Angel Tormented (The Louisiangel Series Book 3) (21 page)

Leon glanced back at the body. “I don’t
think it’s a coincidence that his body has turned up here.”

“I do,” I shrugged, following his gaze.
“The Port stretches along most of the Mississippi on both sides. That’s a lot
of area to work in.”

Leon’s phone bleeped at him and he pulled
it out, reading the screen. “Looks like we’ve got another one at the French
Market.” He looked to Joshua. “How are you feeling?” he asked. “You feel well
enough to handle one by yourself?”

“Just getting over the sore throat,”
Joshua nodded.

“You stay here with this one, make sure
the vultures keep away until the ME arrives, and then can you handle the
notification while I take the other one?” At Joshua’s agreement, Leon walked
away, grumbling under his breath about how Black Friday was supposed to be a
quiet day for homicides.

I watched as he headed for the crime tape
and ducked under it, then noticed that the crowd had grown. “Joshua,” I said,
keeping my voice low even though no one could hear me where we were. “Do you
mind if I hide out in the car? I won’t be far if you need me.”

Joshua gave me an amused smile. “I’m
perfectly capable of handling a crime scene by myself, darlin’,” he said,
handing over the key fob. “I don’t know how long I’ll be though.”

I was being paranoid, I know, but I’d been
in such a rush that I hadn’t bothered to pull a cap over my wet hair. I knew
there was at least one church in the nearby area, and we weren’t far from St.
Louis Cemetery No. 1.

It did give me time to go over my list. I
had struck three things off it, but one objective had to be amended: ‘work out
exactly whose side Ty was on’. I’d also added to the list: ‘work out what the
cherubim are up to’. Okay, the progress was more like one step forward and two
back, given the scope, but it was something and I was managing to do this
without Michael.

I was contemplating heading back to the
crime scene to see how things were going, but it was warm in the car, and I was
comfortable, and the next thing I knew, I was in Paris.

Well, I wasn’t in Paris exactly....

I was asleep.

I looked around at the night sky and
groaned. I was in Paris on a specific day – the first time I had been there
with Michael – I recognized an old couple as they strolled past me.

I’d always wanted to go to Paris. I’d
always wanted to travel the world, but I’d gone to college and then I’d died.
Michael had brought me to Paris not too long ago and I’d explored everywhere
with him while he taught me some things about the city, the history,
and
a few things about angels. What I hadn’t realized at the time was that they
were dates.

Yes, I was that oblivious. In my defense,
Michael had all but told me that he and I could never be a thing. He was no
good at sharing his feelings, and I was no empath, but even if I had been
completely unaware of why I was there, I’d had a really nice evening.

My gaze had been on the Eiffel Tower which
was looming over me, lit up in the dark, but I brought it down to the grass in
front of me where I knew I would be sitting. Sure enough, there I was, beside
Michael on a picnic blanket; devouring a sandwich. I winced as I watched
myself: the sandwich had been fresh and tasty, but I really needed to slow down
when eating. It was not dignified in any way.

“You enjoyed that.”

I turned my head, slowly. Standing beside
me, watching me watch me, was Michael. “This is weird,” I said. Weird was an
understatement. This was bordering on disturbing
and
it was giving me a
headache.

“Yet you do not seem surprised,” Michael
observed.

“No, I suppose not,” I agreed. This wasn’t
the first time this had happened. I’d walked into Joshua’s dream once and
relived a memory with him. This was just as painful. “I suppose I’m more
impressed with my memory recall.”

Michael tilted his head. “I do not
understand.”

“This,” I said, gesturing to the Eiffel
tower above. “And that,” I added, pointing at the memory of me and him. “And
definitely you.”

“Me?” He seemed surprised.

“It’s not that I would ever forget you,” I
hurried to tell him. “It’s more that it’s odd that I would choose to bring you
here, while you’re sat just there. Does that make sense? Because in my head it
does… Only this is in my head too.”

“This is your memory?” he asked, amused.

“My dream,” I shrugged.

“Are you sure?”

I cocked an eyebrow. “You’re dead,” I
said. My words were blunt, but apparently my psyche needed a talking to. “And I
can do this.” I focused on the memory of us, still eating. It took some effort,
but they vanished. I turned back to the remaining Michael. “See?”

“How did you do that?” he asked,
perturbed.

I shrugged. “Like hell I know how dreams
work.” I wandered over to a bench and took a seat. Moments later I was joined
by Michael. “The question is, what am I doing dreaming about you?” The question
was rhetorical but he opened his mouth to respond. “Well it’s obvious,” I said,
before he could. “I miss you.”

