Rage and Ruin (The Harbinger 2)

People were sick.

“Christ, he’s huge,” a nearby man exclaimed, awe filling his voice. “Man, I did not know they were that big.”

“You never seen one?” another guy asked, and I turned and spotted two middle-aged men, both dressed in dark slacks and white dress shirts. Both had leather messenger-type bags slung over their shoulders and some sort of badge dangling from their necks. Office guys. Maybe they worked at the Capitol.

The guy with lighter hair shook his head. “Not up close like this.”

“They’re all big,” the other guy answered, thumbing the phone he held. “Like wrestlers on steroids.”

“Yeah, and someone tacked that big SOB up there like it’s nothing. Freaking crucified the thing.” The dark-haired man shook his head. “Let that sink in.”

“Don’t really want to, man.”

I glanced to where Zayne was removing the Warden from the church and then back to the men. “Excuse me?” I said, and both faced me. “Did you guys see what happened to that Warden?”

“The one strung up there?” the fair-haired guy asked as flashing blue-and-red lights filled the sidewalks. The police were here. “No. We were just on our way to the Metro and someone screamed. People were pointing up at the church.”

The other man shook his head. “Yeah, it was weird. It just happened. The thing appeared up there in the blink of an eye. Didn’t see anything—Holy shit, there’s another one. Look!”

My gaze followed to where he pointed. Against the cloudy night sky, the darker shape of another Warden headed toward Zayne and the church. Relief loosened some of the tension in the muscles of my neck. I had no idea who the deceased Warden was, but it had to be someone Zayne knew and possibly had grown up with or spent years with, like Greene. I was grateful he had backup, because I wasn’t much help all wingless and standing on the sidewalk.

“Damn,” the fair-haired man said again. “I can’t get over how big those things are.”

“They’re not things,” I snapped, earning dubious looks from the two men. “They’re Wardens.”

“Whatever,” one of them muttered, and they both turned away from me and lifted their phones to take a picture.

It took a lot of restraint I didn’t know I had to resist the urge to snatch the phones out of their hands and stomp on them. I figured I’d made enough poor life choices today to last me at least the next week. Drawing in a shallow breath, I scanned the crowd. Someone must have seen how that Warden got up there. Unless whoever had done it could move so fast that the human eye couldn’t track them. Very few Upper Level demons were that powerful. Roth was, but was he even that fast? Able to crucify a Warden to a church on a busy street without being seen at all?

Once more, whatever had done this had been out here while we were patrolling—well, where we were supposed to be patrolling. It could be here right now, and we had no idea.

“Dammit,” I muttered, frustration rising. Where was this—

The brush of icy fingers over the nape of my neck sent a shiver down my spine. Tiny hairs all over my body stood up as my breath hitched deep in my chest. It was that feeling again. I spun, scanning the people who stood near me, all of them looking up at the church. They all seemed human to me. No one suspicious.

Reaching back, I rubbed my fingers along the base of my neck. The skin was warm, but that chilled feeling was still there.

Wait.

One of them didn’t look normal at all.

Near a parked white delivery truck, a woman’s body was blinking in and out like poor reception on an old television. She was wearing a dark blue service uniform, and while I could see no visible injuries, her face held the pale gauntness of death. She was a ghost...and she was staring at something or someone.

The ghost faded out and then reappeared on the sidewalk, her body angled away from me. Surprise rippled through me. The ghost didn’t know I was there, which was odd.

As I watched her drift through the onlookers as if she had a target, something occurred to me. I couldn’t be sure the little old lady in the park had seen me earlier. She’d looked my way, but then I’d felt that coldness.

I stepped around people until I reached the edge of the onlookers. The ghost was only a few feet in front of me when her form began to flicker rapidly. I opened my mouth, fully prepared to look like I was talking to myself.

The ghost woman jerked, her wispy arms flailing, back bowing as if an invisible string attached to her waist had been yanked hard. A second later, she blinked out of existence.

I drew up short. Ghosts and spirits both had an annoying habit of randomly disappearing. That wasn’t breaking news, but the way her body had jerked, as if she’d been caught—

Something dark and large moved along the corners of my vision, snagging my attention. I turned but saw nothing but a brick wall. I stared, seconds passing without anything happening.

