by Slade, Jessa
“Djinn-stuffed bastard wants to make this war personal,” Ecco said. “I say let’s man up. Or woman.”
Liam shifted, glancing at Archer. “Does he make any sense to you?”
Archer shrugged. “What happened was odd. Bookie’s working on it.”
“Now this,” Liam said.
Ecco stepped inside the circle. “We have to—”
Liam silenced him with a look. “We’re evacuating this building. We’re checking in at our new assignments. We hunt tonight. Same as always.”
Ecco scowled.
Liam continued. “Whatever new wrinkle we find, the old wrinkles don’t go away. We’re still the hottest iron in the fire to smooth it out.” He rubbed his forehead. “Analogy fails me. Get going, people, before the birnenston makes us all as foolish as Ecco. If he’s right and the apocalypse is now, I’ll be sure to page you.”
There was a general chuckle, and the talyan started to move. Sera listened to them make plans to rendezvous with their assigned partners.
She started when Archer’s hand fell on her shoulder. “Ready?”
“To go where? My place is gone. This place is ruined.” And he wasn’t even willing to acknowledge this monstrous force between them.
He steered her toward the door. “At least you’re traveling light, like a good talya.”
“Not funny.” She balked on the sidewalk. He guided her to one side, out of the way of the stream of men. “What do they expect me to do?” she whispered, catching the sidelong glances.
“Nothing. They’ve learned not to expect.”
“They’re hoping.”
“Definitely not that.”
But she knew he was wrong.
She waited while he retrieved his league belongings and, for lack of a better plan, climbed into the box-laden SUV when he held the door for her.
She stared out the tinted window that turned the already-dreary day to twilight. “Who is he?”
“A powerful djinn-man who knows what you are.”
She wasn’t surprised that he could follow her thoughts. “Which is what, exactly?”
“Something equally powerful, judging by his reaction.”
“Trying to kill me.”
Archer shook his head. “He hasn’t tried to kill you.”
She looked at him in dismay. “He burned my house down.”
“Which isn’t the same as trying to kill you.”
“Killed others,” she murmured.
“And their souls went up or down as destined.”
“No consolation,” she snapped. “It never was, even when it was just my day job and not my life, like it is now.” She laughed harshly. “My life, however long that may be.”
“The djinn-man could kill you,” Archer said flatly. “He hasn’t. He’s got you—all of us—off balance, on the run. He wants something else.” He ticked his finger on the steering wheel. “Also no consolation, I suppose.”
She stared at him a moment. “Not really, no.” Then she turned her attention back to the road. “Where are we going?”
“My place. We’ll drop this load and get my system synced with Bookie’s updates. We need to know why this djinn-man wants you.”
“Nothing good,” she muttered.
“We’re demon-ridden. Good was never an option.”
CHAPTER 17
At his loft, they unloaded the truck. Despite the ache in her healed arm, she found relief in the mindless task of ferrying boxes. He never let her out of his sight—nice to know when she was the target of some supremely badass demon.
While he messed with his computer, she steeped a pot of tea. As if unseen forces flowed around it, the bed drew her gaze.
He’d excused himself for rejecting her because he’d almost gotten her killed on the hunt. But if a djinn-man was gunning for her, did getting accidentally dismembered by a raging feralis even count as a worry?
Archer dumped a laptop into her hands, startling her out of her daze. “This has the annotated library of Bookkeeper studies over the last few-hundred years. Find everything on demon crossings and the effect on the Veil.”
“What am I looking for?”
He gave her a hard look. “Everything.”
She settled in the chair on the other side of the couch, so she didn’t have to face the bed, and buried herself in the small screen. When he brought her a cup of the tea she’d forgotten, the water was stained dark as the sky outside.
She blinked and started to get up. “What time is it?”
“Time for me to go out on rounds.” His hand kept her pinned to the chair. “You stay here. Don’t leave. Don’t let anyone in. I’m setting the perimeter alarm. Someone will be close by.”
