Sanctuary (16 page)

She sat next to Cole and his keyboard. The music stopped briefly, then Cole continued his piece. “I didn’t know you painted,” Crystal said.

Cole nodded. “My mom taught me when I was a kid.”

She watched his skillful piano playing for several seconds. “You’re pretty good at this, too.”

“My dad taught me. I’ve been hooked since I was little. Music is the only thing I’ve ever really cared about.”

What about me?
Crystal wanted to ask, but she knew better. “Why’d you never try playing for a living?”

“I dunno. It’s difficult to make money with music. It’s a hard life.”

“A lot of things are difficult,” Crystal said.

She watched Cole play for a bit—long enough to learn the structure of the piece he was playing. Then she moved her hands over the higher keys and began playing a harmony, making it up off the top of her head. “But sometimes, the difficulty is worth it.”

Cole smiled, and they played together.

Marcus had spent the last few hours pressed against the outside of the building, listening to whatever he could hear through the windows and air ducts. To think that mere walls and glass could separate him from his prey! That Thorn had managed to survive this long was egregious enough, but the fact that he was actually succeeding at keeping these two humans out of harm’s way enraged Marcus even more. At least now the world’s demons saw Thorn for what he really was: a bumbling coward unfit to lead.

Marcus himself had been amused to see that Thorn was trying to prove himself to the Enemy, to save his own hide by saving His precious humans. What a backwards simpleton. Did he not remember the past? Did he not realize that the battle of the demon’s justice versus the Enemy’s evil still raged to this day?

“Cool it, Marcus,” the Atlanta Judge continued from the other side of the balcony’s sliding glass doors. “I’m not letting you in.”

“You have that Brandon boy’s corpse right there, Judge. It’d be simple for you to open this door, and you have my guarantee that you will not be harmed. On the contrary, consider yourself my guest in this Sanctuary.”

“I don’t think your friends back there feel exactly the same way.” The Judge motioned toward the demon army drifting outside, with which Marcus had only just made a tentative truce. He’d agreed to return the territory he’d captured in Central Africa if they’d just let him kill Thorn.

“I’m not asking you to let
them
in, Judge. Just me.”

“You know, you’ve been such a boy scout in the recent past, Marcus. I just—I feel compelled to trust you. Sure, come on in.”

“Really?”

“Ha. You are thick, man. Did God create you in His own image? I bet He did.”

A lesser demon might have burst into a rage at the Judge, but Marcus kept calm. He gestured confidently to the foyer beyond the Judge. “You’ve seen Thorn. You know how he is now. He is traitor to our kind. We can not let him live.”

The Judge dropped his gaze at that, and his teasing banter as well.

Marcus continued. “Thorn may have been a great demon once, but no longer. The Enemy has poisoned his mind. With your own eyes, you saw his actions in Piedmont Park, and now you have seen his actions here tonight. He no longer believes as you and I believe. He is no longer one of us.”

The Judge drifted sorrowfully downward. Marcus’s words were reaching him.

“I know you have your own grievances with me, but
you
were the one who sentenced Thorn to this Sanctuary to test where his loyalties lie. We now know the answer. So relinquish any attachment you have to him. Let me inside, and let me do what needs to be done.”

“Quickly, quickly. Come on in.” Thorn used Virgil to coax the police officers through the door into the underground parking garage. Demons were already latching onto their minds, but Thorn had gotten them to park their car mere feet from the door, and as they entered the building, Thorn fought back his adversaries in the spirit world. They would have had a better chance if they’d simply attacked Thorn directly, but they’d gone for the humans first. For once, Thorn was thankful for their hubris.

Not a single demon had gotten inside by the time Thorn shut the door behind the officers. Minutes earlier, tense moments had passed as he’d run outside of the parking garage, waving them away from the main entrance where Heather’s remains lay splattered across the ground. A few more moments of driving and they would have seen her, but the carnage had escaped their notice, and at last they were safely inside.

Now for the hard part.
He’d been too busy trying to save Crystal and Cole to think of a plausible story to tell these men. He hadn’t expected it would be necessary—he’d been certain they’d be dead by the time he reached them.

