Chapter Seven
Thirty minutes later, a very tense thirty minutes later, Grif trailed Kit into a bar just a shade shy of full dark. Probably best, Grif thought, eyeing the sag of the industrial ceiling, and the bumps in the uneven concrete floor. It would be charitable to call the place a dive. A permanent dark stain led directly to the bar, where vinyl swivel stools sat in uneven clumps, the seat-backs damaged and slumping, not unlike the men occupying them.
It was nearing four in the afternoon, so the after-work crowd had yet to arrive, but there was still a handful of customers lined along the scarred bar top. One listlessly plunked quarters into a flattop video poker machine while two others watched a ball game above the bar with the same lackluster enthusiasm. A fourth man simply stared into space, face blank above his half-empty beer glass.
Choice digs, Grif thought, then returned his gaze to Kit’s ramrod back. Her uncharacteristic cheerlessness matched the mood of the room, but it also confounded him. He still wasn’t quite sure what’d happened in Marin’s office, or what led to their strange conversation in the parking lot afterward.
Did he dream about her?
That wasn’t the Kit Craig he was used to. His girl was relentlessly optimistic, dogged, and thick-skinned. Her overflowing confidence, despite any odds, was one of the things he loved about her. And she lived in emotional sunlight. A shadow cast over her? By Evie?
Hardly.
But he didn’t need to understand it to see she was truly upset, and the conversation wasn’t over, though he’d have to wait to ask her more. Detective Carlisle was already waiting.
They crossed the room to the far corner, where Carlisle hovered over a man who wobbled in his seat. There was nothing wrong with the chair, but the man was disheveled, unwashed, and sour-smelling, and currently picking at a wound on his forearm with unswerving fascination. With thin, brittle hair and a pocked face, the man was lean but not fit, long-limbed but lacking strength.
The most telling thing about him, though, was the solid ring of plasma outlining his body, a bright strip that only Grif could see. Not long, Grif thought, refocusing on the man. Not if he kept up this way.
The man’s expression didn’t alter when he spotted Kit and Grif standing there, his gaze sliding away after a mere moment, his hands renewing their restless fidgeting.
“This is Trey Brunk,” Dennis said in a normal tone, though Brunk appeared not to hear. “He’s a heroin user, as he’ll readily tell you, and he has his rages, which is how we had the great fortune to meet. But he’s not so bad.”
Clearly accustomed to Brunk’s lack of focus, Dennis leaned close, startling the man by putting a hand on his bony shoulder. “Hey, Trey. These are the people I was telling you about. The ones who are trying to help me find out what happened to Jeap.”
Thin lips pursed tight, Brunk shook his head. “Hell, I know what happened to him. He went floatin’ on a pile of shit. Once you stop caring about the crop, man, you step on the dime.”
“He means Jeap’s drugs were bad,” Dennis translated. “And that’s what killed him.”
Grif huffed as the plasma outlining Brunk’s frail body pulsed. This man’s “good” drugs weren’t exactly being kind.
“So where were you when Jeap took his final trip?” he asked Brunk.
Brunk held up his hands like he was fending off charges. “Hey, man, I was asleep for most of last week.”
“Including yesterday?” Kit asked.
His head bobbed once. “Asleep,” he said definitively.
“You sleep a lot, Mr. Brunk?” asked Grif.
Brunk’s rolling gaze circled back up and almost stuck on Grif’s. His eyes were watery, though. Like the life inside him could pour right out of his sockets. “That’s how I break the cycle,” Brunk said. “I got this theory. Down the dozers and I can sleep through the super flu. Then I don’t got to face the evening. Get it?”
Grif and Kit both looked to Dennis for translation.
“He means if he takes enough sleeping pills he won’t have to feel the heroin withdrawals.”
Which could last a week, Grif thought, remembering Dr. Ott’s words. From the looks of things, Brunk spent every other week sleeping.
“Why did they call him Jeap?” Kit asked.
“Called himself that. Short for J.P., but I don’t know what that was short for.” Brunk snorted as he looked up at them. “I called him Chevy sometimes. Or Ford. And I’d add it to the other half of that Chinese sign, just to f*ck with him, you know?”
“You mean ‘yin’?” Kit said, following along admirably. Grif was already half-lost. “Like Chevy Yin?”
“Yeah, he hated that.” Brunk laughed nostalgically, picking at his arm before moving his fingers, worrying his face. His hands were moving faster now that he was more alert. “He said he was the light side of the yin-yang circle thingy. You know, ’cause he was so light-skinned and all.”
