 
Fall From Grace: Avenging Angel 1

by Eden Crowne

Copyright by Eden Crowne 2012. All Rights Reserved

Published by Cool Cats Publishing at Smashwords.

This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

Discover more books by Eden Crowne at: http://www.edencrowne.com

**Table of Contents**

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

"I love men and I love sex," Evie sighed.

Setting down her drink, the bartender turned his head, following her gaze to the man at the end of the bar.

He nodded, "You and me both, darling."

Ah, West Hollywood.

She'd watched him walk in from the bright, late afternoon sunshine outside. All languid grace and muscles, dark brown hair falling over one eye, high cheekbones, strong forehead and jaw. When she was alive, she did her best to combine her two areas of interest whenever possible. If he had a butt even remotely like Michaelangelo's David, she was going to test her existential limits to the max this afternoon.

Casually, he ran one hand through his hair and looked her way. He had sea green eyes.

Oh my. Evie really, _really_ liked green eyes.

Her wings were threatening to snap to attention and break through the super-mystical prestidigitation that kept them hidden. Which would not have been a good thing since she was presently visible to everyone here at the bar. Plus she was holding a Dirty Martini. Well, actually, a second Dirty Martini. Most people don't picture angels sitting at a bar drinking martinis. Even in West Hollywood.

The guy had a slightly weathered, L.L. Bean look about him. Worn jeans, just loose enough, an oversized brown, hooded leather jacket, flannel shirt, and white T-shirt both untucked.

"I bet he smells like Old Spice," she sighed again, taking a small sip of her drink and looking at L.L. Bean man over the rim.

"If he smells like Old Spice, you're going to have to fight me for him."

"Don't you have something to do at the other end of the bar," she stared at the bartender's name tag, "Roberto?"

Giving her a sly smile, he moved away.

She popped one of the big green olives in her mouth and bit down, absently running a hand through her hair. What if L.L. Bean man was Gay. Seeing as the bar was where it was in LA, there was every possibility of that. She stared into her martini and shivered. Life is not fair but that would be a cruel blow to women everywhere. Hooking the heels of her short, black suede boots over the lower rung on the bar stool, she tugged automatically at the bottom of her burgundy V-neck sweater. It was a little short in back and tended to creep up above the waistband on her bootcut leggings. She couldn't pull too hard or the velcro straps holding it in place over the thick bones of her wings might pop. That had happened before. Several times.

"Excuse me," said a smooth voice in her ear. "I couldn't help noticing. Well, our eyes met and, like I said, I couldn't help noticing."

L.L. Bean guy stood at her shoulder. One invisible wing flicked out in surprise, just missing him and inadvertently knocking into the waitress, scattering an artfully arranged serving of soft shell crab and cucumber rolls onto the floor.

Bar food in this part of LA is not like bar food elsewhere.

The waitress looked around, mystified, since no one stood within two feet of her. Evie cringed. Sometimes her wings just had a mind of their own.

_'Get back in there and behave!'_ she shouted at it mentally.

The guy was giving her a very delicious crooked smile that made his eyes scrunch up in a devastating manner. He had the ghost of a white scar running across his forehead, she noticed, that dipped into one eyebrow.

"Grace," she said inclining her head.

"And beauty," he added.

"No, Evangeline Grace. Evie, that's my name."

"And I stand by my statement. I'm Nathan McKitrick. Trick to my friends."

That mouth had a very scandalous curl to it. Oh my _gawd_ , she could think of a few tricks she'd like to do with him. And those lips.

Scooting the stool closer in the crowded bar, he was suddenly very near. Evie inhaled deeply. No, not Old Spice.

Brimstone.

Damn it.

"You're a demon." A statement; not a question.

"A demon for sex I hope." The bartender slid a dark amber draft beer between them. "On the house," and gave the man a suggestive wink.

"God damn it, Roberto! Go away!" She used a tiny bit of her power and pushed him to the other side of the room where he remained, blinking in surprise at the sudden change in location.

"And you're an Angel. Though, not a Celestial, obviously." He indicated the bar with a wave of his hand. "Not many Angels in bars. Outside of country and western songs, that is."

"Don't change the subject," she growled. "Let me guess, from Hell?"

"Arizona, actually." He spoke with just the barest hint of a western drawl. "Though I could understand your confusion since many similarities have been drawn between the two destinations."

She stared at him, willing her spirit vision to manifest, to look through any supernatural artifice. There must be fangs and claws beneath the _glamour_ spell. There was an aura of power, a lot of power. She tried again. He remained firmly the very attractive man sitting next to her, leaning casually close, both elbows on the dark, wooden bar.

"If you're trying to peel back the layers and find the lizard underneath, sorry. There's just me in there."

The light bulb went on over her head. "Reaper. You sold your soul; you used to be human."

Instead of answering right away, he took a long drink of the cold beer the bartender had left. "You and I both know that no one's soul is their own to sell. Human, Angel, or demon, that singular energy belongs to only one entity. The way the deal works with the dark side is more of a sublet for a designated number of years. They lock it away in a metaphysical vault, slap a band-aid over the hole in your heart, also metaphysical but you know what I mean, and off you go."

"Money, fame, fortune, sex? What was it?" It was hard to keep the note of bitterness from her voice. She had been instantly attracted to this man and learning he was a venal soul seller was inexplicably a blow.

An expression crossed his face Evie couldn't quite interpret. "I'd rather not discuss that."

"I hope your choice was worth however many years of servitude you are locked into."

"Seemed so at the time." He took another long drink, set the glass down and flicked his deep green eyes to meet hers. "I suppose it's too much to hope you are a Fallen Angel, Miss Evie Grace."

Evie allowed her heart just the smallest flutter as she looked into those eyes before saying, "Avenging."

"Ah, just my luck." He sighed, giving her a rueful grin. "Earthbound then. All passion and heavenly justice. A lot of smiting, I'm guessing. Is that how you broke your nose? Not that it doesn't look charming, balanced by those lovely cheekbones and dark eyes."

"We burn with the anger of righteousness. That is why we are chosen upon our death." She spoke quietly but the power behind the words was unmistakable. She ignored his comment on her nose. It was only a little crooked.

"All that burning must work up a mighty thirst." He nodded towards the oversized martini glass in her hand and the empty one next to it which Roberto had neglected to clear.

Her sense of humor, always just below the surface, asserted itself and she had to laugh. "Earthbound is very, _very_ different from Celestial. And thank heaven for that. Vengeance I can handle. Abstinence, not so well."

Trick watched her smile and the deep set of dimples that punctuated it stretched around the edge of her full mouth right up to her clear, brown eyes. His mouth felt dry and another drink of the amber beer did nothing to quench that thirst.

For a time they stared into their drinks. Temporarily at a loss for words. Wanting to say so much yet unable to find a way around the steel door that had – spiritually speaking – slammed so solidly between them. Trick kept darting looks at her from under his lashes. He felt her presence as soon as he walked in. Not as an Angel; as a woman. Looking at her, martini in hand and a world-weary grin on her face, pushing her long, brown hair back from her face, he'd felt a longing. It was skipping and jumping along his nerve endings even now as though he was seventeen again and just discovering life.

Learning she was an Angel had changed nothing – yet it must change everything. He was in LA to do a dirty job for his Master. Maybe the dirtiest. Trick hadn't prayed in a long time. He figured he'd severed that sweet link to God's ear with his black bargain long ago. Staring sightlessly into his beer, he desperately offered up a very small plea. Just in case.

Their cell phones rang simultaneously. They jumped, startled, then grinned sheepishly at each other. Acting through human agents and acolytes, both sides of the supernatural fence made full use of the modern world and its technology. The phones rang again. She recognized his ringtone, the rock classic 'Light my Fire' by the Doors. That made her smile. Reaper or not, the man had a sense of humor, no doubt about it.

As though choreographed in a dance, they reached for their phones, tapped the screens, thumbed through a message, read it again, tossed off the last of their drinks and stood. Evie slapped some cash on the bar. With one lingering glance into each other's eyes, they abruptly turned and left in different directions. Trick walking towards the front doors; Evie slipping into stealth mode and pulling a _glamour_ over herself, running the other way.

Roberto the bartender wisely stayed where he was.

**Chapter 2**

Evie was nothing but a shadow gliding through the kitchen, past the hectic prep area and out the back door. She slid her sword around from back to front, slipping off the thick leather loop that kept the weapon firmly in its golden scabbard. She'd added that last part herself when she learned her sword, like her wings, sometimes tried to think for itself. Her gifts were hidden from mortal eyes until she needed them. Most of the time. By Angel reckoning, she was still pretty new at this job.

As a precaution, she snapped her phone into the pocket of her light jean jacket along with her cash, tying it around her waist. Her Angel sense was tingling and, given the message, she thought things were going to get messy.

An enormous green dumpster nearly blocked the exit from the bar. Still moving fast, Evie squeezed around it at a run only to come skidding to an abrupt halt. The entire alley lay shrouded in a damp gray fog. Just a few yards away, beyond the line of dumpsters, she could see the late afternoon sunshine burning brightly on the busy street bordering the back alley. California was famous for its micro-climates, but alley-sized? The hazy air gave off a distinct scent. Slightly scorched. Not a bad smell. Like rosemary bushes burning. Paranormal smoke and mirrors. Someone was intent on hiding this place from mortal eyes.

In the ebb and flow of the fog, images seemed to waver as though nothing was quite what it seemed. Focussing her energy, Evie let the sword blaze into life. The golden spectral flame shot out like a beacon, burning through the mist. And that's when things got interesting. From an Avenging Angel point of view at least.

A few yards away, a ragged man lay sprawled on the ground, several dark rivulets running from his body. Three black dogs the size of ponies stood around him panting, their long red tongues hanging out over sharp white teeth. The dogs looked up from the man to Evie as she paused there by the dirty dumpster and licked the blood from their lips.

A ripple of energy stirred the mist at Evie's feet into a tidal ebb and flow. She tensed, swinging the sword around in a quick circle to loosen her wrists, leaving a trail of fire in the bright blade's wake. The air around the dogs appeared to shimmer, like heat in a mirage. All three dogs stood gracefully, impossibly erect on their hind legs. Evie shivered. The dog shapes shifted, folding back as though they were only fur cloaks. In their place stood three tall beings. Male or female, or maybe something in between, it was hard to tell. Their hairless bodies were black and shiny as obsidian and their eyes blacker still.

Evie stared at the strange, dark creatures looking for the Death Mark – the burning cross and circle that would mark her quarry. The text message had explained why she'd been sent to that bar in West Hollywood. Her mission was to avenge four innocents. Loyal acolytes, killed defending a relic of terrible power taken from a tiny church in Hungary. The Celestials of the Otherwhere, she was told, had tracked the blood of the murderer and dispatched the Death Mark to show her their killer. She stared harder, calling on her spirit vision to manifest. A tickling, prickling sensation skipped along her nerves, telling her he, she, or it was near but it was not these dark beings. Nor was she called to avenge the ragged man's death. Poor guy, he just picked the wrong alley to scavenge today. She looked for the shadow of his soul. Nothing. It had already fled. Not for the first time she considered the capriciousness of her mandate. She never understood why some deaths were avenged and others went unnoticed by the Higher Ups. With a mental shrug she thought, also not for the first time, that was why she wasn't a Celestial and probably never would be. And thank God for that.

As if on cue, the three beings raised their arms. Evie jumped back, holding her sword ready, the flame flaring brightly in response. Her wings flashed out and she allowed some of her power to manifest until she, too, was as shining and golden as her weapon.

The three held their pose for several heartbeats. Bringing their hands together almost reverently, each bowed their head. Evie shifted her stance, all her nerves tingling in anticipation. Something was coming. Something wicked.

An explosion of inky darkness shot through with red momentarily engulfed the alley and everyone in it. With the darkness came a blast of icy cold air that swept through the space between the buildings and nearly knocked Evie off her feet. The temperature plunged to teeth chattering levels. As swiftly as it had appeared, the smoke cleared and before her stood a tall, thin man in an elegant velvet suit from another age. He had one large, feathered wing. Only one. The wing and his hair shone with the same shade of deep metallic gray. He flexed the wing and the long flight feathers seemed to beckon to her.

A Celestial. Fallen from light to darkness long ago.

Above his head, a glowing cross inside a circle of fire formed. Evie swallowed.

The Fallen had extraordinary power. It would not be an easy fight. In fact, she was pretty certain it was not a fight she could win.

The elegant man seemed to sense the Mark and looking up, gave a tight, mirthless smile.

At the other end of the alley, the sound of footsteps running caused all of them to turn and stare. The Death Mark moved as well, drifting almost lazily away from the Fallen. As the figure burst through the fog, Evie exchanged startled glances with, of all demons, people, or spirits to appear: the Reaper from the bar, Trick McKitrick. Above his head, the burning cross in the circle come to a stop. He gave her one horrified look, then all hell broke loose.

A swirl of ethereal energy from the Fallen shoved the line of dumpsters up against the back doors leading to the alley and the entrance to the street, effectively blocking any interference from the humans. Trick leaped over one dumpster as it swung by in a gravity-defying jump, coming down in front of the three dark figures. He pulled what looked like a short, iron bar from his coat and that was all Evie had time to see.

Evie dropped into a sword fighter's crouch, waiting. The elegant man was not her mandate and, as far as she knew, she had no quarrel with him. Apparently, he did not think the same way.

The Fallen's eyes turned scarlet. The same color as the blood in the street. From beneath his beautifully cut velvet jacket, he drew a slim, black sword burning with dark flames. Cold, not hot. Even from where she stood, Evie could feel the icy flare. He rushed at her so fast the speed made her eyes water. Their blades met, releasing a sonic boom of energy. Gold flame against black ice smashed together with such force the shock wave blew out every window in the alley. A thousand pieces of shattered glass seemed to move in slow motion as Evie and the Fallen slipped between time with paranormal speed. Jagged shards refracted the flare of their swords into a million bits of light.

The laws of physics are very liquid in the spiritual realm. A hundred blows between them was just the blink of an eye for a mortal. Evie was very good, but she was an earthbound Angel and despite his Fallen state, the one-winged man was a Celestial. The odds were definitely in his favor. Gripping her sword with both hands, she pressed desperately against the strength of the other, beating her wings hard and fast. They were nearly forehead to forehead now, jostling for position. His face very close.

He smiled, showing brilliantly white pointed teeth, "Surprise!"

Evie gasped as an agonizing stab of glacial cold ripped through her chest. Time seemed to slow even further and she took it all in. The Fallen, holding his sword with only one hand now, the other gripping a shard of black ice, thrust halfway into her chest. The golden glow of her power wavered, sputtering like a candle in the rain. Time sped up and she heard someone shouting as though from far away. Her wings drooped and she felt them brush the ground. The Fallen's magic gripped tightly around her heart, squeezing hard, pulling her under. Down, down she fell into a black well.

The icy cold clutched at her arms and legs with frozen fingers, dragging her deeper until she had no breath left. The last thing she saw was the beautiful, wasted face of the one-winged man, so near she could feel his breath on her skin.

**Chapter 3**

"Hey there," said a deep voice by her ear, the warm breath a silky caress on her bare neck. "Are you awake?"

Evie gave a sleepy smile as memories of her past life and waking up in a soft bed next to a hard body coursed through her. Then she caught that whiff of smoke and the events in the alley came rushing back. Nathan McKitrick lay next to her, his handsome face just inches away, head propped up on one tan, muscular arm. Directly above him floated the Death Mark.

Throwing the covers off, she leaped to her feet in one swift move, gathering her mantle of energy around her. In her hands, an energy ball formed, sparking and spitting with power. Raising it high, she prepared to throw it at the Reaper.

He scrambled out of the bed, backing away from her, hands held high in a placating gesture. "Wait, wait, wait. I'm the good guy in this picture."

She stared.

He was naked.

Oh gosh, he was wonderfully, beautifully, wide shouldered, flat ab, narrow hip, and rippling muscle naked.

She let her eyes linger on the rugged body and smooth skin. The energy ball in her hands flared brighter. Dang it. ' _Control_ ,' she implored her inner self. Evie's eyes strayed a little further down. What lay between this man's legs was truly a thing of beauty. Her wings popped out fully extended knocking over both bedside tables with a crash, lamps and all.

