Michael and Gabriel said nothing.
Max changed the subject. “I know what happened in the garage. The contract that Uriel signed must have had some kind of stipulation within it—a hidden clause, if you will—which prevented him from speaking about Samael.”
“I’m sure he read it before he signed,” said Michael.
“That’s why I suggested it was hidden,” said Max.
Michael ran a frustrated hand through his hair and Gabriel swore under his breath.
“Therefore, when he began telling Eleanore the truth, he also began to change,” Max explained.
“I’ll say this for the bugger. ’s got a fucking good sense of humor.”
Max nodded and took a deep breath. “What did Uriel do with the contract after he signed it?” he asked Michael.
Michael shook his head and shrugged. “He said that it disappeared.”
“I was afraid of that. I’ll have to go and retrieve a copy. Luckily, I happen to have such jurisdiction when dealing with Samael.” Max straightened and added, “Until then, you two will need to watch over him closely. Azrael had to go under again after wrenching us all into action. When he awakens, have him take over for a bit. He’ll know far better than you will how to deal with one of his own kind.”
“I think it’s fairly easy to tell that he’s hungry,” Gabriel suggested.
“Yes, and what do you propose we do about it?” Max asked.
Gabriel shrugged and shook his head. “I’m only saying.”
“We’ll figure it out,” Michael said. “Now, what about Eleanore?”
“She took off somewhere around the outskirts of the town she lives in, as far as I could tell,” Max remarked. “The mansion repaired itself almost immediately after her departure and it has shifted since then. It must have known that she wanted to go home, so it took her there.” He paused and considered his next words before he said, “I think the best man for tracking her down would be Azrael. It’ll be night soon. No one is better at finding prey in the dark than he is.”
Michael and Gabriel digested this in wary silence. It was a long while before Michael sighed heavily and nodded. “Go get the contract, Max. Find out what the hell is going on.”
CHAPTER TEN
When life is uncertain and you find yourself repeatedly on the run, you learn to take certain precautions. You make plans. If you think you might be stuck somewhere suddenly, without any money, you invest in a piece of jewelry that you can pawn at a moment’s notice. Then you formulate a plan that includes the procurement of transportation, food, and lodging.
Long ago, Eleanore made sure to leave a standing account at Western Union and memorize the pickup number. Then she’d strategized what her next moves would be so that she now knew to use library computers, Craigslist, and taxicabs.
Eleanore was furiously planning her next moves even as her feet pounded through the mud beneath her. Her body grew increasingly cold on the outside and increasingly hot from within. If she’d had any of her powers left, she would have made the sun shine—but she was tapped out and night was moving in anyway.
As it was, she knew she’d be lucky if she reached a phone before someone from the mansion managed to locate her. As she ran, she struggled with the notion of contacting her parents. It was her instinct to turn to them. They had always been there for her and were the only people in the world she wholly and purely trusted. However, she wasn’t certain she wanted to involve them in this mess. And she wasn’t even sure that she truly needed them.
She had a diamond on a long chain around her neck, given to her by her mother for just such an emergency situation. She wore it hidden beneath her shirts and had been sporting it for so long that she normally forgot it was even there.
She knew to use a public computer to find a local car for sale within her price range. And she knew to use taxis or public buses and aliases as she was transporting herself through town on these different emergency errands.
She might not need to call her mother or father. Uriel had told her about their mansion and its magical ability to transport people across vast spaces, and all of the Southwest looked pretty much the same with its scrub brush, dirt, and flat lands, so she couldn’t be certain whether she was in the right state or not. But if she was somewhere close to home in Texas, then she could do this on her own. On the other hand, if she was on the other side of the state, or worse, in Arizona or New Mexico, then there was too much ground to cover before daylight; she would never make it home before . . .
Eleanore pushed the image of Uriel and his fangs from her mind. She suddenly felt so tired. She didn’t know whether she entirely trusted herself to think clearly enough to keep from getting caught this night.
She didn’t even know what had happened back there. It was so freaking confusing. She only knew that Uriel was more than he’d claimed to be and that the look in his eyes when he’d peered down at her in the garage had been life-threatening.
He listened to me, though, she thought erratically. He listened to me when I spoke to him telepathically. Whatever was happening to him, he tried to calm down for me. . . .
She didn’t know why that was important. She was simply terrified and that was about all she could discern at the moment. Her stomach was cramping with hunger, her feet and hands were cold, she was more than a touch thirsty, and her side was stitching. It was hard to contemplate reality and a deeper truth when you felt like crap.
Up ahead, the dirt road became gravel, and just where the atmosphere misted with fog around the edges, Eleanore could make out the beginnings of paved tarmac. She headed in that direction, hope blossoming inside of her.
Azrael gazed down at the man chained helplessly to the metal bed before him. There were dark, deep circles beneath Uriel’s closed eyes and his lips were pale and drawn.
“Time is not on our side. He must feed soon or he will die,” Azrael said softly. “He’s already far gone.” In truth, he looked good and dead already, but Azrael knew otherwise.
“What do you mean?” Michael asked, coming up beside him. “I know he looks bad, but isn’t that just the vampire thing?”
