by Slade, Jessa
Archer circled, barring his way. “You have to leave, Sera, and seal the Veil behind you.”
She sheltered in his wake. “Not without you.”
“You left me before.” His tone never changed, but his words folded the mist upon itself in wrinkles of deepening gray.
She flattened her hand against his taut spine. “And you tried to keep me away from what only I could do. We both did the wrong thing for the right reasons.”
“We know all about good intentions.”
“The road to hell,” Corvus snarled. “But there’s a road out.” He leapt straight at them.
Archer pushed Sera out of the way and grabbed Corvus.
The dark band on the horizon resolved into individual shapes. A dozen men with spears. An elephant and a lion. A woman with a whip. They stretched as far as the eye could see. A gladiator’s victims. Had Corvus conjured them out of the mist as Archer had swathed himself in isolation, as she had faced her mother?
“Let me go,” Corvus chanted.
“Archer,” she called, “let him go.”
Archer glanced over his shoulder at her, his gaze clashing with hers. Then he sprang away.
She snapped the pendant from around her neck. She had no means to judge Corvus, no right to keep his essence. She swung the stone toward him, holding tight to the cord like a censer.
Out of the stone, a sooty bird, small as a sparrow, soared for a heartbeat toward Corvus, then plummeted, its wings fluttering, broken.
Corvus flinched away. “Not more black,” he hissed. “And flawed. It mocks me still.”
Seething from the horizon, the vicious crowd fell upon him. It tore him apart. With a crescendoing scream, he unraveled in a spray of blood black feathers and inky crimson splatters that stained the mist.
Sera recoiled, aghast. Archer drew her gently under his arm. He eased the pendant from her numb fingers and tied the cord behind her neck. “I always said dying was the easy part.”
She tightened her grip on the ring still around her thumb. What she had to offer him wasn’t easy at all.
She slipped off the cracked stone and held it up. “Your soul was in one half. Without it, your body can’t truly die. Your demon, which could heal you, is in the other half.”
He looked past her where black feathers clogged the mists, forcing back the light. The remnants of Corvus’s soul might mend the Veil, but she had to retreat now, winding the frayed threads back with her.
“You accused me once of storming the bastion of last vigils to force answers. So I won’t ask now.” She took a breath. “But releasing your soul alone, you stay dead. If I release the demon too, you live. Possessed.”
“I should choose damnation a second time? Knowing what awaits me back there?”
What could she say? Pain, violence, heartache. That was on the days he wasn’t battling the darkness that left his body in tatters, his soul in shadow. But he knew all that.
The ring trembled in her fingers. She hunched her shoulders, desolation a cold wash through her body that swept away any possible words.
Except . . . “This time, I will be there.”
His tarnished gaze pierced her.
“I told you once not to risk your soul dying on my behalf.” She held out her hand. “But whether this bond between us is fate or something we brought on ourselves, you are the other half of my soul. Will you live for me?”
He lifted his unmarked hand.
She slipped the ring over his finger, held him for a moment, and let go.
The vortex closed with an inverted oscillation that exploded against her eardrums and sternum, and threw her backward. The worldly realm bloomed around her, icy cold and agonizingly bright.
Archer convulsed beside her, one hand clawing for the sky. She pulled herself to her knees, reaching for him.
Just beyond, Corvus’s body twitched, smearing gray matter.
“The building is coming down,” Niall shouted. “Get them.”
Through the rain of bricks and glass, the talyan rushed forward.
Warm, strong fingers tangled in Sera’s as Archer took her hand. Hers was covered in blood, his in the bold black lines of the reven.
She’d remember to care about the fate of the world in just a minute. She laid her palm against his jaw, brushing her thumb under his violet-shot dark eye, and kissed him.
This time, she’d hold on, no questions asked. No why, how, or how long. Just here. Now. Him.
Then the talyan were dragging them up, though they wouldn’t let go of each other, fingers entwined.
“Wait.” Archer grabbed something from Corvus’s stiffening hand.
The open cavern of the basement groaned as the building crumbled. She closed her eyes and held on to Archer as they fled ahead of a sulfurous wind.
Together, they ran with the retreating talyan. They ducked against the river wall away from the fountain ing column of brick dust, splashing water, and horrible things she didn’t want to contemplate.
Archer pulled her onto his lap, unfurling the edge of his coat around her bare legs. “I thought we were dead.”
“We were.” She nestled in his arms. “And damned. Who knew there’re worse ways to spend an evening?”
Ecco swore. “I couldn’t grab the djinn-man’s body.” He held out his hand, flesh blistering under yellow slime. “Something was trying to get away.”
“I think the building took care of that.” Nanette touched his wrist. “Hold still. I’ll see if my angel will take care of you.”
Ecco narrowed his eyes. “Is this one of those ‘start of a beautiful friendship’ moments I’ve seen on late-night TV?” With his good hand, he pulled Nanette closer.
Nanette frowned at him. “I’m married.”
Ecco smiled. “That’s cool. I’m evil.”
“Come on, people,” Niall said. “We have to clear out. When they find the remnants of Corvus’s army, this’ll go down as a fatal gas explosion in a drug den, but only if we let them see what they want to see.”
