Concrete Savior (33 page)

It had all been for nothing. All those people had died, all that agony and misery, all the people left behind whose loved ones were gone forever. People had died in fear, in pain—one woman and her son had been beaten to death by a madman—and Vance had died anyway. That bitch had lied, had probably been deceiving her the entire time. How long, Gina wondered, had her husband been dead? When exactly had that horrible woman killed him?

There were so many questions, such as how had she been able to kidnap him in the first place? Why hadn’t Vance been able to overpower her and get away? Had she used something on him, drugs, or maybe a stun gun? Or had Vance really been having his own little affair with her, as she once claimed? It would be fitting, wouldn’t it, serve her right for what she had done, for cheating on him. But no . . . wasn’t her guilt punishment enough? Wasn’t the fact she had lost him anyway the ultimate punishment? Had he died because of her—was the entire thing
her
fault? It must be. She had been such ready pickings for this woman, so easy to manipulate because of her deception. Had she not cheated on Vance to begin with, his killer would have had nothing to use as a tool to control Gina.

But Gina had cheated, and the woman had been able to use that as leverage.

And Vance had died.

There was no comfort in this apartment anymore. Not in the bright morning light or the cooler, softer shadows of nighttime. Seeing things ready and waiting, the boxes here and there that he’d never had a chance to unpack because they had lived together for such a short time before he’d been taken. Too short. There was the cheating, and it had been done to both Gina and Vance. They had been cheated out of their love for one another, their time together, and their eternity. But boy, they had gotten the until-death-do-us-part end of it right, hadn’t they?

Why her, why Vance? These were unanswerable questions. Gina knew that, but she still asked them in her head and in her heart. The future stretched before her, bleak and lonely, full of unrealized wishes. She longed to talk to someone about how she felt—someone who wouldn’t judge. Someone who wouldn’t condemn. And after a few minutes, a name came to her, an old friend from years ago in college:
Mia Grimwood
. They had been roommates at the University of Texas at San Antonio, sharing everything except boyfriends. Mia would empathize—Mia would
know
. Because of her own unique abilities, Mia was the only other living person on this Earth before that man had walked into the tailor shop back in July who had any inkling about Gina’s visions, and even that had only been a suspicion. But because of the things Mia had seen, and done, Gina knew suddenly that Mia would listen but not criticize. Gina could be honest with Mia—she could tell her
here wag
and Mia would accept her, empathize with her mistakes even if she didn’t truly understand, and she would
forgive
.
Jesus
, Gina thought,
I should have talked to her about this way back then, instead of holding it inside, instead of
hiding
it, all these years
.

She hadn’t, but she couldn’t change that now. The best she could do was try to go forward, talk it out as she tried to pick up the pieces and start over. Gina had always thought she was alone, but that wasn’t true. There really was comfort to be found.

Gina dug out her old address book, crossed her fingers that Mia’s number hadn’t changed, and picked up the telephone.

AT A QUARTER AFTER
five p.m., all the bus stops at the intersection of Kedzie and Lawrence were crowded with people who’d gotten off the Brown Line train down on Kedzie and were waiting to transfer to buses. Brynna and Eran stood against the building on the northeast corner, watching a fashionably dressed young woman on the edge of the group, about ten feet to the left of everyone on the sidewalk. Her name was Karen Volk, and she was brunette and pretty, with up-to-date clothes and makeup done in the way that showed almost all of her focus in life right now was on herself. A designer purse dangled from one shoulder while she pecked away at a text message on her phone, glancing up now and then to see if the bus was approaching.

Beside her, Eran turned his head and looked east. Just coming into view about two blocks down on Lawrence was the #81 bus, heading toward them at a fast enough speed to indicate the driver was behind on his timetable. Brynna’s pulse quickened but she told herself to stay where she was, to just let things roll on without her interference.

She felt more than saw Eran’s change of heart, and when he shifted his feet and started to step forward, she was ready. “Don’t interfere,” she said. He hesitated and glanced at her, giving her the perfect chance to lock one hand around his wrist and pull him back.

He looked from her to the approaching bus, his expression dismayed. “Brynna, I can’t just let this happen.”

“You have to, Eran,” she said urgently. “You
have
to.”

“But she’s just—”

“This is an accident,” she told him in a low voice. “One that’s meant to take place. No one is supposed to save this woman, because no one is supposed to know about it. Not me, not you.
No one.
It’s not for me to know why, but fate has decided—”

“Fate?” Eran’s expression was cynical but at least he had stopped trying to pull free.

“The Creator, then. He has decided that it’s preferable to take Karen Volk rather than all the ones who will die because of her.”

“So you know what she would do if she lived?”

Brynna was silent for a moment. “Yeah, I do. Gina told me.”

“What? If you tell me, maybe it’ll make it a little easier to take.”

Brynna opened her mouth to answer, then she spotted someone else at the edge of the small knot of people waiting for the bus.

Jashire.

“I’ll be right back,” she told Eran.

“Brynna, what—”

“Stay
here
.” She headed down the sidewalk to her left almost too fast for anyone to notice. Then she was standing slightly behind Jashire, whose gaze was fixed intently on Karen Volk. The bus was almost here, Karen Volk was texting like mad, and Jashire was moving into place to snag the strap of Karen’s purse and pull the girl backward. Karen turned her head to the right and smiled, lifting her chin as her gaze fixed on someone she recognized across the street. A quick check to Brynna’s right showed Eran looking at her quizzically, but at least he was focused on her now, rather than the young woman.

