The Devil Is a Gentleman (A Niki Slobodian Novel: Book 2)

by J. L. Murray

  “Well, let's keep walking,” I said. “Keep an eye out.” We walked for a long time, passing pile after pile of random office junk. After a long while I noticed a red glow ahead. “Look, an exit sign,” I said.

  “Hang on a second, sis,” said Gage. I stopped and looked at him. He was holding out his arms and wiggling his fingers. “Do you feel that?”

  “Feel what?” I said. But even as I said it, I knew what he meant. There was an odd tingle to the air. It was faint, nowhere near what I felt the last time I'd been in this building. “Where's it coming from?” I said. “The angel?”

  “I dunno,” said Gage. “But I'm guessing we're on the right track.”

  The exit wasn't locked and we stepped out into a stairwell identical to the first, except there was only one set of stairs, and they were pointed down. We clattered down the steps as quietly as we could and came to a door marked Basement 2, where we were not so lucky. The door was locked.

  “Hang on,” said Gage, opening his satchel and pulling a thick, small volume out. It looked like an old, small Bible, but the title was made up of strange symbols. As I looked at them they changed. “This'll be quick,” he said, flipping through the book. “But cover your ears anyway.”

  I covered my ears and watched Gage put his hand over the handle of the door. Symbols danced in the book, even seeming to float out a bit. Gage's lips moved and suddenly it was over. The door popped open. I took my hands off my ears and Gage closed the book with a snap.

  “That's it?” I said.

  “Yup.”

  “No glowing eyes or hellfire or anything?”

  “It's just a lock,” said Gage.

  We stepped through the door and found ourselves in different sort of basement from the last one. A large furnace filled the center of the room, cold and quiet. There were no boxes here, but there was maintenance equipment stacked in a far corner. Buckets and brooms and mops. A white square sink was built into the floor with a nozzle above it. I thought of Philip Morales, the young janitor the Dark had gone into, and who I had killed here, in this very building. But I shoved him out of my mind. I needed to concentrate. With an effort I looked away from the equipment. There was a washing machine on the next wall, and past it I saw yet another door with an exit sign glowing above it.

  “How many basements can one building have?” I said. We passed through the door with no trouble. Apparently they only locked from the outside. We went down another set of stairs and came to a different sort of door. All the other doors had been painted white with rectangular windows built in. This door was solid silver. It had the word Sub-basement painted on it in stenciled black writing. There was no window or knob. A dialpad was next to the door, set into the wall. The tingling in the air was far stronger here. It set my teeth to grinding and my nerves on edge. I touched the door and instantly pulled my hand back. It was like a shock almost. I could still feel my hand vibrating as I looked up at Gage. The door looked still, but it was jittering with magic.

  “You sure you want to do this?” said Gage. “We don't know what's in there.”

  “Can you unlock it?” I said. “Looks more complicated.” I shook my hand as the feeling came back into it.

  “I'll try,” he said.

  I covered my ears and Gage got out his little book. He flipped through it, frowning, but just as he was about to speak, there was a click that I felt through the soles of my shoes and the heavy door swung inward. I looked at Gage. “That was fast.”

  His eyes were wide. “I didn't do anything,” he said.

  “So either someone knows we're here,” I said, “or we're the luckiest bastards on the planet.”

  “I'm gonna go with the first one,” said Gage. “You want to go in?”

  “We have to,” I said.

  “Could be a trap,” said Gage, putting his book away. “Sure you want to risk it? We've officially broken in. If we get caught we'll go to jail. I don't think Eliza's gonna fess up to sending us here.”

  “Maybe someone knows we're here,” I said. “But maybe it's not The Blood. Maybe it's the angel.”

  “If he can pop open steel doors with his mind, why's he stuck down here?” said Gage.

  “Let's find out,” I said. I pushed the door open all the way, and stepped inside.

