Concrete Savior (29 page)

“
I
n here?” Eran pulled
the unmarked police car to the curb and eyed the building that stood in front of them.

“Yeah,” Brynna said. “This is where I caught up with her.”

Eran shut the engine off and put the car in park with a little too much force on the gearshift. “I still can’t believe you went after her without me there with you.”

Brynna made an exasperated sound. “We’ve had this conversation before.”

“Yeah, yeah—I know. The whole humans-versus-demons thing.”

“You keep dismissing it, but I’m telling you it’s not something you should take lightly.”

“I could have helped.”

“I don’t think so.” She gave him a sidelong glance. “You know, she smelled you on me.”

Eran’s expression was perplexed. “What?”

“Yeah. And she was
really
curious. In fact, she offered to trade Vance Hinshaw for you.”

Eran didn’t look amused. “You should have gone for it. We could have set her up.”

Brynna’s laugh was brittle. “You mistake her intentions, Eran. You wouldn’t have survived ten minutes.” He said nothing, but as usual Brynna could tell he didn’t believe a word she said. How odd that some humans seemed to think some people needed protecting but they themselves were invincible.

A moment later, Bheru pulled up and parked behind them. Because this whole thing was off the record, Eran had told her that they wouldn’t be able to get any help or backup. If they were going to find Vance Hinshaw, it could only be the three of them searching.

Brynna had been so intent on tracking Jashire that she hadn’t taken much notice of the building itself or the neighborhood proper beyond her quick impression the first time she’d been here. But now, with Eran and Bheru by her side, she really registered how derelict the structure was, how rundown the streets. Were there really any valid renters in there, or was this building one that had been slated to be torn down a long time ago and forgotten about? It was eight stories tall, and when she looked up she could several apartments where the windows were broken and soot rimmed their edges, evidence of old fires. Others were just open, a few had ragged curtains or sheets hanging out the missing frames. All looked like they fronted nothing but blackness inside. The concrete exterior was filthy, covered in decades of Chicago grime and graffiti, everything from gang symbols to pornographic pictures rendered in vivid strokes of mostly red spray paint.

“What precisely are we doing here?” Bheru asked when they were all standing on the sidewalk. “I am to assume this is yet again a way that Ms. Malak is assisting you on something?” His dark eyes narrowed. “Something which I also assume you have not fully revealed to me.”

Eran nodded. “Well, yeah.”

“At least you have the courtesy to look guilty,” Bheru said. “But prudence dictates that I will not go any further until I know all the facts.”

“I think that’s fair,” Brynna said. She looked at Eran, then decided to let him handle this. That way he could make the decisions about what to say and what not to.

Eran crossed his arms, then uncrossed them. “Okay, so you know about Casey Anlon and all his rescues.”

Bheru nodded. “Of course. And the unfortunate results that seem to occur every time.”

“We’ve learned the identity of the person who’s giving him the names of the people to save,” Eran said. “And why she’s doing that.”

“I see.” He waited.

So Eran explained it the best he could, with Brynna occasionally jumping in for emphasis. Casey, Gina and her kidnapped husband, even Jashire—with Brynna conceding to a little omission as to the demon origins involved. When they were finished, it was their turn to hear what Bheru had to say.

True to his character, Bheru took his time and gave everything careful consideration. “This Jashire person,” he said at last, “I am unclear as to why we cannot locate her.”

Eran looked helplessly at Brynna. “There are some odd things about her,” Brynna answered after a moment.

“In what way?”

Brynna ran a hand across her mouth. Careful, careful. “She’s odd . . . like me.” Bheru arched one eyebrow but said nothing. “I know you recall some of the things that are different about me,” Brynna offered. “Things that I can sometimes do.”

“I do recall that you were able to discover some things about the Kwan case that we would not have otherwise known,” the dark-skinned man said. He gave her a sidelong glance. “And that you heal at a remarkably rapid rate.”

“Jashire is like that, too.”

His lips pressed together. “I see. And this makes her somehow impossible to apprehend?”

Brynna hesitated. “It makes her someone you don’t
want
to apprehend.” There was just no other way to put it.

Bheru looked like he wanted to say something more but changed his mind. “So where do we start?” he asked instead.

Brynna inhaled, then eyed the building. “From the top down. Like smoke, scents tend to rise.”

Eran stepped forward. “So you can track this guy by his smell?”

The look she gave him was gloomy. “No. I’ve never met him.”

“Then what . . . ?”

“The scent of death, Eran.”

Both his and Bheru’s expressions darkened. “So you’re positive he’s dead?” Bheru asked.

“Yes. Because of what Jashire said the last time I caught up with her, even though she didn’t come right out and admit it, I believe that.”

“That’s a shame,” Eran said after a moment. “All that Gina went through to try to save him, all the sacrifices . . .”

What could Brynna say? Jashire had never intended to give Vance Hinshaw back to his wife alive. She may have even killed him early on. That had probably depended on whether Jashire had thought about sending another token off her prize, but the odds were he’d died before she’d had the opportunity to do so. What had she threatened Gina with? Something about sending his head. God.

Maybe him dying had been for the best. No living human body should have to go through the kind of torture that a demon could inflict.

The eighth floor was like a cheap gym locker room at the height of summer—hot and damp. To make things worse, it was spotted with mildew and black spots on the walls from the buildup of humidity and a hundred leaks in the roof. Climbing the stairwell left Eran and Bheru sweating and panting by the time they reached the top, although it had no effect on her. Brynna knew the moment they stepped into the hallway that there was nothing alive or recently dead on this floor. Up here it was even too hot for the druggies.

