Ashes of Angels (9 page)

“It is their manner to seek answers for the ineffable. They are evolving, learning, gaining knowledge. It is a slow process that will last for millennia. We should not make judgments.”

“Then why not remain on this evolving earth you wax over? Why must you be away from these helpless mortals you deem unfit for your judgment?”

Sam shrugged. Yes, why ask for removal from a world in which Cassandra Stevens existed? When he stood near her, everything felt right. Wondrous.

He shouldn't think about her.
He mustn't
. “It is my desire,” Sam said. “I was wrong. I admit it.”

“You've haven't taken your muse?”

“I desire her. And I respect her.”

Raphael shook his head sorrowfully, perhaps even disgusted at his moral reply.

Sam swung an angry sneer at the archangel and clenched a fist before him. “That is the problem with the Fallen, even the Arcs. They believe they've the right to take as they please. We have no such right. While here on earth, we become a part of this realm. We must live by their rules. I would not think to harm Cassandra.”

“If you believe sex harmful you've been fed some bad information, Outlaw.”

“It is harmful if attempted against the woman's will.”

“Ah. Yes, well, there is that. Don't get me wrong, I am on board with the whole respect-the-muse thing. You surprise me.” The archangel tilted his hat to reveal his eyes, brilliant with violet and azure. Sam could not look upon him for more than a second or the divine burn would eat into his mortal skin. “I suppose I can see to granting your return to Above…in favor of your changed mind.”

“Really?”

“Of course. I am not so rigid I cannot accommodate a true champion.”

“I am no champion.” Although, if Cassandra would have him as her champion, he would walk the world for her, and smite every last vampire.

“You've taken out a few vampires,” Raphael said. “The Sinistari I will miss, but you can continue to kill your brothers. That'll give my Sinistari ranks a helping hand.”

“Trust me, if a Fallen lands within my senses, he will be dead. Thank you for your generous gift, Raphael.”

“But you'll need to do something for me.”

Of course. There was always a “but.” Who said the angels did not quickly learn the ways of humanity? “Anything.”

“Bring me the book the muse possesses.”

“The one with the names and sigils? But she destroyed—”

“She did not. And she has no clue what the book really is.”

“What is it?”

Raphael harrumphed and adjusted his position on the bench, crossing an elbow over the back of it. “It contains the code for the Final Days.”

“The one that will make all the angels…?”

The archangel nodded dourly. “Cassandra Stevens's book, a collection of names and sigils that when ordered correctly, holds an ancient coded word that when spoken, will send all angels plummeting to earth to smother mankind with their multitudes. Their wings will burn human flesh, young and old. The earth will become an ashy cemetery of both mortal and the divine.”

Sam swallowed. “I think the vampires may be after the book.”

Raphael did not reply and, instead, shimmered away. The empty park bench bore no sign anyone had sat there, the snow that lay on it undisturbed.

“Cassandra's book,” he muttered. To consider the Final Days gave even him a shudder. It would bring death to all, human, divine and those in between such as the Fallen. “She has a copy of it on the computer, but I wonder…”

She must still have it in actual book form. She had protected it for years from falling into the wrong hands; she would not have disposed of it even after putting it in digital form. Yet if he explained Raphael's hands were the best to place the book into, she wouldn't go for it. She was not keen on angels.

“I'll have to convince her to change her mind. She likes to kiss. That could work.”

C
assandra had gotten it together and remembered to order room service before Sam returned looking kissed by winter, red spots on his cheeks.

“I didn't think you felt the cold,” she said, gesturing to his cheeks.

He touched his face and shrugged. “I don't. Are they rosy?”

“A little. It makes you look…”

“Mortal?”

“You've already mastered that. Supper's here.”

He lifted the stainless steel lids to inspect the food. The rich, spicy scent of sausage filled the room. After talking to Coco, Cassandra's hunger had waned.

“Kraut and sausage? Mmm, and potatoes with vinegar and garlic. Smells delicious. What's wrong, Cassandra? Did you contact your sister while I was gone?”

“I did, and they found the muse.”

“That's excellent.”

“It's horrible. They found Ophelia's dead body, and tiny baby prints walking away from the scene.”

Sam swiped a hand over his face and pushed the food cart aside. “That is unfathomable.”

His reaction struck her as very human. It made her feel as though he wasn't so different from her, after all.

“They're tracking it right now,” she said, “the nephilim. It couldn't have gone far from the hotel. Could it? Sam, it walked away after the birth.”

He winced.

“I told Coco we'd focus on the vampires.”

Cassandra had drawn a hard sheen over her demeanor. Easier that way. No one ever saved the world while sobbing manically.

Keep telling yourself that. Chin up, Caz.

She plopped onto the bed in front of the room service cart and tugged it closer. “So we'd best eat up, fortify our strength for the big fight, eh?”

“Are you okay about this?” He flexed the fingers of one hand near his thigh, but remained still. Struggling inwardly? “I'm not big on emotion, but I can see you're trying to put up a front. Cassandra?”

