Highborn

by Yvonne Navarro

  Brynna howled and tried to pull away, but Gavino’s teeth had elongated and he was chewing on her, shaking and grinding and going for the bone. He was swiping wildly with the other hand, slashing at any part of her that he could reach. She had to do something or the agony in her arm was going to make her pass out. She was straddling him but that didn’t mean she had the upper hand, so she gave up and threw herself backward, hauling Gavino with her. He followed her momentum but still held on, growling and cackling like a hyena, sucking madly on the blood gushing out of Brynna’s growing wound as he was pulled into a position over her.

  “You’re so gonna pay for this,” Brynna gasped, then buried her fingers in the long hair at the nape of Gavino’s neck and kept rolling forward. As their bodies started to upend again, she dug her nails through the thin layer of flesh at the base of his skull and threw herself sideways at the same time she relaxed her injured arm and let Gavino jerk it backward.

  There was a sickening, wet rip, then Gavino’s devastating bite on her arm let go. His delighted munching sounds turned into an astonished scream as Brynna yanked the skin of his skull forward and over his face in a brutal take on scalping. Her arm was a mangled nightmare, but it was nothing compared to Gavino, who was wheeling in circles and trying to claw at the blinding, bloody covering of his inside-out skin. Blood sprayed in every direction and he was screaming something at her, but the words were incoherent and muffled. She wasn’t interested in hearing them anyway.

  “Well,” Brynna croaked, “at least you look more like you did in Hell.”

  Gavino wheeled toward the sound of her voice, half of the skin shredded from his attempts to clear his vision. Another couple of seconds and he’d be able to see, and the battle would begin all over again.

  “We can’t have that,” Brynna muttered, and brought the edge of her good hand down across the bridge of the demon’s nose. Gavino bellowed as the bone shattered, but anything he might have done to retaliate was lost when she pulled back again, then rammed the heel of her hand against the center of his face as hard and fast as she could.

  The demon pulled in air sharply as his head rocked back and the splinters of his broken nose were driven deep into the brain of his very human form. Then he dropped to the floor, dead.

  There was no time to savor her victory. With Gavino out of the way, Brynna’s attention once again shifted to her surroundings, and she could hear the murmurings of people trying to work up the courage to come around to the back of the staircase. She had to get rid of Gavino’s body, and she had maybe ten seconds—if she was lucky—to do it.

  Ignoring the horrendous pain in her left arm, she leaned forward and dragged the dead demon’s form under the stairs, then shoved him in as deeply as she could behind the metal trash cans. A quick glance behind her confirmed that the area was still clear, but it wasn’t going to stay that way for long. This dirty little task was going to be tight, and hot, and bright, but she didn’t have any other option.

  Brynna closed her eyes briefly, and when she opened them again, her irises were filled with the scarlet brilliance of hellfire. She held it in only long enough for a final confirmation that no one had come around the edge of the staircase …

  Then let it surge outward and fill the space in front of her with dark fire.

  REDMOND FOUND BRYNNA AND Mireva standing together at the bottom of the same staircase where the confrontation with Gavino and Klesowitch had first started. They were surrounded by Chicago cops, ballpark security officers, and a good-sized crowd of people who were forgoing the thrill of the baseball game for the much more interesting saga of Brynna.

  Mireva was almost hiding behind Brynna. Brynna herself was covered in dirt and had one arm seeping blood from beneath a ragged tear in her T-shirt. Her face was set with exaggerated patience, and from the irritated tones of the cops, Redmond could tell things weren’t going that well. As he got closer, he realized what he’d taken for dirt was probably soot; he’d been down that road before, so any questions about what had happened to Gavino were already answered. Still, the guy had definitely gotten his strokes in before she’d taken him out.

  “Detective Redmond,” he said, bringing out his star before any of the uniforms could give him a hard time. He’d left Klesowitch’s sheet-covered body on the field surrounded by cops and park officials who were waiting for the coroner and hoping to get this nasty business taken care of quickly so they could resume the game. Other than the blood, Brynna looked fine, but he was bone tired and didn’t feel like dealing with crap right now. In reality, there was probably a lot of it to come. “Brynna, what happened?”

