Made for Sin (14 page)

“I'm fine. Go back inside.” He covered his face with his palm; blood ran down his arm and dripped onto the carpet.

“What happened?” Her hand on his shoulder. He shuddered. God, why wouldn't she listen to him? Why wouldn't she go away? His entire body, every muscle he had, shook with the effort of preventing the beast from coming out, of keeping it from spinning around and attacking her. Through the red film over his vision, the red wash in his head, he saw what it would do next. He felt it planning. It would pin her to the wall, tear off her shirt, nick her skin to get a little blood flowing…the beast liked blood. It imagined her screams, the taste of her fear, and his stomach roiled.

“Go…just go.” Without turning to look at her, he sped up his steps. The stairs. He couldn't wait for the elevator; he'd have to take the stairs.

She wouldn't let him escape. Both her hands this time, circling around his upper arm, tugging him back.

The beast snarled. Before he could stop it, it spun him around—they both spun around—and grabbed her by the throat; another instant and her back was against the wall, and he was looking through the beast's crimson eyes, seeing her fear, smelling it like perfume. His lips parted, and his words in the beast's deep, scratchy voice erupted from between them. “You should have listened to him.”

“Don't,” she said, in a small, breathless voice that twisted like a knife in his chest.

The beast enjoyed hearing it—he would have enjoyed hearing it himself if the circumstances were different, if it had been him making her sound like that and if she'd had a choice in the matter. The beast was quite pleased that she didn't; it leaned in so his lips almost touched her neck. The smell of her skin, of her fright, the smell of his blood trickling down both his arms…the sight of her pulse pounding, pounding in her throat, the feel of it racing beneath his fingertips…more power. More strength for the beast. It was so close to breaking free, so close, and when he tried to say something it spoke instead. “Don't do what?”

She swallowed. She wasn't just scared, he realized. Fear was there, and uncertainty, but that wasn't all. Arousal was there, too. The beast chuckled, feeling it, knowing it was there, while Speare himself struggled harder to hold it back. “I can do anything I want. I can do anything
you
want,” it said, and it chuckled with satisfaction when her face flushed.

This wasn't right. It wasn't fair. All the things the beast destroyed, all the things it ruined for him, and now it was going after her. He was the reason it was close to her to begin with, and he'd promised himself he'd keep her safe. Now it was pressing her against the wall with his body, making fun of her, and it knew how much that bothered him. It knew what he was thinking, just as much as he knew its thoughts.

Worst of all, it knew how much it was affecting him to stand so close to her, to feel the heat of her skin so close to his, to feel her breasts against his chest with every gasping breath she took. It knew that he wanted this—wanted her. It knew how much he wanted her and how much it killed him that it was doing the things he couldn't. And it delighted in that.

Fuck its delight. It was not going to score off him again, or rub his nose in something, or use his body to do anything to Ardeth.
Anything.
With every bit of strength he had, he shoved himself away from her.

The force of it sent him stumbling back into the opposite wall, the beast's screams echoing in his head. Rage made it stronger, but he was determined to be stronger still. He fought it, exactly as he would another person except it was all in his head. Every store he had of belief in himself, belief in the power of good against evil, belief in God and religion and the church he'd been raised in, and belief in the old religion, the old powers, that Lazaro Doretti had introduced him to when he was fourteen. All of it gathered together to make something he saw as Good, as Pure, even, and he used it to fight the beast. He tensed the muscles of his arms and legs to make it harder for the beast to take them over.

He'd done it before. He'd done it more than once. Sometimes he was successful and sometimes he wasn't, but this time…this time he had to be. So he fought, crouched on the floor, staring into nothing while the beast howled and spun and raced through him trying to find a way out. After a few seconds he felt—dimly—hands on his shoulders, a warm body against his. Ardeth.

Ardeth holding him, speaking words that sent searing heat through him. After a moment he realized it was Latin, that she was saying the Litany of the Saints in Latin—the first prayer in an exorcism rite. How old Nielsen Pollard in there could think she was stupid was beyond him. The Litany wouldn't work—at least, it wouldn't work to drive the beast out of him—but it was helping him get control back. That was a surprise, too, because prayers recited in his head usually helped, sure, but not that much. Not once the beast was really stretching its legs, so to speak, and it definitely had been a few minutes before.

