She closed her eyes and bowed her head. Silver hair fell around her face, and she pressed one finger against her brow, like she ached there. I suddenly felt more sorry for her—and wondered if that was a trap.
“You were close,” I said carefully. “I was in his office. I saw the picture of you together.”
“We were married. Briefly. Years ago.” Her voice held little emotion; a faint sharp edge, nothing more. “How did he die?”
“Shot. Last night.” I did not cushion the truth. Lying about the dead, when they had no voice to speak for themselves, had always rubbed me the wrong way. “He had my name on him. The police found it. They came to me because they thought I might have killed him.”
Sarai’s head remained bowed, but Jack’s hands tensed. I gave him a long, hard look. “What am I missing here, Meddling Man?”
The woman made a small choked sound. Her delicate hand, smeared with paint, passed over her eyes. “Meddling Man. It’s been years since I heard that name.”
“But you know mine.”
Sarai finally looked at me. Unshed tears glistened. “Maxine Kiss. Hunter and Warden. Guardian of the prison veil. The last of your kind.”
My voice refused to work. The edges of the stone disc cut into my hands. Her gaze flicked down, across the object, and that careful mask slipped back into place. “You should leave. Come back tomorrow. We can talk then.”
“No,” I managed, hoarse. “I’m sorry for your loss, but I need answers.”
“You need nothing,” she snapped.
“Sarai,” Jack said firmly, and the woman spun away without a word, walking down the narrow, cluttered path of books with swaying, impossible grace. She did not look back.
I wanted to chase her down. I would have, except Jack’s hand tightened. “Let her be.”
I bit back a coarse response. “You seem like an odd couple.”
“We’ve had years to work out our differences,” replied the old man, with a particular gentleness that made it impossible to stay angry.
I pushed back my hair, holding my aching head. “How does she know who I am? Did you tell her?”
Jack did not answer. I looked at him. Found his gaze focused on the edge of my jaw, which was exposed now. Took me a moment, but I remembered Oturu, how he had hit me with his hair. I had forgotten about it, but Jack was staring—staring with a sick, slick flush in his cheeks. He had been so calm downstairs, so cheerful throughout all of this. I had hardly thought it possible to see that expression on his face.
But he looked at that spot on my jaw like it was a nuclear bomb, countdown sequence already ticking from ten seconds to one. A frozen, resigned fear, fat with dread.
As though he wanted to run—and knew it was too late.
I touched my skin and felt those marks. I looked for a mirror. Found one near the kitchen sink, next to a copy of Everett Wheeler’s Vocabulary of Military Trickery, the cover of which was the repository for a dangerously rusty old razor and a wooden bowl of old-fashioned shaving soap, complete with bristle brush.
The mirror was delicate but heavy, framed in solid silver. The glass seemed to shimmer slightly as I looked into it, and I saw, below my ear, a small fan of lines that was almost invisible. No welts, no blood. Just indentations, as though a cold brand had been laid into me, pressed so hard it had left a permanent mark. The lines flowed into each other; fluid, as though unfurling, like the outline of a wing. Or a cloak. Or that demon’s living hair.
I held my breath. Jack still stared, his gaze distant, hollow.
“You know this,” I whispered. “What this means.”
He hesitated. “No. But I know who gave it to you.”
I almost dropped the mirror. “How is that possible?”
Jack’s warm hand slid over mine, a brief contact I was totally unprepared for, so much that I stood there, dumb, until I realized the only reason he had touched me was to take the mirror out of my hand. The old man set it down, very carefully. “Tomorrow, my dear. We will be here.”
“We’re here now,” I protested, part of my reluctance due to fear, an irrational dread that if I left the old man, I might never see him again. I felt weak for it, like a little kid, and squeezed the stone disc until I hurt. Pain was the only way I could remember myself, but even that was hollow.
Zee caught my leg, pleading with his eyes. All the boys were watching me. I hardly knew them, either.
I looked at Jack. “Tomorrow. You promise?”