  “He got away,” she said. A lie, of course, but there wasn’t much chance of her admitting to anyone that she’d incinerated the guy, and oh by the way, he was an evil demon and so it didn’t really matter.

  “Bullshit,” said a man who was standing off to the side. “I’m telling you, I saw that dude go under the staircase with her. Ain’t no way he could’ve gone anywhere.”

  “Ma’am?” asked one of the cops.

  Brynna did her best to look innocent, but the expression didn’t fit well on her face. “He hit me or something. I really didn’t see—I must’ve blacked out.”

  “What happened to your arm?” asked a female officer.

  Brynna hesitated. “He … bit me.”

  The woman’s eyebrows raised. “That’s not good. Human bites are the worst for infections. We’ll have to get you to a hospital right away.”

  “I’ll take her,” Redmond said, stepping into the circle. He was pretty sure that Brynna wouldn’t come back with It’s not a human bite, but he needed to cap this just to be sure.

  The first cop scowled. “You two know each other?”

  “She’s with me,” Redmond said. “Part of an ongoing investigation.”

  “Something to do with the shooting out on the field?”

  “Could be.” Redmond glanced at Brynna and Mireva. The faster he got them out of here, the fewer questions he’d have to deal with later. News crews were on their way, and he damned sure didn’t want Mireva’s face splashed all over the papers and television. “Come on, you two. We have a lot of paperwork to do back at the station.”

  “We need to write an incident report on this,” said one of the park security guys.

  “What’s to report?” Redmond waved his hand at Brynna. “There was a fight but the other guy is gone. There was no property damage. I’ll note it as part of my investigation paperwork, spare you the trouble.”

  The guy looked doubtful. “Well …”

  “If you really have to write it up, call me at this number.” Redmond pulled a card out of his wallet. “But right now we have to focus on something else.” The guy took the business card, but they both knew he’d never call. After all, if he let Redmond cover it, there’d be less work on his end. The guy who’d nearly gotten his head taken off by Klesowitch’s shot would go down on Redmond’s paperwork.

  “Be sure to get that wound taken care of,” the female officer said. “End up with blood poisoning. I’ve seen it happen.” The look she sent Brynna was uneasy. “Never seen a human bite this bad, though. Procedure says I really ought to call you an ambulance.”

  “I hate those things,” Brynna said. “It’s all good, I swear.”

  And with that, Redmond led Brynna and Mireva out of the park and out of the spotlight.

  Twenty

  The week that followed educated Brynna on just how public the human race could now be.

  Newspapers, televisions, the Internet—they all combined to make Eran Redmond an overnight superstar. She’d really had no concept of the speedy beast into which human communication had evolved. Although she’d seen computers everywhere, from the police station where Eran worked to the offices she visited as a translator to the stores in which she infrequently shopped, it really hadn’t registered just how quickly someone’s—namely Eran’s—privacy could be destroyed.

  And while she reluctantly admitted to
herself that she wanted to spend time with him, now she didn’t dare. There had been television crews at Wrigley Field, but since they were focusing on Detective Redmond and the dead Michael Klesowitch, she’d managed to avoid them. But now every time he turned around, some journalist was asking him questions, a photographer was snapping a photo, or a popular radio DJ or local television personality wanted an interview. When he resisted, people higher up on the police force insisted he cooperate to make the CPD look good, put it out there just how much effort had gone into the hunt for the serial killer. When Brynna pointed out that all that effort had come to fruition because of only two men, Eran and his partner, Eran had waved her off and said it didn’t matter. From her perspective, she thought it was pretty hypocritical of whoever those higher-ups were.

