Heaven and Hellsbane (11 page)

Chapter Eleven

Dan still wasn’t taking my calls. Not since the night Eli was attacked more than a week ago. I’d tried calling a couple times and left messages, but he hadn’t called me back. I had decided to take it as a hint that he still needed time. Not that I blamed him. If he’d left my bed to go nurse a sexy, immortal angel—if angels were female—I’d be…upset.

So, okay. He deserved some space. I just couldn’t give it to him. I had to talk to him, to warn him that the gibborim might try to get to me through him. My stomach roiled at the thought of a gibborim attacking Dan, triggering his powers, making him one of them. Or worse, catching him off guard and slicing him to ribbons because of me. The thought made the bile push at the back of my throat. I swallowed it down—told myself to be calm.

He’d be okay. I’d get to him, whether he was still mad at me or not, and I’d keep him safe.

Worry twisted my thoughts in circles even the note flashed through my brain. I couldn’t think about it. I couldn’t think about anything but warning Dan.

“What is it?” Jaz asked, striding into the booth to stand next to me.

“There you are. What took you so long?” I asked. I’d been screaming for him in my head for ten minutes.

“Hey. I’m next,” a very large woman in line said.

“He’s not a client. He’s…he’s my assistant.”

Jaz huffed, offended. “Contrary to what Elizal may have led you to believe, I am
not
your personal assistant or your guardian angel. I am your magister.”

“Yeah. Okay. Whatever. Listen, I need you to go to Dan. Make sure he’s okay until I can get out of here.”

“I am not his guardian, either.”

I took the big angel by the arm and led him to the far corner of my booth. It was as much privacy as I could manage in the small space. “I just had a visit from a gibborim. He left this.” I pulled the bloody note from my pocket and waited while he read. “I need to let Dan know to be careful.”

Jaz’s forehead creased above his dark sunglasses. “What has your former lover done to garner their notice?”

“I don’t know. And he’s not my former anything,” I said, offended. “We’re just taking a break.”
I think.
“I mean, nothing’s been discussed. We’re just—”

“Forgive me.” Jaz held up a long-fingered hand to stop me. “My word choice must have given the impression that your relationship status matters to me in the least. It does not.”

“Right. You’re a real peach.” I shook my head, pushing the irritation from my mind. “For now, it doesn’t matter what the gibborim have got planned, or why. The most important thing is letting Dan know he might be a target.”

Jaz waggled a finger at my purse under the table. “Can you not message him on Mr. Bell’s little device?”

“My cell phone?” Not exactly Alexander Bell’s device anymore, but whatever. “He’s not taking my calls. Just go to the police station and keep an eye on him, will you? It was probably a bluff. I mean, the gibborim might be playing for the other team, but they’re still on the human grid and not likely to screw with cops. But I’d feel better if he literally had an angel watching over him.”

Jaz tilted his head with a quizzical lift to his brow. “Why?”

“To protect—” Then I realized Jaz wasn’t a bend-the-rules kind of magister. He’d stand by while any gibborim or demon who wanted to sliced Dan to bits. “Okay, if any gibborim or demon shows up to attack Dan before I get there, can you just pop back here and let me know?”

I’d be able to teleport to Dan in a heartbeat, though I wasn’t sure how the sudden disappearance would go over with the people waiting around my booth. Not that it would stop me.

Jaz gave a noble bow of his head, his hands clasped in front of him. “I can do that.”

“Hey, my appointment was supposed to be like twenty minutes ago,” the large flower-child lady said.

I glanced at her. “Just a minute, ma’am.” I looked back to Jaz, but he was gone.

§

It was past six when I finished my last scheduled reading. There were still ten diehards in line hoping I’d squeeze them in, but I had to get to the police station. I had to know Dan was all right, even though I hadn’t heard from Jaz to tell me any differently. Didn’t matter. I couldn’t stay.

So I grabbed my purse and dug out my business cards. After some quick apologies and offers to do a free reading for each at my home, I was out of there.

Climbing into my Jeep, I couldn’t help wishing that I’d left my car at home. With my power I could’ve been downtown, literally, in the blink of an eye. In my Jeep it’d take me twenty minutes with the construction on I-376—longer if I hit traffic. And there was always traffic on 376.

