The Archangel Agenda: An Evangeline Heart Thriller Read online

  Off one of the side streets, I inhaled and walked half a block. A sign out front of a crumbling brick building read Bar. I peered in the large bay window and was sufficiently satisfied that it was a dive, and therefore, the tourists would be kept at bay.

  Dark, eclectic art with cryptic religious themes framed the walls. I wouldn’t go so far as to say I was looking at some voodoo crap, but it came close. I could see an American Horror Story scene being filmed in the place. The smell of beer, dank, and perfume filtered through the air. The crowd was just as eclectic—a smattering of business people that may have come over from the financial district just because they enjoyed the dive thing, hipster twentysomethings starting their evening shenanigans, and old dodgers who appeared to be regulars sipping on gin and juice.

  Yep. This would work. Griffin would’ve enjoyed it, too. Although, he wasn’t quite as—how can I say this?—earthy as myself. I can get dirty with the best of them, and it doesn’t bother me a bit.

  I pulled up a stool and surveyed the top-shelf options.

  “Ev’nin.’” An old Irishman barely taller than the bar handed me a bar napkin and wiped the space between us with his wet towel. “What can I getcha?”

  “I’d love a shot of Patron.”

  “Comin’ right up.” He disappeared, which wasn’t tough for a guy his size and I watched the other people through the mirror over the bar. New York certainly was interesting.

  My bartender came back and set my glass on the bar. “Name’s Pete, let me know if ya’ need anythin’ else.” He winked at me.

  I cracked a smile for the first time in days. This had been a good idea. I held the glass for a heartbeat and toasted Griffin, then slammed it, desperate to take the edge off.

  “Can I buy you another?” I twisted slightly on my seat and tried not to be shocked at a striking gentleman who’d taken the spot next to me. My assessment training kicked in instinctually. His dark blond hair was neatly trimmed over the ears and combed precisely to the side, crisp part, jaw freshly shaved. Aftershave applied recently—spicy, citrus. The mint-green dress shirt was open at the collar, revealing the right amount of skin without being skeevy. The cut of the shirt was expensive, but not blatantly rich. Nails neatly trimmed. Breitling watch and Lucchese shoes revealed that the guy worked for his money and had done well. He’d either just come from impressing a big client or was trying to impress the women here. Small pickings.

  Either way, I was going to let him distract me from my day.

  I returned his smile and gentled my attitude. “Thanks, I’ll have another tequila, but the Casa Dragones. I’m Lina.”

  “Beautiful name. Blue agave? Nice choice. Good taste.” He motioned Pete over. His was a whisky, neat and I added that to my assessment. Not that I was going to do anything with the information. I just didn’t know how to stop. Years of training were habit and even if we sat here for another hour slamming drinks, I’d still be able to fully assess anyone in a split-second.

  The bartender brought our drinks and I swirled the sipping tequila in the glass. He lifted his glass in a toast. “To beautiful ladies and fine alcohol.” On any other night I wouldn’t have given this guy the time of day, but he was easy on the eyes and I didn’t mind the company. I felt bad leading him on because I was most definitely not going home with him tonight. But I didn’t feel badly enough to care when he ordered another round.

  He sipped his drink and cradled the tumbler between his hands. “Dare I ask what a pretty lady is doing here drinking alone?”

  What would have been a creepy line from anyone else came off as charming and genuine from him. So I answered in kind. “A funeral left me both alone and with a deep desire to get loaded.” I gave him a rueful grin and took a healthy swallow of the tequila.

  He touched the rim of his glass to mine. “To the deceased. May they live on in our hearts.”

  I swallowed the emotion and nodded once. “Realistically, that’s the only place they do live on, isn’t it?”

  He took another drink. “Heavy conversation for the setting, my dear.”

  I shrugged. “Heavy conversation for any setting, don’t you think?”

  He drained his glass and set it loudly on the bar. “No belief in heaven then? Archangels, God, Metatron, Sandalphon? Are those fairy tales to you?”

