Authors: Michelle Belanger
Lil emerged behind him, tucking a folding knife back into her purse.
“You should know better than to sneak up on me like that,” she grumbled sourly.
He arched a delicate brow at her. “I wasn’t exactly sneaking.”
Lil frowned, pushing an unruly tangle of curls back behind her ear. She took several swift steps to catch up to him and then—incredibly—leaned in and sniffed his elbow. Going up on tiptoes, she trailed her nose all the way up his arm, ending close to his collar. Remy regarded her with mild confusion throughout this curious display, which was weird even for Lil.
She stepped away, wrinkling her nose.
“I don’t recognize this cologne,” she complained.
“Cologne?” He blinked azure eyes that glimmered faintly in the gloom.
“Why do you think I jumped you?” she demanded, slapping his chest with the back of her hand. “You don’t smell like you.”
I shook the lingering power from my fingers, willing myself to relax now that the threat had proven to be nothing more than my soft-spoken brother. Maybe Terhuziel had run out of minions to throw at me, and the storm was his best attempt at an attack. That would be a nice change of pace. My life could use fewer complications.
Delicately, my brother sniffed at the edge of one sleeve. “Oh,” he murmured. “You’re probably smelling Jimmy. I was with him before I came here.”
“Who’s Jimmy?” Lil asked. She managed somehow to package curiosity, suspicion, and a subtle promise of reprisal into just two words.
Lil and Remy had been married once upon a time. It had ended poorly, which should have been a shock to no one. Since I’d become reacquainted with the both of them, Lil waxed hot and cold with my brother—and, for some reason, Remy put up with it. I didn’t ask. Mostly, I tried to steer clear of their endless squabbles. Not tonight.
“Jimmy Roarke,” I ventured. “Remy’s pet police officer. Am I right?”
Remy nodded, adjusting the brim of his fedora.
“Who is, I might add, rather irate at you.”
“I don’t like cops,” I grumbled.
“Well, your behavior last night didn’t exactly endear you to Roarke—and he wasn’t exactly your chum to begin with.”
“Why are you here?” I asked.
Lil continued scenting the air around Remy, a little more subtly this time. Her features creased in a pensive expression, like she was contemplating how much trouble it might be to hunt the officer down later. Remy pointedly ignored her behavior.
“I had Jimmy drop me off so I could talk to the girl,” he explained, “but I saw you and Lil making your way through the parking lot, so I decided I’d just ask you instead.”
“Ask me what?”
“The meaning of those letters cut into the attacker’s chest.
Attackers
’, plural,” he corrected. “They found similar carvings on a frozen corpse just outside of Lake View,” he added, perking a brow pointedly as he fixed his azure eyes on mine. “There have been a number of corpses turning up of late.”
I made a noise in the back of my throat that wasn’t any kind of answer, and started walking in what was probably the direction of my car.
“This is serious, Zaquiel,” Remy called after me.
“Yeah,” I agreed, “and I’ve got places to go.” I kept walking. The Nephilim hesitated, then jogged to catch up to me. He reached for my elbow. I jerked it away. Lil hung back, most likely enjoying the show.
“There are altars being set up all around the city,” he said. “They bear those self-same glyphs. There have been murders and other activity that appear to be sacrifices.” His words came out swift and urgent. He grabbed for my elbow again. “You have to know what that portends.”
Stopping suddenly, I whirled on him. “You knew about this, and you didn’t let me know?” My voice echoed through the cavernous structure. “This is my city!”
“
Your
city,” Lil scoffed.
I glowered at her in the gloom, then turned the same unhappy glare on Remy.
“This shit’s been ramping up for the better part of a month,” I growled. “Why didn’t you tell me?” Remy met my eyes without blinking.
“Perhaps someone should more regularly check his phone,” he said witheringly.
The messages.
I refused to concede his point.
“You know where I live.”
“Ha!” he barked. “I know better than to violate your sanctum sanctorum when you are in one of your moods, brother. But I’m glad to see that you’re taking an interest now.
Finally
,” he added. “Old alliances with the Idol-Riders may prevent Sal and myself from becoming directly involved.”
“Is that who sent you?” I demanded. “Saliriel?”
Remy loosed a sigh of frustration. “Really, sibling. You’re impossible when you let your judgments rule you.”
