Rapture

Chapter Eighteen

The bar in the lobby of the Marriott was named after the original hotel owner, Something-something Sasseman. At least, that’s what the waitress told Adrian in a husky, come-hither voice while she took his and Jim’s beer orders. She also found an excuse to drop her pen and bend over, and then walked off like her pelvis had recently been to Jiffy Lube and gotten over-oiled.

Then again, the rest of the clientele in here were leering businessmen likely on the varsity Viagra team, and she was a POA in her midtwenties.

Back in the Eddie days, he would have gone for her in a heartbeat.

Now? File the whole thing under “Meh.”

The booth he and Jim were in was covered in red pleather and made sounds that were juuuuust this side of a whoopee cushion anytime one of them shifted positions. The thing was perfect for their purpose, however: It faced out through the fat aperture of the bar at the lobby. No one came or went without their seeing.

Although, given Jim’s radar, they could have kept track of Matthias and that woman even if they’d been parked in the back lot: The angel had been sure to touch both of them, and even Ad could feel the tracer spells through the levels of the hotel. The pair were six floors up, close together.

Made you wonder exactly what they were doing.

Probably Parcheesi.

Yeah. Right.

As minutes ticked by and turned into a full hour, the background talk from the drinkers around them was the only thing that filled the silence. The beers they had turned into dinner. The time was…endless.

Man, immortality could be a real fucking drag when you didn’t give a shit about anything. All you had was time. Great, yawning maws of hours that perpetually chewed on you with dull teeth, eating you alive even as you remained unconsumed.

Well, wasn’t he a fucking party tonight.

And his mood didn’t get any better as he looked down at his hands. The black stain he’d seen in the shower hadn’t reappeared, but he couldn’t help checking every second and a half to see if it had come back. So far, so good, except for the whole feeling-like-death thing.

It was literally as if his body had been hollowed out, nothing but the space inside his skeletal ribs remaining—

“She’s coming down,” Jim said, finishing up the warm inch of beer he’d been nursing. “The woman’s left his room.”

Ad didn’t bother with the dregs of his draft. He hadn’t liked it to begin with.

Better than Coors Light, though.

“You stick with her,” Jim said as they walked into the lobby. “I don’t want her on her own.”

“Isn’t he the soul?”

“I think so. And assuming he is, she’s the key to this.”

“You sure?”

“I’ve seen the way he looks at her. That’s all I need to know.” Jim nodded in the direction of the reporter who was stepping out of the lobby elevators. “Get on her. I’m going to wait for Devina to show up here.”

Ad was not interested in getting foisted off on the GF. He wanted to wait for the demon. He wanted to stand nose-to-nose with her and pray for her to make another crack about Eddie—just so he could show her how much she wasn’t getting to him anymore. And then he wanted to stare in her eyes as her frustration flared and she was forced to attack him physically.

At which time he could game-over it. Fight to the death. Go out like a warrior.

The bitch would no doubt beat him, but oh, the joy to take pounds of flesh off her. And the relief to have everything over.

“Adrian? You with me, my man?”

“I want to stay here.”

“And I need you on that female. She’s got to stay alive long enough to influence him. If Devina gets a goddamn whiff of that connection they’re pulling? That woman’s going to end up a floater in the Hudson—or worse.”

As Jim stared at him, the subtext was based on logic—the strongest person had to face the demon, and right now that was not Ad. And not just because he didn’t have Jim’s extra flashy moves.

“Do you want to win,” Jim said in a low voice. “Or do you want to fuck us.”

Ad cursed and turned away, locking onto the trail of the woman and jogging off in the conventional way—because it was too messy to disappear in front of even casual observers.

As she headed for the elevators to the parking garage, Matthias’s chippie walked like she was on a mission, and he envied the purpose. Didn’t envy her her ride as it turned out. The POS had an engine and a roof—other than that, there wasn’t much to recommend the thing.

For shits and giggles, he disappeared himself into the backseat—and onto what turned out to be a Library of Congress’s worth of old papers and magazines. The good news was that she picked just that moment to start the engine—but she still heard the noise of his invisible ass compressing countless pages of newsprint. Whipping her head around, she stared into the space he was taking up, and to be nice, he gave her a little wave, even though as far as she was concerned, she was alone in the damn car.

“I’m losing my mind,” she muttered as she threw them into drive and took off.

Good driver. Quick on the gas pedal, efficient in her routing.

They ended up in the western part of downtown, at a motel that was only a step up from a dog kennel. After they got out—him remaining invisi, her clearly on the hunt—they joined a convention of cops and reporters who were focused on a room over on the left—

Adrian frowned and abruptly plugged into the scene for real. As the woman he was responsible for approached the badges holding the line at the yellow crime scene tape, he breezed past the flimsy barricade and penetrated the crowd of busy-busy at the door.

What the hell, he thought to himself.

Devina was all over the place, her residual stink hanging in the breeze as if a garbage truck had backed in and left a dump of loose-and-juicy all over the place.

Adrian pressed inside and had to cover his nose to keep from gagging from the stench that didn’t reach the sinuses of the humans.

Hello, dead girl.

