For a moment, the other musicians lost their place and Lysander snapped a finger to draw their attention to recovering the beat. Richard went into the wings where Lysander would have preferred him to stay until the song ended. Instead, he returned with a saxophone.
Lysander raised his brows, waiting. He’d allowed Richard to wander and trip across the stage, but there were limits. When Richard played the first few notes, however, Lysander realized that the lauded author was a madman of varied talents; Richard North was a sax man. The audience applauded heartily.
Richard shuffled to a mic and played hard, like he didn’t care if he put his last breath into the mouthpiece. Lysander smiled. When angels had invented music this was the way they’d intended instruments to be played.
Lysander paused, letting Richard solo, then feeling the rhythm, anticipating the timing of every note, Lysander melded his guitar’s music with Richard’s sax’s, the notes fusing.
Just there. Flawless!
There was something more than human to Richard at times. As if in madness, he transcended human consciousness. Maybe that was why Lysander could tolerate his company so well.
With unerring timing, Richard played on. Lysander leaned back, guitar resting against his hips and loins, music vibrating through him. For several suspended moments, Lysander felt his body warm to the temperature it had once claimed before he’d fallen. Ribbons of grace edged his body, making him the closest he’d been to touching heaven in many millennia. Lysander sank his teeth into his lip, straining, holding his breath.
Closer still.
He closed his eyes, knees bent, body bowing back till his hair skimmed the floor and memory skewered his heart. He offered the music up, louder and harder.
Let the chorus hear. Let the riot in my heart be known.
Sinking to the floor so his shoulders were supported by the wood’s grain, his body stretched like the strings.
At the song’s end, the audience thundered to its feet, applauding wildly. Lysander panted, raising his torso from the floor. The spotlight fractured around him prismatically, but a few shards of light touched him, highlighting the steam curling from his skin. Lysander’s smile stretched to his heart.
A rarer than rare moment found in the unlikeliest location. Among fallen creatures, bent on pleasure and sin, hope still trickles. The well is almost dry, but not quite. Not yet.
Lysander held out a hand to acknowledge Richard’s contribution to the moment. The audience shouted their appreciation.
Locks of Richard’s silver hair fell away from his face as his gaze turned momentarily to the ceiling.
Does he feel a glimmer of grace? Might he hear an echoing chorus that I’m barred from hearing?
Lysander’s heart thumped. Richard lowered the sax and glanced at Lysander.
Speak, man! If you felt heaven’s rush, tell me.
Lysander held his breath and waited, would have waited all night.
“The black-haired bitch’s army is advancing,” Richard said.
The moment’s divine nature fled. Lysander’s skin cooled, his hope and excitement draining away.
“Our champions are behind enemy lines. They don’t realize it yet, but—” Richard tipped his head down, and his pale eyes looked over the top of the sunglasses, locking with Lysander’s. “They’re trapped.”
Chapter 6
“Do you hear that?” Alissa asked.
“What?” Cerise said, and then everyone went silent to listen. Cerise didn’t hear anything over the motor, but Merrick’s gaze turned westward and he nodded. He rolled down the divider between them and the driver.
“How’s it look?” Merrick asked.
“Clear streets, boss,” the man said, but the sharp movements of Merrick’s eyes poked holes in Cerise’s calm.
“Don’t take Milano. Go up a block and take Bacci.” Merrick’s thumb slid over the surface of his phone and he made a call. “There’s a chopper coming from the west, Tony. Turn the tower cameras and see if you can get eyes on it.”
Merrick pulled out the earpiece and put his phone on speaker so that Ox and the driver could hear what the man on the other end said.
“Boss, two sedans just came out of the Jacobi tunnel. They’ve got reaper plates,” Tony said.
Cerise grimaced. What the hell are reaper plates?
“They won’t catch us. We’re only six blocks out. Check the sky,” Merrick replied.
Cerise’s breath caught as she heard the blades’ distinctive chop. Her heart thudded in time as she looked up. Etherlin Security had four helicopters, but they wouldn’t come from the west. The west was more of the Varden. The part of the Varden where the ventala syndicate was located.
