Page 26 of Love Me Darkly
Mateo lunged to meet him, grabbing him by the collar of his shirt and pushing him against the wall of the warehouse. The man broke his hold like he was shrugging off a sweater and then slammed a palm into Mateo’s chest, sending him flying against the opposite wall. Wind knocked from him, Mateo sank to the ground, gasping and clawing at his throbbing sternum. He’d never been hit so hard in his life, and with an open palm at that. Before he could get to his feet, the man had him by the throat. Mateo kicked and twisted, stunned to find that the tips of his toes barely touched the ground. The man shook him like a rag doll and then slammed him against the wall again. His head bounced off the brick, vision going hazy. Forcing a knee between the asshole’s legs, he drew it up, aiming for his softest, most vulnerable parts. The hold on his neck loosened enough for him to suck in a desperately needed breath, but the man merely fell back a few steps with a grunt.
No fucking way.
Mateo ducked just before a fist came at him out of nowhere, registering the impact and sound of bones breaking. The man didn’t whimper or flinch or so much as slow down. He simply shook his battered hand and kept coming, rough snarls and grunts huffing from him like those of a bull.
“You cannot escape the truth,” he snarled. “You cannot escape the light. Azrael sees. He sees all.”
Mateo drew his sidearm and thrust it forward before the man could take another step, pressing the muzzle against his chest. “Yeah? Then that motherfucker can watch me do this.”
He swung the pistol up and clocked the man under his chin, sending him staggering back. Without giving him a chance to recover, Mateo whipped the gun at him again, catching him in the jaw. He spun away and crashed into the brick wall, and Mateo followed. He managed to get an arm around the man’s neck before he could straighten. He locked it in with his opposite hand and held on with every ounce of his strength as the man began to buck and roar. Hands grappled at him, tearing his hair, scratching his face, gouging his neck. But Mateo only grunted and squeezed tighter, wrapping his legs around the man for good measure. He threw himself against the wall, trying to dislodge Mateo. The impact of the brick rattled his teeth and sent a jolt of agony down his lower back and legs, but he wouldn’t let go. To let go would mean death unless he could get to his sidearm, which had fallen somewhere into the shadows. If the guy got his hands on Mateo again, he was a dead man.
“Pass out, you crazy fuck!” Mateo bellowed, the tendons in his neck straining as he went on choking the man out.
It took twice as long as it should have, but the man eventually went down on one knee and then the other, gurgling and wheezing. Mateo held on until the man went limp, then let his body fall into a pile of garbage. Mateo went silent and still long enough to determine that no one had been around to hear or see anything before going for his duffel. Fishing out a flashlight, he crouched over the prone form of his attacker. His head was pounding, and he felt as if he’d just been put through a meat grinder, but adrenaline kept him alert as he swept the light over the man, mentally cataloguing every detail.
White male. Mid-twenties to early thirties. Six foot four or thereabouts. Normal looking enough, even though he’d been drooling and growling like a dog. He’d been practically foaming at the mouth, spittle drying in white clumps at the edges of his lips. Mateo flipped him over to rifle through his back pockets. No wallet, no ID, not even a wad of cash. A sudden thought occurred to him, and Mateo lifted the hem of the man’s black hoodie, dragging it upward until he found what he was looking for. The same tattoo he had seen on the man at Solstice.
“Motherfucker,” he spat, snarling at the prone form.
From the front pocket of the man’s hoodie fell a circular object. Mateo would have missed it if not for the sound it made when it clattered to the pavement. He tried to hold it up and inspect it in the light, but was unable to identify what it could be. It fit in the palm of his hand and was black. Caressing his thumb over it, he found markings—the slashing lines of the pentagram and the notches along the outer circle. The Seal of Azrael. Shoving it in his pocket, he decided to take a better look in the safety of his hotel room.