“That’s different from normal how?” Lil asked.
I snarled at her. “Hey, whose side are you on anyway?”
“Mine.” She smiled with all the self-assured hauteur of a Madame du Pompadour. I prepared myself for another salvo of vitriol when I thought I heard the scuff of a shoe against the concrete floor.
Remy’s head whipped in that direction, and the subtle light in his unnaturally blue eyes sharpened to a full-on glow. He dropped his mellifluous voice to a whisper.
“We are not alone.”
They crept up on us while we argued, using our raised voices to cover the sound of their advance. Terhuziel had stepped up his game—probably because he now knew he was dealing with me, as well as the padre.
I spotted three of them right off, and heard a fourth moving behind the pylons to my right. One of them stepped out from behind a black SUV, hands locked in a familiar stance.
“Gun,” Lil breathed.
The bullet ricocheted off the wall behind me as soon as her warning left her lips. The report was shatteringly loud, and my hearing dulled to a low buzz in its wake.
Remy moved with that blurring speed that only the Nephilim could muster. I could move fast when I needed to, but would never match that sight-tricking alacrity. One instant, he was behind me. The next, I heard the wet snap of bone as he disarmed the gunman—almost literally.
The attacker collapsed, screaming, against the SUV. His weapon dropped to clatter beneath a nearby car. Lil dove to retrieve it.
With the first one wounded, the others scattered, but these were Rephaim anchors, and the gunman proved it in the next instant, levering himself up despite the injury. As Remy turned to track one of the others, he launched himself at my brother. Shrieking unintelligibly, the man clung to the Nephilim’s shoulders, broken wrist and all.
The primly dressed vampire blurred again and, in the next heartbeat, he had the attacker’s head between his hands. He twisted, whipping the man onto the ground, then stomped on the fellow’s lower back, grinding down with the heel of his sleek Italian shoe. At the same time, he twined his long fingers beneath the man’s jaw and yanked upward sharply, bending him the wrong way in half.
The ratcheting crackle of the man’s severed spine was almost as loud as the next volley of gunfire.
“Take cover, you idiot!” Lil snapped. That was meant for me. The Nephilim healed so fast, bullets were merely a nuisance. Remy was probably more worried about getting holes in his trim-waisted wool coat.
As if to prove his superiority, Remy stepped disdainfully over the corpse and oriented himself in the direction of the next shooter. Three muzzle flashes erupted in the depths of the lightless parking garage. Remy moved toward the gunfire, slow and unhurried, drawing attention away from Lil and me.
The shooter was half a floor up, aiming down from between stanchions. I had no idea how the person could see—though, if their aim was any indication, they couldn’t, not really. The first two bullets flew wide of their mark. The third caught Remy’s fedora, knocking it off of his head. His hand snapped up to catch it, but he was a nanosecond too late.
His placid features twisted into a mask of perfect fury.
“That was one of my favorites!” he snarled, theatrically baring his fangs—then he launched himself in the direction of the muzzle-flares, blurring again.
I dropped to all fours and skittered none too gracefully for cover between the nearest two vehicles. Squatting low, my back against a large pickup, I was all elbows and knees. Pulling the SIG out, I held it up, but wasn’t about to fire blindly into the dark. Not being able to see was really pissing me off, and the way sounds rebounded within the depths of the parking garage, there was no hope of relying on my ears.
So I ground my teeth, feeling the next best thing to useless.
“Dammit, why’d you have to leave my coat behind?” Lil hissed.
I peered under the car between us. “Why the hell do you need your coat? Aren’t your weapons all in that little purse?”
She ducked down to glare at me. “My best amulet’s in the coat pocket,” she snarled.
“Well, boo-hoo,” I said. It wasn’t like Lil needed the help. She fought like a fucking ninja.
A cry erupted in the direction of the second shooter. Abruptly, it cut off. Remy made not a sound. Normally all fuss and etiquette, the Nephilim could be terrifying when he wanted to be.
“Two down,” Lil noted.
“I think there were only four,” I whispered.
“I counted five with that second shooter.”
“Don’t you two know to stay quiet when people are hunting you?” Remy called. His lightly accented voice carried throughout the structure.
He
wasn’t worried about quiet.
