Griffin Security main office
Post Office Plaza
Cleveland, Ohio
10:00 a.m., Dec. 24
“Max?” Dana called out, forcing her voice to sound strong, stable, and not at all as freaked out as every other part of her was. “Whaddya got for me?”
She entered the room as Max sat forward. He reached out to snag his most recent file directory printout, deftly missing the day’s sculpture-in-progress of take-out coffee cups, drink stirrers, and binder clips. Scanning the page again, he looked from it to something on his screen.
“Plenty.” Max spun around in his swivel chair as his office was breached. Then he stopped short, quickly rolling his chair back as he blinked from her to Finn. “Um…you okay, boss?”
Dana grimaced, not even wanting to know what she looked like. Because she felt like she’d just French-kissed a nuclear bomb.
If what Finn said was true, she was the great-grandsomething of angels. If what he’d done to her hadn’t been an epic hallucination, she had enough energy inside her to light up a Third World country. If what he’d explained to her wasn’t complete and utter bullshit, she had work to do. To find those who were like her, and then…
And then she didn’t know. But first she needed to secure her, well, family, for lack of a better word.
Family. For the first time in far too long, she liked the sound of that.
“I’m good,” she said, realizing that Max was still staring at her. “Finn, meet my technical security expert, Max Garrett. Max, I invited Finn to tag along for your report on this Bartholomew. He thinks he may know the guy.” She headed for the coffee machine, grateful that Max did make an effort to keep a path clear to that brilliant addition to the office, if only to keep it regularly stocked.
She punched buttons while Max took another drag on his own coffee.
“What happened up at Lester’s?” he asked. “You were out of contact for hours.”
“I apparently was more tired than I thought I was.” Dana’s cheeks burned as she pulled her cup out of the machine. “I fell asleep.”
Max blinked. “You did what?” he started, but snapped his mouth shut when she glared at him. “Well, your mom called here since you didn’t respond to her directly,” he said. “She wants you to meet her for breakfast at eleven o’clock at the Renaissance.”
He grinned at Dana’s succinct curse.
“Of course she does,” Dana muttered. “That’s freaking perfect.” She glanced up at the clock, but there was nothing for it. Lester had just drugged her to the gills but thought she’d woken up without a single suspicion. If she stood up her mother, her mother would contact Lester, and Dana needed the return of her uncle’s attention like a hole in the head.
Better to keep playing the game.
And then, of course…
Dana grimaced, pushing her jumbled thoughts away. “Okay. I’ve got a change of clothes here, so let’s forget about that for the moment.” She flicked her gaze back to him. “You figure out who this Bartholomew is?”
“I think so,” Max said, wheeling back a little bit, apparently to put some additional distance between him and Finn. “The boys in blue have a low-level watch out for one Bartholomew Petolya, no indication why, but they started the surveillance right after the dude officially moved to town on November first. My contact at the police department says they know where he lives, and everyone’s been advised to keep an eye out on his comings and goings, but no one’s supposed to give him any trouble. Apparently they’re waiting for him to make the first move.”
“Anything to tie him to the attack on Lester on Halloween night?” Dana asked.
Max shook his head. “They were pretty sure he was already living somewhere in the city at that point, but they weren’t tailing him then.”
“What’s his current residence?” Finn sounded particularly intense, but Max was already backed up as far as he could go.
“Penthouse in the Summit Building, Warehouse District,” he said. “Coupla blocks from here, most expensive digs in the city. I double-checked my other sources on the name, and if Petolya is our man, we’ve got our hands full. He’s got mob connections all over the East Coast, plus a steady flow of recruits from both local venues and shipped in from Eastern Europe. Not a very nice group, from what I hear. Very low on the evolutionary scale. Petolya’s been pretty well established in Philly for the past thirty years or so, with his hands in everything from racketeering to antiquities dealing, but he’s apparently moving the operation to Cleveland.”
“Philly…” Dana frowned. “Why do I—”
“The car in the street,” Finn supplied. “Before we went to the cathedral.”
“Right.” She recalled the image perfectly. Had she always been able to do that? “Max, run a check on a Lexus sedan, maybe black, maybe dark gray, license plate number 074332. It was tailing me last night, and I’m curious if it’s connected to this Petolya guy.”
“Roger that.” Max made a note. “I also looked into whether the dude’s either sold any of these so-called antiquities to Lester or bought anything from him, but so far, no dice. Lester hasn’t sold any of his junk since we started working with him, and his acquisitions seem to be all on-site.” He flashed a grin. “Get it? Like, archaeological site?”
