by Brian Fuller
Trace wondered at the sudden shift and glanced over at her. She was flipping through the list of songs on her phone as if nothing else mattered, plugging the adapter into the stereo when she had found “Angel in Chains.”
Trace decided not to push her. Personal inquiries got him pain and information at about a ten-to-one ratio. Cassandra was a private person, and he wondered if there was anyone she trusted enough to confide in. He would wait and avail himself of Corinth’s information as soon as he could.
Thanks to some unexpected traffic near Seattle, they pulled into the parking lot of the Marriott hotel at 10:23 in the morning, twenty-three minutes late. Cassandra mocked him with a long look at her watch and a shake of her head. They were dressed more for a Super 8 than a Marriott, but they rolled into the lobby in character. Corinth and Cassandra expertly played teenagers while Goldbow followed behind looking out of place carrying his heavy black bag. Trace had to use his Strength to make it look like his own ridiculously heavy suitcase wasn’t filled with guns and ammunition.
In short order, all their equipment lay on the twin king beds of room 902. They had chosen a balcony room with a good view of the Bronson Convention Center across the street. The semi-circular front was done in granite and glass, and with a good scope, Trace could keep tabs on the front, most of the left side, and a good portion of the street running on the front and right.
Goldbow would take the parking garage entrance on the right while Cassandra and Corinth attended the concert.
“I’m going to take Corinth for a look around,” Cassandra announced, shoving her earbuds in her ears. “You two morons stay here and get the equipment put together.”
She left without waiting for any kind of response, Corinth suggesting that they take a swim together in the indoor pool. Goldbow opened his bag and sat heavily on the bed to inspect the broken-down rifle it contained. Trace unzipped the largest suitcase to find it contained a Big Blessed Sniper Rifle complete with scope and high-caliber ammunition. The effective range was comparable to other sniper rifles he had fired, and the custom bullets would devastate the Dreads. The Ash Angel weaponsmiths had even managed to silence the weapon to a reasonable level, though it was far from quiet.
Trace glanced over at his brooding teammate. “You all right?” he asked.
“Yeah,” Goldbow answered curtly.
“Mean ex-girlfriend?”
Goldbow grunted. “Oh yeah.”
“Sorry, man. If you want to talk . . .” Trace doubted Goldbow would take the bait but was surprised when the man put his rifle down and crossed his hands over his knees, his countenance falling.
“I suppose you’ve heard rumors about the whole mess?” he probed.
“Not a thing,” Trace replied truthfully. “I’m a bit isolated from the rest of the Cherubs, and Cassandra isn’t much for talking about her past.”
He exhaled. “It’s not too complicated. I 44-2ed her in the middle of an op.”
“You bailed on her during a mission?” Trace asked. Cassandra’s anger suddenly started to make sense.
He nodded, face pained. “We got word of this Dread, Stu, pimping underage girls. Cassandra and I had been together for about four months at that point. It was going well. At least I thought it was. We were running with a shorthanded team, just Cassandra, me, and another Gabriel. It was supposed to be pretty simple. Cassie was going to act like a troubled runaway and infiltrate the club they ran the prostitution ring out of. She was just supposed to go in, drop Stu, extract his heart, and get out.
“So she gets past a thug outside and eventually heads in. Not a minute after, Dreads come out of the woodwork from side buildings and cars. There must have been at least ten of them. I’m terrified for Cassie, especially when the shooting starts, but Operations tells us to bail since we have auras and are easily spotted. At that point we see some Dreads coming up from behind in a car. I tell Cassie we’ve been pulled back, but she’s yelling for help anyway. I . . . I should have done what you did with Prescilla. I should have charged in there, guns blazing, and rocked the Dreads or died trying. But I left her. I followed orders and got out. I’m lucky she doesn’t off me herself. I’ve got some clout with Ramis, so he’s done me a favor by getting me on these missions with her, but she won’t even look at me.”
