by S. J. Day
Her eyes never left Alec. Using hand signals, he directed her movements, telling her when to proceed and when to halt, when to crouch and when to stand still. There were cameras stationed at each fence corner and on the corners of the buildings, too. Alec knew just how to avoid them, and Eve found his expertise both impressive and reassuring.
They reached a door to the main building, which housed a showroom. He paused a moment, looking at the security system keypad. Then he signaled for her to keep going. They moved to a larger building in the back, one whose walls were made up of cement blocks. She wanted to ask why they’d skipped the other, but didn’t dare make a sound.
Constrained to the shadows, Alec took several long minutes to maneuver the distance from the main showroom building to the workspace in the rear. When they finally reached their destination, Eve noted that there was no security pad on the back building and the doorknob had no slot for a key. Alec opened the door and sniffed the air inside, then he pulled her in.
“Why did we come here?” she asked.
“Gut feeling.”
“Is that like a cramp? I’ve got one of those. I think it’s fear.”
He squeezed her hand.
Eve took in the gigantic room in a sweeping glance. Even with her super sight, the ceiling vaulted so high above them that it was nestled in shadow. Dominating the space was a massive kiln with rollered tracks leading into and out of it. It was presently cold. A pallet truck waited like a silent sentinel. Alec headed toward it. He moved fluidly, skirting around protruding pipes and hoses from the kiln. Eve attempted to follow suit and hit the floor in a face plant instead.
“You okay?” Alec asked dryly, standing over her with hand extended.
“Bruised my ego, that’s all.”
She accepted his help to gain her footing, then dusted herself off while looking for whatever had tripped her up. “Who the hell leaves bags of cement on the floor?” she groused.
Alec’s head tilted to line up his sight with the lettering on the bag exterior. “The manufacturer’s label says it’s crushed limestone.”
“Whatever. Shouldn’t this be somewhere besides underfoot?”
Crouching, Alec scooped up some of the contents that had escaped from the hole she’d created with her boot tip. She sank back down and he held his hand out to her. The limestone hit her nose wrong. It was sickly sweet, but with underlying musky notes.
“It stinks,” she said.
“It’s bone meal.”
“Smells weird.”
“That’s because it’s part canine and part Mark.”
Eve froze. “What?”
Alec punched through the thick brown paper exterior of a second bag lying nearby and she gagged from the resulting odor. He looked at her.
“Sorry,” she muttered. Her body may not be able to vomit anymore, but that didn’t stop her mind from sending the signal to wretch.
His hand came out covered in dark powder. “Blood meal.”
“My mom uses that stuff for gardening. I didn’t know they had any other uses.”
“I don’t think they do.” He lifted his fingers closer to his nose. “Again, part animal and part Mark.”
“How are they getting the blood and bone of Marks?”
“You don’t want to know.”
She swallowed hard. “Is that how they’re masking the Infernals?”
“That’s my guess.”
“Why is this just lying around? Shouldn’t they be guarding this stuff? It’s just dumped here like—”
“Like they bailed in a hurry?” He stood and surveyed their surroundings. “If we scared them off, they know we’re here.”
Frantic scratching broke the silence. Eve leaped a good foot into the air. “Jesus! Oww—” Her hand covered the burning mark on her arm.
They both looked down the length of the massive space. In the far right corner two protruding walls met to create a separate room. From behind the door, the scraping grew more frenzied.
“The animal mutilations,” Eve whispered.
“Right.”
“We have to get them out of there.”
“Yes.” Alec dusted off his hands.
They hurried to the door. Grabbing the levered handle, Alec pulled, but the portal didn’t budge. Whining could now be heard clearly from inside.
Eve set her hands over his and tugged with him. The door gave way with explosive violence, sending them to their backs on the floor. Nothing ran out in eagerness for freedom.
Alec leaped to his feet, then pulled her to hers, pushing her behind him.
“I’ve suddenly got a bad feeling about why there’s no lock on the door,” Eve muttered.
“You should.”
Before she fully registered the source of the voice behind her, Eve was lifted and tossed like a rag doll against the kiln. She fell to the floor in an agonized pile. The lights inside the small room blazed to life, revealing a space crawling with tengu.
“Fuck!” Alec said, just before they yanked him inside and slammed the door shut.
Eve gained her hands and knees, lurching forward to help him. She was grabbed by the scruff of her neck and hauled upward. She blinked, finding herself staring into the face of the young wolf.
He didn’t smell. He bore no designs. That was all Eve could register before he drew his fist back and knocked her out.
CHAPTER 19
Alec was on the wrong side of an ass kicking.
Backed into a corner, he was barely managing to keep the horde of tengu from overtaking him. There were at least two dozen of them, built of stone and giggling maniacally. Some swung from the shelves, others danced on the fringes, still others hopped from foot to foot and punched with their fists like miniboxers.
With sharp kicks, Alec kept most of them at bay, but the sheer number of them and their crushing weight were beginning to take their toll. It didn’t help that he was scared shitless about Eve. He’d heard the force with which she struck the kiln. Even with her ability to heal rapidly, a full-body blow like that was devastating. She was untrained and completely on her own.