On the far side of four or five cops, a body was visible through the open door of the bathroom: pale legs, tattoos on the thighs, clothes that were twisted around her body as if she had struggled. Her throat had been slashed, the blood soaking the sparkly thing she’d obviously considered a shirt as well as the chipped tile she was sprawled on.

She was a blonde—thanks to L’Oréal: The remnants of a hair-color kit were all over the counter, and plastic purple-stained gloves lay in the trash. And her hair was straightened—thanks to the Conair dryer and a short brush that had dark strands at its core, lighter ones at the tips of the bristles.

“Damn you, Devina,” Ad muttered.

“Is the photographer here yet?” a tired looking man barked out.

The CPDs glanced at one another, like they didn’t want to give him bad news.

“Not yet, Detective de la Cruz,” someone said.

“That woman drives me nuts,” the guy muttered, cocking his cell phone and starting to pace.

As the uniforms clustered around the detective as if they wanted to watch the photog get her ass chewed, Adrian took advantage of the clear shot into the loo, going inside and getting down on his haunches.

Hoping he didn’t find anything, Ad lifted the hem of the blood-soaked blouse. “Oh, come on…”

Underneath the sparkles, the pale skin of the stomach had been scored with symbols, runes not meant for the human she had been, or the men and women who found her, or the family who would mourn her.

They were a message from Devina.

That Ad was going to make sure Jim never, ever saw.

Casting an eye back at the knot of uniforms around that detective, Ad double-checked that the cell phone call preoccupation was still giving him some privacy. Then he passed his palm back and forth over the flesh that had been marked.

Fortunately, the skin still had some remaining vitality left in its cells. But the removal was sluggish.

“—get here, now,” that detective bit out, “or I’ll take the pictures myself. You have fifteen minutes to come on scene—”

Ad frowned in concentration, throwing everything he had into the effort. The runes were carved nearly a quarter inch deep in places, and they were rough, as if made by a jagged knife…or more likely, a claw.

“Come on…come on—” He looked over his shoulder. The kaffeeklatsching was over, and the detective was heading back.

Retracting his hand, he jumped to his feet—and then remembered that he was still invisi.

“Who touched the body?” the detective blurted. “Who touched this fucking body?”

Shit. The shirt was still up just below her breasts. Not where the thing had started out. And the skin was flushed in an unnatural way, given not just the victim’s ethnicity, but also where she was in her dying process. Still, the objective had been met and that was more important than any confusion the humans were going to have sorting what was doing out.

What the fuck was Devina playing at now?

“That bitch,” Adrian hissed as he walked out, “is going to pay.”

Jim was so done with the people watching in the lobby, but he stayed where he was even as the night dragged on: Matthias was still hanging out in that room of his, and that meant Jim was all about the hurry-up-and-wait.

It was the life of an operative: stretches of total inactivity separated by bursts of life-and-death tap dancing.

Goddamn, this was just like the good ol’ times—that hadn’t been good, and didn’t feel all that old at the moment because Matthias’s backstory wasn’t the only one he was thinking about. Ever since his new job as an angel had barged in and taken over his life, it was as if everything that had come before had been wiped clean—except that wasn’t the case. Vital distraction was a kind of amnesia; didn’t mean you had no history, though—

Looking up at the vaulted ceiling, he frowned. Matthias was on the move.

A minute and a half later, the elevator doors opened and the man stepped out into the lobby, relying on that cane of his, his sunglasses in place even though it was nighttime. All around, people noticed him—then again, it had always been like that, as if Matthias’s power created a lighthouse effect even among the mercifully clueless.

Making himself visible, Jim stepped out into the guy’s path. “Late-night appointment?”

Those Ray-Bans whipped around, but that was the extent of the reaction. “Babysitting me?”

“Yeah, and I’m not getting paid enough.” Jim nodded at the revolving glass doors of the main entrance. “You off to somewhere?”

“Nah, just need fresh air. I feel…” Matthias dragged a hand through his hair. “Cooped up. I can’t stare at those walls anymore— What? Why are you looking at me like that.”

Before Jim could think of a lie, he said, “You’re so much more human now.”

“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”

Jim shrugged. “Doesn’t really matter. Mind if I tag along?”

“Do I have a choice?”

“You could always try to outrun me.”

“It’s not nice to make fun of cripples.”

“Show me one.”

Matthias laughed in a short burst. “Fine. Help yourself.”

Outside, the night was unseasonably warm with a thick mist choking the air, the moisture hanging between the clouds above and the asphalt below like it couldn’t make up its mind whether to be a downpour or not.

Taking out his cigs, Jim lit up and exhaled a stream of smoke. Between the mist, the Marlboros, and the resonant sounds of their footfalls on the sidewalk, the whole damn thing was film noir in real life…and that was especially true as they came up to a group of men who were striding along—or marching, as was the case.

What. The. Hell?

The six bastards were all dressed in black leather, which might have marked them as Goths—except the way they walked in formation behind their leader had a professional soldier vibe.

As they passed by, Matthias and Jim moved to the side, and the one in front glanced over.

An ugly son of a bitch for sure, with eyes that were pits of aggression.