She lifted her chin. “I’m not afraid. Cautious, yes.”
“Then maybe you’ll stay alive.” His fingers tightened. “We’ll find him.”
“We have forever,” she reminded him.
He took a step back. “Call if you need me.”
She watched him go from the window, knowing he could see her but not caring.
The loft, with its isolated pools of lamplight, felt vast and cold. She heated the tea again, managed only to make it bitter, and went back to the computer.
Her search yielded little in the way of Veil crossings. Demonic emanations seemed unidirectional. Djinn and teshuva crossed into the human realm and stayed. Though horde-tenebrae energy could be dispersed and took time to regenerate, if a djinn and teshuva host was killed, the higher strains of demon simply possessed another soul and continued on their heretofore separate paths of wickedness or repentance.
The only interesting note was a centuries-old meditation describing the Veil as woven from atoning souls. Such souls formed a natural—or supernatural—barrier between the realms.
Sera shuddered to think of such never-ending suspension. That her demon had breached the Veil to send the malice and ferales back seemed unprecedented.
The hours passed, and she fell asleep on the couch. Archer returned just after dawn.
“Sera.” Weariness roughened his voice and brought out the lingering Southern jangle. “Just me. I’ll sleep like the dead, so make all the noise you want. Don’t leave.”
Without waiting for a reply, he’d headed for the bathroom. He didn’t even turn on the lights.
That didn’t stop her imagination from supplying the pictures. She lay back, listening to the water. He hadn’t walked as if he’d been wounded during the night’s fighting, but no doubt he’d keep his shoulders square, whatever the maiming.
Thoughts of his shoulders led naturally down his arms to the demon mark. Thinking of his reven made her think of her own, framing her hips, which—of course—made her think of his hips, grinding against hers under the spray of warm water. . . .
She took a deep breath. When she heard him collapse into bed, she waited long enough for him to fall asleep before she got up.
She continued her work from the evening before, but somehow ended up searching Civil War firearms. She learned he’d been cruel with himself about his poor aim. It hadn’t been uncommon for powder-packed guns to backfire, though she supposed the demon was an unexpected addendum.
After a quick glance toward the bedroom, she turned her search to Civil War-era Archers. He’d said his father was a farmer. She hit on a note for a James Archer of Louisiana, owner of a thousand-acre cotton plantation and father of Ferris and Emily. Then she saw it was a death notice. Though the man had been in his grave a hundred and fifty years, she had to fight back a welling sadness for the tormented son he’d left behind.
She scanned for files on Emily. Maybe there’d been children. Then she stopped herself.
She remembered how Archer accused her of butting into her patients’ most vulnerable moments. Only this time, instead of trying to reconcile people to death, she’d have to explain someone who hadn’t died. Even if she found descendants, how exactly would Archer introduce himself? Hello, I’m your great-great-grandmother’s brother. Why, yes,
I am looking spry for my age. Aren’t you glad you got these genes?
She shook herself. Demons weren’t genetic. Then she thought of her depressed mother, her father’s dementia. Different kinds of demons.
She shut the laptop. People and history, long dead, all of it. When he’d said he’d lost everything, she hadn’t quite imagined how much he’d had to lose.
She leaned back and closed her eyes. How long ago, how much, none of it mattered, because it hurt just as much. Even the demon couldn’t take away that pain. Why did she imagine she could?
“Did I get you up too early this morning?”
Though his sleep-softened voice sent her heart racing, she held herself still, glad she had folded the screen down. She cracked one eye open. “Just taking a break.”
He was barefoot, still in his flannel pajama bottoms. Two buttons held a wrinkled oxford closed around his navel, revealing a long, open vee of chest.
With a mental shrug, she opened her other eye. “Good hunting?”
“Too good. But not good enough. No dead djinn.” He wandered to the kitchen. “We’re out of tea.”
