“Right,” Rhiannon said, re-gauging and re-figuring. “Good plan. Simple’s always best.”
Rhiannon was a realist. She always had been. Maybe it was a product of her childhood, or maybe it was in her genetics. Or maybe it was just the only way to be if you had half a brain these days. And just then, reality was telling her something she really didn’t want to hear. Five men, all in front of her, she could have taken.
But a small army?
Thunder rumbled in the distance. Maybe her mounting fear was bringing the clouds in, but it didn’t matter. There wasn’t enough electricity in those skies to get her out of this one. It was practically useless against gargoyles. What she needed was more small cars.
“My dear, it appears as if you might be able to use some assistance.”
The voice cut through the tension in the alley like a shark’s fin through water. Everyone grew still, breaths were held, and the lot of them turned to find a stranger among them.
How he’d appeared there without anyone noticing before now, Rhiannon hadn’t a clue, but she was betting his magic had something to do with it. Supernatural power radiated from him so extremely thick, it warped the air like heat in the desert. It felt both stifling and promising. Tempting and forbidden. She’d never felt anything like it.
This man was made of magic, itself.
He stood at the center of the crowd of gargoyles like Noah. All around him, the sea of men parted, allowing him an enormous bubble of room. His hands were in his pockets, the very image of nonchalance. He glanced at them all, his eyes skirting casually over the onlookers as if he were simply perusing them – their faces, their eyes, their souls. As each man met his gaze, they stepped back or looked away, and Rhiannon felt a foreboding growing in the air like static.
Thunder rolled closer.
The stranger was a very tall white man with thick, shoulder-length jet black hair and equally dark eyes. His chin was strong, his nose Roman, his build broad. He wore a white suit, expertly tailored to fit him like a glove. He moved with absolute confidence and grace. He was beautiful.
The entire effect of him was eerily mesmerizing. He was a study in contrasts, not only in his black on white coloring, but in the way his physical appearance was outwardly genteel and refined, yet was so obviously a disguise for something savage.
She wasn’t sure what to say to him. He’d asked a rhetorical question. And though she had little doubt he could get her out of this situation, she couldn’t help but wonder what he wanted in exchange.
The stranger surpassed the crowd and came to stand a few feet from her. His magic flailed at her now like silent, invisible floggers. His black diamond eyes sparkled. Rhiannon thought she saw something odd in them. The shape of his pupils… it was different.
“Fire Healer,” he said softly, speaking the name as if it amused him. “Would you like a ride home?”
Rhiannon blinked. She was beginning to feel dizzy. “Wh- what?” she whispered.
He smiled, and the smile was brilliant. “Gentlemen, I believe we’re done here,” he said calmly. Then, before she could react, the stranger had her hand in his. He intertwined his fingers with hers, locking her intimately in his grip. His touch buzzed uncomfortably, as if she were making contact with the prongs on a plug that was half-way in a socket. But she didn’t pull away. For some reason, she didn’t even try.
She just stopped breathing.
“Come with me, Rhiannon.” He turned, taking her with him, and the world shifted.
Rhiannon couldn’t have told anyone how it happened. It was just that one moment, she was standing in an alley surrounded by people bent on her destruction, and the next, she was seated in the plush leather bucket seat of a luxury vehicle, and the car was headed at a steady, easy pace down a New York city street that was strangely devoid of most of its traffic.
“Comfortable?”
Rhiannon turned in her seat. The stranger in white was driving, his attention on the road ahead of them. She looked from him to the dashboard lights, to the street beyond, and then down at herself. He’d even buckled her seatbelt.
“Yes,” she replied. “Surprisingly so.” She’d had a lot of experience dealing with magical beings. Over the years, she’d learned how to erect walls to protect herself from their influence. Sometimes they worked, and sometimes they didn’t, but almost always, they afforded her at least some kind of buffer against them. Enough to be able to think clearly. She did this now, schooling her own abilities to prepare for whatever was coming.
“Good.” He turned a corner and gestured to the glove box between them. “There’s a chilled diet root beer in there if you’re thirsty.”
She was. She’d been craving a root beer, actually, since she’d left the docks.
Rhiannon popped open the compartment to find a single bottle of Diet A&W inside, so chilled that flakes of ice dripped down the condensing sides of its glass. A&W was almost impossible to find in bottles anymore, to say nothing of the diet version. Without thinking, she took it out, twisted off the top, and gulped down three refreshing swallows. It was wonderful.
Then she lowered it again and stared out the front windshield. “Who are you?” she asked.
“My name is Gregori,” he told her. Then he changed the subject. “I want to speak with you about your friend, Detective Salvatore.”
“What are you?” Rhiannon asked next. She didn’t ask rudely; she just wanted to know before she was baited into another subject, even though she also had to wonder how this man knew Michael.
Gregori cut her a look, but then returned his attention to the road. “The universe is filled with mysteries, Rhiannon. You can’t possibly solve them all. The day you do, you will no longer desire to continue living. What humanity doesn’t realize is that existence is worthless without the pursuit of knowledge.” He smiled. “There’s simply no longer any point.”
