Harsh Gods

by Michelle Belanger

  “Looks like someone’s getting lucky tonight,” she mused, stabbing the button with the butt-end of her pen. “He’s cute.”

  I leaned against the back wall of the elevator, staring at her reflection in the ceiling.

  “All you think about is sex.”

  Her lips curled in a sphinx-like smile. “That’s not fair. I also think about murder.”

  I snorted. “Remind me again why I hang out with you?”

  “Because you like murder, too.” Her smile widened till it became a feral baring of teeth. The air around her reeked of spice and vanilla, and the scent stirred some atavistic part of my brain that held little differentiation between sex and violence. My traitor pulse sped up, sending a rush of blood to points south of my beltline. I squirmed under Lil’s knowing gaze, but offered no denial. Her laughter rang full and throaty in the tight compartment as we moved toward the lobby.

  “You never get tired of tormenting me, do you?”

  “You haven’t disappointed yet.” She grinned.

  We picked up another two passengers at the third floor, and Lil fell quiet till we made it the rest of the way down. I pressed my back against the wall and tried to ignore how tight my jeans had become.

  Stupid body. Damned thing had no idea how to prioritize.

  The lobby was mostly empty, save for a few stragglers. Most stood at the big bank of glass doors gawking at the blizzard outside. A few held their car keys, clearly reluctant to go out. Thunder growled and the answering lightning flashed against an unrelenting sheet of white. It was as if the world beyond the hospital had stopped three feet out, everything lost to a snowy void.

  “This is going to suck,” Lil grumbled. She tugged the scrunchies out of her hair, shaking loose all her long curls. “You left my jacket upstairs.”

  “I thought you were as immune to the cold as me,” I ventured.

  She made a face as the wind gusted. “Two words. Snow, and cleavage.” A swirling wall of white surged against the doors. “Even if I were the ice queen, that would still suck.”

  She plucked off her glasses and slipped them back into her purse. The clipboard had already disappeared. I didn’t remember seeing her put it down, and for all I knew, that had been swallowed by her TARDIS-like handbag as well. I didn’t think the thing had a bottom.

  Lil pressed close to one of the doors, scowling ferociously at the raging sea of white. Not bothering to hide my smirk, I leaned above her, reaching to press my hand against the frigid glass of the door.

  The wind fought me—I didn’t have leverage for shit at this angle—but I managed to push it partly open. I was rewarded with a gale-force gust that drove a column of snow through the crack, hitting Lil full-force in the face. She glared up at me, white flecks speckling her lashes, her hair, and—most importantly—the perfect stretch of flesh exposed by her plunging V-neck.

  “Asshole,” she spat.

  “Payback’s a bitch,” I said, stepping around her to plunge headlong into the storm.

  The lights were still out in the parking lot. Not that it mattered—the snow was so thick, lights wouldn’t have helped anyway. I couldn’t see any of the cars till I was right on top of them. I kept my head down and aimed in the general direction of the garage. Lil was right behind me—I could hear her cursing even over the thunder.

  “I’ve felt that thing you do with heat lightning when you get really pissed off.” I yelled to make myself heard. Even so, the wind tried to steal my words. “Don’t you have some control over the weather?”

  “A little,” she called back, “but to counter something like this, you’d need my sister, the Lady of Storms.” Her hair whipped across her face and, spitting, she shoved it back. I bet she was regretting taking out the scrunchies.

  “How many sisters have you got?” I asked.

  “Alive, or dead?” she countered.

  “Does it matter?”

  I didn’t hear her response, assuming she offered one. Lil could be maddeningly dodgy about who and what she was. Last fall, Sal had let slip the sobriquet “Daughter of Lilith,” so I had a few ideas—but they were vague at best. The only thing I knew for certain was that Lil was immortal, though exactly how her immortality worked remained a mystery.

  Among my siblings, each tribe differed in the way they clung to the flesh-and-blood world. My tribe, the Anakim, were the most prosaic. We got born the old-fashioned way, and when we died, we sought out a new set of parents to do the whole thing over again.

