Free Fall From Grace by Eden Crowne

are if
you killed those four people.”
    “ What people, god damn it!” The question in his eyes was back.
    “The ones guarding
the Relic.”
    At the word “relic”
all the hair on the back of his neck stood and he shivered.
    Evie lowered her
sword, pointing it directly at his heart, “Why were you in that
alley?”
    His
face grew suddenly wary. Ah, Evie thought, that was the right question to ask
the Reaper here on this empty Southern California beach.
    Trick channeled what
energy he could into his shield, trying to deflect that damned
Angel vision of hers from boring a hole into his heart; seeing the
truth and the lies hidden there. His Master had promised to end his
contract, free him to live a normal life span as a human again.
Just this one, last, dirty job.
    Kill an Angel.
    The promise of
freedom so very sweet. What was one more death? There had been so
many in the darkness since he met the demon. Angels weren't really
human, were they? And then he saw Evie in the alley with the Fallen
and the rich taste of freedom turned to ashes in his mouth.
    Another wave crashed,
the water up to his knees. He moved closer to her, through the wet
sand until the sword point pressed against his chest. A small
trickle of blood ran down the fine, fair skin of his belly.
    Her sword glowed more
brightly as if sensing its quarry. Ready to strike.
    “I'm going to come up
the beach and get my clothes, Evie. Please don't smite me, at least
not yet.”
    Focusing her power,
she rose up into the air on the downswing of her great wings,
tossing the sand in a whirlwind. There she hovered warily, sword
still ready.
    With one of his
crooked smiles, he said almost to himself, “I'll take that as a
'yes'. I hope.”
    Evie
attempted to keep her concentration on his face as he walked naked
across the loose sand towards the cliff face. He kept his hands at
his sides. Weaving no spells, summoning no weapons. He was exposed
to her completely, knowing she could strike him down. Almost daring
her to. She let her attention wander to his chest and then
elsewhere. Damn .
She dipped in the air as her wings suddenly lost their lift.
Landing clumsily, she tried to cover her lapse by clambering onto
another tumble of rough, weathered rocks, taking the high
ground.
    He
ran his hands through his hair, shaking out the last of the sea
water. A gesture Evie could not help find very attractive. Damn
it again .
    By the cliff face he
grabbed his jeans and tugged them on. He stared at Evie,
silhouetted against the sky. Tall and strong, yet purely feminine
in form. A woman, not a girl or a bundle of sticks pretending to be
one. Her dark brown hair, tangled and twisted from the flight,
partially hid her face. He clenched his fists, overcome by a
sudden, powerful desire to go to her. Kiss her deeply. Run his
hands through her hair, over her shoulders, down her back to the
soft swell of her bottom and thighs.
    He faced her, “I
didn't kill anyone in Hungary, no matter what your Death Mark
claims. I've killed plenty of things since my transition, not them,
Evie. Not them. I was in the alley for another reason.”
    “The Fallen?”
    He gave her a swift,
searching glance. “Partially. They call him the Baron. He and my
Master currently have shared interests.” Trick paused, searching
for the right words. “Have you heard of Gogmagog, the land of the
demon clans?”
    She shook her head,
“Is that another word for Hell?'
    He
laughed, “Good lord no! What are you thinking? It's an actual
place, though not in the mortal world. There's a far wider pantheon
than the one you serve and the Universe, no the Multiverse , is a complex place. The
spiritual plane even more so.”
    “That is only slowly
being made clear to me.”
    “Think of the demon
world as Europe in the seventeenth and eightennth centuries. A
crazy quilt of fiefs, kingdoms, and principalities always looking
over their shoulder waiting for the neighbors to pounce. Things
would probably be a lot worse here in