Gabriel's Angel

Excerpt from Chapter One

     Livvy started to go back inside the tower, but movement at the shore caught her eye. At first she thought it was some hapless sea creature who'd beached itself. But when the creature appeared to stand upright in the shadows and begin an awkward, wobbling advance toward the keeper's house, she knew no ordinary ocean dweller could do that.
    "Someone's in trouble," she said into the wind and immediately ran inside the lens chamber and down to the watchroom. Cupping her hand around the chimney of the oil lamp on the desk, she blew out the flame to prevent a threat of fire. She scooped up her cat and scurried down the winding staircase with only the six glass-enclosed candles along the walls to guide her.
     When she was almost at the bottom, Livvy began calling to her grandfather. "Holly, someone's coming. There's a person washed up on shore!"
     She needn't have warned him. By the time she ran through the oil room which connected the tower to the keeper's house, the person was already standing on the threshold to the parlor. Holly, in his wheelchair, faced the open door and the presence now filling it.
    A single lantern and the dim light from a dying fire made it impossible to see the details of the man's face, but Livvy sensed there was something desperate about him. His breath came in ragged gasps. His shoulders were hunched forward, his stance clumsy, fragile somehow. His right hand clutched his thigh. His left hand gripped the door jamb as if, without that lifeline, he would fall.
    "He's ill," Livvy said, starting toward him.
    Holly held up his hand. "No, Liv, stay here."
    "But Holly, he needs help ..."
    "Don't go near him. Look at his clothes. He's wearing prison garb."
    Livvy grabbed her grandfather's hand and stared at the man. Shock and fear rooted her to the floor by Holly's chair. In those first seconds she was incapable of taking a step either toward or away from the strange being in the doorway. She'd never seen prison clothes before, but she accepted that the faded white and gray stripes of the man's damp garments were indeed those worn by convicts.
    "What do you want?" Holly asked the man who neither entered nor retreated.
    The answer was a low, rumbling sound from his throat, almost a growl.
The same terror which had immobilized Livvy at first, now spurred her to action. She whirled around and grabbed the Winchester rifle from the wall rack behind her. It was always kept loaded, but had never been fired on a human being. Though Livvy knew the fundamentals of firing it, she never had a chance to test her skills on the prisoner. When she spun back to face him, Holly placed his hand on the barrel of the rifle and pointed it to the floor. The hard glint of steel flashed before Livvy's eyes, and she stared at a long, menacing blade in the man's hand.