Free Samael by Heather Killough-Walden Page B

afraid they would try to stop him?
    If so, why?
    “If the Culmination wasn’t enough to make up your mind,” Gregori said as he turned away from them to leave, “perhaps this event finally will.”
    The people in the crowd had been subjugated by the vampires amongst them. They stood still now, and quiet, in the most eerie exhibition of suppression Max had ever seen. Thousands upon thousands of revelers who had been absolutely wild moments before now stood swaying slightly, their eyes glazed over, their stares unfocused and aimed vaguely at the concert stage in the distance.
    Gregori stepped into this crowd with his final words, and disappeared.
    Max looked down at the ground and the black dandelions the man in white had left behind. A chill went up his spine.
    “Azrael, we need to talk,” he said softly as he then looked over at the very first vampire ever created.
    Az met his gaze. “Gregori approached me in San Francisco last night. He warned me that Samael had an archess and that he should not be allowed to find her. He spoke of the Culmination.”
    Michael, Gabriel, and Uriel exchanged looks.
    After a moment, Michael cleared his throat. He nodded at the mess behind them – in the chain link fence. They needed to do something about that.
    Gabriel nodded in understanding. The fleshy material was no longer living. It had once been a piece of a live being, but now it was as much as hamburger meat, as dead as the rocks and dirt around them. So that was what the archangels turned it into, cleaning up the remnants of a cold-blooded murder by transforming it molecule by molecule into something else. Not gold this time, as they’d often created. This time it was just dirt.
    It cascaded harmlessly and insignificantly to the ground, and the sound it made was an audible reminder of how fleeting and unfulfilled life could sometimes be.
    “The Adarians are gone,” said Az distractedly as he returned his attention to Sophie, who was now looking at him reassuringly, though she didn’t dare yet talk. No doubt, her throat was sore, despite Juliette and Eleanore both having healed her. The former incubus’s strength had been enormous. To an odd degree, actually. Max couldn’t help but wonder whether Sam had helped him along somehow with some kind of magic. Sophie was not an incapable archangel in her own right. She should have been able to fight Jason off, with telekinesis perhaps, or sprout wings and fly away at the very least.
    It was something to think about.
    “Perhaps Gregori never intended the Adarians to cause trouble in the crowd tonight,” said Eleanore softly, venturing a hopeful thought amidst many that were quite the opposite. If she was right, then it meant that Gregori might actually be telling the truth about Samael, and maybe, in some bizarre way, Gregori and the archangels were on the same side just now?
    “We will never be on the same side,” said Rhiannon, as if she had been reading Max’s mind. Her light green eyes were locked on his with hard meaning. Gregori had attacked her and Michael at Michael’s apartment not long ago. His men had been responsible for the death of a beloved pet, one that belonged to a little girl who was very close to Rhiannon. “Just think about it. I have a hard time believing that if Sam’s goal is to get the archangels out of his way, he could be so stupid as to kill one of the archesses. He knows good and well that there’s little more dangerous than a man with nothing left to lose.”
    “I agree,” said Sophie softly.
    Everyone’s attention returned to her. She nodded at Az and tried to sit up. He helped her. Her voice was indeed scratchy. Both archesses who’d healed her had barely managed to bring her back from the brink of death Jason had sent her to.
    Sophie took a deep, shaky breath. “I’ve spoken with Gregori,” she said. She looked up at Az and then up at Max. They recalled the scene where she’d faced him in his iceberg, kidnapped and isolated.