me.”
“She’s also ’round the twist,” he scoffed.
“Aren’t we all?”
He stood. “If you’re not interested, just say so.”
She noted his short fuse for future reference.
“I’m all for working together,” Eve murmured. “I could use some friends around here.”
His smile was nothing less than charming. It transformed his features and brightened his eyes. He held out a hand to her and helped her to her feet. “We’ve got a deal, then.”
“Sure.” The coming week was going to be interesting.
Richens opened the kitchen door, which swung inward, and stepped inside, completely foregoing the “ladies first” rule. Eve shook her head and was about to enter behind him when the low growl of a canine rumbled through the evening air. Chills raced down her spine.
Pivoting on the narrow stoop, she blinked and engaged the nictitating lenses that allowed her to see in the dark. She searched the nearby area, the heat of her already fevered skin rising.
But she saw nothing. No gleam of moonlight in malevolent eyes, no betraying movement. She sniffed the air and smelled the sea.
Still, she knew something was out there.
The bushes dividing their yard from the neighbor’s rustled. Eve leaped to the yellowed grass and landed in a crouch. A tiny puff rushed out at her and she caught it, lifting it by the scruff and drawing her fist back to strike.
Hold it, sweetie! the toy poodle cried, flailing its tiny legs.
Eve paused midswing, her marked senses retreating as quickly as they’d come, taking the overwhelming urge to kill with it. The mark created power and aggression in highly intense quantities. The sensations were base and animalistic, not at all the elegant sort of violence she might have expected the Almighty to use in the destruction of his enemies. The surge was brutal . . . and addicting.
Don’t punch the messenger.
“Jesus—ouch!” Eve winced as her mark flared in protest. Since she wasn’t a pet owner, days could go by without any animals speaking to her. She often forgot that the mark had given her new senses, such as the ability to converse with all of God’s creatures. “What are you doing running at me like that?”
I’m in a hurry. Put me down. This isn’t dignified.
Eve set the little creature down and watched as the obvious stray shook herself off. Despite the filth that darkened the poodle’s cream-colored fur to a café au lait color, the dog was adorable. “Why are you growling at me?”
Not at you, doll face. The teeny poodle pranced daintily and looked at Eve with somber, puppy-soft eyes. At those around you. You feel it, too. You’re smack dab in the middle—
An explosion rent the air. Eve jerked in surprise, then found herself splattered with gore and fur.
“What the hell?” she screamed, leaping to her feet.
Izzie stood in the doorway with a gun. A second later, the light from the kitchen was blocked by the number of people crowded behind her.
Eve looked at the carcass on the ground and the mark’s potency rushed through her. “You idiot! What did you do that for?”
“It was attacking you,” Izzie said, shrugging.
“It was the size of my shoe!”
Gadara materialized on the stoop and held his hand out for the gun. Izzie passed it over.
The archangel looked at Eve. “Are you okay, Ms. Hollis?”
“No.” She looked down at the blood on her clothes. “I’m really fucking far from okay.”
“What happened?”
“A stray wanted some dinner scraps.” She glared at Izzie. “And ending up getting blown to smithereens instead. What the hell caliber pistol is that?”
Gadara turned his attention to the gun, then to Izzie. “This is yours?”
“Yes.”
“You were told to come unarmed. I will provide everything you need.”
Izzie’s purple stained lips thinned stubbornly. “I told you, I saw that ghost program on television. I could not come to this place without protection.”
“You have no faith,” he said, eyeing her with a narrowed gaze. “You have no belief in me. I am here to help you rebuild you life and attain the skills to live it to the fullest.”
“And there are millions of demons prepared to end it,” she argued.
The archangel hovered above the stoop, his silence as condemning as shouted rebukes. Even Eve shuffled nervously and she had done nothing wrong.
“What happened?” Ken yelled from the back of the kitchen.
“Seiler shot something.”
“What? Let me by.”
“It was only a dog,” Izzie muttered, looking mulish.
“A dog?” Ken scoffed.
“Everyone back in the house,” Gadara ordered, his voice resonating with celestial command.
The persuasion was so forceful, it was nearly tangible, and Eve took an involuntary step