“A vampire must feed every night or he won’t survive,” Azrael told him. “And he was awake during the day. You have no idea how taxing that is; if he doesn’t consume human blood very soon, there will be no saving him.” He wasn’t entirely certain that even that was enough to save him.
“You’ve got to be joking,” Gabriel grumbled, running a hand through his pitch-black hair. Nearly all traces of his accent were gone now; it changed according to his mood and the gravity of the situation. “He’s going to bloody die?” he asked, gazing steadily into the fire.
Azrael knew his brothers well. He recognized the pain in Gabriel’s slumped form. He and Uriel had never gotten along very well. And yet he would wager that they were the closest, deep down, of the four of them. Azrael was the black sheep of the bunch, and close to none of them. Michael was the born leader of the crew and tended to set unreachable standards. Uriel and Gabriel were on an even footing and always had been. They could empathize with each other, and though it made it easer for them to fight, it also made their bond stronger. You always hurt the ones you love the most.
He contemplated what had to be done. He knew that Eleanore was out in the coming night alone, and that he needed to go after her. But far more pressing, at the moment, was obtaining sustenance for the newly created vampire dying before him.
He would have to go hunting on Uriel’s behalf. None of the other angels would understand this, nor would they be able to bring themselves to such a task. It was up to him.
Azrael nodded once and prepared to take his leave of them.
But then he smelled her. It was a distinct scent, soft and warm and subtle. There was a tentative aspect to it, as much as there was to her character. Vampires eventually detected such notes and learned to unconsciously assign such characteristics to the things that they smelled, as an individual’s scent became as much
a signature of who they were as the lines of their face or the sound of their voice. So he was not at all surprised by the gentle footfall at the door behind them.
“I may be able to help you,” came the voice of a woman.
The others turned, and Azrael joined them in looking upon the slight, petite form of Lilith where she stood in the doorway, one hand braced casually against the frame.
The road had, indeed, solidified beneath her feet and, fifteen minutes later, Eleanore was wholeheartedly thanking the couple that had given her a ride to the nearest grocery store.
There was a phone booth against the wall on one side of the parking lot.
Eleanore stepped inside the store and took a few minutes to warm up. She bought the nearest thing to a protein bar she could find and downed it with a bottle of Dasani water. Once she was semicomfortable again, she borrowed a piece of unused receipt roll and a pen from the nearest cashier and returned to the phone booth. She pulled the very thin phone book out of its shelf and stared at the name on the cover: Rockdale.
It sounded vaguely familiar. It was in Texas, but the problem was, she could have sworn it was nearer to Austin than to where she lived. It would take her ten hours to get home by car.
Eleanore tried to remain calm. “This state is way too effing big,” she mumbled under her breath. She hurriedly thumbed through the phone book, scribbled some notes on the back of her paper, and then went back inside to return the cashier’s pen.
Now she had the address and hours of a local pawn shop and a taxi was on the way to pick her up. She also knew the address to the only Western Union office in town. She wasn’t sure how much money she would need to purchase a used car without so much as giving a real name, but it would probably take most of what she had readily available to her.
When she’d finished folding up the paper, she shoved it into her pocket and her fingers brushed the smooth metal of the gold bracelet she’d stolen at the mansion. She blinked.
She pulled the bracelet out and turned it over in her hands. It shimmered in the quickly fading sunlight. It was really quite an extraordinary work of art. The etching and detailing in the bracelet were so tiny and wrought so perfectly that it would seem only lasers could have etched the design.... But she knew it was too old for lasers. It practically radiated an ancient air.
It was also gold. With a start, Eleanore realized that gold was one of the best conductors of electricity and that it should have melted when she’d struck Gillihan with the lightning bolt. At the very least, it should have singed her fingers when she reached down to pick it up.
But it had been cool to the touch, and it was utterly unharmed.
Eleanore gazed down at the bracelet a few moments more, feeling raw inside. This bracelet must have belonged to one of the other brothers. She wondered whether Michael and Gabriel had been planning on using their bracelets on their archesses as well. Max said it was a precaution; that they had no idea how an archess would react to the news of being made for another being. But to her it was more than that. If a woman wasn’t allowed to be angry or rally against what she felt was an injustice, then she was no more than a prisoner.
This felt like a betrayal of trust. More than anything else, it was that shady duplicity that hurt. More than anything that had been done to her, it hurt that Uriel had been willing to use his bracelet to take away what she was and render her powerless against him. To take away her freedom and her choice.
That really, really hurt.
Eleanore blinked back tears and repocketed the bracelet. She took a deep, cleansing breath, made her way out of the booth to lean against the wall of the grocery store, and let her head fall back to close her eyes.
“Lilith,” Max uncertainly greeted the young—yet very old—woman and took a few steps forward. “What brings you here?”
Azrael could see that the guardian wanted to go to her. His feelings over the centuries had not changed. But he remained where he was, poised between the archangels and the woman known in their circle as the Dismissed, and waited.
