The Devil You Know (24 page)

I looked for more pictures of the cabin. There were a few, mostly of Thom and his dad. There was one of Thom and Carrie Berger, holding a young baby in their arms. Thom had kept the cabin. But where the hell was the cabin? There were thousands of miles of woodland in the greater Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. The cabin could be anywhere. There were no obvious landmarks, no creeks, only one that showed a valley in the far background. Down in the valley sat a number of almost unidentifiable white blobs. I picked up the picture and held it close to my nose.

The white blobs were symmetrical. Beehives.

I took the picture and stalked outside. Malach was waiting on the back porch, his gun in his hand as if he would shoot anyone who approached the house. The minute he saw me come through the French doors he turned and eyed me carefully. I could tell the interlude with my dad had shaken him up. I didn’t think anything could. “Did you find the secret place?”

“No,” I managed, “but I know how I can.” I checked the reception on my phone and then went online. There were three major apiaries in the area, but only one within reasonable driving distance of Blackwater, Sunflower Mountain Apiary Farms. It was ten and a half miles north of here, near Lake Harmony. “Son of a bitch,” I said as I planned the quickest route on my phone. I stepped down off the back porch and headed back toward my car, Malach close on my heels.

“What is it?” he asked. I noticed he kept his gun close at hand.

“I never would have believed it,” I said. “Brownie’s wives were right about following the bees.”

On the drive up to Lake Harmony one of those weird, uncomfortable silences settled in between us.
“You know, if I help you,” I said, “you really should give me something in return.”

Malach smirked in an ugly way. “You are so much like your father, Nick. Always a deal.”

“Well, my old man is a bastard, but he’s a smart bastard.”

Malach busied himself with checking the munitions of his giant gold gun, which was pretty funny when I thought about it. Malach has a magical TV cop gun; it never runs out of bullets. “What do you want, Nick?”

“I want Vivian and Josh safe. I want them off the hit list.”

Malach seemed to consider that, then nodded. “I expected you would request that your own name be taken off the list.”

“My name will never come off the list,” I said. “But Vivian and Josh have done nothing wrong. They’ve broken none of your laws. Josh isn’t even a daemon. You guys have no right hunting them.”

“But the woman is a daemon.”

“A daemon who has done nothing wrong.”

“Except to kill two men.”

“One was hurting her. The other was an accident.”

Malach snorted. “The daemon is a dangerous, untrained force, Nick.”

“Then I’ll train her. I’ll teach her to control herself and her power.” I glared over at him. I can glare too. “This is non-negotiable, Malach. You guys back off Vivian and Josh or I’ll dump your sorry angelic ass on the side of this road and go back home and let you deal with the Arcana on your own. I have things to do, you know.”

That wasn’t exactly true. I knew that Cassie Berger was at the cabin, and I meant to find her. But Malach didn’t have to know how deeply I was dedicated to this. Hopefully, he couldn’t read my mind. If he could, my bluff was pretty damned useless. I knew angels could read each other’s minds, a sort of gigantic group consciousness. It was the reason why the death of one angel attracted more angels. Barring some kind of ward, every angel could listen to the thoughts and emotions of every other angel. And I had just learned that angels could also read the minds of humans—which, I admit, had made me kind of jealous. But I didn’t know if the same was true of demon or daemon minds. Demons are, by their very nature (and their own decision) cut off from the Throne. Did that mean they were cut off from the groupthink as well?

Malach nodded. “Very well. Their names will be taken off the list.” That made me breathe a giant mental sigh of relief. “But the Seraphs and Cherubim will continue to hunt you, you realize.”

“And in other news, the sky was blue today and water was wet.”

As usual, Malach just stared at me. I wished he would get a sense of humor already.

About ten minutes later we reached the outskirts of Lake Harmony. I followed Google Maps around the lake to the apiary, which was located in a deep valley about five miles wide. In this part of Pennsylvania, with the ground being so rocky, about the only things that grew in abundance were grapes and beehives. I followed the map to the edge of the lake, and soon we started seeing clusters of summer cabins and lake houses around the edges of Lake Harmony. I kept driving until they started thinning out. The cabin in the picture had looked pretty isolated.

I pulled into the little parking lot of a Uni-Mart that likely served the whole community.

Malach said, “What are you doing?”

“Don’t get your panties in a twist. I’ll be right back.”

Inside the shop I got directions to the Berger cabin by telling them I was Rebecca Berger’s cousin and I meant to surprise her. Hey, it wasn’t entirely a lie. I bought a pack of Camels and some candy corn to cover my tracks. I even bought Malach a packet of root beer float candies. I don’t know why, but he just seemed like a root beer float candy kind of guy.

Malach analyzed the candy like it was a species of off-world life as I drove up a long, twisty road surrounded on both sides by heavy fall brush that scraped the sides of the Monaco. “This is full of toxins,” he finally declared.

“That’s why they’re fun.”

“We should stop now,” he said. “The Arcana may detect us.”