  Last time around, I’d intended for Frank Mazetti to be one of those parents. That was one of the purposes of an anchor. I’d gotten that much in the flash of memory up in the hospital room. I wondered again about the circumstances that had altered the path so that instead, he became a priest.

  I’d have time to ask him.

  Later.

  The unforgiving press of the wind subsided somewhat as we finally made it to the parking garage. The exterior lot wasn’t that big, but it felt like we’d crossed the Antarctic. I stood on the lee-side of a concrete pillar, shaking clumps of ice from inside the collar of my jacket. The interior of the parking garage yawned cavernous in front of us. The power was still out, and not even emergency lighting had kicked in.

  “Fuck,” I muttered.

  Lil caught up to me, her bronze features fixed in a perma-scowl. Snow was matted in her hair, weighing the russet curls down till they hung practically to her waist. She reached down the front of her blouse, grabbed the slush that had collected there, and lobbed it at me.

  “Happy?” she snarled.

  I swiped the icy meltwater from where she’d pelted it at my cheek and grinned.

  “Yeah, actually.”

  She muttered a blistering curse in a long-dead tongue.

  “Come on, Lil,” I chided. “That wouldn’t be fair to the sheep.”

  “Fuck you,” she replied. “Where did we park?”

  “Three-E,” I said automatically.

  “Well, let’s start walking.” She shook clinging crystals of ice from the ends of her hair.

  I moved in the opposite direction. “Elevator’s this way.”

  “No power, no elevator, Einstein,” she spat. “I think the stairs are over here.”

  “Don’t they have back-up generators?” I asked.

  Broadly, she gestured. “Do you see any lights?”

  Muttering my displeasure, I trudged glumly along. The concrete cavern of the parking garage was bad enough with no power, but the sheeting snow cut off any ambient light from outside. I put one boot carefully in front of the other, fighting the urge to reach my hands out so I could feel my way through the shadows.

  Ahead of me, Lil moved quickly, swift and sure as a cat. She walked on the balls of her feet, rolling her arches forward so the heels of her expensive boots never touched the cement of the floor. Once she realized how far I’d lagged behind, she halted. I could barely make out the look of irritation that creased her features.

  “Yeah, yeah, spare me the insults,” I muttered. “I’m just not as cool as you when it comes to creeping around in the dark.”

  Lil’s full lips twisted into a smug grin as she started to respond. Then, all of a sudden, she froze. Canting her head, she listened intently, then sniffed the air. I fell silent, straining my own senses. All I heard was the thunder and the wind.

  The next instant, she dashed off, crouching below the line of the cars. Certain now that the storm had been some sort of cover, I angled my back to a wall, whispering my power. Subtle light danced around my fingertips, ready to explode into deadly brilliance once the enemy closed.

  To my left came the sound of a scuffle. The shadows swallowed any sign of who or what it was. I heard Lil hiss a rapid string of curses, followed by a meaty thump, like she’d dropped a body to the ground.

  That body complained immediately in accented tones.

  “Really,” it said. “You don’t have to pull a knife on me.”

  “Remiel!” she snarled. “I could have kill
ed you.”

  My brother barked a dry, ironic laugh. “Hardly.”

  Fussing with the lapels of a smartly tailored woolen coat, the Nephilim stepped into my line of vision and moved toward me. His sleek fall of black hair was swept away from his face and plaited into a tight braid that ended at the small of his back. He had porcelain-pale skin that seemed almost luminescent in the gloom of the concrete parking structure. Model-perfect features boasted cheekbones that could incite some Hollywood actors to envious acts of murder. Angled above his brow was a jaunty fedora. He’d worn the damned things so long, they’d come back into fashion.

  Lil emerged behind him, tucking a folding knife back into her purse.

  “You should know better than to sneak up on me like that,” she grumbled sourly.

  He arched a delicate brow at her. “I wasn’t exactly sneaking.”

  Lil frowned, pushing an unruly tangle of curls back behind her ear. She took several swift steps to catch up to him and then—incredibly—leaned in and sniffed his elbow. Going up on tiptoes, she trailed her nose all the way up his arm, ending close to his collar. Remy regarded her with mild confusion throughout this curious display, which was weird even for Lil.

