Fallen

“They were after you,” he said. “I’ve had no problem with vampires until you showed up.”

“Says the guy who needed rescue from two vampires.”

“Rescue? Are you mentally unbalanced? Oh, right, you are.”

He flicked some ash from the shoulder of her men’s shirt that sported a design of blood and now some of her own black demon blood. She fluttered her lashes at him.

Not going to work on him. Not even when her pupils dilated, pushing the kaleidoscope perimeter of iris to a narrow band.

He averted his attention to the wounds above her ear. “You’re bleeding.”

“That’s the vampire blood.”

“No, sweetie, that stuff is black.”

She touched her head in a moment of panic. “Is it bad?”

“No,” he said under his breath. “You don’t feel pain?”

“A little, but it’s healed. Hope you can’t catch rabies from vamps. Ugg. That thing was hungry.”

“It’s all over your shirt. You’re not being very covert.”

“Didn’t know that was a requirement. You want me to take my shirt off, too? That’ll show ‘em how covert I can be.”

“I’ll give you all the attention you need if you play it cool around mortals and keep your shirt on.”

“Mmm …” She slid closer to him, and if he didn’t know better, he’d guess she was angling for some touch and man, did his body react. The brush of her shirtsleeve across his nipple did not preach patience.

But he did know better. She was Sinistari. She had come to kill him, not snuggle with him.

His stop was next. No doubt, she would follow him out no matter where he got off. The demon was like a tick. But she wouldn’t find nourishment from him because he had no intention of giving her what she wanted. If his muse were in the vicinity, Cooper intended to walk the opposite direction.

Just because a Sinistari had found him didn’t mean he was close to his muse. He’d actually landed on earth in New Jersey. Upon feeling the compulsion to stay there—and seek his muse—he’d immediately flashed across the ocean.

The doors opened and he nudged the demon’s hip with his. She took the signal, wrapping her arm around his back and leading him out onto the platform.

“I don’t need an escort,” he said as he plodded under the sorte sign toward the stairs.

The tick clung. At the very least, she was hanging on to him on the side of the blood smear.

Surfacing on the sidewalk in the center of the 16th arrondissement, Cooper sighted the distant lights twinkling down the always-busy Champs Elysees.

“You’re not coming home with me, so shove off,” he told her. “You are like one of those sad-eyed puppy dogs, aren’t you?”

“Fine. I don’t need to see where you go, I can track you by vibration.” She leaned against a metal street post and crossed her legs at the ankle. The cowboy boots pointed toward the sky. Drawing her finger along her lower lip, she looked up through her thick ginger lashes. “Nightie night, Cooper.”

That lip demanded a nibble. Or two. And those lashes. What would it feel like to brush his mouth over them?

Cooper huffed, and marched down the narrow cobblestoned street toward his building. This quarter of the city boasted homes from medieval times sandwiched between twentieth-century buildings. The eclectic mix appealed to his sense of craft and artistry.

He forgot about demons and vampires—until he thought of them—and he scanned all around him and searched the darkness in between buildings.

At the door to his building he punched the numbers into the digital security box, then jogged the three flights up to his apartment. Listening acutely before he closed the door, he reassured himself she’d not followed him. But then, before he did close the door, he heard the street-level door creak.

“You can’t sleep in the foyer!” he called down.

“Says who?”

Rolling his eyes, he slammed his door and stalked through the darkness to the bedroom.

The moon was high and it shimmered through the tall window facing the distant Seine. He kicked off his boots, then landed the bed on his back, arms spread. A pillow wobbled onto his face and he punched it away.

He’d thought his existence on earth would go easy if he kept a low profile and didn’t answer the compulsion to seek his muse.

Someone had different plans for him. And it wasn’t the Sinistari that worried him most.

Why in Beneath were vampires after him?

Antonio del Gado strode at a quick pace through the limestone halls of his underground sanctuary. Here in Paris he owned an exquisite mansion, the Hôtel Solange, which was underlined with a network of tunnels. The medieval and rococo centuries had been a time of necessity for secret escape tunnels thanks to the political maneuvers that tested the resilience of kings and their subjects.

During evening hours he lived aboveground, but when daylight reigned, he was forced below-ground.

