Kristina Douglas - The Fallen 1 - Raziel (32 page)

It was November, and I thought that probably I had never liked November. The trees were bare, the wind was biting, and the darkness closed around the city like a shroud. And someone was watching me.

I didn’t know how long he’d been there—it had taken me awhile to realize he was back again. I’d never gotten much of a look at him—

he kept to the shadows, a tal , narrow figure of undeniable menace. I had no wish to see him any better.

I was very careful. I didn’t go out alone after dark, I kept away from secluded places, I was always on my guard. I had never mentioned him to my friends, even Julie. I told myself I didn’t want them to worry.

But I didn’t go to the police either, and it was their job
to
worry.

I spun any number of possibilities out of the big gray blank that was my memory. Maybe he was my abusive husband, watching me, and I’d run away from him, the trauma of his brutality wiping my mind clean.

Maybe I had been in the witness protection program and I’d gone through some kind of horror, and the mob was after me.

But it didn’t explain why he hadn’t come any closer. No matter how careful I was, if someone wanted to hurt me, to kil me, there was probably no way to stop them, short of . . . wel , there probably
was
no way to stop them. So my watcher presumably didn’t want me dead.

I was working late on a cold, rainy Thursday, trying to get a bunch of obituaries formatted. Yup, doing obituaries late at night was not my favorite thing, but with the Courier on its last legs we al put in overtime whenever asked and worked on anything that was needed, though I drew the line at sports. I was ostensibly the Home and Health editor,
editor
being a glorious term for the only reporter on the beat, but I general y enjoyed my work. With obituaries, not so much. It was always the babies that got to me. Stil births, crib deaths, miscarriages. They made me feel like crying, though oddly enough I never cried. If I could, I would weep for those babies, for days and weeks and years.

I didn’t bother to wonder whether I’d lost a child myself. Instinct told me I hadn’t, and besides, grieving for lost babies was a logical, human reaction. Who wouldn’t feel sorrow at the loss of a brand-new life?

The wind had picked up, howling through the city and shaking the sealed windows of the new building the Courier had unwisely built less than five years ago. I logged off my computer, finished for the night. I glanced at the clock—it was after ten, and the office was deserted. My car was in the parking garage; there had to be someone there. And I could have my keys out, make a dash for my reliable old Subaru and lock myself in if anything loomed up out of the darkness.

I could always cal Julie and see if her husband could come and escort me home. While I hadn’t told them about my watcher, I had explained to them that I was extremely skittish about personal safety, and Bob had come to the rescue on a number of occasions. But they had a brand-new baby, and I didn’t want to bother them. I’d be fine.

I grabbed my coat, heading for the elevator, when the phone at my desk rang. I hesitated, then ignored it. Whoever it was, whatever they wanted, I was too tired to provide it. Al I wanted was to get home through this blasted wind and curl up in my nice warm bed.

The elevator was taking its own sweet time considering the entire building was practical y deserted. My desk phone stopped ringing and my cel phone started. I cursed, reaching into my pocket and flipping it open just as the elevator arrived.

It was Julie, sounding panicked. “Rachel, I need you,” she said in a tear-fil ed voice.

Something bad had happened, and my stomach knotted. “What’s wrong?” And like a fool, I stepped into the elevator.

“It’s the baby. She’s . . .”

The door closed, the elevator began to descend, and I lost the signal.

“Shit,” I said very loudly. We were on the twenty-second floor, and I’d pushed the button for the second level of parking, but I quickly hit a lower level floor to stop the descent. The doors slid open onto the dark and empty eighth floor and I jumped out. I pushed the cal -back button as the doors slid closed, abandoning me in the darkness, and a shiver ran over me, one I tried to ignore. I had nerves of steel, but I was never foolhardy and there was no reason to feel uneasy. I’d been in this building alone on numerous occasions.

But I’d never felt so odd before.

Julie answered the phone on the first ring.

“Where did you go?” she said, her voice frantic and accusing.

“Lost the signal,” I said. “What’s wrong with the baby?”