  It didn't look like a basement. It looked like a fortified prison from a spy movie. The walls were metal, same as the door. A large vault was built into the very center of the room, the door as thick and impenetrable as that of a submarine. A pad like the one outside was set into the door right above a large metal handle. There was a metal chair just below. Our reflections elongated on our right and left on the mirror-like walls, elongating our bodies right up to the concrete ceiling. A blackened light hung from the middle of the ceiling and cast a dim light.

  “Why's the light black?” whispered Gage.

  I looked around the room. “Probably for the same reason those spots on the floor are black,” I said. There were starbursts on the cement floor. I counted four of them, spaced randomly near the vault in the middle of the room. I swallowed. There had been a starburst like that at Bradley's cabin. His had been larger, though.

  Gage looked at me. “What do you want to do, Niki?” he said. His eyes didn't leave the blackened spot nearest to us. “You still want to do this?”

  “We have to,” I said. “I go to prison if we don't. Your record will be wiped clean when this is all over, don't forget.”

  Gage stopped me with a hand on my arm. He shook his head. “Ain't worth dyin' for, sis,” he said. “We don't know what the hell's in that vault. Sam can get you out, you know he can. Eliza don't have nothin' solid.”

  “Sam was afraid of Eliza,” I said. “Anyway, I don't want to put him in that position.”

  “Yeah, but, don't you feel it?” he said. I did feel it. The teeth-gnashing jolts I had felt outside were almost unbearable here. My hands were shaking. I pulled out the Makarov that Eliza had returned to me and tried to steady it with both hands in front of me.

  “You can go back if you want,” I said. “Or you can open that vault.”

  Gage narrowed his eyes at me. “You're goddamn stubborn sometimes, you know that?”

  “I know,” I said.

  Gage shook his head, but walked to the vault, all the same. There was a noise behind me, a muted clattering outside the door. A series of muffled bleeps on the keypad. I leveled my gun towards the door just as it opened. An old man shuffled in, saw me, and promptly dropped the paper cup of coffee he'd been holding. Black liquid rolled across the floor. The man looked at me, puzzled. He had deep lines on either side of his mouth and wrinkles projecting from his eyes like the hands of a skeleton. His gray hair was slicked back from his forehead and his posture was slightly stooped under his leather jacket. I pulled him inside and closed the door behind him.

  “Are you crazy?” he said.

  Gage was muttering a spell, the symbols floating off the pages of his book. He couldn't hear a thing when he was casting. “Who the hell are you?” I said.

  “Alex,” said the man. He didn't have an accent. “I know you,” he said. “You're Sasha's girl.”

  “You work for The Blood?” I said. “You're not one of Naz's.”

  “No,” he said, offended. “I'm with the Guard.” He broke into a grin, his teeth gray. “They're not happy with you, I'll tell you that,” said the man. “Dorrance about pisses himself every time he hears your name. You've got them scared.”

  I frowned. “That makes you happy?”

  “They stuck me down here because no one else would come,” he said. “You know why, don't you?”

  “They burn up,” I said.

  “Yes,” he said. “Nothing left. I got nothing anymore. I'm not scared. Kill me if he wants. Not going to make a difference. No one will mourn me.” He laughed a dusty cough of a laugh.

  “Niki?” said Gage behind me. “Everything okay?”

  “Fine,” I said without looking from the old man.


  “I can't do it, Nik,” he said, sounding defeated. “I can't get it open. My casting's not working on it.”

  “It won't ever work,” said the man. “They thought they were keeping him here for a while. Turns out, though, he could have left anytime. It's that girl that's got a hold of him. He cares about her.” His face changed, then. He stopped smiling and his eyes widened.

  “You okay?” I said. I put my gun down and reached out my hand.

  “Back away!” he shouted suddenly. I withdrew my hand out of surprise. His skin was reddening as though from exertion. His breath came fast, his mouth opening and closing like a fish trying to breathe. He grabbed his chest.

  “Gage,” I said. “I think he's having a heart attack.” But Gage was right behind me. He put a hand on my shoulder and tried to gently pull me away.

  “Niki, get away from him,” he said softly. I shrugged his hand away and took a step toward the man.

  “Call an ambulance,” I called. I touched the man's hand and pulled it back with a hiss. He was blazing hot. I looked at my hand and there was a burn mark where I'd touched him.

