by Stacy Gail
And there it was, the bottom line of the whole deal. To accept who and what she had been born to be was to accept everything about her, even the mind-screwing nightmare of things most people never gave much thought to. Good and bad. Heaven and hell. Angels and demons.
Could he really do this?
The real question was, how could he do anything else?
“Gideon? You still with me?”
“Don’t ever doubt it.” The familiar bleep of his cell phone rang out before he could say any more. He fished it out more out of habit than any real urgency, only to stare at the screen. Maybe he needed his eyes checked.
“I’ll be damned,” he muttered while his brain kicked into overdrive. “You’re not going to believe this, but it’s Antonio Vargas.”
He heard her teeth snap together. “Don’t answer it.”
“Now who’s being forgetful? You’re the one who pointed out Vargas is close to my father’s case, which means I want to know what the hell he’s up to. He’s not going to go away if we ignore him, so either we work on this together or I do it on my own.”
The phone rang two more times before she nodded. “Put it on speaker. Let’s hear what he has to say.”
Chapter Fifteen
As silent as the night falling around her, Sara slipped up to the French doors leading to Gideon’s living room, irked that the curtains were still in place. She zipped up the black jacket all the way to her chin, ignoring the oppressive Texas heat as her quiet, rubber-soled footfalls paused just short of the murky glow emanating from the still-shrouded windows. Uncertainty skipped through her as part of her yearned to inch closer, but even now there was the very real threat of having Vargas sense her in that freaky, need-to-kill way she’d sensed him earlier. She had to be close in case she was needed, but there was such a fine line there. Too close, and everything would go straight down the tubes.
In the short window of time they’d had to prepare for Gideon’s meeting with the FBI’s expert, Macbeth had earned himself a huge bonus in coffee shop gift cards for everything he’d dug up on Antonio Vargas. With the obvious exception of the hint of red in his eyes, the man was exactly as he appeared to be. Born just over the border in Nuevo Laredo to a lawless family, he’d never done a thing to cover up his personal history, and she couldn’t help but give him brownie points for honesty. Orphaned early in life and used and abused by his father’s enemies until he’d escaped with the help of missionaries, Vargas knew what it took to survive. Eventually he’d made his way north and became a legal citizen, going to seminary school in San Antonio before winding up in Dallas. The details on his day-to-day life had been harder to find, and that red flash was still a huge question mark. But it was entirely possible Vargas wasn’t a threat to anyone or anything.
Or he could be hell on earth.
One way or another, she had no choice but to find out.
To do that, she and Gideon were in agreement—hold back and play it cool so that Vargas would be forced to spell out what it was he truly wanted. This meeting could be the worst-case scenario that only red-flashing eyes could produce. Or it could be nothing more than the simple one-on-one counseling session he’d offered to Gideon to help him deal with the stress during this time of crisis. Whatever the case, she was going to make sure that this time around, Gideon wouldn’t be left lying alone and out of reach.
Her breath came to a noiseless halt when the phone in her pocket vibrated. With an earpiece in place and everyone with her private number well schooled that she was now under radio silence, a spurt of alarm shot through her as she reached up to the device. Unless the world was coming to an end, no one should be contacting her.
“Go for Sara.”
“Sara, I’m en route to Gideon’s. We might have a situation.”
The cold steel in her father’s voice, as much as the words, froze her solid. “Go ahead.”
“Where are you?”
She told him, daring to inch closer to the French doors. Once those curtains opened she would have to be one with the dark, and the waiting was making her antsy. “For now I’m holding position at a proper distance. The last thing I want to do is let Father Red-Eyes get a whiff of my presence until I’m good and ready for it. What’s the situation?”
“Macbeth updated me on Vargas’s background, and it set off an alarm. Vargas was a child of a cartel family and was orphaned fifteen years ago in Nuevo Laredo, correct?”
“Yes.”
“According to the records Macbeth dug up, Vargas was orphaned at the same time and place that Noah was kidnapped.”
