Redemption Song (Daniel Faust) Page 9

  “Say no more. I’m sending a limo. Go outside in about twenty minutes, it’ll be there. I’ve got a safe house. It’s not far, but it’s off the grid. You can both crash there as long as you need to.”

  Nicky sounded pleased that I was going to him for help. Maybe he thought I was sliding back under his thumb, right where he liked me. Truth was, the reason I didn’t call Bentley and Corman for shelter, or the rest of my family, was simple: if our hunters found me, they could find my family too. Nicky’s safety, I didn’t mind risking.

  I met up with Alvarez at the bar. He was halfway down his first glass of whiskey. I thought it was his first glass, anyway. I took a swig of my own, letting it burn down my throat, cutting the tension like a hot knife.

  “Cavalry’s coming,” I said. “We’re getting a ride out of here and a place to hole up.”

  “Safer than the last one?” he asked. I didn’t blame him for sounding dubious. I changed the subject.

  “I’ve been thinking. You said your hobby’s…translations, right?”

  He nodded. “I don’t want to boast, but I’m fluent in several languages. My work’s been published in liturgical digests, here and there.”

  “Do you ever, and forgive me for the phrasing, buy your source materials from anybody shady? Like, somebody who might have criminal connections? Smugglers, grave robbers, anybody like that?”

  His eyes went wide. “Absolutely not! I mean, I don’t dig into the life stories of the people I buy from, but I’ve never heard anything disreputable about them.”

  One more dead end for the pile.

  “These translations, it’s all church history? Like, Pastor Zebediah’s Sunday sermon from a thousand years ago?”

  “About that dry.” He chuckled, weakly. “Every now and then, though, I find something really entertaining, like the piece I’m working on now. It’s a Coptic Christian manuscript from around AD 1000, not long before a major schism in the church. The author was a bit touched in the head, but it makes for a great read. I’m still trying to find a journal who might want to publish it once I’m done, maybe as an April Fools’ article.”

  I cradled my drink. “Yeah? What’s it about?”

  “A road map to hell, if you can believe that.”

  My fingers clenched around the glass.

  “Road map?” I said, trying to sound casual.

  “The author claimed there was a literal road to perdition, not far from Alexandria, and that he’d navigated it and returned to tell the tale. It’s not quite a ‘road,’ as such—it’s a list of landmarks and ritual steps to perform at each one, and the exact way to travel from point to point—but the end result, he claimed, would allow a soul to come and go from the underworld as they pleased.”

  “The manuscript. Where is it right now?”

  He caught the edge in my tone. His brow furrowed.

  “It’s all nonsense, you understand. The poor man had spent too much time meditating out in the desert—”

  “People murder each other over nonsense every single day. Where is the manuscript?”

  “It’s in my office back at Our Lady,” he said, shaking his head. “But I don’t understand. Why would anyone go to these extremes for a little thing like that? All they had to do was ask, and I’d have happily shared it with them.”

  “Sometimes it isn’t just about the having. Sometimes it’s about the keeping-it-away-from-somebody-else.”

  I downed my drink and left a crumpled five on the bar for a tip. Maybe it was all a coincidence, maybe I was grasping at straws, but I had a hunch Father Alvarez’s innocent hobby had made him a marked man from here to the edge of hell.

  Out in the valet drive, a sleek white limousine with livery plates waited near the end of the sidewalk. A buff guy in a gray jacket stood by the door, holding a hastily stenciled sign reading FAUST.

  “That’s our ride,” I told Alvarez. “Don’t worry. You’re going to be safe now.”

  The driver held open the door for us. I clambered in and stretched out my legs, happy for a little luxury.

  I was less happy about the two men sitting across from us. One of them had a nasty little pistol aimed right at my face. The other was a demon.

  He looked like a genteel, thin-faced man in his fifties, but he glowed like black diamonds, vibrant and seething in my second sight, a font of raw malice. His tailored suit was pure Savile Row, and he cradled a walking stick of polished mahogany in his slender hands.

  “The answer to your first two questions,” he said in cultured, dulcet tones, “is yes.”

  Alvarez noticed the gun as the passenger door slammed behind him, sealing us inside. The locks clicked shut in grim unison.

