Harsh Gods (6 page)

Halley whimpered on the bed, averting her face from the new intruders. She pressed both her hands against her ears and started to hum.

“Tammy’s upstairs,” Father Frank said. Slowly, he drew his hands away from the blood-smeared vagrant, but he stayed crouched there. “She, Sanjeet, and the little boy are fine, but you’ll need ambulances for the others. The people who broke in didn’t expect a fight.”

The ponytailed officer activated a walkie clipped to her vest at shoulder height, conveying the request for backup. She canted her head as it crackled a response. The big guy stepped carefully through the picture window, glass crunching underfoot. He shifted to one side to give his partner room enough to follow, then stood with his back to the wall, holding his gun downward.

He didn’t put it away.

“All right, everyone, I’m Officer Roarke. This is my partner, Officer Potts.” He said it without taking his eyes off of us. “What I’m going to need you to do is put your hands where I can see them. Everyone. No sudden moves.”

Halley’s tuneless humming underscored the words. Roarke stared at her, the tectonic plates of his heavy visage shifting quizzically.

Potts gestured sharply to me. “You—get up against the wall.”

“He’s on our side,” Father Frank objected, and I held my hands out to show I was harmless.

“Is it the beard or the biker jacket?” I quipped.

Potts just glowered, so I shut the hell up and did as I was told. It was about as easy to do as rolling an oil tanker up Murray Hill. I wondered idly how often my smart mouth had gotten me killed over the years.

“Why’s it so dark in here?” Roarke asked. Not waiting for an answer, he threaded his way past Potts, reaching for the switch beside Halley’s door. He glanced expectantly at an overhead fan with a light fixture. Flipping the switch, he scowled when it did nothing.

“They don’t keep bulbs in the ceiling fan,” Father Frank explained. “And you really should move slow—Halley’s already upset.”

The girl hunched on the bed, resolutely focused on her own inner world. Roarke clearly didn’t know what to make of her.

“Uh, sure,” he said, then he focused on the priest. “How many people are in the house?”

“Six—more if you count the ones who broke in,” Frank replied.

“There’s three of those, at least that I saw,” I offered. “The one in here and two by the stairs.”

“Against the wall,” Potts repeated, her voice rising sharply. She kept her eyes on me as she sidled toward the priest. She gently nudged him. “Father,” she said, “I’ll look after that man till the EMTs arrive. You need to step away, all right?”

He didn’t get the angry cop glare. I chewed my cheeks to hide a frown.

With reluctance, Father Frank handed off the pillowcase bandage and hauled himself to his feet. He got about halfway up before the torsion at his waist made him gasp and clutch his ribs. Potts’s hand shot out to steady him. He scowled, but he didn’t reject her help. Once he straightened, he politely removed her hand from his elbow.

“How many of you are hurt?” Officer Roarke asked.

“I’ve had worse,” Father Frank declared. Officer Potts regarded the old priest skeptically, then bent to the man on the floor. Her eyes went wide when she saw the gaping symbols cut into his skin.

“What’s all over his chest?”

“We were wondering the same thing ourselves,” said Father Frank.

“They all seemed strung out on something,” I ventured. I didn’t make eye contact with either of the cops. I wondered if either of them knew Bobby, and if mentioning him would get them to calm the hell down.

Potts pulled a pair of gloves from a pocket. After slipping them on, she started checking the unconscious man’s vitals. The instant the officer touched her fingers to the vagrant’s neck, the volume of Halley’s humming spiked. The girl coiled into herself, covering her head with her arms.

“What the hell’s wrong with her?” Roarke choked.

“Too loud. Too loud!” she cried.

“She’s autistic,” Father Frank answered tersely. “She doesn’t know you, and she just had her home invaded. As far as she’s concerned, you’re invaders, too.”

“But we’re police. We’re here to help,” Roarke said.

I glanced toward the girl. That pulse of power was back, thrumming heavily upon the air. I didn’t see any of the tendrils, but that didn’t mean nothing was there. I shook my head a little, hoping the padre caught my intent.

“Let me go to her,” Father Frank offered. “She knows me. Familiar things help calm her.”

Officer Roarke made a halting gesture. “I’m sorry, but you need to stay right where you are. All of you.” Holstering his gun, he approached Halley.