Gradually the red film started fading from his vision. Gradually the shaking slowed and stopped, leaving him on the floor, his hands and forearms wet with blood, his head pounding, his stomach churning, his entire body slick with sweat. Feeling like utter shit, basically. Like how he imagined he'd feel if he'd downed five or six bottles of bourbon in an attempt to distract himself during a bad flu, and then caught the measles while throwing up from the resulting hangover.

Something in his breathing must have alerted Ardeth that he was himself again. Her palms slid over his shoulders, rubbing them briefly before they left him. He wished she'd put them back.

“Do you need anything?” So soft, her voice was. So gentle. “Can I get you something?”

If the beast would allow a bullet to do its job on him, he'd ask her for one, but it wouldn't. He didn't want to ask her for anything. He didn't want her to be there, to have seen what she'd seen and to know what she now knew. Goddamn it.

But she was, and he couldn't slump there on the floor in the hallway of a strange building forever. He had to get up and he had to drive them back to her place, and to do that he needed some strength. He licked his lips. It didn't do any good. “Water.” Nope, too hoarse. Try again. “Water?”

A cool bottle was pressed into his hand. He raised it to his lips and drank. Was that going to stay down? It was iffy for a few seconds, but his stomach settled. Good. It didn't always do that without upending itself first.

Time to get up. He was nowhere near ready, of course; his legs shook from holding him in a crouch and the hallway swayed gently back and forth in front of him. The elevator looked like it was in New Mexico or something, so far away.

He didn't have a choice though, not unless he wanted Ardeth to sit around getting a good look while he trembled and gasped and generally looked pathetic. Or worse, they could head back to Nielsen's place, and Nielsen could see him trembling, gasping, and looking pathetic after beating him up—shit, he'd beaten Nielsen up.

No. He'd get up. He'd get out of there and maybe lie down for an hour or so—after he made it to a bed, a familiar bed. He'd recover, because he had to.

And he'd think about what Nielsen had said about the mirror, about the possibility that it could free him from the beast. He'd given up hope of that. He'd been told, finally, that it could never happen…but none of the people he'd spoken to had known about the mirror.

He'd think about that later, when he was able to focus on it and really consider it. He'd try to think about it rationally, too.

Or he'd answer his phone. Majowski really had the worst timing, didn't he? “Hey. What's up?”

“Speare?”

“Yeah.” Another few swallows of water. He must sound awful. “It's me.”

“You sound like shit. Did I wake you?”

“What's up, Majowski? This isn't a great time.”

Pause. “Okay. Well. Can you meet me?”

Ardeth crouched in front of him, watching him. She held out her hand, her expression asking the question.

He didn't want to answer it with “yes.” If he'd felt even a little better, if even ten or fifteen minutes more had passed before his phone rang, he might have been able to avoid it—it would take hours before he felt even close to normal again, especially given how bad that one had been, how close the beast had come, but it wouldn't take too long before he'd at least be able to think and speak normally again.

As it was, though…“Here. Talk to Ardeth. Tell her where you are and we'll, we'll come out there.”

She took the phone from him and stood up, pacing as she talked. “Chuck? Pretty good, how are you? Oh, no, he's okay. I made him some food last night and I think I poisoned him, but he refuses to admit it. Yeah, I know. I don't think he slept very well in my guest room, either.”

Amazing, how smoothly she lied. Even more amazing how smoothly she told the truth, letting Majowski know exactly what hadn't happened the night before. Even with his eyes closed he could picture her face, smiling like she didn't have a care in the world. Odd that it should comfort him, but it did. She wasn't bothered by what had just happened with Nielsen or what had just happened with him—or, well, if she was she wasn't showing it, which meant he could pretend she wasn't.

“So where are you?” she went on, after a pause. “Oh. Um, sure, I think that's fine. We'll—yeah. See you soon.”

Another few seconds passed before her footsteps approached. Her fingers touched his shoulder. “He's at the Spyglass, waiting for us. You think you're ready to get moving?”

