The Broken Angel (12 page)

Martina too had noticed the long string of pearls Ravenna had been playing with nonstop.

“Not you too!” Ravenna blushed and took the magazine from Ophelia’s hand as her eyes went to Alexander who gave her a smile that made her blush even more.

Martina sighed, thinking that she would give anything to have what they had.

****

Samuel had driven to the Acqua Acetosa athletic fields in a daze. He couldn’t have said no to Barnes, but his boss could have shown better timing, for once. Leaving Martina, even if in the hands of his most trusted friend, hadn’t felt right. She had gone through something horrific, again, and he should have stayed at her side. Even if that meant having a conversation he didn’t want to have.

Once he had parked by the Swim Stadium, he had immediately spotted Barnes pacing back and forth on the trail, waiting for him. He sprung to a jog and reached him in no time, eager to be done with it and drive back to Alexander’s gym and Martina.

“Walk me through the site.”

Barnes raised an eyebrow at his poor manners, but kept any comment about them to himself. “Two homicides. One body, a man, was found a week ago, by those bushes behind the tracks. The second, a woman, turned up a few hours ago behind the north wall of the tennis stadium. The human police didn’t see any correlation between the two, but the two bodies were flagged by one of ours because they were shifters. Both pumas.”

“Why wasn’t I called to release the man’s body?” Probably one of the aspects of his job Samuel liked the least, but interspecies protocol dictated a liaison must be present to release a body in the hands of the competent authority—in this case both the shifter brigade and the acting renegade controller.

“Our agent realized the dead’s species only today when the woman was found and, on a hunch, he thought of checking the man’s autopsy.”

“Good thinking.”

They walked on one of the paths leading to the Foro Italico, the tennis stadium. The night was pleasantly warm and several athletes were still training thanks to the widespread illumination that made the place safe even at later hours.

“Were they killed here?” Samuel looked around and found very few spots covered in darkness.

“No, it doesn’t seem that way. They dropped the bodies here.”

They reached a bend in the trail and continued toward the tennis stadium, then passed it and stopped behind it where a thick copse of sturdy vegetation covered the soil. The usual squalor of death permeated the place. Under a transparent white plastic sheet lay a small body. A lock of blond hair had escaped from under the sheet and danced in the nocturnal breeze. Bloody stains covered her clothes. The were-puma was wearing a loose dress with a colorful pattern.

The contemplation of death never ceased to trigger a deep sadness within Samuel. He had not been born, but created, and would never die, yet the thought of anyone ceasing to exist left him unsettled. Sahadeva had died. Martina would die one day.

“Are you okay?” Barnes was staring at him.

Absentmindedly, Samuel nodded, then looked down at the dead woman whose eyes were open.

The plastic sheet gave the dead a surreal quality, as if she were made of hard wax. For a moment, Martina’s face replaced the were-puma’s.

Samuel blinked and willed the image away. “How was she killed?” He didn’t want to examine the body. The woman had suffered enough humiliation by being exposed without proper burial. Thankfully, the coroner had already left.

Ludwig bent over the shifter and pointed at the side of her head. “The usual. She was stabbed in the neck with a sharp blade, then took a bullet to the heart. The autopsy will confirm it’s silver.” He lowered his aim to the woman’s midsection where blood had congealed in a larger pool. “And if that wasn’t enough, she had been already hemorrhaging for the botched C-section she was submitted to just recently.”

“She was pregnant.” He looked at the body with different eyes. The woman had been an expecting mother—for Samuel, the holiest of beings. “Was the baby found?”

Barnes shook his head. “Both human and paranormal police have combed through the whole of the Acqua Acetosa. There’s no trace of the infant.”

“She was killed because of the baby.” Two recent conversations came to Samuel’s mind at once. Marcus’s words about his child’s parents having died in an accident gave him an idea. “Was the other victim related to her?” He couldn’t help but think that the were-baby Sandro Denari had talked about must be this woman’s.

“As in a couple, you mean?” Barnes passed one hand through his reddish-blond hair, then looked at the woman, a grimace on his face. “With renegades it’s difficult to assert genealogy. They live nomadic lives and usually don’t register their offspring. We can’t even assume they knew each other, even if they were both pumas. We’ll look into it, though.” The immortal’s eyes zeroed on a tall figure heading their way along a path different from the one they had used. “I can see the Controller.”

