“I just want a few hours to myself, okay?” Guilt-free time.
He frowned. “You have plenty of time to yourself.”
“I don’t mean study time,” she said with a huff of frustration. Why was she bothering to explain? No one understood her need for a little breathing room. No one understood what it was like to live with expectations so high you couldn’t see them, let alone reach them. “I mean goof-off time.”
“This would have been an excellent discussion to have had at the ranch house,” he said. “Now it’s moot. We’re going home. I have twelve new trainees arriving on Monday and I need to prepare.”
“No.”
The little tornado inside Murdoch spun a little faster. “What did you say?”
Her friends shifted uncomfortably, but Em held her ground. “I said no. I’m not going home.”
Murdoch didn’t argue any further. He grabbed her elbow, fingers firm but not painful. “Make your good-byes now, or we’ll do this the hard way. I’ve no qualms about tossing you over my shoulder and hauling you out to the car.”
She believed him.
“Sorry, guys,” she said to the group. “Looks like I’m going to have to bail.”
After making certain Em had all her stuff, Murdoch tugged her toward the escalator and the mall exit. His anger had settled into a minor dust storm, but he was still playing the part of aggrieved caregiver to the hilt. “We just had a major run-in with demons,” he reminded her. “When you didn’t get off the bus at the gate and didn’t answer your phone, I freely admit I panicked. The other men must think I’m a madman after the way I carried on. Be thankful it took me a while to find you.”
“How did you find me?”
“Atheborne was able to tap into the GPS in your phone.” He tossed her a hard look. “Don’t even think about leaving it behind, or I swear to God I’ll take you over my knee.”
Over his knee? Was he kidding? What was she, a baby? Why didn’t anyone trust her to spend five minutes on her own? She was invincible, for heaven’s sake. Not that you’d guess by the way everyone freaked out about her safety. Every time there was the slightest hint of danger, she got hustled offstage to hide in some closet. She was treated no better than Lena—imprisoned in her own home and tracked everywhere she went. The only saving grace was that once they got back to the ranch, the surveillance would go way down. Nobody would be following her around the house.
A fact she fully intended to take advantage of.
First chance she got, she was outta there.
Malumos waited until the flashes of red sparks had faded from the cloudy midnight sky and one of the two unconscious bodies in the valley between sand dunes had risen groggily to its feet. He knew without looking that it was Maleficus, not Mestitio who had arrived.
His voice soft in the gloom that enveloped the sand dunes west of Aswan, Malumos asked, “Did you get the book?”
His brother nodded as he climbed the slope to his side. “It was not an easy task to free it from the pool of hardened tar that has taken over that section of the chamber, but yes, it has been safely recovered.”
“Did you perchance peruse the contents?”
Maleficus smiled.
It was such a rare display of pleasure that Malumos found himself returning the expression. Finally, after a millennium of planning and searching and hoping, victory was theirs. “The spell is penned within its pages, just as you predicted.”
His brother nodded. “We are still some distance from success, however. Arcane magic is complicated to perform and will require practice to perfect. And then there is the little matter of access to the halo shard.”
“Trust me, the shard will be ours once we have the coins.” Glancing down the hill at the unconscious figure sprawled across the cold sand, Malumos said, “Which brings us to the problem of our youngest brother.”
Maleficus frowned. “He has not yet returned?”
“No.” Malumos left it at that.
His brother glanced up at the lights of the desert camp—a huddle of trucks and tents in the distance. A brisk wind blew sand over the top of the dunes, blurring the view. “Where are the coins?”
Malumos pointed to a faint white smear in the shallow valley between two dunes. “There. In the Land Cruiser with Tariq Nasser.”
“What is he doing?”
“Waiting for the right moment. He intends to attack his cousin and slay him.”
“Why?”
Malumos shrugged. He’d been standing on the dune only fifteen minutes and already grit coated his entire face. “According to his memories, which are extremely vivid and readable at the moment, his cousin has sworn vengeance against him for a past ill. There is an open contract on Tariq’s life.”
