“Soon,” he whispered whilst he carefully caressed the shiny black surface with the pad of one finger. “Soon you’ll play an integral part of the greatest spell ever cast, and in exchange, I shall become the most powerful immortal on the Earthly plane.”
Giddiness coursed through him and his daemon purred at the importance of their acquisition. Actually fucking purred. They were content. Impatient, but content. Even his daemon knew to be wary of the power contained within the stone and the link it held to their heritage.
Reluctantly, Joshua returned the artifact to its decorative box, carefully tucking it into the rich velvet cloth then replacing the mosaic cover. He placed the box in the hole he himself carved out of the rock and stone floor of the cave, and rolled a large boulder on top of the clandestine spot. As soon as it was buried, his daemon clawed at his insides, wanting to tear the stone out of the hole and revel in its presence.
Fates, it was difficult to leave such a precious object behind. So much so, Joshua stood and stared at the place it was buried, unfocused, whilst his two halves argued. He remained there for so long, he lost track of time. When he rematerialized to the safe house, he was surprised to find night had fallen. Shit, he had been gone for hours.
And still so much to do.
He must needs search for and collect the required immortals, as to begin working on the spell. It was certain to be difficult to perform. Yet despite so many obstacles left to cross, Joshua grinned and closed his eyes. His greedy daemon could practically taste victory. His most coveted possession so close to becoming theirs, they vibrated with excitement.
Soon we shall rule this plane. He told his other half. Soon.
THE STAIRWAY DOOR banged open and a commotion erupted on the other side of the bullpen. Tony glanced up from the report he was slowly typing, one finger at a time. Several of his colleagues were already on their feet, gathered by the stairwell. It appeared as if two or three were busy subduing someone. Out of the corner of his eye, Tony watched Joan squirm her way out of the center of the chaos, face red and hair mussed, he leapt to his feet.
“Tony, don’t,” she said, panting for air.
“But—”
“Tony,” Joan snapped. His gaze flew to her eyes. The intensity of her stare was enough to make him drop back in his chair. Whatever was happening was serious. “Stay here,” she insisted, and placed a hand on his shoulder to emphasize her point.
Tony knew better than to question Joan when she got in one of these moods, so he nodded in acquiescence. She dipped her chin and with a final pat on his arm, returned to the unruly cluster of officers. Shouts and growls interspersed with orders to calm down filled the otherwise silent precinct. A quick glance around the room and Tony realized everyone in the bullpen had stopped to watch, the same confusion he felt evident on his colleagues’ faces..
When Joan emerged once more from the fray, this time towing a disheveled Thomas More, Tony jaw dropped.
“Thomas?”
The saint looked awful, not that Tony could blame him. Hope Hartley, a human Thomas had been seeing, was killed last week by the djinn Tony had been tracking via the Hellhound attacks across the city. Tony pushed his chair out and stood to greet the rumpled and bruised District Attorney. Before he could raise his hand for a shake, Thomas met Tony’s gaze and the saint’s face darkened with fury.
“You,” Thomas hissed. Centuries of training fled Tony’s mind when the normally passive attorney hauled back his right arm and leapt. Thomas’s fist made impact with Tony’s cheek, landing a perfect, tooth-rattling right hook. His head snapped back and bright lights exploded behind his eyes. Bolts of pain streaked up the side of Tony’s face and the taste of blood hit his tongue, thick and coppery.
“What the—?” Before Tony could finish, Thomas struck again, only this time Joan grabbed the saint’s clenched fist with both hands. She twisted, hard, and with a yelp, Thomas fell to his knees. He grunted in pain as Joan jerked his arm up between his shoulder blades.
“Calm down,” she said smoothly, as if it were normal for the peaceful and kind Thomas More to loose his ever-loving mind and attack a detective—one he knew well—inside police headquarters whilst surrounded by cops.
Tony rubbed his chin. It would definitely leave a bruise. “What the fuck?” he growled. Joan glared and Tony threw his hands in the air and huffed. “Come on, Joan. Cut me a break.” He pointed at Thomas, who was still on his knees, subdued by the petite blonde saint. “He just walloped the shit out of me.”
