by Jessa Slade
She raised her gaze to track the wandering souls. If she was going to talk to any of them . . .
“If only souls kept their fake tits,” she muttered. She cleared her throat and called, “Amber?” She thought for a moment. “Myra? Are you here?”
Fane shifted in his loafers. “Maybe choose just one. We don’t want them all over us.”
Of course not. Who wanted soul smears all over? “Myra picked Amber for her stripper name, even though I told her amber isn’t worth shit without a big bug stuck in it. She said Myra sounded like a cow’s name. But you should’ve seen her boob job.” Nim kept her gaze out of focus as one of the souls drifted nearer. Maybe Amber, and maybe pissed about the wasted plastic surgery.
How, exactly, was an amorphous column of transparent Christmas lights supposed to pass along a message? And what could a murdered soul know about Corvus, who’d, after all, sent only his human and demonic henchmen? Yet another higher power who didn’t want to get his hands dirty.
“Myra . . .” Nim found she had no more words for the dead dancer than she’d had for the live one. “I wish I knew which of us got screwed worse.”
The soul strobed between Nim and the stain in the middle of the floor where Amber’s leg had lain. The path traced an after-image streak of light through the gloomy club. Abruptly, it added a third point in its rounds.
Fane followed the light to a round table tipped against the bar as if it had had one drink too many. He peered around. When the Amber soul materialized above his head in a silent burst of light, he ducked.
Nim snickered, then noticed the sudden tensing of his shoulders as he swooped down. “What did you find?”
“Demon droppings.” He cupped a shard of something in his palm. Glassy glints melded with dull bone.
Nim remembered the decomposing chunk of feralis in the tunnel below the club. “Not as useful as a business card, is it? You lured me here under false pretenses.”
From the back hall stepped a man with a shiny badge clipped to his front pocket. “What pretenses would those be?”
Nim winced. Here she’d been thinking the teshuva’s senses were warning against calling down a horde of tenebrae on their heads. Sometimes it was hard to remember all the ways she could fuck up.
Fane leaned against the table, as if he hadn’t a care in the world—this world, at least. He pocketed the shard so smoothly she wouldn’t have noticed if she hadn’t been looking for it. “I told her she could get her last paycheck.”
The cop came toward them, his right hand hovering in a way that made her think he wasn’t as comfortable as Fane and didn’t care about revealing his intention to shoot them, should he feel the need. After what he’d seen in the aftermath of the attack, she didn’t blame him.
He gave the corner of the stage a wide berth, keeping her and Fane in his sights. “You must be Elaine Hamlin.”
“The Naughty Nymphette,” Fane supplied helpfully.
Nim shot him a dirty look. But she’d learned a long time ago not to sass in front of cops unless absolutely necessary. “Yes, sir. That’s me.” Hard to deny with a boa constrictor wrapped around her neck, considering there was a rather lurid Viva Las Showgirls promo poster of her and Mobi in the men’s toilet.
“I thought I’d see you at your coworker’s funeral this morning out at Oak Woods. I’ve been trying to find you.”
She widened her eyes. “You have?” Her other old habit with cops was to lie shamelessly. Asking why he was looking might be a bit hard to swallow, considering she was standing in a murder scene, so she settled for, “I haven’t been checking my messages.”
The cop’s eyes narrowed as much as hers had widened. “So, you didn’t know what happened here?”
How to answer in a way he could believe? Answering with the truth was just too unbelievable. “I just can’t believe it,” she said, interjecting a quaver into her voice. That was true enough.
He sighed. “So after you left here Monday night with the man with the hook—Who was he again?”
“He was my”—she blinked slowly—“date.”
“And did your date have a name?”
She blinked even slower. “John.” Fane snorted softly, so she ignored him. “I’m sorry I can’t help you more, Officer . . .”
“Detective Ramirez. And where is John now?”
She shrugged. “I had another . . . date.” And this time she let her gaze slide to Fane, who stiffened in outrage. “Since I’m a little behind on rent, what with missing my paycheck and all.”