“Ah.” Maleficus scanned the horizon. “And where is the cousin?”
Annoyance bubbled up in Malumos’s chest. “The real question is, where is Mestitio?”
“Shall we wait, or begin without him?”
“We dare not attack Tariq at anything less than our full power. With the luck of the coins on his side, he might well—” Malumos broke off as several car lights bounced over the dunes just north of the tent camp, a small convoy of white four-by-fours with roof racks piled with crates.
The vehicles drove into the center of the camp and stopped. Over the dunes the sounds of voices and doors slamming floated to their ears. Figures from the tents grouped around the trucks and began unloading the crates. So engrossed in the action in the camp was he that Malumos almost missed the Land Cruiser lurch into motion, climb the dune, and head toward the camp.
Anger rose up in a huge swell and broke through the dam.
“Hell’s fury,” he snarled as fire lit the tips of his fingers. “Where is our brother? Tariq is attacking the camp. Humans are about to die, and that means at the very least Soul Gatherers and at the very worst angels. We’ll be fortunate to get a dozen minutes to retrieve the coins.”
“We’re going in?”
“We have no choice,” he snapped, even as he jogged down the slope toward the camp. Cold sand poured into his shoes, but he ignored the uncomfortable sliding sensation and kept running.
The Land Cruiser reached the camp well ahead of them, crashing right through several tents and killing at least two people before grinding to a halt. Tariq shot two more through his open window before exiting the vehicle.
A heavyset man in fatigues strode up to Tariq, knocked the pistol from his hand, and slapped his face. “Buffoon. You dare to come here and wave such a flimsy gun in my face?”
“I’ve had enough, Reyhan,” Tariq responded, not the least bit cowed. “I will not continue to live this way, with your threat hanging over my head. Tonight you will die.”
Reyhan spit on him. “You’re alone and weaponless. I have seven men with M16s. The only person who will die tonight is you, Tariq. As you should have died four years ago.”
Malumos and Maleficus entered the camp from the south just as Reyhan nodded to one of his men, encouraging him to slay Tariq. Malumos could have told him it was pointless, that the coins would lend Tariq the grace of hell, but he was not feeling magnanimous. Instead, he took his frustration out on a pair of armed guards sneaking up on Tariq. He wrapped threads of blue smoke about them, drained their will, then forced them to turn their guns on themselves.
It didn’t satisfy. Only when he saw one of the men rise from the dead an instant later and felt a familiar surge of communal power in his veins did his fury subside. Mestitio had finally shown up.
“Move swiftly,” he called to his brothers as he advanced farther into the camp. “And be sure to collect the coins. We are close to realizing our ambitions. This is not the time to fail.”
They attacked in unison, and for a time fire burned bright in the night sky.
“Uh, guys?”
Drawn by the oddly hesitant note in Carlos’s voice, Lena rolled off the bed and entered the living area of the hotel suite. She avoided looking at Brian, who lounged on
the sofa in front of the TV watching Terminator Salvation on the Movie Channel. They’d barely exchanged a dozen words since they returned from the market. And those had been of the pass the salt variety.
“No word yet from any of Lena’s contacts,” Carlos said. “But I just got a message from dispatch that I think you should see.”
Lena frowned. “What kind of message?”
Brian thumbed the off switch on the TV and sat forward, elbows on his knees. “An emergency gather,” he guessed flatly. “For Tariq’s soul.”
A gather? Did that mean ... ? No. There must be a mistake. Steadying herself with a hand on the wall, she flashed Brian an aggrieved look. “Why would you assume that?”
“Because nine times out of ten, that’s what a surprise message from dispatch says. That’s what we do, remember? We gather souls.” Brian stood up and faced Carlos. “Am I right?”
The young man’s long dark hair slid forward, hiding his expression. “Yeah.”
“You’re telling me Tariq is dead?” she asked, still unable to accept what they were saying.