It was a while before Lilith replied. Finally, she lowered her hand and entered the room. She was dressed as she always dressed, conservatively and simply. She wore only a silk button-down shirt, a knee-length business skirt, stockings that were most likely gartered, and heels. The reading glasses she sometimes carried on a chain around her neck were gone and her hair was down.
Few humans knew the true story of Lilith. Eons ago, nearly before the onset of time itself, Lilith had been created as a female companion for the first mortals the Old Man placed on Earth. Those mortals were considered by many archangels to mark the beginning of the Old Man’s degeneration. The archangels thought the creation of man was a poor decision. Lilith was worse. Freshly formed, she’d been given an ultimatum: serve man or suffer dire punishment. Like all mortals, Lilith had been born with a mind and will of her own. She was fiercely strong, and she defiantly refused the Old Man’s orders. As a punishment, she’d been sent out into the vastness of the mortal realm with nothing but the ability to suffer mortal death—and then awaken once more to her mortal, yet immortal, form. She died a thousand deaths in those first years from starvation, disease, and murder.
Her petite frame should have housed a soul both horribly bitter and perhaps a touch insane. However, she was neither. Lilith was a pillar of strength and perseverance, patience, and pardon.
Azrael thought of this now, as the woman slowly, gracefully, made her way across Michael’s massive master bedroom until she eventually stood at the foot of the large iron-framed bed and stared down at the man bound to it.
“You would expect no different, of course,” Lilith said then, turning to face Max with a sad smile and a small shrug. “But for what it’s worth, I bring an offer from Sam.”
At this, the company of angels and their guardian said nothing. After several long seconds, and with determined calm and composure, Max finally took a deep breath and asked, “What is it?”
“Uriel will die if he doesn’t feed, and at this point, he will need more than human sustenance.”
At once, Max turned to Azrael. “Is this true?”
“It’s possible,” he said. It had already occurred to him, in fact. On the one hand, a very healthy human with a lot of blood might just save Uriel. But he had been up during the day, leeched by those hot, bright hours. And he had been burned by the sun; such things were more lethal to a vampire than cyanide to a mortal.
Max turned back to Lilith and she went on. “I offer my blood to him in exchange for an amendment to the contract.”
Max’s jaw tensed; Azrael could see the muscle twitch. Beside him, he heard Michael’s heart rate speed up. And behind him, he could smell the adrenaline suddenly pouring into Gabriel’s bloodstream; the former Messenger of God was incredibly angry. Azrael wondered how long Gabe would be able to hold his temper before he decided to do something rash.
“What kind of amendment?” Max asked.
“Upon completion of Uriel’s feeding, Samael wishes to be allowed to again meet with the archess.” Her tone was both weary and apologetic. “He basically wants to break his forbearance a day early.” She cocked her head to one side and waited for an answer. It was clear from her expression that she was not the proud bearer of such a request. She was simply the messenger. Azrael wondered whether Gabriel could at all sympathize.
“Let her do it,” Azrael said then, and all eyes were on him. He knew that it wasn’t what they wanted to hear. He knew they expected him to think of something else; he was the vampire, he was the one who should have known how to get out of this situation. But the hard truth of the matter was, vampirism was not a gift. It was called a curse for a reason. There was no easy way around the hard edges of it. And Uriel was dying.
As it was, his heartbeat was barely discernible.
“Do it.” He turned to Lilith, knowing that his gold eyes were now glowing with determination and resolve. “Do it before it’s too late.”
Lilith squar
ed her small shoulders and nodded. She looked so fragile there, beside the bed, as she resigned herself to her duty.
Azrael prepared himself to stop his guardian should Gillihan decide to interfere, which he could imagine the man absolutely wanted to do. But Max surprised him by keeping his distance. He was tense and he was angry; Azrael could tell that much easily. But he remained where he was, wisely deciding not to do anything that might endanger Uriel.
And as Lilith sat beside Uriel on the bed, pulled her thick dark hair from one side of her neck, and exposed the long, slim column of her throat, Azrael’s eyes continued to burn.
He, too, had yet to feed for the night.
It took only a gentle nudging and urging for Uriel to open his own glowing red eyes. He took one look at Lilith and at the pale, taut flesh that she offered him, and the chains holding his wrists pulled tight as he sat up in the bed. If he hadn’t been wearing the bracelet that trapped his superhuman strength within his body, they would have snapped.
At once, Michael and Gabriel were mobile, both of them coming forward to try to stop Uriel from whatever it was he planned to do. But Max held up his hand and Azrael moved forward to unlock the chains. Then he turned to pin both Michael and Gabriel to the spot with hard eyes.
“Leave him,” Max told the men. “He won’t hurt her. He can’t,” he added softly, his voice dropping to a whisper as he turned back around to watch.
Azrael could not afford himself the same luxury. Instead, he stepped back from the carnal scene and turned toward the window that had been covered in heavy drapes. He strode toward it and tore the drapes open, revealing a deepening night beyond. Azrael deftly clicked open the latch and lifted the window, allowing a cool breeze to waft into the room. It carried with it the faint scent of honeysuckle.
In stoic silence and without a farewell, he allowed his form to mist and evaporate and then shot out through the open window into the waiting darkness.