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Lucifer wanted the three rings that held the power to open the Gates of Hell and free him from his eternal prison. The angels had made it their task to keep him right where he was, and with all three Magi dead, someone else would have to be charged with the mission of guarding the rings.
“Are you certain Melchior is dead?” Kyriel wondered if he’d missed something.
“Without a doubt,” Gabriel replied, his hand toying with the hilt of the golden sword strapped to his waist. The mighty weapon looked oddly out of place with the shorter length Egyptian garments they’d picked up after their earlier arrival in Thebes. “The priests are already preparing him to enter the afterlife.”
“And the rings?” Kyriel asked, shifting in his chair.
“The rings are gone.” Gabriel sat down on the wooden bench along the wall and leaned his head back, releasing a frustrated sigh. “The priests said Melchior didn’t have them when he arrived in Alexandria. He knew Lucifer was coming after him so he entrusted the three rings to an excommunicated priest living somewhere in Palestine, who in turn assigned each ring to a Keeper, and then scattered them to different locations. None of the Keepers are aware of the others, and only this priest knows who they are and where they can be found. We’ve got quite a search on our hands.”
Kyriel didn’t mind a challenge. He was good at sniffing out treasures. Perhaps Gabriel had picked him for the right reason.
“If I can find this priest, I’ll find the rings.”
“No,” Gabriel said with a firm shake of his head. “We’ve decided to leave it in the hands of the humans for now.”
“Is that wise?”
“The angels haven’t exactly proven themselves trustworthy,” Gabriel reminded in a chastising tone. “Lucifer has demonstrated that he can seduce them as easily as the humans. The rings are safer if no one knows where they are.”
“What am I supposed to do now?”
Kyriel could return to his home, where his servants would prepare him a feast fit for a king, fill his cup with an endless amount of wine, and then he could take a few beautiful women to his bed and make love to them all night. He had given up everything to have such an indulgent life, and now he lusted for the familiar comforts of his old world. He envied the angels their wings.
How long was God going to punish him by keeping him on Earth?
Kyriel studied the maps before him, his gaze roving over the different lands and imaginary boundaries. Lands and boundaries that had changed over time, and would continue to change as time moved on. He would be here to watch it all happen. It was miraculous and tedious at the same time. What would he do to fill up the lonely centuries?
Gabriel rose from the bench and stretched his arms over his head. “I need you to stay on Earth. I want you to watch.”
“Watch what?”
“Any time there is a planetary alignment, just like on the night the Christos was born, Lucifer will try to draw the rings together to complete a full alignment of all the planets, and he’ll be able to use that power to help break open the Gates of Hell. We all know what would happen if he ever got out.”
Total destruction of everything Kyriel had come to love about Earth and the humans.
“So I watch?” Kyriel gave a derisive snort. “That’s perfect.”
“It’s a very important task,” Gabriel insisted, that clever twinkle in his eye.
The one that told a person he was already two moves ahead in the game.
“It sounds very important,” Kyriel said, not impressed.
He thought he’d be getting a task more suited for the type of angel he’d once been.
A Warrior.
Gabriel sidled over to the table and inspected the different maps he had spread over the surface. “What do you want with these old maps of Mesopotamia? The place is practically wiped out. Soon the humans will start calling it something different.”
“Which is precisely why I want these maps.” Kyriel rolled up the ancient parchments and placed them back in the leather cylinder case. “They’ll be extremely valuable one day.”
And Kyriel would take great pride in having them hanging on his wall. Another of the many mementos he’d collected to help mark the passage of his time spent on Earth. His banishment from Heaven had already lasted longer than some civilizations.
“I don’t know why you bother collecting so much human stuff,” Gabriel said. “You’re going to need a bigger home to store it all. What’s the point?”
“I enjoy collecting, and a bigger home is no problem.” Kyriel couldn’t explain his passion for wealth and treasure to the Archangel.
Sin was a weakness that belonged solely to the fallen.
He rose from the table and tucked the cylinder case under his arm. “Besides, it sounds like I’ll have a lot of time to waste down here.”
He should have expected the promise of redemption to linger ever out of reach.
“I can assure you, my brother, time won’t be wasted.” Gabriel took a few steps back while he freed his long blonde hair from the tie at his neck. “You’ll need some time to get used to having your powers back.”
