Angeli Trilogy: Angeli Books 1-3 Page 14

  “All right. Easy. I need to know; were you draining this man?”

  Con’s lip twitched; the spark of anger in him fading.

  “Since when can you drain a human?” Leo continued. “You’re not an Angelus.”

  Con straightened. “No, I’m not a holier than thou piece of shite Angelus.”

  “You were draining a human, and you still siphoned me. That doesn’t make any sense.”

  “What?”

  Leo growled. “I said, you were—”

  Leo broke off, sensing Con had left his host. He found himself addressing a very confused boy in baggy shorts.

  “What the hell are you talking about?” said the kid as he scanned the bar. “And how did I get here?”

  Leo sighed and closed his eyes.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Anne rushed out of the King of France Tavern to catch Leo, but by the time she reached the street, the big man had disappeared. She fumbled for her cell phone, dodging the throngs of Annapolitan tourists moving past her.

  Anne turned down the first side street and spotted a fire escape leading to the roof of an historic brick building on the next corner. The ladder dangled ten feet above her head, unreachable to the average person.

  Anne scanned the area for witnesses and then jumped, easily snagging the bottom of the ladder. She skittered up the rungs to grab the bottom of the metal porch attached to the back of the building. Gracefully, she propelled herself over the railing of the fire escape and proceeded to climb ladder after ladder to the roof.

  Anne found a comfortable place to scan the area and fished her phone from her pocket.

  “I’ve spent more time on rooftops during this trip than I have on the street,” she muttered to herself, dialing Michael’s private number. As it rang, Anne stood and paced the edges of the roof, hoping to catch a glimpse of Leo below.

  “Hello?”

  “Hello, Michael, my darling.”

  “Why did a shiver just run down my spine?”

  “I’ll get directly to the point,” began Anne. “Were you aware that you have a brother? Oh wait, of course you must be, because you’ve got him tailing me.”

  The line fell silent.

  “Michael?”

  “Yes, yes,” sighed Michael. “I am aware I have a brother. I have quite a few family members if you must know.”

  Anne held the phone out and stared at it, her jaw falling slack. She put it back against her ear.

  “You have quite a few if I must know?”

  “Well, you are on the planet to eradicate errant Angeli, Anne. Telling you the names and whereabouts of all my family members is sort of like showing the fox the rabbit hole, isn’t it? Didn’t we go over all this the first time we met?”

  Stunned and insulted, Anne braced for yet another argument.

  “First off,” she began in a measured tone. “It’s not like I willy-nilly go around snuffing Angeli. I only kill Perfidia. Generally, the ones you’ve pointed out to me.”

  Anne gave Michael a moment to respond. Hearing nothing, she continued.

  “Second, Michael, the idea that you don’t trust me...” Anne felt the sharp pang of wounded feelings as she spoke the idea aloud. “You are the one who promised you wouldn’t go around identifying me to other Angeli, leaving me open to attack. It seems your brother knew how to find me easily enough. He seemed to know all about me.”

  The line remained quiet on Michael’s end.

  Anne lowered herself down to sit on the roof, Indian-style.

  “I see your point,” said Michael.

  “Which one?”

  “It certainly isn’t fair of me to hide my people from you and then blather to them about you.”

  “No.”

  “So, apologies. Where are you? Are you with Leo?”

  “No. Believe it or not I’m on another rooftop, looking for Leo. He disappeared on me.”

  “Hm,” Michael grunted. “I wouldn’t waste too much time on that. I have to go. Can I get back to you?”

  Anne hung up without responding and stood, releasing a small scream of frustration. She surveyed downtown Annapolis, breathing slowly and deeply, trying to calm her rising anger. She concentrated on the air as it flowed through her nasal passage, held it a moment, and then released. She knew better than to let Michael’s demeanor bother her. To be angry because Angeli emotions weren’t like humans’ wasn’t fair, or realistic. Still, for as long as they had known each other, and with their special bond, it hurt when he pointed out the differences between them. To be such a big part of a person’s life, to practically know their every movement and thought, and then to suddenly find yourself on the other side of the glass—

  The sound of movement behind Anne pulled her from her thoughts. She turned, focusing on the area where she had originally climbed to the roof. She watched the spot for a few seconds, waiting to see if someone appeared at the ledge. All remained clear. She took a step towards the fire escape and heard the sound of shuffling.

