Nick passed into the car, where the cartel leader now sat perfectly still, his head resting against the steering wheel. He sat down in the passenger seat, which sank just a bit—apparently he’d brought weight and density with him even while invisible.
But then Guzman lifted his head and turned in Nick’s direction.
“Holy—!”
Nick instantly re-established invisibility.
With sudden jerky movements Guzman swiped his hand over and around the passenger seat, then spun around looking in back for Nick. He finally gave up, shut his eyes, folded his hands, and began to pray.
“Gracias a dios… gracias señor…”
It was, of course, the first time Nick had heard his voice. He could usually discern sincerity in a human’s tone, especially one who thought he was alone. Guzman, he sensed, was genuinely grateful that his life had been spared.
So what if, for a split second, the subject had seen him? So far as this part of his assignment was concerned, Nick had succeeded. He’d protected the drug lord from death. And according to Lena, Carlito Guzman would go on to do great things if given the chance.
Imagine, feeling happy for a drug lord! But saving a life rather than watching it end? That was refreshing. And judging by the look on this young man’s face, Nick sensed that something wonderful was happening within him.
This felt good.
34
HOPE MATHESON WOULD BE AWAKE by now. Having muddied the waters, Nick wasn’t exactly sure what he ought to do about her. For now, better teleport back to the Broadmore. But as soon as he focused on the hotel, a dull throb started in his head.
Worse, the pain intensified every time he tried to teleport.
Most annoying.
Never mind, I’ll fly.
A murder of crows blackened the sky as they flew overhead heading northwest towards La Jolla. He’d have to fly in the same direction to get to his suicidal subject. Judging by the sun’s height over the eastern horizon, he’d better hurry.
By human standards, traveling from Mission Valley to La Jolla in ninety seconds would be extremely fast. But compared to teleportation, the trip had seemed interminable. Now, holding two shopping bags full of women’s clothing, size 8, he stood in the Broadmore’s lobby shrouded from physical sight and paused to think. Wouldn’t it be more enjoyable for Hope if the clothes appeared magically before her eyes?
Yet when he recalled the one time he’d tried something like that, how it worked, where it ultimately ended, he heard sounds from London at the turn of the 20th century. The squeal of metal, the screaming train whistle—
No. He’d vowed never to allow himself to go down that path again. And he had an assignment to complete.
With the snap of his fingers, Nick sent the shopping bags into what he called the oblivion locker, within which he could store physical items in an inter-dimensional state of limbo, to be retrieved at any moment.
He went to the elevator. He’d have to do something drastic to push Hope over the edge. But it just didn’t seem right.
Something about her…
Stop it! Were those feelings not the very ones that set him on the path to that fateful day in Victoria Station?
When he reached the third floor, he stepped out of the elevator and started the long walk down the hallway toward room 310. Sunlight flooded the end of the corridor, so brilliant that Nick had to cover his eyes for a moment. Yet another odd physical sensation he couldn’t remember dealing with before.
When he opened them he thought he saw something floating around the door to Hope’s room. It resembled a shadow that could not possibly co-exist with all that bright sunlight. But every time Nick blinked, it disappeared—only to reappear a few moments later.
The dark vapor.
It made him uneasy, though for several millennia it had never done anything other than hang about, as though watching to see what he would do in a situation where his choices were unclear.
But at this point Nick was fairly certain what he would do.
He’d waited all this time for a promotion and wasn’t about to let the weakness of human-based emotions cloud his judgment again. At least, that’s what he kept telling himself. A part of him felt differently. And that part seemed to be telling him not to do this. It was sort of like that doctors’ oath—First do no harm.
But Hippocrates was a mere human with a limited perspective.
Nick stepped up to the door—right into the dark cloud.
Which to his surprise changed into a white vapor that rushed past him, sending a refreshing mist onto his face, and went straight through the huge glass window at the end of the hall.
That sort of thing had never happened before.
But it didn’t matter. He had an assignment to complete and had already lost too much ground.
He knocked on the door of room 310. When he got no answer after several tries, he placed his ear against its smooth painted surface and listened.
No sound.
35
THE DOOR WAS LOCKED. He’d have to pass through. It used to be simple, but lately, passing through solid material felt like rubbing against sandpaper. He’d started managing it faster to shorten the pain of scraping between the physical and spiritual layers, but the benefit was small and in any case cancelled out by the fact that the pain kept escalating.
This time it felt as though his skin was peeling off, all over his body. The pain was so intense he could barely think. But finally, he passed through into the room.
Teleportation was so much simpler.
Wrapped in a white terrycloth robe, Hope sat on the bed, facing the window. In her open palm lay a pile of pills. A capsized bottle lay on the bed with its top off, more pills spilling out onto the sheets. A large bottle of Arrowhead Water stood on the nightstand.
It was the first time he’d seen her bathed and out of her filthy clothes—he wouldn’t have known her. Her wavy hair flowed just past her shoulders and glowed in the sunlight. The very sight of her eased Nick’s still painful skin to the point that he forgot about it.
But he couldn’t forget that the beauty of a mortal had once nearly destroyed him. And he could hear Lena telling him, You’ve got till midnight to persuade her.
Somehow, Hope had managed to get hold of pills that were about to make his job incredibly easy for him. Which didn’t make him feel any better. It made him feel something close to the despair on this beautiful young woman’s face.
You’re not causing her death. It’s her own doing. You’re just keeping her on track.
Right. Just think of how many you’re saving by simply nudging her to do what she’s going to do anyway. She must really be dangerous—there were no guardian angels protecting her or trying to convince her not to go through with it.
Hope let out a heavy sigh. She didn’t seem like the kind of homeless person who talked to herself—there was too much clarity in her eyes—so Nick prepared to listen in on her thoughts. Thoughts he’d have to collude with in order to encourage her to go through with it and swallow the pills.
Thoughts, as it turned out, he’d never heard nor heard of in the thousands of years he’d roamed the earth.
36
PERCEIVING THE SPIRITUAL REALM IS NOT for the faint of heart.
Even if you’re an angel.
But for a human unequipped and unprepared, the lifting of the veil that separates the two realms can cause sheer madness. Nick had witnessed this first-hand in England. The very recollection was like ripping open an old wound.