  “What questions?” The priest looked at me.

  I slumped back on the leather seat. “Question one: Is that an incarnate? Question two: Are we fucked?”

  “An incarnate what?” Alvarez asked. The limo started to roll. The demon chuckled.

  “You’ve kept the good father in the dark. Not surprising. Allow me to be the bringer of light. And the answer to your third question, Mr. Faust, is no. Nicky Agnelli did not betray you. He just has a leak in his fortress walls.”

  “Someone, please,” Alvarez said, squirming in his seat, his head whipping from me to the gun and back again, “tell me what’s going on here.”

  The demon twirled his walking stick in his hand. The silver tip resembled the head of a roaring lion.

  “My name is Suulivarishisian, but I invite you to call me Sullivan, as my mortal friends do. I do hope we become good friends, Father. I am the leader of an organization called the Redemption Choir, and I am here to save your life.”

  The Choir’s leader is a demon, I thought. A demon at least as old and powerful as Caitlin. That kind of information was worth its weight in gold.

  That was how I knew they’d never let me out of there alive.

  “He,” Alvarez said, pointing at me, “is trying to save my life. You people were shooting at us!”

  “We were shooting at him,” growled the cambion with the gun.

  “I’m sorry,” Sullivan said. “My friends’ behavior was a bit…exuberant, shall we say? That’s why I’ve come to handle this business personally. Just in time, too. I hate to disappoint you, Father, but Mr. Faust here was sent to kill you.”

  He looked at me, shocked. I shrugged.

  “If I was going to kill you, I’d have done it by now,” I said.

  “But you don’t deny,” Sullivan said, wrinkling his nose like he smelled something foul, “that you were sent to kill him.”

  “I don’t work for Sitri.”

  “Oh, if only that were true. Caitlleanabruaudi has her hooks in you, little man. I know her well. I have known her well.”

  “I still don’t understand,” Alvarez pleaded.

  The lighting in the limousine faded under layers of invisible spider silk. The air chilled and webs of frost condensed on the tinted windows as Sullivan removed his mask. His skin bubbled like a sheet of paper-thin leather laid over a boiling pot of water. Horns like bloody tusks pushed out of his temples, flesh melting to scabbed-over gristle. His nails lengthened in the dark, turning yellow, dripping with a viscous fluid that smelled like raw stomach bile.

  “Be not afraid,” Sullivan said.

  I would have gone for a gun, if I had one. Alvarez went for a rosary. He clutched the tiny wooden beads between his trembling fingers, stumbling over the first words of the Lord’s Prayer.

  “Please, Father.” Sullivan looked tired. “Would you taunt a legless man with tales of running a marathon? Would you taunt me with images of divine love and grace? Have I done anything so cruel to you?”

  Alvarez fell silent, still clinging to the rosary.

  Sullivan waved his clawed hand. “Theological question for you. If an angel can fall from heaven’s grace, can a demon hope to climb? Can one born in perdition, created in a state of inherent sin, even aspire to rise above his nature? Or is the love of God a forlorn hope?�
�

  The priest had to think about that.

  “I don’t know.” Alvarez spoke slow, thoughtful, still terrified but in his element now. “And it would be wrong of me to claim knowledge I don’t possess. But the Lord loves everyone, even those who have turned away from him. No hope is forlorn, if it springs from honesty and love. Hope is what keeps the world alive.”

  “And what of a man,” Sullivan said, pointedly staring at me, “who has every advantage, every opportunity to seek grace, and throws it away at every turn? What of a man who only thrives in the darkness, who consorts with thieves and whores and killers, who lies, cheats, steals, and shares his heart and his bed with the powers of evil?”

  Alvarez rubbed his chin.

  “Then I would pray for him,” the priest said, “because he, too, can be forgiven.”

  Sullivan frowned. He leaned back, clutching the walking stick between his knees.

  “I’m starting to think,” I said, “that you people don’t like me very much.”

  “Demonfucker,” spat the cambion with the gun.

