“All right, Mr. Deacon. I understand—you must be at the end of your rope. Perhaps you’ve just discovered how some of the information you’ve given us has been used.” He sighed. “It’s so difficult to lose a friend.”
A friend . . . Irena? The demon thought Irena was dead?
She should be. It’d been close. She’d gotten lucky.
But Deacon wasn’t going tell this demon differently.
“Fuck off,” he said.
And he realized the demon was right—that pretty much was all he had left.
The demon sighed again. “You are almost done, Mr. Deacon. You have just one more task. You’ll spend the day in my home, and we’ll fly to Prague tonight. And you will be on your best behavior around my employee, Mr. Deacon, or I will make that call. Just do as you’re told, and everything will end well.”
Deacon closed his eyes. What had Rosalia said? “It never ends well.”
It especially never ends well for vampires.
“Mr. Deacon, that is disappointing,” the demon said. “You should have a little more faith.”
CHAPTER 16
Irena had known weeks and months—even years—when she’d done little but wander her territory, searching for demons and nosferatu. And then came days like this, when she wondered how she would complete everything she needed to—particularly when her duties sat on opposite sides of the world, and the window of time to meet with vampires lasted from sundown to sunrise. When the day began in San Francisco, night would not fall for three more hours in her territory.
Thanks to Selah, she could start at SI and not lose too many hours flying to and from the Gates.
Before she and Alejandro left the forge, she quickly made him four swords with her Gift. She would craft others later, better suited to his growth in speed and strength these past four centuries.
Every moment in the forge with him had been perfect—almost unreal, as if in a dream. She did not mind. Irena hadn’t slept in sixteen centuries, had not dreamt. It was time for one: a waking dream.
And she was trying to remind herself of that when she stood in the conference room with Taylor, Preston, and Lilith, looking down at the files Michael had brought regarding Margaret Wren. Irena barely listened as Michael told them he’d teleported into a secured CIA facility to obtain them; she only felt the conflict in Taylor’s psychic scent. Irena wasn’t sure if the conflict stemmed from Michael’s method of retrieving the files, or the information within.
Irena looked up at Olek, who’d read through the reports within a few seconds. “What are we looking at?”
“An assassin.”
What did that matter? “She wasn’t the shooter.”
“No.” He flipped through another folder. “But she was issued and used the rifle. Going by the serial number, it’s the same weapon. She’d listed it as destroyed during one of her assignments.”
Assignments she no longer had. “Why did she resign?”
“She only stated ‘personal reasons,’ ” Alejandro said. “But for her last assignment, she was ordered to assassinate a fellow operative. An operative that she knew well: She’d trained with him, completed assignments with him. He saved her life twice.”
So they’d pushed her too far, Irena realized. Perhaps they’d thought her loyalty to the job would override any other consideration.
“Did she carry out the order?”
“Yes.”
Irena frowned.
“There’s more,” Taylor said. “Savi dug into her financials. Wren’s been funneling cash into a few bogus businesses and charities, which then head to a numbered account.”
Irena had no idea what that meant. “What does that say?”
“That she contacted someone she knew, and paid them to shoot Julia Stafford for her,” Preston said.
“Do we believe that?”
“Good question.” Lilith tapped her fingers against the table. “Let’s bring her in to ask her—but not here. Bradshaw can handle it, and hit her with the gun and the money.”
“Why?” Irena frowned at her. “Is it not obvious she’s being set up?”
Lilith indicated the files with a sweep of her hand. “We shouldn’t have these. Through regular channels, we’d have had to fight harder for them than this. That’s not easy or obvious; a month from now, a frustrated investigator is supposed to finally get this info and say, ‘Aha!’ ” Lilith shook her head. “But Rael doesn’t know that we already know he hired someone.”
Taylor pursed her lips. “Hired them through Wren?”
“That is the question. But since Rael doesn’t know we know that step, let’s keep it that way. We’ll use Bradshaw.”
