Death Takes Wing Read online

  “I am not going to get my slut on, Morgan,” Amalia giggled, “I’m leaving that for you.”

  “Touché,” Morgan giggled back. “So, what brings you calling me at this early hour?” She must have glanced at a clock, because then she continued, “Okay, maybe not quite so early. What’s up?”

  “Sam’s missing,” Amalia said, her voice turning somber. “Her mom just called, and she never came home. She didn’t call. She doesn’t know where Sam is.”

  “Shit. Is she sure Sam’s not out having fun without us?”

  “Without you, you mean,” Amalia replied drily, “Yeah, she’s pretty sure. Anyways, if you hear from her, let her know that her mom’s looking for her, okay?”

  “Sure. Listen, I gotta go. There’s someone on the other line,” Morgan said quickly, not waiting for a response before she hung up on Amalia.

  With a frown, she called Lucy in and fed her as Kohl, the tiger-striped cat wound his way around her legs. She fed him too, got her own breakfast of a bowl of Fruit Loops, and then sat down in front of the TV. Turning it on, she found it was still tuned to the National Geographic Channel.

  It was another special about the virus, which they had dubbed the ‘renati’ about six months ago, which could either destroy humanity or promote it, as the show claimed. She frowned and made her way into the kitchen to rouse up a light snack after eating half the Fruit Loops and finding them too sweet. Wanting some salty chips and finding none, she settled for a banana, and lost half of it to Lucy.

  The scientists, the show claimed, were currently working on an immunization for the virus. Not only that, it continued, but also for a reversal from previously infected humans. Amalia wondered if that meant that Vicki could be human again if her marriage failed. Not that Amalia hated Owen, she just disliked him. Greatly.

  Okay, maybe she hated him, she admitted to herself. For the little amount of time she’d spent in his company, she’d quickly come to the realization that he was a pompous ass, arrogant, and she was pretty sure he didn’t like humans any more than he liked Gabriel – which wasn’t saying much. The thought of the latter brought heat to her cheeks, making her quickly shelve those fantasies.

  Loosely paying attention to the show, she heard another doctor stating that she didn’t think that the process could be reversed, and even if it could, it would kill the person during the transformation. A male professor refuted the woman’s points, leading Amalia to tune them out as they bickered back and forth about whether a full reversal would be possible.

  When a question was asked about possible attacks on humans to change them against their will, she only tuned back into the special. An angelus councilor took center stage, assuring the audience that the angelus were not changing people against their will, nor in planned ‘attacks’. Instead, the councilor stated, each human was chosen individually, and must fully accept that they might not survive the transformation. She went on to add that that they must be in a relationship with an angelus in order to be considered for the transformation that the renati might give. Amalia wished they’d give more information, like who regulates the process, what happens if an angelus breaks the rules, but she was disappointed when the lead-in to the next show never mentioned those points.

  She checked her watch as she wished she could watch the rest of the show before her hair appointment, but found that she was on the verge of being late. She made Lucy potty again, and did a quick walkthrough of the house. Ever since Eric had finally left her alone, she had felt uneasy, always expecting to find him back in the house, even though she’d changed the locks. Wandering through the three bedrooms, living room, kitchen and dining room, she felt more at ease. Nothing looked different.

  The same nature pictures adorned the wall. Ribbons hung off of windowsills, memories of the shows that she and Lucy had taken place in. Antique pop bottles lined the windowsills, the light glittering through them. She chuckled to herself as she wondered what she’d do if she found anymore, as every sill in the house was full of them. Mountain Dew, Coke, Pepsi and a few from local brews decorated the sills.

  The guest bed in the second bedroom was untouched; a quilt her grandmother had made decorating the foot of the bed, while the indentation that a cat had made decorated the pillow. The desktop computer in the third bedroom was still in parts, strewn on the floor from wall to wall just waiting for her to fully upgrade it. When she left for the stylist in her small car, thoughts of last night’s dance began swirling in her head anew.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Two days later, she was almost back to work. After the wedding, a day of errands, and finally a day of lounging around the house, doing nothing but playing video games, eating cookies and reading, it was back to work.

