He was slightly out of breath, bending down, hands upon his knees, as he breathed in and out.
“What’ve you got, Stretch?” Samson asked.
Stretch straightened, enough to take the cigarette from his father’s fingers for a puff.
“No guards posted. They have the windows covered with sheets, but they’re definitely in there.”
Stretch put the cigarette back in his father’s fingers, and walked off to join the others.
Samson finished the smoke, flicking the remains away from him.
“That’s it then,” he said. “Are you ready?”
“Ready for what?” Remy asked. “Maybe you should fill me in on the plan.”
Samson smiled. “Sorry about that, champ,” he said. The big man put a tree limb-sized arm around Remy’s shoulder and pulled him close. “Here’s how it’s going to go. We’re going up to the house, getting inside, and finding your client.”
“You’re doing this all for me?” Remy asked, knowing full well this wasn’t the case.
“Pretty much,” Samson said. “And we’ll probably take out Delilah while we’re at it. Might as well if we get the chance.”
“You do realize that’s not much of a plan,” Remy told him.
The big man removed his arm from around Remy’s shoulder.
“Yeah, but it’s not too bad for the spur of the moment,” he said.
Samson snapped his fingers, and his children began to gather around him.
“So we all know the drill,” he said to them. “We’re going up to the mansion, getting inside, killing the traitorous bitch, and finding Remy’s client.” He hooked a thumb toward him. “What’s her name again?” Samson asked.
“Deryn York,” Remy said. “She’s blond, in her mid-thirties, about five foot six.”
The Samson spawn stared with frightfully blank expressions, and he hoped they were listening. He didn’t relish the idea of having his client mistaken for one of Delilah’s soulless followers, and taken out by one of the strongman’s overzealous children.
“Any questions?” Samson asked, his sightless eyes roving over the crowd of his children.
One of Samson’s boys tentatively raised his hand.
“Fred has his hand raised,” Stretch informed his father.
“Figures,” Samson grumbled. “What is it, Fred?”
“Are we sure she’s up there?” he asked nervously. “The traitorous bitch, I mean?”
Samson slowly turned in the direction of the mansion, his blind eyes staring.
“Oh yeah,” he said, the response uttered with more growl than voice. “I can feel her like a fucking rash.”
He’d begun to scratch, and Remy noticed red, raised welts on the back of the big man’s hand. It appeared as if Samson really was having some kind of physical reaction.
“All right then,” Samson said, just loud enough so they could all hear. “Let’s get this done, and remember. . she’s mine.”
They moved en masse, quietly, sticking to the shadows, coming to a stop whenever a car would occasionally pass in the semi-isolated location. Remy’s biggest fear was the campus security from BC across the way, but so far, so good.
They came up through the wooded area to the back of the house, Samson’s children moving like trained special forces agents as they scoped out the lay of the land and made their way to the back of the house. Standing on either side of the door, automatic rifles at the ready, they waited for their father to reach their location.
Remy followed close behind, eyes searching every hidden corner and pocket of shadow for signs that they had been discovered. Seeing nothing, he followed the large man to the back door.
“Open it,” Samson said.
Another of his kids removed herself from the pack and approached the door, lock picks emerging from a thin packet that she’d pulled from her back pocket.
“Showtime,” she said, kneeling in front of the old lock. “This should take no time at. .”
The doorknob began to move, turned from the inside.
Everybody froze. Remy watched as Samson’s head cocked to one side, hearing the doorknob jiggle. He held up one large hand, signaling to his brood that they should stay right where they were.
A white-haired man, whom Remy immediately recognized, stepped outside, cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth.
This was the man who almost put a bullet into Remy’s skull back at the Nightingale Motor Lodge, a man perfectly comfortable without a soul. His lighter had just made it up to the tip of his smoke when he noticed the twin gun muzzles pointed at either side of his head, and the large form of Samson standing directly across from him.
The big man raised a sausage-sized finger to his lips, warning him to be quiet.
There was no fear in the man’s expression; in fact, he smiled crookedly, still holding the cigarette in the corner of his mouth. He allowed the lighter to reach the smoke, igniting the tip.
“Samson and company,” the man said, puffing smoke from the other side of his mouth. “Go right in,” he said, the door open at his back. “You’re expected.”
One of Samson’s other kids ran toward the door, pistol in hand, checking it out. “Looks clear,” he called out.
Remy had moved to stand beside the big man, his eyes glued to the soulless man casually puffing on his cigarette.
“What do you think?” Remy asked.
“I think we’re going in,” Samson said. “But he’s going first.”
