He grasped at any straw that came to mind, a very weak, fragile straw. “Could she have changed her mind, maybe? Changed sides at the last minute and saved the girls for that reason?”
Lucas scowled and shook his head, typing furiously away. The desk rattled under the impact of his fingers on the keys. “No chance in hell. Rose may have bought into whatever bullshit the woman told her, but Gwen despised her. The hatred leaking from the letter was practically palpable, even without my gift.”
“Fuck.”
Slap to the head. Okay, so Razael would only let him swear so much. Fair enough. His lip curled and he bit back another curse.
“Chances are that’s why Rose is here, and Gwen’s soul-stone is what she wants us to find. No matter what she believes about the woman, she knows Gwen knows she’s a Sacred Mother, and she can’t afford for the demons to find out she’s still alive.”
“Which means we better get our butts in gear and find Gwen first.” If anyone managed to get Gwen’s soul free, she would travel to Otherworld and no one would be able keep secrets from native-born demons on the other plane.
“Working on it.” Lucas slapped the monitor and it shuddered. “Gwen’s death memory showed me a face I recognized. Remember our California problem, Giles Jester?”
Movement near the window briefly pulled Cal’s gaze from Lucas over to Tom. The ghost had turned even paler than he normally looked. Based on that, he gathered Tom knew Giles. Cal certainly did.
Giles Jester was a Twisted One who specialized in necromancy. Necromancers used soul-stones like Gwen’s, used the spirit’s energy to power their spells, and if Lucifer had even the slightest hint that Gwen had been hiding something from him, someone like Giles could probably get the truth from her, or at least open the soul-stone to send her spirit to Otherworld.
“I’m assigning you to personally guard Rose,” the other Sentinel said as he returned to his blazing typing. “She knows you, and despite the little scene when you two first met, given you just spent three hours downstairs talking to her, she’s more likely to trust you than any of us. Until I can get a lead on where Giles Jester might be, and with him Gwen’s soul-stone, I want you with Rose.”
His mouth went dry. He hadn’t been assigned the protection of any gargoyles since the massacre. He’d devoted himself to building up Protectorate forces and acting as an intermediary between hard-ass Lucas and those who were somewhat intimidated by him.
He had no real reason to say no. Lucas wouldn’t accept any excuses, and was absolutely right. Rose had made it clear only a few minutes ago that she didn’t trust the rest of the Sentinels. Which left him to protect her.
And they desperately needed to keep her alive. She might not be a Queen, capable of focusing the energy gathered by her sister Sacred Mothers into closing the Rift, but she was young. Only Sacred Mothers under fifty were capable of channeling the energy, and it was a one-shot deal. It was the reason they couldn’t just bring in a trio of Sacred Mothers from another continent—they were all needed on their own continents. There were currently only fifteen gargoyles who met that description—well, sixteen now with Rose’s reappearance.
And just maybe seventeen, if Gwen’s not lying through her bitchy teeth about Serenity’s survival.
“Calhoun?”
Mr. Ray’s voice jolted him back to the present. He glanced at the angel who still sat quietly on the couch. He’d set aside the earlier paperwork and folded his hands in his lap.
“Will you be able to protect Rose adequately? I know you still blame yourself for Anniko.”
He closed his eyes briefly against the unwanted memory of Anniko’s body in his arms, and then nodded shortly. No choice, and he wanted to protect her. Something about her smile, the brief awe and flash of love she’d aimed at the motionless Vasiliu, drew him to her. He wanted to see her smile more, maybe even smile at him.
Fuck, this is not the time to turn into a pussy. He needed to focus, concentrate only on keeping her safe.
“Yes,” he finally said, voice far more steady than he would have expected, given the little tremor of his hands in his pockets. “I can.”
In the following moment of silence, he crossed to the window where Tom still stood. The ghost had regained his normal transparent color, such as it was. Cal sighed as he glimpsed Rose in the midst of a cluster of gargoyles. All sixteen looked awe-struck, even reverential, as they gathered close to her. “Maybe I shouldn’t have introduced her to them. Kept her identity quiet.”
