The Resurrection Game

by Michelle Belanger

  Pressing two fingers against the screen, I spread them in a widening shape to enlarge the photo. Remy’s eye dominated the smartphone, a hazy reflection floating in the black of his tightly contracted pupil.

  Rafters. Maybe.

  Briefly closing my own eyes, I called to mind the blood-drenched cellar where my doppelganger had murdered Tabitha, and then lured me with her cruelly animated corpse. I’d stared long enough at those rafters, trying to yank myself free of that damned metal cuff. The shape and spacing didn’t seem to match. Another basement, then—assuming I could trust such a grainy image.

  “I know this neighborhood,” Sal said suddenly, scattering my internalized images. Blinking, I looked up from the phone. We were already on Westminster, just a turn away from Parmenter.

  “Marjory’s house is halfway to the second intersection,” I offered. “On the left.”

  The SUV rolled slowly toward the cross street as Ava signaled and turned. Her gaze flicked from the dimmed screen in the dash to the near-total lack of house numbers. Her fingers tightened on the steering wheel—the only sign of her frustration. Guiltily, I felt a brief swell of vindication.

  “I bought Karl a house out here when he wanted to start a family,” Sal continued. “A solid, working-class neighborhood. Not much seems changed.” Her face was turned to the window, but I could see the faint glimmer of her eyes in the glass, yellow as topaz. Brows drawn, she scanned the rows of quiet and nearly identical dwellings.

  “Karl Kazinsky?” I prodded. Both the letters and Remy had named him as Marjory’s father. Saliriel was habitually tight-lipped about her business contacts. This might be the only time I got her to dish on the subject.

  Lightly, my sister nodded, a single dip of her sharp chin. “Karl was one of my accountants,” she explained. “If I’m to be honest, he was one of the best, at least since the Porrellos killed Charlie Decker.”

  Charlie Decker wasn’t a name that held any significance to me, but the Porrellos I recognized. A Sicilian family. They and the Lonardo brothers had formed the heart of the Mayfield Road Gang, one of the most influential of local crime families. I didn’t harbor any clear memories of Cleveland’s infamous Cosa Nostra, but Sal’s name had come up in connection with them before. In one of its earlier incarnations, Club Heaven had been a speakeasy. It was easy to connect the dots from there.

  “You guys hid her. That’s why we couldn’t find her.” Piece after piece clicked together in my head. I felt like an idiot for not consulting Remy sooner, but would he have actually told me anything? Not if Sal had given strict orders for silence. “It’s like a Nephilim witness protection program out here.”

  Sal shifted to face me. Her expression hung somewhere between weary and withering—both emotions fixed firmly on me.

  “You jump to such dramatic conclusions,” she said, and she sighed. “Karl wasn’t any kind of witness, at least not to the kind of thing you’re implying. He worked strictly with the numbers.”

  On Sal’s left, Ava squirmed in the driver’s seat, one finger stabbing at the GPS screen while she softly muttered profanities. As mine had done, the GPS primly announced our arrival at the house, its marker hovering uselessly in the middle of the street. Again, with that guilty swell of vindication, I tapped Ava’s shoulder and pointed.

  “The green one,” I offered, briefly entertaining the notion that Sal’s influence might have buried the location of the little house under lines of hidden code. I dismissed it as improbable. The way Cleveland and its surrounding suburbs had been laid out, it didn’t take a conspiracy of immortals to confuse map functions. Ava softly thanked me and banked the wheel toward the drive. Sal was still pontificating.

  “Karl had simply gotten tired and wanted to settle,” she said. “He was a good worker. He’d earned that chance.” Her volume climbed on these last two statements, and I wondered how much of this was for the benefit of the others in the car. “I had Karl set up with a lovely little home, some discreet income, and had Remy make certain no one would bother him. End of story.”

  “What about his little girl?” I demanded.

  “I don’t bother myself with trifles, Zaquiel,” Saliriel responded. “I put Remy in charge of it and moved on. Once someone leaves my service, there’s no reason for me to keep tabs on them.”

  “Did you have any idea who Marjory is to me?” I demanded hotly.

