by Cari Z
A few seconds later Steven called out, “Got ‘im.” He was just lowering his hand as they walked up, a little frown on his face.
“I got into his head a bit. This gent’s apparently the only one on duty tonight. No one inside except Grey and the girl, which isn’t typical from what I remember. Should be at least one other guy around here somewhere.” He gestured with one hand. “But it’s just us.”
“So we got lucky,” Devon said, but Rio was already shaking his head.
“We can’t rely on luck to explain it,” he said. “Best case scenario, yes, we’re lucky. Worst case, Porter Grey knows we’re coming and is making it easy on us for some reason. You’re sure he didn’t see you in Infinite?”
“Even if he did, he wouldn’t recognize me,” Devon insisted. “I don’t just do drag, I live it. I was just another girl in there, trust me. We’re fine.”
“What the—” The guard, who had been standing placidly, suddenly came back to himself and immediately went for his gun. Rio went for his own but Steven was faster, and dazed the guy again before a shot could be fired.
“Not gonna be able to do that many more times,” he said, looking at the tattoo on his palm. It was noticeably fainter than it had been at lunchtime, as if it had seen ten years of sun since then. “We need to make a move, one way or the other.” It sounded like if Steven had his choice, they’d be back down the hall and on their way out of the hotel already.
For a moment, Rio debated the utility of the smoke grenade he had with him, but decided against it. Setting off the sprinkler system would be an alert to the staff and get bystanders involved. The other option was aborting the mission, which just didn’t sit well with him. He’d let Grey get away last time and the man had just popped up again, more powerful than ever. That wasn’t going to happen this time. Still…
“Maria,” he asked, “any suspicious movement on the security cameras?”
“Nothing overt,” she said after a moment. “The footage shows Grey arriving with the girl and the single guard for escort, no more. She’s not his normal evening’s entertainment, right? Maybe he wanted to be alone in there with her.” She had a point. Rio and Devon exchanged a glance.
“We go in,” Rio decided at last. “But the guard goes first.”
“If you say so.” With gentle prodding from Steven, the guard got out his keycard and swiped it, then opened the door. Rio followed right behind him, his Sig at the ready, gesturing for the other two to stay back.
The penthouse was dark, most of the lights off, the only dim illumination left in the form of a lamp on a table beside the couch, where Porter Grey sat illuminated. The girl he’d left Infinite with knelt demurely between his feet, her shoulders bracketed by his thighs. Rio couldn’t make out much about her apart from a pale expanse of skin broken up here and there by bits of leather, but he was more concerned with the gun in Grey’s hand.
“Ah,” Grey said genially, looking over at them with a smile. “You made it.” A moment later he shot the man he’d hired to guard his suite—the man he’d used as his bait, to make things look normal enough to lure them in—in the center of his chest. Rio let the man fall and immediately trained his gun on Grey’s head.
“Drop your weapon or I will kill you right now.”
“I think it’s interesting that you assume this is my only weapon, but.” Grey shrugged and set the gun down next to the lamp. “Very well. Before you come running over here, though,” he added as Rio began to shift his weight, “you should know that I’ve hidden a bomb in the hotel.”
He’d what? This situation was getting out of hand fast. There was no time yet for Rio to regret his decision to enter the penthouse, but he knew that as soon as there was time, he would. If he survived this part. “A bomb.”
“I’m scanning the security footage to see if he’s telling the truth,” Maria said, a little frantically. “If it’s in the penthouse, though, I won’t see that.”
“Set to go off in less than ten minutes, now. I originally gave you fifteen, but you’re running a little late.” Grey ran one hand possessively through the girl’s long hair. “If you don’t want to be indirectly responsible for massive casualties, I suggest you send someone to sound the alarm and get people started evacuating the hotel.”
“Steven,” Rio ground out.
“On it,” Steven said immediately, and backed out of the room, shutting the door behind him. Devon was completely silent, maybe in shock, and Rio made sure to keep his own body between the young man and the pair on the couch.
