Vessel: The Demontouched Saga (Book 4) by Douglas Wayne Page A

got downstairs.”
    I look over at Sara. “That’s why he went first.”
    She lowers her head slightly, forcing me to lift her chin up with my finger. “Don’t feel bad,” I say. “You didn’t know.”
    She smiles before helping the men get me onto the stretcher. They ease me in the air, and walk me through the house, careful not to bump anything on their way through.
    “Let’s turn him around,” one says after opening a door. “Don’t want to put any added pressure on that leg.”
    I grab the edge of the stretcher, feeling the blood rush to my head as they walk downstairs with my head on the bottom. I breathe in and out heavily, to not vomit due to the onset of vertigo from being upside down.
    “It’s over now,” the solider says as my body flattens out.
    I let out one last breath while they set me on a table in the middle of the room. The room is dark except for the glow of candles positioned around the room. On a bed in the corner I make out Ralph as he lays under a cover.
    “Did you patch him up?” I ask.
    Uriel shakes her head. “It took too much for me to keep him alive.” She reaches down, rubbing her hand on the top of my head. “I have enough left in me to stop the bleeding, but I won’t be able to mend the bone until I rest.”
    I look over at her shocked. “I thought angels were more powerful than that.”
    “Even we have limits,” she says.
    “What about Ralph’s people? I promised him we would at least get his wife out of that camp.”
    “I’ll handle that,” Nal says. “You need to rest.”
    “You know I can’t sit on the sidelines while you have all the fun,” I say, sitting up.
    “You don’t have a choice,” Sara says, holding my hand. She kisses me on the forehead before looking over at Nal. “I’ll go with you.”
    “You sure?” he says.
    She nods. “I’ll be fine.”
    “That’s against the rules,” I say. “You can’t take her unless I’m around.”
    “Suck it up, Princess. She’ll be OK.”
    I sigh. I hate being in a position to not have a say in things, but with a compound fracture, I’m not really in a position to argue.
    “She will be fine,” Uriel says closing my eyes with her fingers. “Now rest.”
    I hear the sound of footsteps walking up the stairs. If her healing is anything like Zeke’s, they are probably leaving to avoid being blinded by the light.
    The flash comes shortly after the pain in my legs begin. Within moments the pain and the light don’t bother me anymore as I’m thrust into darkness.
     
     
     
     
     
    It was a cold winter day in the middle of January. I was out of town for a few weeks, visiting a client who needed desperate help with her taxes. Apparently, she didn’t understand the part where we told her to keep records of everything. Thanks to that, I found myself going through nine shoe boxes full of receipts.
    “Are you sure we aren’t missing something?” I asked Mrs. Johnson, owner of a maid service outside Atlanta.
    “Nope,” she said, looking through her wallet. “I’m sure everything got put in a box.”
    “You know. Our policy says we’ll only represent you in an IRS audit as long as there are no missing documents.”
    She nodded. “It’s OK. I’m not missing any.”
    I sighed. Her statement is nearly thirty thousand dollars off, to the bad. Even worse, she hasn’t been keeping current with her payroll. Something told me I would be there a lot longer than a week.
    I jumped to the sound of the phone going off on my hip, forgetting I had the ringer set loud in the car. “I have to take this,” I said as I walked away.
    “This is Mitch.”
    “Mitch, you need to pack your things and head to the airport. I have Allen flying out there now to take over.”
    “While I appreciate the gesture, I’m too far in to hand this over to someone else. It will take him a week to get where I’m at.”
    “It’s Linda,” he said, sending my heart into a tailspin. “The police just showed up looking for