Phoenix Contract: Part One (Fallen Angel Watchers Book 1) Read Free Page B

heavily upon a crooked wooden cane with a carved ivory handle in the shape of a tiger’s head.
    Matthew’s story, though vivid and entertaining, had failed to answer her question: Why had the priest returned from England a month early? He typically used a circuitous route to avoid a straight answer, but the fact of his evasion piqued her curiosity. Aiden plotted her strategy for obtaining a real explanation. It would require retrenching and some clever inquiry.
    “So I take it that you enjoyed your trip to England?” Aiden asked with a wry grin.
    The priest chuckled. “Young lady, I am an avid Anglophile. I confess. It was a great joke of the cosmos that I was born in Michigan.”
    He spoke with a supple, well-educated baritone. The priest was an eloquent speaker who could recite either Shakespeare or biblical passages with passion and charisma. Aiden admired his precision with words and his ability to speak to diverse audiences.
    “Keep talking like that and they’ll ship you back to England,” Aiden quipped.
    The tall young woman possessed willowy grace, limbs that were both slender and tensile. With most of her height in her legs, she had a modest figure, a graceful neck, small breasts, and narrow hips and waist. She dressed casually in faded blue jeans, a green top, and worn sneakers.
    Aiden had inherited her Irish mother’s beauty. Her flame-hued hair, restrained in a braid from which stubborn strands persistently escaped, fell past her shoulders. The riot of curls framed a narrow ivory-complexioned oval face, prone to summertime freckling. She had a narrow-profiled nose and a delicate mouth above a round chin. Her jade eyes, her most distinctive feature, always shone with intelligence and wit. Her keen mind, often too sharp, allowed her to capture the world with perfect precision and to record her every waking memory in vivid detail.
    “It would be no hardship at all,” Father Matthew assured her with a soft laugh.
    Aiden rushed ahead of the priest and held the lobby door for him. Matthew crawled along at a tortoise’s pace. The cane and his footsteps created an uneven cadence on the sidewalk. Thankful for his presence, Aiden carefully matched her mentor’s stride. She preferred not being alone. In the lonely night, a single set of footsteps created a vulnerable sound.
    A stillness dominated the empty campus, except for their movement through the night. Summer and weekend had converged to render the grounds virtually empty of both staff and students.
    The wrought iron fences had curved spear-pointed tops, designed to deter trespassers and keep the outside world at bay. The fences and foliage combined to create a private refuge where members of the esoteric and secretive Nephilim Houses gathered. Only the dedicated few remained as the hands of the weathered Gothic clock tower crept toward midnight.
    The daytime heat had dissipated, and a cool coastal breeze drifted in off the harbor. In the night sky, the silvery moon waned to a sliver shy of fullness, and only the brightest stars sparkled, aglow with noise pollution from millions of city lights.
    “Are you teaching a seminar this summer?” Aiden asked, extending a subconscious hand toward Matthew’s elbow as he faltered, leaning more heavily than normal on his cane.
    Matthew waved her hand away. “I’m fine. I’m fine. Stop mother-henning me. I’m merely tired due to the long flight.” With a painful effort, he recovered his forward momentum. His breathing labored with the strain of exertion, and each step seemed a struggle.
    “Sorry.” With a worried frown, Aiden withdrew her hand.
    The priest fiercely prized his independence, but in the three months since she had seen him last, Matthew’s health had taken a noticeable turn for the worse. He was weaker, his hands shook, and his voice faded to a wheeze following a long passage of speech.
    “No, I’m not due to teach another class until the fall, and then it will be to our House’s children and