Defending Angels by Mary Stanton Page A

hurricane. Instead, she said, “What happened?”
    Two policemen walked in the door; the one in the lead, a surly-looking guy with a potbelly and a shock of greasy blond hair, shouted, “Everybody freeze!”
    “This way.” The man with the colorless eyes, which were not, Bree realized, colorless at all, but silvery, put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her without effort into the hall to the kitchen.
    “Wait a minute.” Bree tried to duck out from under his grip and get back into the restaurant. Somehow, she kept on moving, down the back hall, out the back door, and into the alley that led to the parking lot. It wasn’t that she couldn’t resist. It was that her resistance didn’t make any difference. He was very strong, not at all rough, and smelled pleasantly of the outdoors. Once in the alley, he closed the door to the kitchen behind them, and let her go.
    “You live up there.” It wasn’t a question. He looked up at Front Street, which was one level above the shops and restaurants on the wharf. This part of the River Walk was constructed entirely of brick walls that rose twenty feet to the street above.
    “Well, yes, but I should real—”
    “Go home.”
    “I can’t leave my sis—”
    “I’ll let her know you’ve gone.”
    “Who are you?” Bree asked indignantly. “And what do you think you’re doing pushing me around like this?”
    “Am I pushing you around?” He stepped back and looked at her, amused. “Sorry.” His eyes were very silvery in the half light from the streetlamps. And he didn’t look sorry at all. “My name’s Striker. Gabe Striker.”
    Bree’s mind went blank for a minute, then, suddenly furious, she said, “The PI.”
    “Yes. Armand Cianquino thought I could give you a hand with the Skinner case. I just happened to be in the area when this little fracas with Payton the Rat blew up.”
    “Is there anyone in Savannah who doesn’t know Payton dumped me?” Bree demanded through gritted teeth.
    He backed up, his hands held up in mock surrender. She barely could make out his face in the gloom. “Hey. Sorry. I seem to have stepped out of line.”
    “No kidding.”
    “I do apologize.” His voice drifted toward her. She had the oddest sensation that he was suddenly bodiless, a mist in the air, liable to disappear with a breath. “Go home. I’m going to do what I can to make this go away.”
    Then she was alone in the alley.

Eight
    And on the Tree of Life,
The middle tree and highest that there grew,
Sat like a cormorant ... devising death.
    — Paradise Lost , John Milton
     
    Bree squashed the impulse to make a rude gesture after Gabriel Striker, PI. Instead, she walked past the Dumpster to the edge of the sidewalk and peered around the corner of the building. A police cruiser headed the wrong way down the one-way street sat in front of the restaurant, red lights flashing. Either the crowd gathered outside had come from the restaurant or from the street, probably both. A pair of teenage boys held their cell phones up, taking pictures of the scene. Bree recognized the bartender, a cheerful woman in her midforties who didn’t look very cheerful at the moment. The shorter of the teenagers recognized the bartender, too. Huey’s was a popular place. “Hey, Maureen! What the heck happened in there?”
    Maureen shrugged, her face bewildered. “What started it is some woman dove over a table to get at this guy.”
    Bree cringed.
    “And then this freak wind came upriver and blew the place apart. Well,” Maureen amended, “not apart, as such. But it burst right through the doors and made one hell of a mess in there.” She looked up at the sky in a confused way. “And then it sort of sucked itself out.”
    “Anybody hurt?” The kid shouldered his way through the crowd to Maureen, his cell phone aimed at her. “Can you give me a quote?” Maureen held her hand in front of her face. “Will you cut that out? The two of you get on out of here.”
    “Anybody