Kit and Grif looked at each other. Death pallor aside, Jeap was dark-skinned. At least compared to them. Brunk read their confusion. “I know! But he said he was white where he came from, so . . .”
Grif looked up at Dennis, but the officer just shrugged as well. “Jeap Yang was his legal name. I’ll dig for more.”
Kit nodded, then returned her attention to Brunk. “What about a girl? Someone new who he was hanging out with recently?”
“Oh, sure.” He blinked rapidly, then jolted when he remembered. “Brandy. Or Britney.” He blinked again. “Bianca?”
“Think, Trey,” Kit said, then softened her voice and her face with a smile. “It’s important.”
But Brunk shook his head. “I really don’t know, man. She liked those wigs, you know? Different colors. Pinks and blues and yellows. She was very bright actually.” He squinted like even the thought hurt his eyes.
“And she was the one who introduced him to the crocodile?” Kit asked.
“All I know is he wasn’t using it, and then suddenly he was.” Brunk shrugged, growing bored—or, more likely, tired—with the conversation. He slumped farther in his seat. “But if anyone knows what happened to Jeap, it’d be Brandy.”
“Or Bianca,” Grif muttered.
“Britney, I think,” Brunk said, bobbing his head until it fell to his chest. Kit looked at Grif and sighed. Waste of time.
But, surprisingly, Brunk rallied, head snapping back up. “Good guy, that Jeap. Laid-back for a tweeker. I think he really believed in all that mystical Oriental bullshit. Thought it would help him get clean, so one day he could work in a restaurant. And then he could own a restaurant. Those other burnouts would laugh, but they were a*sholes. I never laughed.”
“That was nice of you,” Kit said, as if that made him less of a burnout.
Brunk nodded. “Well, he was the best cook.”
The fact that he’d lost his most reliable heroin cook dawned on Brunk then, and his nostalgic smile melted. He picked at his arm for a moment, then looked up at Dennis. “I’m thirsty, man. Got anything for me to drink around here?”
Dennis shook his head, impatient now that he knew Brunk couldn’t help. “I look like a waitress to you?”
“You said you’d make it worth my while, bro.” Brunk’s eyebrows lowered, and so did his voice. “C’mon. It’ll help me sleep.”
“Shit.” Rolling his eyes, Dennis pushed from the wall.
Brunk’s head sagged as Dennis walked away, as if the retreating detective were pulling all his energy away with him. His chin dropped onto his bony chest, and a soft snoring started up almost immediately.
Grif jerked his head at the slumbering junkie. “Didn’t give us much.”
“And we still don’t know how the Russians tie in.” Wincing, Kit flopped into the chair across from Brunk. “Marin’s going to have my head.”
“That’s too bad, sweetheart,” Grif said, pulling out a smoke. “I like it where it is.”
“You’re just trying to make me feel better.”
“No, actually it balances you out.”
She rolled her eyes, but didn’t smile.
“Fine.” Grif shrugged, and blew out a stream of smoke. “Maybe she’ll stuff it and mount it over her office door. You could chin-wag at her all day long from that position.”
“Yeah.” Kit finally smiled back. “She’d hate that.”
Grif’s reply was cut short by Brunk’s head unexpectedly swiveling around on his shoulders. It popped up on his neck like a jack-in-the-box before snapping straight. The tinny tune was still bouncing through Grif’s mind when he caught sight of Brunk’s eyes, which were suddenly star-pricked and darkly alive with interest.
Kit gasped.
“Hello again.” Brunk’s whole face shifted as someone else’s smile raised his cheekbones high. Though still gaunt, his face looked wide and almost healthy. His body straightened in his chair, and his fidgety hands folded together. “I thought we might make a formal introduction.”
What the hell are you doing here?” Grif whispered, dropping close to Kit, palms on the table. Shocked into silence, still staring into those overbright eyes, she didn’t move at all.
“Just visiting. Same as you . . . Griffin Shaw.”
The fallen angel’s voice remained light, but its words had the weight of knowledge, and each syllable emerged from Brunk’s thin lips in a way that made the human look like a ventriloquist’s dummy, which wasn’t too far off. It was merely animated flesh instead of wood.
“Oh, yes,” it said, at Grif’s lowered brow. “I know all about you now. I’ve been asking around, you see.”
“Wait,” Kit said, recovering, though she clutched Grif’s biceps in her hands. Grif didn’t blame her. An icy breeze enveloped them every time Brunk opened his mouth. “He can possess the living?”
“It can possess those who have no possession of themselves,” Grif said shortly. “And it’s not a he.”