Taylor nodded, and Irena realized that was the end of the meeting when Alejandro cleared the files from the table. She fought her discomfort and frustration; she wasn’t useful here. Unless they needed her to kill a demon or protect someone, she had no reason to accompany them to this interview with Wren. Alejandro could cover Taylor. Hugh could read the truth in Wren’s responses. And Irena could catch up on what they learned later.
She stopped Lilith in the hall. “You don’t need me here.”
Lilith’s brows arched. She glanced over her shoulder, where Olek had halted to watch them. Perhaps not. But, considering that five hours ago you were almost killed by three nephilim, I’m not sure if one of my agents will be on his game if you’re not in his sight.
Irena laughed. Olek might worry, but he’d never be stupid. “Don’t be an idiot.”
“I won’t; I leave that to Michael.” Lilith’s expression became speculative. “After you’ve checked on your vampires, I have a few files you might find interesting.”
“I might find them interesting if they do not come from an agency supported by a human-murdering demon.”
“But that will change soon, won’t it?” Lilith said, and turned to follow the others down the hall.
Alejandro’s face darkened. His gaze held Irena’s, and she shook her head. Not now. She did not want to discuss it now.
Lilith turned, walked backward for a few steps. “Deacon didn’t come back to the warehouse this morning, but his things are still here. Colin hasn’t heard from him.”
Irena frowned. Vampires didn’t like to bed down in unsecured locations. “I will ask Rosalia.”
“Do that.”
Irena looked to Olek again, watched him approach while the sound of Lilith’s heels faded.
“Where shall I find you later?”
After speaking with the vampires in her territory, she had to find Jake and compare the iron spikes. “Caelum,” she decided.
He pushed his hand into her hair. His lips captured hers for a long second. When he lifted his head, his smile shone from his eyes. “I believe we have just stunned everyone in the warehouse.”
From the direction of the gymnasium, Drifter called, “I reckon we’re just astounded neither one of you is bleeding.”
“Or killing another conference table,” Becca yelled after him.
“Or breaking through a closet wall,” Michael said in his harmonious voice, and shocked into silence anyone who had considered adding their own. The warehouse became deathly quiet.
“He’s been talking to Jake,” Irena said.
Alejandro closed his eyes, shook his head.
She grinned and touched his chin. “Be safe.”
Taylor supposed that she couldn’t complain about the Guardians’ secret sign language anymore. She knew a word now: truth.
Chances were, Rael had positioned himself within the federal building so that he’d be able to hear Bradshaw’s questions for Wren. This wasn’t about Wren at all, Taylor had realized—but leading Rael to think the investigation was headed in the direction he wanted them to go.
And the Guardians didn’t intend to let the demon know that Castleford watched the interview from the back of the darkened observation room, reading the truth and lies in Wren’s answers.
He stood to the left of her, with Cordoba on
the other side of him. In between them and the one-way mirror, two FBI agents watched Bradshaw thank Wren for coming in for a follow-up. Michael stood on her right. The Doyen had shape-shifted into a sixty-year-old black man—an identity he’d apparently used before, because he had a Special Investigations badge to go along with his appearance, and the agents had greeted him by name. A different name. Until Cordoba had whispered his real identity to her, Taylor hadn’t known who’d been standing so uncomfortably close.
When she’d woken up that morning, Michael had been standing at the foot of her bed, arms crossed over his wide chest. The arch of his black wings had almost brushed the ceiling. Even in the predawn darkness, she’d seen that his eyes were fully obsidian, and she hadn’t known if he’d been watching the door, the window, or her.
And she wasn’t sure if the tremor that had raced down her spine meant that she’d been freaked out or a little thrilled.
It hadn’t mattered. Either reaction was a reason to grab her weapon from her nightstand and order him the hell out of her room.
She had; he’d gone.
