Fallen Angels 04 - Rapture (31 page)

“And that’s the issue.” Mels reeled her paranoia in. “The official photographs of the body don’t show anything, but these, which are claimed to have been taken before the CPD ones, do. So I want to know if these images are touched up in some way.”

Suraj looked across the table. “Do you have the files for these images? JPEGs? GIFs?”

“No, the printouts were given to me, and they’re all I’m going to get.”

“Will you let me take these into my workspace for a minute? I’ve got a microscope back there.”

Mels eased in closer. In a low voice, she said, “The police do not know about these photographs, and I’m not sure what their owner is going to do with them.”

“So keep it quiet.”

“But know that I will not obstruct justice if that’s what this comes down to. I haven’t had them long, and I will move fast with the authorities as appropriate.”

“But you probably don’t want me scanning these into my computer and doing an analysis that way, do you?”

“I’d rather not make any copies—especially not in e-form.”

“Okay, I can tell a lot under the microscope.” The guy got up. “Give me ten and I’ll see what I can do.”

As Suraj left and Tony played point-and-shoot with one of the rubbish bins, Mels rubbed the back of her neck and thought of what she’d found in her damn pocket.

“I don’t suppose you know anyone who’s into ballistics?” she said.

“As a matter of fact, I do. What you got?”

Mels massaged her temples. “A headache, actually.”

“You haven’t bought your food yet. Much less consumed it.”

“Good point, my friend.” She got up and headed for vending heaven. “Very good point.”

As Jim stood just inside the break room across from the morgue, he got up close and personal with the fact that invisibility had its benes—and sometimes could put your balls on the rack.

He’d known the moment Mels Carmichael had entered the St. Francis medical center complex, and given the number of cops in the basement, it hadn’t been a total surprise that she’d beelined for right where he was. Unfortunately, he’d also sensed a reflection of Devina somewhere around—but he couldn’t quite pinpoint it.

And then he’d seen those photographs.

Unlike the reporter, her buddy with the munchies, and the doctor-type in scrubs, he knew
exactly
what those markings were—as well as who put them there.

And who had taken them off the body.

Those runes in the skin of that dead woman were exactly what had been on Sissy’s abdomen. A language, a marking, maybe even
a message. And what Devina could carve in could probably be lifted—after all, she routinely created a three-dimensional image of perfection over her true, walking/talking corpse self.

An eraser job was not outside the realm of possibility. …

As the guy with the hospital pass hanging from his lapel got up and left, Jim followed him and those pictures into the morgue, even though there was nothing he could do—and leaving the reporter was probably not the brightest idea.

Except why would Devina be fucking around with killing some random human woman? You’d think she’d be too busy worrying about the game—and that prostitute had clearly not been a virgin, so it wasn’t like she could be used to protect the demon’s mirror—

Hair color. Blond hair color.

Straightened hair.

Just like Sissy.

What were the chances. “Motherfu—”

The hospital guy stopped dead in the middle of the CPD clog and looked behind himself—and Jim sent a reminder to his mouth that invisible was one thing; silent was another.

As the man led the way down a hall and into a cramped, tech-heavy office, Jim stayed out of the way, settling back against a whiteboard marked with a grid of names, dates, and procedures. When the phone rang minutes later and the guy got distracted, Jim wanted to yank the cord out of the wall and refocus the bastard.

But come on. He already knew the deal; the question was who to be more pissed off at. Himself. Devina—

Jim frowned, as something dawned on him. During the check-ins with Adrian this morning, the angel had mentioned he’d been hanging out at a murder scene with the reporter.

What a frickin’ coincidence.

It was a good half hour before the man got up from his crouch
over the scope to head back out to the reporter and her carbo-loading friend.

“So what’s the verdict,” she asked as he sat down.

“Okay, first the caveats. Without the digital file itself, or the ability to pixelate it and run a scan, I really can’t give you a one hundred percent—”

The sound of clanging above their heads had all three of them looking up and then shielding their eyes as a shower of fine particles sifted loose from the ceiling squares.

“How long’s this construction been going on?” Tony asked while a shrill grind of a saw played chaser.

“For. Ever.” The man lined up the photographs on the table. “Anyway, disclaimers aside, here’s what I think. From what I can see under the scope, it appears as if there was no retouching done—but that’s not really saying much, given that I only have the printouts, and people can do some pretty subtle, sophisticated stuff with images if they have good enough equipment.”

Mels inhaled deeply. “Well, thank you—”

Suraj put up his palm. “Wait, I’m not finished. I saw that body. There was a rash in the abdominal area, but obviously that’s not what’s in these photographs. And I remember that pattern—it’s also on the girl who was found in the quarry—”

Another sound, louder, like thunder, reverberated through the ceiling … as if something had been dropped on the tiles directly overhead.

