Highborn

by Yvonne Navarro

  The apartment’s only window looked out onto the sidewalk. The view was obstructed by metal safety bars, but it gave Brynna a good view of the sidewalk and the entrance to the building. It hadn’t been lost on her earlier that every window on the first floor was barred like hers, and a quick check of the rear hallway revealed a dead-bolted steel door. When she tested the barricade on the window, Brynna decided that any normal human was coming through the front entrance or not at all.

  There were only three other pieces of furniture in the apartment besides the twin bed: a night stand next to the bed and a tiny, off-balance table with a wooden chair in the eating area. She looked around the place without saying anything while Cocinero waited awkwardly in the doorway. “It’s not much,” he finally said, as if he had to defend the landlord. “Abrienda can help you clean tomorrow. Tonight I will bring you sheets. And a towel.”

  “It’s fine,” Brynna said, and meant it.

  “What else do you need?” Cocinero’s gaze skipped around the room, then paused on the pass-through to the kitchen. “Some dishes, sí? We have old ones—”

  “Identification,” Brynna interrupted. She turned to look at him. “That’s what I need most. A social security card, a driver’s license. So I can work.”

  Cocinero was silent for a long moment. “Your full name?” he finally asked.

  “Malak,” she replied, then spelled it for him while he wrote it along with a fake date of birth and the made-up address she’d given Eran Redmond on the back of a crumpled receipt he pulled from his pocket.

  “I know someone who might be able to do this,” he admitted at last.

  She nodded. When Cocinero edged out the door, Brynna returned to the window, lifted it a couple of inches to let in the outside sounds and smells, then stared out, waiting for the night and whatever it might bring.

  THE DARKNESS HERE WAS different than it was in Hell. There were no fires or smoke or screams—well, not many—filling up the empty spaces around the building. The forty-five minutes that it took for the first hints of trouble to crop up were nothing compared to the lifetimes she’d endured. A blink in time, no more, but everything humans did was accelerated out of necessity. Brynna wondered, not for the first time, why she and her fellow angels had gone through so much upheaval over organic beings who had virtually no permanence. It was the postorganic essence that mattered, of course, but these were thoughts best saved for a time when the small group of young men skulking by the front walkway were somewhere else.

  No—false alarm. In the few seconds Brynna took to decide whether or not to go outside, they were gone. Brynna’s hearing was more than excellent and she heard them enter with a key, then take their whispered conversation up the stairs and deeper into the building than she cared to follow.

  She pulled the chair to the window and sat, letting her head droop in semisleep while her other senses watched for her and her subconscious mulled over the fact that Cocinero’s niece, Mireva, was a nephilim. Brynna realized she shouldn’t have been so surprised. Modern-day life had become so saturated with temptations that it was only logical that nephilim, the children of angels, would increase in number. Humans had no idea—neither did the nephilim themselves—that the very reason for the existence of angelic offspring was to accomplish a specific task, something initially known only to the ultimate Creator. Someday the nephilim would be compelled to do something for which there would be no logical explanation, something they would do anything to complete. But just as they would strive to complete their destiny, so too was Hell itself determined to stop each and every one of them.

  Numbers aside, Chicago was a huge city—it had to be more than coincidence that had put Brynna so near another nephilim so soon, that had conspired all the events in her oh-so-short time on Earth to lead her to this grubby, gang-riddled tenement house. One nephilim had died just inches from her, and yet here was another, close enough for her to … what?

  Protect.

  Could she have found her road to redemption? She had no idea, and since God didn’t talk to her anymore, the only thing Brynna could do was try.

  Another hour passed, then two, and she was beginning to think that the test of her first night would pass without giving her the ability to prove herself.

