by Cate Morgan
She was about to replace the blade when a knock came to her door.
CHAPTER TWO
Paris had once been a jewel—perhaps the jewel—of western Europe. But the Seven-Year War had put an end to that, as it had to so many cities across the world. Now people camped beneath every available roof, living day to day for survival. Peace was kept by private militia, funded by government conglomerates and entities like the Vatican. Even after the biosphere shielding the fell—along with its creator, Dreamtech—citizens were afraid to leave because of what might still be out there.
Their last attempt at evacuation had ended in disaster.
Alex didn’t blame them. Unlike most unfortunate souls, he’d seen what was out there. Fought it. Nearly got killed more than once. And then, at the behest of his militia, become the very thing he’d been battling all along.
It had seemed a good idea at the time. Fighting fire with fire, and all that. Until he’d come home, and there’d been no place for a man half-soldier, and half-demon.
Father Desmond had taken him in, when he’d had nothing left to lose. Having ducked into the cathedral to escape acid-tinged sleet, Alex found comfort in stained glass windows miraculously unharmed. The grand, sweeping ceiling offering the promise of peace. The first he’d known since before the war.
Desmond had fed him, sheltered him, given him a job. Given him purpose.
He always remembered that first night he'd crossed the Pont St-Michel over the murky Seine into the Ile de la Cite, just as he was doing now. He paused at the apex of the half-crumbling bridge and gazed up at the mighty cathedral.
Now he had a murdered angel on his hands. One the Padre knew. Alex worried what he would find when he arrived.
He didn't head to the cathedral, however, or the Crypte de Archeologie hunkering beside it like a disgruntled Frenchman who’d discovered vinegar in his glass instead of wine. Instead, he ducked down a side street that emptied into a wide plaza. Like the Eiffel Tower, a lively tent village and market had sprung up. Religious paraphernalia were popular here, with street preachers shouting every few yards. Alex caught at least three languages, but there were no doubt more.
He made for the hospital where his mentor did most of his work, and those in need went to be healed, or sleep a night or two out of the rain. A side door led him down into the morgue.
Desmond greeted him over Brendan's corpse, which lay out on a metal table waiting to be examined.
“Ah, there you are,” Desmond said, looking up from his work with a smile. “Where’s young Johnson?”
“Sealing the crime scene,” Alex replied. “Then home. He’s still pretty new to all this.”
Desmond nodded. “Probably for the best. No one’s ever ready for the adjustments they have to make in this work of ours.”
Silently agreeing, Alex reached into his jacket pocket and extracted the vials of blood. He gave them to the Padre.
Desmond brightened. “Excellent work, son. I take it he was entirely drained?”
“Seemed that way.” Alex paused. "Did you know he was an angel?"
The old man shook his head with a self-deprecating smile. “I broke two needles before it occurred to me. Thankfully, I’ve only just gotten started.”
An angel’s skin turned more or less impenetrable after death to stop humanity from discovering certain ineffable facts. The world was bad off enough without sending it into yet another tailspin.
Desmond gave Alex a penetrating look. “Did you see anything?”
He shrugged. “Not a lot. A figure leaning over him, cloaked in shadow. A flash of bright light. Then nothing.”
Desmond’s brow cleared. He looked pleased. “You weren’t blocked?”
Alex remembered the intangible barrier that had separated him from the scene. “I got the impression they were having a conversation without words.”
Desmond gazed down Brendan. “Too bad we mere humans are not privy to such things. They might prove useful when the apocalypse arrives.”
“I’m sorry about your friend. Was he helping you with Michael’s sword?”
Desmond’s work involved tracking down holy relics in anticipation the coming war. He knew humanity would be trapped between the two armies. Alex didn’t know how many sacred objects he’d actually found, but the archangel Michael’s sword was an artifact of especial interest to him. It would be the ultimate weapon in their service, if they could locate it.
And then there was the fact that, according to Desmond, an angel’s sword could leech the demon from him once and for all. Even if it killed him in the process—a distinct possibility—it would be worth it to have his soul back.
“He was,” Desmond said with a regretful sigh. “He even dug up one or two leads, nothing solid. But it was a start.”
Alex perked up. “Did he have any enemies?”
“Brendan? I doubt it, other than the obvious.” He gestured to indicate the corpse before him. “But other than our mutual work, I didn’t know him well. Now I wish I had.”
“Friends, then? Anyone I can ask about him?”
Desmond turned to wash his hands at the nearby sink. “There might be someone. A young woman, I believe.”
Alex blinked. “The angel had a girlfriend?”
Desmond chuckled. “Nothing like that. No, she was a student of his, I think. I’d start with his bookshop, if I were you.”
"What remains of it," Alex said, and told him about the fire.
Had the Padre been anyone else, he might have cursed. "Salvage what you can, then. I believe he also had a dig site over by the catacombs."
Alex had started with less. “I’ll get to it, then.”
He was nearly at the door when Desmond called him back. “If you find her,” he said, drying his hands in preparation for getting down to business, “you must bring her to me.”
