The Taken (31 page)

Grif had to fight not to down the whole of his drink. “And what happens to them?”

“He sells them to Schmidt.”

He stared hard at that. “Sells?”

“Sure. In return for sending out little ‘legal’ reminders to Chambers’s clientele, and making sure the heat is always directed elsewhere, Schmidt gets the castoffs for his own burgeoning illegal brothel. The girls are usually strung out by then, or else they’ve been made to feel like they’ve got no other use. Told no one with real class would want them anyway. And what are they supposed to do, go back and seduce their school’s star quarterback?”

“They could quit and walk away.”

Bridget sneered. “You’ve clearly never had a pimp.”

“That’s true.”

“A girl can’t walk,” she told Grif, leaning forward. “She has to run, and even then she’d better have wings. Better yet, a false identity and a crash pad far, far away.”

Grif understood now. “Because Schmidt sets them up. Arrests them for nothing, charges them with something. Guess he feels like he owns them.”

Bridget inclined her head. “And unlike my father, he’s never finished with them. It’s work for him or do jail time. Period.”

“He can’t be working alone.”

“Oh no. There are other cops in on it.” Leaning back, she blew out a breath. “Even the girls become complicit at this stage. And, of course, the judges and politicians and lawyers they balled back at Chambers’s place. Everyone has a vested interest in keeping those women quiet and on their backs.”

Grif looked at her. “So what’d they have on you?”

“You mean when I got busted at the Wayfarer?” She shook her head. “I wasn’t working for Schmidt. I was trying to get the girls out. I was sick of it. It was eating at me, and I thought, in some ways this had all started with me so maybe I could end it, too. One of the girls rolled me, though. She thought she’d earn points with the ‘Old Man’ if she told him what I was doing.”

“Is that why you didn’t tell Kit that Chambers was your father?”

Bridget slumped wearily. “Schmidt cost me my job before. After I was fired from the Fifth Avenue salon, the bastard had the nerve to call me up. He didn’t say his name, but he didn’t have to. He said if I messed with his business, then he’d mess with mine. He didn’t care whose daughter I was.”

“And you think he would?”

“Schmidt can do anything he wants. So I decided to keep my nose clean and mind my own business. If they’re smart and want it badly enough maybe some of the others will, too.”

Grif studied her face. “So why contact Kit and Nicole with the list?”

“I didn’t.”

Grif drew back at that, because he’d been sure she had. Yet there was no reason for her to lie now. Not when she was being so honest about everything else.“One last thing, then.”

She lowered her glass.

“Where is Chambers getting all these girls in the first place?”

She looked at Grif like he was impossibly naive. “He’s a bishop in the twenty-ninth ward.”

Grif shook his head. “What does that mean?”

“The Mormon Church. He’s essentially the head of his own congregation.”

Grif felt his face drain of color. “He culls little girls from the church . . . and turns them into prostitutes?”

Bridget smiled bitterly. “Makes priests look downright old-fashioned, doesn’t it?”

“But why wouldn’t the girls tell someone? Their families, their mothers?”

“There’s a system you have to go through. The same person, a man, who takes complaints for the church . . .” She trailed off, looking at him pointedly.

“Takes them directly to Chambers,” Grif finished for her.

“One big, happy family, right?” But the scorn was quickly replaced. Soberly, she said, “I actually told at first.”

“Told on your own dad?”

She nodded. “I agonized over it for days—prayed over it actually. I thought if God was on my side then someone would listen and . . . save me. So I went to church. Went to the elder like we’re told. You know what he said?”

Grif shook his head.

“He said, ‘God will help you out of your sin, child.’ ” She winced with the memory, her face momentarily caving in on itself. “I seen a lot and done a lot since then, but I have never seen anything so cold as that man, who sat before a kid who’d been sold and raped, and told her that her only hope of help was God.”

“You know God’s not to blame for that, right?”

“Oh, He’s not the one I blame.” And sighing, Bridget signaled for another drink. “Anything else you need to know? Any other old scars you want to poke at?”

Rising, Grif shook his head, and pushed in his chair. “Thank you for your time, Bridget.”

She shrugged, and he began to walk, but paused, and returned to put his palms down on the table’s center. “You know, I kinda have a sixth sense about a person’s true nature, and well, whatever you’ve done in the past, whatever was done to you, you’re still walking and breathing and making choices for your own life. And you’re worthy of a good life, Bridget.”

