Night In A Waste Land (Hell Theory #2) - Lauren Gilley Page 0,34

– been the sort of sprawling, mini-metropolis that saw hundreds of thousands of travelers every day. Its main structure was a wedge of gridded glass, an open atrium from which terminals extended like the spokes of a wheel. Newsstands, shops, and restaurants had existed here, before. All of them dark, now, empty. Paint had flaked off, and bits of molding and decoration sagged like limp arms. The newsstand they passed offered a view of tipped-over shelves, and a few scattered, waterlogged paperbacks.

“Hm,” Beck hummed, and she knew he was lamenting the waste of perfectly good books.

Another young officer stood at the entrance of what had once been, according to its damaged signage, a Pizza Hut. He saluted them, for some reason, and Rose watched him quail in the face of Beck’s…everything.

“Sir. Sirs.” He quivered head-to-toe. “Sir du Lac and his company?” he asked, gaze pinned on Beck.

“Yes,” Lance said, stiffly.

Beck’s wings rustled.

“This way.”

They went through the Pizza Hut, past old ovens and shelves dripping moss and algae, and through a heavy steel door into a concrete and metal corridor like those in all the other bases she’d seen since joining the Knights.

A young Army sergeant waited there; snapped a salute without ogling Beck too badly, and led them farther down the hall, through several open pneumatic doors and back into the old airport proper, into a room with one glass wall that overlooked the tarmac, and an old parking lot: its pavement cracked and weed-choked, its spaces filled now with armored military vehicles rather than passenger cars.

Rose noted young officers floating at the edges of the room; she smelled coffee and bad donuts. And in the room’s center, a long table, at which sat Captain Bedlam, an unfamiliar woman wearing captain’s bars on her fatigue jacket, and a man who was unmistakably a general. Army, going by his jacket, with a single star stitched on each epaulette.

“Du Lac, good,” Captain Bedlam greeted. Her gaze shifted to Beck, and her usual stern mask flickered, just a moment, as she took in the sight of him. Wings, horns, and all. For Beck’s par, his own mask cloaked his thoughts, Rose noted, with a glance. That perfect, skin-tight marble that clung to ever feature, clothing him in bland interest, and inoffensive pleasantness. His eyes were hooded, low-lidded, that withdrawn look she’d seen so often in the first few weeks they’d known one another – but there was no disguising the way they glowed like backlit gems.

“This is Arthur Becket?” Bedlam asked, looking toward Rose.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I’ve had a makeover,” Beck deadpanned, his wings rustling. “As you can see.”

“Yes.”

They sized one another up like two tigers who’d crossed paths in the jungle.

The general said, “It has wings.” The man’s face was slack, but his eyes sparked with alarm. Surely he’d seen what they’d all seen in the last five years: a lot. The old rules no longer applied; whether they claimed to be good or evil, impossible creatures stalked the forests and streets of the world wearing human skin. Beck defied logic in much the same way – and was even more visually intimidating besides.

Beck turned his head a fraction to face the man. “It does have wings, yes,” he said, deceptively light. “And eyes and ears. And critical thinking abilities. Would you like a full inventory?”

The general hitched himself up higher in the chair with a disgruntled huff, brows slanting down in an expression that screamed I’m the general, damnit. “Captain Bedlam,” he said, sternly.

“Yes, sir.” Bedlam stood. “My knights, sir, of Golden Company. Sergeant du Lac, Sir Greer, Sir Gavin, Sir Gallo, and Sir Mayweather. They requested a short leave in which they could attempt a soul retrieval – the soul of Mr. Becket, here. As you can see, it was successful – in a way.” Her brows lifted on the last, in silent question.

“The procedure went smoothly,” Lance said. “Though there appear to have been some – side-effects.”

Beck’s wings rustled again. “Oh, now they’re side-effects.” He sounded faintly amused.

Rose touched his hand, briefly, comfort and reassurance. She couldn’t bring herself to censure him, not even in front of a general.

“How did you do this?” the general asked.

Rose hesitated, because she didn’t feel like giving away what felt like a secret. She imagined the military en masse, lined up outside the modest gray church in Wales, a line of requests; that great, swirling mist figure on his stag diving and reappearing, until the whole room was boiling and blue with his holy magic.