Mr. Ray joined him at the window and frowned down at the scene. “I would have recommended that, but what’s done is done.”
The more people who knew the truth about Rose, the more chances there were for someone to let the news slip to Lucifer. While Sentinels and gargoyles should be above suspicion for aiding and abetting the enemy, one could never be too cautious. There had been traitors caught in the ranks before.
Still, he wouldn’t want to have denied Rose’s incredible joy as she clung to Vasiliu’s arm.
“It was my call, Cal,” Lucas said quietly, his fingers continuing to bang away on the keyboard. “They won’t talk. They’d give up their lives before they harmed her.”
Sentinels protected gargoyles as a matter of course, but gargoyles were fanatics when it came to the Sacred Mothers. Now that there actually was a local Sacred Mother to protect, the Atlanta gargoyles would stop at nothing to keep her safe. Just like he would.
A faint noise reached his ears then, just a little squeal. At first he wasn’t sure it was actually audible. It seemed more of a tickle against his eardrums than actual noise.
The hairs on the back of his arms stood up.
Next to him, Mr. Ray hissed out a soft breath.
The tapping from Lucas halted.
Something felt wrong. Very wrong.
The air took on a certain charged menace.
Cal swallowed, trying to get moisture to flow again in his dry mouth as he looked over at Mr. Ray.
Seeing the color drain from the angel’s face, he was almost positive what the noise meant. But there was only one way to know for sure.
He stared back down at the congregating gargoyles. Please, don’t notice anything. Please, please, please.
Seven of them, including Dennis, Vasiliu, and Rose, all looked about uncertainly.
Oh shit.
“Of course this is going to happen now, isn’t it?” Lucas sounded weary, almost bitter, in his muttered question.
Gritting his teeth against the subtle whine, Cal clenched his hands into fists. Just fucking perfect. The last thing they needed to deal with on top of the race to retrieve Gwen’s soul-stone from one of Lucifer’s top lieutenants was a crack in the barrier between Earth and Otherworld. And judging by the racket in his ears, that was exactly what they had.
A T’chan had just opened up.
Chapter Five
Sentinel Truth #3: The Twisted Ones will do whatever it takes to open a Rift. We do whatever it takes to keep a Rift from opening. The difference? We value life. They don’t.
Rose pulled on her right earlobe when the faint ringing didn’t abate.
What is that?
A couple of the other gargoyles wore the same puzzled expression that she knew was on her face. She hadn’t intended to announce who and what she was to the other gargoyles immediately. But she hadn’t been willing to let go of Vasiliu to keep them from wondering why she was clinging to him. One thing had led to another and now everyone in the backyard knew her secret.
So be it. And unlike her reservations about the Sentinels, she trusted the gargoyles to do right by her.
Lucas blew past her, yanking on Dennis’s arm as he headed for a corner in the backyard. She squeezed Vasiliu’s hand. Her cousin seemed to have the same need to touch her as she did him, so despite a lifetime of avoiding physical contact, she clung to him. “Do you hear anything, uh, hinky?”
He cocked his head, pointed ears flicking this way and that, like a cat’s. His tail switche
d, smacking into the railing of the steps leading to the raised porch behind him. He nodded. “A soft rumble, yes? Almost the sound of a nail down slate?”
Rose flexed her fingers. “Is that normal?”
She’d never visited Atlanta before, and certainly never hung out on holy ground or Sentinel land before. Who knew what passed for normal with these people, or for that matter, normal for anyone who lived in the lower forty-eight?
“I do not know. It is not natural. This much I know.” His words came out haltingly, trailing off. His tail still twitched in a clear sign of agitation.
“Quiet, everyone,” Cal called as he stepped onto the porch. Rose caught his quick glance toward where Dennis stood whispering emphatically to Lucas.
She tried to meet Cal’s gaze, get some idea of what was driving him. There was a certain new energy surrounding him. When their gazes collided though, he quickly moved on.
Her eyes narrowed at the change from before he’d gone upstairs. What on earth had Lucas told him? She hadn’t done anything wrong. Well, not recently anyway.
“We’ve got a problem.” Cal said. “Listen up.”