Tears shimmered, and Bridget swallowed hard.

“Oh, and Schmidt was wrong,” Grif said, straightening.

“About?”

“You,” Grif said, staring directly into her hard-soft face. “You’re not a damned bit tainted.”

Tears fell unheeded from her eyes as she stared. “Be careful. He’s powerful.”

“You be careful, too.”

Wiping her face with one hand, she lifted her glass with the other. “Don’t worry. Chambers can’t ever touch me again.”

Grif shoved his hands in his pockets. “You should let someone touch you, though.”

Bridget shot him that too-knowing half-smile. “So should you, Shaw. So should you.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

T
he cab that’d dropped Grif in front of Bridget’s shop was long gone, and he was forced to walk back the way he came. Not that he minded. He had a number of thoughts to chew on, and the almost-fresh air did him good. Again, it didn’t matter that his personal navigation skills told him no more than which way was up, he just lit a Lucky, tucked his head low against a pushy breeze, and headed to the bright bulge in the middle of the desert night.

As he walked, he reassessed Kit’s chances of survival against what Bridget had told him. He’d already known Schmidt was involved in the events at the Wayfarer, and his attack on Kit marked him as enemy number one. He’d assaulted Grif again at Tony’s, and, in all likelihood, killed Paul Raggio as well. He had partners—all nameless and faceless thus far—though one had taken a bullet at Tony’s, courtesy again of Schmidt.

Which brought him to Schmidt’s other partner, Chambers. The oil greasing the wheels. Question was, how was Grif supposed to clear Kit Craig from all these men’s sights? Was it even possible at this point? Could fate be altered a second time, or was she in so deep that it’d be like throwing a floatie to someone in the middle of the Atlantic?

Bust the lid off the Chambers-Schmidt connection, Grif thought, nodding to himself. Even in Vegas that was a scandal. But because power and muscle lay entirely with them, proof had eluded the light of day for over ten years. Chambers had it, of course, but he certainly wasn’t going to let it be used against him.

“Has to keep those tapes somewhere,” Grif muttered, flicking his cigarette butt into the gutter. It’d take time to find them though, and Grif couldn’t even be certain of the next ten minutes. Free will or not, Sarge could yank him from the Surface at any moment. So how the hell was he going to score enough time to reveal Chambers’s dirty little secret, much less save Kit?

Find out who sent Kit and Nicole that list, he thought, cutting across a vacant commercial lot. That’s what started this whole thing, so maybe it could end there, too. But how to find someone who had less interest than ever in being found? And as Bridget had no idea who was behind that initial list, where the hell was he supposed to start?

Exhaling a hard breath, Grif rounded the corner, felt one painful pulse from where his wings once were, and instinctively threw up his hands in defense.

Anne stood there, stoic and unmoving. “If I were going to strike you, you’d already be down.”

Straightening, Grif jerked at his jacket’s hem. “I knew that.”

What he hadn’t known was that dark skin could look so ashen. Gone was the glorious sheen that made the Pure’s features gleam like polished marble. Her eyes were dull and sunken—they almost looked human—and her structured clothing looked like it was holding her up instead of the reverse.

“You look terrible, Anne. And . . . blue.” He took a step back as she lifted her chin, but he struggled to see the vengeful Pure who’d knocked him cold before. “Have you taken a real breath since you hit this mudflat?”

Her jaw clenched, the bones underneath appearing brittle, like they would pierce the skin at any moment. “Air is for the weak.”

Grif watched the old disdain flash in her dark gaze, but it had no real heat this time and was banked an instant later. Besides, she might be a mighty, immortal Pure, but he was the expert here on the mud. “Yeah, well you have to breathe.”

“Breathe, eat, move—all these necessities and actions.” She jerked her head, and it swung back unnaturally, like it was on a spring. “I can’t even catch my thoughts anymore. They swirl and swirl and just when they’re about to coalesce into something of use, I’m attacked by a sensation—a scent or texture or sight . . . sometimes all at once. It’s overwhelming.”

She shook her head again, this time swaying with the movement, then stilled like she just remembered Grif was there. Grif might not be in danger of physical assault, but he wasn’t sure he liked this neutered, unhinged Pure any better. “Come here, Anne. Sit. You need to take a minute.”

