entered the first tall building he encountered and walked right up to a man behind a desk who had just finished speaking to someone else. Raziel requested from him a map showing longitude and latitude.
“Sorry, friend, don’t have one of those,” replied the man.
Raziel contemplated a moment. “I need the name of the place at longitude seventy-nine point twenty-three, latitude forty-three point thirty-nine.”
The man cocked his head and studied Raziel for a moment. “Suppose I could look it up for you on the internet, if you’re a hotel guest. Are you?”
“Yes,” Raziel said, assuming that was what the man wanted to hear. He thought again how much the world had moved on, and wondered what an internet was.
“Write it down for me and I’ll see what I can do.”
Raziel used the self-inking pen and parchment the man provided to record the coordinates then handed the paper back. The man checked the numbers and then moved his fingers along a series of buttons and studied a screen.
“Okay. Here we go. Longitude seventy-nine point twenty-three, latitude forty-three point thirty-nine is Toronto, Canada.”
“How would one get there? Quickly, that is. I’m in a hurry.”
The man shot him another of those looks. Then he said, “I can call the airport and book a flight to Toronto for you, but I’ll need your room card first.”
“No, thank you. I’ll take care of it myself.”
Raziel turned and left the hotel. He needed to find something called an airport where he could make arrangements to travel to a place called Toronto, Canada. A small sigh escaped him. The new world was going to take a little getting used to.
He stood outside the main doors of the building and observed yellow motorized carriers that pulled up, let some people off and took others in. Currency was exchanged. He had none.
Raziel went back inside the building and roamed the main level until he spotted a machine from which a man had just extracted currency. He got in line and waited his turn. As he did, he studied the machine and detected its inner workings. By the time he stepped up to it, he was able to use his arcane ability to disarm the security sensor and release the dispensing mechanism. Unsure of how much money would be required to get where he was going, Raziel extracted several hundred of the bills before he stopped the sequence, then stuffed the wad of cash in his trouser pocket and headed back outside.
Raziel spoke to the uniformed man who directed passengers in and out of the carriers and asked for access to one of them. Once inside, the operator turned to him and asked, “Where to?”
“The nearest airport,” Raziel told him.
The man laughed. “Had enough of Vegas, my friend?”
Raziel wasn’t sure what response was required, so he remained silent.
“Got any luggage?”
That he understood. “No. Thank you.”
A second later, the vehicle propelled forward and they whizzed along the crowded street at a high velocity.
Chapter 4
After running for almost an hour in the bitter cold through alleys and backstreets, Justine stopped, convinced she had lost her pursuer some distance back. Her ragged breath materialized in white clouds in front of her face, punctuated by a painful, searing stitch in her side. She rammed her nearly frostbitten hands into the pockets of her heavy pea jacket and looked around, not recognizing the squalid neighborhood she had entered. Up ahead, rising above the other ramshackle constructions on the street, she glimpsed the flickering neon sign of a dingy-looking hotel.
The man in her house tonight had been one of Jared’s, she was sure of it. Jared. The name caused a rush of black emotion to wash over her. The past clamored around her, furiously trying to force its way in. “Not yet,” she whispered to herself, pushing the images aside. First, she had to get to safety, someplace she could think in peace, undisturbed. She looked again at the rundown hotel. The O and T of the neon sign had blacked out, so that it read H EL. Figuring she was indeed about to enter hell, she limped over to the entrance of the decrepit building and pushed through the glass entry door to the lobby.
Stark florescent light glared from the ceiling. From the corner of her eye, she spotted a cockroach skittering across the cracked tile floor in search of refuge. Off to the right was a shabby green couch, its arms so worn the wood showed through, its ripped upholstery daring anyone to sit. The caged registration desk on her left was unattended. From an open doorway beyond it, Justine spied the edge of an old armchair and small table, upon which a half-empty bottle of whisky sat, the amber liquid glowing in the flickering light of a TV.
A sign posted on the enclosure informed her she should ring for service. She punched the bell on the counter and glanced over her shoulder. The man chasing her might run by at any minute and spot her inside.
A moment later, a man emerged from the room beyond and shuffled over to the counter. He was rail-thin with pock-marked skin, long greasy hair and a face only a stone-blind mother could love.
“How much for the night?” Justine asked, realizing she did not know if she had enough cash on her to pay for a room. She’d grabbed some money from the dresser before leaving for dinner with Edmond earlier and, hoping she had enough, yanked out some bills from the pocket of her jeans.
“Thirty’ll do it,” Greasy Hair responded.
The strong odor of alcohol on the man’s breath caused her to back up a bit. She counted the money—two twenties, a ten and two fives, she was relieved to see—extracted a twenty and a ten, and stuffed the rest back into her pocket.
When she slid the notes through the opening, the man leered at her in a way that made her skin crawl. “Just gimme the key,” she snapped.
Resentment crossed his features, which did nothing to improve his looks. He turned and grabbed a key attached to a wooden slat with the numbers 827 on it. “Eighth floor. Elevator’s not working. You can take the stairs.”
Certain he had plenty of rooms available on the lower floors—the place wasn’t exactly overrun with customers—she was tempted to reach through the opening and grab him by his scrawny neck. She could kill him if she chose to, and the knowledge caused her irritation to abate a little. She picked up the key and, flicking him a look that would incinerate a rat at ten feet, glanced around for the stairwell. It was in the corner, next to the furniture that didn’t want to be sat on.
Up on the eighth floor, she walked to the end of the hallway and stood in front of the door marked 827. One of the numbers had come unhinged and hung upside down. She stared at it for a moment. It looked much the same way she felt. After entering, she took the precaution of turning the lock and sliding the deadbolt into place, even though the door looked as if a good draft would probably knock it down.
The room consisted of a double bed with a lumpy mattress, a scratched wooden end table sporting a lamp with a skewed shade and a splintery old dresser, which was further maligned by a cracked mirror that hung over it.
The place reeked of sweat and sex. The blue carpeting was worn through in places and covered in stains, the origins of which she did her best not to
