Curran frowned. “Sure seems like everyone else does on this planet.”
“Maybe that’s the problem.”
“What do you mean?”
“Maybe everyone else spends far too much time worrying about themselves when we all ought to be spending some time looking after other people. Isn’t that why we’re in such trouble?”
“You think this can be tied back to the Soul Eater?”
“Why not?” She frowned. “It’s because most of society could give a damn less about anyone besides their own self-interests that evil springs up in the first place. If we could reorient the way people think. Get them to consider the lives of others, not just their own — maybe we could make a real big difference.”
“That’s a pretty huge task.”
She nodded. “Just another item for my list.”
“Your list?”
“I’ve got a list of things I want to accomplish at some point in my life.”
Curran slid his shirt on. “That must be some kind of list.”
Lauren started dressing. Curran couldn’t help himself. His eyes stayed glued to her. The way she bent over to slid her panties on, the way she carefully eased her breasts into her bra, the way the turtleneck came on first followed by a pair of jeans. All of it seemed so…incredible.
She stopped and turned suddenly. “Oh my God.”
“What?”
“Today.”
“What about it?”
“It’s been forty-eight hours, Steve. Sister McDewey will be planning to let the Cardinal know about the Soul Eater’s presence. We have to get to the demon first!”
Crap. The last thing Curran wanted was Church involvement. Not now. Not when things seemed to be going so well with Lauren.
“Can we stall them anymore?”
Lauren shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess I’ll head over to the school and see what I can do.”
“I’ll drop you off, okay?”
She nodded. “We can grab breakfast on the way.”
Curran slid his holster onto his belt. “Let me call Kwon.” He reached for his cell phone but at that minute, the phone began buzzing against the wooden nightstand. Curran hit the talk button.
“Yeah?”
He listened for thirty seconds. His stomach dropped like a cinder block dumped off a skyscraper.
Breathing became difficult.
He could see Lauren looking at him. Concern had already scored her face.
Curran hung up the phone.
“Steve?”
Breathe.
God.
No.
“Steve?”
No.
He looked at her. His eyes felt hot. They stung. “Lauren…”
“What is it?”
“Kwon.”
She shook her head, already pulling away. “No.”
He nodded. “He’s…dead.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
Curran stared down at the sheet covering his best friend for a long time. Above him, a dark charcoal ooze settled across the sky, drowning out the earlier sunlight. Curran sighed and knelt down on the bumpy cold ground.
It shouldn’t have gone down like this, he thought. Not for someone like Kwon. Not for my friend.
He sighed again feeling like all the weight of the universe had settled on his lungs. But no matter how much he exhaled, he’d never be free from it.
He turned the sheet down to just below Kwon’s neck.
His friend’s eyes stared up at him from behind the wall of death. Curran didn’t turn the sheet down any more. He’d already been told there wasn’t much to see beyond the ghastly damage that had been wrought on Kwon’s lower torso.
Curran looked up in the direction of Darius’ house. There was no doubt in his mind who’d killed Kwon. But trying to explain that to the two Chestnut Hill cops on duty would be fruitless. After all, according to them, it didn’t even look like whoever had killed Kwon had been human, such was the damage.
If Curran told them they were sitting outside the home of a demon, he didn’t think it would go down all that well. Not to mention how fast it would spread back to headquarters.
He shook his head. No. This was going to have to be played differently.
By a new set of rules.
Lauren stood close by, shifting from foot to foot. Nervous. Sad. She hadn’t known Kwon like Curran did, but he knew she felt bad for his loss.
He lifted the sheet back over Kwon’s face and let the crime scene folks get back to work. He wandered over to Lauren.
“I’m so sorry, Steve.”
“Yeah.”
“Darius did it.”
Curran looked away. “Dammit, he was a good man. More than that. He was my friend.”
“His death doesn’t undo any of that, Steve.”
“Yeah, but it sure as hell didn’t matter on bit to the man upstairs either. Why did Kwon have to die? Why did he have to be the one who got killed by this freak? He was a good man. He didn’t deserve this. I got him into it. I should be lying on that grass instead of him. But I’m not.” He punched his hand. “I’m not.”
Lauren placed a hand on his shoulder. “You can’t go beating yourself up about this, Steve. We need to focus on what’s happened here. How we can stop Darius now.”
He turned around. “All we’ve been doing is focusing on this damned asshole. All I’ve done is chase that miserable scumbag from one end of this country to the other. I tried to give him up — put him behind me — and what happens? He comes here. He kills my best friend.”
“He brought us together,” said Lauren quietly.
Curran lit a cigarette and sucked hard on the butt. “You saying some good comes out of every evil?”
“Something like that.”
Curran frowned. “I understand the sentiment, but I just can’t accept it right now. Kwon oughta be alive, dammit. And he’s not.”
“Steve.”
Curran turned and saw one of the Chestnut Hill cops waving him over toward the grove of trees a little bit away from the crime scene.
Curran walked over. “Yeah?”
“You got something you want to tell me about all this?”
Curran looked at him. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
The cop nodded. “Yeah, I figured you’d say something like that.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
