Conspiracy of Angels E-Book

Michelle Belanger

• Herausgeber: Titan Books
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

Seitenzahl: 469

Beschreibung

Zack Westland awakens on the shore of Lake Erie, his memory gone. Assaulted by powerful psychic fragments, he learns that he belongs to a tribe of angels—one of several living on Earth since the Blood Wars. Pursued by cacodaimons intent on killing him—again—he seeks to end war between the tribes.

Leseprobe

Contents

Cover

Also by Michelle Belanger

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

30

31

32

33

34

35

36

37

38

39

40

41

42

43

44

45

46

47

48

49

50

Epilogue

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Coming Soon from Titan Books

Also Available from Titan Books

COMING SOON FROM MICHELLE BELANGER AND TITAN BOOKS

Harsh Gods

The Resurrection Game

CONSPIRACY OF ANGELSPrint edition ISBN: 9781783297337E-book edition ISBN: 9781783297344

Published by Titan BooksA division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP

First edition: October 2015

2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2015 Michelle Belanger.All Rights Reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

To the members of the Shadow Syndicate,who have listened to my stories and sharedwith me their own.

1

They were after me. I didn’t know who, and I didn’t know why, but I had to get away.

There was no other thought.

I fell through darkness till direction lost all meaning. My seizing lungs burned. When I finally breached the surface, I saw water and no shore. Pain chewed my awareness—pain and a wrenching sense of loss like a freshly severed limb. I groped for meaning, but it fled.

I lost count of how many times my head went under. My sodden leather jacket dragged against my shoulders—a dangerous weight. A sick jolt of anxiety stopped me from struggling out of it. The coat was important. I felt it with the same heart-knocking certainty that drove me to outpace my unseen pursuers.

I kept swimming.

I didn’t remember reaching land, but came aware of it in stages. Consciousness flickered like an old filmstrip. I hugged a dirty strip of beach, sand clotting my nose. The water lapped my legs. Everything hurt.

A sharp insectile chitter brought me lurching to my knees. I came up swinging blindly, gagged on a shout, then doubled over to vomit about a gallon of the lake. Shakily, I knelt as my breath hitched in my scalded throat, then scrubbed grit and worse from the stubble on my jaw.

That urgent sense of pursuit spurred me to my feet once again. One boot was missing, and the sock on that foot flopped like a dark tongue.

I thought I heard a woman’s voice, keening. Trapped.

Whirling at the sound, I hoped to catch sight of her, but I was alone, and the lake—as big as an inland sea—stretched away empty.

Those murky waters surged before me. My vision faltered and for a moment everything dropped away into darkness. The lake became a vast abyss, and nightmares seethed in its depths. The water wasn’t water anymore, but a boiling blackness, filled with crimson eyes and gnashing teeth. I loosed an incoherent shout, stumbling backward to put as much distance as possible between myself and the dizzying vision.

I ended up on my ass with my back pressed up against a crumbling wall of shale. When I looked back at the lake, it was just water again, gray and brooding as the leaden skies above.

Keep moving.

Scrambling up the embankment, I kicked away my remaining boot. I’d run barefoot. I didn’t care. A scree of stones clattered with the boot to the beach below. The guardrail twisted above me, one section skewed crazily from a collision that left green paint streaked across the metal. Hauling myself over, I bent in the dirt to catch my breath.

My pulse pounded so hard sparkling lights strobed at the edges of my vision. For a moment it seemed like I was going to be sick again. A tractor-trailer whizzed past, snapping me out of it.

The long, smooth stretch of two-lane country highway curved away through rolling farmland. Cornfields edged with autumn-hued trees lay opposite the lake. I couldn’t see a house in either direction.

Just my luck.

I needed to catch a ride and get to someplace populated. The urge for a crowd jangled as powerfully as the need to flee.

A few cars sped by, drivers intent on their destinations. I tried flagging them down, but no one stopped. Some lady in a Malibu took one look at me and gunned her motor, swerving as she sped away. I yelled something nasty after her, but really couldn’t blame her. I looked like the kind of hitchhiker they wrote about in horror stories—scarecrow-thin, bedraggled, and dressed in black from head to toe.

Doggedly, I kept moving.

* * *

It was dark and my feet were getting pretty raw by the time a semi caught me in its headlights and actually slowed. The rig pulled over to the narrow berm, wheels crunching gravel as it came to a halt. I approached the passenger side, trying to look harmless. The driver, a round-bellied man in his middle fifties, leaned over and rolled down the window nearest me. Heavy metal throbbed from the cab.

“You wreck your motorcycle or something?” he asked.

“I don’t think so,” I hedged, scrubbing at the stubble on my chin.

The man’s bushy brows drew together and his right hand dropped to the stick shift. Great. He was ready to drive away, too. I must’ve looked worse than I felt.

“Look,” I said quickly. “I don’t know what happened. I woke up half in the lake.”

The trucker considered this for a few moments, keen eyes lingering on my face.

“Ah, fuck it,” he said with a shrug. “Get in. We’re almost to Ashtabula. I’ll drop ya off there.”

Relieved, I climbed up the passenger side and settled in. My jacket squelched around me. I should have been shivering, but I just felt numb. In the darkness beyond the warm light of the cab, the chittering call of some night-thing raised the hairs on my neck. I slammed the door hurriedly, glad to be able to shut whatever it was away, then shifted my bare feet among the piles of crumpled fast food wrappers on the floor. The trucker’s brows shot up when he saw I wasn’t wearing any shoes, but he opted not to comment. Instead, he shoved a stubby-fingered hand at me by way of introduction.

