Green Tea and Black Death (The Godhunter, Book 5) (14 page)

  
Now I was standing over a plague victim as he took his final breaths. Yep, there he goes, that was definitely a death rattle. I sighed as the poor man gasped one last time and stilled. I was reaching for my cell phone to call the police, when something started to feel off. Well, even more off.

  
There was a pressure change in the air, a sudden need to pop my ears, and a flash of darkness. I know, how can darkness flash? There's no other description for it. The dark seemed to coalesce and flash a brighter black. My claw blades were already sprung by the time that darkness took form and I crouched into a defensive posture to face whatever was coming.

  
I thought I was ready for anything. I thought I was beyond feeling surprise. I've faced numerous gods, lived with them in their realms, listened to their stories and rode their mythical beasts. I was currently in pursuit of a tiger goddess, while I was in love with a werewolf, a shapeshifting god, and a werelion, and had recently returned home from Asgard where I'd made love to my husband from a previous life who also happened to be the head god of the Vikings. Strange was the norm for me. It took a lot to turn my head... or so I thought.

  
Turns out, all it took was an angel.

  
Why it never occurred to me that angels existed, is beyond me. After all, I'd recently befriended Christ and if he existed, then it would stand to reason that other creatures of Christianity would as well. They're all Atlanteans after all, just men and women assuming roles they used to collect power from us. All I can say in my defense is, I've been a little distracted lately by other pantheons.

  
At least I wasn't stupid enough to drop my guard. Anyone who's seen any of the
Prophecy
movies would know better than to trust an angel, and I especially knew not to trust anything related to the Divine until it was proven, without a doubt, that it was on my side of this war. So even though my jaw unhinged and dropped, I kept my hands up and my stance ready.

  
The angel turned, glanced at me, down at the dead man, then back at me again with a quick shocked movement. His eyes widened as he turned away from the body to face me fully. His throat worked convulsively, his mouth opening and closing a few times before he was able to make an attempt at speech.

   “
You can see me?” He asked.

  “
Yeah,” I frowned and dropped my invisibility spell, “And evidently you can see me too.”

   “
Who are you?” His voice was soft and raspy, as if it wasn't used often.

   “
You first,” I looked over his simple clothes; worn jeans and a
Grateful Dead
T-shirt with black leather boots polished to a high sheen. He would have fit in at any mall in America, if it weren't for those massive, black, feathered wings sweeping up from his shoulders.

   “
How can you see me?” The feathers in his wings shivered in agitation. “Are you a god?”

   “
Yes, I am,” I smiled smugly. I learned a long time ago to always answer that question with a yes, even if it wasn't true but now it seemed that I wouldn't have to lie anymore. “I'm a goddess and a hunter of gods. I was chasing Xi Wangmu. She came running through here and disappeared. Obviously her dirty work is done,” I waved a hand at the corpse, “but then you appeared. So I ask again... who are you? What are you? Are you,” I swallowed nervously, “an angel?”

  “
How is it that you're a goddess but are unfamiliar with the Host?” He turned his head and the light from the kitchen shifted across his face.

  
I caught my breath.

 
Now as I've recently mentioned, I've seen a lot of amazing things. Incredibly sexy men, gods, and assorted shapeshifters included. All of my lions were hand picked by the last Lion Goddess based mainly on their looks and Kirill was her favorite, so I don't think I have to explain to you how beautiful my black lion is. Trevor is a prime piece of werewolf flesh, muscled, tall and darkly handsome with honey colored eyes. Odin has a whole flock of Valkyries who are loyal only to him and those women don't just follow him around because it's their job, they follow him around because it's the best view in Asgard. I've seen and slept with some of the most gorgeous men in the world... in both of the worlds.

  
None of them prepared me for the sight of this dark angel.

  
If I dissected his looks in an effort to explain to you why he was so appealing, I would undoubtedly come up with a pile of average man pieces... attractive pieces but still no different from any other good looking male. His nose was just a nose, elegant and strong in shape but nothing unusual. His lips were on the thin side but looked soft and inviting, yet I couldn't say why it was that I wanted to kiss them so badly.

  
His jaw was firm, angled sharply, as were his cheekbones but these were no better than any chiseled face gracing the silver screen. His hair was so black, it seemed to leech every color out of his surroundings and pull them into those silky strands but still it was just hair, hair that was cut in a short serviceable style that shouldn't have appealed to me at all. I preferred long hair on men... hell, Kirill's hair hung past his ass and I thought it was his sexiest attribute.

 
Wide shoulders flexed under his mundane shirt but Trevor's shoulders were wider, his arms thicker than those of this angel before me. The angel was by no means skinny though. He had the body of a water polo player, strong, buff, but not overdone. It was very clear that he could throw down with the best of them but I'd seen the best and this wasn't it. So why did I feel like I was witnessing male perfection for the first time in my life?

  
I drew my gaze back up to his face, trying desperately to swim out of dangerous waters, but I ended up drowning anyway in the twin seas of his eyes. I pulled myself back but just barely, becoming fascinated with another sexy attribute: a beautiful, intricate symbol tattooed on his left cheek. It seemed to glow, swirl, then spark before settling into black again.

  
He was staring at me, as I was at him, and I had no idea how long we'd been gazing at each other. However long it was, we'd finally both come back to where we started. His eyes were a blue so light, they looked silver and they glittered in the dark. Not just a little shimmer of caught light, I mean the whole surface of his irises seemed to be made of tiny, shimmering particles, which refracted the light in waves. They flashed iridescent colors over his face and across the slick sheen of his hair. Altogether, his eyes were the only truly unusual thing about him, besides the wings of course, but put it all together and he was sublime.