  “Your landlady?” she scoffed, but before I could goad her into an explanation, her hand snaked out and she laid gloved fingers against my lips. I froze at the contact. Knuckles crackled as my hands curled into futile fists. “Enough,” she instructed. “Will any of your endless questions lead us closer to Remy?” Pressing even harder against my mouth until I felt the flat outline of individual teeth on the soft side of my lips, she answered her own question. “I think not. Now, get out. Search this house. Do whatever it is you must do to track that rogue Anakim.

  “I want him dead within the hour.”

  Ava and the others poured from the vehicle, the whole Denali rocking as Javier hoisted his vast bulk from the back. Only Sal and I remained in our seats, rigid as statues cobbled from sinew and bone. Her fingers never moved. They were cold, even through the gloves. She was on the verge of saying something else, yellow eyes drilling through layers of my soul. I didn’t know what she was searching for, and I didn’t want to find out.

  With a snarl, I shoved her hand aside.

  “Don’t touch me,” I hissed. “Ever.”

  Shouldering out from the SUV, I moved around to Marjory’s side door. I still had the keys. Motionless, Sal observed from her seat, never taking her eyes from me.

  41

  Marjory’s house felt as empty as I’d left it, except for the faintest hint of Remy’s touch upon the handle of the side door. Stilling my thoughts so I could focus all of my senses, I pressed my fingers against the weathered metal and was rewarded with a brief flash of my brother standing almost precisely where I stood. Hair neatly braided, fedora perched upon his head, he wore a light overcoat that snapped against him in the wind. He had keys to the place. As sounds rarely telegraphed through such impressions, imagination supplied their soft jangle as he searched for the proper one.

  “He’s been here,” I said.

  “That’s useful to know,” Saliriel said. She had drifted like a ghost from the passenger side of the SUV and now stood between the vehicle and the house, her pale skin nearly luminescent against the shadows. “But we need his current position to do us any good, Anakim.”

  “Working on it,” I grumbled, striving to dig deeper through the impression, but that was it—one snapshot moment caught faintly on the threshold. Feeling the slump in my shoulders, I withdrew my hand from the door. Tanisha crowded at my elbow.

  “We’re too exposed out here,” she said flatly. “Hurry it up.”

  I felt a great temptation to shove her away, but she had her holster exposed, hand ready to draw the pistol. Behind her, Javier moved like a mobile slab of mountain, angling himself to bodily shield Sal where she stood. By accident or design, this also shielded my sorry ass, though I was certain that would change the instant anything threatened Saliriel. Javier was literally a walking meat-shield, and while I thought the term derisively, the stony guard approached it as a sacred duty.

  Devoid of any expression save a piercing watchfulness, he endlessly scanned our surroundings with bright obsidian-chip eyes. Sal had meant business when she’d picked this goon squad. Even Ava, the driver, was keyup for a firefight, body pressed flat against the Denali and her neat little Beretta aimed toward the sky. Her chauffeur’s cap tipped at a rakish angle, allowing one solitary curl to slip out and encircle an ear.

  If Zuriel was working alone, we might just steamroll him—but we had to find him first.

  Working the key in the lock, I pushed open the door. Before I could step inside, Tanisha shoved to get past me, heaving a snarl of impatience when I didn’t immediately surrender my position. She shoved harder, giving me no c
hoice about it. Producing a slim LED flashlight, she crossed her wrists to balance her gun arm so the barrel pointed down the steady beam. Drifting motes of dust turned the light into a solid cylinder of white in the cramped entryway.

  Moving in a silent crouch, Tanisha checked the stairs to the basement, tracing a careful circle of light around the hook-and-eye latch that sealed the door. I’d left it like that, and it was good to see it hadn’t been disturbed. Making a satisfied grunt that came out as little more than a heavy exhalation through her flared nostrils, the guard pivoted to press her back against the inside wall, crushing the lumpy collection of jackets against their pegs. She aimed gun and light into the kitchen, her dark eyes scouring every cabinet and stick of furniture.

  “Clear,” she stated.

  “I did that the last time I was here,” I grumbled.

