Chapter 6
Rachael raced through Phoebe’s open front door into her studio. In the dim light of the morning, the place looked like the aftermath of a bomb strike as a thick haze hung in the air. Chunks of marble littered the floor; fallen statues, a head here, a foot there lay silent like broken bodies. Shards of stone were embedded in the walls as if thrown by an incredible force. Panic made Rachael’s heart hammer. Where was her best friend in all this?
“Phoebe?” She called out her name, her heart sinking when she was met with silence.
There was no way that Phoebe would ever have left the front door of her precious sculpture studio open to the street.
Rachael gnawed her fingernails wondering what to do. Getting police help sucked. Despite her insistence that Phoebe was in danger, the cop who’d come to the studio earlier wouldn’t listen. Nor would he admit to having seen the angel or the demon. Instead, he’d driven her out of the city, telling her that she was in danger. Was she going crazy? She didn’t think so. She’d always known other realms existed due to her psychic ability, but she hadn’t expected to be confronted by it like this. Was the cop the one who was nuts? He’d dropped her in New Jersey. It had taken her hours to get back to the Meatpacking District.
Too late.
She gripped her head in her hands and pressed her fingers to her temples. What to do? To her right she heard a scraping sound like stone rubbing against the floor. Jerking her face in the direction of the noise, she noticed the large gargoyle-type statue with the head held under its arm was no longer in the corner of the room. Her spine prickled. The statue always gave her the creeps; even though the gargoyles made popular garden sculptures for clients, she’d never taken to them. The eyes seemed to be staring at her and she quickly looked away. She could smell a rotting sulfurous scent, which clouded the studio in the haze she’d noticed earlier. The tiny hairs on her arms stood up. Instinct told her to leave the way she had come, but she had to check Phoebe’s apartment at the back of the studio.
What if Phoebe was hurt and couldn’t respond?
Malodorous intent reverberated in the studio. Rachael could feel it throbbing with every psychic sense in her body.
Keeping her psychic awareness on the giant gargoyle, she picked her way over the fallen statues and opened the door to her friend’s one bedroom apartment. Off the living room, the bedroom door was open. She gasped. Lying on the bed with wings spread out like glistening cream and silver fans was Galaden. His eyes were closed in his pallid face as he took in deep, shuddering breaths. Rachael’s gaze dropped to his throat. A raw gash oozed blood where the demon, Agrat, had driven his blade. More blood lay dried on his chest and ribcage, the red color like a slash of sickly, vivid paint on his pale torso. Even in this dire state, with his feathered blond hair, high cheekbones and wide mouth, the angel was perfect like a carving on a sarcophagus.
“Galaden?” she said, a whorl of worry confronting her. She’d loved the statue from the moment of its creation; it felt like he belonged to her and here he was alive, barely.
His eyelids flickered and opened. Pain wracked their crystal-blue expression.
Before she could go to him, a noise behind her made her turn. She screamed. The sound bounced off the walls as terror sent her heart to her throat. Standing at the doorway was the enormous gargoyle statue with its head under its arm. The red eyes stared at her, and its gaping mouth breathed fire.
She backed away, stumbling over her feet, falling to the floor. Her handbag fell from her arm, its contents clattering on the floor. “Please, Galaden. Don’t let it kill me.” She clutched her head as the sensation of intense fear consumed her and she thought she was losing her mind.