“Not a force on this world could make me break my word to you,” he said, with such solemn grave dignity I felt those words hang heavy and rich, as though a promise from Jack was something a person could mark on a treasure map and hold with an utter certainty of truth.
“All right,” I breathed. But before Jack could relax, I added, “One more question. How does Sarai know me?”
Jack sighed. “She also met Jeannie. And your mother.”
“Impossible. My mother, maybe, but not my grandmother. That woman is too young.”
“Not that young. You have to look deeper than the skin to know Sarai Soars, my dear. Much deeper.”
“Zee said the same about you,” I told him coldly. “ ‘Meddling Man is all skin,’ he said.”
“Did he?” Jack smiled sadly. “Well. You should listen to your friends.”
And with that, he walked me from his office.
I took my time driving home. Not a good night for pushing my luck. The boys were quiet. My head hurt.
I heard the piano while I was still on the stairs. When I opened the apartment door, Grant did not stop playing. He did not smile, either. His fingers flowed over a waterfall of Mozart, and I could feel the tension in every note.
I kicked off my boots, threw aside my jacket, and slumped beside him on the piano bench. My bones felt like jelly. So did my heart. Dek and Mal chirped, then disappeared from my shoulders. The apartment always felt safe enough to take a break from bodyguard duty.
“Okay,” I said to the side of Grant’s head. “According to the zombies, the world is going to end, there’s a demon who can choke me with his mind who claims I summoned him, and I may have found my biological grandfather. Who seems to be living with Badelt’s ex-wife.”
“Wow.” Grant did not stop playing the piano. “All I’ve got is gas.”
I cracked a smile. “Maybe you can pray real hard for it to go away.”
Grant lifted his hands off the keys. I took over, playing “Chopsticks.” He joined me a moment later, our duet growing increasingly complicated, until I was practically in his lap, our hands and arms tangled together.
“Apocalypse,” he finally said, when we stopped. “That’s old news. Tell me about the grandfather and ex-wife.”
So I did. And then I backtracked and described the demon, the reaction of the boys. Their refusal to fight the creature. Oturu.
Grant said nothing for a long time. His arms were heavy and warm around my waist. With all that had happened, I could not imagine sleeping, but my eyelids began to feel heavy.
“Don’t pass out on me,” he said gently, kissing the back of my ear. “The boy is awake.”
I straightened, rubbing my face. “When?”
“Less than an hour ago. I convinced him to stay, but he’s not feeling well. The chloroform.”
“He must be frightened.”
“He’s scared of men. I couldn’t stay in the room with him, even to talk. And no, I didn’t try to . . . modify . . . him. Though I was tempted to take the edge off.”
I thought about that. “Anything else happen? Suwanai and McCowan call back?”
“No.”
“Mary?”
“Rex is down in the basement, cleaning up the mess.”
“Personal zombie assistant.”
Grant grunted. “I know he bothers you.”
“He’s a human possessed by a demon.”
“He’s reforming.”
“Does reformation include giving up his host?”
Grant said noth
ing. I turned in his lap to look at him. “The demon and the man are not the same. One is still a prisoner of the other.”
“I can’t kill Rex,” he said quietly, searching my gaze. “I can’t kill any of them, Maxine. Not while I know their natures can change.”
“Because you force them to.”
Grant shook his head. “Because I show them another way. If they didn’t want my influence, they could abandon those bodies, go anywhere in this world. You know that. They stay because it’s their choice.”
Unfortunately, I did know that. And it wracked me. I killed demons. I killed them because I believed, unequivocally, that they deserved to die. I had been taught so from birth, told again and again that demons were irredeemable predators of the human race, and for my entire life had accepted that, without a single doubt, or question.
Until Grant. And now I lived under the same roof as zombies. My poor mother.
I scooted off his lap, but he caught my wrist and his eyes were dark, haunted. He very carefully turned my head to look at the mark beneath my ear, and after a long moment of silence, peeled down the collar of my sweater to examine my throat. I held still, eyes closed, trying not to remember what it felt like to choke to death. Wishing I could forget that cloak, or hair, those feet, and that smile.