Lucas clapped his hands together, the noise echoing across the abruptly silent yard. “Everyone, get out on your patrols ASAP. A T’chan just opened up. You can probably hear it if you listen.”
She staggered a little in place at the announcement. She recognized that word, remembered Anyuka talking about T’chans.
Next to her Vasiliu hissed and his tail swished restlessly through the grass.
Cal joined them at the foot of the steps and gave her a brief, worried smile. “You know what a T’chan is, don’t you?”
Unfortunately she did. It was a sign of an impending Rift, opening up as the barrier between Earth and Otherworld weakened under inexorable pressure built up by the demons tunneling from Otherworld. The demons wanted to conquer Earth to give themselves somewhere to go that wasn’t consumed by fire and brimstone. Any Otherworld territory conquered by demons transformed into a hellish landscape and Earth wouldn’t. But the demons needed Otherworld’s energy on Earth if they wanted to survive, and the Rift allowed that to flow between planes.
“It’s an early warning sign of a Rift.”
Vasiliu glanced at her. “You will need to close it.”
Of course she would. Never mind she didn’t have the foggiest idea of how to do it.
A solo Sacred Mother could heal cracks, no problem. Unfortunately, Anyuka hadn’t gotten around to teaching her how to do that before the massacre.
Rose rubbed her arms briskly, trying to keep a surge of panic from showing. No looking weak in front of Sentinels and the gargoyles. Weakness got a girl killed. “Okay, I get that we don’t want any energy from Otherworld flowing through, but why freak over a crack? Most angels and demons can’t live here until a Rift opens and stays open. Not enough energy and all that.”
Cal frowned and kicked a little pebble away from them. “Other stuff from Otherworld can survive on a whole lot less energy. Nothing that would be near the Otherworld side of a T’chan is going to be friendly toward Earth-residents.”
Just fabulous. Somehow she’d missed Gwen’s talk about the creatures that lived in Otherworld.
Oh, wait, there’d never been a lecture.
Sure, she’d gotten the standard “Don’t stay out late,” “Sentinels are lazy bastards,” and “Don’t play with vampires” conversations as a kid, but nothing about demonic monsters crossing over.
Cal’s phone beeped and he yanked it out to check the screen. Then he raised his voice and called, “Sentinels from Florida want to conference us. They hear the T’chan loud and clear down there.”
Before she could ask the importance of that little detail, Vasiliu murmured, “Closer to the T’chan, the louder it becomes. Of course, just as we can hear the vibrations, so too can the enemy.”
So, even if she and a contingent of Sentinels and/or gargoyles went down to fix the hole, they’d have to fight to get to it.
Rose bared her teeth at the notion. Judging by the claw marks she’d sighted on Gwen’s body, the woman had died a torturous death at the hands of the Twisted Ones. Bring it on.
“Rose, Mr. Ray wants to talk to you before we go.” Cal turned and headed inside without waiting to see if she’d follow.
“Who the heck is Mr. Ray?” she demanded as she started after him, blood racing as her vision turned red. Oh, he so did not expect her to just follow like a puppy, did he? And for what, some new guy that wanted to meet her?
…
Rose’s gaze met his as he glanced back to be sure she was coming with him. The muscle in the corner of her cheek twitched as she ground her teeth together. He probably should have tried to ask her to join him, not bark out an order. She deserved better than that from him after all she’d lived through.
“Should we head out toward Florida?” asked one of the gargoyles, after brushing past Rose. “I, uh, I didn’t want to bother Lucas.”
Even though the gargoyles were stronger and faster than most of the Sentinels, Lucas still intimidated them. If they had questions, they came to Cal.
“We don’t have a location yet, man. Grab some grub before you go. We got the PJ’s pizzas you guys asked for.” At Rose’s intense scowl, he jerked his chin toward the hallway. “Sorry for the delay. We better get up there before he gets cranky.”
She dug her heels in when he would have guided her toward the staircase. “Who. Is. Mr. Ray? I know that name, but why?”
“He’s our leader. Pure-blood angel, the only one able to survive on Earth.”
