The Judas Relic: An Evangeline Heart Holiday Adventure by A.K. Alexander, Jen Greyson Page B

hell?”
    He stood and extended his arm in greeting. “Metatron. Nice to make your acquaintance, Evangelina. My brother Sandalphon said it was a good time for us to meet. I’ve been waiting for this opportunity.”
    In a flash, I pulled my weapon and pointed it at his forehead. “Who the fuck are you?”
    He laughed. “Now, really, Lina. If I were a part of the rebel force, or the cartel, or involved in the sex trades, would I really pick the one archangel your mother adored above all the others? If I were going to kill you, wouldn’t I have picked someone more globally accepted like Gabriel? Or Michael? Come on, Lina. No one chooses to be Metatron.”
    “I will ask you one more time, then I will drop you where you stand.” My thumb flicked off the safety.
    He slowly lifted his hands, palms out, in surrender. “If those are your terms, then let’s not bloody the place.”
    He strode confidently past me, weaving in and out of the frozen bodies and straight out the door. It banged shut, making me flinch. I stood there, weapon pointed at the door, and weighed my options. I could walk out the back and pretend this never happened, or I could go against every bit of training, logic, and common sense and go see what the archangel Metatron was doing outside.
    I lowered my weapon a few inches and peered closer at an aging tourist who’d been caught mid-stride to the bar, empty glass in hand. A bead of condensation raced down the side of his drink and fell to the floor. I tentatively reached out and nudged him with the tip of my barrel. He didn’t flinch or move or respond at all. Once, I’d wasted good money to go check out Madame Tussaud’s wax museum and this had all the eerie qualities that had set my hair standing on edge that day too.
    “Not good to keep an archangel waiting!” Metatron shouted. Though he was still outside, the sound of his voice carried through the walls like he’d piped it in with a loudspeaker. I took another look around and eased through the main entrance.
    He stood twenty feet away beneath the main Jumbotron in Times Square. On any other night, there would have been no chance to see him standing that far away with the crowds of people who normally filled the square. But what he’d done inside the bar, he’d recreated in the middle of the busiest city in the world. Easily a few hundred people stood like he’d stopped time. Cars, buses, taxis—nothing was moving. Animals too, including a policeman on top of his horse in the middle of the intersection—yeah—both completely frozen. My gun felt heavy in my hand and I holstered it. No matter who he was, I was pretty sure he wasn’t here to shoot me.
    However, I also wasn’t sure I wanted to believe that he was an archangel.
    Because then I’d have to believe in heaven and even with Griffin’s death fresh as a new scar on my heart, that was a giant leap of faith. I believed in what I could see. I believed in truth and honor. Black and white. Good and evil.
    Those delineations were how I knew that when I pulled the trigger, it was the right thing to do. When gray areas like faith and heaven and hell came into play that made me question. And because I killed people for a paycheck, I had to hold those tight rules in place. Questioning made me both a danger to myself and to every mission I agreed to.
    I walked toward him, dodging outstretched arms and legs on the way. Icy chains wound around my ankles, slowing my progress, until I stopped a few feet away.
    His smile was still the same genuine one he’d used on me in the bar. One slender finger lifted and pointed to the screen. “For your viewing pleasure.”

    Order The Archangel Agenda at Amazon Kindle .  
      

     

     

    Also available:
    The Dead Celeb
    An Evie Preston/Grey Tier Book 1
    by Michele Scott (AKA—A.K. Alexander)

    (read on for a sample)

    Chapter One

    MY NAME IS EVIE PRESTON and I hang out with dead rock stars. Oh, and the occasional dead movie star or two. I’ve