“Is this the place, then?” he asked, stopping Michael cold in midair with one sentence.
“Why are you here?” a very pissed-off angel replied.
“I wish to speak with the Chosen. Do you then change the terms of our meeting?” Lucky persisted.
“You must leave,” Michael said.
“We agreed that I could speak with the Chosen as often as I desire until the Choice is made. Do you break the terms of our agreement? Shall we finish this now?” I wasn’t sure what Lucky was talking about, but the formality in his tone led me to believe that it was a pretty big deal.
“I do not,” Michael said through clenched teeth. “Our agreement stands.”
“Then, leave me to talk with the Chosen. As is my right.” Then, Lucky proved that he was either incredibly brave, or had a lot of faith in Michael’s word, because he turned his back on the sword-wielding giant glowing guy and glided down to where the preacher and I were pulling ourselves out of the pool.
Michael let out a low growl of frustration and flew straight up until he vanished from sight. I was pretty sure there were going to be some cell phone calls to the National Enquirer around Nashville that evening. I stepped between Lucky and the kid, who was trying to look brave, but only managing to look like a very wet, very scared skinny kid with a face full of hardware and expensive ink on his arms.
“Lucky, what do you want with the kid? I’m not gonna let you hurt him.” I wasn’t feeling too secure in my own ability to stop him, but I figured it was worth a shot.
It worked about as well as expected. Lucky laughed as he landed at the edge of the pool and came over to us. He reached into the bag of beer, popped the top on a PBR, and tossed one to me as he sat down on one of the pool loungers.
“Sit down, Adam. We both know you can’t hurt me, and if I wanted to hurt you, I’d find much more interesting ways of doing it than just kicking your ass all over the parking lot. I want to talk to Sidney here, and you might as well hear this as well.”
I sat. He was right, and I knew it. And he knew I knew it, so there wasn’t a whole lot of point in trying to act all tough against the First of the Fallen.
“What was all that about?” I waved my hand in the general direction of the pool.
“That? Well, Michael and I have had a disagreement for a long time, and before too long, we’re going to find out which one of us was right. He gets to be the one to set the place for our final duel. I just asked him if he wanted it to be here. He decided against it.”
Just as I was about to demand more details, I saw a shadow move across the water. “Eve! No!” I got the words out, but not in time as Eve came up behind Lucky with a sawed-off shotgun and shot him square in the back. The sound was enormous, and I shut my eyes against the muzzle flash and any Lucky-bits that happened to spray on my face.
Chapter 35
I opened my eyes a second later, and Lucky was still sitting there, calm as could be, a little grin twitching the corner of his mouth. He stood, slowly turned around, and reached out to Eve, snatching the shotgun from her hands as you’d take a lollipop from a toddler. He tossed the twelve-gauge end-over-end into the deep part of the pool, then he wrapped both arms around Eve and picked her up, twirling her around and laughing like old lovers who had just been reintroduced at a party after a long time apart.
“Oh, Eve, I have missed you! No one since the Garden has had such a fire. I am sorry I haven’t called on you since then, but I’ve been dreadfully busy. You know, wars to start, pestilence to spread, famine to sow, death to deal, and all that awful pale-horse Revelation garbage. But it’s good to see you, and I promise to come chat with you and little Cain in a few moments, once I’m done talking to the boys here.” With that, he spun a shocked Eve around, patted her on the butt, and shoved her over to where Cain and the other women stood staring.
“Yeah. About that, Lucky. We might want to move this conversation inside. After all, you did just have a giant frigging glowing angel fly off over the pool, and Eve just shot you. Those things tend to attract attention nowadays. Why don’t we all adjourn to my room, and you can tell everybody what you’ve got to say to me and Junior?” I picked up the bag of beer, grabbed Sid by an arm, and started making my way to the hotel.
“Probably a good idea, Adam. The local constabulary may be making an appearance soon, and it’s probably better if I’m not seen. Something about a huge bar fight earlier this evening…”
He followed us into the hotel, and I stood waiting for the elevator with the Prince of Darkness and a twenty-something tattooed redneck street preacher who was supposed to save the world, if he could keep his eyes off my daughter’s tits long enough to do it.
When we got to the room, Lucky led Sid inside, grabbed the bag of beer, and shoved me backward out into the hall, shutting the door firmly in my face. I hammered on the door for a minute, but Lucky just called out a few biological improbabilities as to what I should do with myself, and I finally gave up.
I walked down the hall to the room Eve was sharing with Emily and knocked on the door. They let me in after a second, and I joined Eve, Emily, Myra, and Cain in the small room. It was more than a little cramped in there with just a couple of beds and one chair, but we all managed to find someplace more or less comfortable.
After a long moment, Emily piped up, “What do you think he’ll do to Sidney?”
