“Your guess is as good as mine. He is aware I brought him and Regina to the Underworld. That I struck a bargain that trapped me in Hell right along with them. But we were not tortured together. For the past eighteen months, he has been moving from city to city across the United States, and now, he is in San Francisco. Two bodies have already been found. If I do not stop him, he will continue his reign of terror across the world. I did not spend centuries in Hell to damn thousands more to my fate. I need to speak to Gabriel.”
A hand claps me on the shoulder, and I whirl around.
“Well, if that is all you wanted, you could have simply asked.”
The archangel stands before me, his long white robes and flowing hair billowing in the breeze. I stagger back a few steps, his presence almost painful, and meet Mad’s gaze on the screen. “I have to go.” Ending the call, I swallow hard. “Hello, Gabriel.”
Nine
Sin
“You called?” Gabriel says with an air of superiority to his tone I have not missed in my centuries of banishment. “I do not enjoy this realm, Sinclair. Get on with it.”
I grab the archangel by his robes and shove him against my car. “The incubus piece of shit calling himself Thorn. Why is he no longer in Hell?”
With a roar, Gabriel knocks me back ten feet, and I land on my ass in the dirt at the edge of the cliff. Fuck. Any closer and I would have gone over. “You forget your place, half-breed.”
“And you forget that the Almighty welcomed my father into the celestial realm. If you are going to insult me, do so for my choices, not my parentage.” I brush off my black pants as I give Gabriel a wide berth lest he decide to teach me yet another lesson. “I went to Hell for almost two centuries so that abomination would never be free again. Yet he has returned to the mortal realm and has been terrorizing and murdering for over a year now. Care to explain?”
Even with his wings hidden, Gabriel carries himself like the Almighty’s chosen one. Shoulders straight, chest puffed out, and somehow staring down his nose at me, even though I am a full two inches taller. But as he processes my words, his countenance shifts and his brow furrows. “I was not aware. Are you certain it is the demon? Humans are quite often horrible creatures, Sinclair. One or more of them could simply be abducting those of the other for sport.
Pulling out my phone, I bring up the photo of the dead police officer’s arm with Thorn's signature tattoo. “If this is not his work, someone is doing a bang-up job of impersonating him. No human alive should be aware of this mark or its symbolism.”
With a sharp breath—breath he technically does not need to take—Gabriel narrows his eyes at the image. Anger makes his alabaster skin glow, and the rumble in his chest is not a sound I have ever heard him make before. Not even when he banished me to this realm until I had atoned for my misdeeds.
“This should not be possible,” he says, almost to himself. When he returns his gaze to mine, disdain and disgust twist his normally perfect features. “I will have to pay Lucifer a visit. I hate the trip to the Underworld. If this is all some human playing at demonology, I will be very pissed off.”
Before I can reply, he vanishes, leaving only a stirring of dust in his wake.
I have been gone too long, and the litany of text messages does nothing to assuage my guilt. Six from Maddox and four from Zoe. Maddox will forgive me. Zoe? That is doubtful.
Tracked down your phone number, finally. Don’t suppose you’re coming back anytime today?
Leaving all the research to someone who’s never used the Bureau’s computer system before is bullshit, Sin.
Found Other Resources. No thanks to you.
Her final message sends a storm of guilt washing over me.
The last time a partner went dark on me, he died. If you’re not dead, you better have a damn good explanation.
On my way back to headquarters, I ring Maddox.
“Sin? What the bloody fuck?”
“Do not lecture me, Mad. I certainly did not expect Gabriel to hear me.” Taking a corner on two wheels, I floor it up one of San Francisco’s more challenging hills. “He knows nothing. Yet. But he is on his way to see Lucifer as we speak. Or so he says.”
“He’s an archangel,” Mad replies, as if I’ve forgotten. “He does not lie.”
“I would not be certain of that. Gabriel can twist the truth to his liking with ease.”
“When will you know? I’m worried about you.” As I stop at a red light, I laugh off his concern, but he’s having none of it, and his frustration carries over the transatlantic connection. “Fine. Do things all on your own. Like you have always done. It’s not like we’re family or anything.”
The car’s display flashes Call Disconnected, and I stare at it for so long, someone behind me honks. When did the light turn green?
Maddox hung up on me.
I cannot pry that thought from my head until I pull into the Bureau’s parking lot and search for Zoe’s old coupe. Fuck. She is not here. I do not know why I am surprised. It is well after 5:00 p.m.
“I will apologize to her in the morning,” I say to no one. Tonight, I have some investigating of my own to do.
Zoe
My apartment feels smaller than usual. Probably because as little as a few hours ago, I thought I could find a place at the Bureau. Somewhere I’d belong. Until Sin ran out on me and didn’t respond to any of my messages.
Kunchin showed me down to Other Resources, also known as the Bureau’s Personnel Department. The Yeti’s a cool guy. Maybe tomorrow I’ll get up the courage to ask him how he blends in with the rest of the human world when he investigates Otherworldly crime. Because I know I’d remember seeing him walking around the city.
Oh shit. Have I been Mem-Cleared?
The couple at the park this morning weren’t allowed to leave until they’d spent time with the crime scene techs. Before Sin arrived, one of them—a mage—had explained that they take brain scans of any human witnesses, then wipe their memories of all existence of the other. I couldn’t watch them do it, and now I wish I had.
After I lock the door and strip out of my jacket, I head for the kitchen, wondering if I’ll ever forget the things I saw today. So many photos. Most of them showing women brutalized so badly, they were unrecognizable. Some were only identifiable by dental records or a lingering bit of magic near their final resting places.
The half-empty bottle of whiskey beckons me, but now that I know what this Thorn asshole is capable of, I need to be clear-headed, so I start a fresh pot of coffee instead.
Kunchin didn’t just show me Other Resources. He taught me the Bureau’s computer system. Even got me set up with my own secure cloud storage drive. So after I change into a pair of sleep shorts and my favorite SFPD t-shirt, I pour myself a large mug of my favorite brew—a Peruvian single-origin—and curl up in bed with my laptop.
From what I’ve gathered, both from talking to Kunchin and scanning the news articles in the weekly shifter newspaper—the existence of which nearly had me falling out of my chair earlier today—the shifter community in San Francisco keeps to themselves. And they hate the handful of shifters who work for the Bureau. Some dust up with a tiger shifter agent who hassled one of the leopards working the sex trade in the Tenderloin.