Samael

  He smiled. Then opened his eyes and continued walking.

  He didn’t have to feed from the scum of the world now, but there were too many of them. There was so much evil. He was more than capable of vanquishing at least a tiny part of it. He owed them that much – the people that remained. It wasn’t easy being mortal. It was pain, from birth to death, and loss and fear in-between. The last thing they needed was a superhero who didn’t do his part when he was very much able to.

  Az made his way like a tall shadow back to the Embarcadero, then strode to the very first car he saw parked along the sidewalk. It wasn’t his vehicle; he just needed the car’s door. He could move through the shadows to any other location he desired, but only a door would take him to the Mansion.

  The Mansion may be developing cracks and it may be experiencing tremors, but for the moment, it remained his only home, and it was Sophie’s too. She was there right now, and as usual, he couldn’t wait to return to her.

  “Azrael.”

  Az stopped in his tracks and experienced a series of emotions one after the other. The first was surprise. This was the first time someone had managed to sneak up on Azrael in… well, he couldn’t actually remember any other time.

  The second emotion he experienced was fear. And that was unusual for him. But he recognized this voice. It made him think of ice. And that made him think of Sophie trapped in a castle composed of it, on a glacier in the middle of a frigid nowhere.

  “Gregori.” Very slowly, he turned around. Already, he could feel the flames of his power heating up his eyes.

  Gregori nodded in genteel greeting, keeping his distance where he stood in his crisp, tailored white suit, outlined by the darkness of the bay behind him. The single light out on Alcatraz winked over Gregori’s shoulder as the light house’s beam passed by, reminding Az of all Gregori had done, especially out on that island.

  “I’m aware of how unwelcome a visitor I am at the moment. However, I’ve chosen to speak with you rather than your brethren for a reason. I believe you to be more capable of seeing the larger picture, Azrael.”

  “Just what picture is it you want me to see, Gregori?” Az asked calmly. “One in which the human race becomes victim to heart devouring re-animated Adarians? Or the one where dragons, gargoyles, werewolves and even my vampires form an army under your reign to do away with all other life altogether?” Every nerve in Az’s body was sparking with magic, at complete odds to his docile exterior. But it was no doubt nothing compared to the hidden power broiling within the man standing several feet away.

  “Samael has an archess.” Gregori had apparently decided to ignore everything Az had just said. Az expected no less.

  “I’m aware.”

  Gregori’s brow raised in interest.

  “News travels fast in the shadows,” Az explained.

  Gregori seemed to consider this a moment, then nodded. “It’s imperative that he not unite with her. Once he does, the Culmination will occur.”

  “Ah yes,” said Azrael, lifting his head a touch. “The Culmination.” He’d heard so very much about the Culmination of late. And so very little. He still had absolutely no clue what the hell it was.

  “You have no idea what it is, do you?” Gregori asked.

  He almost laughed at that. Almost. Because it was quite possible Gregori has pulled the lack of knowledge directly from Azrael’s mind, and that wouldn’t be a good thing. The implications were terrifying.

  Without waiting for Az to confirm it, which clearly wasn’t necessary, Gregori turned a little and paced a few feet, lacing his hands behind his back in a demeanor that oozed serene confidence. “Everything you know, everything you do, and everything you hope for this world will be lost. You will be whisked back to the angel realm and any chance you might have once had to right the wrongs you feel the people and animals of Earth need righted will depart along with you.”

  He stopped and turned to face Azrael again.

  “But that’s only the beginning. The rip in time and space that it takes to remove such volatile forces as yourself and your brothers from this realm will wreak havoc on this planet, throwing the people you’ve come to care so much for into total disarray. Who knows how many will die?” He paused, and his expression became one of recollection. “Oh yes, that’s right. You will know, as a point of fact. Because once you return to the angel realm, Azrael, you will again take up your mantle as the Angel of Death. So I’m afraid you’ll be well aware of just how much suffering has been unleashed upon Earth.”

  He waited a moment, as if to allow what he’d just told Azrael to sink in, and then he continued, like a steam train on a one-way track to Hell.

  “As for miss Sophie Bryce and the other archesses? What will happen with them? Are you willing to take the chance that when the Culmination was decreed, their well-being was considered? Has the Old Man ever seemed that benevolent a ruler? Has he ever treated the sexes with what you think of as fairness? Think of what he did to Lilith all those years ago…. Women and what they desire, whether that would be autonomy or freedom from oppression, or even the right to remain with the one they love, have never really been his main concern, have they?”

  Nearby, a foghorn blew, and a fat white cat of fog that had been waiting on the water in the distance began to roll in. The wind changed directions. And the blood in Azrael’s mouth tasted like metal.

  “So do yourself a favor, Az. Whatever your opinion of me might be, at least consider what I have told you. You know it in your heart to be true, and Samael will stop at nothing to attain his mate.” He shook his head. “Absolutely nothing.”

  A moment of silence stretched between them. Their gazes remained locked – fire and ice – and a flock of seagulls lifted from the end of a nearby pier, screaming into the night.

