Under Wraps

Chapter Twenty-Four

I was mashing potting soil around the new spider plant in my office when Alex knocked on the door frame.

“Agent Grace,” I said, grinning up at him.

“It’s Alex,” he said, striding up to me. His blue eyes slipped over me. “You look good. How are you feeling?”

I leaned against my desk. “Surprisingly well given the circumstances.” I felt the broken skin on my lips with the tip of my tongue.

“So, no word from Mr. Sampson yet?”

I wagged my head, glancing toward the still-broken door to his office, his furniture still sitting empty, desk vacant. “Nothing. I heard they still haven’t been able to find Lucy, either.”

Alex nodded. “That’s true. The guys have been out at Sampson’s house a couple of times—it’s clean. They recovered the shell casing, but weren’t able to find Lucy’s body.”

I shuddered. “Her body. Part of me hopes she just took off—I mean, she’s just a kid.”

Alex’s eyes flashed.

“A terribly misguided, slightly sociopathic kid. Maybe she learned her lesson.” I tried to smile. “I kind of think we should go look for her, you know, maybe while we’re looking for Sampson? I bet we could—”

“You know I’m not really an FBI agent, Sophie.”

“Right,” I said quietly.

Alex sat on the edge of my desk, and I tried to keep my eyes on my potting soil—tried desperately not to glance at the way his quadriceps bulged underneath his jeans, or the way his biceps mercilessly stretched at the arms of his olive-green T-shirt.

I cocked my head, studying. My fingers touched the warm skin on his arm, leaving a dusty trail of soil. “I never noticed this tattoo,” I said, tracing the elaborately etched wing that poked from underneath his sleeve.

Alex turned, taking both my hands in his, lacing his fingers through mine. He pulled me close so that I could feel the warmth of his chest as it burned through his T-shirt, could taste the sweet crisp-apple scent of his breath.

“Sophie, I am an angel,” he whispered.

I tried to think of a sexy retort, but Alex held my gaze steady, his eyes bluer and more firecracker-startling than ever.

“You saved my life, Alex. You might be a hero, but an angel?”

“I’m serious,” Alex said. “You know I am.”

“Angels don’t exist,” I replied, extracting my hands from his and going back to my spider plant.

“Neither do vampires,” he answered.

I sat down hard, brushing my palms on my jeans. “So first you’re Parker Hayes, the San Francisco detective.”

“By way of Buffalo,” he interjected.

“Then you’re Alex Grace, the FBI agent. Now it’s—what? Gabriel the angel?”

“Gabriel is an archangel. And kind of a drama queen if you really want to know the truth. One website calls him ‘exalted,’ and that’s all he ever talks about.”

I could feel myself gape. “Oh holy Lord, you’re completely serious. And what about your niece?” I made flapping motions with my hands. “Is she an angel, too?”

Alex wasn’t amused. “She’s a pseudo-niece. Friend of the family. Her father asked me to check in on her after he passed away.”

“Passed away? You mean died.” I was incredulous and Alex cracked that half smile. I stood up and looked over his shoulder.

“What are you looking for?” he asked.

“Wings.”

“Earthbound angels don’t have wings.”

I crossed my arms in front of my chest and sat down again. “Right. That’s convenient. No wings, no halo. And I suppose you don’t have one of those bow-and-arrow things, either.”

Alex raised an amused eyebrow. “That’s Cupid. He’s actually a cherub—that’s different.”

“Of course it is,” I groaned, my eyes narrowed, studying. “Very convenient.”

Alex blew out a long sigh and in one swift motion, pulled off his shirt, leaving me face-to-face with his impeccable (okay, fine, “angelic”) pectoral muscles. He turned his back toward me and my mouth watered—and my eyes found their way to two, four-inch scars, each running vertically just underneath his shoulder blades.

“They took your wings?” I ran my index finger gently over the waxy, silver scars, the warmth from his skin roiling through my entire body. I swallowed slowly. “They took them off?”

Alex turned to face me again. “I’m earthbound.” His bright eyes suddenly clouded. “You call us fallen. When that happens, your wings just … just come off.”

“Looks like I came right in the nick of time!” Nina swished through the office door and stood, legs spread, hands on hips. “What is going on here, and why wasn’t I notified of beefcake nudity?”

Alex slid his shirt back over his head, and I sat back down, kicked my feet up on the desk. “Apparently, Alex is an angel now.”

Nina slapped her forehead with the heel of her hand. “Oh! That’s the smell! I couldn’t place it for the life of me. Makes perfect sense.”

Alex raised his eyebrows at me. “Smell?”

“Oh, vampires. They have this whole smelling thing. It’s no big deal.”

