Close to the Ground

by Jeff Mariotte

  And even though he knew that it was only a projected mental image, he also knew the damage that it could do. He needed to fight back, and fast.

  He closed his own eyes and summoned up a dozen giants of his own, huge warriors carrying longbows. They brought arrows to their bowstrings, lifted them to shoulder-height, drew back the strings, and held them there. If Balor so much as shuddered or blinked, he’d be skewered.

  Tony looked at Balor with terrible fascination. The god was as tall as a three-story building. He had a wild mane of flaming red hair and a thick growth of beard around his chin. His arms, the size of massive trees, were crossed over a vast belly. Gigantic legs were spread before him as he slept.

  In the center of his forehead there was one eyelid, covering an eye the size of the gong that stood inside Tony’s maternal grandmother’s Chinese restaurant.

  Suddenly Balor let out a snort, like a peal of thunder.

  The archers tensed.

  The god came awake instantly, as if forewarned of the danger. The eyelid snapped open and Balor’s single, horrible eye was exposed.

  The archers released their arrows.

  Balor whipped his head from right to left, across his entire field of view.

  Where his gaze traveled, the arrows burst into flames, mid-flight. Before they reached Balor, they had disintegrated. Puffs of smoke bounced harmlessly off his skin.

  Then he pushed his mass to a standing position, hands at his sides. His mouth opened in a ferocious growl, and he focused his gaze at Tony’s warriors.

  One by one they burst into flames and vanished.

  Then Tony saw a tiny figure on the rock-strewn plane. He recognized it as himself.

  The small mental image of Tony tried to run, tried to hide behind the boulders. But Balor sniffed the air, finding his scent, and strode forward on legs that pounded the earth, shaking it with every step.

  The small Tony trembled, his back pressed against the rock. Then Balor’s face appeared above the rock. His mouth was twisted into something resembling a smile. His red-veined eye rolled in its socket, finally settling on Tony. Tony screamed —

  In the shop Tony went limp and fell to the floor behind the counter. Mordractus looked at him there. The shopkeeper still breathed, but Mordractus knew he would never come out of the coma. In his mind’s eye he would be in that spot, waiting for the force of Balor’s gaze to land upon him, until the day he died.

  Mordractus took the bottle of ewe’s lash and went outside, to where Currie waited with a car. He’d have been willing to pay for it, but this way was so much cleaner.

  In the Willits household that night’s hair and makeup routine was much like the night before’s. Karinna went upstairs to where Consuela was waiting for her. Inside a closed room she was attended to for about half an hour. When she emerged, she was a different woman, more grown up, more sophisticated, more lovely. The air was thick with her usual perfume.

  At least on the outside. Angel was never sure how the outside, in Karinna’s case, matched up with the inside. Her exterior could be carefully thought out, artfully arranged, done to perfection. But inside she was a spoiled brat used to having things her way, a little rich girl who ran roughshod over her parents and their employees, a tease and a flirt.

  Tonight she wore wide-legged, hip-hugging black pants, and a short top that left a large chunk of midriff exposed and barely closed over her chest. Her hair was left down instead of pulled up. Angel thought it made her look younger. Closer to her real age.

  When they were in the GTX, headed for Sunset and a Hollywood club, she playfully punched his shoulder. “You were telling me about your girlfriend, before,” she said.

  “No, I wasn’t.”

  “But you have one, right? I mean, you must. Look at you. Unless you’re —”

  “No, I’m not,” Angel assured her. “And no, I don’t. Not right now, anyway.”

  “What happened?” Karinna wanted to know. “Was it a tragic love story?”

  “What happened, Karinna, is none of your business,” he said. “If I want to talk about it, I will. Don’t hold your breath.”

  “Man of mystery,” she said. “You always like to keep people guessing, don’t you?”

  “Maybe I just don’t like to share every single thought that flits through my head.”

  “Ouch! Tender mood tonight? What’s wrong?”

  “If I wanted to talk about it,” Angel said, “I’d talk about it.”