  “What do you have to gain by Samael’s failure?” Az asked. It was obvious Gregori cared nothing for Earth or its inhabitants. So, what was his motive in telling him all of this?

  “I have my reasons.”

  “Revenge.” Az could feel the emotion, and the need for its fruition, like a red tide, rolling off Gregori just like the incoming fog.

  Gregori smiled. He nodded just once in respectful admittance. “Just so,” he said. “The truth is, the Old Man is not in the angel realm, Azrael.”

  Az frowned. What?

  “Ah. I see I’ve managed to surprise you after all. No, the Old Man left the angel realm when you did, believe it or not. The truth is, he’s here on Earth. As long as the Culmination does not occur, he will remain so. And I have a bone to pick with him.”

  “But you can’t find him.” Az put the pieces together.

  Gregori seemed agitated suddenly, even distracted. He broke eye contact with Azrael and turned his gaze out over the bay as if he could see something Az couldn’t. “He’s evasive.” He unclasped his hands from behind his back and crossed them over his chest, causing the material of his suit to hug muscles that would otherwise be hidden. “But I’ve only begun searching. Given enough time….”

  Azrael had heard enough. He knew when an exit presented itself, and was wise enough to take it. It may not take him to the Mansion, but it would get him the hell out of here, so he stepped into the nearest shadow, which was afforded him by a street light, and left the man in white alone on San Francisco’s Embarcadero.

  Chapter Five

  Angel had chosen the vehicle because it was practically invisible already. Any spell of invisibility she would later drape over it would be icing on a nondescript cake. The color was some sort of brown-gray that was difficult to notice even when it was parked right in front of her. Plus, it was a van. That made it blend in with the rest of reality even more. There were no decorations on the outside, no stickers declaring a family of fish or an honor student or a favorite sports team or political figure. It was just – a van.

  But she’d also chosen it because of its carrying capacity.

  Samael possessed the ability to “transport,” or as any Trekk
ie would put it, to “teleport” from location to location. It was, for some unknown reason, one of the many skills he had that the other angel realm evacuees did not. As luck would have it, it was a power she possessed as well. But she knew it was one of the first things he would look for – any kind of transport signature, any kind of use of transport magic – in his search for her. So she couldn’t use it.

  The “Lost Angels,” as she’d come to think of them, had found the women they’d come looking for two thousand years ago. The archesses were lost angels in their own right. But they’d found their soul mates in the archangels. Michael had been the last of the four to do so, tying up the group nice and neat, and all eight of them had the glorious be-feathered wings to prove it. They could fly from place to place if they wanted, as long as they stayed out of sight.

  But Angel didn’t have wings, so that wasn’t an option for her either.

  There was the Mansion, of course. That helped the Lost Angels get from point A to point B as well, and it had for centuries. Anywhere there was a door to step through and a door to exit, there was instant passage to any other location on Earth. However, Angel was not an invited user of the Mansion. Despite the fact that she might have called one or two of the archesses acquaintances, at a stretch of the imagination, she and the archangels were not friends. They were basically strangers. They had no idea who she really was, and even if they had known, she would not have involved them in this final, culminating mess. Not by choice.

  So, the Mansion, too, was not an option for travel. For the moment, she was alone and she needed a bona fide way to get from one place to the next. To keep moving.

  To stay one step ahead of Sam.

  That was where the van came in. It was either that, or walk.

  Over the years, she’d learned to extend her own gifts to things around her, such as making her bubble of invisibility encompass other people or objects. It was more than a visible vanishing spell; it kept her safe from magically prying eyes, scries, and things of that nature.

  It was dangerous to have an invisible car in busy traffic, of course, but while she was out on the open road, she maintained a shield over the van, and as she drove… she thought about what the hell she was doing.

  She was running from the man she was meant to be with. Why? Because she knew that if he found her, their joining would bring about an end to everything she’d fought so hard for over the last two thousand years. She and the others would be whisked back to the angel realm, where they would be stuck and unable to help the humans who desperately needed them every second of every minute of every day.

  Life on Earth was hard enough as it was. Without what little help she and the archesses and archangels could give, they would be even worse off than they were now. Already, Earth was fast resembling a kind of Hell. There was so much religious strife, there were so many diseases, there was so much rape and murder, and people were so messed up in the head, it was beyond description. The suffering of one human forced him or her to bring suffering upon another. And on and on, it went like this, with misery paying it forward ad nauseum.

  Angel was only one person, but she was a magical person. She could heal, she had inhuman strength, and she had powers most humans would associate with superheroes. She could transport from one place to another in the blink of an eye, and she used this ability to bring relief to others.

  She couldn’t make it to even a tiny fraction of those who needed it; there were too many. Even so, it wore her out. Each time she helped, it carved a massive chunk out of her strength. She became so drained sometimes, she would literally drag herself into her bed. Once, she woke up to find she hadn’t quite made it before passing out, and her body was half on the bed and half off, like Cleopatra in her dying moments.

  On another frightening occasion in Sudan, she’d passed out amidst an entire group of women, and awoken to find herself under blankets, hidden away in one of their tents, safe from prying eyes and questions. They’d helped her as she’d helped them, and she was lucky.