Brian didn’t answer her. In fact, he didn’t even look at her. He grabbed up his discarded suit jacket, shrugged it on, and addressed Carlos. “Where is it?”
“A tent camp in the desert near Aswan,” Carlos said with a nod. “There are actually eleven souls, but since they’re all going to the same place, dispatch gave ’em all to me. I’ve got the okay to hire a chopper.”
Dead. Oh God. Tariq was dead.
Lena’s knees trembled, and she quickly claimed one of the living room chairs. The sick part was, her first thought had not been for the poor man’s soul, but for the coins. She’d had to bite down on her tongue to stop herself from asking about them. More proof, if she needed it, that Brian was a far better person than she could ever hope to be.
A vision of Tariq seated in her rental car, calmly accepting the coins, surfaced in her thoughts. Her eyes stung. His death was a pointless tragedy. And yet another failing on her part.
“We’ll all go,” Brian responded. “Let’s make it quick. We don’t want to leave their souls in decaying bodies for longer than we have to.”
Lena’s stomach heaved, and she had to swallow heavily to tame her gag reflex. Most gathers were planned and occurred within a minute or so of death. But occasionally, because only a Gatherer could draw a soul from a human body, a random demon attack forced someone to wait longer. She’d picked up only a handful of souls that had been forced to wait, and none of them had been better for the delay.
A taxi met them outside and took them directly to a private airport operated by an international telecommunications company. The helicopter ride to the camp was noisy but quick.
Without the GPS position provided to Carlos in his gather assignment, they’d never have found the spot. It was a camouflaged outpost in the middle of nowhere. They landed in the pitch-black, grateful for the advantage of their Gatherer vision. The chopper blade spit sand into their faces and buried parts of the demolished camp under waves of granules. From the burned frames of several vehicles and the scorched remnants of tents, it wasn’t too difficult to determine what had happened.
Demons had attacked.
But something was odd. Tariq’s body wasn’t with the others. It lay three hundred yards to the south, next to a Land Cruiser parked with the driver’s-side door open. And he hadn’t been burned. A bullet hole gaped in the middle of his forehead.
“Gather his soul and let’s get out of here,” Brian said to Carlos.
“What about the coins?” Lena asked softly.
“We don’t have time for a thorough search. We need to be quick. It’ll be dawn in another hour and I don’t want to risk bumping into whoever Nasser was planning to sell his cargo to.”
“Tariq’s car is pointed away from the camp, like he was running.” Pressing on, she vocalized the fear that gripped her throat with increasing tightness. “It’s possible the demons got them.”
“That would suck,” Carlos said.
“Yeah, it would suck,” Brian agreed, meeting her gaze. The silver of his eyes softened. “Let’s hope that’s not the case. I’ll search the Land Cruiser. You guys do what you need to do.”
Lena had seen a lot of deaths over the years, many of them the product of murder or brutal accidents. But no matter how many deaths she attended, the loss of lives remained a heavy blow. Tariq’s hit her harder than most. He lay sprawled in the sand, a dark stain around his head. Not as much blood as she’d seen with some gathers, but it was Tariq’s and that made all the difference. On closer inspection, she saw he’d been shot three times, not just once: in the leg and arm, as well. It would seem they’d tried to convince him to give up the coins, and when that failed ...
She crouched at his side.
Although he’d been dead less than an hour, his lean face had lost its handsome vitality and now had the thin, parchment look of a soul ready to depart.
Leaning forward, she brushed Tariq’s hair away from his eyes. He hadn’t been a bad man, just a little greedy. They’d shared several hair-raising adventures, each of which he toasted with a bottle of wine and much laughter. And his sculptures, the few he’d made time for, had been exquisite. A tear escaped her eye and rolled down her cheek. The world would be a poorer place without him.
“Whoa,” said Carlos. “That’s never happened before.”
“What?” asked Brian, turning to glance at him.
“I just got a message saying Tariq’s gather has been reassigned.”
Lena wiped away the tear and stared at Tariq’s cheek. Sure enough, a white spiral rose into view—a spiral visible only to her. At the same time, her purse vibrated, the iPhone inside receiving a new message. “I got it,” she said, breathless.