   “
And how is it that I don't know your name?” He continued as if we hadn't just been ogling each other for the past century, or two minutes, whatever.

   “
I'm still waiting on yours,” I finally straightened out of my battle stance and I flushed as he gave my body another look.

   “
I am Azrael,” he took a step toward me, then frowned and cursed in an unknown language under his breath. “And you have just made me forget my duties for the first time in two thousand years.”

  
He turned back to the body and that's when I noticed the scythe. You would think someone who fought gods all the time would have seen the massive curved blade that was attached to a pole the length of Azrael's body but somehow I'd missed it till right then... when he plunged it through the corpse without making a single cut. He pulled it back and the blade glowed white for a second, the intricate carvings along the blade darkening to black before he swung the scythe in a half circle and it disappeared as if he'd simply tucked the weapon away.

  
He returned his attention to me, his wings folding down, down, down, till they disappeared as well. His eyes flashed once, then were simply light blue... a creepy, silvery, light blue but still just a color.

   “
Now you will tell me your name and status please,” he stood before me and I had to seriously concentrate on his words to get past the feelings that his nearness was causing in my limbs. Wow, this was worse than the first time I met Re.

  “
I'm Vervain,” I swallowed hard. What the hell was my last name? “Lavine,” I chocked out. “I... status?”

   “
I am Azrael,” he said gently, “my status is Archangel of Death, ruler of Shehaquim, the third Heaven. You are Vervain Lavine, Goddess of?”

   “
Oh,” I blushed hotter. “I'm sorry, I'm new to this.”

   “
New?” He frowned again and his scent hit me... vanilla orchids. The Angel of Death smelled like beautiful, delicate flowers. Huh.

   “
I wasn't born a goddess,” I looked down at my knives, wondering if I should pull them up. “I was human, a witch. I hunted gods to protect my people and then I became one, sort of by accident.”

   “
You can't become a god by accident,” there was no anger to his voice, only confusion.

   “
Trust me,” I smiled, “you can. Now I'm the Goddess of Love and Lions.”

   “
That's quite a combination,” he smiled back.

   “
Wait a minute,” I was starting to remember how to think. “Archangel of Death, scythe, corpse... you're the guy they fashioned the Grim Reaper after.”

   “
I'm one of Death's aspects,” he said softly.

   “
So you're not here because of Xi Wangmu?”

   “
No, I'm merely doing my job,” he waved a hand toward the body.

   “
But you're an angel,” I tried to work it all out. “That means you're part of the Christian mythos.”

   “
Yes,” he was so patient. Most of my men would have been practically shaking me by now. “But I am also part of the Islamic and Sikh traditions. They all stem from the same place, you know.”

   “
Yes but, uh, he's Chinese,” I pointed at the dead man with an accusing finger.

  
Azrael laughed. It was so loud, it filled my head, my whole body, but it was more emotion than sound. It didn't hurt with its volume, it simply soaked into me and shared its pure joy with me. I couldn't help but laugh with him, even though I had no idea what he was laughing about. Then he stopped with a sudden shocked silence and stared at me, like I'd done something even more fascinating than changing from human to god.

   “
I'd forgotten,” he whispered.

   “
What?”

   “
What laughing was like,” he smiled gently, in control again. “It's a lovely feeling, I must remember to read more humorous books when I get home. As far as your observance goes, just because a man is Chinese, doesn't mean he can't believe in Christ.”

   “
Oh, right,” I laughed a little at myself. “Of course. So he was a Christian.”

   “
No, he was a Buddhist,” Azrael's face was serious for two seconds before it altered vibrantly and he started to laugh again. “Yes, he was Christian,” he wiped at his tears.

   “
Did you just make a joke?” I giggled like a girl. “Is the Angel of Death supposed to crack jokes? I hardly think that's appropriate.”

   “
No,” he laughed again, “and I never do but then there's rarely anyone to tell them to. I don't think I've even spoke this much in years.”

   “
You don't have any friends?” I felt bad for this gorgeous man who couldn't even have the basic human comfort of sharing laughter with another person.

   “
I've always been more into study than interaction,” his smile faded. “I thought I interacted enough with the dead and mine is not a position conducive to making friends.”

   “
No, I guess not,” I finally pulled the little levers that sheathed my claws. “You wanna go grab a cup of coffee?”

   “
What?”

   “
Coffee,” I smiled and gestured to the door. “You do drink coffee right? I could actually go for some food too. How about it, feel like changing your opinion on social interaction?”

   “
I think I'm about to change my views on
all
interactions,” his eyes flashed once as he took my arm and led me out into the light.

Chapter Twenty-Two

   “
Vervain?”

  
I looked up to find Kirill towering over our courtyard table with a dark frown. Azrael merely looked curious as he sipped his white chocolate mocha. We'd been sitting there talking for who knows how long about everything and anything. He now knew the whole history of my current quest and my rise to goddesshood, including my ability to take back the power humans had sacrificed to Atlanteans. In return, I knew how much Azrael loved books and learning, how he prized his solitude, how he technically ruled a level of Heaven though he barely did any ruling to speak of, and how enslaved he felt to his job.

   “
Kirill,” I smiled as my heart sped up, like I'd been caught doing something wrong... which I hadn't of course.