by Ren Hamilton
“He’s not a vampire, Litner. Plus you’d never get close enough to him to do that. Even if he’s unconscious, I wouldn’t risk going within twenty feet of him.” Cracking his knuckles, Shep stretched his back. “Where is he now?”
“Locked up.”
“With what?”
“Heavy steel walls. Will that hold him?”
Shep shrugged. “I don’t know. Can I talk to him?”
“Yes. Through the com system. But I fear you may agitate him further. He said something about you being a snake slithering in shit.”
Shep huffed. “Well, if he wants to trade insults, I’ll definitely win. I’m a much bigger asshole than he is.”
Litner gave him a smirk, then stood. “I’ll order the guys to destroy that cave wall in the meantime. Where are your brothers and Joey?”
“My Boston house,” he said. “Safe. I put them through hell last night. I can do this by myself.”
Taking a deep breath, Litner opened the door. “All right. Let’s go poke sticks at this lion. And hope it doesn’t rip our throats out.”
“Are you up for this now?” Shep asked. “I mean, don’t you want to go home and, I don’t know. Do whatever it is men like you do to relax. You kind of had a bad day.”
Litner did a doubletake. “I’m trained to deal with bad days. But thanks for your concern.”
“I know but…your boss was also your friend, right?”
Sighing, Litner stopped at the door and faced Shep. “Yes, he was my friend. Just like Agent Rourke, whose death you ordered at Forest Bluffs, was my friend. What is this sudden attempt at empathy? I know you don’t give a shit that my boss was killed, so what is it? Guilt? You think this is your fault?”
“No! If anything it’s Michaels’ own damn fault for screwing with the Cripulet. I just…” Shep appeared troubled, twisting his tee shirt hem in his hands.
“What?”
“I didn’t understand human grief. I guess I always knew they were going to a better place so what’s all the fuss? But since my brother Allisto was killed…”
“Ah. You understand loss now.”
“Yes. Closest I’d felt to loss before was when…he and I fell out.”
“You and Allisto?”
“No! I mean him.”
“Oh.” Litner nodded. “Wesley.”
“Yeah. When we went our separate ways, it hurt. It was devastating. But when Allisto was destroyed…I just wasn’t prepared for that kind of pain. I didn’t know.”
“It sucks.”
“Yeah. It really sucks. So that’s why I’m sorry about your boss.”
“Then maybe you’ll remember that feeling the next time you flippantly decide to end someone’s life, Shepherd.”
His lips curled into a tight pout, brow lowering.
“Don’t give me that look,” Litner said. “I know all about the things you’ve done. The Duvaine family?”
“That wasn’t ‘flippant’. I needed their blood to get the brothers out.”
“Death causes pain for those left behind. The kind of pain you feel over losing Allisto? That’s what other people feel when they lose their loved ones. So if you’re going to claim to understand grief, you need to take responsibility for that.”
Silent for a moment, Shep let out a shuddering breath. “Okay. Let’s go deal with this situation before we both lose someone else.”
It wasn’t a promise not to kill again, but it was the closest he’d likely get with Shep, so he took it. “Let’s go.”
Shep followed him out the door. As soon as they left the room, Litner saw Garret Upton running toward them from the other end of the hall, his face flushed red. “Sir!” he shouted. “It escaped!”
Litner and Shep ran to meet him. “What? How?”
Garret bent over, catching his breath, then looked up at Litner. “The wall. Somehow he...melted it.”
“Aw, fuck,” Shep said, turning away with hands on his head. “Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.” He pulled out his phone.
Litner did the same. “Upton, I’m sending you a list of names and addresses, I want you to use whatever resources you have to get guards on them. Move, now!”
Garret nodded and ran off down the hall.
Shep shouted orders into the phone at someone. “Call Obrien too. And get the guns out. All of the guns, Margol.” He paused. “What do you mean he’s not back yet? Where the hell is he?” Shep’s face was tight with panic as he held the phone to his ear. “Well, find him. Make sure you’re armed.” He hung up. “Fuck! Juris is MIA. I have to go. Crap, I took a cab here. Give me a ride?”