Vampires could walk in the sun. Ninety-five percent of them. But the rare ones who had descended from an angelic race could not, only because their bloodline had not been rejuvenated with their ancestors’ blood for millennia.

Antonio was going to change that, for him, and for his entire tribe Anakim. He wanted the daylight, and he would not stop at anything until he had it.

Behind him he was flanked by Bruce Westing and Stellan the Pale. Bruce was Anakim’s Fallen hunter, and Stellan’s expertise had uncovered half a dozen angel halos over the past year. As well, Bruce had secured the eight paintings lined along the north wall in the dungeon, each of them depicting a different Fallen angel, complete with sigil.

Yet Antonio had no names to match to those sigils.

“You’re sure it was a Sinistari with the Fallen?” he asked as he entered his underground office. The cave walls were hung with medieval tapestries depicting scaled dragons and knights with bloody spears. “I thought you said he was with a female?”

Bruce shoved his hands in his front jeans pocket. He and Stellan stopped before Antonio’s marble-topped desk. “It was a woman,” Bruce said, “and I’m pretty sure she was Sinistari. She was strong, as strong as the angel.”

“But Sinistari are male,” Antonio said. Though, honestly, he hadn’t a proper description for the demon breed, only that they exclusively hunted the Fallen. “And why wouldn’t she have slain the angel?”

“Still missing a key ingredient,” Stellan offered.

“The muse,” Bruce said.

Antonio rocked backward in the richly padded office chair and put up his feet on the desktop. He eyed the painting Bruce had carried in from the dungeon weeks earlier. It featured an angel fashioned from blue glass with a sigil impressed upon its abdomen. The name to match the angel—Juphiel—had come courtesy of Zaqiel, a Fallen Bruce had encountered months earlier. Antonio had summoned Juphiel two weeks ago. It surprised him the Sinistari had only now shown on the scene. Though certainly, if the Sinistari were slacking, that would make his efforts all the easier.

“You’ve been following Juphiel, Bruce?”

“Yes. He hasn’t run into his muse yet. Doesn’t seem as if he’s looking for her, actually. Spends a lot of time in nightclubs, and during the day he wanders the Louvre.”

Bruce was not Anakim blood, thus, his ability to walk in daylight. Antonio trusted and needed him to be his eyes during the day.

“Stay on him.”

“I will. You know I never lose a mark.”

Bruce did like to go after the Fallen. Even though the angels were much stronger than a vampire, Bruce was wily and took pride in his daring. He was also warded to the hilt against angels and their associated ilk. Thanks to a blood grimoire, Antonio had all he needed to protect himself and his closest allies from the Fallen and Sinistari.

“You keep an eye on the Sinistari,” he said, glancing at Stellan. “She’s the greatest deterrent to our final goal.”

Stellan nodded and turned to leave, always aware of when he was no longer needed.

Bruce wasn’t so quick on the draw. He turned to study the painting of Juphiel. It had been painted using a computer, or so Bruce had explained to Antonio. Eden Campbell was the artist—as well as a muse. She was living with a former Sinistari now. Antonio kept her on his radar, but he didn’t want to approach her with a demon standing close by, former or not.

“Why are you lingering?”

Bruce shot him a gape. “Er, sorry, monsieur. It’s just the Fallen. I don’t know that he is the key to what we want to accomplish.”

“And what is?”

“Well, the muse.”

“Tell me more.”

Chapter 3

Pyx suspected the vampires were following the Fallen for a specific purpose.

When a Fallen one successfully impregnated a muse—meaning a Sinistari had not done their job—the resulting child was a nephilim. The nephilim grew to maturity in less than a week, and began to feed. On everything. Including people. The abominable creature gave new meaning to the term blood hungry.

It ached in her chest when she thought about it. She had been responsible for allowing a nephilim to walk this earth so many millennia ago. You failed.

Never again.

Could the vampires be after the resulting nephilim? What the vampires planned to do with the creature once they had it was beyond Pyx. But any creature that fed on blood must be of interest to vampires.

Flicking at the dried blood on her scalp, she dusted off the black crust. The wound had healed, but not her pride. She really wanted to lay some vampire ass flat for no other reason than that they had pissed her off. And she’d probably get a chance since they seemed very interested in Cooper.

