I flipped the phone shut, mentally reviewing the contents of my desk. Nothing much—a copy of
I would find another, as soon as I checked into a hotel. There was no need to go back. I traveled light, and left as little impression behind as I could. They’d find no clues about me if they searched my desk. Particularly since I had no clues about myself.
My apartment was only slightly less secure. There were no letters, no signs of a personal life at all. I had a number of cheap Pre-Raphaelite prints on the wall, plus a large framed poster of a fog-shrouded section of the Northwest coast that spoke to me. I hated to leave it behind, but I needed to move fast. I’d have to ditch the car in the next day or two, buy another. It would take Julie that long to realize I’d gone missing. She’d be too busy hovering over baby Amanda, watching each struggling breath with anxious eyes.
But Amanda wouldn’t die. She’d start to get better, as would all of the other newborns that I knew were filling the hospitals as I lingered. All I had to do was get far enough away and they’d recover. I knew it instinctively, though I didn’t know why.
I pushed the elevator button, then paced the darkened hallway restlessly. Nothing happened, and I pushed it again, then pressed my ear to the door, listening for some sign that the cars were moving. Nothing but silence.
“Shit,” I said again. There was no help for it—I’d have to take the stairs.
I didn’t stop to think about it. The time had come to leave, as it always did, and thinking did no good. I had no idea how I knew these things, why I had to run. I only knew that I did.
It wasn’t until the door to the stairs closed behind me that I remembered my watcher, and for a moment I freaked, grabbing the door handle. It was already locked, of course. I had no choice. If I was going to get out of town in time, I had to keep moving, so I started down the stairs.
In time for what? I had no clear idea. But baby Amanda wouldn’t survive for long if I didn’t move it.
I tripped on the next landing and went sprawling, slamming my shin against the railing. I struggled to my feet, and froze. Someone was in the stairwell with me. I sensed him, closer than he’d ever been before, and there was nothing, no one, between him and me. No buffer, no safety. Time was running out.
I had no weapon. I was an idiot—you could carry concealed weapons in this state, and a really small gun could blow a really big hole in whoever was following me. Or a knife, something sharp. Hell, hadn’t I heard you could jab your keys into an attacker’s eyes?
I didn’t know whether he was above me or below me, but the only doors that opened from the stairwell were the ones on the parking level. If I went up, I’d be trapped.
I started down the next flight, moving as quietly as I could, listening for any matching footsteps. There were none. Whoever he was, he made no sound.
Maybe he was a figment of my paranoid imagination. I had no concrete reasons to do the things I did, acting on instinct alone. I could be crazy as a bedbug, imagining all this power. Why in the world should small, insignificant Rachel Fitzpatrick have anything to do with the well-being of a baby? Of a number of babies? Why did I have to keep changing my name, changing who I was? If someone was following me, why hadn’t he caught up yet?
What would happen if I simply drove home and stayed there? Joined Julie at the hospital?
Amanda would die. I had no choice. I had to run.
AZAZEL MOVED DOWN THE STAIRS after the demon, silent, scarcely breathing. He could sense its panic, and he knew it was going to run again. He had taken longer to find it this time—it must be getting better at coming up with new identities. If the demon vanished once more, he had no idea how long it would take him to find it again. The longer it roamed the earth, the more destruction it could wreak.
It was time to make his move. He didn’t know why he’d hesitated, why he’d watched it without doing anything. His hatred for the creature was so powerful it would have frightened him, if he were capable of feeling fear. He was incapable of feeling anything but his hatred for the monster. That must be what had stayed his hand. Once he killed it, he would feel nothing at all.
How difficult would the demon be to kill? It looked like a normal female, but he felt its seductive power even from a distance. It didn’t need any of the obvious feminine wiles to lure him. It didn’t wear makeup, didn’t flaunt itself in revealing clothes. It tended to dress in dark colors, in loose-fitting T-shirts and baggy pants. There was nothing to make a man think of sex; yet every time he looked at her—at it—he thought about lust. He must never underestimate her.
He could catch her in the parking garage, break her neck, and then fly up high and fling her body into the sun. He could bury her deep beneath the earth in the belly of a volcano. He sensed he would need fire to eradicate her completely, her and her evil powers. Only when she was dead would the threat dissolve.
The threat to newborn babies. The threat to vulnerable men who dreamed of sex and woke to find only a demon possessing them.
And the threat to him. Most of all he hated her for the connection that was foretold, with him of all people. And the only way to make certain that never happened was to destroy her.
He was standing in the corner of the stairwell on the bottom floor, watching her. He’d pulled his wings around him, disappearing; though she searched her surroundings, she saw nothing, and moved on.
More proof of her power, the power she was trying so hard to disguise. No one else sensed him when he cloaked himself. But she did. Her awareness was as acute as his. And he hated that.
Tonight, he told himself. Tonight he would kill her. Whether he’d present proof to Uriel was undecided. He might simply leave him unknowing. He could finally return to Sheol, take the reins back from Raziel if he must. And see Raziel’s bonded mate in Sarah’s place.
