual slumber party. Yet, though they lived in the same tiny, enormous town, they had never before stood before one another, head to head, toe to toe.

Maybe it was a symptom of humanity, this need to reach out and yet hide. Or maybe it was just New York.

Half a heartbeat pulsed between them as each sized up the other in that impulsive old-brain way no one could help doing – and then they were in each other’s arms, bear hugging as if they had been separated at birth. “It’s so good to finally meet you!” Rhiannon exclaimed softly, meaning every word.

“Same here,” Angel breathed, laughing as she squeezed tight.

They separated, and took a deep breath. Then they laughed again. “You look exactly like your picture, girl. You haven’t aged in six years!” Rhiannon exclaimed.

“Seven – and yes I have,” Angel said, and something in her eyes spoke of experiences, those kind that age you from the inside out. Rhiannon could relate
to that too. She, herself was in her mid-thirties and the hard emotional and physical mileage really had yet to begin to show. In fact, she sometimes wondered whether her natural healing ability were responsible for the fact that she didn’t really have any wrinkles yet, no expanding pores, no hair loss, no drooping skin. She was lucky, whatever the reason, in many ways.

“Well, you look fantastic
,” Rhiannon smiled, easing over the discomfort of her inner thoughts with practiced ease.

“Ditto,” Angel freely supplied. “So how long until you’re off for t
hat dinner you promised me? Giancarlo’s? For their famous Insalata Pizza and Caprese?”

“Mmm,” Rhiannon said, momentarily closing
her eyes. The thought of food was setting off waves of obtrusive and noticeable emptiness in her belly. “Yes. An hour or two, at most, hopefully. We just need to do the first big shoot, then the cleanup crew will get at it and we’re free to leave. We’ll meet here then?”

“Sounds good. I’ll let you get to it. I need to make a few last minute contacts right now anyway.”

They nodded, hugged again, and then parted ways, Rhiannon heading further into the studio warehouse while Angel headed in the opposite direction.

Chapter Twelve

Mimi tucked her red hair behind her ear and peered surreptitiously around the corner of the fake building one of Rhiannon’s crew had put up. She was careful not to lean on it; the thing was seriously made out of cardboard or something, and Mimi was certain that if she so much as tapped on it, it would go flopping over and probably land on someone.

She smiled at the thought, picturing it like a cartoon, with a human being standing stunned in the middle of a human-sized hole his head had punched into a massive cardboard house façade. Then she ducked back behind the board as another crew member shuffled past carrying loads of what looked like fireworks and wires.

Once the worker had disappeared, Mimi crept out of her hiding place and ran on tip-toes to the other side of the
studio, where her dog, Strike, had already made it and was waiting silently for her in the shadows behind several stacked boxes.

Mimi crouched down beside him and put her arm over his large body as she scanned the warehouse for any sign of hair as red as her own.

Beside her, Strike nudged her cheek, and sat back on his haunches. He was an Australian Shepherd-Golden Retriever mix, with thick white and orange spotted fur and blue-gold eyes that had melted Mimi’s heart on sight in the shelter. Besides Rhiannon, Strike was her very best friend in the whole world, and he had refused to let her come to the FX scene, or whatever they called them, on her own.

Today, the Swallowtail Foundation was going to be putting on quite a show, if the buzz in Mr. V’s apartment building had been any indication. Mimi had never seen one of their fireworks productions, and she’d always wanted to. So, since today was one of the last days of school anyway and she’d turned in all of her work ages ago, she skipped
the last few hours of it and found her way across town.

No one knew she was here. No one but Strike, anyway. But she was hoping to find Rhiannon so she could get front-row seats to the show before it started. Plus, she knew that Rhee would smooth things ove
r for her with Mr. V and her aunt if anyone else found out she was there.

“Beautiful dog.”

Mimi inhaled sharply and whirled around to find a man standing a few feet away, half in the shadows and half out. He’d come up on her without making a sound.

Strike let out a very quiet, very low growling sound, but stayed where he was, his eyes glued to the newcomer. Mimi took in the stranger’s appearance as quickly as she could; she’d always been able to devour details in record time. She just had an eye for them.

He was a tall man with wavy shoulder-length hair that was either very dark blond or light brown; it was hard to tell with the shadows. He had a strong chin, a good nose, and his eyes were blue.
Those
were very easy to see. They were as vividly blue as Rhiannon’s were green. He was the kind of man most women would find very handsome… and Mimi had to admit she would probably be one of them, despite her age.

He was wearing blue jeans over engineering boots, a black t-shirt over stacks of muscles, and a brown leather jacket that looked like it had been borrowed from Indiana Jones. He shifted, just a little, as he looked from her to Strike, and Mimi caught the glimmer of gold on
his belt.

A badge.

At the same time that Mimi relaxed a bit, her heart sank. She was skipping school, after all. “Thank you,” she said in answer to his comment about Strike. There was no point in not being polite, and she sort of hoped that politeness would throw him off the fact that she was skipping. Though, she doubted it. There was something about the man that told Mimi he was as observant as she was, if not more so.

“An Australian and lab mix?” he asked conversationally, his thumbs casually tucked into the pockets of his jeans.

“Australian Shepherd and Golden Retriever,” she specified, giving Strike a loving scruff. “Smartest dog in the world.”

“I don’t doubt it,” said the stranger. He said it in a voice that told her he believed what he was saying, not just saying it. This caught Mimi’s attention and made her look at him a little more closely. He had the faintest sign of lines at the corners of his almost-glowing eyes, which told her he laughed a lot. Either that or he squinted at the sun a lot, but she was guessing it was the former rather than the latter.

The stranger bent down, kneeling on one knee so that he was at her crouching level. “You aren’t going to tell me his name, are you?” he said, smiling slightly.