Nina yanked a blood bag from my mini fridge. She popped a straw into it and started to drink, her dark eyes fixed on Alex. “So an angel, huh? So do you like, know Lucifer?”

“Vampire, huh?” Alex asked, looking Nina up and down. “So do you, like, know Dracula?” There was a hint of smile playing on Alex’s lush lips.

“Touché,” Nina said, chewing on her straw, her eyes fixed but playful.

“Can you give us a moment, please, Nina?” I asked.

Nina stomped out into the hallway. “Fine! But you’re telling me everything the moment Coptastic—or Angeltastic—or whatever the hell he is—flies off.” She poked her head back through the doorway, her fingertips pressed against her mouth, her lips twisted into a wide grin. “Oh, I said hell—sorry, does that offend you?”

I rolled my eyes. “Nina …”

Alex smiled softly at her, and I got up, closed the office door.

“Geez!” I heard her bellow in the hallway.

“Okay, Alex, you’re an angel. My werewolf boss has run away. Yeah, okay, I see what’s going on here.”

Alex’s face brightened. “You do?”

“Yup. I’m a nutter.”

“Your vampire roommate just walked in here downing a bag of AB negative. Why is this so hard to believe?”

“Look around! This is the Underworld. Demons, zombies, bastions of hell. Don’t you think I would have been notified of angels? We don’t even have a form for that. And we have forms for everything.”

“We operate on different planes. If it makes you feel better, I really didn’t know the Underworld existed either. Demons, vampires—a complete world consisting of monsters? All legend to us on the celestial plane.” Alex chuckled. “And man, no one is going to believe this. Are they going to get a kick out of hearing about the Underworld when I get back.”

I felt my heart skip a beat. “When you get back?”

Alex’s eyes were soft. “Well, yeah, Sophie, that is the eventual idea.”

I paused, considering. Then, “Angel, huh? So were you … born that way?”

Alex bit his lip. “No. I was born human. The angel thing happened after I passed.”

I swallowed. “You died?”

Alex nodded.

“So let me get this straight: you lived, died, went to heaven, became an angel—”

“Fell from grace,” he said softly.

“And returned to Earth? Man, I feel so unaccomplished.”

“So?” Alex asked, looking at me sideways.

“So, I guess it’s good to know that the man I’m involved with thinks he’s an angel.”

Alex grinned. “We’re involved?”

“No. No, not anything like—I mean, as coworkers. Or, you know, detectives. Or whatever we are.” I offered a thin smile.

Alex frowned. “That’s too bad. I was already thinking about what to serve at the wedding. It’s going to be hard to feed the vampires, I’d expect. I don’t know how blood would go over on the buffet table….”

“Can angels even—wait—at the wedding? Our wedding? Alex, I’m not even sure I like you, let alone would be willing to—one day, in the far, very far, very distant future—have a wedding with you.”

“Oh,” Alex said, his warm arms encircling my waist, his lips cool and moist against my earlobe. “I think you like me, Lawson. I think you like me a lot.”

For the first time in a long time my heartbeat sped up and the feeling was delicious and welcome—rather than precipice-of-death horrific. I looked up into Alex’s earnest blue eyes. “Angel, huh? I guess I could get used to that. It’s not the strangest thing I’ve ever heard.”

“Well,” Alex said, “if it makes you feel better, I could just leave you to your relationship with the troll.”

I socked Alex in the arm and stepped back, awkwardly breaking our embrace and regretting it immediately. I rubbed the warm spot on my waist where Alex’s arms had been.

“So, if you’re going to be hanging around here”—I was careful to keep my eyes focused on the grain of my desktop—“I should probably know what happened.”

Alex’s eyebrows went up. “What happened?”

“To you. What happened to make you … fallen.”

His eyes clouded. “Sophie, I really don’t think you need to get involved with all this. It’s really …”

“Weird? Hard to understand?” I licked my lips. “Slightly left of center? You saved me and my werewolf boss from the scheme of a crazed killer, and you had to enlist the assistance of a smelly troll and a brooding teenage vampire to do it.”

“I didn’t have to enlist their help. They just … wanted to … assist.”

“Whatever. All I’m saying is that there really is nothing you could say that’s going to shock me. I’m pretty sure of it.”

“So you really want to know?”

“Yeah. If we’re going to hang out”—I held up my palm, stop-sign style—“just as friends, for now, I’d like to be sure that you weren’t, you know, tossed out of heaven for kicking puppies or eating babies or something terrible like that.”

Alex hid his grin behind his hand. “You really think I’m the type to kick a puppy?”

“Or eat a baby,” I finished, and then narrowed my eyes. “Alex Grace, I’m not entirely sure what kind of guy you are. So, go ahead. Spill it.”

