“With all your growly, silent, glowering thing… you’re just a big softie, aren’t you?”
Dags frowned.
He didn’t hear that much.
Maybe for the same reason, he didn’t have a good reply.
Chapter 16
Gaslight
Dags did the unthinkable.
He fell asleep.
He only figured that out once he was actually dreaming.
In the dream, he was flying.
He was flying, trying to get out of a high, round, atrium-like space, filled with trees. It felt like someone trapped him inside a crystal ball, or maybe the tropical version of a giant snow globe.
He tried to fly carefully.
He concentrated with everything in him, trying not to crash into the glass. Something about his wings always wanted to move. They wanted to move fast, dive fast, throw all of Dags against the air, against the wind, into the stars, into the sun.
He was Icarus.
He was Icarus, except not.
He saw flaming wings in front of him, beating into ash, green and gold. He thought they were his wings at first. Then she smiled at him, and he felt a pain in his chest, so intensely he could barely breathe. She could see him⏤
He realized he was dreaming.
He was dreaming.
She was here, with him, inside his dream.
She’d followed him, just like she followed him into the bathroom.
He was still watching her flaming wings beat against a night sky, filled with stars, when his mind sharpened more.
Fuck. He was asleep.
He was asleep.
The emotion behind the thought was so intense he stopped beating his wings.
He began to fall.
Wings folded, he fell like a stone, like he was made of iron, or cement.
He plummeted straight for the Earth.
Dags jerked violently, gripping the arms of a leather chair.
It was dark.
His eyes were open, but it was dark in front of him, and to his right.
He was breathing too hard, sweating despite the cold ocean air he could still smell, even inside the house. He turned his head to the left, and saw the massive windows overlooking the Malibu shore. Through the windows, he saw a deep-black sky, covered in stars.
There was still no moon.
He glanced down at the white, leather armchair.
He had a vague memory of moving from the barstool to here, telling himself it was so he could more easily watch and hear the movie Phoenix put on the wall monitor. He told himself he was just going to sit there, watch the movie with part of his mind while he thought through all the materials he’d examined from Phoenix’s stalker with the rest.
He told himself he didn’t move there to be closer to Phoenix.
He never in a million years thought he’d fall asleep.
Dags rubbed his eyes, then his face.
He glanced at the sleeping bodies on the white, circular couch.
Only two lay there now. Karver must have gone to bed.
Dags’ eyes adjusted well enough in the ambient light, he could see Asia and Phoenix’s faces almost clearly. Most of that light came from the wall of glass, the stars and ocean outside. The fire pit had been extinguished, likely by Veronica or one of the security guys.
Dags considered wandering into the kitchen, looking for something to drink. Coffee maybe. Maybe something with sugar, something that might wake him up.
Really, given everything, he could have used a beer.
Dags didn’t do alcohol though, not anymore. Not because he didn’t want to drink alcohol, especially some nights. Alcohol was out, the way falling asleep in strangers’ homes was out, the way picking up guns was out, the way living in an apartment with no windows was in.
It was against the rules.
Still, some nights, those rules were damned hard to follow.
Leaning his head back on the chair’s leather cushion, he stared up at the high ceiling, and a domed skylight he hadn’t noticed until now.
Maybe that’s where the weird snow globe dream came from.
This place, with its miles and miles of glass, really was his idea of a nightmare.
He fought to think through everything that happened over the last forty-eight hours. His mind wanted to order it, to arrange all the details into some kind of photograph, some image that made the slightest bit of sense⏤but it all felt like a disjointed pile of puzzle pieces, all of them painted white, empty of detail apart from their different shapes.
None of them wanted to form any picture at all.
None of them wanted to come together into a coherent whole.
Dags felt strongly there was a pattern there, however.
He clenched his jaw, gazing unseeingly at the stars visible through the skylight, fighting to make it make sense.
He thought about Jason Tig.
He remembered the soft, gentle aura he’d seen right before Jason Tig collapsed onto the stone tile of his apartment floor. Whoever that man was, he hadn’t deserved what happened to him. Dags didn’t know why the demons singled him out, or even how he’d died exactly, but Tig’s whole involvement in this struck Dags as exceedingly unfair.
That man deserved some justice.
Thinking about that, Dags sat up enough to tug his phone out of his back pocket, wondering if Kara ever got back to him about the cause of death.
He’d asked her to let him know.
He saw a new text from her, from a few hours earlier, and opened it up.
Heart attack, it read simply. Coroner looked at his medical records. Said it was likely a preexisting thing. He was being treated for diabetes and high blood pressure.
Dags frowned.
He typed in, They ever find a connection to Asia Jackson? Anything in either apartment? Anything from the interviews you conducted with studio reps?
He didn’t expect an answer until tomorrow.
He was surprised when a text popped up almost immediately.
No connections to Asia, no, it read.
Another text popped up a second later.
He was the stunt coordinator on Phoenix X’s upcoming action film. He bailed on a planning meeting that was supposed to happen earlier this week.
