by J. R. Ward
“Brace yourself, big boy,” he said into the air.
Clearly, Veck heard him, because the guy recoiled, his eyes rolling around like peas in a jar at the prospect of being possessed. But this was the only way to protect him, and he must have known that because he didn’t run.
Given that Jim had no clue what the hell he was doing, he approached carefully. The last time he’d done this, he’d blown Devina apart—not exactly the happy ending he or Veck needed in this case.
Good news, though. As he pressed forward, Veck became nothing more than a sieve, offering only a passing resistance. Inside the shell? Jim fought for room in a metaphysical landscape that had nothing to do with the molecules that made the man, and everything to do with the space in between tm. And what do you know, he got a crystal-clear on why Eddie had said no-go for an exorcism. Veck was a goddamn Moon Pie, all half-and-half: Every inch of his soul was yin-and-yang, with good and evil spliced together.
No way to operate and excise. You’d destroy him.
Except two could play at this takeover game: on instinct, Jim suffused the man’s interior being, becoming a fog that turned it into a threesome situation. . . .
Man, that sounded dirty.
But the fact of the matter was, just as Devina’s “DNA” was pervasive, Jim became the same—and he hid not behind the good side, but the bad one. Better coverage that way—
Huh. From this vantage point, he could look out of Veck’s eyes.
“How’m I doin’?” Jim asked in his own voice—hey, he could talk out of the bastard’s mouth, too.
Across the way, Adrian shrugged. “Pretty damn good—I can’t sense you. But I gotta ask—the pair of you want a cigarette? Or are you going for a twofer?”
“Fuck off,” Jim and Veck answered at the same time.
Standing in his utility room, Veck felt vaguely nauseous, like he’d eaten a two-day-old Philly cheese steak, washed it down with lukewarm beer, and had a cherry slushie for dessert: too full of shit that didn’t get along.
And as for hearing Jim’s voice coming out of his own lips? He could do without that, thank you very much.
“So where are we going?” he asked.
Well, didn’t this give a whole new meaning to “talking to yourself.”
“The quarry.”
“The quarry? For fuck’s sake, it’ll take forever to—”
“Get the cigarettes,” Jim said.
“Screw that, we need my bike—it’ll take us a half hour—”
“Come on, sport. Get the Marlboros—I’ll take care of the travel arrangements.”
Cursing a blue streak, he beat feet over to the kitchen table, grabbed the pack and the lighter, and shoved them in with the backup bullet clips.
“And take this,” Adrian said, unsheathing what looked like a glass knife.
“No offense, I’ll stick with bullets.”
“Silly subhuman.” The angel shoved the dagger into Veck’s belt. “You can trigger up anything you like—it’s for Jim.”
“Tell me this isn’t permanent?”
“No, you have to give me my weapon back at the end.”
Har-har, hardy-har-har. “I’m talking to Jim.”
“No, it’s not,” the angel answered from out of Veck’s mouth. “I can get free as easily as I got in.”
“You sure about that?”
“Nope.”
“Fabulous.” Veck looked around to meet Heron in the eye and realized that was pointless—without a frickin’ mirror. “So how are you going to get us—”
Next stop was the quarry. Literally.
And there was no bus ride or train trip or car crawl to compare: One moment Veck was in his house; the next he was in the center of the quarry’s long slope.
Don’t address me out loud, Jim said in his head.
Is this what schizophrenics experience, Veck wondered.
Couldn’t tell you. Just make sure you stay tight.
“Like I have a choice with you in here, too,” Veck muttered, as he looked around.
Wait, before you head in. There was a pause. Veck, this is your show. I’m just going to make sure you live long enough to have a shot—but everything is on you. I won’t interfere or intercede—we clear? You’ve got to make your mind up on your own. But you’ve got to do the right thing, whatever that is.
“Yeah. Sure.”
I just want you to remember—evil is usually the easy way out. And your fate is your own and no one else’s.
