Forgiven (24 page)

‘Then he needs to learn his limits,’ Harper replied. His eyes moved to Riley. ‘You’ll go with him, Brat.’

‘What?’ she yelped, dropping what remained of her scone.

‘Good learning experience,’ Harper replied with a sneering grin. ‘You’ll have three hunters and a journeyman watching your back. What could go wrong?’

‘This is me, remember?’ she protested, wiping her hands on a napkin. ‘I take a breath and something goes wrong.’
I shouldn’t be anywhere near the hunters. In case they change their mind about me.

‘I’m not buying that. You need to learn how to do a building search and this way you’ll get to see the big boys in action.’

She would have continued to argue, but Stewart hadn’t disagreed with the assignment. That meant she really should be going on this run.

‘I’ll go change my clothes.’

Beck swung by and picked Riley up at Stewart’s house, and then drove towards downtown.

‘What the hell is Harper thinkin’?’ he asked, giving her a stern look. ‘Ya shouldn’t be on this run. I’ve been inside this buildin’ before and it’s brutal.’
It’s no damned place for a girl.

‘According to my master I need the experience,’ she replied. ‘Speaking of which, how’s your head
and
your shoulder?’

‘They’re OK,’ he lied.
Better she not know I’m hurtin’
. ‘Doc says I can take the pain pills again so that’s helped a lot.’

Riley scowled at him and that told him she wasn’t buying his lie. ‘Carmela also said no trapping.’

‘One out of two isn’t bad,’ he conceded.

Beck found the demon hunter’s van on Forsyth Street and slotted his truck right behind it. Three of the Vatican’s team waited for them: Captain Salvatore along with Müller and the one named Corsini. They stood alongside their vehicle, staring up at the dilapidated building across the street. The structure was five storeys of brick and faded marble with faded gang graffiti decorating the upper sections and windows covered in warped plywood. The ones that weren’t covered sported sooty scorch marks. There was no front door now – that entrance was walled off in concrete blocks as were all the windows on street level. Which meant they’d have to go in through one of the first-storey windows or come in through the back of the building.

‘A friend of mine used to live here,’ Beck remarked.

‘Here?’ Riley asked, incredulous. ‘Before it was like this, you mean?’

‘No. Ike’s homeless so anythin’ out of the weather works for him. Right now he’s at one of the shelters, but sometimes he isn’t so lucky.’

‘That has to be scary,’ she said. ‘Never knowing where you’re going to be from one day to the next.’

‘He takes it in his stride. He was in the army, like me. Ya learn to deal.’

‘You served together?’ She actually sounded interested.

‘No. He was in the First Gulf War, back in the nineties. I wasn’t even born yet.’ He zipped the duffel bag shut. ‘Ike said he saw ya that night ya trapped the Three down here.’

Riley thought for a bit. ‘The old black guy who walks funny?’

‘That’s him. I’ll introduce ya someday.’

‘I think I’d like that,’ she replied.

Was she being polite or did she really mean it? Why did he care? Why did it matter what Paul’s daughter thought of him?

Beck pushed that thought away as he climbed out of the truck. Riley joined him, shouldering her backpack. As they approached the team, the captain greeted them.

‘Captain Salvatore,’ Beck replied. ‘What’s the news here?’

‘We’ve been told there’s increased demon activity in this area, particularly around this building. We thought we’d work the location and see what we could flush out. Do you know the place?’

‘Paul and I trapped Pyro-Fiends in there. More often than not it’s a good place to find a Three.’

‘You armed?’ the hunter asked.

‘Yup,’ Beck said, tapping the end of the steel pipe sticking out of the bag.

‘I meant a firearm.’

‘I prefer this kind of cold steel,’ Beck replied.

‘Your choice.’ Then he looked over at Riley. ‘What about you?’

‘I’ve got Holy Water. The real stuff,’ she replied. ‘And I run fast.’

The captain gave a half-smile. ‘Well, with talents like that, how can we fail?’

‘Are we it or is the rest of the team on the way?’ Beck asked.

‘They’re handling a call up near a university north of town. It’s a full sweep so takes more men. If we encounter too much resistance, we’ll fall back and call for reinforcements.’

‘Sounds like a plan.’ Beck pointed. ‘There’s a way in at the back. Saves havin’ to climb up to one of the upper windows.’
So my shoulder doesn’t kill me.

‘You will need this.’ A black baseball cap came his way, one with a logo of St George and the dragon on the front of it. ‘It’s got lights built in. Keeps your hands free.’

Beck checked it out. There was one main light in the brim and two under the bill. He clicked them on and off, and nodded his approval. Stripping off his Braves cap, he stashed it in the duffel bag, then put on the new one. He found it amusing when Riley got one of her own.

‘Y’all do have really fine toys,’ he admitted.

Salvatore smiled in response. ‘One of the perks of working for the Holy See.’

‘I’d never make it with you guys. I swear too much.’

A twinkle appeared in the captain’s eyes. ‘So do we when nobody important is listening.’

Beck took them down the sidewalk to the west side of the building, ignoring the curious stares of passers-by. There was a covered entrance on that side, though it was blocked off. Above it was a window, which was the best way in.

Out of habit, Beck did a one-eighty to check their surroundings. A few noisy people. He gritted his teeth as he hefted his bag and then himself on to the overhang above the entrance. His shoulder told him this was a stupid idea, sending slicing pain down to his fingertips and numbing them. He shook feeling back into them. At least the pain meds were doing some good.

