Sins of the Son: The Grigori Legacy (31 page)

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” She grimaced. “I’m just not very good at not doing anything.”

“I don’t understand. We walked, we talked, we read. Are you bored with me?”

“No! No, it’s just—” She hesitated, trying to frame her words to eliminate any misunderstanding. As at ease as Seth seemed to be with the world, he still lacked the nuances of language and tended to take things too literally.

“I miss my job. Miss being in control. Miss working to solve things.”

“You wish you could solve me.”

“I wish I could be of more help to you.”

“So I could make my choice and we would be finished.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“What
will
happen then?” Seth’s black eyes took on the intensity that always sent a sliver of unease through Alex. “To us. Do we just go our separate ways? Will you forget about me and expect me to do the same about you?”

Alex’s breath snagged at the base of her throat. “I don’t know what will happen in the long term,” she said. “Heaven may have other plans for you. Other expectations. But whatever happens, I do know forgetting you would be impossible.”

“But you still don’t want a relationship with me.”

“Want doesn’t come into it.”

“Then you do want me.”

Dear God, he could make things difficult. Alex waited for the live-fish-in-her-gut feeling to subside and then tried again. “You have to see how different we are, Seth. I’m just a mortal and you’re—”

The cell phone at her waist trilled.

“Leave it,” Seth commanded, but she had already flipped it open, only too glad of the intrusion.

“Jarvis.”

“You happen to catch the news today?” Henderson’s tight voice asked.

“No, why? What did I miss?”

“The crazies are crawling out of the woodwork. Some guy stabbed a pregnant woman on the street in Houston, Texas. Mother of two, six months along with her third. Both she and the baby were DOA.”

Alex threaded fingers into her hair and tightened her grip until pain twinged through the roots. “Christ.”

“He claimed she was carrying Satan’s spawn and he was carrying out the Lord’s orders. He has a history of mental illness. Thinks the angels talk to him. Said the Archangel Raphael told him—”

“Stop.” Alex sank onto the edge of the couch and rested an elbow on her knee, burying face in hand. Angels. Again with the fucking angels, just like her mother. She took a long, slow breath.

“You okay?” Henderson asked.

She closed her eyes. “Ever notice how often the voices that tell these people to kill come from angels?” she asked.

“Until you mentioned it, no. What’s your point?”

“Between that and the number of wars fought in the name of God, doesn’t it make you wonder what life would be like without all this religious bullshit?”

Henderson grunted. “And I thought I was jaded. Don’t you think you’re being a little extreme?”

“My mother killed my father and herself when I was nine, Hugh. Because the angels told her to. I found their bodies.”

“Shit,” Henderson said quietly. “I didn’t know. I’m sorry.”

Alex waited until she was sure her voice would respond and then said gruffly, “It was a long time ago. But yeah, when it comes to religion, I might be just a little extreme.”

“Then I’m guessing it might be a little much to ask you to check on a priest for me.”

She lifted her head. “Father Marcus?”

“He isn’t answering his phone. Three new cases just landed on my desk and I can’t get away.”

“Can’t you send someone else to check on him?”

“I’ve read the Toronto file, Jarvis. If something has happened to him—something like Father McIntyre…”

“You’d like to know first.”

“I don’t know what difference it would make—it would still have to be reported—but yes. I’d like to know first.”

Alex didn’t question his logic. Or his paranoia. If anything like Toronto had happened to Father Marcus, a heads-up would be a definite advantage. Emotional rather than practical, perhaps, but still very real. “Text me the address,” she said. “I’ll let you know what I find.”

Flipping the phone shut, she looked up to where Seth waited by the glass doors, his dark eyes watchful. As-sessing.

“That was Henderson. There’s been an incident.”

“I heard.”

“Ah.” Alex stood and tucked the cell phone back into its holder, its vibration announcing Henderson’s text as she did. She cleared her throat. “He wants me—”

“I heard that, too. I didn’t know about your parents. I’m sorry.”

A flare of grief blindsided her. Blinking back unexpected tears, she responded gruffly, “Like I told Henderson, it was a long time ago. Would you mind very much if I went out for a while? It should only be an hour or so.”

