by Jenn Stark
She ran into a darkened conference room as the battle raged outside, and laid Rourke down on the ground as carefully as she could, then ripped open his shirt. As she saw the bloody mess of his body, she drew back in horror. These were not Rourke’s first wounds, but they were likely to prove his last.
Feet thundered by the conference room door, and Dana jerked her head up, shocked by the look of the new men. These were not demons, and they weren’t the police. They were pale, resolute, and snugging serious metal against T-shirts emblazoned with every nerd icon known to man. And they looked like they could handle their weapons.
Max’s reinforcements.
“Ahh—” The voice drew Dana’s attention down, and she pulled herself closer to Rourke, cradling his head in her arms.
“It’s okay, it’s okay, Timothy. You’re going to be all right.”
“It’s Tim,” he said with a faint smile. “And you’re a terrible liar.”
“No, no, you’re wrong. I’m serious.” She pressed down on the worst of the wounds, but he was bleeding from too many places, and she couldn’t press enough to hold his body together. “Sometimes,” she said, “sometimes if you focus the right way, you can actually heal yourself from bullet wounds.” She licked her lips, shocked to find tears were coursing down her face. “You’ve had that experience, right, Tim?”
She remembered Max’s words, knew he was listening to her, knew he could hear the death rattle of Tim’s breathing, rough and ragged over the mic. “You look like you’ve gone through quite a lot already, and you made it through.”
Around them, the carnage reigned. However many Possessed Finn had taken down by wounding or killing them, the body count had to be growing. Glass was blown out and smoke billowed upward into the sky. “Hold on, Tim, help’s coming,” she said. “The police will see the smoke. We’ll get you out of here and into a hospital faster than you can believe.
“You moved…too fast,” he said, and his eyes were searching hers, eyes that were clear and blue and far too young to be asked to see so much. “You moved like I do, when I—when I’m mad enough.”
She grinned through her tears. “That’s right, Tim,” she said. “I moved like you did. I’m very much like you are, even though we never met before today.”
He nodded, wincing as he coughed. “I wish I could have met you…before today.”
Dana’s stomach twisted at the small drop of blood that formed at the side of his mouth. Dammit, where were those sirens? She had to lean down to catch his next words. “—name?” he asked.
“Dana. My name is Dana Griffin, and you better remember it, because I’m going to be coming after you for a job just as soon as you get better, do you hear that?”
“Work—for Lester.”
“Well, Lester doesn’t take care of you nearly well enough,” Dana said. “I will.” She paused, beginning to tremble as much as Tim had when he’d first fallen. But she was more concerned now because Tim was resting easily, sinking to a place from which she could not pull him back. “Do you have any family, Tim? A mom or dad? A sister I can call to come visit you in the hospital?”
“No,” he said, and again the soft, sad smile. “Lester…was all the family I had. Parents…died a long time ago. He a-dopted me,” he managed. “Paid for—everything.”
Cold shock washed over Dana. This boy was her. Her all over again. She pulled Tim close. “Well, you have a really big family now, Tim,” she said. “Fifteen hundred brothers and sisters that you never met. And I’m going to tell them all about you.”
She couldn’t dash the tears from her eyes, so she let them fall onto his face in a gentle rain. “I’m going to tell them how brave you were, how fast you moved to save someone so that they could go home and spend Christmas with their family.”
“I’d seen…Green around. Good man.”
“And you’re a good man too, Tim,” Dana whispered. He smiled at that.
An explosion sounded outside the room, and Dana and Tim crouched together, their hearts hammering loud enough to compete with the noise. Shouting and more explosions followed as Max’s reinforcements roared after more demons. And finally, in the distance were the sirens.
But Tim was already fading from her, his aura dimming around him like a soft and spectral fire. “Tim, I want you to know that we will keep them safe,” she said, and her voice broke as he opened his eyes again. “We were meant to do great things, you know,” she said. “I’m not going to let you down.
“And you’ll remember…?”