"Oh, that's comin' out of the credit card," Trick sighed.

"You were," her voice came out in a squeak. Clearing her throat, she tried again, "You were in the alley. I saw you."

"Of course, you did. I was fighting to reach the guy in the fancy suit with only one wing. You know, the one who tried to take you out with a black ice crystal shoved directly into your soft, white, bouncy breast?"

She looked down. There was a blue mark with spidery black veins spread across the middle of her chest between her breasts. ' _Wait,'_ she thought, _'blue mark on my chest._ ' Chest. Breasts. Oh, stars.

She looked up at him, "I'm naked!"

He gave her the same engaging crooked grin as in the bar, "Oh yes, you are."

She threw the energy ball straight at him. Nothing but a blur of motion, he turned slipstreaming between time, literally running up the wall, throwing himself into a backward somersault in a back bending, eye-popping twist. The momentum carried him up and over the ball of light. The blast burned a hole through a poorly colored print of Santa Monica, several layers of wallpaper, plaster, and cement, before disappearing out into the night and setting off car alarms far into the distance.

He gave her an affronted stare, "Hey! That would have hurt!"

She pulled her sword from its scabbard and it flared into life. Despite being naked, no one and nothing could remove the sword belt except her.

Instead of running or putting up his fists to fight, Trick stood very still, his hands at his sides. "You were freezing, from the inside out."

"I'm an Angel, I can't die."

A look flashed across his face, as though there was something he wanted to say, Evie thought. He ran both hands through his hair and when he met her eyes again, his face was composed.

"That doesn't mean you can't be hurt – at least temporarily – or captured. The Fallen's weapon was meant to weaken you, render you helpless. Pardon me for thinking you might have wanted an exit strategy right about then. I grabbed you and ran like a jackrabbit with a coyote on its tail. Brought you here. My powers are heat based. You were blue with cold, Ms. Grace. I was healing you."

"Oh, _healing_. Is that what the kids are calling it these days?" She didn't bother hiding the sarcasm in her voice.

He let his eyes linger on the smooth, full curves of her body. Her round breasts, the swell of hips and thighs. Healing had been the last thing on his mind as he held her through the night.

Getting her here, however, had required quite a bit effort. The hotel he chose ended up being booked right up to the fifth floor. Key card in hand, he had dashed up to the room, thrown open the sliding window and, pulling a shadow over himself, jumped down to get her. Trick had stashed the Angel in the bushes camouflaging the property's venting system near the parking lot. Trying to jump straight up with an armful of Angel trailing her wide, white wings had not gone so well, even for someone as strong as Trick. After several tries, he'd finally had to get a running start across the parking lot and launch himself from the top of a van before landing – just barely – inside the room.

Undressing had been more a matter of urgency than lascivious intent. She was cold and getting colder, the blue tinge on her skin deepening as he worked. Throwing off his own clothes, he pulled the blankets around them, belly to belly, and ramped up his energy level like an electric blanket on high.

Holding her tightly, skin to skin, gradually the sense of urgency that had driven him began to diminish. Replaced by other, different sensations. The touch of her hair. The feel of her neck and shoulders. The jut of her hip bone against his. A sweet perfume as she began to warm against him. Like lavender in bloom under the afternoon sun. The smell of angels.

He'd grown so hard. Suddenly. Unexpectedly. More than anything he wanted to slip between her thighs, enter her fully and let the two become one. He was many things in the nasty half-life of his; rapist was not one of them. Yet how delicious during those long hours of the night to contemplate the feel of her strong legs wrapped around him, squeezing his waist, pulling him closer. He wanted to bury himself in that velvet soft sheath of muscles and let the passion there consume them both.

Not that he ever got the chance, morals or not. Her damn wings kept flipping out, knocking him off the bed again and again and again.

Dogs ran in their sleepy dreams.

Apparently, Angels flew.

Climbing up off the floor for about the tenth time as the afternoon turned to night, he felt his ardor cooling. It was all he could do just to keep hold of her and let his magic do its work. He wasn't lying when he told her he was healing her. Hours passed before he was able to warm her back to consciousness.

"No weapon?"

Trick blinked, pulling his attention back to the here and now. "What?"

She pointed to his empty hands, "You had an iron bar-type thing, in the alley."

"Oh, yeah, iron is very good against supernaturals."

"You're a supernatural," she pointed out.

He shrugged, "Exactly. That's how I know. Anyway, I dropped the bar and scooped you up. What with those damn wings and all, you're a two-handed sort of woman."

"And how did we manage to escape from a Fallen? You _are_ just a Reaper."

"I'll ignore that slur on my powers." He held up a wide bracelet on one wrist, a collection of amber beads and what looked like metal amulets ringing it. The whole thing seemed burned and blackened, as if by fire. "This amulet is capable of shrouding me, us as it turned out, from just about anything for a time. A short .time. When there is a Fallen involved, it pays to take a few precautions, no matter what side you or they are on. One time use only, I'm afraid."

Pulling the thing off, he tossed the amulet in the wastebasket.

"You were expecting him?"

There was a fierce pounding on the door. They both jumped.

"This is the manager! Just what in God's name is going on in there! Open this door! I've called the police." The door handle jiggled and the person attached to the voice tried to push it open. Luckily the heavy slide bolt held fast. Evie would prefer not to have to explain to the night manager of an obviously mediocre establishment what a fully manifested naked angel with a shining sword and an equally naked Reaper – very handsome and well-built naked Reaper – were doing to his hotel room.

The Death Mark flared above the Reaper's head.

Enough talk.

Raising her sword, she swept the flaming blade directly at him. Unfortunately for Evie and fortunately for Trick, the sword cut through nothing except empty space and a floor lamp that fell with a crash. Trick had jumped in a flash to the other side of the room, the bathroom now behind him. In a flare of energy, spectral flames burst out to surround him in a burning halo.

"Evie, please. Let me explain."

"There's nothing to explain. You killed those people in Hungary. Vengeance is mine."

She rushed him. Instead of evading the blow, he ran at her, grabbing the sword's hilt in both of his hands, trying to push the edge away from his throat. Trick was flaming red, she was flaming gold. He must be very strong, Evie thought, to even touch the blade let alone hold it. She let her energy flare higher, he wouldn't be able to hold it long.

She pushed him back, through the bathroom doors and inside as they struggled. Her blade sliced through the glass shower doors, the window and then the bathtub where it gouged out a deep V-shaped cut as they jostled for position. Somehow Trick managed to twist out of the way, still holding the hilt.

"I didn't kill anybody!"

"Not kill anybody? I find that hard believe," Evie panted, pushing back as they careened around the small space. Snaking one leg around the back of his knee, she threw him hard into the mirror above the sink, shattering it and wrenching several layers of plaster from the wall. His face was very close to hers.

He stared into her dark eyes, "Ow! Okay, Reaper and all. I concede that. What I mean is, whoever your talking about, I didn't kill."

"My Death Mark says differently."

The sink crumbled and a fountain of water shot out, drenching them both.

"Good god that sword's hot!" he exclaimed as he was forced to finally let go of the hilt.

He backed up, jumping up on the rim of the toilet seat and grabbing the ceramic top of the tank. He held it out like a shield. "Your Death Mark is wrong!"

"The Mark is never wrong!" She sliced through the ceramic lid. It was easier than cutting through soft butter. So easy that the sword just kept going right through the base of the toilet and deep into the floor. More water washed out onto the hotel room carpet. Spinning, she kicked him hard as he tried to jump by her, out of the bathroom.

Cursing, knocked off balance, he managed to recover in less than the blink of an eye. As he sailed by, she struck out with a mighty blow that cut right through the bed – mattress, frame and all. It fell in two neat pieces. The sword, though, kept right on going, penetrating deeply into the cement floor beneath where it got stuck. Very stuck. Evie tugged and tugged finally pulling loose a large chunk of concrete and metal. Pulling and pushing, she pried the block off her blade.

Trick jumped away, leaping off the desk to bounce from the floor to the ceiling as though the earth had no hold. Evie sliced after him, the sword gouging more deep trenches in the floor several feet deep. Metal and concrete melted away from the blade.

Trick ran up one wall to crouch on the ceiling. Defying gravity, he hung there upside down. "If you'd just listen to me!"

Evie gave an angry roar. She jumped onto one-half of the ruined mattress, bouncing up and down, trying to run him through as he scrambled this way and that just out of reach. There wasn't enough room to get any lift under her wings and really corner him.

"Have you ever questioned it? Question who you were sent to kill?" he said breathlessly.

She paused for a moment, her sword raised and burning above her. "No, I don't have to. I feel the truth in it. The vengeance flares in my heart. The pain and fear of those unjustly murdered."

"And do you feel it with me? Do you?" he demanded.

His words brought her up short. She had felt a lot of things for this Reaper from the moment she saw him walk in that West Hollywood bar. None of them had to do with the agonized cries of the innocent. She stretched out with her feelings and was surprised. Nothing. No rage, no anger. What the hell was going on?

Jumping down, he grabbed the desk chair, holding it out in front of him cartoon lion-tamer style. "Nothing, right?"

The pounding on the door increased in fury. There seemed to be several people in the hall now.

She stood her ground on the broken bed, wings stretched out as wide as they could go. No matter. The Mark had been called. She raised the sword high for the killing blow, "Vengeance!"

There was an ominous creaking and with no more warning than that, the bed fell through the floor into the room below with a thunderous crash. Plaster and cement rained down on Evie's head as she stood there blinking in surprise.

'Well,' she thought. 'That was unexpected.'

She looked up to see Trick's face peering down, "Are you all right?"

Without answering him, she spread her wings and using them as leverage, jumped back up through the gaping hole in the ceiling. Thank the stars the room below had been empty. She shuddered. Killing innocents in pursuit of vengeance was not part of her job description.

Back in their room, water was shooting out of the bathroom in a high arc. The place was full of smoke and dust. At least the banging on the door had stopped. Out of the corner of her eye, a heartbeat too late, she saw something bright and shining. Spinning through the air it coiled around her, pinning her arms to her sides. Trick held what looked like a burning length of rope in his hands. He had lassoed her! With a flick of his wrist, the lasso spun out like a living thing to wrap around and around Evie until she was tied up as tight as a Sunday roast. She teetered there amidst the wreckage.

"Sorry, Miss Grace and Beauty. I guess explanations will have to wait until you're a little calmer."

"I am calm!" she screamed.

The pounding on the door started again much louder. Maybe they had found a battering ram. Sirens howled close by.

Trick gathered up a pile of clothes and gave her a jaunty salute, "I must escape into the night like a thief. Until we meet again." He flashed her a smile that lit up his face and with a wild laugh ran to the windows. Holding the pile of clothes in front of him, Trick crashed through the glass of the closed window and was gone.

With a cry of rage, Evie volted up her energy, burning through the coils of spell-cast rope. Running to the shattered window sill, she thought she saw the Reaper trance jumping incredible distances, already far away. They were no longer in Hollywood, she noted but closer to LAX. The colored light columns at the airport's entrance glowed brightly in the distance. Below her, a squad of police cars and two firetrucks, sirens blaring and lights flashing, screeched into the parking lot.

Time to go.

She looked around the room for her clothes. Only then did she realize the Reaper had taken them with him.

"Nathan McKitrick, you bastard!" She shouted, shaking her fist at the air.

**Chapter 4**

The Guardian Angel had his beautiful wings wrapped around himself as he rocked back and forth on the pavement, sobbing.

Evie heard him crying as she flew over the city, cursing in an extremely un-Angelic way and trying to pick up Trick's trail. The Reaper had used something to mask his magical signature and she was only able to narrow it down to a vague direction towards the Hollywood Park race track. The smell of horses and hay drifted up into the night air. A few miles along Century Boulevard, she lost the trail completely. Circling round and round, she comforted herself thinking of all the very nasty things she would do to the Reaper when she finally caught up with him. And there was no doubt in her mind she would find him. Evangeline Grace had never failed on a mission yet. Dead or alive.

Breaking through her satisfying thoughts of torture and dismemberment – plus a few images of him standing there naked in all his manly glory, damn it. And the way his hair curled over his ear. _Augh_ , damn it again. She heard the sound of crying.

Evie crisscrossed the dimly lit streets below, soaring the air currents on silent wings. It must be two or three in the morning.

There.

Directly below her. An Angel was sobbing. The sound unmistakable. Angels' tears were fey and fearsome things. Such was their power, she heard each teardrop as it hit the pavement.

Winging down in big circles, she watched two thugs drag a thin, Asian looking girl out of a small all-night grocery and throw her into the back of a big old boat of a Cadillac. The girl looked no more than sixteen or seventeen. They had already hurt her. Evie stared at them with her spirit vision, seeing beyond the flesh and blood, into their hearts. They were going to hurt her more.

Folding her wings back, she landed lightly on the sidewalk as the driver gunned the engine and roared off down the street. An alarm was ringing hollowly nearby. Evie walked to the shop and peered inside. A man and woman lay tumbled together in an untidy heap. Their blood pooling on the floor. They were already gone, only a soft golden aura left of the souls they had been. Soon that, too, would dissipate. Life to afterlife. She returned to the Angel. He seemed very young, both cosmically and chronologically.

"Are you her Guardian Angel or theirs?" She pointed at the bodies with one wing.

He sniffed, wiping the tears away with the sleeve of his tight black suit jacket, "Hers."

Evie looked after the car as it disappeared around the corner. "Well then, why don't you get yourself in gear and start guarding, kid? Go on. Get after them and smite."

His voice was ragged with grief, "I received no mandate. No orders to step in and save her. I prayed, I called out, I begged."

Evie looked at the bodies by the store counter. Innocents. Their lives stolen from them by a couple of murderous bastards who were getting away. Soon one more life would be lost.

Still staring after the car, she asked the young Angel, "Did you receive specific orders not to interfere?"

The boy looked up, his face suddenly full of hope, "No."

Evie nodded, "Good enough for me."

Spreading her wings, she drew her sword and flaming with golden fury, flew after them.

It took only moments to overtake and pass the speeding vehicle. Shedding her _glamour_ , fully visible, she came down a hundred yards in front of the car on the empty street, sword blazing. She could only imagine what the murderers inside the car thought as a winged angel, haloed in magnificent light, clothed in white (courtesy of a slightly slashed top sheet) manifested directly in front of them.

To Evie's disappointment, this heavenly vision did not bring on an epiphany to end their evil ways, stop the car, fall to their knees and beg for forgiveness while simultaneously dialing 911and pleading to turn themselves in. No. Instead, the wretched bastards accelerated, determined to run her down. With a crooked smile, she sheathed her sword. Digging in, Evie stood her ground, both hands stretched out straight in front of her. The car rammed into the Angel at probably around seventy miles an hour.

The laughing, twisted faces of the murderers turned to shock when they realized not only was she still standing; she was pushing back. The driver gunned the engine, revving the motor higher and higher. Instead of roaring away, the car came to a stop as Evie began pushing it up the street, one barefoot step at a time.

She could hear both men cursing even over the roar of the engine. The driver slammed the accelerator to the floor. Plumes of smoke engulfed the street as the screaming tires spun, fighting for traction. Evie clearly saw the goon in the passenger seat aim a massive handgun – a Magnum by the look of it – and open fire, shattering the windshield into thousands of jagged fragments. Keeping one hand firmly on the hood, she swatted the bullets aside like bugs with the other.

Time to end this.

Drawing her sword with her free hand, she sliced effortlessly through the entire front end of the car, severing the engine block. There was a burst of flames and a terrible twisted shriek of metal as the car spun away in two parts, spewing oil.

The men scrambled out of the wreck, guns blazing. One of them had a shotgun now as well as the handguns. Evie sighed. These guys were not going to give up. Stepping between time, she easily dodged the bullets. At this moment, she was moving so quickly they could not even see her.

Confused, both men stopped firing to look around, waving their guns this way and that, staring wild-eyed.

"Where is she, goddamn it!" The man who'd been driving snarled.

"Right here," Evie whispered.

Reappearing directly in front of him, the Angel plunged her bright sword to the hilt in his chest.

