The shots that don’t embed themselves in the furniture and video monitors ricochet back and forth off the blast-proof walls. Ritchie just invented a new game. Ballistic handball. Too bad that he’s the ball. I keep my head flat against the cool concrete floor as he blows the whole clip. Ritchie is taking the name “panic room” way too literally. A three-inch chunk of heavy glass is blasted from one of the monitors and into my arm just below where Ray shot me. The coating on the back of the glass itches and burns. The shooting only lasts a few seconds, and then Ritchie is out of ammo. When he stops shooting, the room becomes unnaturally quiet. My ears ring from the noise of the HK blasting in the confined space. The only thing I can hear is Ritchie’s slow and labored breathing. He’s on the floor next to Lucifer. Ritchie is full of holes from his own bullets. They must hurt like hell. Most of what hit him ricocheted off the steel-and-concrete walls, so he was slammed with heavy, flattened lead discs the size of quarters and traveling faster than a jet fighter. I go to where he’s lying and take away the rifle. Pat him down and take a .45 from his belt. Then I leave him on the floor, bleeding. “Brigitte is fine, by the way. She got what she needed. Or did you even notice or care that she was gone?” Ritchie doesn’t say anything and I didn’t expect him to. He’s on his back, opening and closing his mouth, spitting blood and gasping like a fish.
I pull the monitor glass from my arm and toss it so that it bounces off his forehead before smashing against the wall. I grab Lucifer’s feet and drag him out of cigarette ashes and blood and pull the silver dagger from between his ribs. There’s a sudden intake of air as he gasps and coughs, like pulling out the knife kick-started his lungs. When he looks awake enough to sit up, I help him onto the office chair. He picks up the athame from where I set it on the control console. “Thank you,” he says. “That was getting uncomfortable.” He sets the knife delicately back onto the console. “What was this? Was he waiting for Aelita to come and finish you off?” “Yes. But she never appeared.” “How the hell did you let this prick do this to you?” “We were having a nice chat about the movie at the Chateau and he caught me off guard. It’s my fault for taking his fear for compliance. Aelita gave Ritchie the athame. It’s not exactly an ordinary knife. It’s straight from Michael’s own armory. She could have killed me with it. Truly killed me. Not just this body. But she missed their appointment and poor Ritchie had been getting steadily more and more panicked.” “Ritchie doesn’t strike me as the type to help an angel out of the kindness of his heart.” “Aelita promised him his soul back if he incapacitated me.” I nod, pick up one of Ritchie’s cigarette butts from the floor, sniff, and drop it again. It smells like hot tar and cancer. A little echo of Stark’s compulsions. Lucifer cocks his head and gives me a sidelong look. “What’s wrong with you? You sound different, James.” “James isn’t here. It’s just me now.” Lucifer rolls his eyes. “I was wondering when this was going to happen. Nephilim are so unstable. Now it’s time for you to have a little psychotic break and imagine you’re a true angel. How sweet. Sad, but sweet.” “You knew that something awful was going to happen, didn’t you?” I sit down on the console near Lucifer. “You knew about the Geistwalds. And maybe even that Aelita would use the chaos to pull something, didn’t you?”