“Yes,” Dana burst out, on the verge of crying again. “Everyone will know of the sacrifice you made and why you made it. You’ll be the first to the fight.”
“First—is good,” Tim said, and he settled again, smiling up at her while she bit her lip to steady herself. “I always wanted to have a big family,” he said.
“Me too,” she said softly.
But Tim could no longer hear her.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Exeter Global Services
Cleveland, Ohio
10:00 p.m., Dec. 24
Finn moved forward rapidly, using his rifle as much as a tool to disarm his attackers as to incapacitate them. As he fought, he kept one eye on the conference room where he’d seen Dana disappear with the young guard. He needed to get over there—right after he cleared a path for escape for both of them. The attack had been fairly self-contained, but it was only a matter of time before the fire alarms were set off or someone tripped battery-powered security systems. The men who’d shown up to help dispatch the Possessed were doing so with a ruthlessness that reminded him of the single-minded focus of video game players, but they were fast running out of prey. Even now, many of the Possessed were racing through the corridors, no longer set on attacking as much as escape.
Still, there would be plenty for the police to question. And he and Dana needed to be out of there before they showed up.
He ran for Dana’s conference room, but before he could reach it, another wave of the battle surged in front of him, spilling from another chamber. Finn plunged into the melee of the Possessed, the line between death and destruction blurring with every hit, every kick, every broken bone. Within minutes, more of the Possessed had dropped, and others screamed as they fled, their minds focusing only on escape.
Finn straightened, turning to where he could barely see Dana lying slumped and bleeding in the conference room, when the sound of slow, lazy clapping stopped him in his tracks.
“Bravo,” Bartholomew said, and Finn pivoted toward him. The rogue Fallen looked none the worse for wear for the attack, his evening wear barely creased as he picked up the gun that had been lying by his side. “You’ve proven yourself to be quite a worthy opponent, Finn. I’ve enjoyed fighting you, but like all good things, this too must come to an end. You’re displaying a lamentable fondness for mortals, and that, my friend, is the surest way to get yourself killed.”
“Your men were massacred tonight,” Finn seethed. “You led them here to be slaughtered.”
“Not quite the truth, but close enough.” Bartholomew shook his head. “The list is here, Finn. Lester doesn’t have it after all—and believe me, I pressed him hard. Strange how he could block me mentally, but that’s a temporary problem. And once you’re gone, there will be no one to stop me from finding the list…and exacting retribution. I’ve established an outpost in this city, and I have standards to uphold.”
“I wasn’t the one gunning down your troops,” Finn said, realizing suddenly that Bartholomew didn’t know that Dana was in the next room—Dana and a second Dawn Child.
“Locals.” Bartholomew curled his lip. “They’ll pay for that in time. You can expect no additional help from them, though it was an inspired choice.”
“I didn’t call them.”
Bartholomew raised his brows. “Then you’ll allow me to give my congratulations to Ms. Griffin, or one of her associates,” he said. He cast a glance heavenward, a slight smile on his face. “Assuming she s
urvives the night, she’ll prove to be quite an asset to my cause, I suspect.”
“Not gonna happen, dickhead.”
“And you’ll stop me how, exactly?” Bartholomew sneered. “If you want to, have at me, but you’ll need to be quick about it. In a few short hours, you’ll be gone—and I’ll still be here. When that happens, I’ll simply come in and scoop up the mortal, and we’ll all go on our way.”
“No, you won’t,” Finn said. “I’ll kill you first.”
“You know…I almost think you would,” Bartholomew said.
He opened fire into Finn’s chest.
Finn crashed backward from the bullets, even as he rolled down and under, shifting left at the last minute, the speed of his movements allowing him to miss the full thrust of the assault. Bartholomew had simply guessed wrong, he realized, as he watched the trail of bullet holes spring up in a lazy J to the right, continuing on to shoot out the windows. Cold, bracing air rushed in.
