Sins of the Son: The Grigori Legacy (6 page)

Roberts grunted and sat back in his chair, leaning against one of the armrests. “I don’t think I wanted to know then,” he said, confirming her suspicions.

“And now?”

“You tell me.”

“Staff,
I
don’t want to know.”

Her supervisor passed a hand over his face, palm rasping against stubble to create the only sound between them while he weighed her words. “Can you at least tell me what this is about?” he asked at last, gesturing at the poster. “Why he’s there?”

“He’s supposed to stop a war.”

Roberts snapped upright. “Gangs?”

“Not on the scale you mean.”

Frustration etched between his brows, her supervisor slumped even lower in his chair than he’d been before. “Damn it, Alex, I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around what’s going on. None of what happened—nothing about that fucking serial case was normal. Hell, it wasn’t
natural
. But the alternative—” He broke off and waved his hand again at the paper. “And now that. What the fuck am I supposed to do with that? I can’t very well call Vancouver and tell them I’ve seen the guy. I’d have to say where, and when, and under what circumstances…They’d think I was out of my tree.”

She rubbed an aching temple and muttered, “Trust me, I know the feeling.”

“But we’re not.”

More question than statement. Dr. Bell would get a real thrill from this exchange.

“No. We’re not crazy.”

Not that she didn’t consider the idea a viable alternative. Even taking into account her family history, insanity made more sense than reality seemed to these days.

Roberts nodded. “I didn’t think so. But I still can’t call Vancouver.”

“No.”

“And I can’t send you out there. Not officially.”

Sensing more to come, she waited. Roberts reached out and snagged a form sitting on the corner of the desk. He slid it toward her so it covered Seth Benjamin’s photo. Her name was at the top and Roberts’s familiar, scrawled signature at the bottom. She raised her gaze to his.

“A leave of absence?”

“Two weeks paid. If you want more time, pull vacation. And, Alex—if you need help, call. I’ll do what I can.”

H
ugh Henderson stared at Katherine Gray, digesting her bizarre story. The young woman seated across the interview table from him didn’t
seem
hysterical. Seemed cool as a cucumber, in fact. But her story? Fucking nuts. He swallowed a sigh. It was just his luck to be the one to catch this. Served him right for working so much overtime lately and being the only one here.

Still, if she wanted to lay a complaint, his job required he take it. Regardless of his personal opinion. “All right,” he said. “Why don’t we start from the top? Do you mind if I record this? I want to make sure I get it right, because it’s kind of—”

“Crazy?” Gray suggested. “Believe me, I know.”

“Out of the ordinary,” Hugh supplied instead, and the young woman rewarded him with a tiny smile. Her first since entering the Sex Crimes office twenty minutes earlier.

“I don’t mind,” she said, responding to his question about the recording.

Hugh reached for the digital recorder that never left the
room. He checked to make sure it was plugged in, and then pushed the record button and pulled a pad of paper toward him. “Right. Let’s start with your name and occupation.”

“Katherine Gray,” the woman said. Her voice quivered slightly and she paused to clear her throat. “I’m a doctoral student at UBC. The University of British Columbia…or don’t I have to explain that?”

“It’s fine. Tell me why you’re here.”

“I think I’ve been raped.”

“You think?”

She sat up straighter in the chair. “I
have
been raped. But I don’t know by whom.”

“Go on.”

“My boyfriend works at the oil sands in Alberta—doing environmental impact studies on the rivers near them, I mean, not working for the oil companies. Jared wouldn’t do that. Work for the oil companies. He’s—”

“Let’s just stick with why you’re here, okay?” Hugh prompted.

“Oh. Of course. Sorry.” Gray took a deep breath. “This is harder than I thought.”

The second repetition of a story often was, especially when that story was fabricated and the teller had to remember all those details already given. Hugh gave an inward wince at the uncharitable thought. Christ, he was becoming jaded.

He made himself smile. “You’re doing fine.”

Gray didn’t look convinced but continued nonetheless. “So anyway, like I said, I hadn’t seen him in more than eight months and then, one night, out of the blue, he turns up at my apartment. I had two essays due that week, but I was thrilled to see him. One thing led to another and—” She cast a pained look at the recorder. “Do I have to, you know,
say
what we did?”

