by S W Vaughn
He drew a pained breath and pushed harder. The branch broke through his back, ripped his shirt further. He sobbed, but said nothing.
Lorin left him kneeling in his blood, and went to find more branches.
* * * *
Despite the horror she'd just witnessed, Grace felt oddly calm. That woman—what had she called her? Neffa limb, neffle him? A gibberish word. She wouldn't think just now about the strength it must require to rip a person's head clear off, or the fact that the killer and his boss, or whatever she was, apparently had one of those transporters from Star Trek stashed somewhere.
Gradually, she realized the sense of peace had spread to the crowds. No one screamed or ran, or whipped out cell phones to dial 911. In fact, no one seemed to notice the rather hard-to-miss headless body lying on the sidewalk or the severed head at Grace's feet. How had they developed collective amnesia?
Shit. With the killer gone, she looked guilty. She edged out of the shadows and stared again at the door, left open on gaping gloom. She still felt that sense of electricity flooding everything. Maybe there were more like her—like them—inside.
Maybe she wasn't alone in the world.
Grace glanced back. No one looked in her direction. She slipped through the gap and closed the door. Seamless dark greeted her inside. Her eyes adjusted enough to realize there was nothing at all here. Just a floor, walls, a ceiling. No furniture, no debris or bare wires. She tried to sense something electrical. A light would be useful. Manipulating machines was another of her abnormal abilities. Thank goodness she hadn't shared that with her mother. The woman would have had her influencing lottery results, and probably brewing her morning coffee too.
Her mind connected with something, and she urged it to operate. Dim light shone to her right and illuminated stairs leading down. She approached them, stopped, and listened. She heard the steady beat of her heart, her own controlled breathing. Nothing more.
With a shrug, she descended the stairs. The walls blocked her view of whatever awaited her down there. She reached the bottom and dropped into analytical mode to avoid losing her mind at what she saw.
To the left of the stairs, a massive steel door lay flat on the floor. It looked like someone had ripped the hinges off and let it fall. An arm, without a body, had been dropped on the exposed surface, the elbow bent the wrong way. The dim light situated in the stairwell spared her a clear view of the room beyond the doorway. Still, she could make out vague shapes scattered in heaps and clumps across the floor. She guessed at least one of those shapes was minus an arm.
Unable to look away, Grace mentally searched for another light inside the room, found one. It flickered and stuttered as though reluctant to reveal the carnage beneath. When the light steadied, she pressed a hand over her mouth to stifle a cry.
Half a body, the upper half, had come to rest nearest the door. The missing portion appeared to have melted. This had been a male, and he still had two arms. Other bodies littered the room in impossible poses, interspersed with random chunks of flesh and bone—like some of them had swallowed lit sticks of dynamite.
Though their dead eyes no longer glowed, Grace knew at once these people had been like her. She also understood why she'd never seen another. A red-haired witch and a beautiful monster hunted them down and slaughtered them.
And now the killers had seen her face.
Damn, damn, damn. Now what? She couldn't stick around here. She had no doubt they'd come back. Her first step had to be the motel. After that ... well, she'd figure that out when she got there.
She let the light in the room go out, turned toward the stairs. And froze. The serene feeling that had infected the crowd outside swelled, filling her with a compelling urge to stay put, relax, take a chill. An absent smile rose unbidden to her lips. She struggled against the sensation. Beneath it lurked fury and lethal intent, a quiet command to be docile and accept her fate.
Sounds drifted down the stairs. Real sounds. Footsteps. Someone was coming.
Grace forced herself through the tranquil paralysis and plunged into the corpse-strewn room. She stepped in something slippery and spongy. Her stomach rebelled. Clenching her jaw, she moved deliberately toward the back of the room. Just a wet, muddy field. I'm walking through mud. That thing rolling away, that's a rock. Not an eyeball...
The footsteps reached the bottom of the stairs and stopped. “Hello?” A male voice, soft and reassuring and deadly. “Is anyone down here?"