Bartholomew took one step forward, then another. “I know your woman is somewhere close, maybe even watching for you. She’ll be alone someday, Finn. When you’re long gone and forgotten, she’ll be alone and at risk. And, once again, I’ll still be here, waiting and watching. There are too many demons ready to be commanded. The Dawn Children cannot stand against us. They will join us, or they will die. After that, nothing will stop us.”
“She doesn’t have the list,” Finn said.
“Ahh, but she’s seen it, hasn’t she? At least part of it. And she’s a Dawn Child. Her mind was not made to forget.”
Bartholomew took another step, the angle of his approach taking him over to the bank of windows that looked out over the city. “I haven’t had the opportunity to turn a Dawn Child in quite a few centuries,” he said, his eyes scanning the room. “You really want to leave her to me?”
Finn leaned against the wall, pressing his hand on his wounds. He could heal quickly, but he’d lost a great deal of blood, and blood was not regenerated so quickly for Fallen as it was for the Syx, it appeared. He needed time to complete the process.
He turned his head, noting another downed human not three feet away. His body was out of Bartholomew’s sight line—as was access to his rifle. Finn leaned over to the man as Bartholomew continued his rant. Whether the man was dead or simply passed out, Finn couldn’t take the time to determine. He lifted the rifle and pulled himself upright.
“What would you have me do, Bartholomew?” he asked. “We weren’t made to rule the humans, any more than we were made to kill them. Have you forgotten so much of your promises that you’ve forgotten that?”
“You’re a child,” Bartholomew spat. “I made no promises that retain any power over me.”
He took a step away, and the sounds of fighting drew closer. The new men were battling back the Possessed, but they couldn’t ignore that time was passing. Soon there would be sirens blaring, the sound of armed, official men rushing up the stairs to the floor, the cacophony of fire trucks on their way.
“It’s over, Bartholomew,” Finn gritted out. “For once, face the consequences of your actions.”
“You won’t kill me,” Bartholomew sneered. “I’m all you know of being a Fallen. That makes me much more valuable to you alive than dead.” He brought the gun around, his head tilting up as he heard the sound of glass crashing, screams of rage filling the echoing chambers. “Whereas, if you’re planning on giving the list to your precious archangel, you’re more important to me dead than alive.”
Finn shifted his gun a little. “I understand. But it turns out I mainly want to hand you over alive so the archangel can beat the shit out of you. He’s even better at it than I am.” Then he shot Bartholomew in the leg.
The rogue Fallen wheeled back, his eyes going from Finn to the far door, which was now being battered with a round of machine gun fire. Max’s attack squad must have realized he was here, and they were coming to finish the job. But guns fired by humans wouldn’t work on Bartholomew. Only Finn could harm him.
“I have more information than you could possibly imagine, Fallen. Information you want. Information you truly need. But you’ll only get this one chance.”
Finn hesitated, and his heart beat with agony at the choice. To go after Bartholomew now was surely the sounder course. He would catch him, especially with a wounded leg. There was so much he could not know—so much he needed to know. He would be giving Bartholomew to the archangel on a platter, and that would count for a lot.
And yet—he steeled himself from looking back toward the room where Dana lay, possibly passed out from blood loss, at risk from both the Possessed and the police, once they showed up, whose showering rain of bullets might just as easily kill her as her attackers.
He couldn’t leave her. Not until he had to.
He’d made his choice.
Bartholomew knew it the same moment he did. “So, that’s the way of it, Fallen,” he said, his tone rich with contempt. “You failed.”
At that moment, the door burst open, and a screaming torrent of bullets blasted through the room.
Moving faster than human eyes could track, Bartholomew tucked the assault rifle close to his body and jumped out the window, bullets peppering the wall harmlessly in his wake.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Exeter Global Services
Cleveland, Ohio
10:30 p.m., Dec. 24
Dana sat inside the conference room, her body half covering Timothy Rourke’s still form. When warm hands circled her shoulders, she went rigid, shoving up with one hand to fend off her attacker while she twisted away.