Thirty minutes later I pushed through the squad-room door and relief washed over me like a soothing balm. Seeing Dan across the room talking to another cop let me take the first easy breath I had in hours. He was okay. Safe.

I was already crossing the room when he noticed and moved to meet me halfway. Before he could say a word, before he could think, I threw myself into his arms, feeling his breath huff from the impact warm across my neck. His body was strong and hard against mine, holding me for a moment before he wedged us apart.

“What are you doing here?” he asked, leaning away until I stepped back where he could see my face easily.

“Didn’t Jaz tell you?” I looked past him, scanning the cluster of desks spaced throughout the large room and further back to the wall and table with the coffee maker, then beyond through the windows of offices and interrogation rooms. I didn’t see him.

“Who’s Jaz?”

I glanced back at Dan. Damn he looked good in the snug-fitting blue uniform shirt and badge. “My new magister.”

Dan balked. “Where’s Eli? Is he okay?”

For a second I’d forgotten he didn’t know that they’d reassigned Eli. I shrugged, looking away. It was weird talking to Dan about Eli, knowing there was no love lost between the two. “I don’t know. I haven’t talked to him in more than a week. The powers that be decided that with all the attacks going on, I was too much of a distraction for him. They told him he had to leave and he did.”

The bitterness in my tone surprised me. I knew Eli hadn’t had a choice. He had to obey the Council and I’d agreed with them. But a part of me wished he had put up more of a fight—wished he’d found a way to keep in touch. It was stupid. The Council was right. I was a danger to Eli…in more ways than one. Still, I missed him.

“So he’s gone? Out of your life for good?” I’d expected Dan to sound more pleased by the idea. “I’m sorry, Em. You didn’t tell me.”

Dan was a good guy and I was an idiot for letting my feelings for anyone else distract me from him. “You’ve been ignoring my calls.”

He made a small snort and looked away, blushing. “Yeah. Sorry about that.”

I shrugged again. “It’s okay. You needed space. I got that.”

A moment of awkward silence passed and then Dan cleared his throat. “So who’s this Jaz? What’s he look like?”

“Oh, I think you’d remember if you’d seen him,” I said, picturing the nearly seven-foot man trying to go unnoticed. Though he always managed it somehow. “I don’t see him. He was supposed to be here watching you.”

“Me?” Dan pointed a finger at his chest, straightening. “Why me?”

“I had a visitor today—”

“Wysocki, is that her?”

Dan turned and I looked past him to an office door and the heavyset cop, Commander Frank Batts, standing in the threshold. Dan had mentioned his boss before and I recognized him right away from Dan’s description. He had twenty years on Dan, plus six inches and fifteen pounds. His thick, salt-and-pepper hair was cut regulation short—a quarter inch off the collar, neatly trimmed on the sides and on top. He was heavier than Dan’s wrestler-type body, his desk job sagging his muscled abs into a small paunch.

Dan looked back at me, his sexy smirk replaced with tense worry. He whispered an oath under his breath, then looked back to his boss. “Uh, yeah. Yes sir. This is Emma Hellsbane. She came in voluntarily.”

The older man nodded. “Good. Well, find out what she has to say for herself. Let me know.”

“Yes, sir.” Dan turned back to me. “Sorry about this. I meant to call and give you a heads-up.”

I glanced from Dan to the commander and back again. “What’s going on?”

He propped his hands on his hips, puffed his chest. “We got him.”

“Him?”

“The guy from the airport. The one who sliced the other kid’s head off.” A proud smile tugged at the corners of his mouth and he leaned close so only I could hear. “He’s human.”

No. He isn’t. Not completely.
But I figured I’d keep the latest revelation to myself until I was sure Dan could handle knowing there was yet another group of people who might like to rip me from the mortal coil. “How do you know he’s the one?”

“Surveillance cameras,” he said. “Only problem is there was some kind of glitch with the tape and you can’t actually see him attack the other kid. He just appears on camera and pulls the sword out of nowhere the same way you do. Then he swings it around and, poof, the other kid’s lying there dead.”

“Can I see the video?”

“No. It’s evidence, Em. You know I can’t—”

I nodded before he could finish. “Yeah. I know. But what you’re saying doesn’t make sense. What do you mean you don’t see him killing the other kid?”

