by Diane Capri
“But what about Clara?” Hope said.
“Right. Well, since Sophia was never around—sometimes staying away for weeks at a time, and eventually leaving home for good—I had to raise Clara on my own. She grew into the loveliest, gentlest girl you could ever imagine. She couldn’t possibly have been a Nephilim—she was sweeter than any angel I’d ever known.”
Nick reached out to touch the Clara-construct, but she vanished before his hand reached it. Hope gave him a sympathetic smile.
“Did Sophia ever come back?”
From the corner of his eye, Nick thought he saw something move. He turned to look and saw nothing but the freeze-frame image of turn of the century London. But he sensed something dark and cold—and close by.
“Nick?”
“One day she did,” he said, lowering his eyes.
“But she’d changed.”
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
WHEN THE STORM HIT, IT DIDN’T COME in the form of smartphone photos but rather a security camera video from the Hotel Pacifica. In the brief montage of clips Jon saw himself walking out of the elevator with Maria, saw Maria draping her arms around his neck and kissing him as she pulled him into the hotel room, saw himself coming out of the room, looking around—furtively—and hurrying to the elevator. One creative version put raunchy music in the background and looped the split-second moment when Jon and Maria’s faces came within striking distance, just before the door obscured the view. Of course it had gone viral, getting two million hits on YouTube within hours of its posting.
Sitting in his office behind a locked door—his “Do Not Disturb” cue to his staff—Jon leaned his head back against the soft leather of his chair in an attempt to ease the tension in his knotted shoulder and neck muscles.
What am I going to do?
With each passing hour, he anticipated a mortally wounded Elaine bursting through the door and demanding that he tell her who the bimbo on the tape was. Next would be a call from his manager informing him that speaking engagements and book deal had been canceled. Divorce would give him a way out of their marriage which had all but died after Matthew’s birth. It had only taken a year after the wedding for her true colors to show.
If she doesn’t file, I will. But the more he thought about divorce, the worse he felt. What would happen to Matthew? And the truth was, he loved Elaine. It had only been half a day, but somehow the fact that he’d allowed himself to consider ending their marriage made him realize how much he really cared for her.
With his suitcase packed, he left the office. Might as well drive down to San Diego and check into the hotel a week early, avoid Elaine’s raking him over the coals for the video.
He just needed some time away to sort things out.
Jon got into his car and tried to pray, but the words wouldn’t come out. Angry thoughts kept wrenching his heart, overwhelming any sense of repentance. Four words ran through his mind as he sped down the I-5:
You did nothing wrong...
His heart, it seemed, wasn’t buying it. The frustration of needing to pray, wanting to pray tormented him until, like David before Nathan the prophet who’d confronted him about his selfish pride and sin, the Shepherd King’s song came to mind:
Create in me a clean heart, O God,
And renew a steadfast spirit within me.
Cast me not away from Your presence,
And take not Your Holy Spirit from me.
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
“YOU’VE NEVER HEARD OF THE HERNANDEZ BRANCH,” Eduardo said, his voice like sandpaper.
“Thank you for stating the obvious. Don’t make me guess.”
“Lito, since you were a child, you had a reputation.”
“A good one, no?”
“Well, that depends. You were always a do-things-right, play-fair type of kid. Your Papi admired you for that.”
Lito huffed. “I doubt it.”
“Well, okay, maybe it annoyed him a bit. But he knew you would treat people fair.”
Eduardo choked on a cloud of smoke and began coughing—more and more violently. Lito cracked open a bottle of Arrowhead water and held it out, but the old man waved it off as he heaved and coughed.
“I need...a real drink.”
Lito put the bottle in his hand and closed his fingers around it.
“It’s all I have right now.”
Eduardo took a grudging swallow and wiped his mouth with his sleeve.
“Lito, Lito, Lito. Get real. You’re head of a drug cartel, not a charity.”
“The drugs are just one of our revenue streams. We own other businesses—legitimate businesses—and we could have more.”
The old man glared at him. “Don’t let anyone in the organization ever hear you talk like that. They’ll see you as weak, and you already got enough to worry about.”
“What do you mean?”
“I tried to handle this on my own, but that idiot Alfonso went and messed everything up.”
“Does any of this have to do with the Hernandez branch?”
“I’m getting to that, okay? Young people these days. So impatient.”
In fact, Lito was losing his patience. But Eduardo was probably the only person from Papi’s generation he could trust. Probably the only person, period. So he sat back in his chair, put his feet up on his desk and hands behind his head.
“I’ve got all day.”
“Look, it’s for two reasons you don’t know about the Hernandez branch. First, your father didn’t want you to. And second, it’s too profitable an operation to risk you jeopardizing things with your boy scout ways.”
“So what’s the profit from? Alcohol, gambling, merchandise?”
“Some might consider it merchandise.” Eduardo puffed another cloud of smoke.
“You’re going to have to get a lot more specific.”
“Soon as I tell you? You’re going to wish I never did.”
“The longer you put it off, the more you’re going to wish you never stalled.”
