The Devil's Angel (Devil Series Book 2) (2 page)

He traced the elaborate writing with his finger.

The doorknob turned.

He leapt up into the sky and onto the roof. The woman came out, her arms free from the bag she carried earlier, and continued down the street for at least another mile. Lucien wondered why she hadn’t called a cab yet. It was unheard of to walk such a distance in Seattle, especially at night. And in the rain. After being attacked by a vampire.

Everything about this woman disturbed him.
She wasn’t acting normal.

The tall city buildings gradually turned into suburb shopping centers and eventually only large rows of cookie-cutter houses remained. She stopped in front of an old colonial-style home. The house was light blue with dark blue trim and shutters to match. Its yard was simple and neat. Only a wooden chair rested on the porch by the front door.

Across the street, Lucien jumped up into a full oak tree to conceal himself.

The woman reached to the side of the nearest window and flicked her hand. To the average spectator, it might have appeared as if she were wiping off something from the home’s siding, but Lucien noticed the glimmer of a key in her hand. It must’ve been hiding between the slats. After unlocking the door, she paused, turned around and gazed into the night—in the exact direction of Lucien.

He gripped the tree tight. Something inside him told him she was looking right at him regardless of the tree’s full foliage. The corners of her mouth tilted down slightly as if she’d been let down somehow, and then she closed the door.

Lucien jumped to the ground and leaned against the tree. On the second floor of the home, four windows with sheer curtains made it possible for him to catch a glimpse of the woman’s silhouette as she passed by. Few sounds drifted from the house: papers being shuffled, dishes clanking, but mostly, it was quiet. She didn’t make noises like most humans. He expected to hear an occasional cough or a sigh, but her silence was total.

He sensed no other life in the house except for hers. He wasn’t sure how old she was but guessed her to be in her mid-twenties and in excellent shape. He recalled back to when he had tossed her aside. She’d barely stumbled as if she had been barefoot and not wearing three-inch heels.

From somewhere within the house, a new sound reached his ears. Lucien crossed the street and easily hopped her neighbor’s tall fence. From a small window on the side of the woman’s house, he spotted her shadowed form running on a treadmill.
What time was it?
He glanced up. Having experienced what felt like an eternity of nights, the shade of black against the night sky and the position of the pregnant moon told him it was almost three in the morning.

Something about the way the woman ran, the way she pushed herself, reminded Lucien of himself. When he was younger, his father—a strict disciplinarian and a captain for the Irish army—pushed Lucien and his older brother, Aiden, beyond what any normal children should have to endure. Because Aiden was smaller than Lucien, he received the brunt of their father’s obsessive need to dominate and control.

Aiden had nothing in common with their father. He preferred books to brawn, studying everything from plants, insects, animals, and even human behaviors whenever their father was gone, which was entirely too frequent and yet in some ways not frequent enough. Lacking a mother and love from a father, Lucien tried to get close to Aiden, but Aiden wanted nothing but his experiments.

Lucien and Aiden’s mother had died giving birth to Lucien. Their father, afraid their mother’s frail health would pass to his sons, demanded they go with him to battle. He would make them watch from a distance and, afterwards, if they couldn’t recount every vivid detail of the brutal skirmish, he would tie them upside down to a tree for the remainder of the night.

There were many times when Lucien feared, due to the loss of blood from his nose, he’d not live to see the sunrise. Aiden only had to endure a night like this once. His mind had an uncanny ability to pick out the most gory and horrific details that appealed to their father’s nature.

Because Lucien’s mind did not work like his father’s or Aiden’s, he was forced to prove himself physically, hoping to win his father’s approval. He continually pushed himself beyond what he thought his body could handle, making him one of the strongest and fastest boys in the region. Though he never heard it directly from his father, the fact that his father trained Lucien to fight at age twelve was validation enough.