  “Sorry, sis,” said Gage. He wrapped his big arms around me and pulled me across the room, kicking and screaming. He didn't stop until we were on the other side of the vault.

  “Let go, Gage, he needs help,” I shrieked. “I can't just let him die.”

  “There's nothing you can do, sis,” said Gage.

  The man was smoking now, I could see his reflection in the mirrored walls from where Gage was holding me, clamping me to him like a human vice. He was screaming, his shouts echoing off the unyielding metal walls. His body shook like he was having some kind of seizure, tendrils of steam or smoke came from his eyeballs and his mouth. And then he was burning, falling, the unnatural red flame consuming him. I gagged at the smell of melting hair and flesh and leather, but I made myself look. The fire was so bright it make my eyes ache, and it didn't last longer than a minute. When it stopped, there was a blackened pile on the floor, stinking and smoking. All that was left of the old man. And another greasy black starburst on the floor.

  I caught my breath. I had stopped struggling long ago, but Gage had apparently forgotten he was holding me. He let go. I looked at him. “Bobby?” I said.

  “Yeah.”

  “Maybe we should go.” There was an echoing click followed by a long creak as the vault door slowly swung open.

  “Too late,” he whispered.

  Chapter 12

  With a feeling of dread I looked around the corner of the vault. The impregnable door stood ajar.

  “Do you think we'll die here?” I said.

  Gage shrugged. “Good a place as any,” he said. “Whole setup's pretty dodgy. I said as much.”

  “I'm sorry,” I said. “I'll listen to you next time.”

  “We got no choice but to go in now,” he said. “Let's go get your angel.”

  “You don't have to be afraid,” said a high, thin voice from inside the vault. “I'm not going to hurt you.”

  I walked slowly around the side of the vault. I could hear the echo of my boots on the concrete. My hand throbbed where I had touched the guard. Gage was quiet behind me, but I knew he was there. As I came around the vault door I didn't know what to expect. I peered through the door and saw a room, with an oriental rug placed over the metal floor, wall hangings covering the metal sides of the large safe. I ducked through the opening. A small figure was sitting in a padded rocking chair, her mary-janes dangling just above the floor, her dress covering just below her knees. I couldn't see her face in the shadows. She was a child, though.

  I looked to the other figure in the room. It was just as Bradley had said. He was lying on a thick cot, his chest barely rising and falling with each breath, and when he inhaled there was a barely-noticeable rasp, like a snore, only more desperate. He had a blanket on top of him, but I could see how thin he was. There was an IV tube in his arm that was attached to a bag of something clear hanging on a rack.

  “He's tired now,” said the girl. “He won't wake again until I tell him to.”

  “Who are you?” I said, taking a tentative step inside. It smelled of metal and sickness. “Are you the Morrigan?”

  “That's what they call me,” she said, her voice lowering. “When they don't know I'm watching they call me other things. But my father gave me a name once. It was Natalie. I think that's much nicer than Morrigan.” Her voice, at first high and giddy, turned more somber.

  “Is that the angel?” said Gage.

  “I don't want to talk to him,” said Natalie. “I want to talk to you, Niki.”

  “Okay,” I said quickly. “Let's talk. No more burning, though, okay?”

  “Oh, it would kill him if I used him again,” she said, gesturing to the figure on the bed. “And I don't want that.”

  “None of us do,” I said.

  “I went to a lot of trouble to get you here,” said Natalie.

  “You sent Frank Bradley,” I said.

  “He didn't hurt you, did he?”

  “No,” I said. “Why did you send him to me?”

  “Because I wanted to see you,” she said. “I know all about you. I've told them such things. Made them afraid. They think you're their end. They think you'll kill them all.”

  “You probably shouldn't have done that,” I said.

  “Why not?”

  “They want to kill me now,” I said. “You shouldn't have lied.”

