“But not your kind,” he shot back. “Considering she committed the ultimate ‘sin’ of mating with a human.”
“She fell in love, Zach. How can I stand in judgment of that?” He laid a hand on his arm. “You have questions, I get that. And I’ll answer every one of them. But now we need to go. Time’s running out.”
Angel. Mick. They needed him.
It burned to swallow his questions—like bile in his throat—but he nodded and shifted the sedan into drive.
Chapter Fifty-nine
Saturday, July 20
4:05 A.M.
“Wake up, baby. We’re here.”
Micki’s eyelids lifted to darkness. Her thoughts left the world of dreams to the nightmare of the moment. To what had happened, where she was. Who she was with.
That he had a gun. Aimed at her head.
She reached for her own, found that it was gone. He laughed. “Game changer, baby.”
She worked to stay in character, despite his strangely liquid eyes and the smell of decay gagging her. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“You’re a cop,” he said. “A detective. Michaela Dare.”
Great. “You helped yourself to my shield?”
“And your phone. Nice tits, by the way.”
“Fuck you.”
He laughed and pressed the gun’s barrel to her temple. “Get out of the car. Now.”
Micki stalled. “Where are we?”
“You’ll know soon enough.” She hesitated and he smiled, the stretching of his mouth over his teeth grotesque. “Everyone else is here. Including someone you care about.”
“Who?”
“Last chance to get out of the car. Or you and your chambered bullet will become intimately acquainted.”
Her only chance to take him down was to do as he ordered. She opened the car door, climbed out.
An abandoned church, she saw. A Katrina leftover. Which narrowed the possibilities. Micki moved her gaze over the landscape. Its size and scope. Her money was on Lower Ninth.
He nudged her with the gun. “Time to party. You lead.”
Micki picked her way slowly, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the darkness. He followed her, matching her steps, gun pressed between her shoulder blades.
“Pretty smart, figuring us out.”
“Us?”
“The teacher and me.”
Teacher? For a moment she was confused, then she realized he meant the Dark Bearer. “That’s what you call it? Not beast or monster?”
“Shut up.”
“That’s what it is, a monster. It’s killing you.”
He jabbed her with the gun, so hard she stumbled. She silently swore at the sign of weakness. “Back up’s on the way.”
“No, it’s not. I read your text messages. Answered your cop friend. Let her know you were wrong about me and safely home.”
“That won’t hold. They’ll follow my phone’s pings—”
“Your cell is long gone. Besides, it’ll all be over by then.”
“We’ll all be dead?”
“Yes.” A violent shudder rolled over him. “I have to get this out of me.”
She recalled what Parker had shared—about the process of becoming a Dark Bearer, that the final extinguishing of light was nearly unbearable.
She took a stab. “It’s not the last Saturday. It can’t happen.”
“I have four now. The teacher promised.”
Four? With Miller, Putnam, she made three, Unless . . .
Angel.
The realization took her breath. Her thoughts raced. Which meant Zach, if not here, was on his way. But what could he do? No weapon. No backup.
She had to get her gun back.
The closer they got to the church, the more ragged Kenny’s breathing became. His steps became uneven, the gun barrel jerked against her back.
“You don’t have to do this,” she said. “It’s not too late.” He didn’t respond. They climbed the church steps, reached the door.
“Open it.”
She heard the screaming the moment she entered to church. The scream of terrified women. Women in pain. As if being tortured.
“You son of a bitch! Where are they?”
Micki whirled around. The bartender was no longer handsome. Pain contorted his classic features, his pupils had expanded to become dark, empty pools.
The moment of horror passed. “Give me the gun,” she said. “I’ll make the pain stop.”
A violent shudder racked him. “Shut up.”
“You don’t have to hurt anyone, not anymore. I know you were once good, Kenny. Before the Dark Bearer’s lies. Try to remember.”
He looked at her with those strange eyes and in them she saw something, a flicker of the person he once had been. It gave her hope.
She held out a hand, beseeching him. “Don’t do this. Help me save them.”
He convulsed in reaction to her plea. “It’s too late.”
“It’s never too late! You have good in you. I see it still.”
“Rip it out, Teacher! I beg you!”
At his agonized howl the hair on her arms and back of her neck stood up. She pressed on, eyes on his face but acutely aware of the gun in his grip.
“There’s good left in you, Kenny. Please don’t do this—”