“A nephilim is a child born of a human mother and an angel father,” Brynna told him. “They each have a special purpose, a task that has to be completed in order for the nephilim to fulfill his or her destiny.” She nodded to emphasize her words. “Eventually they figure out what the task is, and then they’ll do everything in their power to get it done. They’re driven—it’s their entire reason for existing.”
For the first time since she had started explaining this, Redmond’s expression changed and he leaned forward on his chair. He finally looked a little shocked, like he might really be starting to believe her. “You’re saying that angels actually exist today?” he demanded. “And that they come down, and they … mate with people?”
“They never stopped existing,” Brynna said. “It stands to reason that if you have demons, you have angels as well.”
Redmond stood abruptly. “There’s nothing reasonable about this,” he snapped. “You’re a demon, and that Goth kid is a demon, and he’s hanging around your building why? Because he’s got some kind of a job to do, to find out if there are any kids in the building with angelic fathers and—I assume—really religious mothers.” Redmond ran a hand through his hair hard enough to yank on it. “God, Brynna, don’t you hear how crazy all this sounds?”
“You’ve seen physical proof.”
“I haven’t seen shit,” he said crudely. “A few weird coincidences and you as some kind of language savant—”
“And bullet wounds!”
“—and a superhigh-healing metabolism,” he finished stubbornly. “Nothing more.”
“‘He is able to deal gently with those who are ignorant and are going astray,’” Brynna quoted softly.
“Oh, please. Do not—do not start restating the Bible at me,” Redmond said. Brynna’s eyebrows rose at the anger in his voice. “In my job I’ve had that religious crap used to try and justify some of the worst things people have ever done.”
“I bet you have,” Brynna said calmly.
“And let’s not even get started on the Inquisition and holy wars and—”
Brynna held up her hand and Redmond snapped his mouth shut. “It’s not my place to explain everything,” she said patiently. “I wouldn’t even know where to start, and I don’t know everything anyway.”
“Then what is your place?” Redmond asked. “If you’re really what you say you are, and you can do all the stuff you claim, then what the hell are you doing here?” He gestured at the dingy little apartment. “In this ratty building, in this city, and specifically right here with me?”
“I’m just trying to be forgiven.”
Redmond rolled his eyes. “Right. Forgiven. For whatever it is that you supposedly did that made you a demon.”
“I don’t expect you to understand.”
“Good call.” Redmond strode to the door and yanked it open. “And I suppose Goth Boy—Gavino—wants the same thing. To be forgiven.”
“No,” Brynna said matter-of-factly. “He just wants to kill Mireva.”
Redmond had been halfway out the door, but he jerked to a stop and turned around. “Say what?”
“Mireva—the girl you saw him talking to in the hallway. Gavino wants to kill her because she’s a nephilim.”
He had taken two steps back into the apartment, but now Redmond halted and shook his head. “No, huh-uh. You are not going to twist this around back to the beginning with angels and demons and all that BS and just start this conversation all over again. You will not get me to buy into this.”
“Then how do you explain—”
“I don’t have to explain anything,” he interrupted. “You have to prove it.”
Brynna actually laughed. “So much for the concept of faith.”
“I never said I was religious. In fact, I’m anything but. I’m a cop, which makes me a realist, which means I need to see the cold, hard evidence.”
“You’ve seen plenty so far,” Brynna pointed out.
“No,” Redmond said firmly. “I haven’t. I’ve seen circumstance and coincidence and maybe a bit of uncanny luck.”
“There’s no such thing as coincidence. Everything happens for a reason.”
“Right.” Redmond crossed his arms and gave her a hard look. “What you’re saying is it’s all predetermined anyway. If that’s the case, then why bother?”
Brynna rose and swung the chair around to face him, then sat. “I didn’t say that at all. There are always choices, but the choices are there for a reason. What happens depends on the choice someone makes. That’s how the future is made.”
Redmond snorted. “Double-talk, nothing more.” She opened her mouth to argue, but he waved her off. “Nope, I’m going home. It’s been a long day with a very confusing end to it. I need to think.”
