“Something else is troubling you, then. What is it?”
“This whole thing troubles me. Violence is escalating. Now there’s a mask Infernals can hide behind and a new class of demon that’s tipping the balance.”
“We do not know that there is more than the one.”
“It’s killed three Marks in three weeks,” Reed bit out. “One is enough. How long do you think it’ll be before Sammael deems the trial run a success and makes more of them?”
The Fallen One was always eager to exploit any advantage.
“Jehovah never gives us more than we can handle. The Infernals are not the only ones who are improving.”
Reed pushed to his feet. “That knowledge isn’t helping me at the moment.”
Raguel opened the humidor on his desk and withdrew a cigar, placing it between his lips uncut and unlit. He didn’t smoke, but he enjoyed the act of holding a cigar in his mouth for reasons Reed had never grasped.
“Are you having a crisis of faith?” the archangel asked, his words spoken around the cigar.
“If this Infernal continues to murder Marks at a rate of one a week, we’ll need to step up recruitment, training, mentoring—just to maintain our numbers. And if it keeps taking out our best and brightest, we’ll soon be left with only novices.”
“You paint the direst of pictures, Abel, as if this demon will charge through our ranks unchecked.”
“It’s my job to anticipate and prevent.”
“Which is why I think you should accompany Mariel.”
“I’m going.” Reed stood. “I’ll call her and we’ll head out.”
There was more behind Raguel’s request than preventative measures. The archangel wanted his firm to be the one responsible for the identification and vanquishing of this new demon. He didn’t want Uriel to take that honor, or any of the other archangels.
“I will be assembling the class and taking them to Fort McCroskey this evening. Report your findings to me there.”
“Fine. Keep an eye on Eve.”
Raguel withdrew the cigar from his smiling mouth. “Of course. She is my star pupil.”
“Is that because she’s already good? Or because you want her to be?”
“She is passably proficient.” Raguel shrugged. “She could be brilliant, if her heart was in it. As it is, only determination drives her, and that is not enough to achieve the heights she might be capable of.”
“How many new Marks have their heart in it? They’re all drafted into service.” Reed ran a hand through his short hair, reminded again that Eve was not at all the sort of mortal who usually became a Mark. She was/had been agnostic and she hadn’t committed a crime of sufficient severity. Her only offense was being a temptation to Cain; the shining, delicious apple in his garden of demons and death.
“Ms. Hollis is different,” Raguel said, his resonant voice rolling gently through the air. “Marks always come to us with varying degrees of faith within them. She has none at all, and she is hindered without it. Other Marks find strength in their desperation to save their souls; she lacks that edge and that deficiency might be the death of her.”
If Raguel didn’t see to that first. “Are the other Marks still hostile toward her? She might be ‘dumbing down’ to avoid further antagonism.”
“I have never witnessed any hostilities.”
Reed’s mouth curved wryly. “That doesn’t mean they’re not there.”
Because Eve was paired with Cain, a legend in the field for both his 100 percent kill rate and his autonomy, she was tormented by those who were jealous of her “good fortune.” They assumed Cain did the lion’s share of the work and she stood around looking pretty. They didn’t bother to learn how wrong they were.
Cain had also pulled strings to keep Eve close to her family. Marks, as a rule, were transplanted to foreign firms. They were mostly loners, those who had either distanced themselves from family and friends or didn’t have any for a variety of reasons. Their lack of strong emotional ties facilitated their acclimation to the life of a Mark. It also created a divide between them and Eve that was undeniable.
But Raguel blindly—or conveniently—ignored how the other Marks treated her.
“Just keep her alive while I’m gone,” Reed said. “That’s not asking too much.”
“Keep yourself alive, Abel,” Raguel returned. “We have a great deal of work ahead of us.”
As if Reed could forget that.
Armageddon. It was coming. Sooner, rather than later.
Alec pulled Eve’s Chrysler 300 into her assigned spot in the subterranean garage of Gadara Tower. Turning off the engine, he glanced at her, noting her set jaw and taut posture. Her long, dark hair was pulled back in a ponytail and her slender body was dressed in a black cotton tank top and khaki shorts. He reached out to her, kneading her tense shoulder muscles. “Are you okay?”
She nodded.
“Liar,” he murmured.