Blood bubbled from deep in his throat making a gurgling sound. His eyes locked on hers. The murderer's heavy features, mottled with dark stubble, broken blood vessels and old scars, sagged as if gravity itself was pulling him from the top down into the grave. Using her sight, Evie looked into his soul. Just as she thought, there was such evil there. Stepping away, she let him fall in a broken sprawl onto the pitted concrete.

The other man screamed in fear, the note of hysteria unmistakable. Finally realizing he was in a situation a gun could not get him out of. Throwing his shotgun to the ground, he tried to run. Fool. With a single downswing of her wings, she caught up and grabbed a fistful of his long, dirty brown hair. Spinning him around to face her, she easily lifted the man off the ground as her wings beat the dust and leaves into a whirlwind.

"No wait, wait," he screamed. "I repent. Mercy, have mercy on me!"

She smiled. His soul was just as tainted and dirty as the other man's.

"Sucks for you, buddy. Wrong sort of Angel. Mercy is not my mandate."

She was still smiling as she ran him through.

Both men lay at her feet. The police would find no mark on them when they came, nothing but a scorched bit of cloth where her sword entered their bodies. "Heart attack," the corner would say about the burst organ. Evie watched as their dark spirits began to crawl out of their skin. What was coming for them was far darker still. She could feel it in the air, smell it getting closer. Evie did not know exactly what would happen to them; she hoped for the sake of the girl's murdered parents, it would be very bad.

She glanced at the wreckage of the car burning fitfully, the dark smoke rising up to smudge the sky. That was not going to be so easy for the police to explain. Especially the precision cut directly through the center of the engine block. Oh well, give those college guys and gals in the forensics department something to work on.

Sheathing her sword, she walked to the other side of the wrecked car. The girl had managed to drag herself out of the back seat and lay half in the gutter and half on the sidewalk.

With a _whoosh_ of air in the wind, the girl's Guardian Angel arrived.

' _Better late than never_ ,' Evie sighed to herself.

He took Evie's hand and held it reverently to his forehead. "Thank you."

She glanced at the girl. The poor little thing was in bad shape, shaking uncontrollably. Evie automatically reached for the cell phone in her pocket to call the police. That's when she remembered she was only wearing an over-bleached hotel sheet tied roughly around her. McKitrick had taken her phone along with her clothes. Damn him.

"We need to call 911. I lost my cell. Do you have yours on you?"

He looked at her blankly, "Do Angels carry cell phones? Is that even possible?"

She rolled her eyes, "Just how new at this are you?" Guardian Angels, in her opinion, spent way to much time in the Otherwhere.

Nothing for it but to go through the bodies. A darkness was drawing in around the corpses, icy cold and bleak. Sidestepping the ooze, which had no interest in her anyway, she felt in their pockets.

"Got one!" She held the cell up for him to see and he stared back, still wide-eyed and clueless.

The dispatcher wanted to know their location and Evie had no idea beyond a street full of dark and shuttered doorways. They were in one of those commercial/residential blocks where people didn't want to know what was going on beyond their double-locked front doors. Slipping once again into stealth mode, she spread her wings and flew over to the corner to see where the hell they were. She gave the operator the address. Call completed, she held onto the dead guy's phone, he certainly wouldn't be needing it. Back at the scene of the crash, she found the Guardian Angel crouched by the girl, invisible to the mortal now, just like Evie. The Angel extended his wings, gathering her up in his embrace. His wings were beautiful, Evie noted, shades of brown and cinnamon with streaks of white, like a falcon's.

The girl's eyes were open, unfocused with shock. She probably wouldn't have seen the Angels even if they manifested right in front of her in all their heavenly glory. Brushing the skin lightly with his fingertips, the Guardian Angel closed her eyes before allowing his power to manifest. Waves of healing energy flowed through his fingers into the girl. She gave a little gasp that eased into a sigh as the pain began to ebb. The terrible lines of suffering twisting her face relaxed as she slipped fully into the Angel's healing embrace. There would still be scars, mental and physical, but they would not destroy her. Guardian Angels were gentle souls. Too gentle, Evie thought ruefully. That did not mean they couldn't summon powerful magic when they chose to.

The boy stroked the sleeping girl's hair, his eyes never leaving her face.

"What's her name?"

"Stef. Stephanie. Chen. Her Dad is Vietnamese and her mother is French-Chinese. Was. _Were._ "

"You know, all Guardian Angels fall in love with their charges," Evie's voice was gentle.

His eyes flashed up to hers, face flushed as though he had been caught doing something shameful, dirty.

Evie kneeled down beside him, "What's your name?"

"Josh."

"Josh, it's okay to love Stephanie. In fact, that's how this is meant to be. You don't have to be ashamed. There is one non-negotiable prerequisite for this job. You can't be an Angel without love in your heart. A lot of love."

His expression mirrored the confusion and doubt of his and Evie's actions. "But I received no orders to interfere. What if I have changed her destiny, or someone else's through this event? Remember, there's no 'I' in Angel."

She looked at him.

He stared back, apparently completely sincere.

Despite the two dead men and gathering darkness roiling up from the Otherwhere to take them, despite the burning car and injured girl, Evie laughed out loud. "Please, tell me your trainers didn't really give you that line after your transition? Not really."

"No 'I' in Angel," he said the words again, like a child reciting a lesson.

She cut him off before he could say anything else. Though no matter what he said, it couldn't be as stupid as that. Reaching over she loosened his tightly knotted black tie. Josh was dressed like all the Guardian Angels – man or woman – she had seen: black suit, a little too tight across the shoulders, starched white shirts and, of course, the slim black tie. They looked like extras from the old "Men in Black" movie series.

"First of all, this tie is so tight it's cutting off oxygen to your brain. There, that's better. Now, take a deep breath and stop beating yourself up. Listen carefully. What are the odds that an Avenging Angel," she pointed at herself. "Equipped with a golden sword," she waggled the sword in its scabbard, "would be winging it over the wrong side of LAX at the precise moment on this night to hear you crying? Believe me, it's been a helluva' day and I never expected to end up here."

He seemed to consider what she said. Answering finally with a cautious nod.

"Exactly. Very long odds indeed. I'd say since you couldn't or wouldn't take matters into your own hands, a way was found. I mean a ' _way'_ , you know? Things worked out pretty much as they were meant to and the poor thing did not meet a terrifying death. Though I wish you had taken out those two bastards before they shot her parents."

He gave her a stricken look and his wings tightened protectively around the girl.

"Not everyone has their very own Guardian Angel. Unfair, right? To compensate, you," she pointed at him, "are supposed to quietly multitask and keep an eye on those less fortunate. Sometimes destiny means just going out and kicking some righteous ass. Orders or no orders. Okay, Josh? If the Otherwhere wanted blind obedience in their Guardian or Avenging Angels, they wouldn't choose humans. They'd animate mannequins for those jobs or squirrels or something."

That got a smile out of him.

"Neither you nor I are Celestials and somehow that is how this gig is supposed to work."

"So I may interpret the events and act accordingly if I have no orders to the contrary?"

That question had no easy answer. "Faith does not preclude analysis and judgment. Sometimes we make the right mistake for all the wrong reasons and vice versa. Destiny and free will get intertwined like two long-tailed black cats in a brawl. Hard to tell where one ends and the other begins. Just like in life, we can only do what we think is right and hope for the best."

His reached over to stroke the girl's hair again, "What if I, um, you know, get fired?"

Actually, that was a possibility. Even as an Angel, your contract was always up for review.

"Isn't she worth that chance?"

Evie waited with him until the ambulance and police cars arrived, using the time to give young Josh some much-needed advice on interpreting his Angelic mandate and Guardian-related ass kicking. She wasn't quite sure if she was qualified to play Yoda to the kid. Really, was she any wiser in the ways of the 'force'? And maybe that wasn't such a good analogy since things hadn't turned out so well for the Jedi as she recalled. Still, somebody had to do something and Evie was right here, right now. Standing by and doing nothing had never been an option she was comfortable with. Besides, if she was reading this young girl's aura right, Stephanie Chen was destined for something important and going to need a lot of guarding. Josh needed to man up, and fast.

**Chapter 5**

Once the Angel was hustled off with his charge, she spread her wings and decided to head home. Home in the Mortal world was above the garage at St. Jude's Church in Torrance. Celestials believed Avenging Angels needed to be among the living. The passions and urgency that drove mankind, after all, played a pivotal role in their mandate. Which suited Evie just fine. Though she didn't have to eat, she liked to. Ditto for sleeping. And all the other little pleasures of life, she thought to herself with a slightly wicked grin. Just because she was dead didn't mean she was beyond life. In fact, she'd had some very satisfactory, if short-lived, liaisons since her transition.

St. Jude was the patron saint of lost causes, which always made Evie smile. She thought it was probably a not so subtle lesson from her bosses. The rundown church stood in a nice part of Torrance near the sprawling Del Almo Mall. Though St. Jude's had long ago stopped holding regular services, Father James Cortez kept the nave open for prayer and was always ready to talk with anyone in need of counsel. Human or supernatural. Mostly the place served as HQ for acolyte activity in the Western United States and Cortez the man who kept it running smoothly.

Offices for the humans that served the Otherwhere, coordinating whatever it was they coordinated, sat in the old social hall. Evie was not exactly sure how they chose or were chosen for this kind of work. They were a bit reclusive. She either phoned them or left little post-it notes on the acolytes' office door when she needed money, information, use of a car or whatever. In return, they called or left little post-it notes on her door above the garage detailing where/how she could pick up the item. Though she'd caught glimpses of the very normal looking men and women a number of times, they seemed terrified of her. Scuttling back into their offices and locking the door if they so much as saw her shadow. You'd think she was Medusa the way they ran and hid.

Not so their boss. Well, their earthly boss. After Evie was dropped off on his doorstep, a bewildered newborn Avenging Angel, Father Cortez had lifted up his hands and given a heartfelt prayer of thanks. Not so much for the blessing of an Angel in their midst as the addition of a strong pair of hands to help him keep his fruit and vegetable garden in order. The church had quite extensive grounds and the Priest a green thumb. Enviably green. They were in the middle of a drought (weren't they always in SoCal?) yet somehow the priest's garden thrived and flowered. Apricots, plums, green apples, lemons, and limes hung heavy on the many fruit trees. Father Cortez had no problem confronting her at all whenever he needed weeds pulled, pests dealt with, rose bushes trimmed, rows dug, leaves raked, fruit picked or branches in the taller fruit trees pruned. Her wings came in especially handy for that.

Tonight, except for a lone light in the acolyte's office, the church was dark. She hoped Father Cortez was asleep and not waiting to leap out, thrust an oversized bag of fertilizer in her hands and tell her to get to work.

Mouser, the church cat, lay in a fuzzy, ginger-colored lump in front of her door. They were good pals, she and the cat. Scooping him up, she kissed him on his furry head and he breathed a sleepy meow.

"Hello, Evie."

Evie jumped at least a foot, dropping Mouser in her surprise, her wings popping straight out.

Father Cortez stood at the other end of the landing, flashlight in hand. He was wearing pajamas, a UCLA sweatshirt and rubber boots.

There were two sets of stairs to her apartment. One from inside the church building and the other from the garden. Evie generally just swooped in and hopped the railing as she had tonight.

"Jeez, don't _do_ that!"

The priest squeezed by one wing in the narrow space as Evie tried to get them back in order.

"Sorry, Evangeline. Mole hunting duty. Before dawn is best. Purely catch and release." He gave her a wink. "Saw you swoop in. Could you..."

She held up both hands, "Oh Father, can the mole invasion please wait until another day...night...morning?"

Moving forward, Father Cortez pushed open the door to her little home. Mouser trotted in with an impatient lash of her tail as though to say, ' _finally!_ ' for the bedroom and the pile of soft blankets and pillows there. Evie followed, nearly tripping over her sheet which had become somewhat tangled during the flight home.

"I did not come up here to recruit you for mole duty."

The priest clomped across the hardwood floor in his rubber boots, looking at her expectantly. She followed him inside.

"From the way you were flying, I could tell all was not well in Avenging Angel land."

"You mean I fly with emotional resonance?"

"Yes, you do. The set of your wings is very revealing. Now sit," he pointed to one of the two easy chairs in the small living room. "And talk. Especially about why you look like the statue of Columbia in that movie studio logo, minus the torch."

With a sigh of resignation, Evie flopped down into the chair and explained in a slightly disjointed fashion the progress of events over this very unusual day-into-night-into-day again.

Father Cortez listened in silence, fingers pressed together, elbows on his knees, chin resting on his thumbs, watching her closely.

"...and then they shut the doors on Stephanie and Josh. Who assures me he will be guarding more assiduously from now on and I flew back here..." She trailed off as her narrative wound down and the priest continued to say nothing. "You know, to change clothes..."

"Well," he said at last. "A Fallen Angel. How extraordinary. Truly. I myself have not encountered a Fallen for a very long time."

Evie couldn't hide the surprise on her face. As far as she knew, he never strayed far from the church and she could hardly see a Fallen showing up in Torrance.

West Hollywood. Yes.

Torrance. No.

"You need not give me that look. As though I am only an old parish priest. My life has been very much one of service to the higher powers. Very active service for many years. In the late seventies, an entire cadre of acolytes disappeared in Mexico City. Just vanished. Poof. Ten souls gone without a trace, the offices left apparently untouched. That is when and where I met her. The Fallen one."

"What did she do with them?"

"Nothing. She was not responsible. However, their disappearance was linked to a demon she was tracking for her own purposes. Their deaths, the acolytes I mean, were nothing but a red herring to confuse us as the real plan went forward. She and I worked together to solve it." The priest leaned back in the chair and crossed his legs.

"Well? What was the mystery?" Evie demanded, completely intrigued with this new side of Father Cortez came into focus.

"Another time, perhaps. We have your Fallen to contend with here and now."

"But..."

"I do not think this happened only by chance."

"Funny, that's exactly what I said to young Josh a little while ago."

"Things are going to change."

"For who?" Evie was a little surprised by the serious tone of the priest. Usually, he was relaxed and casual in the extreme.

"You. Us. Your Reaper. You know my thoughts on free will."

She nodded, the two of them had talked of this often after her arrival. He was much more than her landlord. He was also her mentor. "Many choices are open to us and many destinies," Evie said. "There is no one, perfect way."

"Precisely. Things don't always happen to us. Often they happen because of us. We serve as the catalyst. You made choices today, as did your mischievous Reaper. The Fallen, too, must make choices. Each of these is like a sonic boom, spreading out in wider and wider circles of energy."

The priest seemed very intent. Worried, almost. Had she done something very wrong today? Evie pulled her legs up into the chair and hugged her knees. She'd spent much of her time as an Avenging Angel avoiding reflection. Content to pursue the goals and missions set out for her by the Celestials. Focus on the job. Get it done. Enjoy the little luxuries of her born-again life. A passionate fling here and there as the world went on without her. The Reaper had made her question her mandate. That was wrong. Surely.

The priest stood, tugging his sweatshirt into place. "The moles await me and you have your mission and your Reaper to deal with." He stepped over to stand beside her. "Evie, life after death can, in many ways, be much more difficult than being alive. No matter your choices, you know I will stand by you." And with that, Father Cortez saw himself out, shutting the door behind. She heard him clomping down the stairs in his boots as he headed for the garden.

Through her windows, she saw the sky was still dark. Dawn a few hours away. Shoving her doubts aside and thinking back over the course of events, she managed to fan the fires of her rage at least into glowing embers.

Mandate or no mandate, it was time for a shower, real clothes and then she really, desperately, had to find a Starbuck's and get a double espresso over ice. After that, she would figure out how to track Trick McKitrick and kick his ass all the way to Hell.

**Chapter 6**

Trick McKitrick shivered, someone walking over his grave as his mother used to say.

He was sitting in the offices of Barracuda Bail Bonds in Compton, a couple of blocks on the wrong side of the 91 freeway. The place was in a roomy old bungalow painted pale, sherbet yellow with white trim. One of the few houses left after zoning changed this to a commercial area, paving the way, literally, for a succession of interchangeable strip malls. By the front walk, a neon sign in the shape of a sharp-toothed barracuda glowed, its bright green dollar-sign eyes blinking on and off.