A tengu swinging from the ceiling kicked at the space between Alec’s shoulders.
“Oomph!” He fell to his knees, groaning.
The tengu laughed and danced with greater frenzy.
“Cain! Cain!” they sang.
Alec glared and pushed to his feet, grabbing the closest tengu and bashing it into one of its brethren. They both shattered. The others recoiled to the walls with a collective gasp.
“Who’s next?” he growled.
They hesitated, wavering. Tengu were more mischievous than malicious. They weren’t combatants by nature and an implied threat to their lives was enough to send them scurrying for safety. Alec took the opportunity presented to him and lunged toward the door. As if he’d shattered the fear that held them still, they leaped toward him as a single mass, a ton of writhing stone bearing down on him.
They’re going to crush me.
Steeling himself for the inevitable, Alec was startled by the sudden burst of power that flowed into him. It originated in his diaphragm, then exploded outward like a supernova, burning through his veins.
He recognized the cause immediately: there was a group of Marks in the area.
Alec hit the door with his shoulder and broke it completely from its hinges. Riding atop the slab, he skid along the cement floor like a body boarder skimming across water. The tengu raced out of the room after him . . .
Then the lights came on.
Alec kept sliding parallel to the lengthy kiln. The marauding tengu paused. The momentum of those bringing up the rear was halted abruptly by those in the front who’d frozen in their tracks. They crashed into each other like a freeway pileup.
A cowboy-booted foot halted Alec’s ride with jarring force. He looked up.
“Mariel.”
The pretty redhead smiled. “Hello, Cain. Having fun?”
He sat up. Mariel held out a hand to help him to his
feet. Behind her stood a team of several black-clad Marks, male and female. They were fully armed with 9 mm pistols strapped to their thighs—the personal guards of an archangel. They took a unified step forward. The tengu tripped over themselves scrambling back into their little room.
“Eve?” he asked, looking around the space.
“She’s not with you?”
“No. She was attacked.” Dear God. “I was delayed in there.” Alec jerked his chin toward the corner where a few of the Marks were restoring the door to its space and securing it by moving the pallet truck in front of it. He breathed deeply, hoping against hope that some trace scent of the Infernal had been left behind for him to follow. But there was nothing.
As the rhythmic beeping of the truck warned any bystanders that it was moving in reverse, Mariel’s head turned to watch. “We went to disable the alarms and cameras,” she said, “but someone was there before us.”
“There’s also no way to see which direction they might have taken Eve.” He glanced around. “Why are you here and not Abel?”
“Raguel detained him.”
“Raguel sent his own guards, but not her handler?”
“They’re not Raguel’s,” she said softly. “They’re Sara’s.”
Alec stilled. His brother had gone behind Raguel’s back . . . for Eve. Abel never did anything that didn’t directly benefit himself in some way and he never broke the rules. Perhaps he expected Eve to be appreciative, or maybe he just wanted to show that Alec wasn’t capable of his new and unfamiliar position.
Mariel reached out to him, her hand resting lightly on his biceps. “I saw an Infernal to night, Cain. One with no scent and no details. Your brother wanted a team available to support you.”
Fists clenching, Alec spoke words that cost him dearly. “We need Abel here. He’s the only one who can tell us where Eve is.”
A consoling smile touched Mariel’s lips. “You two will have to work together for once.”
He growled low in his throat. “I’m going to take half the team. Can you collect some of the contents of these bags and anything else you find, and get them back to the firm? The sooner we get to working on the mask, the better.”
“Of course.”
“And fire up that kiln. Burn whatever you can’t take with you. Don’t leave anything behind.” He gestured toward the guards standing nearby.
“Come with me,” he ordered, striding past them toward the door. “There’s someone who might know where she is.”
Reed glanced at his Rolex with clenched jaw. In Las Vegas time, midnight was when the party was just getting started. For him, however, he was achingly conscious of how late it was and how long it had taken to get from point A to point B. Almost twelve hours had passed since he left Gadara Tower. It seemed like twelve years.
Leaning against the railing of the Fontana Bar at the Bellagio, he watched the water show with barely restrained annoyance. How could Raguel go about his business with such insouciance after listening to both Cain’s and Mariel’s recountal of the day’s events? And how could he insist that Reed report in person, knowing he was needed elsewhere?
“Where have you been?”
Reed turned and studied Raguel as he stepped out to the patio dressed in a classically simple tuxedo with a two-carat diamond stud in his right ear. Around him was an entourage of Marks—protection against Infernals. Once, the archangels had made every effort to keep as low a profile as possible. Now it seemed that with every new persona, they strove to outshine each other. They claimed it was necessary in order to create sufficient funding to manage their firms, but whether that was true or not only they would know.
Pride was one of the seven deadly sins. Had they forgotten that?
“Didn’t you listen to Mariel’s report?” Reed asked.
The archangel’s arms crossed. “Of course.”
Reed tossed the jump drive that held the final words spoken on Takeo’s behalf. He prayed his advocacy would be enough to spare the Mark’s soul. “The same thing happened to my Mark.”