  Her head ticked my way briefly. “That was last time,” she said. “Things change, so I do it again.”

  Reluctantly, I conceded her point, though I still resented the delay. If the time stamp on the first text was anything to go by, Remy had been in Zuriel’s clutches for close to an hour. A lot could happen in that span of time. Too much.

  Silent as a specter, Tanisha glided up the short span of stairs from the landing to the kitchen, her flashlight cutting through the shadows. I didn’t bother pointing out the light switch half-buried under the coats by the door. She obviously didn’t need it.

  While she explored the physical house, I slid my eyes shut and tried to locate any further impressions left behind by Remiel. Zuriel’s weird scrubbing effect made the psychic space feel hollow and cavernous, but I worked it to my benefit, treating it like a clean slate. Striving for even the faintest glimmer, I unspooled my senses in an ever-expanding net.

  Sal became an impatient, crimson flicker looming to my right. Javier, a dull but solid presence that seemed to sink the very ground beside my back. Ava, emotions bright and leaping like a crackling flame. Tanisha, like a serpent gliding smoothly through dark waters, utterly focused on her hunt. One by one, I tasted them—energy, emotion, shape—and, one by one, I shut their presences from my mind.

  These loud and keyed-up companions weren’t the ones I sought. I wanted Remy who, despite the swirling scarlet of his Nephilim blood-soul, always first presented to me in shades of azure—probably a projection of my own construction, based on the striking color of his eyes. But that bias didn’t matter. The language of these perceptions was as psychological as it was psychic, and as long as it got me what I wanted, all of it could be used.

  Come on, Remy, where are you?

  The icy glimmer of Zuriel’s magic spasmed into focus half a second too late. In a brilliant burst, it erupted behind my eyes, tearing a startled yelp from my throat. I clamped my teeth against it. In the same instant, Tanisha loosed a startled hiss. I was already rushing into the kitchen, my hand flicking the light.

  “What was that?” Saliriel asked. Wise enough to be cautious, she hung back on the threshold. Javier and Ava went on high alert.

  The compact fluorescents of the kitchen stuttered slowly to life. Tanisha stood frozen at the far end, one foot poised on the dull bit of metal flashing where linoleum gave way to the carpet of the living room.

  “Don’t move,” I hissed.

  “Do you see me moving?” she replied. She held both gun and flashlight loosely, taking slow and even breaths as if the slightest motion might cause the magic under her to explode. Corded tendons bunched around the jumping artery in her neck.

  “Zaquiel, what do you sense?” Saliriel demanded.

  “Sssh.” Fighting to clear my senses from that initial, searing flash, I approached Tanisha with measured caution. A light scrim of sweat beaded the guard’s brow as I studied her. “Where did you step when it happened?”

  “Still stepping there,” she said tightly. “I’m not dumb. Some triggers get nasty once you take your foot off.”

  “Fair enough,” I responded. Kneeling down, I spread my fingers over the thin strip of metal, sensing but not quite touching the scuffed and pitted surface. A row of sigils flared, arctic-white—Zuriel’s work. Not that there was any doubt. My eyes slid shut unbidden to remove the distraction of physical sight, and I tasted the shape and purpose of the spell. Not a ward, exactly. This was something subtle. More complex.

  “It won’t explode,” I assured Tanisha. We were so close, I felt the rush of her relief as my own emotion. Both our hearts resumed a somewhat steadier pace. “But it gave away our position.”

  “Trip wire,” she said. With a grimace she removed her foot, then rolled her neck, looking both chagrined and relieved. “I hate this magic crap.”

  “Find a different job,” I suggested. She only grunted.

  Plumbing the lingering energy of the sigils, I satisfied myself that their main burst had been released. The effect was a one-shot, quickly scribed, but still accomplished with finesse. Zuriel was troublingly resourceful. Splaying my fingers, I dared to touch the strip of metal, just to be sure it was inert. No surprises blasted me into my next incarnation.

  “It’s spent.”

  “Any other booby traps I should watch out for?” Tanisha asked, beaming her light into the living room shadows. That initial blast still dulled my more distant impressions. All I felt for the moment was our collective knot of anxiousness.

