by Slade, Jessa
Archer looked down at the black-and-white surveillance photo embedded in the text, the arch glance, the set of that fine-boned jaw. “Maybe.”
He wondered why she’d chosen a job surrounded by the dying. Mama’s abandonment hadn’t been painful enough?
He’d told himself her past didn’t matter, but the demon had voiced her wound when it said she was alone. How cruel then, the only companionship available to her now was a ragged band of misfit soldiers stalked by shadows and doomed to damnation.
“Bookie included a footnote,” Zane said. “Turns out, female talyan may have once matched us in number. Bookie said a postscript from before the creation of the leagues references the catastrophic loss of the mated-talyan bond. The provenance on the note can’t be verified—it was written just this side of antiquity—so established league archives have squat about it.”
A demon-ridden couple, each missing half their soul . . . Archer’s lips twisted. A Hallmark movie it wasn’t.
“Anyway.” Zane cleared his throat. “Some light reading while you babysit the demon’s ascension. Ecco finished securing her apartment. When are you heading over?”
“When she calls me.”
Zane sat back. “I know I’m the new guy and all, but do you always play so close to the chest?”
Archer closed the folder on the picture, which replaced the static monochrome with his memory of bright searching hazel eyes, a high flush across pale skin. He knew better than to be drawn to her. Her light was only a lonely traveler’s campfire in the wilderness to the wolf in him. Such attraction never ended well for the traveler.
He hadn’t lied to Niall when he said he’d purged his Southern gentlemanly charm. That had died with everything else. The quickening in his blood at her scent had been the thrill of the chase, the hard breathing of the scuffle, the raw intimacy of her hands over his wound. The destroyer he’d become roused to the danger of her, nothing more.
Archer rose and gathered the coffee cups, hers with just the candy scent of butterscotch and a ring where the whipped cream had been. “We don’t know which strain of demon possessed her—one of ours or one of theirs. We won’t know until the mark manifests. I’ll be there when it does.”
“And if it’s not what you want to see?”
Archer dumped the trash. “Then that’s one more demon wishing it were back in hell.”
CHAPTER 4
Lost in thoughts by turns too crazy or awful to indulge, Sera didn’t turn when the town car honked, but the driver leaning out the window stopped her with a wave.
“I’m your ride,” he said. “Guy upstairs said to take you wherever you wanted to go.”
She crumpled the business card in her fist. She was tired of feeling like she was being taken for a ride. “No thanks.”
Dark glasses hid the driver’s eyes, an unnecessary affectation on such a gloomy day. “Hey, I’m already paid for.” He leaned a little farther out, exposing the tattoo curling around the side of his neck.
She backed away. “I said no.”
She’d checked her pockets on the way down from the atrium. As blackout fugues went, at least this one hadn’t been terribly inconvenient. She’d lost time and memory, but she’d remembered her house keys. She supposed she could plunge a key through one of those dark lenses and see if the eye behind was brown or blue or green . . . or white.
As if he sensed the spike of violence in her, he eased back into the car and sped away.
Lots of people had tattoos, she told herself. The car squealed around a corner, out of sight, but not out of mind. Emblazoned in her memory was the same sort of archaic, arcane symbol on the man she’d left inside: Ferris Archer.
She glanced back uneasily. Questions followed close on her heels, seething and maddening and ridiculous as rabid Chihuahuas. He’d teased her that she’d come up with conspiracy theories, as if that would make more sense than legions of demons and idiopathic perpetual whatever forces and penance triggers.
Okay, a conspiracy was sounding pretty good right now.
She shivered as the cold penetrated her uncertainty. She’d ended her postaccident counseling sessions with a colleague when they’d taken her father away. Maybe she needed to rethink her impatient proclamations of health.
Even as she swore to make the next available appointment, she realized she’d walked all the way home and climbed the stairs to her apartment without cane or pain.
She stopped with her hand on the doorknob. She tilted forward to press her brow against the wood.