“Boss, a semi just blocked Milano.”
“Have we got a camera that shows Bacci and Pisa?” the driver asked.
“No,” Merrick said, “but it’ll be blocked, too. Ox, under the seat.”
Merrick opened the sunroof and stood to look out. The helicopter noise got markedly louder.
Merrick ducked back inside and closed the sunroof. There was a pinging sound, like hail hitting the car.
Cerise tensed. “Was that gunfire?”
Merrick ignored the question and instead said, “Tony, there’s one chopper on top of us. Any others?”
“Not that I see, boss. Want me to send a guy to the roof now with binoculars?”
“No. I want the guys sent to Milano. Whichever street we choose, it’s going to be a battle to get through. I want men on the other side waiting for us. If I can knock the eyes from the sky, I’m gonna go east. Send someone to Crimson for a quiet word with Lysander.”
“We’re on it.”
Alissa moved to sit next to Cerise so Ox could raise the bench cushion they’d been sitting on. From within the seat, he lifted a very large weapon that was in pieces. He put it together quickly. Cerise leaned forward and saw the ammunition. Rockets.
“I have weapons training,” Cerise said. “All the muses do. Alissa and I should be armed.”
“Cerise is very good,” Alissa added.
“Give Alissa a gun, Ox,” Merrick said, handing the clip for Cerise’s gun back to her. He pointed to the corner. “I want you guys there.” Cerise and Alissa moved to the designated spot.
Merrick took the assembled weapon just as an explosion rocked the limo. Merrick kept his footing. The driver yelled curses.
“Boyle, I want quiet.” Merrick’s voice was low and calm, and the driver immediately fell silent.
“Sedan with reaper plates a block back and closing fast,” the driver announced.
“Then move this car. Make a right.”
“We’ll be heading right by the tunnel, boss.”
“Make a right,” Merrick repeated. He opened the roof and followed the gun through the hole. The blast from his weapon was followed by a deafening boom. Within seconds, a ball of fire hit the ground.
Merrick ducked inside and held out a hand. Ox slapped another rocket grenade into it.
“The chopper’s down. Turn us southeast. I’m going to clear you a path,” Merrick said to the driver in a tone so mild he might have been a weatherman forecasting clear skies.
Moments later, there was another explosion that rocked the car. Merrick waited for a few moments and then dropped back in and closed the roof.
“It’s flash, not substance,” he told the driver. “I want you to punch it and hang to the right as you blow past.”
The car sped forward.
“Tony, you there?”
“Still here, boss. Lysander had already left Crimson so he doesn’t know, but the guys are on the way.”
They crashed through flaming debris, and Alissa clutched the armrest as the car jerked. Cerise tightened her muscles to keep herself from falling from the seat.
“Any more sedans with blackout glass come through the tunnel?”
“Haven’t seen any. There were two though,” Tony said.
“I know.”
“Did you take
out one or two on your end?”
“One,” Merrick said, gaze swiveling from the windshield to the various windows and back. “Brake,” Merrick said.
“I’m clear,” the driver said and within the strain, Cerise’s muse ears detected a waver that felt like treachery.
“Merrick—” Alissa and Cerise both said at the same time.
“Brake!” Merrick snapped, but the driver hesitated. Merrick yanked a handgun free and pointed it at the driver’s head, but dropped his arm just as quickly. “Too late,” Merrick murmured, surging forward to wedge himself between her and Alissa.
Alissa sucked in a breath. Cerise clamped down on her lip. Merrick shoved their heads down, and Cerise’s body cramped at being bent in half. She felt Merrick’s arm shielding her neck.
“Ox, hang on,” Merrick said.
Suddenly, the tires didn’t grip the road anymore. Instead they popped, and the car careened sideways and spun like a top until it rammed something hard, bounced off, rammed again, and slammed to a stop. It knocked the breath from her, rattling her teeth and bones.