He pointed in the direction of the man as his son and daughter urged their captive back into the house at gunpoint.
The man let the cigarette fall from his mouth, grinding it out with the heel of his shoe.
“She doesn’t allow us to smoke inside,” he said, before walking back in, two automatic rifles pointed at his back. “Come on in. I’ll take you to her.”
More of Samson’s kids, their firearms at the ready, swarmed in through the back door, making way for them to follow.
“Are you sure this is wise?” Remy asked, allowing Samson to hold on to his arm at they walked through the doorway into the house.
“When have I ever done anything wise?” he asked. “I’m just rolling with the punches as I’ve done for the last few thousand years.”
The air-conditioning must have been turned to its maximum setting, making for a sharp transition going from the damp, warm mugginess of outside, to an almost deep-freeze chill inside.
Marko waited for them in the doorway leading from the kitchen.
“Anything?” Remy asked.
“There’re voices coming from the front of the house, but no signs of aggression yet,” Samson’s son said.
“Go on ahead with the others,” his father ordered. “We’re right behind you.”
Remy could feel the Seraphim coming awake, the potential for violence the perfect thing to stir it from its dormancy. But Remy held the power of Heaven in check, desperate not to call upon it unless an absolute necessity.
They passed through a heavy, swinging door into a hallway of dark mahogany. Remy could see Samson’s sons and daughters up ahead, scanning every nook and cranny for potential danger, but none was to be found.
The white-haired, soulless man was still being led by the pair with the rifles, leading the train of young soldiers deeper into the house. The closer they got to the front of the elaborate dwelling, the louder the voices became. They were moving toward the sounds, the soulless man doing as he promised and delivering them to his mistress.
Remy escorted Samson down the center of the corridor, Samson’s children on either side of them.
Up ahead, their prisoner was about to pass from the hallway into what could best be described as a den. The voices were louder now, and distinctly female. Remy felt Samson’s grip upon his arm painfully tighten at the sound of one voice in particular; low and throaty, distinctly sexual, and charging the air with every uttered word.
“It’s her,” the large man hissed.
Samson started to move ahead of him, blindly bouncing off the hallway wall, as he moved in the direction of those speaking.
The powerful man’s soldiers followed his lead, guns drawn and ready for firefight, as they filled the doorway to the parlor.
Remy pushed through the crowd to where Samson now swayed upon his feet.
“Delilah,” he snarled, hate dripping like poison from the utterance of her name.
Remy was shocked to see Deryn York sitting upon a flowered love seat, sipping from a fine china cup, and, beside her, a dark-haired, dark-skinned woman of infinite beauty.
“Hello, Samson,” the beautiful woman said, setting her cup and saucer down upon the coffee table before her. “It’s been quite some time.”
Remy could feel the magick in the woman’s words, in her speech, keeping them all at bay, preventing tempers from igniting.
Deryn looked terrified, the base of her cup trembling against its saucer.
“Are you all right, Deryn?” Remy asked her.
She nodded, eyes wide as she stared at all the men and women in the doorway with their guns.
“I. . I’m fine. . Really. . I’m fine,” she said.
“See,” Delilah said, throwing up her hands. “She’s perfectly fine.”
The beautiful woman smiled, showing off perfect teeth as white as pearls. “So why don’t we all calm down and turn our attention to a situation that requires our concern.”
Delilah reached for her cup and saucer, reclining upon the couch as she brought the cup to her mouth.
“Deryn’s daughter, for example,” she said, sipping nonchalantly, dark eyes staring intensely over the rim of the fine china.
Samson began to scream, throwing back his arms and shoulders as if snapping some form of invisible restraints. “Succubus!” He lunged toward the sound of Delilah’s voice. “You’ve worked your last spell upon me, and upon this world.”
There was murder in the man’s intent, and rightfully so, but this woman—this Delilah—knew something about the child that Remy had been hired to find, and if Samson were to kill her, that information might be lost.
Remy moved at the speed of thought, getting between the strongman, the coffee table, and the woman who sat behind it.
“Samson, wait,” Remy said, allowing the Seraphim to emerge. The fire of Heaven burned in his veins as he placed his hand upon the man’s chest.
Samson’s blind eyes dropped to where his hand had fallen.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” he snarled, flecks of spit shooting from his mouth. “Take your stinking hand off me and get the fuck out of the way.”
“She knows something about the child,” Remy said, his voice booming with the authority of one of His messengers. “Kill her, and we might never find her. . never know what’s truly going on here.”
At that moment, Remy was prepared for just about anything. He could feel Samson’s heart beating crazily, sense the rage churning at his core.