  She got to the parking lot at just before three. Her usual shift was a three to eight, but instead of telling everyone that she worked afternoons and evenings, she kept it simple by saying just evenings. Her afternoons were always so busy that she rarely had time to chat anyways, she reasoned.

  She walked up to the building, glad to be escaping from the cold herald of winter’s impending arrival. With a small frown, she pulled her brown suede coat tighter, the wind still managing to swirl around her torso, under the coat. With a shiver, she opened the back door that would give her entrance to the worker’s area. The library was a two-story building that had been a Lutheran church more than a hundred years before.

  The library had done some serious renovations, thanks to a few grants and large donations, to make it work to hold the thousands of books, but there were no mistaking the origins of the beautiful building. They’d left the stained glass windows, but had had to install new insulation to control the temperature and humidity to work best for the books. The soaring Cathedral ceilings made it difficult to control the temperature, but the patrons loved seeing the paintings that adorned the ceiling, done by a local artist at the turn of the nineteenth century. The paintings featured Angels and books, heaven, and hell, all things that many of the patrons were fond of staring at. The small podium on the altar was transformed into a small puppet show for the children. Last week, she’d found a ten-year old giving a ‘sermon’ to the puppets, and she’d had to stifle her laughter before retreating to the reference area.

  The stained glass windows refracted the light, sending it dancing about the room. Too soon, she realized, it wouldn’t be the light of the sun. It would be the light from the street lamp that sat just outside the building that she would be seeing enter through the pastoral scene of a field of sheep grazing on the bright glass, the shepherd watching them from the distance.

  The choir loft was now the non-fiction and reference area. With the reference desk near the entrance to the loft, most of the patrons who perused her section were regulars. A few kids, usually working on a report, and the occasional college kid working on a project, but she knew most of ‘her’ patrons by name.

  Work, she decided after working on ordering new reference books for an hour, could do with something fun and exciting. Not as exciting, as, say, another fight in the woman's bathroom, but a new question or two would be good.

  She giggled to herself as she recalled the fight that had taken place in the bathroom, just after she’d started working there. She recalled that they’d been fighting over the last copy of the new Harry Potter novel. One woman, Marie, had found it on the shelf, while the other, Kendra, had checked the catalog to find it listed as ‘Available’. When Kendra couldn’t find it on the shelf, she explored every inch of the library she had access to, finally locating it on the bench in the bathroom. She had grabbed the tome while Marie used the stall, almost getting away with the ‘crime’. Marie, however, had come out just in time to see the interloper leaving with her book.

  What Kendra hadn’t realized was that Marie had already checked it out, and was simply browsing the stacks for additional reading material. Kendra kept insisting that Marie must be lying, and that Marie should give her the book, as she had been a library patron much longer t
han Marie. The fight escalated from there, culminating with Kendra smashing Marie with the book, almost breaking her nose with the weight of the heavy volume. Police were called; Kendra went to jail, and Marie filed assault charges against her. Additionally, adding insult to injury, Kendra was banned from the library for a full year. She’d just recently begun to return, much subdued after her forced exile.

  She sighed and searched for a book on the next topic. When she was through ordering new books, she had to get back to weeding the biographies. She was almost done with that project. Then, she’d have to find another project for herself, she thought with a sigh.

  North Shore Public Library was a tiny library branch compared to some, but it had enough work to keep her and Suzy, the other reference librarian busy. They owned, or acted like they owned, she amended to herself with a smile, the non-fiction section. If you needed a book on Napoleon, ghost stories in Michigan, or Ann Rule's latest book on murder and mayhem, they could help you find it. If you were looking for the newest Jody Piccoult, however, that was out of their area. For that, you’d get sent down to the pews, as the fiction area was known, to find one of the fiction librarians.