  I sighed, turning to Alvarez. “It’s like the old joke says. You build a hundred bridges, nobody calls you Daniel the Bridge Builder, but you sleep with just one demon—”

  “There’s nothing amusing about what you do,” Sullivan said. “My friends, my flock, they carry a taint in their blood that they never wanted and never asked for. All they want is to be pure, to be human. You flaunt your perversion in their faces.”

  I tilted my head toward him. “So what’s your story, Big and Ugly? If you want to be human, you’d better go buy a house in the suburbs, play golf, and cheat on your taxes, because that’s the closest you’re ever gonna get.”

  “Let me shoot him,” the cambion hissed. I didn’t like how the gun wavered in his hand. His fingers were too tight, and the trigger was too easy.

  Sullivan shook his head and rested a calming hand on the halfblood’s shoulder. “No. He has a purpose yet.”

  I didn’t like the sound of that. In my experience, when your enemies get the drop on you and don’t kill you, that’s when they’ve got something much, much nastier waiting in the wings.

  Fifteen

  A desert nightscape slid by outside the tinted glass. Nothing but sand and red rock mountains as far as the eye could see. Wherever we were going, we’d put the bright lights of Vegas far behind us.

  “It took me a while,” I said, “but I figured it out. You’re working with Lauren Carmichael, and Pinfeather’s your inside man.”

  Sullivan raised an eyebrow.

  I held up a finger. “You knew about this limo, because the FBI task force is tapping Nicky’s phones. Your inside guy, the cambion on the force—that’s Pinfeather. He heard about the limo, realized it was for us, and called you. Except he’s also in Lauren’s pocket, because she pulled the strings to get the task force up and rolling in the first place. That tells me that you and Lauren are getting cozy, and I’m willing to bet that the good father’s road map to hell is the reason why.”

  “So close to the truth,” the demon said, “and yet so tragically far. Your life story, if I’m not mistaken. No, Mr. Faust, I have no intention of regaling you with the intricacies of my master plan. You will be confined until you are useful, and then you will die.”

  “Yeah? Then why not put a bullet in me right now?”

  “That, I will tell you,” Sullivan said with a smile. “I have unfinished business with your ‘Caitlin.’ You’re going to help me destroy her. The one noble act of your misspent life. It might even be enough to earn your salvation, though I honestly doubt it.”

  As the limo turned towards faint lights in the distance, I looked for a way out. So far, I wasn’t finding one.

  A Spanish mission waited at the end of the line. Its crumbling adobe walls stood against time and the barren desert. A bell rang out as we pulled through the wrought-iron front gates, chiming from a tower high in the old central villa. A ragged handful of men and women came out to greet us. They closed and locked the gate behind the limo. Most of them carried guns.

  Rough hands hauled me out of the car and slammed me against the hood. They kept my arms pinned behind my back as they rifled my pockets, taking my wallet, my phone, and my deck of cards. Alvarez got the kid-glove treatment. One of the cambion patted him down gently, just to be safe, but he did it with an apology on his lips.

  “You don’t actually think,” I said, “that I’m going to help you hurt Caitlin.”

  Sullivan tapped the tip of his walking stick against the dusty asphalt. “I don’t plan on giving you a choice in the matter. This is a kindness, really. Eventually, she’d betray you, just as she betrayed me. That’s what whores do.”

  The limo driver had my arms pinned, but that didn’t stop me from lifting my shoe and smashing it down on the arch of his foot. He yelped, his grip slipping, and that was all I needed to get loose and charge at Sullivan, cocking a fist.

  Stupid move. I didn’t even see it coming. He stepped to one side, graceful as a falling leaf, and the mahogany stick lashed out with the speed of a bullwhip. It hit me across the stomach, and the air gusted from my lungs. I stumbled. He whipped the stick around and into the back of my knees, sending me tumbling into the dust.

  He wasn’t done with me yet. Every whistling slash of the stick was a precision blow, eye-watering agony and scarlet welts blossoming in their wake. He said something, but I couldn’t hear it, couldn’t do much of anything but writhe on the ground, cover my head with my arms, and try to escape the relentless beating.

  It finally stopped. Alvarez had Sullivan by the wrist. Sullivan could have torn him limb from limb, but he lowered his hand, gentle as a lamb.

