Balance (The Divine, Book One) (28 page)

I
reached into my pocket and took out the remaining cash. I had sixty dollars
left. “I don’t think this will cover it,” I said.

“All
my funds were cut off,” Rebecca said. We both looked at Obi.

“Fine,”
he said after thirty seconds of being stared down. “I’ll put it on my card, but
you owe me.”

“Thanks
Obi,” I said. “So Plan A is for me to try to short the system somehow. I
haven’t tried to control electricity yet, so that scares me. I don’t want to
end up frying myself or either one of you.” I looked at Obi. “Especially you,
Rebecca will heal.”

“I’d
rather not,” Rebecca said. “We don’t recover very quickly from burns, and
pardon the bad pun, but it hurts like Hell.”

“Right.
Plan B is for Obi to hack the software to disable the lock. I won’t spend a lot
of time on Plan A, so be lets be ready for B as soon as we get in. Also, if we
end up in a fight, Plan A is out the window because I’ll be busy covering you.
We’ll do our best to go in and out through the main entrance. I’ll try to keep
us disguised, but if we end up in a scrape we’ll exit through the emergency
hatch. Even if they follow we can defend ourselves better in the smaller space.
If you don’t like the plan, speak up now.” I waited a minute for either of them
to object. They didn’t. “Okay, we’ll hit up an electronics shop first for the
laptop and any other equipment, then we’ll head straight over. Saddle up, move
out, game on.”

I put
my hand out over the table. Obi didn’t hesitate to throw his hand in, but
Rebecca was confused by the gesture.

“Just
put your hand in,” Obi told her, laughing. She did.

“Break
on three,” I said. “One... Two... Three...”

“Break,”
Obi and I shouted. Rebecca didn’t know what to do, but she found it amusing all
the same. It was corny, but better to go in loose.

“You
guys ready?” I asked.

We
were standing on the corner opposite the apartment building, after having
visited a nearby pawnshop to pick up the tools we needed for Obi to hack the
lock. An older laptop, a lock pick set, a magnetic screwdriver and a bunch of
bits, a circuit board, and some wires that I didn’t recognize but Obi claimed would
do the job.

Rebecca
had brought two of the angels’ swords with her, and I was carrying the other
one - Boot’s sword. When I had taken a closer look at it I had found it was
different than the others. It was a little bit shorter and lighter, and had a
few extra characters engraved into it. I didn’t know what they meant or if they
gave it any special powers, but I figured the size difference might make it
easier for me to stab something that wasn’t myself.

“I’m
ready,” Rebecca said.

She
had created a makeshift sling out of a few belts she had picked out at the
pawnshop to hold the blades over her back. I could imagine what the clerk would
have thought if he had been able to see her true nature. A pale, raven haired,
ice-blue eyed, glittering vampire-slash-succubus beauty in paramilitary garb
toting two super badass looking samurai swords. Instead, he had seen a
girl-next-door type with a pair of golf clubs that she was looking to pawn. The
clerk had offered her ten bucks; she had refused.

I
looked at Obi, who gave me the thumbs up. He had traded in the messenger bag
for a backpack, and was wearing the Desert Eagle tucked into the back of his
pants, hidden by his shirt.

“Okay,
once we get a visual we’ll move in,” I said.

Obi
had the idea to wait for three people to leave the building, and then go in
disguised as them. It was a great idea, but I wasn’t sure I could pull it off.
A couple was the first to exit, two Turned humans dressed in their finery,
headed off to some other well-to-do event elsewhere in the city. I paid close
attention to them from a distance as they walked down the street. I didn’t need
to get every detail right, but the closer the better.

A
third
Turned
male exited the building a couple of
minutes later. I took a deep breath and focused; changing reality around us so
that we took on the visage of the three people I had seen. It was a little
troubling that they had all been evil, but I guess it made sense that Merov
would keep his allies close at hand.

“You
two go in first as the couple,” I said. “I’ll be right behind you.”

Obi
and Rebecca started forward, crossing the street and walking towards the
building. I started half a minute later, keeping the same pace so we wouldn’t
look like we were together. I bit back a smile when they made it in past the
doorman without a second glance. I wasn’t so lucky.

“Mr.
Taylor,” the doorman said as I approached. “Back so soon?”

“Yeah,”
I replied. “I forgot my wallet.” I patted my pocket for emphasis.

“Have
a good evening sir.”

I
didn’t answer him. I doubted a Turned would be that polite. I caught up to Obi
and Rebecca in the lobby near the elevators. We had made it into the building,
now we just had to ascend. I motioned to the stairwell off to the right. I
would go in first, and they would follow one at a time over the next three
minutes.

Getting
to the stairs unseen proved to be a simple task, and we were formed up together
six minutes later.

“Now
comes the hard part,” Obi said as we started to climb. Rebecca had offered to
carry his pack for him, an offer which he had impolitely refused while she
laughed.

 I
took us almost half an hour to reach the fiftieth floor. As expected, the door
into the penthouse was both locked and alarmed.

“Just
give me a minute,” Obi said, opening his pack and digging out the lock pick set
and a magnet. “I’ll unlock the door, then use this magnet to loop the signal
back on itself so the alarm doesn’t know it should be going off.” A minute
later, he was done, and we were in.

“You’re
my own personal MacGyver,” I said.

We
slipped through the quieted doorway and into Merov’s penthouse. We were in the
kitchen, a large commercial grade menagerie of stainless steel and tile. I
didn’t want to imagine what kind of meat had passed through this room, or how
it had been prepared. Drained and discarded was my best-case scenario, but the
Fresh Fleshette had proven it wasn’t as simple as all that. We were in luck.
The place was deserted.