Ramirez tapped his finger against the gun butt. “Are you two aware that removing police tape to interfere with a crime-scene investigation is a punishable offense?” Frustration echoed in his voice. He wanted to get somebody for something.
“I’m sorry, Detective Ramirez.” Fane held out his hands in an innocent gesture. “The insurance company said I could do my estimate for the cleanup.” By way of explanation, he added, “Last Call Cleaning, services in decontamination and sterilization. Would you like my card?”
No, obviously, Detective Ramirez would not like it, not unless the card had a murderer’s phone number on the back, which, Nim could tell from his even deeper sigh, he’d already decided they weren’t.
Well, he was mostly right. They weren’t murderers. Not of humans, anyway. Or not directly. Not unless they were possessed.
Fane cleared his throat as Ramirez reluctantly took the biohazard-yellow card. “Detective Ramirez, I was wondering about some of the unusual damage here. Anything I should know?”
The cop gave him another once-over. Maybe it was Fane’s angel or the business card, but the wariness faded to weariness. “Your cleanup order should have noted special instructions for a hydrofluoric acid spill. Some of the bodies were . . . eaten away.” He rubbed his eyes. “The coroner said the acid sinks in without much pain and then dissolves flesh from the inside out. You die before you realize how badly you’ve been burned. So watch yourself.”
“Thank you, Detective. I’ll be careful,” Fane said humbly, and the humility sounded genuine. Which made Nim narrow her eyes at him. What was he concocting in that angel-addled head of his?
“Miss Hamlin, I’d like to talk to you more about that night. As far as we can tell, you were the last to leave the club before . . .” A haunted shadow crossed his face, deepening the lines around his mouth. “Before what happened. Will you come down to the station?”
“Of course,” she said, with as much sincerity as Fane. “As soon as I think of something to tell you.”
Ramirez looked up at her as if he could hear the echo of the unsaid words. “I’m sure you’ll call right away.”
“Whatever I can do to help.” Really, she was helping him by leaving him out of it. Bad things happened around her. He could just ask Amber.
Ramirez sized up Fane. “If you find anything during the cleanup . . .”
“Last Call Cleaning has a long-standing relationship with the Chicago PD,” Fane said. “And I have your card.”
“Right.” Ramirez sighed a third time, and Nim knew he was down for the count.
Out in the parking lot, the detective climbed into his unmarked car and pulled away. After the stinking gloom of the club, the hot glare off bare concrete was almost a relief. Still, Nim hunched against the chill between her shoulder blades as if the Amber soul might be watching her go.
“I’ll finish cleaning up,” Fane said. “On several levels. Don’t be troubled.”
Nim followed him to the car. “So, what did you put together in there? I saw something squirming in your brain. I’m assuming that was an idea and not the angel.” His gaze slid away, and she snarled, “Whatever it is, I helped you get it. You owe me.”
“Deals only work with devils,” he snarled back.
They each took a short step to the side, circling each other.
“Don’t try me, heshuka,” he warned.
“Don’t tempt me, gnuna zira.”
He jerked his head back. “What did y
ou just call me?”
“Fucking wanker.” She hesitated. “In Aramaic, I think. Maybe Assyrian? I’d have to look it up again.” She held out her hand and tapped her fingertips twice against her palm in a give-it-over gesture. “So, what’s in your pocket?”
His hand hovered at his hip like one of her former customers running short on singles. “You should leave this alone, for your own good.”
“So I can be good?”
“Obviously, I’ve been led astray.” His glower returned. “Which is why the sphericanum commands we stay far away from your kind.”
“And yet you brought me here. Which tells me you don’t obey commands any better than I do.” She pitched her voice toward wheedling. “Come to the dark side, angel.”
He arched one eyebrow at her. “Please.” But he dug into his pocket. “Corvus Valerius has crossed a line in this battle. He must be stopped. Whatever the cost.”
“So where are the choirs of angels?” When he didn’t answer, she cocked an eyebrow at him. “Oh, you meant whatever the cost to us, the league.”