Dan tossed his head for me to follow and we zigzagged through the clusters of desks, grouped in twos and fours, toward the hallway at the back of the room. He lowered his voice so only I could hear as we walked. “I’m only telling you this because I’m betting you know what’s going on better than any of us. I need answers, Em.”

“I can only tell you what I know.”
And what I think you can handle.

“The video shows the perp, Greg Reddmen, walk into frame. He stops right in front of the seats where we found the vic—”

“Mathew,” I said, remembering the boy’s headless body stretched limp and lifeless across the plastic airport seats. “His name was Mathew Stonewell.”

“Right. Except Reddmen doesn’t talk to the kid, Stonewell—he’s not there. At least not yet. He just stands there for a second or two like he’s talking to empty space, then all the sudden he pulls this sword from his hip out of thin air. At the same time the Stonewell kid pulls his sword and they both start fighting. But not with each other.”

“What?”

“Yeah.” He nodded, looking a little freaked out. “Told you there was a glitch. The two practically turn back to back and start fighting with…nothing. I mean there’s nothing there. Just the two of them and they’re not touching each other.”

“So how’d Mathew end up dead?” I asked.

Dan rolled his compact shoulders. “Not sure. I mean, one second he’s standing there hacking away at thin air and the next”—he sliced his thumb across his neck—“his head goes flying and his body drops right where we found it.”

I swallowed hard, my stomach giving a sickening roll at his colorful description. “What happened with the other guy, Reddmen?”

“That’s where it gets weirder.” We stopped in front of a gray steel door. A few steps further was another door—this one with a small window at the top, wire-mesh reinforcement embedded in the glass.

“Seriously?”

“Well, yeah, because Reddmen kept fighting. You can see him swinging away at thin air like his life depends on it. Then all the sudden he spins and slices and bam…you see this sword bounce across the floor out of nowhere and it’s got a goddamned hand still attached to it.”

Karoz.
Mathew’s magister. Suddenly the scene Dan described made sense. Karoz’s power had kept him from showing up on the video. The demon who seemed to always travel with the gibborim attackers must’ve affected the video the same way. Only the human participants showed up on camera.

“Faster than you can see,” Dan said, “Reddmen snatches up the new sword and swings it across in front of him. Then there’s this massive flash of light and the feed goes to snow.”

The police didn’t know it, but they’d actually caught two murders—and one of them was an angel. “Where is he?”

Hands on his hips, Dan tipped his chin toward the door with the window, but then reached for the solid gray door we stood beside. “He’s cooling his heels in there, but there’s a two-way mirror.”

I slipped past him into the dark room, the glow from the large two-way mirror illuminating the rectangular space well enough. I stopped short three steps in, meeting eyes with my new magister.

“Jaz.”

Dan stepped in behind me, closing the door. “Hey. Where’d you come…? Wait. You’ve been there the whole time, haven’t you?”

He dipped his head in a silent nod. He stood in the corner, not exactly invisible, but in the darkened room I could see how he might be overlooked…for a few seconds.

“I even said hi to you,” Dan said.

“Yes.”

“The other guys that came in and out of here spoke to you, too,” Dan said pointing a confused finger at the angel. I could almost see him scrolling back through his memory.

“You did, as well as a few others, yes,” Jaz said in his deep baritone voice. “I said hello.”

“Right…who are you?” he asked.

“This is Jaz—”

“Jazar,” Jaz corrected.

“He’s my new magister.”

Dan gave a half nod, brows high, fighting to hide his confusion. “Right. Okay.”

I pointed at the window onto the room next door. “That him?”

Dan pulled his attention from the bald angel hiding in the corner and nodded. “Yeah. Yes. That’s, uh, Greg Reddmen. Recognize him at all?”

I studied the guy. For an angel-killer there wasn’t anything special about him. His peanut-butter brown hair needed a cut, but not badly enough to make him look shifty. He was less than six feet tall, but he wasn’t really short. He wasn’t thin, but he’d probably never been to a gym, and he needed a shave, though he could probably go another day before it got too scruffy. He looked like an accountant or maybe an insurance agent.

“Nope. Why would I?”

Dan looked from me to Jaz and back again. “Because he’s been asking for you.”

I looked back to Greg Reddmen, searching my memory for the remote chance I’d met him but couldn’t remember right away. “What does he want?”