“You have potential with us.” He waved the parasite gun at Moloch. “With them you will become what you see.”
“Better than you.” I kicked at Bart’s body. The jolt seemed to unnerve Langston, though his reaction fled before I could be certain. “You destroy, you survive on children. That isn’t power. It’s stagnation. The will of a few, driven by greed—a sin a hundred times worse than any demon crime. I will always choose them.”
“They will never choose you.”
“Still better.”
Langston’s portal cracked behind him. He took one step backward, waved the gun barrel at me with a smile, and vanished.
Shalim unclenched his hands, and the dead bodies dropped to the floor. With a raise of his hand, he signaled a finish to the clan’s demolition. Several combatants remained, and the demons unleashed the final vestiges of their anger. I refused to take that from them.
I glanced back at Shalim. He didn’t bother to acknowledge me. His leashed anger didn’t signal forgiveness, nor would he forgive me. His veiled look as he turned and took me in from toes to head spoke to my exile.
I looked down at myself in response. I looked like I’d exploded. My jeans and shoes were mostly intact but covered in dust. What was left of my shirt hung in shreds from my neck. And my marks. Well, they were still present and accounted for, rippling across my side like independent beings. The palm I pressed to my flesh absorbed warmth as a wave emitted from my touch, one I could see and hear. Fluid pale yellow rode the crest of a conjoined harmonious sound. Birds, voices, maybe song? I couldn’t filter through to any discrete part. The color and resonance became indistinguishable and yet they fed an emotion I barely recognized. Calm.
The demolition stopped. Demon pupils of fire diminished from flame to cobalt and jade and gold.
I looked at Shalim.
He wouldn’t meet my gaze, his own fixated on the marks on my side. “They will pursue us.”
Around the theater, little of the soldiers’ or the scouts’ bodies remained, just an appendage here and there. Ash and carbon hung raw and thick in the air.
“It will take them a bit to regroup,” I said.
“And you will help them seek us out?”
He couldn’t really believe that, but he wanted my renunciation of the Consortium’s plan spoken aloud. Everyone was here. My words would carry more weight than action. Words committed to speech were an oath. The reason I’d pressed Decibel for her promise of Aisha’s safety. He hadn’t believed my oath before, but for some reason he needed it now. “The Consortium is a twisted, evil collection of sorcerers and they must be destroyed.”
“Wizards,” he hissed.
“No. The Consortium are sorcerers. The wizards, the Irin, just like demons, are victims of the Consortium’s greed. Those sorcerers have chosen the black arts by freewill. They, and only they, are culpable. They damn themselves by their actions.”
“In the mirror of time, do you see them, Kane?”
“That is not my calling,” I said, a little confused and startled by his reference and his use of my name.
“No, yours is a darker heritage.”
“You don’t seem surprised.”
“When you were human or demon, it mattered not to me.” Shalim shrugged. “I used what I was given. You served me either way.” He turned away. “No longer.”
“Meaning what?”
He didn’t answer but signaled, and one by one, each of the clan disappeared. I was left standing on the empty stage. Alone.
CHAPTER 21
As it turned out, the entrance to the theater was a door in the building across the street. With the sorcerers’ guards dead, the demons gone, and the building empty, I had little choice but to find the way out on my own.
Decibel had fled with Aisha in that direction, so I picked my way through the boxes and crates behind the stage. A stagehand stairwell circled down behind the basement storage area into a new hallway. Fresh construction sported open support beams, reinforced pillars, and framing barren of drywall or paint.
Snarls led me to a cage at the far end of the hallway.
Confined in a space not large enough to turn or move, hot obsidian eyes challenged me from within a wide expanse of fur. The beast’s muzzle dripped saliva through the bars, and a thick puddle surrounded the concrete beneath the steel three-by-four prison. The confines didn’t allow the creature to lift its head enough to open the foot-wide maw more than two inches. Muscles strained beneath choppy black, gold, and white fur that poked through the bars, offering little definition to the half-dog, half-jackal. Ugly didn’t begin to describe the creature, but in those eyes was the same rage and humiliation I’d seen in the dragon of the warehouse.
The same look I’d seen in the female demoness under Perry’s commands—a result of cruel and unconscionable slavery.
I walked to the creature’s rear and poked my fingers through the metal bars. My touch elicited a frenzy violent enough to bounce the cage and pivot the front. Digging deeper, I held on to coarse fur and a meaty segment of hindquarter with one hand. I blocked out the gravel whine and growl of protest and covered my mark with my free palm.
What I lacked in the ability to harness my blossoming powers, I hoped to make up for in determination. I had no interest in killing this creature. He didn’t belong here anymore than the others creatures Perry and Bart had summoned. Come daybreak, the hellhound would fade into the mystical ether. With its creator destroyed, there was no hold left to keep it from returning home. It just needed to survive without killing for the few waning hours of night. I judged it more afraid than confrontational.
Warmth pulsed beneath my palm, the wave of sound and light barely a ripple this time. The hindquarters beneath my fingers went lax. The huge brow of the beast bowed as much as the cage allowed, and he braced his head against the front gate in a pose I took for relief. Sounds evidently do calm the savage beast.