Watching the woman through the window, Lucien wondered what she was trying to prove and to whom. He looked back to the city, trying to decide if he should return to the hotel for a few hours or stay in front of the woman’s house. It wasn’t a hard decision. He climbed the oak tree again until he was hidden from view. He stretched out one leg upon a thick tree branch and let the other dangle while he propped his back against the trunk. It was uncomfortable, but he’d endured much worse.

Thirty minutes later, the house went dark. The woman breathed peacefully in a rhythmic pattern without the usual sleep restlessness of most humans. There was no tossing and turning, no troubled dreams. Why did her life seem so worry free? There must be something that caused her pain or sorrow. He vowed to find out what it might be, and then never return again, for surely she was just like the rest of them.

In just a few short hours, the woman woke. She took a quick shower and, faster than he thought possible for any woman, stepped out into the early morning light, looking radiant. Stray honey curls escaped her loose bun and relaxed around her face, and a dark blue business pantsuit followed the soft curves of her body. She carried a small briefcase.

Lucien expected her to open the garage door and get into a car, but instead she walked down the sidewalk. A few houses down, she said “hello” to a female neighbor who was rushing to get into her car. The neighbor gave her a weak smile and a brief nod in return. The woman continued walking, but stopped abruptly and turned back around, staring at the neighbor with an expression Lucien couldn’t read.

“I think your phone is ringing,” the woman said.

The neighbor gave her a frustrated look, but then glanced toward her own house as if deciding what to do.

“Really, I hear your phone. You better go answer it. It could be important.”

“Um, thanks.” The neighbor shuffled back into her house.

As soon as her neighbor’s back was turned, the woman reached into her purse and pulled out a switchblade. She crouched down and with one fluid motion, jammed it into the back tire of the neighbor’s vehicle. She stood up just as the other woman came out of her house.

“My phone wasn’t ringing,” she said, her voice cold and callous.

“I could’ve sworn I heard it. Sorry to trouble you.”

The neighbor lady jumped in her car but not without glaring at the woman who was hiding the knife behind her back. As she drove away, Lucien could hear the air escape from the vehicle’s tire.

The woman stood on the sidewalk with a satisfied smile as if she’d just cleaned up a big mess. Lucien couldn’t believe what he’d just witnessed. She didn’t seem the type to do something so malicious, but at the same time, the incident didn’t feel malicious, either. Then what?

Lucien leaned forward carelessly and lost his balance on the tree limb. He caught it with one hand on his way down, his legs dangling beneath him. He waited until the woman had disappeared around the block before he let go of the branch and dropped to the ground.

Her lilac scent made her an easy target to follow from a far distance, but after only a mile of walking, Lucien took a guess as to where she was headed. He took a different, shorter route through the city, moving quickly, unnoticed by humans, until he was back in front of the door labeled “Deific.”

He ducked inside the coffee shop across the street and sat by the streak-free window. Several heads turned in his direction, but he ignored them, his usual response. Lucien stared through his reflection toward the Deific door and waited for the woman to appear. He guessed he was maybe fifteen minutes ahead of her.

It used to bother him to be near humans, but after centuries of living among them, it no longer disturbed him. Even the smell of blood did nothing but tease his senses. When he was first turned into a vampire, he spent years unable even to be near humans without wanting to tear them apart. His blood lust had proved too great. But eventually he learned to appreciate blood the same way humans appreciated aged wine, as a fine and rare delicacy.

Across the street, several people entered the black door. They looked like regular, predictable people: same worried expressions, same nervous habits, and the same smell of fear for the future. Humans always feared the future, afraid time would bring them misery. He used to sympathize with this fear when he could still remember what it was like to be human. Over time, however, he came to resent the fearful nature of humans, along with their inability to simply accept whatever fate life had in store for them. The majority of humans would live their entire lives in fear of something they could never control. It was a pointless waste of time.

Another worried face—a blond-haired man—opened the door to the Deific and held it open while he talked to a woman who was also entering the building. Beyond them, just inside, was a black counter manned by two large men.
Security guards.
Lucien also took note of the cameras both outside and inside the building.

