Deadly Dozen: 12 Mysteries/Thrillers (196 page)

He had to work his way carefully through this mine field. He relaxed his face, his shoulders, then gave Eduardo a just-kidding smile.

“So the Hernandez branch has been profitable?” he said.

“You might say that. They bring in about thirty percent of our gross revenue.”

“Interesting.”

“So what do you think, really? You want to shut it down, like Papi said you would?”

Lito eyed Eduardo suspiciously. “You got a personal interest in it?”

“I got a personal interest in everything we do.” And he did. Eduardo was one of the organization’s earliest powerful investors.

“So what was the deal with Alfonso?” Lito said. “How’d he know about this?”

“Your father told him to look after you—I was a witness to this. He also said Alfonso could never touch the Hernandez branch because it would offend you. But Alfonso either forgot or ignored the fact that
you
didn’t know about it. I had him followed for three months before I found out he was trying to turn the Hernandezes on us and move them over to the Suarezes. I recently found out he almost brokered a deal with one of the Suarezes, think his name was Damien. But Damien and the little girl he was selling got caught in the crossfire. After that, Alfonso wised up and decided to lay low and work his way in from the inside.”

Bile rose up in Lito’s throat.

“That’s why he started dating Maria.”

“He was going to marry Maria and use her for leverage—get you to put him in charge of the Hernandez branch as soon as he told you about them. By then he’d have brokered a deal with the Suarezes, figuring you’d want to sell the branch off. If you didn’t see it his way, Alfonso would turn on you and join them. That little—”

“I can’t thank you enough, Eduardo. I had no idea he was doing this.”

“I should have found out earlier, but it was
Alfonso
.” The old man shook his head. “None of us could believe it.”

Lito glanced over at the picture of him and Maria as elementary school kids, Papi behind them by the big palm tree in their backyard. He tried to imagine that little girl in the picture being again ripped from the loving arms of her family—and sold as a sex slave somewhere far away. Was this really what he wanted, to run an organization that—

“So, Lito? What do you think?”

He couldn’t let on what he really thought. If Eduardo had kept a secret this big from him for so long, there was no way to tell how much he could be trusted—if at all.

“It’s profitable, you say. So it pays for your stuff.”

“Yours too.” Eduardo winked. “But hey,
you’re
Señor Guzman now, not your dead father. It’s your call. What you say goes.”

“Don’t you forget it. And the Suarezes? What’s their disposition, now that we’ve taken out their mole?”

A wave of the hand. “Don’t even worry about them. They knew Alfonso was full of hot air. Anyway, they’d have to get past me if they wanted to do anything to the Guzmans.”

“They wouldn’t be that stupid.” But what if Eduardo himself had been compromised? Even if he hadn’t, could he sense that Lito wasn’t as on board with this human trafficking as he let on?

The old man sucked in another pull on his cigar and spewed out another toxic cloud.

“Now you know.” He looked Lito straight in the eyes, not coughing, not smoking. “What’s it going to be?”

Lito’s shirt stuck to his back. He walked over to Eduardo, signaling that the meeting was over, and squeezed his shoulder.

“Business as usual, my friend. Business as usual.”

CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

THE CONSTRUCT RESUMED AND THE SCENE dissolved into a new one:

The terminus at Victoria Station.

Nick could imagine nothing worse than reliving this day. Yet if he didn’t, the memory would continue to fester and swell like a boil. Perhaps sharing this experience with someone he cared about would help.

“You don’t have to do this, Nick.”

Hope stretched out her hand.

Feeling light-headed, weak in the knees, he reached for it.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s a difficult memory.” He rested his forehead in his hand, and sighed. “Over the millennia I’ve confronted demons, armies, and the forces of nature at its most destructive, but none of that made me as anxious as I feel now, thinking about it.”

“If it’s too much...”

Nick took a deep breath.

Shut his eyes.

