The Angel of Death (The Soul Summoner Book 3) (19 page)

The look on my face must have answered Azrael’s question. He pointed at me. “That’s what my world is like. It is euphoria all the time. You never get used to it. It never gets old. You can never have enough.”

“It sounds like you’re talking about heroin or something.”

“Haven’t you ever wondered why the world has so many addicts? So many lost souls seeking after the ultimate high?” he asked.

“Yeah.”

He bowed his head slightly. “Now you know.”

I laughed, but I didn’t exactly think it was funny. “Are you saying drug abuse is linked to God?”

He gave a noncommittal shrug. “I’m saying everyone on this planet is born with the desire for that connection, that feeling. Some try to satisfy it with drugs, and others use sex, money, and even religion. But, ultimately, everyone’s after the same thing.”

“That’s interesting,” I said.

Azrael turned onto the interstate. The mountains were speckled with snow against the dreary gray sky. It was getting dark outside. “Where are we going?”

A thin smile spread across his face. “You’ll see.”

His cool and disconnected tone unnerved me. “Maybe we should try this tomorrow,” I said. “It will be dark soon.”

“Don’t worry. This won’t take long,” he said.
 

After ten minutes of driving, he got off the interstate onto a small access road near the Blue Ridge Parkway. My spine tingled as I realized I had been on the road before. Confirming my fear, Azrael turned onto an even more desolate logging road leading up the mountain. My eyes darted around the dim forest. “Why are you bringing me here?”

“You’ll see.”

I pulled out my phone and tapped a message out to Nathan.
Azrael is taking me to the woods where Billy Stewart tried to kill me. Not sure why.

I hit send, but the phone buzzed and another
Message Undeliverable
alert popped up on my screen. I gulped, and my heart was racing. “I don’t like this. Please turn around.”

He kept driving.

My brain was scrambling for a way out, but I was trapped. I knew it, and Azrael knew it. My heart was thumping so hard I could feel it beating against my seat belt. I closed my eyes. “Nathan McNamara,” I whispered.

When I looked at Azrael again, his creepy smile turned my stomach.

Finally, he stopped in the middle of the dirt road and slid the transmission into park. “Is this where it happened?” he asked.

“What are we doing here?” I asked, my voice cracking.

“Get out of the truck.”

“Azrael, I—”

“Get out of the truck!” he roared.

He wrenched his door open, and I sat frozen in my seat as he got out and slammed his door. I hit the lock button. He looked back at me and grinned, then he held up his hand. The lock clicked and my door flung itself open.
 

“Damn it,” I muttered.

Before I got out, I closed my eyes once more and pictured Nathan’s face in my mind. “Nathan, I need you here.”

Carefully, I slid out of the cab and tightened the belt of my coat. Snow was sporadically spitting through the high beams from the headlights as I walked in front of the truck. I stood there hugging my arms and shivering, partly from the cold and partly out of sheer terror of what was coming next. Once again, I had walked blindly into the open trap of a demon.

“Are you afraid?” Azrael asked as he took a few slow steps toward me.

There was no point in lying. “Yes.”

“Did you summon the detective here?” he asked.

I nodded.

“Good.”

He turned away and navigated down the embankment on the side of the road. He motioned his fingers toward me, beckoning me to follow. When I didn’t move, a magnetic force pulled my body in his direction, forcing my feet to keep up. I followed Azrael into a small clearing in the woods. Not a hundred feet from where we stood was the spot where serial killer, Billy Stewart, had buried Leslie Bryson and had dug my grave right next to her.

Icy tears slipped down my face.
 

Azrael turned toward me. “Close your eyes.”

I knew if I didn’t close them, he would close them for me, so I pressed my eyes shut.
 

A moment later, I heard twigs cracking under his weight next to me. “Your life is in my hands, Sloan. The life of your child is putty at my fingertips. I can destroy you and your baby, and no one will be able to get to you fast enough.” His warm breath singed the exposed skin of my neck. “I want you to burn this feeling into your memory,” he hissed.

My shoulders trembled with silent sobs.
 

“Oh, don’t cry,” he taunted. “Each tear is your strength dripping off your cheeks. Your tears make you weak.”

