Devil Without a Cause (3 page)

There was a slight hesitation. “Her name is Faith McFarland, and she lives in Atlanta, Georgia. She—”

Cutting him off with a raised palm, he swiveled his head. “I’m quite familiar with Atlanta,” he said shortly. “Is this supposed to be some kind of joke?”

“Coincidence only,” said Gabriel, “though I’m told that Southern girls can be somewhat”—he hesitated—“interesting. It’s no surprise that—”

“That’s enough,” he said curtly. Gabe was about to mention Nicki, and Sammy couldn’t have that. Nicki was his, and not up for discussion. “I can find out everything else I need to know about Faith McFarland on my own.”

“Arrogant ass,” Gabriel murmured. He turned away, crossing his arms over his chest. “And I’m not referring to a donkey either.”

Sammy suppressed the urge to smile. “We’re done here.” Striding toward the arched doorway where he’d entered, he added, “If I need you, I’ll let you know, but in the meantime, get the hell out of my temple.”

“I warn you, Samael,” Gabriel said loudly, his voice echoing in Solomon’s grand chamber. “Do not betray my trust. This is your last chance at redemption.”

Not bothering to reply, Sammy walked away, knowing his former brother-in-arms would not—and could not—follow. The outer temple was one thing, but the hallways of his stronghold were deep and dark, and just as he was banned from the skies, his private domain was anathema to an archangel. The very walls themselves would repel the light and goodness of one such as Gabriel.

For a moment he heard nothing but the angry rush of blood in his ears, and the sound of his own footsteps behind him, echoing coldly through hallways of stone.

A few seconds later there was a faint rustle of wings as Nyx returned to his usual position, a silent shadow at his back.

“Master?”

He didn’t deign to turn around. “Yes?”

“Surely you don’t mean to do as he asks.”

Dark laughter snaked its way into the corridor. “Oh, Nyx.” Samael tossed his answer carelessly over a gray-clad shoulder. “I gave Gabriel my word, after all, and you know how much that means to me.”

The nightshade’s eyes flared a brighter shade of red as his unholy chuckle joined that of his master.

Chapter Two

B
rain stem glioma.

In the quiet of the chapel, Faith McFarland put her head in her hands and cried. She’d been crying on and off all night, unable to take her eyes off Nathan’s pale, sleeping face. Her son—her beautiful little boy—had a tumor at the base of his brain. What was she going to do? How would she cope? How could she
fix
it?

“God,” she moaned. “Oh God, please help me.”

Just two months ago Nathan had been a happy, healthy preschooler, obsessed with cars and SpongeBob SquarePants. Then came the headaches, the vomiting, the lack of appetite and energy. What she’d hoped was just an intestinal bug had become a nightmare of epic proportions—blood work, CAT scans, and MRIs, all culminating in the horrible news she’d gotten yesterday afternoon.

“I’m sorry,” Dr. Wynecke had told her, “but the MRI confirms a small lesion at the base of Nathan’s skull. We’ll need to get a tissue sample to determine if it’s malignant.”

Her first thought had been that she’d misheard him—the words he’d used made no sense. But there had been no mistaking the look of concern and sympathy in his eyes, and no mistaking what he’d said next.

Cancer.
Immediate surgery. Biopsy, possible chemotherapy, radiation therapy.

Which was why she was sitting here now, in an empty chapel at Columbia Hospital, while her only child was lying on an operating table, his life in someone else’s hands.

“Please,” she whispered, raising her eyes to the wooden cross on the wall before her. “Please don’t let him die.”

“Do you think He hears you?” came a voice.

Startled, she looked around, but there was no one.

“Do you think He cares?”

She stood, grasping the empty pew in front of her.

“He doesn’t, you know. The life of one poor, sick child means nothing to Him in the big scheme of things.”

It was a man’s voice, smooth and matter-of-fact. Frightened, Faith moved to leave the chapel, but stopped short at the distinct
click
coming from the chapel door. “Hello?” she asked loudly, wiping tears from her face with one hand. “Who’s there?”

No one answered. The ensuing silence was laden with tension, causing the hair on the back of her neck to prickle. Moving quickly to the door, she tried the handle, but it was locked. Glancing nervously over her shoulder, she pounded on the door with her palm. “Hello? Is anyone out there? Can anyone hear me? I’m locked in.”

“No one hears you,” the voice said, “except me.”

Faith spun around, beginning to panic. One way in, one way out, and the way was blocked. “Help,” she shouted at the top of her lungs, pounding at the door.

Columbia was a busy hospital. There’d been plenty of people around when she’d made her way here after they’d taken Nathan to surgery, unable to stand the sight of his empty hospital bed.

No one came, and try as she might, she could hear nothing on the other side of the door.

Willing herself to calm, she scanned the quiet chapel. No cameras, no speakers, just a small room, plain wooden pews filled with a scattering of Bibles, a prie-dieu for kneeling, and a simple cross on the wall. Blinking back tears, she hammered again on the door with her fists. “Help, someone! I’m locked in the chapel! Let me out.”