What was happening to her?
She prowled through her apartment as if she’d never been there, but nothing seemed out of place, nothing suggested a reason for her . . . lapse. A quick check of the television told her she’d lost only a day. She sat on the couch and rubbed her hands over her thighs, frowning absently down the dark hallway toward the bathroom.
That’s where it had started, the peculiar, erotically charged dream about the man—the demon Ferris Archer. Her mind stuttered like a fingerprint-smudged CD, skipping and repeating, and she found herself standing in the bathroom doorway.
She flicked on the light. In front of the mirror, she reluctantly raised her gaze above the opalescent stone dangling from the fixture. Still just herself. No one else. She shook her head in an attempt to dispel the mist gathering in her mind. No one else in the sense that she wasn’t anyone besides who she’d always been; not that no one else was standing beside her. Who else would be here, after all?
In an effort of will she banished the image of Ferris Archer that appeared in her head, if not in her mirror. Just because he was tall and ripped and carried himself as if he could stop a speeding SUV with a single scathing comment was no reason to buy into his delusional fantasies.
As if reluctant to do the job alone, her fingers were slow on the buttons of her shirt and the fly of her jeans. Finally, shirt hanging open between her breasts, she peeled down the jeans. She stepped out of the pool of denim and raised her gaze to the mirror.
Gone. Her breath caught. Almost gone anyway. Once red and puckered, all that remained of the tangle of scars over her thighs and hips were traceries almost as unremarkable as her unbleached cotton underwear.
She turned, craning her neck to look over her shoulder. The contortion was effortless, and for the last six months, impossible. Under her wondering fingertips, only faint raised ridges remained of the scars on her lower back.
“I do not believe this.” She couldn’t stop her smile. She twisted the other way, just because.
What had Archer said? “Don’t bother trying to decide whether to believe or not. It’s true.”
At the thought of him, her smile faded.
And what if everything else he said was true?
“It will be one of the dark.”
The man twisted his fingers as he made his pronouncement. Ten white twisting worms. Unfortunately, too large a lunch for the crow.
Corvus leaned back in his chair. “Are you certain?”
“With the solvo spreading well, the dissonance should definitely have triggered the crossing of a specimen from the more powerful strain. The crossing was so unusually violent, the Veil is still in flux, which will make our task that much easier. All signs point toward a djinn crossing, and we do have an agreement—”
“Are you certain?”
The crow stabbed its beak out between the bars to grab a paperclip off the desk. It sidled away, working the shiny metal in its beak and cackling.
“Not entirely, no.”
Corvus nodded once. “Then we wait. And continue our preparations. The wound in the Veil will serve us, whether the demon will or not.”
The Worm twitched, as if impatience consumed every cell of his body just as, Corvus supposed, it did all mortal creatures. “Only my work has gotten you this far. I deserve . . .” Again, that twitch, accompanied by a conspicuous pallor.
Corvus let the outburst pass, as he let the thieving crow keep its little toy. “All our efforts sha
ll be rewarded, eventually.” The Worm couldn’t begin to understand how long Corvus himself had waited for his chance.
The Worm nodded until Corvus thought his head would wobble off. “The demon must be djinn. I simply can’t believe the teshuva could muster such force across the Veil. I’ve noticed the impulse toward repentance diminishes in ratio to the threat of punishment. Which explains the remorseful teshuva’s mediocrity in this realm.”
“You simply can’t believe?” The Worm could do nothing simply, not even speak. “With the Veil isolating us from what lies beyond, our beliefs are all we have to sustain us.”
Rather than endure the Worm’s squirmings at the reprimand, Corvus swiveled in his chair to look out over the city. The sun burned a pale gray hole in the darker gray sky. The light raised forlorn glimmers in the delicate sculptures arrayed on the windowsill. The churches born of Rome weren’t the only ones to capture peace and beauty in glass. He caressed the stone in his ring, calmed by the vista and the promise of what was—at long last—coming.
