He looked up with a frown as she closed the door. “Magnet,” he said, holding up the book in his hands and pointing to a picture. “What is attract?”
Alex dropped the room key on the dresser beside the television, her exhaustion-fogged brain struggling for a definition he would understand. “Something that pulls another thing toward it,” she decided.
“What something?”
“A force of some kind. It’s invisible—you can’t see it.” She set their dinner on the desk and then placed her wallet beside it, flicking open the clasp. “This is a magnet. See how this piece pulls the other side toward it? That’s attraction.”
She demonstrated a few times and then, with a smile, handed the wallet over to a captivated Seth while she unpacked the deep-fried chicken, french fries, and coleslaw. Hardly her dinner of choice, but the fast food place had been the closest thing still open and she hadn’t wanted to leave Seth to his own devices while she hunted down something less artery clogging. If only she’d left him playing with a magnet in her absence, he might have remained occupied for hours.
“Alex, you are a magnet, too?”
Alex looked over to find Seth frowning again. “Why do you say that?”
Seth’s gaze lifted, meeting hers with an intensity that sent a curl of warning through her belly. “You attract me.”
Oh. Alex’s memory leapt back to a moment when she’d stood outside a church-turned-slaughterhouse, her hand on Seth’s arm. Something had flared between them in that instant. An unexpected something she had all but forgotten, that returned now with a shocking swiftness. The already small room shrank ten sizes. Setting down the box of french fries, she opened her mouth, then snapped it closed again when no sound emerged. She groped for the chair and sank into it, searching for a response.
Seth preempted her efforts.
“Why?” He studied her, his dark eyes curious and warm. Too warm. “Why do you attract me?”
Change the subject, she told herself. Distract him.
Seth, however, had other ideas.
“Do I attract you?” His voice dropped, roughened, and his words slid over Alex like raw silk, catching on her every heightened nerve ending.
Alex curled her fingers into the chair arms. Hell. She’d just lost her soulmate, the world was on the verge of annihilation, she had somehow managed to become the savior of the savior, and her answer to the whole mess was a rush of hormones?
Her cell phone shrilled into the taut, expectant silence and she damn near vaulted from the chair. Hand shaking, she tugged the phone from its case and flipped it open.
“Jarvis,” she croaked.
“You’ll notice I’m doing you the courtesy of calling instead of coming to your room,” a gruff male voice said.
“Detective Henderson?”
“He’s missing.”
Caught off guard by Henderson’s abruptness—and still reeling from Seth’s questions—Alex almost forgot to play dumb. She bit back her well-rehearsed but too-early denial just in time. “He who?”
“Coffee,” Henderson replied. “Same place as before. Five minutes.”
The connection went dead. Alex lowered the phone, stared at it, and then snapped it shut. Son of a bitch. She might be considered one of the best interrogators on the Toronto police force, but she had met her match in Vancouver’s Hugh Henderson. The man changed direction so often and so quickly she found herself hard-pressed just to keep up, let alone keep her wits about her.
Tapping the phone against one knee, she went over the terse conversation again. She suspected Henderson’s comment about calling instead of coming to her room had been more veiled threat than courtesy. If she wasn’t in the coffee shop in—she glanced at her watch—four and a half minutes, she’d guarantee he’d be at the door in six.
She looked over at Seth, relieved to find the intensity in his gaze replaced with curiosity. At the very least, taking a break to see Henderson would give her time to decide how she was going to handle the attraction issue.
She hoped.
“I have to go out,” she said. “Just for a little while. Will you be okay here?”
“I come?”
In spite of her current stress level, Alex’s lips quirked. Tomorrow they’d have to do something about grammar. “Not this time. I have to go alone. You stay here and read, and—” She broke off at a sudden idea and rose from the chair. Going to the television, she switched it on, hoping it was one of the things in the hotel—unlike hallway light bulbs—that worked.
A picture sprang to life on the screen. Success. She turned to Seth. “This is a television. I don’t know if there’s satellite or not, but there should be enough on to keep you occupied for a while. You change channels with these buttons.” She pressed the up arrow and then the down, and Seth’s eyes narrowed on the television. “And this is for volume.”