No. No, he was not ready. In fact, he was starting to be kind of comfortable there on the floor, almost like he could fall asleep. The last thing he wanted to do was go anywhere else.

But he didn't have the luxury of being not ready, or of staying there until he stopped feeling like he was stuffed with sand. So he forced his head to nod. “Yeah. Yeah, let's go.”

He managed to stand, braced against the wall for a moment, gritting his teeth at the pain in his muscles, the weakness of them. Then he let go and staggered down the hall.

He ended up giving her the keys, because as much as he hated letting someone else drive the Dart, he hated the thought of crashing it even more. And she did fine, like he'd expected her to.

At least, she seemed to do fine. The sun hurt his eyes despite his sunglasses—they were always oversensitive to light after the beast used them—and he was so fucking exhausted that he couldn't pay attention. He hovered somewhere on the edge of sleep, his mind half-occupied by dreams but still aware that he was in his car, riding down busy streets that smelled of exhaust and heat. He'd think he was in the middle of a conversation with someone and then snap back to reality and realize he wasn't saying a word, that neither he nor Ardeth was actually speaking.

Because they weren't, aside from her brief offer to bandage his hands and his mumbled refusal. He didn't know if she was being quiet to let him rest, or because she was scared, or because she was trying to figure out how to get the hell away from him as soon as possible. She didn't look afraid; she looked perfectly content, occasionally singing along to the Velvet Underground on the car's stereo and tapping her fingers on the wheel.

She looked adorable, actually, but he knew her well enough by then to know that she was pretty good at hiding her feelings. Maybe she was scared and didn't want him to know, afraid of what reaction that might get. Maybe he didn't want to know. He definitely didn't want to talk. Explaining the beast wasn't going to be fun.

Finally they arrived at the Spyglass, one of the older, seedier hotel-casinos on the outskirts of the city. Mostly a front; Doretti owned it through a proxy, and kept it solely as a way to funnel cash, as far as Speare knew. Which meant that unless Majowski had a gambling problem or had a thing for blue-rinsed ladies, neither of which Speare thought was true, his presence there was probably not good news.

Ardeth cut the engine. “You ready to move, Elvis? Or—”

“Don't call me that.”

Her soft laugh washed over him. “I guess you're feeling better, then. Come on, he's inside.”

Getting out of the car felt like climbing K2: a painful, difficult ordeal he might not survive. He did it anyway. Spots erupted before his eyes as he followed her to the entrance—not the beast's spots, thankfully; it would probably be quiet for a good six hours at least after having a chance to play, however brief that chance had been—but he managed to see well enough to navigate.

The interior was just as bright as it had been outside, but with the added distraction of neon in various hideous colors and the torturous cacophony of voices, along with bells, tumblers, slot machines, chips, and tokens. The smell of old booze and sweat made his stomach shift uneasily.

Ardeth took his arm. “Want a drink? Water, soda, whiskey?”

It hurt his head to even make the decision. “Whiskey. Lots of it.”

She led him through the maze of damaged hopes to the bar—a dimmer area beyond his squinted eyes and dark lenses—where she squeezed his arm and let go. He stood there, as patiently as a child and feeling about as capable, wishing to God he'd had just a half an hour more. He needed to be able to think, damn it. To be able to listen to what Majowski had to say and ask questions. As it was, he was useless. He'd never not been given time to recover like this before. It made him want to hit someone.

Ardeth's fragrance reached him just a second or two before she did; the beast was asleep, for the most part, so its sensory ability slept as well. She pressed a cold glass into his hand. “Here.”

Whiskey. Hopefully it would help. He gulped it down, glad that it burned his throat because at least that meant he was feeling something normal, and shuddered slightly when it exploded into warmth in his stomach. “Thanks.”

Instead of answering, she plucked the now-empty glass from his hand and replaced it with another. “Make this one last, okay? Let's go up.”

He didn't want to make it last, actually. He wanted to drink it all and then get another. In fact, he wanted to buy a bottle and drink it all in one long draw. That might even get him drunk, though he didn't think it would be enough to forget the look on her face as the beast held her captive against the wall. “Up?”

“He's waiting for us on the roof, he said.”

