by J. K. Beck
Evangeline stepped forward without hesitation, pressed the point of the stake to Lortag's heart, then slammed the mallet down upon it, making Sara jump with the brutality of the blow.
For one brief moment, fear flashed across Lortag's face. Then he was gone, reduced to nothing more than a pile of dust.
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Evangeline turned to face the crowd, nodded, then descended the steps and marched out, her footsteps echoing in the silence of the crowded room. Sara's chest felt as though it was about to burst, and she drew in a sharp gasp of air, realizing that she'd forgotten to breathe.
"Constantine?" Bosch asked, looking at her through narrowed eyes. "Are you all right?"
She looked up at him and nodded, because what else could she do? She was used to the near-euthanasia-like executions she'd witnessed, with the prisoner behind a glass wall, and doctors in attendance. The same result, but one hell of a different presentation. This, however ...
The crowd. The leather-masked executioner. The mother wielding the ultimate punishment.
And the sickening sound of the iron mallet pounding the wooden stake into the prisoner's heart.
It was harsh. It was brutal.
And she couldn't help but think that if it had been Crouch up there on the platform, that maybe, finally, the nightmares would end.
"I'm fine," she said, but as she spoke the words, she had to wonder how fine she would be when the time came for her to sit in Chance McPhee's chair. Because if she did her job right, it would be Luke on that platform, his death ushered in by the applause of the masses, and Sara herself announcing that his punishment was just and good. She told herself she wanted that--he'd killed and needed to pay for his crime. But she couldn't ignore the small part of her that wished otherwise. That fantasized that this was all a mistake. That Luke hadn't killed, that she wouldn't be the one to condemn him to die in this room, and that they could go back to where they'd started with Sara safe and warm in his arms.
Bosch stood, ready to leave the theater, but Sara remained seated, her eyes on the portrait of the child. "What happened to Melinda?" she asked, wondering why the child had not survived. "Is it dangerous for children to turn into vampires?"
"Not in the way you're thinking," Bosch said, pausing in front of her. "Melinda made the transition. Division terminated her."
Sara swallowed. "Terminated?"
"It would have been too dangerous to allow her to live," he said. "Children, the mentally unstable, they do not have the strength to control the daemon." Her stomach clenched in horror. "But--"
"Let me tell you the story of Michael Blessing. A strapping blond-haired boy with brilliant blue eyes and the cheeriest smile. He got turned five days before his sixth birthday, and Division was not aware of the transition. By the time the authorities learned about his turning, three days had passed. And in the course of those seventy-two hours, his mother and father fell prey to the child. His baby sister, and the nanny, also dead." He drew in a breath. "A child unchecked with its daemon is not to be toyed with." She blinked back rising tears as she looked once again at Melinda's portrait. "And special dispensation?"
"Very rare indeed," Bosch said.
"But it was granted for Dragos's ward."
"It was."
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"And she survived the Holding and got control of her daemon. So it's possible, right? Even for a child or someone like Tasha? Shouldn't they have the chance to fight the daemon, too?"
He drew in a breath. "I understand this is new to you. That you have no frame of reference. But the daemon that rises in a vampire is heinous. Murderous. Clever and cunning and utterly lacking in remorse. Many adults do not make the transition and lose themselves instead to the daemon. They do not survive the Holding--they never manage to control the daemon. They are rogues and, yes, we hunt them down. The position of all Shadow creatures on this earth is precarious. We have strength, yes, but our numbers are small compared to the humans. We self-police because we must." He turned now to face Melinda's portrait as well. "That child had the rage of hell within her and not the slightest chance of controlling it," he continued. "She was turned, she was staked, and she was avenged." He looked hard at her. "That is the way it is, Sara. That is the way it must be."
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Chapter 9
Luke paced the metal-and-glass cell. Or he tried to pace, but as he could take only five strides before colliding into a wall, he gained little satisfaction from the mindless motion.
He had never intended to end up caged like an animal, and his own miscalculation frustrated him. Tariq's removal from the active RAC team had been a critical blow, and considering that Luke was now locked in a cell, he took little satisfaction from the fact that Tariq's debt remained unpaid.