“Folks call me Big Bill,” he declared. “What’s your name, son?”

That was when it hit me.

I didn’t have a fucking clue.

2

I half-expected Big Bill to kick me out of his cab when I didn’t respond right away. He kept his hand poised stiffly between us, his frown deepening to a scowl.

“Name’s only polite, son,” he rumbled, “but suit yerself.”

To buy some time, I accepted his grubby clasp. The contact felt electric, and my already whirling brain burgeoned with half-formed thoughts and emotions—none of them my own. There was hesitation edging toward suspicion. A rising sense of irritation. The metallic tang of fear. I blinked, fighting to make sense of the onslaught. Instinct told me it was coming from the trucker.

How was that even possible?

“You on something?” Big Bill asked suspiciously, peeling his hand away. He wiped it on his thigh, as if my touch clung unpleasantly to him.

I didn’t have an answer, but the unwelcome flood of perceptions cleared as soon as he broke contact. In its absence, my own anxieties surged with renewed intensity—the unsettling sense of pursuit and the staggering realization about my name.

How could I forget my fucking name?

Big Bill put the rig in gear, eyeing me skeptically the entire time. He said nothing further as he pulled back onto the road, so I turned and stared out the window, wrestling my anxious thoughts into some kind of order.

A wallet.

I had to have a wallet. Maybe that was why I’d refused to ditch the coat. Trying not to be obvious, I patted myself down, digging through the pockets of the leather jacket and turning them inside out. Driving gloves, a pen cap, some soggy gum wrappers. Nothing of any use whatsoever. I cursed none too softly.

Bill blasted Metallica and focused on driving.

I found a tiny front pocket with a metal snap rather than a zipper. It looked just big enough to hold a Zippo, or maybe an ID. Something was wedged inside of it—and wedged in tight. My hands were shaking, so it took a couple of tries to finally drag out the thin canvas wallet. It was blue and sealed with Velcro. I tore it open.

Three waterlogged twenties. A platinum card—go me?—and a State of Ohio driver’s license.

“Zachary Westland,” I read, squinting in the dim lighting of the cab.

Nothing.

Not even a flash of recognition.

The photo on the license didn’t help. Pale blue eyes peered out at me from a long, narrow face. Gaunt cheeks, a straight nose, and a smooth brow surmounted by a shock of brown hair. It wasn’t a bad face, but it might as well have belonged to a stranger.

The address was for an apartment in Cleveland Heights.

“That had to be Lake Erie,” I murmured. Big Bill cleared his throat, and I realized I’d used my out-loud voice.

“I’m gonna drop you off at the Pub n’ Sub by 531 up here,” he announced.

I cast a sidelong glance his way.

“How far are we from Cleveland?”

“’Bout sixty miles,” he said. “You can catch Route 20 or I-90 from 11. They’ll both take you into the city.”

“You’re not headed that way?”

Big Bill fixed me with a steely glare. “Son, you’re getting out soon as we’re in East Ashtabula, and that’s all I’m gonna say on the matter.” To punctuate this, he cranked the music even louder. ‘Enter Sandman’ thundered through the cab. As dark as this stretch of country lane was, it really felt like we were heading off to never-never land.

With Big Bill brooding beside me, I dug through the rest of the wallet, searching for anything that might loosen my stubborn memory. There was a conceal carry permit, which I hid immediately, an insurance card declaring coverage on both a Buick and a motorcycle, and a business card for what looked like a nightclub. On the back of the business card, there was something scribbled in blue ink. I didn’t think it was my handwriting.

55 and Marginal—2

All of it was meaningless to me.

We passed a gas station that was already closed for the night, and pulled in next door onto a gravel lot. There was a long, squat building that looked more suited to be a machine shop than a bar. A brightly lit sign with garish green and yellow lettering declared it the Pub N’ Sub.

“Here’s your stop,” my reluctant Good Samaritan announced. He put the rig in park and folded his arms across his chest, scowling.

“Thanks, man,” I said, and was relieved when he didn’t extend his hand again. I wasn’t sure what had happened when we shook the first time, but I didn’t want to repeat the experience. I swung down from the cab, and he started pulling away almost as soon as my feet were on the gravel.

I stood blinking in the harsh glare of the floodlights mounted on the roof of the single-story bar. The wide lot held two semis, half a dozen mud-spattered pickups, and a few bikes out front. A couple of neon signs in the windows let me know I could get fresh eats and cold beer—except the “E” in “Eats” flickered dully, making the sign read, “Fresh ats.” I pondered the nature of a “fresh at” while I tried to figure out my next move.

I had an address. It was safe to assume that’s where I lived, but with no car and no shoes, the sixty miles to Cleveland might as well have been six million. Maybe I could use the phone and call a cab.

Throwing my slightly less sodden leather jacket over my shoulder, I picked my way across to the entrance of the pub, the gravel sharp and painful against the raw pads of my feet. The wind kicked up, scattering dried leaves across my path. If it was cold, I didn’t feel it. From about ten paces out I could hear the muffled strains of country music, and I drew up short when I spied a predictable sign on the door:

NO SHIRT. NO SHOES.NO SERVICE.

To which was appended in less-regular red letters, No Shit.

“Really not my fucking day.” I sighed, then shook my head and went in anyway. The worst they could do was throw me out, right?

3

I opened the door to a sensory assault—fryer grease, cigarette smoke, stale sweat and even staler beer. Half a dozen old TVs were mounted at various angles over the bar and seating area. The pictures flickered unsteadily and not a single one had the same color balance. Loud country music blared from the speakers, completely drowning out anything coming over the TVs—and yet none of the TVs were on mute, adding a dull, insensible hum to the chaos. The bass of the speakers completely swallowed the treble, so what little I could hear of the lyrics came out garbled at best.