The company's CEO, bonded and licensed, Roman Barracuda, sat across the desk opposite him. Barracuda was the man's real name. Though whether he was a real man – as in human – Trick had serious doubts. Roman was just way too powerful in the _juju_ department to be mortal. He dealt in a lot more than 'get out of jail' bail bonds for the average felon. The little house saw a frightening parade of supernaturals and humans looking, most often desperately, for protection charms and personal wards. Barracuda's was the place to go when a body needed to fly under the paranormal radar. Way under.

"I need a charm to blur a Death Mark."

Roman raised his eyebrows several notches. He was a large black man with large black hair who had gotten stuck in a time warp somewhere in the seventies. The 1970s. Though he had lived through the 1870s and several seventies before that. Isaac Hayes, Otis Redding, Kool and The Gang, Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye – those and many other artists made the 1970s the decade worth remembering as far as he was concerned. Roman was wearing one of his favorite geometric-patterned, polyester wide-collared shirts, this one in maroon, tucked into matching plain maroon pants with a sharp crease sewn down the front of each pants leg. His tinted reading glasses, what they used to call granny glasses back in the day, perched low on his broad nose. In the background, Barry White crooned a low-voiced ballad.

Pansy and Rose Marie LaRue, Roman's collectors, were behind him in the other room, the door open, filing paperwork and keeping an eye on Trick. They probably outweighed their boss by several pounds and all of it pure muscle. Except maybe for five pounds of bright red hair tortuously tossed and teased. Not too many Barracuda customers skipped bail with the LaRue sisters on the job. Or gave their boss any grief.

Roman burst into laughter.

Trick ran his hands through his hair, "No, really, Barracuda. I sort of left an Avenging Angel tied up with my flaming lasso in a hotel by the airport and she sort of wants to kill me."

Roman sat back in his chair, a big old-fashioned wooden office chair with an upholstered back and seat, "Does this have anything to do with the last amulet I gave you?"

"Maybe. Well, yeah."

"Hmmm." He stared critically at Trick. "Was it a nice hotel?"

"Sort of Holiday Inn- _ish_."

"Full service?"

"Express."

"Fool!" Roman managed to squeeze a lot of contempt into that one short word. "You are asking to be killed. An Avenging Angel deserves a suite at the Ritz Carlton or the Grand Hyatt at the very least. _And_ a trip to Disneyland. What were you thinking?"

He wasn't thinking, obviously. At least not with his head when he got mixed up in this mess.

"Did she want to kill you before you tied her up at the Holiday Inn?"

Trick shifted uncomfortably in his chair, "Actually, that would be a 'yes' again."

He peered at Trick over his glasses, "She is going to hand you your cowboy ass on a collection plate and then she is going to use that sword of hers to cut out your heart. No 'sort of' about it." He gave a hearty laugh and slapped one broad thigh as though it was a very good joke. Trick could hear the LaRue sisters in the back room giggling along with him.

"Nice. Can you help me postpone that delightful scenario or not?"

He was laughing so hard he had to wipe his eyes. The phone on the desk rang. An old-fashioned sort, just one generation up from a rotary dial. He held up a finger to Trick as a signal to wait. Picking up the phone he said in a flat, business-like voice, "Barracuda Bail Bonds, how may I direct your call?"

Trick listened in as Roman tried to calm a seemingly distraught woman in Spanish on the other end. Swiveling around, he pulled a file out of the top drawer of the tall metal cabinet behind him and threw it down on the desk, all the while making soothing noises to the woman on the other end. He jotted some notes in the file and with a few final words of encouragement, hung up.

"Pansy, Rose Marie?" He called over his shoulder, "Little Estella Barraza's no good husband Paco is in trouble with the law again. Draw up a contract and get a motorcycle messenger to deliver it to Eagle Rock. And see you leave out the interest charges. Tell her we got a special going on or something. Don't want to hurt her pride." He jotted down an address on a bright pink post-it note.

Marie leaned her not-inconsiderable-self out of the doorway, her hair nearly as wide as the frame, and grabbed the note. "Poor Estella. Four kids, two jobs and nothing to show for it but that husband who drinks up her pay and shames the family name. What say we arrange a little accident for ol' Paco, Boss? He could accidentally fall in front of the Light Rail over there by Avon after he gets out on bail. You just _know_ he's going to head to Santa Anita Racetrack."

"You think she'd thank us for this if she knew? She's had four kids by him."

"And twice that many trips to the emergency room from his fists," Rose growled.

Roman's eyes drew together in an angry "V". The room grew dark and two shadows rose up on either side of the big man. The shadows writhed and swayed and Trick drew back in his chair. One had horns. The male, he thought. The other, obviously female, with a fish tail that flipped up and back.

"That's an evil thing to do. Hit your woman. Hit any woman. We don't like that. We don't like that at all, do we?"

He seemed to be addressing the dancing shadows. Trick could have sworn they nodded their insubstantial heads in agreement.

"She got insurance, Pansie, Rose Marie?

Marie smiled, extending an admirable set of fangs. "We'll make sure to back-date some right now. She and the kids will be okay."

He nodded, the shadows melted away, and the light returned. "Let's do it. _You_ ," he jabbed a finger at Trick, "however, do not have four hungry, wide-eyed, crying children and are not a charity case. What were you plannin' to give me in exchange for this so-called Death Mark charm you think I might be able to provide?"

Trick was only too aware that everything he had right down to the clothes on his back belonged to his Master. He could run up some cash on the 'company' credit cards except Roman was generally not interested in money for supernatural transactions. Vague promises of paying Roman back in kind in the future weren't much good. Both of them could plainly see that future was looking a little shaky right now.

Roman gave him a big smile. "Well, cowboy, good thing your survival does not depend on your brain power! I got an idea. How about you give me a few vials of your blood. Reaper blood is mighty good to power up death spells against a certain class of demons. All it takes is a drop or two. Now, if you'll just step into the kitchen with me."

Not even waiting for his reply, Roman scooted away from the desk and walked to the back of the house. Trick got up to follow. He didn't have much of a choice. What the hell was he doing? First with Evie and now here. It was only a question of who found him first – his Master or Evangeline Grace. And if it was the Angel? There was no happy ending to this story.

Trick ran his hands through his hair. Damn, he didn't understand her effect on him. Or probably he did. Was it the martini? She held it in a funny way, like a big glass of burgundy or something. Swishing it around. He liked the way she held that glass. Or the thing she was doing with her hair when he walked over. He shook his head. A man doesn't mess with orders from a demon as powerful as Trick's Master because of the way a woman holds a glass or plays with her hair.

A spell.

That's what this had to be. Some kind of Angel magic. Damn it, why did it have to be a woman Angel? Maybe if it had been a man he could have gone through with his Master's orders. Then he'd be free and not facing a world of hurt from both sides of the supernatural divide.

He paused for a quick look out the front door, scanning the night sky. No sign of a pair of furiously beating white wings. Wouldn't be long now, though. Charm or no charm.

**Chapter 7**

After tossing the sheet and putting on some real clothes, Evie stopped for a blessed infusion of iced espresso coffee. Some LA Starbuck's opened as early as four in the morning, thank heavens. She allowed herself a little time to just sit and enjoy the strong, bitter flavor of the coffee on her tongue, looking out the window at the cars speeding by. The commuter rush started early in SoCal.

Soon, she was winging it back to the hotel by the airport. The building was crawling with police and firemen. Every inch of the street outside lined with satellite vans and local news crews. Network helicopters circled overhead. Bewildered guests, many still in their pajamas or clutching blankets, were wandering around the parking lot. A few stood shouting and shaking their fists at an exhausted looking man who must be the hotel manager. Evie cringed at the mayhem she had caused. However much it was _really_ Trick's fault, she fumed.

Winging past them all in stealth mode, Evie scrambled through the broken window to retrieve Trick's burnt-out protective bracelet. Luckily forensics hadn't been allowed in yet due to the unstable nature of the floor. She found the bracelet where Trick tossed it, in the bottom of the little trash basket pushed back under the desk.

Evie was hoping a shadow of the spell's former power still clung to the bracelet. Flying up on the hotel roof, she ran the little charms and amulets through her fingers slowly. In her former life, she had been a vice detective. In her hometown of Atlanta. How ironic and yet appropriate, she often thought, that she was still in the same line of work more or less.

The bracelet had a distinct style of the paranormal, a little buzz of energy with a feel all its own. It was still active, just a little. Trick said the spell had hidden them from the Fallen. Fallen magic was formidable stuff. That narrowed it down to a pretty short list of SoCal wizards with the power to generate a Celestial cloaking. Her assignments often involved tracking supernaturals for vengeance. That made it her business to keep up with the ever-changing population of witches, wizards, vamps, demons and whatever else crawled, flew, or slithered into L.A. County. If the Reaper had gone out of State, she was screwed. It could take weeks to track the maker down.

Using the dead man's phone – a crappy pay-as-you-go handset with no GPS – she called the acolytes' office at St. Jude's. Bless their little devoted hearts, the place was staffed 24/7. They seemed to have no problem talking to her on the phone, it was only face-to-face that sent them into a panic. Within a few efficient minutes, Evie had the addresses she needed scrawled on the back of a Starbuck's napkin she found stuffed in her hoodie's pocket. This morning she was wearing a pair of low-heeled boots and her favorite style of flared yoga pants. Angel tested and approved, she smiled to herself. She'd topped them with a black tank top modified with velcro straps fastened around her wing bones and a cream-colored Abercrombie hoodie presently tied around her waist. When her wings were folded up and put away with their magical prestidigitation, they didn't take up any space and she could slip the hoodie on. Only when they snapped to attention did she need the specially-tailored velcro tops.

Bracelet in hand, she began to visit each of the Wizards on her list in turn.

Some were pleased to see her.

Some were appalled.

One fainted.

Ironically, the one who fainted was the Wizard who steered her in the right direction.

She laid him down on the couch in his living room and gave him some water and an aspirin she found in the hall bathroom once he came to. The address was his home, not an office. A little thirties' style cottage bordered by a tiny lawn and blue hydrangea bushes behind what looked like a new cedar fence. He apologized for fainting, saying he'd mistaken her for an Angel of Death.

"I'm a little new at this," he explained as she rubbed ice on his wrists scrounged from the freezer. She was near Chinatown, and this Wizard, Adam Lee, specialized in luck magic. Business luck. He was a good looking young man, clean cut, tan and muscular, wearing an Abercrombie Polo shirt and khaki shorts. He looked more like he was planning on spending the day surfing at Huntington Beach rather than reciting esoteric spells over a Feng Shui altar, and Evie told him so.

"Grandad retired just a few months ago and passed his mantle of power to me. He and my grandma' raised me. Love them to pieces. I hadn't really planned to go into the family business but like it or not, I have the touch. Not something you can ignore, you know? Spirits can be kind of chatty. On the plus side, I'm my own boss and I can spend the mornings surfing if I want. One the downside, you know, damn magic can be spooky. My nerves are shot." Also, he explained, he and his pals had just finished a Stephen King movie marathon and he was sleeping with the lights on.

Evie laughed at finding a Wizard afraid of the dark.

His face flushed. "I've never even seen an Angel before, let alone talked to one. I do luck magic, you know, nothing dark."

She knew that the moment she set foot over the threshold. The place was cheerful and bright and the energy smelled clean as a field of green clover. She doubted Adam Lee could come up with a black arts spell even if he tried. That didn't mean the darker side of magic was quite so ignorant of him. There was a tingling down her back. Maybe it wasn't just his imagination keeping him up at night.

"Sorry. Not everyone recognizes us at first, even magical folk. You must have a strong power to read me so quickly."

He flushed even deeper.

"I don't want to scare you, but because of your energy, magic is drawn to you and that means the supernatural beings who wield it as well. This isn't your grandfather's place, am I right?"

She hardly needed to ask that, the living room looked like a Hollister store with palms and overstuffed upholstered chairs on bright cotton paisley patterned rugs. A big, boldly striped surfboard was mounted artfully above the couch.

"What? No, no. He invests in real estate, you know? He gave the cottage to me when I took over the business. Generally, I see clients at our office. I'm surprised you even had this address."

She'd asked the busy worker bees at St. Jude's for where she could _find_ the Wizards and they must have taken her at her word. They were very resourceful.

"Just because you're a Luck Wizard doesn't mean you can't make enemies from your clients' competitors. The unscrupulous kind who might hold a bit of a grudge. Your protection wards against evil are almost nonexistent around the house."

The flush drained away from the young wizard's face and Evie was afraid he might faint again. "I didn't know. I mean, I never even thought about it."

"Don't worry, you'll be okay," she soothed, patting him on the shoulder. "Give me your cell."

He pulled the phone out of the deep front pocket of his shorts and handed it over.

Evie talked while she inputted a name and number in his address book, "Sara Reynolds is an awesome young Witch who specializes in warding houses and protection charms." She handed him back the phone. "Tell her Evie Grace recommended you and that you need her to 'Fast Pass' you to the front of the list. Sara owes me a favor. She'll bump up the wards around your house so you can sleep at night. Plus, she likes to surf too."

Adam Lee's eyes brightened and he looked really pleased, "Thanks! I should have talked about this with Grandad but he and Grandma' are in Hawaii and all he says when I call is, _'why you waste money on phone call!_ ' He's sort of an old school 'learn as you go' guy. Um, you had a reason for coming here, right? Besides helping me out."

That's right, she was there for her problem, not his. She'd gotten distracted. Again. Just like with Josh and the robbery gone bad. Blaming the Celestial HR department's job placement division, she reminded herself again that Evie Grace was an 'Avenging' not 'Guardian' Angel to the whole wide world.

Evie handed over the bracelet and sat next to him on the couch while he examined it. She could see for herself he really did have the touch. His fingers glowed with a clean, silver light as he manifested. She liked Adam Lee already, and she was sure Sara would like him as well. The young witch had come out on the other side of a bad relationship and was finally ready to meet someone new. A handsome young man who was also in the magic business might do very nicely.

' _Augh!_ ' Evie thought, ' _there I go again, slipping out of avenging mode'._

Finally, he handed it back, nodding, "Talk to Roman. If this isn't his work, he'll know where to go. He and Grandad go way back. And I mean _waaaay_ back. They like to fish together. Roman Barracuda. Voodoo. Not the kind you might think. Voodoo gets a bad rep. There are just as many good, powerful spirits in their celestial plane as dark ones."

Armed with the address and a little more information about the man with the unlikely name of Barracuda, Evie left Adam Lee's. A short time later she swooped onto the front porch of Barracuda Bail Bonds in Compton. Before she'd even landed, she knew Trick had been here. The tingly, prickly sensation she got when the Death Mark was near went skipping over her skin. Faint though, very faint. Just a shadow of its real power.

She'd taken the time to stop by La Brea bakery and pick up a large bag of rolls and muffins. Adam Lee said the Voodoo master, all appearances to the contrary, was a gentleman with southern-style manners. Evie was from Georgia, southern manners were something she understood very well. Always say 'please' and 'thank you' and don't come calling empty handed.

Barracuda laughed when she walked in, recognizing her immediately for what she was. "I told him he should have taken you to the Ritz Carlton. Just look at you! My, my. What was that boy thinking?"

It took her a moment to make the connection between his comment and the airport hotel she'd woken up in. She felt her face flush and silently cursed the Reaper. And his big mouth!

Barracuda took the La Brea bag from her, making "Oh, you shouldn't have" noises. He peeked inside and meeting her eyes, gave a broad smile that reached right up to his eyebrows.

Evie couldn't help smiling back.

"Now don't those look scrumptious. _Mmmm, mmm_. Yes, still warm, too." Taking her arm, he turned her around and escorted her to a large, claw-footed table that took up most of one corner of the space opposite Barracuda's desk. The inside of the office was painted the same creamy yellow as the outside. Long rows of bleached-blond wooden blinds softened the view on the big barred windows facing the street. The wooden floors were the same color as the blinds. Retro travel posters for the Caribbean that had to be from the 1930s or 1940s brightened the walls with big splashes of pink, yellow, green and blue.

"Pansie, Rose Marie, come see what, um. Where are my manners? I am that sorry. I have not asked your name."

"Evangeline Grace."

"Come see what Miss Grace has brought."