“You do?”

“You seem surprised,” I told him. Michael
stared up at the tower in front of us, considering what I had said. “Or maybe it’s
me that’s surprised,” I mused. “A shrink would have a field day with this.”

“Why?” Michael asked.

I stared at him and pulled a face. I was
talking to a memory of him aka, myself. Then I thought about what he had asked.
I sighed. “A shrink would be bored. This is textbook.” I sighed again and raked
a hand through my hair, discovering that it was still red. I wonder what my
inner shrink would say about that? “Being an angel is hard work,” I admitted.

“You are struggling?” he asked, finally
looking back at me.

“It turns out that even when I probably
seemed like I wasn’t listening, I really was, and now you’re not here to help
me, I have no idea what to do next,” I told him.

“I’m here now,” he pointed out.

“You’re in my head,” I corrected him. “All
that tells me is that I need to figure this out by myself.”

“You don’t have to figure anything out by
yourself,” Michael said, shaking his head. “You only need to ask for help.”

I stood up. “Well, this has been… weird. I
need to go.”

“I will see you soon,” Michael assured me.

Maybe the help I needed to ask for
was
a shrink.

Joshua woke me up when he closed the car
door. My eyes flew open and I hastily rubbed the sleep (and the tears) from
them. I took a deep breath wondering where my limit was with pain – the guilt
of Lilah and the loss of Michael… I wouldn’t survive much more.

It had been just over an hour since I’d
left Joshua but he looked hot and bothered. “Are you okay?” I asked him.

He pulled a face and turned the engine on,
and the air-conditioning on full, pulling at the neck of his jumper. “I’m
wearing a turtleneck when it’s 97 degrees out,” he grunted. “And you’re sat in
a car which doesn’t even have the windows cracked and you’re not even breaking
a sweat. How?”

“You could have worn something else,” I
shrugged. Hot Joshua was a grumpy Joshua.

“Yes, because handprints around a police
officer’s neck is an excellent badge of honor,” he snapped. “Where’s my bottle
of water?”

I reached into the foot well and grabbed
the bottle he was referring to. “It’s warm,” I warned him as I handed it over.

“Great,” he grunted, snatching it from me.

“Suddenly, Beelzebub’s idea to heat the
city makes sense,” I retorted, rolling my eyes at him. “How about you take that
jumper off and we detour for ice cream.”

“I’m not wearing anything under this,”
Joshua said, playing with the vents to angle them at his face.

“I fail to see the problem with that,” I
told him, blinking up at him.

He turned to look at me then, and all the
irritation left him. “You’d like that, huh?”

“I feel like I should lie to you to calm
that ego of yours down,” I told him dryly, then gave a dramatic sigh. “But I
feel doing that will also deprive me of a wonderful view.”

He gave me a smirk, but shook his head.
“I’m going to have to deprive you of that
wonderful view
,” he said,
regretfully. “I’ve got the address of the next of kin. It looks like Mr. Ramsey
worked at his father’s shipping company.”

It took me a moment to process what he was
saying. “This city is built on the banks of a river. There’s miles of ground
used by shipping companies along this section of the Mississippi. Like I said
to Leon, this is just a coincidence.”

Wordlessly, Joshua leaned over and
programmed the address into the onboard GPS system. The overview route map
popped up. “Still think it’s a coincidence?”

I started at the screen, not liking what I
saw. “No.”

* * *

Although A. R. International had several
warehouses on the site, it also had a very posh building at the site entrance.
Judging from the cars we parked next to, this building was where people in
suits, and not overalls, worked. The inside was as plush as I expected it to
be.

“Good afternoon,” Joshua greeted the
secretary. “We’d like to speak to Mr. Ramsey, please.” The woman gave him a
confused look and he pulled his badge out, but this only made her frown more.

“I assume you mean Alex?” she asked,
slowly.

“If that’s what Mr. Ramsey Senior goes by,
yes,” Joshua nodded.

“You can’t,” she said, still looking
confused.

“It’s regarding his son,” Joshua said. I
could see he was getting frustrated but knew better than to step in. I stepped
back and wandered around the room. “I regret to disturb him, but this is
important.”

“Mr. Ramsey is missing,” the woman said.
“I would have thought you knew that, considering you were here last week.”