Gathering all his courage, he stood tall, held Hope’s hand firmly, and began the memory-construct.

#

LONDON, ENGLAND 1913

It had been some three years since Sophia left, and he barely recognized her when she returned to their flat in London. But there she was, standing at the door, her flaxen hair now midnight black, her eyes...He shuddered. She wore a black dress, black gloves, and held herself with regal comportment. Nothing like the sweet, sassy young woman with whom he’d fallen in love and married.

“Aren’t you going to invite me in?” she said.

“I’m sorry, where are my manners?” Nikolai stepped back to let her in. He couldn’t believe he was treating her like a stranger. Couldn’t believe she
was
a stranger.

“Hmmm.” She strode into the living area, stopped, looked around. “And where is Clara?”

“At school, naturally.”

“I told you in my letter I wanted her to be here when I returned.”

“You’re early.”

She narrowed her eyes at him for a moment. “So I am.” Then she giggled, but it wasn’t Sophia’s giggle. Not a trace of that familiar mirth.

Who
was
this woman?

“Won’t you have a seat?” He stepped over to the stove, where a kettle was steaming. “Tea?”

“Thank you, yes.” She sat. Odd that she’d traveled without luggage. There had to be a thousand things to ask her, but he thought it best to let her set the tone and pace. He’d assumed it would take a great deal of effort to suppress his anger over her abandoning Clara and him after he’d given up just about everything to be with her. But she was so unlike the woman who’d left him he felt no inclination to berate her. In fact, he had no idea how to talk to her.

“Thank you,” she said when he placed the cup of tea on the table in front of her.

He took a seat facing her.

“You’ve changed,” he said.

“You haven’t.” Her lips curled up in a smile that didn’t match the coolness of her eyes. “But then, you never change, do you? Perpetually young, eternally beautiful.”

He took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

“What’s happened to you?”

“I’ve spent the last few years searching, Nikolai.”

“For what?”

She put the teacup down, folded her hands across her lap, and fluttered her eyelashes.

“Why the inquisition, darling?”

“I only—”

“I would so like to see my precious little Clara. Still attending Northbrae?”

“I’ll be going to pick her up there in ten minutes.”

“Nikolai, why don’t I go? What a splendid surprise it shall be for her to see her Mummy, waiting for her at the gate.”

“Actually, I think it’s best if I go myself,” he said.

She came over and sat in his lap, slipping her arms around his neck.

“Darling, one might think you weren’t happy to see the bride of your youth, after all this time.” She lifted his chin gently and brushed her lips against his until he opened them, sending a thrill through the human form in which he’d taken up residency for the past few years.

Her hair smelled like lilacs.

She kissed him again. But it was unlike anything he’d experienced with her before. It was aggressive, intoxicating, so pleasurable it hurt. It felt horribly wrong, and yet he wanted more.

“After I bring Clara home,” she said, “we can go out to celebrate our reunion at Brigham’s.”

Nikolai wrapped his arms around her, and she pulled him close—so close. For a brief moment, he loathed it.

Then he loved it.

He forgot where he was.

Who he was.

What
he was.

“I’ll go and get her right now, all right?” Sophia whispered. “Be right back.”

“Go on, then.” He gasped for air, having forgotten to breathe. “Come back as soon as you possibly can.”

She slipped out of his arms, and left.

He barely noticed the dark vapor hovering about him.

From the second-floor apartment window he watched Sophia with waning lust as she sauntered down the street. Never had he felt so human as he did just now. Before his decision to forsake his angelic ways and pursue a mortal life with her, he’d always wanted to know, to
feel
what it was like to be fully human. But after what had just happened? Losing himself in those purely physical, loveless cravings had left him feeling like some kind of animal. She was his wife, but it had never been this way before—so raw, so pleasurable and yet so abhorrent.

As she continued down the sidewalk, a dark cloud seemed to pass through the street. It vanished so quickly that he wasn’t sure he’d seen it at all. Yet at the same moment he became keenly aware of his angelic nature for the first time in years.