  The phone in front of her rang, and she picked it up automatically, not bothering to glance at the caller ID. "Reference Desk, this is Amalia."

  "Miss me yet?” asked a smooth, vaguely familiar voice.

  "I’m sorry, but who is...wait, Gabriel?" she asked doubtfully as she narrowed her eyes at the phone.

  "Forgot me already?" was the reply, dripping with sarcasm.

  She rolled her eyes at the sarcasm, but still felt herself smile at the rich darkness of his voice. “You’re the guy with the big, black wings, right? Sorry, you just all look the same after awhile.”

  “My, my, aren’t we witty today? Besides, shouldn’t you be hung over?”

  Damn him, she thought with a smirk, and looked around for potential patrons. None, she thought to herself, the one time I'd like to be interrupted. "Nope,” she quipped lightly, “I don’t think I drank quite that much.”

  He snorted, eliciting a small laugh out of her. “Well, according to you, you didn’t. According to the person who watched you…well, anyway, who else would call for you specifically?” he questioned, surprised at the touch of jealousy that flared in his chest, and tried to brush it off unsuccessfully.

  “Maybe one of the many other patrons that also know that I work evenings and also appreciate my prompt, thorough and accurate research?"

  He laughed softly. So, he hadn’t dreamt up the cutting intellect of this spicy human.

  She sighed as she pictured him on the other end. "So, is this a business call or pleasure?” As her supervisor walked by staring at her, she turned her tone bright and cheerful before asking, “can I help you find something?"

  He laughed at her blatantly guided question. “Judging by that complete one-eighty, I’d have to guess that a colleague walked by? Maybe a supervisor? Well, I was hoping to ask you something," he asked almost blandly.

  She shook her head with a smile. “Right on the second. What did you want to ask me?”

  “Well, it occurred to me that I never properly asked you for a way to contact you. So I was hoping to get that out of you,” he said lightly.

  She grinned. “So you call me up at work to ask me for my number?”

  “Number, birthdate, social security, the works,” he teased.

  She chuckled and twirled the phone’s cord around a finger. “Well, you might get lucky on the first. Maybe on the second. The third, well, I’d have to kill you if I told you that. Priveleged information, you know,” she said mockingly.

  He huffed out a laugh. “And would asking you out for coffee get me lucky?”

  She cocked her head and thought about it. A chance for a real date with him? She could go for that…hell, she was pretty sure Sam would kill her if she didn’t. “Maybe. Depends on the coffee.”

  “Mocha?”

  “With caramel?” she countered lightly as she looked around for patrons that might need help.

  “And whipped cream,” he responded, amusement coloring his baritone voice. “And if you’re lucky, I might even throw in some chocolate shavings.”

  “Hmmm…tempting, tempting,” she said, “but I can get that all on my own.”

  “But not with the company of yours truly,” he returned, a smile apparent in his voice.

  “Very true. But what if I just want the mocha?” she said, teasing him back with a laugh.

  “I doubt that’s true,” he countered drily, “as you seemed very interested in my company Sunday.

  “I suppose you’re right,” she said with a heaving sigh. “What did you have in mind?” she said as she replied to an e-mail a patron had sent the reference desk.

  “Tonight? At Murphy’s? You pick the time,” he said as the line grew quiet.

  After a long pause as she tried to remember if she was doing anything after work and coming up with squat, she said, “I can do that. I get out at eight, so about eight thirty?”

  “It’s a date,” he replied, hanging up before she could dispute the claim. Not that she would, he was pretty sure. But just to be sure.

  She stared at the computer screen before putting the phone back on the cradle. “Huh. A date. I haven’t had one of those in…a long time,” she told herself, feeling happy flutters in her chest.

  She gave a bright smile at the patron who stood at the desk, whom was only the first of many that evening.

