Gathering Storm (15 page)

Yes. He liked to gamble on horses, but he
also liked the atmosphere of the track: sounds, sights, and even
smells.

So four times a week he
took his Jaguar F-Type for a twenty minute drive on 80, across the
bay, past Berkeley to Golden Gate Fields. He had suffered a streak
of losses and was in big to his “financier”, but if that thought
tried to nag at him, he pushed it down so it wouldn’t interfere
with his enjoyment of the day or his ability to choose the lucky
pony.

At the end of the day, he
got in his beautiful car and drove west. Unlike the heady
anticipation of going to the races, the kind that he had
experienced earlier in the day, there was nothing to block out
personal confrontation with the situation. He was worse off. Not
better. He knew that, sooner or later, he was going to have to be a
big boy and face it.

He parked the Jag in his secure garage
space. That security cost him almost as much as he paid for his
apartment, but it was worth it. Everything about his life was
eclectic. He lived in a high rise with a beautiful view and it
would have been Trump expensive if it wasn’t for the fact that it
was located in a questionable neighborhood.

Angel could have gone home for a drink
alone, but decided on going to his neighborhood bar to drink alone
there. It was just getting dark, early to be drinking, especially
without dinner, but whatever. Walking up the block he noticed that
the neon sign was winking.

Somebody was sitting at his table. Well,
maybe it didn’t have his name engraved on a reserved sign, but it
was where he liked to sit. So he took one of those corner booths
that was designed for five people. By the time he had slid over the
red leather, the bar owner was standing there ready to take his
order.

“Hey, Hal.”

“Evening, Mr. Storm.
What’ll it be?”

“Usual.”

“You got it.”

As soon as Hal moved away,
Angel took out a little black cigar and lit it with an
old-fashioned fluid lighter. He liked the look and feel of a
real
lighter and even
enjoyed the smell of the chemical catching flame. There weren’t a
lot of bars left in San Francisco that allowed smoking.
Pussies.
As he pulled
smoke into his mouth, he thanked the gods that Halcyon wasn’t one
of those.

Hal set Angel’s drink in
front of him. “Start a tab?”

“Yeah. Thanks.”

An hour later, Angel put
out the little black smoke, settled up with cash and left Hal’s
bar. Maybe he’d go home and watch reruns on the Jukebox network.
Why not? Millions of ordinary people obviously loved to watch TV
about guys like him who bottomed out in deadly serious shit with
seriously deadly bad guys. Maybe he’d turn that around and watch
optimistic shows about funny and functional families on
Juke.

Maybe he’d go to a club
and look for somebody who wanted to be his girlfriend for an hour.
What he ought to be doing was looking for a poker game so he could
balance out some of his losses. But that behavior wouldn’t qualify
as self-sabotage.

He hadn't walked five steps away from the
entrance to the bar before Baph's men grabbed him.

"Well, there he is. Pretty as a dark angel.
Hello, Storm." Baph was wearing the expensive overcoat that he
always wore, winter or summer, and a smile that could only be
described as chilling.

"Dick."

The guy's name was
Richard. Angel called him Dick just to dick with him, but
privately, that was in his own head, he thought of him as “Baph”,
short for Baphomet, because he bore an uncanny resemblance to the
ancient infamous engraving. Angel didn’t know what species the guy
was, but he put the goat in goatee. In addition to notable facial
hair, he had vertical slits for pupils, horns and was probably
sporting a sizable pair of breasts under all that
outerwear.

Angel would bet on it, but
even he had to admit that wasn’t saying much. After all his poor
management of the betting impulse was what had brought him to that
moment.

Baph’s tone was sugar
sweet. Too sweet. "Let’s go over here and have a little dialogue.”
Following the direction his eyes went when he said, ‘over here’,
Angel deduced that ‘here’ meant the alley. He thought about trying
to run for it, but the two goons anticipated that move and grabbed
him first. He had a matched pair of thug accessories, one on each
side forcibly escorting him to the far side of the dumpster, past
the reach of street lights.

"You know I like you more
than most of my addicts. And not just because you’re so pretty. So
it’s going to hurt me to hurt you and that makes me even angrier
than if I didn’t have feelings for you.”

“You have feelings for
me?” When there was no reply, Angel said, “Look, uh,
Richard…”

Baph sneered. “So it’s
Richard now, is it? Shut it, junkie.”

“Junkie?”

“You object to the term?
The monkey on your back doesn’t care whether your Jones is
chemicals or horses. Do we agree you owe me money?”

“Yes.”

“It’s unfortunate that
you’re choosing to spend your time in low class bars nursing hooch
when you could be doing something productive. Like winning enough
money to pay your debts. What do you think I ought to do about
that?”

“Give me another week?”

Baph laughed without
making any noise. “Sure. Sure. Another week. No problem. But I
think it needs to be an incentivized week. Seems painfully clear
you’re lacking motivation. So we’re going to give you something
painful to remember when you’re making choices during your week’s
reprieve. Maybe it’s your looks that’s your downfall. I can fix
that for you.”

Baph reached into the
overcoat and withdrew a surgical-sharp instrument that seemed to
match his reputation for liking to deliver his own messages.
Personally. When Angel realized that the situation was serious and
coming to a head, he started struggling to get out of the hold the
gumbahs had on him.

It was then that the
miracle occurred.

Angel was jerked free of
the hold the two miscreants had on him just before they were
privileged to have their heads knocked together by an angel. It was
as close as either would ever come to communion with one.
Meanwhile, the demon, Deliverance, grabbed the intended victim,
whom he believed to be his son-in-law, and vanished with
him.

Kellareal and Deliverance
had happened upon Angel Storm at the same time. After a half hour
debate they agreed to call it a tie. Next they fought over who
would get to deliver Storm to Litha.

