Brighid's Fallen (Keepers of the Flame Book 5) Read online

  She stared at the floor, the wind knocked out of her. She couldn’t remember the last time it she’d been hit that hard. She was excellent at her work—Brendan had seen to that. She generally moved faster than anything coming at her, as a rule.

  She got shakily to her feet. The door showed no sign of being tampered with.

  She approached it warily. When she reached for the knob again, it gave a snap of what anyone else would have put down to static electricity. She pulled her hand back.

  Next she tried the door itself. Her palm rested on its cool, smooth surface a moment. Instinct told her the room on the other side was empty. Then why couldn’t she enter?

  She pressed both hands against it, testing it with muscles as well as instinct. After a moment she lay her cheek against the wood, and closed her eyes. “Why won’t you let me in?” she whispered, beginning to believe the impossible at last.

  Someone had murdered an angel.

  Worse, someone had murdered her friend.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Alex eventually found her, but it wasn’t easy.

  First, he searched her apartment. There wasn’t much there, other than an awful lot of blood. He collected samples.

  Next he returned home to search through the materials he’d taken from the bookshop. He’d considered waiting for her there, but ultimately decided against it, figuring she would avoid the place as too risky.

  When he found her picture again he pinned it up by the rickety old card table he used as a desk. Then he opened the journal.

  Inside he found sketches and notes in Latin and French that looked promising. His Latin was marginal at best; his French somewhat better. The sketches were beautiful and eerily realistic. And they were of the catacombs.

  Of course. He couldn’t stand the catacombs, so to the catacombs he must go. And his Latin was just enough to translate a phrase as “Gate of Hell.”

  Perfect.

  He hated being underground. Too many years, too many deaths, fighting in trenches and underground bunkers. Sleeping with his unit in the renovated WWII tunnels beneath a surprising number of interchangeable European fortresses. Feet away from the infirmaries where soldiers screamed and bombs exploded overhead. Where he’d fought so hard in his nightmares he awakened sweating blood.

  Until the Program, and Dreamtech.

  Then he’d been able to face anything, fight anything. Without fear. He’d torn through his enemies, seen and unseen. He’d been capable of things he wouldn’t have believed of any human being, including himself.

  And he wanted it gone.

  Which brought him to Cara Kendrick. Had she been a soldier? Was she, too, fighting a demon inside?

  Had she been capable of killing the angel who had been her friend, and now had no memory of it? Worse, had she run because she’d realized what she’d done?

  He needed answers. And so, he suspected, did she.

  Now Alex skirted the entrance to the catacombs, his skin crawling. He tried the door of the old counting house. It was open.

  He didn’t see her at first. Instead he studied the items on the makeshift workbenches around the room. It looked like Brendan had been compiling information on demons and demonic creatures. What worked, what didn’t. He must have collected every tidbit of information he could garner on the species he’d encountered in the labyrinthine tunnels.

  Alex smiled. The angel had been using a small, ancient battle ax as a paperweight for one of his larger maps. From what he could tell, Brendan had been searching for something in particular. Had he gotten a line on Michael’s sword?

  That’s when he saw Cara, curled against a closed door like a lost child. At first he thought she was unconscious. Then she gave a shaky exhale, and her throat constricted as she swallowed.

  Then her eyes opened, and she lifted her head. Alex swallowed.

  “He shut me out,” she said in a small, distant voice.

  Alex crouched near, careful not to get too close. He didn't want to scare her. Again. “I’m sorry.”

  Her head dropped back to the door. “He’s really dead, isn’t he?”

  He hesitated. How much sympathy to express, how hard to push for answers? “Can I ask…How close were you?” Translation: How much did she know about Brendan’s work?

  She didn’t say anything at first. Then,“He was my shepherd. And now I’m lost.”

  Jesus. He had a difficult time believing she had killed Brendan. But he also knew better than anyone what it was like to lose control because of a monster inside.

  “If you come with me,” he said, “we’ll find out what happened. I promise.”

