Wounded Angel (The Earth Angels) (12 page)

“You won’t be able to escape.” He needed it to be clear, just to be fair. “Make no mistake—I will kill you.”

The demon smiled, her Kewpie doll lips parting to show pretty white teeth. “You can’t kill what’s already dead. Isn’t that right, Gabriella?”

“Lana?” Ella’s voice sounded to his right, surprisingly close yet so weak it could barely be heard. He jerked his head around to find her staring at the demon with a feverish mix of horror and hope, and he was instantly furious with himself for being so locked on the demon he hadn’t even noticed Ella had moved right into the line of fire. “I thought... I thought you were dead, I thought Charles Rainier killed you. I... Oh God, I’m so happy to see you.”

Icy dread filled Nate as Ella stepped toward the demon in human clothes. “Ella, no!”

But even as he spoke Ella faltered, her happiness clouding over in confusion. He glanced back at the demon Ella thought she recognized, only to have his stomach turn over queasily at the sight of shifting skin and bone. Hastily he dropped his hold on Richard, who crumpled to the ground clutching at his shoulder as though mortally wounded. Weak and spineless, he posed the littlest threat to Ella, whereas there was no telling what an unknown demon could do to her. Nate stepped in front of her, but not before she had the chance to see the melting, shifting face of the thing that was once the woman she’d called Lana.

“What is that?” Ella’s voice was high and thin, as thin as the razor’s edge that existed between lucidity and hysteria. “What the hell
is
that thing?”

Nate couldn’t begin to guess, and though he didn’t want to he glanced back over his shoulder to where the demon stood. Its face was now seemingly stuck in a half-formed state, as if it were a modeling-clay likeness of something humanoid but not yet finished. Then Ella sidestepped, staring in horror at the monstrosity that greedily looked back, and in a heartbeat the unfinished face hardened into crystal-clear focus. New horror slammed into Nate when he saw the face of the man Ella had been forced to kill—her abductor and torturer, Charles Rainier. The monster smiled back at her with hellish eyes brimming with malice, and it was enough to draw a ragged whimper from Ella.

“You thought you killed me, but you didn’t, Gabriella.” The demon that now looked like the deceased serial killer still sounded like an ear-bleeding screech to Nate’s ears, but the cry of recognition that escaped Ella told him it wasn’t the same for her. It was much, much worse. “That’s right, it’s me, your old pal, Charles. You must know you can’t kill something like me. Like those scars I gave you, I will always be with you.
Always
. No matter where you go or how far you run, you will never escape me.”

“No.” Paper-white, her eyes blank with a maddening terror so deep it was like an open wound inside her soul, Ella held up shaking hands to ward off what had to be her cruelest nightmare. “No, no,
no
!”

A rumble of a city bus entered Nate’s consciousness a split second before he realized the danger. Uncaring that it would no doubt be the death of him, Nate turned his back on the demon to get a hold of her, but it was too late. Already she was backpedalling into the road, a keening wail of tormented fear ripping from her stress-corded throat.

“Ella!”

Deaf to everything around her, she turned and ran straight into the path of the bus.

Chapter Ten

Ella surfaced slowly.

Tumbled thoughts and fragmented memory tangled into one hellish
ball of white noise. Instinct had her cringing away from full wakefulness, but
it was a losing battle. Sweat broke out along her skin and a maddened scream
echoed deep inside her mind, the scream she wanted to let out when she’d
seen...when she’d seen...

Charles
Rainier
.

Her eyes slammed open and nausea churned up hard and fast.
Blindly she rocketed from an unfamiliar bed and into a bathroom that her brain
had somehow registered was close by. Without turning the lights on, she fell to
her knees just in time and emptied her stomach, straining with all her might to
remove the poison that was Charles Rainier from her system. If she could just
get him forever out of her existence she would be okay, but no matter how hard
she tried he was still there. Still alive. Smiling. Torturing. Killing...

She was sick for what seemed like hours, her body’s agony
mirroring the state of her fractured mind. Dimly she picked out the sounds of
movement in the next room, and behind her closed lids the darkness shifted as a
light was turned on in the other room. Shaking, every cell of her body inflamed
with misery and wishing she could go numb and never feel anything again, she
wiped her mouth with some toilet paper, flushing the mess away as she wedged
herself between the commode and tub. If she could have pushed herself into the
tiled floor and disappeared forever, she would have done it without
hesitation.

“Ella.”

Again the need to scream quivered in her chest.

“Ella, can you hear me? You’re safe now. You’re safe.”

Safe? That was an illusion, fate’s sick little joke for poor
slobs like her who fell for it. No one was safe in a world that regurgitated
evil like Charles Rainier. He had come back from the grave she’d put him in so
he could finish her off. There was no place in the world that was safe for
her.

Strangled gasps, like voiceless screams, hit her ears.
Eventually she realized they were coming from her. She clapped her hands over
her mouth and squeezed her eyes shut, terrified he would hear her. If he heard
her, he would find her and carve into her like before, make her into his latest
masterpiece, like Lana before her—

“Ella, please listen to me. Listen to my voice. It’s Nate. Try
and remember who I am. I swear I’ll protect you, but you’ve got to help me,
babe. You’ve got to hear me and understand me,
please
.”