“Cooper Truhart.” She snorted and settled on the steps out front of his building. “Stupid name.”

Like Pyxion was any better. The Other, even. Man, had that been a joke on her.

Beneath had been no ball of fun. An empty void of darkness run through by a mercury sea roiling with wickedness. Pyx had wandered aimlessly, never finding anything but sea and darkness. The few times she had met another of her breed they’d recognized each other by name. It was simply a knowing.

Her fellow Sinistari had sneered and berated her. They had somehow known she was different, ineffectual, though their true demonic forms were all similar and sexless.

Well, she could do the woman thing. Just watch!

Her feminine wiles seemed to have an incredible effect on the Fallen. He hadn’t been able to take his eyes off her in the club. And when she’d pressed against him on the Metro she had felt his exhale against her cheek. And though she knew an angel’s glass heart did not beat, she had felt something throbbing against her thigh.

“Wiles,” she muttered. “Whatever that means. I got lucky. But I’m going to start paying attention from here on out. I’ll be the best damn woman demon my Sinistari brethren have ever seen. No more sneers for me.”

Perhaps she could use her female status to her advantage. It was apparent Cooper was in no hurry to locate his muse.

That had to change.

She didn’t look forward to tracking him all over the world until he decided when was a good time to switch into Fallen-claims-his-muse mode. She had to prove herself.

But she couldn’t sleep out on the steps hoping Cooper would trip over her in the morning. Not that she needed sleep, nor did the angel.

Scanning her sight about the dark neighborhood, Pyx roamed up and down the brick-fronted three-and four-storied buildings. A residential neighborhood with narrow, cobbled streets and steel poles to prevent cars from parking on an even narrower sidewalk. It was charming, if she were to label it.

Though charm meant as little to her as experiencing touch for the first time—it was a nuisance.

Closeness to the mark meant everything.

She spied a sign with red writing, loger disponible. “Room available.” It sat across the street and around the corner from where she had determined Cooper’s apartment must be. Perfect.

Striding across the street, she approached the building. The foyer opened without a code, but she hesitated punching a button on the speaker box this late at night. Mortals were snoozing. It wasn’t that she had a problem punching all the buttons and waking them up; she didn’t want to interact right now.

Drawing her finger down the list of apartments, she found the one missing a name. “Third floor, apartment 12.”

The inner lobby door was locked. Pointing her forefinger, she shifted enough to grow out the long adamant talon from the top of her fingertip. She slid the talon between the door and frame, toggling it against the dead bolt. Her talon slid the solid bolt to the left, and with a shove, the door opened.

Pyx blew on her talon as if blowing the smoke from a gun—something she’d seen on a movie poster pasted in a video-shop window—then resumed complete mortal costume.

She dashed up the stairs to the third floor. Naturally, the apartment door was locked. No talons necessary this time. One kick loosened the lock in the wood door frame. Pyx marched inside.

The apartment was furnished sparely with modern glass-topped counters, unbleached pine wood, and a coffee table and leather furniture. It smelled vaguely of pine air freshener. The black leather sofa looked comfy. Pyx made a jump and landed on it with her hands clasped behind her head. She crossed her legs at the ankles.

“This’ll work. Furnished and everything.” She dug in the pocket of her jacket and pulled out the iPod she’d nicked earlier. “Music in my hand. How cool is that?”

She played around with the small jewel-colored device. Lots of music. Movies. A pedometer? Why would anyone want to know how many steps they have walked? “Mortals are strange.”

The video camera proved intriguing. Zooming it about the room she recorded … nothing.

Searching the previously recorded clips, she clicked on one. It featured a woman with a blond ponytail standing in a kitchen making deli-meat sandwiches. She looked at whoever was holding the video camera and said, “I love you.”

The holder asked, “Is that all?”

“Yep. I just love you.”

“Aww.” Pyx flicked off the device. “Sweet as sin. But that sandwich did look good. I wonder if there’s food in the fridge.”

It had been hours since she’d eaten. Gluttony was definitely her favorite mortal sin.