“Tony… Shut. Up.” Joan glared at him, then turned to Thomas and in a polite tone, asked, “Can you behave?”
Thomas glanced up and Tony felt the male’s hatred, so intense it penetrated to his very core. That’s when Tony noticed Thomas had a black eye of his own forming. In truth, Tony heard that Hope’s brother Garrett lost it at the funeral and went off on Thomas, blaming him for his sister’s death, but being on duty, he couldn’t attend. Tony hadn’t known the interaction came to blows.
“Fine,” Thomas growled.
Joan released the saint and stepped back. Her gaze lobbed back and forth between the two males. She crossed her arms and gave them both stern looks. “Go to a conference room and play nice.” Her expression let them know no arguing was to be had.
Tony huffed and stalked toward the conference rooms, Thomas’s footsteps hot on his heels. He picked an empty one and went inside, circling around the table, if for no other reason than to keep a bit of distance from the fuming attorney. Not because Tony was afraid of Thomas’s attack. He wouldn’t have the element of surprise a second time. No, Tony put the table between them because he didn’t want to have to hurt his friend.
“What was that for?” Tony asked, still rubbing his face whilst watching Thomas warily.
“You let her die,” Thomas snarled. “You didn’t stop that monster. It was your job to get him and you…” His shout cracked from the sheer pain the male was in. Watching as his friend’s heart broke just about killed Tony. “You failed.”
Fuck.
Exhaling, Tony dropped his chin to his chest and stared at the ground. Thomas wasn’t saying anything that he didn’t already think, didn’t already know to be truth. Didn’t know Tony already punished himself with the exact same thoughts. Fates, Hope’s brother Garrett said something similar, albeit quite hostile. The human male even tried to hit Tony. Unlike Thomas’s surprise attack, he was alert and managed to duck Garrett’s swing.
Tony lungs burned and a lump formed in his throat. How did one make up for getting someone killed? For getting the love of your friend’s existence killed? In truth, he couldn’t, so Tony said the only thing he could think of, knowing nothing would ever be enough.
“I’m sorry.”
Head still down, he listened as Thomas breathed, each inhale and exhale ragged and pained. When the saint didn’t speak after several minutes, Tony glanced up. Thomas’s watery gaze met his and the attorney broke down. He sank into the nearest chair and cradled his face in his hands, his back trembling with each heartrending sob.
Matching tears trickled from Tony’s eyes as he moved around the table and sat next to the broken male. He threw an arm around one of his oldest, dearest friends and together, they mourned the loss of a beautiful soul.
“IT WASN’T YOUR FAULT,” Joan said for the millionth time as she held an icepack to Tony’s swollen cheek. He hissed like an angry house cat and glared. Joan grinned and tried to lighten the mood. “Toughen up, Tony. It’s only ice.”
Joan’s normally playful partner only managed a pathetic smile before he returned to his despondent glower. Joan knew Tony was taking the death of Hope Hartley hard, they all were. Thomas… well, she’d never seen the saint so destroyed. It was as if someone clenched a fist over Thomas’s life-force and squeezed the life out of it. If Joan didn’t know better, she’d swear an oath that Thomas was naught but an animated corpse. Gone was the intelligent and kind immortal she’d known for centuries.
To make things
worse, since the day Hope was murdered, Tony decided he should shoulder the blame for the human’s death, as if she died by his own hand instead of the sadistic djinn who set out to kidnap a class nine sorceress, and the soulmate of the Prince of Lust to boot. Stultus.
“Hey.” Joan sat next to Tony where he slouched over the break room table, ice pack to his left eye, and put an arm around his shoulders.
Thomas left the station a few minutes ago. When he exited the conference room, Thomas’s eyes were red and swollen, and Joan knew he had been crying. Thomas mumbled an apology as he passed her desk and all but ran out of the precinct. Once she finished chastising her nosy, rubbernecking colleagues by not-so-politely telling them to mind their own business, she found Tony in the break room, his own face blotchy and the area puffed up where Thomas clocked him.
