Rogue Angel: The Chosen

by Alex Archer

  "I've been meaning to ask you," she said, voice distorted by the way he held her face to examine it. She was mostly speaking to take her attention off what she knew was coming. "Why a revolver?"

  "No ejected empties for authorities to recover and inconveniently track," he said, reaching for the peroxide bottle on the bedside table. "It's a modified Smith & Wesson 625 in .45 Automatic Colt Pistol caliber, with a three-inch barrel and grips cut with finger grooves. An excellent piece for close-in work. Authoritative."

  "I thought the authorities knew you were here. Or did you neglect to mention you were packing heat?"

  "Ah, no. They are quite aware. The circumstances of my mission did not justify the risks of trying to smuggle firearms into your country illegally. Or obtain them in any contraband manner, for that matter. I am a recognized security operative, as well as fully credentialed law-enforcement officer of a sovereign nation, after all."

  He had paused in what he was doing and stood beside her holding the brown plastic bottle. She felt as if she were at the dentist's office with a toothache, but trying desperately to stave off as long as possible the moment the dentist actually began to ply his drill.

  "But why the precautions, then, if you're here with the blessings of Homeland Security?" she asked, still stalling. She wondered what exactly he'd told DHS he was doing here. It struck her they were unlikely to be too impressed with a demon hunter. She also knew that since the attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II, the Vatican had become obsessive about security. And of course it could afford the best. It was no surprise that Godin, coming from such an organization – not to mention his own background – should be readily accepted by his U.S. counterparts.

  "First of all, I imagine you are sufficiently imaginative to envision circumstances in which I might find myself compelled to shoot someone, and your authorities would find it no less in their interests than mine not to be compelled to take official cognizance of the act."

  "Yes," she said.

  "Also, there are levels and layers within your government, and some very intense rivalries. There are those who would be most eager to cause trouble precisely because of my connections to DHS. Including some of your very most prominent law-enforcement agencies."

  "That's hard to believe," she said.

  He shrugged. "Naiveté is a charming trait, to be sure. But don't indulge yourself in it to so great an extent. No more delays, my clever girl. Hold still."

  He held a rough white motel washcloth tightly against the line of her jaw to prevent peroxide from dripping down and discoloring the bedspread.

  She gritted her teeth.

  "These are most nasty cuts," Godin said. "Are you certain you won't let me take you to a clinic?"

  "No! You aren't the only one who doesn't want to answer questions. Anyway, I'm tough."

  "Indeed you are, Annja Creed. But still, it would be a shame to allow scars to disfigure such a lovely face. Especially as you are a popular television personality."

  "That's what makeup's for," she said. "And I'm not that popular."

  "Do not sell yourself short, my dear," Godin said, swabbing again. "There are fan sites devoted to you on the Internet."

  "You're kidding!" Annja laughed and cringed simultaneously.

  "Not at all," he said, tossing the used cotton ball into the wastebasket and picking up the alcohol bottle again. "You are not the only one to use the Internet to seek what is to be learned about other players in our little game."

  "Great," she said throatily. "That'll make it easy to keep a low profile."

  Chapter 20

  The news that morning had been full of the disaster at the candlelight vigil in Chimayó. It even made the national shows.

  Impeccably chivalrous, Godin left Annja to sleep in the bed while he stretched out on the floor – somewhat melodramatically, she thought – at her feet. Although in fact the little room was not set up to make it easy to do so anyplace else. She passed a fitful night drifting in and out of sleep. Partly, what disturbed her were the dreams. Part was the sense of his proximity, the sound of his breathing, the illusion that she could feel the warmth of him from down there.

  I've been alone too long, she had told herself that morning, brushing her teeth in the bathroom, using brush and paste picked up along with the first-aid supplies. But then, she'd been alone her whole life, in any way that mattered.

  She emerged to find Godin doing a yoga headstand in front of the television, his feet pointed in the air, his black trouser legs pooling midcalf. Well, there had to be some reason he stayed so limber. His legs were very white.