  To add to the annoyance level, it hadn’t taken long for a sharp-eyed reporter to go over the police calls and reports connected with Eran, and from there tie Klesowitch to Mireva. That made publicity spill onto the teenager, which set the newshounds—exactly the kind of people Brynna wanted most to avoid—hanging around the apartment building at every turn. Part of her wanted to just take off and start over somewhere else, try a new city with a new path. The stubborn part of her rebelled instantly: she had set something up here, and if she wasn’t exactly human, there was a humanly feel about it that she was finding more and more appealing. She had a job, an apartment, a lover—even if it had been for only that one night—and she was loath to give up any of it.

  Still, she had to distance herself until the fame factor wore down. Eran’s place was off-limits for obvious reasons; until she felt mentally stronger, she thought it was too dangerous to spend night after night with him. Eran had made the sarcasm-laden comment that her apartment building had turned into the Daily Planet newsroom, which he said was a newspaper in a movie called Superman. Brynna had never seen the film—she hadn’t seen any films, although she knew what they were—but the concept was certainly clear. Thanks to her work, money was no longer a problem, but when she told Abrienda and Cocinero that she was going to go to a motel for a while, she found herself with a set of keys to the restaurant and instructions to stay as long as she wanted no matter what the Health Department had to say. Eran had reminded her that it was a big and very bad city, and that it wouldn’t be long until the sharks—what he called all the reporters who kept turning up—found a different meal. If it was fairly short, Brynna supposed the restaurant was as good a place as any to wait out the storm, and she would put a little more effort into staying out of the eye view of any inspectors.

  If only she could be sure that Lahash hadn’t set a Hunter on her trail.

  She’d crossed paths with him only one more time, outside Wrigley Field just after Mireva had gotten into Eran’s car. Eran had paused to talk to a supervisor who’d pulled up, and before Brynna could climb in the passenger side, there was Lahash. He was wearing a flawless summer suit in a tan color that made him look like a cool Italian tycoon from the Amalfi Coast. His hair was GQ styled and slicked, and he had enough bling on his wrists and fingers to outshine a chandelier. The effect, alas, had been spoiled by the utter outrage on his falsely tanned face.

  “You’ll pay for this, Astarte,” he’d told her in an acid-laden hiss. “Leaving Lucifer was bad enough, but how do you think he’ll react when he finds out that you’ve murdered one of your own?”

  “It was self-defense. And I don’t give a rat’s ass what Lucifer thinks. That ought to be monumentally clear by now.”

  “Ah, but he cares about you. And he’ll find you,” Lahash growled. “Perhaps I’ll even help him.” The demon had turned away, then stopped to leer back at her. “And I promise: I will get that pathetic little nephilim you think you’re going to save.”

  So there it was, the actual threat to out her to Lucifer. It didn’t have much weight since Lahash didn’t know where she was staying—at least, she didn’t think he did—but demons had a way of finding each other, whether they wanted to or not. Especially when they had something in common.

  Something like Mireva.

  “MY NIECE HAS TURNED in the application for her entry in the science fair,” Cocinero told Brynna the following Wednesday night as he was doing the last of his after-hours cleaning. His expression was a combination of pride and worry. “We will know by Friday if she wins a place in the competition.”

  “And when’s that?”

  “The first Saturday in August, about two and a half weeks from now.” He grunted as he lifted a bucket of mop water and poured it down the utility sink.

  “That’s not much time to get ready,” Brynna noted.

  Cocinero shrugged. “It’s more than enough. Those who are chosen to take part in it are supposed to have their entries completed when they turn in the application. She’s ready, has all her posters and signs made up.” A corner of his mouth turned up in a grin. “Except for the ones she keeps trying to improve, of course. We have to figure out how to move all those planters without damaging the plants, but I have a cousin who works at a furniture store on Lincoln Avenue. He thinks the owner will let him borrow one of the vans.”

  “That’ll help.” Cocinero had fixed her a plate of black bean tamales, and she was eating while standing at the counter so she could talk with him. “You sound pretty confident she’ll be in it.”