“Oh crap!” I exclaimed. I wasn’t paying
much attention to the conversation. I had been keeping myself occupied by
studying the photographs of A. R. International’s board of directors. There, in
the center, was Mr. Ramsey Senior, the CEO of the company.

Or, as I knew him, Valac. Which completely
explained why he had been there the other night, though not what his connection
to Asmodeus or Beelzebub was.

“How could you not know that?” the woman
asked impatiently, reacting to my outburst.

I looked at Joshua. “We need to leave.”

“We can’t just leave,” he said through
gritted teeth.

I marched over to the desk. “Ma’am, I
apologize. There’s clearly been a mix up at the station – we were following up
on another case and we haven’t been properly briefed,” I lied. “Again, I
apologize for the inconvenience.” I glared at Joshua and nodded at the door.
“We should let the other officers handle this.” Not giving him time to respond,
I strode out of the building.

Joshua was right behind me. “What the hell
was all that about?” he asked. “You can’t just do that.”

I turned back to him. “Please trust me and
get in the car.”

“Okay,” Joshua quickly agreed, even though
he clearly didn’t understand why. I refused to say anything until we were in
the car and I could no longer see the shipping yard behind us. As Joshua pulled
over, his phone bleeped at him, but he ignored it and turned to me. “What was
that about?”

“I was wrong,” I told him. “When I told
Leon it was a coincidence, I was wrong.”

“We gathered that when we saw the
address…” Joshua trailed off. He reached out and grabbed my hand. “Darlin,’
you’re shaking.”

“The victim’s father is the fallen angel
who killed Michael,” I said. “He’s missing because I killed him. I killed
another human vessel, Joshua.” I slumped back, and then the nausea hit me. I
jerked my hand free and lurched out of the door, emptying my stomach.

Joshua was there, holding my hair back,
then, when I was finished, he led me back to the car, leaning me against it as
he offered a bottle of warm water. “I don’t think you did,” he said, slowly.

“Trust me, I killed him,” I muttered,
miserably. “He exploded.” Joshua chewed at his lip, but said nothing. Instead,
he wrapped his arms around me. I sucked in several racked breathes in an
attempt to calm myself, then I pulled free of his embrace. “I’ll be okay.” I
gave him my best reassuring smile and got in the car.

Joshua took my lead and got back behind
the wheel as his phone bleeped again. This time he looked at it, frowning.
“Well that has to be a record time for an autopsy,” he muttered. “It looks like
we need to head to the morgue.”

I nodded numbly. We drove in silence, the
ride seeming much longer as I disappeared into my thoughts. By the time we had
arrived, I had pulled myself together: he might have been under the control of Valac,
but if I hadn’t have killed him, he would have killed me.

Despite the message, we still had to wait
for Henry under the watchful eye of the grumpy secretary. Leon had arrived
moments after us, and was as confused to see us as we were him. “You can’t
possibly have the autopsy results already?” he asked us. “Because I have mine,
and the body was only picked up an hour ago.”

Joshua shrugged. “The message just said to
come to the morgue for the results. Clearly there’s been a mistake and only one
of us needs to be here.”

He looked at the grumpy secretary who
glowered at him. “I have made no such mistake, young man. I did as requested.”

I was grateful when Henry finally
appeared.

“Sorry about keeping you waiting,” he
said. He paused by the reception desk. “Sheila, please make sure I’m not
disturbed,” he requested, disappearing into the back of the morgue before he
could see the disgruntled look on her face.

There was a body lying on the table as we
stepped in and my stomach rolled at the sight of it. I’d seen a few bodies now,
and I suppose with my new line of work I should be more used to them, but this
one was mid-way through an autopsy with the chest cut open and his insides on
show.

Thankfully, we bypassed him, only for Leon
to stop at another body, pre-incision. Judging from Leon’s reaction, this was
his victim. “Even I can tell no autopsy has been performed on him.”

“He’s only just come in,” Henry said,
confused. “I was preparing to move him to the other room when you arrived.”

“Then why am I here?” Leon asked.

“The paperwork had both you and Walsh as
the lead detectives on another murder victim,” Henry explained. He pointed to
the remaining body in the room. Alexander Ramsey Junior.

Leon pointed to the body in front of him.
“This guy is mine.”

“Can we not talk about him like that,” I
snapped. “He was a person.”

“Okay, let’s not attack the detective,”
Henry requested, stepping between me and Leon. “We’ve got a lot to run through
and I could do with you all being present.” Before I could tell him I had no
intention of attacking anyone, Henry looked over his shoulder at Joshua.
“Speaking of, I’m glad you’re still alive.”

