Matt Hilton - Judgement and Wrath

'Tell me about it.'

Harvey turned back to Marianne. He touched the shoulder of the Kevlar vest. 'Come on, girl. Let's get you inside and out of that fashion disaster, huh?'

The motel was the type that has a stand-alone reception with rooms located in adjacent wings. It was constructed like a loose crescent, the parking lot nearest the road, then the grassed area with the faux-totem pole, and the rooms curving round on either side. Harvey had rented the room furthest away on the right-hand horn.

It was a standard room in a standard motel. Twin beds. Couple of chairs. A desk. A credenza with a pay-per-view TV sitting on top of it. Instructions for dialling up porn on a card on the wall. Harvey's laptop computer was plugged into a socket on the wall and was resting half-open on top of the nearest bed. A partly open door on the left showed a glimpse of a standard bathroom. Marianne's eyes widened, but then a shadow crossed over them.

'I've checked it out,' Harvey told Marianne. 'No creepy-crawlies. Shower's hot and the towels are clean. Why don't you go ahead? Make you feel better.'

Marianne agreed with a slight nod of her head, then walked towards the bathroom, tugging at the straps of the vest. She dumped the heavy vest by the open door, then slipped inside. I heard the locks engaging. Not that she'd need them with us there, but it made sense. She was shutting out the horror of the last couple of days. I suppose that we were as much a reminder of that horror as anything else that had happened.

The shower went on.

Harvey closed the door to the outside.

'Got anything for us, Harvey?'

He picked up a bag, delved inside it and tossed me a tube of antiseptic cream. 'That for starters,' he said. Then going over to the laptop he pushed open the screen and tapped a few buttons. 'Plus this.'

There was a profile photograph of a fat man on the screen. Then a portrait. Then a profile from the opposite side. Police mugshots, all of the same man. He had dark hair in sweaty fringe on his forehead. His jowls were blotchy with broken veins, and his eyes were the type you normally see on bloodhounds. He was smiling, but it was just bravado for the camera. His eyes weren't smiling. They were fearful.

'Dead for a start,' said Harvey. 'He's one of the guys shot dead inside Petre Jorgenson's house.'

'Got a name for him?'

'Gabriel Wellborn. Goes by Gabe. Not the kind of character you'd normally expect to move in the same circles as the Jorgensons.' He held his hand at shoulder height. 'On the social ladder, the Jorgensons rate a nine.' He dropped his hand way down. 'Gabe Wellborn scores a minus two if he's lucky.'

'So what's his deal?'

'Officially? He has a web design business. Small potatoes, not so many clients. Just a front, if you ask me.'

I nodded. 'Unofficially?'

'Go getter.'

I didn't catch his meaning. Not at first. Then I said, 'Go get me this, go get me that?'

'Yeah,' Harvey said. 'You want something, Gabe's your man. Particularly if the thing you want is illegal. Guns, drugs, underage sex… you know his type.'

'Maybe there is an argument for justifiable homicide. Pleased to hear he's dead,' I said. Then, 'These things he gets for people, does that include killers for hire?'

'Unconfirmed rumour. But, yeah. He's been on and off the FBI radar for years, but they haven't been able to make anything stick. He recruits through these soldier of fortune sites that have sprung up all over the web. Takes on mercenaries who are after a quick buck. Very discreet operation. All coded to protect their anonymity. Works for anyone who can pay, not just a select clientele.'

'How is his operation run?'

'I spoke to an FBI contact. It's only a theory of theirs, and up until now they've been unable to prove it. It's so simple it goes way beyond sophisticated.'

'Usually the way. Hide in plain sight and people don't see what's right under their own noses. So, how is he doing it?'

'All via the web. Untraceable URLs are used. Hosting by ex-Eastern Bloc companies. Firewalls that would rival Homeland Security. Until now, the FBI have been unable to crack it. His employees use disposable cell phones with internet connections to keep in touch. Gabe gives them their instructions under the guise of a fantasy role playing game based upon the war between heaven and hell.'

My snort of derision was like the air brakes on a taut-liner. 'And he's the Archangel Gabriel, no doubt?'

Harvey smiled. 'Got it in one. But what about the others?'

'Named after the fallen angels?'

Harvey patted me on the shoulder. 'See, I knew there was a reason Rink took you on as his business partner.'

'Got a name for the shooter yet?'

'Nope. But I got this.' He started pressing keys on the laptop. The screen changed to a list of names. They were all picked out in magenta, underlined. Shortcuts to web pages, I guessed. Alphabetical, beginning with Amdusias and ending with Zagan. Weird names from a forgotten language or a cheap sci-fi movie. There were eighteen names in all.

'Names of all the fallen angels?'

'Not all,' Harvey said. 'There are many more than this. I lifted this list from the FBI. These are all names assumed by the players in Gabe Wellborn's game.'

'So we could be up against this many shooters?' I asked.

Harvey shook his head. 'No. You don't have to worry. Only one of these assholes has been active in the recent months.'

With a manicured fingernail he tapped the screen.

'Dantalion?' The name tasted like bile in the back of my throat. 'What do we know about him?'

Harvey double tapped the blue line under the name and the computer flickered between screens. First came words written in flame. They said:

The seventy-first spirit is Dantalion. He is a great and mighty duke, who governs thirty-six legions of spirits. He appears in the form of a man with many countenances, all men's and all women's faces. Dantalion knows the thoughts of all men and women, and can change them at will.

Next, I saw a stylised painting of a man in a long white coat. His skin was white and he had flowing white hair. He held an open book in one palm and a sword in the other. I stared at the face. Androgynous, it could have been male or female. Beautiful but cruel. The eyes were like slivers of arctic ice.

I'd seen that creature before. Not so beautiful, but even more evil. Right now it was lying at the bottom of the sea with a Lincoln sedan as its tomb.

Or that was my hope.

First came weightlessness as the Lincoln fell through space.

Then a crushing force as it slammed into the water.

Next came pain.

Hopelessness.

Bubbles frothing, red flashes across his vision.

Weightlessness again as he sank.

And blackness.

The blackness was complete.

Then there were bubbles again and the taste of salt on his tongue. Not salt from the sea but salt from his blood. Sanguinary and bitter, like sucking on a copper spoon.

He tried to move. But the weight of the world was on his shoulders, like Atlas of the fables. No, not the world, just the roof of the Lincoln. But it felt as heavy as the planet.

He blinked, trying to make sense of his thoughts. Now there was salt water and it made his weak eyes smart. He rubbed at them, realised that he was fully submerged, and gave up. Instead he groped for something tangible to hold on to. He found a circular bar, his confused mind eventually recognising it as the steering wheel of the car he was trapped within. The steering wheel was below him, almost at his knees. It took him a moment to realise that the car was standing up on end, nose down. Bubbles raced by through the gloom, and the surroundings were getting darker by the second. The car had not yet come to rest, it was still sinking. The smashed windscreen, the open windows, had allowed the sea to rush in.