“Hey, little lady,” he said, pitching his voice higher in that way some people do when talking to small children or cute pets. He extended his hand in what he clearly meant as a harmless gesture. All I could think of was that old black-and-white
Frankenstein
movie, where Karloff’s monster tries making friends with a little girl—and she ends up face-down in the water a few frames later. Roarke wasn’t
that
scary, but he still could’ve palmed Halley’s entire face with his broad, calloused mitt.

The girl didn’t even notice him. She tightened into a little ball of skinny arms and knobby knees.

“Too loud!” she said over and over again.

“She ever get violent?” the cop asked. He paused with his hand hovering just above her shoulder.

“No,” Father Frank answered, “but I wouldn’t recommend touching—”

The officer’s hand had already connected. The moment it did, Halley jerked into a sitting position like her spine was set on a hinge. Roarke stumbled backward, yanking his hand away like she’d burned him. Halley turned and pinned him with her gaze.

“It’s blood. It’s all blood,” she declared in a voice that was hardly her own. “How can you kiss him when that’s all you can taste?”

Roarke struggled for a response, but all that came out was a tiny squeak.

“Jesus, what’s wrong with this kid?” Potts whispered.

At the mention of blood, my focus lasered onto Roarke. Blood held a special significance for one branch of my extended family—the Nephilim. They were the next best things to vampires, and I had a litany of reasons to distrust them. Roarke didn’t look like a member of that tribe, but that didn’t rule out a connection. The Nephilim could twist mortals into blood-slaves, supernatural servitors they called anchors.

Whatever was going on with him, Halley’s words had struck a nerve. The hulking officer blanched so pale his freckles stood out like cornflakes in cream.

“Lydia?” he finally managed, voice cracking. He didn’t tear his eyes from the girl. “When’s that backup set to arrive?”

“Ten minutes, tops,” his partner responded. She had paled, too, though she didn’t look quite as rattled as Roarke.

“I think I’m scaring the kid,” he said.

There was no question who was pants-shitting scared in the room, but I saw no use in pointing it out.

“I’m gonna go find the lady who called this in,” he said. “You got this. Right, Lyds?” He backed away from the bed as he spoke, till his broad shoulders connected with the door frame behind him. Halley squatted like a statue in the middle of her bed, eyes gone glassy as she stared a hole through his forehead.

Roarke was out of the room before his partner could reply. Lydia glared at the empty space where he had stood.

“Yeah, sure,” she muttered. “Leave me with the freakshow.”

As soon as Roarke was gone, Halley’s rigid posture melted away and she slumped with exhaustion.

I racked my brain for signs that might identify a Nephilim blood-slave. Anchors tended to be knuckle-dragging no-necks, and Roarke was bulky enough to fit the bill. Before I could give it any more thought, though, Halley started freaking out again.

“No. No! Make him go away!” she wailed, head buried in her hands. Another wave of that power pressed down upon the room.

“He’s gone, honey,” Potts offered. She gestured vaguely to where her mountain of a partner had just stood, but Halley continued to whimper. With a look of annoyance, Potts bent back to the unconscious vagrant. She adjusted the wad of bloody cloth on his head.

The man’s eyes snapped open. His hand shot out and he seized Officer Potts by the wrist.

“What the hell?” she gasped.

His grip tightened, and he used the startled woman’s arm to drag himself into a sitting position. Spittle flew from his mouth.

“Hands to take!” he shouted. “Eyes to see!”

With an incoherent shrill of disgust, Potts torqued her wrist to break his hold. He clung with a ferocity born of madness.

Halley started screaming.

The vagrant’s head whipped around so sharply all the vertebrae in his neck crackled.

“A mouth to speak!” he lisped wetly through gaps in his teeth. Potts yanked again to break his grip, but his fingers were locked like a vise. Father Frank darted forward to help the officer.

“Back off,” Potts snarled. “I’ve got this.” She dropped the bloody rag to free up a hand, reaching across her body to seize her pepper spray. Without breaking eye contact, she hissed, “Last chance, buster.”

The possessed vagrant roared in her face.

She averted her eyes and maced him, point-blank.

Halley coughed on a backwash of fumes. With a peculiar casting gesture, she hurled a hand toward the intruder.