“I’m at the hospital. She couldn’t breathe, and I cal ed an ambulance. They’ve got her in the emergency room and they kicked me out, and I need you here for moral support. I’m terrified, Rachel!”

Her voice was thick with tears.

“Where’s Bob?” I said, trying to be practical.

“With me. You know how helpless men are. He just paces and looks grim, and I need someone to give me encouragement. I need my best friend. I need you. How soon can you make it?”

Odd how we became such good friends in so short a time. It felt like an enduring bond, not an office friendship, almost as if I’d known her in another life. But she had no clues about my past any more than I did. “Which hospital?”

“St. Uriel’s. We’re in the emergency waiting room. Come now, Rachel!
Please
!”

St. Uriel’s
, I thought.
That’s wrong, isn’t it? Was Uriel a saint?
But I made soothing noises, anyway. “I’l be right there,” I said. And knew I had lied.

I mental y reviewed the contents of my desk. Nothing much—a copy of
House & Garden
, the latest Laurel K. Hamilton book, and the Bible, which was admittedly weird. I didn’t understand why I had it—maybe I’d been part of some fundamentalist cult before I’d run away. God knows. I only knew I needed to have a Bible with me.

I would find another, as soon as I checked into a hotel. There was no need to go back. I traveled light, and left as little impression behind as I could. They’d find no clues about me if they searched my desk. Particularly since I had no clues about myself.

My apartment was only slightly less secure. There were no letters, no signs of a personal life at al . I had a number of cheap pre-Raphaelite prints on the wal , plus a framed poster of a fog-shrouded section of the Northwest Coast that spoke to me. It was large, and I hated to leave it behind, but I needed to move fast. I’d have to ditch the car in the next day or two, buy another. It would take Julie that long to realize I’d gone missing. She’d be too busy hovering over baby Amanda, watching each struggling breath with anxious eyes.

But Amanda wouldn’t smother. She’d start to get better, as would any other newborns with mysterious flu-like symptoms, and soon the hospital would be ful of them. Al I had to do was get far enough away and they’d recover. I knew it instinctively, though I didn’t know why.

I pushed the elevator button, then paced the darkened hal way, restless. Nothing happened, and I pushed it again, repeatedly, then pressed my ear to the door, listening for some sign that the cars were moving. Nothing but silence.

“Shit,” I said again. There was no help for it; I’d have to take the stairs.

I didn’t stop to think about it. The time had come to leave, as it always did, and thinking did no good. I had no idea why I knew these things, why I had to run. I only knew that I did.

It wasn’t until the door to the stairs closed behind me that I remembered my watcher, and for a moment I freaked, grabbing the door handle. It was already locked, of course. I had no choice. If I was going to get out of town in time, I had to keep moving.

In time for what? I had no clear idea. But baby Amanda wouldn’t survive for long if I didn’t move it.

I tripped and went sprawling, slamming my shin against the railing. I struggled to my feet, and froze. Someone was in the stairwel with me. I sensed him, closer than he’d ever been before, and there was nothing, no one between him and me. No buffer, no safety. Time was running out.

I had no weapon. I was an idiot—you could carry concealed weapons in this state, and a real y smal gun could blow a real y big hole in whoever was fol owing me. Or a knife, something sharp. Hel , didn’t I hear you could jab your keys into an attacker’s eyes?

I didn’t know whether he was above me or below me, but I had no choice. The only doors that opened from the stairwel were the ones on the parking level. If I went up, I’d be trapped.

I had no choice but to keep going. I started down the next flight, moving as quietly as I could, listening for any matching footsteps.

There were none. Whoever he was, he made no sound.

Maybe he was a figment of my paranoid imagination. I had no concrete reasons to do the things I did, I acted on instinct alone. I could be crazy as a bedbug, imagining al this power. Why in the world should smal , insignificant Rachel Fitzpatrick have anything to do with the wel -being of a baby? Of a number of babies? Why did I have to keep changing my name, changing who I was? If someone was fol owing me, why hadn’t he caught up yet?