Comprehension flooded her face. As they walked, she asked, “Do the gargoyles here really eat pizza?”
“Uh, yeah. They love it.” Of course they ate pizza. What warm-blooded creature didn’t love pizza? “Don’t you?”
She probably had a lot of gaps in the basic knowledge of her own kind. They needed to get her up to speed. Maybe he could locate one of the training manuals for her to read while they were traveling to the T’chan. Lucas kept the binders under lock and key to be certain they didn’t fall into human hands. The last thing any of them needed was for some innocent to find out there really were vampires.
She sighed wistfully. “I’m lactose intolerant. I thought maybe it was a gargoyle thing. I love pizza, but I don’t love what it does to me.”
Upstairs in Lucas’s office, Mr. Ray stood nearby with the phone plastered to his ear. Given how easy it was to hack into mobile networks, not to mention the NSA scandals, Cal really wished the angel wouldn’t use a cell phone for sensitive conversations—he tried to stick to landlines for extended calls—but he wasn’t about to bring the topic up. Mr. Ray might appear to be a mild-mannered milksop, but Cal had seen him when he got pissed. It was…frightening.
The angel stopped his pacing as Rose crossed the threshold. Cal found himself holding his breath. This could either go very well or the shit could cover the walls if Mr. Ray decided Rose wasn’t trustworthy. Rose gasped and a sheen of moisture covered her eyes as a wide smile turned her mouth up, though she quickly blinked the tears away. Mr. Ray literally lit up, turning into a column of brilliant golden light as his normally concealed aura escaped his control and enveloped him. The light vanished as quickly as Rose’s tears and he hung up the phone.
“From the sounds of it,” Mr. Ray said, tossing the phone on the desk with a loud clatter, “The T’chan is somewhere in north-central Florida. It’s louder to our Tampa people than Gabriel in Jacksonville.” He never once looked away from the woman standing just inside the office.
“Sounds like Orlando or Kissimmee,” Cal murmured.
“Are you really Mr. Ray?” Rose asked, peering at him closely. “I remember you, but you were a lot taller, weren’t you?”
The angel laughed, the first genuine laugh Cal had heard from him in over a decade, and rushed to embrace Rose. “Ah, little Rosie, you’ve gotten a great deal taller than when last we met.”
She held him a bit stiff
ly, but Cal noted she did indeed hug him back.
“That’s true. God, I thought you…sometimes I thought the years with the clan were just dreams. I missed everyone so much.”
“Shhh, little one.” Mr. Ray smoothed away the solitary tear that traced down her cheek. “You’re home now, and we’re going to get everything back the way it should be.”
“That’s impossible,” she muttered but then she straightened and pulled away from Mr. Ray. Her attitude turned back into the brisk one Cal was quickly coming to realize was a defensive, protective shell. “So, why’d you want to see me?”
“To see you for myself,” he answered and then his own demeanor hardened. “I’ve already ordered the Florida Sentinels to start crossing the state to home in on where the T’chan is. Lucas will coordinate from here. Calhoun, you will take the available gargoyles and Sentinels and Rose south while we get its location identified.”
“And do what?” asked Rose uneasily. She gnawed on her lower lip again between sentences. “I don’t know how to help.”
“You will know what to do when the time comes, little Rosie.”
“How? Gwen knew nothing about gargoyle rituals, or if she did…” Rose clamped her mouth shut, shook her head, and then picked up again. “She didn’t know.”
Now that could be a problem, Cal mused.
And what did she mean when she stumbled over what Gwen knew or didn’t know? Was she keeping information about the woman from them that might give them insight into the mindset of the Twisted Ones? He frowned to himself, making a note to gently probe into the topic when he could. Now wasn’t a good time, but if Rose knew something more, he’d have to push her hard and fast.
Mr. Ray took Rose’s hands in his. He said very softly, gently, “Trust in yourself. You will do what is right when the time comes. The important thing you must accept is that the Sentinels exist to protect you. Trust them to do that job while you do yours. Know that while you are with Cal, Lucas will be searching for those who stole Gwyeira from you.”
Locked in Stone Page 6
