Soul Stealer (37 page)

Claudia had no idea who Raphael was, but everyone else relaxed at that. When Damien returned he was followed by an incredibly handsome man with long, wavy golden-brown hair and incredible blue eyes. She was looking around the room, wondering why she was even included in the Abercrombie and Fitch photo shoot.

The new man, Raphael, cast his baby blues on her, and his smile was slow. “Well, I guess it’s finally begun.”

Claudia felt completely vulnerable under that look for some reason, as though this guy knew a little too much about her. And she knew she’d never seen him before.

The man sat on the sofa next to the gorgeous blonde woman, and she put her hand on his shoulder to rub it in a reassuring way.

The scarred man cleared his throat, getting everyone’s attention. “Remember, Praesul can’t take one of us out. If he does he’s going to be a hell of a lot harder to kill. That’s why Voro, Claudia and Saleem are here. We’re the first wave, they’re the second line of defense. If he’s complete he won’t take their souls – he’ll be forced to take them with combat.”

Her soul? She didn’t like the sound of that. That sounded worse than death, didn’t it?

“It must be steel or a heavenly object, and it must pierce his heart or severe his head. Anything else is just going to piss him off.”

Claudia examined the knife in her hand one more time, trying to recall why it looked familiar.  Something came to her then, the blade as it cut through pale skin, spilling dark red down the handle and to her wrist then down her arm. Still warm, still a living thing.

Her breath caught in her throat; she could almost smell the blood, so close to the smell of metal itself. Her heart raced as though the thrill of killing was upon her; adrenaline jacking her pulse and attention span to the point of almost manic.

She knew this knife. She remembered it now. It was from her bloody dream, the one where she was a cold and efficient merchant of death, slaying those who would oppose her and open the door for unimaginable evil.

She looked to Saleem to find that he was studying her, too. “What is it?” She asked softly, knowing there was no way the others wouldn’t hear her.

“What are you thinking about?”

She looked back down, catching the light glinting off the metal right in her eye. “I know this knife. It’s like I’ve used it before.” She looked back to him in time to see him gulp. “Do you recognize it?”

“I know it from my nightmares,” he muttered, making her skin go cold. “We’re freeing enslaved people. We’re killing those who defend this man, this evil being. We slaughter them all.”

She nodded. “I’m there, too. On a hillside. With grass and rock. There are bodies everywhere.”

“It makes me want to kill something.”

Claudia swallowed this time. “Me too.”

Chapter Thirty-Five

Iola had developed a headache at work that worsened as the night went on. The news reporter calling from the field to tell her about an “incident” at the hospital didn’t help. She couldn’t get ahold of Vinnie, and when she tried him at her apartment, where he’d just called from, she only got static. Her machine didn’t even kick in.

Vinnie said he was in trouble. He had to be at the hospital. If he wasn’t even answering his cell that was the only place he could be.

She voice tracked ahead and left around midnight, taking a cab, and as they drew close to the hospital the addition of police lights to the flashing ambulance lights shouldn’t have been a surprise but it still was. She paid the driver, thanked him, then made her way through the general admission doors. The woman at the information desk recognized her, began to smile, then stopped and stared just at her wordlessly.

Iola frowned. “Connie? What’s going on? Why are the police here?”

The woman’s mouth opened and closed again. Then her eyes welled up a bit. “Oh, Iola. I’m sorry. I don’t know how to say this.”

A little flutter of worry tossed her stomach, but she just tilted her head. “What’s happened? Where’s Vinnie?”

“We – we don’t know.”

“What?”

“We can’t find him. There was an incident in the psych ward and he left.”

“Why? Why would he do that?”

Connie shook her head. “Charles Goodwin’s dead. And someone killed two orderlies. They got out through the courtyard. The police are going over surveillance tapes right now. He was in that area of the hospital and now he’s gone. That is, they haven’t found a …”

A body. She didn’t have to say it.

“What - what do I do?”

The woman raised her eyebrows. “The police know more than I do. We could find one of them to talk to.”

Iola nodded, somewhat struck mute. Her headache was regressing to being more painful again, but she let Connie lead her to another room off the main corridor connecting the ER to the hospital itself. The door read Security, and it was propped open to allow a mass of navy-blue uniformed bodies access to its limited confines.

Connie asked one uniformed woman who was in charge, and she pointed to a man staring at a bank of TV screens on a low desk. “This is Iola,” Connie said to the cop. “She’s Doctor Aubericus’ girlfriend.”

The man cast his brown eyes her way and Iola nodded in greeting. “I just got here. I have no idea what’s going on.”