Sara was so stunned she didn’t even think to swear. Why the hell hadn’t she spotted that? “Was it the same cartel that took Noah?”
“Unknown.”
With her mind churning a mile a minute, she tried to think clearly. “It would be the height of coincidence for that case to crop up now, of all times.”
“And I didn’t raise you to believe in coincidences,” William agreed, his voice grim. “I do know one thing—by the time I was able to get Noah free, I had to make sure no one would be left to follow us. I had to eat a lot of fire just to get us out of there, so I shot it back at them for all I was worth. You know what that means.”
In the deepening dark, Sara nodded. They weren’t called the Burning Ones for nothing. “You know what they say—play with fire, and you’re going to get burned. The people who kidnapped Noah had to know they were courting disaster by entering into that kind of game.”
“The thing is, I now can’t be sure that game still isn’t in play, or worse—I’m beginning to think it’s been in play since the killing of the first transplant patient.”
For a moment, Sara doubted the integrity of the connection. Surely she hadn’t heard him right. “I’m not following you.”
“You said it yourself—this can’t be a coincidence. We haven’t been officially employed by Noah Mandeville for fifteen years. Yet suddenly this case crops up out of nowhere, and there’s a strong possibility it involves a person who’s connected to that long-ago kidnapping. Add in the apparent religious motif and the angel cards the killer has been leaving behind as messages—”
“Messages,” she repeated, no louder than a breath as the light suddenly went on. “At the meeting today, Vargas said the killer’s messages could only be interpreted by the person for whom those messages were truly intended.”
“The dead doves and the pictures of angels—a seraph, for crying out loud—weren’t meant for Noah.”
“They were meant for us.”
William muttered a curse. “We don’t want to get ahead of ourselves. I’ll get Macbeth to see if he can dig up Vargas’s whereabouts during the time for each killing.”
“Good thinking. And I’ll let Gideon know about this before Vargas—” Glancing up at the French doors, a wire-tight sense of dread coiled in her stomach as the curtain was pulled aside.
She was too late.
Shit.
* * *
Gideon opened the curtains at the French doors so light could spill out onto the darkening patio beyond. The blue digital readout of the DVR flickered to seven o’clock a handful of seconds before the familiar bong of the front doorbell sounded.
Right on time.
As he moved toward the door he quickly glanced around the comfortable space filled with an overstuffed microsuede sofa, an insanely cushy recliner that would have been the crowning glory in any self-respecting mancave, a coffee table holding a couple medical trade magazines and a Sports Illustrated, and a flat screen TV over the fireplace. To his surprise it didn’t feel as unfamiliar as it once did. When he’d first gotten back from his tour overseas his house had felt more like a movie set than a home. Nothing fit, nothing made him feel like he should be in this life that was no longer his. Then Sara came along, and once again there was a special place for him in the world. It had been that way the day before he left, and miracle of miracles it was that way still.
No way in hell was he going
to lose all of that now.
“Dr. Mandeville.” Bronzed face wreathed in a serene smile, Father Antonio Vargas stood on his doorstep, looking for all the world like the priest from The Exorcist, complete with white collar and black trench coat. “Thank you so much for agreeing to speak with me tonight.”
“Not a problem, Father.” Stepping back, he opened the door wide. “Come on in and make yourself comfortable. Let me take your coat, you must be roasting in all that.”
“No, I’m quite comfortable, thank you.”
“Really?” Gideon’s gaze raked over the other man as he shut the door behind him. “I think I’d write a letter of protest to the Vatican if they made me wear all that gear in the summer, myself. Could I at least get you something to drink? Something cool?”
“You are a considerate host, whereas I’m probably going to be the worst guest, so the least I can do is politely decline. I don’t want to be any more of a bother than I already am.” With a chuckle, Father Vargas followed him into the living room. “Wow. Nice TV.”
“If I can’t see every blade of grass on opening kick-off, I can’t pretend I’m there. Do you like football, Father?”