  Finally, a sound made Brynna lift her head. Hurrying up the darkened sidewalk to the building’s entrance was a woman dressed in jeans and a grease-splattered shirt. Brynna could smell her from here. Hot oil, cheap meat, eggs, and more—a waitress like the one at that restaurant near the police station, coming home from her shift. If she was lucky, she had enough in her purse to pay the electric bill and buy a few groceries. She also smelled like fear, and rightfully so, because she was being followed.

  Brynna was out of her apartment in seconds. She met the woman at the front entrance and pulled her through the door. The waitress gasped in surprise when Brynna yanked her backward and stepped in front of her just as a guy with greasy dark hair and dirty hands grabbed at the air where the woman’s head had just been. He flailed at nothing for a moment, then tried again. Brynna slapped his hand away. “Get lost,” she snarled. “Go rob someone else.”

  “Get out of my way, puta,” the man hissed. “I want to talk to my wife.”

  Brynna’s eyebrows rose and she glanced behind her. The woman, petite and middle-aged, had probably once been pretty, but a hard life had taken that from her. The network of scars along her left jaw and the fresh swelling and splits in her bottom lip didn’t help. “N-No, Lujano. You go away.” Her eyes were so wide with terror that the whites showed all the way around her black irises. “The police say you cannot talk to me anymore. The judge said so, too—they will arrest you!”

  Lujano laughed softly. “Well, they are not here now, are they, mi bonita?” His eyes were small and mean as they passed dismissively over Brynna, then trained again on the woman behind her. “Get your ass over here, Rosamar.”

  Rosamar shook her head. To Brynna, the movement looked like the tremor of a petrified bird. “No,” she said again. “I have filed divorce papers. I—”

  Lujano’s laugh was harsher this time. “Pendeja, there will be no divorce. Ever. We are going to have a talk about that.”

  “This is getting old,” Brynna cut in. Her palm flashed forward and she shoved Lujano hard enough to make him stumble back a good six feet. He made a guttural warning sound at her and Brynna’s eyes briefly glowed a scarlet warning. “Go away.”

  Lujano didn’t notice. “I don’t think so,” he spat. He dragged something out of his pocket and pointed it at Brynna. “Get the fuck out of my way. I have business with my wife.”

  Brynna saw the barest gleam of light reflect off dirty metal—a gun of some kind, smaller than the weapon the nephilim killer used, but at this close range, potentially just as deadly. She was really getting tired of having these damned things pointed at her. Even so, she didn’t back up. Behind her, Rosamar made a tiny choking sound in her throat.

  Before Brynna could say anything, she felt the woman’s shaking fingers tug at her sleeve. “Let me go to him,” she said in a small voice. “Or he will hurt you.” She paused, then said in a whisper only Brynna could hear, “I should know.” Louder, she said, “If I let you in, you will let her go, Lujano?”

  Lujano had crept forward until Brynna could see the battered old revolver in his hand. He shrugged and waved the gun carelessly to one side. “I give a shit—I don’t even know her.”

  Rosamar moved, trying to step around Brynna, and Brynna looked back at her in disbelief. Had she heard correctly? This beaten human woman was willing to sacrifice herself for Brynna’s sake? A stranger whom she’d never even seen before a minute ago? The concept was almost incomprehensible, and while Brynna couldn’t see the future, it wasn’t difficult to imagine what the next few hours would hold for Rosamar if she did. Brynna doubted even Rosamar realized the true danger, how far gone her husband was—there was a sheen in Lujano’s eyes that Brynna recognized from a hundred thousand oth
er men whose souls had been just as black as his was tonight.

  She shifted her weight before Rosamar could slip in front of her, trapping the waitress behind her. Rosamar sucked in a breath. “I’m not usually a generous person,” Brynna told Lujano in an icy voice, “but I’ll give you one last chance to take off.”

  Lujano’s wavering gun steadied and fixed on the center of Brynna’s chest. “Is this where I’m supposed to ask ‘Or what?’ Well, not this time, bitch. You—”

  Brynna’s left hand was a streak in the night, far too fast for Lujano’s eyes to track. A spurt of hot yellow-red light severed the darkness the instant her fingers closed over his hand and gripped it; a second later the palm of her right hand slapped over his mouth, holding in the scream that would have rippled out.