Louder. Softer. Seth’s eyes widened and he reached for the control. Alex smiled.
“Just don’t turn it up too loud, all right? We don’t want to disturb the neighbors.”
“Neighbors?”
Right, he hadn’t reached n in the dictionary yet. Was still at m. M for magnet. Alex’s cheeks warmed again.
“The people in the rooms around us.” Lifting her wallet from the desk, she tucked it into her jacket pocket. “So we have this straight, right? I go, you stay?”
Seth flicked the channel upward several times and grinned. “I stay,” he agreed, and settled in to investigate his new toy.
NINETEEN
Alex stripped off her rain-soaked jacket and slid into the booth across from Henderson. She shook her head at the approaching waitress. Her jitters were bad enough without adding caffeine to the mix. Clinging to the questionable calm she’d managed to impose over herself on the short walk from the hotel, she met the Vancouver detective’s eyes. “Well?” she asked. “I’m here. Now what?”
“Now you tell me who he really is and why you’re hiding him in your room.”
Balling sweaty hands into fists under the table, Alex readied herself to lie through her teeth. She’d make a lousy criminal. “I assume you’re talking about Seth, Detective, in which case I’ve already told you all I know about him, and what do you mean hiding him? Are you telling me he’s missing?” She allowed her voice to rise with what she hoped was the right amount of concerned indignation.
Henderson’s gaze didn’t so much as flicker. “When you clench a hand, there’s a corresponding muscle movement as far up the arm as the shoulder,” he remarked. “You might want to watch for that in your interviews. It’s a dead giveaway of nerves.”
Alex’s fists tightened before she could stop herself. She knew that, damn it. She’d just been so focused on keeping her face still—she scowled at her colleague. “I know how to conduct an interview, Detective Henderson. What I don’t know is what I’m doing here.”
Leaning back on the bench seat, Henderson toyed with a spoon on the table until Alex was tempted to snatch it away and rap it across his knuckles. She swallowed, remembering a time when she’d wanted to do something similar to Aramael. When she’d sat in another coffee shop a lifetime away and witnessed the beginning of the end of the reality she thought she’d known.
“Benjamin disappeared from his room,” said Henderson.
Wrenching her mind back to the present, Alex stepped into semi-rehearsed territory. She frowned. “When?”
“They noticed the absence at dinner.”
“Who the hell left his door unlocked?”
“No one. It was still locked.”
Alex paused for effect and then drawled, “He’s missing from a locked room and I’m responsible. What, I waved my magic wand and poof, he disappeared?” She flapped away Henderson’s response and, not wanting to push her luck too far, switched tactics. “Never mind. What about the cameras? They’re all over that ward—they must have caught something.”
“That’s the problem. They didn’t. They show everything else, but no Benjamin. Not so much
as a glimpse of him. He was in the room, and then he wasn’t.” Setting aside the spoon, Henderson leaned forward, placing his elbows on the table. His gaze held Alex’s for a bare second before sliding away, up toward a television suspended from the wall over the counter.
Alex wondered whose idea it had been to question her this time: Henderson’s or Riley’s.
“I spoke to your supervisor.”
Another topic change. “Oh?”
Henderson’s gaze skipped back to hers. It moved away again. “You didn’t tell me Benjamin saved your life in that fire.”
Caution prickled up Alex’s spine. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Roberts saw Benjamin standing in the flames when you staggered out. You were bleeding and burned. He didn’t have a mark on him.” Henderson continued to look toward the television. “And before you say it, I asked. Roberts swears he wasn’t seeing things.”
Alex waited, certain he wasn’t yet done. Her gaze traveled over the lines of fatigue etched around his eyes and the scruff along his jawline, the look of a cop working too many hours. One who had seen way more than any person should have to see and yet continued to do his job because someone had to. She thought about Roberts, a cop just as dedicated as Henderson, who knew so much more than she’d realized and had risked his reputation to share the information.
For her sake.
Was she ready to take the same risk?
