The wind rushed through the window, sending a gust of air
spinning through the loft where Allie Whirlwind lived.
Lost in a painting, she ignored it. She was putting the
final touches on her current watercolor — a depiction of
an angel.
But he wasn't your ordinary, garden-variety angel. She'd
given him a long, muscular body with enormous black wings.
His hair, as dark and shiny as his wings, flowed long and
free, the thick, rebellious strands heightened by a
lavender-hued dusk. Piercing brown eyes, a sharp, straight
nose and prominent cheekbones lent his face a fierce
quality.
For his clothes, she'd chosen practical fabrics in pale
colors. The tan shirt, faded from the sun and un-buttoned
to his waist, bore the brunt of his labor, with ragged
edges and frayed seams. The garment was torn along his
shoulder blades, making room for his wings. On his feet,
he wore work boots.
She'd dressed him like a turn-of-the-century farmer.
Puzzled, Allie tilted her head. Did her angel grow crops?
Did he let the soil drift through his fingers?
Yes, she thought, gazing at his callused, dirt-smudged
hands, he did. Was that strange for a celestial warrior?
Allie didn't know. She hadn't figured out what tribe he
was from.
She'd painted his image from instinct, from somewhere deep
inside. Her artwork, the fantasy creatures she created,
always came from her soul.
But this one...
She paused to add more light, more shadow. This one was
supposed to protect her. She scanned the length of his
body, his slightly scarred chest, his deeply bronzed
stomach, the ripple of hard-earned, sweat-glistening
muscle. He was supposed to boff her brains out, too.
With a girlish grin, she chewed on the end of her brush.
It was a joke, of course. A lark between herself and her
sister. Allie didn't really expect him to come alive. If
she wanted a lover, she would have to look elsewhere.
Then again, for the last year, she'd been steeped in
magic. Good magic. Bad magic. She'd seen it all. She knew
anything was possible. In the past, her paintings had
possessed paranormal powers. She'd done a portrait of her
dead father that had attracted his ghost.
The wind swept through the studio once more, and Samantha
hissed. Samantha was Allie's cat, a finicky feline she'd
found on the streets of Los Angeles.
The City of Angels.
She went back to her watercolor, shushing Samantha with a
flick of her wrist, dropping a spot of paint on the
already mottled floor.
The cat hissed again, only louder this time. She sighed,
turning to face her pet. "Come on, Sam. It's a nice spring
breeze. A little air won't hurt you."
Perched on a cluttered art-supply shelf, the suspicious
animal tensed, her sleek black body arching, her fur
spiking on end.
Okay, so maybe it wasn't a nice breeze. Maybe it was
strong and aggressive. But it fit Allie's angel. She could
imagine him soaring into the sky, his arms raised to the
heavens, his threadbare clothes blowing, his hair whipping
like a midnight tornado.
Lord, he was gorgeous. Rough and primitive. "If only you
would come alive," she said. And that was when it
happened, when her wish took a twisted turn. Without
warning, the wind howled, pushing against the window
screen, popping the device from its hinges. It landed at
Allie's feet, where the hem of her dress billowed,
mimicking Marilyn Monroe's fanning garment in The
SevenYear Itch.
Talk about feeling sexy.
Samantha went into a tizzy, growling like a demon, her
ears pinned to her pretty little head. But Allie didn't
scold her. Foolish as it was, she was too busy waiting for
her angel, her heart thumping in anticipation.
Only, it was a big, black bird that flew into the loft and
circled the studio, its wings whooshing past her.
Allie blinked. A raven?
So much for getting laid.
She looked up, watching the raven perch on a rafter, one
of the highest spots in the studio. The cat hadn't quit
growling. She hated birds. And this big, bad baby was no
exception. It stood about two feet tall, with an
impressive wingspan.
"That's not Zinna," Allie told Samantha, as the wind
calmed down. Zinna was Allie's great-grandmother, a dead
witch, an Apache shape-shifter who took the form of an
owl. An evil spirit who'd tried to steal Allie's sister's
soul.
Not that Olivia Whirlwind was easy pickings. The older
sister was a kick-ass, gun-toting psychic who assisted law
enforcement officials. Currently she was working on a
covert FBI mission. Allie couldn't reach her if she tried.
