Conspiracy of Angels (20 page)

Remy gave her a wounded look.

“Come on, Remy,” she said. She snagged another bite of veal. “Do you really think Sal doesn’t have a clue? Not bloody likely. He’s got his fingers in more pies than Sweeney Todd.”

“She,” Remy corrected automatically.

“Hunh?” Lil responded.

“
She
,” Remiel stated. “Saliriel is a woman now.”

Lil nearly choked. “What? When the hell did that happen?”

Remy refused to respond, pale nostrils flaring.

“Whatever.” Lil made a rude gesture. “Whether he’s wearing a suit or a skirt, Sal’s a lying sack of shit making some kind of power play. Just like old times. The only thing surprising is that you’re still working for him. Or her.
It
, maybe,” she snarled, throwing up her hands in frustration. It sounded rude, even to me.

With quiet urgency, Remiel said, “Our hierarchies are inescapable. I cannot disobey my decimus.” Anger, indignation, and regret all vied for dominance on his features.

“Yeah, that’s what you said the last time,” she complained. “Guess who ended up dead? It’s not like I’m bitter or anything.”

I shifted in my seat. This was getting us nowhere.

“You know what would be great about now?” I asked no one in particular, though plenty of people around us were staring. “The check. Yeah, the check, and getting the hell out of here. That would be stellar.”

“Not my problem.” Lil shrugged. “Why don’t we just go, and he can settle up.”

“No, I’m coming with you,” Remy said firmly. He withdrew a billfold from his pocket, dropping a handful of twenties onto the table.

“Like hell you are,” Lil shot back. She grabbed me by the sleeve, tugging. “Zack and I need to have a little chat, and not with you around,
husband
.” Coming from her lips, the word was an insult.

“
Ex-
husband,” he responded quickly. “And I wasn’t asking for your permission.” He turned to me. “Zaquiel, you have no memory, so you have no idea how dangerous she can be.” He tilted his head toward his… wife. “You need someone who’s on your side, before she drags you into things you cannot possibly comprehend.”

“Seems fair,” I said, eyeing Lil and daring her to argue.

“You don’t seriously think you can trust him?”

“I don’t seriously think I can trust you, either,” I replied, “but I’ve been running around with you since yesterday. So what do you say? It’s both or neither. Take your pick.”

“Fine,” they said in unison.

T
hey argued like an old married couple. Of course, they
were
an old married couple. At least in some incarnation.

“We’re taking my car,” Lil declared, storming ahead of us into the parking lot.

“There’s more space in my Lexus,” Remy replied automatically. “Some of us have to think about legroom, you know.”

Lil whirled around, hands on her hips. “You are so not driving. I bet you still drive like somebody’s grandfather.”

“I’m a very safe driver,” he objected. “I have a perfect record.”

“Just proving my point,” she snorted.

“We’re taking this one,” I said, pointing to the Sebring.

They turned as one, regarding me with nearly identical expressions of incredulity.

“Why?” they asked.

Like that wasn’t creepy.

“It’s closer. People are staring, and I don’t want to listen to you two argue anymore,” I responded irritably.

Lil shot Remy a grin of pure triumph, then hit the clicker on her key fob. For a moment, Remy looked as if he was going to try to open her door for her, out of sheer habit. He stopped himself, stepping around to the front passenger door.

On the way he ogled her backside.

Really wishing I could unsee that, I folded myself into the back seat behind Lil, hoping I could get her to move her seat up. Remy had a point. Most cars weren’t made for people more than six feet tall. I couldn’t imagine what it was like for Saliriel, especially with those crazy heels she wore.

Lil hit the ignition, threw the sporty convertible into gear, and peeled out of the lot, swinging onto Clifton at what felt like twenty miles above the speed limit. Remy cursed, belatedly strapping on his seat belt.

“She has that effect on me, too,” I muttered, chuckling at his expense.

White-knuckling the armrest, Remy asked, “Why are we getting onto the highway?”

“We’re hitting the art museum, remember, dear?” she replied sweetly, gunning the motor as she caught the ramp and merged with traffic.

“You can take Detroit the whole way over. There’s no need to get on 90.”