He needed another way out.
The possibility of calling upon his usual connections crossed his mind, but Braddock had been a personal matter, and any assistance he requested would come at a very heavy price. Since he had no interest in being beholden to anyone, he preferred to keep that possibility dormant until the need was truly great. Then again, considering that the prosecution intended to remove him from this plane of existence, perhaps the situation called for desperate measures. Not that this little detour hadn't been useful--Luke had at least been able to confirm firsthand that the evidence gathered with regard to the death of Marcus Braddock was sufficient to condemn him. His hope that a percipient daemon would be among the first responders had been satisfied, and both the DNA and the ring had played their intended roles. With such indisputable evidence in its pocket, the prosecution would have no need to look for motive. No need to look closer into Braddock's life and uncover that reprehensible creature's connection to Tasha.
She was safe.
Luke had accomplished what he'd set out to do, and that knowledge gave him some bit of satisfaction, though he had to confess to a small trickle of apprehension. While it was true the prosecution could convict on the evidence they held, Sara's involvement skewed his plan. He remembered the way she'd described her tenacity in the pursuit of Xavier Stemmons. She was a woman who demanded answers, and if she went in search of a motive, she might dig deep enough to drag Tasha into this mess. And that was unacceptable.
"Sara," he murmured, his body tightening from the mere memory of her touch. He'd expected nothing more than a night with a beautiful, responsive woman. A few hours in which he could take his pleasure, savor it, and then walk away satisfied. She'd turned out to be so much more.
They'd made love with a fierceness born of need, a delicious intensity that was somehow both gentle and rough, giving and accepting. And when they collapsed, sated, in each other's arms, he'd stroked her hair and her dewy skin, relaxing gently against her until they were both calm enough to go again, this time slow and soft and sensual. For the first time in centuries he'd found himself wanting to remain by a woman's side. Wanting to talk with her, to laugh with her, and not merely to sleep with her. He'd tried to analyze why, but it was something he couldn't quite put his finger on, and perhaps 57
that alone was it--the mystery of the woman. He didn't know. All he knew was that there was something about the way she laughed. About the way she drew him naked to the window to count the stars. About the way she so casually sipped from his wineglass, then smiled at him playfully.
She'd caught him off guard, eased the constant roar of the daemon in his head, and even managed to make him laugh. And a woman capable of that both fascinated and confounded him.
As the clock ticked on toward morning, she'd stretched out naked beside him and told him about the case she had won only hours before. The Stemmons matter. A serial killer who had raped and murdered young girls. A human coward who lacked control and fed off pain. As she'd described her relentless pursuit of the murderer and the hard-fought legal battles, he'd felt a fervent solidarity. Even then, though, he had doubted that she would accept either his methods or his tools. But he, too, strove for justice. Had, in fact, brought the scales back into b
alance on more than one occasion. And as he'd held her close, he'd thought of his purpose in going out that night--his intent to find the judge. Find him, and kill him.
The moment he'd let Braddock into his head, he'd regretted it. The daemon within had roared, and he'd stalked naked to her window, his blood hot, his thoughts dark, and his mouth watering for the kill. He'd jerked away when she'd slid up behind him, only to find himself relaxing under her touch. Her proximity calmed him, her scent like a balm upon him. And before he even had time to process the change, he found himself feeling like a man, not a beast.
She had soothed him. And now, he thought, she would free him. Because in the absence of any other way out of these damnable four walls, Sara was his best hope. A woman who'd melted under his touch and would, he hoped, melt under his will as well.
He allowed himself one small moment of regret, but his plan was sound. He needed a new asset within Division, to be used when the moment was right. And Sara was his first, best option.