Apparently the angel wasn't so hard, after all. Glory Hallelujah. “Yes, I am okay with it. Or at least, as okay as one can possibly be about the situation. I've been bawling like a mad-woman for the last fifteen minutes. Kinda glad you weren't here.”

“I should have been here for you.”

He sat on the bed beside her. Hands on his lap, he didn't try to hug her or console her with a kiss or a touch. And that was a good thing, because she wasn't sure if a simple touch might annihilate her makeshift battlements and spring open the floodgates again.

For a man who confessed little insight to emotion, he was doing fine by simply sitting near her, offering his presence.

“I ordered wine and beer,” she said, tendering her tone to one much lighter than she felt. “Wasn't sure which you'd prefer.”

“Whichever you don't want. I've tried wine but not beer.”

She handed him the mug and he tilted back a healthy swallow. “This is very good.”

“You'll become an honorary German in no time, buddy. They do love their beer.”

She leaned forward to flick on the television to a news station, and tuned the volume to low. The added distraction helped her mind to distance itself from the phone call.

Her silver rings tinged sweetly on the goblet rim as she tipped back a sip of wine.

“Tell me what brought you to the craft of silversmithing?” Sam asked around a bite of sausage.

“It's so weird my angel—er,
you
are the silver guy.”

“I am the original master of silver, yes.”

“Yes, the master of silver.” She rubbed the underside of one of her rings. That Samandiriel, the angel, had introduced the craft of manipulating and forming silver
to the world
blew her mind. She would not be practicing the craft today had he not taught people thousands of years ago how to do it. “Wow.”

“What?”

“I just thought about it,” she said.

“Ah.” He nodded, grinning. “Good to know the craft survived the centuries. It is not so much handy as decorative, though. Yet I sense the decorative arts still hold great value to adorn and with which to invest.”

“It wasn't something I felt inclined to do all my life,” she explained. “Not like a compulsion. Though I would expect it knowing what I now know about you and me. Anyway, it was a short chapter in our industrial arts class on metalworking. I
took to it immediately, and felt like silver was something that spoke to me, as weird as that sounds. The metal does what I want it to do, and yet, all I'm doing is finding the shape it wants to be.”

“I like that. Finding the shape it wants to be.”

“I still need to master the art of planishing. I can do it, but even a speck of dust will leave behind an impression when hammering. It's a subtle art form.”

“I can show you. Once mastered, you can create spectacular reliefs on the silver.”

“I sculpted an angel and finished it only days ago. It's…”

“Me?”

“I think so.” She turned a wondrous grin to him. “As I was creating the sculpture, I knew it would be you. I mean, I've never known what you would look like, only that the sculpture was you.”

She'd wished for Sam all her life. To either end it all, or make it right.

“I understand muses often paint, draw or create facsimiles of the Fallen without realizing what they are doing and, when finished, are not always aware what the end results mean to them.”

“I knew what it meant when I looked over the finished piece. I put the sculpture on the dresser overlooking my bed. He watches me sleep.”

She looked aside, ashamed she'd admitted something so personal to him. Something
about
him. About the two of them.

Was it still just a silly dream, or was there really a
them?
Granny had taught her how to
kill
this man. Yet here she sat, drinking wine and eating a meal with him.

“Did you make those rings on your fingers?”

“Yes.” She offered her hand, and he inspected the three silver rings before she realized that one would surprise him.

“This is our sigil,” he said, tapping the ring on her thumb.
Urgency tightened his jaw. “Why would you put this sacred symbol onto a piece of jewelry?”

“Because it is sacred. And…because I was feeling rebellious last year. I made a small collection featuring half a dozen angel sigils and sold them.”

Sam pushed up her sleeve to reveal the sigil on her wrist. His pulsing jaw implied the annoyance Cassandra sensed.

“I only sold about a hundred pieces. Nothing ever came of it.”

“What did you expect to come of it?”

“That maybe I'd kick-start the bloody apocalypse.” She leaned back on the bed, feeling her ire rise for her inability to help Ophelia when she had needed it most. “I've carried this burden all my life, Sam. I was in a dark place, wanting it to all be over. I know you can't understand. But like I said, nothing came of it. A few people bought my pieces at an art fair. That's about it.”

“Yet the vampires knew exactly where to look to find you.”

She had never thought of it that way. Had a vampire purchased one of her pieces and guessed she was a muse? The encounter with the two vampires in the alley had been coincidence. They'd been surprised to learn she was a muse.

“If you're implying one of my customers was a vampire, it's a long shot,” she said.

“We must consider the vampires have more resources than imaginable. And that their operation is precise and organized.”

“Yeah? Bring on the bloodsuckers. I am prepared.”

Cassandra dragged her backpack onto the bed. She unzipped it and pulled out the long, narrow box perfectly sized for a stack of rulers.

“What's that?”

Finished with the meal, Sam pushed the cart near the door, then moved a chair out from the desk and sat. He stretched his arms back behind his head, and for a moment Cassandra got
lost in the pull of his soft blue sweater over his chest. Tight muscles flexed beneath. How much did she want to be that shirt, hugging his skin?

