Deep Dark Secret (26 page)

The first indication everything was
far
from all right was the reek of copper and iron when I opened the stairwell doors. Only one thing could account for the potency of the smell. Fresh blood and lots of it. With my last remaining rational thought, I locked the door so accessing the corridor wouldn’t be possible from above. I didn’t need anyone stumbling onto what was sure to be a mess and losing their life for their bad timing.

Halfway down the stairs on a small concrete landing was the first body, lying facedown in a pool of partially congealed blood. My heart pounded as I came level to the corpse. Part of me said it was better not to know and I should keep going. But whoever it was, they were dead because of me. I had to accept responsibility for it and look them in the face.

I rolled the body over with my shoe. A pale, panic-stricken expression stared back. The officer had been in his thirties. He had a wedding band on his finger. I fought against the new wave of tears threatening me. The man’s jaw hung slack, broken. He appeared to have been mid-scream when he died.

The front of his chest was ripped open in a jagged, garnet-colored hole. The white spires of his ribs jutted out, and everything inside was a mess of shredded parts that didn’t look like they were in the right place anymore. I prayed most of the damage had been done after he died, but judging by all the blood leaking out, I didn’t think he’d been so lucky.

I stepped over his body and made my way to the bottom of the stairs. The back door leading into the sign-in room hung ajar, and the smell of blood was as strong as it had been at the top of the stairs. My brain screamed at me to turn around and go back, but the warning was fruitless. I was going in, and my brain damn well knew it.

Inside, the desk was askew, shoved up against the far wall. The monitor for the cameras inside the cells had been knocked onto the floor, but the power was still on, so sparks were issuing forth from the shattered black screen. Glass littered the floor, shining out from the expanding pool of blood like flat, glinting islands. There was so much blood. I didn’t know if one person could produce that much. Slumped on top of the desk was the same uniformed officer I’d seen on both my previous visits here. His face lay cheek down on the desk with his vacant eyes wide and his mouth agape in a scream, much like the officer on the stairwell.

The desk officer’s arms were behind him, cracked and bent at odd angles, his spine bowed inwards, giving his back an inverted hump. It looked like someone had come from behind him, pulled his arms back until they popped, while breaking his spine with their foot. The outcome was grisly enough. I was glad I hadn’t been here to see it happen.

I checked the lock on the front door leading to the main holding area, but someone had already turned it. My boots were smeared with blood by the time I waded across the growing puddle to buzz myself into the small holding-cell area beyond.

Mercedes and Tyler both rounded on me, guns raised. I was so shocked to see them alive, I didn’t care about the weapons trained on my head and heart.

“What the…?” Tyler looked from me to Gabriel’s cell, then back. His gun followed his eyes like he wasn’t certain which way he should be aiming it. I couldn’t get a view into Gabriel’s cell, but I had a pretty good idea of what Mercedes and Tyler were seeing.

“I can explain.”
I could?
“I know this looks bad.”

Gabriel squealed. It was the kind of frantic, distressed noise an animal in a trap makes. It was not the kind of noise a grown man makes unless he is pushed beyond the limits of pain his body can withstand. I edged forward, and Tyler pivoted his weapon back to me, a wild gleam in his eyes.

“The person you saw, that isn’t me.”

“Don’t listen to her,” my voice inside the cell insisted. “She’s an imposter.”

I lost it. “
Shut up
. You’re in there mutilating an innocent man. You’ve killed God knows how many others on your way here. I don’t think they’re going to buy you as the
good
one here, Mayhew.”

A
crack-pop
issued forth from the cell, and Gabriel bleated out another noise of distress.

“Well, if I’m not playing nice, then I guess I’ll just finish what I came here to do.”

Mercedes looked from me to the other me, then turned her gun towards Mayhew. Thank God. I hadn’t had time to feed her the safe word, yet she still seemed to believe I was real and he was the imposter. It helped that Mayhew was in the process of dismembering my ex.

Though, come to think of it, I think I’d threatened to do the same thing once or twice myself.

“You can’t kill it with bullets,” I told the detectives.

“You can kill anything with bullets,” Tyler countered, still eyeing me suspiciously, having not decided who should be his target.