A high-pitched beep signaled the opening of the detention block door, a sound that was soon followed by steady footsteps. Luke cocked his head, listening. Three creatures, one surefooted, two oafish, moving in his direction. He returned to his bench, sat, and waited. In a moment, Nicholas Montegue's pretty face appeared beyond the glass wall, flanked on either side by the ogres who guarded the detention block. Despite his angel face, Nick was both vicious and brilliant. And because of his innocent features, he was a far more effective defense advocate than he would be working with his intellect alone, admirable though it might be. They'd been friends for five centuries, watched each other's backs countless times, and owed each other their lives a dozen times over.
It had been Luke who'd introduced Nick to Tiberius, and as the vampiric liaison to the Shadow Alliance, Tiberius had sponsored Nick's training as an advocate. As Luke watched, Nick signaled to the ogres, who unenthusiastically began to disengage the series of locks that held the glass door shut. The glass itself was unbreakable and, like an antenna embedded in a car's back window, was infused with a series of thin hematite filaments. The hematite-reinforced glass coupled with the hematite alloy of the walls meant that escape by transfiguration was impossible. Luke knew; he'd 58
tried.
Escape by less elegant means, however, remained a possibility, and the ogres knew it. The ogre who was not operating the locks raised his weapon, the stake mounted on the crossbow aimed menacingly in Luke's direction.
"Hands," growled the ogre. "Clasp you on head." Once Luke had complied, the second ogre released the last lock and pulled the door open. He gestured roughly for Nick to step inside, then shut the door and locked the advocate in.
"Twenty minute got you," the first ogre said. The second one grunted and stepped away from the door, then followed his leader out of Luke's line of sight. Once they were gone, Luke took his hands down and grinned at his friend. "It's not the Plaza, but I've had worse accommodations."
"Goddammit, Luke," Nick spat, utterly destroying any illusion that the angel face reflected an angel's temperament. "Have you completely lost your mind? You want to tell me when the bloody hell you got so damned sloppy? And how the fuck am I supposed to get the goddamn charges dismissed with that kind of evidence peppering the file?" Tirade over, Nick collapsed next to Luke onto the cement slab that protruded from the wall and served as a bed. "Dammit," he muttered.
"Good to see you again, too," Luke said, chuckling when Nick shifted sideways, his expression caustic.
"I talked to Tiberius," he said. "Braddock wasn't an authorized kill."
"No," Luke acknowledged. "Braddock was mine."
"This isn't going to go over well," Nick said. "You know that, right? Tiberius's already foaming at the mouth. Los Angeles is hot right now, and you, my friend, have just added to his problems."
"The Therians?" The shape-shifters--particularly the werewolves--were a constant thorn in Tiberius's side, and like little yipping dogs, they kept howling that they weren't treated fairly within the Alliance. With few exceptions, Luke had little use for shapeshifters.
"Hell yes, the Therians. What else?"
"Fuck." Luke leaned forward and dragged his fingers through his hair. "How pissed is he?"
"At you? Or at Gunnolf?" Nick asked, referring to the Therian representative to the Alliance. "Actually, forget the question. I'd say he's equally infuriated by the both of you."
Though expected, the answer still irritated Luke. At the end of the day, Tiberius was Luke's ace in the hole. The master vampire had connections. Ties. And markers that could be called in when a situation was dire. So far, Luke had never had to ask Tiberius to step up for him, and with any luck, he wouldn't have to now. But if that option was taken completely off the table, then Luke had no plan B. And Luke was a man who always kept a second out open.
"What's the situation?"
"That's the trouble," Nick said. "We don't know. Intelligence has hit walls. All we know is that Gunnolf's planning another play for Los Angeles. Bastard's determined that Los Angeles will be under Therian, not vamp, control. Like he's got a shot in hell of managing to pull that off."
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"The Therians have been trying to oust Tiberius from the key territories for years," Luke said. Centuries, really, with the pissing contest played out over different real estate. New York. Constantinople. Prague. Moscow. London. But with the exception of the long-standing Therian control over Paris, Tiberius--and the vampires--had maintained control over the prime territories.
"Talk is this time they've got the golden ticket."
