Where Angels Fear to Tread

She nodded. “About three weeks ago.”

He was looking at the drawing again when the woman’s words permeated his brain. “Three weeks ago?” he repeated. “So your husband must have been preparing her for this?” He waited as Deryn shook her head no.

“She drew those pictures without any knowledge of what her father was going to do,” the woman explained. “But she knew he was going to take her, Mr. Chandler, just like she knew I would be coming to see you.”

Deryn leaned forward and handed him one last drawing.

Remy’s eyes widened in surprise as he studied it. Zoe had drawn a childlike depiction of the front entrance to his brownstone, a person standing in front with a black dog on a leash. He was certain the person was himself—the feathered wings were a dead giveaway—and, moreover, floating in the air, written in a small child’s handwriting, were his address and telephone number.

Mathias stopped the Range Rover halfway down the dirt path, just close enough to see the bungalow ahead.

Poole had eventually proven his worth, using information he derived by touching the Vietnamese vessel, as well as extensive maps of the entire world. According to the Hound, Delilah’s prize would be found here, in Palatka, Florida, of all places.

It wasn’t exactly a place that Mathias imagined finding an object that could quite easily change the course of the world, but perhaps that was the point—no ancient temples surrounded by worshippers ready to die in its defense; instead, a run-down bungalow in the backwaters of Florida.

Ingenious.

He removed the Glock pistol from the holster underneath his arm and chambered a round.

“Are we ready?” he asked the other four men on his team.

They grunted their responses as each prepared his own weapons. Febonio, Yelverton, and Wallace, in the backseat, put rounds in the chambers of their hand weapons, while Cole, in the front passenger seat, flipped off the safety of his Mac 10 semiautomatic machine gun.

Mathias hoped it would be enough. They had no idea what they were walking into.

“Let’s go,” he said, turning off the engine and stepping out into the tropical heat.

Mathias led the way up the rocky dirt path. A mutt tied to a rusting swing in a backyard overrun with weeds began to bark ferociously at their approach, and Mathias was tempted to put a bullet in the mangy beast. But they had to appear harmless; no sense in alerting those inside of potential danger.

As they neared the falling-down porch, he motioned his men to step back out of the line of sight and walked up the four cracked concrete steps to the front door. He could hear the sounds of a television from inside.

He took a quick glance over his shoulder to be sure his team was in position, then rapped loudly on the dented, rusted aluminum door.

Mathias waited, listening to the sounds from inside. The volume on the television went down, and that was his cue to knock again.

Now he could hear muffled voices coming from inside—a man, a woman, and at least one child. The door suddenly opened a crack, and half a face peered out, glaring at him over a short length of chain.

“Yeah?”

Mathias could smell the stink of beer wafting from the man’s breath. “Hi,” he said with his biggest, fakest, nice-guy smile. “Is this thirty-seven Nautical Way?” he asked, reading from a wrinkled piece of scrap paper he pulled from his jacket pocket.

“Who wants to know?” the man asked.

He could hear the woman in the background whispering. A child started to cry, and she instantly barked for it to shut up.

A mother after his own heart.

“I’m from Destination Delivery, and I have a certified letter for thirty-seven Nautical,” Mathias said, pretending to reach inside his jacket for the envelope.

“What is it?” the man demanded.

“I don’t know, but if you want to sign for it, you can see for yourself,” Mathias said, wearing his mask of harmlessness.

The door slammed closed and Mathias could hear the man and woman talking again. Then came the sound of the chain being moved and the door opened wide to reveal a scruffy middle-aged man wearing shorts and a sweat-stained T-shirt, a filthy NASCAR hat perched atop his head, with long straggly hair like straw creeping out from beneath.

“I’m the resident,” he said.

He held out a filthy hand, but instead of holding an envelope, Mathias had withdrawn his Glock, which he was pointing at the man’s face.

“Sorry,” he said with a sneer. “Guess I don’t have a certified letter after all, but I do have this loaded gun.”

The man’s hands flew into the air. “What the fuck!” he exclaimed, slowly backing away from the door.

Mathias gestured for Febonio and Wallace to follow him inside, leaving Cole and Yelverton to watch the perimeter.

The woman immediately began to screech as Mathias closed the door behind him with his foot.