The other souls Carlos had picked up were going to hell. Did that mean ... ?
Steeling herself, she placed her hand on his throat. Immediately the flutter of a migrating soul danced up her arm and into her chest. But unlike a soul bound for heaven, this one did not evoke sensations of balmy warmth and airy tranquillity—instead, a cool, empty feeling filled her chest and wrapped around her heart.
She sighed.
Purgatory for Tariq.
She stood.
A whole lot better than the alternative, of course, but it still weighed heavily on her. Had she not involved Tariq in her nightmarish deal with the demons, he’d still be alive today.
The body count laid upon her doorstep was growing too high to stomach. The thought of continuing as a Gatherer for 386 more years, constantly reminded of the lives she’d torn apart, filled her with dread.
“Everything okay?” Brian asked gently.
The genuine sympathy in his eyes almost shattered her composure. Her cordial smile of thanks wobbled and the sting of impending tears forced her to blink repeatedly. Why did he have to be so damned nice about everything?
“That’s all eleven souls,” Carlos confirmed.
“Good, help me search the Land Cruiser.”
As they turned back to the car, blue sparks crackled in the dry desert air. A swirl of sand rose up in front of them, and a dazzling young man with shoulder-length brown curls appeared at its epicenter. An angel.
“Uriel,” Brian said, clearly surprised.
The young man smiled. That was when his visual intensity hit Lena full-strength, and she realized what he was. Not just Uriel, Archangel Uriel. Brian certainly kept impressive company. How many Gatherers could say they were on speaking terms with two archangels?
“Though far from perfect, your friend was steadfastly devout,” the angel said, nodding to Lena. His voice was a rich, malty baritone. It wasn’t difficult to imagine him lending a deep melody to a heavenly choir. “He prayed and we answered. Not before he was slain, sadly. I regret that most sincerely.”
“You guys really need to work on some kind of turbo descent.” There was a thread of steel in Brian’s voice. “That’s your second late slip.”
“The ba
ttles on the middle plane are intensifying,” Uriel said grimly. “This was not our only demon confrontation tonight. We also routed a large nest of havocs from the basement of a home in Ohio. As the fear rises, so does the tide of darkness in the human heart. More and more people are inviting demons onto the middle plane.”
Brian frowned. “What are you saying? That people are worshiping Satan?”
“Yes. Suggestions are being made that these are the early stages of the Apocalypse, and it’s easy for some to find freedom from their fear in Satan’s lies. Archangel Michael is busy preparing the virtues, powers, and principalities to descend upon the earth in greater numbers. I think you’ll agree that a few miracles are needed.” He let that sink in for a moment, then added, “On a positive note, the demons did not acquire the thirteen coins. If they had, we would have felt the balance shift.”
“I did a quick search already, didn’t find them,” Brian said. “Tariq obviously put a little more effort into hiding them than stuffing them in his duffel bag.”
“He’s very careful,” Lena said. She swallowed. Was careful, not is. He’d once sewn a lovely pair of eight-carat canary diamonds into the seat of his mint-condition Fiat Spider before crossing the Italian border into Switzerland. “But dawn may not be our only concern. The demons desire the coins as badly as we do.”
The glow that was Archangel Uriel pulsed. “They fled to the lower plane when we arrived. With the amount of energy expended during the attack on the camp, we can expect them to be gone for several hours.”
True. Except the unusually deep connection between the triplets eased their passing through the barrier. If one of the three brothers had remained on the middle plane, then it would take only about ninety minutes for the others to return. Lena knew that from experiences she wouldn’t care to repeat. She glanced at her watch.
“I’ve heard of swifter turnarounds,” she said. “We should work as quickly as we can, just in case.”
“Let’s do it. Let’s rip the car apart,” Carlos said. He grinned, then winced and bent his head to rub the space between his brows with the heel of his hand. His usual robust tan paled into a sickly gray.
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