Within a few minutes, the strange woman appeared, walking alongside a tall thin man with short curly brown hair. The curly-haired man opened the door and watched her as she passed through it. The look was full of emotion beyond mere friendship. This man had feelings for the woman.

Once the door closed, Lucien removed his cell phone from his pocket and dialed the only number he ever called.

“How can I help you Lucien?” a man’s gruff voice said.

Lucien eyed the building across the street. “I need you to find out what you can about a place called Deific.”

“How’s that spelled?”

“D-E-I-F-I-C.”

“Are they here in Seattle?”

“Yes.”

“Call me later today. I should have what you need.”

“Thanks Scott.” Lucien hung up the phone.

Scott Clark was as dependable as both his father and his grandfather had been. They’d been Lucien’s attorneys for decades. Lucien knew he was going to need some connection to the human world, and after watching Scott’s grandfather for almost a year, he knew he’d found a man he could trust.

The Clark’s were shrewd businessmen but unfailingly honest. Lucien entrusted his entire fortune to them, and as a result, each Clark generation had tripled his fortune, but Lucien didn’t care about the money. He only worked with the Clarks because they never asked questions and were hard working.

After the woman disappeared inside the Deific, Lucien walked back to her house and used the hidden key in the siding to open the door. The inside of the home was abnormally simple. No pictures hung on the walls or lay on tables. The living room consisted of one couch, a small end table and a black lamp. There was no television and no dining room table. In fact, most of the rooms were empty except the bedroom upstairs, which was completely opposite from the rest of the house.

The entire upstairs had been made into one giant bedroom. Dark paneled walls were ornately decorated with works of art, some of which he recognized from famous painters. A four-poster bed rested in the middle of the room; a shear black curtain hung around its top rail. The room reminded him of an 18th century manor. The only item out of place was a treadmill standing in the corner.

He searched the drawers of a heavy curved desk and found a letter with her name on it: Eve Andrews. After looking through several more personal papers, he discovered she had no debt and appeared to be extremely wealthy. He could find no personal letters from family or any work related documents. She was as much a mystery to him as the first day he’d met her, but at least he knew her name now.

He walked to the window and peered out.
Eve.
He pulled out his phone and called Scott again.

Before Lucien could speak, Scott said, “It’s only been a few hours, Lucien. I need a little more time.”

“I need you to look up something else—in addition to the Deific.”

Something shuffled in the background. “I’m ready.”

“I need you to find out what you can about an Eve Andrews. She lives at 141 Rose Ave, and I believe she’s an employee of the Deific.”

“You got it.”

“Could you also have a car pick me up at the address I just gave you?”

“Of course.”

“Call me when you have something.” Lucien hung up the phone. Of all the things he’d ever asked for, it was never information about a human.

When a driver arrived twenty minutes later in a black Mercedes, Lucien instructed him to drive to the Fairmont hotel. He wanted to stop by before he returned to the Deific.

Scott had purchased the historical hotel for Lucien over twenty-five years ago and had invested a lot of Lucien’s money bringing it back to its former glory. It was now one of the most popular hotels in Seattle.

Lucien pushed his way through the rotating door. The hotel manager, Ronald, gave him a thin smile. Ronald was a small man with balding brown hair. He stared at Lucien with beady, hateful eyes, reminding Lucien of a hungry vulture waiting to devour him the second the hotel failed. Ronald clearly thought he would be a better owner than him.

He kept walking toward the elevator, only giving Ronald a simple nod of his head. Lucien would’ve fired him years ago, but Ronald was Scott’s cousin, so he kept him on as a favor. Gratefully, there was no personality resemblance between the two.

Lucien approached the front desk. Molly, a reservationist with red hair and freckles, smiled at him as she leaned over on the desk, exposing cleavage.

“How are you doing today, Lucien?”

“Good. Any mail for me?”

“Just one. Brought in this morning.” She handed him a manila envelope.

“Thanks.” He turned to leave.