Redemption

by Mel Odom

  “That takes time,” Angel pointed out.

  “Sure. I understand that. After the latest attack, I called Detective Lockley because she impressed me during the investigation of the first two guys. She suggested I give you a call. She told me you have a certain talent for weird cases, and you were a guy who’d stick, not turn tail when the going got a little rough.”

  “And you expect the going to get rough?”

  “The first two guys?” Schend said. “They came at Whitney on the studio lot and got put down by security guards. This last guy drove a freakin’ truck through a diner full of people to get to her. What do you think the odds are?”

  The shrill blast of Schend’s cell phone shattered the silence in the office. The television executive took the handset from inside his motorcycle jacket.

  “Gunnar.” He waited for just a moment, eyes wide and growing wider, listening to the excited speaker on the other end of the phone. “I’ll be right there.” He put the handset away and stood. “That was the relief guard stationed at Whitney’s apartment. He said the guy he was supposed to relieve is dead and Whitney’s missing. I’ve got to get over there.” He headed for the door.

  Angel stood. “Gunnar.”

  Schend turned, looking totally stressed.

  “What’s the address?” Angel asked.

  “Where’s Gunnar?” Angel hurried through the apartment building’s foyer. A half-dozen people sat scattered in the various chairs and sofas, overflow from the bar where the night’s business was winding down.

  “Parking the Hummer in the private garage,” Cordelia said. “It’s new and he didn’t want to leave it out.”

  “Nice to see that he has his priorities straight.” Angel ran the swipe card the television producer had given him through the reader beside the elevator. The doors opened with a ding!

  “You ask me,” Doyle said, “I think he’s just afraid to go up there.”

  “No one did,” Cordelia retorted.

  “Did what?” Doyle asked.

  “Ask you.” Cordelia stepped into the elevator cage with Angel. “Personally, I can understand why he’s taking care of the car. I know all about the status-symbol envy people can have. Especially the status-impaired ones.”

  “What floor, sir?” the elevator operator asked. He was shaved bald and looked big enough to bench-press Volkswagens. He wore a blue blazer with corduroy patches and tan khakis.

  “Eight,” Angel replied.

  “If you’ll just swipe the card, sir.” The man pointed to the reader inside the cage.

  Angel did and the elevator doors closed. The cage started up smoothly. His stomach tightened a little more.

  “First visit?” the elevator operator asked.

  “Yes.”

  “You didn’t look like you were from the neighborhood.”

  “No.”

  “You’ll want to be quiet this time of night,” the elevator operator said. “Our residents appreciate the environment we’re able to give them.”

  “Sure.” Angel watched the floor indicator. So far it seemed as if Schend’s security man had been able to keep the murder quiet. His participation wasn’t going to set well with Lockley afterward, and he felt kind of bad about that since she’d recommended him.

  The elevator door opened on the eighth floor.

  Angel stepped out and headed to the right, scouring the hallway for any signs of the violence that had been done in Whitney Tyler’s apartment. The scent of fresh blood brushed his nostrils, too faint for anyone human to scent, awakening the hunger that he lived with every day. He stopped at the door to Whitney’s apartment and knocked.

  “Who is it?” a man’s tense voice asked.

  “Angel. Gunnar was supposed to call.”

  “He did. Wait just a sec.” Locks rattled for a moment, then the door opened. The security guard was in his mid-twenties, pale, with eyes too closely set, and nervous. He pushed the door closed and unfastened the security chain. “Come on in. It’s creepy being here with a dead guy you used to know. This job, they never said anything about anything like this.”

  Angel stepped into the room. The blood scent grew stronger. “Where is the body?”

  “Bedroom.” The guard pointed.

  The apartment was spacious, comfortably equipped with plush furniture that suggested prearranged pieces rather than personal choices. Monet prints hung on the strawberry cream pastel walls. The room had been tastefully decorated, a home away from home for someone wealthy enough to afford it. But that had been before tonight’s visit.