“That’s hard,” Trace commiserated as vaguely as he could. He could sympathize with Cassandra. Being 44-2ed was bad enough, but being left to die by your boyfriend? He couldn’t imagine any relationship surviving after that. Goldbow was clearly trying to get her attention again, but Cassandra certainly didn’t seem the forgiving type. In fact, Corinth’s and Goldbow’s romantic obsession with Cassandra boggled his mind.
“So what is it you and Corinth see in Cassandra? I mean, she’s good-looking and all that, but she seems a little, well, hard to get along with. To put it mildly.”
“You know she left the Ash Angels for a while, right?”
“Yep.”
Goldbow retrieved his rifle. “Well, since that mission, she’s been angry, really angry, at everyone and everything. She wasn’t always like that. She was a cop in her former life and has always been blunt, but you’re just getting the fallout from my screwup. Some people think she was so angry she had something to do with the Blank Massacre, which makes me want to tear some heads off. Ramis managed to convince her to come back to train you, but for a while there I thought she would blow into the wind. I envy you Blanks for that. You can go live just like everyone else if you want.”
“Yeah,” Trace said. He liked that part too.
“So, Trace, what about you? How did you die?”
Trace had to fight back the natural instinct to bury the event behind a wall of shame. Dr. Oberon had encouraged him not to bottle it up. If he could talk to people about it, the sting and the stigma would dissipate. Still, he feared the story would start jokes about how he wasn’t man enough for his wife. He choked back the emotion that came with memories still as fresh as the day he was revivified.
He shut the suitcase and folded his arms. “I was shot by the wife of my wife’s lover.”
Goldbow’s eyes raised. “Damn. I suppose you were shielding your wife?”
“Her lover, actually.”
“Double damn. You must be some sort of a saint! I bet you want to take a little road trip and knock some heads in.”
“Don’t want to open that wound right now. I’ve got better things to do.”
Goldbow’s Ash Angel phone rang, and he answered it.
“Talk to me, Cassie.”
Trace couldn’t hear the short conversation, but Goldbow’s face turned more and more grave the longer he listened. After he hung up, he threw the phone on the bed and set to assembling his rifle in earnest. “Cassie says they’ve seen two Dreads in the area. Looks like this mission is going to get hot.”
Chapter 15
Blown
A steady drizzle set in after dark, the streets and sidewalks reflecting a light sheen from the streetlamps and headlights of passing cars.
Trace kept watch from the room’s small balcony. He wore a heavy khaki jacket and stayed under an umbrella to keep up appearances. The wet and cold hardly registered as he surveyed the convention center through his night scope. Everyone was in place, short-range micro-transmitters in their ears keeping them in constant contact. By Cassandra’s count, eight Dreads and four Ghostpackers had joined them in the modest concert hall that seated three thousand. Trace took it as a bad sign that the numbers sobered the cheery Corinth.
“Dude, this is bad,” he said in a subdued voice just after Tela Mirren took the stage. “We’re second row, but if they all decide to jump the stage, there’s no way we can protect her against that many.”
Tight security had forced Cassandra and Corinth to go without weapons, though Goldbow had everything assembled and at the ready in the back of the van. Trace had his disassembled BBSR and two stingers in a backpack by the sliding glass door near his perch on the balcony. His BBG was tucke
d in a holster under his jacket, creating a very noticeable protrusion. To the right of the convention center, he could make out the minivan parked on the street. Goldbow sat inside keeping watch on the parking garage.
Tela had arrived in a black SUV at 6:30 p.m., and as the crowd streamed into the convention center, so did the Dreads, mostly singly. They all agreed that happenstance hadn’t brought that many of the depraved brutes to a Christian-alternative concert. Had the Dreads become bold enough to commit an atrocity so out in the open? Had the Ash Angels become too weak?
Two things bothered Trace as he kept vigil through the night scope. The first was the vision that had brought them there. Tela bound by duct tape and thrown into the back of a car was clearly the warning, but what nagged at him like a burr in his sock was her phone glowing in the darkness of the trunk. Yes, it conveniently let them know what time it was, but it shouldn’t have been there. Most Ash Angels didn’t give Dreads a lot of credit in the intelligence and planning department, at least not until recently, but even the stupidest criminals were well aware that phones could be tracked by GPS. The Ash Angels had secured a handle on Tela’s phone hours ago just for that reason. So why leave it in the trunk? Did she have it in a purse or pocket the Dreads would overlook during the kidnapping?