Two women joined them from a connecting room directly behind the large desk and Evie tried not to stare as she shook hands with each in turn. They were quite the largest women she had ever seen. Both of them squeezed into tight black leather jumpsuits and police boots. And that hair. Red as a tropical sunset. Evie was quite certain they were only marginally human. The air around them sort of _blurred_. Terrifying appearance to the contrary, the LaRue sisters were just as smiley as Barracuda and when they spoke, their voices were actually quite soft. She got the feeling all three members of Barracuda Bail Bonds were excited to see her and she wondered exactly what Trick had told them.

After a few minutes of bustling back and forth between the kitchen and the office, they were seated around the table in artfully mismatched upholstered armchairs drinking tea from delicate porcelain cups. It took several muffins and a lot of small talk before Evie could politely steer the conversation back to the purpose of her visit.

Barracuda knew exactly who Trick was and didn't try to pretend otherwise. Client confidentiality, he explained, was an issue."You know, I like that cowboy, Miss Grace. We all do."

Pansie and Rose Marie nodded emphatically, setting their hairdos quivering.

"Despite the slippery slope he's been on this very long time, Trick's never lost his humanity. Can't say that for many lost souls. I have hope for that boy. You absolutely sure you have to chop him up?"

Evie sipped her tea. She had been thinking that same thing. Pondering all day on what Trick said. Especially when he asked if she never questioned the Death Mark or her orders. She hadn't, she realized. Ever. But then the Celestials had never put her in a position like this. No, that wasn't quite fair. She was at least partially to blame for setting herself squarely where she was. Could her Death Mark be wrong? Duty said 'no'. Follow orders. Stay within the chain of command. She sighed to herself. She had never been that good at following orders blindly. In fact, that's probably what got her killed back in Atlanta.

What was going on? With her. With him. The way he made her feel from the first moment he walked into that West Hollywood bar. An elusive longing for what Evie couldn't say, couldn't articulate to herself in a truly coherent way. Even alive she had never quite felt like this. She'd told the young Guardian Angel it was okay to fall in love with his charge. The same advice did not, could not, apply to an Avenging Angel and her quarry.

Barracuda waited, watching the play of emotions across her face. He was an excellent judge of character, an important talent in both a bail bondsman and a Sorcerer. "I'll tell you this much. McKitrick was raised in the desert and he hates it with a passion. Can't get enough of the water, swims like a fur seal. Try following the Pacific Coast Highway and see where it takes you. And if you can avoid chopping him up, I think you won't regret it."

The LaRue sisters nodded enthusiastically once more, their tall hair bobbing up and down.

Roman asked if Evie had tracked Trick with only the burnt-out bracelet as a guide.

"Oh no, can't take credit solely for that." She admitted. "Adam Lee over near Chinatown pointed me in this direction."

"He's a nice boy," Pansie said sincerely. At least Evie thought she was Pansie, it was hard to tell them apart.

"Grandaddy Lee's a bit of an institution here in town. Powerful JuJu. Not that they call it that. Damn fine fisherman, too. Bet he's got those _mahi mahi_ wishing that wrinkly little old man didn't never come to Hawaii." He barked out a laugh.

Some time later, brushing the crumbs from her lips, one hand on the doorknob, ready to go, she asked, "He wasn't by any chance bleeding when he was here, was he? Hopefully from an injury I caused him? Did he tell you he took my clothes and my phone, leaving me tied up and naked?"

Roman laughed so hard he started to wheeze again, "That boy is just begging for an Angelic ass-whupping! He wasn't bleeding. He owed me, though, and I took my payment in blood. Did you sniff that out?"

"Yes, and if I can, so might someone else. Watch your back, Mr. Barracuda."

Slipping back into stealth mode, she did as the big man said and headed towards the sea. They'd been in West Hollywood during the attack, yet Trick had brought her all the way across town to El Segundo, near LAX. Why come here unless he knew the area well?

She picked up the Pacific Coast Highway, everyone called it the PCH locally, from the point nearest the hotel. It wasn't that far from Compton and the bail bondsman. _Hmm,_ which direction? Evie scanned the busy road. North toward Santa Monica or South to Redondo Beach and beyond? Evie had the burned amulet bracelet still. She was hoping it might give her a sign. After all, the complex web of spells binding the magic had been tuned to the Reaper's frequency. She flew a few test flights in both directions. The tingling grew imperceptibly stronger to the south.

Shadowing the highway, Evie flew in low circles over each block. Despite the name, you could barely see the ocean from the Pacific Coast Highway at street level until you passed Manhattan Beach, and then only sporadically for many miles into Orange County. Early rush hour traffic slowed the busy thoroughfare to a crawl in the southbound lanes as the road snaked past strip malls, fast food places and apartments. Near Hermosa Beach, she got a definite buzz from the bracelet. Turning away from the highway, she skimmed the sidewalk getting closer and closer to the shore. Along the Strand, she dropped back into human form and walked the popular bike and pedestrian path that ran for several miles along the little South Bay beach cities. She stopped at the bronze surfer statue at the end of Pier Street to look around. The street's namesake was actually only the simplest of piers stretching out over the green-gray waters. What brought locals and tourists alike to Pier Street were the dining and drinking establishments (especially drinking) lining the last few blocks. This stretch had been turned into a pedestrian mall. Happy hour was in full swing and the terraces of the bars already crowded with tourists and locals enjoying the glow of the sun as it set into the sparkling Pacific.

Evie shaded her eyes, walking first towards the sea. Nothing. Changing direction she walked up the street. Midway between a souvenir shop full of 'Hermosa Beach Lifeguard' T-shirts, and a yogurt place, she felt it. A definite spiritual sort of tug. Pulling her _glamour_ back on, she searched out a vantage point with a good view of the block.

Oddly enough, she didn't need magic to spot him in the end. He walked right by, just a few feet below, carrying a bag of groceries from Ralph's Market. Searching for the Death Mark, she couldn't quite bring it into focus. Had Trick been right? Was it all a mistake?

She stood, flexing her wings and flipping the loop up on her sword's scabbard. Her job now was to swoop down, sword in hand and execute him. Take revenge for the murdered innocents in Hungary. Shifting the bag to his hip, Evie watched as Trick stopped to talk with someone at the terrace of a restaurant called Sharky's. He laughed at something the other man said and flashed that big, easy smile she had seen in the West Hollywood bar, automatically running his hand through his thick hair. She was an Avenging Angel and she better get started with the vengeance part of her job description.

But maybe not quite yet.

**Chapter 8**

The Fallen walked in, tailed by three massive black dogs. Roman looked up from the computer screen to stare impassively at the little group over his glasses. If he was surprised to have a Fallen Angel walk through the front door of Barracuda Bail Bonds, he didn't show it. The LaRue sisters barely glanced away from their paperwork in the back room.

"Let me guess," he rumbled in his deep baritone. "You're looking for the cowboy."

The Baron gave him the ghost of a smile, "Should you mean a certain Reaper, then yes, I am looking for him. If you know what is good for you, you will give me answers to everything I ask."

Roman did not smile back. He did not like people – living, dead or otherwise – coming into his office and telling him what to do. "Is there a particular reason why I should give you any information concerning him? Besides out of the goodness of my big, generous heart?"

The Baron kept smiling, though his eyes reflected a very different emotion. Snapping his fingers, the dogs stood in that impossibly erect position and rolled back their fur revealing the fearsome beings beneath. He snapped his fingers again and despite the bright sunshine outside, the room was plunged into darkness. Cold air seeped up from the floorboards.

"Do you really have no idea who I am?"

Roman gave an exasperated sigh. He rose from his office chair, muttering, "Don't see why I have to put up with this bull shit." There was a click and bright lights overhead flooded the room with light. "People comin' into my office makin' trouble for me and snappin' their damn celestial fingers in my face." He stood, staring over his little tinted glasses down at the Fallen. Rather a long way down. Barracuda was impressively large, built on truly generous proportions and none of it running to fat.

The Fallen stared back, his glare positively icy.

Reaching down, Roman turned Otis Redding's 'Dock of the Bay' a few decibels louder on the old record player flanked by oversized speakers sitting to one side of his desk. "Like I don't have enough trouble of my own. Sing it Otis. Wish I was sittin' at the dock with you." He kept on muttering as he flipped through a large pile of files stacked precariously on one of the speakers. "Human kind skippin' bail, taking my hard earned money. If that weren't enough, we got shifters, supes and Vamps all crawlin' in with some sob story needin' somethin' for nothin' to get them out of the trouble they got their own damn selves into!"

The Fallen was only half listening, his focus elsewhere, expecting no further trouble from the bail bondsman.

"There! That's what I'm lookin' for."

Glancing up, the Baron saw Barracuda scatter a small amount of ash from a tiny, square white envelope in his very large hand. It drifted lazily onto the polished wood floor.

Barracuda gave an exaggerated snap to his fingers in imitation of the Fallen. From the ashes, a mass of shadows rose up, one after the other, until they entirely surrounded the Fallen's group. In a heartbeat, the shadows took form and shape, solidifying into a host of horned and fanged demons: red, blue, and green. The LaRue sisters strolled in almost lazily unfurling leathery wings the same bright red as their hair. Around them the air shimmered and in their arms, a pair of huge, organic looking guns appeared.

Reaching under the desk, Roman pulled out a short, tasseled spear that popped and buzzed with such dark energy it seemed to blur the outline of its Master. Resting the weapon in the crook of one arm, he glared at the Fallen. "The real question is, Baron, do you know who I am? This is my house. You have crossed my threshold and I have the power to whip your angelic ass if you disrespect me or mine anymore."

This time, a true smile appeared on the fearsomely handsome face of the Fallen Angel. "Well played, Voodoo King. You are right. I have been rude to you in your home." He reached into the inside pocket of his velvet suit, pulling out a small leather pouch. He stepped forward and the host around him tensed. Holding up one hand in a placating gesture, he slowly emptied the bag, spilling out a handful of glittering gems.

"I should have made my intent clear. I am, of course, willing to purchase this information and pay well for your time."

Barracuda didn't even look at the gems. "And if you had just asked me nicely, I would have told you exactly what I told that Avenging Angel for free. Who, by the way, said please and thank you, and brought a bag of fresh rolls from La Brea bakery, _excuse me very much_ , Mr. Baron. Yes, I know who you are."

With a quick motion to the three dark beings, the Fallen transformed them back into the large sentinel dogs. He sat down and crossed his legs. The tension in the room scaled down several notches. "Accept the gems, your Highness, as my apology for being so brusque. I have been much in my own magic and forget other gods have their own guardians who command just as much respect. Hubris is truly a sin." Running his long, tapered fingers down one pant leg, he smoothed the fine material. "This little matter is of some personal importance to me. So if you would, please, tell me of the Reaper and," he kept his voice deceptively neutral, "the Avenging Angel who pursues him."

**Chapter 9**

Evie perched on top of the yogurt shop watching the second-floor corner window in the tiny apartment building opposite. Just six units, the place had the advantage of being only a few steps from the beach. Its disadvantage took up the entire first floor. A bar and grill that, judging from the decibel level of the crowd, was generally more bar than grill. Evie sighed, thinking how good an icy cold draft beer would taste right about now. Maybe later. She needed a clear head. Her nerves were dancing and the Reaper was leading every step.

Evening deepened to night, the stars coming out in the indigo sky. Clear for now, though Evie could see the fog bank hanging low, far out in the distance. The clouds would move in later, blanketing the beach towns in the coastal overcast so common to California. The noise of the crowds along Pier Street ebbed and flowed like the waves on the shore. Skateboarders popped, jumped, and twisted in front of the bronze surfer statue at the end of the street, trying to out-do each other. A police car stood parked nearby, lights flashing, the only automobile allowed on the pedestrian mall. One of the policemen leaned against the car, talking amiably to a couple of fisherman with long poles heading for some night fishing off the pier.

Evie yawned. Today had been a very long, strange series of events, she reflected, even for an Avenging Angel. In fact, particularly for an Avenging Angel. The past twenty-four hours had been full of lessons. Whether those were lessons she was teaching or learning remained unclear. Tonight the fuzzy logic of the afterlife was particularly impenetrable.

Around two a.m. the bars emptied out and the taxis waiting a block away filled up. Trick strolled out of the apartment building, hands thrust into the pockets of his jeans, apparently in no hurry. Crossing the Strand, he headed towards the beach. There was a damp chill in the air though the fog bank still hung far from the shore. Evie shivered. Not quite understanding what she was doing or why, she silently spread her wings and soared into the air, the night wind in her face.

He went to the water's edge and stood there for a long time, just out of reach of the bright, white foam on the breaking waves. The beach and the town were very quiet. Turning, he walked along the shore almost until the breakwater where the air blurred every so slightly around him. Pulling a _glamour_ over himself, Trick trance jumped almost lazily across the sand heading south.

Evie followed from on high, flying in wide circles. There was no sign of the Death Mark. Roman Barracuda probably had more to do with that than a Celestial slip-up. Trick jumped past the giant power station squatting incongruously on prime ocean-view real estate. The tall towers stood like exclamation points, thick plumes of white smoke drifting up into the sky. At Redondo Beach Pier, the Reaper stopped to scatter a flock of pelicans squatting like vultures over the Korean fish restaurants crowding the wharf. Slipping off his _glamour_ , he chatted with several of the night fishermen, sipping coffee from a styrofoam cup one of the elderly men pressed on him.

Hugging the coast, Trick came after a time to the more rugged terrain of Palos Verdes. Here, the Reaper finally stopped on a lonely stretch of beach. The inlet was inaccessible from above and only barely visible from a walking trail twisting on top of the cliff. Evie circled the beach, checking for a trap. When she was satisfied there was no one or nothing else except the Reaper, she drifted down through the few low-hanging clouds just beginning to move in, to perch lightly on a rough jumble of rocks near the water. The heavy seaside smell of kelp, salt, and sand which Evie associated so closely with California beaches was strangely absent, as though swept out with the night tide.

Trick knew she was there. He had felt her presence on Pier Street as he returned from the market. Knew she was watching his apartment from across the street. That evening he had made one of his favorite meals: pasta with a spicy arrabbiata sauce smothered in pancetta bacon and parmesan cheese, with crusty bread and a robust Tuscan Chianti. He'd laughed at that, sitting in the little dining nook of his place, watching the sunset. Trick McKitrick had come a long way from his Arizona pan-fried steak and biscuits roots! Maybe that wasn't necessarily a good thing. Life and death had certainly been simpler then.

The sea always calmed him. Made him feel that his problems were small and insignificant in the greater scheme of things. Washing clean the evil he had seen and done. He gave a bitter laugh; as if that were possible. To be clean again. At the inlet, he shed his clothes and walked out into the waves. Diving into the sea, he surfaced swearing as the cold hit him The bite of the water eased as he swam back and forth parallel to the beach, lap after lap until he was out of breath. Turning on his back, Trick let the sea carry him as he floated, watching the stars, picking out the few constellations he knew. The clouds were moving quickly now and as he floated, the gray wall crept slowly forward until it blocked out the heavens completely.

When he was very small, he and his mama would pull the rocking chair off the porch into the yard. There, wrapped in blankets against the chill of the desert night, they'd search the sky for the Pearly Gates of Heaven. Mama said if they were very lucky they might catch a glimpse. Sometimes they thought they did. There were always falling stars.

"Those are Guardian Angles," she'd told him. "Soaring down to Earth to save some happy soul."

Tonight there was a true Angel nearby. Unfortunately, the last thing she was interested in was saving a soul-lost Reaper. He pushed away thoughts of his mother, gone so very long. What would she have thought of him now? Flipping over, he swam slowly back towards the shore, trying to calm himself. Trying to come to terms with what had to be. He was a Reaper, not a man, and he had made his dark bargain.

Tonight could not end well, but it needed to end one way or the other.

Trick walked out of the waves, shaking the sea water from his hair. Evie watched him. Watched the lithe, graceful way he moved. Watched as the water ran down the fine, firm lines of his body, dipping and curving along the tight abdominal muscles and running in rivulets over his narrow hips and strong legs.

Evie jumped down from the rocks and drawing her sword, walked towards him.

Vengeance is mine.

**Chapter 10**

The air shimmered as he summoned some of his power, warming himself in the chill air. All the remaining moisture on his skin rose in steamy waves as his body flushed with heat. He looked up and saw her.