The canopy shifted under his weight. ‘Be careful,’ he cautioned. ‘This thing is on its last legs.’

The hunters pulled themselves up one by one. That left Riley. He could tell she was re-evaluating this adventure.

‘Well?’ he said, keeping his voice neutral. He wanted her to make the decision, not feel she had to do this to prove something to him or the others.

With a determined expression, Riley reached up and took his right hand. He lifted her up, but he noticed she made it as easy as possible for him to keep his left shoulder from complaining. It took her a moment to regain her footing.

‘You sure this thing’s going to hold us?’ she said, concerned.

‘We’ll know soon enough.’

After carefully edging across the overhang, Beck pushed aside the remaining chunks of weather-stained plywood from the window. This is the way he and Paul had entered the last two times and, from the looks of it, it remained the local favourite.

‘I’ll take point,’ he said, mostly because he knew the place and that would put Riley in the middle of the hunters. If something bad went down, he’d have to trust them to keep her safe. If that asshat Amundson had been on the team, she’d be in the truck right now.

Beck stepped through the hole into the murky room. He knew from experience it was littered with junk and contained a million places for a demon to hide, even a fiend the size of a Three. Remembering the cap, he clicked it on. The light on the brim shot forward like a searchlight.

‘Sweeeeet,’ he said.
Gotta get me one of these.

By turning right, then left, Beck was pleased to see the cap did a fair job of illuminating the area. Not as bright as a flashlight, but it kept his hands free for the pipe, and that’s what counted.

He waited until the others crawled through the window behind him.

‘Whoa, it smells in here,’ Riley said, waving a hand in front of her nose. ‘Does everyone in Atlanta use this place as a toilet?’

Beck moved forward with deliberate slowness, careful where he was putting his feet. Broken glass littered the floor.

‘Watch where ya walk, girl,’ he warned.

Dirty streams of light crept round the seams in the boarded-up windows, barely enough to do any good as the cap lights danced around the room like erratic fireflies.

Riley let loose a barely stifled shriek as something swooped down from the busted ceiling tile right over the top of her; a bird, heading for the nearest patch of sunlight. A moment later a second joined it. This time she merely ducked.

‘Sorry,’ she said. He didn’t have to look to know her face would be red with embarrassment. ‘Why is all this stuff in here?’

‘A Three went on a rampage in the buildin’. Killed a bunch of folks. The buildin’s owners couldn’t get anyone to clean the place out, so they walked away.’

‘I can see why.’

About forty feet in Beck found a mound of dirty bedding, someone’s nest in this hellhole. ‘Home sweet home,’ he murmured.

Further on from the makeshift bed was a rickety table made of discarded boxes and a plastic lawn chair. It never failed to amaze him how people tried so hard to make the best of what they had. He’d seen that when he was overseas. A woman might live in a dirt hut, but she’d be sweeping it out, trying to keep it clean. From the looks of it, the tenant hadn’t been here for a while.

Riley picked up a newspaper that sat on the table. ‘January. This year,’ she said. ‘The want ads.’

Beck’s cap light caught on a pile of something curiously white. He stepped closer.
No need for that job now.

He clicked off his light and turned towards the others. ‘We got a body here.’ Then he looked directly at Riley. ‘This isn’t pretty. Ya sure ya want to see this?’

Her furrowed brows told him she was wrestling with the question.

‘If you want to back out of this, we won’t think less of you,’ the captain said quietly.

That earned him points in Beck’s book. ‘What he said.’

Riley swallowed hard. ‘It’s what a trapper does,’ she replied. ‘I’ll deal.’

She’s Paul’s daughter all right.

Beck manoeuvred back to the corpse, clicked on his cap and knelt next to the disjointed pile of bones. Strings of dried flesh hung from a few of them, but for the most part they’d been stripped clean. The skull lay about four feet to the left, the empty eye sockets staring into eternity.

The captain knelt by the bone pile then shifted one with the tip of his service revolver. ‘Gnaw marks. Large ones. Probably a Three.’ The hunter rose, shifted his gun to his left hand and then crossed himself.

‘I’ll call the city and they’ll send someone up to take care of him.’

‘Is there any way the cops can tell who he was?’ Riley asked, her voice fainter. ‘Let his family know?’

‘His clothes are gone so there’s no I.D. He’ll be a John Doe,’ Beck said. Harsh but true. ‘The cops won’t bother. They got enough live people causin’ trouble to worry about one dead one.’

Riley sucked in a breath. ‘That’s so . . . sad.’

That’s the way of it, girl. Ya make a mistake and ya die. If yer lucky, someone will be there to weep over yer grave.

Once past the corpse, Beck led the team deeper into the building where it was darker and the floor increasingly cluttered with debris. Portions of the ceiling had fallen into jumbled heaps, and broken furniture lay strewn around from when the former occupants had run for their lives. He intended to walk the length of the room, but paused by the stairs. His light picked up marks in the dust leading to the third floor, and not the kind a human made.

Beck held up his hand and the others halted. Then he pointed. ‘Best if we keep quiet from now on,’ he said for Riley’s benefit.

She nodded her understanding, clutching a Holy Water sphere tightly in one hand.

Beck began his ascent, trying not to make any noise. It was nearly impossible. Though the stairs themselves were solid, the debris on them crunched loudly underfoot.

As he emerged on the third floor, his nose picked up the stench of fresh demon crap. He didn’t bother to tell the others: they would notice it just as well as he had. A check of the stairs leading upward showed no paw marks. It was darker up here, all the windows covered by plywood: a perfect place for a Three to hide.