The Taken by Vicki Pettersson Read Free Book Online Page B

here.”
    But he didn’t follow as Grif headed back around the side of the building, and Jimmy was right where he left him, seemingly passed out, though his head lifted when Grif stopped in front of him. “Here.”
    But it was Sarge’s misty, marbled gaze staring out at him from the mortal flesh. Grif jolted, scalding his flesh with the coffee. “What are you doing? Is he . . . possessed?”
    “It’s easy to control those who have no possession over themselves,” Sarge said. “Now look in his left coat pocket.”
    Grif set down the cups. “Why?”
    “I’m giving you a case.”
    “Another Take?” Grif asked, withdrawing a file folder.
    Jimmy’s expression altered, both hard and sympathetic all at once. “Not a Take. A case. You think you can do my job, Shaw? Make the decisions and sacrifices required of a Pure?”
    What the hell had the Pure ever sacrificed? Grif thought, but Frank didn’t give him the chance to ask. “Open it. Find out more of exactly what it is we do.”
    A black-and-white glossy stared up at him, a rap sheet stapled across from that, but he ignored the vital stats and studied the face. He recognized her immediately, of course. The pretty woman he’d seen from the motel window, though pretty wasn’t a word he’d use to describe her up close. Siren would work, and her baby blues were lit up as if she knew it, and it amused her.
    Cherry-cream lips and sable-hued bangs stood out against pale skin, stark, even in black-and-white. A rose, blood-orange, he imagined, was tucked behind one ear. He glanced over at the name—Katherine Craig—then back at the photo.
    “I don’t get it.”
    Jimmy’s mouth moved. “What’s your job as a Centurion?”
    Grif cleared his throat. “Secure the Take. Clean ’em up. Bring ’em home.”
    Do it respectfully, he added silently. Okay, so he’d learned his lesson.
    But Sarge wasn’t through yet. “And when do you meet your Takes, Shaw?”
    “When they are most traumatized. Immediately after corporeal death.”
    Every Centurion knew that, because that’s why they existed. They were the losers. The few murdered souls that incubation couldn’t cure. Still tethered to the Surface by memory and regret, they were pressed into assisting others to cross into the Everlast. The idea was that helping others would relieve their mental anguish. Then they, too, would be able to enter Paradise proper.
    The bum gave him a tight smile. Grif blinked. For a moment he thought he saw fangs. “Not this one.”
    “Sarge?”
    Frank’s roiling liquid gaze suddenly looked shuttered. “You gotta watch this one, Griffin. See, you might be back on the Surface, back in flesh, but you’re not human. Take away a Centurion’s wings, and all they’re left with is an intimate acquaintance with death.”
    “What does that mean?”
    “It means you can still see death coming. It also means you’re gonna watch that woman die, and you’re going to feel the death as if it were your own.”
    Grif froze. That’s what he was doing here?
    “No.”
    He began to shake his head. He might be a misfit in the celestial realm, but everyone knew the only thing keeping him sane was the protective layer of Everlast that lay between Paradise and the Surface. It was a balm, a numbing cream rubbed atop his sore soul. Flesh would scrub off that balm and expose him. Without it he’d wither.
    But Sarge knew this better than anyone, so all Grif asked was, “Why?”
    “Because you caused it, Shaw.” Now Frank didn’t look angry, vengeful, or cold. He just looked sad. “Katherine Craig is fated to die because of you.”
    Grif’s newfound breath deserted him, but his mind fired fast.
    My best friend is waiting outside . . .
    The siren in the car. The way she’d looked up at him in a way no woman had in over fifty years: as if really seeing him. And the blond man who’d pocketed the Moleskine.
    Whatever Nicole Rockwell had written in it was going to lead the man directly to Katherine