Vargas see-sawed his hand as he settled on the sofa, while Gideon perched on the edge of the recliner. “To be honest I’ve never been able to get into it. I spent my formative years in Mexico where football is futbol—soccer.”
“I played soccer when I was a kid, mainly to shut my dad up. He’s a rabid fan, so good son that I am, I spent the better part of my elementary school years running after a ball I couldn’t touch with my hands and getting the crap kicked out of my shins for my efforts.”
“Ah, now there’s the true measure of a son’s love. We do what we have to for the sake of our father’s happiness, don’t we?”
Gideon’s snort of agreement was wry. “Are you close to your dad?”
The serene amusement trickled out of Vargas’s expression, replaced instead by a hint of sadness. “Unfortunately my father died, oh...fifteen years ago, now. But he was my hero, and to this day I feel his guiding hand on my shoulder.”
“That’s a nice thought.”
Vargas shrugged. “I suppose in a roundabout way, that’s what I’d like to talk to you about tonight. Our fathers.”
“Our fathers?” Gideon repeated, surprised. He wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting, but that sure as hell wasn’t it. “Over the phone you said you wanted to hear my thoughts and feelings regarding the threat to my father. Forgive me, but I’m not seeing what your father has to do with mine and all the stress he’s going through now.”
“I understand your confusion. To be honest, I was rather hoping I wouldn’t have to involve you. I’ve always viewed you in the same way I viewed myself—a peripheral person who didn’t have anything to do with the situation around him. But after today’s meeting, I realized you’re more involved than perhaps even you realize, which means you are just as much a part of this as anyone.”
Gideon frowned. “Father, what are you talking about? Involved in what? A part of what?”
Vargas held up a staying hand. “Do you remember you asked me if I had ever seen a war zone?”
He nodded, still frowning. “You said you had.”
“To be precise, I was actually born in a war zone, though the world has never officially labeled it as that—it’s not PC to admit it, I guess. But labels aside, there are pockets along the border between Mexico and the States that are terrifying and lawless, where hundreds die every year, and hundreds more just disappear. Untold millions of dollars in drugs, money and weapons cross back and forth, and whoever has control of that flow has control of that part of the world.”
“That’s all very interesting,” Gideon said when Vargas paused. “But I don’t see what that has to do with me or my father.”
“I told you my father died fifteen years ago. Does that not ring any bells for you?”
“Fifteen...?” Realization hit Gideon between the eyes like a sock full of rocks. The breath left his lungs in a rush as he stared at the other man. “My father’s kidnapping down in Mexico.”
“For what it’s worth, I’d like to take the opportunity to apologize for that on behalf of my father.” Vargas shrugged, apparently unaware his words were flooring Gideon anew. “If he had the luxury of still being alive like your father, he would tell you that it was never anything personal. It was just business.”
A dark, boiling anger—the anger that had never gone away over the brutality his father had endured and the terror that had gripped his entire family—began to churn. “It wasn’t business. It was sick.”
Again Vargas held up a hand. “Don’t get me wrong, I don’t condone victimizing anyone. I was twelve at the time, just a year or two younger than you. I only knew my father and uncle ran a business together. What I didn’t fully comprehend was that they were leaders of an up-and-coming drug cartel based in Nuevo Laredo. The one thing I did understand was that my family wasn’t like everyone else’s. Mine had power, and they would do whatever it took to hold onto it. When they preyed on wealthy fat cats like your father, it was nothing more than the natural law of the strongest doing what it took to survive.”
“That’s not a very priestlike thing to say.” The black-bladed anger cut deeper into his heart. “And here I thought you said you didn’t condone victimization of others.”
“I don’t as a rule, and for many years I believed I had to atone for what my family did. I thought my father’s death was God’s judgment, but I couldn’t have been more wrong. It was no angel I saw that killed my father. It was a monster that has haunted my every waking thought since that time. I may have had to sell my soul to do it, but now that I have—and uncovered that this horrible being has procreated—I’ll avenge my father as well as save my own soul by doing God’s will. I will destroy the Nephilim and the people who dare to prosper because of their unclean existence.”
