I rolled down the window. “Hey,” I said.
“Harry,” he said calmly. “What are you doing here?”
“I just had a conversation with Preying Mantis Girl,” I said. I held up a notebook, where I’d scribbled down the angelic sigil while it was still fresh in my memory.
Michael took a deep breath and grimaced. Then he nodded. “I had a feeling they might be in town.”
“Oh?” I asked.
The front door of the house opened, and a large, dark-skinned man appeared, dressed in blue jeans and a dark leather jacket. He wore a gym bag over one broad shoulder, and had one hand resting casually inside it. He paced out into the cold and the snow as if he’d been wearing full winter-weather gear, rather than casual traveling clothes, and stalked over toward us.
Once he got close enough to make out the details his face split into a broad, brief grin, and he hurried to stand beside Michael. “Harry!” he said, his voice deep, rich, and thick with a Russian accent. “We meet again.”
I answered his grin. “Sanya,” I replied, offering my hand. He shook it with enough force to crack bones. “What are you doing here?”
“Passing through,” Sanya said, and hooked a thumb up at the snow. “I was on the last flight in before they closed the airport. Looks like I am staying for a few days.” His eyes went from my face to the notebook, and the pleasant expression on his dark face turned to a brief snarl.
“Somebody you know?” I asked.
“Tessa,” he said. “And Imariel.”
“You’ve met, huh?”
His jaw clenched again. “Tessa’s second…recruited me. Tessa is here?”
“With friends.” I sketched the sigil I’d seen on the blackened denarius a few moments before and held it up to them.
Sanya shook his head and glanced at Michael.
“Akariel,” Michael said at once.
I nodded. “He’s in a Crown Royal bag in the ashtray.”
Michael blinked. Sanya too.
“I hope you have one of those holy hankies. I’d have taken it to Padre Forthill, but I figured they’d have him under observation. I need someplace quiet to hole up.”
Sanya and Michael traded a long, silent look.
Sanya frowned, examining my brother. “Who is the vampire?”
I felt Thomas stiffen in surprise. As a rule, even members of the supernatural world can’t detect what a vampire of the White Court truly is, unless he’s actually in the middle of doing something vampity. It’s a natural camouflage for his kind, and they rely upon it every bit as much as a leopard does its spots.
But it can be tough to hide things from a Knight of the Cross. Maybe it’s a part of the power they’re given, or maybe it’s just a part of the personality of the men chosen for the job—don’t ask me which. I’m fuzzy on the whole issue of faith and the Almighty, and I swim those waters with extreme caution and as much brevity as possible. I just know that the bad guys rarely get to sneak up on a Knight of the Cross, and that the Knights have a propensity for bringing the truth to light.
I met Sanya’s gaze for a moment and said, “He’s with me. He’s also the reason Akariel has a date with the inside of a vault.”
Sanya seemed to consider that for a moment. He glanced at Michael, who gave a grudging nod.
The younger Knight pursed his lips thoughtfully at that, his gaze moving to the backseat.
Hendricks had woken up, but he hadn’t moved. He watched Sanya with steady, beady eyes.
“The woman,” Sanya said, frowning. “What is she?”
“Hurt,” I said.
Something like chagrin flickered over his features. “Da, of course. You would not bring her here if you thought her a danger.”
“Not to you or me,” I said. “Tessa might have a different opinion.”
Sanya’s eyebrows went up. “Is that how she was wounded?”
“That was after she was wounded.”
“Really.” Sanya peered a little more closely at Gard.
“Back off,” Hendricks rumbled. “Comrade.”
Sanya flashed that swift smile again and displayed open palms to Hendricks.
Michael nodded to Thomas. “Pull the truck around to the back of the house. With all this snow piled up it should be hidden from the street.”
“Thank you, Michael,” I said.
He shook his head. “There’s a heater in the workshop, and a couple of folding cots. I’m not exposing the children to this.”
“I understand.”
“Do you?” Michael asked gently. He thumped the truck’s dented hood once, lightly, and waved Thomas toward the back of the house.
Twenty minutes later we were all warm, if a bit crowded in Michael’s workshop.
Gard lay on a couch, sleeping, her color improving almost visibly. Hendricks sat down with his back to the wall beside Gard’s cot, presumably to stand watch, but he’d started snoring within a few minutes. Sanya, with the help of Molly and her siblings, was off rounding up food.
I watched as Michael wrapped Akariel up in a clean white hankie embroidered with a silver cross, muttering a prayer under his breath the whole while. Then he slipped the hankie into a plain wooden box, also adorned with a silver cross. “Excuse me,” he said. “I need to secure this.”
“Where do they keep those things?” Thomas asked, after Michael had departed.
I shrugged. “Some big warehouse with a gazillion identical boxes, probably.”
Thomas snorted.
“Don’t even think it,” I said. “It isn’t worth it.”
Thomas ran his gloved fingers over the white scarf. “Isn’t it?”
“You saw how these things operate. They’ll manipulate your emotions and self-control, and something bad would happen to Justine. Or they’d wait until they had you hook, line, and sinker and you were their meat puppet. And something bad would happen to Justine.”
Thomas shrugged. “I’ve got one demon in my head already. What’s one more?”
I studied his profile. “You’ve got one monster in your head already,” I countered. “She barely survived it.”
He was still for a moment. Then he slammed his elbow back against the workshop wall, a gesture of pure frustration. Wood splintered, and a little cold air whooshed in.
“Maybe you’re right,” he said in a dull voice.
“Holy crap,” I said. An idea crystallized in my head, and a chill went down my spine.
Thomas rubbed his elbow lightly. “What?”
“I just had a really unpleasant thought.” I gestured at Marcone’s exhausted retainers. “I don’t think the Denarians took Marcone so that they could erase him and make an example of him.”
My brother shrugged. “Why else would they do it?”
I bit my lip, my stomach turning in uncomfortable flips.
“Because,” I said, “maybe they want to recruit him.”
Chapter Fifteen
Thomas stood watch over our sleeping beauties while I went inside to talk with Michael and Sanya at the Carpenter kitchen table.
I laid all the cards down. See above regarding the general futility of lying to Knights of the Cross—and besides, they’d both more than earned my trust. It didn’t take me very long.