Samuel could see him too. As tall and big as Samuel, the renegade acting controller was one of the few demons who had always treated him with a politeness rare in his species. As demons went—angels who had fully embraced their darker sides and turned into their opposites—the Controller was a nice person with a wicked sense of humor. Peter was a member of Alexander’s gym, but Samuel had never seen him sparring. Although they frequented the same places both for work and leisure, Samuel usually tried to avoid the demon. Peter reminded him of his fallen condition as much as his broken wings did. Any time Samuel saw the demon, painful memories followed him for days. Peter was the demon who had waited for him outside Sahadeva’s palace.

“Let’s get you out of here.” The tall demon, then in charge of taking care of the fallen, looked at him without pity, but with comprehension in his eyes.

Samuel broke at the first act of kindness paid to him and screamed his anguish for all creation to hear only to discover his voice didn’t bring down mountains anymore, it barely had the power to annoy the demon standing nearby. He then followed Peter to the Middle Plane where he would decide if he wanted to forget his past and become a demon without wings but with the use of some of his powers, or retain his memories, stay fallen, and keep his mangled wings but renounce his powers. In an unprecedented decision, he kept his memories and his wings. That resolution made him the Fallen, as in the only one in the history of fallen angels who didn’t apply for the Hades citizenship. He spent several decades in the Middle Plane getting used to his condition—unwanted by both his brethren and the man he had once thought loved him enough to wait for him.

Samuel blinked back to the present. “Let’s hope the shifter brigade arrives soon.” He waved at the controller, who was at their side a moment later.

“Ludwig.” Peter nodded at the two, then turned to Samuel. “We just passed each other at Alexander’s, but you didn’t see me.”

Samuel nodded. “I left in a hurry.”

Peter waved a hand and offered him a small smile. The same small smile he had given Samuel while waiting for him to scream away his pain long ago. “Think nothing of it. I was about to leave too.” He then removed one of the black leather gloves he was wearing, and bent to examine the dead woman. He raised the plastic sheet from over the face, and stared into those eyes for a moment before gently touching her forehead. He breathed slowly as he focused on reading the dead—the demon’s specialty. Several minutes passed before he shook as if feeling cold and looked up. “They made her suffer.” Reaching down with two fingers, he closed her eyelids. “I hope you catch the ones who killed her.”

There were times when Samuel regretted having lost his powers, so similar to the ones the demons maintained, but looking into the eyes of the dead and knowing what they had felt before leaving the mortal realm wasn’t a gift he wanted.

Peter took his cell phone from one of his jeans’ front pockets and began recording in a low, monotone in Sanskrit. “She was twenty-three in human years, barely out of her teens as a shifter. Her name was Lara Scalzi. She was a good person and she loved her baby’s father.”

Samuel hadn’t had many occasions to witness the controller’s many talents, but he was still impressed by how professional and even compassionate he was.

Meanwhile, two officers from the shifter brigade had arrived, but kept a distance while waiting for the demon to finish his examination. The rest of the paranormal society tolerated the demons’ presence only because the services they could provide were invaluable. Yet, sometimes Samuel had the feeling even they were treated better than he was.

“The baby was full-term when they cut her.” The monotone continued for a few more sentences, but Samuel didn’t want to know the details.

She had been a mother.

Peter finished, nodded at Samuel, and left after exchanging a few words with Barnes. As soon as he disappeared around the bend in the path, the two men from the shifter brigade stepped up, did their own investigation, then gave Barnes and Samuel two forms to sign, and finally—making an exception to regular protocol—released the body back to the Immortal Council for the autopsy.

Samuel left a moment later with his boss’s blessing. While driving to Alexander’s gym, he called Quintilius and briefly informed him about his suspicions regarding the were-baby found in his nephew’s car and asked for the infant’s DNA.

“Sure. You’ll have it before the end of the week.”

****

“So, what’s going on between you and Samuel?” Ravenna looked at Martina with a barely disguised grin.

