Fallen: The Demontouched Saga (Book 2) (6 page)

Walking in the front door we are greeted by Nal’s muscle. I’ve been working for him long enough that they don’t bat an eye at me walking in, but they must know something is off if I brought a friend. Especially a friend they don’t know.

“Who’s the new guy?” Joe asks, cracking his knuckles.

“Someone you don’t want to test.” I hand him one of the cases.

“What is that?” He asks, looking it over.

“That’s what I need to find out. Nal around?” I knew he would be, he never leaves this place without these three.

“Yeah, he is in his office.” He hands me back the case.

“Keep an eye on the Expedition. There are about forty more of those cases where that one came from.”

“Don’t tell me to go take a smoke break.” He snorts and walks outside.

We work our way up the stairs towards Nal’s office. I open up the door to the top floor to find a pistol pointed right at my pretty mug. Part of me wants to play around with him before he recognizes me, but I need to get the show moving.

“Shit, Mitch, sorry about that. Boss gets mad if I don’t try to scare everyone off.” Jason lowers the gun and puts it back in the holster.

“It’s all good man. I have to see the boss.”

He points to the door and takes his position at the staircase. Jason and Aaron aren’t generally the type of people you would expect to protect a crime boss. The real bodyguards rarely leave the hotel lobby. If I had to guess, these two are just around to hold people off long enough to allow Nal to escape.

I knock on the door and let myself in.

“Mitch, why are you here?” He looks at me over the laptop on his desk. “And who is your friend?”

“This is Az, an old friend. Have a favor to ask.” I put the case on his desk. “I need to know what this is.”

He picks up the case and starts to examine it. “Think it’s trapped?”

“I’m not sure. I figured you had some ex-bomb squad cop on the books.” I figured it was worth a shot anyways. He had a few dozen normal cops on the payroll over the years. One of them had to have been on the bomb squad.

Nal presses a button on his desk. “Aaron, in here.”

Aaron walks in the door. “Yes, boss?”

“Take this case to the station. I’ll make sure Ed meets you at the door.”

Aaron grabs the case and leaves the room.

“How long do you think it will take?” I ask him.

“Hard to say. They don’t like to rush things.” He throws me a master key to the hotel. “Go and take a load off for a while. Ill call the station and make sure Ed speeds things up.”

I nod and we make our way back down a few floors to a room with a bed. When Nal moved into this place, he gutted the top few floors so he could protect his resources a little better. It wouldn’t help much if a group of people managed to hit this place in force, but it would be enough to keep a thief from even trying.

I kick off my boots and plop down on one of the twin beds. Part of me wants to head down to the lobby and grab a drink or eight, but I’m not sure Az would like it much. With any luck, we will be on the road in a few hours hunting Israfil again.

“Not that it matters, but what makes Israfil worse than the others?”

“He was one of the first angels that joined Lucifer’s rebellion. They used to call him the burning one. He has an obsession with killing off humans with fire.”

I shudder at the thought. I don’t think there is ever a good way to die, but I would pick nearly anything over fire. Shit, I think I would beg for the sarin gas over fire. Sure, you are going to suffer either way. At least the gas would be a little faster.

“Sounds like a pretty nasty obsession.” I start a stretch that leads into a yawn. “Do angels ever sleep?”

Az lets out a chuckle. “That weakness is unique to mortals. Sleep. I’ll take watch.”

I thank him and lie back on the bed. The hotel bed is as uncomfortable as they come, but I’m still out within a few minutes.

I wake up to the sound of my Metallica ringtone. I rub the crust from my eyes and look at the phone to see who is calling.

Sara.

“Find anything?” I ask.

“They are planning something big downtown. Those cases you picked up were supposed to be delivered to the convention center in three days.”

“What the hell is happening in three days?”

“The city leaders are holding a meeting to discuss how to get the rest of the city back online. They are expecting a few thousand people to show up.”

