I’m sure they wouldn’t mind either.”
“You worry about your job, Abel. I will worry about mine.”
With a mocking bow, Reed skirted the archangel and his guards, and crossed through the busy bar. The location of their assignation didn’t escape a deeper perusal. Raguel said he had a meeting there that he couldn’t be late for. However, Reed suspected there was more to the choice. Perhaps it was a definitive statement of Raguel’s disregard for the unfolding events of the day.
But if that was the case, why was the archangel so certain of his safety? Had arrogance truly made him ignorant? Or did Raguel know more than he was willing to admit?
Eve woke to an icy deluge. Choking, she struggled to curl away from her torment and found herself strapped to a spindle-backed chair with her wrists bound in her lap.
Blinking, she glared at the young wolf who held a newly empty bucket in his hands. The air stunk of blood, urine, and shit.
“What is it with Infernals and water?” she snapped.
He simply stared at her, his face devoid of expression. He looked to be around sixteen years old. His hazel eyes were cold and barren, soulless. His hair was a mop of dark curls, his chin was weak, and his lips were full and pouty. The boy had the sullen look down to a science. His jeans were baggy and ripped in several places, and his Gehenna Masonry windbreaker was filthy.
“You shouldn’t have taken her,” admonished a voice from a speakerphone on the wall.
The tone was androgynous, or perhaps it only sounded that way because of the white noise in the background. Was the owner the other boy she’d seen in the convenience store?
Infernal or not, there was no way two teenage kids pulled off an endeavor as enormous as this one by themselves. An adult owned the masonry and secured the permits, vehicles, and contracts. And an adult certainly knew about this hellhole.
Eve shuddered as she studied her surroundings. The space was decorated in horror movie chic. A lone naked lightbulb hung from the ceiling, casting a distinct foot-wide circle. The cement floor was stained with reddish-brown splatters she thought might be blood. There was a noticeable pattern to it, a distinct line where unmarred floor gave way to gory floor. On the very edge of the circle of light was a horizontal bar of silver metal—the edge of a gurney, like the ones she’d seen in the medical examiner’s room on CSI. It had been pushed aside to make room for her.
Beyond the gurney, the shadows whimpered and writhed. Because of the intensity of the wattage above her, Eve’s nictitating membranes weren’t useful at all, leaving her blind but for the young wolf standing in front of her.
“I tried to draw them away, but they didn’t follow,” the boy said petulantly. “By the time I came back to see where they’d gone to, they were digging around the kiln room. What else was I supposed to do with her?”
He tossed the bucket aside. It crashed into something metallic and Eve jumped. A dog’s frightened bark rent the air. A kennel, maybe? The resultant din of scratching and shifting suggested there were several creatures restrained in the darkness.
“How did they find us?” the voice asked.
“How the hell would I know?” the wolf muttered. “If not for Jaime, I wouldn’t have even known we were being watched.”
“What did Jaime do?”
“He didn’t do anything, besides knock his girlfriend up. He had a delivery in Corona, which only took him an hour and a half, so he came back hoping to make another run. He noticed them sitting in a car on a side street before he left and again when he came back. He thought it might be Yesinia’s dad looking to take a bat to him. He mentioned it to me, and I checked it out.”
“Mortals do have their uses.”
“Occasionally.”
“Where’s Cain?”
A maniacal light lit the boy’s eyes. “Cain is dead.”
Eve winced, her gut churning. An ache grew in her chest and spread. Laughter came from the speaker. Again, the sound held both masculine and feminine notes. Like a prepubescent boy whose voice had not yet fully changed.
“You think you killed Cain?” the person asked. “You? Better demons have tried and they have all failed.”
“The tengu grabbed him.”
There was a pause. “How many of them?”
“Twenty or more. However many there were in storage.”
“Well, perhaps they’ve at least injured him. I’ll check on him when I get there.”
Eve realized then the poor