Ceramic shattered in the main room, followed by Katie’s shocked cry. Cain dropped his comb and dashed out of the bathroom. Hands clutched to her mouth, she stared at the TV, her head shaking from side to side.
“It’s…it’s…” She kept her eyes focused on the screen.
Cain hustled over and stared at the images on the TV.
“The horrific blaze that’s engulfed Fire Station Three on Detroit’s southwest side continues to burn out of control,” the TV reporter said. “Witnesses in nearby businesses reported hearing a loud explosion just prior to seeing flames shoot out the two-story structure behind me.”
A frigid hand stabbed through Cain’s chest, squeezed his heart, and made the beat skip. He was at the station only the other night, when he’d met her brother.
“Oh, God, if he was inside when…when…” Katie’s anguished eyes met his.
Her sobs flayed him where he stood, impotent to make this better. Cain grabbed his phone. “Katie’s brother works at the station that exploded,” he told Tanis as soon as the angel picked up.
“Damn.” The call disconnected, and Cain nearly crushed the phone. He didn’t trust coincidence. Not with Abel alive and roaming the streets like a vengeful spirit.
“Fire department spokesman Thomas Doyle told us earlier the night shift was on duty at the time of the explosion,” the reporter said. “Police have confirmed several survivors were taken to Detroit Receiving Hospital.”
Katie was tugging on her pants by the time they announced the hospital’s name. Cain ran to the bathroom, dressed fast, and met her at the motel-room door. He gently touched her shoulders.
“I know you have to go, but we need to stay alert,” he said. “When we arrive, if he’s there go straight to Jon’s room. I’ll keep you both safe.”
He felt like an asshole after he spoke the words. He hadn’t protected her brother, and he had an unsettling feeling this was another move on Abel’s game board. Every instinct inside Cain screamed “trap,” but he couldn’t stop now.
Katie eyed him, her expression distant and her voice like permafrost. “Was it him? Did your brother hurt mine?”
“I think so.”
Chapter Fifteen
Detroit Receiving Hospital was one of the city’s gems. The first Level I Trauma Center in Michigan and the first in the United States devoted to adult emergency medicine, trauma, and critical care. No place was better to treat Jon Logan.
Inside the vast reception area, Cain stood by Katie’s side as she asked after her brother and learned which room he’d been placed in.
“I’ll be right back,” she said. “I want to see him alone. Okay?”
She jogged down the hall toward the elevators. He waited until she’d gone before he walked to the far end of the corridor and checked the area. Around him, patients, doctors, nurses, and assorted strangers milled around, concerned with their own business.
Cain reached for his cellphone. He would do what he could to take Abel out of play, and if he had to bring in the team, so be it. Targeting innocents was against every fucking code he’d had drummed into him by Tanis during his assassin training.
“Tension can cause heart attacks.”
That voice, deeper than it had once been, hit Cain’s soul like a hammer. He spun and faced Abel for the first time in millennia. He may as well have stared into a mirror.
There was no denying their relationship. Both were six and a half feet tall with bodies built for destruction. His brother’s eyes slitted as he and his twin shared a long glare. Although less tanned than Cain, Abel wore his hair short like Cain did.
“Brother.” Cain’s throat sealed around the word.
“You remember,” Abel said, cold as granite. “Convenient how you recall our bond now.”
Cain frowned at the stinging reply, and he flexed his hands to keep the blood flowing. Numbness slowed his breathing. Cotton clogged his hearing. The dryness in his mouth forced him to swallow.
Abel tilted his head as if he gave real thought to his next comment. “I don’t see why these fools can’t tell us apart. You look weak.”
Disappointment nested inside Cain. “I won’t trade fucking insults like we’re children.” He folded his arms against his chest. “The explosion. That was you.”
A couple flat-footed to a stop between them. The woman turned her head from one twin to the other. The man did the same, then tugged his companion out of the way. Cain saw the humans and Others in the reception area cast wary and surprised glances to the identical twins staring each other down like Old West gunfighters at high noon. Any one of them had likely seen the news footage, which meant he didn’t have much time before the hospital swarmed with police.