Dana rolled her eyes, but she couldn’t help smiling in response. “What else?”
“Not much. Sometimes he uses intermediaries, but unlike most of these guys, he enjoys keeping a hand in the work, so he’ll also meet with his business partners himself. Has a rep for brutal efficiency. Kind of a freak, from what I’m hearing, demons and occult stuff, that sort of thing.” He looked back at Dana. “You want me to tip the police about a possible connection to Lester’s attack?”
“Don’t,” Finn said from his corner. “I’ll take care of this.”
“But they already know something about the guy,” Dana countered. “Otherwise, they wouldn’t have a tail on him. And my dad worked for the police, back in the day. There might be information there we could use.”
Finn’s expression effectively dropped the room’s temperature by fifteen degrees. “I only need to know where Bartholomew is,” he said. “The rest is immaterial.”
“Right. And I’m sure he’s going to just be hanging out at his penthouse, waiting for you to show up,” Dana said drily. “You want to waste your time roaming through the city for him, though, be my guest.”
That shut Finn up for a second. Good.
It didn’t last long. “When can you have the information?” Finn asked.
“By the time I’m done with breakfast.” Dana turned back to Max. “Next question,” she said. “How hard would it be to break into every single server Lester has, even the ones we don’t technically have access to? If I wanted to get into Lester’s business down to the roots of his hair, how long would that take you?”
Max tilted his head, considering. “Rough guess, a couple of hours. Won’t know until I come across a firewall I didn’t put up, though.”
“Start hunting for one,” she said. “But first tell me about the files Lester pulled. What were they?”
Max snorted in disgust. “That, I don’t know. Here’s an example of one of them.” He moved his hands over the keys, and rows of data began filling the screen. “The data looks randomly generated, but I think it’s some kind of code. I’m running it through a pattern finder. I’ve got no idea how to sort it out, however, no clue what type of information we’re even looking at. And these are only a handful that he didn’t successfully delete. I suspect there are a bunch more that he did.”
“Could be client notes or product research,” Dana mused. Or a list of names and addresses.
“Could be Lester’s secret recipe for chicken wings.” Max lifted one shoulder, dropped it. “Whatever it is, he buried those files deep. I’m surprised he even found them again.”
“And there’s no difference in the file lengths? So we’re talking exactly the same data?”
“Apparently. I’m trying to find other links between the files, maybe find a pattern that way. He’s been doing this for a while, though. The first file showed up in late September, 2001.”
“Right after nine-eleven,” Dana murmured.
“Yup.” He turned his attention back to Dana. “Then he faithfully added another new file every six months or so after that. Last update was late September, but that most recent file was accessed again in early November. And now, poof. As far as Lester believes, both the original 2001 file and all the backups are gone.”
Dana shifted her gaze to Finn. “You think this is the same information he’s going to give you?” she asked. “Would he have made that many copies of it?”
“It’s possible,” he said. “When did Lester start removing his files from the system?”
“Three days ago,” Max said. “December twenty-first.”
Finn grimaced. “So it all began on solstice. He said he received information then. In a dream.”
Dana and Max exchanged a look. “Solstice,” she repeated.
“On solstice, it’s easier for extrasensory communication to take place. It’s possible that someone reached out to advise Lester to destroy any duplicate files.” Finn frowned, studying the screen behind Max.
“Wait a minute.” Max looked particularly appropriate with his wide eyes and startled expression, since he was standing directly in front of a wall full of UFO headlines and posters. “You mean like telepathy or something? Like Lester had a vision or something to dump a bunch of files, and boom, he did it?”
“In a manner of speaking, yes.”
“So now what?” Max asked, his voice hushed with excitement.
“So now we’ve got my uncle listening to instructions he got in a fucking dream.” Dana growled, chucking her coffee cup into the recycling bin. “Sadly, that’s not the most insane thing I’ve heard today. Okay, I’ve got to get changed. Show Finn all the files you’ve uncovered, Max, as well as everything you’ve got on this Bartholomew Petolya, and check on that car.” She moved toward her private office, swiping her key again to gain entrance. “I’ll be back as soon as possible.”
Finn stared after Dana, then slowly turned his head to meet Max’s gaze. The young man blinked rapidly, his gaze darting around, clearly wishing the office was a little bigger.
“Where do you want to start?” Max asked.
“First, there’s something you forgot to mention to Dana,” Finn said. “Something worrying you beyond your immediate focus on the files and your search on Bartholomew.”
Max blinked. “What do you mean?” he asked, shaking his head as if to clear it. “I told you everything—”
“What happened last night after the party, Max?” Finn asked quietly. “Did you receive a call from Dana?”