  “Sorreeee,” she said. From the corner of his eye he could see her slump against her door and fold in on herself. The top was up tonight, so she wasn’t huddled against the wind. He’d hurt her feelings.

  What is with me? he wondered. There’s no need to snap at the girl. But even as he asked himself the question, he knew the answer lay in the things Doyle and Cordy had been saying earlier. Maybe he was taking this whole thing too personally. Maybe he’d let Karinna get under his skin, somehow. The connection to the woman in Rumania? When he thought back to her, he could still smell, in his mind, the yeasty odor of the bread that wafted from her bakery door, and the coppery tang of her blood after Tirbol had killed her.

  And what was it Doyle had said? “What happens when an angel flies too close to the ground?” Angel could only come up with one answer that made any sense.

  The angel crashes.

  He shook his head. None of this would help with Karinna. He had to focus, had to figure out what the threat against her was and how to deal with it. Someone was out to get her, for some reason. Between Doyle’s vision and Jack’s concerns, he was sure of that, even though, so far, he’d only been a baby-sitter. He just had to know who, and why, and he could neutralize the threat, leave Karinna and Jack to their millions, and move on.

  The Belvedere GTX had no rearview mirror — not usually a problem, since mirrors and vampires weren’t exactly the best of friends. But on some occasions, he recognized that it would come in handy. This was one of those. He had the vague sense that they had been followed since leaving Bel Air, but all he had to back that up was the way headlights shone through his rear window, and what little he could see by craning his head around and looking back.

  All he could see back there were two round headlights. Left him little to go on. He decided he’d take a few side streets, try some evasive maneuvers, and maybe if there was someone back there, they’d have to show their hand.

  He made a sudden right off of Sunset at Ogden, went down two blocks, and made another right. Then he went up one block and made a quick left.

  “Hey, what are you doing?” Karinna asked him. “This isn’t the way to the Wet Sprocket!”

  “Just hang on a minute,” he said, spinning the wheel to pull a U-turn. Now he was heading north on Orange Grove. Another left put him on Fountain, and he shot across Fairfax on a yellow light. No one came through behind him. He breathed a sigh of relief and headed back toward Sunset.

  “Just playing it safe,” he said. “That’s what we bodyguards do.”

  “I think you bodyguards are all whack jobs,” Karinna suggested.

  “That may be, but —”

  He never even saw it coming.

  The car blasted out of nowhere, no headlights on, and slammed into the GTX. There was a sound like an explosion. The Plymouth went into a skid and stopped ninety degrees from the way it had been headed.

  The engine had died upon impact. Angel was reaching for the key to restart it when he saw a van turn sideways in the street ahead. Five men jumped from it, and four more were coming from the car, a big Lincoln, that had slammed into them. They were all dressed in black, and Angel saw chains, knives, even a couple of handguns.

  This was no simple traffic accident.

  “Karinna, listen,” he hissed. “I’ll stall these guys. You drive like a crazy woman. If they had any more vehicles here, they’d be unloading, too, so there are only the two. I’ll keep them from chasing you, but you’ve got to go straight home and wait for me there. It’s the only place I’ll
know you’re safe.”

  “Angel, I’m s-scared,” Karinna said, her voice breaking.

  “I know. I’ll be okay, and you will too if you get out of here. As soon as I’m out of the car, slide over and just go. I’ll come by later and check on you, okay?”

  “Okay,” she agreed.

  He shoved open his door and jumped from the car, landing in the middle of the street. There was glass on the road, from the Lincoln. The GTX had come through the whole thing remarkably well, he noted. Good old Detroit engineering from the days when they built cars to last.

  There were nine men on the street, coming toward him from every angle. They were quiet, a couple of them issuing one-word commands to the rest but otherwise not talking, not laughing, not taunting him. They had the air of professionals, doing a job. That would make this easier and harder, Angel knew. Harder, because they’d be good at it.

  And easier, because they weren’t innocents. He had no qualms about hurting people who hurt others for a living.