I had no idea if I’d seen something. It could have been a person, or a weird trick of light from a passing car, or the outcome of my mind trying to compensate for the gaps in my side vision. It could’ve even been a ghost or a spirit. Maybe that guy who’d followed me to Zayne’s apartment. Or absolutely nothing. With my eyes, who knew?

But the icy awareness pressing on the nape of my neck had vanished, which made for a very strange...coincidence.

“Trin.”

I whirled around. Zayne had shifted back into human form, which I knew he’d done beyond the prying eyes of humans. My gaze flickered over him. There were dark smudges splattered along the tattered remains of his shirt.

Blood. Warden’s blood.

“Who was it?” I asked, shoving what had just happened aside.

His jaw was hard as he said, “Morgan. He transferred to our clan a year ago.” His hand clenched something he was holding as he let out a low rumble of a growl that I really hoped no one around us heard. “New to the area, but well trained and more than capable of handling himself. Dez is taking him back to the compound.”

A huge, terrible part of me was relieved to learn that it hadn’t been Dez up there, but the relief was short-lived. I knew nothing of Morgan. He could have a family—a significant other and children. Even if he didn’t, I knew there were others who would miss him, mourn him.

“I’m sorry.” I swallowed hard as I lifted my gaze to Zayne’s. “I’m so sorry.”

He nodded and then stepped closer, lifting his hand. “This was what was used to impale him to the church.”

Zayne opened his hand. Resting against his palm were two long, narrow spikes, definitely not of the normal garden variety. These glowed a faint luminous gold. I wasn’t aware of any type of metal or stone that glowed like that.

“What are they?” I started to reach for them, but Zayne closed his hand around them.

“I have no idea,” he answered, chest rising with a deep breath. “I’ve never seen anything like them before in my life.”

* * *

I stood in one corner of Nicolai’s office, trying to stay out of the way of the Wardens filing in and out. Several sent curious or suspicious glances in my direction once they realized I was there, tucked away like someone who didn’t belong. Seeing a virtual stranger in the heart of the DC compound while they dealt with the loss of yet another Warden had to be disconcerting.

I’d learned from Jasmine, Dez’s wife, that the Warden Morgan had been mated but had lost his wife in childbirth shortly before his transfer to the DC compound.

My gaze trailed to the spikes, resting in the center of Nicolai’s desk, glowing softly. Now that was not something you saw every day.

“Whatever this metal is, it was able to kill Morgan with one puncture to the back of the head,” Zayne was saying. “When we pulled it out, we could tell that it severed the brain stem internally.”

I cringed. That had to have been...messy, and it was definitely shocking. Other than the claws and teeth of demons and Hellfire, I wasn’t aware of any weapons that could easily puncture a Warden’s skull.

“It has some kind of writing on it. I have no idea what language it is,” Gideon said as he knelt eye level with the desk.

I’d seen Gideon briefly the night we’d returned here from the senator’s house, but we’d never been officially introduced. I did know that he was the Wardens’ resident tech and security specialist. Apparently he was also a scholar of sorts, because Zayne and Nicolai were staring at Gideon as if he’d admitted to collecting creepy porcelain dolls.

“What?” Gideon demanded, lifting the thicker end of the spike with a set of kitchen tongs. “I don’t know every language in the world.”

“That’s a shocker,” Zayne replied dryly. “I thought you knew everything.”

“Well, this will be one for the record books.” Gideon shook his head as he stared at the spike. “It seems similar to ancient Aramaic, but it’s not the same.”

My brows lifted. Ancient Aramaic? That was from one of the earliest known periods of written language and wasn’t something one heard referenced often.

Nicolai, who was the youngest clan leader I’d ever heard about, dragged his thumb over the growth of russet-colored hair at his chin. For the first time since we’d showed up, he looked at me. Unlike the other Wardens, there was no suspicion in his gaze, but there was a wariness.

“I’m assuming you haven’t seen a weapon like this?” Nicolai asked.

I shook my head. “Never.”

He refocused on Gideon, finger still at his chin. “You think you can figure out what it says and where it possibly came from?”

Gideon nodded his dark head as he placed the spike back on the white cloth. “Might take a couple of days, but I should be able to.”

“Good.” Nicolai dropped his hand and crossed his arms. “Because I would sure like to know what kind of metal glows.”

“Same,” Zayne murmured. He cleared his throat. “I’m thinking Morgan was killed elsewhere and then transported to the church to be displayed. Just like Greene.”