The number of Dreads and Possessed in the audience gnawed on him, too. A lack of subtlety was the hallmark of Dreads in the past, but did it still apply? Unless they had managed to sneak guns past security, the amount of damage they could do was limited and Tela’s own personal security would likely extract her before even one could get a foot on the stage. Cassandra had speculated that they might try inciting the crowd, an evil gift similar to Spirit Shock, but Trace couldn’t see how it would do any good. A rowdy crowd would just put her security people on alert.
As eight o’clock neared, Trace had convinced himself that the Dreads were playing them again, just as they had when they took Prescilla. He had to have more proof before he brought it up to Cassandra. His phone beeped. An Ash Angel named Chimes was on the line. He worked for Northwest Operations and had coordinated with them throughout the day. “Trace, we’ve received word that Seattle PD has received a 911 call stating that a man is parked outside the Convention Center with a van full of weapons. They have a license plate and are mobilizing now. We’re trying to work an intervention, but it will take time.”
Played, indeed.
Trace relayed the information to his team.
Goldbow swore. “I’m out!”
Trace put his eyes to the scope. The minivan’s headlights flicked on, and Goldbow pulled out into traffic. If the cops caught him, Cassandra’s next mission would entail a visit to a federal lockup to spring Goldbow. So the Dreads knew they were there, but how much did they know? Goldbow was an easy mark with his white aura visible for every creature of evil to see, but Trace hadn’t seen any Dreads or Possessed on the street since the concert began, though they may have spotted Goldbow earlier.
“Looks like we’re heading into an intermission after this song,” Cassandra reported over a deafening round of applause. You keep that scope on the garage, Jarhead. This is going south fast.”
Through the open sliding glass door, he could hear the ding of the elevator as it arrived on the ninth floor and he paused, taking his eyes off the scope and focusing on the door. Within seconds, someone knocked. “Room service!”
Like he was going to fall for that.
“They’re here,” he said tersely. He shoved the small scope in his pocket and threw on the backpack, a chill running up his spine. Not all Dreads could Spirit Shock, but if they torched him, he knew he was still too weak to resist.
“Get out, Trace,” Cassandra warned, but he was already on his way. In the hours leading up to the concert, he had planned his escape route, though even to his own reckoning it was a little crazy. Hopping over the rail on the balcony, he lowered himself until he hung freely over the side, gripping the lower rung. Just as the door to room 902 burst in with a splintering crack, he let go, falling straight down and flaring his Strength. Arms extended, he caught the rail of the balcony below, the metal whining under the weight of his inertia. In moments, he had hauled himself over onto the balcony of room 802 and made for the sliding glass door and the dark room behind it.
The sliding door was locked, but with boosted Strength he was able to haul it upward and out of its track and barge through the empty room. Calmly, he stepped out into the hall and called the elevator, waiting for it to drop one floor. It was crucial that he appear normal, so he dug his phone out of his pocket and dialed Cassandra as the doors opened. Punching up the lobby on the elevator panel, he leaned casually against the wall.
“Trace!” she answered. “You okay?”
“Hey, babes!” he said enthusiastically. “How’s the concert?”
“Last song before intermission. Look, get to the safe house on 22nd. It’s only two miles from here, and you can run it in eight minutes. Goldbow should be on his way there now.”
Trace thought for a moment. Would a safe house really be safe? The Dreads were in their back pocket. The doors opened, and Trace strolled out of the elevator unsurprised to find a Dread wearing a leather jacket and Seahawks cap loitering just inside the main door.
“Yeah, I sure wish I could be with you there. Sounds like a total party!” Trace said, trying to remain cool. His overweight backpack was the only liability in his appearance, unless the Dreads actually knew whom to look for.