Henderson sighed and flicked another glance her way. “Your staff inspector made some pretty bizarre statements, Jarvis. I’m not sure what I’m supposed to think.”
Welcome to the club.
Crossing her arms on the table, Alex hunched her shoulders. “Detective Henderson—” she began.
But Henderson cut her off with a wave of one hand as he slid out of the booth. He crossed to the counter and called to the waitress. “Turn that up, will you?” He gestured at the television.
The waitress demurred, citing rules, but stopped when Henderson flashed his badge. With a shrug, she stood on tiptoe and raised the volume on the television. The female news anchor’s voice filled the late-night quiet of the coffee shop. “…yesterday’s report of unusual pregnancies occurring in China has triggered a flood of similar accounts from around the world. Dozens of families and medical personnel have stepped forward in the last twenty-four hours, claiming to know of babies delivered a mere three weeks after conception. As bizarre as the claims are, however, even more unsettling is the fact that none of the mothers have survived childbirth. The medical community is at a loss to explain the phenomenon, and scientists are scrambling to find answers. In the meantime, several religious groups…”
Henderson’s cell phone shrilled and he unclipped it from his belt, signaling to the waitress to lower the volume once more. “Henderson. Yeah, I just saw. No, I’m with Detective Jarvis.”
He met Alex’s gaze and mouthed. “Riley.”
Wonderful. Alex tuned out Henderson’s side of the phone conversation and stole another look at the screen over his head. A list of countries had appeared, each with a number beside it. Russia, four; India, six; China, seven; Australia, two; the U.S., eight; Canada, three; Mexico, five—the list went on. Alex frowned. The hair on the back of her neck prickled and a half-formed idea slipped across her mind.
“I have to go.”
Alex jumped as Henderson materialized at her elbow and took down the coat he’d hung on the rack beside the booth. She nodded at the television. “What’s that all about?” she asked.
“Other than the weirdest damn shit I’ve ever seen?” He shrugged into the coat and scooped up a set of keys from the table. “I have no idea.”
Alex raised an eyebrow. “So why the interest?”
Already three steps away, Henderson twisted around. He stared at Alex, a muscle in his jaw twitching. Alex waited.
“A case I’m working on may be connected,” he allowed. He lifted his chin toward the evening news. “Two, actually. Both claimed they’d been raped. One died giving birth a couple of days ago. We thought she was just a messed-up kid, but now—” He broke off, frustration stamped across his brow, and then muttered, “Now I don’t know what to think.”
“And the other?”
Gray tinged Henderson’s skin and the Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat. “Suicide,” he said. “Two nights ago.”
A shiver crawled down Alex’s spine and the half-formed notion resurfaced in her mind, twining with Henderson’s revelation. “What about the babies?” she called after him.
Henderson looked over his shoulder. “They’re holding the first for observation. The second died with the mother. And Riley just called to say they may have a third in ER.”
Alex stared again at the television screen as Henderson shoved open the door and stepped out into the night. The elusive idea began to take shape. Solidified. Brought her out of her seat with a “Son of a bitch!” that turned heads.
Henderson hunched past the coffee shop window, head down and collar up against the driving rain. Rounding a corner, he disappeared from sight. Alex hesitated for a split second and then bolted after him.
She caught up with him as he pulled open the door of a nondescript, dark blue sedan. “Detective Henderson, wait—”
Stooped to slide into the car, Henderson hesitated and then straightened again. Rain plastered his short-cropped hair to his scalp and ran in rivulets down his face. He frowned at her over the roof of the car.
“What is it?”
Alex hesitated. Seth. She should get back to Seth. But she needed to know if she was right about the pregnancies. About—she pulled her coat closer against the weather’s onslaught. The hospital wasn’t far. It would take her a half hour, tops. She’d be there and back well before the television had lost its charm. If Henderson agreed.
She swiped a drip of water from her nose and raised her voice over the rain. “I want to come with you.”
Henderson’s eyebrows joined over his nose. “Why?”
“These girls, the pregnancies—you’re sure the news report is right?”