Considering it was country, maybe that was a mercy.

I flinched as—for an instant—it seemed as if the patrons of the bar were shouting, all at once. There were about ten of them, and the cacophony drowned even the din of the music and TVs, then abruptly receded as I realized almost no one’s mouth was moving. Most of the guys just sat morosely, staring into their beers. The bartender looked up as I hesitated near the door.

He was big, not as tall as I was, but broader again by half. I figured he had about fifty pounds on me, and little of that was fat. He had a hair net beneath which a snowy sweep of ponytail started about halfway back on his scalp. Of all things, he had a beard net, too, covering a plume of white and gray long enough to make a Tolkien dwarf envious. As he regarded me, his ice-chip eyes went ten degrees chillier.

“Sign’s there fer a reason,” he grunted in a basso voice that cut easily through the noise.

I was still trying to work out why I’d heard voices. Was I hallucinating?

“If I had shoes, I’d be wearing them,” I shot back. “Look, I just need the pay phone… and change for a twenty.” I approached the bar, holding out one of my soggy bills. From the look of his stained and greasy apron, he was also the cook. He squinted down at the damp and crumpled money, then took in the whole of my appearance.

“The heck happened to you?” he grunted.

Wish I knew, I thought, but I just shrugged. Out loud I answered, “Bad day. I don’t imagine cabs come all the way out here?”

He quirked an eyebrow at me. It was one of those old-guy eyebrows where a couple of the hairs had gone wild and grew three times as long as any of the others. They stuck out from the middle like curling antennae.

“From where?”

“Cleveland?” I asked hopefully.

A few of the patrons stole sideways glances at me and snorted over their beers. The bartender let out a bellowing laugh.

“You’re kidding, right?”

It was worth a shot.

That left me with the business card. Glossy black, it had “Heaven” stamped on it in stylish silver lettering. The phone number and address were in red. I had no idea how or even if it pertained to me. At least there was a number I could call. That was somewhere to start.

“Is there a hotel nearby?” I asked glumly, just in case Heaven didn’t pan out.

“Roadway Express ’bout a mile the other side of town,” he offered.

“If you’ve got their number, I’ll take that, too.”

Shaking his head, the bartender grabbed something bulky from under the register and chucked it. I caught the phone book with a speed and accuracy that surprised even me, snapping my left hand up and seeming to pluck the unwieldy tome from mid-air. I paused, staring at this. Half a dozen of the bar’s patrons were staring now, too. Whispers surged, threatening to swell into shouting again. I closed my eyes against the sensation, fighting for order in my own head.

“Uh… thanks,” I muttered a little weakly. I tucked the phone book under one arm and did my best to look inconspicuous. At six foot three and covered in lake muck, it wasn’t happening.

Still shaking his head and muttering to himself, the fellow counted out my change and set the money on the bar. I scooped up the bills and quarters, pointedly avoiding touching his hand. Biker Santa jerked his thumb toward an alcove which, according to the battered tin sign tacked above it, also led to the “Used Beer Department.”

“Phone’s back there,” he said, then he abruptly turned around and ignored me.

The pay phone was clunky and ancient, but I hadn’t expected anything less. In this age of ubiquitous cell phones, I was just happy the bar hadn’t ripped the thing out and replaced it with some flashy gambling machine.

It was dented on one side, some of the paint scraped down to the metal. I ran a finger over one of the dents curiously, then froze as I got that electric feeling again. Something blossomed in my mind—not just thoughts this time, but whole images. They came in rapid flashes, like a stop-motion film, each scene super-saturated with emotion. A man in a pale shirt and a cowboy hat pacing on the phone—this phone. A woman on the other end—and somehow I could see her, too. She was seated on a couch with a hideous floral print, a box of tissues open on the coffee table before her. She had a black eye and raw bruises across her jaw and chin.

There were scrapes on his knuckles from breaking two of her teeth. He rubbed the raw, infected skin while he argued.

She was breaking up with him. He couldn’t yell loud enough to berate her, wanted to hit her even then, but she was miles away.

He had a thumper dangling from his belt—something shaped like a mini-baseball bat used to test the tires on his truck. I couldn’t say how, but I knew the nature of the little tool in an instant. Red in the face and raging, he grabbed the thumper and beat it repeatedly against the side of the phone. Then he was screaming into the receiver that she couldn’t do this to him, that he would show her, he would make her pay.

Through hiccupping sobs, she said no more—she wouldn’t let him hurt her anymore.

That was when she grabbed the gun sitting next to the box of tissues. When she closed her lips around the muzzle, the blast nearly drove me to my knees. With a hoarse cry, I tore my hand away from the side of the pay phone. It felt like I was going to vomit again, and my pulse hammered painfully in my head. I tried to breathe through it, acutely aware of the feel of eyes on my back.

What the hell? Was this some kind of vision? If it was, what was I supposed to do with it—run out and stop her? I didn’t recognize either the woman or the man. Maybe it was something that had already happened. Yet it was so immediate—I could still taste the metal of the gun.

Clenching my teeth against the echo of the gunshot, I tried to get a grip on myself. There wasn’t anything I could do for anyone, not in my current state—even if what I’d just seen was real. I closed my eyes and counted my breaths until my heart resumed a steadier pace. I had to get my own shit sorted out.

Picking up the business end of the phone, I started feeding it quarters. With trembling fingers, I punched in the number for Heaven. I needed answers. With luck, they would be on the other end of the line.

4

No one picked up. I counted to ten, gritting my teeth tighter with each ring. It didn’t even go to an answering machine.