  My breath stilled and I flattened my palms against the bar to quell the tremor he’d just sent through my body. Most people when bringing up God didn’t go straight to Metatron or Sandalphon. At least not anyone beyond my parents, and their interest in archangels had been founded in a lifetime of research and study. I didn’t like that I’d prayed to both less than an hour ago and I hadn’t checked my apartment for bugs since before Griffin’s murder.

  Something wasn’t right here. Had I been way off in my assessment of him? If so, I really hoped it wasn’t about to get me killed. I eased my feet to the floor and slid one hand to my stomach, inches from my piece. Thank god I hadn’t been stupid enough to forget that, though I really didn’t want to start a shootout in a crowded bar either.

  “What did you say?”

  He turned on his stool, made a big production of looking at my hand placement, then lifted his gaze to mine. “Archangels. Ever heard of them?”

  More than I cared to let on right now. My preference was to turn and walk slowly out of the bar with the hope that I’d just been in the wrong place at the wrong time and this attractive gentleman wasn’t anything more than a crazy loon. Never mind that my life never, ever worked that way.

  I nodded toward Pete, who’d come to ask if we wanted another round. “Thanks for the drink, but I’m headed out.” He gathered our empty glasses and left. I turned my attention back to my companion and tried to get a new read on him. Nothing about him had changed. I didn’t see the bulge of a weapon beneath his coat, didn’t get a single hint that he wanted to do me harm. For all I could tell, he was a normal guy out hitting on random girls. I inclined my head slightly.

  “Thank you for your company.”

  I stepped away from him and froze.

  But then ... so had the entire room.

  Chapter Three

  I slowly rotated back toward the guy. He smiled at me and crossed his arms over his chest. We were the only two in the room not frozen. And I meant that in the most literal sense possible. Every single person in the room stood still as statues. That was such a stupid cliché, but they were the only words I had. Pete was bent over, setting our dirty glasses in the gray bin filled with others. The woman two seats down was leaning over to talk to a younger man, her hand flirtatiously wrapped around his forearm. I scanned the room, noting the posture of everyone in it, but having not a single explanation.

  I turned to him. “What in the hell?”

  He stood and extended his arm in greeting. “Metatron. Nice to make your acquaintance, Evangelina. My brother Sandalphon said it was a good time for us to meet. I’ve been waiting for this opportunity.”

  In a flash, I pulled my weapon and pointed it at his forehead. “Who the fuck are you?”

  He laughed. “Now, really, Lina. If I were a part of the rebel force, or the cartel, or involved in the sex trades, would I really pick the one archangel your mother adored above all the others? If I were going to kill you, wouldn’t I have picked someone more globally accepted like Gabriel? Or Michael? Come on, Lina. No one chooses to be Metatron.”

  “I will ask you one more time, then I will drop you where you stand.” My thumb flicked off the safety.

  He slowly lifted his hands, palms out, in surrender. “If those are your terms, then let’s not bloody the place.”

  He strode confidently past me, weaving in and out of the frozen bodies and straight out the door. It banged shut, making me flinch. I stood there, weapon pointed at the door, and weighed my options. I could walk out the back and pretend this never happened, or I could go against every bit of training, logic, and common sense and go see what the archangel Metatron was
doing outside.

  I lowered my weapon a few inches and peered closer at an aging tourist who’d been caught mid-stride to the bar, empty glass in hand. A bead of condensation raced down the side of his drink and fell to the floor. I tentatively reached out and nudged him with the tip of my barrel. He didn’t flinch or move or respond at all. Once, I’d wasted good money to go check out Madame Tussaud’s wax museum and this had all the eerie qualities that had set my hair standing on edge that day too.

  “Not good to keep an archangel waiting!” Metatron shouted. Though he was still outside, the sound of his voice carried through the walls like he’d piped it in with a loudspeaker. I took another look around and eased through the main entrance.

