by Stacia Kane
“You’re assuming it would know. Or that it would care.” Time wasn’t helping Megan calm down. With every minute that ticked by, both of her hearts sped faster, and more horrifying images and thoughts buzzed in her head. If the angel had him . . . if he was gone . . .
She should have been strong enough, focused enough, not to think about him. She wasn’t. Embarrassing but true. “And it might not just be Gunnar.”
That possibility had occurred to her not long after they’d found Tera. She was focusing on Gunnar, so sure it was him—and she was sure, she knew it had to be. But that didn’t mean Winston wasn’t in on it, or Baylor. This was business, if of a particularly twisted kind, and business made bedfellows just as unlikely—or unholy—as politics or anything else.
“I don’t like the look of that Baylor,” Roc said. “He looks shifty.”
Coming from a tiny, wrinkly, bald green demon, that was saying something, but Megan didn’t argue. “It could be any one of them.”
“So what do we do?” Tera picked up the room-service menu and opened it. “How do we find out which one it is? Are you still meeting them all at eight?”
“Yeah, we’ve only got an hour,” Nick said. Tera’s room was larger than Megan’s; Nick was at her side on the little settee.
It was a prettier room too, with crown molding and its own small balcony. Ordinarily Megan might have wanted to go sit outside, to try to think with the breeze on her face, but not then. Not when she felt as if sniper rifles could be trained on the room waiting for one of them to move.
Shit, an hour. Only an hour. She was due to walk into battle at eight with at least one traitor, and her death was apparently pretty high on that traitor’s priority list.
But who could she trust? Aside from the people in that room, who could she call? Who could she warn?
Yes, Winston wanted to head for the Windbreaker and do battle. But he could have been looking forward to leading them all into a trap. He could have prearranged things with Gunnar, to throw the rest of them off. Or Baylor could have done the same. Or any one of them. The only way to know for sure who was behind it would be to track them somehow, or the angel, and see who—holy shit.
Nick and Tera were sniping at each other about some privacy law or something. They stopped when she snatched up the room phone and dialed Greyson’s room—her old room.
“Megan, what—”
She waved them off, listening to the ring in her ear until Malleus answered.
“Malleus, he’s at the Windbreaker, isn’t he? Keeping an eye on the angel?”
Long pause. Long enough to let her know she was right. “I can’t say where he’s gone to, m’lady.”
“Because he ordered you not to, right? But he is there, isn’t he? Malleus, just say yes or no. That’s not telling me, right?”
More silence.
Tears threatened—again, she was getting really fucking tired of all this damned leaking—and she let them come through in her voice, hating herself a little bit because she knew she was manipulating him. “Malleus, please . . . please just say yes or no.”
He sighed. “Yeh.”
“Is he alone? He’s not alone, is he?”
“Aw, no, m’lady, Lord Dante can take care of ’imself, ’e can. Don’t you fret.”
“He’s alone? You guys—”
“Spud’s with ’im.”
The air left her lungs in a huge, relieved rush, only to freeze again as it came back in. He was there, and he had Spud. But were the two of them together really any match for an angel? Neither of them had the abilities psyche demons had. Spud was strong and tough and relentless when it came to fighting and wouldn’t give up until he won or died, but she didn’t want to think about that either.
Besides, how the hell was he managing to hide? If Gunnar or anyone else walked into that hotel, they’d see him. How was that a good idea?
“Thanks, Malleus. Thank you.”
“You din’t ’ear it from me, m’lady. Don’t want ’im gettin’ mad at me. An’ ’e will, if you tell ’im.”
“I won’t. I promise.”
She said good-bye and hung up, turned to see them all looking expectantly at her. “He’s at the Windbreaker. Keeping an eye on the angel. I guess he’s looking for confirmation or whatever. So we need to go over there now.”
“I thought everyone else was going at eight.”