He opened his curled fingers and revealed the shard. In the bright sun, the broken edges of the glass glinted like teeth. “As you mentioned before, the angelic forces do not linger forever in their chosen hosts. We aid them in their errands in this realm without the benefit of immortality.”
An image of Jonah’s grim mouth as he’d spoken of his wife flashed through her mind “There are downsides too. But you get no ninja skills either, huh?”
“Nothing to compare with the meanest teshuva.”
She pursed her lips. “That does explain why evil always seems to triumph.”
“But if you aren’t evil—”
“Some of us aren’t,” she interrupted.
He ignored her. “Then we should join forces.”
“The enemy of my enemy,” she murmured. Isn’t that the way Jonah felt as well? He had taken her on despite hating everything she was. He had reached out to her despite everything he’d seen. And he’d seen it all. She shook off the thought. “Give me the feralis chunk.”
He passed it over with visible reluctance. “What will you do?”
“Take it to Liam Niall.”
“And the league leader will be willing to risk all his talyan on this suicidal endeavor?”
She smiled grimly. “It’s what they live for.”
She made Fane take her to the mall. When he balked, she pointed out, “I can’t tell the league I’ve been hanging out with an angel all day. They’ll crucify me. Not for real. But they’ll believe I stopped by the club to get my wardrobe. Such as it is.”
He wouldn’t give her the credit card. “I’m not showing this stop on my expense account.”
She sniffed. “Angels have expense accounts? No wonder we’re losing. Everybody else is covering their asses, and only we talyan put ourselves out there.”
“You more than most,” he said.
“You’ll make it all up billing the city for cleaning up the club, thanks to me,” she shot back. She wished her voice hadn’t wavered at the end.
She bought a bustier—vinyl, not leather, tragically—and matching strappy black sandals with fuck-you heels. She threw in a shiny black, thigh-length trench coat, which was a steal on sale because, after all, it was August in Chicago.
As they left the mall parking lot, she leaned back in the Lotus seat and stroked the leather. This was where she’d been headed: the moneyed men of Vegas and their endless needs. And now she was going to . . . “Take us to the cemetery.”
Fane sighed. “There’s nothing there.”
“Nothing except her body.”
He sighed again, gusty enough to blow Amber’s soul across the city. If it hadn’t been trapped by the horror of its last moments. But he did as he was told.
At the cemetery, she slipped into the black coat.
Fane squinted. “You look like a slutty-hippie-manga Death.”
“That’s the nicest thing you’ve said to me yet.” She slammed out the door, hoping Mobi got frisky in the hot car with the angel-man.
The new grave had a view of an oak tree. Nim stared down into the open pit. The diggers hadn’t backfilled the hole yet, and the top of the casket gleamed like her vinyl trench under a scattering of white rose petals. Another bouquet of white roses drooped in the heat atop the blank granite headstone.
Nim fisted her hands in her pockets, fury coursing through her. Amber or Myra—something should’ve been carved on her rock.
Nim took a breath. Of course, Myra’s family, whoever they were, hadn’t had time to carve anything, but somebody had cared enough to leave the flowers and the crumpled tissue, white as a wayward rose except for the mascara stains.
Nim pulled her hand from her pocket and opened her fingers. The semifinals ticket wadded in her palm was damp with her sweat. But the gaudy gold imprinted on black and red still glittered in the sunlight: VIVA LAS SHOWGIRLS.
“Not this showgirl,” she murmured. “Either one, actually. I guess we skipped straight to the finals.”
She stood and tossed the ticket into the grave. She snapped off one of the roses and took a last look back. Her fingers clenched around the stem, but the thorns had been shaved down to nothing.
At the Lotus, she held out the rose to Fane.
He studied her with the same look he gave Mobi. “What? Her gold fillings wouldn’t come out?”
She threw the flower at his head. “When you go to clean the club—if that’s your euphemism for pretending you’re winning this war against evil—take the flower to her. Tell her she’s resting in peace. If she can find it.”