  She looked at him as though seeing him for the first time. “Who are you?”

  “Alex Kane. I work for the scholars at Notre Dame. We’re investigating Brendan’s murder.” He paused. “Why did you run?”

  Once more, she didn’t answer him. “Did you really sense the blood?”

  “Until I could taste it in the back of my throat. Angel mixed with human, and something else I couldn’t identify.” He touched his fingers to her jaw, turned her head. Her bruises were already healing. He’d thought she’d covered them with cosmetics, but he could see now he’d been wrong. “Why did you run?” he asked again, softly.

  “Because of the demon,” she said. He removed his hand as if he’d been burned. She gifted him a little smile that was as knowing as it was chilling. “As you can see, I’m not up for a fight just yet.”

  “How did you know?”

  “Mostly because of what I am. But also because of…of him.”

  Alex stood, offering his hand. “Will you please come with me? I promise I won’t hurt you.”

  She made no comment. But she also slid her hand into his.

  He helped her to her feet. “What are you doing here? Not just hiding from me, I think.”

  “I knew if he was in trouble he’d come here, if he could. If he couldn’t, I was to clear out his safe.” She looked to the door, betrayal scrawled all over her face.

  “Once we get some answers we’ll come back,” he assured her. “The Dame can mark the place off as off limits, make a boundary to preserve everything until we can get in there.”

  She nodded, and tucked her hands in the pockets of her leather jacket. The sword still peeked over her shoulder. “You were in the war?” she asked as Alex shut the door behind them.

  “Yes,” he replied. “You?”

  She nodded. “Brendan saved my life. Trained me, taught me. Showed me what I was capable of.”

  And there it was. “Dreamtech?” he asked.

  “I wasn’t a part of that, thankfully. Brendan found me before they did, otherwise it might have turned out otherwise. Like London, perhaps worse.”

  Dreamtech had been abruptly destroyed in what was now being called the London Affair. Biospheres across the world, including the one over Paris, had gone down. Fizzled, like a mirage revealing itself as little more than a fever dream.

  Alex took in their surroundings, surveying the rooftops for access. “It’ll be quicker and easier if we travel up top.”

  Cara hugged her elbows. He had no idea how long she’d been in there before he’d found her, but she seemed dazed.

  “There’s another way,” she said quietly. She stood before him, taking the lapels of his nylon military jacket in her hands. The effect on him was as instantaneous as it was thunderous. “In case I collapse on the other side.” Those cobalt eyes of hers gazed up at him with a strange, watchful sheen.

  He swallowed. “On the other side of—?

  Her eyes closed. A breath later, everything around them went black.

  The earth shifted under him. His knees bent to compensate as they spun in the dark like a lazy tilt-o-whirl. The demon in him shrieked, scrabbled in panic.

  Then they were on the bridge of Pont St-Michel, the Seine rushing beneath them. White foam breakers rollicked in the wind.

  His hands slapped the cold stone barricade. He was never so grateful in his life to
have firm ground beneath his feet as he was now. He leaned there for several minutes, trying to determine if he was going to be sick.

  Apparently not. But most interesting of all was that the demon had shrunk in fear.

  It had never been afraid before.

  “What the hell was that?” he demanded, drinking in air like a drowning man.

  “I don’t know what the official term is,” Cara leaned next to him. “But I call it between. Where time and space cross, but do not exist.”

  So that’s how she’d gotten away from him earlier. She’d dropped right into that little airless pocket like a paratrooper into an abyss.

  “What are you?” he rasped.

  “Immortal,” she answered, just before she fainted.

  Alex stared at himself in the bathroom mirror, trying to come to terms with the night’s events. After Cara passed out, he’d carried her into the hospital, his head swirling in sensory overload. It was enough to make him nauseous again.

  “Get the Padre,” he’d told Johnson, who met him at the door, all wild-eyed innocence.

  Now he was hiding, avoiding everyone until he could wrap his mind around what he thought he knew.