“But—”
“Good night, Brynna.”
And he was gone, pulling the door firmly shut between them.
She sat for a long time before she finally got up and peeled off her work clothes. By human standards her unair-conditioned apartment was hot—summers in Chicago could be sweltering and miserably humid—but Brynna didn’t notice. This place wasn’t much, but it had one thing that for a very long time in her existence had been in extremely short supply:
Water.
Such a basic thing, but so exquisite. A hot shower was nice, but a cool one … perhaps the closest thing to Heaven she’d experienced in too long to remember. And in Chicago, thanks to Lake Michigan, the tap water was always up to what she considered the best standards—cold and fabulous.
Brynna stood in the shower for twenty minutes, just letting the liquid pour over her head, feeling it sheet down her overly warm skin and soak into her pores. It calmed her spirit and relaxed her muscles, bringing her as near, perhaps, as she ever came to truly being sleepy. Afterward, dry and quiet, it was the one time of day that Brynna could chance lying on the bed and closing her eyes, late in the afternoon when the sun was still out and the night shadows had yet to offer hiding places to the human evil that sought it.
The mattress was thin and lumpy, the sheets scratchy from years of being washed in strong detergent and bleach. There were no such things in Hell and Brynna sank onto it and let her eyelids drift closed, thinking, as she did every time she settled in for a nap, that she had never felt anything so pleasing.
At least until she’d kissed Redmond.
She frowned in spite of herself, the thought worming its way onto what should have been a mental blank slate. She tried to push it away, searching for the slightly dizzy sensation that heralded oncoming sleep …
It was too late.
Instead of napping, she found herself staring at the cracked, stained ceiling as a sweet glow of desire spread across her skin. It was gone in only a few seconds, but it was enough to make her realize Redmond had worked his way dangerously into her psyche. What would have happened if she hadn’t stopped him, if she had let the two of them fall onto the bed? The human part of her wanted to believe in the simplicity of sex, that nothing would have taken place other than an evening of lust and physical fulfillment.
The demon side of her knew better.
Eleven
Redmond woke up at six the next morning thrashing and covered in sweat, clutching at the summer-weight throw on the bed like it was a rope he was using to haul himself out of Hell itself … which was precisely how he felt.
He forced himself to sit up in bed and groaned aloud. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt this hot—was he running a fever? His hair was stuck wetly to his scalp and his eyes stung from perspiration. The lightweight muscle T and boxer shorts he’d worn to bed were sodden and uncomfortable. All he wanted in the world was a long, cool shower.
Grunt, his five-year-old Great Dane, raised her head and looked at him hopefully from where she was rolled into a not-inconsiderable-size ball on the lower quarter of his queen-sized bed. “Huh-uh,” Redmond said. “No way, not until I get my shower.” Grunt was deaf and couldn’t hear a damned t
hing, but she got the message from his head shake; after an overlong second she dropped her massive white head onto the covers and gave an immense, crestfallen sigh.
“Right,” Redmond said over his shoulder as he shoved aside the damp sheets. “Call the animal cops if you think you’re so abused.” Her response was just what he expected: With Redmond finally out of the way, the dog unrolled herself and stretched out, groaning happily at all the extra room.
He climbed into the shower and stood under the spray for a long time, using the cool water to chase away the last remnants of his bad dreams, then switching to hot for a good scrub down. The details of the dream—of the nightmare—were long gone, but Redmond was sure fire had been involved in it somewhere, fire and sex … but no, that was the limit of what he still had floating around in his brain. Impressions, but not much else. It was Brynna, of course, and that line of crazy crap she’d thrown at him yesterday at her apartment. Did she really think he’d buy it? Demons and angels and Hell, oh my. Next he’d be asking who was playing Wicked Witch of the West.
Except …
Redmond gave himself a mental slap and twisted the temperature back to cool, then all the way to cold. When he finally took pity on himself and shut it off, his teeth were chattering as he pulled aside the shower curtain and reached for his towel. At least he wasn’t thinking—much—about Hell anymore.
