Sins of the Son: The Grigori Legacy (17 page)

Henderson sighed and flicked another glance her way. “Your staff inspector made some pretty bizarre statements, Jarvis. I’m not sure what I’m supposed to think.”

Welcome to the club.

Crossing her arms on the table, Alex hunched her shoulders. “Detective Henderson—” she began.

But Henderson cut her off with a wave of one hand as he slid out of the booth. He crossed to the counter and called to the waitress. “Turn that up, will you?” He gestured at the television.

The waitress demurred, citing rules, but stopped when Henderson flashed his badge. With a shrug, she stood on tiptoe and raised the volume on the television. The female news anchor’s voice filled the late-night quiet of the coffee shop. “…yesterday’s report of unusual pregnancies occurring in China has triggered a flood of similar accounts from around the world. Dozens of families and medical personnel have stepped forward in the last twenty-four hours, claiming
to know of babies delivered a mere
three weeks
after conception. As bizarre as the claims are, however, even more unsettling is the fact that none of the mothers have survived childbirth. The medical community is at a loss to explain the phenomenon, and scientists are scrambling to find answers. In the meantime, several religious groups…”

Henderson’s cell phone shrilled and he unclipped it from his belt, signaling to the waitress to lower the volume once more. “Henderson. Yeah, I just saw. No, I’m with Detective Jarvis.”

He met Alex’s gaze and mouthed. “Riley.”

Wonderful.
Alex tuned out Henderson’s side of the phone conversation and stole another look at the screen over his head. A list of countries had appeared, each with a number beside it. Russia, four; India, six; China, seven; Australia, two; the U.S., eight; Canada, three; Mexico, five—the list went on. Alex frowned. The hair on the back of her neck prickled and a half-formed idea slipped across her mind.

“I have to go.”

Alex jumped as Henderson materialized at her elbow and took down the coat he’d hung on the rack beside the booth. She nodded at the television. “What’s that all about?” she asked.

“Other than the weirdest damn shit I’ve ever seen?” He shrugged into the coat and scooped up a set of keys from the table. “I have no idea.”

Alex raised an eyebrow. “So why the interest?”

Already three steps away, Henderson twisted around. He stared at Alex, a muscle in his jaw twitching. Alex waited.

“A case I’m working on may be connected,” he al-lowed. He lifted his chin toward the evening news. “Two, actually. Both claimed they’d been raped. One died giving birth a couple of days ago. We thought she was just a messed-up kid, but now—” He broke off, frustration stamped across his brow, and then muttered, “Now I don’t know what to think.”

“And the other?”

Gray tinged Henderson’s skin and the Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat. “Suicide,” he said. “Two nights ago.”

A shiver crawled down Alex’s spine and the half-formed notion resurfaced in her mind, twining with Henderson’s revelation. “What about the babies?” she called after him.

Henderson looked over his shoulder. “They’re holding the first for observation. The second died with the mother. And Riley just called to say they may have a third in ER.”

Alex stared again at the television screen as Henderson shoved open the door and stepped out into the night. The elusive idea began to take shape. Solidified. Brought her out of her seat with a “Son of a
bitch
!” that turned heads.

Henderson hunched past the coffee shop window, head down and collar up against the driving rain. Rounding a corner, he disappeared from sight. Alex hesitated for a split second and then bolted after him.

She caught up with him as he pulled open the door of a nondescript, dark blue sedan. “Detective Henderson, wait—”

Stooped to slide into the car, Henderson hesitated and then straightened again. Rain plastered his short-cropped hair to his scalp and ran in rivulets down his face. He frowned at her over the roof of the car.

“What is it?”

Alex hesitated.
Seth.
She should get back to Seth. But she needed to know if she was right about the pregnancies. About—she pulled her coat closer against the weather’s onslaught. The hospital wasn’t far. It would take her a half hour, tops. She’d be there and back well before the television had lost its charm. If Henderson agreed.

She swiped a drip of water from her nose and raised her voice over the rain. “I want to come with you.”

Henderson’s eyebrows joined over his nose. “Why?”

“These girls, the pregnancies—you’re sure the news report is right?”

“You know something.”

“I have an idea. But I want to confirm it before I say
anything. I need to talk to the girl.”
Before I throw away my career, what little respect you have for me, and my apparent sanity, all in one shot.
“Please.”