“Wesley is at my house, I’ll call him on the way. Come on, I’ll drop you off.”
“I need a gun,” Shep said as they headed out of the building.
“I’m not giving you a gun,” Litner said.
“Oh give me a break, Litner! You know I’ve got an arsenal at home, just give me a fucking gun! I might be able to sense Preet’s location if I try, and if we find him on the way, two guns are better than one.”
They hopped into Litner’s SUV and burned rubber out of the parking lot. “Under the seat,” he said. Shep reached down and pulled out the gun, resting it in his lap. Closing his eyes, he sat silently, body lilting slightly as Litner took a corner. “Anything?” he asked, glancing at Shep.
Shep said nothing for another fifteen seconds, then he opened his eyes. “Take your next left. I can smell the fucker.”
“Are you sure?” he asked, but did what he asked, turning the car left at the next intersection.
“Yes, but stop talking, I’m trying to concentrate.”
Litner’s phone rang and he brought it to his ear. “What is it?”
“Palumbo here. Report came in on the police line, something about a naked man with wings, down by the park.”
“Gather the team and meet me there,” he said. “Bring all the firepower you can carry.” He hung up and glanced at Shep. “This thing can’t...fly, can it?”
“No. Those wings weren’t designed for this atmosphere, too much gravity.”
“You flew,” Litner said. “I saw you.”
He turned his green eyes on Litner. “If you recall, I was wearing demon wings at the time.”
Litner’s brows shot up. “That’s what those black wings were?”
“Yeah. Cute little prank from the cherubim. Demon wings are much more versatile because they come to earth a lot to steal energy.”
Litner scowled as he maneuvered the car through traffic, beeping his horn, tires hugging the curb. “I’ve been curious, I must admit, about exactly what demons are.”
“Another time. Fuck, I see him!”
In the distance, moving in a limping stumble down the side of the road, was Preet, wings folded down his back over bare buttocks. Litner pulled the car over, and they got out, weapons in hand. “Damn it,” Litner said. “There are people everywhere.”
“Yeah. This situation is gonna be a bitch to cover up,” Shep said. “Glad that’s your job, not mine.”
“Fuck you, Shep. Clear the sidewalk!” Litner shouted at pedestrians as he and Shep ran toward Preet. “Everyone clear the sidewalk!” Confused bystanders watched them with shocked expressions, a few cries of alarm when they saw the guns.
There were already shrieks ahead from those that spotted Preet. Unfortunately, very few of them actually moved, and Litner had to shove people out of his way.
They were closing fast when Preet whirled around. Voices in the crowd made new sounds of alarm as his wings snapped out, then chaos reigned as car windows shattered along the path of his gaze, car alarms blaring. One streetlamp fell over, crashing, another bending like it was made of wax.
Shep threw Litner behind him and raised his palms. When Preet’s mental blast hit them, Shep slammed back into Litner, the two of them going down. But whatever Shep had done shielded the impact from splitting their heads open, so Litner wasn’t going to complain.
He wriggled beneath Shep. “Get off me or shoot the
damn thing!” he shouted.
Shots rang out but not from either of their guns. Shep tugged Litner to his feet, and he saw three of Michaels’ soldiers ten feet behind Preet in the other direction, Tyler Palumbo in the lead. He shot again and Preet howled as the bullet hit one of his wings, sending feathers into the air like snow.
Preet whirled to face the soldiers, and Palumbo shouted to the others, all of them dropping to their stomachs, hands over their heads. The blast hit a pair of curious onlookers, and they blew back into a parked car. Litner and Shep fired simultaneously, and soon Preet’s wings were smattered red from the bullets in his back. He stumbled and fell to his knees.
Then the soldiers were back on their feet, firing a deafening spray of bullets into his chest. Preet roared and a store window shattered, but he was crawling now, dragging his legs behind him.
Shep ran ahead and Litner sprinted up beside him, each pumping several more rounds into the back of the creature’s head. His large body jerked, then flattened to the sidewalk, going still.