  “Shhhhhh,” Brynna said gently. Lujano went rigid, writhing upright like a man fighting to free himself from the molten embrace of fiery clothes. “You go on home and think about changing the direction of your life, Lujano. And leave Rosamar alone—she doesn’t want to see you again. Ever.”

  Brynna let her right hand drop and Lujano’s eyes bulged as his wild, agony-filled eyes rolled in their sockets. His lips were burned and blackened, sealing his screams inside; the noises he made were more like frantic, nonstop grunts. Brynna pushed him and the man almost went to his knees, then righted himself and careened away.

  “Don’t worry,” she called after him. “Your mouth will be fine in a couple of hours.” She paused, then added, “Too bad about your hand, though.”

  But he was already out of range, cradling one hand in the other and running crookedly along the sidewalk as fast as he could. Brynna watched impassively as he disappeared down the street, leaving behind only a single, tiny spot of cooling, liquefied metal on the cracked sidewalk.

  Nine

  Sitting in the Nickel and Dime Diner, Eran Redmond poked half-heartedly at the french fries on his plate. He’d eaten a couple, but the grit of the place had finally gotten to him. Now he couldn’t focus on the food past the stained edge of his plate—what if this was some kind of food residue rather than age discoloration? It was ridiculous—he knew it—but still, there it was. He hadn’t set foot in this restaurant for years because the place was just too grubby for his tastes. His throat closed up every time he thought about chewing one of these limp, greasy chunks of potato. It figured that Brynna Malak would want to meet here.

  When, Eran wondered as he waited, had things started to weird out with her?

  If he was going to be honest, there was no “started to” about it. She’d been bizarre right from the start, all the way back when he’d introduced her to old man Kim. That fucked-up telepathic party she’d had with the daughter’s scarf should have been warning enough, but then Brynna had decided on her own to dig a little deeper into the girl’s disappearance. It was incredible that she had found Cho at all, and now it was demons and witch doctors and claims of burned-up bodies that Brynna couldn’t prove had ever existed. She’d been shot right in front of him—okay, she’d actually taken a bullet for him—but blown off the injuries and apparently healed just fine without ever seeing a doctor. All of that ended up with Brynna working herself so deeply into Eran’s thoughts that he was having a hard time concentrating on things, other really important things.

  Like two more sniper killings.

  Both of these had been women, and the latest victim had kicked the killer’s tally up to eight. The city was in an uproar and the media was feeding off the paranoia like leeches on an open wound. No one was safe from the accusations and blame throwing permeating all levels of the department. Every time Eran turned around, he saw a reporter hounding one of his superiors; while he was just like the next guy in that he wanted to make more money, this was one time Eran was glad that there were plenty of people at his job who had higher pay grades. Those poor souls were the media targets, the saps whose names appeared in the papers, the nightly newscasts, and in a hundred scathing Internet editorials every day.

  Had he not decided to pass on that last sergeant’s exam, Eran would’ve been right there in the bull’s-eye. As it was, the shit was still rolling downhill; he expected it to start flying at him soon enough. It would be the same question that ran in the papers every day in one form or another—

  Why hasn’t the killer been caught?

  —but he didn’t know how to answer it.

  As for Brynna, Eran couldn’t shake the feeling that she knew something about it. He didn’t think she knew the killer’s identity, but there was … something there. He just couldn’t pinpoint exactly what that something was.

