“So . . . what do you think?” Gina asked after a moment. “I know it’s not much.”
“Let me go back to the station,” Eran said. “Go through some records. See if there’s any correlation to past cases and what you’re going through here.”
“Gina,” Brynna said carefully, “you do know that the people you told Casey Anlon about . . . two of those people have turned around and done terrible things. And this morning, he saved someone else that you told him about.”
“I know,” Gina said. “And I know it sounds awful and maybe it makes me a terrible person, but I don’t care about those other people. I’m sorry, but I just want to save my husband. I’ve done what I had to just trying to do that. And I’d keep doing whatever it takes, but I finally realized this morning that none of it’s doing any good. I tried to see something on him, like I do other people, and it . . . didn’t end well. I think people are dying for nothing, because whoever has Vance isn’t letting him go.”
“All right,” Brynna said. “But no more. Just don’t answer the phone, okay?”
Gina nodded. “Okay. What now?”
An idea came to Eran. “Do you have a cell phone?” When Gina nodded again, he said, “Good. Give me the number and we’ll be in touch,” Eran said. “We’ll call you on that instead of the landline. You’ll recognize my number—here’s my card—and you already have Brynna’s.”
“Are you sure?” Gina asked. “Are you sure I shouldn’t answer the regular phone? That I shouldn’t talk to this person?”
“Absolutely positive,” Brynna said. Something in her voice made tears fill Gina’s eyes. “It’s not going to do you any good.”
They left Gina standing at the apartment door with an absolutely hopeless look on her face. Eran could tell by her face that Brynna wished she could be of more comfort. He had a sinking feeling that she knew who the voice belonged to, and there was probably no hope for Vance Hinshaw.
“SO,” ERAN SAID WHEN they got to the car, “can you find her husband?”
“Not necessarily.” Brynna settled onto the passenger seat. “But I can find the voice.”
“Ah. All right.” He looked at her closely. “What aren’t you telling me, Brynna?”
Brynna’s mouth stretched into a thin, hard line. “The voice isn’t human.”
Eran groaned. “I should’ve seen this coming. Go on.”
“It belongs to a demon named Jashire.”
“Another demon.”
“Yes. Pretty strong, pretty powerful. She thrives on guilt.”
“She?” Eran answered.
“Yeah. Like me. But . . . not. Anyway, I don’t know what Gina has in her past that made her so vulnerable, but there’s something there she’s not telling us about. I don’t think it really matters.” Her eyes narrowed. “I’m not sure how Jashire got hold of Gina’s name or Casey Anlon’s connection to her. I can see what she’s got on Casey, the If I don’t save someone’s life, he might’ve been a good person who died for nothing angle. Her whole ploy is just to make someone as dispirited as possible all the way to the end.”
“The end?”
Brynna nodded. “What she always goes for: suicide.”
“Crap. Suicide in a nephilim, like Casey?”
“It’s not unheard of. Sometimes a nephilim can get so confused, so far off the path that he or she subconsciously knows was there, that they just can’t deal with it anymore. To drive a nephilim to suicide?” She shook her head. “That would be big, big points in Jashire’s favor.”
Eran was already turning the car back toward the police station. “So these points, exactly what do they gain Jashire?”
Brynna shrugged. “What does something like that gain anyone? Favor, power . . . who knows? Hell’s not much different than Earth in some respects.” Her mouth twisted. “It’s all in who you know and who you can get close to.”
“So if I understand this correctly, you can find Jashire but not Vance Hinshaw.”
Brynna nodded. “And just because I find her, doesn’t mean I find Vance. I can locate wrever she is physically on this Earth, but if she’s keeping him somewhere other than with her . . .” She spread her hands. “He could be anywhere.”
“Do you think she’ll tell you?”
Brynna had to shake her head at that. “Why should she?” She went silent, then finally added, “There’s a very good chance that he’s already dead, Eran.”
Eran didn’t look at her. “Yeah. I figured that. So what’s next? Are we going after her?”
“I’m not getting the sense that she’s actually around right now.”
“What? I thought you said—”
“When she’s on Earth,” Brynna reminded him.
“Oh.”
Brynna didn’t want to tell him that there was no way she was going after Jashire if he was with her. Jashire would see him as nothing more than a useful tool with which to control Brynna, and she would kill him in a heartbeat if she thought he was only getting in the way. She hated having to lie, because that’s what this was—lying by omission—but she would never take the chance of endangering his life. Despite everything that had happened, he still had no real concept of just how fragile he was and how powerful she, and those like her, really were.
“So how long?” he asked, snapping her thoughts back to right now. “I mean, does she pop up in your mind like radar or what?”
One corner of Brynna’s mouth lifted. “Something like that. Like I said, it’s a resonance. I just sort of feel it. Kind of like a sixth sense thing—I think that’s what humans would call it.”
