The Seer's Lover (The Seven Archangels Series) (15 page)

“Why are you always laughing at me?”

“Because you continue to surprise me.”

He approached her with different scenarios as the morning sun rose in the sky. Sweat poured down Lucas's back as he continued to be pleased by her skills. She was toned, muscular, and fast. Every time she put him on the ground, he laughed harder. His holds on her became tighter, his breathing ragged and her sitting on top of him, warm and panting, left him wanting to drag her into his hut and taste her, everywhere.

“Seriously, Lucas. I don’t plan on attacking anyone,” she said, winded. “Can we please go for a swim and rest? I’m a bit tired by your demon hunter boot camp.”

He nodded helplessly. He wanted her to need him. He wanted her to beg for his protection from the evils of the world. But she was fearless and it scared him. She was…something else.

She emerged from his hut in an ivory string bikini. Her face still flushed from the workout, the sly smile playing on her face made him shake his head. She had him—mind, body, and spirit. “I promise after food and a swim, I’ll let you train me the rest of the day. But can we get a quick bite at Carmen’s first?”

“Anything you want.”

She fished a mesh cover up and flip-flops out of her beach bag. She kissed him on the cheek. “Anything?”

“Let’s go, sassy.” He held her hand across the road and they grabbed a shaded table at Carmen’s. After lunch, they spent the afternoon swimming, laying out on the sand, and walking with Stogey, chatting.

“I admit it appears that physically, you can take care of yourself. It’s the psychological part I’m worried about,” Lucas said.

“Remember I can’t see the demons anyway. I just get a sick dark feeling. Like an invisible pulse of hatred surrounds them. I’ll avoid them, I promise.” She threw another stick into the surf for Stogey to fetch. “Can I ask you something?”

“Yeah.”

“How did you end up here?”

Lucas couldn’t tell her about his girlfriend, her insanity, their child, the suicide. That pain was buried deep. “My mom was killed by a demon, and my dad lost it. He’s catatonic and in an institution in Kansas. I hated the life. I wanted to run. I came here to hide.”

He told her about the night he came to Mal Pais…

****

Lucas’s father was a Tico, a native of Costa Rica. Lucas enjoyed precious few peaceful childhood memories, but one decent memory was their family trip to the Nicoya Peninsula when he was in grade school. The night his girlfriend committed suicide, he left Salina and boarded the first plane to San Jose to find his aunt and seek work at her restaurant. Between sunglasses and headphones, he tuned out surrounding angels, demons, and humans alike.

When he’d landed, he took a bus to Puntarenas then caught the ferry to Paquera. There, he’d got on a bus which passed through Tambor and Cobano before he got off in Mal Pais and walked. The sun had long since set. He followed a distant memory and kept along the road by the ocean. The restaurant named Carmen’s was closed. He broke into the kitchen, ate some left over pico de gallo, and fell asleep out of sheer exhaustion.

He woke to an angry woman berating him in Spanish. At least she was human. He inadvertently smiled.
I travel to the ends of the earth to escape demons but the wrath of women lives on. Even here, on the edge of the world.

“
Señora, lo siento,
” he murmured in his best Spanish. “
Soy una alma perdida. Por favor ayudame. Necessito trabajo. Me llamo Lucas, soy su sobrino
.” I am a lost soul. Please help me. I need a job. My name is Lucas, your nephew.

Lucas’s Aunt Carmen, who owned the restaurant, placed her hands on her hips and shook her head. She took off her apron and threw it at him. Then she threw back her head, laughing and crying, gathered him up, and hugged him until he couldn’t breathe.

“I haven’t seen you in ten years, since you were eight years old! I’ll give you one night to prove to me you can cook like a Tico and for a Tico, or you are gone,
¿entiendes?
” Understand?

“I understand, Tía. But right now, I’m hungry." He mustered up his best smile.

Carmen shook her head and rummaged around the kitchen to feed him. They exchanged pleasantries until he finished consuming the three plates of food in front of him at their candle-lit table. The roar of the night ocean came at them from across the street. She mixed two mojitos and set one down in front of Lucas.

Carmen took a long drink and set the glass down hard before she asked, “So, how is my brother? Your mother is dead, right?”