Gabriel raised his hand and blasted Kyriel in the chest with a pillar of white light. Kyriel screamed aloud, his arms flung out to the side, and he dropped the case of maps.
Burning pain spread throughout his body, moving down his arms, into his belly, down into his legs. No longer able to stand, he fell to his knees and lowered his head, gritting his teeth against the misery.
When the light faded and the pain finally receded, he looked up.
Gabriel was gone.
Kyriel felt his restored powers surging through him with a comforting warmth he’d long forgotten. With each passing moment, his powers grew stronger and stronger.
He threw his head back and laughed with all the joy of the angels. It might not be the redemption he’d been hoping for, but having his powers back was as close to Heaven as he was going to get.
Chapter 1 (#u1f090327-ebe3-5bd4-aff2-beb1072e2f49)
Rome, Italy
Present Day
A sober, quiet man, Father Antonelli spent his Friday nights with a relaxing bath, a double espresso, and the weekly edition of L'Osservatore Romano. He read the Vatican newspaper more for entertainment than information. It was full of gossip. Though he still lived in his apartment near the Vatican, he had stopped believing in the politics and practices of the Catholic Church long ago.
Man had great evils to fear in this world, and the very Church that should be protecting and preparing its followers preferred to keep the truth from them. There were many secrets hidden in the Vatican.
By rights he should have left the Holy City, but Father Antonelli was a man of habit and after spending more than fifty years living in these apartments he would not be comfortable away from the Church that was so familiar, yet so foreign to him.
There was great power surrounding the Vatican. Something even more powerful than the stench of corruption. It came from the prayers of the faithful, the vows of the devoted, those who came to pray with only love in their hearts. The Holy Spirit brought him comfort in difficult times, and it just so happened that now was one of those difficult times.
At seventy-six years of age, he never expected to find himself staring down the barrel of a pistol. Cold, black, metal. As cold as the dark eyes of the man standing over him, wearing black gloves and holding the gun. He had Father Antonelli tied to his desk chair, his arms secured behind his back.
The clock on his desk chimed, announcing the midnight hour.
“I want the names,” the man said.
His voice held no emotion. No humanity whatsoever.
Father Antonelli said nothing.
“All you have to do is give me the names of the Keepers, and tell me where to find them,” the man lightened his tone, as if to sound hopeful. “And I will let you live.”
Father Antonelli knew he wasn’t getting out of this alive. The man’s eyes were those of a practiced killer.
“I told you, I don’t know what names you’re talking—”
The man struck him over the eye with the butt of the gun. Blinding pain cracked through his skull. A trickle of blood raced down over his eye, flooding his vision red.
“Don’t lie to me,” the man warned. “I know who you are, Priest.”
Father Antonelli had sworn a magical oath to protect the Keepers from dark forces. If he gave their names to this man, an Angel of Mercy would hunt him down and kill him for betraying that oath. If he kept his oath and didn’t give away their names, this evil man would kill him. Since it was evident he was going to die either way, he intended to keep his secret.
Father Antonelli swallowed his fear before he defiantly said, “If you know who I am, then you know you won’t get the names.”
The man’s stare turned harsh and chilling. “I think you’ll change your mind.”
He reached one of his gloved hands into his jacket and brought out a leather roll that he unfurled on top of the desk. A variety of sharp metallic instruments gleamed under the light of the desk lamp. They were carefully arranged on the black leather and held in place with elastic ties. The pointed tips, curved hooks and shiny spikes of the grotesque torture devices had Father Antonelli swallowing another dose of fear.
The man freed a short, silver spike and twirled it between his gloved fingers. “Who are the Keepers?”
Father Antonelli focused on the sharp spike, wondering how the man intended to use it.
“What are their names?” The man held the spike firmly between his fingers.
Father Antonelli remained mute, but only until the man spun the desk chair around, grabbed one of his hands still tied behind his back, and rammed the sharp tip of the spike under the nail of his middle finger. He released a scream of agony, unable to believe such a form of clear, precise pain existed.
“Must we play games?” The man rammed the spike under his next fingernail, and then under the nail of the little finger, eliciting an even greater amount of pain.
He paced the floor while the old priest dropped his head and whimpered with the aftershocks of his torture. Father Antonelli realized he hadn’t sufficiently prepared for this day because he never expected it would come.
What a fool.
He couldn’t fail the Keepers. Their safety depended on his silence. He whispered a prayer for God to grant him strength.
