Kelley Armstrong - Haunted

"Hello?" I called.

No one answered.

As I turned to look for a door, something moved at the base of the window. I peered around the divan. On the other side, huddled by the window, sat a woman, her back to me. A flowing, silvery robe swallowed her tiny form. She couldn't have been more than five feet tall. Bird-thin wrists poked out of the loose sleeves. Dark hair tumbled over her back, the ends kissing the floor. No wings that I could see, but that billowing gown could have hidden wings and a set of carry-on luggage. One thing was for certain-I sure wouldn't have sent this fragile little thing after a Nix.

"Janah?" I said softly.

She didn't move. I slid across the room, moving slowly so I didn't startle her.

"Janah?"

She lifted her head and turned. Huge brown eyes locked on mine. Those eyes were so devoid of thought or emotion that I instinctively yanked my gaze away, as if they could suck what they lacked from me.

I crouched to her level, staying a few yards away.

"Janah, my name is Eve. I won't hurt you. I only came to ask-"

She sprang. A mountain-lion screech ripped through the room. Before I could move-before I could even think to move-she was on me. I pitched back, head whacking against the floor. Janah wrapped both hands in my long hair, vaulted to her feet, and swung me against a grouping of urns. Pottery shattered and I sailed clear over the divan.

" Div farzand ," Janah snarled.

She charged. I lunged to my feet and spun out of her reach. When I cast a binding spell, it didn't even slow her down. I leapt onto the divan and bounded across the cushions, then jumped onto the table. As she charged me, I tried to blind her. Either that didn't work on angels or she was indeed blinded… and didn't give a damn.

I swung around for a sidekick, but a mental barricade stopped my foot in mid-flight. Kicking a mad angel? My moral code may be a little thin, but that broke it on two counts.

I jumped across to an end table and looked around for a door. There wasn't one. The only way out of this gilded cage was the window, and I knew that was an illusion. Here, walls were walls. Even ghosts can't walk through them.

As I leapfrogged back onto the coffee table, I recited the incantation to take me home. It didn't work. Tried another one. Didn't work, either. Whatever mojo the Fates had going in this angel's cell, it was obviously designed to keep her in. All things considered, that didn't seem like such a bad idea. If only I weren't in here with her.

" Yâflan dâdvari !" she spat at me.

"Yeah? Right back at you, you crazy bitch."

She stopped and went completely still. Then she stepped back, lifted her arms and face to the ceiling in supplication, and began an incantation.

"Hey, I didn't mean it," I said, stepping to the edge of the table. "If you're calling the Fates, that's fine. They sent me."

Something shimmered in Janah's raised hands, slowly materializing from the ether. It looked like a piece of metal at least four feet long and so shiny it seemed to glow. Etched along the side were inscriptions in an alphabet that looked vaguely familiar.

As the object solidified, a burnished handle appeared on one end. Janah gripped it, fingers closing around the handle, eyes shutting, lips parting, as if sliding into a glove of the softest leather. She raised the object over her head-the pointed shaft of the biggest goddamned sword I'd ever seen.

"Holy shit!"

The words were still whooshing from my lips as that sword cleaved through the table legs like they were sticks of warm butter. As my perch crumbled, I managed to scamper onto a chair. When I dove over the back of it, the sword sheered toward my knees. I hit the floor. The tip of the blade jabbed through the upholstery, within an inch of my shoulder.

Janah leapt onto the chair and plunged the sword down at me. Ghost or no ghost, I got the hell out of the way. Doesn't matter how invulnerable you think you are, facing off against a psychotic angel with a four-foot samurai sword is not the time to test that theory.

I scampered across the room, casting spells as I ran. None of them worked.

"'Demon-spawn!" Janah shouted.

Couldn't argue with that.

"Infidel!"

Debatable, but sure, I'll give you that one, too.

"Satan's whore!"

Okay, now that was uncalled for. I spun and kicked. This time, my conscience stood down and let my foot fly. I caught Janah in the wrist. She gasped. The sword flew from her hand and clattered to the floor. We both dove after it. As Janah's fingers touched the handle, I smacked it out of her reach, then twisted and grabbed the blade.

White-hot pain ripped through my arm. I screamed, as much in shock as pain. In three years I hadn't suffered so much as the pang of a stubbed toe, and never expected to again, so when the blade lit my arm afire, I let out a scream to rock the rafters. But I didn't let go. I lifted the sword by the blade, pain still throbbing down my arm.

Then all went dark.

"I think you were supposed to wait for me."

The voice was male and so rich it sent chills down my spine. I looked around. I was sitting on the floor in Janah's front hall, outside the white door.

In front of me stood a pair of legs, clad in tan trousers with an edge sharper than Janah's blade. I followed the legs up to a green shirt, then up higher, to a pair of eyes the same emerald shade as the shirt. Those eyes were set in an olive-skinned face with a strong nose and full lips quivering with barely concealed mirth. Tousled black hair fell over his forehead.

The man reached down to pull me up. His grip was firm and warm, almost hot.

"Thanks for the rescue," I said, "but I think I had things under control."

The grin broke through. "So I saw." He jerked his chin at the door. "Not what you expected, I suppose."

"No kidding." I glanced down at my hand. It looked fine, and the pain had stopped the moment I'd let go of the blade. "So that's an angel?"

"By occupation, not by blood. She's a ghost, like you. A witch as well… which is probably why she went easy on you." He extended his hand. "Trsiel."

I assumed that was an introduction, but it didn't sound like any name-or word-I'd ever heard. Though I refrained from a rude "Huh?" my face must have said it for me.

"Tris-eye-el," he said.

His phonetic pronunciation didn't quite sound like what he'd said the first time, but it was as near to it as my tongue was getting.

"Bet you got asked to spell that one a lot," I said.

He laughed. "I'm sure I would have… if I'd ever needed to. I'm not a ghost."

"Oh?" I looked him over, trying to be discreet about it.

"Angel," he said. "A full-blood."

"Angel? No wings, huh?"

Another rich laugh. "Sorry to disappoint. But putting wings on an angel would be like hitching a horse to a motor car. Teleportation works much faster than fluttering."

"True." I glanced toward Janah's door. "But teleportation doesn't work for her, does it? Or is that because of the anti-magic barrier?"

"A bit of both. It doesn't always work for full-bloods, either. There are places-" His faced darkened, but he shrugged it off. "Even full-bloods can be trapped. Like Zadkiel."

I nodded. "The last one who went after the Nix."

"Normally, he'd be here, helping you. That's his job, to assist on the inaugural quests. But obviously he can't, so I've been asked to step in. I'll be helping you with anything that might be difficult for a non-angel, like talking to Janah."

"So that's her problem. Now that she's an angel, she doesn't like talking to us mere ghosts?"

"It's not that. She picked up the demon blood in you. Her brain, it misfires, gets its connections crossed, especially when it comes to anything that reminds her of the Nix."