Lucas kept his eyes on his food. “Papa is not good
, Tía.
He’s never coming back to his right mind.”

Their eyes met. She understood and nodded. “You’ll stay here now.”

****

“I’ve been here ever since,” Lucas told Calise. “I started working for Ron to keep an eye on Anna and cook for Carmen. Even though Mal Pais means 'bad country' in Spanish, it’s been the most restful place I’ve ever lived.”

“Most people probably think you’re a local, don’t they?” Calise asked.

Lucas nodded. At almost six feet tall with long, dark, naturally wavy hair and his skin browned from the sun, Lucas found that between his fluent Spanish and skill with the horses, few tourists had any idea he relocated here from the States. “Everyone knows everyone here. No one has ever questioned my roots.” Mal Pais locals looked out for each other, even those who had relocated to the town after vacationing there with a surfboard. Diehards never left, and spent the rest of their lives waiting for that perfect wave. The carefree, slow pace way of life was contagious.

They stopped outside his hut. The sun began to dip in the afternoon sky.

“Cali, my father’s last words to me were, ‘They’ll find you.’” The words hung in the air between them as the ocean roared and the palms rustled. The words were truth he couldn’t leave behind no matter how far he ran. “Enough for today. Can you do me a favor?”

“Anything.”

“Let’s pretend the world is normal and let me take you out riding before the sun sets.”

“Mmm, sounds perfect.”

****

Lucas worked in the barn while Calise showered and ate in her bungalow. The place was almost peaceful with Anna gone. Lucas had told Ron how he found the window broken. A frantic Ron had filed a missing person’s report and searched for answers, but found none regarding the disappearance of his wife.

The horses grazed up the road so Lucas spent the late afternoon humming and cleaning the stalls. After he gathered the animals from pasture, he groomed, fed, and watered them. He brushed and saddled Gotzone and Rocket. He gave each horse an apple then sank down to crunch on one himself.

The cumulus clouds overhead lent more humidity than normal and foreshadowed thunderstorms yet again. Despite the heat, his body prickled with goose bumps from the moody, brooding air.

Calise leaned against the door of the barn. Her wet hair glistened from a shower. She wore long, tight black pants and a sequined black tank top. “This was my dancing outfit for the clubs in San Jose. Do you think the horses approve?”

“You dance?”

“Not a lick.”

“You look amazing, Cali.”

“It’s Calise.”

Cali.
That name suited her and Lucas was pleased to see a slow flush work its way up her cheeks. “Ready?”

Lucas had perfected a two-hour route through the jungle for his clients. After they mounted Gotzone and Rocket, they headed from the resort into the quiet land on the dirt roads best handled by quads or horses trotting past farms and local homes. She asked the names of the symphony of birds that serenaded them. He identified the mot-mot, Hoffman’s woodpecker and even the elusive and infamous quetzal. He pointed out the variegated squirrels, all brown with a black stripe down their backs, and they caught a glimpse of a white-nosed coati sleeping in a tree.

At the end, Lucas took her down to the beach. The sunsets in Mal Pais were magical because no resorts or buildings cluttered up the beach. Only jungle butted up to the sand. Stray dogs roamed looking for playmates, and Stogey engaged a few, frolicking in the evening surf. People, as always, were sparse. They dismounted and led the horses along the one-eighth mile stretch of sand between the jungle overhang and the ocean itself.

She slipped off her shoes to let the silky feel of the rich, tan-colored sand slide between her toes. They navigated the horses around small rock outcroppings. Like their own personal discovery, the beach looked hazy and endless in both directions. He felt as though they alone happened upon this discovery, almost as if they were the first living people to view its majesty. Larger rock outcroppings held small lagoons where crabs and small fish resided. The setting sun mixed hues of cobalt and gold while the clouds turned slate-colored, looking like mountains on the horizon.

They talked and laughed comfortably. She told him about her job in the pharmacy, her overprotective mother, and some memories from her years in college.

“This is like a dream, Lucas. I can see why you love it here.”

He brushed the hair off her face. “Here’s the most level spot. If you want, I’ll help you back up, and you can ask Rocket to canter.”

Without his help, she got back on the horse, kicked her heels against Rocket’s flanks and off she went. He jumped on Gotzone and chased her up and down the beach until the animals snorted and huffed from exertion. Lucas felt his resolve to let her leave him slipping. At the fringes of his mind he wondered what she’d say if he asked her to stay.