“Please,” I begged.

“Remember this feeling, Sloan. Let it seep into your bones. Let it flow through your veins,” he said. “Open your eyes.”

When I opened my eyes, Azrael was standing inches in front of me. His hands were outstretched and between them was a razor-sharp, white, pulsing light. It danced violently in the space between his palms. “Hold out your hands,” he ordered.

Trembling, I stretched out my freezing hands.
 

He carefully extended his arms till his hands reached mine. Then, as if passing me a basketball or a loaf of bread, he placed the light in my hands. My eyes widened so far I feared they might freeze that way. The light sizzled like
Pop Rocks
in my hands. It tingled and burned and felt icy hot as it pulsed from one palm to the other. My terror was replaced with fascination as the bolt surged between my fingertips.

Then the light fizzled out.

Azrael’s eyes met mine. “You forgot your fear.”

My mouth was still hanging open. “What?”

“The fear. That radical feeling of desperation,” he said. “That’s the key to unlocking your power over death.”

I put my hand on my hip. “So you aren’t planning to kill me?”

He grinned and shook his head. “Not today.” He took a step forward and looked down at me. “I needed to make you fear me and fear for your life and for your daughter. I’m sorry it had to be this way.”

I shoved him backward. “That’s a jerk move, Azrael!”

He smiled. “It wouldn’t work any other way. I could explain it all day long, but you wouldn’t understand unless you felt it,” he said. “Let’s just say this training exercise was done in a secured environment.” He gestured toward the truck. “It’s freezing. Let’s get out of here.”

Azrael walked back to the truck, but I stood motionless in the clearing, frozen to the ground, my mind working overtime to process all that had occurred in the five minutes we had been there.
 

“Are you coming?” Azrael called from the driver side door.

I thrust my hands into my coat pockets and trudged back up the hill to the road. I got in the passenger’s side and slammed the door behind me. “You’re such an asshole!”

“Yes,” he said as he looked over his shoulder to complete a three-point turn. “Call your detective friend and tell him to meet us for dinner. Does the baby like Mexican food?”

I felt like kicking and screaming. “Azrael! I thought you were going to kill me!”

“I know. That is what I intended you to think. Better me than someone who actually wanted you dead, don’t you agree? Now you know how to access your power without me needing to write a textbook about it.” He pointed at my phone. “Call your friend.”

I sighed. “I can’t. His phone isn’t working.”

Azrael scowled over at me. “You don’t need a phone.”

Using my gift, I called out to Nathan and after a few moments of silence, my phone rang and his face came up on my screen. “Hello?” I answered.

“Hey. I just got my new phone. Where are you?” he asked.

“Driving. Where are you?”

“Well, I got turned around on the interstate and accidentally wound up in the forest,” he said.
 

I sighed. “It’s because I summoned you. I’m fine now, though. Want to meet us for dinner?”

He paused for a moment. “Uh, sure,” he said. “Where are you going?”

“Azrael wants Mexican food. How about Papa’s and Beer over near your apartment?” I asked.

“I’ll see you there in ten minutes,” he said and disconnected the call.

Azrael glanced across the cab at me. “Like I said earlier, now that I’m here, there really isn’t any need for the detective to stand guard over you all the time.”

I smirked. “Try telling him that.”

“It really isn’t safe for you to be so close to anyone,” he said. “Angels can use other humans to get close to you, even against their will.”

I shuddered at his implication and hugged my arms. “Nathan won’t leave me, so you’re wasting your breath.”

“Are you in love with him?” Azrael asked as he drove.

I rolled my eyes. “You dragged me up into the woods like Ted Bundy, and now you want to discuss my love life?”

He reached across the cab and squeezed my shoulder. “I said I was sorry. You learned though, didn’t you? Now you will know exactly what I’m talking about when I tell you to focus on your fear.”

“Why does it have to be fear?” I asked. “Why can’t it be love? Or happiness?”

“Because fear is more powerful than even love,” he said. “Fear forces you to reach into places within you to summon courage and power you never thought you had.” He cast me a serious look. “Fear is also ultimate respect. And if you are about to end the life of another being—you had better be fearful and certain of that choice.”