Jashire leaned forward just as Karen raised one hand to wave at the person across Lawrence and started walking forward, but Brynna’s hand clamped down on Jashire’s shoulder hard enough to bruise flesh, then she dug in when the female demon would have yanked free. Jashire spun, her face twisted in fury. “
You!
”

“Imagine seeing you here,” Brynna said brightly. “It’s so good to run into you.”

A couple of people at the bus stop were looking at them now, instead of the bus that was nearly upon them. “What’s it been?” Brynna continued. “Months? Years?”

“Let me go, you—”

“And to meet you in such a
public
place!”

“—bitch,” Jashire hissed under her breath. Behind Jashire there was a sudden, sharp screech of heavy-duty brakes, then someone screamed. Jashire whirled back to face the street again, where Karen Volk had stepped off the curb without looking and now lay crumpled beneath the front end of the bus.

“Damn it!”

“Let it go,” Brynna said quietly. “Let things happen as they were meant to.”

Jashire pulled against Brynna’s grip, and this time Brynna released her. “You’re a fine one to talk like that,” she ground out. “You’d be dead if I’d done that yesterday. You’re not even meant for this world.” Around them people were rushing forward and someone was shouting instructions to call 911.

“I’m not meant for Hell, either.”

“Lucifer doesn’t agree.”

“We’re all entitled to our own opinion. In the meantime, in this world there are some things that need to just be left alone.”

“This isn’t finished, Astarte.” She was gone before Brynna could blink. Brynna turned and saw that the crowd’s attention was concentrated on Karen’s body, so no one had noticed their short but heated exchange. As she headed back toward Eran, who was wisely letting others on the street deal with Karen Volk’s body, Brynna realized that she had heard that threat from Jashire before. And she had no doubt that someday Jashire would do her best to make good on it.

the humans to their puny emergency actions. But after a few moments, she felt calmer, more in control. It didn’t matter that Karen Volk hadn’t survived. She had been just one human among billions in the course of history. There would be more than enough others, always, like a single bee that escaped when the hive was destroyed and the queen was killed—eventually that bee would die on its own. Humans were just like that.

Besides, Jashire thought, she still had the copy of the list of nephilim names that Lahash had given her, which was what had led her to Casey in the first place. Lahash, of course, had the original, given to him by some human pawn who was now rotting in prison. How ironic was that?

She and Lahash needed to get together, have a good old human heart-to-heart about what to do with his list and all the elaborate possibilities that it offered. It was time for Lahash to let go of his cowardice about Astarte. She simply wasn’t such a badass—Jashire had seen that. Lucifer’s Hunter would have killed her this time had Jashire not stepped in to help. She’d taken an enormous chance in doing so, one which could have severe repercussions should the Dark Ruler find out. But that knowledge would never come from her, and since Astarte didn’t talk to Lucifer anymore, he would assume that this second Hunter had also fallen at the hands of his former lover.

If the timing and feelings were right, Jashire might even share that tidbit with Lahash, because if they joined in their efforts, she and Lahash could sidestep this entire Astarte problem and have as much fun with the humans as they wanted. The last time Lahash had paired with another fallen angel, he had chosen low in the hierarchy, probably because he wanted to control his colleague. But Gavino had been a stupid and immature boy with almost no experience trying to dabble in the battles of Hell’s higher-class soldiers. This time Lahash would have the opportunity to team up with someone—her—who had just as much experience as himself, but who could be infinitely more dangerous.

Yes, the two of them would make quite the formidable adversary for Astarte.

THE LOVEMAKING WAS OVER,
and they were both sated and sleepy. For Brynna, each time was more fulfilling than the one previous, and while she loved it, reveled in it, she also thought, in a dim and insistent part of her subconscious that she wished would just shut up, that it might be a very, very dangerous thing. As if to remind her, memories turned over in her brain, sluggish at first, then snapping into crisp, nearly painful perfection in her memory:

In Heaven there was blue, there was white, and there was gold. The blue of ocean water, the soft white of clouds, golden sunlight warm upon her skin even as a cool breeze carried the slightly tangy salt scent of the sea. Every surface felt good beneath her feet but no impact, no binding by the laws of gravity because there were no such laws there. She was weightless, and enormous white wings folded smoothly along the curve of her spine and carried her anywhere she wished to go instantly, just because she wished it to be so. It was a miracle, one of many, just like life itself. That moment when inert cells begin to move, when the heart begins to beat, the millions more where it continues to do so, the every movement of a body that obeys without conscious command. There was a perpetual feeling of contentment and well-being, of serenity down to her very essence. It was endless, and eternal, but it was never boring. It was completion, and Brynna missed it with every beat of the human heart within her chest.

Hell was the crimson flipside of Heaven, the turning over of a bright and shiny object to see its dark and insidious under-surface. Like Heaven, everything in Hell saw everything else . . . but not in a good way. It breathed and it bled, and nothing and no one could be trusted. There were rivers of fire and lakes of molten lava bordered by cities constructed by demons as places to rest after tormenting the damned souls. The creatures that roamed these cities and the passages within them were unspeakable, more than the human mind could perceive or tolerate. Even the lowest of the low, the alley demons that ripped into the souls trying to escape, were too hideous to comprehend. Hunters created from the streams of undulating lava and Lucifer’s own breath slid along the avenues with unspoken promises of things even worse. Stinging winds swept below scarlet clouds tinged with a blacker shade of red, spewing lightning and fire upon those below. Mountains surged without warning from the crevices and cracks in the burning ground, jagged and impaling anything in their way. Like Heaven, Hell was also endless and eternal, but it seethed with hatred and pain and misery. Few of the fallen were truly happy in that abominable place, only existing with what they had been given, trapped by their own choosing of Lucifer in a never-forgotten or forgiven war.