“We can’t catch every criminal in time to stop bad things from happening. People get hurt, and aye, sometimes they die. That doesn’t mean we aren’t doing everything we can to capture them. You did your job, Tony.”
He switched hands on the icepack, and without looking in her direction, Tony spoke, mayhap more for himself than Joan. “Logically, I know it’s not my fault.” He sighed and the sound made Joan’s soul ache. “But, in truth, it feels like it is my fault. It hurts.”
“I know.” She gave him a squeeze. “We’re all hurting. And I know it doesn’t help to hear me say it, but Hope is a hero.” Tony frowned. “Think about it. Hope Hartley made the greatest sacrifice a human can make. She gave her life for another. For Faith.”
“Faith is immortal,” Tony spat. “Hope died for nothing.”
Joan quelled the urge to tell Tony to stop acting like a spoiled elf. “Hope didn’t know that. You and I know a thing or two about sacrifice better than most. Heck, that’s why we’re saints.”
Tony sat quietly a few seconds, obviously giving her words some thought. “Aye. You’re right.” He sighed and dropped the icepack to the table with a thunk. “I think mayhap it’s easier to be the martyr than to watch someone you care about become one.”
That, Joan understood perfectly.
She opened her mouth to respond, but Michael chose that moment to stick his head—blond high and tight recently trimmed—in the room. “Joan, Tony, my office, now.”
Michael’s tone was firm, serious. Well, the Archangel always sounds serious, so Joan guessed the difference was the sense of distinct urgency she felt in his words. Tony tossed the icepack in the sink and followed her to the chief’s office.
They barely crossed the threshold when Michael began to brief them. “Hellhounds are loose in the city, attacking citizens. So far, we know of at least twenty separate sightings. I’ve mobilized SWAT and called every officer to respond.”
“Where?” Joan asked as her persistently foul-mouthed partner cursed.
Michael stared into her eyes, angular jaw set and blue gaze piercing. Chills raced over her skin, bringing up goose bumps. “Everywhere.”
CHAPTER 17
T ony drove like a madman, racing through the narrow streets, sirens blaring, ignoring one-way signs and dodging cars and pedestrians. At one point, he even jerked the wheel to drive up onto a —thankfully—empty sidewalk. Once the Hounds attacks began, Michael held a press conference and told everyone in the city to seek shelter. Word spread quickly. The smarter citizens took heed of the warning, both humans and immortals. The more brazen humans, the stultus ones who for whatever reason believed the rules didn’t apply to them, strolled the streets as if the city weren’t under attack. Naturally, humans driving cars didn’t think they had anything to worry about. They didn’t know a Hellhound could peel back the metal with its teeth and claws as easily as a banana skin.
“Fates, Tony. You’re going to kill someone.” Joan clutched the ‘oh shit’ handle over the passenger seat and held on tight. “Mayhap we can’t die, but if you hit a human…”
“Fine,” he barked, then huffed loudly.
Joan glanced over and knew her partner teetered on the edge of losing his mind. Tony’s knuckles were white on the steering wheel and his teeth were clenched so tight he could probably bite through steel.
“Tell me again why we didn’t dematerialize,” Tony growled as he yanked the wheel to the left, narrowly missing an armored truck double-parked in front of a bank.
“Because we require the kit in the trunk, and the lights and sirens will serve as warning to keep citizens away whilst we deal with any Hounds we come across.” Joan no sooner finished her sentence, when out of nowhere, an enormous black canine leapt in front of the car. Tony slammed on the breaks and a piercing squeal rent the air as the Joan flew forward and seatbelt jerked hard across her chest. “Tony!” She stared, eyes wide, at the drooling, rotting Hound in the street a few yards away.
“Radio in our location and grab the kit,” he called out as he unbuckled and leapt from the car, leaving the driver’s side door open. Joan followed suit and hurried to the trunk.
Fates, never had she wanted to curse more in her existence than when, kit in hand, she came back around the front of the car to find Tony facing the snarling, decaying Hound. It was disgusting, smelling rank of death with sores all over its dark skin beneath patchy fur. Blood covered its muzzle and its eyes were bottomless black pits.