The fallen angel scrambled Brunk’s features into a scowl, but they smoothed out once the onyx stars in his eyes shifted. “There you are. Katherine Craig. Reporter, native Las Vegan. The girl who lives in the moment, but dreams of the past. The girl who loves the truth.”
“How do you know me?” Kit whispered, color draining from her face.
“I torment dead people,” it whispered theatrically, then laughed so that Brunk’s Adam’s apple bobbed madly.
Swallowing hard, Kit lifted her chin. “Then someone should have told you that it’s Kit, not Katherine. Only my parents called me that.”
“Don’t engage, Kit,” Grif warned. Everything was ammo in the warped wings of the Fallen. Besides, Jeap Yang’s words were pinging around in Grif’s mind like hard marbles. It’s going to circle back for her . . .
“Yes. You changed it once they were both dead,” it said now, eyes twinkling darkly. “The name they gave you hurt your ears in the wake of their deaths, so you reinvented yourself.”
“And what’s your name?” Kit asked, without missing a beat, though Grif knew her well enough to see she was rattled. Worry always caused a dent above the bridge of her nose.
“Nice of someone to finally ask,” it answered, flipping Brunk’s lanky hair. “I am reigning statesman of the Third, formerly of the Cherubim tribe, keepers of knowledge, guardians of the Celestial Records, and the once-Pure, now charged with maintaining the chronicles of the Fallen.” Brunk’s strange smile returned. “But you can call me Scratch.”
“As in Old Scratch,” Grif said, finally gaining its attention.
“Very good,” Scratch muttered, though it didn’t look happy or impressed by the interruption. Leaning back in the chair, it folded Brunk’s arms. “You know your Germanic myths.”
“I’ve been doing my research, too.” Grif kept his eyes on the animated body, but addressed Kit in a low voice. “Old Scratch is a popular nickname for the devil, also interchangeable with ‘devils.’ ”
“Yes, we are One and also many,” it said, and showed rows of teeth.
Grif ignored it. “Scrat or waldscrat means ‘wood spirit’ in Old Germanic. It ties in with the forest.”
“It ties in,” Scratch corrected, “with the Garden.”
“The Garden?” Kit asked.
“Maybe once,” Grif said shortly. “But now both are well out of God’s presence.”
“Yes. Shame, that.” Feigning a large yawn, Scratch stretched and turned toward the bar. “Where is that drink? Hey, nurse!”
“I thought your kind feared liquids,” Grif said, when it turned back around.
Surprise flashed in the cunning gaze, before it went suspiciously blank. “ ‘Fear’ is such a strong word. It’s more of an aversion, really. Mostly to water.”
“Especially holy water,” Grif told Kit.
“Ah, but fortunately there’s not a lot of that floating about in these fine establishments.” Scratch plunked its elbows atop the table again. “However, firewater is right up my alley.”
“You have no right to feed that poor man’s addictions,” Kit said angrily.
“I have no right?” Scratch frowned, mimicking her outrage, before slumping again. “I have every right. He handed it to me when he shot the very first load of trash into his body. Trey Brunk hasn’t been clean, or pure, in nine years. He doesn’t need any help feeding his addictions. He’ll never stop.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Of course I do. I’m in him, silly girl. He let me in,” he added, before she could protest. “And now I know what he knows.”
“That’s awful.”
“No, it’s quite fun actually. The tweekers are the best sport. Paranoid little bastards.” It winked at Kit. “Gives new meaning to being chased by their demons, don’t it?”
“Seems like a pretty full existence, Scratch,” Grif interrupted. “Torturing moral criminals in the Eternal Forest, and possessing the sick and addicted here on the Surface.”
Scratch studied Brunk’s fingernails. “We stay amused.”
“Yet you still find time to track down the Lost.”
“You’re talking about Jeap Yang, yes? About five-eight. Terrible hair-stylist. In love with the vein in his left forearm?”
Grif just stared.
Flaring its eyes, Scratch stared back. “What? He was standing on the corner of life and death with his thumb sticking out. I just offered him a lift.”
“That’s a crock.” Straightening, Grif shoved his hands into his pockets. “You’ve been targeting the Lost and confused.”
Scratch smirked. “Gonna go tell Daddy?”
“I don’t understand,” Kit interrupted, shaking her head. “Why would you hurt an innocent soul? One that’s not even destined for the Eternal Forest?”
“Why would I—?” Baffled, Scratch tilted its head at Grif, and pointed as if to say, Get a load of her. But without waiting for a response, it turned back to Kit. “Because I can. Because I like it. Because I’m bored with blighted souls, unfit for Paradise, and each with a narcissistic psychosis that makes them think their predilections are the most original and devious and evil.”