I heard Lil rummaging around in her clutch purse. A couple of items clattered to the floor—a tube of lipstick, a ball-bearing, and three green beads that looked like they’d come from Halley’s rosary.
“Hey,” I hissed. “Didn’t you smash that thing?”
Lil ignored me. Still digging in the handbag, she made a little sound of triumph.
“This’ll do.”
The next instant, she vanished. I peered under the sedan just to be certain. Above the stink of motor oil and gasoline, I caught a faint whiff of ozone. I also caught sight of one of Lil’s ghost ferrets. The blonde-furred creature chattered at me, haunches wriggling.
“Great,” I sighed. “Did she leave you behind to babysit?”
The thing twitched its whiskers, fairly grinning. It snaked behind a wheel well, then tumbled playfully against my ankle. It wasn’t a flesh-and-blood creature, but I could still feel its impact, like an intimation of weight.
I wondered where Lailah’s soot-gray screech owl might be. Lil was attended by a host of spectral animals, and each held some enigmatic tie to her sisters. I still hadn’t worked out whether the animal spirits
represented
her sisters, or somehow
were
the sisters in totemic form.
A sharp tug on my ankle garnered my attention. I didn’t react much at first because I thought it was the ferret again. Then I felt the distinct grip of fingers digging for purchase against the leather shaft of my engineer boot. A streaked and dirty hand extended from beneath the vehicle at my back.
Like a tattered version of Rambo, the guy had belly-crawled all the way across the parking level, a knife clenched between his teeth.
I should have been more vigilant—the truck behind me had oversized tires, so it stood higher off the ground. The undercarriage provided the attacker ample space to maneuver.
“You had one job, ferret,” I snarled. The little critter sneezed its objection. I jerked my ankle, trying to break free of the floor-troll’s grip. The emaciated hand clung with a desperate strength, and its owner dragged himself closer by inches. With his other hand, he went for the knife.
The instant I saw the glint of the steel, power leapt to my fingertips. It was instinct—but my hands were on the grip of the gun. It was a good thing I wasn’t dumb enough to ride the trigger, or I’d have squeezed off at least one accidental round—and probably shot my damned toes off.
I used the burst of power to fuel my speed, angling forward and bracing a shoulder against the floor. With the guy still scrabbling to hamstring me, I fired off two quick rounds at point-blank range.
They got him in the forehead and in the cheek. This close, the bullets didn’t tear things up too much going in, but the back of his head erupted in a mess. For a frozen instant he stared at me with wide, startled eyes. They were hazel, shot through with striations of a pale yellow-green. Some elusive quality fled the depths of those glassy orbs and his head tottered forward, blood streaming from his distorted mouth.
The grip on my ankle went slack. He dropped the knife, though I couldn’t hear its clatter through the ringing in my ears.
The scent of hot metal mixed with the tidal-pool stench of his blood. I crouched there staring mutely as the dark fluid spread closer to me by inches. It washed over the knife, one of my brass casings, and I still didn’t move.
I’d meant to kill him, but did I have to?
The guy looked to be in his mid-forties, his features weather-roughened, his hair prematurely grayed. The jagged white line of a scar ran across his scalp from his temple. The knuckles on his outstretched hand were battered with old, puckered wounds, as well. This guy had seen a rough life. The way he’d snuck up on me suggested a military background.
The Rephaim didn’t care if these people wanted to be his soldiers. He forced his influence on them—like I’d almost done to Halley. It helped if they were battered by drugs, biology, or trauma.
Could this guy have been saved?
“What the
hell
are you laying there for?” Lil squawked. She seized the collar of my leather jacket and yanked. I was a hundred and eighty pounds of wiry dead weight, but she had my upper torso a couple feet off the ground before I could twist away.
“Quit it,” I objected. I flicked the safety back on.
“Dead people. Parking garage,” she snapped. “Major hospital one lot away,” she added. “Get your ass in gear, Anakim.”
“They’re all dead?” I levered myself up, tucking the gun back in its holster. Then I worked my jaw, trying to get my ears to pop. Everything still sounded tinny in the wake of the gunfire.
Remy sauntered over, retrieving his fedora. Frowning, he stuck a gloved finger through the hole near the top. A matching hole, crisped around the edges, went out the other side.