“You had sex,” Hugh supplied the words in his best professional voice.

Gray blushed. “Yes.” Another throat clearing. “When I woke up the next morning, he was gone.”

She gave a sudden gasp, face going pale, and pressed a hand against her swollen belly.

“Are you okay?” Hugh asked. “Would you like some water?”

Gray shook her head. “Sorry. It just hurts sometimes, like things are being stretched too fast. I’m fine now.”

“All right. Let’s get back to your boyfriend. Did he leave you a note when he left?”

“No. Nothing. I was worried he might have gone out for something and had an accident, but I called the police and the hospital and there was nothing. I couldn’t call him because he doesn’t believe in cell phones. He thinks they cause—sorry, I’m getting sidetracked again, aren’t I?” She took another breath, fingers massaging her side. “Anyway, I left messages for him with his supervisor, but all I could do was wait for him to call me. About a week later, I started puking my guts out. I thought I had food poisoning, so I went to the hospital. They told me I was pregnant. About twelve weeks along. I said it was impossible, but they insisted. I told them they were fucking insane”—she cast a quick look of apology at Hugh, making him feel like a doddering old man from a generation shocked by such language—“and I left. Two days later, I couldn’t do up the zipper on my jeans anymore.”

“And then?”

Gray’s face crumpled. Her voice dropped to a whisper. “And then Jared called. He’d just gotten back from three weeks at one of their remote camps, he said, and he’d called right away. He wanted to know what was wrong, why I’d left so many messages. He said—” She hiccupped. “He said he hadn’t seen me or been to Vancouver since March.”

The classic it-couldn’t-have-been-me avoidance technique? Hugh kept the idea to himself for the moment. “What about the pregnancy?” he indicated her belly. “How far along are you?”

Gray compressed her lips until they whitened. She swallowed three times before she spoke. “Six months, according to the ultrasound this morning.”

“And you’ve never—?”

“No,”
she cut him off fiercely. “I’ve never cheated on Jared.”

Hugh tipped back in his chair and linked his fingers behind his head. He regarded her for a long time without speaking, then sighed and let the chair’s front legs drop to the floor again. He returned pen to pad. “So you’re saying you’ve only known about the pregnancy for two weeks?”

“I’m saying I’ve only
been
pregnant for two weeks.”

“But you just said—”

“Detective Henderson.” Gray’s hands curled into fists on the table. “Someone came to my apartment two weeks ago, posing as my boyfriend. A week later, I was told I was pregnant. As of this morning, I’m six months along.”

Same story she’d told initially. Just as crazy as it sounded the first time. The woman was either lying or delusional. Hugh’s money was on the latter. He laid pen across paper and folded his hands atop both. “Ms. Gray, you know that’s impossible.”

“Oh, I know it, all right.” Gray’s laugh was short and high-pitched. “But that doesn’t change the fact it happened.”

Christ. Wait’ll his colleagues heard this one. What was it with goddamn weird stories lately? Hugh rubbed a hand over his short-cropped hair. He eyed Gray. “You wouldn’t happen to know a Melanie Chiu, would you?”

“I don’t think so. Should I?”

“No. It was just an idea.” He slid the pad of paper toward the young woman and began the process of extricating himself from the interview. “I think I have everything I need for the moment. If you’ll just write your phone number at the top, I’ll let you know if I have any more questions.”

Gray made no move to accept the proffered pen. “You don’t believe me.”

Hugh had been at this far too many years to beat around the bush. He met her gaze squarely. “No. I don’t. What you’re telling me not only doesn’t make sense, Katherine, it isn’t physically possible. You do understand that, right?”

Tears filled green eyes, overflowed, trickled down Gray’s cheeks. “So you’re not going to do anything?”

“There’s nothing I can do.”

She nodded and swiped at her cheek with the back of one hand. “And that?” She pointed at her belly. “What am I supposed to do with that?”

Hugh hesitated. Liz might kill him for this, but given her recent experience with Melanie Chiu, she was the best person he could think of to help Gray. And in his opinion, the woman definitely needed help. Taking back the pad of paper, he ripped off a sheet and jotted down Liz’s office number. “This is the number for a doctor who might be able to help you.”

