Eleanore pushed away from the wall and scanned the parking lot, looking for any sign of yellow that would signify that the taxi had arrived. It had been at least five minutes since she’d called. But as she stepped off of the curb and onto the asphalt, her hand shielding her eyes from the streetlights coming on, she began to notice something. It felt like teensy pinpricks on the back of her neck and a fluttering in her stomach.
She was being watched.
Eleanore set off across the lot, the feeling growing stronger. She stopped in between a blue Jetta and a yellow Jeep Wrangler and slowly turned in place, her gaze scanning the far corners of the lamp-lit parking lot.
She stopped when her eyes met those of a tall brown-haired man with green-blue eyes. He was wearing a black trench coat over dress clothes. The tips of his black leather shoes were shiny beneath the reflected lamplight. The man lowered his head a touch and peered at her through the tops of those strange eyes—and then he raised his hand to his ear and his lips began moving, almost imperceptibly.
An earpiece, Eleanore thought. He’s communicating with someone.... Oh no . . .
Eleanore tried to calm the frantic beating of her heart as her gaze pulled away from his and continued around the lot. Another man, just as tall and striking, dressed similarly, stepped out of a windowless white van parked at the edge of the lot. She watched him extend his arm so that it was slightly hidden behind his coat and the shadows afforded by the still-open door. But something within his gloved grip glinted evilly.
A needle. There was no mistaking that wicked gleam of metal.
Eleanore’s stomach lurched, the world growing static-like and numb around her. Flashes of her childhood played before her mind’s eye. A mad dash down a rainy alleyway, another white van, a man with a needle . . .
He, too, raised his other hand to his ear and began communicating. Both men were watching her steadily.
Eleanore swallowed hard, tasting bile. She could remember only one other time in her life when she had been so frightened. Not even in that mansion, watching Uriel turn into a monster—not even then had she been as terrified as she had been that night when she was fifteen. And as she was right now.
This was her very worst fear.
They knew about her now. They’d found her again. And they’d come to collect her. Max Gillihan had been right; he’d missed someone at the accident site. Someone must have gotten pictures of her—or video. Footage of her healing two people with nothing more than her bare hands.
Oh God, oh God, oh God. She needed to concentrate. Focus, she thought. Focus, goddamn it! Two on the left of the parking lot. She forced the observation through her brain. But the right exit was empty. She saw no one beneath the lights and there were no strange cars parked on that side.
With a burst of energy she hadn’t known she possessed, Eleanore broke into a run toward the opposite end of the parking lot. Her boots pounded the ground beneath her, her long legs eating up the distance with efficient speed.
But as she neared the wide drive that accessed the street in front of the store, a black SUV skidded to a halt before it, swerving violently to bump the curb. Its black shining paint streaked brightly beneath the streetlights, bringing Eleanore to a sudden, violent stop. The SUV came to a screeching halt and blocked the exit directly before her.
Eleanore gasped and backpedaled, knowing all too well who was hiding behind the illegally dark-tinted windows. She didn’t have to wait long for a confirmation as the door to the SUV swung open and a man who could have been a carbon copy of the other two spoke loudly enough into his earpiece that she could hear him this time.
“She’s right here; we have her.”
Eleanore didn’t wait. There was no more rational thought processing involved. She simply spun in place and broke into a sprint directly toward the trees on the other side of the parking lot. She felt no pain, no weariness, nothing but adrenaline-induced numbness as she hit the mass of black thornbushes and trees. Her arms shielded her face as her long legs carried her through the closest break in the wicked foliage and into the dark and treacherous wilderness beyond.
Once through the thicket, she didn’t slow. She kept running. She ran, ducking beneath branches she noticed milliseconds before they would have taken out her eyes. She ran and ran, jumping over stubborn puddles that would have soaked her clean through.
She ran.
“That’s enough.”