So he sent her shopping with Zane, in charge of supply for the safe houses. She wrinkled her nose at the addition of Ecco as bodyguard, and Archer warned, “The djinn-man wants you, Sera. We don’t know why, but we know we don’t want him or any snacking feralis to have you.”
When it came to snacking, she discovered the terrible talyan junk-food habit that filled up cart after cart. When Ecco groused about the length of the checkout line and the lack of good magazines, she just about lost it.
“Then quit eating so many doughnuts.”
“I’m supposed to save the world on yogurt and baby carrots?” He looked appalled. “Must be a woman thing.”
She glowered. “Go wait in the car.”
He crossed his arms. “And shirk my duty, risking my soul? Assuming Archer didn’t just shred me for compost.”
“Then I’ll wait for you.” She marched for the door.
“Go with her,” Zane said softly to Ecco, as if she might explode if he jostled her with loud words. “I’ll finish here.”
She plunked herself down in the driver’s seat and stared at the first flakes of snow whipped in the wind.
Ecco disappeared into the back. After a few minutes, he cleared his throat. “Do you think you and Archer are compatible outside the bedroom?”
She glared into the rearview mirror. “Excuse me?”
“Does he listen to your dreams? Do you like his friends? You’re a cute couple and all, but that trick you did together with the malice in Bookie’s lab seemed a little kinky as the basis for a long and loving relationship.”
She twisted around. “Are you smoking something back there?”
“You gotta have things in common besides the zing, you know?”
Before she could answer, Zane emerged with his conga line of shopping carts. They made their deliveries in a heavier snowfall, the flakes curdled by the wind into tiny stinging shards.
“That’s it,” Zane said. “I’ll drop you off at Archer’s.”
“I have one more thing to do.” Since her time was ticking away toward death, doom, and probably more damn deliveries.
Zane pursed his lips.
“And don’t give me any fear-of-Archer crap,” she said. “I’m dangerous too.”
Zane shot Ecco a hard look. “Why’d you let her drive?”
“I had my magazine.” Ecco waved the glossy pages with the voluptuous brunette on the cover promising TEN WAYS HE CAN PLEASE YOU IN BED.
Zane looked disgusted. “Shoplifting?”
“Hey, I’m possessed by evil incarnate.”
Sera scowled and headed to the outskirts of the city.
The Good Faith Baptist Church looked even more pitiable without the neon blue flyers to brighten the cement blocks.
She glared at Ecco. “You. Stay. And for God’s sake, don’t do any more of the quizzes.” She speared Zane with a glance. “You coming?”
She marched inside, Zane dogging her heels, and left behind Ecco like a Rottweiler who hopefully wouldn’t eat the steering wheel.
Nanette smiled when Sera entered the office. “Sera. I wasn’t sure you’d come to visit. And you brought a friend. Did our talk help you?”
Zane lifted his head as if he tested a nonexistent breeze. “Angel?”
Sera ignored both questions. “I actually hope you can help someone else.”
Zane darted a glance at her. “Ecco? Really, Sera, all the saints in heaven couldn’t help him, much less one earth-bound angelic possessed.” Suddenly, he recoiled. “Not Archer? He’ll kill you. In the metaphorical sense.” He glanced at Nanette. “Her, maybe not so metaphorical.”
Sera held her flattened palm out to him. “It’s my father. Can you heal him?”
Archer woke from a dead sleep.
Despite the hours of the teshuva’s restorations, his body screamed a protest when he sat up. The slashed muscle and broken ribs were healing, but every night he went out, the malice seemed more numerous and clever, the ferales bigger and bolder.
And without a partner at his back, the shadows crept far closer. It was enough to make a man want to dive under the covers again and wait till the sun came up—except the sun didn’t banish these demons anymore.
And the covers weren’t so welcoming in an empty bed.
He listened for Sera. Despite his avowal that he never heard her, despite her disbelief that kept her quiet as a ghost, he was attuned to her comings and goings. She’d gone out with Zane and Ecco as guards, but still he listened.
