by Matt Wallace
No one stops them.
No one is left to stop them.
Darren is the last one through the shattered doorway.
His final glimpse of the scene is Ramiel, half-eaten cupcake in one hand, using the other hand to scratch behind the dog’s ear.
EPILOGUE: “A” FOR EFFORT
Lena sits at the foot of the bed in her plush, modern, black-and-white suite with its inexplicably Oriental-influenced design touches.
She’s staring blankly at the wall.
She has been for almost an hour straight.
The last truly conscious action Lena took was to hug Nikki down in the lobby before they parted ways. Lena clung to her for the briefest moment, willing tears not to return to her eyes. Nikki giggled in her ear and told her it was okay, that everything was okay now. Allensworth’s people had arrived and filled the hotel. They were safe. Bronko even said so.
Lena didn’t say anything, but she finally let go and took the elevator up to her room.
She managed to shower. She managed to scrub away the blood, both human and demon, along with the bits of glass and dried dessert cream. She managed to wash her hair for the first time in four days. She managed to dry herself thoroughly and wrap herself in a complimentary cloudlike robe embossed with the Roosevelt Hotel logo. She managed to walk from the bathroom to the foot of the four-post bed and ease herself onto it without her knees buckling.
Then everything seemed to seize, and her brain and body collectively agreed they were done.
Far away in her mind a scene keeps replaying, an old memory lingering like the echo in a canyon.
In Iraq, the drivers of military convoys were instructed not to stop under any circumstance unless ordered, even and especially if a child ran out into the middle of the road.
Lena’s unit was riding shotgun for a Halliburton convoy the day a driver ignored that order when a five-year-old holding a rubber ball darted in front of their truck. The driver stopped dead rather than run the boy over.
Five seconds later an IED ripped apart the front of the vehicle with concussive force that became engulfing flame.
Lena survived. She survived that and a lot more before she came home, and at the end of the day the fire and blood and death weren’t what disturbed her the most about that convoy attack.
It was the knowledge the driver had been wrong not to run over a small child.
It was not being able to deny that fact.
It was having to live in a world where that was true, whether Lena wanted it to be or not.
That’s how she feels now.
So many huge, horrible things are true whether she wants them to be or not.
She can’t deny them anymore.
That’s the worst part, far worse than almost being incinerated alive along with the only people in the world she really cares about.
A knock at the door, tentative and hesitant.
She knows that it’s Darren.
Lena forces herself to stand and cross the room, opening the door and finding him there, also cleaned up, changed into jeans and his favorite T-shirt.
He enters wordlessly, walking past her to the middle of the room and looking around as if he’s actually interested in her scattered belongings or the décor.
Lena closes the door and joins him.
His eyes finally work up the nerve to find hers.
They stare at each other silently.
“Are you okay?” he asks.
“No,” Lena says, flatly and honestly.
Then they’re laughing. It’s brief and haunted and without volume, but it’s earnest.
It ends when Darren begins to cry.
“I’m sorry,” he says hoarsely, holding a hand over his eyes. “I should’ve done . . . I should’ve helped you. Helped Nikki. I was afraid.”
Lena embraces him before he’s done speaking, holding him tightly.
“I was wrong about everything,” she tells him. “Everything I said to you. I was wrong and you were right and I’m sorry.”
They hold each other, drawing what comfort and catharsis they can from their shared years and history and the closeness of each other’s presence.
It lasts as long as it needs to, and then Darren says they should both get some sleep.
Lena agrees, and escorts him to the door.
“Where do we go from here?” he asks her, hand on the doorknob.
Lena shakes her head. “I have no fucking idea, man. We’re alive, so we’ll go forward. We’ll figure out the rest back home.”
Darren nods, seemingly genuinely comforted by that. Her confidence has long been his main source of same.
Darren lets himself out, shutting the door and testing the lock from the outside.
Lena walks over to the window, looking down on the lights of Hollywood Boulevard, the tides of tourists trampling the vaunted memorial stars up and down the sidewalks that are a million times dirtier than they ever look in movies or on television.
She sees an abundance of people pushing baby strollers.
Who the hell keeps a baby up past midnight, even on vacation?
Knocking at the door again, this time forceful and deliberate.
“Did you forget something?” Lena asks as she crosses the room and opens it, expecting to find Darren standing there.
It’s Ritter.
“I guess I’m a little late, huh?” he says in his typical deadpan way.
“A little bit, yeah,” Lena confirms.
She involuntarily pulls her robe tighter together over the top of her chest, realizes she’s doing it, and stops.
“This is obviously a bad time—”
“Come in,” Lena says automatically, stepping aside.
Ritter enters the room and she closes the door after him.
He turns to her and slides his hands deftly into the front pockets of the weathered black BDU pants he’s wearing.
“Is the whole team here?” Lena asks.