Uriel glanced up at his guardian over the smooth plane of the neck in which his teeth were still firmly embedded. The pain had subsided. It had been racking him with a pure, undistilled severity unlike anything anyone could have imagined. It had been torture—hell. He’d never known a body could hurt as much as his had. The only way to deal with the pain had been to shrink from it and hide within himself.
And then, just as he’d become resigned to sinking into a final oblivion, he’d smelled an offer of blood. Food. Sustenance. Salvation.
The scented knowledge had wrenched him from his semiconsciousness with a knife-hard jolt, once more infusing his changed form with the hunger that was literally killing him.
A single glance had located the woman—he knew her, somehow, but was too far gone to acknowledge the fact. All he could smell was the blood. All he could hear was the pulse in her veins. It roared in his eardrums, called to him and taunted him.
Nothing could have stopped him—neither the chains around his wrists nor all of the armies in hell—from taking what he needed from her.
And so he had.
“I said that’s enough.” Max’s tone was hard now, forceful in its authoritative edge.
Uriel blinked, realization flooding him. He tasted the saltiness on his tongue, felt his fangs in her throat. And he knew what he had done.
Slowly, so as not to harm her any further, Uriel pulled his teeth from her neck and eased away from her. Max was instantly bending and lifting the unconscious form into his arms.
It was Lilith. He could see that now.
Oh God, what have I done?
Dread coursed through his veins as surely as the blood he had taken from her. Max quickly stepped away from the bed and strode across the room to the open door. He took Lilith with him, hugging her tightly to his chest. She was so small in his arms, so tiny and frail.
What have I done?
“I know wha’ you’re thinkin’. But you did wha’ you had to do,” Gabriel told him from where he stood at the foot of the thick metal bed.
“Concentrate now on Eleanore,” Michael added. He stood from the seat he’d been occupying and approached the bed.
Uriel slid to the side and braced his arms against the mattress, pushing himself up as well. He was still fully dressed; his brothers had not wanted to touch him once he’d been restrained.
“Where is she?” he asked, feeling his strength returning tenfold.
“She escaped from the mansion, remember?” Michael asked, narrowing his gaze as he looked his brother over. His expression was worried.
But Uriel remembered. He’d scented her on Max. She’d vaulted through a window—a broken window. And lightning? Yes . . . He had smelled the scorched and bitter scent of both flesh and clothes that had been set on fire. He remembered everything now.
His gaze unconsciously hardened as he thought of it.
She’d run from him. And he couldn’t blame her one bit. And yet . . . the thought of her running from him made his blood hum to liquid life in his veins. It literally heightened his senses as if preparing him for a hunt. He could feel his eyes begin to glow; there was a sharpening in his vision and a new strength in his limbs. And his fangs were still there.
“She’s hurt,” he said, recalling the sweet siren song of her own special blood.
“No’ so hurt she can’t run,” Gabriel said. “That’s a good sign.”
“She’s not alone. Azrael has gone after her,” Michael continued.
Gabriel came around the bed and pulled his black leather jacket from the back of a wooden chair
a few feet away. “Right,” he agreed, his tone dark and low. “He bloody has at that.” He slid into the jacket and straightened his collar, spearing them both with those molten platinum eyes. “Bu’ then, so has Sam.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
For the second time that night, Eleanore’s hopes rose suddenly, spiking hard when she could make out the flat, shimmering plane of paved tarmac up ahead through the trees. She drew nearer and came to the wet, black asphalt to see that it bordered the wrought-iron gates of a cemetery.
You’ve got to be kidding me. She almost laughed at the Gothic irony of the situation. Running for my life through a graveyard. Perfect.
The paved ground simply served as a makeshift driveway. In both directions on either side of the establishment, the woods—thinned out though they were by a dawning winter—were endless and twisted. It would be an arduous, if not impossible task to make her way through them. She had no choice but to go through the graveyard.
She scanned the burial ground, took in the crooked crosses and crumbling headstones, and then slipped through a small opening in the gate left by the rusted lock and chain.