He waved her over and she eased into the group of people who all seemed so much larger than she was.  They allowed her room but she still felt confined, or maybe it was just her worry about Vinnie.

The man pointed to the screens. “Do you recognize any of these people?”

Iola looked where she was bidden, frowning at the hazy black and white images as the security tape was started again. Men walked out of a room in a hospital corridor she wasn’t very familiar with, but she recognized the floor to ceiling windows that surrounded nearly the entire garden. One man had a bald head, and a prickle of recognition ran up her spine but she couldn’t place where she knew him from. The man with him was shielded by a black hoodie.

When Vinnie’s image came on to the screen she couldn’t look at anything else. Her worry was going wide-spread, and her heart sped up. “That’s Vinnie,” she said, which of course they knew.

“What about these men?”

Her eyes followed his finger, and then Iola really had a moment. “Patrice, she’s a nurse here. And that’s Ralph – we just had them over for supper.”

“Who’s Ralph?”

“He has amnesia. He doesn’t even know who he is.”

“What about these people?”

Another cluster of tall forms came in to view, looking like a supermodel invasion of the latest Black Ops couture. But in the midst of those beautiful people was a tall man with dark, striking features and gorgeous shoulder-length dark hair, falling in careless waves …

“What the hell is he doing here?” she whispered, too stunned to move.

“Who?”

“Damien Talon. He’s supposed to be dead.”

Claudia’s apartment buzzer was not eliciting a response. Trevor Vance hit it one more time, knowing it was useless. He sighed and turned back to Nailor, shrugging. “Fuck. I have no idea where she is.”

Nailor looked up at the face of the building, then approached the panel inset in the brick façade. He jabbed a random button, leaning down when the ringing phone sound from the speaker cut off. “H-Hello?”

“Ma’am? This is Detective Gregory Nailor. I’m trying to get a hold of Sergeant Bauer on the third floor. I’m worried she might be in distress. Would you mind opening the -”

The door was unlocked with a weird squealing sound.  Nailor grabbed it, offering Vance a smile. Trevor just shook his head.

“What?” Nailor asked, feigning ignorance. “We’re worried about her, aren’t we?”

They climbed the two flights to Claudia’s floor, opened the fire doors and entered the corridor. Right away Vance stopped, the hair on his arms standing straight up.

“What the hell,” Nailor muttered, and Vance was relieved it wasn’t just him. “Someone just walked over my grave.”

Not quite. To Vance this felt like electricity, not bad
juju
.

“She’s the last one on the left,” he said, leading the way. He knew she wasn’t there, but he also knew Nailor was willing to break in and make sure everything inside was copacetic. He rapped on the heavy door with his knuckle, surveying the door itself. No damage to door or frame; that was a good sign.

“She ain’t here,” Nailor finally said around a yawn, turning to walk back down the hallway to the doors. Reluctantly, Vance decided to follow as the door across the hall opened to Vance’s right. A man peered out into the hall that looked incredibly familiar, but Vance couldn’t place him right away. The guy had purple eyes. How many people could he have known in his life that had purple eyes?

The man was staring at him, too. It made Vance stop in his tracks. Quite suddenly the energy of the hallway shifted, intensified. Vance was having a hell of a time breathing.

“Vance? You okay?” That from Nailor, who had turned in concern.

He was lost in purple eyes. He knew this guy, he’d seen him before. He’d seen him in this building before, in Claudia’s apartment. He was good with names; why the fuck wasn’t the name coming to him?

“Damien Talon?” He finally said, trying to trace his memories as they fought through his neural sludge to be understood. “Wait – you’re … I thought you died?”

Flashback, sharp as a flash of lightening. This man at Claudia’s the night Charles Goodwin broke into her apartment and attacked her. He’d helped her. This same man, flat on his back in Jasper McKay’s apartment just that past spring, a gunshot wound taking the back half of his skull off and splattering it messily across some fairly nice kitchen cabinets. Dead as a fucking door nail.

Vance had the insane urge to pinch himself. This couldn’t be happening.

“Constable,” the man said pleasantly enough. “Is everything okay?”

Vance shook his head. “You - you’re supposed to be dead.”

The man broke in to an easy smile. “I’m sorry, clearly you have me confused with someone else.”

“I saw your body. I watched them take you to the morgue. Your eyes are a little out of the ordinary, Mr. Talon.”

“Look, you’re confusing me with someone else -”

The man made to move into the hallway, which Nailor took offense to. “Hey hey – back it up inside there, buddy.  Hands where I can see them.” Nailor’s right hand was held out, palms outward, but his left was reaching to his back.