“All right.” Eduardo sighed. “The Hernandez branch deals in...human assets.”
“You make it sound like a temp agency.”
“No, Lito. Think about it.”
It should not have come as a shock, but it did. He knew other cartels had no qualms about it, and it wasn’t unthinkable that Papi would do it given his lack of morals. But Lito had never imagined working in this kind of commerce.
“Don’t tell me you’re talking about human trafficking?”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
“It’s unacceptable!”
“This kind of thing has been going on since before you were born, before any of us were born.”
“It’s slavery. Do you know what they do with—of course you do. How could this have gone on all this time and nobody told me?”
The old man’s considerable belly bounced as he laughed.
“Because we knew how you’d react.”
“We? Who, you and Alfonso?” Lito was shouting.
“Your Papi and me! He made me promise not to tell you because he knew you’d want to shut it down.”
Eduardo was right. Papi had known him too well.
But Lito also knew that his men would never allow him to jeopardize everything they’d worked for, sacrificed for, broken the law for—just because among all the things to which he turned a blind eye, he had a conscience about a particular trade.
He had to work his way carefully through this mine field. He relaxed his face, his shoulders, then gave Eduardo a just-kidding smile.
“So the Hernandez branch has been profitable?” he said.
“You might say that. They bring in about thirty percent of our gross revenue.”
“Interesting.”
“So what do you think, really? You want to shut it down, like Papi said you would?”
Lito eyed Eduardo suspiciously. “You got a personal interest in it?”
“I got a personal interest in everything we do.” And he did.
Eduardo was one of the organization’s earliest powerful investors.
“So what was the deal with Alfonso?” Lito said. “How’d he know about this?”
“Your father told him to look after you—I was a witness to this. He also said Alfonso could never touch the Hernandez branch because it would offend you. But Alfonso either forgot or ignored the fact that you didn’t know about it. I had him followed for three months before I found out he was trying to turn the Hernandezes on us and move them over to the Suarezes. I recently found out he almost brokered a deal with one of the Suarezes, think his name was Damien. But Damien and the little girl he was selling got caught in the crossfire. After that, Alfonso wised up and decided to lay low and work his way in from the inside.”
Bile rose up in Lito’s throat.
“That’s why he started dating Maria.”
“He was going to marry Maria and use her for leverage—get you to put him in charge of the Hernandez branch as soon as he told you about them. By then he’d have brokered a deal with the Suarezes, figuring you’d want to sell the branch off. If you didn’t see it his way, Alfonso would turn on you and join them. That little—”
“I can’t thank you enough, Eduardo. I had no idea he was doing this.”
“I should have found out earlier, but it was Alfonso.” The old man shook his head. “None of us could believe it.”
Lito glanced over at the picture of him and Maria as elementary school kids, Papi behind them by the big palm tree in their backyard. He tried to imagine that little girl in the picture being again ripped from the loving arms of her family—and sold as a sex slave somewhere far away. Was this really what he wanted, to run an organization that—
“So, Lito? What do you think?”
He couldn’t let on what he really thought. If Eduardo had kept a secret this big from him for so long, there was no way to tell how much he could be trusted—if at all.
“It’s profitable, you say. So it pays for your stuff.”
“Yours too.” Eduardo winked. “But hey, you’re Señor Guzman now, not your dead father. It’s your call. What you say goes.”
“Don’t you forget it. And the Suarezes? What’s their disposition, now that we’ve taken out their mole?”
A wave of the hand. “Don’t even worry about them. They knew Alfonso was full of hot air. Anyway, they’d have to get past me if they wanted to do anything to the Guzmans.”
“They wouldn’t be that stupid.” But what if Eduardo himself had been compromised? Even if he hadn’t, could he sense that Lito wasn’t as on board with this human trafficking as he let on?
The old man sucked in another pull on his cigar and spewed out another toxic cloud.
“Now you know.” He looked Lito straight in the eyes, not coughing, not smoking. “What’s it going to be?”
Lito’s shirt stuck to his back. He walked over to Eduardo, signaling that the meeting was over, and squeezed his shoulder.
“Business as usual, my friend. Business as usual.”
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
THE CONSTRUCT RESUMED AND THE SCENE dissolved into a new one:
The terminus at Victoria Station.
Nick could imagine nothing worse than reliving this day. Yet if he didn’t, the memory would continue to fester and swell like a boil. Perhaps sharing this experience with someone he cared about would help.
“You don’t have to do this, Nick.”
Hope stretched out her hand.
Feeling light-headed, weak in the knees, he reached for it.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s a difficult memory.” He rested his forehead in his hand, and sighed. “Over the millennia I’ve confronted demons, armies, and the forces of nature at its most destructive, but none of that made me as anxious as I feel now, thinking about it.”
“If it’s too much...”
Nick took a deep breath.
Shut his eyes.
Gathering all his courage, he stood tall, held Hope’s hand firmly, and began the memory-construct.
