Confused, he looked back to Garfial. “What’s going on?”
“You wanted to know what the special golem was created for?” Garfial asked. “I think the world is about to find out.”
“Who does this car belong to again?” Angus, sitting beside Francis in the front seat of the pristine 1960 Lincoln Continental, asked.
“A friend,” Francis answered, cruising along Boylston Street, searching for a place to park.
“It smells like blood,” the sorcerer said, moving his large bulk uneasily in the passenger’s seat as he tried to get comfortable.
“Yeah, I know,” Francis said casually. “But beggars can’t be choosers. My friend Richard agreed to do us a solid as long as we didn’t take her out of the city. Right, girl?”
Angus could have sworn that the vehicle responded, the low murmur of a talk show on the radio suddenly changing to a syrupy pop song from the seventies.
“That a girl,” Francis said, still looking for the perfect space as he reached a hand out and rubbed the black leather dashboard affectionately.
Angus could not get comfortable. The tangy, metallic odor of the car and the warm, almost fleshlike feeling of the leather beneath his ass made him feel as though he were inside the mouth of some large predatory beast.
“There’s something wrong about this vehicle,” Angus flatly stated.
“You might want to keep your opinions to yourself,” Francis warned. “You don’t want to hurt her feelings.”
“Then you admit this ride is…different?”
“She’s different, all right,” the former Guardian agreed.
The steering wheel suddenly jerked roughly to the right, startling Francis as the car pulled itself into a space just vacated by a UPS truck.
“Good one,” he said. “I would have driven right past it. Thanks, Leona.”
“Is that its name?” Angus asked.
“That’s her name,” Francis quickly corrected as the engine turned off without his hand being anywhere near the crowded key chain that dangled from the ignition. “Relax. She has this kinda effect on a lot of people,” Francis explained. “Actually, you should be honored that she’s letting you ride inside her.”
“I feel like Jonah in the belly of the whale,” Angus stated, every instinct that he had on full alert.
“Look, we needed a ride to check out Stearns’ headquarters, and my business associate was nice enough to allow Leona to take us,” Francis said. “So, let’s do what we came here to do.”
Francis got out of the car.
Angus pulled on the door handle, but the door would not open. He was about to motion to Francis for assistance when the handle suddenly functioned again and the door swung wide.
For a moment he could have sworn that he heard a sinister chuckling over the car’s speakers, but he decided that it was likely only the pinging sounds made by the car’s engine as it started to cool.
“Will this be all right here?” Angus asked Francis.
“She’ll be fine,” Francis said crossing Boylston Street. “Richard fed her just before we called.”
Angus followed the fallen angel to the small plaza and the eighty-story skyscraper that he recognized from his contact with Algernon Stearns. A large sign read HERMES TELEVISION NETWORK.
Angus stared up at the impressive building of smoked glass and polished steel, feeling a queasy uneasiness pass over him. He turned to speak to his partner, but the angel was gone. Looking around the crowded street, he found Francis at a food truck.
“What are you doing?” Angus asked, walking over.
“Getting a bite. Want something?”
“No, I do not want something. We need to report back to-”
“They have American chop suey.”
“They do?”
“Two American chop sueys,” Francis told the man behind the counter.
“The building is quite fortified against the likes of us,” Angus said, looking back to the front entrance.
“Figured as much,” Francis answered, going through his wallet. “Gonna need to come up with a way of getting inside without making too much of a ruckus.”
“I’m sure the magickal barriers are only the first line of defense,” Angus stated, watching the building. He caught sight of multiple security officers, and from the vibe they were giving off, he doubted very much that they were human.
“Here,” Francis said, handing Angus a heaping Styrofoam container. “What do you want to drink?”
“Water’s fine.”
“Two waters,” Francis added, as the counter person brought the remainder of his order and he paid.
“Let’s sit over here,” Francis said, leading Angus to the short concrete wall that bordered the plaza.
It was lunchtime in Back Bay on a beautiful fall day, and the area was humming with activity. A perfect time to go unnoticed, Angus thought as he enjoyed his meal.
“So, what do you think?” Angus asked after awhile.
Francis had eaten in silence, staring at the formidable skyscraper before him, as if committing every detail to memory.
“I think we have a problem,” the angel assassin said. “There are wards scrawled everywhere. Every brick fifty feet or less from the main entrance has been scrawled with some mystical hoodoo to keep the likes of us from passing through the front doors.”
He took a bite of chop suey and slowly chewed.
“I hate it when somebody tries to keep me out,” Francis stated. “It makes me feel so unloved.”
“There will be even less in the world to love you if Stearns succeeds,” Angus reminded the angel. “And by feeding on that level of death energy, I hate to think how powerful he might become.”
They had finished their lunches and stood to throw away their trash in a nearby barrel when there was a flurry of activity from the building. Security guards-large, powerful-looking men that probably weren’t men at all-spilled from the building and took up positions around the entrance.
“Something is happening,” Angus said, as they made their way back to the waiting Leona.
“I’m guessing somebody caught wind of our visit,” Francis said.
“Or whatever it is that Stearns is up to,” Angus added, “is about to begin.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
Scrimshaw squatted down beside his threadbare bed, going through the wooden chest that he had hidden beneath it.
Mr. Deacon wanted them to be ready for what was about to happen; now infused with the power of the Seraphim, his master was about to attempt something that Scrimshaw had never believed possible.
Mr. Deacon was going to attempt to bring them home.
His pale hands rummaged through the contents of the chest, old yellowed photographs, Social Security cards, driver’s licenses-anything that could define someone as who they were.
Scrimshaw hungered for such an identity, and if he could not have one of his own, then he would covet the lives of others.
He was afraid that something might happen to his treasures and decided that he would carry some of them with him, just in case. A photo of a family picnic; three smiling children standing before a man and woman. He could see such love in their eyes, so much life that had already been lived and so much to come.
There was no denying what he truly was: an artificial life molded from clay infused with magick in his master’s lab, sculpted to look human for the sole purpose of carrying out his master’s wishes no matter what they would be. He should have been just like all the other golems that populated the Deacon estate, but from the first day he’d come to life, he knew that he was different.
He yearned for an identity, something to set him apart from all the others. His master was amused by this odd, independent thought, and encouraged him to grow, even allowing him the unique tattoos that he’d etched upon the pale, artificial skin of his face that had become his namesake.
Scrimshaw.
He hungered not only for the life he would create for himself, but for the lives of others-looking upon their life experiences like multifaceted jewels, bounty for the taking.