Grant’s lips touched my skin. His mouth was hot and gentle.
“I get left behind,” he murmured, alongside my ear. “And I hate it. I pretend I don’t. I pretend nothing ever goes wrong, but then you come home and tell these stories, and it terrifies me.”
“You hide it well.”
“You know me better than that.” Grant pulled away, holding my face between his hands. “I’m going with you tomorrow. I’m not letting you out of my sight until this is resolved.”
“I can’t let you do that, Grant.”
“You can’t stop me.” His large, strong hands curled around the back of my neck, threading into my hair. “We take care of each other, right? Isn’t that what we promised? ”
“Yes,” I said quietly.
“Okay,” he replied.
“Some priest,” I told him. “You’re so bossy.”
“Former.” His mouth softened. “And look who’s talking.”
I smiled, and heard a distant scuffing sound above us. Like gravel. Took me off guard. “He’s on the roof?”
“He said he needed air.”
“Any advice?”
“You don’t need it.” His fingers danced a string of notes across the piano keys. “You always know what you need to do, Maxine.”
He was wrong, of course. Not that being downright clueless had ever stopped me before. There was an art to living, and sometimes it required the inexorable, relentless resolve just to keep plowing forward, one step at a time, no matter what the hell it was you were doing.
The rest usually took care of itself.
GRANT’S rooftop garden was accessible only through the apartment, and was, therefore, the one place we could relax together, outside, without worrying about covering my tattoos, or someone seeing the boys. It felt like an island on top of the world, and even though Grant did not have a green thumb like some of the other people in his shelter, he had managed to haul up some troughs of ferns and ivy. Anything with a sweet scent or dash of color had withered with winter.
The boy sat in one of two plastic lawn chairs, arranged near the fire pit, which was currently cold and dead. He did not seem bothered by the damp. He smoked a cigarette.
He saw me coming but did not stand. Just shifted his feet and looked down, tugging at his sweatshirt. I sat beside him in the other chair. Downtown towered before us, glittering like a string of steel and jewels. I heard cars and distant voices, the rumble of an airplane. I felt the boys nearby, in the shadows.
“Hard night,” I said.
“Had worse,” he replied.
“Good place to think.”
“I don’t know anything,” he told me. “About the murder. ”
I studied his profile. “That’s not what you told me in the alley.”
He licked his lips and took a long drag on his cigarette. Blew smoke into the air, which I inhaled, enjoying the scent. The boy’s silence stretched. I dug into the inner pocket of my jacket, swiped before coming up here, and found a packet of M&Ms. I tore open the paper and popped several in my mouth. Held out the rest to the boy. He hesitated, then took them.
Chocolate soothed. “I’m Maxine.”
My real name. It slipped out before I could stop myself, and I felt frightened for a moment. Had to calm myself down. Not easy. I was losing my edge. I thought, maybe, I had never had one.
“My name is Byron,” said the boy. Real name or fake, but it suited him. His eyes were old. Like a poet’s.
“I met his ex-wife tonight,” I said. “Brian’s ex. Her name is Sarai. She paints unicorns.”
“I didn’t see anything,” he replied.
“You knew Brian Badelt. I could see it in your eyes.”
The boy stayed quiet. I held my own silence. We sat for a long time, and my stomach growled. No supper. Those lonely M&Ms made me thirsty. I could hardly hear the boy breathe. He was just a pale, skinny face surrounded by shadow.
“I’m sorry you got in the middle,” I finally said. “I didn’t know that would happen.”
“Maybe you didn’t care.”
“I cared. I got you back.” Which was a little bit of truth, a little bit of lie. I wanted the boy to feel safe, though, and not because I thought it would make him talk. I just wanted him to relax. I wanted him to know that no one would hurt him. No pain, no price, no nothing that was not his own free will.
Byron’s gaze flicked sideways at me. “How did you do it?”
“The man responsible found me. We talked. He gave you back.”