“Not a demon.” I guess now was as good a time as any to let Tyler in on the situation.

He snorted. I wasn’t going to be able to ease him into the truth the way I would have liked to. This was a crash course at best, and if he chose to believe it, awesome. If not, well, there was a team of council wardens on their way here to enthrall anyone who encountered Bad Secret tonight. I hoped Holden had the presence of mind to request a clean-up crew. Memories of the men outside the door made hot bile press against the back of my throat.

“I don’t have time to make you understand. I wish I did. The thing in that cell is a demon. It has stolen my form and my memories. There is no way to tell us apart except that I’m standing out here, trying to save you, and she’s in there killing someone.” As if to emphasize his guilt, Mayhew did something new and awful to Gabriel, making my ex cry out in a horrible way. “Please, Tyler. Believe I am who I say I am, and I swear to God I will explain everything to you if we get out of this alive.”

“You won’t,” Mayhew said. “No one will make it out alive.”

Tyler stared at me for a heartbeat, then moved closer to Cedes and aimed his own weapon at Mayhew. I hadn’t bothered pulling a weapon since I’d left Columbia. Nothing I’d brought with me was any use against a full-blooded demon, and I’d left my gun with Holden in case he needed the firepower to keep Lucy safe.

I only knew one thing that might do me any good, and it was decorating the mantle at my apartment. I hadn’t exactly had an opportunity to swing by home and pick up a katana on my way here, but it was the only thing that would make sense in a fight against an immortal monster.

“How did he kill the two officers but not you two?” I asked when I came up next to them.

Now that I could see Gabriel, I wished I’d stayed by the door. Mayhew had Gabriel’s arms pinned behind him like the officer at the desk. My ex was on his knees, his handsome face twisted into a grimace. Blood was matted in his hair, and one side of his face was tacky with redness from a gaping cut on his forehead. I was guessing his face had been smashed into the concrete floor. His nose was crooked, and it looked like Mayhew had dislocated both shoulders.

I felt like I was being punished for every awful, painful thing I’d wished on Gabriel after he left me. Seeing him now with tears pouring down his cheeks and pitiful, mewling pants coming from his lips, I wanted to take it all back.
Be careful what you wish for
, they always warn you. Who knew my vindictive fantasies could come so cruelly to life?

Mercedes had apparently been answering my question, but I hadn’t heard a damn thing she’d said. “…you went for the door before I could stop you. By the time Tyler and I got here, well…” Her gaze drifted to the macabre tableau outside the door. “It was too late.”

Mayhew’s face was splattered with blood, making the whites of his eyes shine impressively.

“Drop the act,” I told him. “I bet you’re plenty impressive in your true form.”

He clucked his tongue at me and yanked back on Gabriel’s arms, the heel of my favorite boot jammed in his spine. Even though they were a demonic approximation, I didn’t know if I’d ever be able to wear the real thing again. And my leather pants were going in an incinerator when I got home.

If
I got home.

Gabriel’s head lolled forward. His body had finally given up, and he’d passed out. It meant he was worse off than I wanted to think about, but it also meant he wasn’t feeling it when the stiletto heel punctured his spinal column.

The killer instinct told me to dive through the open cell door and make a grab for him. A much stronger survivor instinct forced me not to move. Mayhew wanted a reaction out of me. He was trying to goad me into acting stupidly, and I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction. I’d done enough stupid shit this past week to last a lifetime. If I added to the list now, more people would die, and I’d never forgive myself.

“Who was Oliver Mayhew?” I asked.

Mayhew let up on Gabriel’s arms, and the unconscious man slumped forward, collapsing into a heap on the floor like a broken mannequin. Obviously unable to resist showing off for a captive audience, the demon’s eyes glowed red, and he demonstrated his remarkable ability to shift forms. One moment we were looking at a blood-spattered Secret McQueen, the next Mayhew was a tweed-clad professor without a drop of crimson on him.

The detectives inhaled sharply in unison.