  He stood twenty feet away beneath the main Jumbotron in Times Square. On any other night, there would have been no chance to see him standing that far away with the crowds of people who normally filled the square. But what he’d done inside the bar, he’d recreated in the middle of the busiest city in the world. Easily a few hundred people stood like he’d stopped time. Cars, buses, taxis—nothing was moving. Animals too, including a policeman on top of his horse in the middle of the intersection—yeah—both completely frozen. My gun felt heavy in my hand and I holstered it. No matter who he was, I was pretty sure he wasn’t here to shoot me.

  However, I also wasn’t sure I wanted to believe that he was an archangel.

  Because then I’d have to believe in heaven and even with Griffin’s death fresh as a new scar on my heart, that was a giant leap of faith. I believed in what I could see. I believed in truth and honor. Black and white. Good and evil.

  Those delineations were how I knew that when I pulled the trigger, it was the right thing to do. When gray areas like faith and heaven and hell came into play that made me question. And because I killed people for a paycheck, I had to hold those tight rules in place. Questioning made me both a danger to myself and to every mission I agreed to.

  I walked toward him, dodging outstretched arms and legs on the way. Icy chains wound around my ankles, slowing my progress, until I stopped a few feet away.

  His smile was still the same genuine one he’d used on me in the bar. One slender finger lifted and pointed to the screen. “For your viewing pleasure.”

  Chapter Four

  I eyed him warily, but again, there wasn’t anything that made me doubt my initial assessment. Bottom line, he wasn’t a threat, at least not a deadly one. I didn’t step any closer, but I did tip my chin up to glare at the Jumbotron behind him. The image of a wafer-thin model advertising handbags shifted and transformed into a scene I’d watched a million times before. Usually right after I’d fallen into bed and the dream state overtook me, thrusting me into a paralyzing nightmare I couldn’t escape.

  Fires burned throughout the image of a tiny village in Jordan where my mom and dad had been stationed. Mom, for what promised to be a doctrine-shattering find that religious groups around the world had praised and awaited her conclusive evidence. Dad, for a much-needed new hospital that would change the way all of Jordan regarded health care. He’d already received glowing accolades and even a party that he hadn’t been able to leave his patients to attend.

  Images played across the screen, but I needed no help visualizing what had happened that night. We’d all been tucked in our medical tent on the outskirts of the village by Mom’s dig. I awoke to shouts and screaming and Mom huddled beside Dad in the open flap of the tent. His concerned eyes met mine and he’d forced a smile but I’d seen right through it. Even at fourteen, I’d been able to tell when he was lying—mostly because he was terrible at it, not because I was any good at reading people back then.

  Beyond the flap the village burned. Towers of flames shot into the black midnight and I crawled to the end of my cot and asked what was going on, trying my best to be brave. Dad had seen through my lie too and had come over and wrapped his arms around me. “Mom and I are going to go help. I need you to go with one of my medics.” His youngest intern burst through the flaps then, a wild-eyed black man with thick glasses. “Sorry it took so long, Dr. Heart.”

  Dad helped me stand, grabbed handfuls of money, clothes, and food off the nearby table, and shoved it in a rucksack. “Put some pants on, Lina. You can’t wear shorts.”

  Mom helped me dress quickly and she pulled me into a tight embrace. Worries and fears flooded my mouth and I couldn’t say anything, so I clung tightly to her, but I felt her slipping away. She kissed my forehead. “It will be fine, honey. We’ll come get you as soon as it’s safe, okay?”

  I nodded and squeezed tighter. Dad enfolded both of us against his chest. “Go now, honey.”

  The intern grabbed my hand and together we ran out of the tent and along the shadows. A few times he pulled me against buildings as wild mobs raced past. “What’s going on?”

  He shook his head, his eyes wilder than normal and huge behind his glasses. “We do not know. The mob came out of the night brandishing their weapons and screaming. I believe it may have to do with your mother’s work.”

  Before I could ask any more questions, he grabbed my hand and pulled me further away from the village. We ran and ran and ran. Tears streaked my face, and my heart knew I would never see my parents again.