Max nodded, frowning. “I had work to do, so I clocked in here. I sent the night-shift guy home. Shocked the hell out of me when I got the distress call. I thought she’d long since gotten home. When she didn’t follow up, I called the dispatcher over at the precinct house and waited.” He frowned. “It kind of took a long time before I heard the sirens.” He bit his lower lip. “Too long. They waited ten minutes—I’d forgotten that, because once she texted me later, I knew she was safe. Then she asked me to do a search on Bartholomew, and everything else sort of went poof.”
“Who would have been the officers assigned to the call?” Finn asked.
“I—I don’t know. We haven’t gotten a call about it yet to debrief, so I don’t know who showed up.” Max glanced toward Dana’s office. “That’s kind of odd too. If the cruiser didn’t actually find Dana, they should have called here to make sure it wasn’t a false alarm.” His eyes widened, and he straightened in his chair. “I can’t believe I didn’t think about that before. Why didn’t they call?”
“What’s your reputation with the police?”
“Solid,” Max said. “And normally, they’re super protective of Dana because of her dad. She knows all the beat cops and most of the older detectives and admin types. They take care of her.”
“What about after the assault on Lester on Halloween?” Finn asked. “Did they take care of her then?”
Max sighed, rolling his shoulders. “Well, she was out of it for a few days, so Lester handled the report. They couldn’t find her attackers. And yeah, they stopped looking pretty quickly, you ask me. But Lester was certain it was a case of some trigger-happy thug startled by Dana pulling her own gun. Thank God she wasn’t hurt worse.”
“Her assailant blew apart her shinbone. I think she was hurt badly enough,” Finn commented, and Max squinted at him.
“No, he didn’t,” he said. “The bullet went straight through muscle. Lester framed the X-rays for Dana’s office.” He chuckled without humor. “How else do you think she recovered so fast? She was up on her feet again within a week, walking around and bitching up a blue streak about it. Her calf looked like Swiss cheese, but Lester had a crack team on her, and she hung in there. I definitely don’t think she’s a hundred percent, but you’ll never get her to admit it.”
Finn blew out a sharp breath, and Max suddenly straightened, the pressure Finn had been exerting on his mind releasing. He blinked and looked around, clearly confused. “Um…what just happened?”
“She walked on her injured leg within one week?” Finn pressed him. “And you all thought that was reasonable?”
“What? Oh yeah. But she did. The docs had somehow got the extent of her injuries wrong, and her pain tolerance is insane, and—” Max halted as Finn held up a hand, glaring at the door to Dana’s office.
“Give me a minute,” he said.
Finn covered the few feet to Dana’s office without pausing, placing his hand over the keycard unit and disarming it.
Dana looked up as he entered, her phone pressed to her ear, and he stopped short. Now clad in a rich garnet sweater that molded to her body, she’d traded her silk for denim and her high heels for a low-slung pair of boots. The rich leather jacket she held in her left hand gleamed in the light of a wall of blinking computers, which also made her skin luminous and her large eyes impossibly green, and the gold cuff on her wrist peeked out from below her sweater, giving off its own subtle glow. The overall effect caught him completely off guard, and he felt his body respond, fast and hot.
No. Frustration knifed through him. If this was the kind of reaction mortals had to deal with all the time, it was no wonder so many of them went mad.
Dana, clearly unaware of her impact on him, tossed her jacket on the table and dropped her phone on it. “Okay, my mother has confirmed breakfast. For the first time in my adult life, she apparently can’t wait to see me.” She leaned against her desk, eyeing him with interest. The soft, knowing smile on her face made Finn’s palms start to sweat. She was absolutely breathtaking.
“Your check bounced, I’m afraid,” she said, her gaze never leaving his face. “But the real Dr. Lee Schaeffer—who was quite gracious about the donation, by the way—won’t give up anything as to how his wallet and his checkbook found its way into your hands. Mom also can’t quite explain how their raffle matron somehow managed to miss the fact that Schaeffer’s ID photo looks absolutely nothing like you, even though IDs are required with any handwritten checks. Funny, isn’t it?”
“I blend in,” Finn said.
Dana raised her brows, but her change of clothing had shifted her attitude. Her clothing, and doubtless the strength he’d opened her up to too. She was relaxed, inviting, her gaze softening as she searched his eyes, her brow furrowing in the smallest of frowns.
“You want to tell me the rest of the story? What you wouldn’t tell me before?” she asked quietly. “Are you in danger?” Concern radiated from her, her aura even stronger now that he knew what he was looking at.