Wouldn’t do to jump out of bed in front of her with a raging hard-on.
He sighed, his nearly ever-present erection when he thought of her just one more pain in his wracked body. Unfortunately, not one the teshuva could do anything about.
He rose, dressed, and went to the kitchen. As he waited for his tea to steep, he paced the room to ease the tension from his torn muscles. Out the windows, the tall buildings cast the streets into gloom, and wayward swirls of snow caught the streetlights’ glare. He’d slept nearly the entire day, but his weary body could’ve gone longer. Still, if he took it easy, he’d be fine for the night’s rounds.
Mostly fine. Good enough, anyway. Still safer than proximity to his studious roommate after they’d shared the same bed, same breath, same slick of sweat . . .
So much for easing the tension in his body.
He retrieved his tea but couldn’t stop pacing. One circuit took him past his cell phone. He listened to the message that he had no messages.
The panic button on Zane’s phone linked to Archer’s. If anything went down, Zane would need only a split second and the barest flick of a finger to call for backup.
After the night he’d had, Archer wondered if a split second was too long a grace period to expect.
He called Zane. The call went to voice mail. Ecco didn’t carry a cell phone—said it made him feel wussie. As a last resort, Archer called Sera’s cell.
“Hi.” At her calm voice, relief coursed through him. Then she went on. “Insert clever outgoing message here.” The tone beeped.
He hung up.
All his senses prickled, worse than when the echo of the unbound demon hunting its chosen had haunted his dreams.
Grabbing his coat, hefting it against the weight of the axe nestled inside, he headed for the door. He took the car, cruising the city, hunting he knew not what.
His phone rang. He snatched it up before the first tone faded.
“Archer.” The gasp reached him through the stuttering line. “I need—”
“Sera.” He gripped the phone, as if he could hold the broken signal together with his bare hands. If ever there was a time for that fabled mated-talyan bond . . . “Where are you?”
“Hurry. Ecco is down—” The interference was like nothing he’d heard before. In the static, faint whispers mocked him, making his skin crawl. “Nanette can’t hold them alone.”
“The nursing home. Hurry.”
He cranked the wheel, sending the car into a two-lane skid across the road. A horn blared behind him. “Stay inside, Sera. Stay on the line.” Even as he spoke, he knew it was futile. He heard the click and pictured her rushing into the fray.
He called Niall and gave directions to the nursing home.
Niall didn’t bother asking questions Archer couldn’t answer. “Raine and Valjean are almost as close as you. Watch for them. Don’t lose her, Archer.”
He wouldn’t answer that either.
Less than ten minutes passed, but the last of the iffy light had failed as he double-parked outside the nursing home. Before the car rocked to a halt, he was running across the lawn.
The picket fence leaned askew; the ground was raked into vicious furrows of dark frozen earth and dead grass. Blood, crimson fresh, glistened through the thin haze of snow. A meaty scent hung in the chill air.
His heart thudded heavily in his chest. No Sera.
“Ferris Archer?”
He ripped his gaze from the signs of struggle.
A woman he didn’t know waved from the front door. “We’re here. Inside.”
Sera had actually listened to him? He tried to ignore the curdling in his gut.
He headed up the walk warily, one eye on the woman, scanning the shadows all around.
“Hurry,” the woman said. “They won’t come close while I’m here, but I don’t know if that will last.”
He narrowed his eyes against the coruscating shivers of golden light that emanated from her. “I didn’t think angels bothered with the lesser demons.”
“They started it.” She held her hand out to him. “Please. Get inside.”
“Where is Sera? Is she . . . ?” His throat closed around the words as he followed her in.
“She wanted to go after them, but I stopped her.” She lifted her nose when Archer cut a glance at her. “I do have the Almighty on my side.”
“Is that all it takes?” he murmured.
“I’m afraid your man, Ecco, didn’t fare so well. Sera is helping him, and preventing the nurse here from helping too much.”