“Would you care to hear the details?” Abel smirked, his gaze roaming from one stranger’s face to another. “My associate learned your female friend might have seen something she should not.” He glanced at two passing nurses. “I’m normally very careful with my business, so the news was…unfortunate.”
Cain kept his expression poker-face blank, but his sluggish pulse reacted to his twin’s confirmation of Katie’s presence at the murder.
“My associate went searching for her, but instead found her heroic brother.”
Cain’s Grace stirred inside him as his anger ignited. “He’s an innocent, you asshole. Off-limits.”
Abel scoffed at him. “You confuse me with your neutered brotherhood. My employers don’t follow any rules but their own. I follow orders.”
He scowled at Abel and wondered what had happened to the boy who once loved all life as much as he did. He didn’t recognize this stranger leaning against the reception desk casually flipping through a magazine.
“The decision was made for me,” Abel said, seemingly distracted by whatever was on the pages. “The fireman wasn’t important. His meddling bitch of a sister—”
Cain’s power pooled behind his eyes. “Watch your mouth, bro.”
Abel glanced at him, and the scornful expression he wore clashed with his nonchalance. He slapped the magazine closed. “We required a way to draw dear Katie, and you, to me.” He straightened from his slouch. “A grenade rolled under the fire trucks and…” He made a “boom” gesture with his hands. “As I said, the decision was made for me.”
If an ounce of humanity remained in Abel’s body, Cain guessed the fucking thing was microscopic.
“Why? You killed innocent people.” His emotions wavered between anger and disbelief. “Why the games? Why the dead politicians? Why any of this?”
Abel’s expression changed. Confusion and hurt flittered across his face and replaced the cocksure killer in a blink. Suddenly, his twin appeared younger, broken.
The two locked gazes. Hurt, mistrust, hate. Emotions foreign to their experience as children now reigned between them. Abel broke the staring match.
“An eye for an eye,” he said, his tone edged like a sharpened dagger. “A life for a life.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
Abel’s eyes sparked with the power of his Grace. His glowing gaze narrowed on Cain as if his brother wished he could kill him with only a glare.
“My life,” Abel said in a hiss. “Mother shoved me into the root cellar. She wouldn’t squeeze inside until she found you. You know what happened next.”
The root cellar? Cain rushed through his memories. That small space had stored their harvests in a deep pit dug inside the house’s dirt floor. He remembered the wooden plank that served as a trap door.
“But—”
“The fire was fast. She couldn’t get out and had fallen on top of the door.” Abel’s eyes clouded with light. “I shoved against it, but she was too heavy. I heard it all. Every scream and the crackle of flesh as the fire burned our mother alive.”
Cain wanted to vomit, but his body suddenly lacked air. He gulped, his lungs starving to breathe. The root cellar. He’d never imagined Abel trapped inside, the weight of their dead mother an immovable block. He glanced a
t his twin, knowing the horror of the truth stared out of his wide eyes.
Abel was composed, the killer back in charge. His brother’s stature was straight, his shoulders relaxed.
“A Renegade found me after the angels left,” he said. “When I asked about your fate, he told me the truth. You betrayed your family to spare your own life. Proven true, of course, when the Directorate accepted you and three other traitors.”
“That’s a lie,” Cain growled. “The Renegades—”
“The Renegades regrouped and took me with them. They raised me. Trained me. Gave me a chance for vengeance.”
“I didn’t know.” Cain’s world tilted. “I swear on mother’s life I didn’t betray anyone.” He should have run into the house, fought past Tanis to search. “I thought you perished. I was taken away. I couldn’t go back.”
“Doesn’t matter,” his twin said. Abel passed a gaze over the people tending to their own problems.