Megan, already scooping up her bag and slipping her shoes back on, nodded at Tera. “They are. But we need to go now. Because we might be the only ones who go at all, and if the angel finds him there first, or if Gunnar or someone in on this with Gunnar spots him, I—we need to be there. We need to go, now.”
She looked at them all. Tera, in her casual fitted
button-down and loose black pants, looking uncon-cerned as always. Nick, whose hand clenched and unclenched as if it was looking for his sword. Roc, picking at the cinnamon roll he’d brought into the room with him; the smell made her hungry and sick in equal measure.
And herself, five-foot-two, a hundred and seven pounds. No muscles to speak of. No real fighting experience.
But she had power. She had her abilities. Tera was a witch, and witches had managed to defeat demons and angels both. Nick was a warrior. And Roc . . . who knew what Roc could really do if he had to? More than that. She had the frantic adrenaline of the hunted, the panic of a woman who had to protect her loved ones.
It wasn’t the greatest fighting team ever assembled, but it would have to do.
Chapter Twenty-nine
The semi-good fighting team ended up in separate cars too, which wasn’t really auspicious. Megan didn’t have a car, having ridden with Greyson to the hotel. Tera drove one of those little red sporty things that barely fit one person, let alone two. Nick had cabbed it from the airport, and of course, Roc, being unable to see over a steering wheel and relying on psychic travel, had no car at all.
Which made Brian’s return, a few minutes after Megan hung up with Malleus, much more of a relief than she’d expected. Not only was he there, but he at least had four seats in his little foreign jobbie.
Which would have fit all of them, had Megan not opened the door as they were about to leave to find Maleficarum standing outside. “Mal sez you plan on heading for the hotel. I’m goin’ too.”
“Okay, fine,” she replied, and ignored the faint surprise in his black eyes. “You can ride with Nick and Brian. I’ll ride with Tera.”
He looked as if he was about to protest—she wondered how much of his appearance at her door was the desire to help and how much was the desire to badger her about why she was hurting Lord Dante so and what he could do to fix things—but subsided when she gave him the steeliest glare in her repertoire. “Right.”
The drive to the Windbreaker didn’t take long. It felt like forever. Not only was she worried, but she was starting to wonder if this was the best idea. Greyson may have been able somehow to hide in the crowd. He might even have found a way to conceal Spud, although one thing Spud did well was stand out, between his size and the general air of menace around him.
But to hide the rest of them?
A bridge to be crossed when she came to it. The simple fact was, there was a chance Greyson was in danger. And she could not let that happen. Especially not when things between them stood the way they did. If something happened to him and he thought she didn’t—she’d never forgive herself. Never.
“Okay,” Nick said, when they’d all gotten out of the cars. He did have his sword after all; she didn’t want to ask how he’d gotten it through airport security, but she didn’t really need to. “Megan, I think you’re probably going to be the primary target if anything does go down here. Or, rather, when it all goes down here. So Maleficarum, you should stay with her.”
Maleficarum nodded, a faint look of disbelief on his face. Megan understood. As if Maleficarum would do anything else.
“I’m going to stay with Brian. I know the thing doesn’t know you, and neither do any of
the others involved. But you are psychic, aren’t you? Right. So you could come in handy here, and—forgive me—but I don’t know how much fighting experience you actually have.”
“I wrestled in high school and college.”
Megan blinked. She had no idea.
“Okay, well, that could help. Still.”
“What about me?” Tera cut in. “Don’t I get some protection?”
“Do you actually need it?”
“Well, no, but it would be nice if someone at least thought I was worth protecting.”
Nick smiled. “You stay with me and Brian, then. How’s that?”
“Good.”
“Okay,” Megan said.
The Windbreaker loomed before them, larger in her eyes and mind than she’d ever seen it. Such a dull building, dingy gray walls, small windows in rows up the edifice. It looked more like a correctional facility than a hotel.
She checked her watch, the slim silver one Greyson had given her a few months before. He was in there, and she was going to find him, and they had about half an hour before they were supposed to meet the others back at the Bellreive. What would happen when—if—they didn’t show up?