  “Please,” Alvarez said. “Don’t.”

  Sullivan nodded. “Apologies, Father. I…have a bit of a temper. You were right to rebuke me. Gentlemen, please escort that to a holding cell.”

  I spat blood into the dust. It tasted like tarnished pennies. A couple of Sullivan’s goons hauled me to my feet, and I didn’t have the strength to argue.

  “Father,” I wheezed. “Don’t tell these bastards anything. They are not your friends—”

  Sullivan rolled his eyes. “Please, Mr. Faust. Have the dignity to know when you’ve been defeated. Now come along, Father. I’d like to give you a tour. Our facilities are humble, but I think you’ll be impressed…”

  • • •

  I wasn’t sure who I was angrier at, Sullivan or myself. Losing my temper and giving him the bum-rush was a stupid, stupid move. I knew what Caitlin was capable of in a fight. I should have known Sullivan would be just as dangerous.

  Sullivan’s goons tossed me in a dusty storage room with a thick oak door and a high barred window too small for a toddler to squeeze through. I lay on the cold flagstone floor, listening to the squeal of rats in the dark and drowning in a dull, throbbing ache. Sullivan had intended on inflicting pain, not damage. Nothing was broken. I’d just be feeling the aftermath of the beating for days, wearing the red stripes he’d painted across my skin. That, and seeing his gloating face in my mind’s eye.

  I’m not sure how I slept, but I did. I woke from fitful dreams to a world of fresh pain and groaned as I forced myself to sit up. With the light of dawn streaming through the barred window, at least I could see where they’d left me to rot. An antique standing mirror with an oblong brass frame gathered dust in one corner, across from a jumble of wooden packing crates probably forgotten about back when this place was still a mission. A quick peek confirmed my suspicions and the stench of mildew wrinkled my nose. The crates were packed with brown monks’ robes, the burlap-like fabric long since disintegrated to uselessness.

  Not much to go on. I thought about an impromptu ritual, but seeing as my captors hadn’t bound and gagged me—a basic precaution, when you’ve got a sorcerer on your hands—I had to figure Sullivan would be sniffing for stray magical energy on his home turf. They’d be on me before I even came close to getting a spell off, not tha
t I had any of the gear I needed to really brew up something potent.

  The dark arts weren’t going to get me out of this mess, but there was more than one kind of magic. I’d tried doing things the dumb way. Now I needed to play it smart.

  I started to sweat as the sun crested over the mountains. The cramped stone room was a broiler in the desert heat, and nothing but the glare of the sun came in through that miserly little window. Maybe an hour later, the door rattled. I braced myself.

  The kid who came in had a plastic tray in one hand and a gun in the other. He looked eighteen, maybe nineteen, wearing a Warped Tour T-shirt and khaki shorts with flip-flops. I sat on the floor and held up my open hands, trying to look harmless.

  “Hey,” I said, “any chance I could get a fan in here or something? In case you haven’t noticed, this is Nevada.”

  He set down the tray, careful, keeping his eyes on me and the gun level the entire time. Smart kid. Well trained. On the tray were two plastic bottles of Aquafina and an apple.

  “I’m not supposed to talk to you,” he said. He looked at me like I was a curiosity in a circus exhibit.

  “Most cults, you know the first thing they do when they get their hooks into you? Tell you who you can and can’t talk to. That’s how they make sure you don’t hear anything they don’t want you to hear. Trust me, I used to be in one.”

  “This isn’t a cult,” he said. “It’s a family. Sullivan takes care of us.”

  “Sounds like something I would have said, back in the day. What about blood? Your folks know where you are?”

  He shook his head. The skin of his cheek rippled, just a little, as his demonic side tried to assert itself. “Never knew my dad. Mom died having me. I’ve been on the street since pretty much forever. That’s where he found me, where he finds most of us.”

  “And tells you how evil you are, and how you need to be purified. You know your boss is a demon, right?”

  “He’s transcended. He’s not a demon anymore, not really. He’s going to show us all how to be like him.”

  I cracked open the first bottle of water. I’d never been so thirsty in my life, but I held back. I didn’t want to give him a chance to wriggle off the hook.