  “Who said it's a lie?” There was a creak as she leaned forward. “Do you know I can see you? I can't see most things, least of all regular people, but I see you.” Her face came into the light and I saw what she meant. Her sightless eyes were pale, almost white. Too white. She had a pretty, oval face the color of creamed coffee, and cropped hair tight with curls. She faced me with her white eyes and I fought the urge to look away.

  “I make you uneasy,” she said.

  “No,” I said.

  “That's a lie,” she said. “I can see it when you lie.”

  “What do you mean you can see it?” I said.

  “Danny says I have the sight.”

  “Danny?” I said.

  “The angel,” she said. “He's called Daniel, but I call him Danny.”

  “Cute,” I said, not knowing what else to say.

  “I can do other things, too,” she said. “But my sight is strong. I can see things. Like you. Only I can see more than dead people. Lots of things. Things that shouldn't be in the world.”

  “But you said you could see me,” I said.

  “Yes.” She sat back in her chair again and I saw something twitch on her arm. She had an I.V. in her arm, too. “Maybe you're a ghost and you just don't know it,” she said.

  “That's not funny,” I said, but she wasn't laughing. She was completely serious.

  “Did you love your father?” she said.

  “What?”

  “Your father. Sasha. Did you love him? I'll know if you lie.”

  “In my own way,” I said.

  “You were broken,” said Natalie. “You're put together again. But only just.”

  “You can see that?” I said.

  “Yes. You should let him go.”

  “Who, Sasha?”

  “No, the half-demon. You have to let him go. He's not the right one. There will never be a right one. Not for you.” I heard her sigh. “That was unkind. I'm sorry. I forget myself sometimes.”

  “It's not unkind if it's true,” I said. I felt a sting behind my eyes. “Is it true?”

  “Perhaps,” she said. “Maybe I'm wrong.”

  “Are you ever wrong?” I said.

  “No. Never.”

  I looked back at Gage. He was leaning against the wall by the door of the vault, staring at the man in the bed. “Is he the angel?” I said. “Daniel?”

  “He is. He has great power. Sometimes.”

  “How does he use it?” I said. “He looks so frail.”

  “He doesn't use it anymore,” she
said sadly. “I have to use it for him. When they need to be reminded.”

  “You can just use his power?” I said. “How?”

  “I just slip into his head,” she said, as if it were the simplest thing in the world.

  “What's wrong with him?” I said.

  “He's dying.”

  “Why is he dying?” I said.

  “Because of me.”

  “You're killing him?” I said. “Why?”

  “It's not on purpose,” she said. Her voice grew quiet. “It's my nature. Danny told me so.” I heard her sniff. “But if Danny dies, so do I. Death takes us all, in the end. Almost all of us, anyway.”

  “Can he be saved?” I said.

  She laughed, and for a moment sounded very old. “The Blood drained him dry over and over. Sometimes they did it for me. But mostly for themselves. For the angelwine. It's never enough for them, though. Or for me. A body adjusts.”

  “You?” I said. “You're a child. You shouldn't be taking angelwine.”

  “Oh, how we judge,” she said. She was quiet for a long moment. “My mother gave me to them, you know. A trade. A baby for greatness. She paid for it later. My father killed her before she rose to the top. She knew why she was dying in her last moments. I know because I looked. You were there, too, Niki.”

  “Me?” I said.

  “Yes. You shouldn't have stopped him. He was doing what was right. The Blood raised me. Weaned me on angelwine. They wanted to find out what would happen. I think they were trying to grow goddesses, but I'm no goddess. Just a girl trapped in a box with a dying angel. You're thinking I could leave. But you're wrong. Where would I go, Niki?”

  “I don't know,” I said.

  She held up her arm and the tube glittered in the dim light. I saw it was attached to the bag that the angel was attached to. “This is all I know,” she said. “I sit here and I peer into the minds of people. Sometimes I do it for them. So they can grow fatter and richer. What do I care? I was born into this. At least my father was angry about it. He didn't know until the end. Do you really think he's still alive?”

  “I don't know what you mean,” I said. I looked at Gage who was frowning at Natalie. He looked to me, and I knew. “Sasha?” I said. “You think Sasha is your father?”