"You believe that?" Luke said. Less than a decade prior, a covert werewolf team had managed to taint the Southern California blood supply. A lot of innocent vamps had died, but the plan hadn't weakened Tiberius's hold over the territory. On the contrary, Tiberius's support within the Alliance had grown, even as Gunnolf's had fallen, despite the fact that the apprehended team members insisted that the head werewolf had no knowledge of the maneuver. Sadly, the team members had died mysterious and painful deaths while out on bail awaiting trial.
"Hell no, I don't believe it," Nick said. "But as Tiberius's counsel, I can't ignore the risk. The wraith and para-daemon liaisons to the Alliance have been making prowerewolf noises recently. If Gunnolf manages to make it look like Tiberius's ironclad control over Los Angeles is slipping, the Alliance members might actually vote to shift the territory away from the vamps and over to the Therians." In other words, Luke thought, Gunnolf didn't have to succeed at whatever he had planned in order to win. He just had to kick up a shitload of dust. All in all, a fucking nightmare for Tiberius, and a great big glowing opportunity for Luke. Because if he could figure out a way to help Tiberius with the Therian problem, then Tiberius would be more receptive to helping Luke with the little matter of his incarceration. "I need specifics," he said. "What's the word on the street?"
"Not much chatter, actually, but whatever it is, it's going down soon. Hasik rolled into town yesterday." An alpha wolf by the light of the full moon and a royal prick on all other occasions, Hasik was one of Gunnolf's top men. If there was a play to shift control of the L.A. basin from the vampiric to the Therian, then Hasik would be at the heart of it. Already, he'd tried to recruit a number of Tiberius's lieutenants over to Gunnolf's side, then killed them in cold blood when they'd refused to shift their allegiance. As if a vamp would ever be truly aligned with the Therians.
At the time, Tiberius had been looking at an even larger endgame and had decided against sending out the kyne to take care of the Hasik problem. Which made Hasik one hell of a lucky werewolf.
"And Tiberius doesn't have any solid intelligence as to what Gunnolf and Hasik have planned?" Luke asked.
"Not a hint, not an inkling."
"That kind of information would be worth something, don't you think?"
"A price beyond rubies, my friend. So would making the Hasik problem go away. Too bad you're a bit indisposed at the moment." Nick leaned back, looking perfectl
y at home in the sparse cell despite the tailored Savile Row suit. "Which brings us full circle. And so I ask again," Nick said, his voice now deadly calm. "What kind of crazy shit are you pulling?"
"I assume it's safe to talk?"
"I've got an asset in Monitoring. For the next hour, the observation discs will have unexplained auditory interference."
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"You trust him?"
"My asset?" Nick asked, his eyes dancing. "Very much." A woman, then, Luke thought, and let the subject drop. If Nick said he'd taken care of the problem, Luke believed him. And he should have known Nick's associate would be female. With Nick, that was practically a given.
"Now quit stalling," Nick demanded. "You killed Braddock. Why?"
"The man was a son of a bitch."
"So are you, but you don't see me pulling out a stake."
"And for that, you have my gratitude."
Nick stood, his expression troubled. "Dammit, Luke. You've compromised the Alliance. Hell, you've compromised the secrecy of the kyne, " he said, referring to the secret society of brothers in arms who undertook certain missions for the Shadow Alliance. Missions without official sanction, and that would be loudly and strongly denied by every Alliance representative.
"I haven't," Luke said, the denial automatic and without conviction. "This mission was outside the Alliance's authority, and the kyne are not involved."
" I'm involved," Nick said.
Luke nodded. "You are kyne, " he agreed. "And that bond is strong. The bond of friendship, however, is stronger. Or so I would hope."
"God, you're a pain in the ass," Nick growled.
"It is one of my most persistent failings," Luke agreed.
"What about Tasha?" Nick asked, sighing. "Where is she? Do you need me to check in on her? Did you even consider what this would do to her, you being tossed in a cell? She won't understand."
"I considered it," Luke said. "And I weighed everything before acting. About that much, at least, I would think you would give me credit."
"Luke--I didn't mean. I know you wouldn't do anything to put her at risk. I just-It's just that she relies on you."