I was tempted to revisit the abuse to the phone, only with my fist instead of a thumper. Knowing how little that would accomplish, I took a deep, steadying breath. Still, I hung up the phone with such force that it made the internal bell ding. The coin return vomited quarters and they cascaded onto the floor. I could feel eyes on me from the bar again and I just put my back to them.

After collecting the change, I leaned over the little shelf next to the phone, gripping my head with both hands. All the weird shit spinning around in my brain made it hard to think.

I was just about to call the Roadway Express and ask about a room when something prompted me to try the number for Heaven again. Nothing so clear as a vision. Just a feeling.

Couldn’t hurt. I had the quarters.

The line started ringing. I pressed the phone to my ear, irritably pacing the short distance its cord allowed, looking everywhere but at the people who were glaring at me. The flickering television screens caught my eye, if only for a few moments each. A football match. A poker game—which somehow was a sport now. Local news. World news. Hockey.

By the fifth ring, I was ready to give up on the hunch and just call it a night. Sure, I was going to have to walk at least another mile to the damned hotel, but at the end of that walk there was a hot shower and a soft bed waiting for me—assuming the platinum card in my wallet was legit.

Abruptly, the monotone ring cut short and the throb of very loud, oontzy dance music spilled from the other end. Then there was a muffled voice, lilting and female.

“Club Heaven. Can I help you?”

I opened my mouth and went totally blank. What was I going to say?

Hi, this is your friendly neighborhood amnesiac. I’m lost in East Bumfuck and seeing all kinds of weird shit. Come pick me up, please.

Sure, that would work.

Stammering a bit, I managed, “Uh, this is Zachary. Zachary Westland?” The name still felt foreign on my tongue.

She was silent on the other end, though the pounding music never ceased. I started to worry that she hadn’t heard me clearly.

“Hello?” I prompted.

Pitching her voice a little louder, she repeated, “Can I help you?”

“It’s Zachary Westland,” I said a little more firmly.

“Are you calling about a special event?” the woman asked. She sounded bored. Then I heard a male voice and her giggled response. The pulse of the music suddenly grew muted, as if she’d cupped her hand over the phone. There was the dim exchange of voices, hers and the man’s. None of the words translated, but there was enough vocal inflection to guess that they were—at the very least—flirting.

I scowled, whirling around in the alcove on the short leash of the phone cord.

That’s when I saw it. My face—or at least a reasonable approximation of the face in the driver’s license. It was a police sketch. Of course, considering the kind of day I was having, what else could it have been?

The reception on the TV was terrible, lines marching up the screen and flickering spastically. At the bottom, a little ticker-style announcement scrolled along.

…wanted for questioning in the Rockefeller Park shooting. Consider armed and dangerous. Notify police immediately. It was followed with a hotline number, as well as a code for texts.

“Shit,” I breathed and nearly dropped the handset.

A brassy-haired woman sitting at the end of the bar followed my gaze, then did a double take. Her gaudily painted lips opened to make a little “O” of surprise. The sketch was replaced with an innocuous image of a park—nothing but some leafless trees and a statue of what looked for all the world like Mahatma Gandhi. The woman squinted, trying to follow the scrolling letters as the warning repeated across the bottom of the screen.

A sick cocktail of anxiety and fear roiled in my gut.

Not good. Not good at all.

The music on the other end of the phone came through clearly all of a sudden.

“I’m sorry,” the girl said, a little breathlessly. “Were you calling about a special event?” A throaty purr beneath her words replaced the boredom.

“Zachary Westland,” I repeated automatically, as if the name were a talisman, but my real attention was on the woman with the bad dye-job as she debated what to do.

Considered armed and dangerous. Notify police immediately.

“Sir, this is Club Heaven. We’re open from ten pm till three am Thursday through Sunday. We do special events weekdays…” She droned on, reciting from memory. The brassy-haired woman bent to retrieve a mammoth purse from the floor beside her stool. Digging around frantically in its depths, she pulled out a cell phone and retreated to a quieter corner of the building.

“Oh, fuck me running,” I complained.

The girl on the other end of the phone thought I was swearing at her. She cursed right back, her voice rising stridently.

“Look, you stupid bastard, we don’t have a Zachary Westland on staff. Ask a real question or get off my goddamned phone—hey!” This last came out as an indignant squeak. There were sounds like a mild struggle over the handset, then another voice came across the line.

“Zaquiel? Is that you? Why on earth are you calling this line?” It was the male, no longer murmuring. He spoke in a clear, mellifluous tone, words clipped with a subtle accent that I couldn’t quite place.

The name lanced through me like lightning. Images flooded my head, jumbled and incoherent. The only thing I made out with any clarity was the thunderous music of hundreds of voices raised in perfect song. Beautiful and agonizing, it hit me like a punch to the gut. I struggled to recover, and at the same time, I saw the woman snap a picture of me with her cell.

Damn, damn, damn!

“Gotta go,” I said hastily, hanging up the phone and snagging my coat in one swift movement. Then I headed for the door as quickly as I could without attracting any further attention. I kept Ms. Bad Dye Job in sight out of the corner of my eye. She was talking rapidly and urgently on her phone as I slipped out to the parking lot.

It wasn’t like I had anywhere to go. No getaway car. Not even a good pair of running shoes.

Fuck my life.

5

I stood on the small patch of concrete that seemed to serve the Pub n’ Sub as a patio in warmer weather, wracking my brain for what to do. I scanned the night, looking for flashes of blue and red. Nothing so far, but with the way my luck was running, that wasn’t going to last.