  “Hello?” she called.

  Anne cautiously peered over the ledge. A brunette girl, with long straight hair and a slight frame looked up at her with large hazel eyes. Wearing tattered jean shorts and a knit halter-top, the girl appeared dressed for San Francisco’s hippie-choked Haight Street, circa 1968.

  Anne knew. She’d been there.

  “Hi,” Anne said. “Sorry, if I scared you. I was just borrowing your roof for a bit.”

  The girl smiled. “You didn’t scare me.” She grabbed the rung of the ladder that led from the porch to the roof and began to climb.

  Anne took a step back to make room as the girl hopped over the brick wall and dropped onto the rooftop. As she did so Anne felt a strange energy emanating from the girl, but just as quickly, it disappeared.

  “Nice view from up here,” said the girl walking past Anne. Anne peered over the edge to see if anyone else was coming.

  Before she could return her attention to the girl, Anne felt another blip in the energy field and heard a startling, animal-like grunt. She whirled to locate the girl, only to find herself struck on the side of the head by a heavy blow that sent her rolling across the rooftop.

  Not again.

  Anne came to rest against the brick wall that rimmed the rooftop and took a second to clear her head. She leapt to her feet, ready to confront her attacker.

  Where the girl once stood, Anne found a brown bear, growling and rocking on four feet, waiting for Anne to make her move.

  Anne’s eyes grew wide.

  Rooftop bears?! Annapolis has changed.

  Though resembling a bear, the creature before Anne was smaller and thinner in shape than any bear she’d ever seen. The golden hue of its fur glowed unusually bright blonde. She found the creature’s shape odd, though she hardly considered herself a Rooftop Bear expert. The paws were not as wide as a bear’s; they resembled inflated human hands with long, thick claws. Most telling, this bear had the unique shimmering glow of an Angelus in mid-transformation, but rather than bright blue, it radiated a turquoise hue.

  Anne paused, unsure how to approach the situation. This sort of encounter wasn’t in the handbook, since neither Angeli nor Perfidia were known to be able to adopt the shape of animals.

  Before she could devise a solid plan, the bear charged.

  Having little room to maneuver away from the beast, Anne dropped low and caught the bear in the midsection with her head and shoulders, doing her best to avoid its claws. The bear’s own momentum carried it over Anne, and it slammed onto the rooftop behind her. As it flipped, Anne brought forth two glowing short swords, and caught the bear’s thighs with the blades. As the bear hit the asphalt with a loud expulsion of air, Anne turned, reabsorbed her weapons, and scrambled forward to grab the bear’s ankle. Still feeling tapped from her earlier ordeal, she didn’t want to expend unnecessary energy on her blades.

  The moment she grasped the creature, Anne could feel energy flowing from the bear. The animal had to be some sort of Perfid
ian, but it was not a particularly powerful one. The energy signature seemed weakened; and it made Anne feel slightly nauseated as it flowed into her. It reminded her of the energy from the monster that had attacked her in the alley, though this bear-girl didn’t possess a fraction of that demon’s power. Anne felt she could easily defeat the animal, even with her strength low from the earlier attack.

  The bear gave a very human, high-pitched scream and scrambled to all fours, jerking away from Anne’s touch. It swiped at Anne, catching her across the arm and ripping four long gouges into her skin. Anne cried out and rolled back and away.

  She’d been taking the win for granted. She knew better. The next swipe might have caught her across the face and losing an eye, even temporarily, wouldn’t have made fighting any easier.

  Bracing itself in the corner, the bear warped and blurred until, once again, the young girl stood before Anne. Her eyes were wild and she breathed heavily, blood dripping down both legs from the wounds in her thighs caused by Anne’s swords.