The last thing Jim saw before all hell broke loose was Mels sending a glare heavenward. One second later, a six-by-eight-foot section of the suspended ceiling broke free of its maze of girders and swung down in one piece, hinging on where it was still attached.

Firing right at Mels.

Jim flipped into action, surging forward, shoving her off that orange chair and out of the way. His back and shoulders took the
brunt of the impact, the sharp-edged weight cutting into him, drawing blood as everyone in the room shouted and ducked for cover.

The pain caused him to reveal himself, but that wasn’t the biggest problem. Looking up through the dark hole in the ceiling, he locked eyes with … a construction worker who was illuminated by the light flooding upward from the break room.

Standing with his boots planted on the rafters and his hands on his hips in the vast space above, the man was not right.

His eyes were black as the depths of Hell.

“Devina,” Jim hissed.

All at once, the worker grabbed his chest and started falling forward, his body slumping with a curious grace, the ends of all those tools on his belt flaring out like a model’s hair in front of a fan.

Jim played buck-stops-here for the second time, catching the guy in a sloppy grab because loose, limp bodies, though they weighed less, were messier than hunks of ceiling.

There was an abrupt explosion of talk, but Jim didn’t pay any attention to it. He was too busy easing the unconscious worker onto the floor—and sensing Devina’s abrupt departure.

Damn it
…

“Oh, dear God,” Mels said, crouching down.

A sharp elbow pushed Jim aside, the man with the hospital badge getting on his knees and putting fingertips to the side of the construction guy’s throat. As Jim stepped out of the way—

“Jim Heron.”

Jim looked at the reporter, who was staring up at him as she rose from the floor. Fucking hell, he thought as she squared off at him.

“Well?” she demanded, seemingly undaunted by the fact that she’d nearly been killed. “And don’t deny it. I’ve seen your picture in a lot of places.”

“I’m his twin brother.”

“Really.”

The medical guy looked up. “Someone call extension nine-zero-zero-zero on that phone. Tell them we’re outside the morgue.”

Matthias’s girl snapped into gear, discharging the directive calmly and quickly. When she came back, she went over to her newspaper colleague, who, in spite of the drama, had managed to peel back the wrapper of a Snickers bar and get munching.

“You okay?” she asked him.

“Close call,” he muttered, staring at the medical drama on the floor at his feet.

Mels relocked her eyes on Jim, and then she grimaced and rubbed her temple like it was aching.

Things turned into a convention at that point, with other construction people arriving, along with hospital staff, security, and a couple of cops who’d heard the crash.

When the worker who’d fallen through the ceiling was finally put on the stretcher, he opened his eyes. Blue as the sky now. Not black.

Not a surprise.

Man, that demon had some kind of balls: If the conventional theory of a higher power held true, then the Big Guy Upstairs knew everything that happened, at every moment, all over the planet—from each blossom that bloomed to the feathers on a sparrow, to … big hulking construction workers who free-fell into break rooms at major metropolitan hospitals because they’d been temporarily possessed.

No doubt Devina had intended that chunk of the building to fall down on Mels. And wouldn’t that have been a destabilizer in the game: Matthias finally bonds with a chick, and then she dies on him?

Great setup for decision making.

And to think Jim had assumed the demon was being too quiet?

Keeping free of the congestion, he disappeared himself, figuring
that Mels would assume he’d walked off. Instead, he stayed put, and stuck close to that reporter—and had to admit he was impressed. She was a tough bird, answering the questions that hospital security gave her, keeping tight for her friend as well as the guy who’d done the microscoping, working with crowd control as the injured SOB on the stretcher was removed from the scene.

She looked around from time to time, as if she were searching for someone, but in the end, all she could do was describe her “savior” to the St. Francis security set. She didn’t name names, however. Then again, she didn’t really know who he was, did she.

As far as Matthias’s reporter was concerned, he just bore a striking resemblance to a dead man. That was it.

Funny, much as Jim didn’t approve of so much his old boss had done over the years, he found himself not faulting the guy’s taste in the opposite sex.

And he was going to have to get her and Matthias together ASAP. Not just because it would make defending them easier, but who knew when the crossroads would come … and Matthias would have to choose his way.

The more time his former boss spent with that female … the better off they were all going to be.

Where the hell was “Jim Heron,” Mels wondered when she and Tony were finally free to go.

“Good thing I had that food,” her buddy said as they got back on the elevator they’d taken down to the basement a lifetime ago. “It’s frickin’ eight o’clock.”

“Yeah.” She pushed the
up
button. “Yeah …”

Tony’s palm landed on her shoulder. “You okay?”

She took a deep breath as they began to rise. “Don’t ask me that until we get upstairs. Between my car accident and what just happened,
I’m worried there’s another big crash coming my way. Things happen in threes, you know.”