“Yeah. Checking in. I talked to Bronko. We’ll all stay the night and head home tomorrow.”
“Is everyone back at the kitchen okay?”
Ritter nods. “That’s a whole other story, but yeah. Dorsky’s fine,” he adds.
Lena frowns. “I didn’t ask about him.”
“That’s right. You didn’t.”
Lena begins smoothing back her hair, again realizes what she’s doing, and stops.
“Goddammit,” she curses under her breath.
“What?” Ritter asks, brow furrowed just so.
“Nothing.”
“You look fine.”
“I don’t care,” she snaps automatically.
“Okay.”
They stare at each other in the awkward silence for a bit, until Ritter finally says, “I’ll let you be, then. I just wanted to . . . I don’t know . . .”
He actually grins, just a little, and there’s something just so damn adorably rueful in it.
“It seems like I keep trying to save you, and you keep saving yourself before I get the chance.”
“Then stop trying,” Lena says flatly.
Ritter nods. “Yeah. I should do that. Lesson learned. Anyway. I’m glad you’re whole. I’m glad everyone’s whole.”
“Then why did you save me?” Lena asks. “I wasn’t the only one trapped inside the office with horny monsters or tied to a stake on a bonfire. You came to save everybody, not just me.”
“That’s true. I suppose you’re the one comes to mind first lately.”
Lena is genuinely curious when she asks, “Why?”
Ritter sighs. “I suppose this is the part where I say you remind me of somebody, but that’s not true. I guess you remind me of somebody I wanted to meet. Somebody who looks like they’ve seen a lot of the same shit I have, and had the strength to make different choices on their own when they could’ve otherwise turned as ugly as the world around them. And who’s a helluva lot prettier than me.”
Despite herself, Lena likes that answer.
She likes that ans
wer a lot.
All of it.
“I didn’t mean that before,” she says, probably less guarded than any time she’s spoken to him in the past. “I mean, I don’t need you to come save me. But I appreciate the effort. I see how loyal you are to your people. I respect that.”
Ritter smiles.
It’s the first real smile she’s seen grace his features.
“Thanks for saying. I’ll see you downstairs for breakfast with the others in the morning before we all take off, all right?”
Lena nods.
She nods several seconds longer than she normally would.
When she finally stops she says, “Oh, fuck it.”
She reaches up and tangles her fingers in his hair with one hand, pulling his face down to hers and kissing his mouth full on.
Genuine surprise slows Ritter’s reaction.
He gets over it quickly.
A few moments later Lena sheds the robe she so demurely cinched when she opened the door.
In the morning they’ll order breakfast up for just the two of them.
About the Author
Photograph by Earl Newton
MATT WALLACE is the author of The Next Fix, The Failed Cities, and his other novella series, Slingers. He’s also penned over one hundred short stories, a few of which have won awards and been nominated for others, in addition to writing for film and television. In his youth he traveled the world as a professional wrestler and unarmed combat and self-defense instructor before retiring to write full-time.
He now resides in Los Angeles with the love of his life and inspiration for Sin du Jour’s resident pastry chef. You can sign up for email updates here.
Also by Matt Wallace
THE SIN DU JOUR SERIES
Envy of Angels
Lustlocked
THE SLINGERS SAGA
Slingers
One Fall to Finish
The Victim Hold
Where Gods Cannot See
Savage Weapons
The Failed Cities
The Next Fix
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Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Notice
PART I
PROLOGUE: BRONKO IN HELL
DOMESTIC SQUABBLES
STAFF MEETING
SHARED MISTAKES
PRE-PRODUCTION
THE BEST TACO TRUCK IN LA
WEARY STRANGERS IN A SAVAGE LAND
OSTER
PART II
PROLOGUE, TAKE TWO: BRONKO IN HELL
THE PARTY
LOS MUERTOS
ROANOKE
EROS
HORSE SHIT
SATURNALIA
PAPERWEIGHTS
THE AFTER-PARTY
UP TO THE HOUSETOP THE COURSERS THEY FLEW
RED-EYES
PART III
PROLOGUE, TAKE THREE: BRONKO IN HELL
BOFFO BOX OFFICE HEAVEN
BELOW THE LINE
THE BREAK OF DAWN
DIVINE STRIKE
PRIVILEGES OF THE DAMNED
THE GUEST OF HONOR
CANIS EX MACHINA
EPILOGUE: “A” FOR EFFORT
About the Author
Also by Matt Wallace
Copyright Page
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novella are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
PRIDE’S SPELL
Copyright © 2016 by Matt Wallace
Cover photo by Getty Images
Cover design by Peter Lutjen
Edited by Lee Harris
All rights reserved.
A Tor.com Book
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ISBN 978-0-7653-9001-1 (ebook)
ISBN 978-0-7653-9000-4 (trade paperback)
First Edition: June 2016
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