  “I don’t know who you are,” said Anne, displaying one palm in an attempt to calm the girl. “But we’ve clearly gotten off on the wrong foot...er...paw.”

  The girl answered with a blood-curdling scream, reaching up and clawing at the air, shifting her shape once again.

  Rather than regaining her bear shape, the girl unfurled wings, violet light swirling and trailing from them. Her feet no longer touched the ground. The webbing of her wings began to glow brighter, signifying to Anne that they had gone from being tactile appendages, capable of pushing and holding, to laser-like netting capable of flaying her skin.

  The Perfidia with which Anne had grappled in the past appeared graceful in their battle form, almost Phoenix-like, with a green human shape in the center of their energy plumage. Anne would describe Perfidia in this state as breathtakingly beautiful, if they weren’t usually trying to kill her.

  In contrast to that elegance, this girl’s torso seemed unfocused and blurry, her human shape more suggested than achieved. Her color didn’t glow crystal blue like healthy Angeli or jade, like Perfidia, but flashed with a myriad colors. Jagged streaks of red, orange and white light ran throughout her form in a chaotic dance, uncharacteristic of the clear, solid colors displayed by even the most corrupt Perfidia.

  The girl swooped towards Anne, her long fingers grabbing at the Sentinel in order to drain her. Anne evaded the first attack, rolling to the side and flipping to her feet.

  Anne willed her fiery orange weapons to materialize, gritting her teeth as the sting of their manifestation blazed. The process of bringing forth her blades burned her arms, but they often sped a battle to a favorable conclusion. Hopefully, even brawls with bear-girls.

  With a roar of anger, the girl turned and charged. The Sentinel held her ground until the last second and then spun to the left, slashing with her sabers. Each contact with her blades raised a shriek from her attacker.

  The girl swept with her wings and Anne dropped and rolled beneath them, narrowly missing the laser-like appendages. Twice Anne felt the Perfidian’s claw-tipped fingers slice through her flesh, each time, a little of her own energy moved to the girl.

  Even after those few well-placed attacks, Anne sensed the girl was not in top form. Fighting even an average Perfidian would have been a more difficult battle. Whatever corruption the girl suffered affected her focus in every way.

  Anne made a surprise lunge at the girl, pointing a sword at each of her foe’s shoulders. Caught off-guard, the mutant Angel fell to the ground and Anne used the swords to pin her to the rooftop like a butterfly specimen.

  Anne began siphoning and the girl fell unconscious almost immediately, her otherworldly glow dimming. Sensing the bear-girl’s end growing near, Anne stopped.

  She knew it would be wise to finish the offending Perfidian, but she found herself considering her options. To her knowledge, neither Angeli nor Perfidia could shift into bears. Anne’s training told her to reap the girl to be reborn anew, but creeping doubts kept her hand at bay.

  Anne surveyed her wounded arms. The skin flapping on her forearm where the bear-girl’s claws had torn her flesh argued for finishing the job. Her uneasy feelings suggested otherwise. Perhaps this girl’s strange transformation provided a clue to the identity of the creature that attacked her in the alley.

  Anne caught a shimmer of light in her peripheral vision and turned. Michael appeared.

  “Stop!” he yelled, on regaining his human form. He ran to the girl who remained unmoving on the asphalt rooftop.

  Anne eyed her lifeless foe to be sure she remained motionless and then faced Michael.

  “I stopped. If that’s what you want. She did try to kill me.” Anne held aloft her tattered arm for Michael to see.

  Michael looked at Anne, his eyes soft with the unfamiliar glimmer of emotional pain.

  “You know her?” she asked.

  Michael nodded, taking the girl’s hand. “She’s my daughter.”

  “You have a daughter now?” said Anne, her voice strained. She cleared her throat and began again at a lower pitch. “First a brother and now a daughter?”

  “She’s not my daughter in the human sense,” said Michael. “I’m more her sponsor, her mentor. In the end, I am effectively, her father. All the Archs have Angels to whom they are closer to than others, ones they take under their wing, so to speak.”

  Anne gazed across the Annapolitan rooftops absorbing this new information.