There were no fresh graves within the cemetery. It was old and worn and overgrown with now-leafless vines. The stones were cracked; some simply acted as beds for weeds and vines that had long since made their rooted claim on the weathered names and dates. From the state of some of the sun-bleached plastic flowers laid upon the stones and covered with rain-splattered mud, Eleanore wondered whether the cemetery had been forgotten altogether.
It filled her with a deep sense of sadness to walk between the markers, viewing the etched carvings one after another. The older they were and the more worn the dates, the younger the dead. One pair of particularly small and tilted stones bore the dates of children—a brother and sister—who had died merely a year apart. When she studied the dates, she realized the first had died while the mother was pregnant with the other.
Eleanore could not run through this hallowed ground. Time was pressing in on her, the sun had already gone down, and the temperature had already dropped dramatically.
But the souls that had been left here beneath her feet pulled at her, clutched at her, and forced her into a state of reverence and respect. The dates on the stones begged to be read, the names noticed and whispered aloud. The dead wanted to be recognized. Whether they’d been there for one year or a hundred. By the time she reached the other side, the etchings were no longer discernible and mist had fully enshrouded the hallowed ground.
The night was complete and upon her. Eleanore stood at the iron cemetery gate and wrapped her hands around the rusted metal bars. She would have to climb to get out on this side. She gave the gate a quick shake to test for sturdiness, and it held. Then she took a deep breath and, to gather her strength, she rested her forehead against the metal, closing her eyes.
“They are speaking to you.”
Eleanore jumped and spun around to face the source of the deep, melodic voice. A tall man stood there, five yards away, dressed in black from head to toe. His long raven hair reminded Eleanore of her own; the color blended seamlessly with the sable material of his jacket. His eyes, however, were stark and gold as the sun. They nearly glowed in the frame of his pale, handsome face.
At once, Eleanore was petrified. She could not even ask him what he was talking about. Her mouth was instantly dry. This was the stuff of nightmares. A cemetery, a deserted road, a stranger who was undoubtedly ten times stronger than she was. One who barely looked human.
“The dead,” he said, with a slight nod to the nearest headstone. “The ones who stay behind. They always speak, but mortals never hear them. You’re different, though. They can sense that. It’s why you walk with respect through these grounds, isn’t it?” He spoke softly, yet his voice resonated with an easy charisma in the hollowness of the night. And it sounded vaguely familiar....
He stepped toward her then and shoved his hands into the pockets of his black jeans. It was a casual gesture, done perhaps to put her at ease.
She tried to ask him what he wanted. Her lips parted and her tongue moved, but no sound whispered past her teeth. She was too frightened. The night had held too many unsavory surprises. She’d most likely worn herself out in her mad dash through the tangled woods.
Her back was pressed against the cold metal of the gate; its rusted edges cut into the damp material of her hooded sweatshirt. She wondered whether the protein bar she’d eaten would provide enough energy to call another bolt of lightning from the damp sky.
“I won’t harm you.” He smiled a small smile and she could have sworn there was something predatory about it. But it was dark and she couldn’t quite tell. “I’m here on my brother’s behalf,” he said.
What brother? she tried to ask him.
Finally, she was able to make some sound. “Who—” Her voice broke, cracking in dryness. She swallowed, half coughed, and tried again. “Who the hell are you?” she finally croaked.
“I’m Azrael,” he told her calmly and continued to draw closer. “Uriel is my brother.” His long legs ate up the ground very quickly, despite his easy, unhurried pace. And she could go nowhere.
She remembered them mentioning Azrael. He was the brother who hadn’t been at the mansion when she was there but who apparently had more power than they did. Looking at him now, she could believe it.
“Which angel”—she swallowed hard, nearly coughing again, her throat was so dry. She fought past the uncomfortable tickle and finished—“are you?”
At this, he stopped in his tracks and something sparked in those unearthly amber eyes. He glanced at the cemetery around him and then looked back at her. He said nothing, but he didn’t have to. She knew.