Kicking off her boots, Pyx then wandered into the kitchen while itching at the fresh tattoo on her back. It had already scabbed and she could feel the new skin beneath. Mortal flesh was so freakin’ sensitive. She felt everything, even a breeze across her cheek.

She’d never experienced such novelty. Dancing in the club had overloaded her new-experience radar. She’d shut herself off to touch, but now, alone, she connected to it again.

She grabbed a shiny apple from an elegant glass bowl. It was cool and slick. Smelled, hmm … not how she expected fruit to smell. Kind of … oily. Before she took a bite, she realized it was wood. “Tricky.” She tossed it over her shoulder into the living area.

The fridge was empty, as were the cupboards. “How’s a demon supposed to survive in this realm without sustenance?”

The front door banged inward and someone clattered down the parquet hallway into the kitchen. A man wearing only blue-striped pajama bottoms, his tumescent belly hanging over the waistband, and his white hair tousled upon his head, eyed her up and down.

“What are you doing here, mademoiselle? This is not your apartment?”

“Of course it is.” Pyx sauntered over and laid her palm against his forehead. “And I paid you a month’s rent already. Remember?”

He nodded, shrugged, then nodded again.

“I think someone tried to break in. The lock is jammed on the door.” She removed her hand.

The man nodded. “I’ll have a look at it first thing in the morning. Do you need a new key?”

“Darn right I do. Talk about shoddy upkeep. I wonder, should I find a better place that has a more studious custodian?”

“Oh, no, I will see to it at first light. It was surely an isolated incident. This is a lovely building and our custodian is a gem.”

“All right, but if it happens again, I’m out of here.”

“So sorry to have disturbed you, mademoiselle …?”

“Pyxion. I’ll see you bright and early with a new lock. Good night, funny little man.”

“Bon nuit.” He shuffled out and tugged at the door a bit before finally getting it to click securely shut.

Pyx crossed her arms and smirked. Mortals. So easy to influence.

From this angle she could see the front of Cooper’s building and would notice when he left and could even see the light on in his apartment. She would keep the light off so he wouldn’t see her.

“If he goes near the muse, I’ll be right there, ready to kill him.”

Cooper poured a cup of green tea and sat down at the kitchen table before the laptop. He put his bare feet up on another chair and leaned back, shrugging his fingers through his hair.

He’d washed away the vampire blood. The smell of vamps put him off, and he felt sure now he’d sense the next one before he saw it because it was an unmistakable scent of dust, metal and ash.

The kilt was a loss, but it didn’t matter. He didn’t need a closet of clothing because if he required a new shirt he simply imagined it on himself, and it became so. Nice trick of the trade.

What an interesting night he’d had. Vampires and Sinistari after him?

He’d hoped to spend more time in this world free of such trouble. But he wasn’t stupid. The Sinistari came with the territory when one chose to Fall. And he couldn’t argue with the chance to get out some aggression.

It had felt sweet to rip the vamp’s heart from its chest. Yet now, he felt a twinge of regret. He’d killed far too often when serving in the angelic ranks. Killing had been as natural as taking a breath. Smite this village. Slay that wrongdoer. All because he had been ordered to do so.

The stench of death had reeked on him; it had never been absent. And as an angel he’d not been attuned to the senses like touch, taste and smell. So the fact he’d eventually noticed that stench had screwed with his ideas of right and wrong.

Rather, it had become the catalyst to his developing a sense of right and wrong.

Angels weren’t supposed to choose sides. They were unfeeling entities that served Him without question. But Juphiel had changed. Another angel had allowed him to see that he had a choice. That is why he’d Fallen. Juphiel could no longer kill with abandon.

And yet, Cooper Truhart was still doing it.

Was it because death had been ingrained in his being?

“No, I will change. I must.”

With a gesture of his fingers, the laptop slid across the table to rest at the edge before him. He tapped the keyboard, thinking to type vampire in the search box, but figured that wouldn’t route him to any feasible answer on why the bloodsuckers were tracking him. Instead, he opened the email program and was pleased to find an answer to a message he’d sent to Eden Campbell two days ago.