“ ‘Malignant’ is such an ugly word, isn’t it?” The man’s voice came from nowhere, and from everywhere. “A big, ugly word that just doesn’t fit with the image of such a small head, capped with brown curls, just like his mother’s.”

Faith lifted a trembling hand to her mouth and pressed it there, hard, to keep back the sobs that rose in her throat.

“So helpless,” the voice went on, “so innocent. Nathan trusted you to keep him safe—yet you’re helpless as well, aren’t you?”

“Stop it!” she screamed, frightened out of her wits.
Who was it? Who could possibly be so cruel?
“Leave me alone!” Crying harder now, she tugged on the door handle with both hands, desperate to leave the voice and the chapel behind.

“I can help you, Faith McFarland,” said the voice. “I’m the only one who can help you.”

Faith slumped against the door, leaning her forehead against the wood. Nathan would be out of surgery soon; she needed to be there for him. “Let me out,” she begged tearfully, with no idea whom she was pleading with. “Please.”

“I will in a moment, but first we need to have a little chat.”

She didn’t understand where the voice was coming from. Unmuffled, no electronic echo or hiss, as clear as if someone were standing beside her—but there was no one there.

“I’m sorry to tell you this, but when your little boy gets out of surgery, you’re going to get some very bad news.”

Faith’s legs were suddenly boneless. She sank to the floor, unable to hold herself up.

“It doesn’t have to be the end of the world, however,” said the voice calmly, impervious to her grief. “I can still help you.”

“Who are you?” she shrieked, at her wit’s end. “What do you want?”
No escape, no one to fight.
“Let me out!”

The light within the chapel began to grow dim. As she crouched there, on the floor, the room darkened until she could no longer make out the cross on the wall, or the prie-dieu in front of it. The world shrank to a small circle roughly ten feet in circumference, illuminated only by a single track light in the wall above her head.

“I don’t want much,” said the voice, now coming from the darkness itself. A man’s hand, adorned with a thick silver ring, came into view, grasping the end of a pew. “Just your soul.”

Her blood ran cold, but she had no time to process, as the man stepped fully into the light. He was blond, he was handsome, and he was smiling.
Smiling, the sadistic bastard.

She scrambled up from the floor, never taking her eyes from his face. Hoping the surrounding darkness would work to her advantage as it had to his, she eased toward a corner, keeping as many pews between them as she could. Once she reached the shadows, she ducked, and having nowhere to go, rolled beneath a neighboring pew. Maybe she could hide until someone came . . .

“Is your son’s life worth so little that you would cower away from the one person who could help you save it?” the man asked, but she didn’t answer.

Laying her cheek against the carpet, Faith fought to control her breathing, to slow the racing of her heart, to
think
.

“Ah, well. I can wait. Time is something I have plenty of.” Wood creaked as he settled himself in one of the rear pews. “All the time in the world, in fact. Too bad Nathan can’t say the same.”

More tears welled, slipping over the bridge of her nose to fall soundlessly to the carpet.

“He’ll be waking soon, wondering where his mommy is, I would imagine. Too bad he doesn’t have a daddy, by the way—boys need a father, after all, or so I’m told.”

Faith said nothing, refusing to think of her scumbag ex-boyfriend, who’d pressured her to get an abortion when she’d told him she was pregnant, and then dumped her when she refused. She’d let him go, knowing that anyone who could shirk his responsibilities that easily would make a terrible father. She and Nathan had done just fine without a man in their lives.

Just fine
. Until now.

“Doesn’t matter now, I suppose,” the man went on. “Poor little tyke isn’t going to make it to his fifth birthday—”

Her breath hitched at the cruelty of the statement.

“—unless you come out of there and talk to me. I can make it all go away, you know.”

She didn’t believe him. Of course she didn’t believe him. He was just some lunatic who’d followed her into the chapel and somehow managed to lock them both inside. Sooner or later someone would come and let them out. And when they did, she was going to press charges, big-time.

“Remember how he used to call your cat Memmy instead of Emily? So adorable, though I’ll never understand why people feel the need to humanize their pets by giving them proper names.”

Her mouth went dry.

“What about the time he got hold of the baby powder and smeared it all over the living room? It looked like a sack of flour had exploded in there—such a mess.” The man chuckled softly. “Took you two days to wash and vacuum it out of everything, but you couldn’t bring yourself to punish him because he looked so guilty when he was caught.” He sighed. “Ah, memories. Hold on to them, Faith, for they’ll soon be all you have left of Nathan.”

“Why are you doing this?” she choked, unable to remain silent any longer. How did he know about her cat, about the baby powder? Those memories were her own, and nobody else’s.

“Come out,” he said firmly. “Stop hiding from me. Stop hiding from the truth.”