Nate. She knew that name. He’d come looking for her when she’d
been taken. He’d come to rescue her, when she’d thought she had to rescue
herself. Sensation hit her all at once, punching through the wall of agony and
madness crashing down on her. Nate. Big. Solid. Safe.

I’ve
got
you
.
You’re
safe
now
...

Hands still clamped over her mouth, she took the last of her
courage and peeled her eyes open, blinking tears she didn’t even know she was
crying out of her vision. On the corner of the bed in the next room and framed
by the open doorway of the bathroom, Nate rested his elbows on his knees with
his hands clasped as if in prayer between them. But he wasn’t praying. He was
looking at her through the shadows with an expression that could only be
described as anguished.

“I’m sorry,” he gritted out, the ragged words pushed through
the barrier of his teeth. He bent his dark head and rubbed a hand over his face.
It was the weariest gesture she’d ever seen. “It’s my fault you’re being dragged
through this hell. If I had known taking this inheritance case would lead to
what happened today, I never would have touched it. You’ve been through
enough.”

The sound of his voice had a miraculous effect on the tangle
inside her. The taut cords pulling her in a thousand different directions eased
enough to allow her to breathe. Her muscles sagged in relief, and at last she
was able to take in their surroundings—the unfamiliar white-tiled bathroom, a
mirror on the door, the generic bone-colored Berber carpet and massive
king-sized bed Nate sat on.

“Where are we?”

His head came up at the sound of her hoarse voice, looking as
shocked as she was that she’d managed to cobble together something coherent.
“Fairest View Suites, the Financial District hotel where I’ve been staying. You
can see The Bean from my window.”

It was absurd, how normal that sounded. “Just what I always
wanted—an unfettered view of a metallic legume the size of a tugboat.”

“Stick with me, kid, and I’ll show you the world.”

“How could the world compare next to a giant silver bean?”

“Sorry to hear you’re so attached, because I don’t know that
I’m comfortable staying here indefinitely.”

Why?”

“If Archibald’s paying any attention to my travel expenses, he
knows where I’m staying. Though I’ve already been in contact with him to insist
my whereabouts are kept confidential—even going so far as to point out his loose
lips are responsible for the deaths of Briella Fields and Gabrielle Litte—I
don’t know how strong his professional integrity is. The smartest thing to do is
assume Richard Rainier and that thing he had with him will eventually worm our
location out of Archibald. As soon as you’re strong enough to travel, we need to
hit the road and get some distance between them and us so we can regroup.”

At the mention of Richard Rainier, her stomach threatened to
toss out whatever was left. “Actually, I think it might be best if you drop me
off at the nearest hospital.” It was gratifying to hear how solid her voice was.
At least she sounded sane. “I’ve, um... I’ve suffered some kind of psychotic
break. I thought I was okay, you know? I thought I was handling seeing Richard
Rainier just fine. But obviously that was the straw that broke the camel’s
back.”

“Ella—”

“I’m seeing things. Bad things. Insane things.” There. She said
it. The sooner she accepted she’d lost her mind, the better off she’d be.

Nate was quiet for nearly a minute before he nodded once, as if
coming to a decision. He abandoned the edge of the bed to sit on the side of the
tub. He reached out a big hand to smooth over her hair in a caress so achingly
sweet it almost shattered what was left of her control. How beautiful this man
was, to instinctively soothe someone who was so obviously a lunatic. It hurt her
heart to the point of doubling over to know that he deserved better than having
to deal with a crazy person like her.

“You’re not seeing things. I saw the same thing you saw. In
fact, I probably saw one hell of a lot more than you did.”

She shuddered. “Don’t patronize me, Nate. You don’t know what I
saw.”

“Yes, I do.”

“I saw Lana Dever, a woman who I know is dead. I was there when
Charles Rainier slit her throat after he carved her face up until there was
nothing left. But I
saw
her today, and then
she...
melted
. She frigging melted into Charles
Rainier. That alone is impossible—people can’t just
change
like that. But it’s all the more impossible, because I know I
used Rainier’s own knife to kill him. Yet somehow he was suddenly
there
, right there standing next to the car, and I ran
and...”

“And nearly got hit by an oncoming bus, which was what
that...thing wanted. You would have been wiped out if I hadn’t rocketed to where
you were with what I’ve always thought of as my blurring speed, and knocked you
out of its path. Our landing wasn’t the softest, and you’ve been in and out of
consciousness ever since.”

Nothing he said made sense. “Wait. Blurring? I don’t...what do
you mean?”

“It’s a type of movement my kind seem to have in common. You
saw me do it in the first-aid room—it’s an ability to move so fast the world
becomes a blur to our eyes.”

Ella stared at him. Who would have guessed insanity could be
contagious? “I’m sorry. Your kind?”

Nate loosed a rough breath before his hand fell away from her
hair. “There’s no easy way to say this, so I’m just going to put it out there.
I’m a descendant of a race of people called the Nephilim.”