“Nope,” she said matter-of-factly. “I was taught never to volunteer information that can be used against me.”

The stranger, the
cop
, laughed softly. “Rhiannon teach you that?”

Mimi’s eyes widened; she could feel them. She hadn’t meant them to, and she hadn’t meant to let him know she was surprised, but it happened anyway. “You know Rhiannon?”

“I do,” he said as he gave Strike a friendly scruff, and the dog nudged his hand with trust. “My name’s Michael. Rhiannon and I….” He stopped petting Strike and let his hand drop to his leg before he turned his smile back on her. “Well, we go way back.”

“Is that why you’re here?”

“It is,” he told her frankly. Then he stood again and cocked his handsome head to one side. “So I’m guessing you decided to start summer vacation early?”

Mimi’s heart sank,
but just a little. Something about the cop’s demeanor toward her reassured her that she had little to worry about, as strange as that seemed. In fact, he changed the subject suddenly, as if to make light of the fact that she was skipping.

“That’s a very interesting shirt.”

Mimi looked down at her tee-shirt. It was unique, it was true. She’d gotten it from Rhiannon for her birthday last year. Rhee had made it on some custom design site where you could Photoshop your own image and have it put on shirts or mugs or refrigerator magnets, things like that. The image was of
Professor Xavier
from the
X-Men
sitting between a glaring
Storm
and a sparking
Pikachu
, from
Pokémon
. The professor was obviously trying to separate them, breaking up a fight that had erupted between the two lightning-throwers. It was a mega-cool shirt. One of a kind.

“A present from Rhiannon,” Mimi admitted. 

The cop let that go with a nod and no comment, though his expression said he wasn’t at all surprised. “So what class would you be in right about now?” he asked as he glanced down at his watch, a big, black, rugged and inexpensive model that was exactly the kind of watch Mimi would love to have. “I’m betting you’re in sixth grade, since I know you’re too smart to be with other nine-year-olds. So it’s Franklin Magnate you go to, which would mean that right about now… you’d be missing Earth and Space Science.”

Mimi sighed. How did he know that? “It’s actually my favorite class,” she said dejectedly. It really was. She loved the stars, space, anti-space, dark matter, the Cosmos – and she loved the minerals and layers of time that told stories about Earth’s past. She just wanted to see fireworks more.

As if on cue, someone out in the crew began calling for stations and lights. Strike made a sound beside Mimi, and she stood up in her sheltering shadow. The cop, Michael, turned away from Mimi, his blue eyes scanning the area. He must have seen something that caught his attention, because he turned back to her and said, “Strike, keep her out of trouble.” Then he moved away, striding on long, strong legs, until he rounded a corner and disappeared.

“I never told him your name,” Mimi muttered to herself and to Strike. She looked down at her dog, who met her gaze with intelligent multi-hued eyes. He whined softly.

“I think he knows more than he’s letting on,” she told Strike.

He whined again.

“You like him, don’t you?” she asked her dog.

“Dogs can sense the kind of soul a person has,” came a new voice, this time female. Mimi jumped again, and turned around to find
herself face-to-face with a beautiful, tall, slim woman with brown hair and brown eyes. At once, Strike moved in closer to the woman, and his tail began wagging. The woman leaned over to give him a scratch beneath his chin. “Are you Mimi?” the woman asked her without looking at her.

Mimi felt a little stunned, but she nodded. If Strike liked her, then she was okay. “Yes,” she said.

“Ah, then this must be Strike. Rhee’s told me a lot about you two.”

Mimi’s eyebrows raised a little, but mention of Rhiannon chased away most of the remaining uncertainty she possessed, especially since she called her by her nickname. “Who are you?” she asked, just to be sure.

“I’m Angel,” the woman told her, straightening. Strike whined a little for more pettings.

“Hi Angel,” Mimi said politely, coming out of the shadows to hold out her hand like an adult.

Angel’s smile broadened as she firmly took her hand and then shook it, not going easy on her just because she was a kid.

Mimi relaxed even more. She liked Angel at once; right away, she could tell she was good people.

“I’m here to meet up with Rhiannon,” said Angel, “but the girl’s mega-busy at the moment. What would you say to you, Strike, and me killing the time before the show starts with a smoothie from next door?”

Mimi’s stomach growled at the thought. She loved getting smoothies from the shop next door. It was just a health food store, and not a name brand place like Jamba Juice, but the smoothies were thick and cold and extra smooth and actually tasted like the fruit put into them. Or like the chocolate. Which was good, because though chocolate didn’t technically make a “smoothie,” chocolate was nonetheless what she always chose.

“We’d love to. But no chocolate for Strike.”

“Well, of course not.”

*****

Angel placed her hand gently at Mimi’s back, the way a mother would
guide her child as they left the large warehouse being used as a studio. She glanced once over her shoulder to the business they were leaving behind. The moment she’d arrived at the warehouse earlier, she’d recognized it as the location in her dream. And then she’d seen Mimi, and she’d put two and two together, realizing that the flash of red hair she’d seen and the screams she’d heard had actually both belonged to this little girl.

At once, she’d
known that the more vital thing she could do at that moment was get Mimi out of the warehouse and stick to her side like glue. It was like ripping off a Band-Aid for Angel, though. On the one hand, she knew this would protect Mimi – one wound was healed. But on the other hand, it still hurt. Because Rhiannon, the fourth archess, was still inside the building.

Something was going to go down. Angel had no real, solid concept of what it was going to be, only that it was going to be loud, chaotic, and extremely dangerous.

But then again, Rhiannon was a big girl. She could take care of herself. Angel happened to know first-hand that she’d been put through the ringer plenty of times only to come out in one healthy, very much alive piece.

She
hoped this time would be no different.