  "Authorities continue their search at this hour," the newscaster was saying, "for what they describe as either a rabid mountain lion or an illegally owned melanistic leopard – often incorrectly referred to as a black panther – possibly made psychotic by abuse and neglect."

  "Do mountain lions get rabies?" Annja asked aloud.

  Father Godin lowered his legs and rolled easily to his feet.

  "Does it matter?" he asked. "All they need is an explanation other than the truth. A rabid mountain lion is a rational explanation. Who but an equally rabid conspiracy buff would question it?"

  Annja made a noise deep in her throat. Her worldview was getting rearranged in ways she didn't much like. Also she suspected she resembled his last remark.

  But not even she could believe it had been a natural animal she'd fought last night.

  I guess that wasn't an eagle, either, she thought.

  After a subdued breakfast Godin drove her back up in the hills to where her car was parked. Dozens still dotted the roads. She wasn't the only one who had left the vicinity without recovering her vehicle, it appeared. The news had spoken repeatedly of three dead and eleven injured. She hoped these vehicles hadn't all been left by people in no shape to reclaim them. She was a lot less complacent right now about trusting what she saw on the news these days.

  The sun had come out with New Mexican vengeance. Although the air was chilly the roads were clear, and most of the snow had vanished. Up ahead they could see state police utility vehicles blocking the road to the sanctuary.

  Obviously investigations were continuing. She doubted either the state or the county authorities had much to do with them. She did not doubt the Black Hawk she had seen, unmarked and painted midnight-black, had belonged to some federal agency.

  Unless it belonged to the security forces of some sinister and quasiprivate secret contractor.

  In parting she gave Father Godin a quick but fervent hug and a quick kiss on the cheek. It seemed the least she could do. Then she got in her car and drove back to Albuquerque.

  After a shower and a change of clothing Annja rooted around in the litter of random documents and sundry pocket artifacts that always seemed to accumulate on her dresser. She finally came up with the business card given her by Randy West, the burly Kiowa-looking artist who had greeted her at Chiaroscuro. He was on lunch break when she got him on his cell. She had offered, mostly from a sense of guilt, to buy him lunch in exchange for his arranging for her to meet a close friend of Byron Mondragón's at his day job stacking books at a store called Title Wave. After everything got sorted out.

  ****

  The young man's watery blue eyes darted quickly left and right. He and Annja were alone in the science-fiction-and-fantasy stacks off in the back corner of the cheerfully lit used-book store in Albuquerque's Northeast Heights district. With only four feet of bookshelves to either side of them, making it hard for anyone to join them without being noticed, his caution struck her as excessive.

  "Okay," he said. "Listen, though. You're sure nothing bad's going to happen to Byron over this, right?"

  Annja had always loved the smell of used-book stores. This one didn't quite have the must of accumulated ages of antique or rare-book dealers. But she found the smell of ink and paper very pleasant. The not altogether subtle scent of weed wafting from her informant did little to detract from the effect.

 
; "I'm not a cop and I'm not looking to cause him any trouble," she said. "And if I'm a crazy stalker, do you really think he'll mind?"

  That struck her as bold and egotistical – as well as actively ridiculous – the instant it was out of her mouth.

  But it seemed to hit the right chord. The young chiaroscuro art guerilla bobbed his head. He had a stiff brush of what was probably dark blond hair to start with, judging by his pale bluish-pink complexion. But the roots were currently dyed black, and it appeared that yellow paint, more or less, had been daubed on the rest with a brush. He wore a Rage against the Machine T-shirt, jeans almost falling, and rotting, off his near emaciated frame and black tennis shoes that seemed to be held together by sheer force of habit.

  "All right," he said. "You're right. And I don't see what harm it'll do to tell you what you want to know."

  "I am right," she said, stifling the urge to grab him and shake him.

