Warrior's Angel (The Lost Angels Book 4) by Heather Killough-Walden

already had the back door open for her. He glanced at her leg, gave her a meaningful look as she climbed in, and then shut the door tight behind her.
    First thing was first. She needed to see her boss and determine how much of her botched operation had ended up on film, if any. And then they needed to learn as much as possible about gargoyles – and how to avoid them.

Chapter Eight
    “I shouldn’t have sent you out last night.”
    Mr. Verdigri stared into the distance, his expression contemplative and remorseful. Rhiannon leaned forward from where she sat across from him at their small round table in the atrium.
    “Mr. Verdigri, why would you say that? You had no idea this was going to happen. We didn’t even know gargoyles existed until last night.”
    He shook his head and met her gaze. “ But I knew something would happen, Rhiannon,” he said, too soft. “I knew because, yesterday was the day….” His voice trailed off and he looked away, suddenly stricken. She could at once tell that he was unable to talk for fear of losing control of his emotions. For fear of breaking down and crying.
    Yesterday was the day , he’d said. Rhiannon worked the words over in her head and tried to put two and two together. Yesterday was the day….
    T hen she had it. Oh my God, she thought, feeling like a complete and utter fool. Yesterday had been the anniversary of the day, no the night , that Verdigri’s daughter had been abducted by the man who would rape and murder her.
    Yesterday was a day filled with trauma and regret for her employer. Every day was a day filled with trauma and regret. There wasn’t a moment that went by that he didn’t think of his little girl and the evil that befell her. But on that day, of all days, the memory was so much more potent.
    And it hadn’ t even crossed her mind until now.
    She really had been in her own little world, distracted by her dream, the events of the masquerade gala, and the night that followed. Distracted by the stranger in black with the blue, blue eyes.
    “Mr. Verdigri,” she said now, choosing her words carefully as she leaned further forward and placed her hand over his arm to squeeze gently. “Every moment that we wait, sit and do nothing, and allow complacency, another innocent is harmed. Standing up, fighting back, and doing the right thing – this is what your daughter would have wanted. Not just even on that day, but especially on that day.”
    She waited a heartbeat. Two.
    Very slowly, her employer turned toward her and once more met her gaze. Little by little, he smiled. Then he nodded, and patted her hand. “You’re a good seed, Miss Dante.”
    He often switched back and forth between calling her by her first name and her last. It was usually an indication of changing mood. Which he now proved by taking a deep breath, straightening in his chair, and turning to a number of files that had been left on the table. He grabbed the first one and opened it.
    “Now let’s see what my men have managed to learn about these gargoyles of yours.” He perused the contents of the first file while Rhiannon grabbed the second and did the same.
    “Well, so far everything here seems to confirm what I learned tonight,” she said. “They’re secretive to the point of xenophobia. They’re by and large male; I didn’t see any females there, though this could just mean that the females were elsewhere or weren’t expected to do any fighting. They inhabit older buildings, especially buildings with gargoyle markings on them. And they’re pretty much immune to every damn thing under the sun and moon.”
    “You say you tried everything?”
    “Throwing really large objects at them had some small effect, the way stone can be damaged if it’s slammed into by something big. But other than that, not much made a difference. I even shot one of them.” She shook her head and shrugged, “ Nothing .”
    “Then that wo uld confirm what it says here. Apparently they are, for all