Vendetta (Deadly Curiosities Book 2) (44 page)

Mrs. Butler looked up as we opened the door to the garden. Her lined face lit up for a few seconds with expectation, then fell when she realized we weren’t who she was waiting for. Still, she brightened when she saw Baxter. “Now aren’t you a cute little fellow. What’s your name?”

We had this conversation every time, but I’d learned to take it in stride. “He’s Baxter,” I replied.

“Baxter,” she repeated, stroking his fur. “I wish my gentleman caller was here to see him. He’d like Baxter.” I didn’t have the heart to tell her that Sorren, in his own way, was extremely fond of the little dog.

“I’m sure he would,” I replied. “Will he be stopping by sometime today?”

Mrs. Butler frowned, thinking. Maybe it was a trick of the light, but I thought I could glimpse how pretty she had been, years ago. “I don’t know,” she said, looking unsure. “Maybe. He… comes and goes.” She waved a shaky, spotted hand toward an album on the table. “Have you seen my pictures?”

We had time for this. Even if the world tottered on the brink of extinction. I sat for a moment, and Mrs. Butler held Baxter on her lap, and together we flipped through the faded pages of her scrapbook that lay next to knitting needles and a skein of yarn on the garden table.

“Look at that!” she said, pointing to a photo that was yellowed with time. From the styles, I guessed that it was from the 1940s. The young woman who would become Mrs. Butler was a knock-out in a bathing suit, having fun at a picnic near a swimming hole. “My, we were daring, weren’t we! Jumping off the rocks like that. What were we thinking?” It seemed hard for me to imagine the frail nonagenarian jumping at all, let alone diving into what looked like an old quarry. I gained a better appreciation for what Sorren had seen in her.

“Well,” she said as we finished looking at the pictures. “You’ve got to get going. If you see my young man, let him know I’ll save him a place at dinner.” She picked up the knitting needles and shook out the half-finished scarf she was working on. “I’m making this for his birthday,” she confided.

I gave her arthritic hand a gentle pat. “I will be sure to let him know you’re expecting him for dinner,” I said. She rustled Baxter’s ears one more time, and then waved good-bye as he and I made our way back inside.

Becky kept her distance, but she never let me out of her sight, even though Judy was officially accompanying me. “She must really not like dogs,” I said under my breath.

Judy shrugged. “I don’t know what’s up with her. Boyfriend trouble, maybe. Becky’s only been here a month, but she’s the type that lets everyone know her business. She started seeing this guy – good looking, but kinda stuck on himself.” Judy rolled her eyes. “My bet is that he’s a player, and she’s just caught him at it.”

I glanced at Becky, and saw her glowering at us from the far side of the room. “Maybe they’ll kiss and make up,” I replied. “I hope she’s not that grumpy with the patients.”

“She used to be fantastic with them. Now she’s moody as all get out, snaps at the other nurses, and there’s no pleasing her.” Judy sighed. “Well, never mind. You didn’t come here for the gossip!” We kept moving around the room, and I resolved to ignore Becky, focusing on all of Baxter’s fans.

“We try hard to keep the patients happy,” Judy said, “but we just can’t do everything. I feel so bad about letting them down. I mean, we try, we really do, but it’s never good enough. I wish we could do more.”

Judy’s uncharacteristic guilt-trip made me realize my own thoughts had begun to spiral. And that meant trouble. Once I shook off the guilt attack, I could tell that something was wrong. Baxter growled, and the hair on the back of my neck stood up.

“Can you hold Baxter for a moment?” I asked Judy. I briefly touched her skin in the process, and felt the static shock of magic meeting magic. A guilty look in her eyes told me she knew exactly what the shock meant.

“Judy – I know this is a strange question, but Becky’s new boyfriend, you said he was good looking?”

She nodded. “Like he walked off the cover of a romance novel.”

Uh oh.
“I want to check something out. I’ll be right back.” I headed for the big windows that looked out on the walled garden.

“He’s rather handsome, isn’t he?” Miss Peterson said. It was the kind of comment that, coming from a prim lady in her nineties, might have made me smile. But I wheeled around, and looked out the plate glass windows, following where she pointed out a newcomer to her friends. A
GQ
-worthy Nephilim stared back at me with a dead, soulless gaze from the walled garden.