Cain tried again. “I will never forgive myself for what happened, or for what you must have gone through with those lying bastards.” He took another cautious step. When Abel tensed, Cain opened his hands. Another step. “Whatever the Renegades want you to do, don’t do it,” he said. “You’ve been lied to, brother. Come back with me and we’ll figure this out. Just…just give me a chance.”
…
Hospital sounds faded from Abel’s hearing, his ears tuned only to Cain’s pleading voice. This was the moment he’d envisioned for so long. Face-to-face with the sibling he hated more than the fallen angels who’d honed him into a killer.
“We were children. I couldn’t have done what those bastards claimed. I wouldn’t, and deep down you know I’m telling the truth,” Cain said. “Let me explain.”
“For what purpose?”
He should strike at his twin. Make him grovel and admit his betrayal. He should act, but an unexpected pulse of curiosity compelled him. Would Cain appeal to his sense of family? To brotherly love? Abel doubted either existed. Not after so long.
“Think. You know our bond. I would have torn the village apart to find you,” Cain said. “I loved our father and mother. We were children in a grown-up war. I could no more wrench myself from Tanis’s hold than you could free yourself from the root cellar.”
Abel heard his brother’s words through a mind fog. He drifted between past and present, between Cain the child and Cain the man. They’d been so close. Close as twins. Close as brothers.
An orderly pushed a wheelchair-bound elderly woman past them, the contraption squeaking on the polished tiles. It was the first movement to interrupt his singular focus. He viewed the area with new interest. The hospital’s other occupants continued on with their personal concerns as if the long-wished-for moment in his existence wasn’t worth a glance.
“Abel.”
He switched his attention to Cain and was greeted with a vision of worry. His twin stood ramrod straight, one hand hidden under his long jacket. Legs parted a fraction. Eyes blazed with Grace.
An assassin poised to strike.
Abel rubbed his chin. He suspected his brother was ready for anything, but why the sudden change? He followed Cain’s line of sight, which seemed to take in all the people milling around. The busy doctors. The harried nurses. The weeping mothers. The stoic fathers. Patients creeping through life on a morphine drip and two aspirins a day.
Hopeless. Defenseless. Abel frowned.
Ever the protector, eh brother?
Cain thought he was a monster, but his twin didn’t know Dravyn currently controlled this Frankenstein. He could try to explain, but what would be the point? He was darkness to Cain’s light. Where his brother had been blessed with safety and affection within his adopted family, complete with an angel father figure, Abel had been cursed to loneliness and solitude and cold indifference.
Today, their situations would reverse.
He drew his gaze to a deer shifter pacing between a row of chairs, presumably lost in his thoughts. The nervous clenching of his jaw tipped him off that the Other’s problem ran deep. The cool brush of his power soared through him as he called on his gift.
“Bang your head against the wall,” Abel ordered.
His brother gasped and spun, seeking the victim. On command, the man’s forehead hit the concrete wall with a dull thwack. Surprised shouts exploded in the room and four people near the stricken shifter leaped out of his way.
“Keep going. Don’t stop.”
Cain growled. He focused on the same man. “Stop. Sit down.”
The shifter shuddered where he stood, caught between the two orders. Abel steeled his spine. He’d just discovered a much better way to interact with his brother. He pulled on his power and pushed an invisible wave outward.
“Beat him with your fists.”
“Scratch at her eyes.”
“Swallow all your pills.”
The reception area erupted in chaos as dozens of patients, waiting families, and hospital staff obeyed his will. Blood spurted from self-inflicted wounds. Cries rose up as wives tore at their husband’s faces, or nurses injected medicine into shocked patients.
“Goddamn you, Abel,” Cain shouted above the melee.
His twin’s power splashed over the crowd.
“Bandage your arm.”
“Check his vitals.”
“Release her.”
A pair of orderlies ran at Abel, one gripping a bedpan. He raised an eyebrow at the ridiculous weapon.
“He fucked your woman.”
The bedpan wielder shouted and swung the kidney-shaped bowl at his colleague’s surprised face.