“And deal with stoplights at every intersection?” She scowled at him like he was crazy. Good to know those looks weren’t reserved just for me.

“Mile for mile, it’s shorter,” he said.

“Mile for mile, it’s slower,” she replied.

He scowled. “Fine.”

“Fine,” she echoed mockingly with a toss of her head.

“Would you kids settle down up there?” I demanded. “A freaking carful of immortals, and
I
feel like the adult? It’s just wrong.”

That shocked them into silence, at least for the moment. When he wasn’t holding on for dear life, Remy drummed his fingers restlessly, and Lil did that maddening thing with her nails, pecking incessantly at the steering wheel.

The peace was short-lived.

“You’re taking him to the
Thinker
, right?” Remy said, twitching perceptibly as Lil crossed three lanes of traffic to get around a semi with its hazards on.

“Why the
Thinker
?” she asked, blissfully oblivious to the blaring of horns in her wake.

“It’s the closest crossing to the museum proper,” he replied.

“Really?” Lil pecked harder at the steering wheel as she pondered this. “I was going to swing down MLK to Rockefeller Park. There’s one by the Cultural Gardens, isn’t there? Or am I remembering it wrong?”

“Rockefeller Park? How close is that to the museum?” I asked. But Remy talked over me.

“Are you trying to get my brother killed?”

“No,” she said defensively. “Not really. At least, not this time.”

“Then think about it,” he said. “Rockefeller Park to the museum—that’s a lot of ground to cover, once he’s on the Shadowside. In his current state—”

“Hello!” I said, reaching up and waving a hand between them. “Right here, you know—unless the back seat’s an invisible dimension, and no one thought to tell me about it.”

Ignoring my outburst, Lil glanced over at Remy.

“The
Thinker
?” she said.

“Or what’s left of it,” he replied, “after the terrorists tried to blow it up.”

“Terrorists?” Lil muttered. “Like on 9/11?”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Remy laughed with an elegant gesture of his hand. “It was that group calling themselves the Weathermen, back in the ’70s.”

“Kind of missed the ’70s,” she responded. “Still dead, you know.”

“Oh,” Remy murmured. “I thought you were just avoiding me.”

Lil made an aggravated noise. “It’s not always about you, Remington.”

I nearly died choking.

“
Remington?
”

“Please don’t call me that,” he said, glowering at her.

“You’re still calling me Lilianna,” she chided.

That shut him up, and he just looked out the window, sulking. We squealed around another curve, and I took the opportunity to try again.

“This
Addams Family
reunion is entertaining and all,” I said, “but when you two are done arguing over ancient history, could you fill me in on what you think I’m supposed to be doing?”

Lil looked up at me through the rear-view mirror. Eye contact.
Holy crap.
We were in the same dimension, after all.

“Just slip in through the Shadowside,” she said, as if it was obvious. “Find your office, or whatever space they had you working in, and grab all the files you can. Piece of cake.”

“If you need help finding your way,” Remy said, “you can just ask Terael.”

“Terael?” I echoed.

“Our local Rephaim,” he responded mildly.

Lil almost swerved into the next lane.

“There’s a Rephaim in the museum?” she choked.

“Of course, when he’s not out on tour,” Remy replied. “Surely you knew that. He’s been there since the ’30s. The Wades kept him in their mansion, up until they donated him.”

Lil seemed genuinely rattled. “Wild horses couldn’t drag me into that museum now,” she breathed.

“Is there anything I should know about this Rephaim?” I asked cautiously, looking from Remy to Lil and back again.

“Only that they’re bat-shit crazy—every last one of them,” Lil said. “
Scary
crazy,” she added with quiet emphasis.

Remy frowned at her, fluttering his hand.

“I wouldn’t say that. Eccentric, perhaps.” He turned to catch my eye, explaining, “He just has a very different perspective on things. If you were working in the museum, he must like you. He hasn’t let me set foot in the place since 1970, when I made an unfriendly comment about the extension they were adding. Apparently, I insulted him, and he doesn’t forgive easily.”

“Right,” I said skeptically. “But if he’s in there a lot, he might know something about the break-in.”

Remy made a thoughtful noise. “Now that you mention it, yes, he should know a great deal. He has a bird’s-eye view of the interior.”