He shaved and cleaned up after himself, changed the sheets—something he did often because he let Grunt sleep with him—then made himself a hard-boiled egg sandwich for breakfast. By the time he’d finished eating, Grunt was at the end of her patience and was pacing between wherever Redmond happened to be standing and the door. If she’d been capable of yelling Hurry up! he’d have probably heard her a dozen times over.
Once they were on the street, he and Grunt headed east up Arlington. At a quarter past seven the traffic on Clark Street was already headed to a mini-jam, with cars inching along and taxis swerving around the pedestrians and buses. Redmond didn’t stay on Clark for long, just the block between Arlington and Deming, because Grunt loved everyone. Should some unfortunate man or woman stop long enough to comment about her to Redmond, Grunt’s way of showing affection was to jam her massive head between the stranger’s knees. There she would stand, her shoulders tight against their kneecaps (provided the object of her affection could maintain a semblance of balance), and wait to be petted.
Redmond was stubborn about keeping Clark in their walk routine only because he wanted Grunt to see all the people and the cars and the activity—it was good socialization. He thought of the left turn onto Deming as a sort of safety zone, where the commotion and fuss of the Chicago morning mellowed into the quieter side of urban living and Grunt stopped being such a spaz and a suck-up to total strangers.
Deming was a beautiful street. Most of the buildings were brown- or graystones built in the late eighteen to early nineteen hundreds, spectacular two- and three-story structures with wide front steps, stone porches, and triple-width bay windows. As was typical in Chicago, there wasn’t much space between them, just enough for a passageway to the postage-stamp backyards. They were handsome and imposing, like sturdy, weathered old men keeping a stern watch over this calm street.
Away from the scramble of Clark Street, Grunt walked quietly a few feet in front of him, pulling slightly on her leash as she always did. What the Great Dane lacked in hearing, she made up for in smell. Everything—from flowers to yard decorations to fence posts—was a full-fledged olfactory adventure. Her policy was smell first and ask questions later, so even the occasional mondo-sized beetle crossing their path was fair game.
As he and Grunt came up on Orchard, Redmond slowed, then stopped in front of the large plaza that was the entrance to Saint Clement Church on the corner. He’d been passing it nearly every day that he walked Grunt, and yet Redmond realized he’d never paid a bit of attention to the massive building. Below stone archways were three separate sets of double wooden doors, all of which were now opened in an unspoken invitation. In the center of the front of the church building proper was a huge ornamental stained-glass rose window set in stone, and on each side of the plaza, fading back into deep shadows, were enormous oak trees that were doubtlessly over a century old. It was quite impressive, and for the first time since he’d lived in the Lincoln Park area—nearly twenty years—Redmond wanted to go inside, to see what it looked like. To feel it.
Wait … twenty years? Had it really been that long? Redmond found himself staring at Saint Clement’s in surprise, but he wasn’t sure if it was because he’d never been inside or because he was so shocked that the nearly two decades had suddenly sort of … caught up with him. Without realizing it, he climbed the stairs and crossed the small expanse of concrete, until he and Grunt were standing at one of the open doors and staring inside. It was cool and welcoming, filled with shadows and dreamy, golden light, and Redmond could see all the way to the altar at the far end and beyond. Down there was marble and tile and gilded statues below another magnificent rose glass window, a match to the front one that soared high on a different wall. The rest of the walls were a tapestry of Old World biblical paintings and patterns in muted but still spectacular colors, culminating in a high dome on which six angels were displayed and surrounded by small arched stained-glass windows. It was, literally, a breathtaking sight.
“Go on in,” said a voice from behind him. Redmond looked to his left and saw a man standing there. He was younger than Redmond by a couple of years and in cleric’s clothing; below hair the color of ink, his Irish green eyes were untroubled and friendly.
“Oh, no,” Redmond said. “Not with the dog. And please don’t give me a quote about ‘all God’s creatures’ or something like that.”