  Immortal. The implications were staggering. It explained her rapidly healing injuries, however she'd acquired them. But beyond that…how was it possible?

  Then he gave his reflection a sickly smile. He’d been stuck with a demon living inside him since the war, with only an angel or angelic sword giving him a snowball’s chance in hell at freedom. A method he may or may not survive. If it weren’t for Desmond, he’d really be up a certain well-known creek, and just as hopeful about the outcome.

  He studied his mirror image, his second self. He could do with a shower and a shave, but otherwise he didn’t think he looked any different now than he had before the demon. He hadn’t remembered it happening. Only waking up with an uncontrollable rage building in him. He had been a danger to himself and everyone around him until he'd been trained to handle it. To use it.

  It still scared him sometimes. But it could also be useful.

  The door opened behind him. It was Johnson. Johnson, he remembered, who was supposed to be recovering at home.

  “Padre’s ready, Kane.”

  “Thanks.” Poor kid. He was in for a world of hurt one of these days. And to partner him with Alex was just asking for trouble.

  But if he went rogue, or lost control, someone had to put him down. He could only hope Johnson would be up to the task.”What are you doing here?” he added.

  Johnson shrugged miserably. “Father said you brought a suspect in. Thought you might need my help.”

  Alex washed his hands and splashed cool water on his face. Then he pulled the band from his shoulder-length hair to ease the pressure in his scalp. It had been a long and strange day, and things didn’t look to be improving anytime soon.

  “Do me a favor. Head to the catacombs and put a seal around the counting house. Then see if you can’t get past the barrier on the interior door.”

  Johnson brightened. This, he could do, and do well.

  When Alex entered what he thought of as the Padre’s laboratory, he found Desmond waiting in the hall outside one of the offices. Studying Cara through a pane of glass, his hands clasped behind him.

  Alex joined him. Cara appeared to be sleeping, her head resting on her crossed arms. She had been given sweats to change into, her bloody clothing collected as evidence. “She came around?”

  “She did,” Desmond replied, giving him a tight little smile. “I examined her sword—a perfectly ordinary weapon, as far as I can tell.” He sounded disappointed.

  Alex knew the feeling.“So not angelic then.”

  “No, but that only makes her all the more interesting. We’ll talk later, when you can relate your experiences in detail. But she really pulled you into another plane?”

  He shrugged. “Seemed that way. And she knew about the demon, don’t ask me how.”

  “Mm. Perhaps Brendan taught her to recognize the signs.”

  “Maybe. Anything else I should know before going in there?”

  Desmond shook his head. “She’s all yours. But if she killed Brendan, I don’t see how.”

  Neither did he. But neither was he willing to rule anything out. She was immortal; what else was she capable of?

  “Good. We’ll see how much of that blood you collected is hers, and how much is angelic.” He nodded to Alex, and strode off to continue his work.

  Cara blearily lifted her head when the door opened. It was Alex, looking about as awful as she felt. Her head was pounding with too much effort being expended on top of what she was now quite sure was a mild concussion. She still couldn’t remember a damned thing, and it hurt everything and everywhere to try. And the idea of Brendan dead…murdered…it didn’t bear thinking about.

  He was—had been—an angel. He was supposed to outlive even her. He was supposed to be there, to see her through the worst.

  How was she supposed to continue their work without him? She was no scholar. She was a soldier, and she needed someone to give orders, provided they were the right ones.

  “Again, I’m sorry about your friend,” Kane said, sitting across from her. He slid a steaming coffee cup in her direction.

  She latched onto it with both hands. The first sip scalded her mouth and throat. The second was glorious. “Thanks.”

  “This is going to be difficult,” he warned her, “but there are things I have to ask. If you’re ready.”

  She took another sip and nodded. “I want to know.” Needed to know. “May I ask…how did you find him?”