“And don’t bother trying to shield the cambion,” Porter said with an indulgent chuckle. “He’s been under my control from the moment he stepped into the room.”
Rio’s gun didn’t waver, but he did tilt his head so he could see Devon better with his peripheral vision. Devon was…rigid. Completely unmoving, not even blinking. He was also desperately hard, but none of that lust showed on his face or in his body language. “Harper. Devon, talk to me.” Rio snapped his fingers in front of Devon’s face. “Dev!”
“He can’t respond. He can hear you, but that’s about it.”
Rio wrestled down his immediate impulse to pull Devon close and try to fix him. He settled for grabbing Devon’s closest arm with his free hand. “So help me God, if you don’t release him I will shoot to kill and to hell with the consequences.”
“The second you fire that gun, the cambion will have a massive stroke. He’ll certainly die. I’ve got my trigger finger on the pulse of his brain, so to speak.” Grey’s satisfaction rolled through his voice, redolent in every syllable. “One wrong move from you and he goes out with me, so think again.”
Rio had never encountered a summoner who could control a demon without first binding them, and Grey hadn’t done that. He’d had no opportunity to do that, not in the Pearly Gates, not in Infinite, and besides, bindings never lasted very long. The how wasn’t so important right this moment, though. Rio was thinking more along the lines of, What the fuck can I do about this situation? “So I won’t shoot you, then.” With barely a twitch, Rio trained his gun on the woman. “Do you care as much about her?”
Grey’s eyes narrowed slightly even as he shrugged. “Why don’t you find out?” he taunted.
He had barely finished the last word before Rio shot the woman cleanly through the side of the head, knocking her over onto her side. Blood and brains drenched Grey’s pants, and he flinched, clearly not expecting the mess. But then the girl sat back up, twisted around and stared at Rio, and Rio fully realized just how fucked they were.
She was a demon of some kind, and yet Rio hadn’t felt her. He hadn’t sensed her presence, hadn’t even realized that the potential was there. There had only been one other time in his long life where he’d made a mistake like that, which meant she was…
“She’s the one controlling Dev.”
“Oh, fuck,” Maria said over the com.
“That she is,” Grey purred. “Wonderfully discreet, isn’t she?” He looked down at the dead girl besottedly, less like the man in control and more like he really should have been the one on his knees in a pose of worship. “Do you think he deserves to know your name, darling?”
The girl smiled at Rio and stood up. “You can call me Cressidus. And you,” she looked at Devon, “can call me Father, little one. Or Daddy, if that’s what gets you going.”
Oh no. “You’re the demon who possessed Devon’s father when he was made.”
“I am.” The dead girl looked at Rio for a long moment, eventually nodding with satisfaction. “And you know what that means, don’t you? You’re very well educated, although considering what you yourself are, that’s not a surprise, is it?” She smiled at him. “Nephilim. I haven’t seen one of you for a very long time.”
Suddenly the hotel’s emergency siren began to blare. Grey stood up from the couch and took a step forward. “It looks like your little helper managed to convince the staff to evacuate after all. He was a bit of a wrench in the works, but in
the end I think his talents, whatever they are, played into the trap nicely. Hotel security will be coming soon to make sure the building is fully emptied. I have a helicopter waiting on the roof of this building to make our exit, along with Devon. Your only option right now if you want him to live is to let him go, Rio.” Grey smiled cruelly. “Let him come with us. Live to fight another day.” Rio’s finger tightened reflexively on the trigger, almost hard enough to shoot. “And keep in mind that the only thing you’ll ever get out of putting a bullet in me is destroying him, so...” Grey dared him with an arch look. “What do you care more about, keeping your friend alive or killing me?”