“You’re the Angel of Death.” She felt numb even saying it.
Azrael nodded slowly, and Eleanore was once more struck with a familiarity. There was something—rock star–like—about him. He reminded her, in that moment, of Lestat.
Eleanore blinked. Then her eyes grew wide. She put her fingers up, blocking out the top half of his face. It was a dead match. “You’re the Masked One,” she whispered.
He raised his head again and his gaze sparkled. He smiled.
Eleanore didn’t know what to make of this new development. It seemed everyone in Uriel’s little “family” was famous. She was getting used to it, and a touch jaded. But above all, she was still scared.
“Look, I need some time to figure this out,” she told him, clearing her throat to go on. “I don’t want to go anywhere with you right now, s-so don’t even ask.” She glanced down at his booted feet, which took another step toward her. “And you can stop coming closer, too,” she added. “I don’t care how famous you are.” She shook her head. “I don’t trust you.”
“Wise girl,” came another voice.
Eleanore jumped a little against the metal bars holding her in place and turned to see Samuel Lambent calmly step out of the shadows of the more tangled and forgotten area of the cemetery. He was dressed in a suit tonight, one that was charcoal gray and perfectly tailored. The vision of him was surreal in this haunted and ghostly setting.
Azrael turned to look as well, though he did not seem at all surprised. His expression didn’t change. His gold eyes simply glittered in the misty darkness.
“So many people have run afoul after trusting that particular angel.” Samuel nodded toward Azrael.
Eleanore’s brow furrowed, her eyes wide. What the hell? What was Lambent doing here? How did he know that Azrael was an angel? What the bloody banks was going on?
She was beginning to feel like she’d been caught by those men in the parking lot after all and shot full of tranquilizers. This was some sort of drug-induced dream. The cemetery, the fog, the Masked One—and Sam.
Except that she was in too much discomfort for this to be a dream. She was so cold. Her legs hurt. Her lungs hurt. Her skin stung where branches and thorns had torn through her clothes and sliced her open.
“It’
s not a dream, Eleanore,” Azrael told her gently.
Sam chuckled. His white-blond hair brushed his shoulders. It looked fine as feathers and starkly bright in the surrounding darkness. There was a light behind his dark gray eyes now, adding to the surreal quality of his appearance.
“S-Sam?” she muttered, feeling stupid. Why couldn’t she talk right? Is this what real terror did to a person? Exhaustion? Was she in shock?
“I’m sorry, Ellie,” he told her. “Things were not supposed to go this far.”
“She isn’t yours, Samael,” Azrael said then, his tone quiet but laced with undertones of malice. “Why will you not accept this?”
Samael? thought Eleanore. Did I hear that right?
“Not yet.” Sam shrugged and smiled a broad smile. “And I stress yet.”
I have to get out of here, Eleanore thought then. She could feel that something extremely bad was about to go down. It was a vibration in the air around her, a buzzing sensation in her blood.
“Can you feel them, Azrael? Those whose ancestors you brought to this place know that you walk among them. They are restless.” Samuel chuckled again, clasping his hands easily behind his back as he slowly paced to a place somewhere between Azrael and Eleanore. He glanced at her and there was genuine amusement in his crackling silver gaze.
“Enough,” Azrael said. He spoke without anger and without any real force, but his voice carried across the darkness with incredible beauty. He also sounded weary. Genuinely weary. “Speak the truth, Samael. For once in your ungodly existence.”
At this, Samuel Lambent threw back his head and laughed heartily. The sound was as deep and rumbling and beautiful as the voice of Azrael.
Eleanore was simply bewildered. She would have given almost anything at that moment to be transported somewhere safe and bright and free of men altogether.
Sam stopped laughing and turned his piercing gaze on her. It took her breath away to be suddenly under such a weight.
“Anything, Eleanore?”
Eleanore blinked. He read my mind....