  Their images flashed on the screen and I held my breath. I desperately wanted Metatron’s ability to freeze time so I could just stare at them for a moment. My father held my mother tight and whispered over and over that everything would be fine. My memories had forgotten that scar in my father’s left eyebrow and the thick white streak of hair at my mother’s temple. God, I missed them so much.

  Mom shook her head as she watched the horrors beyond the tent, the people we loved being slaughtered and the raging fires racing through the village we loved. “I have to go hide it, Tim.”

  “No!” He gripped her shoulders and drew their faces close together. “Look out there, Maddie.” They both turned, but their bodies stuck together like one. The fires burned out of control now, joining to form impenetrable walls. I didn’t know what she needed to hide, but Dad couldn’t let her go.

  “Tell me where it is.”

  “It’ll take too long.” She hugged him, and yanked on pants and her work boots. “I can slip in and out without anyone noticing me.”

  “NO!” I screamed at the Jumbotron. My fists clenched tight and I was gasping for breath. Don’t let her, Daddy, don’t let her stubbornness run you over like it always did.

  He shook his head. “I’m going with you, then.”

  They raced hand in hand out of the tent, their silhouettes swallowed whole by the orange glow that filled the entire screen. I pulled my weapon, swung around, and pressed it into Metatron’s chest. “STOP THE MOVIE!”

  “Not yet, Evangelina.”

  My hand trembled and tears of rage and fury clogged my throat. “DO IT!” I shoved the barrel of my gun into his chest hard enough to push him backward a step.

  He stared at me and the compassion in his eyes nearly broke me. Above me, the fire raged on, but the movie didn’t advance to a new frame. A frame that I knew would show their bloody deaths.

  “Do you truly think me so horrible that I would show you something like the moment your parents returned to heaven?”

  “From what I remember, archangels are bastards.”

  He laughed loudly. Threw his head back and laughed loud enough that it echoed off the tops of the high-rises. “Oh, Lina. I do adore your humor.”

  I hadn’t been trying to be funny. I just wanted him to turn the movie off.

  “If I promise that you will not see your parents’ end, will you finish watching?”

  I didn’t want to. I wanted to wake up right now with empty bottles of wine lying next to me and the hangover of all hangovers. “Why?”

  “I need you to trust me for forty-three more seconds. Then I’ll tell you.”

  I closed my eyes and breathed in the sticky-sweet incense: a cocktail of sweaty bodies, dirty
subway, and fresh-baked pretzels. Frozen bodies stared beyond me, waiting for me to make up my mind. Would he make them keep waiting if I refused?

  “Fine.”

  He pointed up and I squeezed my eyes shut as the screams and shouts resumed. After a shaky breath, I looked up and saw my mother. She crouched at the bottom of her dig, in a corner where I’d helped her unearth pottery and jewels. With frantic movements, she dug through the stack of items on the table, both ones that still needed to be catalogued, and ones packaged and ready to ship.

  “Where is it?” She glanced quickly over her shoulder and continued digging. I leaned closer to the screen, begging her to find whatever it was and get the hell out of there. A man appeared on the screen, on the ledge above and behind Mom. He screamed and waved a machete but she was too engrossed to see him. My nails dug into my palm and tightened on the butt of my pistol.

  Her hand stilled and she held up a small piece of jewelry. I couldn’t tell if it was a ring, or a necklace or pendant of some kind. It glowed in the firelight and she quickly shoved it down the front of her shirt and took off in the other direction of the screaming madman. I watched her scramble up the rickety ladder and out of the dig.

  The screen went black.

  “MOM!” I screamed, falling to my knees.

  Metatron rushed toward me and gently set his hand on the crown of my head.

  Chapter Five

  “I hate you!” I spat the words at him.

  “I know.”

  I looked up at him and shook my head. “But you have my attention.”

  He laughed and bent, slipping his hands beneath my elbow and helping me up. “Most would have let me have it back there with all the frozen people. Then again, I’ll warn you that it’s nearly impossible for a human to do any harm to an archangel.”