She stared at him and knew she was slipping again. Slipping
into madness. “What?”

“If you look that word up, it’ll tell you the Nephilim were an
ancient race of human-angel hybrids. Some scholars say the angelic progenitors
were Sons of God, while others say they were created by The Fallen. No one knows
for sure what the truth is. We do know that most of the Nephilim were wiped out
by the Great Flood, as they were considered abominations in the eyes of heaven.
My mother pretty much agreed with that assessment, despite being one
herself.”

Ella began to shake her head and couldn’t stop. This couldn’t
be happening. “Nate...”

“Those twin scars you noticed on my back? They were where my
wings used to be. My raving lunatic of a mother had a penchant for hacking her
own wings off, even though they’d re-emerge when she’d least expect it. But with
me, she made sure I was crippled from the beginning. She chopped my wings off
the moment I was born because she... Ella!”

She couldn’t listen to any more. With a strength she didn’t
know her overtaxed body possessed, she shot to her feet, frantic to find a way
out of the madness. Strong arms came around her from behind as she cleared the
bathroom threshold, and instinct and training melded into one. With the ferocity
of desperation, she kicked her heel back toward his knee, this time putting
everything she had into it. But somehow he avoided the blow entirely, and
without warning the world blurred around her. In less than a second they somehow
traveled all the way across a neat, two-room hotel suite and wound up in the
tiny kitchenette area.

What
the
...?

“Now are you getting it, Ella? I’m not like the monster you saw
today, but I’m not a normal human either. I can’t afford to worry about whether
or not you’re ready to handle the truth, either. You need to hear it in order to
get out of this mess alive.” Nate’s voice was like rough sandpaper against her
ear, and with another blurring move they were transported into the bedroom to
land spoon-fashion on the bed. “What you saw today was real. What I’m telling
you now is real. I know it’d be easier to think you’ve lost your very last
marble and refuse to accept reality, but that’s the quickest way to wind up
dead. I refuse to let that happen.”

“This isn’t happening, this isn’t happening...” Riding the edge
of hysteria, she bent her head and bit the first thing she could get her teeth
on—his thumb.

A hiss of pain escaped him before he surprised her by shoving
his hand deeper into her mouth, yanking himself free when her jaw loosened and
the taste of his skin flooded her mouth. Before she could even think to move he
repositioned himself so that he lay on top of her, one hand caught underneath
them and holding her hands, the other holding her head back against the place
where neck met shoulder to keep her from head-butting him. “Fight me all you
want, that’s fine with me,” he muttered, his breath ruffling her hair. “Go
ahead, do your worst. I’d rather have you fighting than that catatonic mess you
were earlier.”

“
Fuck
you
.”

“Anytime.”

She almost swore at him again. “Why are you doing this to
me?”

“I told you my name is Nathanael. What I didn’t tell you was
that it seems to be an ancient tradition of our kind to be named after the
family’s progenitor, probably so we never forget where we come from. Look him
up—the original Nathanael is one of the twelve angels of vengeance, whatever the
hell that means, and the angel governing over all things that are hidden.”

“This is crazy.” She ground the words out through clenched
teeth until they were almost unintelligible. “Crazy, crazy, crazy...”

“Yeah, that’s my family, my mother especially. I think the only
reason she stuck with the Nathanael naming tradition was because she was afraid
to forget the unbelievable insanity of our bloodline.”

She shook her head furiously, but there was no escape from
hearing his words. “I don’t want to listen to any more—”

“My family’s history bounces from one screwed-up nutcase to the
next, with lots of mayhem and killer doses of self-loathing in between. My
great-grandmother was kidnapped and put on a leash by some crazy bastard who
wanted to find the Lost Dutchman’s mine, only to be killed when she wouldn’t
comply. My uncle was supposedly locked up somewhere in Fiji and used as some
kind of stud to make lots of little treasure-finders. My own mother lived in
constant fear of being hunted down and used like an animal, so she never
admitted to having any sort of talent. Unfortunately she was more gifted than
most. No matter how many times she mutilated herself by chopping off her own
wings, they’d spontaneously reappear like a lizard growing a new tail. She had
the gift of apportation, the ability to teleport missing objects out of thin
air. Whenever she’d accidentally do it, she’d be suicidal. Eventually it
happened one too many times and like her father before her, she killed herself
before anyone else could get the chance.”

Ella struggled beneath him. What she wouldn’t give to slam her
hands over her ears and hide from this flight from reality. “You must think I
really am nuts if you expect me to believe any of this.”

“I’m telling you this because I believe this thing used you to
target me. I don’t know why it didn’t come at me straight-on, and I sure as hell
don’t get what it meant when it said it can’t
see
me
the way it can see everyone else. The one thing I do know—that shape-shifting
atrocity that first looked like the woman you called Lana before it morphed into
Charles Rainier is actually a demon who’s hunting descendants of the Nephilim
all across the continent. I’ve been expecting an attack, but I never dreamed it
would come through you. I owe it to you to get you out of this, but you’ve got
to help me by listening to me.”