After a few seconds, I released the gate, prepared for the alternative if my actions weren’t successful. The creature staggered from his prison, rolled a head as wide across as the length of my forearm, and glanced over its shoulder at me. The rage had dissipated from the black eyes, replaced by sadness. Then again, maybe I had imprinted my feelings on him. He gave a low, hoarse mewl, turned his body toward me and head-butted my hip with a rub of his red-furred ear before he launched down the hallway to freedom.
I followed him through the tunnel and exited inside an open storage unit across the street from the old theater.
The units had provided an inconspicuous entry. No busy traffic, so no witnesses, and the ability to pull cars or trucks into the storage facility to unload people and equipment offered a good setup. The location and the details inside, had taken advanced planning. I scaled the chain-link fence and walked down the street, heading back the way I’d come when Jez had dropped me off earlier. Night had blanketed the city since then, and this area didn’t have many streetlights. I kept a steady pace, hands fisted in my pockets, and moved quickly.
Several blocks along, I heard the thunder behind me from the explosion I’d rigged. There had been enough supplies in the basement to offer a good selection of options. The building’s collapse and the fire would erase the evidence of any bodies left. An investigation would most likely conclude homeless people in the building had ignited an electrical spark.
I was dressed partially in an old costume I’d found in one of the chests in the basement. A flashy burgundy Prussian jacket with way too many brass buckles to be stylish, no matter what lifestyle one claimed. At least it covered my mark.
I mentally pieced through the information I’d collected.
In my estimation, neither Bart nor Perry had the patience or persistence to have planned this hideout. Langston had the intellectual competence, although I suspected he lacked enough background knowledge or dedication. My presence and my origin had surprised him, as if he hadn’t even considered my existence or been confused by it. A fact Shalim and Decibel, wi
th their years of knowledge, had taken in stride, even though neither seemed pleased. Someone closer to their level of prowess manipulated events from the background.
That left a connection I hadn’t yet met.
Someone who understood the implications of the broader scope: the threat from the Irin’s final judgment, the wizards’ potential, and the high demons’ power linked on a larger scale. Someone orchestrated the Consortium’s efforts and coached them on expanding their power in payment for some greater goal. A power that great would find the Consortium expendable at some point.
However, Shalim was right; the Consortium would be back to seek him out, though I suspected his clan wouldn’t be a target anytime soon. The sorcerers had other high demons and their clans to choose from, and Langston hadn’t been particularly zealous regarding Shalim. He had even treated the female demon lord with mere specimen interest. He’d wanted only to complete the task. Procure high demons. Check.
He worked for greater rewards, but I was too weary to consider what horrors those could be.
It was likely other demon clans had already suffered major losses. And while demons don’t necessarily cross-pollinate, it is a community where bad news spreads quickly. I would eventually hear about it, because this wasn’t over.
In the meantime, I needed to check on Aisha. Make sure she was alive and could be hidden somewhere she considered safe.
Headlights bore down on me. My shadow elongated down the length of the sidewalk behind me and then to my side. It circled like a sundial’s gnomon until the car pulled up next to me and stopped.
“Didn’t I tell you not to come back? You promised.”
Jez gave me a worried look from the driver’s side of the car. Evidently, she had found my Accord and picked it up. I would need to lock the keys to my bike somewhere safe before she took possession of that as well.
“I checked in with Caulder. We both thought it would be safe enough if I kept a watch about ten blocks out. But I figured,” she said, nodding back to the flames and smoke that swirled in a Halloween display in the night sky behind us, “I should check a little closer. The kids?”
I let out a heavy breath, hung my head, and then looked back at the sky. “Marco’s dead.” I could hear fire engines and a police siren in the distance getting closer.
She reached over and pushed the passenger door open. “How about you get in, and you can tell me while we get out of here?”
I slid into the passenger seat.
“Where to?” Jez gave me a brief look when I didn’t answer quickly enough. “Do you want to head back to Caulder’s in case Marco led the Consortium to him?”
“We’ll go there next, but Marco was their main objective. Caulder needs to be careful, and we’ll watch out for him, but I think the Consortium will change strategy now. First, I need to confirm where Decibel took Aisha.” I pulled out my cell phone and keyed in a message but got no response. “Let’s head over to the hospital.”
“Maybe you want to put on a real shirt or wash your face first, so they don’t arrest you?”
I looked down at the blood and grime on my pants, my skin visible between the lapels of my Sergeant Pepper’s jacket, and then flipped the visor mirror down to get a look at my face and grimaced. “Good point. Would you head by my place? Please.”
“’kay.” She turned left on the Long Beach Freeway toward my loft and nodded to my phone. “You think Decibel would take her there? She didn’t seem too keen on the live wizards.”
“She knows I’d look there. She knows Anne can get us in past security. And she promised me she’d keep Aisha safe.”
Jez opened her mouth to debate that with me, but she looked my way and reconsidered. “Is the girl all right?”
I bit back a sigh. It felt too much like giving in. “She’ll live if she wants to badly enough.”
“Will they be able to find her?”
