The ryan chronicles seri.., p.60
The Ryan Chronicles Series, page 60
Three more deaths before this lunatic hit us. My daughter was on this list, along with Damian’s wife and kids. I traded a gaze with my business partner and he stared at the map, formulating the same countdown in his head as I had gone through.
“Just out of curiosity, what do the single letters mean?” O’Keefe asked.
“Michael, Uriel, and Raphael,” Damian said. “It denotes which bloodline the person falls under.”
“What about Gabriel?” he asked mockingly.
Damian stared him down. “Gabriel only had one child.”
“And how would you know that?”
The glare Damian sent in his direction chilled the room. “I know.”
Captain O’Keefe started to chuckle like he had truly lost it. “I can’t believe I haven’t thrown you all in jail... or the psych ward.” He kept laughing and when the door swung open without any warning, we all turned.
CJ walked in looking as ragged as I expected, but underneath the tired exterior burned an anger I recognized. My brother was pissed, and that’s never a good thing. The door slammed behind him and silence settled over the room.
“What gives you the right to share that list with anyone, let alone the cops?” he snarled at me. Captain O’Keefe stood from behind the desk, his hand automatically reaching for his sidearm in reaction to CJ’s tone.
“Someone’s collecting angel blood and making the cops think it’s a vampire,” Damian said, pulling CJ’s attention. He gestured towards the map like that would explain our pulling in someone ill-equipped to tangle with the supernatural.
“I suggest you take a seat,” Captain O’Keefe said, leveling a stare meant to intimidate. “Otherwise, I might be inclined to throw you in the holding tank until all this is sorted out.”
CJ turned his glare in the Captain’s direction and his eyes narrowed in warning. “Sit your ass down,” he said in that commanding tone that normal people can’t resist.
O’Keefe sat, but his face registered shock at his complete inability to disregard the given order.
“That list is not for public consumption,” CJ said, but his voice lost the edge it had when he first walked in.
I pointed to the map. “Look at the progression of murders. They are headed directly for us, and Valerie is on that list.” I projected the thought louder than I anticipated and everyone in the room winced at the volume.
Our eyes locked and I could almost hear his thought process. If the killer found Valerie, they would also find Alex. The parental instinct kicked in and everything clicked in his overtired mind. He closed his eyes and dragged a hand down his face with a sigh. He nodded and glanced at O’Keefe.
“Captain, you are out of your element. This will put you in mortal danger.”
O’Keefe actually laughed at him. “I’m a cop. This is what I signed up for.”
“You’re a cop in York, Maine. This isn’t New York City, where you could be shot while sitting in your cruiser,” CJ countered, and I covered the smirk that formed on my lips. “No disrespect,” he added in a much softer voice. “But Damian and my brother are uniquely qualified to deal with this. You aren’t.”
“What exactly are we dealing with,” O’Keefe asked, moving his gaze from CJ to me before landing on Steve. No one spoke and O’Keefe scanned us all again.
“I have to go,” CJ said, and I gave him a nod. Within a blink, the space he occupied vacated and the sudden disappearance of my brother silenced whatever O’Keefe was about to say.
“What the fuck?”
Steve chuckled from his position on the couch. “Jim, you really have no idea what you’re stepping into here.”
“I told you there were things much worse than vampires out there,” I signed, and transmitted the thought. “I just never qualified it in a way you could understand. Think of the biggest bad and multiply it by a thousand.”
He met my gaze while his brain made the connections. “If angels exist...” He trailed off and his face drained of all color. His mind combed over the entire conversation in a matter of seconds, shuffling and reshuffling all the details like a black jack dealer. “Why would the devil need to regenerate?” he asked after a few minutes of silence.
“Because CJ nearly destroyed him,” Damian said.
I guess he figured with CJ’s grand exit, there was nothing left to hide.
“What?” He blinked, like someone had thrown sand in his eyes.
“There are only a few people on this earth who have danced with the devil and survived the ordeal. As circumstances would have it, they have all lived under my roof at one time or another.” Steve said.
