Concrete Savior

by Yvonne Navarro

  That same sixth sense was screaming right now, but it wasn’t a life-or-death type of feeling. It was just a sense that something was not right, something about Charlie. She’d found the adoption folder where Charlie kept all of his papers, the details of the long tracking of his birth parents. It was all there, and everything matched where it was supposed to—flight times, the hotel bills on the online credit card statements, the restaurant charges. Even those were small enough to point to only one person dining.

  So why wouldn’t he talk to her? What was going on in her husband’s mind that made him want to cut himself off so completely from his family? She’d even gone through the computer files, but there was nothing. Charlie was not cheating on her.

  Brenda leaned forward and began tapping keys into the browser’s URL line. Her mother- and father-in-law knew where Charlie had gone, and although she could see the hurt and worry under the surfaces of their accepting expressions, they swore they would stand by and support whatever he wanted to do. They said they understood his search for his roots, although she didn’t think that was true. In any case, she wouldn’t tell them why she was asking, but they would watch the kids if she needed them to.

  After a second or two, a travel site opened on the monitor. If Charlie wouldn’t come to her with whatever problem he was having, then she would go to him.

  “DID YOU CHECK OUT this morning’s paper?” Eran asked Brynna.

  “No,” she said. “There’s been so much bad news lately, I guess I didn’t want to.” A corner of her mouth turned down. “I suppose you have more.”

  “Yeah.” He looked at her. “Sorry, but I think you should know this.”

  “What is it this time?”

  “An article about Danielle Myers and her rampage at the school. The reporter wrote about Casey. He picked up on the previous rescues and how everyone Casey’s rescued has done something terrible.”

  “Oh, great.”

  “Yeah,” Eran said again. “Ugly headline. The guy tagged him as the ‘Death Rescuer.’ ”

  “Shit,” Brynna muttered. “This is just the kind of thing that Jashire’s looking for.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’s that guilt angle. This is a solid thing that she can point to when she talks to Casey.”

  “You think she has?”

  “If she hasn’t, she’ll see this and make it a point.”

  “So she reads the paper?”

  “I do, most of the time. Think about it, Eran. There are all kinds of people around the world who want to cause havoc. They keep up with and make their plans based on modern communication. If you were that kind of person—or creature—wouldn’t you keep up with what’s going on in the lives of your targets?”

  Eran glanced at her unhappily. “Yeah. I suppose I would.”

  JASHIRE CAUGHT GEORGINA WHITFIELD as she was coming out of her apartment on Monday morning on her way to work. The Whitfield woman had never seen her in person, but it was obvious from her expression that she knew exactly who Jashire was.

  “No,” she said. She tried to back away but she had closed the apartment door behind her and there was nowhere for her to go. “N-no—”

  “Oh, I think yes,” Jashire said. She pushed her hand against theyoung woman’s chest and pinned her against the wall next to the door, then reached behind her with her other hand and twisted the knob. It broke and she forced Georgina back inside. “If you’re a good little girl, I might give you one more chance to get your husband back.” She sniffed the air. “I see you’ve had visitors.”

  Gina’s face had gone the color of bread dough. “I didn’t ask them to come over. They just—”

  “The point is they did. I thought I was clear on you not telling anyone about our arrangement.”

  “But you aren’t doing what you promised,” Gina blurted. “I keep doing everything you ask but—”

  “I never promised you anything. I just inferred.” Jashire scanned the apartment and her gaze stopped on the refrigerator. She gave Gina a slow, evil smile. “Is that where you keep it, Georgina? The little token I sent you?”

  “Give me back my husband, you bitch!”

  Jashire laughed. “Oooh, the girl has claws! Or you’ll do what? You don’t even know where he is.”

  “Brynna will find him,” Gina shot back. “She told me she would. She told me she could.”

  “Brynna . . . so that’s what she’s calling herself these days.” When Georgina said nothing, Jashire continued, “You think she’s going to help you? She’s no different than me, Georgina. How do you think she could find you?”

  “She had help from her friend.”

  “Her friend.” Jashire’s eyebrow arched. “You know, I’ll bet he’s a cop, isn’t he?” At the expression on Gina’s face, her lip curled. “Another no-no, as you must surely realize. That said, how do you think she—or anyone—can find Vance? How do you think she knows the things she knows?”

  “She knows who you are.”

  “Of course she does. Like I just said, she’s just like me.”

  “What do you want?” Gina asked after a long moment.

  “I want more information.”

  “No. Just go away.” Tears suddenly filled Gina’s eyes. “I think he’s dead.”

  “Oh no,” Jashire said. She pulled something from her pocket, Vance’s baseball cap, and smoothed it. It had fallen off his head early in the game, when she’d first snatched him, so it was still fairly clean. It was the only thing she had that didn’t have blood on it, but Gina didn’t know that. “He told me to give you this,” she lied. “He said you’d recognize it.”

