The Lost (Celestial Blues, Book 2) - By Vicki Pettersson Page 0,2

a Centurion had been pressed upon him because he was broken, unable to forget his mortal years, move past the pain of being murdered, and release the guilt of having allowed his dear Evie to be killed while standing right next to him. Assisting other newly murdered souls into the Everlast was only meant to help him move on.

But so far Grif hadn’t moved forward . . . he’d moved back, the first man ever to do so. The first, he knew, to be both angelic and human.

“You should just return now,” Sarge said, likely reading his mind.

“Working on it,” Grif muttered, tapping out a smoke of his own.

“So maybe that’ll help,” Sarge said, jerking his head at Grif’s paper. Then his expression turned sly. “Open it.”

Holding his stick between his lips, Grif unfolded the paper again. This time he ignored the headline blaring the news of his death, as well as the black-and-white photo of him and Evie splayed beneath it, and opened it to the middle. “That’s not the sports page.”

Instead, it was a dossier on an individual named Jeap Yang, born only nineteen years earlier and due to die five hours from now. Yet it didn’t say how. Lowering the paperwork, Grif slipped the cigarette from his lips. “Is it a Take or a case?”

Because there was a difference. If it was a Take, Grif arrived just after the mortal soul passed from the physical body—same as he had in his role as a Centurion. However, a case required the escorting angel to arrive just before corporeal death. This was no problem for the Pure. They had never lived, and didn’t even possess souls. They couldn’t begin to understand the agony of having life ripped from you.

But attending death was torture to Grif . . . and it was meant to be. He’d overstepped his duties as a Centurion—saved a woman from being murdered instead of simply watching her die—and that was really why he was here now.

He didn’t regret it, though. It was why Kit—his girl, his new love—was still here, too.

“Why?” Sarge asked now. “Got room in your bed for another case?”

Grif gave Sarge a black look, then snuffed his cigarette butt on the corner lot’s wet grass. “There a map in here?”

“Why don’t you bring along your little tour guide?” Sarge said, dripping sarcasm, spitting stardust.

“I can’t bring Kit on a Take and you know it.” While his sense of direction on the mudflat was improving, and he’d memorized most of Las Vegas’s major crossroads and intersections, he still hadn’t recovered his internal sense of direction. Kit usually guided him when they were out together.

“But she’s so accepting of you, Shaw—your job, your wings, your angelic nature. She loves you just the way you are, right? So why shouldn’t she see you doing what you do best?”

“She did.” Grif smiled. “Back in that warm, wide bed.”

Sarge gave him a deadpan stare. “Map’s in the paper. The real paper. And . . .”

It wasn’t like Sarge to hesitate. “And?”

“This one is Lost.”

Grif’s breath caught in his chest, but he managed a short nod. He’d known this duty was coming.

“He might be less skittish with someone who used to be human,” Sarge explained, then paused. “We can’t afford to lose this one, Shaw.”

“This one?”

“There were two before him. We . . . don’t know where they went.”

Grif blinked. The Host of angels created by and for God to do His will and protect His children . . . didn’t know? Sensing it best not to voice that thought, deciding Frank already knew it anyway, Grif cleared his throat. “So how does he die?”

“Show up at sunrise and you’ll see,” Sarge said.

Because the lesson in Jeap’s death wouldn’t just be for the kid. Grif still had healing to do, too. Sighing, he turned to leave.

“You know,” Sarge said, raising his voice so the treble in the teen’s throat cracked. “It’s not that you have a bad sense of direction, Shaw. True, you’re out of your place and time, and you’ll never be able to properly orient yourself on this mudflat again . . .”

Grif turned around slowly, and waited while Frank tapped ash onto the curb.

“But lots of folks are like that,” he said, moving to the bike and picking it back up, gaze fastened on Grif, the dust of asteroids in his eyes. “Most people are simply inattentive. They don’t see the blessings in their lives until it’s too late. So you might find you have