My gaze fell to the three bikes parked in front of the bar. According to the card in my wallet, I was insured to drive a motorcycle. Did that mean I knew how to steal one? At least I wouldn’t have to break into it, like I would a car. Of course, these three were right out front, in full view of the windows. There were about ten guys in there, not counting Biker Santa of the beard net, and some of them were as big as he was. None of them seemed kindly disposed toward my person, and I didn’t think their opinions of me would improve if they caught me stealing one of their bikes.

Catching some angry yokel’s bullet struck me as a pretty rotten way to die.

That was when I spied the tarp. Sun-bleached and covered in a fine layer of dust, almost the same color as the dead stalks of corn lining the field behind the bar. Crabgrass and Queen Anne’s Lace had grown thick around the bottom edges, dried to a yellow tangle now that summer had come and gone. The bike beneath the tarp hadn’t moved in a while, tucked halfway behind the building, but it was out of sight of both the road and the front windows.

“Best chance you got,” I muttered, shrugging into my damp leather and trotting along the thin strip of concrete that hugged the side wall. I whipped off the tarp, scattering a wave of dust, seeds, and field spiders. It was a beautiful old Harley, the casing over its gas tank a deep, rich red. Betting it belonged to Biker Santa, I honestly felt bad at the thought of stealing it. It looked like something from the late ’70s or early ’80s, but was in pristine condition.

Someone loved this bike.

Still, I needed wheels, and fast.

“I’ll get it back to him,” I promised myself, and I meant it, too. Which made me wonder about the police bulletin. Armed and dangerous. Seriously? I was agonizing over a motorcycle. “Feel bad once you’ve managed to steal it,” I chided myself.

Disengaging the stand and trying to ignore the spiders underfoot, I swung my leg over the bike and settled onto the seat. I was a little too tall for the thing, and if I managed to get it going, I was risking the loss of my toes by riding barefoot, but I gripped the handlebars tightly, getting a feel for the controls.

As soon as I did, I was inundated with impressions—riding with someone clinging to my back, the welcome warmth of her nearness eclipsing even the exhilaration of the open road. Younger times, the days spent riding and the nights spent tangled together, often under the open stars. Then a crushing sense of absence. Impossible to ride the bike without wrestling with her ghost. Revisiting it to polish and care for it every anniversary, then mournfully returning the tarp. A sense of loss so sharp, there was no surcease.

“Not my feelings, not my feelings,” I whispered, fiercely willing the emotions away. In that instant, there was no denying what they were—psychic impressions of some sort. I wanted to ask Biker Santa about his wife—if they had ridden together, and how long ago she had died.

Yet I already knew the answers.

Gripping the handlebars that somehow still held cherished memories of his long-dead lady, I fought to focus on the here-and-now. Dried-out strands of crabgrass rasped against my ankle. It took all of about thirty seconds for me to realize that I didn’t know the first thing about how to steal a motorcycle.

Sirens wailed in the distance.

“Dammit!” I snarled. It was a kick-start bike, so I tried forcing it into neutral and rolling forward as I jammed my foot down on the starter. With the way my feet were chewed up from walking, that hurt about as much as I thought it would. The pain was hardly a deterrent, though. I did it a second time and fiercely willed the thing to go.

The engine growled to life.

Astonished, I gaped at the controls. Down the road, the sirens blared ever closer, overpowering the pulse of the engine.

“Not the time for questions,” I mumbled.

Readjusting my grip on the handlebars, I pulled out of the lot just in time to see a bunch of guys spilling out of the front of the bar. They were led by Biker Santa. His face was scarlet as he aimed a shotgun at me, and he wasn’t the least bit jolly. Police lights flashed against the buildings south of the pub and the sirens ratcheted up to a deafening wail. My bad luck was holding. The cop cars were effectively cutting me off from the direction I needed to go.

“Move now, think later,” I snarled, then swung the growling bike around and sped into the cornfield behind the bar.

6

Riding a motorcycle through a cornfield without protective gear is a recipe for pain. Doing it while barefoot ranks right up there with rappelling down razor wire or wrestling a rabid porcupine. I was cruising for a Darwin Award. Add in the after-effects of weird psychic visions, pursuit by the local authorities, and being chased by a pack of gun-toting bikers, and my day was rapidly approaching nightmare status.

Somehow I managed to lose them.

More astonishing than that, I managed to find a road. It was little more than a narrow strip of asphalt running between whispering fields of dried corn, but it headed in the right direction. I leaned forward on the Harley, rocketing along as fast as I dared on the lonely country lane. Once in a while I passed houses, but they were all an acre back or more, their lights shaping dim constellations in an otherwise starless night.

I continued like that for several miles, keeping an eye out for any cross street that was bigger than a driveway. Finally I came to Route 20. Given that this was the first intersection that had a stoplight, albeit a blinking one, it had to be a major road for this lonely corner of the Buckeye State. Swinging right, I followed 20 for a while as the clusters of houses became more frequent.

Up ahead, fields and houses gave way to a wide and brightly lit expanse of asphalt. A monolithic building sat back from the road, squat and unattractive. From the look and size of it, I first thought it was an institution. As I drew closer, however, I spied the fluorescent lights spilling out from glass shop windows and automatic doors. A strip of navy-blue signage running across the entire upper portion of the building declared it to be a Wal-Mart. There were perhaps sixteen cars in the parking lot.

Though desolate, it looked open.

I slowed as I approached the turn-off, mentally tallying the remainder of my cash. If the police were looking for me, I didn’t dare use that platinum card in my wallet, however tempting it might be to procure a fresh set of clothes. But I needed footwear badly. I probably had enough cash to get a cheap but serviceable pair of boots, some socks, and maybe even a package of bandages. My feet were pretty chewed up at this point, so cramming them into boots wasn’t really a delightful prospect.