It rolled Brunk’s eyes, first the left, then the right. “And I’m tired of torturing the terrible souls who deserve every heinous thing they have coming to them. I want something new and fresh and novel. I want those who are tottering right on the edge of moral depravity, and who will tip my way given just one little poke. I want the Lost. Better yet, I want something pure that I can make Lost.”
It stared at Grif in bald challenge, but Grif just shook his head. “Too late, Scratch. I’m a Centurion, both angelic and human. You’ll never touch me.”
“Who said anything about you?” And it turned to Kit, gaze like glue, sticking where it shouldn’t. “But I’d love a chance to climb inside you, Kitty-Cat.”
“Sit back, old boy,” Grif said, his voice a low growl.
At the same time, Kit whispered, “Don’t call me that.”
Scratch ignored them both, leaning forward. Brunk’s top lip elongated into a thin sneer. “I’ll call you what I like, and I’ll take what I want. You think I’m merely bound to those pitiful humans who invite chaos into their lives through addiction? Think again! I feed, as you put it, on the emotions that prompt those addictions. Drugs and alcohol are nice little hors d’oeuvres, but rage and envy and doubt are the entrées I savor most. That’s when the Chosen—any of you!—are truly possessed. And that’s when I’m at my f*cking best.”
A whimper, near to a keen, escaped Kit’s throat as she edged back again, and she looked up, waiting for Grif to contradict Scratch’s words. Grif just shook his head. He knew a lot, but he didn’t know this.
“The damned belong to me,” Scratch continued, seeing it had them both rattled. “That’s not in question. And the Lost are just the damned-in-training, though they don’t know it. But you, Kitty-Cat? You, with your bright soul and open heart?” Phrase and lips twisted around each other like invading roots. “You are just some choice bit of beauty that I have not yet broken.”
Grif’s hands were around Brunk’s neck before anyone took a breath. He squeezed, and heard branches snapping in the man’s trachea.
“Uh, uh, uh,” Scratch chided, even as its eyes rolled back in Brunk’s head. “Hate the sin, not the sinner.”
Growling, Grif released Brunk’s throat. It was right. Hurting Brunk wouldn’t let him touch the spirit inside. “You will never touch her, hear me?”
“That’s right,” Scratch said, clearing its throat. “Because I don’t want to touch her. I want to possess her.”
“What’s going on here?” Dennis was back, but, unsurprisingly, none of them had seen him arrive.
“Ah,” Scratch said, glancing down as it pulled a pair of shades from Brunk’s shirt pocket, shielding the stardust in its eyes from Dennis. It didn’t want the human to interfere, but it wasn’t quite done yet, either. “Finally. My drink.”
It held out Brunk’s hand, but Grif snatched the shot glass up as soon as Dennis set it down. Scratch’s attention immediately swerved to Grif as it lowered Brunk’s chin. “Give it.”
“No.”
It tilted Brunk’s head. “What? A trade?”
Grif inclined his head. “The drink for the others.”
“You mean, the Lost. Like Jeap?”
Grif nodded once. Scratch had inhabited Jeap’s body, so it not only knew the boy’s thoughts and feelings, it possessed his knowledge as well. That’s how it’d located Brunk, who ran in the same crowd. If Scratch was hunting Lost, he’d know whom else Jeap was hanging with.
“Two more,” Scratch said, confirming his thoughts.
“What the hell is he talking about?” Dennis asked.
Scratch ignored him. “I want the drink first.”
Grif jerked his head. “I don’t think you need another drink, after all.”
“Withholding a man’s addictions from him isn’t an effective deterrent,” it snapped, slamming palms on the table before composing Brunk’s features into false stoicism. “Take it from a seasoned sinner, that’s no way to give up a vice.”
“Then how?” Dennis asked, still thinking he was talking to Brunk. He missed the cold calculation in the responding smile. Grif did not.
“Well, first you have to pick a specific sin. You must commit yourself to it fully. Then”—it paused for a beat—“you gotta throw yourself into it.”
And Brunk’s body was suddenly hurtling toward Kit, reaching for her shoulders. She squealed, but she’d been taken by surprise and was slow. Meanwhile, Grif, holding the drink, backed away, not wanting to spill a drop, so it was Dennis who stepped between Kit and Brunk, grabbing the man’s filthy shirt and tossing him back in his seat.
Scratch let Brunk’s hands drop, and gazed up at Dennis in fascination. “Oh, this is interesting.”
“What the hell is wrong with you, Brunk?” Dennis shook him so that the man’s head wobbled on his body.