The talyan made their unwitnessed retreat, apocalypse mostly averted, with no one the wiser.
Archer stood in the greenhouse doorway. A fresh scouring wind blew past.
His wounds had almost healed. Apparently, it took longer to come back from the dead than from a simple maiming. He couldn’t even remember all that had happened in the demon realm. But he looked at the ring on his finger and shuddered. It had held his soul and his demon. What new dimension of power it gave him now, he wasn’t quite ready to test.
In the cage dangling from his hand, the crow flapped its wings eagerly. It had recovered too. Merely stunned, he’d hoped, when he grabbed it from Corvus’s dead grasp. After all, what self-respecting bird died in a fall? It had deserved a chance, considering that Corvus’s rejection of its broken-winged avatar had doomed his soul to the Veil.
Archer opened the cage, and the crow burst free. It caught the Chicago wind under its wings and wheeled up, widespread feathers a fan of emphatic black exclamation points against the white-gray sky.
When he lowered his dazzled gaze, Sera waited on the sidewalk, hands thrust into the pockets of her cherry red trench coat.
“I wondered whether I’d have to break in,” she said.
“I didn’t change the code.” Instead of watching her mull that over, he turned and made his way to the garden’s heart.
She followed. “That was a crazy stunt.”
He lay down on the daybed, one arm a pillow behind his head. “I knew it could fly again.”
“You couldn’t.”
He shrugged. “Said the woman who ripped open the Veil to the demon realm.”
“And sealed it again.” She echoed his shrug. “Will it hold? Can one man’s soul contain all the demons of hell?”
“Corvus had a lot of atoning to do.”
“And then?”
Archer ticked off on his fingers. “The horde-tenebrae of the city are wild on the streets, along with the remnants of Corvus’s soulless ar
my and at least a few untraced djinn who slipped out while the Veil was breached. For the first time in centuries, we have no historian, so Ecco might have to learn to read. You really pissed off something in hell with all your damn questions, and I don’t want to guess what we’ll find when the snow melts.” But the snow would melt. He finally believed that. “Until then, you come here.”
She edged toward the bed and sat at the far end.
“Turns out, we’ve got something special between us, you and me.” With his free hand, he threaded his fingers through hers.
“But we don’t know what it is. I went looking for the old record about female talyan and the mated-talyan bond, thinking maybe there are more like me. I couldn’t find anything except a blank in the cross-references. I think Bookie destroyed the citation.”
Archer considered. “Maybe he didn’t want us to know we could single-handedly”—he lifted their joined hands—“triumph over unholy evil.”
“Sounds almost too good to be true.”
“Happens when you deal with a devil.” He tugged her down against him. “Corvus and Bookie crafted a resonating evil that should have reflected only more shadows. They never dreamed that gathering darkness would sprout the seeds of its own destruction. But against the dark, hope and love grow brighter.”
She curved against him, honeysuckle scent a sweet allure. “My simple Southern farmer.”
He kissed her then, slow and gentle, until she whispered his name and held him as if she’d never let go.
After an eternity, she eased back, lips flushed rosy pink. “So you don’t hate me?”
“For saving me?”
“For damning you again.”
He tapped the back of his broken ring against her pendant. “Desolator numinis. ‘That which makes the gods lonely.’ If gods and demons get lonely when riven from our souls, how do you suppose an almost-two-hundred-year-old demon-ridden man feels when torn from his other half? And I’m not talking about my soul or my demon.” He kissed her again. “It’s only because of you, my love, that I feel at all.”
She fitted herself to him more closely, her soft curves hiding a strength of body and will he knew would challenge him if he should ever falter. His other half? More like his better half.
“This feels right,” she agreed at last. “Love?”
“Always with the esoteric questions,” he murmured. “I shall have to lure you back to this earthly realm. Luckily, the demon-ridden give temptation new meaning. And for us, forever lasts.”
He wondered how she’d feel about “till death do us part.” Maybe on one of his good days, the Littlejohn patriarch would have some suggestions on wooing his daughter. It probably wouldn’t be as simple as battling other-realm monsters.
She laid her hand over his heartbeat. “Most of the world only has today.”
“I’ll fight for more. But if that’s all we have, then I will be . . .” He thought a moment. “Thankful.”
She lifted her palm to his cheek and kissed him softly.
The war waged on, his body battered, his soul the battleground, forfeit until the bitter end. But the bright hazel of her eyes, and the warmth of her sigh, promised spring, and his heart, at last, knew peace.
Liam Niall has led the Chicago league of immortal
warriors and their repentant demons for longer than
he cares to remember. Four months ago, everything
he thought he understood about the war against the
Darkness was blown apart. Now, with the shocking
appearance of a fiery new female talya, the world he’s
supposed to save is about to change again. . . .
Liam, meet your newest recruit.
Turn the page for a sneak preview of Jessa Slade’s
next compelling paranormal romance,
FORGED OF SHADOWS
Available from Signet Eclipse in May 2010
“So, what are we doing to chase these monsters—what did you call them, these horde-tenebrae?—off the streets?”