They descended to the seventh floor using the staircase at the opposite end of the hall, intending to crisscross each floor by entering at one end and exiting the other until they’d covered all the floors. The seventh floor was only slightly cooler than the one above, but at least it wasn’t as full of mold and water. There were no occupied apartments up here, although here and there Brynna could hear the shuffle of squatters in various apartment units. There wasn’t much to be seen, so they headed down the staircase at the opposite end.

They passed the elevator a few feet from the stairwell but there was an ancient “Out of Order” sign taped crookedly across the closed doors. The sixth floor was about the same, but Brynna had taken only a couple of steps out of the fifth-floor hallway when she stopped and lifted her head. “We’re getting closer,” she said unhappily.

Eran and Bheru looked at her. “It is not good news, then?” Bheru asked.

Brynna shook her head. “No. I never thought it would be.”

Bheru stared at the floor. “That is . . . unfortunate. For both him and Ms. Whitfield.”

Brynna continued down the hall with them a few feet behind her. There were half-closed doors most of the way, with the occasional one that was completely shut. The place was a mess, just as filthy as the floors above it even though the water damage lessened with every floor they went down. The building should have been condemned a long time ago, or maybe it had been and the owner was simply ignoring the city’s mandate.

Each hallway was long and dim with only two sources of dedicated light: dirty, mesh-covered windows at either end that were cracked and covered in decades of grime. Occasionally a little extra illumination leaked from a unit or two with slightly open doors, but it didn’t help much. The floor had once been carpeted but now was just more of the same filthy gray, with holes torn into it that revealed the crumbling concrete below it. The underlying structure of the building was the only thing that kept the random unit fires from spreading throughout the building.

They were between the elevator and the hallway at the other end and intent on heading down to the next floor when four thin and dangerous-looking young men stepped out of the apartment closest to the stairwell. Brynna, Eran, and Bheru stopped as the others spread out and blocked their way.

“What are you doing here?” demanded the one in front. “A little out of your element, don’t you think?” He and the others were in their early twenties. Their nationality was impossible to tell, but all of them had clean-aven scalps above dark eyebrows and good physiques showing a multitude of tribal-looking gang tattoos. The guy who spoke was apparently their leader, and his black tattoos crawled up his left jawline and disappeared in a triple set of spikes behind his ear.

“This is police business,” Eran said. “Step aside and go on about your way.” His voice was calm but Brynna had already detected the increase in his heartbeat. Bheru, too, had tensed, although his face remained professionally neutral.

“I don’t think so,” said the leader. “My boys and me, we been gettin’ reports on how you people are searchin’ the building, starting from the top floor down. You know, you kind of messin’ things up around here—throwin’ off the vibe, if you get my meanin’.”

“I know exactly what you mean,” Eran said. “And I can make things a whole lot worse.”

“Like I said, you outta your element.” The gangbanger’s gaze cut to Brynna and Bheru, evaluating and dismissing them.

“We get, you know, visitors,” one of the other men said. “On a regular basis. You scaring ’em away.”

“Oh dear,” Bheru said. “I believe we are detracting from their business dealings.” His voice was a disdainful mix of sarcasm and politeness.

“Call it what you want,” the leader said. “Just get the fuck out of my building.”

“Your building?” Brynna asked. “Really—you
own
this building?”

“Yeah,” he said. “I do.”

“Well, you don’t maintain it very well,” she told him. “The elevator’s broken.” Eran and Bheru sent her an astonished glance but she ignored them.

“We try to keep things healthy,” said one of the others. “We think people oughta use the stairs, use their muscles.”

“What about the people who can’t climb?”

The leader grinned. He would’ve had a nice smile but for a couple of missing teeth on one side. “You mean like you.”

“No. I mean like
you
.”

His smile faded. “There’s nothin’ wrong with me, baby. But there’s gonna be plenty wrong with you dickheads.” He turned to look at the guys behind him, and one slipped around and stood in front. He was holding a type of gun in one hand that Brynna had never seen before.

“Oh shit,” she heard Eran say.

“What?” she asked.

“Uzi,” Bheru murmured. “A machine gun. Full auto.”

She wasn’t sure what any of that meant, but she didn’t much care.

“Kill them,” the leader said suddenly. “Then drag their bodies up to the eighth floor and let ’em bake. They’ll dry up before they start to stink.”

“I don’t think so,” Brynna said, and then she moved so fast that none of them, not even Eran or Bheru, who might have been expecting it, could see her. The guy with the gun never had a chance to squeeze the trigger. When she was finished about twenty seconds later, all four of the gangbangers were crumpled against one dirty hallway wall. Bruised but not exactly bloody, too dazed to stand without trembling but not unconscious.

Brynna stood and looked at them, not even breathing heavily. Then she reached over and yanked the doors to the elevator open to about two feet. As Eran and Bheru in particular stared, one by one she tossed the four young men into a pile in the elevator. Amid their groans, she forced the doors shut, leaving only about a one-inch space. “There,” she said. “That’s enough for them to breathe. It’ll take them a while to come to their senses and get out of there.”

She looked down at the Uzi by her feet, then toed it toward Bheru. “You guys want this? Or I can smash it.” She started to bend over and pick it up.