“Oh my God,” I murmured under my breath. I hurried back to the activities room. The smell of smoke made my heart beat faster. I rounded the corner, and saw orderlies helping residents toward the exits.

Chuck Pettis was standing near the television, taking charge of the situation. “Don’t worry! Everything will be all right. We’ll clear the air,” Chuck said in a voice both comforting and authoritative. The nurses looked grateful for his help as they pushed wheelchairs and assisted residents with walkers and quad canes.

“Chuck, we’ve got problems!” I said.

Coffee Guy stared back at me through the glass from the garden, as if he were not only looking right at me, but for me.

“Wards are breached,” Chuck hissed under his breath. “We’re under attack.” I noticed that he was holding his umbrella and had grabbed his backpack.

“Mr. Thompson, it would be a good idea to go outside until the smoke clears,” Nurse Judy suggested. I took Baxter back from her, and held him close against me.

“I’m staying right here,” Mr. Thompson said, raising his chin. There wasn’t a hint of confusion in his blue eyes now, and the set of his jaw said he had no intention of hiding from a fight.

I turned in a slow circle. Two of the walls had nice, big windows that looked out on the garden surrounding the building. Lush grass, trees, and flowers filled the space between the activity room’s windows and the high brick wall that surrounded the Alzheimer’s wing. Outside of the windows, standing on the grassy ‘moat’, were four model-gorgeous Nephilim already in the courtyard. My heart sank as I recognized them as fallen angels we had already fought—and thought we had destroyed. One of them was definitely Coffee Guy, back to cause more trouble. With him were Baldy, Blondie, and Ginger, the ones who jumped us in Dueler’s Alley.

“We’ve got to get everyone out now,” I said to Judy, going to help push Miss Henderson’s wheelchair to the door. I looked toward where I had last seen Helen Butler. She and another patient were still in the garden off to one side. They were talking with a nurse and didn’t seem to notice the intruders. But I knew that the Nephilim were bound to notice them soon.

Shit.
I had my athame up my sleeve, Bo’s collar on my left wrist and my
chakram
was in the small backpack I used instead of a purse, along with Josiah’s pistol. I had hoped to speak privately to Mr. Thompson about the gun, since he was a descendent of Winfield’s. I’d taken a hell of a chance bringing a weapon into the nursing home, but now I was glad. Sorren had gone to ground, and he’d be no help in the bright sunlight. I could speed dial Teag or Father Anne, but it might all be over by the time they got here.

Something big exploded nearby. I wheeled, and realized that the kitchen was on fire. Another explosion rocked the building, and the alarms shrilled. Sprinklers clicked, but no water sprayed from them.

Trapped.
In the distance, I could hear the nurses cajoling the patients to stay calm as they moved them into the hallway and away from the kitchen and common room. I felt sick. Everything in me wanted to get the elderly residents out to the parking lot and away from the fire, but I knew that with Nephilim around, it was more dangerous out there than it was in here.

The smoke was getting thicker. Two of the orderlies were trying to put out the kitchen fire with extinguishers, but it was too much for them. The alarms were ringing loud enough to be heard even for residents who had turned off their hearing aids, and strobe lights flashed to warn the deaf.

“Three of us, four of them,” Chuck said tightly, coming up to stand next to me. He released a hidden clasp, and his umbrella became a short sword. Mr. Thompson sat in his chair facing one of the windows. He held his cane like a lance, steadied on the arm of his walker. I tucked Baxter into my backpack and I took out Josiah’s pistol and the
chakram
, fastening the pack closed. The pistol went into my waistband at the small of my back, and the
chakram
snapped into a leather strap on my belt I had worn, just in case.

“Four of us.” I looked behind me and saw Nurse Judy. I had not noticed the silver pentacle she wore on a chain around her neck. Maybe she had kept it hidden before, but now it lay outside the neckline of her scrubs. I remembered the jolt I had felt when our skin touched.

“What are they, and what do they want?” she asked.

“They’re fallen angels, and they want to kill us to settle an old score,” I said.

“Then screw them,” Judy said, as if it was the kind of thing she heard every day. “Nobody messes with my patients.”