Not her problem. She squared her shoulders, paused a minute to pull what energy she could from the air. She could have taken it from her Yezer but wanted to wait until it was absolutely necessary. “Let’s go.”
The lobby was silent. Dead silent, way too quiet. She should have heard moans and wails coming from the ballroom where Walther held his exorcisms. Instead the only sound was the low rusty grind of the air conditioner.
“Where do we go?” Nick asked low in her ear.
“I don’t know. Hold on.” If she were Greyson, where would she be? Where, in order to watch all the comings and goings, to keep an eye on the angel and anyone else?
Just as she turned to look for the security office, she saw him poke his head out from around the wall behind the front desk, the partitioned area where the desk clerk had been napping two nights before. His features were twisted in what wasn’t quite a frown but was definitely not a cheerful welcome.
“What are you doing here? Shit, never mind. Get back here, then you can tell me.”
That was the greeting she got? She’d brought the cavalry in to save his ass, and she got a grumpy—well, she guessed it was about all she could expect, given that a few hours before she’d turned him down. Again.
As one, they slid behind the counter and back to where he and Spud sat before a bank of security cameras.
“Did Malleus tell you where I was?”
“No. I figured it out. And I know who it was. It was Gunnar.”
The quick flash of approval in his eyes made her heart leap. “But not just Gunnar. Do you know who else?”
She shook her head.
“Well. Come sit and wait, then, and get ready. I expect any second now she’ll show up.”
“She? But Justine—”
“Of course it’s not Justine. Justine would never have had anything to do with an angel. I’m surprised—”
“Angel?” Brian looked stunned. “What do you mean, angel?”
Greyson rolled his eyes. “Oh, for fuck’s sake. I didn’t see you’d brought the True Believer along.”
“Hi to you too, Greyson. What do you mean, an angel? You don’t honestly expect me to—”
“Not that kind of angel,” Megan said. “It’s not a good angel. It’s a—”
“Angels are kind of good by definition, Megan. You know, creatures of God, protectors—”
“Warriors,” Greyson cut in. “Not protectors. Warriors. Who is it who ends the world in Revelations, Brian? Who carries a fiery sword? For that matter, what about Uriel as the Angel of Repentance? Is that a friendly image? Is it one you want to face?”
If Brian was surprised that Greyson knew what he was talking about, he didn’t show it. “What about messages of great joy? What about protecting the infant Jesus from Herod? What about—”
“Again. This isn’t that kind of angel. Think of it as a rogue angel, okay? One who’s broken from God and works as a mercenary and stays out of Hell because he’s just that sneaky. This is an abomination, Brian. Something that shouldn’t exist. Like a Nephilim.”
Brian shuddered.
Greyson nodded. “Right. That’s what we’re dealing with. It’s not something that’s going to touch you and fill you with heavenly light, Brian. It’s going to rip off your head if it gets the chance. It’s using all those people out there, feeding off their faith, taking their free will and their sanity. It used a woman to slaughter a demon. It ripped her from her throat to her abdomen and tore out her heart. It wants to punish, and at this point it doesn’t care who. It doesn’t care that we’ve made our peace with each other long ago.”
Not entirely true. The demons and witches had wiped the angels off the face of the earth, if what Tera and Greyson had said earlier was to be believed. But there was little point in letting Brian know that.
Brian was silent. Greyson pressed him further. “It feels nothing. It doesn’t care if you were an altar boy. It doesn’t care about your religion. But it cares about—
it would care about—your psychic abilities. And it will kill you for them.”
“I can’t . . . I can’t believe this.”
“Then you should go.” Megan put her hand on his arm, tried to get him to look at her. “You should go, Brian, because we have to do this, or it will kill us all.”
The silence stretched so long Megan began to wonder if it would ever end. Just a little while before, she’d felt certain Brian would be her friend forever. Now she wondered if he hadn’t reached the breaking point.