  She stepped away, wrinkling her nose.

  “I don’t recognize this cologne,” she complained.

  “Cologne?” He blinked azure eyes that glimmered faintly in the gloom.

  “Why do you think I jumped you?” she demanded, slapping his chest with the back of her hand. “You don’t smell like you.”

  I shook the lingering power from my fingers, willing myself to relax now that the threat had proven to be nothing more than my soft-spoken brother. Maybe Terhuziel had run out of minions to throw at me, and the storm was his best attempt at an attack. That would be a nice change of pace. My life could use fewer complications.

  Delicately, my brother sniffed at the edge of one sleeve. “Oh,” he murmured. “You’re probably smelling Jimmy. I was with him before I came here.”

  “Who’s Jimmy?” Lil asked. She managed somehow to package curiosity, suspicion, and a subtle promise of reprisal into just two words.

  Lil and Remy had been married once upon a time. It had ended poorly, which should have been a shock to no one. Since I’d become reacquainted with the both of them, Lil waxed hot and cold with my brother—and, for some reason, Remy put up with it. I didn’t ask. Mostly, I tried to steer clear of their endless squabbles. Not tonight.

  “Jimmy Roarke,” I ventured. “Remy’s pet police officer. Am I right?”

  Remy nodded, adjusting the brim of his fedora.

  “Who is, I might add, rather irate at you.”

  “I don’t like cops,” I grumbled.

  “Well, your behavior last night didn’t exactly endear you to Roarke—and he wasn’t exactly your chum to begin with.”

  “Why are you here?” I asked.

  Lil continued scenting the air around Remy, a little more subtly this time. Her features creased in a pensive expression, like she was contemplating how much trouble it might be to hunt the officer down later. Remy pointedly ignored her behavior.

  “I had Jimmy drop me off so I could talk to the girl,” he explained, “but I saw you and Lil making your way through the parking lot, so I decided I’d just ask you instead.”

  “Ask me what?”

  “The meaning of those letters cut into the attacker’s chest. Attackers’, plural,” he corrected. “They found similar carvings on a frozen corpse just outside of Lake View,” he added, perking a brow pointedly as he fixed his azure eyes on mine. “There have been a number of corpses turning up of late.”

  I made a noise in the back of my throat that wasn’t any kind of answer, and started walking in what was probably the direction of my car.

  “This is serious, Zaquiel,” Remy called after me.

  “Yeah,” I agreed, “and I’ve got places to go.” I kept walking. The Nephilim hesitated, then jogged to catch up to me. He reached for my elbow. I jerked it away. Lil hung back, most likely enjoying the show.

  “There are altars being set up all around the city,” he said. “They bear those self-same glyphs. There have been murders and other activity that appear to be sacrifices.” His words came out swift and urgent. He grabbed for my elbow again. “You have to know what that portends.”

  Stopping suddenly, I whirled on him. “You knew about this, and you didn’t let me know?” My voice echoed through the cavernous structure. “This is my city!”

  “Your city,” Lil scoffed.

  I glowered at her in the gloom, then turned the same unhappy glare on Remy.

  “This shit’s been ramping up for the better part of a month,” I growled. “Why didn’t you tell me?” Remy met my eyes without blinking.

  “Perhaps someone should more regularly check his phone,” he said witheringly.

  The messages.

  I refused to concede his point.

  “You know where I live.”

  “Ha!” he barked. “I know better than to violate your sanctum sanctorum when you are in one of your moods, brother. But I’m glad to see that you’re taking an interest now. Finally,” he added. “Old alliances with the Idol-Riders may prevent Sal and myself from becoming directly involved.”

  “Is that who sent you?” I demanded. “Saliriel?”

  Remy loosed a sigh of frustration. “Really, sibling. You’re impossible when you let your judgments rule you.”

  “That’s different from normal how?” Lil asked.

  I snarled at her. “Hey, whose side are you on anyway?”