I glanced back at him and he sat with his arms crossed, staring at O’Keefe like he’d just delivered his breakfast order instead of confirmed the existence of the devil. I returned my gaze to Captain O’Keefe.
“Is he...” He pointed to where CJ had stood but I cut him off with a shake of my head.
“No. CJ isn’t an angel. He’s a descendant like we are.” I transmitted the thought and waved my finger between Damian and me.
O’Keefe glanced at Damian and then turned the pages in the book before he glanced back up. “Any relation to Naomi, Grace, Gabriel and Michael Andreas?”
Damian nodded. “My wife and children,” he said.
O’Keefe glanced at the names again. “You aren’t listed in this book.”
Damian huffed a laugh. “That’s because I’m Gabriel’s son.”
O’Keefe stared at him. “You are an offspring of an archangel?” His voice cracked and his eyebrows arched. He slowly stood and turned, looking out his window, processing everything. “Then what is he. No human can just disappear like that.” He snapped his fingers and turned back to us.
“He... inherited my ability to be in two places at once,” Steve said from the couch.
O’Keefe pointed at him. “You never explained that shit to me.”
Steve cracked a smile. “You never offered to buy me a drink.”
O’Keefe muttered under his breath but kept eye contact. “So what are you?”
“An ex-FBI agent who happened to inherit more than just money from Ty Ryan and his wife.”
“Who, I am assuming, were also descendants?”
“Yup.”
“So, does being an angel descendant warrant...” he waved towards the empty space and then pointed at me. “Or mind reading and thought projecting like him?”
Steve sighed and shrugged.
“No.” Damian said. “None of the descendants I’ve ever come across had any discernible level of extra sensory perception like these boys do.” He pointed at me. “They seem to be unique in that manner.”
“And how many ‘descendants’ have you been in contact with,” O’Keefe said, with a voice so filled with sarcasm that I let out a huff, catching it before it became an all out laugh.
Damian leaned forward with his eyes narrowed. “Twenty-five-hundred-year’s worth.” He settled back in the seat. “More or less,” he added with a smugness that would have made me grit my teeth had I not been so stunned by his honesty.
Oh fuck. The thought slammed home and my jaw loosened as I stared at Damian wondering what the hell he was thinking. He sent a glare in my direction and focused back on the captain.
O’Keefe’s eyelids were fluttering like hummingbird wings while his mind short-circuited. Even Steve huffed a laugh of disbelief. Damian really shit the bed with this one and I knew what was coming before O’Keefe had a chance to blow sky high.
“What. The. Fuck.” O’Keefe’s baritone voice blared at us. If this had been a cartoon, it would have tipped us all over like a gale force wind.
The door opened and what’s her name poked her head inside. “Is everything all right?”
O’Keefe recovered faster than I expected and his gaze snapped to hers. “Yes. Now close the damned door.”
Her eyes widened just before the door clicked shut, and I glanced back at O’Keefe.
“I think it’s time for you to leave,” O’Keefe growled low and I sighed, standing up with no intention of leaving. I made the come here gesture and he glared at me.
“Just come here,” I said in my head and he paused but stepped closer.
I had never shared anyone’s memories but my own before, and I wasn’t sure how this worked, but I inhaled and concentrated on locking the power behind the door so none of it leaked out. It was hard enough for me to deal with; I’m not sure what it would do to O’Keefe if he got some residual supercharge. Once I was sure I wouldn’t transfer any of CJ’s mojo, I focused on only Damian’s memories and reached out, placing the palm of my hand on his forehead. I held his gaze and sent as much of the memories swarming in my head as I dared.
His breathing became ragged and his eyes glossed over. Sweat broke out under my palm and when he blinked and his eyes refocused on mine, I pulled my hand away and took a seat. Captain O’Keefe slowly dropped into his chair.
His pallid color told me enough, but then his gaze moved beyond me to Steve, and finally settled on Damian. He blinked a few times and licked his lips.
“You were a... a...” He cleared his throat again. “A vampire?”