A wave crashed around them, the sand shifting beneath their feet. Neither the Reaper nor the Angel moved.

"You murdered four innocents in Hungary and now you must pay the price, Reaper."

He stared from the burning sword to her face, the question in his eyes obvious.

That question, more than anything else, stayed her hand when she could have struck. When she should have struck. He knew what she was: vengeance, not mercy, her mandate. Yet he didn't run. In the alley, he hadn't run either. He'd protected her from the Fallen and held her while she healed. She had attacked him in the hotel room, not the other way around. After binding her with the flaming lasso, he fled.

The only thing Trick McKitrick had injured was her pride.

"I'm not going to hurt you." He spoke in a slow, measured tone as though to calm a wary animal.

His words took her by surprise.

"Why would you want to?" She raised her sword a little higher, "I mean, aside from this."

There was a heartbeat of hesitation before he answered, "Indeed."

"My Death Mark is still upon you. Despite your protestations of innocence and your attempts to blur it with Voodoo magic."

He gave her his dimpled smile. "Oh, you know about that, do you?"

She nodded, "I have met Mr. Barracuda."

"He's quite a character, isn't he? A real powerhouse in the magic department. Though he follows a very different celestial pantheon than you or me."

"Don't change the subject." She pointed up. "Death Mark. Above your head."

Craning his neck, he looked, "Can you really see it? I thought the magic was still in effect."

"Look harder."

Narrowing his eyes, Trick summoned a measure of power, peeling back the layers of reality around him to really see. with his vision, the night came alive.In the waves he heard the resonant bark of a selkie, still in seal form, calling to her family. Farther out in the deep water, the trilling song of sea nymphs mixed with the sound of dolphins laughing. And above his head, there it was, burning very faintly, still only a shadow of itself, a fiery cross within a circle. Barracuda's spell was working, but it was no match for the Angel's vision this close.

"How did you find me?" He pointed up, "Not with the Mark, I wager."

"I used to be a detective."

He laughed at that, how ironic. "Really? I mean _really,_ really?"

She nodded, "Atlanta police department. Seven years. Vice squad."

"Well, I'll be damned."

"You already are if you killed those four people."

"What people, god damn it!" The question in his eyes was back.

"The ones guarding the Relic."

At the word "relic" all the hair on the back of his neck stood and he shivered.

Evie lowered her sword, pointing it directly at his heart, "Why were you in that alley?"

His face grew suddenly wary. _'Ah_ ,' Evie thought, that the right question to ask the Reaper here on this empty Southern California beach.

Trick channeled what energy he could into his shield, trying to deflect that damned Angel vision of hers from boring a hole into his heart; seeing the truth and the lies hidden there. His Master had promised to end his contract, free him to live a normal life span as a human again. Just this one, last, dirty job.

Kill an Angel.

The promise of freedom so very sweet. What was one more death? There had been so many in the darkness since he met the demon. Angels weren't really human, were they? And then he saw Evie in the alley with the Fallen and the rich taste of freedom turned to ashes in his mouth.

Another wave crashed, the water up to his knees. He moved closer to her, through the wet sand until the sword point pressed against his chest. A small trickle of blood ran down the fine, fair skin of his belly.

Her sword glowed more brightly as if sensing its quarry. Ready to strike.

"I'm going to come up the beach and get my clothes, Evie. Please don't smite me, at least not yet."

Focusing her power, she rose up into the air on the downswing of her great wings, tossing the sand in a whirlwind. There she hovered warily, sword still ready.

With one of his crooked smiles, he said almost to himself, "I'll take that as a 'yes.' I hope."

Evie attempted to keep her concentration on his face as he walked naked across the loose sand towards the cliff face. He kept his hands at his sides. Weaving no spells, summoning no weapons. He was exposed to her completely, knowing she could strike him down. Almost daring her to. She let her attention wander to his chest and then elsewhere.

_Damn_. She dipped in the air as her wings suddenly lost their lift. Landing clumsily, she tried to cover her lapse by clambering onto another tumble of rough, weathered rocks, taking the high ground.

He ran his hands through his hair, shaking out the last of the sea water. A gesture Evie could not help find very attractive. Damn it again.

By the cliff face, he grabbed his jeans and tugged them on. He stared at Evie, silhouetted against the sky. Tall and strong, yet purely feminine in form. A woman, not a girl or a bundle of sticks pretending to be one. Her dark brown hair, tangled and twisted from the flight, partially hid her face. He clenched his fists, overcome by a sudden, powerful desire to go to her. Kiss her deeply. Run his hands through her hair, over her shoulders, down her back to the soft swell of her bottom and thighs.

He faced her, "I didn't kill anyone in Hungary, no matter what your Death Mark claims. I've killed plenty of things since my transition, not them, Evie. Not them. I was in the alley for another reason."

"The Fallen?"

He gave her a swift, searching glance. "Partially. They call him the Baron. He and my Master currently have shared interests." Trick paused, searching for the right words. "Have you heard of Gogmagog, the land of the demon clans?"

She shook her head, "Is that another word for Hell?'

He laughed, "Good lord no! What are you thinking? It's an actual place, though not in the mortal world. There's a far wider pantheon than the one you serve and the Universe, no the _Multiverse_ is a complex place. The spiritual plane even more so."

"That is only slowly being made clear to me."

"Think of the demon world as Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries. A crazy quilt of fiefs, kingdoms, and principalities always looking over their shoulder waiting for the neighbors to pounce. Things would probably be a lot worse here in the mortal realm if the demon lords and ladies weren't so busy scheming and stabbing their allies in the back, quite literally. My Master needs the Baron's help in his interpretation of Manifest Destiny and a big land grab."

She cocked her head to one side, thinking more about the connection between Trick and his Master than demonic politics. "Do the two of you share a blood bond? You and your boss."

"How do you know about that?" He was surprised. Her connection as an Avenging Angel was very much to the natural world – despite her spiritual state.

"I saw it in a movie." And she had.

"Well, the screenwriter had it right. To take on my powers I drank his blood and to seal the contract he took mine. Quite a lot."

"So you're linked."

And he understood. His Master killed those guarding the relic in Hungary himself, knowing an Angel would be sent. The Death Mark would sense the blood and seek Trick out, bringing him or her right to their trap.

No one could have predicted what had happened next.

Not the demon who held his soul prisoner and certainly not Trick.

His heart, which had been racing when the Angel appeared in front of him on the beach with her flaming sword, began to pound again. This time for a very different reason. Just like in the bar, he felt the attraction pulling him towards her. She was too far away. He moved closer, walking across the loose sand, needing to touch her.

Warily, Evie inched back on her perch. One of the rocks shifted and losing her balance, she started to fall. In an eye-blurring burst of speed, before she could even flap her wings, he was there, catching her up in his arms.

Holding her tightly, he stared into her eyes. They were the color of antique mahogany, each iris edged in gold. The gold seemed to flare and burn with a tiny heavenly fire just like her sword.

She didn't struggle against him, saying only, "Put me down."

He set her in the sand. They were standing very close. The Reaper didn't smell like smoke any longer.

For the space of several breaths, they stood there, moved yet unmoving.

She was glowing. Trick saw it, could almost touch it. That pure, clean light. With her, he felt like the man he had once been, his humanity so tantalizingly within reach. Perhaps that was why he was attracted to the Angel.

Was she redemption?

He had such layers of darkness. If she looked into his eyes with that uncanny vision of hers, she would see them. Could she burn them away? Make him clean again?

He reflected back on his life since he sold his soul. The terrible things he had seen and done. No, there was no way to erase that. She would see. Evie would hate him. What had he been thinking? How could he even touch her with these hands?

Feeling dirty and ashamed, he began to walk away. He would run. To Gogmagog. She could not follow him there. Maybe his master would give him another chance. Find a different Angel. He probably could make himself do it. He could. He had done such dark deeds. Yet he couldn't kill this one. No matter what the consequences.

Evie was the one who set all that was to come in motion. She shivered, fright and flight raging in her heart in equal measure yet unable to stop. Woman now, not Angel. Enchanted, spellbound; her will no longer felt under her control. It was like being alive again. Evie was crossing a line, she knew it. Whether it was the right decision for all the wrong reasons as she had told the young Guardian Angel or the wrong decision for all the right reasons, she didn't know. At this moment in time, it was the only one she could make.

She reached out, grasping his wide palm with her slim fingers and pulled him back beside her. She ran her fingertips along the line of his jaw. His skin was hot to the touch. He stiffened, almost, though not quite pulling back. He could have resisted. Jerked out of her grasp and jumped away.

He did not.

He came to her with almost a moan of surrender.

Trick reached up, putting his hands on her shoulders, running his fingers along the thick bones of her wings. Swallowing his doubts, he met her eyes. Let her see the raw emotion raging inside. His need. His longing for what he could not, should not have. Ever.

What she saw in his face only fueled her own desire. Tilting her head, Evie brushed her lips feather soft along his cheek, feeling the rough stubble of a night's growth. He smelled clean and strong and pure, no longer brimstone, only the searing desert heat of the canyon floor. Was it his magic or her own that held her here? She dropped her sword and unbuckled her belt to gather him closer, crushing her breasts against his chest, feeling his arms tighten with equal longing.

She was Earthbound and down. Falling, falling into such sweet sin. Flexing her beautiful white wings, she brought them around to shield them both from the worlds above and below.

**Chapter 11**

Almost hesitantly their lips sought each other's. The complete vulnerability of that first kiss held them, each helpless to defend themselves. Dead or alive or somewhere in between, they could no longer stop even if they wanted to.

Evie felt the shape of his mouth, the sensuous lift to his upper lip before Trick could hold back no longer. He had to taste her, feel her tongue dancing with his. Hesitantly, then with growing confidence, he pressed his mouth to hers. The passion was so strong she could taste it on his lips, savor it running down her throat.

He burned and she burned with him.

Tugging at the velcro straps, her top came away in Trick's hands. His Master's own Death Mark glowed bright crimson on one round, full breast. A mark she could not see. He covered it with his mouth, kissing the evil away. Sealing his own fate. Her boots and leggings came off and he paused to stare. How perfect is a woman's body to a man, he thought. Breasts, belly and below, like a ripe peach peeking out from between soft, round thighs. Was there anything more beautiful? Then she was tugging at his jeans, sliding them down, revealing his desire for her hard and strong, knocking against his flat belly. She touched him, running her long fingers across the skin and he moaned. The feel of her touch set off a bliss that rippled across his body, surging in waves of pleasure.

Under her hands, he throbbed. Evie pressed herself to him, pushing against his belly. Holding tightly, he turned her around, her back against him. Trick ran his hands over her breasts, feeling the full heavy flesh nestle into each palm, lightly stroking her as she sighed with pleasure.

He pushed her against the rocks so she supported herself on her hands. Spreading her thighs, he ran his fingertips through the exquisitely soft skin, gently touching her as his lips played over her neck and shoulders. She lifted herself higher, arching her back instinctively so he could reach further. For a time he just stroked her, running his mouth over the soft skin of her back, around her wing bones, feeling her shivers of anticipation.

Evie moaned, low and long, reveling in the delirious sensations of his breath, lips, tongue, and fingers playing over her. His tongue circled and darted; his hot breath making her shiver, the tantalizing touch of his fingers setting off a chain reaction of sensation that swiftly built to explosive levels. Turning her to face him, he slowly slid down to his knees in the sand. Nipping at her, blowing and circling, he could feel her excitement building, taste the sweet essence. She began to cry out, quick sharp bursts that sounded almost like cries of pain. But they were not. The pleasure surged from to every part of her body and she clutched at the rocks to keep from falling, her legs suddenly weak. He thrust his tongue further, into that beautiful secret place and the feelings built again to an unbearable level.

Crying out, she suddenly could not stand and falling, he caught her, her wings trailing in the sand. Trick kicked out his jacket and shirt, making a small nest for them and laid her down. Running his hands between her thighs.

Such intimacy. They were beyond human and it was terrifying how they must reveal themselves to each other. There was no hiding. Not their strengths, nor their weaknesses. She saw his desire, felt the urgency and fear pounding in his blood. She reached out. He gasped as she guided him to her, wanting to fill her and complete this perfect storm of emotion no matter the consequences. He moved, lithe and sinuous between her legs, pressing them wider with his own strong thighs. Trailing one hand over her eyes, along her cheek and throat, Trick felt the pulse racing there. Across the sensuous curves of her breasts and waist, then down to the swell of her belly. Her hands on him, she pulled him closer, guiding him to where he so rightly belonged. Those sweet lips parted for him and leaning closer, he kissed her, his tongue in her mouth. She tasted the shadow of her desire on him and it excited her. Their tongues danced back and forth as he inched closer to the well of her desire.

Man and woman fit together with such exquisite symmetry. A perfection of form that went so far beyond function. Anyone who doubted God's existence has never really made love. He pressed forward, feeling her stretch around the size of him. There was no going back now. No retreat for either of them.

Evie pulled him to her. He broke through and she cried out, as though she was a virgin again, pain as swift and sharp as a knife blade shooting through her. She almost pushed him away, she did not think she could take him in. Rising up, he towered over her, his handsome face staring down, brows drawn together in concentration. Hot and hard, the skin burned as they came together, inch by inch. Her wings flexed back and forth, carving out deep grooves in the sand. He pushed forward, his eyes never leaving her face. Relentlessly taking possession, burying himself deeper and deeper still, beyond her body and into her heart.

Overcome, she sobbed, wanting him so very much despite the pain. Damning herself or him, it didn't matter. Flexing her wings, she pushed her torso up to meet him, kissing him hungrily. As she did, she felt the sweet release of tension. With a wild cry of elation, he was fully within her.

An indescribable pleasure filled her body. A fullness of being that went so far beyond mere physical sensation. The perfect balance of tension and release. He began to rock, moving his hips to the rhythm of this dance. Her hips followed his, shadowing every movement and together they stepped effortlessly into a choreography laid out so long ago.

Trick felt her muscles clenched around him, silk and steel in equal measure as he moved. He fell upon her with his lips, kissing every part of her he could reach: her mouth, her eyes, the arch of her white throat, the tiny curve of her ears. Stroking and touching, needing to memorize every part of her body, overcome not with what he had done but the fact he would never be allowed to do it again.

Their first and last time together.

His Master would damn him for this, chain him in a place where the release of death was only a vain hope. He didn't care. Trick held his Angel, her nails digging into his back, pushing and pulling within that velvet sheath again and again. He would hold this memory to him in the agony to come.

Falling, falling. Earthbound and down.

Rising high on his hips, pressing against her and the sweet spot he knew was waiting there, he increased the rhythm, the muscles in his thighs clenched tightly. Evie's breath came faster and faster until she could not breathe at all. The feelings building, cresting and crashing down. Those sweet sensations filled her inside and out with an ecstasy so primal she could not stop the tears coursing down her face. To feel this here, now, with him. She had never thought or hoped for such a thing after her transition. At that moment, at last, she understood how two people could sacrifice everything for a few brief moments together – as she had thrown aside her mandate to be with him.

A Reaper.

The Enemy.

He leaned down, his cheek brushing hers, his words a whisper soft touch across her lips; "Come again, come again my Angel." And he moved hard and deep, filling her to the brim with ecstasy until it ran over and through her entire body stronger than the waves breaking on the shore.

Evie stared up at him. He seemed enormous from where she lay. The muscles in his shoulders and arms knotted with tension, the flat lines of his abdomen clenched tightly. She looked into his sea green eyes as nothing except a woman. Trick couldn't wait any longer.

"Now," he moaned, "please, now."

Holding him tightly, Evie arched her back as he pressed into her faster and faster until with a cry of defiance, he filled her. He rode it out, the ecstasy lasting longer, so intense at the end he collapsed on top of her, breathing hard and fast, the sweat running down his face. She held him with her thighs and arms, still feeling him inside.

Earthbound and down.

After a time, Trick shifted his body, pulling her with him so they lay side by side in the sand. He felt her muscles pulsing, every nerve alive.

The gulls were waking up, calling out across the shallows.

"Why?" Evie asked.

Trick understood what she needed to know with that one word.