“Would it make you happy?”

She remembered their interrupted conversation and returned his smile. “It’s not quite what I had in mind, but it will do for now.”

“Do you want me to come with you?”

She hesitated. Cringed from the hurt in his eyes.

“Go,” he said.

“It’s not that I don’t want you—” Hell. That sure hadn’t come out right.

A half smile curved Seth’s lips. “I know.”

The live fish returned to Alex’s gut. Heat rising in her cheeks, she took her coat from the closet. “Will you be all right on your own here?”

“I may go for a walk.”

“Alone?” Alex’s voice came out sharper than intended and she flushed again. “Sorry. I just worry about you.”

Seth chuckled outright. “You do know how odd that sounds, don’t you? Given that I’d be much better equipped to deal with a Fallen One than you would be?”

“I know, but—”

“I’ve no interest in speaking with Lucifer again even if he does try to reach me, Alex. I promise. Besides, they assigned your soulmate to be my watchdog, remember?”

Alex stilled at the underlying edge to Seth’s voice, but when his expression remained relaxed—bland, even—she decided she had imagined it.

“Go,” he said again. “I’ll be fine.”

Silently she put on her coat and gathered her things. Keys, gloves, wallet. She considered going into Henderson’s room for the spare weapon he’d shown her stored there, but decided there was no point. The priest scenario was going to play out in one of two ways. Either Father Marcus would be just fine—the more likely finding—or she would walk in on another scene like the church in Toronto.

A crucifix, mounted on the wall behind a flimsy wooden dais. Upside down. The body on it not of plastic or wood or plaster, but of bone and tendon and shreds of putrid flesh—recognizable as human only by its general shape.

Alex gritted her teeth. Either way, a gun wouldn’t help, and certainly wouldn’t be worth the risk of having to explain why she carried one off duty and out of her jurisdiction if she happened to be caught with it. Hand on the doorknob, she looked over her shoulder at Seth and met his steady black gaze. His words ran through her mind again:
“Then you do want me.”

She couldn’t keep running away from him. Or from herself.

“I’ll be as fast as I can,” she said. “Then…”

“Then?”

“We need to talk.”

A
RAMAEL STRAIGHTENED FROM
his leaning post against the ventilator housing on the rooftop and stared at the apartment across the street. The two presences he’d been monitoring had divided, moving floors apart, the distance between them continuing to grow. What the hell?

He moved to the edge of the gravel roof. He could still sense Seth in the apartment, but Alex—his gaze flicked to the street. Far below, a door opened and a woman emerged onto the sidewalk, heading toward a parking lot. Alex was leaving. Alone. Without Seth.

And Lucifer knew about her.

Tension coiled through Aramael. The thread of connection he’d tried to dismiss earlier returned, back as if it had never been gone. He closed his eyes as Alex got into a vehicle, started it, and pulled onto the street. The thread began to draw taut, pitting desire against duty once more.

Fucking Hell, would he never be rid of Mittron’s curse? Every time he thought himself cured of his soulmate, every time he was sure he had his feelings under control—feelings he should never have had in the first place—his soul betrayed him yet again.

Gritting his teeth, he fought the urge to abandon the Appointed and follow Alex. The thread stretched tighter, thinner. Grimly he rode out the certainty he would be ripped
in two, clinging to the knowledge that he had survived walking away from her once and could do so again. He had no choice, because giving in to this just wasn’t an option. It had never been an option, and it was damned well about time he came to grips with the knowledge.

The car carrying Alex disappeared around a corner. The strings around Aramael’s soul stretched beyond agony, reached breaking point, and snapped at last. Breath returned. He waited, making sure the connection was really gone—again—and then turned back toward his post, only to come up short in stunned surprise.

“Seth? How the Hell did you get here?”

Arms crossed, the Appointed scowled at him. “More to the point, what the hell were you so focused on that you didn’t notice?”

“I
t’s a match.”

Elizabeth looked up as the pediatrician, Dr. Gilbert, marched into her office and flopped into the chair across the desk from her.

“It’s not an exact match, of course,” Gilbert continued, “but the same genetic makeup is there, and—”

“Wait.” Elizabeth held up a hand to stop the flow of words. “I assume you’re talking about the Chiu baby’s DNA, but you’ve lost me. A match to what?”