“It’s too late for an abortion. I tried to get one as soon as I found out, but they said I was already too far along. After one week.”

Hugh handed the paper to Gray. “Elizabeth Riley isn’t that kind of doctor. She’s a psychiatrist. It might help for you to talk to her.”

Gray stared at the paper in her hand. Then, crumpling it, she dropped it on the table and pushed to her feet. Without another word, she walked out the door.

“W
HAT DO YOU
mean he’s alive?” The One stared at Verchiel. “He can’t be. I am the Creator. I would have felt the presence of my own son.”

Verchiel tightened her fingers on the sheet of paper she held. “I don’t know what to tell you except the man the Guardians have reported matches Seth’s description.” Verchiel glanced at the notes she’d hastily scribbled as details had filtered in. “He is in a place the mortals call Vancouver, British Columbia. In a hospital.”

The barest flicker of something touched the One’s countenance, gone before Verchiel could put a name to it. “Is he injured?” the One asked.

“Not physically.”

“Explain.”

“The man in question has no soul. At least, not a complete one. There is still something there, but it is too badly damaged for identification. And he has no memory of who he is. It is for that reason the mortals hold him.”

Only a subtle shift in the air around the One gave evidence she had heard. Long seconds ticked by.

“What about powers?” she asked at last, her voice neutral but carrying an underlying thread of something that sent a shiver down Verchiel’s spine.

“We’re not sure, but—” The One stayed silent and Verchiel mustered her courage, forcing herself to speak the unthinkable. “He seems to have abilities beyond those of a mortal.”

The air around the One pulsed again and her lips drew tight. “My son is loose in the mortal realm as an adult, with his powers intact and no memory of who he is or what he is to do,” she clarified.

“We aren’t certain—” Verchiel began, but a single raised eyebrow stopped her. She swallowed. “Yes, One. We believe so.”

The One turned away and Verchiel stared at a back gone rigid with thoughts and emotions she couldn’t begin to guess at. How did a mother deal with the knowledge her son lived but, for the good of the universe, would be better off dead?

“Damnation!” the One whispered, her voice laced with equal parts fury and pain.

That was how.

Verchiel closed her eyes. It made her heart ache, but the One was right: it would have been infinitely better for all if Seth had been killed outright. Far from being a good thing, the Appointed’s survival held serious consequences. Potentially catastrophic ones, because the agreement contained no fine print stating Seth had to arrive among humanity in infant form. No clause regarding what age or condition he was to be in when he made his choice. Nothing that nullified the contract due to Heavenly treason.

Despite Mittron’s attempt to alter Seth’s existence, the
Appointed was still very much immortal. Very much the son of Lucifer and the One. And very much involved in the agreement between them. Except, instead of transitioning as an infant with years to absorb all that the One treasured and Lucifer despised in mortals, instead of growing into the role for which he’d been destined, Seth was an adult with divine powers, a damaged soul, and no memory. Heaven’s last chance at peace could, through a single decision, hand over the entire world to Lucifer.

Could decimate humanity without even knowing he’d done so.

As awful as the specter of impending war had been, the consequences of Seth’s continued survival were far, far worse.

“Find out.”

Verchiel jumped at the abrupt command. “Pardon?”

“Find out if it’s him.”

“And if it is?”

The One’s face became tight, drawn. “Just find out.”

Verchiel swallowed. “Of course.”

“Does anyone else know about this?”

“No. The Guardians reported directly to me and I have spoken to no one but you.”

“See it remains that way.”

Inclining her head, Verchiel opened the door to leave. She was halfway out when the One’s voice stopped her.

“There is one more thing.”

Verchiel looked over her shoulder, her gaze settling on the One’s hands, clasped behind the Creator. No, not clasped. Clutched. Tightly. Verchiel’s pulse skipped a beat. She stepped back inside.

The One’s silver stare met hers. “I need you to find Mika’el,” she said. “Quietly.”

M
ichael Dominic looked up as his young patient tapped him on the shoulder. Following Joseph’s dark, solemn gaze, he glanced toward the tent opening and the figure silhouetted against the afternoon glare.

The winged figure.