“Dana,” Finn said sharply, forcing her to refocus. “It’s me. It’s Finn.” He pulled her bodily off Rourke, and while she knew with one part of her brain who he was, why he was there, and that he was a friend, she couldn’t help the violence of her response, her arms flailing wide as he sought to hold her close.
“Finn,” she managed, drawing in a deep breath. “He was—he was a—”
Finn cut her off. “You’re hurt,” he said, his voice going deadly calm. “How many places—where?”
Dana looked down at her arm with dull eyes, a dripping stain spreading beneath her. “Bullet to the shoulder is only a graze,” she said. “Knife stab to my upper left leg I can’t even feel anymore.” She held up her left hand. “I think I broke a finger or something.”
“Dislocated,” Finn said, curving his hands over it. She winced for a moment as the joints moved back into place, then welcomed the soothing warmth that washed through her. He lifted her face again, and her mouth worked as she struggled to get the words out. “He’s dead,” she said miserably. “I couldn’t save him. I didn’t know how to—to get him to save himself.”
Finn looked down at Timothy, and she watched as he counted the bullet holes, his mouth going grim. “I can’t save him either,” he said quietly. “You gave him what he needed, here.”
“I couldn’t do anything,” she whispered, her eyes drifting down to Timothy’s impossibly young face. “I didn’t know how.”
“You gave him arms to lie in. That’s more than most get. Now come on,” he said brusquely. “We have to get out of here.”
“What do you mean?” Dana looked around wildly even as she forced herself to her feet. “Where’s Max?”
“Gone,” Finn said. “Same as his geek squad. I assume he’ll contact you, but the police have arrived and they’ll keep us here for a lot longer than I can afford to wait.” He looked at her. “We need to leave.”
They ran out into the main area just as feet thundered down the hallway, official-sounding boots accompanied by low-pitched shouts. As they ran past Lester’s office, she stopped.
“Shit,” she muttered. The door stood ajar, and it would have served as a reasonable hiding place. “Max?” she asked as she pushed her way inside. There was no one there and she stood for a moment, not quite sure why she’d come in here.
“Dana,” Finn growled, and she nodded, heading back to him. She no s
ooner crossed the threshold than she swooned.
“Whoa!” Finn grabbed her, holding her close while she fought to remain upright.
“Sorry, I—I can manage myself.” She shook her head to clear it…that didn’t help.
“I know. You’ll stabilize shortly. The weakness is the result of blood loss. But we have to keep moving.”
She shot him a look. “You up for giving me a transfusion?” she said wryly.
“Don’t think it hasn’t been tried.”
Dana shuddered as they moved through the room, past mounds of destroyed computer circuitry and crushed monitors. Her gaze swept what was left of Lester’s pristine call center. There was easily a hundred thousand dollars’ worth of damage, more if the sprinkler system finally kicked on and soaked the remaining equipment and furniture.
“Where’s the rest of Lester’s security team?” she asked. “If a full-scale attack was leveled on his office, he should have disaster recovery already in here.”
Finn looked out one window, then backed away from it as sirens cut through the air. “If the alert goes through Lester, they could be waiting for authorization.”
“No, he wouldn’t have set it up that way,” Dana said, shaking her head. “Lester could be here, incapacitated. He’d want to be sure that help was on the way.”
“Well, it’s not coming fast enough. We’re going to take an alternate exit,” Finn said, and they moved through the room to Lester’s gallery. The door was locked, but Finn put his hand over the alarm panel, and the circuits immediately shorted out. The door swung open, and they moved through it, Finn shoving the door back in place. With every step, as Finn had promised, Dana stabilized, while Finn reached out to pick up a few pieces along the way.
“What are you getting, souvenirs?” Dana demanded as he overrode the computer circuitry on the painting and that door swung open as well. They thundered down the steps, and she gasped as they ran into the computer room.
“What the hell is this?” she demanded.