Still, it was better than the alternative. I was lucky so far to have only scrapes and blisters, and if things were cheap enough, I might even have some money left over to feed the gas tank. Biker Santa had seen fit to keep it topped off, so that wasn’t yet a priority.

I pulled up to the front of the store and started to park. Then I realized there was a serious flaw in my plan. Dumb luck and desperation were the only things that had got the Harley running in the first place, so I didn’t dare turn it off.

“Well, crap,” I muttered to myself, glancing around the lot. No one in sight. Empty fields stretching to either side. “Not much choice,” I observed with a shrug. Then I coasted up to a display at the front of the building.

Dying mums in battered plastic containers sat beside a boldly lettered sign proclaiming them “On Sale.” I maneuvered the motorcycle close to the half-dead flowers and set the kickstand, leaving the vintage machine idling in neutral. The area was brightly lit, and I hoped this would have the effect of deterring potential thieves, rather than calling attention to the unattended bike. Reluctantly stepping away from it, I cast a glance heavenward.

“If you’ve got any mercy at all, let this thing be here when I get back.”

Regarding the mute expanse of the sky, I was overcome with a near-crushing awareness that nothing up there was listening to me. I blinked with the force of it, tearing my eyes away from the reflective bellies of the clouds. Mercifully, the feeling passed. Swiping at some of the cornfield detritus still lingering on my jacket and in my hair, I scowled.

“Boots now,” I told myself. “Existential meltdown later.” I padded into the store, leaving russet smears on the tile as I went.

Management was going to love me.

As it turned out, I didn’t have to worry. No one I encountered was out to win any beauty pageants. There were three solitary souls browsing the aisles, and if I’d been clean-shaven and less rumpled, I would have stood out more. I kept my head down anyway, and headed for the footwear section.

Looking over a rack of reasonably sturdy work boots—“Prices Slashed! Now only 29.95!”—I realized that I had no idea what size I wore. The amnesia thing was really starting to get on my nerves.

I yanked off what was left of my socks and studied my poor abused feet. Probably a twelve. I had long, thin toes to match my long, thin fingers, so maybe it was more like a thirteen. I grabbed a three-pack of athletic socks and tore a pair from the plastic. Looking around for sales associates or security cameras, I eased my feet into the fresh socks, then started trying on boots.

After three attempts I got the right size, or at least close enough. I laced up the boots, grabbed the box and the remaining socks, and carried them over toward the single open register. No one looked twice, not even the gaunt-faced fellow wearing deer-hunter orange who was walking in circles near the housewares, muttering to himself about elephant guns.

I so didn’t want to know.

At the counter, the bleary-eyed girl with a torn-out eyebrow piercing held up the empty shoebox and shook it at me.

“I gotta scan the boots for you to buy them.” She almost touched my hand and I jerked back. She gaped at me like a carp.

“That’s too bad,” I said impatiently. “I’m wearing them. That’s why I brought the box.”

“But the box is empty,” she argued.

“That’s because I’m wearing them!” I said again. We went round and round like this for a couple of minutes, and it felt like being caught in the loop of some old comedy, only it didn’t feel at all funny. I gritted my teeth, resisting the urge to reach over the counter and shake her.

Elephant-gun man began wandering toward the register, and he looked way too interested in our conversation.

“Look,” I said, trying to keep my voice down, “I wrecked my boots out in the mud. I got socks here and I got boots. The boots came in that box, which has a bar code. All you have to do is scan the fucking bar code. I just want to pay and get out of here.”

Frowning, she set the empty box down and picked up the three-pack of athletic socks. She poked at the ragged edges where I’d torn open the packaging. “This is already open. You wanna go back and get a new one?”

I felt my eye twitch.

“It’s fine,” I managed. “Just scan it, and scan that box. I’m buying the box, too.”

Looking at me like I was the one with the mental deficiency, she took her little gun and ran the laser scanner over the bar codes. I shoved money at her before she finished ringing up the total, which made her pause again and almost lose track of what she was doing. With agonizing care she slipped both the empty shoebox and the opened package of socks into a thin plastic bag. Only then did she take my money and cash me out.

I fought the urge to grab the package and bolt from the store, instead forcing myself to walk slowly back to the entrance. I thought a series of very unkind things about her parents as I pulled the socks from the bag on my way out of the store. I tossed the bag into a nearby trash bin, stuffing the two extra pairs of socks into an inner pocket of my jacket.

The Harley still rested next to the bedraggled mums, its engine humming softly.

“Thank goodness for small favors,” I muttered, then swung back onto the motorcycle and resumed my trip toward Cleveland, now about 35 miles away. Then all I had to do was find a club I didn’t remember in a city whose streets were forgotten to me, as well.

7

Once I got onto I-90, it took me straight into the city. As I drove through the eastern suburbs, the highway split off into a bewildering number of alternate freeways. I followed my instincts, surrendering to the feel of what seemed right, and by eleven-thirty I was within sight of the Cleveland skyline.

The skyscrapers were lit from below with candy-colored floods of red, blue, and gold. Gleaming lights illuminated the downtown bridges as well, making the art deco giants flanking their arches come ominously to life.

A wealth of apparently random facts spun through my brain—the foibles of the Van Sweringen brothers, pride in native son Bob Hope, and rueful memories of J.D. Rockefeller’s cutthroat tactics. I found myself wondering about my curiously selective amnesia. Everything was poignantly familiar. I knew the shape of the Terminal Tower, the tales of the Detroit Avenue Bridge, the fervor sports-minded locals held for the stadium that was home of the Cleveland Tribe.