  Messages had been spray-painted on the walls. TIME TO DIE! YOU CANNOT ESCAPE! PENANCE MUST BE DEALT! EVIL HAS NO PLACE ON THIS EARTH! ABOMINATIONS WILL BE DESTROYED! REPENT AND RECANT! PUNISH THE GUILTY!

  The messages had been written over and over. Padding from the slashed furniture littered the carpet where huge pieces had been carved away. Glass shards from the Tiffany lamps and glass-topped coffee table gleamed.

  The blood trail started in the bedroom doorway.

  Cautiously, his senses alive to every movement and sound around him, Angel entered the room. He glanced at Doyle, knowing the half-demon’s senses were as sharp as his own. “Do you smell anything?”

  “Only the blood. And the dead man.”

  The dead man hung from the ceiling fan fixture overhead, a belt tight around his neck. Blood stained his chest all the way to his groin from his slashed throat. The ceiling fan creaked threateningly, starting to slowly turn the dead body around. The arms and legs quivered as the halting motor struggled with the huge burden placed on it.

  The bedroom was like the living room, carefully furnished and equipped with prints as well as ceramic statues of angels. Someone had gone through all the ceramic angels and broken the wings off.

  Angel found the light switches on the wall and turned the fan off. The body swayed drunkenly.

  Crossing the room, Angel pushed the bathroom door open, then followed it inside. When he flicked the light on, he scanned the separate bath and shower cubicles. The spray-paint messages continued on the bathroom walls, the same apparent litany over and over. Only this time the dead guard’s blood was an added ingredient.

  Angel surveyed the wreckage of cosmetics and toiletries strewn across the two sinks. Writing marred the mirror so badly it was hard to see Doyle’s reflection when he stepped into the room. Angel’s own reflection wasn’t there.

  PURGATORY AWAITS was spelled out on the glass doors on the mirrored shower unit, reflected in the mirrors above the sinks till it looked like an unending proclamation plunging down into a no-man’s land of reflections.

  “Doesn’t exactly exude that homey feeling, does it?” Doyle asked.

  “No. But this couldn’t have been done in just minutes.” Angel stepped back into the bedroom, spotting all the threatening graffiti on the walls there as well.

  “Well,” Doyle said, “at least, it couldn’t have been done in minutes by anything human.”

  “Does this look supernatural to you?” Angel studied the corpse. In addition to the slashes covering his throat, the guard had an indentation the size of a baseball in his left temple.

  “It’s got a certain whang about it.” Doyle approached the corpse. “Never even got his pistol out of the holster.”

  “Someone smashed his skull in. The slashes across his throat were just to finish the job.”

  “What about the woman?”

  Angel looked at the bed. It was still neatly arranged, pristine white bedcovers neatly in place; an island of perfection in a sea of chaos. “I don’t know. Maybe she wasn’t here.”

  “Her guard is here. I don’t think Gunnar would be in much of a mood for them to let her walk around untended.”

  “I know.”

  “Where is she?”

  Turning, Angel found Gunnar Schend standing in the bedroom doorway. “She’s not here.”

  Schend’s eyes focused on the dead man. “Then they have kidnapped her!” The producer turned and stared
back into the large living room.

  “Actually, I believe Whitney wasn’t abducted.”

  “What?”

  “The graffiti,” Angel explained. “It’s a series of threats. Promised persecution and vengeance. If someone had taken Whitney, they wouldn’t have made those. From the look of things, I think they would have killed her if they’d gotten their hands on her.”

  “God,” Schend whispered. “I knew these people were crazy, but I didn’t know they were this crazy.”

  “The good news is that she’s probably still alive,” Angel pointed out. “If they don’t catch her, she’ll probably be in touch. She’s probably just scared.”

  “Okay.” Schend took a deep, calming breath. “Okay. What do we do?”

  “When we leave, you call the police,” Angel said.

  “Are you kidding? Do you know what kind of publicity —” Schend stopped speaking, then reached for the cell phone in his jacket. “Of course. You’re right. I’ll call them. They tape all the incoming nine-one-one calls, right? I’ve seen them played back on television.”