“If Sera Littlejohn is possessed by one of ours, then she will fight for the Darkness. If not, she must die.”
“She’s on the move.”
Ecco’s voice crackled in Archer’s earbud, and he scowled up at the darkening sky where low clouds threatened snow. He remembered the restlessness that had driven him at his demon’s ascension, but couldn’t she have just done a little knitting instead?
“Wrong century,” he muttered.
“What’s that?” Even through the electronic connection, Ecco sounded as annoyed as Archer felt.
“I said I’m on it.”
“You’re not going to be able to sweet-talk her down this time, Archer,” Ecco said. “If she turns djinn, you need to take her out right then before she calls in the horde-tenebrae to lick your bones. Niall, you’re sure he’s the man for an action job?”
“Fuck you,” Archer said conversationally.
Niall was already talking over him. “Reserve this channel for the exchange of useful information, gentlemen.”
“I ain’t no gentleman,” Ecco said. “You must mean fancy pants. Hard to believe he’s got an annihilation-class demon in there at all. Just let me know where the fightin’ words channel is, and maybe I’ll find it—”
Archer ripped out the earpiece, ignoring Niall’s tinny squawk. He left the shelter of his car just as Sera stepped out of her apartment building.
She’d dressed for the falling temps, including the scarf she’d wanted last time. She tucked her chin down into the heather wool a few shades darker than her coat, and with her blond hair contained under a matching hat, she was just another gray shadow moving through the gray city.
Until she glanced up to see him. Her hazel eyes widened, and the blush that rose under her teeth when she bit her lower lip roused an answering pulse of blood through his veins. Carnal tension and something deeper twisted in him.
“I didn’t call you.” She held up one gloved hand. “Not last time, not this time. Not the time when you were the demon.”
“I wasn’t the demon.” A fine distinction at the moment.
“Whatever.” She marched past him down the sidewalk. “I didn’t call. In fact, I burned the business card. You’re stalking me.”
He fell into step beside her. “You didn’t burn the card. You’re not stupid. And, yes, I am stalking you.”
She frowned at him. “You could at least pretend to feel bad about it.” She shook her head when he drew breath to answer. “Right. No lies. No tricks. No pretending either, I assume.”
“I’m here for you, Sera,” he said simply. He didn’t have to tell her why.
She turned to him, angling her face to make up for the difference in their height. “That’s supposed to make me feel better?”
“No. It’s just the truth.”
She walked on. “Strangely, I do feel better.”
She wouldn’t, if she knew what he’d have to do if the demon possessing her wasn’t one of theirs.
“Maybe just because I’m moving,” she continued. “I swear, the walls were crushing me.”
“The demon comes from a place of infinity. They want to be on the move, on the hunt, stretching our senses.” The rhythm of his words matched their steps, her stride matching his. He caught himself eyeing the length of her leg and scowled. “Don’t indulge it too freely. Tempting a demon to run amok is a bad idea. Repentant or not, there’s a reason they were damned.”
She wrinkled her nose. “Never mind the demon. I’m happy to be on the move again. Since the accident . . . Anyway, I feel almost like myself again.”
For the moment. “I noticed you’d left the cane behind.”
“The kids downstairs snatched it. They were riding it around like a witch’s broom.” She shot him a narrow glance. “Do you believe in witches too?”
“Maybe they were pretending it was a hobby horse,” Archer said, still thinking of the cane.
“They’re city kids. They’ve never even seen a horse.”
He realized abruptly he was showing his age with the antiquated reference. “Just because they’ve never seen one doesn’t mean they can’t want one.”
They walked in silence past houses as quiet as if the stones themselves were hunkering down for the night.
“Speaking of not seeing,” she said suddenly, “my scars are all but gone.”
Without a word, he rolled up his sleeve. Only a white thread of puckered flesh remained from his demonstration at the pier.