“Decibel’s pretty good at covering her tracks.” I looked at Jez, knowing her real question. Aisha and Jez weren’t really that different. A few years in age and different abilities, but both had been on the run for several years. Both had lost the people they loved. Both still had a hard road to travel before they could be safe. I didn’t have any words of comfort to add.
Jez dropped me at my place and headed back to Caulder’s. I cleaned up and drove over to the hospital alone.
I met Anne in the lobby. “She was brought in to emergency. No one seems to remember who brought her in or how she got here. You have a couple of hours before Child Services gets here and tries to move her to County. They would normally have put her in the psych ward because of the wrist wounds, but she has bruises, internal injuries, and we don’t see cases of suicide where people cut their ankles too. ”
“So she’s in ICU? What’s the hospital need?”
She grimaced, then shrugged and pushed the button to the intensive care unit. “The usual, a relative and money.”
“Got it.” I relaxed, confident that Decibel was already setting it up.
We made it to the nurse’s desk at ICU. They asked for my ID, which I gave. My relationship to the girl—cousin, but I listed Caulder as her uncle. I went against protocol and sent a quick prayer that Aisha wouldn’t go the way of my last adopted relative. I knew this girl. I’d watched her struggle. I needed her courage to survive this catastrophe. It was purely selfish. I needed her to survive for me.
Anne gave details of my weeks of “searching” for my missing cousin and the searches I’d done of the hospitals in the area.
I gave Caulder’s name, number, and physical disability as a reason for why I’d been doing the legwork to find Aisha. I gave the same billing information used for Samuel. The nurse called Raymond for confirmation and then let me go in to see Aisha. Anne accompanied me.
There were several large rooms; a variety of emergency equipment waited along the walls for whatever the need. The doctors had hooked enough of them to Aisha to worry me. One fed blood back into her drained body, and others beeped and flickered in waves of simulated life. She looked tiny in the big bed. Her eyes had deep, dark circles under them, and her skin was so pale it had a bluish tinge.
“Has she been awake?”
“She hasn’t regained consciousness since they brought her up here. It’ll probably be a couple of hours.” Anne gave me a quick glance. “If they can stabilize her, then they’ll move her to a regular room.”
“Will they let me stay with her?”
Anne checked the ICU desk and then glanced back at me. “You’ve passed the front gate.” She smiled at me. “They’ve no reason to doubt your story. So unless she starts to set off the alarms, they’ll let you stay.”
I nodded, moved between the equipment, and pulled a chair close to the side of Aisha’s bed.
“What happens when she wakes up and remembers?” Anne asked quietly while she checked the IV bags and Aisha’s bandages.
“That’s why I’ll be here.” I closed my hand over Aisha’s smaller one. “So she knows she’s safe, and we’ve got her back.”
“Is she? Safe?”
“For now.”
“That’s not much.”
I shrugged. “Isn’t that all normal people have anyway?”
She thought about it, then nodded and smiled. “Yeah, and she’s got friends.” She pressed my shoulder with her hand and left me to the machines’ beeps and lights. I’d take my comfort in them until Aisha woke up.
***
“You are not welcome here.”
I pushed by Zepar, sidestepped Moloch, and avoided Cimejes. The last had been doing his duty at the theater, but I still couldn’t shrug off his beating. I’m just not that big of a man. He’d enjoyed it too much.
With relief, I noticed Abraxas at the far end of the courtyard. He wouldn’t be much help to me, and he was giving Shalim a wide berth, but visual confirmation that he’d survived assured me Chaz was okay as well. While Shalim would still be pissed, he had his second-in-command back and a potential dem
on visionary. More than he’d expected when we’d last seen each other. Whether it made a difference in my standing, I would find out very quickly.
I moved forward and stopped in front of Shalim. “If you had a mortal child—”
“I would have abandoned him as a weak half-breed,” said Shalim. He crossed his arms and refused to meet my gaze, pressing his point. Though it was a total lie. I knew better, having seen Shalim risk full-grown members to save the clan’s offspring, any offspring.
“And if he’d found his way to you?”
He glared at me. The fire increased in his eyes and the black glyphs danced over his body.
“If he survived and refused to leave?” I pressed.
“He would be treated as the lowest of consequence.”
“This is haven. The only home and protection I have ever known. I gave my oath here.” I stepped closer, my voice rising. “Spilled my blood here. Earned my marks here. I have never betrayed this clan and I’ve earned the right to return as I choose.”
Vibrations of rage reverberated around the chamber from my insolence, but I ignored them, instead facing Shalim, confronting the only father figure I’d ever known in a showdown that would either regain status for me or close the door to the clan forever.
“I refuse to turn my back on this clan because of a sign,” I continued.
“You are here to level God’s will.”
“I’m the last person to claim any affiliation or understanding of that deity.”
“And yet you wear his commander’s mark.”
I frowned at the odd comment. “A mark that targets me as more of an outcast than I was—a Nephilim.”
“No. You bear HIS mark, by direct order of God.”
I must have looked too puzzled. He stepped back several paces, spun away, and turned back. A swirl of hot air whipped up the dust around him. “An archangel’s your sire. Not as an act of defiance or lust. Your creation through Michael can only be God’s dictate for retribution.”
The Mark of Kane Page 29
