Authors: Vicki Pettersson
The Given
For Virginia Lavish, with love
CONTENTS
Praise for Vicki Pettersson's Celestial Blues Trilogy
A
rule of thumb for all the aspiring angels out there: it's damned tough to go incognito when you've got a twelve-foot wingspan trailing behind you like a big, feathery flag. That, along with the stardust dripping like celestial sauce from those feathery tips, is a dead giveaway that you're doing more than popping to the Surface for a doughnut and a cup of joe. Sure, the mortals can't see you, even if you're only six feet behind them and closing in fast, but guys like Griffin Shawâwho were both angelic and humanâcould spot that semitransparent form coming from a galaxy away.
Not that there was anyone else like Griffin Shaw.
Grif's first instinct was to ignore the whole situation. Unfortunately, the angelic herald currently trailing cosmic matter all over downtown Las Vegas had dropped right into Shaw's path on an evening that was both chilly and boring. Defying the cold precisely because of his boredom, Grif was sitting alone on the patio of a wine bar, sipping a doppio espresso just to be contrary, and trying not to let his depression get the best of him. There was nothing sorrier than an angel with a case of the blues.
Of course, there was more than mere boredom gnawing at Grif. He'd been reading the front page of the
Las Vegas Tribune
just before the other angel traipsed into view, brooding over a headline that would've been just as at home atop the page when he'd died in 1960 as it was now:
LAS
VEGAS
WOMAN
DIES
IN
VICIOUS
ATTACK
.
Grif snorted. People rarely expired from a sweet-natured one.
As he read on, even his sarcasm fled.
“Barbara McCoy,” he said aloud, “age seventy, was found shot dead by her cleaning service when she neglected to answer the door for her biweekly appointment. No one had seen the victim, who reportedly lived alone on the fifteenth floor of the exclusive Panorama Project high-rise, for two days. McCoy was the widow of the famed and notorious mobster Sal DiMartino and had left Las Vegas after his death fourteen years ago, only to return recently. An anonymous source said the victim had been dead for at least twenty-four hours. There were no witnesses, and no suspects at this time.”
There was also no photo to accompany the article.
Grif rarely swore, but he let a good one rip now as he threw the paper down and slumped in his seat. He'd been looking for Barbara McCoy for six whole months, scouring records and deeds and dead-end leads . . . all while obsessing over the words she was supposed to have said about his death fifty years earlier.
Both Shaws got what was coming to them.
What Grif had gotten was a knife in the gut. His memory of the event included little more than a visual snapshot of his wife, Evelyn, falling to the floor and sharing his fate.
Yet Grif had recently learned that Evie
hadn't
died that long-ago day, and McCoy had been his best shot at finding out where she was now. He'd also been looking forward to asking the woman . . . just what the hell did she think it was that Evie and he deserved?
Grif stared at the headline, unblinking, and felt heat boiling, building in his chest. He was back to square one just like that, without even one decent lead into his past. Six months of gumshoeing down the drain. Six months of thinking he was closer to finding out who killed him, and learning what had befallen Evie.
Six months of walking the same earth as Kit Craig, yet living without her by his side.
Grif shook his head to clear his mind, because of all of them it was
that
thought that would undo him. Blowing out a hard breath, he looked up and squinted into the distance . . . and that's when he spotted the Centurion.
The other angel didn't seem to notice him, and neither did her mark, a man with a baseball cap drawn low, hands tucked deep into the pockets of his black leather jacket. His mind was obviously occupied by whatever mischief was going to kill him in the next few minutes, and he didn't even glance Grif's way as he disappeared around the corner of the building adjacent to the wine bar. He didn't look behind him, either, though that didn't mean anything. Most people never did see death coming their way.
As for his celestial shadow, Centurions were angels who'd once been human as well, but had been pressed into duty as heavenly tour guides for newly murdered souls. Most people who died traumaticallyâmurder, suicide, or simply an unexpected accidentâhad trouble reaching the Everlast on their own. Since Grif was still half Centurion as well as half human, he could recognize a fellow tribe member as far off as the Milky Way.
The curious thing about this sighting, however, was the timing. Centurions usually showed up in the moments just
after
a soul was freed from its earthbound flesh. As far as Grif knew, he was the only one ever forced to witness a Take's death. Assisting the newly dead into their celestial forevers was supposed to be healing for the Centurion, too.
So what was this little chit doing stalking her Take like some haloed feline looking to take down an oversized mouse?