  “Skip nine-one-one this time,” Angel said. “They’ve also got reporters tied into those lines. Police investigators are one thing, but having reporters crawling all over this apartment right now is positively scary. Call Lockley. She may be on. If not, try for another detective.”

  “I don’t have her number.”

  Angel recited it from memory.

  “With something like this, we need to make a public statement within minutes. Lockley may succeed in keeping the media out of this for the moment, but she’s not going to keep them away forever.”

  Angel nodded and got Schend moving toward the apartment door. “Doyle, this apartment building has security cameras everywhere. Why don’t you and Cordelia see if you can find the security office and get a look at the tapes. Lockley will probably have her people do the same thing, but they won’t be as generous.”

  “On my way,” Doyle said. He went to the doorway and gathered Cordelia, who seemed happy enough to leave the apartment.

  “Is there somewhere else Whitney would go?” Angel asked.

  “You mean if she wasn’t kidnapped?” Schend asked.

  Angel nodded.

  “I don’t know. She’d call me first.” Schend wiped his face. “She’d call me if there was any trouble.”

  “Cell phones aren’t always reliable. Maybe she left a message at home.” Angel read through the messages on the walls again, trying to determine if there was something he was missing. If there is, I’m still missing it.

  “I tried there on the way over,” Schend assured him. “There were no messages.”

  “Are either of these security guards new?” Angel asked.

  “No. Everybody ever assigned to Whitney was cleared through my offices.”

  “You cleared them?”

  “No. I’ve got an assistant who does that. She’s very good at what she does.”

  “So you’ve seen these men before?”

  “Yeah.” Schend peered at the other security guard by the door. “At least, I think I have. You don’t exactly get on talking terms with security people.”

  The door opened, and a woman’s shocked voice demanded, “Who is this?”

  Stunned, Schend turned and looked at the woman in the doorway.

  Angel gazed at her. With the rich red-gold hair and those features, there was no mistaking Whitney Tyler. She wore a charcoal jacket over a dark green turtleneck, black jeans, and calf-high stiletto heeled boots.

  “Whitney!” Schend shouted. “You’re alive!”

  Whitney stepped into the room with a shopping bag in her hands. She gazed in shock around the room, taking in the damage. “Another one of those crazies found me, didn’t he?”

  “We don’t know what happened,” Schend said, approaching her and taking her into his arms. “God, I’m just glad you’re all right.”

  Whitney pushed herself from the producer’s embrace. “I can’t keep working like this, Gunnar. We need to put the show on hiatus until we figure out a way to make me safe.”

  “You’re going to be safe,” Schend promised. “Look, I went out tonight and found someone who can help us. This is Angel. He’s a private detective. I’ve been told he’s the best at this kind of thing.”

  Angel stared into the gray-green eyes that locked with his. His stomach turned cold and spun, and he could almost hear the crash of waves in the background.

  Whitney gazed deep into his eyes for a moment, then smiled perplexedly. “Do we know each other?”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Clifden, Ireland, 1758

  “Brooding again?” Darla asked.

  Angelus glanced up at the woman. “I haven’t finished from last time.” He sat at a back table in Danann’s Tavern, a small place only a couple streets up from the docks.

  Whale-oil lanterns flickered on the walls, and a large wheel near the top of the room held a couple dozen tapers that occasionally dripped hot wax onto inattentive guests passing by below. The tavern was a dive, a place where illegal business was done and dockworkers came to drink cheap grog and look at women.

  Mismatched tables and chairs filled the center floor, and a roaring fire in the huge fireplace beat back the night’s chill. One of the serving girls turned the handle on the spit near the flames, the seared flesh of the animal shining with grease.

  Darla wore a scarlet dress that clung to her figure and revealed the creamy white tops of her breasts. “I wish you’d stop thinking about that woman.”

  “Ripping her heart out with my bare hands is a pleasant thought.”

  Darla pulled out a nearby chair and sat. Angelus noticed several pairs of eyes belonging to the dockworkers in the room seemed to come naturally to Darla.

  “She’s dead,” Darla said.