The priest laughed pleasantly. “All right, I won’t. But I will say that I don’t think the dog can destroy the church.” He eyed Grunt, then amended, “At least as long as you keep it on a leash.”
It was Redmond’s turn to laugh. “Thanks, but maybe I’ll come by another time.”
“No time like the present.”
Redmond groaned. “You are going to quote, aren’t you?”
The priest grinned. “Sorry. Sometimes I just can’t stop myself.” He offered his hand. “Father Paul Murphy.”
Redmond shook the priest’s hand and introduced himself. By now Grunt had finally noticed the newcomer and Redmond was struggling to hold her back; the sudden image he had of white hair all over Father Murphy’s black slacks didn’t set well. He turned Grunt and headed back toward the street. “Seriously, Father, some other time. I need to get this monster back home and head to work.”
“Do you mind if I walk with you?”
Redmond shrugged. “Feel free.”
“So what do you do?” the priest asked after a few moments of walking alongside.
“I’m a cop,” Redmond said simply. “A detective.”
“Ah.” Father Murphy nodded. “A noble profession. And one of the most difficult.”
“I hold my own.”
“We all have to.”
Redmond couldn’t help smiling a little. “You’re like the master of one-liners, right?”
Father Murphy reached down and scratched Grunt’s back. In response, the Great Dane turned her head and gave his hand a thank-you lick. “I just try to keep it simple. Have you always been a policeman?”
“Have you always been a priest?”
Another smile, one that looked a little tenuous. “No. I started out as an orphan. Then I turned into a loner, and a bully, and then I went on to become a thief. It was a long and rather unpleasant road from there to here.” He gave Redmond a sidelong glance. “I have to say that I like the ‘here’ much better than the ‘there.’”
Redmond nodded, resisting the cop’s urge to ask for more details about the past at which Murphy was hinting. He thought the priest would answer, but he didn’t know Murphy well enough—he had no right to be nosy. “I’ve been a cop in one form or another since I got
out of high school,” he offered. “I started with the Army. When my time was up, I went to the police force here.”
“Didn’t like the Army?”
“I liked it just fine. I just didn’t like traveling, and the military won’t usually let you stay anywhere for more than three years. You put down too many roots and then you don’t want to deploy when they tell you.”
“Ah. I guess that makes sense.”
“I like living in one place.”
“Stability.”
“Exactly.”
They’d reached Arlington, and when Redmond steered Grunt to the left, Father Murphy stopped. “It’s been nice talking to you, Detective Redmond.”
“Eran, please. Only the perps call me ‘Detective’ and my coworkers call me Redmond.”
“Eran, then.” Father Murphy gave Redmond’s hand another firm shake. “The next time, come on inside the church. I promise the doors won’t close and lock behind you.”
Redmond chuckled. “I’ll think about it. Nice to meet you too.”
Redmond and Grunt turned east and the priest headed back the way they’d come. After a second, Redmond stopped and looked back, watching Father Murphy’s retreating back and thinking. Should he have said something about Brynna? He’d had his chance right there, but it seemed so far-fetched—
Without warning, the clergyman turned around and fixed his gaze on Redmond. “Is there something else, Eran?” the priest asked quietly. He was only about twenty feet away, so despite his low tone, Redmond heard every word clearly. “Something you need to talk about?”
Redmond stared at him, unaccountably hearing Brynna’s voice in his mind.
I’m not human, not at all … I’m a demon.
Did he dare bring this up to this man he’d just met, take that crazy statement and lay it out in the bright light of day, just to see what happened?
No, he didn’t.
“No.” Redmond shook his head, hoping he sounded convincing. “No … but thanks.”
Father Murphy gave him a congenial smile. “All right, then. Remember, you know where to find me if you change your mind.” He tilted his head in the direction of Saint Clement’s. “I live in the rectory. In fact,” he added as he closed the distance again and reached into his back pocket, “here’s my card. My cell number’s on it.”
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