Grace held her breath. Had there been another door in here? She couldn't remember, and she didn't dare juice the light again. Her gut fluttered and lurched. She longed for the dubious safety of the motel. The desire to be there instead of here, right now, consumed her. She pictured the bed with its faded blue-gray comforter, the desk with her laptop in the top drawer, the nice hot shower to wash away the stains of the night. She closed her eyes briefly.
And opened them in her motel room.
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Chapter 3
Grace sat down hard on the floor. What the hell...?
This was her room. Her scant wardrobe hung in the open armoire. Her cigarette case lay on the desk beside the lamp. The door stood closed and locked. How had she gotten here?
A half-formed memory whispered through her mind. The beach. Autumn, just after she'd turned thirteen. Alone. She'd been sucked into a riptide and panicked. She remembered desperately longing for the safe, sandy shore beneath her—and in seconds finding it there with no recollection of how she'd escaped the deadly current.
Exhilaration and relief warred with nausea. Within seconds, nausea won out and she stumbled for the bathroom. At least she hadn't eaten any casino food. After a mercifully brief purging, she stripped and showered, wrapped herself in the motel bathrobe she'd left hanging on the back of the door, and wandered out to collapse in the desk chair.
Grace knew she'd moved herself here, but whatever she'd done had drained her. Even pulling out her laptop seemed a heavy task. She slouched in the chair and closed her eyes. She would just take a few minutes and rest.
Hours later, she awoke to the triple beep of the room phone that indicated the front desk calling.
Grace groped for the receiver and fumbled it to her ear. “'Lo?” she muttered.
"Is this Ms. Susan Donovan?"
"Yes,” she said before her sleep-fogged brain could think to lie. She immediately regretted the admission. No one had reason to call her for anything, least of all something pleasant. This wouldn't be good.
"I have a Mr. Howard Leiderman of the Golden Egg Casino on the line for you."
The line clicked and opened up. “Hello? Mrs. Donovan?"
Grace sighed. “Ms. Donovan,” she said. “And yes."
"Ms. Donovan. My name is Howard Liederman, I'm the owner of the—"
"So I've been told.” Fully awake now, Grace leaned forward and drummed the fingers of her free hand on the edge of the desk. Casino owners hated her. Hell, everyone hated her, but when it came to crooked and tight-fisted pricks, she returned the sentiment. “Your security staff has already interrogated me, Mr. Liederman. What do you want?"
"I understand you paid us a visit this evening and experienced a sizeable stroke of luck."
"And?"
"I'd like to offer my apologies for the way my staff treated you."
"Apology accepted. Good night."
"Wait!” A trace of desperation edged the word. Grace couldn't read minds over the phone but she had a fair idea regarding this man's thoughts. His next statement proved her right. “As a token of good will, we're offering you a complimentary three-night stay in our VIP suites, and a casino credit account for one hundred thousand dollars."
The high roller club. He wanted her to come back with his money, gamble it away again, and preferably end up deeper in the hole. “No thanks."
"How about five nights and two hundred thousand?"
Grace was tempted to play it out, just to see how high he'd go. Instead she said, “Not i
nterested. Thanks anyway."
His tone shifted from quasi-sympathetic to frigid. “In that case, Ms. Donovan, I hope you understand that it would be in your best interests not to return to the Golden Egg. After all, there are plenty of other casinos to choose from."
"Understood. Goodbye.” Grace hung up with a snort. It wasn't the first casino she'd been banned from. She leaned back and ran a hand through her hair. It was getting shaggy again. She would have to cut it soon. She'd liked it long, but her photo on the missing posters featured her former cascading curls and she sure as hell didn't want to be found. Especially now that she knew there were others like her—unless the massacre at the casino had wiped them all out.