Alex blew out a resigned sigh. “Well, it was close to two years ago when it happened. I was … kind of a security officer, I guess. A protector. And well, my loyalties were … called into question.”

“Called into question? And for that they sent you packing? Geez, that seems a little harsh.”

Alex crossed his ankles. “It wasn’t just me. I was supposed to protect something—something that was very important. And I … trusted the wrong person—I guess that would be the best way to put it.”

“And that someone betrayed your trust?”

Alex bit his lip, bobbed his head. “Yeah. My trust was betrayed, and because of that, something very precious was lost. It was my fault, and I was deemed untrustworthy—actually, more like an enemy to the hierarchy.”

“Wow. What was lost?”

“An amulet.”

I snorted. “Jewelry? God—or whoever—seems pretty nitpicky if he did all that over an amulet. Can’t he just”—I snapped my fingers—“whoosh! Whip up a new one or something?”

“The amulet is actually a keeper of souls. It’s the place where you go when your fate is being decided. In some religions they call it limbo or purgatory.”

I scratched my head. “So when you’re in limbo you’re in costume jewelry? Hm. Imagine that.”

“Good and evil are constantly warring, and the souls trapped in the amulet—well, the claimant of those souls can tip the scales in their favor and take over both worlds. Up until recently, the amulet was held on the angelic plane—balanced between the archangels and the fallen. There was a pact made in blood so that if either an archangel or a fallen angel touched the amulet, it would tip the scale and destroy their own world.”

“So, sort of like a super-duper security device.”

Alex smiled wanly. “Sort of. But I was taught a way around it, a way to claim the amulet. And I thought I was doing the right thing. I really thought I was stepping in for the good of humankind.”

“But you were betrayed.”

He nodded.

I raised my eyebrows. “So, as punishment you’re destined to wander the Earth forever now?”

Alex shrugged, crossed his arms in front of his chest. “It’s not that bad. I have cable.” He grinned and I eyed him expectantly, but he didn’t continue.

“Wow. An eternity of Sex and the City reruns. Lucky you.”

“I will be offered redemption when I find and return the amulet. Provided I do it in time.”

I frowned. “I don’t understand. If you’re out looking for this amulet thing, why did you get involved with the collector case? The chief was after power—and eyeballs and human hearts—not an amulet, or you know, souls. He never even mentioned it when we were trapped with him.”

“The collector—Chief Oliver—was working to open a portal to hell; to gain power over everything—the human plane, the demonic plane, and the angelic one.”

“He knew about the angelic plane?”

“Like the Underworld, there are all sorts of legends about it, people claiming to have been there, but it can only be an actuality if …”

“You’re dead?” I wondered.

“We prefer the term chosen,” Alex continued. “As for the chief, well, I had been tracking him for nearly a year. He was committing similar murders in other parts of the country—I think he was looking for each piece of his puzzle somewhere where an odd death wouldn’t draw so much attention. There was talk that possibly the amulet had ended up in his hands. I thought I was going to be able to find him, find the amulet, and then find my way back home.”

The sadness in Alex’s voice cut to my bones. “I’m sorry you didn’t find the amulet. So … what happens now?”

Alex focused on me. “Now I keep looking.”

“Okay,” I said, standing shoulder to shoulder with Alex. “Where do we start?”

Alex smiled wistfully. “Thanks, Sophie, but you don’t need to …”

“No, really, it’s the least I can do. You saved my life. I can, you know … get one of those metal detectors and go amulet searching. Maybe the chief buried it in Golden Gate Park or something.” I grinned.

“To be honest, I don’t even know exactly what the amulet looks like.”

“Weren’t you protecting it?” I asked.

“I was, but we weren’t able to see it. It’s charmed, so even though it’s called an amulet, it could really be anything. It’s a security thing.”

“Like Fort Knox?”

He smiled. “Something like that.”

I stood up. “I could still help you. I mean, there’s a good chance that maybe the amulet—or whatever it is now—has fallen into demon hands. Maybe the UDA can help you. And if it’s charmed, then I’ll be able to see through it. You know, if they got all squirrelly and decided to hide it in plain sight of something.” I was starting to dip back into my Sophie Lawson, CSI revelry. Although, maybe when working with angels I wouldn’t need a gun. Maybe just a bow and arrow or a sword or something. Yeah, I could deal with a sword….

Alex put both his hands on my shoulders and squeezed gently, bringing me back to reality. He looked at me, his cobalt eyes bright and clear, his smile soft.

“Thank you, Sophie. I appreciate you wanting to help. Your life is here, though.” He rubbed his thumb against my jawline, cradled my chin in his palm, and then his lips were on mine.

If I didn’t believe in angels before, I did now.