“Great.” His voice was exasperated. “Another thing for which there’s no explanation.”
Brynna had to laugh. “You have no idea, Eran. You just have no idea.”
CHARLIE HOGUE WAS STILL thinking about Brynna. He couldn’t seem to stop himself but at least now his thoughts about her had changed a bit. They weren’t all good. They weren’t where they should be, which was not on Brynna at all, but they were getting there. He still wanted her; he didn’t know why, but he did. But there was something else working its way back through the layers of his consciousness, something coming from deep inside. That something was memories of Brenda, his wife, and Michelle and Bryan, his kids. That part was completely appalled at his actions.
When he thought back to the night before and how he had shown up at his brother’s place and said all those things, he couldn’t believe it had been him. He felt like he must have been possessed. Had he really done that? Had he really nearly tossed away most of the years of his life, everything he’d worked for, everything he loved? There was nothing wrong with his life—in fact, everything was good about it. His wife adored him, his kids were great. Okay, so they weren’t perfect, but what kids were? And they’d probably be a pain in the ass when they grew up and went through their teenage years. But they were still good kids at heart . . . just like he was a good man at heart.
But what he was learning about himself was that he wasn’t a particularly strong man, and that, almost more than the words he had said to Brynna, shamed him. He had let himself down. He had thought that he was a faithful, stand-by-his-family man. And yet what had he done but nearly abandoned them . . . just as his birth parents had abandoned him.
He didn’t want to be like that. He didn’t want to be that person. He wanted to be a better person.
Brenda was still calling him but he hadn’t answered any of her phone messages yet. He felt a combination of guilt and longing every time he saw her number flash across the screen. He wanted to go back to three weeks ago, before he’d ever come on this trip, found his father, and introduced himself to his brother. He wanted to talk to his wife. But he couldn’t—not yet. Not while thoughts of that woman still twisted around in his brain. He couldn’t do it. He had to get her out of his head and return that space to the person to whom it rightfully belonged—his wife. He had loved this woman since high school—he still did. He had to fix this somehow.
Th
e guilt he felt over what he’d done was all-consuming. It wound itself around those same thoughts of Brynna that wouldn’t leave and made him feel unworthy. He was not a good man, he was not a good husband, he was not a good father. He was no better than Douglas Redmond.
As he sat in his cheap hotel room, all he wanted in the world was >
home.
And yet . . . thoughts of Brynna still haunted him, and he couldn’t figure out what the hell would make them go away.
Twenty
“Hello, Jashire.”
The last two times on Earth that Brynna had dealt with Lahash, he had surprised her, and the first time—in the basement of the jewelry store on Clark Street—very badly. Because of that, she took an almost comic glee in startling the female demon. Brynna had tracked her to a tenement building on the South Side, in a neighborhood that was more dangerous than the one in which she had lived before moving in with Eran. She had an idea that Gina’s husband was probably in the building somewhere, but to find him she’d have to go through every apartment. Some were occupied, some were not, some were filled with squatters and drug users. It could be a messy situation. There was so much death and decomposition on the air of this place that she couldn’t separate one smell from another without being familiar with it ahead of time. She was going to have to make Jashire tell her where the man was, or Eran was going to have to figure out a way to come in with human help and go through the building space by space.
“Astarte!” Jashire exclaimed, using Lucifer’s name for her. “I never expected to see you here!”
“Really.” Brynna kept her distance. “So you weren’t tracking me. You weren’t working with someone else, like Lucifer or Lahash, to find me.” Not really questions, her words came out more as statements of disbelief.
One of Jashire’s eyebrows arched, but there was a flicker in her vision. “No.”
Brynna considered this. She actually believed the demon, but there was something going on between her and probably Lahash. She wasn’t sure what, but she was certain there was a connection of some kind. The female form that Jashire had taken was quite stunning, voluptuous with full red lips and dark Asian eyes framed by a shining head of black, curly hair that fell almost to her waistre was no doubt she’d create a few ripples as she walked down the street. Brynna knew that wasn’t exactly by choice. Even in her true Hellish form, Jashire was very beautiful. This manifestation was just an extension of that. It was probably a good thing she wasn’t the kind of demon that Brynna had been—it was unlikely any man would have been able to resist her.
“So,” Jashire said cheerfully. “Long time no see. What brings you to these parts? As if I didn’t know.”
Brynna gave her a dark grin. “As if. I’m sure you’ve heard the dirt.”