  She couldn’t save everyone. But she tried. And it was that ability to try that was so very important to her, it was worth everything. She wasn’t willing to give it up. Any time she thought about it, she saw the faces of those who were suffering. She almost felt their pain like it was her own.

  Somehow, some way, she needed to figure out how to stop the Culmination. She needed to find a way to prevent it from happening before Sam found her.

  So far, she hadn’t had any luck. She’d been searching for information on the Culmination, and any clue that would help her avoid it, for two thousand years. She’d found nothing so far. What made her believe she would have more luck now? Nothing. It was just that she frankly had no choice. And it was as simple as that.

  Right now, her thumb drive full of classic rock was plugged into the van’s console, and familiar music soothed the soreness from her muscles and the fear from her nerve endings. The seat warmer was on; that was a nice touch, easing tightness in her lower back. But she’d been lost in her head, and she realized only now that up ahead on the long Texas road, a storm was building. This was typical for West Texas at this time of year, and there was no telling how far away that storm actually was. In West Texas, you could see basically forever.

  But there was a darkness at its heart, and the clouds at its center had built up into an anvil. It was quite a storm. Angel’s gaze narrowed. She returned her attention to the road ahead. A sign advertised a Pizza Hut-slash-Subway truck stop at two and a half miles. She hadn’t been planning on stopping so soon after the last rest; she’d planned on heading straight on into Austin. But now she reconsidered.

  She drove the two and a half miles and took the exit, pulling the van up to the pump to top off while she had the chance. Then she grabbed her cell phone and checked the weather. The storm was closer than she’d thought. She lowered the phone and eyed the clouds with wary indecision.

  After a few moments, she realized something else. There was no movement around her. There were no other cars at the pumps, nor were there any pulled up in the slots beside the building. There were no travelers letting dogs out to pee or stretching their legs. She frowned. Suddenly, the place felt deserted.

  The pump was working; her tank was being steadily filled.

  Her frown deepened. She cocked the pump handle into an automatic position and left her car to head into the store. A bell dinged as she opened the door, and cool, air conditioned interior greeted her. But there was no one behind the counter.

  She glanced up at the cameras in the corners of the store and noticed her reflection playing out on a screen behind the counter. The entire store was empty.

  Angel bit her lip and approached the back of the store, where drinks were kept cold in the refrigerated coolers. A large selection of beer greeted her, which transitioned into soda water, then into sodas themselves, and finally into sports drinks and bottled teas. The light in the cooler flickered when she opened the door to extract an ice cold Monster Rehab drink in Orangeade flavor. She let the door swing shut again and turned to make her way back to the front of the store.

  She passed the ice coolers on the way, glanced into them – and dropped her can of Monster drink. It rolled noisily under the nearest candy shelf as she stood frozen to the spot, trying to catch her breath.

  There was a person in the ice coolers.

  Chapter Six

  It was so quiet in the gas station, Angel’s breath sounded harsh in the unnatural silence. A buzzing in her ears matched the buzzing of overhead fluorescents. The silence stretched, the space around her expanded, and Angel’s vision re-focused.

  There were two bodies in the cooler, not one. The first was a female, around forty to fifty years of age, with dyed blonde hair, an inch of roots, smoker’s wrinkles around the eyes and mouth, and skin that had once been dark as leather but now appeared like leather that had been bleached in the sun.

  Crammed beside her in the limited space was the man who must have been her s
on. The familial features were there, and he looked to have been around twenty years younger, perhaps just shy of the legal drinking age.

  Their eyes were open, and fear had been immortalized in their frozen expressions. Their chests were coated in blood that amassed and condensed somewhere near the sternum. Where their hearts would have been.

  A cold numbness came over Angel. Her limbs felt heavy, and her boots felt glued to the linoleum floor. But somehow, in movements she barely noticed, her body managed to break the hold of glue, turn around, and make its way back to the double glass doors of the gas station. Life became a blur, as if seen through gauze curtains. Everything receded. In the back of her head, she registered the bell on the door ringing as she opened it and stepped outside into the springtime sunshine of West Texas.

  There were a thousand things to keep track of in that moment. A murder had taken place. Not just any murder, but a grisly one. Hearts had been taken out of chests.

  She knew who was doing that. She knew what it meant.

  Was her shield still up? Was she disguised? Was her car disguised? Was she safe?

  That poor family… mother and son, just working class citizens trying to get by, trying to make the most of the life they’d been given. Were they dead because of her? What were the chances that the Adarians would come to this place, of all places on Earth, and kill these two people where she would find them shortly afterward? And why? Hadn’t they just been in Chicago?

  Why?!

  What did all of this mean?

  Thunder rolled across the Texas flatlands, approaching like a celestial bowling ball somewhere high overhead. The storm was much, much closer than it had been only moments earlier.

  Thoughts raced unchecked through her ringing, pounding mind, like a distant chattering voice muffled by the sound of wildly beating drums. She felt wet on her cheeks and knew she was crying. She always cried. She’d seen death a million times, appeared on scenes far worse than this for countless rescues, and yet she always cried. She was the world’s biggest, saddest cry baby.