Henderson stared at her for a long moment and then, without a word, he slid behind the steering wheel and closed the door with a thud. Taking his silence as agreement, Alex pulled open the passenger door and climbed in beside him.

“W
HAT DO YOU
mean, he’s gone?” Lucifer looked up from his writing and scowled. “Gone where?”

Samael shrugged. “We have no idea.”

“He can’t have just disappeared—” Breaking off, Lucifer stared at Sam, then set aside his pen. “He disappeared.”

“The way the humans tell it, yes.”

“He has his powers.”

“It looks that way.”

Lucifer rested an elbow on the chair’s armrest and tapped a finger against his mouth. “Well, well. Now I’m really curious. Anything from the Guardians?”

“Nothing. If I had to guess, I’d say they’re as much in the dark as we are, but they’re not saying a word about any of it, not even among themselves.”

“But no trace of Heavenly presence near him.”

“Unfortunately not.” Samael folded his arms and leaned against the door frame. “And believe me, I’ve been watching.”

Lucifer did believe him; no one would be happier than Sam to find an excuse to cry foul so he could at last go to war. “Contain yourself, Samael. If things have gone as awry as I think on Heaven’s end, you may well be engaged in battle sooner than I’d planned.”

“What do you think happened?”

“Something catastrophic. Seth’s transition as an adult and his amnesia are mistake enough, but to retain his powers? I suspect all of Heaven is in an uproar over this.”

“Huh,” Sam muttered. “Maybe that would explain it.”

Lucifer raised an eyebrow. “Explain what?”

“There’s been a Judgment. I haven’t been able to find out against whom, yet, but it might be connected to this.”

Lucifer’s heart clenched. Judgment. There hadn’t been a Judgment since his own, six thousand years before, the very memory of which still turned his core to ice. Lucifer forced a swallow and fixed his aide with a glare. “And you didn’t think to mention this to me because…?”

Another shrug from his aide, this one containing a distinct air of arrogance. “You’ve never been all that detail oriented. I didn’t think you’d care.”

Lucifer watched the fingers of his right hand curl into a fist atop the leather-bound journal on the desk. “Again, Sam?” he asked, his voice soft. “The warning the other day wasn’t enough? You tread a dangerous path these days, my friend.”

“Better than the imaginary one you tread,” Samael retorted. “Damn it, Lucifer, open your eyes. With or without the Nephilim, we’re still going to have to fight the same war and suffer the same losses.”

“But without them, we cannot hope to take on the mortals as well.”

Samael studied him. “You’re certain that’s your reason for hesitating?”

“It is my reason for biding my time,” Lucifer agreed through his teeth. “And you might want to be careful where you’re going with this.”

Samael heeded the warning for all of a second before he continued as if Lucifer hadn’t spoken. “Because you know she’ll never take us back. She can’t, and you’re an idiot if you think otherwise.”

Lucifer slammed his fist against the desktop. Polished mahogany cracked through and a half dozen peppermints bounced from their bowl. Samael rustled his wings, angry frustration warring with a watchfulness that told Lucifer the Archangel knew he had overstepped. Again.

His aide’s expression turned sullen. “Forgive me,” he muttered. “I go too far.”

“Yes,” Lucifer agreed. “You do.”

He hated that the former Archangel was right—hated even more the weakness in himself that wished otherwise, even after all this time. Lucifer pushed back from the desk. Needing a moment to gather himself together after Samael’s accusation—for that’s what his aide’s words had been—he picked up the journal he’d been working on and slid it into place on a shelf behind him, the last in hundreds exactly like it but for the numbers on their spines. One thousand and eleven of them now, an ongoing memoir begun as a labor of love. A record of every thought, every action, every reason for doing all he had done. All he would do. Because he was damned if he would be held responsible for anything more than loving too much or too deeply.

Damned, too, if he would allow his upstart aide to usurp the conflict begun in the name of that love. As powerful as Samael was, as much responsibility as Lucifer had been willing to let him take on, only one of them was truly in charge—and the former Archangel could not be allowed to forget it.

Lucifer swiveled. “Apology accepted, but I want you to remember what I said the other day because I meant every word of it. Until I say otherwise, the agreement stands and no one lifts a finger against my son.”