He had no choice. Rio turned and looked at Devon, looked into his eyes and saw nothing there that he recognized, not love or anxiety or even fear. Just a blank, empty stare. Rio could hold him back, he could kill Devon himself, but that would spell the end of too much potential. If Devon had been anyone else Rio might have considered it, he might have been able to put the needs of the many over the needs of the few and killed Devon, swiftly following his end with both Porter and Cressidus. But he couldn’t do that. He just couldn’t, and his only other option was just as bad, but for completely different reasons.
Rio could destroy a demon, if he had to. He just might not survive the process.
Rio watched a vein in Devon’s forehead begin to pulse warningly. “Choose quickly,” Grey said.
“I’ll come after you,” Rio told Devon, laying a hand briefly on the cambion’s cheek. Devon didn’t seem to notice it. “I’ll find you.” He could hear rotors firing up overhead through the open door that led out to the balcony. “I swear.” He finally let go of Devon and watched as the cambion walked unerringly over to Cressidus, who pulled him close and pressed an affectionate kiss to the side of his head, leaving a smear of dark blood behind.
Lights flashed on the balcony from above, and the sound of rotors got stronger. Grey looked over at his owner, and it was clearer than ever now that he was nothing but her pawn, the cat’s-paw. His expression was suffused with adoration. “Are you ready to go, mistress?” Grey asked.
“I was,” Cressidus said, “but now I think I need another plan.” She looked across the room at Rio, who’d kept his gun trained on Grey the whole time. “You love this boy of mine, don’t you, nephilim? The son of an angel in love with the child of the devil, and your kind doesn’t love easily. You really will come after him, won’t you? You’ll hunt me until the end of your days if you have to.”
Grey frowned. “He’ll never find us.”
“But he will, kitten. Eventually he will.” Cressidus stroked Grey’s neck, trailing her fingers across his sternum and down his chest. “And I don’t care to be forever on the alert. Better to control this situation from the start.”
Grey checked his watch nervously. “Mistress, we must go.” A rope ladder dangled onto the balcony, waving frantically in the downdraft from the helicopter.
“Yes, we must. You’ve been a good kitten, Porter.” She patted his head, then forced him onto his knees with her will. Grey fell awkwardly, like a puppet deprived of its hand, still staring up at her in something like adoration. “But I think it’s time we cut our ties. I need a fresh start.” She picked up the gun from the side table, raised it, and shot Porter Grey through the gut.
The man keened in agony, his eyes wide and confused as he gaped at her, all astonishment now. Rio took a step forward, fixing her in his sights, and her eyes glittered bright demon green as she laid a hand on Devon’s shoulder. Devon suddenly screamed in counterpoint to Grey’s thready cries of pain, and Rio stopped in his tracks.
“I might not win a fight with you right now, but I will kill him if you come any closer,” Cressidus said. “But you and I aren’t done. Consider my kitten here,” she nudged Grey with the toe of one of her shining black stiletto heels, “a breadcrumb for you. I’ll be waiting, rephaim.” Cressidus walked away to the balcony, Devon in tow and still screaming. She grabbed onto the ladder, wrapped one demonically-strong arm around Devon, and a moment later they were gone. Numb with fury, Rio watched her disappear, so incensed at both himself at the demon that he couldn’t move, didn’t even want to until he heard voices down the hall, probably hotel security.
Mechanically, Rio holstered his Sig, walked over to Porter Grey and lifted him off the ground. The man groaned, his eyelids fluttering weakly as he wept. “She left me,” he whispered. “She left me. Why would she…”
Rio pressed one of Grey’s own hands onto the wound in his abdomen, making him cry out pathetically. “You should focus on keeping your blood inside your body for now,” he said. Rio barely recognized his own voice; the harsh tones coming out of him right now were from an older, harder time, a time when judgment was fast and usually fatal. But he couldn’t afford fatal, not yet.
“Get out of there, Rio,” Maria finally said, her voice tense with anger and worry. “Get back to your room, I’m flying in. I’ll meet you in there in an hour.” Rio had no idea whether he’d be there in an hour or not, but arguing with Maria wasn’t going to get him anywhere now, so he listened to her instructions.