She was worried about him.
That realization punched Finn low in the stomach, his hair-trigger physical responses firing even more emphatically, urging him to go to her, to take her into his arms. She, a Dawn Child being hunted by a rogue Fallen and an army of demons, feared for his safety. She had no way of knowing the irony of that.
He needed to tell her something. She needed to be prepared, ready. But how much was too much? He instinctively believed that there was safety in this Society of Orion that Lester had drawn around himself and Dana, but the man’s casual indifference to Dana’s injury, his willingness to drug her, to lie to her and to the people who cared for her the most, couldn’t be ignored.
“There’s more I have to explain to you, Dana,” he said. “About Lester.”
“Yeah, I’ve been thinking about that. Why do I suspect last night isn’t the first time my dear uncle drugged me?”
She folded her arms over her chest again, but her entire body fairly hummed with electricity. The channel Finn had opened up within her, allowing her to tap her own power, was reacting to him. As she grew more used to it, accepted it, worked with it, the flow of energy within her would become even stronger. She would appear more radiant to others, more beautiful. She would shine.
A Dawn Child, Lester had called her. Even thinking the term made Finn’s head pound again. Something about that term, those people, was important to what had happened to him. What he’d done.
How he’d sinned.
Finn blew out a breath, remembering Lester’s urgency in showing him the complex infrastructure of Orion. Every screen, every new line of text had made his gut tighten. This was not some religious cult consulting horoscopes and stockpiling water against the coming end times. This was an organization spanning six continents and thousands of cities, so deeply embedded in society that some of its farthest flung branches probably didn’t even know there was a society. From scientists to biologists, psychologists to theologians, archaeologists to adventure travelers, Orion had tapped every resource available to keep the Children safe and to prepare.
Dana was strong, but she was human. Fragile. Emotional. He didn’t need to destroy her world, tell her the truth about her uncle, her family. He must only keep her safe until the archangel had the list. After that…he didn’t know what would happen.
Finn looked around her office, her sanctuary, stiffening as his gaze fell on a framed newspaper clipping detailing the death of a Cleveland police officer. Walter Griffin. Dana’s father. Perhaps not her biological father, given what Lester had told him, but the man who’d raised her from infancy and kept her safe.
“How long ago did your father die?” he asked.
If the question surprised Dana, she didn’t betray it. “Almost fifteen years,” she said.
He walked over to the clipping, the words leaping out at him. Dana said something more, but her words faded as he took in the thin, typed lines, the impossible detail they included.
Griffin was shot twice in the head and four more times in the torso before managing to apprehend the assailants… Captain Griffin died at the scene… Assailants in custody.
Finn’s bones began to ache.
An obituary ran alongside the newspaper account, but he paid no attention to it, his eyes riveted on the injury description, knowing that Dana had fallen silent, knowing she was watching him, her body keening with her own remembered pain. But what strength of will must it have taken for a man to move forward with six bullet holes in him? What effort must it have cost him to capture his attackers?
And most miraculous of all, Walter Griffin hadn’t been a Dawn Child. He’d been a simple mortal, like the ones described in the news articles covering the wall above Max’s desk. Miracle Grandmothers and Children Who’d Defied the Odds, ordinary people surviving cancers and natural disasters. Griffin was “only” human, yet he’d given Dana her first and best example of true mortal heroics. And he’d loved her. Somehow, Finn couldn’t believe that the gruff-faced man staring out at him from the faded newspaper clipping was part of Lester’s secret society. And if Walter didn’t know the truth about Dana, that meant her mother had known.
So Dana was still living a lie.
But it was a lie that might yet keep her alive.
He grimaced. “Lester did drug you before. At least once that I know of. Probably more.”
“Halloween,” Dana muttered. Her gaze was fixed on a series of X-rays hung on the wall—none of them showing a shattered bone. Finn knew they were what she’d been shown of her own wounded leg, all part of the lies she’d been told about her own injuries. “I knew it. Why?”
“According to him, you were, ah, a little more hurt than he let anyone admit to you.” At Dana’s curse, he continued. “He wanted to see how fast you would heal, how quickly you would bounce back. How strong you were. If he’d told you the true nature of your injuries…”
“He was afraid I’d lock up.” To his surprise, there was no outrage in Dana’s voice. When he looked up, she shrugged. “He’s not necessarily wrong. There were times when the only thing that got me through PT was my complete and total fury that I was feeling that much pain over a relatively minor gunshot wound. I’m not sure I would have pushed myself so hard…” She shook her head, glaring at the X-rays again. “Bastard.”