Alex lifted a brow. “If you say so, Padre.”
Many of the city’s cathedrals and landmarks had been destroyed in the war. The Eiffel Tower still existed as a burnt-out hulk with missing girders. Some hopeful soul had laced it with twinkling Christmas lights. The Arc de Triomphe was nothing more than a pair of crumbling pillars. Montmartre had been completely wiped out. The Louvre…
Well, less said the better.
Alex prowled the remains of Brendan's shop.
The aisles were as cramped as Paris’ medieval streets, stuffed to the brim with tomes burnt beyond recognition. He worked his way through the rubble to the back where he finally found what looked like to have been an office.
It seemed Brendan had repaired bindings and replaced pages with care in here. Alex sighed and crouched to sort through the mess.
He unearthed a photo that looked as though it had been torn from the wall. It was Brendan on the Seine ferry, grinning broadly and clad in a tweed overcoat. Next to him stood a young woman of perhaps twenty-eight, with strawberry blonde hair. She had wary, cat-like dark eyes.
Pretty. Alex wondered if this was the same woman the Padre remembered. He checked the back of the photo.
Brendan and Cara
Arrival to Paris
Autumn 2031
Cara couldn’t be that common a name. Into his pocket it went.
That’s when he noticed the safe. A painting of a Paris jazz club leaned against the wall to reveal it, and the door stood open. The safe was empty, but evidently it hadn’t been recently. Before or after Brendan’s death?
He was about to leave when he noticed something beneath what was left of the desk. It looked as though it had fallen through the bottom of a drawer burnt clear through. He reached for it. A moment later he extracted a large, leather bound journal. Brown leather, embossed with a large, extravagant tree. Its branches and roots were entwined in a perfect globe. He knew without opening book that it was important.
He drew out his phone and did a city search for women named Cara. Then he cross-referenced the results with the bookshop’s address.
A flurry of photos arranged themselves into
a handy slide show. All with the woman in Brendan’s photo. He found one with her full face showing and ran it through his recognition program. Working for the Vatican did have its perks.
Less than a minute later he had a full name and an address. He pocketed the device with a smile. After ascertaining the coast was clear, he ducked around the shop and scaled the next building over.
Okay, so sometimes having a symbiotic demon had its moments. He liked traveling the rooftops, at least. Much more than the catacombs, which were downright creepy.
It didn’t take him long to reach Cara Kendrick’s tenement building. Most of the stairs were gone, but—ironically—the old elevator worked. Some enterprising person or other had rigged up a makeshift pulley system. As he turned the wheel it rattled upwards to the top floor.
He’s just stepped out onto landing when the elevator plummeted like a boulder back to the lobby. He watched it drop, eyebrows raised.
Alex followed the landing around to the first corridor, and stopped. A gaping, moldering hole lay where the floor should be. It left only a narrow strip of iffy floorboard approximately four inches wide. A bike, broken and abandoned, lay on the other side. As though a previous adventurer had attempted to motocross over the impediment, and failed.
Good thing he had other options. He just hoped the ceiling was more stable than the floor.
He closed his eyes a moment, searching for the center in him that wasn’t human. It bubbled to the surface, innate curiosity the foremost emotion. He crouched, right hand flat on the floor.
A moment later he leapt to the ceiling, spine arching back over his center of gravity like a pole vaulter. He left it there, pressing it back when the world tried to right itself. The fall wouldn’t kill him, but it would hurt more than his pride.
He crawled across the ceiling until he was clear of the precipice, and then let physics reassert itself. He landed with a light thud, and brushed his hands clear of dust with satisfaction.
He took the hall all the way to the end, to the last door on the right. A moment’s listening told him she was home. He knocked.
Silence. Then, “Who is it?” in wary tones with a slight lilt.
“Cara Kendrick?” he called through the door.
“Who’s asking?” This time the voice was closer, and sharper.
“My name is Alex Kane. I’ve come about your friend Brendan.”
Another pause. “One moment, please.”
Soon he heard the locks turning in her door—three of them. Then she cracked the door open. “Yes?”
He noticed three things, all at once. First, her eyes weren’t brown or black like he’d originally thought from her picture. They were blue. A deep cobalt that could only be found somewhere like the Indian ocean. And, right now, they were just as stormy.
The second thing is that she looked like she’d recently gone a few rounds with a prize fighter. By the looks of her hands she’d given as good as she’d got.
The final, and most compelling fact that overwhelmed all others was the unmistakable scent of blood. His instincts and senses all clamored together like the bells of Notre Dame.
“Miss Kendrick, are you alright?” He tried to put his foot in the door, preparing to enter, but she stopped him.
“I’m fine.” She looked him up and down. He realized this wasn’t a woman who had been hurt and was now afraid. She was a woman who’d fought, and had survived to be angry. “What about Brendan?”
“Is it okay if I come in?” he pressed. “You’re going to want to sit down for this.”
“Anything you have to tell me can be said right here. I promise I won’t faint.” There was that lilting rhythm again. It didn’t sound French, but he couldn’t quite place it.