Rio made it out of the penthouse and to the stairwell before having to explain his presence. As soon as he was out the door to the loading dock his luck ended, though, because the place was surrounded with police, car sirens blaring and lights flashing as they tried to keep civilians back and figure out if there was any truth to the bomb threat. Unfortunately, seeing a giant, well-armed man carrying another guy who was bleeding profusely from his stomach was pretty much a red flag. An officer saw Rio and pulled his gun immediately.
“Put the man down!” he yelled.
“I don’t have time for this,” Rio said, letting his inner righteousness take hold of him. Forget representatives of the law; Rio represented God’s law, he was his sword on earth. Power long ignored built inside of him, and his will to show any sort of restraint was quickly vanishing. “Let me pass or suffer the penalty.”
“Just put the man down,” the officer repeated. Well, then. Rio had warned him.
Before he could dispose of this obstacle to his path, however, the cop went stiff, then collapsed. Steven stood just behind him, panting and holding tight to his wrist. “Bloody buggering fuck, that hurts,” he hissed. “Not meant for making a man keel over, y’know? Where’s Devon?”
“Taken.” The words felt like ground glass in Rio’s throat, and Steven swallowed nervously.
“Yeah, okay, but you’ll get him back, mate,” he said soothingly. “And this guy…what, you shoot him after all?”
“Not me.” Rio shut his eyes for a moment, forcing himself to focus. “We need to get out of here, and we need to keep this man alive.”
“First things first, then.” Steven turned and led the way into the nearest alley, then turned them towards their hotel. They walked in complete and very uncomfortable silence for a moment before Steven asked, “Think there was really a bomb in there after all?”
Before Rio had a chance to respond, the sky above them filled for a moment with flame. The shockwave from the boom of the exploding top floor of the Westin wasn’t so bad, since they were between buildings and not out in the open, but bits of glass and concrete rained down out of the sky onto their heads. All around them people began to cry out with shock, and more came pouring out of buildings to gape at the destruction.
“I’d call that a yes,” Rio said grimly.
Chapter Twenty-One
A dead man was lying on the bed of a shoddy Best Western’s hotel room. He was still breathing, barely, but he was dead. He just didn’t know it yet.
“Pacing won’t make the bleeding stop any faster,” Maria admonished Rio as she worked to keep Porter Grey alive.
Words crowded up in Rio’s mouth, pressing hard against his teeth and pushing at him to let them loose, to lash out at Maria and tell her exactly where she could stick her fucking commentary. He knew it wasn’t the smart thing to do—he didn’t need to antagonize the person who was
patching up his prisoner—but he was sorely tempted.
Rio Pagani had a lot of hard-earned skills that he relied on to get him through the rough patches in his life. Under the right circumstances he had the patience to stalk a target for weeks or months; he could plead for his life or threaten someone else’s in more than thirty languages (he’d never bothered to plead for his life, but the threatening came in very handy), and he could handle adversity with a stoicism that looked very much like callousness to some observers. People died, people disappeared. Sometimes even people that he cared for. But if the man lying on his bed right now died before Rio could use him to track down Devon, Hell itself wouldn’t be far enough for Porter Grey’s cringing soul to flee to, because Rio would follow him down and make him suffer.
The air inside of Rio and Devon’s little hotel room was saturated with the scents of blood and smoke, and Rio was glad that so many gawkers had gone out to look at the damage from the explosion on the top floors of the Westin, because for the first half-hour there had been a lot of screaming in here as well. Four people and a dog crammed in the room were two people too many as far as Rio was concerned, but there was no help for it.
Porter Grey had been in a state of shock, still disbelieving that Cressidus, the demon he’d started out summoning and ended up worshipping, had shot him and left him behind when it had made its escape with Devon via helicopter. “She’ll come for me,” he kept saying over and over despite how Rio ‘encouraged’ him to find a new, more informative refrain. “She’ll come.”