Finn tightened his lips. If Lester was to be believed, far too many of Dana’s ancestors had been hunted down, killed—or worse. It might not be an ideal situation, but the enormous machine that had fostered Dana was dedicated solely to keeping her alive, keeping her safe.
Perhaps her safety was enough.
“Your uncle believes your abilities go beyond simple strength,” Finn said carefully. “He also thinks you’re psychic.”
Whatever Dana had expected him to say, that wasn’t it. “Psychic,” she snorted. “Lester—the same Lester who’s currently trashing company data based on a dream—told you he thinks I have psychic powers?”
“Your leg is better, isn’t it?” he said, and she stiffened slightly. A warm surge of affection curled through Finn at Dana’s blatant skepticism. “That wasn’t all me. Your belief helped you long before I showed up.”
“No thanks to my family,” she said bitterly. “You’d think if I had psychic powers, I would have been able to predict everyone turning into an asshole.” She waved at the X-rays. “So these are all bullshit, I take it? Is that what you’re trying to tell me?”
“Your uncle wanted to keep you strong,” Finn said. He did too, if he was honest. He wanted to surround her with safety…but he would be leaving in less than fifteen hours. Possibly never to return, unless the archangel deemed it wise.
And if Michael had any idea what Finn was feeling right now, he wouldn’t let him get close to Dana again. Ever.
Which meant that Finn could only arm Dana. Show her the strength she possessed. That knowledge would help her regardless of whether or not she knew about Orion. About Lester. About her own parents.
“Those X-rays were…yeah. They were bullshit,” Finn said, pointing to the prints. “They were someone else’s X-rays entirely.”
“Someone else’s,” Dana repeated softly, but she didn’t move, her gaze locked on the images.
“The bullet that struck you split your tibia, probably shattered it. It was impossible for me to tell merely by touching you. But your leg was definitely broken several times.” He glanced at Dana, saw a half-formed denial dying on her lips. “Lester had you taken to a ward he had set up specially for you, treated you with private doctors and nurses, the security ironclad. No one on the outside knew the truth. Not Max, not your mother. No one.”
“That’s not possible,” Dana said. “Maybe fifty years ago, but not anymore. That kind of thing doesn’t happen these days.”
Finn shrugged. “You don’t have to believe me. If you have another X-ray done, you’ll see that your bone is held together with a metal plate.” He looked away again. “I’d suggest not letting your uncle know about the new scan.”
That caught her attention. “Why?”
“Because he doesn’t yet know the full extent of your abilities,” Finn said, turning. “And he doesn’t want you to know he lied. He saw you fight, and he saw you heal—but he knows the truth will alarm you, and he’s not all that keen on you being alarmed.”
Dana pursed her lips, her eyes dark and haunted as she stared at him. “What happened to me that night, Finn?” she asked. “I’m only remembering in bits and pieces.”
Finn closed his eyes. He’d finally gotten the whole story after pushing the man, hard, and the images still chilled him. “Lester was attacked. You protected him. There was a shooter who thought he’d taken you out, but that wasn’t the end of it. There were attackers on foot as well. Even with your damaged leg, you killed three of the assailants with your bare hands, in a blind rage, before Lester could fully register what was happening. By the time his backup security responded, it was all over.”
“All over,” Dana said quietly, nodding, though her eyes remained troubled. “There was, um, a lot of goopy black blood. I remember that now.” She shuddered, her voice trailing away.
“Your uncle wants to protect you. To keep you safe.” He deliberately stood apart from her, though he ached to take her in his arms. Forbidden, he reminded himself, but the voice was weaker, less sure. It was good that he’d be getting the list from Lester within a few short hours. He didn’t think he’d be able to be around Dana much longer. “You have to believe that.”
Dana shook herself, her laughter false and jarring. “Well, it’s been a day of crazy things I’m supposed to believe, I guess,” she said, picking up her jacket and holding it close to her, the movement too much like an embrace. Every nerve ending in his body screamed that she wanted to be held, to be protected, and the primal urge to be that protector rose up within Finn, a hurricane force.
He started forward just as Dana turned away, and stopped short as she threw her jacket over her shoulders, stuffing her arms into the heavy leather sleeves.
“I’ve gotta get going,” she said, and millennia’s worth of training and belief waged war with Finn’s immediate need to take her in his arms.
No. There was nothing he could offer her that would last longer than one night.
He clenched his hands into fists, ashamed to realize that even having a single night with Dana Griffin—a few short hours—was beginning to seem worth it. “Yes,” he said flatly. “You should go.”