He’d discovered Miss Campbell after an afternoon of searching the internet for halos and anything at all related to the Fallen. It was all myth and religious dogma to the mortals. They hadn’t a clue regarding the truth of it. Yet, he’d found a correspondence between Eden Campbell and Cassandra Stevens from months earlier that indicated both women were in the know. Eden had promised to send Cassandra a halo she had found because, as she’d written, it would give her hope. Eden definitely knew she had the real thing in hand.

Cooper had written to her, asking if he could take a look at her collection. He hadn’t given details like “Hey, I’m a Fallen and need to find my halo.” No, he didn’t want to scare her off until he could feel her out, sense if she might be worth trusting. A mortal may believe in halos, but in real angels? That was a long shot.

He clicked on the email. Campbell’s reply read: How did you get my email address? I don’t collect halos anymore. Do not contact me further.

Cooper sat back, and blew out a breath. “That’s it? No, ‘Sorry, can’t help you’? No, ‘I think I know of someone who can help’?”

He opened the file of saved emails between Cassandra and Eden and scanned them. “There.” He leaned in and began to type a reply.

What about MD?

MD were the mysterious initials Eden had mentioned in a post to Cassandra, a man who had helped her recently with the halos.

Hitting Send, Cooper hoped this trail would lead him somewhere.

Finding a halo on earth would be like looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack. Only this needle was made of ineffable substance and had been lost on earth millennia ago. But if he could find someone who sought halos for a hobby, then he’d be ten steps closer to his goal than he was now.

By morning, starvation roiled Pyx’s gut. She picked up the cell phone she’d stolen, and scanned the address list. “No pizza delivery numbers.” Though a lot of spas and wine dealers were listed. She tucked the phone in a pocket and skipped down to street level.

A figure appeared in the big window on the third floor across the street. Cooper’s apartment. The sun was rising and she could plainly see the man standing in the window, gesturing she should come up.

Really?

“Don’t need to ask me twice.”

She rushed across the street. First the angel pushes her away and now he’s pulling her closer? Worked for her. Men had fallen for lesser reasons than a sexy woman.

And yet, angels had Fallen for that very reason.

Pyx smirked. “I can so work this one.”

He buzzed her in, and she navigated upward, following his scent instead of the angelic vibrations he put out. It wasn’t a particular odor she could compare to anything she had learned about the world, other than that it was simply and uniquely angel. And sexy.

“Bloody Beneath, Pyx, buck up. The angel is not sexy.”

The door opened to reveal Cooper standing in loose, dark jeans that hugged his hips. Cut muscles veed toward his jeans, pointing in a direction she couldn’t take her eyes from. Stunning, virile and—

Not sexy. Not sexy. Not … well … maybe.

“Hungry?” he asked.

“Oh, yeah, er—” She shrugged. “For food? Yes, food. Nothing else weird, or anything.”

“No, nothing weird,” he said with a secretive smirk.

His attire made her take stock of her own. Still wearing the same blood-smeared shirt and men’s jeans and boots. She needed to do some shopping to get a feel for what women wore, and then she could assume their costume with ease.

“You inviting me in?” she asked, feeling a bit sheepish, and that feeling was so new, she went with it and shrugged her elbow up against the wall, hands tucked in her pockets.

“Why not? You were lurking.”

“Yeah, but—” Had he been watching her? Hope not, because she was the one watching him.

Cooper strode down the hallway and called over his shoulder, “Ever hear the one about keeping one’s enemies close?”

“Who said that?” Pyx wandered after him. “Some guy who took a knife in the back while his enemy was hugging him? So what’s changed? Last night you were eager to put distance between us.”

“Call it a change of heart.”

“Didn’t think an angel’s hard glass heart was capable,” Pyx said, entering the kitchen.

The high ceilings lent a feeling of vastness. Glass-fronted cabinets and black granite counter-tops gave it a modern flair. Blue and green tiles backed the counter, and gleaming appliances sat here and there.

Most significant were the stained-glass windows over the sink. The doors leading into an adjoining bedroom were also intricate stained glass; the design touted flowers, trees and peacocks.

Cooper slapped a palm over his chest where Pyx knew his heart did not beat. “You pick up a lot walking the earth. Emotions. Ideas. Humility. You’ll learn soon enough.”