“Yes.” The apartment they were in was filthy, full of trash and beat-up furniture that no human who possessed the remotest sense of cleanliness would dare sit on. Jashire had no such reservations. She plunked down on a gray chair that had stuffing spilling from cracks and rips in its surface and who knew what kind of insects crawling on it, then began picking languidly at things skittering along one armrest, flicking them onto the floor. “None of that concerns me. That’s not my fight. I mean, I do like a good brawl now and then, but Lucifer can handle his own runaways—although I will say you have been the first and only one so far. I’m sure he doesn’t want you to set a bad example, cause unrest in the kingdom and all.”
“I don’t really care what Lucifer wants,” Brynna said. “What I do care about is you fucking around with a friend of mine.”
Jashire sent her a startled look. “A friend of yours? I can’t imagine what you’re talking about. You have human friends? How philistine of you.”
“I have an acquaintance or two. You do remember what friendship was, don’t you?”
“I remember you and I had quite the relationship going once upon a time.” She ran her hands down her shoulders and over her breasts, accentuating them beneath the clingy, sweat-stained tank top she wore. “Care to take a tumble for old times’ sake? Lucifer never minded. He liked to watch, remember?”
Brynna grimaced. “Those days are over, Jashire. They ended a long time ago. It’s been . . . what? Six or seven hundred years?”
Jashire shrugged. “Time means nothing. You know that. Time is eternal.”
“It means something to me.”
Jashire laughed. “You talk like a human, Astarte. I can’t believe I have to remind you that you’re not. You’re immortal—you’re going to live forever. What’s a few thousand years to us? Anyway, I’m not interested in someone like you anymore. I have my own current set of toys here on Earth.”
“I know. I’m looking for a particular one of your ‘toys.’ In fact, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t toy with him anymore.”
“Really.”
Brynna watched Jashire’s face but there was no indication she knew precisely who Brynna was talking about. It was an unfortunate fact that Vance could be one of any number of humans Jashire was tormenting all at the same time. The odds were Brynna would never know. She had made this connection only because of the nephilim and Georgina Whitfield.
“I like my toys,” Jashire said with a pout. “I’m going to keep them. All of them. Find your own toys to play with.”
Brynna moved around the small space, kicking aside a cockroach, prodding the body of a dead mouse with the toe of one shoe. “I’m sure you can spare one,” she said. “You don’t have to be so greedy.”
“Greed is what it’s all about, Astarte. It always has been. Mine, mine, mine. Out of all of us, you should know Lucifer’s opinion on that subject. I hear the rumors. He’s still looking for you, you know. He hasn’t given up.”
“Like I said before, I don’t care what Lucifer wants. I don’t belong to him.”
“Oh, yes you do!”
“No, I don’t. I made my decision.”
“You were never free to make that decision.”
It was Brynna’s turn to shrug. “Whatever—he’s there, I’m here. Never the twain shall meet.”
Jashire laughed outright. “I guess time—that time you so value—will certainly tell about that.”
“Back to right now,” Brynna said. “You have something I want.”
“Okay.” Jashire sent her a calculating look. “Assuming I do, the question is, do you have anything I want? How about the timeless tradition of bartering? I hear that’s becoming popular again, what with the bad economy and all.”
“Material possessions?” Brynna shook her head. “I can’t imagine what I have that you can’t get yourself.”
“I’m not talking about material, Astarte.” Jashire’s sidelong glance was full of speculation. “You have a . . . smell about you. A human smell . . . a man smell. It permeates everything. What’s up with that? I might be interested in whoever this man is.”
Brynna shook her head. “I’m afraid that’s not something available for trade.”
“Too bad. Like you, there’s not much about this world that truly interests me. That was the only thing that caught my attention.”
“Sorry.”
When Brynna didn’t make any move to leave, Jashire finally sighed. “Okay, who is it? Who’s this person you want to take away from me? And why are you so interested, anyway? I mean, the stories are that you think you’re going to be forgiven and returned to . . . what? Heaven?”
Brynna didn’t even flinch. “Something like that.”
Jashire grinned. “I suppose we all have our dreams. So sad for you. I’m living mine.”
Brynna ignored the jibe. “Vance Hinshaw,” she said.
Jashire looked startled. “You want him? Why?”
“I have my reasons.”
“Well, your reasons don’t matter,” Jashire told her. “That’s out of the question. He’s my toy and he has connections to other toys of mine.”
“How about you play your games with someone else? I want that man.”
&nbs
p; Jashire giggled. “It’s just like that old people saying—they want ice water in Hell, or some shit like that.” She laughed louder. “Every time I hear that, it cracks me up. Don’t you think it’s funny?”
“Not particularly.” Brynna’s face hardened. “Where is he?”
“Back off, Astarte. He’s mine.” The demon’s eyes narrowed. “How did you find me, anyway?”
“I have my methods,” Brynna answered. “And since you seem to like human sayings so much, how about this one? I’ve taken his wife ‘under my wing.’ Since you won’t be yanking her around anymore, you might as well give me her husband.”
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