Shit. Not in the offices, then. This wasn't just a meeting. He closed his eyes for a minute and tried to steel himself, to gather as much strength as he could. No matter what was about to happen, he didn't want Majowski to know just how bad a shape he was in. And he especially didn't want Ardeth to know just how close to falling apart he felt. He wanted—needed—her to think he was recovering well, that he was zipping along and would be back to his old self any second. She was being very kind, so far, but “pitiful” wasn't his favorite look.

Neither was “douchebag,” but he was keeping the sunglasses on just the same. Once they'd wound their way through that hideous clanging lobby, the staff-only section of the place was lit by daylight-bright fluorescents lining the halls. Their dull buzzing was like a chain saw in his head. He should have grabbed a third drink for the walk, and for the ride in the staff elevator that accessed the roof and was just as bright.

Then into the sun. It was never going to end. Luckily Majowski waited in the shade cast by the enormous air-conditioning unit and water tanks. Unluckily, the grim look on his face came close to matching the one Speare knew he sported himself, and Majowski's words when they reached him didn't help. “Come see.”

Uh-oh.

The view from the rooftop would have pleased him any other day, a different look at the sprawling oasis of sin that Bugsy Siegel had dreamed of seventy years before. The sprawling oasis of sin that was his own hometown, in his blood. All those buildings, monuments to both the soaring ambitions and the base instincts of humanity.

None of that held his attention, though. Not when he smelled the sickly sweet odor of death in the air, and not when he spotted the legs on the sticky flat roof, tucked up against the low retaining wall.

Just legs. Nothing else. Fuck, that was not what he needed to see at that moment, not when he already felt like shit. He squeezed the glass in his hand so hard, he was afraid it might shatter.

“The manager found these here about forty minutes ago,” Majowski said. He might have looked pale, too, but the sun was so bright it was impossible to tell. Even Ardeth looked a little greenish, although again, the disembodied limbs on the roof could be responsible for that.

Another swallow of whiskey gave him another shot of artificial strength. “Are they Mercer's?”

Majowski shook his head. “We're not sure whose they are just yet, but we're sure they weren't Mercer's. His driver's license lists him as five-nine, and these legs are at least forty-eight inches hip to toe. Mercer's torso was too long to match them and reach a total height of only five-nine.”

“So we have another victim, is what you're saying.”

“Looks like it.”

“And we don't know who it is.”

“Nope.”

Touching one of the legs wasn't a good idea. He knew it wasn't. The beast had muttered and shifted a little when they approached the legs, probably because death was in the air, but so far it was quiet, just like he needed it to be. He was too weak to fight it off again, or at least, it wasn't a chance he wanted to take.

But he knew what sorts of things could turn up in Vegas hotels, too, and legs were far from the weirdest he'd ever heard of. “I don't smell the incense. Maybe it's not connected to our case.”

“Maybe,” Majowski said. “But Doretti's on the phone doing a head count—so to speak—and the staff is checking registrations and searching the place top to bottom to see if there are any other parts. Meanwhile, well, you're the expert on that demon-sword thing, so I don't know if you can tell if that's what was used here.”

Yeah, that was what he figured was going to be asked of him. Damn it. “Yeah, just—”

“Can you give us a second, Chuck? I forgot to tell him something.” Ardeth interrupted Speare so smoothly it barely seemed like an interruption at all, taking his arm as she did. When he glanced at her she was smiling as if cheerfulness were an Olympic sport and she was desperate to bring home the gold.

Majowski looked from her, to him, to the glass in Speare's hand. “You okay?”

“I'm fine.”

Majowski seemed like he wanted to say something else; it hovered for a long moment before his face cleared and he smiled at Ardeth. “Remind me never to let you cook for me.”

“It's not one of my greatest skills,” Ardeth said breezily, hauling Speare from his lean on the wall—or tugging at him; he did the heavy lifting—and pulling him back around the air conditioner.

The shade helped a little, but not much. Especially when the second they were out of sight she turned to him. “Are you up for this?”

No.
“I'm fine.”

“Don't—” She pressed her lips together. “You don't have to do this. It can wait.”

God, she was killing him. The concern in her eyes, visible even through his sunglasses, was killing him. “I don't think it can. He's going to have to call the other cops soon. Laz is going to be here soon.”