“You know something.”
“I have an idea. But I want to confirm it before I say anything. I need to talk to the girl.” Before I throw away my career, what little respect you have for me, and my apparent sanity, all in one shot. “Please.”
Henderson stared at her for a long moment and then, without a word, he slid behind the steering wheel and closed the door with a thud. Taking his silence as agreement, Alex pulled open the passenger door and climbed in beside him.
“WHAT DO YOU mean, he’s gone?” Lucifer looked up from his writing and scowled. “Gone where?”
Samael shrugged. “We have no idea.”
“He can’t have just disappeared—” Breaking off, Lucifer stared at Sam, then set aside his pen. “He disappeared.”
“The way the humans tell it, yes.”
“He has his powers.”
“It looks that way.”
Lucifer rested an elbow on the chair’s armrest and tapped a finger against his mouth. “Well, well. Now I’m really curious. Anything from the Guardians?”
“Nothing. If I had to guess, I’d say they’re as much in the dark as we are, but they’re not saying a word about any of it, not even among themselves.”
“But no trace of Heavenly presence near him.”
“Unfortunately not.” Samael folded his arms and leaned against the door frame. “And believe me, I’ve been watching.”
Lucifer did believe him; no one would be happier than Sam to find an excuse to cry foul so he could at last go to war. “Contain yourself, Samael. If things have gone as awry as I think on Heaven’s end, you may well be engaged in battle sooner than I’d planned.”
“What do you think happened?”
“Something catastrophic. Seth’s transition as an adult and his amnesia are mistake enough, but to retain his powers? I suspect all of Heaven is in an uproar over this.”
“Huh,” Sam muttered. �
�Maybe that would explain it.”
Lucifer raised an eyebrow. “Explain what?”
“There’s been a Judgment. I haven’t been able to find out against whom, yet, but it might be connected to this.”
Lucifer’s heart clenched. Judgment. There hadn’t been a Judgment since his own, six thousand years before, the very memory of which still turned his core to ice. Lucifer forced a swallow and fixed his aide with a glare. “And you didn’t think to mention this to me because…?”
Another shrug from his aide, this one containing a distinct air of arrogance. “You’ve never been all that detail oriented. I didn’t think you’d care.”
Lucifer watched the fingers of his right hand curl into a fist atop the leather-bound journal on the desk. “Again, Sam?” he asked, his voice soft. “The warning the other day wasn’t enough? You tread a dangerous path these days, my friend.”
“Better than the imaginary one you tread,” Samael retorted. “Damn it, Lucifer, open your eyes. With or without the Nephilim, we’re still going to have to fight the same war and suffer the same losses.”
“But without them, we cannot hope to take on the mortals as well.”
Samael studied him. “You’re certain that’s your reason for hesitating?”
“It is my reason for biding my time,” Lucifer agreed through his teeth. “And you might want to be careful where you’re going with this.”
Samael heeded the warning for all of a second before he continued as if Lucifer hadn’t spoken. “Because you know she’ll never take us back. She can’t, and you’re an idiot if you think otherwise.”
Lucifer slammed his fist against the desktop. Polished mahogany cracked through and a half dozen peppermints bounced from their bowl. Samael rustled his wings, angry frustration warring with a watchfulness that told Lucifer the Archangel knew he had overstepped. Again.
His aide’s expression turned sullen. “Forgive me,” he muttered. “I go too far.”
“Yes,” Lucifer agreed. “You do.”
He hated that the former Archangel was right—hated even more the weakness in himself that wished otherwise, even after all this time. Lucifer pushed back from the desk. Needing a moment to gather himself together after Samael’s accusation—for that’s what his aide’s words had been—he picked up the journal he’d been working on and slid it into place on a shelf behind him, the last in hundreds exactly like it but for the numbers on their spines. One thousand and eleven of them now, an ongoing memoir begun as a labor of love. A record of every thought, every action, every reason for doing all he had done. All he would do. Because he was damned if he would be held responsible for anything more than loving too much or too deeply.
Sins of the Son: The Grigori Legacy Page 13