  Annja tore her eyes away from his piercing. It was a silver hoop through the septum, culminating in a pair of balls right beneath his nose. To be sure, living in New York City, she was not unaccustomed to seeing piercings, some much more exotic than this. But this particular type always exerted a certain sickening fascination for her.

  "All right," he said. "All right, I saw him."

  "Who? Byron?"

  "No." Another eye slide. "The Holy Child. I guess."

  "What?"

  "Some little kid dressed like him, anyway." The young man named Quade seemed unhappy. "It was pretty late at night. Sometimes I go there to work on things. It's about the only time I get." From Randy she knew that Quade did metal sculpture. He was also taking classes in welding at the Central New Mexico Community College.

  "Go on," she said when he bogged down.

  "Well, like, I totally saw him. This kid. All dressed in these funny clothes, you know? Just like those paintings Byron does. Walking around the yard all by himself late at night."

  "Didn't you say anything to anyone about it?"

  He seemed to shake all over rather than just his head. "I don't really believe in all this religious stuff, you know? And anyway I may have been a little stoned the time I saw him."

  "Really? Well, thank you, Quade. You've been a real help," Annja said.

  "Please don't tell Byron about any of this. Please."

  She smiled broadly. "And you are who?"

  ****

  She wondered, as she hopped down from the top of the elaborate ironwork arch over the narrow front gate to the Chiaroscuro Guerrilla Art Compound, if she was trespassing. Or breaking and entering.

  Feeling a little gun-shy, literally, about the street north of the gallery, she had parked on a more industrial side street a block south, just up from a gas station that was closed for the night. A quick reconnaissance on foot had convinced her that any other means of getting into the compound would be too challenging. The compound was surrounded on three sides by a nine-foot cinder-block wall topped with gleaming rolls of razor tape. Perhaps it was a relic of its days as a warehouse and industrial lot. And possibly not. There was some valuable equipment on the grounds, as well as the artwork.

  Getting in this way required Annja to do so in plain view on a wide, well-lit street. Fortunately there was little traffic going by at the late hour.

  It was a pleasantly cool evening, tinted with the remnants of the day's chili roasting and some other, less distinctive and also pleasant burn smells that she rather hoped came from the ritual cremation of autumn leaves. A fingernail moon did little to illuminate the area.

  Inside the front gate the narrow passage between buildings was dark. She dropped into a three-point landing, froze, listened. Nothing.

  She wore her dark jacket zipped over a canary-yellow T-shirt and dark blue running pants. She had opted for a compromise between low visibility and going around dressed like, well, a burglar. She figured if she bumped into anyone official she could quickly unzip her jacket. The blazing hue of her shirt would bolster the desired presumption of her innocence. She hoped.

  There were some floodlights shining sloshing bright light among the buildings and the courtyard. They were not many nor particularly well sited. They left big, irregular bands and blotches of shadow ideal for slipping through on sneaky business. Annja half stood and crept forward, quietly.

  Quade said Byron has a studio apartment in the southwest corner of the courtyard, she thought. That's just ahead and to the right.

  She reached the end of the dark-stuccoed building to her right, paused, listened. She sensed no sign of any other life within the compound. She slipped around the corner.

  A man stood scarcely six feet in front of her. She gasped.

  "I believe the line is, 'We've got to stop meeting like this,'" Father Godin said.

  "What are you doing here?" She managed to whisper even as she struggled to breathe again. He'd startled the air clean out of her.

  "Steady, there," he said softly. He shook his head in exaggerated reproof. A black watch cap covered his silver plush hair. Other than that, he was dressed as usual. "I thought we were going to be working together."

  "Really. Well, it occurred to me that might not be the brightest idea for me," Annja said.

  "It's better than working at cross-purposes, is it not?"

  "Am I going to keep stumbling over you everywhere I go?"

  She saw his grin in the darkness. "I might ask the same."

  A train began to rock and clatter along the tracks a couple of blocks to the west. By its sound it had not slowed for the station a little way north.