“ ‘ We’?” Liam templed his fingers and leaned back in his chair. He waited for the hot flare of triumph at bringing another ardent, young demon fighter aboard. God knew, he needed all the bodies he could get these days.
Instead, Jilly Chan’s fierce zeal made him feel older than the dirt that crept into every nook of the league’s salvaged stronghold.
As for her body . . . His fingers curled, and he held his relaxed stance by force of will alone.
She paced in front of his desk, all impetuous curves and spiky nerves. “You made it perfectly clear I may not survive the demon’s ascension. If I have only another hour, or another day at most, then I want to find out who—what—came after my kids in the alley. And I want to make sure it never bothers any of them again.”
He tightened his jaw against the short, hard clomp of her impatient boots. She wasn’t much more disciplined than the kids—the streetwise teen hooligans, more like—she worked with at the halfway house and claimed as her own. Still, he’d bent wilder spirits to their unending task. “I can’t promise that.”
“I don’t believe in promises anyway. Give me something real I can sink my teeth into.” She swung to face him, her hand cocked aggressively on the hip of her low-riding jeans. “Or I guess these demon-monster tenebrae aren’t exactly real, and I don’t want my teeth sunk in rotten eggs anyway. Just give me something bigger than that stupid box cutter, and I’m your warrior woman. For tonight anyway.”
She was just bragging, he knew, worse than one of those kids of hers, but her words thrummed through him. Like that call-and-response echo that had lured him out to the streets until he’d found her.
He felt the tightening in his muscles, the prickle of his skin, as the demon in him stirred at even the muted battle cry in her voice. Suddenly, though he’d managed to forget for a very long time, he hated its ready and willing violence, so in tune with the young woman before him. The demon might take its steps toward repentance, but he knew every swing of his war hammer thrust him away from peace.
And the angry glitter in Jilly’s eyes only pushed him farther.
But he didn’t have a choice. And he’d never had a chance. “Come on then.” He thrust himself to his feet and strode past her.
“Where are we going?”
“I’m giving you what you want.” He led her through the empty corridors, downstairs to the storage rooms. He threw open a pair of doors and flicked on the light.
Axes, double-edged swords, daggers, razor-tipped gauntlets, and more lined the walls. Even under the buzzing fluorescent fixture, the blades shone with brutal beauty.
Jilly cleared her throat. “Box cutters on steroids. At least I know where to arm myself if World War Three breaks out.”
“It already has.” Liam strode into the room, then turned to survey her. He tried to keep his gaze critical as he swept her once from blue-streaked locks to heavy black shit-kicker boots. “Good weight on the bottom, at least.”
She stiffened at his perusal. “You saying my ass is big?”
It took all his unholy strength to move his gaze onward. “I’m saying, no sense throwing off your balance with an oversized weapon.”
“I’ve handled bigger weapons than yours.”
Her bold words echoed more than the sheer reflective blades accounted for. The first hint of uncertainty he’d seen in her—even when she faced the ferales in the alley with nothing more than a dull razor blade—flushed her cheeks with color, and she bit her lip.
The hunger that stirred in him at the slight vulnerability had nothing to do with the demon. And was even more dangerous. He swallowed hard against it, and leveled his tone coolly. “No doubt your bravado has served you well. Did the demon come to you with the promise that now you’d finally be able to carry through with all that bluster?”
She froze at the question, but her cinnamon eyes snapped, like the tint of flames in straw.
“The demon always makes an offer we haven’t the strength
to refuse,” he explained. “It knows us better than we know ourselves. I suppose that is the nature of temptation.” How fortunate for him that he’d been around long enough to amass scars of resistance.
“I’m tempted,” she said stiffly, “to grab that spiked mace and take a swing.”
He forced himself to focus on work. Pairing a new talya with the right weapon was vital. “If you want to try it out—”
“Just on you.”
“Ah.” He rose onto the balls of his feet as the demon shifted eagerly within him. “Always happy to help.”
Her hands clenched as if longing for that mace handle—or maybe just his neck. “You can’t ask how people were lured to the dark side.”
“Technically, we’re the repenting side, which is at least a half dozen steps from the dark side.” Thinking of her hands on his skin wasn’t helping his focus. To a leader of demon-slaying warriors, curiosity was only slightly less useless than desire. But how had the demon cozened her, if not through her boldness?
He took a long step back—physically and mentally—and swept out one hand in a grand gesture. “Choose.”
In his many years commanding the league, he’d found that a new talya’s choice of weapon indicated something about the man and the demon inside him. He was getting ahead of himself, putting Jilly through his tests so soon, but the urgency that had ridden him since the appearance of her unbound demon seemed even worse when she was near.
And with her hell-bent attitude, he suspected she might soon need all the weapons she could get.
He held himself silent and still, though every muscle twitched to follow as she stalked past him to circle the room. She paused near the mace, slanted a glance at him, and kept moving.
She passed the white-men-can’t-jump wall of massive, double-handed swords representing a wide swath of European history. The aesthetically organized Asian collection of kitanas and throwing stars earned not even a second look. Instead, she came around again to the blunt-force trauma corner.
But she didn’t reach for the mace, which was a smaller version of his mallet of doom. “No guns? No rocket launchers?”