Free Women of the Otherworld 09.5 - Angelic by Kelley Armstrong Page B

number of enemies until, one day, I hadn’t been fast enough to avoid the fate some would say I’d been running from all my life.
     
    I’d been thirty-eight when I died. Ask me, though, and I’ll say I was forty, just to avoid that “wink-wink nudge-nudge, sure you were thirty-eight” shit. I have my faults. Vanity isn’t among them. With me, what you see is what you get. No excuses.
     
    One fault I will admit to is an overdeveloped sense of loyalty. I do stupid things for people I care about, and that’s what got me here. I made a deal with the Fates to protect my daughter. Now I spend six months a year with Kristof as a ghost, and six months as an ascended angel. Like Persephone banished to heaven instead of hell. Someone else’s idea of heaven, I should say, because this sure wasn’t mine.
     
    I made the deal, and I don’t regret it. I don’t try to wiggle out of my responsibilities. Sure, I bend the rules, but that’s why the Fates chose me. I was their fixer, the one they sent on jobs that required a less than angelic touch. My success rate matched that of ascended angels who’d been on the job for centuries.
     
    If this was a real job, they wouldn’t just grant me vacation, they’d send me an all-inclusive trip to the Elysian Fields. But that wasn’t the way it worked. With other angels, maybe. Not me. I was the bad girl, no matter how hard I worked, how much good I did. It was just like when I’d been alive—all anyone saw was what I did wrong. Back then, I hadn’t minded, because my bad-ass reputation kept Savannah safe. Here, it was starting to piss me off.
     
    “You do realize that’s not how real pirates dressed,” said a deep voice behind me. Marius—another ascended—walked around me, slouched on the sofa, and paused to give me a slow once-over. “ Which is really a shame. ”
     
    “Hey, angels can’t ogle,” I said, pulling my legs up primly.
     
    “Can’t or shouldn’t?”
     
    I shook my head and cast a spell to change into my usual attire—a blouse, jeans and boots. Marius looked like he was getting ready for a costume party himself, dressed in a toga and sandals. But he had an excuse. Most ascended angels were warriors in life. Marius had been a gladiator. He didn’t need to keep wearing the same clothing, but he viewed pants much the same way I saw skirts—a fashion torture to be avoided at all costs.
     
    Marius had been about my age when he finally lost a bout. He looked at least a decade older, though, with graying hair and a leathery, square face. The scars didn’t help, but as with most warriors, they were marks of pride, and not something he’d consider having magically removed.
     
    “I hear you got the djinn contract,” he said. “I thought you were on vacation.”
     
    “So did I .”
     
    “Shit. Damn Fates.”
     
    I’m sure he didn’t say shit, damn or any such Anglo-Saxon curse. That’s what I heard, though. With angelhood we get a few powers, and one is a built-in universal translator. Marius spoke first-century Latin and I heard twenty-first-century English, which could be a little odd, like watching a badly dubbed movie, the lips rarely matching the words coming from them.
     
    “If you need help, I’ve had plenty of experience with djinn,” he continued.
     
    “You aren’t on assignment?”
     
    “Nah. I finished early and the Fates don’t have anything for me yet, so I’m just kicking back…” Seeing my expression, he stopped. “The Fates told you no one else was free, didn’t they?”
     
    “Uh-huh.”
     
    “What is their problem with you?” He shook his head. “Well, if you need help, I’m around. Seriously. Just ask.” He grinned. “For me, demon butt-kicking is a vacation.”
     
    So the Fates put me on this assignment knowing not only was Marius cooling his heels, but he had more experience with djinn? Enough of this bullshit. I wanted out. Time to stop moping and bitching about it and get out.

Three
     
    Before