Archangels Creed Series (Summon Kassern) #1

Excerpt #2 The Red Panties

Troy watched the woman hurry off down the street, his chest heavy with the need to drive sense into a perfect stranger. Lord, keep her safe. Let your angels protect her. Lead her back to me if it's Your will and time.

She disappeared around the building. That could've been my mother right there. Maybe if somebody had made an effort to reach out to her, his own life would've turned out much different. Not that he didn't love his adopted parents, he did. They gave him the life his mother couldn't. Well…couldn't because of her dire circumstances, no doubt. Just like that woman's. The familiar litany played through his head, as it always did when he encountered a woman enslaved to the streets.

He shoved the remaining flyers into his back pocket, eyeing the alley she'd turned down. He resisted a sudden pull to follow her, then shook his head. Time he learned how to take no for an answer.

The pull turned into a spike of terror slashing through his gut and Troy ran after the woman. He might get his ass kicked, but a sixth sense insisted she needed help and he couldn't turn away. He entered the alley as the echo of a stifled scream somewhere ahead died away.

Eyes finally adjusted to the darker shadows, he bolted into a sprint. Troy skidded to a stop by two bodies writhing on the ground against the back of a loading platform. Shock froze him in place as he recognized the poor woman from the strip club struggling beneath an ox of a man. 

Rage blinded Troy, and his Jui-Jitsu training kicked in. With a growl, he grabbed a handful of T-shirt and yanked. The large guy flew several feet and landed hard on his front. Incapacitate the disgusting bastard. The thought launched him onto the fallen man's back, and Troy locked the creep's head in his arms until the raspy grunting and flailing gave in to his crushing choke hold. The guy went limp and Troy gave one last squeeze and growl for extra measure before climbing off the still body. He stared at it for several seconds in amazement. He'd never done that. Trained for it, but hadn't needed to use it.

At first he didn't recognize the new sound. Turning, he realized the woman was sobbing--huddled in the corner against the building, arms covering her head.

He hurried to her and crouched down, not sure what to say or do. "You've suffered a trauma." God, he sounded like Robocop. He reached a hand out to reassure her, but she flailed blindly at him, eyes squeezed tight. He'd studied the signs to be expected in someone who'd been beaten or abused, and even though he'd never seen them in real life, she displayed severe ones. Someone had damaged this woman terribly.

The rage from earlier returned and Troy glanced back at the guy on the ground, fighting the urge to kill him. One less piece of filth to hurt innocent people. His breathing accelerated with the thought of what that creep had planned for her. I could do it. Easily. I could kill that man. The realization stunned him.

He turned back to the woman, shocked to find her standing. He stood too, examining her face for marks. There didn't seem to be any obvious injuries, but it was dark.

"Did he hurt you? Are you okay?" Troy pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and dialed 911. He turned and eyed the guy while he spoke to the dispatcher. The man lay unmoving, exactly as Troy had left him. Had he killed the bastard after all? He finished the call and turned.

She was gone. He searched the empty alley.

Dammit.

****

Troy flipped on the bathroom light, ready to wash the smell of that nasty man off of him. He peeled off his shirt, aware for the first time of the huge scrape on his elbow. Thank God he knew how to defend himself or it could've been a lot worse. Thank God for her sake. He emptied his back pockets and something red fell to the floor.

What in the world? He stooped down and picked up the odd piece of material. "Oh shit!" He threw the fabric in the sink like it'd burned him. Thong panties?

The odd feeling of another presence hit him and he peered out the bathroom door. He released a shaky breath and regarded the red thing in the sink. Where the hell did it come from? Who would've shoved underwear in his back pocket while he was on the corner? Could it have been the woman?

Not possible. He would've felt something like that, surely. The man in the alley? He stood there, thinking, nothing making sense. He finally opened the medicine cabinet and got his razor then used it to pick up the sorry excuse of feminine clothing. His upper lip crawled up as he made his way to the kitchen trash and tossed them in. As far as he was concerned, that scrap of material was the epitome of that woman's sad life.

He stared at them in the trash for a few seconds and was hit with the disgusting urge to smell them! He slammed the lid down and stepped back. Get behind me Satan.

He spun to the sink and pounded on the soap pump. One, two, three. He speed-washed his hands the standard three times; in the name of the Father, in the name of the Son, and one last time in the name of the Holy Spirit.

Fully prepared to do the habitual cleansing of his entire body, he headed to the shower, snatching his toothpaste from the medicine cabinet as he turned the water to a purifying temperature. He got under the scorching spray and began cleansing his spirit space with the first hymn he could think of, loudly singing around the lather of toothpaste and toothbrush in his mouth. "Will the circle...be unbroken...by and by Lord, by and by."

Thirty minutes later, he climbed in bed, ashamed that he'd fallen back into the compulsive cleansing habit he'd worked so hard to kick. Well, not entirely ashamed. If ever there was a logical reason for the OCD behavior, it was those red panties.

He got his Bible out and let it open where it would. The woman weighed on his heart so heavily. Lead me, Father. Show me your will. What should I do?

His gaze zeroed in on the passage of the woman caught in adultery. He read through it and paused at the end, repeating the words, feeling something stirring inside him.

Jesus straightened up and asked her, "Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?"

"No one, sir," she said.

"Then neither do I condemn you," Jesus said. "Go now and leave your life of sin."

He shut his eyes and his Bible. Exhaustion hit him and he put the beloved worn Book on the bedside table. An hour later, he finally slept. And dreamt.

But the things he dreamt were like a sweet, tormenting, nightmare. He dreamt of her. Of doing things with her. Sexual things. Things he had never known how to do, or even imagined were possible. But he knew in that dream. Like a sixth sense, he knew every pleasure the body could experience and performed them with an exquisite rhythm. Her ecstasy was the most arousing thing he'd ever known. The sound of her voice, the way she moved under his touch, the way she moaned his name, all combined into the most powerful intoxicant.

He woke in a sweat, his entire body literally aching with need from the vivid dream. He groaned, clenching his eyes, wanting so badly to touch his erection, relieve it.

What was wrong with him? How could he have such a blasphemous dream? That by itself was damning enough, but for it to be about a poor destitute woman in need of salvation?

Troy growled through the agony as he turned on his side and gazed at the empty pillow next to him. 

He bolted upright and stared down. The air around him became supercharged with a strange energy until his head felt light.

"Jesus," he breathed, backing out of the bed and away. Away from red panties lying neatly on the pillow.

What in the hell was happening?