Anne allowed herself to be led to the back of the building, where Grif upended a paint bucket. She plopped down with a jerk, and running long fingers over her smooth skull, sighed. “This is why He did it, of course. I never understood it before, but I do now.”

“Did what?” Grif asked, leaning against the wall.

She gazed up at Grif dazedly, like a child. “Made you. Mankind. Why he formed you in His image. It is the perfect vessel to experience life to its full—feelings, emotions, senses . . . all of it piled atop an everlasting soul. Being human . . . it’s incredible.”

Grif had never seen it that way, through an angel’s eyes, before. “Yeah. I guess it is.”

Lifting her hands in front of her face, Anne studied the backs of them, then the palms, and back again. “You know, angels were made in a state of grace. It’s not prideful to say that we are perfect—it merely is what it is. We are strong, powerful, fearsome, and good. Even those who followed Lucifer are still instruments of use to God, but . . . feeling things the way humans do, the way God does, that is not our nature or our right. Those that forgot that, the Third, were ever ruined.”

She looked up at Grif, then surprised him by taking one of his hands in hers. Swallowing hard, he felt her fingertips, curious and caressing, exploring his. It wasn’t like Kit’s caress . . . or any other person’s. Her alienness was palpable. Electricity, not blood, soared in her veins, and vibrated in her touch. She was a different breed even bound in flesh.

“And so,” she continued, stroking his palm, sliding her electric fingers along his wrist, “as magnificent as those of us in the Host are—as much as that should be enough—we are not His most beloved creation. How ironic that we have more power in a thought than humans have in their entire bodies, and yet we are not equal to even the lowest of you.”

Grif didn’t know what to say. To apologize for that would be an insult to God. To not apologize seemed heartless. Grif might be stubborn and broken, but he was not that. Yet just as he was about to speak, she rose, both of his hands in hers, and stepped so close that he could see the storm clouds roiling in her eyes. Grif swallowed hard.

“I did not give you enough credit,” Anne whispered, drawing even closer. Her foreign heart thrummed as she pressed it to his chest. “Wearing this flesh has taught me what you must endure while traversing the Surface. The Pure feel emotion, yet without donning the material of God’s exact image, nothing sentient can ever know true passion. I see this now. Even pain is impossibly exquisite.”

Grif tried to slide away.

Anne’s fingertips tightened like steel.

“You don’t look well,” he said, swallowing hard. The knobs in his back throbbed.

“Because I am being poisoned by the perfect impurity of the human condition. And yet . . .” Her storm eyes fluttered, unfocused. “I cannot help wanting more. Did you know that strawberries taste like they’ve been dipped in sunbeams? Did you know that a child’s sweat smells like an old oak’s strong, wet roots?”

Grif shook his head slowly, not daring to say a word.

“It’s your fault.” Her gaze refocused, hard upon him, and her grip tightened to the point of pain. Grif tried to jerk away, but he could have been chained in the electric chair itself, and Anne’s face was suddenly inches from his. Hissing, she leaned so close they were aligned and touching head to foot. “I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for you.”

Grif fought to keep his voice and heart steady. She would feel it if his body temperature were to spike, if he were to take even an extra shallow breath. She was, very suddenly, sensing everything. “You’ll leave soon,” he told her evenly, “and you’ll never have to touch the Surface again.”

Tears welled—relief or regret, he couldn’t tell—and her already stricken face crumbled. Then her legs gave out, and Grif had to embrace her just to keep her standing. “Why won’t He call me back?” she cried, body sagging, voice breaking. “My mind is cracking. The impurity is profane.”

“I know,” Grif said, stroking her head, wiping the tears from her face.

“And yet . . .” Steeling herself, Anne pulled away, then licked her lips while she stared at his. “I can’t help . . .”

And suddenly Grif’s back was against the brick wall, the overwrought angel pressed against him, her lips probing and bruising. Her tongue flicked out like a snake’s, and her nostrils flared to take in his scent. Her eyes rolled, not with pleasure but like a machine cataloguing knowledge, and her tongue clicking rhythmically in his mouth, like she was counting moment after moment. Repulsed, he shuddered and had a horrifying thought. Was that what he’d looked like to Kit?