But he nodded. He didn’t look at her, but he nodded. “Okay. Okay, I’ll stay and help.”
“Excellent.” Greyson turned back to the monitors.
“How did you get in here anyway?” Brian asked.
He glanced back. “I convinced the guards they were needed elsewhere.”
“What, like—never mind. I don’t want to know.”
Greyson ignored him, his eyes fixed on the screens. Megan crowded up as close as she dared, close enough to smell his skin and his cologne and feel the sharp stab of pain those scents caused in her gut, but not close enough to touch.
“Any second now,” he murmured. “Any second now, and we’ll find out if it was one of them or both of them.”
“Greyson, who—”
“Shh. You’ll see. They’re getting ready, can’t you feel it?”
Now that she thought about it, yes she could. Could feel the emptiness spreading, a kind of thick blanket of dull silence spreading over everything. Not the silence of an empty building. The silence of the morgue, waiting for the dead to rise. The hair on her arms and the back of her neck stood on end.
“I do feel it,” she whispered. “What is it?”
He glanced around at all of them. “They’ll find us soon. Are you guys ready?”
Megan checked the monitors again, found after a moment’s searching the one that showed her the ballroom. Walther’s histrionics had slowed. He moved like a man fighting to run across the ocean floor, his feet sinking in the carpet, his arms pushing through the thick air.
The crowd moved slowly too, if they moved at all. Most of them sat wide-eyed, open-mouthed, like children watching the most fascinating cartoon ever produced.
Her entire body vibrated. Something was wrong. She couldn’t feel them around her. Couldn’t feel them in the building, not even when she lowered her shields all
the way. Instead she felt them inside her, wriggling there, making her demon heart pound and squirm as if it was going to break through her ribs and throw itself against the monitors. She put her hand to it, feeling a little silly but wanting absurdly to add another layer of resistance.
Greyson watched her do it but said nothing.
The feeling kept going, traveling down to her toes, up into her head. She was stuffed with them, overflowing with them, the
ir fears and sadness muffled by the kind of peace that came from heavy psychotropic drugs. They’d tried to give those to her once, in the hospital when she was sixteen and possessed by the Accuser. She remembered that heavy nod, that cotton-brain feeling, and set her other hand on the desk to try to steady herself.
Greyson turned around again. “Maleficarum, Nick. How fast can you guys get to the roof ?”
“The elevator—”
“Can’t use the elevator. You need to use the stairs, and you need to use them fast.”
They glanced at Brian, who nodded. The three of them took off.
“Why the roof ?” Tera started opening drawers, pulling out bits of paper and inspecting them.
“Because I have a feeling that’s where he’s going to try to take Megan when he gets her.”
“What the hell do you mean, when he gets me?”
Greyson nodded at the monitor. “Because whatever Gunnar’s goals are, I’m betting you’re hers.”
Megan looked. Leora Lawden was walking through the lobby doors.
Her mouth fell open. “No. It couldn’t be her.”
“Oh, I assure you it is. In fact, I thought it was her alone from the beginning. It wasn’t until Justine was killed that I realized it was Gunnar as well.”
“But why—”
“She didn’t exactly want you in the picture, Meg,” he said. “And I’m pretty sure Gunnar was using her to get closer to you. Who knows what he promised her, but it must have been good.”
“But her father. She wouldn’t have plotted against her own father?”
“She probably didn’t even know what he had in mind. She’s not the brightest child. I don’t think she bothered to give much thought to anything else, as long as he was willing to give her a way to get rid of you.” His mouth twisted. “Not every woman thinks marrying a Gretneg is a horrible fate.”
“That’s not—” she started, but the words were torn from her mouth when a blast of energy poured into her, through her, sending her to the floor in a vibrating heap. Her arms, her legs, were no longer under her control. Neither were her thoughts. She felt them all, felt above them that same horrible blinding white light she’d felt on the roof, the same light that had nearly destroyed her in Elizabeth Reid’s room.