As if on cue, a glow emanated out of the mouth of a cave about one hundred and fifty yards off to the right.
Enough with the fucking chatter.
Unsheathing both guns, Veck moved like the damn wind, leaping from boulder to boulder, jumping down, jumping up, scrambling. As his body went on full flip-out to get him to Reilly, his eyes stayed locked on that light. With every obstacle he threw himself over, horrible visions ran through his head, the gruesome, bloody nightmares making his chest burn with a fury that gave him power beyond the physical sum of his muscles and strength.
The cave in question had an entrance large enough so that he didn’t have to duck down, and wide enough so that he didn’t have to squeeze through. And then the nature-made corridor he found himself in stretched out ahead, penetrating far into the belly of the earth.
Dropping into a crouch, he ran as fast as he could toward the flickering glow.
All around him, the walls were wet and rough, the ceiling dripping, the floor puddled up. In a panic, he tried to filter out the pounding sound of his own footsteps so he could hear what was up ahead: Screams? Heavy breathing? Painful moaning?
Nothing.
It was too fucking quiet.
And then he turned the final corner.
The cave opened up to what appeared to be a low-walled space about the size of a big living room. It was impossible to get a true sense of its breadth, however, because the place was lit with candles, outside of which there was nothing but darkness.
In the center, there was a body strung up by the arms, the deadweight hanging from the ceiling.
It was not Reilly. It was what appeared to be a man with short sandy blond hair.
Veck glanced around for Bails and that bitch woman. But all there was . . . was the body. And it was turned to face the far wall.
Was that . . . a hospital johnny? he thought as he stepped forward, keeping the guns up.
“Reilly!” he shouted.
The echoing name roused whoever was hanging, and as the head jerked, a scraping sound rose up into the still, dank air. The person was slowly turning himself around, using the tips of his bare, muddy feet to change his position.
When Veck saw who it was, he cursed: The victim’s identity was clear, in spite of the fact that the guy had obviously been punched in the face recently: His forehead was swollen and going black-and-blue, but the features were well known.
“Kroner . . .” Veck muttered, wondering how in the fuck the bastard had been brought here. Then again, abductions from hospitals were improbable but not impossible.
The serial killer struggled to lift his chin, his mouth working slowly. He was trying to talk, but Veck didn’t give a shit what the fucker had to say.
“Reilly! ” he called out, hoping that the darkness beyond the candles meant that there was another chamber where she was—
Someone stepped out of the shadows toward him.
He blinked once, and when the vision didn’t change, he realized it was, in fact, a woman. Although what someone like her was doing here—
“Hello, Veck.” It was the voice from his phone, live and in person. “Welcome to the party.”
The brunette made Angelina Jolie look like a librarian: She was lush and dangerous, an upright jungle dressed in stilettos and a short skirt that belonged in a café downtown, or an elegant private club . . . anywhere but this stank-ass cave.
“Did you come alone?” she asked him, her plump, juicy lips pursing.
“Yes.”
“Where is Reilly?”
“Your devotion to the woman is”—her voice got tense—“enviable. And because I can imagine how anxious you are to find her, I’ll say that I’m prepared to tell you.”
“So do it.”
She eyed the guns. “Do you honestly think those are going to work against me?” Her laugh was wind chime–beautiful—and nonetheless rang falsely in the ear. “And, oh, look, they gave you a dagger, too. Hope does spring eternal, I suppose. By the way, did Jim tell you he used to be a killer?”
“I don’t give a shit what he was.”
“Right, right, it’s all about the girl.” That voice grew bitter again. “How lucky she is. And she should know how you feel about her, don’t you think.”
At that, the woman idly turned toward Kroner and strolled across to the guy. Speaking over her shoulder, she said, “Yes, tell her how you feel, why don’t you.”
Veck looked into the shadows. “I love you, Reilly! I’m here!”