  "All right. I should've known you'd be thinking along the same lines I am. And if we're going to be following parallel lines, I'd rather have you on my side," she said begrudgingly.

  He held a finger to his lips. It momentarily infuriated her.

  He had turned around and started walking along the back of the brown building toward the right edge of the little courtyard. The tree and the twisted-metal sculptures went beyond bizarre to outright menacing in the random mixing of glare and shadow.

  She followed. The train sounds subsided. Godin reached the long, slumpy porch shared by the apartments and paused. She moved up beside him. He glanced at her, eyes invisible behind his circular lenses. Then he walked toward Byron's door. He stopped suddenly. Coming up behind, she sensed tension in him, like a hunting dog on point.

  The door of the artist's studio apartment stood open just a hands-breadth behind the swayback, fraying screen. Inside it was dark.

  From within came a tortured moan.

  Chapter 21

  Godin's right hand came out of his jacket holding his revolver. He opened the screen slowly. Annja held it for him. From somewhere he produced a short, thick flashlight. Holding it reversed in his left hand, he crossed wrists, bracing his gun hand on top. Clicking the flashlight on, he kicked open the door, stepped inward and immediately out of sight to the right.

  None too sure what was expected of her, Annja went through the door after him. She did not summon the sword. It was unwieldy in close quarters, and she didn't want to accidentally stick Godin. Or Byron, should the young artist still be on his feet.

  With Godin a dimly sensed presence hard on her right, her attention was drawn by the intense beam of white light angled downward. It illuminated a shape sprawled with its head toward the door. The head had wild, wavy dark hair. Parts of it seemed matted to the big, round skull.

  With a cry Annja dropped to her knees beside the youth. She helped him sit up gingerly as Godin moved through the small apartment, checking room by room with light and handgun ready. She remembered vaguely that such room-clearing was supposed to be done by more than one person. But he knew what he was doing and she didn't. She deemed it best to keep out of the way and tend to Byron.

  He wore a gray sweatshirt, dark sweatpants. His feet were bare. The shirt was ripped and spattered with blood. He had drying blood trailing down over his mouth, and his skin looked very pale.

  "The house is clea
r," Godin reported, coming out of the back. He clicked off his flashlight, put it away, then moved to right a lamp on its end table and turn it on. The shade, madly askew, cast dizzying shadows up the wall.

  The place looked as if a struggle had taken place, but was not thoroughly trashed or ransacked. Whatever the intruders wanted they had got without much searching. She doubted the goal was merely to rough up Byron Mondragón.

  She examined him as best she could. His face was puffed to a weird asymmetric caricature of its usual fine-boned beauty. It was mottled with the blue-black of a truly brutal bruising. Though he winced frequently to her unskilled probing, she found no broken bones. Godin came and squatted next to them, shone his flashlight briefly in Byron's eyes.

  "No pupil dilation," he pronounced with grim satisfaction. "No concussion, and probably no subdural hematoma to kill you in a few hours. Bon. You would appear to have been subjected to a thoroughly professional beating, young man."

  "They seemed to know what they were doing," Byron croaked, feeling the back of his head. They were the first words he had spoken. "That didn't make it fun."

  Annja rose and went through the door into the back. She found a little kitchen, fairly clean but none too tidy, with cracked gray linoleum tiles on the floor and cabinets with peeling facades. A dish rack by the sink held a jumble of plastic cups and plates. She found a roll of paper towels, ripped off a big wad and soaked them in cool water. Filling a big red plastic cup with water, she went back into the living room.

  Godin sat on the couch with his elbows braced inside splayed knees and his fists to either side of his chin, studying the young artist. Annja allowed herself to notice now that the walls were a riot of paintings in a multiplicity of styles. None of them suggested Byron's own hand to her. Most favored broad strokes and big colors. Not his trademark near obsessive precision and attention to detail.

  "You like to hang your friends' artwork?" she asked, kneeling beside him and giving him the water. His hand shook slightly. She helped guide the cup to his lips.