Gently, Shep moved in a sidestep, crouching down and touching Preet’s neck, his fingers coming away bloody. “He’s dead,” he said. His eyes turned to the soldiers, who were struggling to push back the curious crowd now surrounding them. “You better cover his body with something, and get it out of here,” Shep said. “I smell human panic in the air.”
Litner headed for his vehicle. “I know,” he said. “I’m one of the humans panicking.”
Chapter Eleven
Shep sat on his couch smoking a joint, gazing at the morning sunlight through the window of his Boston home. Flames crackled in the fireplace, but otherwise the house was quiet, the brothers and Joey still asleep in their beds. It was the safest he’d felt in twenty-four hours, but anxiety still twisted his gut. Who was the he that sent Preet to this world on a murderous rampage? Who on the other side lied to Preet, claiming the command came from on high?
While Shep’s former superiors were assholes of the highest order, he had a hard time imagining them being responsible for this. It was too messy.
He’d demanded that Preet’s body be burned immediately. He’d been reasonable with Agent Litner thus far, but there was no way he was letting a bunch of government idiots have a celestial body to poke around in and dissect. Too many of them knew too much already. Since Litner was in charge, he made it happen, and Shep stood beside him as they loaded the winged body into the crematory. Though Litner’s doctor friend had confirmed that Preet was dead, Shep felt a lot better when he was turned to ash.
Litner had tried to start a conversation with him about his ‘plans’ but Shep shut him down. He was fortunate that the agent had spin control to deal with, because he’d left quickly after that. Shep knew he’d have to deal with the subject again at some point, Litner poking around, trying to get him to abandon the crop, but he had more pressing matters on his mind at the moment.
Juris shuffled into the room, rubbing his eyes, and sat in a chair next to the fireplace, a cup of cocoa in his hand.
“Where were you yesterday?” Shep asked.
Juris kept his eyes on the flames. “I told you, I went out. I wasn’t far. I came back as soon as Margol found me.”
“He said you didn’t answer your phone and he had to hunt you down. I was worried sick, you realize. I told you there was still danger. So what the hell were you doing in Boston all day?”
Finally, he met Shep’s eyes. “Why are you grilling me? Everyone’s safe now.”
Shep climbed off the couch, stubbing the joint out in an ashtray, then he walked over to the fireplace, standing in front of Juris. “When I asked Margol where you were, he said he found you at a pub.”
Juris shrugged. “So? I can handle my liquor.”
“That’s not what concerns me. What concerns me is the vague deception I felt in Margol’s thoughts when he told me this. Like he was lying for you.”
Juris huffed. “You sensed anger, not deception. Margol was furious that he had to come find me, he was panicking.”
“Yeah,” Shep said. “We were all panicking. I don’t know what’s up with you lately, but I want you close by until we head back to Vermont. The last time I let you loose in Boston, you got kidnapped by a frigging priest. We all lost a brother recently. We’re down to four now, when we should be five.”
Juris flinched. “I know that.”
“When we couldn’t find you, we all had the same terrible thought—what if we end up only three? What if we lose Juris too? And I can’t lose you, Juris. None of us can. We won’t survive it. We barely survived losing Allisto, and we’ll never be the same as it is.”
Juris looked up at him, silent for a moment, then he nodded. “You’re right. I am sorry.”
“Good. I know you’re more independent than Margol and Klee, and I’m not trying to hinder that. But I know this world better than you do. There are dangers you can’t anticipate.”
Shep paced the room. Juris watched him, frowning. “We are safe now, aren’t we?”
“I don’t know. I just don’t know. The Cripulet’s been blasted to dust and Preet is gone. But this was a calculated assault from the other side. In the decades since I came to this world, nothing like this has ever happened. And Preet’s too stupid to think this up on his own.” He looked at Juris. “I keep thinking, why now? I find it hard to believe our superiors just finally got around to it. Besides, if they wanted us dead, they could have taken the lot of us out, followers included, during the Forest Bluffs siege. They didn’t. So why now?” He shook his head. “This isn’t upper management doing this. Something else is going on, I can feel it.”