He strolled across the room to stand before his aide, face mere inches away. A flush spread across Sam’s cheekbones and his eyes slid away to stare at a point beyond Lucifer’s shoulder. Lucifer grasped the Archangel’s face in one hand, fingers digging into mahogany-dark flesh, and forced the golden gaze back to meet his.

“If you do anything to interfere, anything at all to cross me, make no mistake, Samael. I will crush you.”

A
lex stood by the nurse’s counter in the emergency ward, fingers drumming out her agitation against the polished surface. Catching an annoyed glare from a doctor at the far end, she pulled her lips tight in apology and slid both hands into her pockets. A dozen feet away, the exchange between Henderson and Riley continued unabated.

Alex grimaced again. Riley’s eyebrows had damn near disappeared into her hairline when Alex had entered the ER at Henderson’s side. The shrink hadn’t even acknowledged her presence. Had simply taken the Vancouver detective’s arm, drawn him aside, and without lowering her voice, demanded, “What the hell is she doing here?”

Glancing at the clock above the counter, Alex felt her nerves wind a little tighter. She’d already been here ten minutes. Was Seth still watching television? Was he getting restless yet, wondering where she was? Would he go looking for her if she—

“Detective.”

Riley’s cold voice jolted her back to the present. She
looked down into the hostile blue eyes and tried not to think about how easily this woman could sink her entire career. One phone call from Riley to Alex’s own department shrink, and Alex would spend the rest of her working life writing traffic tickets. If she were lucky enough to keep her job at all. Her fingers curled inside her pockets.

Just tread lightly, Jarvis.

“Follow me.” Riley led the way down the corridor, the ever-present Birkenstocks slapping against her heels.

An unhappy-looking Henderson fell into step behind her and Alex flashed him a quick look. “Well? Is this one like the others?”

“Not on the surface.”

Alex frowned. “Can you be a little more specific?”

“We’ve had two prior victims. One claimed she had been raped by someone posing as her boyfriend, the other that she had no recollection at all of even having sex. This one—” Henderson nodded his head toward the door beside which Riley had stopped to wait for them, scowling. “This one was brutalized.”

Alex stopped walking. Hell, she’d left Seth alone for nothing. “So it’s not related, then.”

“There’s more.” Henderson stopped beside the psychiatrist and looked back at her. “She and her boyfriend had taken a vow of abstinence. Boyfriend showed up at her door last night and started getting pushy. She resisted, he insisted. One thing led to another and he raped her.”

“I’m sorry, but I don’t see the connection—”

“She claims that, about halfway through the attack, he changed.”

Cold trickled down Alex’s spine as Riley’s scowl deepened to a glower. “Changed how?”

Henderson’s mouth went tight and he stared at the floor for so long without answering that Riley cleared her throat and spoke instead.

“She claims he changed into someone else, Detective Jarvis. A stranger. With wings. She says he was an angel.”

“S
O
.” H
ENDERSON SNAPPED
his notebook closed and stuffed it into his jacket pocket. “I’m ready to hear that idea you had.”

Alex stared down at the girl in the hospital bed. Beyond what Riley had already told them on their arrival, they’d gleaned little else from the traumatized victim. Now that the sedatives had kicked in, they wouldn’t get anything more, either. Which left them with Jenna Murphy’s fantastical claims, a pregnancy test that had come back positive after a rape that had occurred only a few hours before, and more questions than answers.

Oh, yes, and an increasingly hostile Riley, who maintained the pregnancy test proved nothing and argued that Jenna had probably lied about her virginity and been pregnant already.

Alex wished the shrink could have been right. She would have given anything, in fact, not to know otherwise. She breathed carefully, the air icy in her chest. But she did know. What was happening, what the pregnancies were, what Lucifer was doing. She knew, and couldn’t begin to describe her horror.

A new race of Nephilim.

The first salvo in a war between Heaven and Hell.

Henderson waited, facing her across Jenna Murphy’s bed, Riley at his shoulder. Without looking up, Alex felt the shrink’s assessing stare. If she and Henderson had been alone, if the psychiatrist hadn’t been there, Alex might have told him. He needed to know what was happening, what was coming. Everyone needed to know.