I asked, “What about me? Mr. Ulrich—my councilor in the Youth Center—said we’re all psychologically damaged. Are we crazy, evil, like them?”
Darcy softened her eyes. “We’re not evil, though it could be said the fallen angels inside us are.” She cocked her head. “Doesn’t mean we’re not screwed up, but who isn’t?”
“So how do we get them out of us?” I asked. “The fallen angels—Grigori, Watchers, whatever you want to call them.” I turned to Kyle. “Is that why you joined up with the Society of Exorcists?”
Surprising me, Richard barked out a curse word.
I froze, wondering if I’d crossed a line.
Kyle answered, “Like Sam, the Society disguised their intentions when they enlisted my help. I found them out and with Richard and Darcy’s help, we brought them down.”
“You took down a bunch of priests?”
Richard snarled, “For the most part.” He gave me a level look. “One of them got away. The worst one.” Taking a breath, he said, “Maybe it would be better to start at the beginning.”
For the next hour, Richard, Darcy and Kyle shared their stories with me.
Next to what happened to them, what I’d been through over the last two weeks seemed less terrible, though just as tragic.
It was my turn to talk, and I didn’t leave anything out.
When I told them about my meeting with Sam, Eugene asked, “What’s going on in there?”
I looked at Kyle when I answered. “Sam’s head office is basically a lab. He told me they’re doing genetic experiments.”
Letting out a snarl of disgust, he said, “Lawrence and my father were nothing more than lab rats to him. I think he’s trying to control which host gets possessed by a fallen angel.”
I shook my head. “He said he hasn’t figured that out yet, but that’s only part of it.”
“What else?” Richard asked.
“He kept talking about extending his life. He said the Nephilim lived to be a thousand years old, and he wants that.”
Shaking his head, Kyle looked at the others. “Not only does he want to rule the world, he wants to live forever.” To me, he asked, “Is he close?”
I shrugged. “I don’t think so.”
“What about this revolution of his?”
“All he said is they can’t start doing anything until they find someone called the ‘bella tour’—whatever that is.”
“Bellator,” Eugene said, and I nodded at the correction. “It’s Latin for ‘warrior’.”
“Who could that be?” Darcy asked.
Eugene said, “I’ll dig into it.”
To me, Darcy said, “Thank you for telling us all this, Serena.”
I nodded. “I never wanted this. I guess you didn’t, either.” Shaking my head, I looked down and fidgeted with my hands. “All my life, I’ve been running away. That’s what I want to do now. Just run so far that no one will ever find me.”
The four of them said nothing, but I could tell they were all watching me.
I raised my head. “In the past few days, I realized that running only makes things worse. If I run, I’m basically giving Sam and the others a free pass.”
“Are you willing to stay and help us?” Darcy asked.
Taking a deep breath, I said, “You guys said you took down the Society of Exorcists. I guess you want to do the same to Grigori Ventures.”
Darcy spoke in a firm voice. “That’s right.”
Taking a deep breath, I gave her a quick nod. “What’s the plan?”
Chapter Twenty-Five
To my disappointment, there didn’t seem to be any plan at all except to sit around and wait.
We were four hosts against anywhere up to ten times that number of Grigori—there was no way to tell exactly.
Eugene had rented a van, parked it down the street from Grigori Ventures, and set up a remote camera to keep an eye on the comings and goings of the organization. He estimated Sam had at least a dozen mercenaries, including Billy, at the Las Vegas head office. I remembered Sam telling me they had recruited fifteen hosts in total, but they were spread out in operations all over the country. We had no way of knowing how many of them were here besides Sam, Danee, Jonathan, and Jenny.
As far as we knew, there were no soft spots in Sam’s operation. On the books, they looked like a perfectly legitimate medical technology company. They’d done nothing illegal that could be proven, so there was no reason for the authorities to get involved. Even if we went that route, the police would most likely suffer more casualties than the Grigori. No one wanted that.
Meanwhile, they were growing more powerful day by day. By the time anyone realized what kind of threat Grigori Ventures truly was, it would be too late.
In the end, Darcy and the others decided their best plan of action was to continue doing what they’d been doing all along: find and recruit hosts to our side. In that, Grigori had a greater advantage, unless Eugene could hack into their network. If we could get to hosts before anyone in the Grigori operation, we would try to get them on our side.
There was a problem. Although Eugene was quite resourceful, he couldn’t get through any of Grigori Ventures’ firewalls to mine whatever information was stored in their computers.
The lawyer who set up their corporations was no help. He only knew enough to file the paperwork, and all business was conducted through face-to-face meetings with one of Sam’s employees in a company car. There was no electronic trail for us to follow, and no phone calls that could be listened to.
“Give me a day or two,” Eugene told us. “Maybe I can slip a virus in through one of their email accounts.” A full day later, and he was still no closer to breaking in.
Darcy and the others spent the time on the internet, looking for stories of mysterious happenings that might lead them to a newly possessed host. It was slow going.
The lack of action was getting to me. Since we’d all decided—though I couldn’t remember them asking for my vote—that we couldn’t leave the house in case Sam had his people looking for us, I was growing more than a little stir crazy.