Abel’s listened to the clamor of voices and sobs. This was not who he was, not who he should be, but this was the life he had. To hurt. To cause fear. To destroy peace. Deep inside, he felt splintered, but once again, he sent wave after wave of dark commands into the minds of everyone within sight. He shoved aside any guilt for those he targeted. Men, women, young, old, human, Other.
Yet, Cain’s desperate counter actions left his mind racing. This was not the brother he believed he’d confront. Where was the coward the Renegades told him had chosen life over his own family?
…
Utter madness sprung up like weeds in an open field, and Cain was caught in the epicenter. He called on more of his Grace, breaking through one after the other of Abel’s mental instructions. Sweat dampened his skin under his T-shirt and spread across his brow.
So much power.
Cain’s soul began to quake at his expenditure. He’d rarely called on his power to this extent. The binding on his Grace, his ever-present punishment from Heaven, would soon draw tight, and then he’d be fucked. The Act of Contrition would ignite flame in his blood stream and white-hot embers in his organs. He gritted his teeth against the first stirring of pain.
“Having trouble?” Abel asked. He casually leaned next to a poster hailing Receiving Hospital’s community spirit. “Don’t tell me you need a break.”
Another pulse zoomed past Cain, directed at the mentally fatigued victims cowering on the floor.
“Hold your breath.”
“Strangle the nurses.”
“Stomp on her ribs.”
Cain scrambled to counter the wicked suggestions, but there were so many. Too many. Through it all, Abel seemed untouched. He neither laughed, nor seemed to enjoy the pain he caused, yet he acted like any bully on a playground.
No time to dwell on his own confusion at Abel’s actions. His head was pounding and sweat dropped into his eyes. He pinched the bridge of his nose as a wave of dizziness blacked his vision, then cleared.
“My employers told me the angels had made you their bitch,” his twin said. “Guess they were right. Look at yourself.”
If only he could shove his power down Abel’s throat, Cain wouldn’t care afterward how long the Act of Contrition fucked him over. In answer, the ritual throbbed behind his temples.
“I hope your brethren have bigger balls,” Abel said. “Once the
city leaders are dead, the Renegades have plans to settle in nice and cozy in Detroit.”
Heat continued to rise inside Cain, the full blast of the Act only moments away. Nephilim biology wasn’t made for this shit. His vision clouded as he fought the chains wrapping around his soul.
“I…vow…to kick…your…ass…first,” he gritted out.
Cain collapsed to his knees, and he slammed his fist into the tiled floor, praying the pain would gain him one more second of lucidity. His peripheral vision caught the black tips of Abel’s leather boots. Fire rode his spine, but he forced his head up and stared hard into his brother’s face.
“Think on what you’ve learned,” Abel said. “This was a mere sample of what I’ve endured. The chaos, the pain. Live one day longer and suffer.” He then pivoted and stalked down the corridor, out of sight.
The Act of Contrition punched through the last of Cain’s guards, branding him in molten heat. Holy shit.
Cain couldn’t hold back the scream that ripped out of his throat. The glass doors and windows in the reception area blew out, pelting everyone with shards. He doubled over and slammed his shoulder into the floor. His body curled into the fetal position, and then his limbs shot out as the Act speared him through the chest.
Fucking sadistic angel assholes.
“Oh my God. Cain!”
Katie’s voice traveled to his island of suffering, sounding so distant he had to be hallucinating. He’d fallen into a live volcano. His skin felt as if it crackled and blackened.
Gentle pressure rubbed against his burning cheeks. Soft movement through his hair. Then a wet drop slipped down his brow. She was crying.
“Doctors are coming. You’ll be okay.”
His vocal cords seized. He wanted to tell her, “No, Katie, this shit would not be okay.”
He waited for the final strains of his penance to subside. No doubt, he’d never felt worse. Holy punishment aside, his twin was a walking contradiction. Abel contained so much rage, yet he didn’t strike at him. Yet. No matter how badly Cain wished differently, a smackdown of biblical proportions was on the horizon.
Angel Kin Page 14
