The Angel lay with her cheek on the cold ground. From the corner of her eye she saw Azrael.
He appeared suddenly and propelled himself behind the Pureblood Vampire, swinging him into the church pillar, which fractured with the force.
The crystal, now void of any light, dropped from the creature’s grasp, landing perfectly on its point.
Leaving the Pureblood dazed, Azrael turned his attention to his Pair, Aingeal. Knowing he only had moments, he scooped her limp body in his arms and parted her cold, blue lips. He blew lightly into her mouth and white light danced through her. Aingeal’s eyes blinked frantically as she felt his gifts evaporate the poison that ran through her veins, but there was nothing he could do to remove the venom that now flowed through the Angel Descendant’s blood.
As the Pureblood catapulted back to his feet, Azrael spun around; it was then that he saw it. The raised cicatrix between the Pureblood’s orbs formed the distinguishing mark of the beast—Zherneboh.
Azrael threw up a sheet of light, keeping the evil pinned to the other side.
Turning to his Pair, their eyes met. She didn’t have to explain; they both knew what the Pureblood had done.
You must leave and you must hide. I will consult with the Arch Angels and I will find you, he told her without any words being spoken. They were connected.
Keeping one hand raised in the air balancing the sheet of light, struggling, he helped lift her up. Sadness unfolded across his expression as he placed the crystal in her palm. Squeezing her skin against his, he closed her fingers tightly over the gem.
Aingeal nodded as she shined brightly, and then quickly faded—invisible now, a part of the darkness. She turned on her heel and fled the church; she knew what she must do and that it would mean never being able to return home.
But she desperately hoped Azrael would find a way to return to her.
* * *
A FEW MONTHS LATER, a baby with skin as white as porcelain was placed on the doorstep of a couple’s home in the South East of England. It was covered in nothing more than cotton wrappings, but buried within the sheets a crystal gleamed and sparkled.
ONE
CREIGIAU, WALES
PRESENT DAY
THE EVENING WAS DEEPLY BITTER. The night was drawing in and the sound of silence was deafening. The most perfect setting for a liaison with a Vampire.
I pushed back the blond wisps of hair crowding my eyes and remade my long ponytail, while eyeing the garbage bag that I had attempted to balance at the top of the pile, out in the backyard of the pub. I would have welcomed a moment’s peace, but not out here. The darkness frightened me.
“Francesca!” Haydon’s thick Welsh accent reached me, piercing through the surrounding sheet of ice, as if he were a red-hot poker.
I sighed, bolted the back door, and hurried back into the bar. I was dead on my feet. Thank goodness it was closing time. We were short-staffed, as always. Haydon’s wife hadn’t returned from her shopping trip in Cardiff, so I’d had to play kraken and pretend I had many hands to pull an inordinate amount of pints this evening.
Sometimes I wished I could just be normal and have a pleasant little office job and not have to deal with drunken locals. But then, with no legitimate identification, cash-paid bar work was the best I could hope for. I was grateful for employers like Haydon who sought out a willing workhorse in exchange for a little money.
“Just one more p-p-pint my love, come on, fill her up!” The middle-aged man waved his empty glass at me, and I smiled politely.
I hadn’t worked here long, but it was long enough to learn that he was always the last to leave.
“Come on now, Mr. Broderick, it’s closing time, you need to get back to your lovely wife.” I pried the glass from his tight clutch.
“Ah, pull the other one! We both know she’s anything but l-l-lovely.… She u-u-used to be a whore, that’s why I m-m-arried her! Of course she chose to change once sh-sh-e had the r-r-ing on her finger!” He stumbled over his sentence.
“All right, Glyn, that’s enough, on your way!” Haydon shouted over.
Darting my eyes in a concerned expression to Haydon, I nodded my head toward our last customer. He shrugged, so I made my way around the bar and placed my arms out, enticing a hug from Mr. Broderick.
“Ah, that’s n-n-ice. Elen doesn’t hold me anymore … or anything else for that m-m-atter.…”
I slipped my hand into his coat pocket and felt the smooth coldness of his car keys. Holding my breath, I retreated, placing them into my jeans’ pocket. I could definitely have made a better living as a thief, but sadly that wasn’t me. I had to do things the good old-fashioned hard way.
I called Mr. Broderick a taxi and began wiping down the tables, slyly sneaking him a packet of honey-roasted nuts in a bid to help sober him up a little.
Twenty minutes later, I thought the driver would likely be nearing so I signaled to Haydon, who barely noticed my gesture for help, instead flicking through channels on the television on the wall in search of sports highlights.
Sighing, I said, “Come on, you.” Locking my arm into Mr. Broderick’s, I balanced his weight against my petite frame.
“You’re a good girl,” he bumbled, patting my head as if I were a well-behaved dog who’d just brought back a stick.
Propping him against the exposed brick wall, I struggled with the locked doors. It was even harder given that I hadn’t taken a fresh breath in over three minutes. “Thank you, Mr. Broderick.” I exhaled.
As we reached the bottom of the slope, I halted at the curb, still maintaining Mr. Broderick’s two-hundred-pound weight. Standing still was clearly too much to ask for, as he stumbled forward, taking me with him into the middle of the road. He dropped to the ground and I tried to ease his fall.
Suddenly, bright lights appeared from nowhere and the screech of tires skidding across the iced road took me by surprise. Defensively, I threw my hand up in the air. For a moment, the world seemed to stop moving. My arm outstretched, my open palm prevented the yellow headlights from blinding me. In between my fingers the glare of the vibrant yellow light flickered into a dull neon. The square shape of the old Volvo station wagon changed into a curved yellow-and-green cab, and nighttime in Creigiau gave way to dusk in New York.
As though I were staring into a crystal ball, I was presented with a memory of the end of one of my lives.
Hand raised, the yellow-and-green Checker cab hurtled into me and I slammed into the windshield, causing it to crack before rolling off its hood and lying still on the road. Onlookers rushed over, and panic ensued. A young man pushed past the crowd of bodies that had gathered, now gawking over my broken body. He was wearing a cardigan sweater, narrow suit trousers, and suede shoes; I realized that this had happened sometime in the 1950s.