  “Not sure,” I admitted.

  “Check the house and clear it,” Sal called from the doorway. “You should have caught that before she tripped it, Anakim.”

  I bristled at such a direct order. “I’m not one of your goons, Sal.”

  “You’re a dick,” Tanisha snapped. “I’m standing right here.”

  “Nothing personal,” I muttered. Wiping the sick feel of Zuriel’s magic from my skin, I rose from my crouch on the floor. “He’s not going to be here, Sal. You know that.”

  The decimus buried her worry beneath a chilly hauteur. “If you’re so certain about that, do you know where to start looking?”

  “Not yet,” I admitted.

  “Then go.” She flicked her hand impatiently. I motioned for Tanisha to precede me.

  “I won’t miss the next booby-trap,” I promised.

  “Better not.”

  We moved forward and, together, we cleared the house, falling quickly into an efficient rhythm. Sal’s ebon-skinned shield maiden didn’t fuck around. Pausing at every entryway, Tanisha checked for physical threats while I kept all my senses peeled for anything that might escape her mortal eyes. Living room, office, then upstairs to the bedrooms. In every room, we left lights burning behind us. There were no more surprises, but also, no further traces of Remy. Not so much as a flicker.

  “I know it was locked, but I’d feel better if we checked out that cellar,” Tanisha said.

  I grunted unhelpfully, only half listening. All my focus was on the other side. Before we headed back down, I laid my hand against the wall, trying to get a feel for the house as a whole. Tanisha’s heat and Sal’s expectant impatience knocked against the hollowed-out energy of the place. Ava and Javier, also clustered near the entrance, blended in with Sal.

  “This is a waste,” I grumbled. “There’s another place we’ve got to check, about a block down the street.” No longer trying to muffle my footfalls, I rushed to the bottom of the stairs.

  “You planned to mention that when?” Tanisha barked after me.

  Taking the sharp turn into the hallway, I hustled past the office and into the living room. Two of the three standing lamps burned brightly from their corners. In their yellow light, all the faces turned to corpses on the walls. I rushed toward the kitchen, reluctant to catch sight of that patch of missing carpet where Marjory’s body had lain.

  I looked anyway. And I froze.

  There, smack in the middle of the exposed flooring, lay a coil of gleaming rope, dark and sinuous as a serpent.

  Not rope, I thought. It was hair. Remy’s hair.

  Zuriel had cut away my brother’s waist-long braid.
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  Rationally, I knew it could have been worse—much worse—an ear, a tongue, a hand, even a brilliant, azure eye plucked like an under-ripe fruit from a bloodied socket. Hair was hardly crippling, and yet a sour heat squeezed my throat at the sight of this cruel and petty mutilation.

  More disturbing than the hair itself was the issue of its very presence. Tanisha and I had both been through this room. We’d seen the bared patch of floor. The braid hadn’t been here—I was certain of it. Which left only the possibility that Zuriel had planted this latest taunt while we searched the rooms upstairs.

  It seemed impossible.

  Sal stood in the only open doorway. Javier and Ava had watchful eyes upon the street. Even if he’d slunk in through the Shadowside, I had all my psychic senses flung as wide as I could get them. I should have sensed something. And yet, here was the braid, mocking proof of our incompetence.

  “Fuck me running,” I growled.

  Sal called from the kitchen, “What have you found?” When I didn’t immediately answer, she barked orders like I was one of her foot soldiers, but that only made me clench my teeth in surly defiance. Her mask of arrogant detachment crumbling, she swooped into the living room, blonde ponytail streaming behind her like a tattered standard. She drew up behind me, her towering presence a looming weight against my tucked and hidden wings. As I had, she froze once she saw the plaited insult coiled upon the floor.

  “I’m going to kill him,” Sal said.

  “What’s the trouble?” Tanisha asked. The guard had taken the stairs so silently, she seemed to simply appear at the mouth of the back hall. The whites of her eyes sketched bright rings around her irises as she looked expectantly from Sal to me, then finally to what lay upon the floor. Her full lips twitched down. “Is that Mr. Broussard’s hair?”