What an amazing place to sleep it would be, surrounded by fragrant cherry blossoms, sitting high atop the entire world, with an open view of the night sky and its galaxies beyond.
To Sam’s right was a living area replete with a fireplace, coffee table, plush furniture, soft rugs, and throw blankets draped over arm rests. Beneath the loft was a kitchen complete with gas burning stove, tea maker, microwave, and so forth. Not that a building as magical as this would require the use of such rudimentary human machines, but he could understand their being there.
Growing up with humans made you fond of them to some degree, or at least of their accomplishments. You couldn’t help but want them to enter a better age. In that respect, for an immortal, the desire to own a microwave or a flat screen television was based on the same feelings that had caused Sam to want a fuel-burning car when it was first invented at the turn of the century. It was an object of hope.
It hinted that through science, learning and forward thinking, humanity was opening the door to endless possibilities. And that if they never shut that door due to closed-mindedness or fear, then one day, something better might just walk through it.
Besides, it was a lot easier to push a “30 seconds” button on the microwave than it was to use magic to reheat your coffee.
There was even a bathroom in the tree house, from what he could see. From the other side of the spiral staircase stretched an arched hallway. At the end of that hall was an open door. Sam could just see the edge of a claw foot tub peeking out from behind that door. For privacy, the ceiling of the hall and restroom were opaque glass that slowly blended once more into clear glass as they joined with the overarching ceiling.
Surrounding the entire tree house was a wrapping balcony. There seemed to be no stairwell leading down from the home, however. There was no rope ladder, no way of obtaining entrance to the tree house.
You’d have to use magic.
As if she could tell what he was thinking, Angel’s grin turned mischievous. “I’ve been here just as long as you have, Sam. It must have occurred to you that I might use magic to create a living space too?”
It had, actually. But he wasn’t going to say anything. He was rather in awe of her at that moment. Hell, that was nothing new. But the ingenuity of the room, its structure and fundamental function… its beauty… was astounding. And it was Angel.
“It isn’t always a tree house. It adjusts itself in design to match its surroundings. Right now? It just so happens to be hanging out in the canopy of an enormous patch of untouched Brazilian rainforest.” She glanced at the balcony and the view beyond. “Hence, the tree house décor. You should have seen it when it wanted to hang out at the top of Everest. It didn’t look anything like this.”
“When it ‘wanted to hang out there’?” he questioned.
She looked back at him. “Yeah… it….” She shrugged and sighed. “Well, it sorta has a mind of its own. I’m sure you’re familiar with the tale of Baba Yaga’s Hut?”
Sam’s brow furrowed, and he blinked. “That was you?”
Her smile was back. “Well, every story has an ounce of truth to it somewhere. At least, all the best ones do.” But then she frowned. “Though I have no idea where the hut standing on chicken legs thing came from. I’m pretty sure the first kids who saw the house just made that shit up for attention.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
“I have to tell you, Hummingbird,” he said slowly, his eyes filled with genuine wonder. “I’m truly impressed.” Sam ran his hand along the railing of the stairwell. It was smooth and polished, but carved into miniature relief designs of everything from snow peaked mountains to unicorns. The entire tree house was a work of art. She knew that. She’d put a lot of work into it, both by hand and through the use of different types of magic. But to see him admire it was another thing altogether. He was literally the first man ever to compliment her for something she’d done… rather than what she was.
Plus, he called her Hummingbird. And for some reason, she really, really liked it. It made her feel weak inside. But also strong. It was confusing, and a little hot.
“Thank you,” she said, clearing her throat.
He turned to face her, and she felt the full weight of those heart-stopping eyes. “You’re amazing. All that you do, for so many others, and all you’ve done….” His voice trailed off, and for a brief moment, he seemed almost lost. It was a fleeting thing, a shadow over his perfect features. If anything, it intensified his beauty.
She sensed a barrier falling, a defensive wall crashing to the ground.
She almost reached out for him. Almost. But she stopped herself just in time and turned away to stride to the windows that looked out over the forest canopy. Her heart was hammering. She heard it pulse in her ears.
You will lose everything. If you let him win, if you give in, you’ll lose everything. But she’d already lost her powers. What else was there that she had to offer the people of this realm?
Did running from Samael even matter anymore?
In the midst of the turmoil of her thoughts, she noticed the dark clouds gathering over the tree tops in the distance. Her addled mind took a moment to realize it was an approaching storm. Trepidation at once filled her, and she didn’t even know why.
Wait. Storms happen here every day. She rolled her shoulders back and mentally shook it off. This is the rainforest, remember? And why would it matter, anyway?
“It looks like a storm is coming.” She said it out loud just to change the subject.
“Angel.”
Angel’s eyes widened. Her body went tense. He had moved across the room and was now standing directly behind her. She hadn’t even heard him! How did a man in leather-soled shoes not make a sound on wood flooring?
He’s Sam, she reminded herself. Galactic powers or not, he was still the most amazing man on the planet. He’d had two-thousand years to practice doing everything under the sun and moon. If he wanted to sneak up behind someone, he damn well could.
She wrapped her arms around herself and did not turn around. “What?”
“Turn around and look at me.”
