LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA
He didn’t find the house as easily as he would have liked.
Remembering what Zack had told Jenna that first night, that he and his friends were “crashing at a place up in Burbank,” Michael had stolen a Buick convertible and hit the freeway.
Unfortunately, Burbank, a sprawling suburb in the San Fernando Valley, boasted a population of more than a hundred thousand, and traveling from one neighborhood to the next playing a potentially fruitless game of Where’s Jenna was a time-consuming process.
He supposed he could have used another means of travel-a means he and his brethren were accustomed to-but his first attempt since he’d acquired this skin had been an unqualified failure, and he knew that for the time being it was best to stick to the laws of this world for fear he might weaken himself unnecessarily.
His skills would return in time.
Finding the house was a thankless task, but Michael had not prevailed against Belial and her friends these last several centuries by giving up easily. His one advantage was that Jenna’s song still hummed faintly in his chest, fading in and out like distant radio signal, and his only solution was to keep moving block to block, house to house, in hopes that he’d eventually find her again.
He worked slowly and methodically through the night-a game of hot and cold-backtracking when necessary. And by early the next morning he found a run-down house on the outskirts of the city and instinctively knew that it was the right place.
There was no sign of the battered Chevy Malibu in the driveway, however. And the house itself-an abandoned rental with an overgrown yard-looked empty.
They’d been here and gone.
Disheartened, Michael found the back door unlocked and went inside. The kitchen was a disaster that smelled of rancid milk. The living room was filthy and devoid of furniture. Crude graffiti was spray-painted on the walls. The stained carpet was littered with pizza boxes and burger bags, and there were several ratty blankets on the floor, along with enough discarded needles and drug paraphernalia to stock a small medical clinic.
The thought that Jenna had slept in such squalor (if she’d slept at all) deepened Michael’s depression. He had a hard time believing that such an innocent girl could be so easily seduced by Zack’s oily charm. But maybe that innocence had been a figment of his imagination. Maybe he’d been romanticizing the girl because of who she was and what she meant to him. Maybe she was no different from the countless other runaways who had found their way to this sadly corrupted town.
Her song had grown weaker than ever now, only its residue remaining, and he had no idea why the signal was dying.
But he couldn’t give up. Not now. Not ever.
Taking a last look around, he was about to head outside when he heard a soft moan, coming from the down the hall.
Jenna?
Feeling his heart kick up, he crashed through the hallway, moving from bedroom to bedroom. In the corner of the master was an open bathroom door.
He stepped inside and froze.
There was a petite teenage girl lying faceup in the tub, her head canted, a string of vomit running down her chin, a syringe still stuck in her bruised, needle-marked arm.
Not Jenna, but her girlfriend from the cafe.
Michael quickly moved to her and sat her upright, slapping her face to wake her up. But she didn’t respond. He felt for a pulse, but it was barely there and he knew it was too late. The girl would be dead before he could get help.
Something sour churned in his gut, and all he could think was that this could easily have been Jenna.
Placing his palm against her forehead, he blessed her and sent up a silent prayer. It was a formality more than anything else, but he hoped it meant something to someone out there and that this poor girl’s soul would do well in the otherworld.
As her pulse finally came to a stop, he glanced down at her hand and noticed a mark on the back of it, just above the crook of her thumb.
A faded stamp of some kind.
Lifting the hand, he tilted it toward the light from the doorway and took a closer look:
An orange flame. The numbers 904 below it.
He recognized it: an underground dance club named 904, near La Brea and Wilshire, that had derived its name from the local police code for fire. It was rumored to be owned by a media mogul named Jonathan Beel.
Beel, of course, was just a skin. A shell. Occupied by Michael’s old friend and nemesis-brother to Lucifer, and sometime lover of Belial.
Beelzebub.
Michael had never been to the club, had never had the desire to walk right into the lion’s den. But he knew now that he had no choice.
He was certain he’d find Jenna there.