Velvet Haven

in this realm. We can’t just stride into your world and start commanding magic. We have to be invited. Besides, black magick isn’t our specialty—that’s your world.”
    “Well, who the fuck invited him into Annwyn?”
    Suriel glared at him. “How the hell should I know? But at least now we’ve got a lead. There’s two forces here, one angelic, one immortal. Power and knowledge from both realms. Powerful beings working together. You do know what that means, don’t you?”
    Bran pressed his eyes shut. “Looks like I’m stuck with you.”

    Suriel watched Bran leave the hell he called home. As he rounded the corner, Suriel stepped back into the shadows of a building. An addict, stoned from the needle that jutted out of his arm, looked up at him, his mouth hanging open in shock.
    “What the fuck are you looking at?” he growled, pressing against the bricks, melding into them so he could disappear into the spiritual plane.
    Closing his eyes, Suriel concentrated not on the addict, or the miserable conditions of his own existence, but on Mairi, whose energy he sensed was fading.
    He had foreseen Mairi’s fate. Been told to allow it, to let her go. Not in a vision from Him this time. It was Gabriel. And he hated that ass-kissing brother. Gabriel was a two-faced son of a bitch, and Suriel had known from the moment his pure white wings touched the filth of the street that he was stirring shit.
    So he had waited for Bran to come to him, for Bran to need him. Suriel would much rather cast his lot in with Bran than Gabriel. After all, it was Gabriel who had sentenced him to this fate. And it would be a cold damn day in hell before Suriel did anything to please him.
    Now with this new revelation he had seen in Bran’s memories, Suriel was more convinced than ever that it was Gabriel who wanted Mairi dead. Not the Boss upstairs. Therefore, Suriel was going to give her life. In the end, everyone was going to get what they wanted. Bran would have Mairi, Mairi would understand her powers, and Suriel would find his redemption.
    His body misted, became particles on the wind, and he flew in spirit for the emergency room of St. Michael’s hospital.

    Dying wasn’t anywhere near as painful or terrifying as Mairi expected. It was quiet, dark—peaceful. She hovered, like in that old movie Coma , when the patients hung prone, suspended from the ceiling, unmoving, unseeing.
    There was no pain, despite knowing that the defibrillator was gearing up yet again, ready to shock her.
    “Clear!”
    She heard the warning, heard Dr. Bartlett snarl, “C’mon, Mairi, respond! Louise, crank it up to twenty-five joules. Shit. ” He panted as he pounded on her chest while the defibrillator recharged.
    “What do we have? Anything?”
    “No, still asystole.”
    Mairi wanted to tell him it was okay, that she was peaceful, and while she would have preferred to go later, or at least have the chance to say good-bye, she was strangely good with this new state. It was . . . inviting. She heard someone calling to her, and she wanted to discover who it was.
    “Clear!”
    They said hearing was the last sense to go, and now Mairi had proof. She couldn’t feel a damn thing, but she could hear everything.
    “Mairi?”
    Mairi turned her head to the sound of a dark voice. She wasn’t alone. She felt the presence of another hovering close by.
    “I’m here,” the voice said. It was deep, masculine, hypnotic. Mairi turned her head to the sound and saw the man from last night’s dream.
    “It’s all right, you’re safe with me.”
    “Suriel?” she asked incredulously.
    He smiled, then jumped down from the invisible ledge he was crouching on, his long leather trench flapping behind him, his army boots landing silently on an indistinguishable floor.
    “Why are you here?”
    “I told you I would come to you. And here I am.”
    “I’m . . . dead,” she whispered, and then the tears came.
    “Shh.” He came and stood beside her. She was lying down on what felt like a feather mattress and she had to crane her neck to look up at him. “Easy.”
    Reaching for his arm, she let her fingertips rest against the sleeve of his leather trench. He tingled with an aura she had never felt before.
    “You feel . . . different. Nice.”
    His gaze slid from where her fingers rested on his forearm and rose slowly to her face. His dark eyes had taken on a strange glistening. No longer could she see his pupils. His eyes were now just large black circles as