  After helping the last patron find all the information about the Pileated Woodpecker that the library and its associated databases had, it was finally time for the library to close. A little bit after, actually, she groused as she walked downstairs and checked the bathrooms for hiding patrons. Gratefully, she grabbed her light fall coat and walked out the back door, waving to her co-workers as they chatted around the door before leaving for the night.

  CHAPTER SIX

  She circled the building and walked to Murphy’s where Gabriel waiting at one of the two outdoor tables. The sidewalks were empty except for him. Everyone else, as far as she could see, was inside. She couldn’t blame them with the cold breeze driving the harsh autumn chill through her hair.

  Feeling her phone vibrate, she answered it as she walked towards him.

  “Hello?”

  “Lia? It’s me,” Morgan said, sounding far away, “Listen, I haven’t heard anything about Sam, except she’s nowhere. I was hoping she’d text me after I talked to you, but so far, nothing. I just wanted to let you know.”

  Her gut twisted. “Thanks Morg.”

  “I’ll call if I find out anything else,” her cousin promised before letting her go.

  Hanging up the phone, she touched the cold chair, hesitant to sit down and freeze her ass, only perking up when she saw the two cups in front of Gabriel.

  He gestured towards the empty seat and slid a Styrofoam cup towards her. His wings were pulled close to his body, the feathers resting against his arms. She couldn’t decide if it was because he was nervous, or because he was cold. As she shivered, she wondered if the wings were helping him stay warmer. Probably. With a huff, she sat down.

  The people that walked in and out of the coffee shop openly gawked at him, but he steadfastly ignored the attention. She could appreciate why he’d want to sit out in the cold, alone, rather than be subjected to the open speculation inside the warm shop. However, that still left her ass freezing on the seat.

  "Mocha," he said, “As promised.”

  “As bribed, you mean,” she said pertly, standing next to the cold seat, still contemplating the freezing of her ass. After grabbing the drink, she slowly sat down, trying to ignoring the numbing happening to her backside.

  “You know,” he said after she sipped the drink, “It normally doesn’t take a bribe to get a woman to go on a date with me.”

  “I’m not most women,” she replied as she savored the sweet drink. “If I were, I don’t think you would have asked me out.” br />
  “You do have a point there,” he said as he sipped his own drink, a caramel macchiato.

  Her only response was a grin and another sip of her drink.

  She picked it up, appreciating the warmth as the cool fall breeze swirled around them, ruffling his feathers and touching her hair. Pulling her arms close, she breathed in the smell of the hot drink, grateful for the little bit of warmth it provided.

  “So you’re a…Enforcer?” She questioned the title, not sure if she were remembering it right.

  He nodded and leaned an elbow against the table before tapping his fingers against his chin. “Yeah. You can call it that, or Coercitor. Means the same thing. Latin versus English is all. Most people use the English version.”

  “So what’s an Enforcer? I remember you saying that it’s basically FBI with a dash of bounty hunter, but-“

  “But you need more details?” he said with a smile.

  “Exactly,” she said as she took a sip of the mocha. “The librarian in me is calling for the details.”

  “Well,” he said after a pause, “I deal with enforcing the laws of the angelus. If someone breaks certain laws, I get to put them ass over teakettle.”

  “Literally? Like you make them hold a teakettle and toss them around?”

  He narrowed his eyes at her. “Figuratively speaking.”

  “Ah. Well, that doesn’t sound nearly as entertaining,” she replied, not quite smothering the grin.

  He shook his head at her, hiding his own grin as he lowered his head.

  “So are you on a case now?” she questioned after taking a sip of the rich drink.

  “Of course. You were an officer. Did it ever end for you?” he asked with a shrug.

  “Nope,” she said, shaking her head as she wrapped her hands around the cup, grateful for the warmth that seeped into her fingers. She glanced at Gabriel’s hands that were wrapped around his own cup and wondered how warm they were. She shook her head again, bringing herself back to the present conversation. “Not once.” After a pause, she added, “Until I quit, that is. Well, a bit before that,” she amended lamely.