“My room,” she shouted. “
Get out!
”

A shimmering bolt of power that only I could see launched from her fingers at the possessed man. It wasn’t bright, like the power I could throw around, and it didn’t look exceptionally cohesive, but it was enough. It struck the guy in the chest, splashing across the mutilated symbols like some kind of napalm-filled water balloon. The vagrant dropped Lydia’s wrist and began to seize. The heels of his mismatched Army boots beat an irregular rhythm on the floorboards.

Father Frank turned to me, looking for answers.

All I could offer was an ineffectual shrug. I didn’t understand as much as I once had, but everything about Halley bent the rules as I currently knew them. My senses told me she was mortal. Mortals didn’t hurl bolts of energy like they’d just graduated from Hogwarts. Psychic mortals, sure—that could happen, and it gave me the heebie-jeebies when it did. But striking a spirit from the Shadowside? That was a power unique to my tribe, the Anakim.

Even the Nephilim couldn’t do that.

“Lyds!” Roarke bellowed. “You OK, Lyds?” Wild-eyed, he burst back into the room.

Halley loosed a little sigh and fell back against the mattress. Her spine bowed once, then she lay terribly still. The vagrant continued to jig against the floor, blood-flecked foam forming at the edges of his mouth as he bit down on his tongue.

“Jesus!” Potts cried. “Help me with this guy, Jimmy. Shit got real weird.”

“The girl—?” Roarke asked, though it wasn’t clear if he was asking after her well-being or about her role in the weirdness. Given the mindfuck that had driven him from the room, I suspected it was the latter.

“I’ll watch her,” Father Frank said, moving to her bedside whether or not the officers agreed.

I stayed put against the wall in case Potts was feeling generous with the pepper spray. Scattered at my feet lay the crumpled papers scribbled from top to bottom with Halley’s mysterious script. A set of three symbols identical to those carved in the vagrant’s chest recurred with ominous regularity.

If only I could read them.

An ambulance arrived, then more police. They split us up—Father Frank insisted on staying with Halley. I didn’t get a chance to see if they let him, though. I got hustled into the kitchen.

Then it was a whole lot of hurry up and wait.

More sirens, more ambulances, and EMTs dragging various bits of equipment through the tidy little house. I leaned just out of sight but not out of earshot. While they strapped Lady Scarface to a backboard, one of the officers—not Roarke or Potts, but some new guy—tried asking her questions. The woman couldn’t even give her own name. She babbled in broken sentences that sounded like word salad.

An hour went by.

Then another.

Finally, Roarke came to interview me. Of course I would get Roarke—half a dozen Cleveland cops scurrying around the Davis home, and I got the one who might have ties to my least favorite tribe. The big guy glanced over his shoulder at the bustle in the living room, then gestured for me to take a seat at the kitchen table. It was tucked in a little breakfast nook, completely out of sight from the rest.

I hesitated.

The burly officer flattened his lips into a look, then waved impatiently toward the table again.

I still didn’t move.

They had to interview witnesses separately—that was standard procedure,
blah, blah, blah
—but I still didn’t like the idea of being alone with this lumbering gorilla who looked like he bench-pressed Hondas in his spare time. Was I being a paranoid dick about it? Sure. I was a fan of staying alive. Most of the Nephilim were fans of the opposite, especially when it pertained to guys like me.

“Quit wasting my time, Westland,” he said.

That made me dig in even harder. I’d been cooling my heels for close to two and a half hours, and none of the officers had asked for my name. I hadn’t offered it, either, just sat and waited like a good little drone. Now I flashed back to the moment he’d come in through the window. That little lift of his ginger brows.

“You know me from somewhere?” I demanded, and yeah, I sounded suspicious—because I was. He gave me a look again. This one as much as said, “
Why the hell are you even asking?
”

Eventually he grumbled, “Fine. You want to play it like that, but they’re all busy out there. No one can hear us.”

Right
, I mused.
Because that totally fills me with confidence.

Roarke tried herding me back toward the table by advancing one ponderous step at a time. I didn’t appreciate the idea of having the Big Blue Ox all up in my personal space, and there was no direction to go but backward, stopping when my legs met with the edge of the kitchen table. Even so I refused to sit down. Instead, I stood there with my fists stuffed into the pockets of my leather jacket, defiantly meeting his eyes while I held tight to my cowl.