Dags frowned.
He typed in, So Phoenix might know him?
It’s possible, Kara wrote back. She probably met him, or saw him around, at least. Did you show her any photos?
Dags frowned, typing back. No. I’ll do it tomorrow.
There was a pause, then more words appeared.
Why don’t you just ask your new movie star girlfriend? Kara wrote, adding a smirking yellow face after the words. They’re roommates, right?
Dags rolled his eyes.
Hitting his phone screen off, he shoved it into his back pocket, exhaling. Leaning his head back on the chair cushion, he gazed up at the stars, once more contemplating a trip to the kitchen to see if he could figure out their espresso maker⏤
He heard a sound.
It came from behind him. On the stairs.
Dags was on his feet before the thought fully penetrated.
He leapt out of the leather chair so that he half-faced the circular couch, arms tensed and held out from his body. He was already halfway in a fighting stance as he fought to see through the dark. Three times.
That was three times someone had snuck up on him in the last two days.
A man stood there, on the stairs.
He didn’t move.
Dags gauged the shape of the shadowy outline, and frowned.
“Karver?” he said, wary. “Is that you?”
In that part of the stairwell, the shadows were deep; Dags couldn’t see his face, only his height and rough outline. The other man’s body made a deep black slash over the lighter-colored stone of the stairs.
He stood between Dags and the front door.
He also stood between the upper and the ground levels to the house.
&nb
sp; “Karver?” Dags said, his voice still wary. “Wake up, buddy. I think you’re sleep-walking.”
Silence.
The man standing there swayed lightly on his feet.
Otherwise, he didn’t move.
Dags glanced at the enormous, round couch. His eyes found Phoenix first; she lay in the same position as when he’d last looked over, curled up and pressed into a curve of the white leather. Dags stared a few seconds longer, making sure, tracing out her distinctive features in the dark, the pale green tank top she wore over white sweat pants.
He couldn’t see her aura.
She looked okay, though.
He glanced at Asia next, noted her aura, the shape of her body under the fluffy white blanket, her black hair half-covering her face. She was okay. Fast asleep.
Dags looked back at the man on the stairs.
“Karver,” he said, sharper. “Wake up. You’re asleep⏤”
“Karver isn’t home right now,” the man said, his words a smile.
Dags flinched.
The voice was Karver’s, but something was definitely wrong with it.
Dags focused on the aura of the man in front of him, studying it for the first time since he’d first noticed him on the stairs.
Once he had, he felt his skin go cold.
Damn it. How the hell had a demon found him here?
Still, the tell-tales were undeniable.
Black wisps of bad-smelling light coiled around the man’s auric cloud, strangling it, turning it purple-black, like a psychic bruise. Silver and red flashes sparked, like a small lightning storm inside those clouds, giving the aura a specific kind of electrical charge that Dags had never seen on anything but a demon.
All of it made his nose twitch.
When he focused on the aura of someone inhabited by a demon, Dags could literally smell it on them. It couldn’t possibly be a physical smell; Dags never noticed it until he was looking at the person’s aura. Once he zeroed in on that frequency, however, the odor came through so intensely it overpowered his senses, making him grimace and recoil.
Rot. Decay.
Open sewage.
Whoever stood there, they definitely had a demon inside them.
The man smiled.
Dags heard it as much as he saw the flash of too-white teeth.
“You don’t mind if I take this one, do you?” The voice was low, thick, a guttural near-whisper. “You didn’t like him very much anyway. We could even consider it a favor.”
Dags still somehow heard Karver’s voice, inside that thing.
The man smiled wider, flashing more of those white teeth in an empty face.
“It would be convenient, would it not?” the demon taunted. “I take him. Leave her with you. All that juicy female-ness, all for you. You can fuck her whenever you want. Everyone wins.” The demon paused. “Well. Not him, I suppose.”
That smile slid wider as the demon motioned delicately with one hand.
“But we don’t like him anyway. Do we, angel?”
“That’s not going to work for me,” Dags growled.
Dags’ voice sounded unnaturally loud in the high-ceilinged room.
The other man’s smile didn’t falter.
“Really?” the demon said. “Brother, I thought you would jump at the chance⏤”
“No,” Dags cut in, his voice harder.
The demon smiled knowingly through the dark.
“Let him go,” Dags warned. “If I have to do it for you, you’ll like it a lot less.”
The demon shrugged.
“If I leave this one, I only take another.” Its voice came out bored, yet strangely reasonable. “Why not let me keep this one for a while? If I take another, you won’t know that body. You won’t know what it’s doing, or how to find me. This way, you can follow me all day, if you like, brother. And all night.”
The demon paused.
“Would you really rather I harm another person, instead of this one?” it said. “Perhaps you’d rather I find one more like Jason. Poor, sad, sorry Jason, living alone with his dog⏤”
“What do you want?” Dags cut in. “Why are you targeting these particular humans?”
“Who says we are?”
“I do,” Dags growled. “I say it.”
“That sounds like your issue, Megedagik. Not mine.”