As Merrick’s arm across the back of her body disappeared, Cerise heard the pop of gunfire. In the car.
Cerise sat up sharply. The driver was slumped over the steering wheel, bleeding from the back of his head where Merrick had shot him.
“I don’t understand,” Alissa said, staring at the driver’s body.
“There was oil and a puncture strip on the road. He saw it,” Merrick said.
“He was working for the syndicate?” Alissa asked.
Merrick nodded, trying to open the smashed door that was farthest from the street, but the door was jammed.
“Ox, we’re a powder keg.” Merrick nodded at the partially shattered window. Ox went to work bashing out the remaining glass while Merrick raised the phone. “Tony?”
“Here, boss.”
“In about thirty seconds, we’re on the move on foot.”
“The guys are in a gun battle with the truck at Milano. At least two syndicate hit squads worth.”
“Keep eyes on Milano. Some of them will bug out when they get word we’re on foot. I want to know how many and which way they go,” Merrick said, replacing the earpiece and shoving it into the phone, taking Tony off speaker.
Ox dragged himself through the opening of the smashed door and window. He ignored his bleeding cuts as he said in a low voice, “Careful, Miss Xenakis.” He put his arm over the sharp frame so she could slide out unscathed.
Merrick glanced out the window. “Take them to that deep doorway, Ox.”
Ox nodded, but whispered, “Incoming, boss.”
Cerise jerked her head and spotted several armed ventala about a hundred and fifty feet away and advancing.
“Hang on, Liss,” Merrick said, coming out the opening in a flash. “Get her, Ox,” Merrick said before he moved to the front of the car.
Cerise crouched, following Merrick.
Merrick stood, drawing the fire toward him. From one knee, Cerise squeezed off several rounds. Between them, they dropped four assailants. The hail of returning fire made her drop to the ground, using the car for cover. Merrick was behind a tree and fired from either side. He was smooth and fast.
“Cerise,” Alissa hissed.
“Right with you,” Cerise murmured without taking her eyes from the street.
“Cover me,” Merrick said.
Pleased that he’d asked, Cerise rose slightly and squeezed off several rounds, not as accurately as she would’ve liked but well enough to cover Merrick so he could dive back behind the car.
Blood dripped from his left sleeve.
“You’re hit?”
“Paper cut,” he said. “Get to the doorway before they swarm.” Merrick held out a hand to prevent her from responding, and she knew he was listening to Tony. A moment later, he said, “If you decide to call Etherlin Security, I won’t hold a grudge.”
“It’ll be over by the time they could get here, won’t it?”
“Maybe, but for you they’ll come pretty fast. They can pick you up from the roof,” he said, nodding to the building.
“Can I take her with me?”
“If I’m not there to object, you should.”
Her expression softened. “When I get to the doorway, should I send your man back to you to help hold them off?”
“No, he stays with her.”
“Good luck,” she said.
He nodded. She crouched and ran for the doorway. She heard the pop of gunfire and felt a stinging pain in her calf. Inside the doorway, she checked her leg and found a small scratch. She flicked off the fragment of ricocheted bullet.
“Merrick wants us to go to the roof,” she told Ox and Alissa. They looked up as they heard a series of explosions.
Ox didn’t hesitate. He slammed his body against the heavy door, popping it open, and ushered them inside. Cerise pulled her phone from her pocket, but couldn’t get a signal in the dark stairwell.
They hustled up the stairs. The door to the roof was locked, but Ox, a one-man battering ram, busted it open.
She checked her phone again, but there was still no signal. She held the phone up, waving it over her head. “What the hell?” she mumbled.
“They took out the cell towers,” Alissa said, pointing. Cerise spun and saw the columns of smoke where the cell towers in the Sliver were burning.
“Shit,” Cerise said. “We have to go back down. Right now. There’s nowhere for us to go from here.”
Two more explosions from the street drew their attention. Cerise jogged to the edge of the roof and looked down.
Merrick abandoned the rocket launcher, grabbed something from the limo’s trunk, and sprinted to the doorway of the building whose roof they were on.
