The Taken

Grif ignored the insult. “So… what? Blind people, the deaf, the mutes… all those people are really angels?”

“Don’t be stupid,” Anne hissed. “They’re God’s children and destined for Paradise. But, yes, some of his children are closer to the angels than others.”

It matched what he’d seen at the Gates, where those who had physical or mental ailments entered the Everlast to find their sight restored, their bodies and minds whole. And while others marched into Paradise like an army of souls, the newly whole ones rocketed past the Gates as if launched from the mud.

Grif grunted. “And all this time I thought God had just gotten His wires crossed.”

“Blasphemy,” Anne snapped, fists clenching at her sides. “God makes no mistakes. He is divine. Angels are pure. And mankind is-”

“Impure,” Grif finished for her. “Yeah. I got the memo.”

“This,” Anne said, gesturing furiously to her flesh, “is a demotion. Donning human flesh is like being cast out for a Pure.”

And she said it in a way that let Grif know she blamed him.

“It’s an acquired taste,” Grif told her with more boldness than he felt.

“I’d rather Fall.” With the deliberation of a hungry python, she came closer. “But I can’t return Home until you either kill that woman or let her die. And I can tell you this much, Griffin Shaw, I’m already tired of running into things.”

“So kill her yourself.”

Anne sneered. “You know I can’t do that. The angelic host does not interfere in human affairs. I’m only here to clean up your mess, and preserve other souls from your defiling touch. I’ve been watching you, you know.”

He hadn’t.

“It’s different this time around, isn’t it?” She smiled knowingly.

“The coffee is better.”

“And the women?”

“I wouldn’t know,” he replied stiffly.

“That’s right. You’re faithful. Determined to find your Evie…”

“Don’t you dare talk about her.”

Anne smiled, and jerked her head toward Kit’s window. “Let me tell you about these modern-day women, then. They’re vibrant and full of life. Not like you.”

“Not like you, either,” he said, because if he was out of place on the mudflat, she was doubly so.

“Thank. God.”

Grif crossed his arms, and tossed her own smile back at her. “Make yourself at home, Annie. ’Cause I ain’t killing that innocent woman.”

Anne growled, flashing teeth like stalactites, and began speaking in tongues. It was like rushing water and roaring wind mashed into one vocal box, but Grif, standing there of his own free will, ignored the babble and lit another cigarette.

“The decision you make here and now will ripple through the tides of the universe,” she yelled, when he turned to leave. “The longer you’re here, the more likely you are to influence events you have no business touching. I’d think hard about what you’re trying to do, Griffin Shaw. And of what you’ve already done. You’ve hurt enough people, but you’ve changed nothing.”

That was probably true. Blowing out a toxic stream of smoke, he slowly turned back around. “It’s still my choice.”

“There is only one right choice when deciding between two courses of action, and that is the will of God.”

As if a Pure could understand true moral dilemma. Grif sniffed. “You know, you could help me find out who’s trying to kill her. Stop them instead.”

“I don’t care enough to try.”

No, he knew that. She was here on orders alone. Asking a pure angel to help a mortal was like asking a dog to meow. They just didn’t have it in them.

So Grif headed across the green, back to the house, and back to protect Kit. His wingless shoulder blades pulsed beneath the Pure’s stare.

“I will not assist you,” Anne called out, her voice again rumbling like a storm. “But I will thwart you. I will block your way. I will take that divine gift of free will and use it against you so that you’ll know defeat again in this pseudo-life.”

Grif kept walking. “You can’t touch me.”

“Doesn’t mean I can’t touch her.”

Grif stopped dead, shook his head, and turned with fire in his own eyes. “You know what they say about your tribe, don’t you? The other Pures?”

He waited, but she said nothing.

“They say that you’re the ones who failed God. You failed to keep order on the heavenly pathways by doing no more than you were told and no less. They say Lucifer and the Third used your rigidity against you. They also say the only reason you were the first of the created angels was because God had to keep going until he got it right.”

Anne remained stoic and silent, so Grif exercised his gift of free will and headed back to the house. “See you on the flip side, Pure.”

Anne growled in response, but when she called out to him again, he didn’t turn around. “Kill her, Griffin Shaw. Kill her, and put the world back in order.”

Whose world? Grif wondered, flicking his cigarette butt into the darkness. Because his hadn’t seen any sort of order in over fifty years.

Chapter Fifteen

Kit had never been to Caleb Chambers’s lakeside estate before, though she’d read about the fabled parties in the gossips, the glossies… even in her own newspaper. Despite his prestige and accessibility, he retained an aura of exclusivity. Do business with Chambers, it was said, and you were practically guaranteed success. He never faltered, never failed. Never a professional misstep, or financial fumble.

“Too good to be true,” Kit murmured as the tram ferrying them around the still, glossy lake slid past a looming evergreen and the estate came into view.

“What was that?” Grif asked, tucked in close beside her. The valet had assumed they were a couple, and dropped a fur over their legs before she could protest.

Not that she’d protest. As promised, she hadn’t mentioned their shared kiss to Grif, or even alluded to the fight that followed. She wasn’t going to lower herself to mentioning that he’d pretend to be an angel just to get away from her touch.

Grif had been tense around her at first, but was loosening up now that he saw she was keeping her word. And she would continue to do so. She had her pride. She didn’t chase down men like they were game. She certainly didn’t chase moody dangerous strangers who claimed to have wings and dead wives.

But Fleur was right, Kit thought, now that she’d calmed. The bad-boy gene got her motor running. So it wasn’t Grif. It certainly wasn’t angels. It was something faulty in her-something she was going to put a stop to immediately.

Maybe I’ll pick up a nice, safe Mormon boy at the charity ball, she thought, as the tram began its final leg up the drive.

“Did you say something?” Grif asked, and she realized she’d been mumbling to herself. Who’s crazy now? Kit thought, sighing.

“I was just thinking of our illustrious host,” she told Grif, as they rolled past cypresses spaced like sentinels, and torches mimicking the same.

“You mean why his name keeps popping up along those suspected of running illegal brothels.”

“Yeah. I mean, why risk all of this?” she said, as they came to a stop in front of a mansion reminiscent of a Tuscan villa.