Oh God! She bit her lip and slowly turned to face him. But she couldn’t look at him. She was losing control of herself. This had never happened before.
“Look at me, Angel.”
She wanted to stand firm, but he was towering over her. She was not a short woman, and yet he dwarfed her. He dwarfed everyone.
She almost jumped out of her skin when he curled his finger beneath her chin and lifted it. There was no point in fighting. That would be childish. So she let him draw her eyes to his as her heart threatened to burst out of her chest and join the storm in the distance.
He caught her gaze, and she went utterly still. Something flashed within it. Lightning? He was turmoil, chaos, and confusion wrapped in a beautiful shell.
“How can you, Sam?” she whispered. “How can you still want me when you know what it means?”
“What does it mean, Angel?” he asked softly.
“If the Culmination happens, everyone goes back. Everyone, Sam. And this is all over. Everything we have ever done for humanity was a waste of time.”
Sam’s thumb brushed her jaw line, making her pulse jump. He shook his head. “Not everyone, Angel. You, yes. The Four Favored and their mates, no doubt. Even Gregori might be welcomed back into the angel realm. But not I. The Old Man will cast me out again the moment I arrive.”
Angel winced. There’d been a sudden pain in her chest, as if something very sharp had pierced an area deep inside. She stepped back and yanked away from his touch, feeling instantly cold for her efforts. A heavy pain began pushing itself toward her eyes. With her jaw clenched, she asked, “Then I’ll ask you again. How can you want this? Knowing you’ll only be here and alone when it’s all done!”
But Samael slowly lowered his hand and cocked his head to one side. With a voice so wrought with sincerity, it nearly cracked in two, he said, “For one moment of unta
inted happiness with you? I would stay here another two-thousand years. I would linger another twenty. Whatever he can throw at me, I would gladly take.”
Angel stopped breathing.
That flash in his gaze was back, and with it a look of pure, hard resolve.
A low rumble filled the sky, brushing against the glass as if the heavens wanted to kiss them but were blocked by the windows. Sam glanced up, and concern etched his features.
“What… what is it?”
He looked back down. “We shouldn’t stay in one place for long.”
“Why?”
Sam ran a hand through his hair, and seemed suddenly agitated. The mood in the room had switched just like that. “The storms are following us. And if Gregori figures out that they’re linked to us, he’ll follow them too.”
Angel’s brow furrowed. “What?” She watched the clouds move closer. They were going fast. “But it rains all the time here.”
Sam shook his head. “That may be, and possibly we’ll be safe. But do you really want to take that chance?”
She was so confused. “Well, why would they be following us?” But then it hit her, and she straightened. “Wait. Does this have something to do with the spell you cast?”
He looked at her as if he were not at all surprised she’d figured it out. “Clever girl.”
“You screwed us over, didn’t you.” It wasn’t a question. “You took away our powers and sent them careening into the atmosphere! You torpedoed us!”
“Not necessarily. If we keep moving, we might deaden the trail enough to finally settle somewhere safe.”
“Like where? Any place on land is going to notice a storm that doesn’t move! Or do you mean somewhere like the Nautilus?” she asked incredulously. “Don’t you think people are going to wonder about a centralized perfect storm over Lake Michigan?” She ran her hands over her face and shook her head. “And what exactly do you think that would do to the Nautilus? We don’t have powers any longer, Sam. We can’t save ourselves if it springs a leak!”
Sam exhaled in exasperation. “We don’t have the leisure to argue like this at the moment. We’re running out of time.” He glanced at the storm again. It was perhaps less than two or three miles away and closing fast. The rumble of thunder was growing louder, and she could see the flashes of lightning from deep within its roiling darkness.
It was quite a storm.
When she looked back at Sam, it was to find him peering up through the glass as if he half expected something to come swooping down on them at any moment. And that was when she noticed the change in the air. Maybe it was barometric pressure or something, and this was what mortals felt all the time when the weather changed. She was just so used to controlling the weather herself, she perhaps had never paid attention.
But her gut was telling her this wasn’t barometric pressure. The feeling she had now was the same one she’d had in the play house. Something bad was coming. The air was growing heavy, not only with storm, but with darkness.
“Not again,” she whispered.
Sam strode to the couch, where his jacket lay over the back of the sofa. He picked it up and shoved his hand into one of the pockets. Then he cursed and shoved his hand into the other one. “Fifty-fifty fucking chance and of course I get it wrong the first time,” he muttered as he moved quickly back toward her. “Give me your hand. We’re leaving now.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Sam held her tight with one hand, and the orb with the other. He had begun to close his hand around it, when there was a sudden sound at the tree house’s bathroom door. It was a warp-like sucking and popping. Then a man stepped out of the bathroom and into the tree house’s short hallway.
Angel felt Sam go tense, his grip on her tightening painfully.
The man wore his usual three-piece brown suit, and hadn’t failed to don his glasses either, despite the fact that everyone knew damn well he didn’t need them. “Samael,” the man greeted uncomfortably. “And Miss Angel.” He nodded at them both. “So sorry to intrude like this. But we must speak with you.”