Eugene, the only one of us who was allowed to leave, rarely did so, preferring to spend most of his time in the basement, where he’d set up a bank of computer stations.
My only saving grace was that he’d brought a gaming console and a few dozen titles. Though I’d never been one for video games, I spent hours playing them.
When I wasn’t hanging out in the basement, I listened in as Darcy, Richard, and Kyle talked endlessly about plans and possibilities. It seemed every option they came up with had major roadblocks.
Despite my announcement on the first day that I was done running, I began to think that might be the only thing left to do and—like in the old saying—fight another day.
Late the second night, when everyone should have been sleeping, I went to the kitchen for a glass of water. Darcy was at the kitchen table browsing the internet on the tablet computer.
“Can’t knock off?” she asked.
I got my water, and motioned to a chair. She nodded, inviting me to sit.
“I couldn’t stop thinking about my father,” I said.
Though it clearly pained her to talk about him, she said, “If he’d known about you, he would never have left before you were born. He never abandoned you.”
“I know.” I still felt a giant hole in my life where he should have been.
“Neil was one of the best people I’ve ever met. Here I was, ten years in prison, cold, hard, angry with everyone in the world and with myself … and he broke through all that crap like it was wet paper. All in a few days. Then he made me fall in love with him just by being himself.”
Her words made me want to smile and cry at the same time.
Once she got going, she talked for over an hour, reliving every moment she’d spent with him. At the end of it, those moments she shared belonged to me, as well, and I felt a growing connection to Darcy. She was the opposite of my mother: stro
ng, willful, confident, and unafraid.
For a moment, I imagined what it would have been like if she were my mother. With her and my father in my life, things would have been a lot different.
Then a needle of guilt pierced through me. My mother may not have been the best in the world for the job, but she was still my mother. If I ever had kids, I would want them to love me not matter how much I screwed up their lives—however irrational that was.
When Darcy had gone through all the stories of my father, I asked a question that had been nagging at me for a while.
“Why didn’t the angel save my father from the bullet, like it saved me from your fire?”
It seemed to take forever for Darcy to answer. “It’s something I’ve been thinking about as well. The truth is, I don’t know. I can only guess.”
“What’s your guess?”
“Even with a fallen angel possessing us, we’re not invincible,” she said. “The priests were pretty effective in binding Richard and Kyle. Detective Hollingsworth killed Lawrence with a close-up shot.”
“The sheriff wasn’t that close,” I said. “I was closer to you than he was, and the river still came up to protect me.”
“I thought about that,” she said. “Neil told me he didn’t have much control over the power. Considering that the spirits inside us are—I hate to use the word, ‘evil’—maybe, because your father was such a good man, Ananiel was looking for the first opportunity to transfer to another host.”
“Someone not so good,” I said, my voice carrying an edge.
Looking apologetic, Darcy said, “We all have that in common. None of us are saints.” A little more fiercely, she said, “But you and I are not maniacs or psychopaths.”
Like Sam, I added mentally, and Jenny.
Suddenly, I hated the fallen angel inside me for letting my father die for being a good person, if that truly was the reason. Everything else I’d gone through because of being possessed was bad enough, but the entity in me had destroyed any future I might have had with my father.
I wanted nothing more than to get Ananiel out.
Giving Darcy a hard stare, I asked, “Why don’t we just hire an exorcist and—” I waved my hand around, searching for the word. “—cast out Sam’s angel?”
“We’ve thought about that, not only for him, but for us as well. The fallen will simply find another host. We’d just be passing the problem on to some other person.”
I remembered Thomas, and wondered who his angel had possessed after Jenny killed him. Certainly not one of his parents. Sam probably knew; he had records for all of us. He’d probably already recruited the next host.
“How do we get rid of the fallen angels, then? I don’t want to be possessed forever.”
She shook her head. “If we knew, then we wouldn’t be holed up here.”
“And that’s getting old, I don’t mind saying. It’s like I’m back in lockup.”
Letting out a short laugh, Darcy said, “I know the feeling.”
“Sometimes I think we should just storm the building, go in with all our power and level the place.”
“Yeah,” Darcy said, her face turning stony. “I had the same idea. We just don’t know who else Sam has in there, how many more surprises like Jonathan are waiting for us to rush in like blind fools.” She let out a hollow laugh. “For all we know, he could have pulled up stakes and left Las Vegas, just like he did in Chicago.”
I gave her a puzzled look.
“The cameras Eugene set up haven’t caught any of the hosts leaving since we rescued you. We saw Sam and all the others go in. Of course,” she added, “they could have a host who can tunnel underground, like Kyle, or turn invisible, or…” She shook her head. The possibilities were endless.
The conversation was making me frustrated, and I didn’t want to offend Darcy—I really liked her, and I wanted her to like me.
I would never get to sleep unless I got my mind off it all.
I stood up and said, “I think I’m going to turn in, if that’s all right.”
“Of course.”
Before I left, to my surprise, Darcy got up and gave me a hug.