What would happen if I simply drove back home and stayed there? Joined Julie at the hospital?

Amanda would die.

I had no choice. I had to run.

AZAZEL MOVED DOWN THE STAIRS
after the demon, silent, scarcely breathing. He could sense its panic, and he knew it was going to run again. He had taken longer to find it this time; it must be getting better at coming up with new identities. If the demon vanished this time it might take too long to track it down.

It was time to take it. He had no idea why he’d hesitated, why he’d watched it without doing anything. His hatred for the creature was so powerful it would have frightened him, if he was capable of feeling fear. He was incapable of feeling anything but his hatred for the monster. That was what had stayed his hand. Once he kil ed it, he would feel nothing at al .

He had no idea how easy the demon would be to kil . It looked like a normal female, but he felt its seductive power even from a distance. It didn’t need any of the obvious feminine wiles to lure him.

It didn’t wear makeup, didn’t dress in revealing clothes. It tended to dress in dark-colored, loose-fitting T-shirts and baggy pants. There was nothing to make a man think of sex, and yet every time he looked at her—at it—he thought about lust. It wouldn’t do to underestimate her power.

It.
Part of the demon’s power was to make him forget that it was nothing but a thing, not the vulnerable female it appeared to be. It was so easy to slip, to think of it as a woman. A woman he would have to kil . Maybe it had been once, but not anymore.

He could catch her in the parking garage, break her neck, and then fly up into the sun til her body burned in his arms. He could bury her deep beneath the earth in the bel y of a volcano. Somehow he thought he would need fire to eradicate her completely, her and her evil powers. Only when she was dead would the threat dissolve.

The threat to newborn babies. The threat to vulnerable men who dreamed of sex and found only a demon possessing them.

And the threat to him. Most of al he hated her for the connection that was to come, with him of al people. And the only way to make certain that never happened was to destroy her.

He was standing in the corner of the stairwel on the bottom floor, watching her. He’d pul ed his wings around him, disappearing, and though she searched her surroundings, she saw nothing, and moved on.

More proof of her power, the power she was trying so hard to disguise. No one else sensed him when he cloaked himself. But she did. Her awareness was as acute as his. And he hated it.

Tonight, he told himself. Tonight he would kil her. Whether he’d present proof to Uriel was undecided. He might simply leave him unknowing. He could final y return to Sheol, take the reins back from Raziel if he must. And see Raziel’s bonded mate in Sarah’s place.

No, he wasn’t ready. Surely there must be something else he had to do before he returned.

She’d escaped into the garage and he fol owed her, the door closing silently behind him. The place was brightly lit, but there were only a handful of cars stil there. She was already halfway to her dark red Subaru.

He knew then where he could take her. As far away as humanly possible from this place. To the other side of the world, one of the only places where the scourge known as the Nephilim stil thrived.

What better place for a demon?

He waved his hands, and the parking garage plunged into darkness, every light extinguished. He could feel her sudden panic, which surprised him. He wouldn’t have thought demons would feel fear. She started running, but her car was parked midway down, and he spread his wings and took her.

I SCREAMED, BUT MY VOICE
was lost in the folds that covered me. I couldn’t see, couldn’t hear, could barely move. I was so disoriented and dizzy that I felt sick. I could feel the ground give way beneath my feet, and I was fal ing, fal ing . . .

Something tight bound me, but I couldn’t sense what. It felt like irons bands around my arms, holding me stil , and my face was crushed against something hard. I breathed in, and oddly enough I could smel skin—warm, vibrant, indefinably male skin. Impossible. I smel ed the ocean as wel , and we were at least a thousand miles away from any salt water.

I squirmed, and the bands tightened, and I couldn’t breathe. My chest was crushed against whatever thing had done this, and I was helpless, weightless, cocooned by the monster that had grabbed me. I tried to move once more, but the pain was blinding. It was as if my heart was being crushed, I thought, as consciousness faded and I fel into a merciful dark hole.