He dropped her off at the outskirts of the warehouse district, which she thought was cruel, considering the blazing sun, especially since the talyan would still be snoozing off their previous night’s adventures and wouldn’t notice her return.
“Wouldn’t want all your subterfuge to go to waste,” he said.
So she trudged the last long blocks to the warehouse. Mobi twined over her shoulders, energized by the heat. “I know;you would’ve liked Vegas. But the show must go on.”
After the heat outside, the cathedral cool of the warehouse interior soothed her skin. She went down to Sera’s lab and laid the feralis fragment on the counter. The unnatural mix of muted shell and hazed glass glimmered in the screen-saver light from the computer.
She found a sticky note and scrawled What is this? with an arrow pointing toward the shell. She cleared a little space on the cluttered counter so the two items would stand out. Then she went to Jonah’s room.
He was still dead to the world, as if she had never gone. She rather wished she hadn’t.
She slid Mobi into his cabinet and herself into the shower. Washing off the sweat was easy; the remembered stink of the club . . . not so much. But she scrubbed her skin until the teshuva couldn’t keep up with the sting.
When she got out and padded nude into the bedroom, Jonah was propped up on the pillow, arm behind his head. The sheet was crumpled around his waist. The shopping bag lay on the bed where she had tossed it.
He watched her. “A surprise?”
“Oh yeah.” She climbed onto the bed and straddled him.
His gaze cut to the bag. “Aren’t you going to show me?”
“That’s not the surprise. That’s the distraction.” She leaned down to set her lips under his ears. He shivered at the gentle breath she blew against his skin.
“Probably I should be terrified,” he murmured.
“Of the surprise? Or the distraction?”
“Of you.”
She circled her hips over his, the sheet scant protection from his heat. “You don’t seem terrified.”
He settled his hand high on her thigh, his thumb nestled between one of the faint match-head scars and the black tracery of her reven. “I’m waiting.”
She sighed and sat back. “I went to the club this afternoon.”
His fingers closed reflexively, and she winced as his grip drove in
to a nerve. As her words had, apparently. “There weren’t any demons,” she said quickly.
“I can’t even imagine how you think, after less than a week of possession, you’re qualified to make that assessment.”
“Nothing killed me, did it?”
He rolled, dumping her off. Not expecting the eviction, she sprawled ungracefully on the sheet. He stood and faced her. His body was hard, his erection straining toward her, but his expression was harder yet and utterly closed. “I can’t trust you, can I?”
The accusation stung hotter than the shower. She didn’t even have the gnarly dreads to toss back over her shoulder with pointed disdain. “Did I ever give you the impression you should?”
“We’re supposed to be together.”
“You righteous males left us here while you went out hunting Corvus,” she shot back. “You would’ve locked us in our rooms if you thought the walls would hold us. How is that together?”
“We needed to know you’d be safe—”
“Safe?” she snapped. “You can’t save us any more than you could stop time from taking your wife.”
He recoiled, not a glimmer of violet in his eyes.
She bit her lip, but it was too late to hold back the words. He’d stayed with Carine despite the demon and the years that had come between them. Had he forgotten what that meant? “We sleep together, we fight together, we are together—for all of it. Or what’s the point of saying you love me?”
“You could tell me.” His eyes glittered now with pure male fury. “But then you might have to say the word back to me.”
She took the hit without flinching. She couldn’t have hoped he hadn’t noticed her lack of response to his declaration. But how could she answer when she knew she wasn’t what he’d hoped for?
When once again she didn’t answer, his tone dropped coldly. “Then I suppose,” he said, “the point is to rip Corvus’s djinni from his mummy husk and consign both of them to hell, where his soul is waiting.”
Oh, ouch. If only she’d put on the bustier while she’d had the chance. The black leather would have kept her guts from spilling out.
She lifted her chin. “You’ll be psyched to know I returned with a little souvenir. A hint to where Corvus is making his monsters. Now, aren’t you glad I broke curfew and got you what you really wanted?”