Rene Lyons - Where the damned come to play

The Seraphim: Setheus

Samhain Publishing, Ltd.

"Do you think I have it, Sabrina?"

She pointedly ignored the way he practically purred the words. She knew he was not referring to his sex appeal-which he had in spades. "It doesn't matter what I think. The bottom line is Bryce Mathers does. He wants it and he's willing to pay you top dollar to have it."

He contemplated her words for a moment. "Even if I did have it, it wouldn't be for sale. Not for any price."

She hadn't thought it would be.

Hakion's Stone was a priceless artifact dating back to about five thousand B.C. Of course, as far as Sabrina was concerned, Hakion's Stone was still just a myth. There was no hard evidence it truly existed. Until she saw it for herself, it was just whispered rumors that drifted down through the ages.

As the legend went, God had picked three of his fiercest warrior-angels to guard the three stones here on Earth. The stones supposedly contained the hearts of three demons. The angels had to fall from Heaven, sacrificing themselves in order to walk the earth and keep the stones.

After her mother died and Sabrina learned of the circumstances of her birth, she set out to learn all she could about the stones. Her search had led her to Bryce Mathers and, in turn, to Seth Raleigh.

Instead of dirtying up his own hands, Mathers, who owned a small and rundown museum, enlisted his most overworked historian to interview-interrogate-Raleigh. Not that Sabrina minded. She wanted to come face-to-face with a man who might have known her father. A man who might hold the key to her finding out what part of her mother's outrageous deathbed confession was true, and how much was from delirium caused by the pain of her cancer.

"Do you know why Mathers wants the stone?"

For some reason, Sabrina knew Raleigh was going to see right through the bullshit she was about to serve him. Nevertheless, she wasn't going to tell him the true reason for her being there. More than anything else, she wasn't ready to admit the truth about herself aloud. It was still difficult enough for her to say it in the privacy of her mind.

"I don't know and, honestly, I don't care." She looked right in Raleigh's pitch-black eyes when she gave him that lie. She cared very much why Bryce wanted the stones, and planned on doing everything she could to keep them from him. "If he wants the stone, I'll do everything I can to get it for him. My job is on the line if I don't."