  “We’re not here for you,” one of them said. He was tall, with steely gray eyes and black hair slicked close to his scalp. “You could go. Take your car. We’ll take the girl.”

  “No deal,” Angel said.

  “Didn’t think so,” the guy said. “Thought I’d offer, though.”

  “Appreciate it.”

  “Kill him,” the guy instructed calmly. One of the guns was raised, held in a massive fist by a short dark-skinned man with a bald head and a goatee. Angel heard the gun cock, and he went to work.

  Letting the change wash over him, he threw himself into the air, tumbling twice, heels over head, and landed behind the short stocky man. The man swung around, trying to keep the gun trained on Angel. But Angel was already moving in. He threw a fist at the man’s goateed chin and felt it connect with bone-crushing force. At the same time he swept his other arm down into the wrist of the man’s gun hand. The man let out a soft grunt. The pistol clattered to the street. Angel kicked it and it skidded into the next block, disappearing under a parked car.

  There was another gun in play — Angel could smell the powder, the oil. He leaped again, turning in the air, until he could see it. A tall man, basket-ball-player tall, held a .38. It looked tiny in the man’s long hand.

  There were still knives and chains to contend with, but Angel knew that guns carried the potential to injure innocent bystanders, even people blocks away. And Karinna hadn’t left the scene yet — in the seconds since he’d left the GTX, its powerful engine had been started, but she hadn’t pulled away. The guns had to be taken out of action first, even though they couldn’t hurt him.

  But the gunman could fire before Angel could possibly cover the distance to him. So he tried a chain reaction tactic — he grabbed the nearest guy, an overweight bruiser carrying a length of bicycle chain, and lifted him over his head. He hurled the guy at another one, who fell into a third. This one stumbled into the gunman, who threw his arms out to his sides to maintain his balance. When he was thus occupied, Angel charged over the bodies of the fallen and dived headfirst into the gunman’s solar plexus. The guy gave a “whoof” and went down in the street.

  By this time Angel heard distant sirens approaching. The attackers seemed oblivious to the oncoming police presence, though. They had Angel — and his car, with Karinna inside — surrounded, and they appeared intent on finishing what they had started.

  Angel’s goal had to be to keep the girl safe and get her out of there. A black man, as wide and solid as a tank, was yanking on one of the GTX’s locked doors. Angel leaped to his side, drove a fist into his kidney.

  The guy looked at him and smiled.

  Angel threw another punch, then a left-right-left combination.

  This time the guy winced.

  “Are you human?” Angel asked. He hadn’t smelled demon.

  “What they tell me,” the guy said. He punched at Angel. His fist had the power of a pile driver. Angel went down in the street, then picked himself up again. A mortal man could have been killed by such a blow.

  Angel approached the guy more cautiously this time. The other men were standing around them in a semicircle, anticipating the battle to come.

  “Gold’s Gym?” Angel asked.

  “San Quentin,” the man replied. He moved in a slow circle around Angel as they spoke. Angel, too, was moving, turning in small steps, never off-balance for more than a second.

  “Paid off.”

  “Thanks.”

  “The rest of these guys, they’re just along for the ride?”

  “Pretty much,” the man said.

  “But you’re the real deal.”

  “You’re the real something yourself,” the guy said. “Nice teeth.”

  Angel knew Karinna was inside the car, engine running. He spoke softly. “Vampire,” he admitted, hoping it would throw his opponent’s concentration. Still turning. Watching the man’s eyes. He’d know when the guy was going to make his move by his eyes. But he had to keep himself from being distracted by the way his fists flexed and opened. His arms were the size of tree trunks.

  “No way.”

  “Way.”

  “That’s freaky, man. That’s why you got the fore-head and stuff?”

  “That’s it.”

  “So I could stake you or something? Cross, maybe?”

  “Stories,” Angel said. Why give anything away?

  “You drink blood, though?” Still circling.

  Angel smiled. “All the time. Little hungry now, in fact.”