“Yes.”
O’Keefe wiped his face. “And Lucifer?” he asked without finishing, shuddering at the vision of Lucifer destroying all Damian held dear.
“He’s a joy, isn’t he?”
O’Keefe let out a high-pitched laugh and his gaze landed on Steve again.
“Mind. Blown,” he said staring behind me.
Steve chuckled. “Yeah, I went the denial route at first, myself. But then, seeing the bloodsuckers first hand, well, that seemed to change my entire perspective. And Lucifer is the most terrifying thing I’ve ever come up against.”
His eyes widened.
“Show him, Tom,” Steve said and I glanced behind me, shaking my head.
O’Keefe saved me the pain by clearing his throat. “I’ve seen enough,” he whispered.
Steve let out a laugh and met his gaze. “Do you want to solve the only open case this town has?”
O’Keefe’s incessant blinking was back and his jaw slowly dropped so that his mouth formed a small ‘o’.
“Of course, you wouldn’t be able to formally close the case,” he added and crossed his arms. “But at least you’d know what happened.”
“Are you trying to get arrested?” I signed in his direction and he glared at me for a moment before nodding his head toward the captain.
“Show him what happened the day Damian’s triplets were born,” he ordered.
Angel Blood Chapter 7
I ground my jaw tight, turning back to Captain O’Keefe. The blinking had stopped and he moved his gaze to mine with a quick nod.
I knew better. Nothing could prepare him for the hell he was about to see.
I wondered how wise this was as I zeroed in on that night. The horror of it all from the battle in the cove to the bloodshed over the snow covered lawn.
Damian wouldn’t look at me. Instead, his eyes remained glued to something beyond the window. That night signaled a change for all of us, it opened the doors to where we were now and he blamed himself for bringing all this shit on us.
I sighed and stood.
Captain O’Keefe leaned forward in the chair and I had a moment to be thankful he was sitting because this vision was my own viewpoint, not Damian’s, and it would come with the raw emotion surrounding the entire event.
I knew where to start and I knew where to end, but that didn’t make it any easier to pull the memory out of the box.
“I can handle it,” O’Keefe said, and I met his gaze.
“Yeah, but I’m not sure I can,” I transmitted, and steadied my breathing.
When my palm touched his forehead, the entire ordeal roared back.
STEVE GUIDED US ACROSS the snow-covered lawn toward Paradise cove. CJ and I followed the group and every muscle in my body wound tight. This was as bad as the anticipation of the psycho’s knife. I wasn’t sure if we would walk out of this, even with my brother’s incredible power, and all I wanted to do was hold Raven tight and protect her from harm. CJ glanced at me and I gave him a slight nod. He could feel my apprehension as we crossed onto the narrow path leading to the cove.
“This is the perfect place for an ambush,” Damian muttered while glancing at the close proximity of the tree lines on both sides. My eyes darted to the dark woods as well.
“You’ll be okay,” CJ said, his voice soft, falling with the wind surrounding us as he traded a glance with me. I noticed the lack of the usual ‘I promise’, which was my first indication that my brother was just as freaked out as I was.
We made it to the glen without incident and Steve threw Damian a canister of salt.
“Make yourself useful,” he said and Damian raised an eyebrow.
“Salt?”
“Yes, make a barrier at the wood line.”
“I’m not sure this is going to work,” he said, but stepped to the path we’d just crossed over. He poured a thick line across the snow-covered ground, continuing onto the frozen water of the cove.
“Now what?” he asked.
Steve traded a glance with Jennifer and then started clearing a space with his feet. “Now we make a fire and wait,” Steve said. CJ and I started to help clear the snow off with our feet, revealing the deep green moss covering the land mass.
“You know, for such a brilliant investigator, you can be a complete idiot,” Damian said and Steve looked up at him with a crease of confusion between his eyes. “Step aside.”
Damian crossed to a spot just inside the salt line. It took a moment, and then the snow rolled away like an old carpet clearing the moss and the ice all the way to the far edge of the cove where the lake began in earnest.