Juris narrowed his eyes. “You think whoever it was will try again?”
Shep lifted his arms, then let them drop. “I can’t answer that, because I don’t know who’s behind it, or what their motivations are.”
Setting down his cocoa, Juris’s back straightened, the stance he got when he was on alert, ready to be Shep’s second in command. “We should find out.”
“How?”
“We could send a message through one of those spying little shits. The messenger angels. Tell them to contact someone we know. We still have some friends in the old place.”
Shep shook his head, circling the room. “We all know messengers can’t be trusted to deliver messages. They’re dishonest troublemakers, gossips stirring the pot. Plus it had to be messengers that helped set in motion the events that brought Preet through the Cripulet. They had to have been spying on Litner and the other lawmen. It’s the only way Preet could have gotten the timing right. They’re not on our side.”
Juris rested his elbows on his knees. After a moment of stillness, he looked up. “There is another option. But you’re not going to like it. I certainly don’t like it.”
Shep stopped pacing. “Let’s hear it.”
“A Schlarr.”
“Very funny.”
“They scare me as much as they scare you, trust me. But they’re not like messengers. They can’t be bought or swayed. They’re fiercely committed to their duty. And while they can refuse to speak, they never lie. Unlike messengers, we’d know whatever we got from them would be the truth.”
“Why would they help us? You couldn’t even sit in Father Carbone’s basement without one of them tearing into you.”
“Well,” Juris said, “if, as you suspect, a private entity organized that hit, that someone is operating outside the lines to target you. The Schlarr might see fit to look into it.”
Shep scratched his chin. “They are brown-nosers to the rules.”
“Right. The Schlarr that attacked me at Carbone’s was satisfied when I left. But I was already an outlier for being here in this realm, a lost cause, so they didn’t bother doing anything more about me. They might be a bit more concerned about insubordination back on their own turf. Especially using someone as important as an assassin to carry it out.”
“I don’t know, Juris. They’ve never gotten involved in internal affairs b
efore. The Schlarr hold themselves apart from everyone else.”
“It’s worth a shot. We might learn something.”
Shep winced. “But a Schlarr?” He shuddered, shaking his arms out. “Ugh. Gives me the willies. Those fucking claws. The creepy stare.”
“Yeah, the claws hurt like a bitch. I know that firsthand. But I’ll do it if you want.” Juris shrugged. “It won’t be pleasant, but at least we can pretty much guarantee one will come after me. It did before. I can try to get it to talk. To listen.”
Shep sat down in the other chair next to the fireplace. “So what, you plan to just walk into a church and wait for a fucking Schlarr? It took days for that one to come for you when you were held prisoner under the church. You can’t just sleep on a pew for a week.”
“Ah,” Juris said, “but you’re forgetting your new best buddy. Litner could arrange for Father Carbone to let me into his church. I could stay in the basement; it would be just like old times.”
“You’re getting too devious for your own good, brother.”
Juris smiled. “Just doing my job.” His smile wilted. “I’m loyal to you. You know that. Don’t you?”
“Of course,” Shep said. “What an odd thing to say.”
“I just want you to know, no matter what, I’m always on your side.”
Shep tilted his head. “Your aura is going crazy right now. Is there something you want to tell me?”
Juris stared back at him for several seconds, then shook his head. “No. Just thinking about the Schlarr.”
Shep pulled out his phone. Looking at Juris, he said, “Not you this time. Me. You had to endure a Schlarr once already. It’s my turn.”
“It shouldn’t be just you,” Juris said. “If all the brothers go, one of those bug-eyed bastards will probably show up much sooner than when it was just me.”
“Go where?” Klee asked as he stepped into the room, barefoot in pajamas. He curled up on the floor next to Juris’s chair. Aside from his softer features and the unique, aquamarine color of his eyes, Klee looked like a twin to Juris with his platinum hair.
“To talk to a Schlarr,” Juris said, petting Klee’s curls.