“Good luck getting him to make sense,” Lil grumbled under her breath.

I glared at each of them in turn, irritated at the things they weren’t telling me. Either they withheld information as some kind of power trip, or it simply didn’t occur to them that I needed to know these things. Either way, it was pissing me off.

“All right,” I muttered, letting it go for the moment. “I’ll jump off that bridge when I come to it. How am I getting in? Back in the alley, the walls were just as solid on the Shadowside as they are in the real world. I can’t just poof through them like Casper, you know—or can I?”

“Some of them are solid, yes,” Remy allowed. “It has to do with the age of the building, and the collective perception of humanity.”

“Of course… that makes perfect sense,” I said, rolling my eyes. “If you’re trying to clarify, you’ll need to try harder, or—
fuck
!”

With a muttered curse, Lil whipped the car across two lanes of traffic to catch an exit. Remy and I did our best to remain upright. It was like being on the command deck of the
Enterprise
during a red alert. The charms dangling from the rear-view mirror swung wildly, smacking into the windshield with a sound like castanets.

When we were relatively stable again, she shot me a glance in the mirror.

“It’s easy, Zack. People come and go through the main doors every day. That wears a path in the energy. The doors should have no substance at this point—they’re just part of the current. Get yourself caught in the current, and you’ll be swept inside.”

That sounded like something I could work with.

“So, there is no door, and there is no spoon,” I muttered, knowing they wouldn’t get it. At that point I didn’t really care.

It meant something to me.

“Just remember,” Remy cautioned. “You can’t linger on the other side forever. It costs you power, and your power is your life. Wear yourself out, and you won’t have the strength to return.”

“Almost found that out the hard way,” I muttered, feeling a cold stab of fear in my gut.

“This is natural to you,” he added encouragingly. “Don’t think too hard about it, and it will come on its own. I have faith in you, brother.”

I sighed, leaning my head back on the seat and staring at the ragtop of the car, fervently wishing I could say the same thing.

W
e turned off Euclid and parked the car on East Boulevard, then walked past the lagoon to the oldest portion of the Cleveland Museum of Art. The reflecting pool lay still and dark, like a mirror of black glass turned up to the vault of the sky. The gardens were devoid of flowers and all the trees stood stark and bare. Here and there, statues dotted the lawn, many placed to mislead the eye so that it seemed the gardens were alive with lovers, dancers, and children at play, even at this late hour.

Aside from the statues, we were alone. Not even the ducks and swans that made the lagoon their home in warmer months chose to winter here.

Sticking to the shadows whenever possible, we climbed the steps leading to the original entrance. The perfectly manicured lawns gave way to paving stones and concrete. We passed more statuary, a massive fountain drained to protect it over the harsh Ohio winter, and then the central piece of this promenade—the hunched and hulking form of Rodin’s
Thinker
.

We could see the damage as we approached—portions along the statue’s base winged up and out where an explosion had turned the bronze to shrapnel. It had nearly obliterated the figure’s foot, like a still life with violence captured in the very substance of the metal.

I could feel the crossing as we drew near. It manifested first as a kind of unsettled quality to the air. As we approached the tear between the two aspects of reality, my senses grew sharper, requiring no effort on my part. Around me, the character of the gardens shifted. Some of the shadows deepened, and these seemed to take on a kind of weight that they had lacked before.

Other parts of the garden became easier to see, not because the darkness lifted exactly, but rather because the darkness became visible. All of this had little to do with my physical senses. Things were thinner here, or perhaps more entangled, allowing Shadowside and skinside to intermingle.

This was the pull that had drawn me to the blind alley. There it had been subliminal. This time I was conscious of it.

“Why here?” I wondered aloud.

“You mean the bombing?” Remy asked, his eyes gliding appreciatively over the statue. He actually winced as he surveyed the damage. “It was the ’70s,” he said with a shrug. “The mortals did crazy things all the time—still do, more than ever. I’ve learned not to question it.”

“No, not that,” I said. “I’m talking about the crossing.”

“Oh, that?” he said absently. “It’s tied to the explosion, as well. Strong emotions. Traumatic events. These all can break down the barriers between the spaces. The terrorist attack was a perfect example.”