Bradshaw settled into his chair. Joe sat at the end of the small table, looking over at Wren with his careworn, I’m-your-favorite-uncle face on, which had guilted more than one person sitting across from him to break down and confess their sins.
Margaret Wren didn’t. She sat rigid in her chair, speaking only when spoken to.
Bradshaw laid a picture of the rifle on the table. “Do you recognize this weapon, Miss Wren?”
Her gaze flicked down and back up. “Yes. It’s a Heckler & Koch PSG1 semiautomatic rifle.”
“A sniper rifle.”
“Yes.”
“According to CIA records, you were the last person to have this particular rifle in your possession.”
Wren’s face didn’t betray any emotion. “I could not say whether I was.”
Truth, Castleford signed.
“You won’t tell us where you last had the weapon?”
“That, too. But I also do not memorize serial numbers.”
“Perhaps you’ll be more familiar with other numbers, Miss Wren.”
Bradshaw read off two bank account numbers, then a list of transactions. At the one-way, the agents frowned and shifted their weight. Taylor had difficulty holding back her own protest, reminding herself that Bradshaw wasn’t trying to go hard on Wren. He was just laying out what he had for Rael to hear.
Cordoba and Michael exchanged a glance and rapid-fire sign language.
Taylor frowned at them. Michael bent low and murmured into her ear so quietly she had to strain to hear—and then forced herself not to shiver as his breath warmed her skin.
“Her heart races. She’s frightened and angry.”
Surprised, she shot a glance through the window. Wren appeared ice cool.
Bradshaw finished his recitation and leaned back. “These are your accounts.”
“Yes.”
“Have you allowed anyone else access to them, Miss Wren?”
“No.”
Truth.
“Do you know who might have obtained access?”
“No.”
Truth.
“Did you make these transfers?”
“No. I wouldn’t be that stupid.”
Even before Castleford signed Truth, Taylor knew that it would be. Wren wasn’t that stupid. And Taylor would bet that if Wren had been behind Julia Stafford’s murder, she wouldn’t have left a trace of it.
Wren glanced at the one-way mirror, then at Bradshaw. “I won’t take any more questions without my lawyer present,” she said flatly.
“Very well. Thank you for your help so far, Miss Wren.”
Michael bent toward her again. “Her anger is cold now. Her fear is gone.”
Taylor gave a nod of satisfaction. Wren had figured out she was being set up. She might open her mouth a little more once she realized her employer was behind it.
The agents grumbled; Taylor tuned them out. Michael and Castleford left quickly—they would teleport back to SI before Rael realized they’d been here.
Fifteen minutes later, she stepped out of the building with Joe and Cordoba, and pulled her coat tight around her. She almost wished she’d teleported with Michael; the wind was cold enough to make her forehead ache.
And what fun—the demon was making his way across the plaza toward them.
Joe harrumphed, as if she hadn’t noticed. Cordoba watched Rael’s smiling approach without expression. The Guardian didn’t talk much. Not unless he had to—or unless Irena was in the room with him. Other than that, he seemed the quiet, deadly type.
Not the demon. He effused warmth, and instead of dark and brooding, he was handsome in a clean, rugged kind of way—tanned but not too tanned, with a few wrinkles next to his eyes for character, and sprinkles of gray through his sandy hair. In Hollywood, he’d be the kind of actor who only got hotter as he aged, the kind who looked at home in a suit and private jet or on horseback trekking through the mountains.
He stopped. The wind whipped at his dark wool trench and his red scarf. “Detective Taylor, Detective Preston. It’s nice to see you again.”
Taylor frowned. “Considering your recent loss, Representative Stafford, I’m sure that can’t be true.”
His sad smile managed to show off his perfect white teeth. “I always try to find the good in every situation, detective.”
Taylor actually felt chastised, like she shouldn’t be a surly bitch. Her badge entitled her to that, at least. So did the fucking wind.