“The DNA results the coroner in Toronto sent out.” Gilbert raised an eyebrow and prompted, “From the serial killer case they had a month ago? It isn’t exact, but it’s close enough to tell us it came from the same kind of…being.”

Coroner? Serial killer?
Elizabeth brushed the questions aside in favor of the one making her eyebrow arch the highest. “Being?”

Gilbert rested an elbow on the arm of the chair, her knuckles against her mouth, and stared at her. Then, moving her hand to play with the stethoscope hung around her neck, she said, “The Toronto DNA came from a claw, Dr. Riley.”

Elizabeth gaped at the pediatrician, certain she couldn’t have heard right. Gilbert grimaced.

“Yeah, that was my reaction, too. But the coroner there was adamant that’s what it is.”

“A claw. As in from an animal?”

“Not one that’s in any database, no. Or one that normally roams the streets of Toronto, either, I’m guessing.”

“But that’s impossible.”

“Also my reaction. And the coroner’s. He was shocked as hell to get the police request.” Gilbert seemed to recognize Elizabeth’s confusion and elaborated, “Detective Henderson of the Vancouver PD called the coroner this morning. The coroner faxed him the results, he forwarded them to our lab, and the tech called me an hour ago. I just spent the last half hour on the phone with the coroner confirming everything.”

“
Hugh
Henderson?”

“Someone you know?”

“He’s handling Melanie Chiu’s file.”

“Well, he’s going to love this. Toronto has three more babies just like ours. The coroner just finished the autopsy on the mother of the last one, born yesterday. After Henderson requested the DNA from the case, the coroner had the children’s hospital there compare the babies’ DNA with the same claw. He got the same results we did. We’re in the process now of forwarding the comparisons to all the other labs looking into this.”

A cold, hard knot settled into the middle of Elizabeth’s chest, right where her heart resided. Hugh had found the proof she’d demanded. Concrete evidence that made it impossible for her to keep looking the other way.

Gilbert cleared her throat. “There’s one more thing. We don’t have results, yet, but we’ve taken a DNA sample from an amnio on the rape victim brought in the other night.”

“You did an amnio on her? She consented?”

“Child services came in with a court order.”

“Child—?” Elizabeth gaped at the younger doctor. “You’ve got to be kidding me. What kind of idiot judge would sign an order like that?”

Gilbert’s fingers curled around the stethoscope. “I’m guessing the same kind that would sign an order letting them take the Chiu baby away from her grandparents this morning.”

A
RAMAEL WATCHED SETH
stroll toward the edge of the roof and look out across the night-lit city. The sound of an aircraft passing overhead mingled with the ceaseless, muted traffic rhythms from below, filling the silence stretching between them. Aramael waited.

“Well?” the Appointed asked over one shoulder. “You haven’t answered my question. What were you so focused on that you couldn’t sense me?”

“And I’m not going to answer you, either. Under the terms of the agreement, I’m not even supposed to speak to you.”

“Fuck the agreement.”

“You already tried.” The words slipped out before Aramael could think better of them and Seth’s gaze sharp-ened.

Darkened.

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing. It means nothing.” Damnation. Mika’el would have his head for this.

“It means something, or you wouldn’t have said it.” Seth turned away from the city to face him again. “Either you tell me or I go in search of Lucifer and ask him. Your choice.”

Aramael’s jaw flexed. Seth’s memory might still be missing, but his personality had certainly returned in force, complete with the arrogance Aramael remembered. The air of superiority that expected others to fall in with his wishes, and that told Aramael he meant every word of the threat he’d just uttered.

He sighed. “You know about the transition, how it was supposed to go. How it failed.”

“Go on.”

“You made it fail.”

“Excuse me?” Seth scowled. “Why would I do that?”

“Because of Alex. You tried to give up your destiny and transition as a mortal adult so you could be with her. Unfortunately, the Highest Seraph didn’t have the capacity either of you believed he did and so we find ourselves here.”

Seth stared at him. “I tried to give up who I was for her?”

“More
what
you were, but yes. You did.”