“Speare, you're—”

“I'm doing it.” He said it hard enough, cold enough, to let her know he wasn't going to argue about it anymore.

And instantly regretted it when hurt flashed across her face. She got over it fast, but he still hated seeing it.

“Okay,” she said. “Fine. You want to do this to yourself, you go ahead.”

Damn it, did she not see that he
had
to do it? He didn't have a choice. He'd never had a choice when it came to this sort of thing. “It's not—I'll be fine. Okay?”

She shrugged. “Whatever. Come on.”

Her hand touched the edge of the unit as she prepared to go back around it, but he stopped her with his own. There was one other thing he had to say, and he had to say it now, fast, in case touching the leg knocked him out—or worse—and he couldn't say it. “Ardeth…I'm sorry.”

“Hey, don't apologize to
me.
I'm not the one—”

“No. Not about that.” She was really not making this easier, and he wasn't good at it to begin with. “About—what happened in the hall. What it said to you. That wasn't me. I didn't want it to—”

“Of course you didn't,” she said. “You don't need to apologize.”

Was she crazy, or was she joking, or what? “Yeah, I do. What happened—”

“Is something we'll talk about later, if you want.” She touched his arm, just a light brush of her hand, but it seemed to spread through his entire body. “Okay? But I'm fine. Don't worry about me.”

“That really doesn't help me much.”

“Then we'll talk about that later, too. Let's get this over with first, shall we?”

Without waiting for him to reply, she sailed back into the sunlight, back to Majowski. He couldn't see her face, but the breezy tone of her voice gave him a good idea of what was on it. “All done. Thanks, Chuck.”

Majowski scanned Speare's face, presumably looking for some evidence that everything was fine and presumably not finding it, because his own expression didn't clear at all. “You sure?”

“Yes,” Speare said. He eyed one of the legs like it was a bomb—which it might be, at least figuratively, and made his way toward it. The glass of whiskey was still in his hand, about half full; he gulped some of it down, thankful again for the warmth, and set the glass beside him. Time to get it over with.

Yep, definitely a demon-sword victim. He knew that as soon as he knelt by the thing, offering up one last desperate prayer that the beast would stay silent. Or at least that it wouldn't get so excited that it would try to bust out again.

He touched the leg. Darkness flew up his arm, another whisper of evil and sickness he didn't need. The beast woke with a growl. For a second he hung in the balance, caught between his roiling stomach, the beast, and the need to keep it together. More pain as he tightened his muscles—God he was sore—but it worked. He pulled his hand away, the beast subsided, and it was done. All he had to do now was quiet his breathing. “Yeah. Demon-sword. This is another one.”

“Shit,” Majowski said. “Whoever this guy is who's doing this, he's one hell of a go-getter, isn't he?”

Speare's weak laugh surprised him, but it felt good. “Yeah, he's pretty goal oriented.”

“If only we knew what his goal was,” Ardeth said. Something in the way she said it, though. He turned to look at her, leaning against the wall with a frown on her face. Not an unhappy frown; a focused frown, the kind of frown that said she had an idea and she didn't like it much.

He was just about to ask her what she was thinking when the access door opened. Laz had arrived, and if Ardeth's frown was one of concentration, Laz's expressed nothing but fury. “What the fuck is going on here?”

“It's another victim of the same—” Majowski started, but Laz cut him off with a look.

“I know it's another victim of the same killer,” he snapped. “You think I haven't figured that out? I want to hear from you, Lazaro. What's—what is she doing here?”

Speare spoke before Ardeth could. “This is Ardeth, Laz. She's—”

“I know who she is.” Laz's expression didn't brighten one bit. “Mickey Coyle's girl. The thief. What's she doing here, in my business?”

What the hell? Since when did Laz speak to a woman—any woman—like that? What was his problem with Ardeth? Speare forced himself back to his feet. “She's helping. She's here because I asked her to be here.”

“You look like shit,” Laz said. “What's wrong with you?”

Speare glared at him. At least he could still glare. Laz couldn't see his eyes, but he figured the set of his face made it clear enough. “Something didn't agree with me. Maybe it was you being an asshole.”