That never ceases to amaze me. Before the world went to hell in a hand basket, the only way people would show up to council meetings was if there was something that mattered to them. It was rare to get more than a handful to show up unless it was something serious. Getting the city back online is pretty serious, but I doubt the people that show up are going to volunteer to help fix it

“Anything else?”

“There were two files on the drive. The second one has some encryption that I’ve never seen.”

That is odd. While she would never admit it, she managed to crack the encryption that the US used in the past. To be fair, it use to change constantly, but it wasn’t easy. She spent the better part of two months at the computer trying to crack the code.

She was pretty pissed when she finally figured it out too. I couldn’t help but laugh. The message was four little words.

The President is gone.

It was funny because we already knew that. Shit, the whole world knew it. It meant that the President was one of the people who disappeared over three years ago. Some people were amazed that a politician managed to get the ride, but he was one of the good ones. I would have voted for him if I didn’t think the system was rigged.

“Keep working on it. We will go check out the convention center.”

I hang up and lace up my boots.

“Good news?” Az asks, looking out the door.

“Your friend has something planned downtown with those cases. We probably better see what was in the case.”

We take the stairs back to Nal’s room and walk inside to see him on the phone. He waves us in and points to the seats.

“That sounds good to me. Call me in a few days to let me know how it goes.” He hangs up the phone.

“Anything on the case?”

“You know those bomb squad assholes. They don’t like to rush things like this unless they have to. When Aaron brought him the case, he wanted to just blow it up.”

Sounds like something they would say. They bill themselves as the heroic type, willing to put themselves in danger to diffuse any situation. In reality, they were maybe a half-step above the bombers most of the time.

“Call your guy and tell him to move his ass, we need to figure out what we are dealing with pretty fast.” I take a minute to fill him in on the details. Nal isn’t a fan of the city trying to stabilize the grid, but if the city lost a few thousand more people he wouldn’t have anyone to charge for it anyways.

Nal pulls out his phone and walks into the hallway, I’m guessing to call Ed.

I get up and walk over to the window. As much as Nal will tell you that he chose this room to keep himself safe, I know he really did it for this view. If you got close you had a direct view of the parking lot below, but behind that was a beautiful 10 acre lake that you can see perfectly from his desk.

In a few moments, the serenity of the view is replaced with the distant sound of gunfire. I find it hard to believe that anyone would be stupid enough to attack the hotel like this unless they have a death wish. Nal did have a very nice stash of shit in the hotel. Everything you could ever want or need, really. To be honest, the wants and needs are starting to become the same.

Food.

Water.

Shelter.

The hotel provided all of that, or more.

I lean down to grab my knife from my boot when I notice a familiar sight pulling out of the parking lot. They were after the one thing that Nal didn’t normally keep in stock. I look over at Az who has moved next to me by the window and ask. “Is that my car?”

-9-

Azrael and I start to work our way down the stairs. At this point, we are at a distinct disadvantage in that we have no clue who our attackers are, or how many there are tearing things up downstairs. The only thing I am sure of is that Israfil is involved. I nailed that part down when I watched my Expedtion drive away.

We stop off at the second floor and enter the hallway. The hotel only has a handful of ways to go upstairs and I’m sure they are all being watched. If we walk down to the lobby our survival rate is reduced to near zero. The second floor has the advantage of being the same level of the attached restaurant rooftop. We just need to find a way out.

Using my gun to shoot out the glass would be the obvious solution, but that may draw the attention of the attackers below. We still have the element of surprise in our favor, and I intend to sit on it as long as I can.

“There is a fire exit in the back.” Nal walks from behind us, a rifle slung over his shoulder. You can say what you want about the guy, but he knows when it is time to get his hands dirty. In the movies they always focused on the leader who would cower in his little corner while his people clean up the mess. Nal takes things like this rather personally, so it doesn’t surprise me that he knew what I had in mind.

In the past, the second floor was mainly used for meetings and conventions, so the layout is different than the hotel above. Within a few quick turns we come up to the exit door.