“Tony…” she warned. Did her partner believe he could take on a raging Hellhound with only his bare hands?
Tony stood perfectly still. “Joan, hand me the tranq gun. And do it slowly.”
“I don’t think—”
The Hound growled, the sound low and rumbling and so terrifying Joan must needs concentrate to keep breathing, which was especially difficult due to the rank odor of decomposition which stung her nostrils.
“Now, Joan,” Tony hissed.
Moving cautiously, each painfully slow step seeming to take forever, she unzipped the navy blue duffel bag with EFPD silkscreened in bold white lettering on the side. Fates, the unlocking tines of the zipper may well have been a series of thunderclaps they sounded so loud. Once open, Joan shoved her hand in and groped around the various items and tools until she wrapped her fingers around a dart gun fully stocked with anti-immortal toxin. As she withdrew it from the bag, the vacant, bottomless gaze of the Hound shifted from Tony to her and she shivered. Joan liked dogs, but by the saints, did she despise these nasty creatures.
“I have it, Tony,” she murmured whilst trying not to move her lips.
Body as still as a statue, Tony stretched one arm behind his back and turned his palm up. “Put it in my hand and prepare to run.”
She wanted to argue, but the Hound chose that moment to expose its fangs and snarl. A long string of bloody saliva hung from its jowls and Joan saw pieces of what she assumed to be flesh stuck between its teeth. It said a lot about the state of her intestinal fortitude that she didn’t lose the roast beef sandwich she now wished she hadn’t eaten.
“Don’t be stupid,” Joan whispered as she shifted a millimeter at a time. Sweat dripped down her temples and her shirt stuck to her back. The Hound crouched, a sign it was prepared to attack.
This was it.
“Now!” Tony yelled as the tranq gun made contact with his hand.
Joan dematerialized only to reappear behind the Hellhound. Swift as a sitri, she dug around in the bag, desperate for another weapon. After getting the tranq gun, Tony hit the deck and rolled, ending up on his back in the middle of the street. At the same time, the Hellhound soared over him and he shot three darts up into its soft belly. The furious Hound landed on the ground and lost its footing, the powerful toxin already working to incapacitate the vicious immortal. Joan bolted toward it, clutching the warded cuffs she pulled from the duffel. Kneeling at its side, she expertly snapped a pair on both its front and hind legs, then used a third to link the two sets of cuffs, gathering all four limbs in a modified, Hellhound hogtie.
Tony climbed to his feet and wiped the sweat off his forehead with the back of his right hand, which still held the tranq gun.
“Shit, that was intense.”
Joan didn’t bother scolding her partner for cursing. From what they had been told, there were still at the very least nineteen more of these things to capture.
Shit indeed.
CHAPTER 18
“T here must needs be something here,” Thomas said to himself as he flipped through page after page of records. Fates, his eyes ached and his vision turned blurry a while ago. From both serious sleep deprivation and spending hours upon hours reading tiny, hand-printed documents.
When the book proved as useless as the last thirty or so, he slammed it shut and tossed it aside.
“Thomas.”
Shit!
He nearly jumped out of his skin. Pulse tripping, Thomas glanced over his shoulder. Dominic and Justice. He bristled with annoyance.
“What are you doing here?” He let out a loud huff before showing them the back of his head, returning his attention to his books. The next volume he wanted lay in a stack to his right. Thomas pulled it out and flipped open to the first page.
“We brought coffee and breakfast.” Justice. A tall cup from Thomas’s favorite cafe and a greasy paper bag landed on the table in front of him. The scent of food made his mouth water and his stomach growled loud enough to hear from the Hereafter. Dammit.
Dominic chuckled. “Fates, Thomas. How long has it been since you’ve eaten?”
Dominic Savio, the Patron Saint of the Falsely Accused, was one of the other ADA’s. At times, Dom was more meddling than Justice, and that said a lot.
Hope For More (Trinity Book 3) Page 27