Redemption Song (Daniel Faust #2)(29)

“I’m sorry,” Sullivan said. “My friends’ behavior was a bit…exuberant, shall we say? That’s why I’ve come to handle this business personally. Just in time, too. I hate to disappoint you, Father, but Mr. Faust here was sent to kill you.”

He looked at me, shocked. I shrugged.

“If I was going to kill you, I’d have done it by now,” I said.

“But you don’t deny,” Sullivan said, wrinkling his nose like he smelled something foul, “that you were sent to kill him.”

“I don’t work for Sitri.”

“Oh, if only that were true. Caitlleanabruaudi has her hooks in you, little man. I know her well. I have known her well.”

“I still don’t understand,” Alvarez pleaded.

The lighting in the limousine faded under layers of invisible spider silk. The air chilled and webs of frost condensed on the tinted windows as Sullivan removed his mask. His skin bubbled like a sheet of paper-thin leather laid over a boiling pot of water. Horns like bloody tusks pushed out of his temples, flesh melting to scabbed-over gristle. His nails lengthened in the dark, turning yellow, dripping with a viscous fluid that smelled like raw stomach bile.

“Be not afraid,” Sullivan said.

I would have gone for a gun, if I had one. Alvarez went for a rosary. He clutched the tiny wooden beads between his trembling fingers, stumbling over the first words of the Lord’s Prayer.

“Please, Father.” Sullivan looked tired. “Would you taunt a legless man with tales of running a marathon? Would you taunt me with images of divine love and grace? Have I done anything so cruel to you?”

Alvarez fell silent, still clinging to the rosary.

Sullivan waved his clawed hand. “Theological question for you. If an angel can fall from heaven’s grace, can a demon hope to climb? Can one born in perdition, created in a state of inherent sin, even aspire to rise above his nature? Or is the love of God a forlorn hope?”

The priest had to think about that.

“I don’t know.” Alvarez spoke slow, thoughtful, still terrified but in his element now. “And it would be wrong of me to claim knowledge I don’t possess. But the Lord loves everyone, even those who have turned away from him. No hope is forlorn, if it springs from honesty and love. Hope is what keeps the world alive.”

“And what of a man,” Sullivan said, pointedly staring at me, “who has every advantage, every opportunity to seek grace, and throws it away at every turn? What of a man who only thrives in the darkness, who consorts with thieves and whores and killers, who lies, cheats, steals, and shares his heart and his bed with the powers of evil?”

Alvarez rubbed his chin.

“Then I would pray for him,” the priest said, “because he, too, can be forgiven.”

Sullivan frowned. He leaned back, clutching the walking stick between his knees.

“I’m starting to think,” I said, “that you people don’t like me very much.”

“Demonf*cker,” spat the cambion with the gun.

I sighed, turning to Alvarez. “It’s like the old joke says. You build a hundred bridges, nobody calls you Daniel the Bridge Builder, but you sleep with just one demon—”

“There’s nothing amusing about what you do,” Sullivan said. “My friends, my flock, they carry a taint in their blood that they never wanted and never asked for. All they want is to be pure, to be human. You flaunt your perversion in their faces.”

I tilted my head toward him. “So what’s your story, Big and Ugly? If you want to be human, you’d better go buy a house in the suburbs, play golf, and cheat on your taxes, because that’s the closest you’re ever gonna get.”

“Let me shoot him,” the cambion hissed. I didn’t like how the gun wavered in his hand. His fingers were too tight, and the trigger was too easy.

Sullivan shook his head and rested a calming hand on the halfblood’s shoulder. “No. He has a purpose yet.”

I didn’t like the sound of that. In my experience, when your enemies get the drop on you and don’t kill you, that’s when they’ve got something much, much nastier waiting in the wings.





Fifteen

A desert nightscape slid by outside the tinted glass. Nothing but sand and red rock mountains as far as the eye could see. Wherever we were going, we’d put the bright lights of Vegas far behind us.

“It took me a while,” I said, “but I figured it out. You’re working with Lauren Carmichael, and Pinfeather’s your inside man.”

Sullivan raised an eyebrow.

I held up a finger. “You knew about this limo, because the FBI task force is tapping Nicky’s phones. Your inside guy, the cambion on the force—that’s Pinfeather. He heard about the limo, realized it was for us, and called you. Except he’s also in Lauren’s pocket, because she pulled the strings to get the task force up and rolling in the first place. That tells me that you and Lauren are getting cozy, and I’m willing to bet that the good father’s road map to hell is the reason why.”

“So close to the truth,” the demon said, “and yet so tragically far. Your life story, if I’m not mistaken. No, Mr. Faust, I have no intention of regaling you with the intricacies of my master plan. You will be confined until you are useful, and then you will die.”