I
recalled the schematics in my mind. The kitchen led out into the main service
area, where there would be a big freezer, storage closet, and a couple of other
rooms that hadn’t been labeled. I focused on my senses, but I didn’t pick
anything up. As near as I could tell, the entire apartment was deserted. I
hadn’t sensed those angels either. Were they able to disguise themselves, or
was it just the distance that had messed with my head? I wasn’t about to take
chances.

We
moved out of the kitchen and into the main service hallway. The entrance to the
penthouse proper was thirty feet forward, with a freezer and three more doors
symmetrically placed on either side. I heard the crying as we neared the end of
the hallway.

“Do
you hear that?” I asked Rebecca.

The
sobs were barely audible even in the silence, and seemed to be coming from the
last door on the left. Rebecca cocked her head to the side and listened.

“Yes,”
she said after a few seconds. “Stay focused on our task.” She didn’t need me to
say anything to know I would look to help whomever was in there.

I put
my ear up against the door. Someone in there was crying, most likely another
victim, waiting to be consumed. My actions the other night had killed the women
Merov had put out as hors devours, I wasn’t about to let another one die to
this asshole.

“We
get her out before we leave,” I whispered. There was nothing in my expression
or tone that left it open to argument.

The
doors to the service hallway were actually a hidden part of the wall that slid
outward from the center so as not to obstruct the space. We were fortunate that
they were well maintained and didn’t make a sound when we opened them. Or maybe
we weren’t so fortunate. The scene behind the door wasn’t worth the price of
admission.

It
looked as though the entire apartment had been abandoned since the party. The
blood fountain still sat in the center of the main open area, though there was
no blood remaining in it. The band’s instruments were resting at the top of the
landing. Even what was left of the ‘Happy Birthday’ banner remained hanging
above the living room. What caught my attention though were the beds, stained
with the blood of the victims that I had killed, and the windows.

The
huge windows that I had brought in on the party had been repaired. They looked
like stained glass, with the millions of shards haphazardly mashed together in
no discernible pattern, held together by dried blood, bones, and skin. It was a
gruesome paste of death, conceived to restore the mirrored glass and prevent
the sunlight from piercing the penthouse. The sight made it hard to think, and
the smell made it hard to stay upright. It was impossible for Obi, and he
doubled over, fighting to keep himself from vomiting.

I was
about to step into the room, eager to get this over with and get out of this
freakish nightmare, when Rebecca grabbed my arm and pointed up at the stairway
leading to the landing. I followed her arm until it led me to a stone figure, a
four-foot tall gargoyle. There were six of them on each side of the landing.

“Real?”
I asked her. She nodded. “I thought gargoyles were good? They’re on a lot of
churches.”

“A
trick,” Rebecca said. “Church architects used to put them there to fool demons
into thinking they already had the building covered. They can’t be sensed
unless they’re animated. I didn’t think Merov had access to them. Gargoyles are
incredibly hard to control.”

“Not
Merov then,” I said. “Does anyone else have a bad feeling about this?”

“A
trap?” Rebecca asked.

“Maybe;
or maybe an educated guess. Let’s just try to be quiet.”

Of
course Obi chose that moment to lose the battle against his delicate
sensibilities, and the contents of his stomach came spilling out onto the
floor. I don’t know if it was the noise or the smell, but twenty-four small
yellow eyes snapped open at once, and twelve monstrous heads turned our way.

“Crap,”
Obi said, seeing the fruits of his labor. He reached behind his back to grab
the Eagle.

“Don’t,”
Rebecca hissed at him. She unslung her blades. “Gargoyles are immune to silver,
and the bullets will just bounce off them anyway.”

Obi
sighed. “What should I do then, make myself look really big?”

I
motioned towards the living area. “Head that way, make a right at the first
hallway. Down to the end on the left, start working on the door. Go!”

Obi
broke into a run. The gargoyles were unballing themselves and stretching, their
hard grey skin cracking as they shifted. With a soft hiss, the lead gargoyle
launched into the air and unfurled its wings. It made a beeline straight for
Obi while the rest of the demons headed our way.

“Anything
they aren’t immune to?” I asked Rebecca. I had to keep them away from Obi, so I
didn’t wait for her to answer before chasing after the ex-Marine.

“You’re
carrying it,” she shouted. I turned my head to look at her while she set
herself for the onslaught. Carrying it? I had forgotten about Boots’ sword. It
figured they were going to make me use it.

Rebecca
had made me a sling also, and I stumbled when I reached back to retrieve the
blade. The lead gargoyle had flown upward in order to come down on Obi from a
higher angle. I launched myself forward, desperate to reach him before it did.

The
demon swooped, not a single note of sound escaping from it as it dove down.

“Obi,”
I screamed, diving towards him with my shoulder forward.

I hit
him hard, sending him sprawling, but saving him from the gargoyle that slammed
off-center into my back instead. The force and momentum pushed me to ground,
and sent the gargoyle caroming off into the wall. We both recovered while Obi
regained his senses and resumed his run for the office.

I
crouched down and held the sword out in front of me. The gargoyle climbed back
to its clawed feet. Outstretched, it was eight feet of rippling muscle. It
mimicked my crouch, cautious in its approach.

I
used the opportunity to glance over at Rebecca. She had her back against the
wall, and was squaring off against three of the demons. Her fangs were bared
and elongated, her eyes clouded over to their lifeless black. I checked on the
other gargoyles. They were headed this way.

The first
gargoyle got tired of waiting on me and lunged. I dodged its swipe, and then
danced out of the way of a second blow. One more swing and miss, and I flicked
the blessed sword up and under its chin, feeling almost no resistance from the
blade opening a long cut in its neck. The creature howled in pain and backed
away, replaced by the reinforcements. I looked down the room for Obi, but he
had at least managed to get out of the action and with any luck was in the
process of disarming the door.