Rhiannon processed that. It was a beautiful piece of prose, and he was probably right. But it was also a nearly political way of telling her that he wasn’t going to give her the information she wanted.
She took another sip of her root beer and waited in silence for him to tell her whatever it was he was going to tell her. About Michael.
“A woman like you could have her pick of men on this planet,” he began. “I’m surprised you have decided to become interested in one like Michael.”
“Oh?”
“I’m sure you are as aware as I am that he is more than he appears to be.”
“So are a lot of people.”
Again, he glanced at her. This time, he grinned, and that grin sent a shiver of devastating anxiety through Rhiannon. It made her blood run cold.
“Indeed,” he said. “In this case, however, what you don’t know may kill you. Michael Salvatore is no less than a fallen angel, Miss Dante. He is a man who was once favored by his maker. He was Michael, the Warrior Archangel, healer and leader of the Old Man’s armies. But he is also a man who, due to betrayal and selfishness, has since become no more than a monster.”
Rhiannon listened to these words as if they were alien to her. She divided each syllable up in her head, swirled it around until she recognized it, and then processed it with terrible slowness.
“Part vampire and part incubus, he now walks the earth feeding from mortals and charming his way through female companions. Including you, Rhiannon.”
She tried to ask him how he knew all of this, but her voice didn’t work. Neither did her mouth. She tried again. She still failed.
But he seemed to understand what she wanted to ask anyway, because he said, “You’ll have to trust me, Miss Dante. I know of what I speak. I do not share this to spare you. To be honest, I couldn’t care much less what becomes of you. I hope you don’t take offense to that. I’m telling you this because Michael Salvatore is the last of the Four Favored, the four archangels who have come to earth to find their lost mates. Their archesses. You, Rhiannon, are his lost mate. You are the last of the archesses to be tossed to ear
th so long ago. You are the last of the lost angels.”
Rhiannon continued to stare unseeing out the window in front of her. Little by little, Gregori’s words hammered their way through her skull and into her brain. But she was dizzy now. And the universe was turning around her.
“The story is a complicated one, and at the moment, I don’t have the time to fill you in on the details. Suffice it to say, if you accept Michael as your mate, all four of the favored archangels will have found their archesses. The hunt for the lost angels will be over. And this will bring the Culmination.”
The Culmination….
“The Culmination is the harbinger of untold destruction, Rhiannon Dante. And though they are unaware of it, its epicenter will be the archangels themselves. Of all who will perish at the Culmination’s hands, the Four Favored will go first.”
Why are you telling me this? her spinning brain wanted to ask.
“I believe that despite his failings, you are just fallible enough in your generous spirit to care what befalls Michael, to say nothing of the remainder of the planet. So be wary. You are the only living being with the power to prevent the Culmination from transpiring. Keep your distance from Detective Salvatore. For his own good.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
For the second time in twenty-four hours, Rhiannon found herself standing on the sidewalk in front of her apartment building, feeling considerably stunned.
Gregori had just pulled up to her apartment to drop her off. She hadn’t even told him where she lived.
The doorman had opened her door and helped her out, and she noticed with a numb sort of awe that the car she’d exited was a Rolls Royce Phantom. She’d always admired that car. Who didn’t? She’d always really wanted to ride in one, had often considered purchasing one because, frankly, she could afford it. But they were conspicuous vehicles, and in her line of work, it was smarter to keep a lower profile.
Well, now she’d ridden in one.
Almost as if Gregori had known.
Oh, he knows, she thought as her fingers and toes tingled painfully like they’d fallen asleep and were just now getting their feeling back. She watched the majestic, shining car pull expertly from the curb into traffic. He knew everything about me.
Maybe he also knew things she didn’t know. Was it possible he could very well be telling her the truth about who and what she was? Why she had these powers?
And about Michael?
Out of the corner of her unfocused vision, Rhiannon could see the doorman, Mr. Fredericks, move to the doors to hold them open for her. But she couldn’t follow. Her body still didn’t want to obey her. She tingled too painfully, inside and out.
Fredericks noticed she wasn’t with him, and at once left the entrance to return to her, no doubt concerned. “Miss Dante, are you –”
But she held up her hand, thrilled that it obeyed her wishes, and she swallowed hard, making her throat work properly too. “I’m –” She broke off because she croaked a bit. Then she cleared her throat, took a deep breath, and tried again. “I’m fine, Mr. Fredericks.” She nodded. “I promise I’m fine, really. Just give me a second.”
He knew enough to do as she asked. He left her side and returned to his post at the entrance to the apartment building.
In a few seconds, she managed to join him there, and he held the door open wide. But there, she stopped and turned to face him. “I’m sorry, Mr. Fredericks. I’m afraid I will be going back out tonight.”
Fredericks released the door carefully. “Shall I have Alex bring a car around for you, Miss Dante?”
Rhiannon shook her head. “No thank you. I think I’ll be going out alone tonight.”
He nodded, extracting a phone from his front pocket. In a few minutes, another Swallowtail Foundation employee pulled up to the curb with the car she normally used when she went out alone.