“You think praying will save you?” The man drove the spike under the thumbnail of his other hand, causing him to scream with renewed pain. “Only I can save you, old man. Now give me the names and all the pain will stop. I can make it worse, or I can make it all go away.”
Father Antonelli smiled through his agony. “Go to Hell.”
The rest of his fingers exploded into bright points of fire as the man mutilated his hand with the sharp tip of the spike. Still, he kept his secret.
The man began rifling through the books and papers on his desk. “Do you keep the names in your head? Or have you written them down through the years?”
Father Antonelli simply watched him through a haze of pained tears. The man went to work on the rest of his apartment, tossing books from shelves and emptying the contents of drawers. The old priest watched as all the pieces of his life settled on the floor around him in chaotic disarray.
“I want the names!” The man flew into a rage, tossing the furniture and toppling over lamps and chairs, completely tearing the room apart.
Then he came back to the desk and, after regaining his composure, took a shiny, hooked instrument from the case.
Pain consumed every inch of the old priest’s body, until he became the pain. Father Antonelli held onto his secret for as long as he was able, but the torture won out in the end, and he heard himself giving the man the names he wanted before that final shroud of darkness fell and he was no more.
Chapter 2 (#u1f090327-ebe3-5bd4-aff2-beb1072e2f49)
New York City
Four Months Later
“Would you take a look at that?”
Jillian Whitmore casually ignored Denise’s reference to the latest male victim walking through the museum café where they were finishing up their lunch break.
Was that all she could think about? Men?
Maybe that’s why Denise always had a boyfriend who looked like he’d walked straight out of a hunk-of-the-year calendar. Since the time they first met in college, Jillian had watched Denise date every breed of man from professional athletes to foreign dignitaries. Jillian wished she shared the same remarkable portfolio of past lovers, but it was her curse to remain perpetually single. An affliction her extravagant, outgoing friend seldom suffered.
Currently, Jillian had more important things on her mind than checking out guys or guessing whether they were the type to wear boxers or briefs. She was still busy trying to understand why her grandparents had left their only grandchild out of their Will.
Almost two months had passed since they’d been killed in a car accident, and she just couldn’t wrap her mind around the fact that they’d left everything they owned—including the museum—to none other than Jonathon Crawford. She didn’t trust the dreadful man, and couldn’t believe her often sensible grandparents had fallen for his phony act.
Their previous museum Director, a man working for them for over thirty years, died of a sudden heart attack and the very next day Jonathon Crawford appeared out of nowhere, dressed in a flawless designer suit and enquiring about a job. Turns out not only did he happen to have all the right credentials and experience to fill the vacancy, he was nice and helpful as well.
Once he won over her grandparents and started taking over at the museum, Jillian got pushed to the back burner, and now Jonathon owned everything that should belong to her.
But she wasn’t ready to throw in the towel just yet. There was something unsettling and suspicious about Jonathon, and she intended to find out what.
“Are you looking?” Denise asked, her Jersey accent coming through.
“Looking at what?” Jillian feigned ignorance.
She didn’t want to get pulled into ogling some guy Denise thought she should simply walk up to and ask out on a date.
Jillian wasn’t that desperate.
Or that brave.
In college she and Denise had shared the same zest for life, nothing fazed them, they hadn’t been afraid to take chances, but somewhere along the way Jillian felt like she’d fallen behind while Denise was still going strong.
When had she become so afraid of life?
Where had she gotten lost?
In that moment, she realized how different the two of them had become. Jillian sat at the table in a gray pencil skirt and a conservative white blouse, her long blonde hair neatly pulled back into a chignon, hands folded in her lap. Across from her, Denise wore a short, black chiffon skirt and a lacy red tank top under her black leather jacket. With her high-heeled ankle boots, she looked ready to ride off into the sunset on the back of a Harley. Her shiny brown hair hung straight and long around her shoulders and she had perfectly manicured nails, painted red this week, and her toes were probably done in the same shade to match.
To outsiders the two appeared nothing alike, but on the inside they were kindred spirits, and Jillian knew they would always be friends. To the end.
Denise was the only family she had left.
Jillian pushed her empty salad container to the side of the table, then arranged the salt and pepper shakers at a perfect angle to the square sugar bowl. When she routinely started turning the sugar packets so all the labels were facing the same way, Denise swatted her on the arm.