“Let’s just say I would prefer to go camping with a different crew, if I had a choice.”
His hand wrapped around her nape and pulled her closer. He nuzzled his nose against hers. “I’ll miss you.”
An impatient thumping upon Eve’s trunk shook the car and drew his attention to the rear window.
“No place for muckin’ aboot!” a masculine voice shouted.
Alec pushed up his sunglasses, noting that the heckler was one of a group of three people walking by. He was tanned, blond, and looked to be in his early thirties.
“That’s Ken,” Eve said with laughter in her voice.
Ken’s eyes darted between them, widening with horrified recognition. He quickly retreated, holding both hands up in a gesture of surrender. He had a duffel bag draped over one shoulder and teeth white enough to blind. “Sorry, Cain. I didnae ken it was you.”
“Smooth move, arsehat,” one of his companions muttered, shoving him.
“Ken, huh?” Alec grinned. “I was just thinking he looks like a Barbie doll.”
“Don’t let that pretty-boy exterior fool you. He’s the best in the class.”
Alec climbed out of the driver’s seat and rounded the trunk. Opening the passenger door, he helped her out and asked, “What’s his nickname?”
Eve had assigned names to all the Marks in her class. He thought he knew why. A nickname could serve two purposes: it could dehumanize a subject or it could personalize them. Alec suspected Eve’s use of nicknames was due to both reasons.
“Just Ken,” she said, “since he does look like a Ken doll.”
Catching her elbow, Alec led her toward the elevators.
She shot him a wry glance. “You know, Gadara isn’t going to like me riding up to Monterey with you instead of with the others.”
“Gadara could use one of his planes to transport you all up there. Since he doesn’t want to make life easy for you, we’re not going out of our way to make life easy for him.”
“You keep breaking rules for me.”
He shrugged it off.
She looked at him in a way that made him want to take her back to bed. “The wolf in the bathroom told me you made a deal for my life. Then broke it.”
“You believe everything an Infernal tells you?” He didn’t want her gratitude. Not when he was the reason she was marked to begin with, and certainly not when he was hoping she would learn to like being a Mark.
“Thank you,” she said softly, killing him.
They rode the elevator up to the atrium level.
Eve’s nose wrinkled. “I don’t think I’ll ever get used to the smell of so many Marks in one enclosed space.”
“You have to admit, it’s more pleasant than the stench of rotting Infernal souls.”
“Yeah, but it’s too much. Makes it hard to breathe.”
The lush vegetation in the atrium planters created a humidity that intensified the sweet smell created when a hundred-plus Marks gathered. The effect was pleasant to Alec, as was the surge of power he felt whenever he was surrounded by Marks. Stepping into a firm was always a heady rush, no matter which firm he visited or where it was located. His blood thrummed with energy and his heart rate lurched into an elevated rhythm, as if the other Marks shared their energy with him. But Eve’s senses were still very sensitive. He wondered how long that would last. Since he’d never mentored before and had yet to be trained for the task, he had no benchmark to compare her to.
They crossed the marble lobby to a recessed hallway where a private set of elevators would take them to the bowels of the building.
“What do you know about this fort we’re going to?” Eve asked. “Anything?”
“Fort McCroskey was closed in 1991. There are some services still available—a commissary and some family housing for the students of a nearby military school—but otherwise it’s a ghost town.”
“Why are we going there?”
“There’s enough infrastructure left to facilitate training. The Army still uses it for that reason on occasion and since our purpose is the same—the defeat of an enemy through force—it serves our needs just as well.”
“Fun.”
Alec linked his fingers with Eve’s. The next week would be rough for her. “I’ll be back before you even have a chance to miss me.”
The cast of her features changed from disgruntlement to worry. “I’m an idiot. Bitching about learning how to defend myself while you’re on assignment.”
“I’ll be fine. You just take care of yourself.”
Eve eyed him carefully. “But it’s not going to be easy, right? He has subordinate wolves to protect him; you’re alone.”
“It’s no fun when it’s easy.”
“I wish I felt that way.” She leaned against the metal handrail that surrounded the elevator car and crossed her arms. It was her you-are-not-going-to-bullshit-me pose. “Have you done this before? Gone after an Alpha while he’s home with his pack?”