“So romantic,” the brunette said dryly.
As the woman stayed fixated on the serial killer, Veck decided to hedge his bets: He put one of his guns away . . . and palmed up that glass dagger he’d been given. None of this was making sense—which gave some credibility to Adrian’s advice.
“Where the fuck is she?” he growled.
“I’ll tell you—but you have to do something for me.”
“What.”
The brunette smiled and stepped back from Kroner. “Kill him.”
Veck narrowed his eyes on the woman.
In response, she smiled more deeply. “It’s what you were going to do all along. You waited for him in those woods, biding your time until he showed up among the trees next to that motel. You were going to act . . . but you were denied your chance.”
Facing off at her, Veck’s body began to vibrate, that rage that had sprung loose at the prison coalescing in his torso, tightening his muscles.
“This is my gift to you, little Tommy. You kill him, and I’ll show you where your woman is. It’s what you want. It’s what you’re here for. It’s your destiny.”
From out of nowhere, a reflection of light pierced the darkness, and illuminated the shadows, revealing . . . Bails.
The guy was sitting on the floor of the cave, leaning back against the wet wall. A gunshot marked his forehead between his wide-open eyes, the smallest trail of blood seeping out and dripping down his nose. His mouth was lax; his skin pale gray.
“Don’t worry about him,” the brunette said dismissively. “He was nothing but a pawn. You, on the other hand . . . are the prize. And all you have to do is act. Kill him . . . and I’ll make sure you see your girl.”
Abruptly, Veck realized where the shaft of light was coming from.
His hand had risen up, and that glass dagger had caught the butter soft candlelight, sending a shaft of it across the cave to zero in on his supposed friend.
“Time’s wasting, little Tommy. Let’s get through this, so we can come out the other side. Listen to your gut. Do what you know is right. Take out this piece-of-shit, amoral killer and find what you seek. It’s such an obvious path, such a simple trade—everything that Reilly is, for this murdering madman. It’s all in your hands. . . .”
“Is Reilly alive?” he heard himself say.
“She is.”
“Will you let us both out of here alive?”
“Probably. Depends on what you do, doesn’t it.” The brunette’s voice dropped to a seductive whisper. “You can see her the moment you take care of business. I swear to it. It’s all in your hands. . . .”
CHAPTER 47
As Reilly hung from the cave’s ceiling, she still could not believe the image she was showing to Veck: The hospital johnny and the flat chest and the dangling legs were not her own.
Yet through the screaming pain in her head, through her confusion and panic, she could move these limbs that were not hers, could draw breath through a throat she did not know, could fill lungs that were someone else’s.
All of which gave credibility to what Veck thought he was looking at.
And so he was going to kill her, she thought in horror and disbelief.
Struggling to speak, she whispered in a rasping voice that was not her own, “I’m . . . me . . . please . . .”
“. . . It’s such an obvious path, a simple trade—everything that Reilly is, for this murdering madman. It’s all in your hands. . . .”
The brunette who was talking was not in fact a woman. Reilly had seen what that thing was—it had shown her its true vileness while Bails got Veck on the phone, and that was why she had screamed.
Then afterward, she had watched as it had gotten into Bails’s mind and made him turn his own gun on himself.
The great liar, she thought. Who knew that that was so true about the devil.
“Veck . . .” Reilly tried to marshal more breath, dragging air down into a frozen rib cage. “Veck . . . no . . .”
But she wasn’t reaching him—and she wasn’t going to: The louder she spoke, the more she sounded like Kroner, as if his voice box had replaced hers. And she was losing what little strength she had: Bails had dragged her down the quarry’s slope, and her lower legs were contused badly—to the point where she knew she’d lost blood. She was also very sure she had a concussion, and she had grown weak from having hung in the cold for God only knew how long.
A hot tear slid down her cheek, and then a second . . . and then a rush of them.