But there was no need. Allie had this situation under
control.
Samantha batted her paw in the air, ready to do battle.
Convinced, or so it seemed, that the feathered creature
was Zinna.
"That's a raven," Allie said, glancing up at the rafters.
The bird was too far away to react to the sound of her
voice, to make out her words. Not that it would know the
difference. Allie often put thoughts in Sam's head,
assuming what her pet was thinking, but she wasn't going
to do that with the bird, too. "Ravens are part of the
crow family. That's not the same as an owl. Besides,
Zinna's magic was contained by a binding spell. She can't
hurt us."
Samantha narrowed her wary green eyes. All right, so the
cat had a point. The binding spell could wear off at any
time. Zinna's magic was too powerful to contain forever.
"Don't worry. I've been preparing for Zinna, honing my
skills." Allie paused, smoothing her waist-length
hair. "But that raven isn't her. Nor did she dispatch it."
Samantha gave her a look that asked, "How can you be sure?"
"I have witch radar." Allie, who'd been dubbed Addle-brain
by the man who'd trained her to fight, puffed up her
chest. "It's part of my magic."
If Samantha had eyebrows, she probably would have raised
them. Allie had just painted an angel and conjured a bird.
That didn't bode well for her magic, for the skills she'd
been honing.
She copped a defensive stance. "This isn't my fault. Birds
fly into people's houses all the time." To prove her
point, she made a grand gesture, trying to shoo the stupid
raven back out the window.
But it flew straight at her instead. Startled, she smacked
it with her flailing hands, sending the wild creature to
the floor, where it landed on the linoleum with a thud.
She gasped, stunned by the force with which she'd hit it.
Even Samantha reacted with a you-killed-it meow. Of
course, Sam sounded happy. Ding dong, the bird is dead.
"I didn't mean to." Guilty, Allie knelt over the fallen
raven.
Samantha abandoned her post to get closer to her
mistress's kill. Whispering an apology, Allie stroked the
bird, and it opened its eyes.
It was stunned, not dead.
Oddly enough, the raven simply stared at her, as though it
understood her apology. A strange chill crept up her
spine. But before she had time to analyze the feeling,
Samantha grabbed one of its tail feathers with her teeth
and yanked as hard as she could.
Suddenly the bird rose to the occasion, diving at Allie
and taking a screw-you bite out of her arm.
Damn. She jerked back, realizing she'd taken a hit for
something Samantha had done. The cat seemed to sense it,
too. She took off running with the feather in her mouth,
and within the blink of an eye, the bird was back in the
rafters, tracking the cat from above, waiting to make its
next move.
Clever beast.
Allie's arm was bleeding like a bitch. She wrapped a small
towel around the wound.
And while Samantha leaped from shelf to shelf, Allie
searched for something to attack the raven, something that
would reach the rafters, which wouldn't be an easy task in
a loft with museum-height ceilings. But what else could
she do? By now, the bird was dive-bombing Samantha,
behaving like the star of an Alfred Hitchcock movie. And
its caw. Lord Almighty. It sounded like the messenger of
death.
And then she recalled that in some forms of folklore,
ravens were omens of death.
Like owls.
Shit.
She warned herself to stay calm, to think clearly. Wasn't
Raven the creator of the world to some of the Northwest
Indians? Wasn't he highly revered?
Of course Allie wasn't from a Northwest tribe. Anxious,
she scrambled to remember what ravens represented in her
culture. She was half Chiricahua Apache and half Oglala
Lakota Sioux, and sometimes their traditions didn't mesh.
To the Apache, crows were associated with the hunt. The
appearance of a crow was a good sign. But did that go for
ravens, too? Allie didn't know. She found a broom and
swung at the bird, missing it by a long shot.
Wily beast.
As for the Lakota, she couldn't remember what ravens meant
to them. Or maybe she never knew to begin with.
Samantha knocked over an entire shelf of acrylic paint,
scattering the tubes all over the floor. The oils came
next. Then the cat dumped a bottle of brush cleaner, where
it spilled into a pool of clear liquid.
That was Allie's downfall. She took another missed swipe
at the raven and hit the brush cleaner, sliding like a
skunk on roller skates. With a feminine-pitched screech,
she slammed into a sturdy oak cabinet, where her head
rammed the wood.
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