  “All you need is a crazy aunt and a couple of cousins and we can have a proper Thanksgiving this year,” she mumbled.

  “What’s that?” asked Michael as he lifted Ariel into his arms.

  Anne sighed.

  “Nothing.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Anne gave Michael her room number at the nearby Maryland Inn so he could transport his unconscious daughter there. Michael gathered Ariel to him, and the two Angeli disappeared into a swirling mist of blue plasma. Anne found herself alone on the rooftop staring at the spot once occupied by the Angeli, the air shimmering like heat waves above asphalt on a summer day.

  Without a talent as fancy as teleportation, Anne climbed from the roof and walked back to the hotel, pressing the flaps of skin on her arms together as they healed. Tourists eyed her bloody clothing, but no one offered to help. She found their indifferent attitudes both a relief and a disappointment. She was sure people used to be nicer to bleeding strangers.

  Inside her suite, Anne found Jeffrey had ushered Michael to her room. Jeffrey stood just outside the bedroom door peering in at the Angeli, a slight ripple in his trademark, bored expression. He wore a faded polo shirt with “Man on horse with stick” printed where the Ralph Lauren Polo logo would normally be.

  “Your three friends are in here,” Jeffrey said, nodding toward the bedroom as Anne approached.

  “Three?” asked Anne as she pushed past him into the room.

  “Mm hm.” Jeffrey rolled away from the doorway and headed back towards his room.

  Anne stepped into the bedroom to find Ariel lying on her bed and Michael standing beside her. He acknowledged Anne’s arrival with a nod. She saw Leo had also arrived. He stood behind Michael, arms crossed, the expression on his face one of grim concern.

  “It isn’t Perfidia. It is something else,” said Michael.

  “She isn’t the one who attacked me yesterday,” said Anne. “She’s much weaker. But she had a similar multi-colored glow to her and her energy felt tainted.”

  Michael took a deep breath, his eyes never leaving Ariel. Anne felt uneasy standing beside two very powerful Angeli in a small hotel room, particularly when it seemed clear they intended to side with one of their own against her. She couldn’t imagine Michael turning on her, but then, until an hour ago, she didn’t think he’d keep the existence of a brother and a daughter away from her either.

  Anne had already broken two cardinal Sentinel rules: never allow random Angeli to identify you and never allow yourself to be outnumbe
red. It was too late now; she would have to play her hand as dealt.

  Ariel remained unconscious on the bed, ashen in color, her breathing slow and shallow.

  Michael turned to Anne. “I need you to give her some of your energy, like I did for you after the attack.”

  Anne opened her mouth but remained silent for several seconds, unsure of what to say.

  “She tried to kill me. She’s got to be some sort of Perfidian.”

  “She’s not a Perfidian. You said yourself it was something different.”

  “Well, yes, different but not better. She was a bear.”

  Michael scowled. “What are you talking about?”

  “She. Was. A. Bear. I don’t know how else to say it. When she attacked me on the roof she did so after first taking the shape of a golden bear.”

  Both Michael and Leo tilted their heads in disbelief. They looked from Anne to Ariel and back again.

  Michael held out his hand to stop Anne from sharing more information. “All the more reason then. What you’re describing to me is not a Perfidian. It’s some other sort of corruption. I need her alive and intact so we can explore this.”

  Leo nodded. “If you reap her in this state there is no telling what repercussions there might be.”

  “Fine,” said Anne, throwing her hands in the air and letting them fall against her sides. She sat down on the edge of the bed and took Ariel’s hand in her own. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

  “Wait, do you know what you’re doing?” asked Leo, pushing in front of Michael.

  “Not really. I don’t usually try to save Perfidia.”

  “She’s not a Perfidian,” said Michael.

  Leo thrust his arm toward Anne. “Practice on me first.”

  Anne took Leo’s muscular forearm in both hands, closing her eyes to concentrate. She tried to imagine her own energy flowing into Leo. The process did not come as naturally as draining power away from an Angelus. Resisting the urge to drink his vibrant energy was like trying not to eat the last piece of bacon on her plate.