  The guy moved then, and Angel saw it in his eyes a half-second before he lunged. Angel stepped to his left, so the guy charged to his right. Angel brought his right arm high into the air, bringing it down as the shorter man stumbled past him, thrown off-balance by the fact that Angel was not where he had been. His elbow slammed into the back of the guy’s head, driving him toward the ground. Stepping back into the man, Angel brought his right knee up and it caught the man’s chin.

  The guy fell back a couple of steps, his eyes glassy. The blows had had some impact this time. He still stood, but his legs wobbled, his solidity seemed less certain. Blood showed at the corners of his mouth.

  And still, he came for more.

  This time his fists found Angel’s solar plexus. He hammered, landing blow after punishing blow. Angel blocked with both hands, but the man was fast.

  Finally Angel closed on the man, trying to grab his flailing fists in his hands. When he was close enough he drove his head into the guy’s face. He felt cartilage tear, and the man reeled back, blood spraying from his nose. Angel followed, pressing his advantage. He landed a couple of jabs against the guy’s chin, then a left hook into his temple.

  The guy’s eyes crossed and his legs went out from under him. When he hit the street, Angel was sure the impact would cause earthquakes.

  A glance at the car showed that Karinna was still sitting inside, fingers white on the wheel, eyes wide. Angel pounded on the hood. “Go!” he yelled. “Get out of here!”

  She blinked a couple of times, as if just waking up, and cranked the key. The engine was already on, though, so it made a grinding noise. When she put it in reverse and hit the gas, it bucked, clipping the legs of a guy approaching it from behind. He fell away, and the car roared up Fountain.

  Angel turned back to the business at hand.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  With Karinna escaped and their strongman down, the fight seemed to have gone out of them. Some of them headed for their cars, others backed away from Angel. Three came at him at once, knives flashing, but they were easy.

  One blade ripped into his side, and he flinched, but the wound would heal almost immediately. He backhanded that knifeman across the mouth, and the guy fell down. Angel caught the wrist of the second and wrenched it, pulling the man’s arm from its socket. The knife clattered on the street. The third guy was already retreating when Angel lashed out with a kick, sending him spinning into the window of a tailor’s shop. Glass rained onto
the sidewalk and an alarm started to whoop.

  They all ran for their vehicles.

  “Not leaving already, are you?” he asked. “I’m just getting warmed up.”

  A couple of them lifted the stocky black man up and helped him into the van. One of those guys met Angel’s gaze. “We’re done,” he said. “You’re on your own.”

  Whatever that means, Angel thought. It’s not like these guys are doing me a favor by jumping me.

  Is it?

  But he couldn’t imagine any way in which it could be. He stood on the corner and watched as they piled back into their vehicles and drove away — at reasonable speeds, and not in the direction Karinna had gone. The sirens were closer, would be here within moments, but Angel couldn’t see any advantage to making his attackers wait for the police. Sure, they could be booked for assault, but Jack Willits wouldn’t want his daughter’s name associated with something like that, and Angel tried to keep his activities to himself as much as possible.

  He turned the corner onto Fairfax and went south, away from the flashing red and blue lights he saw approaching. As he walked he transformed again, back into his human form.

  So what was that all about? he wondered. It had seemed planned, premeditated. They’d been followed, they’d been rammed. Somebody trying to get to Karinna. But for what? Kidnapping and ransom? Her family certainly had the money, and everyone in L.A. knew it.

  Or were they trying to kill her? Why? What could a seventeen-year-old girl have done that would get hired professionals after her?

  No, the kidnapping theory seemed more likely. Or something else that Angel hadn’t hit on yet. Revenge of some kind. If they’d wanted to kill her they could have done a drive-by, strafing the Plymouth with automatic weapons. Knives and chains weren’t killing weapons, not for serious players. They were for maiming, causing injury.

  They didn’t want her dead, but they wanted her hurt.

  Angel knew he had to get a cab, get back to Bel Air. He didn’t know if she was even safe inside the walls of that security-conscious community, or inside her own alarmed house. He wanted to make sure she survived the night.