King Among the Dead - Lauren Gilley Page 0,81

sound died away slowly.

Voices became more distinct – shouted questions, shouted orders. The shuffle of feet.

Beck grabbed her hand, and tugged her forward. She couldn’t see at all for the thick, white clouds of steam, but she trusted Beck to lead them true. Hurried after him, jogging on the balls of her feet, soundless. If the steam cleared…if someone spotted them…

But no one did. He pulled her up on top of another stack of crates, and they crouched down behind a bit of blue tarp.

A voice boomed out of the swirling vapor, a sharp northern accent. “Gentlemen, welcome, welcome!”

A high, whining sound snapped on – fans, she realized, as the steam began to dissipate in tatters. They ran for maybe a minute, and when the steam was only a few cottony shreds, they cut off.

The voice sounded again, rich with laughter. “Welcome,” the man said again, and this time she could see him.

He stood on the balcony outside the office, large hands on the rail, rings catching the light. A tall man going heavyset with age, square-faced, and big-voiced, his dark hair slicked back, tight and shiny as a helmet. Dark eyes, and a wide smile that turned her stomach. He wore a black suit with a red tie.

Tony Castor, in the flesh.

He was flanked on either side by the death squad; two members stood at the top of the stairs, a human shield between their boss and anyone stupid enough to try and charge up toward him.

But then her gaze shifted to the man standing to Castor’s left, and her throat went dry.

Superficially, he was unremarkable: medium height and build, blunt-featured, hair a nondescript brown, clothes rumpled and too-casual.

But he glowed.

White light seemed to emanate from his skin; it poured out of his eyes so they looked like beacons, like searchlights. She thought that if she were to touch his skin, it would feel as hot as a running car engine.

This, then, was the conduit. The man Daniel said to be the host of the angel Gabriel.

Castor smiled down at the gathered dealers and thugs below him. “I’d like to assume that no introduction was necessary,” he said, chuckling again, projecting his voice so that it carried, and echoed off the metal of the huge space. “But I’m not quite so vain as that.” He pressed a hand to his breast with a demure expression. “I’m Tony Castor, and you’re all here tonight because you’ve been selected as excellent examples of our retail business.”

A darted glance at Beck proved his jaw was set, and his eyes blazed, gaze pinned on Castor with undiluted hatred.

“Tonight,” Castor continued, “you have a rare opportunity: the chance to watch the production process up close and personal.

“All of you have been selling our most in-demand product: heavensent. Everyone wants to escape for a while. To kiss heaven. And tonight you will see it made.” He gestured to the man – the conduit – beside him. “At the hands of our most esteemed Daniel.”

The conduit didn’t acknowledge the low, awed murmuring that followed.

“Daniel, if you would.” Castor made an elaborate gesture.

One of the death squad stepped forward and produced a bottle from inside his jacket. Held it out, as if in offering.

Slowly, Daniel lifted his hand, produced a knife with the other, and sliced his own wrist. His tipped his hand so that blood pooled in his palm, and he poured it neatly, in a dark, viscous string, into the bottle. The glow around him seemed to pulse.

When the bottle was mostly full, Daniel placed two fingers against the wound in his wrist; the light swelled, and the slice healed, as if it had never been.

The guard carried the bottle down the stairs with slow, courtly grace. He had sharp, handsome features, and his short, dark hair was trying to curl in the remnants of steam, a touch of softness across his forehead, where the rest of his face was nothing but hard angles.

The dealers parted at the foot of the stairs – not in deference, but in a mad scramble to avoid touching the guard, and the bottle he carried. Some stumbled; some fell over one another.

The guard walked across the wide factory floor, drawing step-backs and wary glances from the workers who’d been tending the lines. Walked all the way over to a vat, and upended the bottle into it.

More steam rose, immediately, boiling and black, then white. A whir, a chug, and the assembly lines started up again, everything waterwheeling, and turning,