Time to move. She clenched her fingers round the laser in her pocket. Jack pushed her on. They approached the shuttle port's main entrance. The doors slid open. Outside, there was little activity. The shuttle port had been closed down tight, a fact that was now working in Jack's favor. He marched her through the doors, and then stopped, cursing fluently.
"Where the hell is Suzy?"
"Maybe she gained some sense and ran like mad," she muttered.
Jack growled and threw her against the wall. "You stay! Eddie, go get us some transportation."
She slid down the wall, battling for breath as a red haze danced before her eyes. Overhead, she saw a brown hawk wheel and dive for the rooftop. It land awkwardly, as if it were injured.
Relief coursed through her. Gabriel. It had to be. She slipped her hand from her pocket. Her fingers were still wrapped round the laser, concealing it. Timing was everything, Jack had once told her. She waited patiently, watching him pace, her shoulder almost as numb as her mind.
A red Ford sedan roared up. Eddie climbed out. Time, a warm voice whispered into her mind. Gabriel, she thought again, and wondered if his voice were real, or simply her imagination.
She raised the laser and fired at the rear of the car. The gas tank exploded, tearing the car, and Eddie, to pieces. At the same time, two more red-blue flashes lit the air, and Jack's other men were little more than headless corpses lying prone on the concrete.
"What the f**k?" Panic filled Jack's voice as he swung around. His gaze widened as it settled on the weapon in her hand. "Where the hell did that come from?"
"Magic," she said softly. "Hand's up, Jack."
He slowly raised his hands. But however much his human half might fear, his vampire half still had control. It was evident in the calculating coldness of his eyes. "It's against the law to kill me. You know the rules. You've lived with them all your life, and you can't abandon them now."
She smiled sadly. She had lived within the rules all her life. She might not have always followed orders, but she had stayed within the letter of the law, even when Jack had tried to convince her to do otherwise.
Look what it had gained her — a phony friendship, a shattered apartment and goddamn loneliness.
"What was that phrase you always used to say?"
A frown flitted across his features. She saw him tense, knew he was ready to leap.
"Oh yeah," she said softly. "Fuck the damn rules."
He sprang. She fired. Once. Twice. The laser caught him in the head and the chest and disintegrated both. She closed her eyes and heard the soft thump as his remains hit the concrete. She had her ending. It was over.
So why did she feel so empty, so cold?
She dropped the laser, closed her eyes, and let her head rest against the wall. After several seconds, she heard the soft flutter of wings, then hesitant footsteps.
Gabriel, she knew, without looking. She could smell his after-shave, a warm woody scent that tingled through her nostrils. She could somehow feel him in her mind, a wall of heat she could see but not yet touch.
His arms went around her, pulling her into the warmth of his embrace. She bit her lip, then buried her face against his shoulder and let the tears flow.
Epilogue
"What do you mean suspended until further notice?" Sam stared at the captain, a weird sense of déjà vu running through her. Though it was an entirely different office in which the two of them now sat, the events seemed to be rolling out just the same.
He sighed heavily. "It means that, until further notice, you're suspended from active service with the State Police."
"Did some form of evidence come to light when I was in the hospital?"
"No. You're cleared of all charges relating to the death of Detective Jack Kazdan."
The clone's rapidly disintegrating body, and the subsequent discovery of the massive doses of growth accelerant in his body, had proven true her statement that it wasn't the real Jack she'd shot the first time. And Gabriel had testified that when she'd shot him the second time, it was in self defense.
Granted, she shouldn't have killed him the second time, either, if only because they might have been able to coerce information about Sethanon out of him. But, as Gabriel had pointed out, if she hadn't have shot him, he would have been forced to, if only to save her life. Besides, if this Sethanon was the force of evil everyone was saying, would he leave a general alive to shoot his mouth off? Unlikely.
"Then why am I being suspended?"
The captain rubbed his forehead wearily. "Look, I'm just the middle man around here. I do what I'm told. And right now, my orders are to get your skinny ass down to the SIU."