She closed her eyes, opened them again, but shifted her focus to the black. “That tattoo.”
“It’s my reven, an interrealm rift torn into my flesh to mark where the demon entered.” He touched the pulse point of his wrist. A flicker of violet chased along the black lines. For a heartbeat, the surrounding skin seemed to fade to translucence, revealing not muscle and bone but some glittering void. “It’s our only view into the demon realm.”
“Torn?” She blinked. “That must’ve hurt.”
“No.” Honest enough. By the time the mark appeared, his torment had been too deep to notice.
“I saw a similar tattoo—reven—on the driver at the pier.”
“The pattern identifies the class and potency of demon and its point of entry. In Ecco’s case, a strong chaos-class demon.” Archer smirked. “I’ll be sure to let him know you made him.”
“You’ve been watching me. You said there was no conspiracy.”
“I said it wasn’t a government conspiracy. We’re . . . private contractors. Very private. We keep watch over all demonic activity.”
“You stay together?”
“More or less.” Zane had mentioned an obsolete mated-talyan bond. Maybe in those days they’d taken turns taking out the demonic trash.
“Like a support group? To find a cure?”
“There is no cure.”
“Funny, I don’t feel doomed.” She stared down at her feet. “I’d forgotten how nice a strong body is. My poor patients . . . I could just keep walking forever.”
He caught her arm and forced her to a halt. Forced himself to ignore her supple heat under his hand. Nice body, yeah. “You can’t escape, Sera. Somewhere inside, you sense what’s coming.”
She strained against him, testing her strength. “And what is that, exactly? End-stage demonic infection, I know. Maybe I’ll just take two aspirin and call my pastor in the morning.”
Ah, he knew this moment well. He steeled himself against the pang. Just because she roused the memory of a certain idealistic, naïve young man was no reason to forget the hopeless outcome. “Too late. It’s ascending already, from your soul through your body, and demons can’t be destroyed. If you cast it out now, the demon will just seek a new host.”
She lifted her chin. “That’s easy.”
“No. It came to you through your weakness—in mind, in body. In your soul.”
“Not exactly fair.”
“I doubt fair comes up in the demon handbook code of ethic
al conduct. Besides, what does it take to resist temptation when you’re strong? Anybody can do that.”
She pulled at him more forcefully. “I’m stronger now.”
“Because of the demon. If you deny it, it will leave the way it came, through your wounds, taking what it has given you.” He tightened his grip, close to bruising as his demon roused to the defiance in her stance. If he gave it free rein, she’d know the folly of questioning him. “This strong body you like so much will be gone with the demon.”
“I got by before.”
“And when it goes, it will take a little more than you had. Call it recompense. Most likely, you’d never walk again.”
She froze. “Maybe that’s the price I have to pay.”
“Willing to sacrifice a chunk of your soul too? The demon burrowed into damage in your body and your soul. Places where it linked would be torn apart. Our theologically inclined believe your demon-mottled soul would be bound into the Veil between the realms to spend the rest of eternity waiting out the final battle in spiritual limbo.”
She wasn’t pulling away from him now. “Final battle?”
He ignored the question. “There’s no bargaining with this devil. You stay and fight for your hold on this realm, or you are crippled, physically and spiritually, for the rest of your life. A life that the most wretched of your former patients would deem a thousand times worse than their own deaths.”
Sera stared at him, eyes so wide he caught a glimpse of the first drifting snowflakes reflected in her pupils. The demon had come to him in winter too, when old wounds ached most deeply. With all he’d lost, the prospect of spring had seemed obscene.
He would do what needed to be done if Sera’s demon was djinn and not repentant teshuva. But he’d be damned—again—if he let Ecco, Niall, or anyone else force his hand.
With his grip still on her, the violet-chased reven he’d exposed shimmered in the lower corner of his gaze, an unspoken reminder of his compulsion. Damned indeed. As he’d told Sera, the demon-mottled soul faced, at best, oblivion upon death.