The thought forced her closer to tears than she'd been in years. She'd tried to convince herself she could handle eternal isolation, a lifetime alone, and she'd almost believed it. But one glimpse of glowing eyes that weren't hers had erased her convictions—and an instant after her barriers had crashed down, her fragile hopes were drowned in blood. It wasn't fair. Had those mangled bodies been the only other ... whatever she was?
Somehow, she had to find out.
She pulled her laptop from the drawer and switched it on. She hadn't paid for an Internet connection in the room—no need, when her mind could jack into cyberspace at will. She would look for what the woman had called her. Maybe they were some sort of underground cult, or something. She tried neffle him and found a bunch of people with the surname Neffle. Neffa limb turned up the New England Folk Festival Association. She doubted the slaughtered ones had been accordion players.
Maybe it was one word. She entered neffalimb, and was prompted, Did you mean nefilim? She checked it. Nefilim: a Los Angeles-based indie band. Possible, but not likely. She added another f and ran a new search.
Did you mean: nephilim?
A chill snaked down her spine. That looked right. She clicked on the first link and found a reference article that began: The Nephilim, referred to in the Torah and in early Christian and Jewish writings, were an alleged people born of the “sons of God” and the “daughters of man." The article went on to quote the Bible, “The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of man and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown."
She scanned the rest of the text with mounting alarm. This couldn't be right. It was ridiculous, impossible. At the bottom of the page, she found an image of a painting—a naked woman clinging to a dark-skinned and muscled man with a big set of ... wings. The caption read: Portrait of a ‘fallen one’ and his bride.
The Nephilim were children of humans and angels.
Stunned, Grace straightened and stared at the image. Angels, indeed. Even if they existed, what angel would be attracted to her mother? She'd never met her father, but whoever he was, she didn't blame him for not staying with Kendra Carrington. If she'd had a choice, Grace would have taken off at thirteen when her abilities developed.
This revelation brought her no further to the truth. Maybe the red-haired woman was simply psychotic. It wasn't hard to imagine anyone with abilities like hers sinking into denial, losing themselves in paranoid delusions. Grace had fought to stay logical and sane since the first time she heard someone else, a school classmate, thinking in her head. The girl had called her a ritzy whore, or something like that, and Grace had screamed at her, started a fight. She hadn't realized the other girl had never spoken aloud until later, in detention. The realization floored her, and she'd been almost catatonic for the rest of the day.
Things had gone downhill at school after that, until her mother had her institutionalized shortly after her “talents” became apparent in her eyes. The glow had become noticeable about a month following that first incident.
So maybe this woman was nuts—but dismissing the way her killer had ripped a man's head off with no more effort than opening a pop-top can proved harder. Was that even humanly possible?
She realized she'd started to think not human and stopped herself. Of course they were human. Certainly not normal, but definitely human.
Grace powered down her laptop with a twinge of unease. She'd have to leave Vegas. Whoever these two were, she knew they would track her down, and soon. And she liked her head right where it was, thank you very much. In the morning, she would cash one of the checks and head out.
She didn't know where she would go. Anywhere except here sounded good.
* * * *
Special Agent Lee Zane knew what happened—or rather, who happened—before he glimpsed the full crime scene. The torn arm in front of the door, tagged and bagged when he arrived for the second time, told him everything.
He had a knack for reaching scenes like this first. Despite his certainty one of them had still been alive when he'd come down before, he'd stepped back as always to give the local police their temporary jurisdiction, Now, it was time for him to take it away.
A uniform approached him with a hand on his gun. His drawn features indicated he'd seen the aftermath in the room beyond. “Get out of here,” he snapped. “This is a police investigation."
Zane held out his badge. The cop looked at it, blanched. “Jesus, the Feds already?"
Nodding, Zane glanced through the doorway. There was no electricity to this abandoned building. Inside, high-powered flashlight beams passed reluctantly over piles of body parts. He'd seen the floodlight outside, waiting to come down after they'd gotten the extension cord plugged in next door. “Who's running the show?” he asked the uniform.
"Lieutenant Hughes. You want me to get him?"