“What? Do I have food on me somewhere?”

She shook her head and tore off the packing tape from the box. “No, I was just…”

Admiring a very fine form. And wondering why the man she wanted most was the one man in the world she should avoid. Kill, even. How unfair was that?

It was imperative she redirect her dire thoughts. And this little prize was just the thing.

“This is something I ordered on eBay. You know what eBay is?”

“Something to do with the internet, yes? It's amazing the technological advances the world has experienced. Do you know, when I last walked the earth, if we wanted to talk to someone fifty leagues away, we'd have to hop on the back of a donkey and travel there?”

“Remind me to get you a cell phone after the apocalypse.”

“I wouldn't have anyone to call.”

“You could call me.”

A smile curved his lips, as if it jumped upon him and, once there, he liked it so much it spread further, barely able to contain his glee.

Again, Cassandra tilted her head down, but this time it was to hide a rosy blush.

She carefully extracted the metal device from the box and pulled away the Bubble Wrap. It had been advertised as a titanium punch, but thanks to her basic research on vampires, she'd known exactly what it was when she'd seen the circular crest emblazoned on the side of the cylindrical object.

Mortals not in the know wouldn't have a clue, which was why she'd been able to nab this handy-dandy thingamabobbie for fifty euros.

She studied the crest imprinted on the titanium column. A circle with the points of four stakes meeting in the center was surrounded by the name of the organization that used this weapon.

“The Order of the Stake,” she read.

“I haven't heard of them,” Sam said, leaning forward to look over what she held.

“They are an ancient order, rumored to be formed by King Henry III of France at the end of the sixteenth century. Or maybe Charles IX. History is a little shady which Valois king it was, if indeed it was a king.” The cylinder fit her grip nicely, and she wielded it as if to stab. “The order is made up of knighted mortals who hunt vampires, and this is their weapon of choice.”

In demonstration, she smacked her free palm against the weapon's base. “Plant this against a vampire's chest, and…”

She took her hand away and with her other hand compressed the spring-action clamps in the grip with a squeeze. A titanium spike pinioned out from the cylinder, eight inches long and sharpened to a deadly point. The force of the action bobbed her hand.

“That'll leave a mark,” Sam said.

She spun the stake as if a majorette's baton. “What it'll leave is a pile of ash.”

“Let me see that thing, bunny.”

He studied it from end to end, figuring out the return mechanism, a button on the end, which snapped the stake back into the cylinder. Experimentally, he stabbed the air with it. “As we'd say in the ranks, this will smite nicely.”

Cassandra took it back. “It's mine. You've your halo and a demon blade to do your smiting.”

“Fair enough.” He patted the halo at his hip, but Cassandra didn't notice the blade was missing. “I wager you'll do some damage with that thing.”

“Oh, yeah.” She stabbed it in the air a couple times.

For a woman of her petite size and limited strength this was exactly what she needed to force the stake through flesh, muscle, bone and, finally, heart.

According to her research, most young vampires could be extinguished with a stake through the heart. A few older, tough ones also required decapitation. She wasn't into hacking off heads, so she hoped if she did come face-to-face with a vampire again, it was less than a century old.

Sliding off the bed, she poked the stake at an invisible vampire. Performing a high roundhouse, she swiped her arm around, aiming at the bloodsucker. She dodged and swung underhanded with the stake to its heart. Score! If she would have had this in the alleyway, those thug vampires wouldn't have stood a chance.

She spun around to find Sam grinning bemusedly at her. Shrugging and looking aside to hide her blush, she returned the stake to the cylinder.

Sam thumbed his lower lip and followed her movements as she sorted through the backpack. She could feel his gaze on her skin as if gently stroking fingers, but a breath away from a real touch.

“What's wrong?” she asked without looking at him, still trying to look busy.

“Can we kiss again?” he asked.

Oh, yeah? Cassandra straightened.

Times like this a girl should stake out on the roof and wait for the big bads to approach. The world was falling apart and darkness threatened now that a nephilim walked the land. But it was cold on the roof. And they'd pulled vampire duty, which wasn't possible until the sun went down. Which should happen any minute now, but the curtains were drawn, so she couldn't be held responsible for knowing the exact moment darkness fell.

That was all the argument she could summon.

Cassandra tossed the stake on the bed and straddled Sam on the chair. His surprise at her easy compliance made her want to giggle, but she was too focused on the gorgeous lines of his square jaw. Cut solid and straight, as if from stone or silver, yet so real.

But not a mortal man.
Don't forget that
. And not a man who wanted to stick around after the glory was gained.
Double don't forget that, Caz
.

She leaned in and kissed his mouth, a mouth that accepted without directing, received without demanding. He was still new to intimacy, and his inexperience emboldened her. Hard to believe she had ever worried about him attacking her.

But it was possible; that had already been proved.

Disregarding niggling intuition, Cassandra followed her decadent heart into a dangerous place, where she felt most comfortable.