Martina noticed how Ophelia had stiffened on her chair at Ravenna’s question. “I—” The gym’s door opened and Martina turned to look at it, knowing it was Samuel. She felt a strange tinge of both anticipation and fear at his sight, which added to the confusion of her awareness of him.

As soon as his eyes made contact with hers, he smiled, warming her from the inside.

“I think that look over there just answered my question.” Ravenna softly chuckled.

A shadow passed over Ophelia’s expressive face, but she was fast in joining Ravenna in the playful banter. “Samuel’s got a girlfriend.”

“Has he now?” Alexander stepped behind Ravenna.

“He has a long conversation coming,” Martina muttered under her breath, but Ravenna heard her and gave her a questioning look she decided to ignore. The whole time Martina had spent conversing with the women, she had kept thinking of Samuel, at what she thought she had seen back in her apartment. Despite having a great time with Ophelia and Ravenna, she couldn’t wait to be alone with him.

“Hi.” Samuel walked to their corner, keeping his focus on her, making her feel as if they were alone in a room full of people.

“Hi.” She blushed under his unwavering gaze.

“Would you like to accompany me somewhere more comfortable?” Samuel reached out his hand for her to take.

She grabbed it and let him pull her up, his eyes widening when she came so close to his chest they almost touched.

After thanking his friends for taking care of Martina, Samuel took her outside, his pace becoming faster and faster as they left the gym behind, only to stop abruptly a moment later. He radiated uneasiness and she was affected by it.

She stopped and pulled him back to her. “Why are you so tense?”

So close, he seemed to loom over her, despite their similar height. “Nothing… Just my job. Sometimes, I must deal with the worst nightmares.”

“Tell me about it.”

His expression softened and he brought her hand to his lips. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be brusque. How do you feel?”

“Better now that you’re around, but we must talk.” She wanted him to sweep her in his arms and kiss her, but they had to have that blasted conversation before anything could happen between them. She wouldn’t even start a friendship with the hint of lies or deception behind it.

He straightened his back and sighed. “I agree.” He cupped her cheek with his hand. “Do you mind a few minutes’ drive to reach the Orange Trees Garden?”

“No, I don’t mind at all. It’s one my favorite parks here in Rome.” She followed him to his car.

He drove without hurry, his right hand on hers anytime he could do without it at the wheel. He hummed a tune and she found herself humming it back in perfect sync. She leaned on his shoulder, and he kissed her head.

She sighed. “Can it be that simple between us?” They had almost arrived at their destination on the Aventino Hill.

Samuel didn’t answer immediately, but when he did, his voice was barely a whisper. “Yes. It could. If you let it be.” He drove around the church of Saint Sabina, then looked for a parking spot not already occupied by teenage couples stealing kisses in the shadows.

Martina thought of when she was that young and would defy curfew to sneak out of her bedroom and meet boys. Then she looked at the man sitting beside her, looking at her with a hunger in his eyes that made her feel alive again, and her heart beat with the same frenzy it had beaten when she was sixteen.

Samuel exited the car, then walked around to open her door. She took his hand and felt him shaking as badly as she was. They walked in silence, passing couples strolling by. He led her through the park’s entry, then steered her toward a metal bench under a green canopy where they had an unobstructed view of Saint Peter’s dome. Sitting side by side, their legs touching and their hands united on his thigh, they stared at the sight for a while before Samuel broke the silence.

“I don’t know how it happened, but for the first time in a very long time, I’m terrified of losing someone.” He squeezed her hand. “I know it’s early and we barely know each other, but I’d hate to lose you now.”

Martina brought their united hands to her cheek and tilted her head toward him. “Why would you be afraid of losing me?”

He angled his body on the bench to face her. “Because you might not accept me once I tell you everything there’s to know about me.” He paused for a long moment, then took her hand and his away from her face to relocate them over his heart.

Martina waited for him to finish his halted speech, but when he shut his eyes as if in pain, she hurried to put him at ease. “If it’s anything regarding your body you’re worried about, don’t be. I wouldn’t deny us the possibility of something more because of—” She didn’t know how to finish that sentence without offending and humiliating him. How would she broach the subject of his ability or inability to have sex?