“Please, officers, there’s no reason to get suspicious. I was worried about the
neighbor, heard someone knock out here.”

Nailor was nodding, and his posture changed when Vance knew he had the grip of his sidearm in its place; against his palm. “How do you know the Sergeant?”

The man gave another manly smile. “Claudia and I know each other socially.”

Vance didn’t buy it. Sure he’d been there when Claudia had gotten the cuffs on Goodwin but even if he had somehow charmed his way in to Claudia’s bed it didn’t explain why the fucker was suddenly very not dead.

“Do you have any ID?” Vance asked, crossing his arms, showing he wasn’t going for a gun.

“Sorry, no. I’m visiting here.”

“Name then,” Nailor snapped.

“Timothy Graham,” he said after a moment.

Bullshit.

But there was nothing they could do. They had suspicion of him being dead. Clearly it wasn’t the case. They could lose their jobs and sign themselves up for some head-shrinking in the process.

“We should go,” Vance said levelly, watching Nailor’s face. He hadn’t seen anyone that focused on anything. “Nailor,” Vance snapped sharply, not giving a damn about rank at that moment.

Nailor’s reverie broke, and his eyes flickered back to Vance as his hands relaxed, even the one that had been going for the gun. He nodded to Vance to show that he was okay, he was cool.

“Sorry to have bothered you,” Vance said in his best friendly-cop tone.

Those purple eyes swung to him again, and Vance met their gaze with ease this time. The energy in the hallway was forgotten, all he felt was warmth. Well-being.

He felt great.

He frowned and looked at Nailor, who was heading for the fire doors. Vance made his feet move to follow.

Then everything went to hell.

First the air got cold. The doors blew open at the end of the hall, causing Nailor to throw his arms up to protect himself. Vance himself ducked.

A wind rushed through the hall with alarming intensity, and the air itself was freezing. His feeling of happy-happy was so gone.  He curled up not only to stop the cold from biting through, but also to hide from what was coming. He didn’t know what it was; every nerve was highly tuned and screaming at him to get away, but the only exit was blocked.

His blood was cold, his teeth were chattering, and he was convinced he might be close to pissing his pants. He wanted to leave. He wanted to go home and hide under the bed for a month. He wanted his mom.

Vance was so terrified it took a full minute to realize he was shrieking with tears running down his face, soaking the arms of his uniform.

The noise in the hallway was negligible to Raphael where he sat. He knew that the issues at hand were all big-hep important. He should be paying attention. But his heart was broken and he felt like if Praesul were in front of him he’d pummel him bloody with his own hands, just for exposing him to this kind of anguish in the first place.

If not for Praesul, he never would have been open to having Patrice hate him.

Voro was talking to someone in the hall, but he was numb. He watched Jehoel and Douma pace. He noticed the human woman, Claudia, and found himself delighted that the
jinn
had been reappointed. Even the doctor who didn’t know or understand exactly how well he belonged didn’t seem nervous.

The angels knew the moment Praesul was close, as did Claudia and the man named Saleem. They looked upward in unison, and Raphael felt his hackles rise. Evil was coming, and he was getting more and more juiced.

He noted the knives in the human’s hands and had to smile, examining the male with new interest. Raphael had been terribly curious about who might be the one to awaken their purpose and set events in motion. The man was impressive in size and really handsome. It must be driving Voro crazy –

Praesul made his presence known with a violent shove right against the building. The malevolence blew the doors open, shook the walls and floor, and everyone hit the carpet, covering their heads with their arms.

Raphael felt the wind lift, and he raised his head. Claudia and Jehoel were on either side of him. They too were surveying the damage. It had felt like enough to bring the pictures off the walls and blow the glass out of the windows, but everything was set where it had been left.

“He’s here,” Jehoel whispered, reaching for his blade. It looked like a samurai sword, and very well could have been for all Raphael knew.

Raphael felt his panic then. It might have been there for a while but he just became aware of it. “Jehoel, you guys shouldn’t be here. He could -”

“Shh,” Anael hissed, pulling an arrow out of the quiver on her back.

Voro returned to the room, nearly catching Anael’s arrow in his forehead. She brought down her bow just in the nick of time and he looked pretty pissed off.

“Dammit Anael -”

“Shhh!” Jehoel hissed loudly.

Voro froze in spot. “What the hell is that?”

“What?” Raphael asked, icy fingers of fear sliding up his spine.

“You can feel him too?” Jehoel ran over Raphael’s question.

Voro turned then, his face a map of confusion. “Jesus, I can almost taste him.”

“Voro,” Raphael whispered. “Maybe you should get down.”