“Nothing,” I replied. “If he wanted to hurt the kid, there are a lot better ways, sneakier ways, that won’t get him in deep shit with Father. My guess is, he’s telling the truth; he just wants to talk to the kid. He’s probably got a lot riding on whatever Choice the kid makes, and he’s looking for an edge.”
“You actually think he’s telling the truth? He’s the Father of Lies. His name is synonymous with deception and misdirection. What makes you think that he’s telling the truth?” Myra asked incredulously.
“Because it’s what we don’t expect. I’ve seen him use this trick before. He tells you the truth when you expect him to lie, and then he can lie with more impunity when it suits his purposes,” I said. “He’ll probably keep the kid in there for a while, make friends with him, fill his head full of just enough truth to confuse him, and send him back to us thinking that Lucky’s just a guy who’s gotten a bad rap in history.”
“Yeah, he’s a fuckin’ prince,” Eve muttered.
“Look, babe, I’m not exactly a fan, either, but I can’t kick his ass, and you can’t shoot him, so we’re kinda stuck right now.” I was getting a little frustrated, and Lucky had all the beer, so I headed for the door.
“Where are you going?” Myra sounded frightened as I reached for the handle. “You’re not going after him, are you?”
“Nah, I know better. I’m gonna go get some ice and a soda from the vending machine. Anybody else want anything?”
“I’ll go with.” Emily hopped up and stood beside me. When we got into the hallway, she looked up at me. “Now, tell me straight. What do you think Luke, er, Lucky is doing with Sidney?”
Crap. She had it bad. “I really don’t think he’s going to hurt him. If he’s supposed to make a Choice, I don’t think Lucky can hurt him, or everything goes all screwy. I mean, he’s capable, but I don’t think he’s allowed. And there are some rules that even Lucky won’t break. Don’t sweat it, honey, Junior’s gonna be fine.”
“If you say so.” She still sounded a little dubious.
“Trust me. You don’t get to be this old without being a decent judge of character.” I tried to sound cavalier, but I didn’t know if I pulled it off.
“You got to be that old because you’re immortal, not because you’re a good judge of character,” she pointed out. Smartass kids.
“Yeah, if I was, I probably wouldn’t have ended up hanging with all those Mongolians back when Genghis Khan was running roughshod over most of Asia. I just thought he wanted to ride around and party. Who was I to know he wanted world domination? My Mongolian was never very good.”
That at least got a giggle out of her, and we took our ice bucket and armful of soda cans back to the room. We were there for another hour or so playing gin rummy for a penny a point and watching Law & Order reruns before a knock came on the door. Emily bounced up as though her ass were spring-loaded and opened the door.
Sid came in looking awfully pale beneath his tattoos. Emily led him over to one of the beds and sat him down on the edge. I got up and out of the way, as did her mom. Cain passed him a soda while Eve looked down the hall to see if she could catch any glimpse of Lucky’s location. I kept an eye on her, hoping she wasn’t going to try and put another slug into the fallen angel.
Eve’s never been known for restraint, and sometimes it seems like her motto is, “If at first you don’t succeed, shoot it again.” I didn’t need the attention or the redecorating bill on my credit card. You’d be amazed how hard it is to keep a good credit rating when you don’t officially exist.
“What happened? Are you okay?” Emily asked.
“I’m fine. We just talked. Well, he talked. I listened,” Sid replied.
“What did he have to say?” I asked. “Remember, Junior, deception is kinda his whole gig.”
“He talked about a lot of things. A lot about my Choice, and what was going to happen depending on what I Choose.”
“Did he happen to mention where you’re supposed to make this Choice? Because we’re kinda flying blind right now,” Cain asked from the chair.
“Washington.” Michael pushed his way past Eve and into the room. “The Choice shall be made in Washington, D.C. I will be leaving immediately.”
The angel looked pissed, so I didn’t even bother with my standard snarky comments. I just nodded to Myra, grabbed my room key from Sid. Emily and Eve started tossing things into a bag, and I glanced over at Cain, who was still sitting in the chair and watching all the action.
“Aren’t you going to pack, son?” I asked on my way into the hall.
“I haven’t unpacked anything, so I don’t need to pack. I’ll meet you downstairs.” He got up, stretched, and headed toward the door in our wake. Myra and I tossed the few things we’d unpacked into our bags, and looked around the room to make sure we hadn’t forgotten any random firearms. She looked pensive, so I gave her a quick hug before we left the room.
“It’s almost over, isn’t it?” she asked, her face buried in my chest. That made her a little hard to hear, but it was worth it.
“Almost.”
“What will you do?”
“What do you mean? My Choice? I don’t even know what it is, so I have no idea what I’ll do.”
“No. I mean after. What will you do after it’s done? Are you going to leave me again?” She held me tighter, but I didn’t think her squeezing caused the tightness in my chest.
“I don’t know, babe. I—”
“Don’t tell me you haven’t thought about it. I’ve seen you thinking about it. I can see it whenever you look at me when we’re driving, when you think I don’t notice you looking. I can feel your eyes on me, and I know you’re trying to decide if you’re sticking around or if you’re going to run again.”