What was worse, Thorn realized, was that he’d been in too much of a rush and hadn’t thought to hide Brandon’s body. Now the officers would find it as soon as they entered the condo upstairs—and they would surely handcuff Virgil, Crystal, and Cole, then call in backup.

His options now were limited. He couldn’t just send them away, or the demons would get them. He either had to come up with a convincing alibi for Cole’s 9-1-1 call, or he would have to subdue them somehow, then interrogate them to learn what their Big Choice was.

The officers’ hands dropped to their weapons when they saw the scrapes and bruises on Virgil’s face. Hopefully the security guard uniform he still wore would convince them he was on their side. “Hi,” Thorn said through Virgil. “I’m not sure what was said about me in the nine-one-one call, but I’ve been trying to help the people upstairs. They have a bit of a problem.”

“What sort of problem?”

“Domestic disturbance. What took you guys so long?”

“Busy night. Can I ask what happened to your face?”

Thorn led the officers toward the garage elevator as he spoke. “Guy named Brandon Carter. A friend of one of the residents here. He’s become violent. Please, follow me.”

The officers exchanged a glance that was hard to read. “You stay here. We’ll take care of it.”

“Please, officers. He knows me. I might be able to talk him down. Here’s my ID. Virgil Cafferty.”

One of the men took the ID card, examined it, then nodded approval to the other officer. “Okay, but you stay in view of us at all times, and we make the decisions. Is that clear?”

“Absolutely.”

“Is he expecting us?”

“Yes. He’s been coming down to check the front entrance, which is why I waved you guys over here. I’m afraid he may be waiting to ambush us at the top of the elevator. We’ll be safer if we take the stairs.”
And that will give me more time to plan how to deal with you two.

Marcus opened Brandon’s eye. A quilt covered his face, but he used Brandon’s hand to fling it aside. Then he stretched the muscles in Brandon’s stiffening body, which was fortunately still nimble enough to wreak some havoc on the humans.

After seeing how Thorn had fawned over that Amy girl on Earth, Marcus knew that protecting these humans was more than mere penance that Thorn hoped the Enemy would notice. No, Thorn would never go to these lengths unless these two humans had somehow gained his affection. And that was all the better. Having another chance to crush Thorn’s hopes before finally crushing Thorn himself delighted Marcus to no end.

He took in his surroundings. Piano music from the bedroom. The telltale red and blue of police lights outside. The elevator display reading “P” for “parking.” Thorn would be on his way back up soon, and now Marcus owned a physical body with which he could easily neutralize the police.
The others will enjoy this show…
Marcus had kept the demons outside from entering, in case one or more of the cretins decided to violate their truce with him. Besides, he’d promised the Judge that he wouldn’t let them inside.

His new ally had now shrunk into a corner and was making no eye contact, as if he was ashamed of what he’d done.
What a feeble Judge. No Judge in Africa or India would let himself grow so fond of a fellow demon.
Still, Marcus would honor their agreement and let the Judge live.

Marcus spotted some knives in the kitchen. He supposed he might drown one of the humans in the bathtub, then use its body to knife the other—preferably while Thorn watched.

But Marcus had never been in the market for cheap revenge.
Revenge is like a fine wine: prepared from the most select ingredients, fermented just so, and made more potent with age—
not that he had ever tasted wine, or wanted to. He could kill Thorn—and he would—but a psychological victory first would satisfy him much more, especially in light of Thorn’s recent transformation. In all Marcus’s centuries of patient plotting, he’d never once imagined that Thorn would turn lunatic: rescuing humans and skirting the faulty morals of the Enemy. Thorn seemed to genuinely be trying to defect, to make amends for his initial rebellion in Heaven: an impossible task, given that the Enemy had vowed to never forgive a demon. Thorn had to be delusional to think that he could coax these degenerate humans into the Enemy’s virtue, into the choices that the Enemy had designed for them tonight.

How much sweeter will my wine taste if I can prove Thorn wrong before I kill him?

As Marcus used Brandon’s fingers to probe his mangled eye, as he listened to the humans’ eloquent musical composition, a plan came to him. A slight adjustment. The perfect demise for Thorn.