I was impressed and CJ rolled his eyes, but Steve was pissed and he just crossed his arms, sending a glare at Damian in that way that made me uncomfortable. CJ smirked and turned away, like a laugh would just cause more tension.
“What? You’ve got the power to do this, why the hell would you do it manually?”
“Because, it reminds me that I’m human, and not some all-powerful god,” Steve answered, his tone as sharp as his gaze. I stepped closer to Raven in response, our hands intertwining and she gave me a quick squeeze.
“You really do know how to get under his skin,” I said, and Damian’s head snapped in my direction. My voice was completely restored, as it always was when I stepped into this cove. I sent a sliver of a smile at his wide-eyed stare.
Before he had a chance to comment, he was yanked into the darkness, and just like that, Naomi snapped into tiger form. Instinct took over and I let go of Raven’s hand, pushing both her and Jennifer behind me. I know I wasn’t super charged like CJ, Steve and Damian, but I could put up a hell of a fight. I pulled the gun out of my pocket, but before I could level it at the ruckus coming towards us, CJ grabbed my arm.
“It’s Damian,” he said, and as soon as the words fell from his lips along with a plume of white air, Damian stepped back into the cove, visibly shaken with blood dripping from his arm.
Raven’s grip on my shoulder tightened and I looked back at her wide eyes.
“It’ll be okay,” I said, and her gaze moved to mine but no matter how much I wanted to promise her we’d walk out of this, I really didn’t know if that was true or not. Her physical touch gave me an ounce of courage to believe in something more and I turned back towards the surrounding woods.
Light illuminated the cove, telling me enough. I knew if I turned, our father would be there. He always made the dark shine, ever since he died and took the position of Steve’s guardian angel.
I kept my focus as well as the barrel of the gun pointed towards the perimeter that I was covering. The woods shifted and my breath caught in my throat. Ice filled my veins at the sight of at least a dozen vampires stepping into view. The salt would do nothing to stop them and from the sudden loss of color in Damian’s face, I gathered this was not a good thing.
“Jesus,” Steve muttered.
The blood suckers stopped, collectively smiling, with their gazes locked on Damian.
“The great Damian Andreas,” one of them growled, his voice settled over the cove like a form of Black Death and I swallowed my fear, focusing my sights between the eyes of the nearest bastard.
“I’ll give you to the count of three to leave; otherwise, you’ll be burning in hell before you can blink.” Damian raised his gun, pointing it towards the idiot who spoke. Naomi growled and we all clicked off our safety’s, making sure we were locked and loaded and ready to spray bullets.
“Don’t shoot. We’re going to fry their asses,” CJ’s thought filled my brain and I traded a quick glance and a nod, telling him I heard him.
“One,” Damian said. The vampires laughed.
“You’re going to shoot us?” the lead asshole said and chuckled. “You should know better.”
Damian smiled, looking over the gun. “Two, and yes, I know better,” he said and the vampire’s cocky stance waned.
“Platinum?” he gasped, and took a step back, fear transitioning his features from shadow back to pale white.
“And we’re all expert shots,” Damian said and didn’t wait for them to attack or retreat. Instead, he yelled, “Three!”
A wave of heat rolled across the moss, rippling the air as it fanned out to encompass the mass of vampires. The stench of burnt flesh filled the air, along with the dust of decimated vampires.
A shift in the wind blew the dust into the woods. When Damian turned towards the lake, his mouth dropped open. We all turned to see what had shocked him so visibly.
My father stood on the ice surrounded by a host of angels. A fucking army of angels, and I stared, dumbfounded. The only two without wings stepped forward and Damian uttered something in a foreign language I didn’t know.
When he transitioned back to English, his words sent a shiver through me.
“Papa, is that really you?”
“Damian,” he whispered. “My son,” he added.
If I recall the bits of conversation from the house correctly, his father was the archangel Gabriel. I glanced at CJ, and his eyes turned to mine, like they always did when I needed clarification.