  And there was Brynna herself. He would absolutely not give in to the notion that his interest in her was anything remotely sexual. Yeah, she was an oddly attractive woman. Not exactly beautiful but compelling, hard to resist. So what? Eran had passed on piles of hard-to-resist things in his time on the force, freebies that were a whole lot easier to take advantage of than a headstrong and uncooperative woman. Things that started small, like a newspaper, a pack of gum, or a bottle of booze, but could easily end up big, moving into massages, jewelry, prostitutes, cocaine, and outright bribe money. He’d had the best and worst of offers cross his path, and he wasn’t above enjoying the smallest of the stuff. But he was smart enough to avoid the career killers—his honesty helped that—and he could definitely turn a cold shoulder to a little irrational attraction.

  The tabletop vibrated and Eran looked up as Brynna slid into the booth across from him. She didn’t smile, and that was fine with Eran; there was something off about that expression on her pale, shadow-riddled face. It always ended up dark somehow, sinister—it just didn’t fit.

  “How are you?” he asked, and meant it. The last time he’d seen her, she’d had two bullet wounds that would have taken even the toughest cop off his feet. Now she looked almost the same as the first time he’d met her in Walgreens—better, in fact. Although her injuries should have taken weeks to heal, the never-explained burns along one arm had faded to little more than faint, pink blotches. There were a couple of other healing wounds, but Eran could tell that soon they’d be no more than memories. Was it the same with the two gunshot holes beneath the freshly washed, dark blue CPD T-shirt?

  “Good.”

  He waited but she didn’t say anything more. He fought his automatic urge to pry, to demand if she’d seen a doctor—he doubted it. Instead, he asked, “So why did you want to meet me here? Did you remember something else about that guy you saw through the window at Walgreens?”

  She looked at him blankly, then shook her head. He should have realized that hope was too farfetched. “I still have your business card,” she said. She pulled it from her back pocket and placed it on the table between them. “You said to get in touch if I wanted to work as a translator for you.”

  Eran pushed a lock of hair around on his forehead, then carefully smoothed it back down. “Yeah, I did. But not for me. There’s only so much I can do out of pocket. I know you could get something at a few of the legal places around the loop, government or private.” He leaned back and studied her. “But you need identification, Brynna. A driver’s license, at least. And a social security number. I told you that before.”

  She nodded. “I have them.”

  Eran’s eyebrows rose as Brynna reached into her pocket a second time, then dropped two items on the tabletop. He couldn’t help picking them up. The social security card was crumpled along the edges and worn from being shoved into a pocket. The driver’s license was the same—ragged at the edges, scratched along the surface of the plastic. According to this, she’d turned thirty last year, born on the thirteenth of November. It had the same Georgia address she had given him the day he’d arrested her. Eran’s experienced eye thought the paper and the laminated surface of the license looked a little too new, that the creases and scratches had probably been put there intentionally. If he ran these numbers, would they come back as fake IDs? Probably.

  He put the cards back on th
e table. “I thought you said you didn’t drive.”

  “I don’t. But I never said I didn’t have a license.”

  “And you said you’d never really worked.”

  “But not that I didn’t actually have a social security card.”

  Eran made an exasperated sound. “Brynna—”

  “This is what you asked for.” She looked at him steadily, and Eran could imagine the rest of her unspoken words, which were probably in the scope of Take it or leave it.

  “Fine,” he said abruptly. He shouldn’t, but Eran knew he was going to look the other way on this one. There was a danger that it would come back and bite him in the ass, but if she worked as an independent consultant, the risk might be minimal. He could always plead ignorance, although that wouldn’t sit well with his chief. “I’ll put out some feelers.” He gave her a stern look. “Essentially you’re going to be self-employed. You’ll need a permanent address—”

  “I have one.”

  “—and some business clothes.” That, at least, got a reaction, even if it was only a quickly concealed look of dismay. Surely she had more clothes than a single pair of jeans and his extra cop shirt. “But don’t worry about that yet,” he added. “Let’s see if we can find you a couple of jobs first.” He paused and chewed the inside of one cheek momentarily. Should he ask? He had to—the concept was still making him slightly crazy. He tried to keep his voice casual, matter-of-fact. “Is there any language I should tell them you can’t do?”