At one time or another, like most people, she had entertained morbid thoughts about what death was waiting for her: A slow-growing disease? A quick car accident? Some genetic weakness that predisposed her to a bad heart? Or maybe an attack from a criminal where she’d fight back, perhaps shoot him as he shot her. Real blaze-of-glory stuff.
What was happening in this frigid, damp cave? Not it.
Staring across at Veck’s cold, furious face, she started to see double, and her eyes were incapable of bringing the two halves of him together . . . so she had more than enough opportunity to find that there was no compassion, no emotion, no doubt in his expression . . .
As that glinting crystal dagger lifted, she realized she was looking into his father’s face.
This was the son living up to the father’s legacy.
Images of her own parents made the tears come harder. She hadn’t had a chance to say good-bye. To tell them one last time that she loved them, and that they’d changed not just her life, but so many others’. . . .
And she hadn’t been able to tell Veck properly that she believed him, that she knew he was innocent . . . and that she loved him.
Of course, the grand irony was that he was about to kill her under the guise of saving her.
“I know you didn’t do it,” she said on a harsh breath that didn’t carry far. “The evidence . . . it was Bails. . . .”
Why that was important to say given the amount of time she had left—which was nearly none—she hadn’t a clue.
Better get on with it: “I love . . . you. . . .”
And then she closed her eyes, turned her head away, and braced herself. He was going to go for the heart. With a dagger—that was the most efficient way—and Veck was not going to want to waste time if he thought her life was hanging in the balance.
Terror choked her and her body began to shake.
Her mouth opened as she started to sob.
Tears flowed . . . as her blood soon would.
Nights ago, in those woods, by that motel, Veck had been prepared to take this piece of shit Kroner out.
Granted, it hadn’t been for society’s benefit—although he’d been prepared to maintain that it was. And after the opportunity had come and gone, he’d been relieved that he hadn’t done it.
Now? He had the only justification that mattered: his Reilly didn’t care that she thought he’d tampered
with evidence or that she wouldn’t have anything to do with him after this.
Saving her life was enough.
The brunette was right; such a simple trade.
Veck focused on his victim. As Kroner hung from the cave’s ceiling, his mouth was moving, and given the tears that were pouring out of his eyes, he was no doubt begging for mercy, the killer reduced to begging for everything he hadn’t granted his prey.
Christ, he was so fucking pathetic, that hospital gown marked with blood as if he’d been pulled headfirst down the slope, his skin so white it had slipped into snow territory, his face all distorted from swelling.
Veck had a passing urge to put the dagger away and punch the guy until the motherfucker had a coronary. The man’s victims had had to go slowly . . . had been conscious as he’d taken his godforsaken bits and pieces from them . . . it seemed like karma to have him know on an up-close-and-personal level what it felt like to be out of control, in pain, and at the mercy of another.
But Reilly’s life was at stake.
Veck craned his arm up higher over his shoulder and angled the glass dagger’s point at Kroner’s chest. One vicious stab was all it was going to take, and fuck knew that Veck had the strength to get the job done—
Just as the weapon reached the apex of the arc, in the second before he was going to put all his upper-body power into the downward thrust, one of the weapon’s facets caught the candlelight and shot a beam onto Kroner’s face.
Veck frowned as he got a clear picture of those ratlike features: Kroner had closed his eyes and turned his face to the side, his frail body trembling as he braced himself for death.
“What’s the matter,” the brunette barked. “Do it—and you’ll have her.”
This is not my life to take, Veck thought with a sudden, inexplicable conviction.
“Do it!”
This is . . . not my life to take.
His father . . . Kroner himself . . . men like that . . . they thought that all lives, all people, all things, were theirs for the taking, and it was just a case of whim-based design who they decided to choose, who became the next notch on their belt. And the trophies were about keeping a slice of this moment now, when they had all the power, when they were in control, when they were God—because like an orgasm, this pleasure point was fleeting, and the memory wasn’t a patch on the actual experience.