“I didn’t expect you to be done with Maggie so quickly,” he added. “I was just taking a walk to clear my head when she called me. It’s easier to think without the distractions in the office.”
So he’d been walking and not listening? Right. “I bet,” Taylor said.
He smiled again. “And I like to see our new building from all angles.” His face tilted up, and he stepped back as if inviting them all to turn and look at the federal building. “She’s quite a feat, isn’t she? An amazing architectural accomplishment. Beauty and efficiency, in one package.”
“It’s great,” Taylor said and glanced at Cordoba. His face was still unreadable—and the demon hadn’t addressed him or acknowledged his presence. Was Rael trying to piss him off?
Joe didn’t look back at the irregular building. “I dunno about great. It looks like a parking structure after a quake to me. And every time I walk out, I get this feeling someone’s going to follow me home and yell at me for living in my little place made of wood that probably came out of some slashed-and-burned forest.”
The demon smiled. “Our responsibility for our future should not mean we have to denigrate the past. We couldn’t have built what we have now without taking those early steps—even steps that we later discovered were destructive.”
Joe shrugged. “I don’t care about that. I just want to put some butter on my potatoes without clutching at my chest.”
“Ah, yes.” The demon laughed quietly, as if he thought Joe had been joking, and looked to Taylor. “You must be pleased to be working with your partner again. I suppose yesterday’s team up with Irena did not work out.”
It’d worked out fine, but why tell the demon that? “Not really.”
His expression became a picture of sympathy. “It’s a pity she didn’t make it today.”
What did that mean? Was he trying to wheedle out her take on the interview with Wren? As if she’d give him anything.
“Yeah, it sucks to be her,” Taylor said.
“Yes. Good day, detectives.”
As soon as the demon’s back was turned, Joe gave her a What the hell? look. Taylor shrugged and shook her head. But Cordoba, she noted, was staring after Rael with eyes that had darkened to black.
He waited until Rael had disappeared into the building. “Please excuse me while I make a call.”
Quiet, and so polite. She gestured toward the plaza. “Knock yourself out.” They’d just hang around and freeze.
He strode away. She watched him lift the phone to his ear, then squeeze his eyes closed and tighten his mouth in the universal sign that he’d been dropped into a voice mail instead of reaching the person he’d wanted.
Free will or not, sometimes Guardians seemed very human.
She thought of Michael, and waking up to him at the end of her bed. And sometimes . . . not.
She glanced at Joe and asked before she could stop herself, “Would you become one of them—one of the Guardians?”
“In a heartbeat.” Joe studied her face. “Are you worried about this prophecy thing?”
“No.” She shoved her hands into the pockets of her jacket. “Let’s go see if we can find some coffee from a field that’s been proudly slashed and burned.”
No one knew where Rosalia was, or how to reach her. But since Irena was back in her territory and had to visit Prague’s new community leader anyway, she would drop in on Eva and Petra first. She knew Deacon cared for them; he might have kept in touch.
If nothing else, she’d find out why they hadn’t stood by him.
She arrived in Prague a few minutes after sunset, and flew directly to Deacon’s place on the north side of the city. She landed behind the tall stone building as the sun’s orange glow faded from the sky. Thirty years ago, Deacon had converted the second floor of a textile factory into a living area for him and his partners. Through the square, barred windows on the ground floor, she saw the two antique automobiles Deacon had been restoring—both sat abandoned, tools still laid out on a cloth spread over the hood of the vehicle in the first bay.
Irena frowned and vanished her wings, feeling the first stir-rings of unease. Those cars were Deacon’s; they didn’t belong to the community, and his personal property wouldn’t be transferred to the new community leader after he’d been defeated. Why hadn’t he at least made arrangements to have them stored until he could come back for them?
Khavi appeared beside Irena as she was walking up the steps to the apartment. The small woman was almost swimming in a bright yellow slicker and boots. Rain from wherever she’d teleported still streaked the plastic.
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