His words gave me chills. “I really don’t want this, Azrael.”

He shook his head. “You don’t have a choice.”

* * *

I decided to extend the dinner invitation to Adrianne also, to smooth things over after not calling her about the accident. She said she’d be right behind us.

Nathan was seated at a table when Azrael and I walked into the restaurant. He stood when he saw us. I huffed as I slid into the booth, and he sat next to me. “What have the two of you been up to?” he asked.

I glared across the table at Azrael. “Well, he tried to kill me.”

Azrael grinned. “I did not.”

I turned toward Nathan. “He took me up to Billy Stewart’s spot in the woods and made me believe he was about to murder me!”

Nathan’s eyes darkened, and he looked at Azrael. “You did what?”

“Tell him what else happened,” Azrael said to me.

I sighed. “He handed me this lightning ball thing, and I held it till I got distracted and it burned out.”

“What?” Nathan asked.

Azrael seemed proud. “I taught her how to harness the power of death on that mountain.”

Nathan sighed and looked down at the menu. “Geez, I hope it’s happy hour. I have a feeling I’m going to need a drink.”

“But the light went out,” I said to Azrael. “What good does that do me?”

Azrael looked around the restaurant toward the bar. He held up one finger. “Give me a second.”

When he was gone, Nathan tugged on my arm. “You’re all right?” he asked.

“I’m fine. I thought I was going to die though.”
 

His eyes followed Azrael. “I’m still not sure about him.”

I put my hand on his forearm. “He is unorthodox, but he could’ve hurt me and he didn’t. How was your day? Did you get the stuff with your car straightened out?”

His face fell. “The car was destroyed. Most everything was gone. Almost all my weapons were swept downstream.”

I leveled my gaze at him. “Better the weapons than you and me.”

“Absolutely.”

Azrael walked back to the table. He had a cigarette lighter in each hand. “Are you ready for a cosmic physics lesson?” he asked.

I put my hands in my lap. “Dazzle me.”

“OK, this is what happened up on the mountain today.” He held up a pink lighter. He pressed the button down. “You can’t see it, but you know gas is leaking out of this thing, right?”

Nathan and I both nodded.

Azrael held up the other lighter and struck it with his thumb. A small flame danced at the end. “For lack of a better word, I ignited my power like this little flame. And then”—he held the flame over the other lighter and it ignited also—“I passed off that power to you.”

He let his lighter go out and held out the one representing me.

“Your power burned until you forgot how afraid you were,” he said. Then he let the flame go out.

“But I can get the flame back?” I asked.

“When the gas is flowing, all you need is a spark.” He ignited the lighter again.

“How?” I asked.

He put the lighters on the table and held up his hands in front of him. “You focus the energy to that spot,” he said, nodding his head to the space between his hands. “And if you choose to use it on a human, you will separate their spirit from their body.”

“And kill them?” Nathan asked.

Azrael glanced at him. “The human spirit is what animates the body, is it not?”

My cheeks puffed out as I blew out a deep sigh. “I’m not mature enough for this kind of responsibility.”

Azrael stood back up. “I must return these lighters to their owners.”

When Azrael got up, Nathan draped his arm across the back of the seat and leaned into me. “I still think he’s nuts.”

I agreed. “He is. He’s right though. I know exactly what he’s talking about.”

“You actually held that light?” he asked.

I put my hands up in front of me. “Just like this.”

He tugged his ball cap down lower over his eyes. “Remind me not to get on your bad side.”

I nudged him in the ribs with my elbow.

After we’d gotten our drinks and ordered our food, I chewed on the end of my straw, replaying everything he’d taught me. I looked at Azrael. “So does my power only work on humans?”

He shook his head. “No. It would work on me if you chose to use it.”

I pointed at him. “I’ll remember that.”

It was the first time I’d ever heard him laugh.

Nathan tapped my arm. “Your girl’s here.”

I looked up to see Adrianne walking through the door. Even in yoga pants, she looked classier than me. I waved and called out her name. “Let me out so I can say hello.”

“Hey, sorry I’m late,” Adrianne said as she approached. “I wouldn’t have been if I hadn’t been an afterthought.” She was glaring at me as Nathan and I slid out of the booth.