  “How can she not be? She is smart and talented, and look at all the work she has put into it. She’s worked with her teachers to make sure it was original, plus no one else has tried anything this complicated.” He set the mop and bucket aside, then squeezed soap onto his palms and stuck his hands under the faucet. “I have never seen such dedication in a child. The world would be a better place if there were more like her.”

  Brynna took one of the last bites of tamale and let that comment go without adding to it.

  “Besides,” Cocinero added, “Mireva has been talking to a man from the sponsorship committee. He’s very interested in what she’s doing with the plants, says there’s a lot of potential for using her ideas in a long-term study. Which is exactly what she’s hoping.”

  Brynna swallowed the last of her food, paying more attention now. “That sounds promising.”

  Cocinero nodded. “I think Abrienda is finally starting to believe that Mireva will really get to go to one of the expensive colleges that she wants and that a scholarship—one that will include everything—will work out.”

  “This is what Mireva is saying?”

  “Oh, no. It’s not secondhand information. The man told us this himself—he came to my sister’s apartment this afternoon. I’d stopped to check on them before coming to work, and I got to meet him. A nice-looking man, very professional and presentable. Sí, a businessman. His name is Lahain or Lahon. Something like that. You would like him, I think.”

  Damn it, Brynna thought. Lahash. And no, she wouldn’t like him. Not at all.

  ALTHOUGH BRYNNA WASN’T READY to go back to her apartment on a full-time basis, she was more than willing to make a special trip the next afternoon. She needed some fresh work clothes anyway, so that would give her the perfect reason to be there … and to talk to Mireva, see how she was doing and if the media madhouse was letting up enough so that Brynna could think about returning permanently.

  There was no one around the front of the building, so she slipped inside and stopped at her own place only long enough to change into a clean T-shirt and jeans. Then she headed up to the roof, where she knew she’d find Mireva.

  “Hey,” Brynna said as she stepped through the door and onto the roof. “How’s it going?”

  Mireva flinched so slightly that a normal person wouldn’t have caught it. Yeah, the girl was still feeling the effects of Gavino. It was unfortunate, but it was also good—hopefully she wouldn’t fight too hard when she heard what Brynna had to say.

  “I’m okay,” Mireva said. “A little … jumpy sometimes.” Brynna was surprised the teenager would admit that. Mireva continued. “I don’t think I ever really thank
ed you for, you know, taking, uh, care of that guy.” She shot an almost furtive glance at Brynna. “What was his deal anyway? I barely knew him—why would he want to hurt me? He acted like he was my friend before the baseball game. Then he went all psycho.”

  Brynna folded her arms, trying to think of a way to explain that wouldn’t sound insane. It was one thing to have blurted it out to Redmond when they first met, but she liked to think she had learned a little more about what humans in the twenty-first century could accept. The days of magic and mayhem were long gone, along with most of the willingness to believe. Mankind had become fixated on logic and science to the point of blinding itself to the mystical part of existence, the very arena that had been at the core of life itself. And with her heavy science background, Mireva was definitely a child of the Age of Reason.

  “Gavino focused on you because there’s something very special about you,” Brynna began. “You’re—”

  “Oh, please don’t start that stuff,” Mireva interrupted. “You’ll end up sounding like my mother. She’s always saying weird stuff like that, going on about how I’m ‘special’ and she has a ‘feeling’ that God has great plans for me and everything.”

  Brynna stopped herself before she could say He does. That was the last thing that Mireva wanted to hear right now. Instead, Brynna offered the next best truth she could come up with. “I think people make their own lives, based on their own choices. A bad choice, just one, can change everything.” She paused to see if Mireva would say something, but the girl remained silent. “It’s hard to see that sometimes, though.”

  Mireva glanced at her, then quickly averted her gaze and went back to poking at her plants. Was she thinking about Gavino and how her handsome and mysterious “rescuer” had nearly gotten her killed? Probably, but that didn’t matter anymore. Gavino was nothing but ash now, a disintegrated cinder in Mireva’s past. From here on, the girl needed to think forward.

  “Anyway,” Brynna added, “Gavino’s gone.”