And so finally, because she felt she had little choice, she crawled out, feeling the cheap carpet burn her elbows. Then she stood up, keeping the length of the chapel between them.

“Ah,” the man said. “That’s better. Now I can see your face, and you can see mine.”

She didn’t believe that statement, unless he could see in the dark. She, on the other hand, could see him quite clearly.

The single remaining track light angled down on him like a spotlight, leaving him fully exposed. Coldly handsome, blond-haired and blue-eyed, dressed in black jeans and a gray T-shirt. He was leaning back in his seat, both arms resting on the back of the pew, a thick bracelet of braided black leather on one wrist.

There was another silence, in which she could literally hear her own heartbeat, thumping madly in her ears. He made no sudden moves, merely watching her watch him, and she got the feeling that he
could
see in the dark, because he was looking straight at her.

“Who are you?” Faith whispered, terrified. Strangely fascinated by his male beauty, and cold to the marrow of her bones, she knew the dizzying fear a mouse must feel when pinned by a snake.

He cocked his head, giving her a wry smile. “Can’t you guess?”

She said nothing, unable to formulate the words to express what she was thinking.

“Is it the lack of horns? No pitchfork or forked tail?” He sighed. “I only break them out on Halloween these days, or the occasional midnight Mass. Best to blend in.”

She was afraid to blink.

“Don’t worry, Faith,” he murmured, looking directly into her eyes. “I rarely get a chance to say this, but in your case, I truly
am
the lesser of two evils.”

Faith spread her hands against the wall, letting her fingers send her brain the message:
This is real, this is happening.

“Let me go,” she said shakily. “I need to go.”

“Right now, as we speak,” the man replied, ignoring her plea, “your doctor has just removed some sample tissue from the base of your little boy’s brain. A quick examination under a microscope is going to reveal cancer cells, which will multiply, growing larger until the resultant pressure on Nathan’s brain stem costs him his vision, his hearing, his balance—and ultimately, his life.”

The choked noises she heard were coming from her own throat. Giving in to them, she leaned her head back against the wall and set them loose in raw, wracking sobs.

She no longer cared who he was, or why he was there. She only cared about Nathan—her sweet, smiling Nathan—who lay still and silent on a table somewhere, unaware of what was happening to him.

“There are options, I suppose,” the man went on, relentlessly. “Surgery, chemotherapy, radiation. All guaranteed to seriously affect Nathan’s quality of life before he ultimately dies. Vomiting, diarrhea, hair loss . . .”

With a shriek of rage and grief, Faith threw herself forward, hating him more than she’d ever thought it possible to hate anyone. Darting around the edge of a pew, she flew down the center aisle, wanting only to shut him up, to stop the words that spewed from his mouth like poison.

He watched her come, unmoving, with a dispassionate expression that made her want to rake her nails across his face until he felt some of the agony she was feeling.

She’d almost reached him when, in the blink of an eye, he was gone.

Staggering to a stop, Faith grabbed the back of the nearest pew, unable to believe what she was seeing.
It was a nightmare, it had to be a nightmare . . .

“You’re wasting time,” he said coldly, from somewhere behind her. “Do you want me to save your child’s life or not?”

Closing her eyes, Faith drew upon what little strength she had left. Her flare of rage had died as quickly as it came, leaving her feeling like a spent match. A deep breath, then another, as she fought to bring her sobs under control. “How”—she swallowed hard, willing her voice to work properly—“how can you do that?”

“I can do anything,” he answered, not quite so coldly this time. “For the right price.”

She felt her way along the edge of the pew until she could sit, facing the voice that came from the darkness. Swiping her hands over her face, she then clasped them in her lap to still their shaking. “What do you want?”

“Only what belongs to me,” he said smoothly, “and I want you to help me get it.”

Daring greatly, she swallowed hard, and willing her voice not to tremble, asked, “If you can do anything, then why do you need my help?”

His teeth gleamed in the darkness as he smiled. “I didn’t say I
needed
your help, Faith. I said I
wanted
it.”

He came forward, into the light, resting his hands on the back of the pew in front of her.

“And in case you haven’t figured it out yet, I have a devil of a temper when I don’t get what I want.”

She stared at him numbly. “You can’t be real.” Her eyes searched his face, as though memorizing his features. “You can’t be . . .”

“Oh, but I am.” He reached out a hand—a perfectly proportioned, normal man’s hand, no leathery scales or razor-sharp claws—and said, quite simply, “Take my hand, and come with me if you want Nathan to live.”

And because she’d do anything to make sure Nathan lived, she did what he said, and that’s when the nightmare truly began.

The instant he touched her, everything changed. One moment they were in the chapel, and the next they were in the operating room, where a small, draped figure lay facedown on a table, surrounded by people and equipment. It was Nathan; Dr. Wynecke was probing a bloodstained opening at the base of her son’s skull, the instruments in his hands sharp and shiny.