  “Mine.” She smiled with all the self-assured hauteur of a Madame du Pompadour. I prepared myself for another salvo of vitriol when I thought I heard the scuff of a shoe against the concrete floor.

  Remy’s head whipped in that direction, and the subtle light in his unnaturally blue eyes sharpened to a full-on glow. He dropped his mellifluous voice to a whisper.

  “We are not alone.”

  33

  They crept up on us while we argued, using our raised voices to cover the sound of their advance. Terhuziel had stepped up his game—probably because he now knew he was dealing with me, as well as the padre.

  I spotted three of them right off, and heard a fourth moving behind the pylons to my right. One of them stepped out from behind a black SUV, hands locked in a familiar stance.

  “Gun,” Lil breathed.

  The bullet ricocheted off the wall behind me as soon as her warning left her lips. The report was shatteringly loud, and my hearing dulled to a low buzz in its wake.

  Remy moved with that blurring speed that only the Nephilim could muster. I could move fast when I needed to, but would never match that sight-tricking alacrity. One instant, he was behind me. The next, I heard the wet snap of bone as he disarmed the gunman—almost literally.

  The attacker collapsed, screaming, against the SUV. His weapon dropped to clatter beneath a nearby car. Lil dove to retrieve it.

  With the first one wounded, the others scattered, but these were Rephaim anchors, and the gunman proved it in the next instant, levering himself up despite the injury. As Remy turned to track one of the others, he launched himself at my brother. Shrieking unintelligibly, the man clung to the Nephilim’s shoulders, broken wrist and all.

  The primly dressed vampire blurred again and, in the next heartbeat, he had the attacker’s head between his hands. He twisted, whipping the man onto the ground, then stomped on the fellow’s lower back, grinding down with the heel of his sleek Italian shoe. At the same time, he twined his long fingers beneath the man’s jaw and yanked upward sharply, bending him the wrong way in half.

  The ratcheting crackle of the man’s severed spine was almost as loud as the next volley of gunfire.

  “Take cover, you idiot!” Lil snapped. That was meant for me. The Nephilim healed so fast, bullets were merely a nuisance. Remy was probably more worried about getting holes in his trim-waisted wool coat.

  As if to prove his sup
eriority, Remy stepped disdainfully over the corpse and oriented himself in the direction of the next shooter. Three muzzle flashes erupted in the depths of the lightless parking garage. Remy moved toward the gunfire, slow and unhurried, drawing attention away from Lil and me.

  The shooter was half a floor up, aiming down from between stanchions. I had no idea how the person could see—though, if their aim was any indication, they couldn’t, not really. The first two bullets flew wide of their mark. The third caught Remy’s fedora, knocking it off of his head. His hand snapped up to catch it, but he was a nanosecond too late.

  His placid features twisted into a mask of perfect fury.

  “That was one of my favorites!” he snarled, theatrically baring his fangs—then he launched himself in the direction of the muzzle-flares, blurring again.

  I dropped to all fours and skittered none too gracefully for cover between the nearest two vehicles. Squatting low, my back against a large pickup, I was all elbows and knees. Pulling the SIG out, I held it up, but wasn’t about to fire blindly into the dark. Not being able to see was really pissing me off, and the way sounds rebounded within the depths of the parking garage, there was no hope of relying on my ears.

  So I ground my teeth, feeling the next best thing to useless.

  “Dammit, why’d you have to leave my coat behind?” Lil hissed.

  I peered under the car between us. “Why the hell do you need your coat? Aren’t your weapons all in that little purse?”

  She ducked down to glare at me. “My best amulet’s in the coat pocket,” she snarled.

  “Well, boo-hoo,” I said. It wasn’t like Lil needed the help. She fought like a fucking ninja.

  A cry erupted in the direction of the second shooter. Abruptly, it cut off. Remy made not a sound. Normally all fuss and etiquette, the Nephilim could be terrifying when he wanted to be.

  “Two down,” Lil noted.

  “I think there were only four,” I whispered.

  “I counted five with that second shooter.”

  “Don’t you two know to stay quiet when people are hunting you?” Remy called. His lightly accented voice carried throughout the structure. He wasn’t worried about quiet.