The question fused with Grif's boredom and disappointment to fire his curiosity, so he downed the rest of his espresso, tucked his paper under his arm, and rose to follow. By the time he reached the corner, both the angel and the man she'd been trailing had disappeared. Yet downtown Las Vegas was laid out like a waffle, an easy grid of crisscrossing streets, and this one was also one-way. All he had to do was pick up his pace and head west.
Or was it east?
He sighed. It didn't matter. Orienting himself in this town required little more than a skyward glance at the Stratosphere hotel's spearing tower, though Grif personally preferred the midnight view, when neon scattered the darkened sky. Right now the day had briefly settled into the halfway mark, and in the crawling gray shadows of dusk Grif could easily track the shimmering thread of plasma curling around the corner. The silver tail sparked with undulating light and was another sign of impending death. It wouldn't be long now.
Grif turned into an alley that was more of a narrow afterthought, and was struck by the sight of dirty brick walls pocked with blackened doors and pungent Dumpsters tilted in disarray. Dusk had a harder time stretching in here, and he had to squint from beneath the brim of his fedora to locate the thread of plasma. There, he thought, catching its silvery tail, and he craned his neck upward, following it into the sky.
A jumper, Grif thought, catching sight of the Take just as his pant leg disappeared over the rooftop. The man's Centurion guide was nowhere to be seen, but she'd have been given a case file before hitting the Surface, and it would've included the Take's physical description and the location of his death. She was likely already waiting on the roof.
Grif had to follow more discreetly. He still possessed a degree of celestial strength, and wings that flared defensively against supernatural attack, but donning mortal flesh for a second go-round meant that he could also die again. It wasn't a fate he was anxious to repeat.
As he wrapped his fingers around the ladder's cold rungs, Grif told himself he didn't intend to interfere. This wasn't his Take, and he was fine with that, but there would be a cosmic pause right after the man died, a few slipstream moments that would pass unnoticed by the mortal world as the soul unhinged itself from its terrestrial body. It'd be nice to talk shop with the other Centurion, if only for a few minutes.
Grif had been utterly alone for months.
When Grif finally reached the jutting ledge, he slowly peered over it to scan the flat rooftop. He spotted the angel first, if only because she immediately turned and waved at him, though he hadn't made a sound. One glance at her half-flattened auburn hair and her neo-classic American uniformâblue jeans and a white Tâand Grif was startled into speaking.
“It's you.”
The man in the leather jacket, who'd been leaning over the opposite ledge and down at the place where Grif had been seated not two minutes earlier, started at the sound of Grif's voice. Turning, he gasped when he saw Grif standing there on the ladder, and took one giant step back. His heel caught the rooftop's ledge, and he came up short against the stunted wall behind him. Before either of them could say another word, the man fell backward, arms pinwheeling, a small yelp escaping his lungs as he disappeared over the building's side.
Grif and the female Centurion looked at each other. A dull thud sounded below.
“Well,” she said, blinking at Grif. “That was anticlimactic.”
G
ood news,” the Centurion called back to Grif, raising her voice to be heard over the shocked screams that'd begun as soon as the man's body hit pavement. She was leaning over the rooftop edge, studying the ground, her wings instinctively flared for balance. “He didn't land on anyone.”
Still shocked by the abruptness of events, Grif didn't move. “Did I . . . did he? I mean, did I cause that?”
The Centurion responded by motioning him onto the roof. “Kinda like the chicken and the egg, right? What came first? Don't think about it too much or it'll mess with your mind . . . and you can just ask him when he gets up here. But he's going to need a minute to untangle his soul from that messy splat he just made all over the sidewalk.”
Grif gained the rooftop on rubbery legs and headed over to join the Centurion at the ledge, but she held up a hand, stopping him in his tracks. “I'd stay there if I were you. They can actually see you, remember?”
And from where every other human was standing, it might look as if he'd pushed the guy. Grif froze, then began his own backpedal. “I gotta get out of here.”
“Nah, you're all right,” the angel said with a dismissive wave, and she would know. Her case file would have also included the amount of time she had to clear out with the man's soul. So, smiling, she took a seat on the ledge where the man had just taken his header. Despite the flat half of her hairdo, her silhouette was pretty in the grays of dusk. “You're looking good, Shaw.”
“So are you, Nicole.”
Her smile widened. “You remember my name.”
“Sure,” he said, shoving his hands into his pockets. “I remember the names of all my Takes.”
She quirked an eyebrow. “Especially the one who got you busted back to the Surface.”