He began to perceive things again in the spiritual layers of reality on which he’d turned his back. And so, just before Sophia turned the corner, he noticed that a white aura encompassed her body as she walked. Small glowing lights invisible to the human eye floated around her and followed her like fireflies.

Lovely.

Yet the sight of those lovely white lights filled him with dread, with revulsion. Thanks to his reawakened angelic awareness, he knew what they were and the danger they posed.

And why they were floating about Sophia.

Demons.

And judging by the way they surrounded her and flowed through her, the demons had possessed her.

All those years she’d spent seeking the supernatural, only to find this? She must have given herself over to them in exchange for some empty promise. Demons were liars bent on destruction. They always offered humans what they desired most—which they couldn’t really give, of course—at a dear cost.

The human’s soul.

Nikolai hurried to the door, then remembered that as an angel he could teleport to the school…

Only he couldn’t. Nothing happened.

His abilities were still there—he sensed it—but they were…frozen. He’d have to run and hope they’d thaw out before Sophia reached Clara to do...God only knew what, considering she was under the influence of demons.

It’s not her
,
it’s not her.
He kept telling himself that as he raced down the stairs, down the street, and to his daughter’s school.
Not her.

When he arrived, a long queue of girls were pouring out from the gates of Northbrae. A sea of pigtails, navy skirts, books tied like parcels, but no sign of Clara or Sophia. He pushed through the crowd of mothers and nannies awaiting their children.

“Clara? CLARA!”

A huge bruiser of a man grabbed Nikolai by the lapels of his coat, and lifted him off the ground. “What’re you doing, shoutin’ in me ear like that?”

“Unhand me, now!”

“You’ll say you’re sorry first, now, won’t you?”

“I’ll knock you down first.” Nikolai gripped his hand but could not pull it off. He craned his neck and shouted again. “Clara!”

“Quit yer shoutin’!”

“Release me or throw a punch, you filthy mongrel!”

At this, the bruiser set him down, coiled his fist, and launched it at Nikolai’s face.

Nikolai braced for the pain—but didn’t feel the impact. Instead, the bruiser gripped his hand as if he’d just smashed it into a brick wall and howled in pain while Nikolai got to his feet and brushed himself off.

“Best run, mate.”

Which is precisely what Bruiser did. Eyes wide with fear, he ran down the street, glancing back twice as he fled. Nikolai glanced down at his hands and flexed his fingers, grateful his abilities were returning. He’d need them to find Clara.

Because she wasn’t there. The last child came out, met her mother, and left.

“Have you seen Clara?” Nick asked her teacher.

“She left a few minutes ago with her mother. It was so good to see—”

“Do you know which way they went?”

She pointed in the direction of Victoria Station.

“Are you two—”

“Thank you.” To his relief, he found himself hovering imperceptibly above the city streets. Down below he spotted Sophia walking briskly, pulling Clara by the hand. Past Eccleston Square, across to Wilton Street, and into the railway terminus. Did she actually believe she could simply take his daughter from him, that he couldn’t track them down and stop her?

He descended upon them.

Sophia seemed to sense his proximity and rushed into the throngs coming, going, and passing through the terminus. Nikolai took human form, more out of instinct than anything else, and plunged into the crowd himself. The need to stop her became visceral.

Down by the tracks, the massive steam-sighs of trains waiting to leave filled the air. The whine of metal against metal rang out along with the announcements of arrivals and departures.

He and Sophia were perhaps ten yards apart and surrounded by strangers when their eyes met, Sophia’s wide with anxiety. For a brief moment, he saw the lovely young woman he’d fallen in love with—but only for a moment. A sinister aspect fell like a veil over her face. She turned and ran with Clara in tow towards the stairs and elevated walkway above platform 12, the white lights only he could see flashing around her as she pushed through the crowd.