At first, I went completely stiff; I wasn’t used to that kind of affection. Soon, I melted into the embrace, and when she let me go, I made sure to keep my face turned away.
I didn’t want her to see me crying like a baby.
* * *
I decided to take a hot bath.
After turning on the taps, I brushed my teeth while I waited for the water to fill the bottom half of the tub.
Undressing, I dipped a toe in and tested the temperature. Just how I liked it: this side of too hot. Wincing, I eased myself down into a sitting position, the skin on my legs turning pink in the heat. I waited until I adjusted to the temperature before lying back.
With my head leaning against the rim of the tub, I watched the water pouring out of the faucet, and soon found my mind drifting.
* * *
In the next room over, Kyle was in bed, fast asleep on his side. He hugged his pillow, and his face was all scrunched up as if he were having a bad dream.
* * *
On the couch in the living room, Richard lay on his back, one leg propped up on the armrest. He mumbled in his sleep, though I couldn’t hear anything he said.
* * *
Still in the kitchen, Darcy flicked the screen on her tablet. Her lips pressed together when she spied an article about a female hiker who’d been living in a deep cave system for five years, and had developed sonar to help her get around. Bookmarking the page, she started searching for more information on the woman.
* * *
I jerked upright, splashing water out of the tub and onto the floor.
Completely disoriented, I gasped for air. What had just happened?
I had seen Darcy, Richard, and Kyle as if I’d been standing right there beside them.
I remembered what Thomas had talked about on the last day we’d trained. He’d tried to get me to scry, to see things beyond myself, using hydromancy. I’d stared into a pool of water when he’d prompted me, but nothing had happened.
I realized it wasn’t still water I needed; it was running water.
My heart racing, I wondered if I could do it again.
Bracing myself, I stared at the water running from the faucet again. Nothing happened at first. It wasn’t until I slowly pushed my awareness of my surroundings away, emptying my mind of all thoughts, that a split happened.
As if I’d divided myself in two parts, I was able to see outside of the bathroom. Richard had eyes like an eagle, but he needed line of sight. Walls and other obstacles didn’t stop me.
I experimented with the ability, finding out how far I could go. There were limitations. I couldn’t hear, smell, or feel anything when I was in that state. The farthest I could see was about a hundred feet. Maybe, with practice, I could go farther.
This second sight was eerie. It was like I was looking at a ghost world. Although everything was there—houses, cars, streetlights—there wasn’t any sound. There wasn’t even the gentle swaying of tree leaves in the wind.
The tub overflowed, breaking my concentration. With a curse, I turned off the taps and got up.
Pulling the plug, I jumped out of the bath, dried off, and got dressed in record time.
I couldn’t wait to tell Darcy about my newly discovered ability, and how I could help them.
Chapter Twenty-Six
My excitement died the moment Darcy said, “Absolutely not.”
I’d woken everyone up to tell them the news. We were all gathered in the kitchen, except Eugene, who was still in the basement.
I stopped myself from stomping my foot. A temper tantrum was not going to work.
After taking a quick breath, I asked, “Why not? If I can get close enough, I can look over someone’s shoulder and find their password. That’ll save days of hacking for Eugene.”
Both Kyle and Richard were shaking their heads.
Kyle said, “It’s too risky. They’d know you were there the moment you got within half a mile.”
I opened my mouth to protest, but the former doctor pointed at me.
“You just said you can’t see more than a hundred yards.”
“Well…” I started to say, but then couldn’t think of an argument. Clenching my hands into fists, I chewed on the inside of my cheek. “I have to do something. I can’t just sit around here playing video games all day.”
Richard barked out a laugh, but there was no humor in it. “We all feel that way.” He pointed at the table Darcy had been using to search for hosts. “I can barely turn the computer on; what good am I?”
“I know it’s hard.” Kyle gave me a kind smile. “We all need to be patient.”
“Actually,” Darcy said to me, “there’s something you and Richard could do, if you want.”
Though I suspected she was just trying to distract me, I titled my head, waiting for her to continue talking.
“I found a possibility on the tablet.”
“The cave woman?” I asked. When Darcy widened her eyes in surprise, I said, “I told you, I can see over people’s shoulders.”
“Well, maybe you and Richard can find her. If she’s possessed, maybe we can get her to join us.”
My intuition didn’t tell me anything about her.
Richard put a hand on my shoulder. “I know how you feel. I want to storm in and level the place, too.” He nodded with a smile. “It’ll be good for both of us to go do something different, take our minds off things.”
I let out my breath and forced my shoulders to relax. “I guess you guys are right.” Trying to make my voice light and bubbly, I said, “I was just all caught up in the excitement of my new ability.”
“I’m sure it will come in handy,” Darcy said, then looked around at everyone. “I don’t know about you, but it’s way past my bedtime.”
Everyone smiled, and after muttering good night, we all went back to our beds.
I didn’t need my gift of sight to know that everyone soon fell asleep. Less than an hour after our kitchen meeting, I could hear their gentle snores.
The last thing on my mind was sleep.
The Complete Book Of Fallen Angels Page 76