“What the fuck do you want? Get the fuck out of here!” she hollered. The child was crying all the louder now; a little boy or girl—Mathias couldn’t tell—no older than two.

Febonio pointed his weapon at the child clutching at its mother’s leg and brought a nicotine-stained finger to his lips. “Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.”

“Listen, I don’t know what you want, but if you see it, take it,” the man said. “We don’t even live here.”

Mathias was taken aback. “You don’t live here?”

“Naw,” the man said. “Friends of my old lady here do. . They asked us to watch the place while they’re away.”

Mathias had been in places of unnatural power before, and this didn’t feel like one of them. Had Poole screwed up? he wondered. He looked around. The place was certainly nothing special from what he could see.

Wallace came around a corner, finished with checking the place out.

“Anything out of the ordinary?” Mathias asked.

The man shook his blocky head. “Looks like a fucking pigsty to me.”

“What do you want?” the woman asked again, her voice shaking with fear and anger. She had picked up the crying child and was cradling it in her arms.

Mathias ignored the question, pulling his phone from his pocket. He had other things to concern himself with right now, such as the possibility of disappointing his mistress.

She didn’t like to be disappointed, and he so hated to be the one to give her bad news.

Delilah was waiting for the phone to ring.

She sat in the backseat of another Range Rover, trying not to stare at the phone on the seat between her and Clifton Poole. But no matter where she looked, her eyes always returned to the phone lying silently beside her.

If only Poole could be so silent.

The Hound muttered incessantly, rocking back and forth, still clutching the infant-shaped vessel that had once contained her prize. Ever since she had forced him to lay his hands upon it, he had refused to let it go.

Poole had been driven nearly mad by his contact with the vessel, but he still seemed to be useful. Between bouts of screaming and crying, he had been able to tell that the object, which had been stored within the container of metal, was very aware that they, or rather she, was looking for it, and was doing everything in its power to hide its trail.

But Poole was good, very good, and was able to lift a reading even though the object’s vast amount of power threatened to utterly destroy his mind.

Delilah hoped he would live long enough to receive the funds that were owed him for his services. He certainly was earning them.

He had demanded maps, and she had obliged him, laying map after map of the entire charted world down upon the floor before him. And after some time, and a great deal of pain, the Hound had found what he believed to be the location of her precious heart’s desire, and it had brought them here, to the United States.

To Palatka, Florida.

The phone suddenly rang and she gasped, picking it up and quickly placing it against her ear.

“Did you find it?” she asked immediately.

“Not exactly,” Mathias replied, and Delilah felt the world drop out from beneath her.

“What do you mean, not exactly?” she snarled, glaring at Poole. She was tempted to order him to stop breathing; that would certainly fix him for his incompetence.

“Perhaps you should come inside,” Mathias suggested. “And bring Poole along.”

Delilah broke the connection, letting the phone drop from her hand.

“Poole,” she said.

The man immediately stiffened, his gaze slowly turning toward her.

“You’re coming with me,” she commanded.

The driver was already out of the truck and opening her door to the sweltering Florida air.

Poole followed, still clutching the metal container forged in the shape of a child, still mumbling beneath his breath, as he trailed his mistress up the overgrown path to the dilapidated house.

* * *

Mathias averted his gaze.

“I’m sorry, mistress,” he said.

Delilah strode into the room, her eyes scanning the paltry location.

A woman held a child in her arms, placating the little boy with animal cracker after animal cracker. “Who are you people?” the mother demanded. “Is this about the weed Ron sold? Because if it is. .”

“Janie, shut your fucking yap,” the filthy man said, scowling.

“Be quiet,” Delilah snapped, and Ron was compelled to shut his mouth at once. She then looked back to the woman.

The child smiled warmly, offering Delilah one of his half-eaten treats.

She approached the mother and child, her anger and disappointment partially dissipating with the child’s attention.

“I used to have a little boy just your age,” she told the little one, reaching out to stroke the side of his head. “He died of pox while I cradled his tiny body in my arms,” Delilah continued, remembering in a violent slash of recollection the death of one of her sons.

Janie twisted her child away from Delilah’s affections, her eyes filled with a mother’s rage. “Don’t you touch him.”

Delilah remembered that rage. She had used it to fuel her survival through the ages.

And there was so much of it, so much pain.