We stood facing the broken windows. I searched the garden for Helen Butler and her companions, unsure whether they had managed to come inside or whether they were still outside. Either way, they were in danger. Commotion filled the hallways as orderlies and nurses tried to move confused residents along the escape route.

“I’ve got to find Mrs. Butler and the people who were in the garden,” I said. “We can’t leave them out there.”

The alarms blared and I heard voices raised in confusion. “Is it the Germans again?” I heard a frail voice ask. “Do we have to go to the bomb shelter? I’ve forgotten where it is.”

“Quit burning the roast!” a man shouted. “How many times do I have to tell you to turn down the oven!”

“Everyone stay next to the wall and move toward the door!” one of the nurses ordered, a calm, confident voice in the midst of chaos. The smoke was getting worse, and without the sprinklers, the fire would spread fast.

“Chuck – distract the Nephilim!” I yelled. “I’ve got to get people out of the garden.”

“What’s wrong with the doors?” I heard the question repeated over and over. Outside the windows, the Nephilim smiled. My heart thudded. Coffee Guy wasn’t with the other three anymore.

No sprinklers, and the doors to the outside don’t work. Nephilim in the garden, and probably more at each exit. They aren’t here to fight us. They’re here to make sure we burn.

Chuck headed toward the windows, drawing the three Nephilim toward him. I slipped out the side door, heading toward where I had last seen Mrs. Butler. We were locked in, on fire and under attack, so I had no idea how I was going to protect her, but I knew for Sorren’s sake – and for my own conscience – I had to try.

I went around the corner toward the small seating area where Mrs. Butler had shown me her photo album. Two dead orderlies lay like broken dolls next to the garden bench, and pages ripped from the album fluttered on the wind.

Coffee Guy held Mrs. Butler against his chest like a shield. Her eyes were wide and she still held her knitting in one hand. Mrs. Butler struggled harder than I would have expected for a woman her age, kicking at her attacker’s shins, but I knew she would be no match for the fallen angel’s strength.

“Is this what you’re looking for?” Coffee Guy asked.

“Let her go!” I said, as Bo’s ghost materialized next to me. I had my athame in my right hand, but I couldn’t get a clear shot at Coffee Guy with Mrs. Butler in front of him.

“Did you come to rescue Sorren’s pretty girl?” Coffee Guy taunted, tightening his grip on Mrs. Butler. “I’m glad you’re here. You can tell him how she died – before we kill him, too.”

“Leave Sorren alone!” Mrs. Butler yelled, and drove her knitting needles into Coffee Guy’s shoulder with desperate strength. The Nephilim howled in pain and threw her to one side with brutal force. I winced as she hit a concrete planter and lay still, her neck bent at an unnatural angle.

I had a clear shot and I took it, blasting Coffee Guy with the white-cold force from my athame, sending him slamming against the brick wall. Too angry to think about my own safety, I struck him again and again, pounding him against the bricks until his head was a bloody mess. Bo lunged at the Nephilim and his sharp teeth snapped shut on the fallen angel’s throat, bringing my attacker to his knees.

Eyes blurred with tears of loss and rage, I grabbed the nearest weapon, a heavy cast-iron lawn chair, and slammed it down onto Coffee Guy’s head, putting one of the legs down through his skull. The fallen angel’s corpse crumbled and vanished.

I ran to where Mrs. Butler lay, hoping against all odds. The truth was clear as soon as I knelt next to her. Her eyes were open and staring. I felt a surge of guilt and failure that had nothing to do with the Watchers, wondering how I would ever face Sorren when I had let him down so completely.

“Cassidy! Get out of there!” Chuck shouted. I ran back inside, and an instant later, the windows shattered, sending shards of glass everywhere; they lodged in the tables and the upholstered chairs, sliced through my skin and embedded themselves in the walls.

Chuck emptied the clip of magically-enhanced bullets from his gun into Blondie’s head and chest. From the recoil and the effect, I figured he was packing something larger than Detective Monroe had used. Silver-obsidian-iron-blessed bullets made a big difference, too. The fallen angel crumpled to the ground and vanished, but Baldy stepped from the shadows to take his place.