Warrior's Angel (The Lost Angels Book 4) by Heather Killough-Walden Page B

took off his glasses, cleaned them with the cleaning cloth he kept in his front pocket, and then slid them back on his nose before looking up at his… employer .
    The man he spoke to, a very tall, very handsome, very imposing figure in a white suit, continued to gaze into the flames of a fireplace a few feet away from his massive, leather, wing-backed chair. Popping and crackling filled the long pause of silence.
    “Yes, Mr. Smith. We wait, ” said Gregori.
    Mr. Smith, who for all intents and purposes appeared to be the most ordinary, plain individual on the planet, smiled a wholly un-ordinary smile. It was filled with a malice that lit up the brown in his eyes like candlelight behind citrine.
    “There is no specific reason for us to interfere at this juncture,” continued his employer, whose deep, unnaturally beautiful voice filled the gracious space of the massive living room with ease. “It would appear fate is on our side just now. The final of the Four Favored has been cursed.” Gregori paused here, and Smith could feel the ancient man thinking. “He’s been made a monster. With any luck, his archess will not accept him. The Culmination will not come to pass. And we will have the time we need to locate the Old Man.”
    John Smith nodded to himself, just once. But he remained where he was. “It does bear keeping in mind, however,” he said softly, “that the Angel of Death was a monster once as well. But vampires are not entirely monstrous to the thinking of some.”
    “Mmm,” agreed Gregori. His expression remained the same , and his distant gaze unchanged. “Yes, the thought occurred to me. Azrael’s archess accepted him despite this apparent obstacle.”
    John Smith smiled. “The young Miss Bryce was not at all averse to the archangel’s darker tendencies.”
    “No, she wasn’t. She reminded me much of Amara.”
    There was another pause here, in which Smith was certain his employer was reminiscing. Somewhere outside, on the plane of endless white, clouds began to gather. They often did when Gregori reminisced.
    The man in white sighed heavily. “We will monitor the situation. If it appears the curse is not enough of a deterrent, we will take matters into our own hands. But until and unless it comes to such a point, we will allow nature to take its course.”
    “Wise decision, sir.” John Smith nodded once, then left his employer’s side and stepped out into the hall. The ice beneath his feet cracked just a bit as he moved through the hallway and past several other doors that led to separate areas in the palace.
    It was a palace constructed of ice, built into a glacier some millions of years old. Magic, of course, kept the fire from the hearths separate from the ice, and allowed for the mechanical workings of technology throughout the intricate structure. This was where Gregori had made his home long, long ago.
    Mr. Smith stopped in front of a massive portrait that hung on the wall at the end of the long hall. It depicted a woman with long, thick caramel brown hair, soft brown eyes, luxurious lashes, rosy cheeks, and a winsome smile. She wore a white robe, loosely clasped and exceedingly simple. In her folded hands rested a small bunch of wild picked dandelions. Her favorite.
    Her name had been Amara.
    When she died, Gregori moved here, to this desolate and uninhabitable place at the top of the world. He’d wanted to be somewhere as frozen on the outside as he had become on the inside. As cold and unyielding. As dead.
    Mr. Smith moved away from the painting and into the study, with its bookshelves of ice and its floor to ceiling windows that peeked out over an underground – under ice – lake of clear, pure blue. Nothing swam in the lake. It was as beautiful and dead as was everything in Gregori’s world.
    On the banks of the lake, however, there was life. It was the only sign of such for miles in every direction. Dandelions grew thick and plush there, as grass or moss would have grown in