As long I didn’t think too hard about it, I knew where every street led. I took the exit that funneled me down a winding path from the overpass to the Flats. I found myself on River Road, got routed around a drawbridge that was undergoing repairs, passed the Nautica stage, then drew up short at a sleek black sign with familiar silver letters.

HEAVEN

Parking was ten dollars in the attached lot. All too conscious of my dwindling funds, I decided to take my chances and leave the Harley on the street. That proved to be an adventure. Although no special event seemed to be going on at the Nautica or anywhere else in the Flats, cars crowded nose-to-bumper, tires half up on the worn and shallow curbs. Listing pylons twined with thick, weathered chains blocked access to one side street after another, till I found myself again at the bank of the river.

A great, rusting monolith rose to one side, its purpose lost to the city’s industrial past. The broad, oily expanse of the Cuyahoga drank the light from the crumbling bridges arching above it, their reflections dragged mercilessly into its muddy depths.

There was a parking space right near the river’s edge, but I wanted no part of those still, brooding waters. Choking on shapeless memories I could neither ignore nor divine, I guided the old Harley deeper into the tangle of one-way streets and back alleys, dodging potholes big enough to swallow the front tire. I finally found a space a good several blocks from Heaven. The lone streetlight at the corner had been shot out. At that point, I didn’t care.

Setting the kickstand I reluctantly cut the engine. If I was lucky, Club Heaven would give up the answers that I needed, and I’d be able to make a discreet call pointing the authorities to Biker Santa’s cherished ride.

I oriented myself in the direction of the club and started walking. A gusting wind carried the stench of the river, thick and ripe and fishy. The scent dredged half-formed images from my hindbrain—none of them clear enough to hold onto, but they spiked my anxious pulse nevertheless.

It didn’t help that this corner of the Flats was questionable at best. I passed a pair of seedy-looking characters slouching along in baggy pants and oversized hoodies. They stared too long at me as I strode past, and the feel of their eyes made my skin crawl in a way I couldn’t really justify. I kept my head down and tried to ignore them.

A shrill, chittering cry rang piercingly through the street and I froze, overcome with the irrational fear that some terrible creature had followed me all the way from Ashtabula. Once I convinced my legs to move again, I quickened my pace, faltering when I heard the scrape of a shoe against the cracked and uneven sidewalk behind me.

The ruffians staggered along in shuffling pursuit, glassy eyes fixed on everything and nothing at once. Shadows swirled thickly around them, clinging to their backs like living things. The minute I turned and spotted them, they charged forward, mouths agape.

One of them pulled a gun.

That cry came again, and I could have sworn it issued from his throat. I knew it wasn’t possible—nothing human could make that sound—but I didn’t care. I vaulted over the hood of a car parked beside me, sprinting across a dark and narrow side street. The neon sign of a bar burned on the corner, less than a block away. I headed toward the light.

From the frenzied slap of feet against pavement, they were right on my heels. At least they weren’t shooting—yet. As I pelted around the corner toward the bar, I ran right in the path of oncoming headlights. The vehicle was already slowing to a stop at the intersection, but I still hip-checked its grill, rolling onto the hood and nearly kissing the windshield.

It was a cop car. I got an up close and personal look at the startled faces of the driver and his partner. The older guy behind the wheel just gaped at me. The younger woman in the passenger seat yelled something, her dark features shifting swiftly from shock to fury. I slid off the hood and was already charging down the sidewalk before the cruiser came to a complete halt. Visions of the news bulletin flashed through my head and I sped away, certain the cops would come at me shooting.

By then the thugs had run headlong into the side of the vehicle like they didn’t know they could go around it. They jostled alongside it, thumping their palms against the hood.

I didn’t ask questions. There wasn’t any time. I had no interest in being caught by either the hoodie gang or the police, so I just thanked whatever power was responsible for finally throwing me a break. I tore off down an alley, leaving the cops to contend with the two delinquents.

After I’d gone a couple of blocks, a shot rang out, and then another. I ducked reflexively beside a dumpster. Shrill cries echoed through the night—they hardly sounded human. Suddenly my lucky break didn’t seem very lucky—at least not for the cops. I hesitated in my hiding spot, and almost turned back, but what was I going to do? Charge in unarmed?

I’d get shot or arrested.

Probably both.

Shouts again. It made more sense to run, but I couldn’t let it go. Cautiously, I doubled back toward the bar, hugging the shadows and moving as stealthily as my gangly six-foot-something frame would allow. My hands tingled like they were wrapped around live wires. Restlessly, I shook the sensation from my fingers, but it clung like ants swarming the wrong side of my skin.

The officers were standing over two lifeless bodies.

“What the hell were they thinking?” the lady cop said. “They saw our guns. Why didn’t they stop?” She still held her service piece trained on the dead men, her African complexion gray with shock. One of the corpses twitched, and she nearly squeezed off another round.

“Drugged up, from the look of it,” her partner grumbled. “Sometimes it’s shoot or get shot, Maggie.” He toed one of the fallen forms, kicking a gun out of its now limp hand. He looked up and scanned the alley. “What happened with that other one—the guy we hit?”

I pressed myself deep inside a doorway, ducking my head low. It was time to go. The minute he turned back toward the cruiser, I fled, tracing my way between windowless warehouses till I came once more to Club Heaven.

No matter how I tried, I couldn’t quite shake the expression on the lady cop’s face. It looked like she hadn’t had to kill anyone before. Maybe there had been a way to avoid it. Maybe if I’d stayed and faced the thugs myself, things would have played out differently.