He reined in his impatience. Something here was very, very wrong. “I’m sorry to have to tell you that…Miss Kendrick, he's been murdered.”
She looked at him a long moment with those startling eyes. Then her full lips turned up on one side, as though recalling an inside joke. “That’s impossible.” She started to close the door again. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m just on my way out.”
To a hospital, he dearly hoped. His braced one hand on the door, keeping it from closing. “It’s not impossible. Not if another angel or a powerful demon got him.”
The door opened wide enough to strain the security chain as she stared at him. “What do you know about it?” Her voice cracked slightly. Enough for him to know she believed him.
He didn’t break his gaze, striving to show her with expression and tone that she could trust him. “Miss Kendrick,” he said slowly, “I can smell the blood.”
He heard her sharp inhalation of breath. He held his, waiting.
“As you like,” she said at last. “Give me a moment, please. I wasn’t expecting company.”
The door closed, the locks snicking softly back into place.
He discerned another soft scrape of something solid tapping a metallic something else. He spent a few more moments trying to place her accent while he waited.
That’s when he heard the telltale slide of a window opening. Swearing, he rammed the door open with his shoulder. It took a couple of tries, but he crashed into her apartment just as she was ducking onto the fire escape.
She turned, wide-eyed, as she pulled the shoulder strap of a leather baldric over her head. Her mouth thinned, then she jumped and shimmied up to the roof.
He swore again and crawled out after her. He made the roof in one go, but she was already well away, leaping over the alley to the next building. He pelted after her, arms pumping as he tried to catch up. Damn, but she was fast.
He was faster.
He hit the other side with an audible oof. She didn’t make the cardinal mistake of looking behind her. What would be the point? She knew he was there, didn’t matter how close.
She took the next alley with a balletic grande jete, rolled beautifully to her feet. He had to admire her poise. Whoever she was, she had serious moves.
The alley was wider than he anticipated, but he put on a last-moment burst of speed that got him over. He followed her over the next three buildings, realizing she had home field advantage. She’d run this route before, regularly.
But he was no slouch when it came to rooftop chases. His quarry, human or demon, had some of the most interesting hidey-holes that might never have occurred to him otherwise. And up on the roofs, hardly anyone noticed anything out of the ordinary. People tended to keep their heads down these days, and for good reason.
They reached the end of the block. He had no idea where she might be headed next, but he found himself looking forward to finding out.
“Wait!” he shouted as he landed on the last rooftop. “I just want to talk!”
She came to an abrupt stop at other side, just before she went over the edge. She turned to stare at him, breathing hard. Then her eyes flashed the bright, white hot electric blue of lightning. Then she gave a secret smile. I know something you don’t know.
The hell?
Then she took that last step back, and dropped out of sight.
He raced to the ledge, afraid of what he might see below.
Nothing. She was gone.
He continued to stare, searching futilely for a hint of a figure, the sound of running feet. He was doomed to disappointment. It was as though she’d disappeared into thin air.
She had disappeared into thin air.
Well, shit.
Cara came out of between gasping for air. She hated passing through the hollow where space and time intersected after a full out run. There was no oxygen there, the unrelenting resistance of worlds pressing in on one other. As though she were underwater in a vast ocean. She didn’t swim, even as a child, for that very reason. Breaking through the surface was abject relief.
Still, it was a handy escape route in those occasional tight corners. Whoever he’d been, or who he was working for, he’d been tenacious. He’d nearly caught up to her.
She flattened her
hand against the stitch in her side as she fought for breath. Had he been right? Was Brendan dead?
Her first instinct told her it was impossible. But then why had she woken up in a puddle of blood, with no memory of how it happened?
Luckily, she knew where Brendan would go if he were in trouble. And he’d always said if anything happened to him, she was to go there and empty his safe. Being an angel, he’d been unsurprisingly conventional with his secret-keeping.
The Barriere d’Enfer translated to “Gate of Hell”. But really they were a pair of counting houses guarding entry to the nearby catacombs. During the war one of the buildings had been more or less leveled, but the second still stood. For a given value of standing.
The buildings were now the location of an excavation site into the catacombs. She’d been down there more times than she could count, for that is where lesser demons had found their way into Paris during the war. Together she and Brendan had fought them, and cleared them out. Brendan had continued to explore the tunnels long after, searching for answers to questions he’d never thought to share with her. She only knew he was looking for something, but she had never inquired. He was her only friend, and that was enough for her to know he would come to her when he was ready.
She wasn’t headed for the catacombs, however. Instead she went to the nearby counting house and slipped inside. There, in the main room, was Brendan’s work: his maps and notes, his books and journals. She bit her lip and went to the nearby office where he often camped when in the grip of a particularly strong lead.
Cara knocked on the door. “Bren?” She tried the knob.
An unseen force slammed her in the chest and she flew across the room. She cried out as she hit the ancient stone facade behind her, at least ten feet from the floor. She dropped, and only her training bent her knees so she rolled to a stop instead breaking something.