The piano piece gradually evolved into something new. Cole dropped their improvised song into a minor key, so Crystal tried to keep her harmony as uplifting as she could.

“The painting of the kid with the man wearing black,” she said, avoiding mention of the painting’s prominent gravestone. “Did you paint that after you were blind?”

Cole seemed hesitant to speak at first, but he soon answered. “The day after my dad’s funeral. My mom caught me painting it and tried to throw it away, but I hid it from her. They hated each other.”

“It’s a really good painting. Who’s the man in black? Does he represent death?”

Cole chuckled. “No. Believe it or not, that was my plastic surgeon. Friend of my mom’s in Vegas who redid my face after the fire. I was crying at the funeral because I couldn’t see, and this surgeon—Jerry was his name. He told me that God allowed me to become blind so that I could see what really matters.” Cole shook his head. “That still pisses me off. But I bought it at the time, as did my mom. Did I ever tell you she was an escort?”

“Huh.”

“My dad hired her on one of his business trips. She poked a hole in the condom and poof. I was born.”

“Seriously?”

“So I’ve had this complex my whole life, like I shouldn’t be here or something. My whole purpose for existing was as a bargaining chip my mom could use to get rich.” Cole’s voice wavered with some buried emotion that he seemed to struggle to keep down. “Thankfully my dad had no other kids and liked me enough to leave me his money—otherwise who knows where I’d be now.”

“A Chippendales dancer in Vegas, obviously.”

Cole laughed, then sniffled. “Obviously.” He brought their piano piece an octave lower. “On the night of the fire, I was at my dad’s place. He was yelling at my mom over the phone, and he forgot his food on the frying pan. Hadn’t changed his smoke alarm batteries, so half the house was in flames before he realized it. I kept thinking that if I’d never been born… maybe my dad would still be here.”

Crystal was stunned. Cole had never opened up like this before, at least not to her. She rested a hand on his shoulder.

“So when that asshole surgeon told me that God made me blind so I could see what really matters, I told him to go fuck himself.” It was Crystal’s turn to laugh, and Cole abruptly ended the piano piece with a brief goofy tune. Crystal stopped playing her part too. “Yeah, I was a fun kid. But like I said, for a long time I thought Jerry was right. Even though I never saw anything. I never got any spiritual epiphany from my blindness. So according to Jerry, since I can’t see anything, nothing really matters, does it? Ha. Just like Brandon always said.”

“Well, what matters to you?” Crystal privately wondered how much of a hand Brandon had had in causing Cole’s problems in the first place.
And if Virgil is right… if none of this ever happened…

Cole took a moment to ponder her question. He looked upset, so Crystal changed the subject. “Hey, the money you gave to Heather earlier. That was nice.” She playfully elbowed him in the ribs. “You’re not all bad, Cole.”

“Glad you noticed.” Cole leaned backward. His upper body plopped back onto the bed. His eyes looked upward at the ceiling, at nothing. “You really think I could be a dad?”

Crystal smiled in spite of herself. “Yeah.” She placed her hand over Cole’s.

Suddenly, raised voices came from the living room: three, maybe four men yelling at each other. Gunfire rang out, then all was silent.

Crystal’s heart skipped, then pounded. She sprang from the bed, aware of Cole trailing behind her. As they cautiously entered the living room, a bloody hand reached around the corner by the door to the service hallways. A police officer fell into view, on his knees.

His neck was slit. Blood gurgled out. He fell.

Crystal saw the other officer lying a short distance away, a knife embedded in his skull. Then she noticed that Brandon’s body was gone from underneath the quilt.

“Run!” Virgil called from across the room, as Crystal was still trying to figure out what had happened here. He tumbled into view by the kitchen. Brandon kicked his face with a force that would have killed a living man.

As Virgil reeled, Brandon locked eyes with Crystal. She knew he was dead—the gaping hole where his eye should be made that clear—but an intelligence lurked behind his good eye. An intelligence that gave the illusion of the old, ravenous Brandon. He stepped toward her.

Virgil leaped upward and clasped his hands around Brandon’s head. Brandon yelled in pain, and then both men collapsed on the floor. They stayed motionless for ten seconds. Twenty.

Just like that, Crystal and Cole were alone again.