“You’re right. I have thought about it. A lot. And I still don’t know what I’m going to do. I’ve been putting off making that decision until this whole thing is behind us. And who knows? The kid might decide to blow up the planet, and we won’t have to worry about it. We are going to D.C. after all. If there’s any place a slightly crazy backwoods street preacher can get his hands on nuclear weapons, it’s Washington.”
“Or Tehran.”
“Yeah, there’s always Tehran. But the jet lag is such a bitch. D.C. is a better choice.”
“Fair enough. Let’s go finish saving the world, but we’re not done with this, buster. As soon as the world is safe, we’re going to have a long conversation about our future.” She stood on her tiptoes, kissed me lightly on the lips, and headed for the elevator. I watched her walk, both because the view was nice and because I was thinking about that conversation, and how I was going to get out of that one without actually blowing up the world. The more I thought about it, the better blowing up the world looked.
Michael met us in the hotel lobby. “I will not be accompanying you on this leg of your journey. I must go ahead and prepare the meeting place. Lucypher and I will meet you at the Washington Monument at midnight tomorrow night. Packing was a good idea. You should be able to make it there easily if you leave now.”
“Hey! It’s not that far to D.C. If we don’t need to be there until midnight tomorrow night, why are we leaving now?” I was a little grumpy about not having the chance to spend some happy fun time with Myra before the end of the world.
“I’ve seen how long it takes you people to get anywhere, and I assume that Eve will have to start at least one barroom brawl before you can get through Tennessee and Virginia,” Michael responded with a smirk.
“Nah. I think I’m good for a few days. Thanks for thinking of me, though,” Eve said.
“Besides, I said I would be leaving immediately. I never mentioned you coming with me. That was your own erroneous assumption. If I were you, I would try to salvage some sleep out of this wretched evening and leave in the morning. I will see you there.” With a final snarky little smile, he vanished—not walked out and flew away, just vanished.
Sometimes I wondered who was more irritating, my smartass kids or smartass angels. I stood there looking stupid for a minute with my bag in my hand before I noticed that Cain was sitting on one of the lobby couches, no bag anywhere in sight.
“You knew?” I asked.
“I noticed that he didn’t mention us going, so I figured there was no reason to rush.”
“And you didn’t think you should share that with the rest of us?”
“You guys were so happy running around like chickens with your heads cut off, I didn’t want to screw that up.” He sat there and chuckled as the rest of us dragged our bags back to the elevators and up to the rooms.
Then, I realized we had a little monkey wrench in the works, a monkey wrench with tattoos and a pierced lip.
“Uh, Junior?”
“Yes, Adam?”
“We don’t really have a room for you; I don’t think. I mean, we had a spot for Michael, but he doesn’t really sleep, so I’m not sure if there are two beds in Cain’s room, and I don’t really know what we’re going to do about that. It’s really late, and the desk clerk is already a little grumpy with me, you know the whole breaking into the pool, flying Seraphim, and shotgun blasts in the middle of the night thing…” I trailed off lamely.
“Don’t worry, Pop. We’ve got it covered,” Cain chimed in.
“How?”
“Don’t ask silly questions, Adam. Now, why don’t you and Myra toddle off to bed while Cain and I deal with sleeping arrangements for the children, I mean, for Sid.”
I never trusted Eve when she was being solicitous, but Myra had a certain look in her eye at Eve’s offer that I didn’t want to ignore, especially if we were blowing up the world in twenty hours or so. So I did as Eve suggested, ignored the winks exchanged between Eve, Myra, and Emily, and took my girlfriend to bed.
Chapter 36
I woke up the next morning after not getting enough sleep, staggered to the bathroom, and started to shake the cobwebs out of my head. The combination of not much sleep and very much beer had conspired to leave my eyes gritty, head fuzzy, and sweat a little funky. That and I really wanted to find the cat that had shit in my mouth while I slept.
I took a quick shower, chiseled the funk off my tongue with a toothbrush and sandpaper, and headed back into the room. Myra had opened the curtains and sat wrapped in a sheet on the bed, looking out at the sky.
I slid into the bed, wrapped my arms around her, and whispered, “You’re looking way too serious for such a beautiful morning. What’s up?”
“Tonight it ends. One way or another, it’s over at midnight.”
“What is?”
; “This whole thing. This little paradise we’ve had the last week or so.”
“You know, you Texans have a weird idea of paradise. Must come from eating lizards as children or something. ‘Cause trust me, the last time I saw paradise, there was a lot less punching in it.” She leaned back into my chest and looked up at me.
Surprised to see moisture in her eyes, I reached up to touch her cheek. She caught my hand and pulled it to her lips. As she kissed my hand and rubbed it along her cheekbone, one fat tear slid down. I caught it on a fingertip and brought it to my lips.
The Chosen Page 18