“Couldn’t have been that easy.”
“Does it matter?”
His eyes narrowed. “You’re not one of them.”
“No,” I said, unsure what one of them included; whether it was Mafia, or guys with guns, or just the miasma of society, bearing down on his head. “I’m a lot scarier.”
His mouth twitched. I leaned forward, elbows resting on my knees. “Badelt had my name in his pocket when he died. That’s why I wanted to know more about him. I wanted to know why he was in that alley.” I studied the teen’s profile, illuminated by the city lights. “Was it to talk to you?”
Byron said nothing. I added, “You probably won’t believe me if I make you promises. Words are cheap. But what I will say is this—I won’t force you. You want to leave, you can leave. You want to stay quiet, stay quiet. But I could use your help.”
“Where are we?” he asked.
“The Coop. Maybe you’ve heard of it. It’s a homeless shelter near Chinatown. The man downstairs is the owner. He’s a good guy. You can stay as long as you want. Your own room. No strings, not unless you plan on doing drugs or having wild parties.”
He gave me a sharp look. “That’s a bullshit offer. I’ve heard of the Coop. No one gets their own room.”
“Some do. Special cases. You, if you want it.”
Byron put out his cigarette. “Nothing is free. Besides, someone will report me to Social Services. They’ll have to.”
“You have a good reason not to be at home?”
He shrugged and carefully tucked the butt of his cigarette into his jacket pocket. “I’d be there, otherwise.”
Sure. Stupid question. I leaned back. The plastic chair was damp, though not nearly as much as I. I could have wrung a river from my clothes.
The boy fingered his sweatshirt, the edge of his coat zipper. His nails were painted black, and bitten down to the quick. I watched him, and the sky. Thinking about demons and the veil. Old men and women. Secrets.
I felt the boys all around us, watching from the shadows. I resisted the urge to finger the brand beneath my ear. My only scar.
Byron said, “I can leave, anytime I want?”
“Anytime. We’ll proba
bly start nagging you about a GED after a while, or some other programs, but no one will force you. No one will kick you out.”
He did not believe me. I could see it in his eyes, but that was no surprise. Fourteen, fifteen, and living on the street with a gaze as old as dirt? There was a story there. Not a happy one.
He looked down at his hands. “Brian brought sandwiches every now and then. He handed them out. Couple times he had coats and blankets, or even just comic books. Never wanted anything in return. It was nice.”
More than nice, given the sudden, stricken misery on his face. He did not look at me, but his eyes were red, and so were his cheeks. His right hand balled into a fist.
Grant had said Byron was scared of men. If he had trusted Badelt, that was a big deal. It would be a big deal for me. His grief was going to run deep.
“Did you see who hurt him?” I asked softly. “Byron, what happened?”
He shook his head, rubbing his sleeve over his nose. “Things have been getting rough. Some other people moving in. Guns. More drugs. There’s money involved. The pretty girls have been disappearing. Brian gave me a number to call if I ever needed help. So I called. He was going to meet me. He said he had other questions. About something different.”
“Something different? Did he tell you what that was?”
Byron hesitated. “He was interested in you. Someone named Maxine, anyway.”
“Interested.”
“Not like sex. Just . . . interested. Curious. If I had ever heard of you.”
Curious. About me. That made no sense, other than the fact that Sarai knew my name and face, and had been married to Badelt. And even that was no answer—just another question. This night, full of questions.
I set it aside. “Tell me about the guns and drugs. The missing girls. Are the same men who took you responsible? Did they kill Badelt?”
Byron ate an M&M, his hand shaking. “I was just leaving. The man who killed Brian had blond hair. He wore a long coat. Blue or black. Expensive. One of them.”
Again, that wording. “Was he Russian?”
Byron shrugged, which could have meant anything. I sat back, thinking hard. The Wonder Twins and their cohort with the cell phone were certainly blond, but they had been dressed in cheap slacks and Windbreakers, not an expensive long coat.
The Iron Hunt Page 9