  Gina’s hand shook as she took the cap. Jashire could tell she’d struck a nerve. Humans and their stupid little tokens—such materialistic creatures. “Tell you what,” she said. “Give me a name, just one more, and I promise you’ll get your husband back.” Doubt still drifted across Georgina’s face. “Last chance,” Jashire reminded her. “Take it or leave it.” She drew a fingernail across the surface of the wooden kitchen table hard enough to leave a deep gouge. “I’m not the most patient person.”

  “How do I know you’re not lying again? That’s all you’ve done so far.”

  “Actually, I haven’t. Like I said, I never promised you anything. I said I might.”

  “I don’t think that’s true.”

  “Does it matter?” Jashire asked. “This is where we are now. If you want to get this done and over with, you’ll give me what I want. I’m tired of playing this game anyway. I’m ready to move on.”

  Georgina’s face twisted. “That’s what this is to you? A game? You kidnap someone, you hurt them, and you call it a game?”

  Jashire shrugged. “Everyone has their own forms of entertainment.”

  “You bitch,” Gina whispered.

  “Well,” Jashire said with calculated brightness. “I guess you’ve made your decision.” She turned to go.

  “Wait. I’ll . . . I’ll do it.”

  Jashire looked at her with her darkest smile yet. “Of course you will.”

  CASEY ANLON WAS JUST as easy to find as Georgina Whitfield had been, and Jashire caught up with him when he came out of his downtown building to go to lunch. She could smell him, as Astarte no doubt could, that deep ocean scent. She had to admit it smelled good, but her attraction to it had more to do with . . . consumption. She wanted to take it in and absorb it. Obliterate it.

  “So,” she said as she stepped in front of him on the sidewalk. He pulled up short and blinked at her. “You’re the man behind the mission.”

  He looked at her blankly. “I’m sorry?”

  “No, I’m sorry—I forgot to introduce myself. You can call me Jashire.”

  “Do I know you?” Casey asked.

  “In a way. We’ve never met personally, but we sort of know each other through Georgina Whitfield.” A shadow ran across Casey’s face and Jashire smiled a little. “Wow. Not exactly feeling the love for her, are you?”

 
Casey looked at her again. “Is there something you want?”

  “Just to let you know what’s been going on. I’m good friends with Georgina. She hasn’t exactly been on the up and up with you.”

  “I know that,” Casey snapped back. “What I don’t know is you, and I’m not in the habit of discussing my personal business with strangers.”

  “I understand,” she said. “Still, I thought you should know that she played you like . . . oh, what would be a good comparison? A piano. Yeah, that would be good. And you dxactly what she wanted every time she pressed a key.”

  Casey’s expression got even darker. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  Jashire stepped closer to the nephilim, breathing in his scent. “I’m telling you she knew what was going to happen every single time she gave you a name. She knew you would save those people, and as a result, all those other people would die. You walked right into her trap.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Jashire laughed. “Of course you don’t. That’s exactly what I would say, too. I mean, who wants to admit that they’ve been responsible for how many deaths? Thirteen? No, wait—there’s more. That girl you’ve pulled out of the river? She killed her teacher and two kids this morning. Good job, Casey. Way to go!”

  “What!” Any surprise that she knew his name was lost as her other words registered. Casey looked around almost wildly. “What are you—what?”

  “I mean, a bright young man like you? I would’ve thought you’d check your facts, look into the people you become involved with. Georgina’s married—she wants nothing to do with you. She strung you along, used you, and you were a sucker for all of it.” She pushed her face close to Casey’s. “Two kids today, Casey. Children. Someone’s little ones. A son. A daughter.” His face grew more horrified with every word she spoke. “They’ll never grow up now.” Jashire paused, letting the thoughts sink in before really going for the shocker. “And that last guy, the one from the museum? He’s still out there, isn’t he? Who knows what he’s gonna do. But I hear tell that it’s something really big. And when he does it, more people than you can imagine will be nothing but a single grain of sand on a beach. Spectacular.”

  “Who are you?” Casey cried. “Why are you doing this? Why are you telling me all this?”

  She spread her hands. “I just think as the man responsible for all these people dying, you should know what you’ve done. You should take responsibility for it. Of course, I’m not sure how you can do penance for this. It’s not like you can go to the police and say, ‘Oh, look. I saved so-and-so. And because of that, he turned around and killed such-and-such.’ It’s not like you can pay all those people back. I mean, there’s no take-backs, right? And what about their families? What about the husbands and the wives and the kids they left behind?” Jashire grinned widely. “Why don’t you go bak to your girlfriend and ask her to use those special skills of hers to see what they might have become in the future had they lived. Oh wait—she’s not your girlfriend. That’s right—she’s married. Hmmm, tough one, that.” She looked at him from below her eyelashes. “She can do that, you know. She’s been able to do that right from the start.”