The demon smiled.
“No,” Dags growled.
His eyes darted to the couch when Phoenix stirred.
She shifted her weight around uncomfortably on the couch cushions, frowning, like their voices had disturbed her sleep. She resettled on her side as Dags watched, a faint hardness still on her lips, her eyes closed. Dags checked the other side of the couch, looking for Asia, and saw her curled up in a ball under that fluffy, faux-fur blanket.
He checked the telltale wisps of her pink and violet aura, then looked away.
His jaw clenched as he faced the demon.
“No,” he repeated.
The demon smirked.
“You can’t have him,” Dags said, louder. “You can’t have any of them. I don’t know what you want, why you came here, but you need to leave.”
“You know what I want, angel.”
“No,” Dags said, annoyed, in spite of himself. “I don’t. I don’t much give a shit either, if you want the truth. But if this is about me, we’ll do it another night. If this is some twisted way to get my attention, then fine. You got it. Now leave these people alone. They have nothing to do with this. They have nothing to do with what I’ve been doing.”
“What you’ve been doing?” The voice hardened perceptibly. “You mean harming my friends, for the mere fact of existing?”
“Existing?” Dags let out a grunt in spite of himself. “Maybe your friends had better figure out a way to ‘exist’ that doesn’t involve stealing the bodies of human beings. Or causing all manner of shit once they’re inside those stolen bodies⏤”
“We can only be what we are⏤” the demon began.
“What you are is a problem, friend,” Dags growled. “I can only be what I am, too. Maybe take a hint and stop coming here, if that’s the only way you can exist on my world.”
Dags frowned, nodding towards the shadowy form.
“Leave the douchebag you’re currently possessing behind on your way out. I may not like him, but I’m going to get damned cranky if you try to leave with him.”
The demon’s smile remained on its face, unmoving.
The slash of darkness didn’t move.
“Leave,” Dags growled, relaxing his hold on his angelic blue and green flame, just enough that some of that current reached his voice. “I won’t tell you again⏤”
The demon laughed, breaking into his words.
“Unbelievable,” the demon sneered. “This really isn’t an act, is it? You really are this stupid and clueless.” The shadowy figure flashed another smile, amusement coloring its words. “Why do any of you come down here? You really are so astonishingly out of your depth. If you didn’t get all that help from the worlds beyond, you’d probably simply lie down and die within a few days. Even with all that hand-holding, you’re like infants, really.”
Dags felt his jaw harden.
He could feel himself growing genuinely confused, even around his anger.
Worse, he knew that’s exactly what the demon wanted.
They were a bunch of gaslighting assholes.
“Poor fucker,” the demon said, shaking its head. “Poor, pious, kneeling fucker. All of the weaknesses of them, none of their strengths. Truly, I might even be moved to help you… if only out of pity.” He tapped the back of one wrist with a finger. “Unfortunately, brother, I have a schedule to keep. So we’ll have to save the lessons for another day.”
Dags’s jaw started to hurt.
He realized it was from clenching it.
He wanted to ask the demon what it was talking about, but he knew that’s what it wanted. He also knew it wouldn’t tell him anything⏤nothing D
ags actually wanted to know.
“Who are you?” Dags blurted anyway, despite everything he’d just thought. “Why did you kill Jason Tig? What do you want with Phoenix? With Asia? With me?”
The demon smiled.
Dags practically felt the satisfaction in that smile.
“I am no one, Megedagik,” the demon said, holding up its hands. “I’m just the welcome wagon. The writing on the wall. My purpose here may even be redundant at this point. After all, you’re likely to do my job for me… now that you’ve found her. You may not even be able to help yourself.”
Dags felt his molars grind together.
Normally, he didn’t screw around trying to talk to these damned things.
He’d learned early on what a complete and utter waste of time that was.
Then again, he’d never encountered demons with any kind of real agenda before. He’d certainly never run into a group of demons that appeared to be working together.
The shadowy man seemed to note his indecision.
It laughed⏤that same, low, dark-feeling laugh.
“You poor bastard,” the demon said, shaking its head. Its voice dripped with mock-sympathy. “I can almost hear those rusted gears grinding together. Trying to come up with a clever thought. Trying to understand.”
Dags felt the blue-green angel fire coil and flare in his chest.
Some part of him increasingly didn’t care about their damned agenda.
Some part of him was getting angry.
Once that happened, Dags didn’t think.
He just leapt.
Chapter 17
Bad Ideas
The other man moved, like liquid smoke.
He moved faster than Jason Tig had moved in that alley.
He moved faster than any human Dags had ever seen.
The shadowy form darted sideways and down.
It slid under Dags’ leap, even as Dags closed the distance between them, opening up the clenched fist he held around the light that lived inside him, what he’d dubbed “angel fire,” for want of a better name. The blue-green, lightning-like charge seemed to live in the center of his chest, just barely below the surface.
Like with everything else that was different in Dags since the Change, the trick wasn’t forcing it out when he needed it.
I, Angel Page 14