* * *
Sara chanced a glimpse into Gideon’s living room awash with golden light. From her angle she couldn’t see where they were—only hear the calm low murmur of male voices. Her heightened sense of hearing had sifted out the night noises of crickets, a neighbor’s barking dog somewhere down the street and the faraway whisper of road traffic until there were only the two voices emanating from the room beyond. Gideon, offering refreshments. Vargas, a polite guest.
Why the hell was Vargas in a coat?
True, she was in a jacket. But her jacket covered her weapons. Priests weren’t supposed to have weapons.
Why wouldn’t Vargas give up his coat?
She’d never give hers up, even at the height of a blistering Texas summer. But she had her reasons.
Maybe Vargas had reasons too.
She listened intently another minute or two, and the conversation headed down a path that made her heart sink. A fifteen-year-old grudge. How the hell was anyone supposed to guard against something like that?
Her phone vibrated again. Swearing under her breath, her concentration ebbed and her hearing dialed back down to normal. “Go for Sara.”
“I’m five minutes out,” came William’s no-nonsense voice. “You’ve got the back covered. What about the front?”
“Gideon and I agreed to leave the front door open should we need it, so you’re golden.”
“Good. See you in five.”
The moment she disconnected, she refocused, only to have her skin ice over.
Unless she missed her guess, her father was going to be about five minutes too late.
* * *
Gideon didn’t have a poker face in his personal arsenal, at least not in Sara’s league. But he did his best to fake it now as he stared at Father Vargas. “The Nephilim. Am I saying that right?”
Father Vargas’s round face lit with a smile. “It’s an ancient word from the Old Testament, pretty much forgotten by everyone except theologians, biblical and rabbinical scholars...and the unfortunate people who have witnessed their continued existence firsth
and.”
The image of Sara, burning so whitely with six wings of fire suspending her in the air, flashed through his mind. “So which are you?”
“I suppose you could say I’m all three.”
“Well, I guess I shouldn’t expect anything less from a professor of ancient religions and an expert for the Feds.” Gideon seemed to agree, as though humoring him. “What exactly is a Nephilim again?”
“Oh, come now, Doctor, there’s no need for games at this point.” The chastisement was gentle, almost amused. But there wasn’t a damn thing Gideon found amusing in this whole conversation. “You know very well what the Nephilim are by now. If you want me to put on my professorial hat, I can describe them as the Book of Genesis does—the mixed-race offspring of the daughters of Man and the sons of God, otherwise known as angels. But in the Book of Enoch found amongst the Dead Sea Scrolls there’s also mention of Nephilim being the offspring of angels commonly referred to as The Fallen. In either case, there are references to these abominations throughout the Old Testament, and throughout history.”
“Abominations,” Gideon repeated mildly. “Wow. That’s harsh, Father.”
“That’s what they are,” came the simple reply, as if he were explaining the ABCs to a toddler. “If you need proof of how hated they are, God chose to eradicate the Nephilim race thousands of years ago. A few escaped and managed to hide their accursed selves among the human population, but they’re nothing but poison. I know that better than anyone.”
“Because you’re a professor of ancient religions?”
“Because my life was ruined by one of those abominations.” The priest’s gentle serenity slipped, and the snarling violence bubbling beneath the surface was both shocking and ugly. “It seemed as though I had been left alone on earth to witness God’s wrath after an angel of vengeance wiped out everything I had ever known. How could I think otherwise? Noah Mandeville seemed to be in heaven’s favor, rescued by what I thought was an angel of fire, while I was left to suffer through an endless hell on earth. But I was wrong. The being that saved your father was nothing more than an inhuman gun-for-hire, a member of the Nephilim race and the unloved scourge of heaven and earth.”