With no further reason to remain, Mateo scooped up his duffle and made a run for it. Never mind that he was alone in the dark. The need to get as far away from this place as possible seized him. By coming here, he had put himself in a precarious situation. He had thought security of the neighboring warehouse was lax, but hadn’t counted on his suspects having security of their own. Especially not security that could lift a man off the ground with one hand or take a knee to the balls without throwing up his kidneys.
He couldn’t bring himself to regret it, not when the cameras in his duffel carried the proof he had come to collect. There was obviously more at play here, but Mateo couldn’t figure out what that might be if he was dead. So, he high-tailed it to his car and sped off toward his hotel, his heart in his throat the entire way. As he went, he couldn’t ignore the echoing refrain filling his mind corner to corner. The words his attacker had muttered just before striking. Words he had heard once before … on the day of his wife’s death.
Blood and breath.
Mateo’s head snapped up, his hold on Mari’s corpse loosening as he shifted his gaze to the master bathroom doors. Permeating the deep, black pit of his grief came shuffling feet—he was certain of it. Sniffling and swiping at his tear-soaked face with his sleeve, he released Mari and covered her to her chin with the sheet. He took one last look into her open eyes, the hazel orbs staring sightlessly back at him. The honey-toned flecks had been snuffed out, leaving them dark. Dead.
“I’m so sorry, Mari,” he rasped, voice hoarse. “So fucking sorry.”
He used two fingers to lower her eyelids before covering her face.
Gaze narrowing on the bathroom doors, he reached for his sidearm. The sound hadn’t come again, but he knew someone was in that bathroom. The person who had raped, mutilated, and murdered his wife. The person who would, at the end of this, know Mari’s pain. Clenching his jaw, he raised the sidearm, inching forward without bothering to be quiet about it. The UNSUB had heard him wailing and sobbing. He heard each crunch of Mateo’s shoes over the broken shards of a vase. The bastard knew he was coming.
He paused with his hand on the knob, inclining his head and listening. The sound came again, this time unmistakable. Rage overtook him, hot and quick, until he existed only to rip apart whoever stood on the other side of this door. Turning the knob with one quick motion, he kicked the door in and raised his sidearm. With nothing but shadows greeting him, he hesitated to step inside.
He reached for the light switch just within the open doorway. A startling pop and shattering glass preceded a rapid burst of light which quickly faded. Before the light could die away, he registered a dark shape coming at him. Blackness swallowed them. Hands fisted his shirt and yanked him off balance. He struggled and his gun dropped. They went down in a tangle of limbs. Rolled this way and that. He swung his fist, finding soft tissue and bone. The UNSUB struck back harder. So hard that Mateo could swear his jaw had swung off its hinge. They wrestled, bashed against the side of the tub, grunted and grappled for dominance. The UNSUB’s breath was hot and harsh against his neck, the deranged whisperings of a lunatic.
“Blood and breath … Blood and breath … Blood and breath.”
A heavy weight pressed against Mateo’s chest, grinding him into the floor. The whisper of air and the instinct to move his head at the very last second. Something bit his ear, sharp and sudden.
A knife … the asshole had nearly taken his ear off with a knife.
He roared, hopelessly pinned beneath a man who seemed to have a slight build while possessing the strength of ten. The knife struck again, between his ribs. Then again and again and again. His shoulder, his chest, his abdomen. He writhed and fought for breath. Liquid fire poured through his lungs. The coppery tang of blood overwhelmed every other sense. He fought but grew feeble, his blows ineffective against the knee caving in his sternum. The sawing breaths of the UNSUB stilled. The knife clattered to the tiles and the weight on his chest eased. Mateo swam in a river of his own blood, every precious breath coming shorter and harsher.
The darkness grew heavier, as oppressive as the knee pinning his chest had been.
“I …. I …”
A flood of copper. He turned his head. Spat a mouthful of blood.
The UNSUB loomed over him, a presence unseen but felt. The rasping voice reached out to him from the void. “You what, Agent?”
“I … will … I will …”
“Die, Agent. Continue pursuing me and you will die, as will the very last thing you hold dear.”