“How did you get to be friends with my
daughter anyway?”

“I was watching her. I followed her into a
pass. She sensed she had a tail and doubled back on me.”

“Something about your phraseology suggests
to me that you may be a fan of film noir.”

“I am a fan of film noir.”

Deliverance stared at Kellareal for a
minute. “Why were you watching Litha?”

Kellareal smirked at the demon. “Like you
don’t know.”

“Pretend I don’t and tell me.”

“The Council wants her
watched because she has enough power to go
Carrie
on the whole
world.”

“Oh, that.”

“Yes, that.”

“And you were ‘tailing’ her?” The incubus
punctuated the air with quote fingers when he said tailing. “Since
when are angels in the biz of following demons?”

“Like I said, she’s
special. You know it. And I’m one of them.”

“Them?”

“An emissaric seraphim.”

“That supposed to mean something to me?”

Kellareal looked at Deliverance like he was
an imbecile. “Perhaps not. The point is that I was given the task
of keeping tabs on your girl and we ended up being friendly.”

Deliverance could not hide his distaste at
that possibility.

“Back to the issue at hand. I’m her father
and his father-in-law. I was present when he wandered off and
caused all this trouble and I should be the one to put him back
where he goes.”

“Actually, since you’re the
one who lost him and caused all this trouble, you’re the
last
creature we should
entrust with his safe return.”

When the demon could see
that no argument was getting him anywhere, he finally said,
“Please. I need the win.”

“Did you say please?”

“I did. And you heard me.”

“Say it again.”

Deliverance wanted to launch himself at the
black-eyed blonde and take him to the ground, but he held his
temper. “Please.”

To Kellareal, getting the
demon to beg was as good as a win. With a smile full of smug, he
acquiesced, which left Deliverance with two thoughts about the
emissaric seraphim: first, that Kell was surprisingly decent for an
angelic chap and, second, that the angel was a sucker for not
insisting on negotiating a better deal than two utterances of the
word ‘please’.

It took less than four
minutes to get to the vineyard and Deliverance chuckled all the
way. He also made sure he had a death grip on Storm.

Litha was going to be so
happy and so surprised. The demon sensed what part of the house she
was in and dropped the lunker in the master bedroom right outside
her bathroom door. He knocked softly.

"Litha. It’s Dad. I have a
surprise. And don't say I never did anything for you."

Without waiting for a
response, he popped out, feeling triumphant and thinking he
deserved a femme feast in celebration.

Angel couldn’t begin to
process what had happened. One minute he was in an alley about to
be cut, the next he had his arms full of a soft, curvy woman who
had flung herself at him and then grabbed on, demanding kisses like
her life depended on it.

He knew Baph was wonky.
Maybe there were odd ideas about punishment wherever he was from.
Or maybe the piece was like a last meal. Either way, he was
partaking.

Litha had been coming out
of the shower wearing a towel. It had disappeared seconds after she
rushed that big body and collided with the one person who could put
her world back on its axis and make it start spinning in the right
direction again.

She stripped him out of
his pants and boots, but couldn’t wait longer than that to get him
inside her. The threat of being without him forever had ramped her
desire into a tight spiral. So she left him in his tight-fitting
tee and nothing else. She wished she had six hands so she could
touch him everywhere at once. On one level she was in the middle of
a prelude to the most feverish fuck of her life. On another level
she was checking to make sure he was okay.

He interrupted both her preoccupations by
grabbing her up and dropping her onto the bed seconds before she
felt his weight settle. It felt good. It felt familiar. It also
felt… different somehow.

The sex was rough compared
to what she was used to, but she didn’t care about that. When Storm
fought, he fought hard, holding nothing back. In general, he
approached life with a similar intensity, but his bedroom manner
was characteristically different. He had a preference for lengthy
foreplay and slow, tender, sweet, sincere lovemaking. The pounding
into her body was almost brutal. She ignored the distant look on
his face and chalked up the hurried humping to the same desperate
feelings of separation and uncertainty she’d been
suffering.

He yelled out an orgasm
and collapsed on top of her. It wasn’t like Storm to be oblivious
to whether or not she’d been properly pleasured, but they’d both
been through a lot. And she was so glad to have him
there.

“Welcome back.” She smiled
into his mouth. "I'm going to need another shower. Why don't you
join me? Let’s get clean together then I’ll feed you and you can
tell me everything."

She pushed at him to get
his weight off her. When he rolled off to the side, she rose from
the bed and headed back toward the bath.

He turned his head to
watch her saunter away and felt a sizable appreciation for the
sight of her curvy backside. Yeah. Sizable and growing larger
between his legs. Again. So soon.

Normally Angel didn't do
play and stay, but he was up for a repeat with Green Eyes. He got
up to follow her. She’d invited him into the shower and he didn’t
need to be asked twice.

Litha turned and smiled
just in time to see him grab the shoulders of his tee with both
hands, jerk it over his head, and drop it on the floor.

Her smile faded when her
eyes drifted downward to the elegant and intricate dragon tattoo
that started at his left pec, ran around his ribcage and ended out
of sight at his shoulder blade.

"You got a tattoo?"

"Yeah. Like it? It's not exactly new."

"Not new? What do you mean 'not new'?"

Angel cocked his head at her look of
confusion. "I've had it since I was nineteen."

"Nineteen?"

He smirked at the question
as he prowled toward her.

"What's with the question,
sweet tits? You're starting to sound like a parrot."

Litha's brain circuits
scrambled to put the puzzle pieces together and she didn’t like the
picture she was getting. "What's my name?"

He stalked toward her.
"Names aren't really my thing, cutie pie."

“Oh gods.” Her knees felt
weak and she might have been a little lightheaded for a
second.