“He doesn’t realize the towers are down,” Cerise said, grabbing Alissa’s arm and dragging her toward the stairwell. “He meant for me to call ES to come get us.”
By the time they reached the door to the stairs, Merrick burst through it.
“They took out the cell towers,” he and Cerise said at the same time.
“We have to go down,” Cerise added.
Merrick shook his head, dropping to a knee and opening an enormous black duffel bag. “Ox, secure that door,” Merrick said, tossing him a handheld welding torch.
She raised her brows. “Eagle Scout were you?”
“Exactly,” he murmured with a thin layer of sarcasm.
“Cerise, I’m so sorry I let you come,” Alissa said with a bereft expression. “I thought we’d be out and back before anyone ever realized that we’d left Merrick’s territory. I should have warned you.”
Cerise squeezed Alissa’s arm. “It’s okay.”
Merrick quickly assembled something that looked like a harpoon gun.
Several shafts of light moved over the roof like spotlights, and Cerise jerked her head up, expecting to see a syndicate assault team dropping from the sky. Instead there was an enormous shadow. A moment later, she could make out a winged man.
Lysander.
“You’re here?” the angel asked Cerise upon landing. “Why are you here?”
“This is Cerise. My friend,” Alissa added when Lysander took a step backward. “I’m so glad to see you, Lysander.”
Lysander glanced once more at Cerise, then walked over to Merrick.
“You know what’s interesting?” Lysander said to him.
“Your timing’s excellent as always, Lyse. I want you to take the women up into the clouds for cover and then fly over and drop them in the Etherlin.”
“No,” Alissa said. “Drop Cerise in the Etherlin and drop Alissa at the penthouse.”
“What’s interesting,” Lysander said, “is that Richard told me what was happening here. I’m not sure if it’s a sixth sense or if he has premonitions that precede actual events by a very small increment of time.”
“Yeah, interesting, but not a priority discussion at the moment,” Merrick said. “Do me a favor, and get Aliss
a off the roof before Victor and Tamberi Jacobi send another helicopter with heavy artillery.”
Lysander, who could’ve been having a cup of tea for all the emotion he betrayed, glanced at the cable Merrick was unspooling. Lysander walked to the edge of the roof and looked down. “Switching rooftops is a good idea. How much cable have you got?”
“Enough for two moves and then down.”
“Why don’t I take you and Alissa? Your bodyguard can take Alissa’s friend over and down. I’ll come back and help them reach the Etherlin gates, then bring him home.”
Cerise’s heart slammed inside her chest. The bastard wanted to leave her in the middle of a war zone?
To his credit, Merrick shook his head instantly.
Cerise’s mind raced, almost not able to process how insulting and frustrating his attitude was. She was a muse, used to being the center of attention in her circles, used to being surrounded by Etherlin Security officers whose sole purpose in life was to protect her. To be made so acutely aware that to an archangel she meant absolutely nothing cut her. Especially since he intrigued her, and if their roles had been reversed, she wouldn’t have agreed to leave him. She’d never have risked the loss of his talent.
“Or I’ll take your bodyguard and Alissa, and I’ll come back and help you escort the girl back to the gates.”
I have a name, you prick!
Merrick looked sharply at Lysander, then he strode to Cerise, grabbed her arm, and leaned toward her, inhaling.
“I don’t smell it,” Merrick said.
“Smell what?” Cerise said, trying to snatch her arm from his grip.
“That’s ridiculous,” Alissa said. “Cerise is not a demon. We grew up together.”
“I never said she was a demon,” Lysander said mildly.
Merrick released Cerise’s arm. “Lyse, time’s running out. What’s this about?” Merrick demanded.
Lysander glanced at Cerise, then tilted his head sideways to beckon Merrick over to him. They took a few more steps away and spoke in low voices.
When Merrick turned to look at her, his smile pissed Cerise off even more. Lysander had talked about leaving her to fend for herself against armed gunmen—what could be amusing in the explanation for that?
All That Falls Page 6