#
LONDON, ENGLAND 1913
It had been some three years since Sophia left, and he barely recognized her when she returned to their flat in London. But there she was, standing at the door, her flaxen hair now midnight black, her eyes...He shuddered. She wore a black dress, black gloves, and held herself with regal comportment. Nothing like the sweet, sassy young woman with whom he’d fallen in love and married.
“Aren’t you going to invite me in?” she said.
“I’m sorry, where are my manners?” Nikolai stepped back to let her in. He couldn’t believe he was treating her like a stranger. Couldn’t believe she was a stranger.
“Hmmm.” She strode into the living area, stopped, looked around. “And where is Clara?”
“At school, naturally.”
“I told you in my letter I wanted her to be here when I returned.”
“You’re early.”
She narrowed her eyes at him for a moment. “So I am.” Then she giggled, but it wasn’t Sophia’s giggle. Not a trace of that familiar mirth.
Who was this woman?
“Won’t you have a seat?” He stepped over to the stove, where a kettle was steaming. “Tea?”
“Thank you, yes.” She sat. Odd that she’d traveled without luggage. There had to be a thousand things to ask her, but he thought it best to let her set the tone and pace. He’d assumed it would take a great deal of effort to suppress his anger over her abandoning Clara and him after he’d given up just about everything to be with her. But she was so unlike the woman who’d left him he felt no inclination to berate her. In fact, he had no idea how to talk to her.
“Thank you,” she said when he placed the cup of tea on the table in front of her.
He took a seat facing her.
“You’ve changed,” he said.
“You haven’t.” Her lips curled up in a smile that didn’t match the coolness of her eyes. “But then, you never change, do you? Perpetually young, eternally beautiful.”
He took a deep breath and let it out slowly.
“What’s happened to you?”
“I’ve spent the last few years searching, Nikolai.”
“For what?”
She put the teacup down, folded her hands across her lap, and fluttered her eyelashes.
“Why the inquisition, darling?”
“I only—”
“I would so like to see my precious little Clara. Still attending Northbrae?”
“I’ll be going to pick her up there in ten minutes.”
“Nikolai, why don’t I go? What a splendid surprise it shall be for her to see her Mummy, waiting for her at the gate.”
“Actually, I think it’s best if I go myself,” he said.
She came over and sat in his lap, slipping her arms around his neck.
“Darling, one might think you weren’t happy to see the bride of your youth, after all this time.” She lifted his chin gently and brushed her lips against his until he opened them, sending a thrill through the human form in which he’d taken up residency for the past few years.
Her hair smelled like lilacs.
She kissed him again. But it was unlike anything he’d experienced with her before. It was aggressive, intoxicating, so pleasurable it hurt. It felt horribly wrong, and yet he wanted more.
“After I bring Clara home,” she said, “we can go out to celebrate our reunion at Brigham’s.”
Nikolai wrapped his arms around her, and she pulled him close—so close. For a brief moment, he loathed it.
Then he loved it.
He forgot where he was.
Who he was.
What he was.
“I’ll go and get her right now, all right?” Sophia whispered. “Be right back.”
“Go on, then.” He gasped for air, having forgotten to breathe. “Come back as soon as you possibly can.”
She slipped out of his arms, and left.
He barely noticed the dark vapor hovering
about him.
From the second-floor apartment window he watched Sophia with waning lust as she sauntered down the street. Never had he felt so human as he did just now. Before his decision to forsake his angelic ways and pursue a mortal life with her, he’d always wanted to know, to feel what it was like to be fully human. But after what had just happened? Losing himself in those purely physical, loveless cravings had left him feeling like some kind of animal. She was his wife, but it had never been this way before—so raw, so pleasurable and yet so abhorrent.
As she continued down the sidewalk, a dark cloud seemed to pass through the street. It vanished so quickly that he wasn’t sure he’d seen it at all. Yet at the same moment he became keenly aware of his angelic nature for the first time in years.
He began to perceive things again in the spiritual layers of reality on which he’d turned his back. And so, just before Sophia turned the corner, he noticed that a white aura encompassed her body as she walked. Small glowing lights invisible to the human eye floated around her and followed her like fireflies.
Lovely.
Yet the sight of those lovely white lights filled him with dread, with revulsion. Thanks to his reawakened angelic awareness, he knew what they were and the danger they posed.
And why they were floating about Sophia.
Demons.
And judging by the way they surrounded her and flowed through her, the demons had possessed her.
All those years she’d spent seeking the supernatural, only to find this? She must have given herself over to them in exchange for some empty promise. Demons were liars bent on destruction. They always offered humans what they desired most—which they couldn’t really give, of course—at a dear cost.
The human’s soul.
Nikolai hurried to the door, then remembered that as an angel he could teleport to the school…
Only he couldn’t. Nothing happened.
His abilities were still there—he sensed it—but they were…frozen. He’d have to run and hope they’d thaw out before Sophia reached Clara to do...God only knew what, considering she was under the influence of demons.
It’s not her, it’s not her. He kept telling himself that as he raced down the stairs, down the street, and to his daughter’s school. Not her.