It was a 2-door BMW 435. BMW’s were common in New York City. Anyone who could afford the parking for a vehicle could afford a luxury car to park it in, so despite the relatively high-end value of the car, she blended in. It was warm on freezing or wet days, and it was front-wheel drive with a lot of pick-up, so it was easy to control. It worked. Especially in black.
Rhiannon thanked both men, making sure to tip them, and got into her car. A few minutes later, she had the address she wanted located on the virtual map upon her dashboard. Minutes after that, she was parking in the lot beneath Michael Salvatore’s apartment.
She sat there in the driver’s seat for some indeterminate amount of time before she finally popped open her door and decided to go through with it. The number on the curb in front of her parking space said #228. She wondered who it belonged to and whether they would have her towed. She could only hope not. She truly wasn’t planning to stay long.
Michael Salvatore lived on the third floor. To her, that seemed strange. It felt like a cop would want to live on the ground floor, where all the action might be, and where he could leave in a hurry if he needed to.
A vampire could just fly out the window, she thought as she climbed the apartment complex’s outer steps. His apartment was #314.
Rhiannon stopped in front of it and stared up at the number for a long, long time. Out on the street, horns honked a symphony, and somewhere several blocks down, a drunk person was yelling at someone else, probably also drunk.
At long length, she raised her right hand and took a deep breath. But when she brought it down for her first knock, the door nudged slightly forward. Rhiannon frowned. She placed her fingers against the wood and gave another little push. The door creaked inward, swinging slowly to reveal darkness beyond.
“Michael?”
There was no answer. But a shifting sound somewhere in that darkness made Rhiannon’s skin prickle. Her powers readied themselves for use. She moved slightly to the side to protect her body with the wall and shoved the door the rest of the way open.
That’s when she saw the detective lying on the floor, his back against the foot of the couch. His broad-shouldered form was mostly hidden. She only knew it was him because his eyes reflected back at her from the shadows, blue and familiar. They were eyes filled with pain. She’d come to recognize the look after so many years in her line of work.
Rhiannon reached inside and felt along the wall to flick on the light switch. Lamps he’d hooked up around the living room switched on all at once, one on an end cap beside the couch, one standing lamp in the corner beside a healthy-looking Ficus plant, and one sconce lamp on the wall in the hall that led from the living room to the rest of the apartment.
The light was soft and warm, but what it revealed was cold and harsh. Michael Salvatore had been thoroughly thrashed.
“Jesus,” Rhiannon whispered and slowly moved into the room.
Here and there, his clothing had been torn, and most of it was either dirty or stained with blood. His lip was broken in several places, and his left eye was swollen. Bruises were forming along his throat and the parts of his arms that were exposed by his short-sleeved tee-shirt. His dark blond hair was noticeably darker with grime and more blood. Whether the blood belonged to him or someone else, she wasn’t sure. But his right arm was wrapped around his middle, and his right palm was pressed tightly and protectively to his left side. Blood seeped through his fingers to drip to the carpet beneath him. A widening puddle of red was forming. Rhiannon wondered if it might be leaking through the floorboards and into the ceiling of the apartment beneath his.
Her stomach turned a little, as it always did when she was faced with the thick, red evidence of suffering, no matter how many times she encountered it. But she inhaled slowly, and steadied her nerves with practiced skill.
“What the hell happened to you?” she asked. Her voice trembled a little.
Michael laughed, and it was a harsh sound, like the laugh of a dying man. “You should see the other guy,” he rasped.
“I don’t doubt it.”
Michael closed his eyes, a sign of trust or surrender.
/> She moved further into the room and knelt down beside him. “You don’t look like a monster,” she whispered, gently brushing a lock of hair from his forehead. It was damp with his sweat or maybe blood, and her fingers shook when it revealed another gash across his handsome face, this one above his right eye. “You look like a monster’s regurgitated lunch.”
Michael’s eyes remained closed, but he smiled, despite the fact that it re-opened the split in his bottom lip. “That’s the nicest thing a woman’s ever said to me.” He sounded exhausted.
Absently, Rhiannon noticed his perfect white teeth, and a part of her was thankful that at least those had been spared in whatever battle had seen him to this condition.
She leaned over to place her lips beside his ear, and the nearness of him as her body lowered to his was stifling in its electric heat. She could sense the hardness of him, of every angle, every muscle, even without touching them. It was like approaching a heated brick wall. “I can heal you,” she whispered, her gut clenching because she hoped against hope he would let her this time. If the inside of his body looked anywhere near as bad as the outside, he could be bleeding internally. She might be his only hope.
Not for the first time in her life, Rhiannon was unduly grateful that she hadn’t squandered her healing power on anything else that night. She wouldn’t have had it when she’d needed it most.
He didn’t shake his head and he didn’t say no. He simply grimaced against some kind of pain that must have been working its way through his system.
And she took that as permission enough.
“Roll over onto your back. Can you do that?”
He grunted, but moved for her, coming to land on his back with labored breathing. He rested his hands lightly across his midsection, and she appraised him carefully, taking in every detail from head to toe. Her mind felt boggled that he could be simultaneously so beautiful, and yet so utterly destroyed.