Grif managed to turn his face away, then pushed at her hands, which seemed everywhere at once. “Stop it! Anne!”

Yet his head hit the brick with a crack that made him wince and Anne seized the opportunity, mouth fastening over his, tongue probing, taking more. “Stop it!”

Using all his strength, he pushed, and Anne rocketed back, body skittering on the jagged asphalt of the alley. She was up again, standing in front of him, in the blink of an eye. “So the bull hasn’t been castrated,” she said. “It was a good try, though. I almost believed it.”

“Believed what?”

“You, trying to fit in on this mudflat. Ignoring your celestial nature. But now you see . . . you’re still a freak. Like mine, your celestial nature is bound in flesh. It’s like an A-bomb wrapped in rose petals. Feel it, touch it, taste it . . .”

And again, she was there, mouth fastened on his, arms wrapped around his back, and this time he couldn’t shake her loose. The power to call thunderheads from the sky filled Grif’s mouth, and his veins bulged with ozone. The earth’s lava flowed through her lips, and color streamed in sharp blades behind his eyes. Then Anne grabbed his shoulder blades right where they ached, right where his wings should have been, and raked them until he bled.

Screaming, Grif tried to pull away, but her nails were deep inside his flesh, ripping and probing, searching and . . .

“What is that?” Grif staggered away, suddenly free. Yet he felt chained, bound, too heavy in his flesh, and he reached for his back, and found . . .

“Feathers. One each, from my wings.” Anne giggled, too girlish and high, and she gave him a lopsided grin. “You can’t fight your angelic nature now, can you? Now you have to go back. Now you are also Pure.”

She cackled again.

“No.” Grif clawed at his back. The phantom pain that’d been stalking him was gone, but the feathers were burrowing under his skin like centipedes, like snakes. Like a pure angel’s wings.

“But first,” she said, in front of him again, “you are going to kiss me. And then you will move inside me. And then I will know what it really is to be alive.”

She lunged again, but this time Grif used her own power—
his
power now—to push her away. She stumbled back, chest heaving, and winced like she’d been slapped. Lowering her head, she slumped and muttered to herself, “Sharp and sour. Acidic and cold. No one told me.” Her eyes arrowed up, full of blame. “Now rejection has entered my emotional repertoire, too. And I can never unknow it.”

Grif winced, but still backed away. “I’m sorry.”

“That’s what men always say, isn’t it?” She laughed without humor, and licked the taste of him from her lips.

“I just . . . I can’t kiss another woman.”

A low chuckle rumbled in her chest, and Grif felt it echo in his shoulder blades. Shoulders bunched, she swiped her arm across her mouth. “Do you know what’s hilarious about this whole debacle? What’s so absurd?”

He shook his head, not daring to say a word.

“You, Griffin Shaw, are under the illusion that you’ve stopped living.” She bared her teeth, the smile gone macabre. “And Katherine Craig is under the illusion that she still is.”

Grif shook his head. No, that wasn’t right. There had to be a way. Kit was still breathing, they both were. Besides . . . “I wasn’t talking about Katherine Craig.”

“Oh, you meant Evelyn Shaw?” She bit her lip consideringly, accidentally drawing blood, and her eyes rolled again. Then
his
voice, the desperate nightmare voice, sprung from Anne’s throat. “Evie . . .”

Anne straightened, dispassionate again, and nodded once. “I see,” she said, in her own voice again. “You desire to know what happened to her, your old love. But do you want it more than anything?”

Grif wiped his mouth, but her taste, the ozone, the Everlast she’d buried inside of him pinballed through his core. “Yes.”

“I can give you that.”

He stilled and looked at her.

She smiled. “If you let Kit die.”

Grif closed his eyes, let his legs give, and slumped on the paint bucket he’d placed there minutes before. Picking up his hat from where it’d been knocked when Anne lunged, Grif settled it on his head, and buried his face in his hands. She learned quick, he thought wryly. He had to give her that.

“You look torn.” She knelt before him, then reached out and gently—but insistently—pulled his hands away. Tilting her head, she peered up into his face. “Does it hurt?”

“Yes,” he said tightly.

She leaned toward him. “Let me taste . . .”

Grif rocketed to his feet. “Don’t touch me!” he thundered, and there was power in his voice, there was pain. There was Everlast.