I dragged on my Camel and let the smoke percolate out my nose and into the closed-up car. Malach coughed. “The Arcana already detect us. Billie drank my blood and ate a good chunk out of my arm, Malach. Do you honestly think she doesn’t know we’re coming?”

Up ahead I spotted a cabin, and a jeep parked on the side of the road. It wasn’t the Bergers’ SUV, but I bet it belonged to Billie Berger nonetheless. I got out and Malach got out with me. I checked my gun. Malach checked his.

I glanced up at the sky. It was overcast, but the fresh orange sun was slowly burning through the early morning mist. It wasn’t yet high noon, but we were about to have a showdown.

The Berger cabin rested on an overlook. Behind it was the deep, autumn-brown valley full of apiary beehives that I’d seen in the photograph. I thought how well this place must have served Thom and Billie Berger’s needs throughout the years. It was high enough to see someone coming, but isolated enough that if they were headed your way, you knew they had business with you. And since the apiary was almost in their backyard, the other denizens of Harmony Lake probably avoided this place like the plague. There’s nothing like ornery nesting honeybees getting into your car.

Malach and I stalked down the rough gravel driveway to the cabin. We walked side by side, skirmish-style. I felt strangely like an Old West gunfighter on my way to a gunfight. Malach looked like one in his long black duster. The cabin looked unnervingly empty and composed, all its pieces in place like a postcard. Malach said, “There’s someone inside.”

“Can you tell who?”

“No. But human.”

Not Billie, then. I would sense her. She was carrying a little piece of me inside her.

We reached the front door and moved to either side. Since I was on the side with the doorknob, I reached for it and turned it, trying to make as little noise as possible. “Locked.”

“Shoot it.”

I did. The rapport echoed through the valley below.

Malach turned and elbowed the door in. He barely seemed to break a sweat, and the whole door went down in pieces. It just wasn’t fair that someone should be able to do that, even an angel. At the same time, he managed to move to my side with remarkable grace and case the inside of the cabin.

“Anything?”

“No.” He moved inside.

I followed, sort of using Malach as a shield. I mean, I liked him as my partner, but if he wanted to take one for the home team, who was I to complain? We were operating like a SWAT team, I realized, which was weird when you thought about it. I felt like I was living a primetime TV cop show,
The Angel and the Demon
. Without saying a word, we split up and started going over the whole cabin. It was a two-story luxury chalet, and the upper floor was a loft area.

I took the upstairs like last time. I discovered a loft with a bureau, writing desk and sofa bed. Though tidy, the closed-up space smelled damp and acidic, like urine. Stains from human waste and blood scarred the floor. A package of animal crackers lay scattered across the throw rug. Most had been eaten. This must be Cassie’s room, I thought. I felt the vomit rise slowly in my throat. I just knew I had come too late.

Then I heard muffled crying noises coming from beneath the sofa bed pushed into one corner. The crying was breathy and feral, like a cat trapped in a tight spot. When I was halfway across the room, I got down on my hands and knees, the Tanaka close at hand, and peered under the bed. Enough dirty morning light slanted through the smeary loft window to make out a small, huddled human package under the bed. The smell it gave off, a mixture of old, sick vomit and human waste, made me want to heave. The sight of it made me want to cry.

It was Cassie Berger.

“Well, hello there, honeybee,” I said.

The filthy little baby rubbed at her face and wet nose, then put her fingers in her mouth. She peered at me with huge, white, lemur eyes and made a snuffling noise like a nervous animal. “Oh, honeybee, I need you to come out of there,” I said, wondering if I’d have any better luck with Cassie Berger than I had with Tiger. “You can’t stay here, baby girl. I need to take you home.”

Cassie snuffled and stayed put. But my adventures with Tiger had at least given me an idea. I just didn’t have the heart to force her out from under the bed, not after what she’d likely been through, so I reached into my jacket pocket and offered her some of the candy corn.

“Come one, honeybee. I have some food for you.”

I knew Cassie was afraid. I couldn’t blame her in the least. But hunger made her brave. Hunger drew her out. If I had been surviving for four days on nothing but a small package of animal crackers I would have gone to anyone, too, even my father. I sat down on the floor and held very still as she crawled awkwardly out from under the bed. Her little limbs were covered in bite marks. Some were days old and leaky and infected, others new. They were big bites, strategically placed to keep the little witch-girl alive while Billie fed off her blood and meat and power without killing her.

I waited. The Tay-Sachs didn’t make it any easier for her. But little Cassie stared at me with determination. She crawled across the floor and climbed into my lap and started eating the candy corn right out of my hands. I’d never had much experience with children. Mostly, like pets, they avoided me. But as Cassie Berger nibbled the candy corn excitedly out of my hand and then begged for more, I held her close and came to a strange realization.

I loved Cassie. I hated my father because he was always right. And I hoped that Billie Berger had run far, far away. Because when I found her, I was going to put a fucking bullet in her skull.