“What does that mean?” Leon asked,
instantly, giving Joshua a shrewd look.

Henry looked between the two men and
sighed. “You haven’t had this conversation.”

“What does that mean, Joshua?” Leon
repeated, enunciating each word. When it was clear that Leon was not going to
drop it, Joshua gave a reluctant sigh and pulled the neck of his jumper down to
reveal the ugly purple bruises. Leon’s eyes went straight to mine.

“It wasn’t Angel!” Joshua snapped,
angrily. “Don’t even go there, Leon.”

“I wasn’t,” Leon assured him. “I was going
to thank her.”

I wasn’t expecting that. I stumbled back,
unsure what to say. “Oh.”

Henry, however, had no shortage of words.
“I do have work to do, so can we focus?”

“You’re the one that brought it up,” I
mumbled, though I was grateful the topic moved to something else other than me
and my ability (or lack thereof) to protect Joshua.

We followed Henry to Alexander. “You
haven’t done an autopsy on this victim either,” Leon was quick to point out as
he didn’t bother to hide his irritation.

Henry narrowed his eyes. “Cupid informs me
you are an ally and can be trusted.”

Leon’s mouth dropped open in surprise. “Oh
course.” His words were firm, but he looked embarrassed as he said them. The
embarrassment quickly turned to confusion. “
You’re
an angel?”

Henry nodded, but it was Joshua who
responded. “He’s the Grim Reaper.”

“I’m an Angel of Death,” Henry corrected
him. “Now we’ve got that cleared up,” Henry turned his attention to me.
“There’s something you should know about this victim.”

“He’s nephilim?” I offered.

Henry’s mouth dropped open. “How do you
know that?” he spluttered.

“I killed his father,” I admitted.

“What?” both Henry and Leon demanded.

I winced. “His father was Valac. He was
the fallen angel who killed Michael.”

Leon’s face settled into understanding,
whereas Henry looked even more stunned. “You killed Valac?”

“Just,” I admitted. “Not quick enough.”

“Valac was bad news,” Henry said. “He
might not have been in Lucifer’s inner circle, but the guy has been wreaking
havoc for centuries. I didn’t even know he was in New Orleans.”

“Apparently nobody knows which of the
Fallen are in New Orleans,” I retorted.

“Let’s get something straight, fledgling: the
Fallen do not remain in the vessels they were given. They possess innocent
humans and hide behind their auras. Sheila could be one and I wouldn’t know any
different,” Henry explained, like he was trying to keep his cool. “No one
does.”

“But you can tell he was nephilim,” I
pointed at the body next to me.

“Because he’s dead.” Henry stood between
Alexander’s body and the victim from Leon’s case. “Most people can’t see auras.
Within the angelic choirs, only the virtues can see the auras, and about half
of the archangels. The part that archangels can’t see is the residue, and sadly
only half of the virtues can see that. We that can, do what we do,” he explained.
“Auras leave a mark, a stain almost, on the body. These two, three,” he quickly
corrected himself. “These three bodies may look normal to you, but I see what
they were. The first guy has traces of orange – he was an outgoing individual,
and an overall decent person. This guy,” he pointed to Leon’s victim. “His
residual aura tells me he was quite a dishonest person. I would not be
surprised if he has a criminal past. Whereas this man,” he indicated to
Alexander. “I can see the residue, and that shade of red tells me he was angry,
but I see nothing there that would make me believe he acted on his anger.”

I squinted at Alexander’s body. I may have
had an exceptional ability of being able to see auras, but I definitely
couldn’t see the residue. “How can you tell he was nephilim?”

“Do you know what an aura is?” Henry asked
us.

I nodded. “Like a light that encompasses a
person, but the different colors represent their emotions and feelings,” I
said, recalling what Michael had told me. “Like a visual guide to what a person
is.”

“An explanation given by someone who can
only see the auras,” Henry nodded, disappointed. “That aura is their connection
to Heaven. It doesn’t matter what that person believes, or who their god is,
that light is a sign to say we are all cherished by Heaven. When angels fall,
that connection to Heaven, that aura, it goes. That is why the Fallen have no
aura, and why they can hide behind the human’s. Does that make sense?” he
asked. When the three of us acknowledged that we did, he continued. “The nephilim
are half human, half angel. Alive, all you see is that light. When they die and
the brightness subsides, you’re left with gaps. That is what I see when I look
at this young man.”