“You out of the hotel yet?”
A young couple from outside was heading toward the automatic doors with luggage hanging off every appendage. The Dread, also on his phone, turned to look Trace over as he approached.
“No, the room I got is totally sweet. You have got to come over and check it out! I’ll make it worth your while . . .” he said as suggestively as possible.
And then he was through, jostling with the couple and their luggage on the way by.
“I’m going to be sick,” Cassandra said.
“Horrible weather out here!” he commented, but after an abrupt right turn, he set out at a jog that wouldn’t seem unusual for someone who didn’t like the rain. “I’m out,” he said, hanging up the phone.
“Good,” she replied over the earpiece, sounding relieved. “Get to Twenty-Second Street now. There’s a chapel there. You get torched on the way and I won’t be able to do anything about it this time.”
Trace’s mind churned as he reached the intersection and waited for the light to change, grateful for the handful of pedestrians to blend in with.
If the Dreads were planning to hit Tela inside the building, and if they were already inside, why bother to take out the recon units that had already seen them go in? In the event of a quick strike while Tela was onstage, their van full of weapons outside wouldn’t help, but the Dreads had managed to get rid of it anyway. A couple of cop cars, presumably those dispatched to find Goldbow, passed through the light, driving slowly around the perimeter of the convention center.
Trace crossed the road, prepared to turn left toward Twenty-Second Street. Then he stopped. There were two possibilities for the Dreads’ actions. They either wanted to cover their retreat after the hit or wanted to get Tela out of the building without interference. But capturing a pop star during a concert? They would have a mountain of security and Ash Angels after them regardless of whether he or Goldbow remained outside to see them drive past. It made no sense. Why not grab her at a quieter location later?
The phone in the vision had to be the key. Trace turned right and set out at an even pace toward the parking-garage entrance. Then it all clicked. This was just like the Prescilla grab, a ruse intended to lure Ash Angels into a trap. The phone in the vision was left there deliberately so that Ash Angels could follow the Dreads to a place of their choosing. Since Tela was a normal and an Attuned, they could be sure she wouldn’t be 44-2ed and abandoned like Prescilla. Ash Angels had to help normals. The Dreads would take her, and the Ash Angels
would follow her right to a killing floor by tracking the phone.
He might have figured it out, but it wouldn’t help. He’d fail Tela just like he’d failed Terissa. He just wasn’t man enough to get the job done. It’d be better if Goldbow came back.
Trace pulled himself up short. Where had those thoughts come from? He forced himself to keep walking down the slight incline toward the entrance of the parking garage, feeling the destructive creepers attaching to his thoughts.
He pushed them away, but they lurked in his subconscious, waiting to grab him. Was he being torched? An SUV passed him from behind on the other side of the street, and the impulse to sink into despair nearly overcame him. By the auras glowing dully behind tinted glass, he guessed that two Dreads occupied the front. But something else, something he could feel more than see, waited behind the second window. Vexus as black as the deepest hole leaked out of the car in wispy tendrils. A Sheid.
“Cassandra, this just got worse,” Trace warned as the SUV pulled into the parking garage at a fast clip. “An SUV with a Sheid just pulled into the parking garage.”
“Dude! Are you sure?” Corinth exclaimed, tone nervous.
“Yes,” Trace answered.
“We’re screwed,” Cassandra lamented. “We don’t have a sanctified relic! Get as far from here as you can, Jarhead. Just being around a Sheid is like being torched. This is bigger than we thought.”
But it all made sense. Shedim could use the darkness from which they were made to appear and act as anyone. How did you get a pop star out of her own concert? You replaced her during intermission.
“Cassandra, do a Dread count,” Trace ordered.
“Jarhead, I said—”
“Just do it!”
He resumed his jog, crossing into the parking garage and scanning for signs pointing to the exit. It was two levels down and on the other side. He broke into a sprint, concrete columns whipping by, backpack bouncing hard against his back.
“There are seven, but it’s intermission. The other could be loitering around,” Cassandra reported.