Huh…in his old life, Jim might have considered them candidates for recruiting. They looked like they could kill anything or anyone in their path, especially the guy in the lead.

But he was different now. And hopefully, so was Matthias.

“I remembered something,” his old boss said, after the stretch of concrete was their own again.

“Yeah?”

“Just personal shit. Nothing I was interested in.”

As the silence became as prevalent as the fog, Jim took another drag and talked out the exhale. “Waiting for me to fill the void?”

“You were the one who wanted to come along. You could at least make yourself useful.”

“And here I thought I was decorative.”

“Not for me, buddy.” When Jim didn’t comment further, Matthias glanced over. “So, I’ve been thinking about you.”

“Not romantically, I hope.”

“No, I used to like women. A lot.”

“Used to?”

Matthias stopped and faced off. “What I want to know is—”

At the far end of the block, a figure stepped out into the sidewalk with the ease of someone trained to ambush, and the gun that was discharged in their direction didn’t make a sound. All Jim saw was the brief flash as the bullet left the tip of the silencer.

With a cursing lunge, he tackled Matthias into an alley, the force of his two hundred and twenty pounds sweeping the other man off his feet, the pair of them going parallel to the ground in slow motion. In midflight, and with perfect synchronization, they took out their guns, trained their muzzles at the shooter, and pulled their triggers—and as their rounds left their silencers, Jim pivoted so that they landed on the damp pavement with him on the bottom, and Matthias using him as a mattress.

There was no time to fuck around, and he didn’t need to tell his old boss that—clearly Matthias’s preference in nooky wasn’t the only thing the guy remembered: he was on his feet and ready to bolt for cover behind a van that was about three yards away—

More shots were fired at them, pinging off the pavement, the GMC’s quarter panel, the wheel well. The shooter had followed them and was keeping to the shadows as he closed in.

That kind of stealth was another identifier. Their attacker came at them without sound, and not just because he was using the same kind of autoloader with a suppressor on it that Jim had against his own palm: No footfalls, not even heavy breathing; this was a trained killer, operating in his element.

XOps, Jim thought. Had to be.

With another curse, he looked around for options. The van wasn’t good for shelter, because it had a gas tank: he knew where the lines were in terms of what he could survive, but he wasn’t exactly sure where Matthias fell on the spectrum of untouchable, and a mushroom cloud over their cover was not a good way to test that shit out.

Grabbing one of Matthias’s arms, he helped run the guy down the back of the GMC—and by dumb luck, the thing was parked at an industrial rear entrance to the hotel, the set of ugly steel doors inset into the brick. Jim went right for the handles, latching on, giving a twist.

Locked. Duh.

Annnnnnnnd fuck that for a laugh.

Throwing a blast of energy down into the metal, he blew the locking mechanism apart and threw his shoulder into the reinforced panels. As the pair gave way with a squeal, Matthias froze, the response so quick it was as if he had been trained into the fear.

Jim dragged the man in with him and slammed the way shut. Propping Matthias up, he hit the steel with another blast of heat, this one longer and stronger, putting a quick solder in place to buy them some escape time.

The good news was that it worked—and his old boss was too busy checking his clip to notice the sleight of hand.

Cane in one palm, autoloader in the other, Matthias regained control of himself. “Down that way,” he barked like he was in charge. “There has to be an out.”

Rather than get into a dick-toss, Jim took off, hitching another hold under that armpit and falling back into the half drag. As they shuffled along, he kept an eye over his shoulder.

It didn’t take a genius to figure out who was the target. Matthias had been the former head of XOps, and had “died.” SOP was to visually confirm the body, and given that Isaac Rothe had gotten rid of the remains, no one had been able to do that.

Somehow, they’d figured out that Matthias was up and around in Caldwell.

Maybe Devina had an “in” in the organization?

“Did you lock the door behind us?” Matthias grunted.

“Yeah.” But chances were good that the assassin was going to have—

The explosion was the short and sweet kind, little more than a flash of light. And then that squeal came again as the operative busted into the corridor.

Up ahead, no doorways. No cover. Just a straight shot as far as he could see.

As if he and Matthias had a single brain, they swung around and both pulled their triggers, emptying everything they had. Bullets ricocheted around as the operative shot back—and it went without saying that Jim shoved Matthias behind him, and used his own body as a shield.

A couple of slugs hit home, the sting unpleasant, but nothing that would kill him or particularly get his attention. And then he and Matthias ran out of shots.

So did the operative.

There was a brief lull, which was a loud and clear “RELOADING NOW,” and Jim had no choice but to get running again. Protection spells were great against Devina’s minions; not really all that effective against Remington-onset lead poisoning: Keeping his body as a block, he chose one side of the hall and hustled like hell. And as they passed stacks of banquet chairs, Matthias helped as much as he could—but with the damage to his lower body, it would have been better for him to stay still and be muscled off the ground.

Not like they had time to debate deadweight etiquette.

They’d gone about ten feet when Jim realized they weren’t being shot at.

No professional would take that long to put another clip in. What the hell—

At that moment, he felt Devina’s presence, sure as a shadow passing over his own grave.

Fan-fucking-tastic.