“Tell me you removed that alarm.” I say.

“First thing I did when I claimed the place.” Nal smiles as he pushes the door open.

The rooftop was your run of the mill flat roof, and it smelled like it too. Part of me feels bad for the people who used to fix them for a living. I couldn’t put up with the smell of that tar for a living.

We come up to a ledge that overlooks the front entryway. I peek my head over the wall and notice Joe on the ground holding his throat, blood flowing through his tightened fingers.

Az puts his hand on my shoulders. “There isn’t anything we can do for him.”

As much as I want to jump down and try to help him, healing was not an ability I was blessed with. There isn’t anything I can do from up here either. I could use my power to throw my knife into his skull, but then I would risk not having it if we ran into a demon downstairs.

Nal pulls my shoulder and leads us to a ladder in the back. We climb down and make our way to the rear entrance. I peek though the glass and catch a pair of guys posted just outside the stairwell in the back, guns aimed at the door. I put two fingers up and let a smile leave my lips.

“I got this.” I whisper.

I open the door and fling my knife into the throat of the guy on the left and then into the chest of the thug on the right. Situations like this make me love my power. We could have been quick with a few shots, but it would have compromised our position. During an attack, the defenders generally have the edge. They know the layout and the secrets and can entrench themselves at key choke points in order to maximize that advantage. As an attacker, the biggest advantage you can grab is with stealth and surprise. The key is to hold onto that advantage as long as you can.

In the right hands, in the right situation, one man with a knife can do more damage than a dozen with guns. Of course, it helps when you can toss them around with telekinesis.

Now that our entrance is clear, we make our way towards the lobby as quietly as possible. The other set of stairs was closer to the front and out of sight. Unless they were searching the floor for life our path should be clear.

We get close enough to the lobby to catch a view of Rick slumped over the front desk missing the back half of his skull. I approach the corner slowly and peek around towards the bar. Three guys, all packing some serious heat, are standing around a body on the ground. Something tells me it is Adam, but it is hard to make out with all of the blood.

“Three at the bar. I got the left.” I tell the others.

“Right.” Nal says, rifle at the ready.

“Cover our backs.” I look at Az.

I pop around the corner and pop off a few shots, hitting him twice in the chest. Nal, being a solid shot, hit his target square in the face. Blood and brains spraying over the bottles in the back. We both move and put a few bullets into the thug in the middle.

Az and Nal walk towards the bodies while I head over to Rick’s. The front desk was built into the wall, with a small room behind it. It would be the place I would hide if I wanted to spring an ambush, and that’s without knowing that Rick had the desk loaded with guns.

I peek over the side and notice Rick died without a gun in his hand. They had to have moved pretty damn fast to catch him off guard. Not seeing anyone I jump over the counter, being careful not to slip on the blood on the floor.

I’m about to open the doorway to the front office when I hear Nal fire a shot. I turn around and see Nal being lifted in the air by his throat with Az fighting the other two. I start to climb back over the desk when I feel a pair of arms reaching around my body. I lean my head forward and rush it backwards, catching my attacker squarely in the nose. He screams as I turn around and level my gun in his direction. The man is a good six foot tall with long black hair with watering eyes. He also happens to be losing a fair amount of blood from his nose. I unload a few shots in him before slamming the blade of my knife into his gut.

“Let him go, asshole” I aim my gun at the guy holding Nal.

“Gladly.” He tosses Nal back into the bar shattering the large mirror before he falls to the ground.

To my left I notice Az being handled pretty well. Angels may be at the top of the food chain, but it is possible for demons to overpower them by numbers. Generally, the older the demon, the more powerful it is. These two must have been around a while if they are able to handle Az.

I consider making a play with the knife, but I am at a serious disadvantage fighting straight up. While Eunie gives me enough to handle myself, it is nowhere near the strength that I need to handle him straight up. There are times when he gives me a little extra surge, but that is generally when he is about to just take over anyways.