“Do you agree with Mariel that the Infernal is of a new class of demon?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t see it or any trace of it; nothing remained that would assist in an identification. With the extent of the destruction, the clearing should have reeked for yards away, but whatever it was, it left neither a scent behind nor anything of Takeo beyond his skin and tissue.”
Raguel stared at him.
“Have you nothing to say?” Reed asked tightly.
“Your brother and Ms. Hollis dropped off the radar this afternoon.”
“She doesn’t trust you.” And Reed was beginning to feel similarly. He might have commented on the weather for all the concern Raguel was displaying.
“She needs to.”
“Then give her reason to.” Reed straightened. “I don’t understand what you’re doing—or more aptly, not doing. How is a novice supposed to?”
There was a long silence, then, “Is she safe?”
“So far.”
“Are you going to her now?”
“If you don’t mind.”
“Tell Cain to report in. I want to know where in Upland they are.”
Reed smiled. “You could send a team with me, you know. I wouldn’t mind. I’m sure they wouldn’t mind either.”
“You worry about your job, Abel. I will worry about mine.”
With a mocking bow, Reed skirted the archangel and his guards, and crossed through the busy bar. The location of their assignation didn’t escape a deeper perusal. Raguel said he had a meeting there that he couldn’t be late for. However, Reed suspected there was more to the choice. Perhaps it was a definitive statement of Raguel’s disregard for the unfolding events of the day.
But if that was the case, why was the archangel so certain of his safety? Had arrogance truly made him ignorant? Or did Raguel know more than he was willing to admit?
Eve woke to an icy deluge. Choking, she struggled to curl away from her torment and found herself strapped to a spindle-backed chair with her wrists bound in her lap.
Blinking, she glared at the young wolf who held a newly empty bucket in his hands. The air stunk of blood, urine, and shit.
“What is it with Infernals and water?” she snapped.
He simply stared at her, his face devoid of expression. He looked to be around sixteen years old. His hazel eyes were cold and barren, soulless. His hair was a mop of dark curls, his chin was weak, and his lips were full and pouty. The boy had the sullen look down to a science. His jeans were baggy and ripped in several places, and his Gehenna Masonry windbreaker was filthy.
“You shouldn’t have taken her,” admonished a voice from a speakerphone on the wall.
The tone was androgynous, or perhaps it only sounded that way because of the white noise in the background. Was the owner the other boy she’d seen in the convenience store?
Infernal or not, there was no way two teenage kids pulled off an endeavor as enormous as this one by themselves. An adult owned the masonry and secured the permits, vehicles, and contracts. And an adult certainly knew about this hellhole.
Eve shuddered as she studied her surroundings. The space was decorated in horror movie chic. A lone naked lightbulb hung from the ceiling, casting a distinct foot-wide circle. The cement floor was stained with reddish-brown splatters she thought might be blood. There was a noticeable pattern to it, a distinct line where unmarred floor gave way to gory floor. On the very edge of the circle of light was a horizontal bar of silver metal—the edge of a gurney, like the ones she’d seen in the medical examiner’s room on CSI. It had been pushed aside to make room for her.
Beyond the gurney, the shadows whimpered and writhed. Because of the intensity of the wattage above her, Eve’s nictitating membranes weren’t useful at all, leaving her blind but for the young wolf standing in front of her.
“I tried to draw them away, but they didn’t follow,” the boy said petulantly. “By the time I came back to see whe
re they’d gone to, they were digging around the kiln room. What else was I supposed to do with her?”
He tossed the bucket aside. It crashed into something metallic and Eve jumped. A dog’s frightened bark rent the air. A kennel, maybe? The resultant din of scratching and shifting suggested there were several creatures restrained in the darkness.
“How did they find us?” the voice asked.
“How the hell would I know?” the wolf muttered. “If not for Jaime, I wouldn’t have even known we were being watched.”
“What did Jaime do?”
“He didn’t do anything, besides knock his girlfriend up. He had a delivery in Corona, which only took him an hour and a half, so he came back hoping to make another run. He noticed them sitting in a car on a side street before he left and again when he came back. He thought it might be Yesinia’s dad looking to take a bat to him. He mentioned it to me, and I checked it out.”
“Mortals do have their uses.”
“Occasionally.”
“Where’s Cain?”
A maniacal light lit the boy’s eyes. “Cain is dead.”
Eve winced, her gut churning. An ache grew in her chest and spread. Laughter came from the speaker. Again, the sound held both masculine and feminine notes. Like a prepubescent boy whose voice had not yet fully changed.
“You think you killed Cain?” the person asked. “You? Better demons have tried and they have all failed.”
“The tengu grabbed him.”
There was a pause. “How many of them?”
“Twenty or more. However many there were in storage.”
“Well, perhaps they’ve at least injured him. I’ll check on him when I get there.”
Eve realized then the poor sound quality was not entirely inherent to the speaker in the phone. It was the sound of traffic. Whoever was talking was on the way. Her heart dropped into her stomach.
“So what do you want me to do with her?” the boy asked, his feet shuffling on the gruesome floor.