Mayhew must have loved shock and awe, because he shifted into a few other forms for good measure. Trish, Angie, poor Ellory from Lincoln, Nebraska. It was enough. If we walked away from this, Professor Oliver Mayhew would be the obvious culprit in the investigation. How we would spin it so the mundane public would believe it was too much for me to think about right then. But I knew it would be easier to sell the story if Mayhew was dead and gone.

He shifted from Ellory back to the professor form and grinned at Mercedes.

“
O formosa, te volo gustare
.”

I looked at her. “Do you know what he said?”

She shook her head. “No. I don’t even know what language that was.”

“It was Latin.” Holden came through the door. “And you don’t want to know what he said.”

“Oh, you brought your corpse,” Mayhew sneered. “Did he bring the girl with him?”

“You’re never getting Lucy,” Holden said flatly. “She’s safe now.”

“We’ll see.” He straightened the lapels of his tweed blazer and adjusted the silk pocket square. “The night is young. And I have many more visits to make.” His twinkling eyes pivoted towards me, and when he smiled again it was with the shark teeth he’d displayed in the basement. “I’m almost done here.”

Three vampire wardens had come to stand behind Holden. One was whispering animatedly on a cell phone and pointing to the mess behind him as if the person on the other end could see what he was looking at. The wardens stared past Holden and at me, each bobbing their head in a half-bow as was proper when in the presence of a Tribunal leader.

“Take care of this,” I told them. “But no one touches these two.” Cedes and Tyler seemed puzzled. “They belong to me.”

Well fuck, now I had two more humans I was responsible for. Was I ready to give my life for Tyler? I looked at him—his gun still trained on Mayhew—and reminded myself I wouldn’t be alive today if it wasn’t for him.

“As charming as this is,” Mayhew cut in, his British accent at odds with his pointy teeth and coal-red eyes, “I’ve got work to finish.” He dove at Gabriel with speed even a vampire couldn’t match. Before anyone in the room had a chance to respond, there was a fleshy rending noise and something white and glistening dangled from Mayhew’s bloodied hands.

Gabriel’s spine.

In a better time, it would have made for a great one-liner about my spineless ex-boyfriend. Instead I fought against a new wave of bile threatening to become vomit. Tyler lost his own battle, turning away from the scene to throw up behind us. Cedes had more presence of mind than both of us. In spite of my promise that bullets wouldn’t harm the demon, she emptied her clip into Mayhew’s head.

Had he been a vampire or some other kind of paranormal, he’d be dead as a doornail. There was a hole clean through the middle of his forehead that showed light from the other side. Instead of falling down dead next to Gabriel’s mutilated corpse, Mayhew stuck a finger into the open hole in his head and prodded around, seemingly amused by the new air circulation in his skull.

“In the Middle Ages, doctors would cut holes in the skulls of patients if they believed a demon was trapped within. Trepanation, it’s called. Your system is much faster.” He grinned at Cedes and plucked one of the bullets out of his gray matter, before flicking it back at her. “Too bad neither method kills demons.”

In a flash he was on the run again, knocking Cedes against Tyler, both detectives hitting the floor in a heap. I was on the demon’s heels, but I’d never seen anything move this fast. Another group of wardens dodged out of my way as I bounded up the stairs. When I reached the main work floor, all the detectives were staring forward at their desks in a mutual trance thanks to the efficient work of my wardens. Asking the detectives which way the wicked professor had gone wouldn’t do me any good.

I needed a weapon, and I needed a shot in hell.

I knew where to find both.

Desmond met me at the corner of West 52nd and 8th with a sword and an apparent willingness to turn it on me. When I ran up to him, instead of an open-armed embrace, he bashed me in the sternum with the sheathed blade and stepped back.

“
Fucking hell
,” I cursed, rubbing my bruised breastbone.

“Say the word.”

“Asshole?” I muttered.

He prepared to draw out the blade.

“Dracula.
Dracula
. Jesus, Des. Couldn’t you have asked before hitting me?”

“Your message was pretty adamant I shoot first, ask questions later.”

“Well thank goodness you didn’t bring a gun.” I held out my hand, and he passed my sword over. The katana seemed to warm up the moment my fingers brushed the hilt, like it knew it was in proper hands again.

“Where are we going?”

“
You
are going home. Locking the doors and not coming out again until I say so.”