"I'll find him. Thanks.” Zane heard the unspoken implication to the question. Don't make me go back in there. Personally, the scene didn't bother him. He'd seen worse.
He stepped over the arm, into the gloom. “Lieutenant Hughes?"
"Who's that? George?” A flashlight beam swung toward him and shone in his face.
Zane hoisted the badge again. “Special Agent Zane. A word, please.” He lowered his arm, waited.
Hughes grunted and picked his way through the carnage. “C'mon out in the hall. Light's better.” The lieutenant passed him in a hurry.
Zane smiled. He had a feeling there'd be none of the usual reluctance to surrender jurisdiction this time. They'd be happy to get this case off their hands.
Once outside the room, the lieutenant moved to the bottom of the stairwell and produced a pack of cigarettes. “You don't mind, do you? I don't normally smoke on the scene, but what a fuckin’ mess. You see any of that?” Hughes lit up without waiting for Zane's response.
"I saw enough.” A clatter and thud sounded at the top of the stairs. Bringing the floodlight down. “How long have your people been here?"
"Twenty minutes, tops.” Hughes took an almost violent drag and exhaled hard. “You got here damned fast. I didn't think the Feds had a stake around here."
"I was in the area.” Zane watched two officers struggle to bring the massive grated lamp down the stairs. “I'm assuming you know why I'm here."
"I can guess. This is a bigger mess than it looks like, isn't it?"
"Yes.” He'd been close tonight. Close enough to feel them. Not close enough to catch them, though. “The M.O. matches a pair of serial killers we've been tracking for a long time. Their timetable is erratic, but their methods are regular as clockwork. Problem is, we never know when or where they're going to strike next."
Hughes shook his head. “Damned frustrating. I take it we're out of this, then."
"As of now. I'd appreciate it if you leave the floodlight though. I'll make sure it's returned. My backup's en route.” The floodlight in question was carried past them. Zane moved back to give them clearance.
"Sure, yeah. Just take us a bit to clear out."
"How many personnel are on the scene?"
"A dozen, including myself."
"No one talks about this. Understand?"
For the first time, Hughes favored him wi
th a skeptical look. He indulged in a deliberate drag, and took his time responding. “You think I'm going to the press with this, you're nuts. It'll be in the reports though."
"No, it won't.” Zane kept his gaze level. “You're not filing a single scrap of paper on this case. I've already cleared it with your headquarters. As far as you and your people are concerned, this never happened."
"Now wait just a minute. There's a fuck of a lot of bodies in there. Those people have families. Somebody has to notify them. By standard op, that job falls to us. We can't just bury it."
"You can, and you will. First of all, you'll never catch these two. How's that going to reflect on your department when ten simultaneous murders stay unsolved?"
"How do you know there's ten? So many goddamned body parts in there, it's impossible to tell—"
"I'm estimating. Second, if even a whisper of this leaks out, we'll never catch them either. This situation is top-level classified. Anyone who talks loses their job, and I'll personally make sure they do a stretch in federal prison. Not a pleasant place for cops. Are we clear?"
"You unbelievable bastard."
"Are we clear?"
Hughes glowered and pitched his cigarette on the floor. “Yeah, we're clear. Fuckin’ crystal.” He moved toward the scene and glanced back with disgust. “If I don't get my floodlight back, I'll sue your Federal ass."
Zane didn't reply. He stood back to wait, aware it would take them a while to vacate the scene. He almost wanted to reassure Hughes about family notification. These victims rarely had families, and those that did weren't likely to keep in touch with them.
Their deaths didn't concern him. He and the killers had the same agenda. The humans needed protection from creatures like the ones littering the floor in there. The problem in this case literally lay in the execution. Public slaughter constituted interference, especially when he'd had to alter the memories of dozens—no, hundreds of human witnesses at this scene alone.
Interference was the most common reason the Hunters had for destroying their own kind. And Lorin had taken things too far this time. She had been marked, and he would end her.