But that was stupid, and I was wanted. Pleading amnesia wouldn’t make that go away.

As I approached the massive brick warehouse that was home to Club Heaven, I smoothed back my wind-torn hair and tried to shake some of the tension out of my shoulders. No sense going in looking like I was spoiling for a fight.

It was close to midnight, and Heaven was in full swing. Big double doors were propped open beneath an awning of blood-red vinyl. Pulsing electronica spilled into the night. A bull-necked doorman stood nearby, his thick arms not so much folded as resting on his broad chest. Despite the hour he wore sunglasses, and his meaty jaw was given definition by a dark and meticulously trimmed goatee. His head appeared to be shaved down to the scalp underneath a black leather top hat that had a pair of steampunk goggles perched atop its brim.

He shifted his weight almost imperceptibly as I approached. I dug out my wallet and retrieved my ID, holding it at the ready. I knew the drill.

“How much?” I asked, hoping the few crumpled bills I had left would cover entry.

The doorman barely spared my license a passing glance.

“Fifteen,” he said automatically. I searched his face for any hint of recognition, but he had the bouncer glare down, regarding me stonily from behind the shades.

“All right.” I handed him a ten and a five, noting glumly that this just left me with a couple of singles. “Hey, dumb question, but…” For a moment I faltered—but what did I have to lose? “Do I come here often?”

The guy gave me a curious look, dark brows furrowing over the sunglasses. Then he shrugged.

“I’m new, man.” He waved the cash away, gesturing further into the club. “Pay the girl when you see her.”

“Um, right,” I said. “I still need the ID?” He shook his head, so I put it back in my wallet, which I wedged into the back left pocket of my jeans. Then I dove into the riot of sound and shadow that was the interior of the club.

Dim red bulbs cast a sepulchral gloom over the entryway, and a kind of privacy wall made it necessary to step left or right. The ceiling of the club yawned cavernously above it, black except for intermittent strobes of light. Another thick-necked bouncer-type leaned against the left-hand side of the wall, his hand resting idly on a velvet rope strung across that entrance. I took the other path toward a short counter with a cash register. A curtained archway rose beyond. The heavy red velvet drapes vibrated in the stultifying thunder of the bass.

A girl sat behind the counter, the Asian lift to her eyes highlighted by heavy black eyeliner and shimmering smears of red and gold. Her face was powdered bone-white and the natural shape of her lips was obscured by a small, stylized black heart painted over them. The heart made her look as if she was constantly puckered up for a kiss.

Her black and gold-streaked hair was swept up in a severe knot, with an asymmetrical fan of it sticking out to one side, the ends coated so heavily in styling gel that they might as well have been spikes of black glass. A red lacquered chopstick topped with a tiny skull-shaped bead angled through her hair. A matching skull dangled from the lobe of the opposing ear.

“Fifteen dollars, please,” she said with an air of crushing boredom. I recognized her voice immediately and gawked for a moment, struggling for something to say. She fixed her gaze on me, blinking once. As I continued to hesitate, a little crease of irritation formed between her penciled brows.

“Um, I’m Zachary Westland?” I offered.

The flat ophidian cast to those eyes never faltered, but her brows went up just a touch.

“Oh,” she said. Her gaze slid from me to the curtain, and for a moment she seemed to be peering through it. “He’s expecting you,” she said. “Up in the Sanctuary.” She didn’t bother to explain who, or what that was—just gestured vaguely toward the curtained door.

“Uh, thanks,” I managed. I held the ten and five out to her, but she shook her head.

“Family’s always free,” she said.

Family?

Chewing on that interesting morsel, I ducked through the curtain.

My eyes had no time to adjust—lasers burst forth in a brilliant cascade, dazzling as they reflected off a massive disco ball suspended over the dance floor. Black walls, black floor, and black-clad people blended into a mass of writhing shadows punctuated by stuttering strobes. Before the lasers exploded in another scintillating display, a stampede of unexpected sensations ran roughshod through my mind—faces, visions, colors, and a host of conflicting emotions enervating beyond tolerance.

I hit the floor without any conscious awareness of it, dragging the velvet curtain down on top of me. In my fading vision, times and styles blurred together in a jumble. Goths and flappers and sleek-suited toughs all danced cheek to cheek with the same frenetic air of desperate indulgence.

I had no idea if any of it was real.

My last scrap of awareness flashed with galvanizing imagery—so vivid, it felt as if I’d been thrust into a movie. A place like this, rife with hunger, decadence, and sex. Not a club. More like a temple—halls of carved stone, impossibly old. Tall, gaunt men with grim expressions stormed the place, tearing down tapestries and toppling columns. Clad in rough-spun tunics, they held near-identical expressions and carried strangely curved bronze blades.

Driving half-naked revelers before them, they spared none who resisted. All were tainted, all were judged—but the real goal was the abomination perched at the heart of the nest.

He sat amidst the trappings of some sort of shrine, poison-green eyes glinting from beneath a thick fringe of lashes. He looked human, but his mouth was fanged. Overwhelmed by sheer numbers, he hissed and spat curses as they dragged him from his throne. A thin bone stylus carved the sentence across his forehead in curving letters of gleaming blood. They held him, wrist and ankle, wiry limbs splayed and straining.

There was no room for mercy.

At a sign from the leader, bronze blades flashed through pale flesh. The creature’s throat fountained crimson. The final dagger punched under his ribs, curving upward to seek his heart. His oath resounded on a gurgling breath.

“I’ll repay you for this, brother. You and all your tribe.”

I stared down at the crumpled form.

It was my hand wrapped around the killing blade.