“Do you think the wraiths or the hunter are the only creatures to trouble the earth since Death cracked the universe open for love? Magic is again seeping into the world, and on the one hand we have art, beauty, and innovation with the makings of a great modern Renaissance—your Annabella is part of that, by the way—and on the other, we have every kind of dark fae testing the boundary to grasp the power of the mortal world. The repercussions go far deeper than the wraiths or a wolf on the prowl, and we are doing everything we can to stop it.”
“You said that magic is again seeping in the world. This has happened before?” Custo knew the answer before he’d finished phrasing the question. Of course it had happened before. Otherwise, where had all the stories, myths, and legends come from? The angel from Greece had said as much, too, that humanity had forgotten the old stories. Custo choked with the implications.
But the bottom line was…“You won’t fight the wraiths? What if Adam and Talia decided to quit?”
“The wraiths would probably grow bolder. More people would die.”
“And the wolf?”
“Similarly trapped here, and fixated for the moment on your Annabella. He is a lesser threat because, as a shape-shifter, he cannot hold his form indefinitely. Eventually, he will disperse into shadows.”
Custo had seen that effect himself, the wolf’s sudden contraction from beast to empty darkness. Problem was, the wolf could re-form again. “And in the meantime? What about Annabella?”
Luca’s face was expressionless.
Angry frustration burned in Custo’s blood. “So you won’t help.”
Luca met his gaze dead-on. “We are helping. You just won’t see it. This morning a little boy in China called a dragon—that’s right, a fire-breathing dragon—out of a storybook into mortality, and you want us to scour New York City looking for a wolf who will fade on his own?”
An exclamation within the command center set the angels in residence into a new flurry of activity.
Luca said, weary, “That would be Coyote, the trickster, and he just reassigned the flight numbers to all of the South-west’s airborne flights, and you want us to drop everything and hunt wraiths already pursued by Adam and world governments? Not to mention with Death abandoning his post, we have to guide the dead to our gate, or they would be lost to Shadow. We go where we’re most needed. We fight the best way we can. And we need your help.”
Custo was beyond caring. “If I can die in the mortal world, then the wolf can, too.” After all, the wolf crossed to mortality, too, when he fell to Earth.
A long pause wedged distance between Custo and Luca.
“Sure,” Luca said with a shrug of irritable defeat.
Custo’s heart throbbed in a quick burst of bloodlust.
“But,” Luca continued, waggling his head back and forth as if to argue a middling point, “as a shape-shifter, the hunter can return to a shadow-state, only to take on a live form again, man or wolf, uninjured. At least until whichever form is too difficult for him to hold.”
Custo’s blood cooled. Iced. So basically Luca was telling him that the wolf was immortal for the time being, while he himself could die. For the present, Annabella and anyone close to her would be at risk.
“There must be a way,” Custo insisted.
“You already know it,” Luca said. “The best way is to force him back into the Shadowlands.”
Custo took a last look around the high-tech, gleaming fortress for angels. He thought of the sharp weapons in their cases above, and the conditional access to them.
Luca had said that as an angel Custo had earned the privilege of choosing his path. Okay then. All this was very interesting, and he sure hoped the dragon didn’t burn up too many people. And he was near certain the well-trained people in the flight towers would see all those planes safely landed. But really, he’d made up his mind before he set foot in this crusty alley.
“I won’t abandon my friends.”
Chapter Thirteen
ANNABELLA was bent on keeping her equilibrium around Custo, but some things were easier said than done. Balance took practice. Her motivation: Self-preservation and, well, she was still angry, hurt, and humiliated. Good thing all three emotions, especially combined, were very useful.
She scanned the city street as soon as they hit pavement, not relying on the big protective men with her to spot Wolf first. Though she couldn’t see him, the small hairs on her neck told her he was near. Watching. Waiting. Following. Anger strangled her fear long enough to get her across the sidewalk to the street. Custo tried to take her arm, murmuring, “We’ll talk,” but she neatly avoided his grasp. There was nothing to say, and she could stay close enough for safety without his hands on her.
She opened her own door and sat in the front passenger seat of the car, relegating Custo to the back. The fact that the vehicle was still waiting in traffic had to be divine intervention. At least the tower was good for something.
As soon as the car was moving, Custo reported the gist of his discussion with Luca. Basically, the divine intervention stopped with the car. They were on their own.