"My mama died young, after she lost baby sister. I think she just gave up. The desert can be a terrible place, especially on a woman. Daddy went a few years later from bad water. One day Mathew, he was the oldest by a couple of years, took two of the horses and rode east. That was the last we ever saw of him. My older sister Missy married a boy from town. Eventually, just my little brother James and me were left on the home place. James was a good boy and I saw in him the possibility to become a great man. The teacher in town helped him to get a scholarship. He was smarter than the whole family put together. Hell, the whole town! Can you imagine in those days out in the middle of nowhere, a chance to go to college back East? Then he got bit by a sidewinder. A stupid accident. One careless moment and those dreams were evaporating like a drop of water in the hot sun. Did I mention how much I hate the desert?"

Evie shook her head. His western accent had become stronger as he told the story, a true drawl.

"Well, I do. Usually, a healthy fellow can survive a snake bite but not always. James was eighteen years old and he was going to die. Now I didn't matter so much. I had turned into a bit of a wastrel. Figured I'd end up shot in a gun fight or stabbed over cards. Anyway, I knew some people who knew some people. They found me a Skinwalker. Navajo fellow. Very different from their Shamans. All evil and darkness. He had no love for white men, I can tell you. 1879 Arizona? He practically paid me for the ceremony. Well, that Skinwalker was the real deal. Called up a big time demon and we negotiated our terms."

"Demon, not the Devil?"

He gave her an astonished look, "Course not the, the..." he hesitated as though unwilling to say the word directly. " _Him_. Nobody can actually summon that order of consciousness. You should know that, Angel. My master is Marcus, a very high order demon."

"Marcus? Your demon is called Marcus?"

He made a face. "Not every dark lord is named after something that sounds like a Greek dessert read backward. In fact, I know a heroin addicted wraith called Bruce. Which is probably what got him into drugs in the first place."

"Are you sorry?"

"For Bruce?"

It was her turn to make a face.

Trick was about to make a joke of it, turn the conversation along a different path. Somehow he couldn't. Not with her. Staring up into the sky as the blush of sunrise tried to break through the gray cloud cover and chase away the darkness, he finished his story.

"James studied law and championed the rights of small farmers, helping to establish a bank especially for their needs. His son took up the call of water rights for the poor – which in a place like Arizona is vital. That boy became a State Senator. I've got great-great nieces and nephews all of whom put the good of others before themselves. They've done wonderful things. What legacy would I have left?"

She ran her fingers through his hair, following the dark brown waves with her fingertips, tucking the strands over one ear. "You never had the chance to find out."

An accented voice called out from nearby, "Anyone hungry? I'm always starving after sex."

Evie and Trick scrambled up and out of the sand. Evie grabbed her sword and scabbard. Trick, moving into a fighter's crouch, gathered up a large handful of sand. Summoning his power, he shaped it into a flaming ball that hissed and sputtered like lava.

There in front of them stood the elegant Fallen with one gray wing, dressed in a different yet equally elegant velvet suit. At his side, one of the black dogs held the handles of a large brown paper bag between its long teeth. The other two panted just behind. Almost casually the man signed a complex rune in the air. A symbol flashed out from a burst of darkness. Instantly Evie and Trick were enclosed within a ring of black flame that burned deep into the sand.

Trick threw the flaming fireball straight at the Baron. The ball seemed to hit an invisible barrier and ricocheted off, knocking Trick down and singeing off part of an eyebrow. Evie drew her sword – which can cut through anything – except, it seemed, this dark spell. The wall of flame merely bent around the blade. Putting all her weight behind it and fanning her wings to increase the pressure, she was only able to inch forward. No matter how hard she tried, she could not break through.

The Baron waited as they exhausted every spell and power between them. Breathing heavily they stood side by side, staring at the Fallen.

"All done now are we? Good." Taking the bag from the black dog, he removed a cardboard carrier with two cups and a smaller bag, all with the familiar green logo. Reaching easily through the flames, he set them in the sand. "There's a branch right across from the Redondo Beach Police Department that opens at four a.m. You know that already, don't you Miss Grace? Let's see, an iced espresso is your regular order. At least that's what the Barista there said."

Evie stared. He had tracked her.

The Fallen wagged a finger in her direction, "Ah, you see, you are not the only detective. Your scent, incidentally, is lovely. Like fresh lavender. And you, Mr. McKitrick. My sentinels crisscrossed the city looking for your scent. Then you gave the Voodoo master your blood. Very careless. Might as well have sent up a flare." He made explosive motions with his hands, giving a snort of disdain. "It has been a rather tiresome two days. Here we are at last. All's well that ends well." He pointed at the other cup. "A hot latte with an extra shot, Reaper. Just guessing, I hope it meets your approval. Oh, I added a few things to snack on. _Bon appetit._ "

From the large bag, he removed an oversized plastic cup filled with a frothy green mixture topped with whipped cream. Taking a deep drink, the Fallen gave a sigh, "I do like these green tea confections." He removed a fourth cup, a clear plastic one, the condensation from the ice beading up on the side, and set it on the sand nearer the cliff.

Digging his jeans out of the sand, Trick gave them a shake and pulled them on. Evie quickly slipped into her yoga pants and the now very sandy tank top, slapping the velcro straps together. She picked up the little bag and looked inside. Choosing a blueberry scone, still warm, she took a bite.

Trick gave her an incredulous look.

One eyebrow raised, she looked right back at him. "What? I love blueberry scones. And he's right, I'm always starving after sex, too."

Giving a resigned shrug, he picked up his cup and took a drink. It was warm but not hot. Generating a little burst of heat, he warmed it up between his palms.

The three massive black dogs ran around in circles, chasing the foam in the waves behaving for all the world like frighteningly oversized labradors. Kneeling, the Baron picked up a stick of driftwood and tossed it out to sea. Barking madly, the dogs dashed after it.

"They are really much happier as dogs," he said watching them.

She and Trick sat trapped inside the magic circle. They sipped their coffees and waited for the Baron to explain. It wasn't as if they really had a choice. The dogs ran back and forth on the beach, the Baron drank his green tea concoction and Evie couldn't help thinking that they must look for all the world like a little gathering of friends and their dogs to someone looking down from above. Until you saw the high black flames dancing and the size of the dogs' teeth.

With a last slurping sip, the Fallen tossed the drink aside. The dogs, reading his posture, became suddenly alert, returning to stand sentinel once again.

"The relic. I would like to see it now."

Evie looked at Trick and saw his face flush.

Trick pulled his jacket out from where it sat, half buried in the sand from their lovemaking. Reaching into an inside zippered pocket, he took out a slim, cylindrical leather case. Old and worn looking, it was tied round with a number of knotted leather straps threaded through dozens of tiny, complex metal and stone amulets.

She stared from the case to him, anger burning through her.

"You had it all along."

Trick said nothing, his eyes on the Fallen.

"Open it."

Trick began to unwrap the binding. With each complex knot he untied and every charm unhooked, Evie thought she could see an emanation begin to leak from the case. A miasma of evil pressing against the amulets and spells designed to keep whatever power lay inside contained. Little tendrils of darkness thrust themselves out, turning and twisting in the air as though questing for prey. One last knot and the Reaper flipped back the top revealing a thin-bladed weapon no longer than a man's hand. Evie felt her heart constrict at the sight of it. Even from where she stood, she could sense it pulsing with deadly menace, almost as if the metal was alive.

The Baron smiled, "Now kill her."

Chapter 12

Trick dropped the relic as though it burned him.

The Fallen gave an impatient flick of the flight feathers on his gray wing. "Why is it people grow a conscience at the most inconvenient times?"

"What does it do," Evie whispered.

"The relic kills Angels," Trick replied just as quietly.

She looked at him, appalled.

"Truthfully, it can kill anything," said the Baron. "Anything. One time use only. But, and this is a very important 'but', only in human hands. Not demon, not Angel, Fallen or otherwise. Despite his current powers, Mr. McKitrick is still human or at least human enough at his core. The relic was meant to kill you. He was meant to kill you with it."

Trick reached out and touched her right breast with one fingertip, directly over her heart, and whispered an incantation. At his touch, his master's rune burst into light, shining right through the cotton top. Looking down she saw the Demon Mark for the first time. Saw and understood.

The world narrowed to just the two of them.

"So that's what was meant to happen? Chat me up in the bar. Then, in the alley, the Baron knocks me out and you do the dirty deed."

Staring at the glowing Mark, a nearly desperate look of misery on his face, Trick said, "Marcus promised me my freedom if I did this last service for him. I didn't know it would be you, not until the alley."

She made a sound between anger and exasperation, "And that made it all right? You didn't know it would be me but you were prepared to kill another Angel?"

"Yes, no, I don't know! Damn it Evie, from the moment I saw you bite down on that big green olive, Dirty Martini in one hand, it was over. You took far more from me in those brief moments in that bar than anything the demon ever has or ever will."

He looked directly into Evie's eyes, never an easy thing to do with an Angel. They see far more than you would like them to. She looked back, deep and then deeper still; reading the man that lay behind the sea-green gaze, seeing the evil he had done – or been forced to do. How much he hated himself and this half life. The desperation that pushed him towards that final bargain with his Master. She saw herself there as well, then Trick could bear her ethereal stare no longer. He looked away, his face pale as death.

The Baron made an impatient sound. His three sentinels moved silently to place themselves around the circle of flame, red tongues lolling over long, pointed teeth.

"Don't make this more personal than it needs to be, Mr. McKitrick. Kill her so I can take what I want."

Growling, the dogs pressed closer.

"I can probably make you and if I can't, which I doubt, your Master should be here shortly and most certainly will."

Trick said nothing. Quickly tying one of the leather strips, he closed the deadly case and slipped it into his back pocket. When he faced the Fallen, it was with a sly, sure smile. "Let him come then. I wouldn't be so hasty to welcome him, Baron. What makes you think Marcus told me to use the relic on her? There was more than one Angel in that alley, after all."

The elegant man's eyes widened.

There was a pop like a small caliber pistol going off and the smell of burning.

The Fallen looked over towards the base of the cliff and smiled, though his eyes showed a very different emotion. "Hello Marcus, I've got you an iced latte."

Evie saw the blood as it flushed through Trick's arms and chest, his muscles suddenly tense, adrenaline pumping, ready for battle. She looked from Trick to the Master of his soul. Like the Fallen, the demon was dressed in the manner of an old-time aristocrat, though of a slightly later date: slim trousers tucked into polished Hessian boots, cutaway coat, cravat, vest and watch fob all in the colors of coal black and ash gray. Tall and heavyset, his features were blunt, very different from the fine, delicate planes of the Fallen's face. He wore his thick, wavy brown hair pulled back in a simple ponytail that hung halfway down his back. The only thing that gave him away, supernaturally speaking, was a long tail standing up in the air behind him like an exclamation point. Flicking it out as he approached them, he wrapped it around the iced coffee and brought the cold drink to his hand.

"How kind. My favorite." Taking a long drink, he gave their little group a slow assessing look as he sipped.

The Fallen's sentinels closed ranks. Transforming in one fluid motion from dogs to whatever the three silent beings were. Trick stepped closer to Evie, never taking his eyes off Marcus. Evie had once more picked up her sword. She flexed her fingers around the grip, swinging the blade in a circular motion to loosen her muscles. They all seemed to be waiting for something, though Evie wasn't sure what.

The cloud ceiling was very low and they heard the rushing of wings before they saw the swarm. Flying demons dropped from the sky, short, jagged swords drawn. They rained down around the Fallen like hail, screaming. Behind Marcus, higher demons jumped from the cliff, throwing spells like daggers at the Fallen and his dark guards.

With a tight smile, the Baron flicked his fingers and the black wall of flame trapping them in the circle dropped. "My enemy's enemy is my friend, eh children?"

Evie's sword flamed into life, filling her with righteous anger. The Death Mark above Trick's head flared as well and it was all Evie could do to restrain the sword from striking him down then and there. Her sword, like her wings, was always trying to think for itself.

The demons surrounded her and for a time all was teeth, blood, talons and the overpowering smell of death. Trick had kicked a sword out of one demon's hands and was using it to carve a path towards Marcus. To what end, Evie wasn't sure. As she battled, she saw the Death Mark waver then move resolutely away, coming to a stop directly above his master. There it flared brighter still. Marcus saw the Mark and laughed. He waved at her mockingly.

Her sword urging her forward, Evie moved to follow Trick only to be cut off by a series of sharp, black spells thrown by an enormous high demon that swooped in, carried by several of the flying demons and dropped practically on top of her.

More and more demons – both high and low – joined until she and the Fallen were trapped within a virtual maelstrom of supernatural mayhem. The demons' leathery wings whipped up the sand into a gritty curtain and she lost sight of both Trick and Marcus.

None of the demons raised a blade against the Reaper though he killed any he could reach. Most fell back before him, opening a path across the sand. Trick and Marcus stood isolated in the carnage raging around them. Their eyes locked.

"You have the relic, Trick. Do it. Kill her or better yet kill the Fallen. Alliances have changed, obviously, and I no longer need him. But kill _someone_ damn it and all will be forgotten."

Trick removed the leather case from his pocket and took out the needle-like dagger. "I could kill you."

"Could you? Would you like to try? Here, I'll make it easier for you." Pulling at his waistcoat and ripping the buttons from his shirt, the demon exposed his chest. "Go on, strike."

With a cry of rage Trick flew at him, the dagger held with deadly intent. Using all his strength he brought it down directly over the demon's heart and there it stopped. No matter how much pressure he brought to bear, the sliver of metal would not move any closer. Drawing back he tried different attacks: the demon's throat, his belly, his eyes. Each time the dagger stopped of its own volition and no amount of trying could inch it forward.

Throwing his head back, Marcus gave a harsh bark of laughter. "I am your Master, Trick. You cannot harm me directly. That is how the contract works. You should always read the fine print. Now go, I command you to kill her, then bring me her wings. I want to see what all the fuss is about flying."

Trick was breathing hard, the blood pounding in his temples, "No."

"That wasn't a request you insignificant desert rat."

Marcus' hands flew up into a complicated series of movements. A spill of runes ran in dark shadows from his fingertips to fall onto Tricks arms and legs. The shadows hit him hard, forcing him to his knees in agonizing pain as they dug their way in, boring through flesh and bone.

Marcus spread his fingers and with another laugh, began to wiggle them. Trick's body jerked spasmodically. His legs pushed him back into a standing position. Desperately he tried to throw the relic from him to no avail. He could not control his fingers. Trick watched as though from a great distance as his hands positioned the deadly weapon to strike. Marcus had become the puppet master, pulling his strings. Trick walked jerkily towards Evie and the Fallen, unable to stop himself.

The storm of demons parted before him, sliding away to either side like butter off a hot knife. They were screaming and calling to each other, as pod demons do, and the noise was deafening. Praying that Marcus had not thought to take his voice, Trick called out to Evie.

"I'm here," she said, her voice faint above the unholy din.

He saw the flash of her sword. She slashed at a higher demon cutting him completely in half, opening a space between them.

Holding the needle-slim dagger, he could not stop himself from closing the distance. "Evie, kill me. Use your sword. Marcus is controlling me, I can't..." He broke off as his Master, realizing the error, took his voice.

Evie looked from the relic raised to strike, the evil reaching out like taloned fingers, then to Trick's face.

His lips mouthed the words, 'Kill me.' In his eyes she clearly saw the agony and desperation as he fought vainly against his Master's control.

Her sword sensed the danger as well, flaming higher and brighter, pulling her forward. She had to force her arm down to keep it from striking. "I won't, I can't! No Trick, there must be another way."

She threw all her power into warding spells trying to break the Demon's hold, pull him from that deadly grip. Trick fought with her, fought a battle magic to magic with his Master as fierce as any on the battlefield. Control, he needed just one moment of control. ' _Heavenly Father,'_ he pleaded silently, ' _please, please._ '

The Fallen was near. Trick felt him. For a moment, as happens in battle, their eyes met. The Baron's were scarlet with fury. At his feet, one of his sentinels clutched its side, a terrible wound from a spell shredding the creature from the inside out. The sentinel whined, a sad dog-like sound, the first Trick had heard the sentinels make, and then, went very quiet. Still staring at Trick, the Fallen gave a slight inclination of his head.