  Casey looked more and more stricken. His fists were clenching and unclenching so quickly that his shoulders jerked with each movement. “What do you want from me?”

  Jashire tilted her head, enjoying herself. Georgina had asked her that same question. Such predictable little toys. “Me? I don’t want anything. I just think you should realize the effect your actions have had on these people as individuals. You’re so wrapped up in doing the right thing and saving someone who might’ve been a good person that you chose to ignore what you were really doing, which was setting a precedent—a bad one. Not quite sure how it happened, Casey, but all these bad things were directly tied to you. Anyone with a brain might’ve said ‘Oh, hey! Maybe I ought to stop now!’ But no, you just kept going. You didn’t even care that people were dying—”

  “Of course I cared!”

  “Could’ve fooled me. So what’s next, Casey? Gonna keep going? Gonna get with Gina and find some more names, some more nifty rescues to perform so you can be Mr. Superman, Mr. Hero? Gonna kill some more people?” She put a finger to her forehead as if she’d just realized something. “Sure you are—you already have. Because there’s Tate Wernick still running around out there. So far you’re three and three. And you know it’s going to be four and four. Wonder what he’s gonna do,” she said again. “Can’t wait to find out.”

  “Get away from me!” he cried, loud enough for people on the street to turn and look at them. “Just get away from me!”

  “Gladly. You’re like Mr. Death or something.” She tilted her head and looked at him like a wild animal evaluating its prey. “Wait—that’s not it. What did the papers call you in this morning’s edition? Oh yeah. The Death Rescuer.” Her smile was wide and malevolent. “Have a nice life, Casey.” She started to walk away, then threw Casey Anlon a final glance over her shoulder. “After all, none of those other people will.”

  WELL, THAT HADN’T EXACTLY gone the way she’d planned, but things were still pretty good. Jashire had hoped to convince Casey on the concept that worked so well on humans who couldn’t resist the thrill of chance Alas, if Casey had a tinge of a gambler’s soul anywhere in him, it had been swallowed by his bitterness over that twit of a blond girl, Georgina. Mentioning her had gotten them off to a bad start and Jashire had known instinctively she couldn’t fix it. It was what it was, so she’d just reached it and started jamming her finger on Casey’s big old guilt button. Lots of fun there, and she was sure that Casey Anlon was eventually going to do exactly as she’d planned all along.

  It was still too bad they hadn’t been able to get along. Here she had the name of yet another abominable human—and the last one she was going to get out of Georgina Whitfield—who was destined to die but was so deserving, at least in Jashire’s eyes, of sidestepping the summons of death at least long enough to cause a bit of butchery before leaving this world.

  Surely there was something she could do about that.

  Twenty-two

  “In here?” Eran pulled the unmarked police car to the curb and eyed the building that stood in front of them.

  “Yeah,” Brynna said. “This is where I caught up with her.”

  Eran shut the engine off and put the car in park with a little too much force on the gearshift. “I still can’t believe you went after her without me there with you.”

  Brynna made an exasperated sound. “We’ve had this conversation before.”

  “Yeah, yeah—I know. The whole humans-versus-demons thing.”

  “You keep dismissing it, but I’m telling you it’s not something you should take lightly.”

  “I could have helped.”

  “I don’t think so.” She gave him a sidelong glance. “You know, she smelled you on me.”

  Eran’s expression was perplexed. “What?”

  “Yeah. And she was really curious. In fact, she offered to trade Vance Hinshaw for you.”

  Eran didn’t look amused. “You should have gone for it. We could have set her up.”

  Brynna’s laugh was brittle. “You mistake her intentions, Eran. You wouldn’t have survived ten minutes.” He said nothing, but as usual Brynna could tell he didn’t believe a word she said. How odd that some humans seemed to think some people needed protecting but they themselves were invincible.

  A moment later, Bheru pulled up and parked behind them. Because this whole thing was off the record, Eran had told her that they wouldn’t be able to get any help or backup. If they were going to find Vance Hinshaw, it could only be the three of them searching.

  Brynna had been so intent on tracking Jashire that she hadn’t taken much notice of the building itself or the neighborhood proper beyond her quick impression the first time she’d been here. But now, with Eran and Bheru by her side, she really registered how derelict the structure wa
s, how rundown the streets. Were there really any valid renters in there, or was this building one that had been slated to be torn down a long time ago and forgotten about? It was eight stories tall, and when she looked up she could several apartments where the windows were broken and soot rimmed their edges, evidence of old fires. Others were just open, a few had ragged curtains or sheets hanging out the missing frames. All looked like they fronted nothing but blackness inside. The concrete exterior was filthy, covered in decades of Chicago grime and graffiti, everything from gang symbols to pornographic pictures rendered in vivid strokes of mostly red spray paint.