“Keep that thing away from me.” Kit, still standing, folded her arms protectively around her body.
Grif slammed the shot glass down in front of Scratch. “Here. Just drink it and leave.”
Dennis shifted away, shaking his head at Brunk’s strange behavior. Scratch adjusted Brunk’s T-shirt like it was straightening tuxedo lapels, then made a show of lifting the shot glass. It toasted Kit with the golden liquid.
“I’ll leave,” Scratch said, enunciating each syllable sharply, “when I’m damned well ready.”
And it threw back the firewater, licked its lips . . . and began to scream.
“What the hell—” Dennis grimaced and the air around them grew cold, and Kit backed up even more, but Grif just stood there, palming the glass vial he’d been concealing, now empty of its contents.
“Good-bye, you soul-stealing bastard.” Grif’s voice was so low that only another angel might hear it. Scratch howled in reply, straining against Brunk’s flesh, causing the man’s neck to pop—snap, snap—as it twisted Grif’s way.
“I know you now!” Wind and leaves whipped through every syllable. “You won this round, but I won’t forget! I never forget!”
And the fallen angel left its host body as quickly as it’d arrived. Brunk slumped forward, face slamming against the tabletop with a sick, fleshy thud.
“Jesus,” Dennis said, rubbing a hand over his face. His expression was stunned. “He looked . . .”
“Possessed,” Kit finished, swallowing hard. Grif glanced down and saw that her hands were shaking. He took one in his own and gave it a small squeeze. He’d done what he had to. Scratch wasn’t going to get to Kit.
Brunk’s gaze rolled back in place. The whites of his eyes were pristine, the irises dark as molten chocolate.
“Trey?” Kit asked gingerly, leaning forward.
Brunk took one good look at her face, glanced down at empty shot glass in front of him, and vomited all over the table.
Rearing back, Kit barely saved her bamboo handbag. Filth spewed from Brunk’s body, noxious and acidic and seemingly endless. Only Grif knew why. The liquid he’d prepared after he’d caught Scratch trying to wrangle away Jeap’s tortured soul comprised something Pure. It expelled all impurities from mortal flesh, including fallen angels . . . and the addictive matter Brunk had been poisoning his body with for years.
It took a while.
Kit was at Grif’s side, giant question marks in her gaze, but he shook his head. He’d bring her up to speed later.
“Jesus, Brunk,” Dennis said, when there was a break. “What the hell are you on?”
“He’s okay,” Grif muttered. “He’s just . . . detoxing.”
And now that he’d had a taste of real Purity, Brunk might even be able to beat his addiction. What was unholy could never exist alongside what was Pure.
Waiting until Brunk was between spasms, Grif reached out and put a hand on the man’s shoulder. Dazed, dizzy with all the fresh oxygen zinging through his every mortal cell, he took a moment to focus, but when he did, his eyes were clearer than they’d likely been in years.
“Two more tweekers, Trey,” Grif said, holding the gaze. “Just like Jeap. Where are they?”
Tears of understanding welled in Brunk’s eyes. “Oh, God.”
“Where, Trey?” Grif demanded, because Scratch had the knowledge, and he’d gotten it from this man.
But Brunk was having an extremely delayed rush of survivor’s guilt. Without the addiction as a barrier between him and his emotions, he was facing for the first time what drugs had done to him, and his friends. “I hid the last of my stash. I wouldn’t share. They didn’t have any more money, so when Jeap told them about the croc, the crocodile,” he clarified, with a shudder, “and how cheap it was, they jumped on it.”
“Who, Trey?”
“Tim and Jeannie.” He covered his face with his filthy hands. They were no longer roving, no longer tweeking, but they shook with guilt. “You gotta help ’em. They can’t stop, just like Jeap couldn’t stop. They stole his stash and left him in that flop, but they took the codeine. He’d already showed them how to make it. It’s my fault. I wouldn’t share.”
“No, it’s their choice,” Grif said, over Brunk’s blustering sobs. “But you can help them by telling us where they are.”
The distraught man lifted his head, and squinted at Grif. “They stay with Timmy’s mother mostly. She kicks them out, but they know her bingo times, and they sneak back in when she’s gone.”
“Where?”
“Shangri-La Apartments, in Meadows Village.”
Grif shook his head. It meant nothing to him.
But Dennis jerked his head toward the door. “Got it.”
Yet it was Kit who led the rush from the bar. And as the sounds of retching resumed behind them, Dennis and Grif had to run to keep pace. Meanwhile, the men at the bar—each attending to his own vice—never even looked up.