With the sun setting over the ocean, they moseyed back to the lodge, breathing in the sweet scent of orchids and lilies native to the area. Enormous rainforest trees, some hugged by strangler figs, formed a shady canopy overhead, where howler monkeys gathered at dusk. Their unmistakable screech sounded like the deep, guttural roar of jungle monsters.

“Damn,” she whispered. “Their voices…”

The howler monkeys lounged in the trees above them, watching them pass through their jungle. He remembered telling Marla and her mother they had nothing to worry about and the memory made his chest tighten. “Howler monkeys.”

“Lucas, what
did
happen to Anna?” Calise asked when they got back to the resort. “You never told me.”

The words reminded him of Alejandro. They hadn’t really heard from him since that night. “You know, I do need to go check on something yet tonight. I’ll see you tomorrow. Sleep well, Cali.”

She dismounted Rocket outside the barn, handed him the reigns, and walked straight into his arms. He wrapped his arms around her and buried his face in her hair.

Strawberries.

“Thanks for today,” she said. “You sleep well, too.”

****

After making sure Cali closed and locked her bungalow door, Lucas headed to Cabo Blanco on Gotzone. Were the demons dead and his family’s artifacts safe? He let his mind wander back to Cali and his heart sank thinking of her scheduled to fly back to the states in two days. He’d fallen for her and never wanted to let her out of his sight again. His mind wandered to other possibilities…until he got to Cabo Blanco.

He found a mess beyond the “park closed until further notice” sign that hung haphazardly at the main gate. It looked as though someone had taken a backhoe to the trails. Trees appeared pulled up by the roots and tossed as weapons. With all the signs of a nasty fight, but no sign of Alejandro anywhere, Lucas worried who had won. Dismounting the horse, he started the long hike down to the beach in the dark. Distant flashes of lightning from far out at sea punctuated the sky.

Where is he?

Lucas heard voices and a soft squeaking from a hammock on the beach tied in-between two bending palm trees. A woman lounged and rocked with a peaceful smile playing on her face. Candles flickered in a semi-circle around her. She looked a little bloodied and bruised, but certainly could have been worse. Alejandro knelt next to her, whispering and stroking her hair. She looked right at Lucas and smiled. A slow, icy chill ran the length of his spine.

What in the absolute hell—Anna?

“Hello, Lucas.” Her voice evaporated into the wind.

One of them should have been dead! Anna shouldn’t even be able to function on this consecrated ground. Was Alejandro under her seduction spell? Lucas stayed far away from her lest she suck him back into her web.

“I need to talk to you, angel. Get your ass over here away from
her
.”

Alejandro never turned his head or acknowledged Lucas. “Anything you have to say, you can say in front of my Anna.”

She had defeated Alejandro not on his physical playing field, but on hers, lust.

Isn’t the angel stronger than this slut demon?

“Really? I can say
anything
? In front of the demon that lured you away from Cabo so those demons could enter? The demon that I saw you throw through a window…is now in our circle of trust? That’s great.”

Alejandro looked sharply at him.

“Where are the others?” Lucas asked.

“I beat the shit out of them. They left with their tails between their legs.”

“Left? Alive?” He processed the information slowly. “Why aren’t they dead?” Maybe if he reminded Alejandro exactly what Anna was, that would help? Or maybe, the angel was already too far gone. Time to see what Anna’s game was.

Lucas took one tentative step toward Anna, clearing his mind. “Anna, Ron probably wants to know where you are. What should I tell him?” It was as if he stood at the top of a sheer drop. Losing Alejandro to this she-devil meant the artifacts were unprotected and he and Carmen were dead.

Alejandro’s centuries of protection will be for naught because Anna’s so damn sexy? Un-shittin-acceptable.

He couldn’t protect the artifacts without the angel.

Anna traced Alejandro’s face with her fingers. “Tell Ron I’m dead. I never want to see him again. I’m with Alejandro again.”

With?…Again? I. Am. Screwed.

She knew about the necklaces; she knew he and Carmen were seers. And now she was kicking it with the angel who knew the location of all of his family’s most valuable belongings? She had to be stopped—one way or another.