Miraculously, Trick felt Marcus' control lift completely, though only for seconds he was sure. With one last look at the Angel, he whispered, "I love you Miss Evie Grace, forever and always, in this life and the next."

Trick plunged the evil dagger into his own chest.

Chapter 13

Trick fell at her feet, both hands still clasping the blade piercing his heart. His sea-green eyes stared into hers. The pain only lasted for a moment. During those short seconds before eternity took him he saw not his childhood nor his mother and father, not the torments of more than a century of enslavement. He saw these last two days and every moment he had spent with Evie. Her face in the bar, sneaking looks at him while he sneaked looks back. Her body naked and shining next to him in the hotel room with those damn wings all over the bed. Then later, with sweet abandon on the beach as she let him enter her, forcing fate to take this course. They were just seconds but they seemed to go on and on and Trick was happy. Happy to the very end.

Evie watched the light go out in his eyes. She lay one hand on his chest. He was still warm, burning with the last vestige of his power until, in seconds, that, too, was gone. His body now only an empty shell. The love and laughter, his kiss, his touch, everything that was Nathan McKitrick taken from her by the demon.

Vengeance surged through Evie like liquid fire. Her wings flared out. Molten with rage, the air around her burst into flame, surging, burning. At her feet, the sand melted and turned to glass. She became terrifying in her avatar, her Avenging Spirit made fully manifest. Running, she fell upon Marcus with her flaming sword sworn to vengeance. He was an old demon and very strong. He fought confidently at first, sure of his powers, his spells – and the wicked blade he pulled from the scabbard at his back. That confidence did not last long. She pressed her attack, heedless of the pain of his spells and blows, relentless.

Vengeance her mandate.

Vengeance her will.

He ran finally, trying to trance jump up the cliff. Her wings were swifter. He signed a transference spell hoping to vaporate into smoke. Evie's counter spell was faster. He summoned the rest of the demon host yet Evie's sword was unstoppable. They battled up and down the beach until at last, they stood by Trick's body. His beautiful eyes closed forever now.

Remembering how those eyes looked so lovingly into her own, the passion she had seen there, Evangeline Grace, Avenging Angel, gave a cry of anguish. Channeling her fury into energy, she created a fireball that swept from her outstretched arms to engulf the beach and all upon it in a terrible revenge.

The fire burned for a very long time. When the flames at last died down and the dark ash of the charred corpses began to blow out to sea, nothing remained on the beach except the Fallen, his two surviving sentinels, Evie and Trick. Breathing heavily, her sword still glowing white hot with the passion of her righteousness, she knelt down next to his still body. Laying aside her sword and cradling his head in her lap, she kissed his lips, now cold. So cold.

She said very quietly and very clearly, "Bring him back, Baron. Bring him back to me. You are the Fallen. I know you can."

Though he was nowhere near her, she could feel the immense aura of his power, dark and hard as tempered steel. He was far older and far stronger than her. The two sentinels turned to dogs and cringed, whimpering and fawning at his feet.

After a time he spoke. "Nothing comes without a price, even for an Angel."

She looked up, meeting his flat gray eyes, unflinching. "Name it."

The Baron swept her a courtly bow worthy of the eighteenth-century aristocrat he so resembled. Raising his sword, he walked to her.

**Chapter 14**

Trick's eyes fluttered open, those sea green eyes. Lifting his hand he rubbed them as though waking from a deep sleep. He yawned and then smiled at her, a newborn smile of dazzling honesty.

"Hello, Angel."

Evie sobbed.

He was up on his elbow in an instant, his face creased with concern. Looking down he saw the blood on his chest and above it, a small white scar. Everything came rushing back in a whirlwind. A kaleidoscope of images: the swarm of demons, Marcus, the evil dagger, his desperate effort to save Evie and the Fallen's unexpected help. Finally, the thrust of the knife into his chest. The relic had been cold, a terrible cold that choked him, pulling him into the darkness. A darkness that had turned to light in those long, last moments as he remembered the Angel.

In Evie's eyes, he saw those events mirrored, watched as they filled with tears, spilling down her cheeks one silver drop after the other.

"I'm so glad Trick, so very glad."

He reached round to grab her shoulders, pull her to him and kiss away the tears. Automatically his hands sought to avoid the thick bones of her wing blades. Inexplicably one hand slid right over.

Almost afraid to look, he felt the flat shoulder blade where her magnificent wing had been.

"Evie, your wing." He gave her a stricken look. "Where is your other wing?"

She flushed, folding the remaining wing behind her back, hiding her shame. Trick felt the emotions running through her. Courage, pride, remorse. Then she stared into his eyes with that uncanny vision and he saw the rest.

"You did it for me."

"This was the only way to save you. He brought you back. The Baron."

"For your wing."

She nodded, "That's what this was all about, Trick. Marcus had a bargain with the Baron. Why you were supposed to kill me. For my wing. Even with all his power, he couldn't take it from my living body. I could..." Her voice caught in her throat. "I could, however, give it to him of my own free will."

He grasped her hand and said so softly it was just a whisper, "I'm not worth saving."

She thought of what she had seen each time she looked into his heart and soul. Yes, his soul was still there, right where it should be though he knew it not. Part of the demon's magic, to hide such small comfort, make him think all links to God's ear severed. He should have more faith.

"Nathan McKitrick you are worth saving a thousand times over. You, too, are meant for great things. Far greater than your brother." Extending her one wing she brought it around, caressing his face gently with the long, flexible flight feathers.

Running his fingers lightly over the feathers, he said, "Let me see."

Her tank top had been burned to threads in the flaming. Folding the wing away, she turned her back to him. Where her wing had been was a wide, raised scar.

He reached out to touch it, then pulled back as though afraid. "Oh, Evie, Evie. I am so sorry to have been the cause of your fall from grace. Did it... did it hurt?"

On this one thing, at least, she could reassure him. "No. He could have made it terrible for me, unbearable. Unaccountably, he didn't. I don't know why."

Saying so much without saying anything at all, they came together. Evie held him tightly, reveling in the strong beating of his heart next to hers. She had been so close to losing him forever. Her wing, as beautiful and perfect as it was, remained only an appendage. What was that in comparison to a life? He had been ready to sacrifice everything to keep her safe, he would do it again. How could she not do the same?

They made love, slowly, carefully, as though each was afraid the other would break apart and blow away in the sea wind. The desperation of their first encounter replaced by wonder at their survival. The fact that somehow, miraculously they were together. For however long that was. Evie could not touch him enough, her hands stroked him restlessly, her fingertips memorizing every inch as though he might vanish at any moment. He almost had.

Side by side, he held her tightly. Her heart beating next to his. A light rain began to fall, blown in from the sea, spattering over the sand, wetting their hair and skin. The waves crashed, nearly reaching them. They never felt the rain nor heard the sea's roar.

With her remaining wing, she gently pushed him back into the sand, sliding off his jeans and her soft pants. Gracefully she positioned herself over him, straddling his strong hips with her thighs. Evie leaned over until her breasts brushed his chest, caressing the flat hard planes of his body, her long, tangled hair on his face. His back arched and he moaned. She grasped him, feeling him engorged with blood and desire.

For a time she just stared, thinking and yet trying not to think of all she had done. For him and to herself. He was breathing hard, chest rising and falling in anticipation. She moved him to the dark sheath of muscles between her legs, watching him watching her. He pushed up, trying to enter but she tipped her hips away, the goal just out of reach. They looked into each other's eyes, then much deeper. Enough. She positioned him where he wanted to be – where she wanted him to be. Moving her hips exquisitely, slowly, she pushed down.

Trick gasped, feeling the pressure as he tried to enter. Supporting herself on her arms, she arched her back, raising her full hips just a little. Unable to restrain himself any longer, Trick grabbed onto her with his broad, strong hands and pressed her down. The skin burst through and the rest of him followed. Her muscles clamped tightly and convulsively around him and he moaned as the sensation ripped across his nervous system, spreading over his hips to climb up his spine and explode everywhere at once. He throbbed in time to her passion. And his.

Evie rocked back and forth, reveling in the sensation of him. She had given up so much for this Reaper, yet she could not regret it. Even now, maimed as she was, she felt beautiful and whole and so very much more than just alive. Maybe saving him is what she was meant to do all along. The reason for her transition from human to Avenging Angel and now to this. As Father Cortez said, change doesn't always happen to us. Often it happens because of us.

The rain slicked her hair down on her head and she suddenly looked very young and very human. With a cry, Trick sat up, pulling her to him, saying her name, holding her so tightly he knew it would leave bruises, however fleeting, on her skin. He couldn't stop himself. She had given up so much for him, fought so hard. How could he deserve this?

Evie seemed to know what he was thinking. She held him just as tightly, sheltering him with her remaining wing, whispering words into his ear. Afterward, she couldn't even remember what she said but gradually, slowly, the awful tension and anguish left him. Then his lips were once again on hers.

She stretched her legs over his thighs and his arms wrapped around her waist. He was hot, she could feel the heat coming off him and it inflamed her. He increased the rhythm and she held her breath, the passion building, centering, then spreading far and fast, unstoppable. She cried out, falling back, trusting his arms to hold her up, letting the wild storm of feelings sweep her along.

Letting go of the pain and fear and doubt, he followed her down in the sand. Pulling himself on top of her now, never ceasing his movements. He held her close, pushing his chest and belly into hers, his arms under her shoulders. She whispered his name, and he felt the release. The climax took him like a storm, nearly shattering what little control he had over himself after the events on the beach. It was almost painful, as though she was drawing out all the poison of his past life, burning it away with the purity of her spirit. No longer some horrible half-demon. For the first time since 1879, he felt like a man again. A man with a life worth living. Someone worth living for.

They held each other for a long time, the silence full of words unsaid. Words that did not need to be voiced to be heard. Evie shivered, feeling the chill at last though the rain had stopped. Trick gently withdrew, stopping to kiss her once more on each eye.

Buried in the sand and slightly singed, his shirt lay in a pile with some of their other clothes. Shaking it out, he ripped at one seam, clumsily fashioning an opening for her remaining wing and then buttoned it up over her chest.

"There, that'll do until we can get you some proper clothes."

He dug out her short leather boots. Everything smelled like smoke. Her socks had disappeared somewhere in the melee as had his T-shirt and shoes.

"So now I work for..." he raised his eyes and pointed up.

She smiled, punching him playfully in the shoulder. "No silly, you work for me. By killing Marcus, I inherited your contract. Whatever he promised you about your freedom was a lie. All contracts have to run their full term – even if you come back from the dead. 'Death' being a somewhat fluid term in our worlds. I'm the one who no longer directly works for..." she pointed up as well. "Or not until I get my wing back and redeem myself. A Celestial paid me a visit while you were, um, away. I need to learn humility."

Despite the gravity of the situation, Trick couldn't stop a little snort of laughter.

Evie gave him an affronted stare.

Instantly he was all contrition, "No Evie, I didn't, I meant..."

Evie was nothing if not honest and couldn't help seeing the humor in it as well. "I know, right? Humility. Of all things. Going to be a long way back up Jacob's Ladder for the both of us."

"Was it because of you and me, because we had..."

"Sex?"

He reached out to wrap his hands around her head and bring her face closer, "We did not have 'sex', Miss Grace. We shared something far more significant than those three letters imply."

Giving him a lingering kiss, she agreed. "I know, and no. That is not why I am being censured. I questioned my mandate."

"I made you question your mandate."

"Stop interrupting and let me finish!"

He made a zipping motion over his lips and she continued. "Passion, as I said, is part of what makes an Avenging Angel tick. That wasn't it. Nor that I questioned my orders. As it turns out, questioning is good. Who knew? Complacency is what's bad. And pride. That's worse. The Celestials felt I should have presented them with my doubts instead of just barging ahead, thinking I had all the answers. I'm a bit..."

"Pig-headed? Stubborn?"

She glared at him and he made the zipping motion again. "I was going to say, independent, thank you very much. Anyway. I am in a heavenly time-out for now."

"But we'll be together."

"We will."

"Then that's okay. We'll make it better, Evie."

For a time they stood, staring out to sea, wrapped in each other's arms. "You're going to miss flying. I can teach you how to trance jump. Not as good as flying, I know."

Without warning, he was enveloped in a burst of white smoke shot through with bright flashes of gold. His arms dropped as Evie was suddenly gone. Just as quickly the smoke cleared only to burst out again. She waved from the top of a tall boulder farther down the beach. In a moment she was back by his side.

"Actually, I can still vaporate."

"Okay, Angel cool factor still remains off the paranormal charts."

He pointed to the leather scabbard at her side, her sword waiting for her in the sand. Indeed no other hand could raise it except hers. "They left you your sword as well."

Lifting the sword, she slipped the bright blade back in the scabbard. "Though slightly altered, my mandate remains even in my tarnished capacity. Avenge the innocents."

"And mine is to find the Baron and get your wing back."

She nodded.

Trick's brows drew together in a look of worry. "He's not going to bring on the apocalypse now or anything is he?"

"The Baron? Oh honestly Trick, this isn't TV! You can't just 'bring on' an apocalypse. That being said, the Baron has waited thousands of years for that wing and I don't think it's so he can go joy riding over Disney World." She stared out at the waves, her mind just as turbulent. How they were to take on a Fallen she couldn't begin to guess. "Even with my full powers I couldn't, I _can't_ defeat him one on one."

Trick flashed her his crooked smile, the one that made his eyes crinkle up at the corners. Walking over to the blackened circle of sand, he dug around until he found the leather case that had held the relic. As Evie watched, he seemed to work some hidden catch at the back of the case and a panel popped open. Just as before, a miasma of evil spilled out. Trick shut it quickly, rewrapping the leather straps covered in protective amulets, locking in the evil.

"To be honest, I left one little detail out of my story. There were two blades in that tiny Hungarian Church my Master apparently raided. I'm not sure if even your handlers knew that. One I was to use on the Angel. The other was for the Baron at some point. Like I said, Marcus had more than one game in play. He just hadn't figured on encountering the formidable Miss Evangeline Grace. Nor had I."

She smiled at Trick. The odds were now just a little more in their favor.

He moved to hand the case to her, saying, "Be careful with it."

She shook her head, "Keep it for me."

Nodding solemnly, he acknowledged the trust she was placing in him. He slipped the spell-bound leather case into his jacket's inner pocket. The jacket had survived the burning more or less in intact.

"So if I'm not a Reaper and you're not an Avenging Angel, what exactly are we?"

She kissed him.

"Ah, that."

He kissed her back, deeply. He had fallen so hard for this woman, he could hardly breathe. Breaking away, he looked into her eyes, opened himself completely to that mesmerizing gaze. "Whatever else we are or become, I will forever and always be that for you, Evie."

Staring back at him, soul to soul, she saw the truth of those words.

Kissing her again, he said, his lips still on hers, "Just please, as my new boss, promise me we don't have to go back to Arizona. I hate that damn desert."

She laughed, loudly, joyously. The clouds lifted and the sun burst out, startling them with its brilliance. The sea shifted from gray to blue and Evie inexplicably felt full of hope. Holding hands, she and Trick jumped from the beach, heading for the Pacific Coast Highway. The road, like their future, stretching out before them in the new morning sun.

_To be continued in_ _Perilous Grace, Avenging Angel 2_ _._
**Author Bio** : Eden Crowne is from San Francisco, California. In her other life, she is an international journalist writing on technology, pop culture, trends, and travel in Asia. She calls Tokyo, Vienna, London and L.A. home. She loves traveling, champagne, hanging out with her kids, espresso at sidewalk cafes, people watching, swimming at tropical beaches where there are no sharks lying in wait to eat swimmers, flying long-haul flights with _no_ turbulence, and laughing like crazy – though not always in that order.

If you are interested in receiving emails from Eden about new books, story and character insights, and giveaways, please join her mailing list at: www.edencrowne.com.

Check out these other supernatural thrillers from Eden Crowne:

Perilous Grace: Avenging Angel 2

Deadly Grace: Avenging Angel 3

Dust to Dust: Fangs For Your Memories

Dust To Dust 2: Witch You Were Here

Dust To Dust 3: Ghost of a Chance

Fear Club, Book 1: Tokyo Masquerade

Deathgods, a Dark Fantasy