  “It would have felt better if I had killed her myself.” Before he could continue, they were interrupted by Darius striding up to address them.

  “Ah, me little lovebirds.” Darius made his way over to them, a tin cup brimming with good Irish whiskey. “So here ye are.”

  “Hello, Darius,” Darla said. “You’re enjoying your ill-gotten gain, I see.”

  “Oh, and thoroughly, woman. Never let it be said that Captain Darius didn’t know how to properly fritter away his wealth in high-minded fashion.” Darius’s eyes flamed red from the drinking he’d been doing. His rolling gait seemed a little more pronounced, and his gestures were broad and expansive.

  Since returning to Clifden, Darius had negotiated the sales of the weapons Handsome Jack had carried. The vampire captain had bemoaned the fact that the Scots activists he’d sold the arms to had been poorer than church mice, but he’d taken their money and wished them well all the same. They’d abandoned Lugh’s Fancy, casting the ship free out onto the sea.

  “Is that a new dress I see ye a-wearing?” Darius pulled a chair up to the table and sat.

  “Yes.” Darla preened.

  Darius chuckled. “I see ye’ve not been letting yer share lay idle.”

  “Money comes and goes,” Darla said. “I have no problems enjoying it.”

  Darius looked at Angelus. “And ye, my pirate-in-the-making, what have ye done with yer share?”

  “Nothing,” Angelus said.

  “He’s been moping over his new scars,” Darla said.

  “Ah, lad” — Darius clapped Angelus on the shoulder — “a proper pirate should be a fearsome man, one whose mere bloodthirsty look should make even brave men quail.” He smiled.

  Angelus barely bottled the black rage that filled him. Darius didn’t know him well enough to take those kinds of liberties.

  “Don’t ye worry yer knob overmuch about yer looks,” Darius advised. “A way to a woman’s loving arms isn’t through looks. It’s through how much silver and gold ye can cross her palm with. Trust ol’ Cap’n Darius on that.”

  Footsteps sounded on the warped boardwalk in front of Danann’s Tavern. The way they thumped rhythmicall
y against the wooden slats with strong cadence drew Angelus’s attention instantly.

  “Soldiers,” Darla stated, gazing toward the front door. An uncertain smile lighted her lips. “This should be interesting.”

  “I’ve heard that the king’s guard have been looking for the arms shipment what went missing,” Darius said. “But they’re afraid of looking too far outside of Clifden proper in the event they happen upon a group of overbrave Scots with quick fingers and the eyes of fisherhawks.”

  The front door opened, and a young giant filled the doorway. He stood over six feet tall, and his shoulders barely fit through the door. His black clothes and traveling cloak held road grit, and even across the room Angelus could smell the stench of horses and wood smoke on him.

  “They’re not from the city,” Angelus stated quietly. Apprehension filled his stomach with sour bile. He shifted in his chair and pushed his coat back from the sword belted at his side. Now that he was no longer playing pirate, he’d traded the cutlass for a short sword of good German steel that he was much more familiar with.

  The young giant strode into the room. Most of the dockworkers and sailors who’d come into the tavern for a meal and drink instantly rounded their shoulders and did their best to turn invisible.

  Five more young men, hard-eyed and grim-featured, stepped into the room after their leader. Despite the road dust and stench of horses that clung to them, all the young men were clean-shaven. They’d been on the road for a long time, but they’d tended to their personal appearances.

  “Now, there’s a handsome man,” Darla said in a soft voice.

  “Now, there’s a dangerous man,” Darius stated hollowly. “And him on a mission, too, from the looks of him.” The captain put his cup to one side, and the drunken behavior dropped away. His hand strayed down to the sword at his side.

  “I am Fiachra O’Domhnallain of the Clan Bresail, once from Galway as my ancestors were,” the young giant declared fiercely. “I come here this night to set right a wrong, and to end an evil pestilence that steadily claims the lives of the unsuspecting. My hand will not be stayed, and I promise no mercy to those who number among my foes, only a quick death as is the Lord’s judgment against all things foul.”