Messenger's Angel: A Novel of the Lost Angels by Heather Killough-Walden Page A

feel the moisture gathering at the back of his neck and soaking through the collar of his shirt. He had sustained the invisibility for too long and desperately needed to eat and possibly sleep. He’d found an ideal place to escape to with Anderson once he had her, and now he just needed to get the lay of her hotel, but the effort he was sustaining was killing him.
    Still, he forced himself to ignore the burn that was starting in his muscles and concentrate on the target.
    Juliette was just now entering her room down the hall. It was an old building and the key to her room was the genuine article, a skeleton key that had to be no less than a hundred years old. The archess was clearly not happy with her situation, but if the slowness of her movements and her lack of any form of negative expression or complaining were any indication, she was tired enough not to fuss over it.
    He watched her enter the room and shut the door behind her. Then, still invisible, he made his way down the hall and its adjoining staircase. This entire process had taken too long. She was finally alone, but now he was too weak to take her. Archesses were not powerless individuals and Anderson was bound to be dangerous when fight or flight kicked in. He needed a few hours of sleep—no more. Just two or three. And then he could get through the difficult part of this cursed plan.
    The pub downstairs was already packed; in another two or three hours it would be wall-to-wall, and if the vibe he was getting was right on, it wouldn’t clear out again until two or three in the morning. If he came back then, it would give him the time he needed to rest, and he wouldn’t have to deal with an accidental audience as he carried an unconscious woman down the service stairs and out into the night. And any stray onlookers would be too drunk at that point to know what was going on. Hell, they would think it was normal. If not . . . he would just have to kill them.
    * * *
    It was getting late and the sun set early in March. Gabriel glanced at the dim skies and considered finding a deserted doorway in order to open a portal through the mansion to his home in Harris. The mansion stood as both a magnificent living abode and a teleportation device. All the angels needed was a door—any door—and they could travel through it, through the mansion, and out the other side to any other location that also possessed a door.
    He’d finished tending to the business with the money in Glasgow, and even for an archangel, financial issues were tiring. A part of him also felt strange; there was a bizarre sort of buzz in the air, as if everything were electrically charged, and it made him edgy. He longed for his fireplace, a beer, and the view of the shore outside his living room window.
    But Gabriel was ever a Scotsman and if the crowds milling about were any indication, then the Feis nan Coisir was in full swing. The drink would be flowing. Gabriel had never been one to turn down an opportunity to get lost in fine music and even finer brew. It, in and of itself, could melt the stress from a man’s body.
    The Caorann Hotel, the only hotel directly across from the ferry’s docking station, was rather ill named as a hotel, since it was the pub
beneath
the hotel’s rooms, and not the rooms themselves, that attracted more guests. During festivals of any type, the Caorann pub was always packed wall-to-wall.
    His clansmen would be there. The pub called to him.
    Gabriel shoved his hands into the pockets of his leather jacket and made his way at a quick pace down the street. When he entered the pub, several familiar sensations hit him at once. It was warm inside, almost overly so, as the pub was indeed full of revelers and the hearth in the corner was stoked and crackling at full force. The din of conversation and drunken laughter was only slightly overshadowed by the music that was being played by an equally drunk-looking band on a platform against one wall. The smell was a