  He hesitated, but then folded his hands on the table between them. He had nice hands. Strong. “In the alley beside his bookshop. He had been stabbed, we think with some sort of specialized weapon.” He gave her a crooked smile. “Not yours—we checked.”

  She felt her lips curl unexpectedly. “My weapon isn’t special.” If she were being honest, she knew she was the actual weapon. Her sword was merely a tool. “But it’s a relief to hear, thank you.”

  His eyes were clear, and blue, and now they crinkled at the corners. “We think it was another angel that got him, given that the wound was, well, cauterized. And there was a tremendous amount of blood lost, but he was clean. We think you may have been there, if only as a witness.”

  She nodded. It made sense, given the severity of her injuries. “I think I may have fought someone. I feel like I fought someone, and hard. Does that make sense?”

  He looked thoughtful, and she knew he understood. “It does,” he confirmed, and the tension in her spine unwound a little. He believed her.

  “If you’re a witness,” he went on, looking at her with what she took to be assessment, “then you’re not safe. Maybe that’s why you couldn’t get into Brendan’s excavation office. Either he or someone else—his killer, maybe—locked you out. We’ll have to find you somewhere to stay while we figure this out.”

  She frowned. Demon or not, she was relatively certain she could outfight him. Eventually. All she really had to do was pull him into between and leave him there. “You’re joking.”

  Now he looked amused, which only made her want to sock him one—at least until she spoke. “I’m not being overly cautious here, just sensible,” he said. “I don’t doubt for a moment you can give me a run for my money. But the…entity, I guess…responsible for Brendan’s death killed an angel. And gave you a thorough beat down, given the amount of blood I found on your bathroom floor. It’s not unreasonable to think you’re out of your league on this one.”

  He was right, of course. Besides, it never hurt to have backup. And Brendan…he would want her to take every precaution. “Fair enough.”

  “Good.” He stood, taking her silence as acquiescence. “I can’t solve this alone, and you’re my best resource on this case. Hell, you’re my only resource. If I lose you, I am well and truly screwed.”

  She looked down at the sweats she’d been given. They w
ere at least two sizes too big. “Can we at stop by my flat on the way so I can pick up a few things? Running for my life might prove somewhat ineffective with my pants falling down round my ankles.”

  His eyes crinkled again. “As long as you don’t take me on the tilt-o-whirl again.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  One thing about Alex Kane that Cara found undeniably compelling: he had hot running water.

  Really hot.

  This was not a luxury she’d enjoyed since before the war. For fully five minutes—or maybe it was closer to ten—she simply stood there. Letting it pour over her like the world’s most magnificent waterfall.

  Soon, however, guilt began to permeate the little stall every bit as much as the steam. Honest to goodness steam. She shut the shower off with reluctance, but didn't leave immediately. Instead she reveled in the dissipating humidity. She wanted nothing more than to lower herself to the cool, smooth tiles and simply be.

  Instead she exited and donned fresh clohes, acutely aware she was alone with a strange man in his flat. One who had been pursuing her, and she had used a goodly portion of his water to boot. And she could really use a drink right about now.

  “Whiskey?” he called from the kitchenette, making her jump. “Sorry.”

  “Don’t be.” She rubbed her hair dry with what she was almost certain was his one towel. Despite this she got the impression that he was infinitely more domesticated than she. “Yes, please,” she said when he held up a whiskey bottle and empty glass in invitation.

  “I’ll flip you for the bed,” he said, coming out into the main living space he also seemed to be using as a study.

  She looked around curiously at the shelves of books and objects and bins. The tables covered with maps and notes. It reminded her of Brendan, only more organized.

  “No need,” she said, taking the drink from him. “I’ve gotten so accustomed to my ratty old futon that your couch will seem like a luxurious divan in comparison. I wouldn’t know what to do with a bed.”

  He raised his eyebrows at her, and she grinned. He was hard to resist, with those crinkling blue eyes and full-lipped smile. There was a scar at one corner of his mouth that gave him rakish appeal. “If you insist.”