From behind the man Angel knew to be the archangels’ Guardian stepped more men and women. Before long, as Angel and Sam looked on, the entire dozen or so “favored” team stepped out from the bathroom doorway and into her tree house.
Angel’s head spun. She pulled away from Sam, working against temporary resistance. But he let her go, and she faced her guests. “What the…. Rhiannon? What – what are you all doing here? How did you even find me?”
“Wow! This place is Kryptonian!”
“Mimi?” Angel’s eyes felt golf-ball sized in her head.
“Hi Angel!”
“You’re here too?” Angel asked.
“I’m the one who found you,” Mimi told her. “Well, sorta. I traced the IP address from your last conversation with me, and Max found this dude who could cast a spell to follow it from there.”
Mind doing cartwheels, Angel touched her forehead. She did have a computer in the tree house. It was upstairs near her bed. It went wherever the house went. Maybe she needed to lay off the electronics. She was just so fascinated with progress.
“What do you want?”
The question came from Sam. Angel looked up at him to find him standing still and tall, seemingly at ease, but at ease the way a cat is – always ready to pounce at a moment’s notice. Always ready to kill.
Max addressed Sam. “We’re here to warn you that Gregori knows how to find you. He’s on his way.”
Samael’s gaze narrowed. “Why would the Four Favored deign to warn the Fallen One about anything?”
“Maybe it isn’t you we’re trying to help,” said Michael testily. “Maybe it’s Angel.”
“Michael.” Max shot the warrior archangel a warning look before turning back to Sam and Angel. “Gregori is out of control. We’ve learned that he will literally do anything to prevent the Culmination, and he believes destroying Angel will not only guarantee it won’t happen, it’ll bring the Old Man out of the wood work.”
“He means business, Angel,” said Rhiannon, who stepped forward to join Max at the front of the group. “Trust me.”
Angel noticed the blood on Rhiannon’s jeans, and her vision refocused. Now that she was looking, she could see that all of the archangels and archesses looked a little worse for wear. A shirt or two were ripped, most jeans were stained with blood or mud, and hair was tousled. It wasn’t something you noticed at first because the lot of them were so beautiful. But she saw it now.
“What happened?” she asked.
Mimi came forward now. “It was righteous,” she grinned. “We fought some serious bad guys and saved a mermaid.”
Angel’s heart skipped. “What? Mimi, you fought someone?”
Rhiannon put her hand on the girl’s shoulder. “She can hold her own,” she said calmly and resolutely. But her gaze never left Angel’s. “But what we faced was a meager handful of trouble compared to what Gregori has at his disposal.” She looked at Sam now. “I’m sure you’re aware of the situation with Jason.”
Sam nodded, just once. His expression was grim.
“Then it was Gregori after all. No’ you,” said Gabriel.
Angel looked from him to Sam and back again. “What situation with Jason? Who’s Jason?”
“He was my assistant,” said Sam calmly. “Gregori killed him, reanimated him, sent him out to do his dirty work, and Azrael put him out of his misery.” He turned to Az. “Does that about sum it up?”
Az didn’t reply. There was a line of tension between the two a mile thick.
Angel was still confused, but she was guessing that whatever had happened with Jason had something to do with Sophie. If Sam was right, then maybe Jason had attacked her? That had to be it. Because nothing else could give a seasoned man of death like Azrael the look he had right now.
She also had a feeling Sam was more than a little bitter about the murder. She just wasn’t sure who Sam was more angry with – Gregori for kill
ing Jason the first time, or Az for killing him for good.
“The problem is, Gregori didn’t stop with Jason,” said Max, taking up the reins like a wise man who detected an oncoming disaster. “My sources have confirmed that people are disappearing from every supernatural faction across the board.”
“He’s recruiting,” said Sam, who’d obviously put the pieces together.
“Do you mean to tell me we can expect reanimated corpses of everything from seelie fae to dragons to come banging down our door?” Angel asked, fear forcing her words to tremor slightly. She was mortal now, after all. The thought was rightly terrifying.
All Max did was nod.
“Oh crap,” she breathed, running a hand through her white-blonde hair.
“No dragon worth her salt is gonna join Gregori,” said Mimi. “But, you know… not everyone is worth their salt. By the way, you look really beautiful,” she added, nodding at Angel. “You shouldn’t hide hair like that.”
Angel blinked.
Come to think of it, how had Mimi even recognized her?
As if she’d been reading Angel’s mind, Rhiannon said, “Dragons recognize scents once they’re trained to do it properly. Mimi’s been doing an awful lot of training.”
Mimi beamed, even though her smile was respectfully small given the dire situation.
“What do we do now, then?” asked Uriel, his voice hard. Angel would be willing to bet the Angel of Vengeance wanted to attack Gregori first and get on the offensive side for once. A glance at Michael told her the Warrior Angel was right there alongside him in that respect.
Hell, they all were.
“Well, the truth is, I’ve been asked to keep you safe, Angel,” said Max.
At which point, Sam began laughing. It began as a chuckle, but quickly rose to a full-throated sound that was both beautiful and mocking. “Let me guess. Lilith.” He shook his head, still laughing. “The woman has an incessant habit of butting in where she isn’t needed.”