"Let's stick to 'when' he returns and not 'if,'" I said. "And I don't think Cedric's behind it."
"Of course Cedric's behind it," said Hugh. "They've been fighting over territory, right? You of all people should know that."
I shook my head, recalling Cedric's exasperation and Nanette's smug look. "No…I think Cedric's being set up here. If you ask me, it's Nanette who's behind it." I gave them a quick recap of my observations of her with both Cedric and Jerome.
Hugh arched an eyebrow. "Portland Nanette? She's hot, I'll give you that, but she's not that strong."
"All the more reason for her to mess with Jerome and Cedric. She's been worried about them dragging her into their turf war. Besides, if she combined her power with a human capable of a summoning…"
"Yeah," he admitted. "She could maybe do it…but that doesn't mean she did. My money's still on Cedric."
"Wouldn't she get in trouble for that?" asked Cody.
"Only if she's caught," said Peter.
I sighed. "And in the meantime, this is bad for Jerome."
"Glad to see your powers of stating the obvious didn't disappear with your shape-shifting," remarked Hugh.
I shot him a glare. "I mean reputation-wise. Nanette told me lots of people have been keeping an eye on Jerome because of all the stuff that's gone down here-particularly with letting nephilim escape. They think he can't keep control. Even if he surfaces tomorrow, I've got to imagine that getting summoned in the first place won't look good."
"It won't," agreed Hugh. "In fact, that's the other reason I stopped by. A bunch of demons are having a meeting tonight to talk about replacing him. Back room of the Cellar at seven."
"Wow, they move fast," said Cody.
"It's nothing official. Once word got out that Jerome was gone, every demon maneuvering for power moved in like that." Hugh snapped his fingers. I refrained from pointing out that all demons were maneuvering for power as a general rule. "They're mostly just here to assert themselves-show how tough they are, cozy up to Grace and Mei. They might try to schmooze us a little, actually."
"Why? We don't have any say in this," said Peter. He glanced between us all. "Do we?"
"No, but eventually someone from Management will come here to size up the situation and will talk to us in their assessment. Everything plays a part. Those wanting the position will strut around, show how they could keep this place in line, and put their bids in."
"Is Nanette going to be at this meeting?" I asked suspiciously.
"Yes," said Hugh, eyeing me. "And so will Cedric."
I eyed him right back. "I'm telling you, it's not Cedric. I'm certain of it."
"What, you have donuts with him for a week, and now you guys are BFF?"
"No, but I know him better than you do. And I think I understand Nanette better than you too," I shot back.
"So, you guys…" began Cody, a questioning note in his voice.
"Are you sleeping with Cedric?" Hugh demanded. "Are you playing both sides now?"
"No!"
"It kind of sounds like it."
"You guys," repeated Cody.
"Look," I said, "you just want to believe Nanette's innocent because you think she's hot."
"She is hot. For a demon."
"You guys!" yelled Cody. We turned to him. "What about us?"
"What about us?" I asked.
"What are we?" Cody's face was pinched and worried. Like Peter, he no longer seemed that excited about his newfound freedom. "Are we human?"
I opened my mouth to answer and then fell silent. I honestly didn't know. Hugh glanced at me and shrugged.
"Not exactly," said Peter. "I think we're kind of…in stasis. We're neither mortal nor immortal."
"We have to be one or the other," argued Hugh. "There's no purgatory equivalent to mortality."
Peter shrugged. "Hell's still got the lease on our souls. That's not going to change, no matter who our archdemon is. Removing him from the equation cuts us off from the abilities we get with immortality, but that's temporary."
"But does it cut us off from immortality itself?" asked Cody. "Can we die?"
Silence fell.
"Shit," said Hugh.
"I think…" Peter bit his lip. I had a feeling he was at the end of his knowledge on this subject. "I think they'd bring us back if we did."
"You think ?" asked Cody incredulously.
Peter threw up his hands. "I don't know! This has never happened to me before, okay? Maybe we are human. Maybe we can get sick. Maybe we can lose in a fight. Maybe Georgina'll get her period. I don't know, okay?"
"Whoa," I said, straightening up. "What do you mean-"
"Just stop it, all of you," exclaimed Hugh. "We're not going to figure any of this out right now. Just go to the meeting and find out there. Grace and Mei are trying to manage things for now, and they'll know what's up. No point in panicking now."
We sat there, and I knew that despite his words, we were all indeed panicking. My stomach was rolling, but this time, it wasn't a reaction to the severing of my bond with Hell. This was born of pure terror. When things were bad in my life-particularly after Seth and I had broken up-there had been times when I'd hated immortality. Death had sounded appealing. I honestly hadn't been able to fathom how I could endure the centuries to come and had envied the finite life spans of humans. But now? Faced with the idea that I could actually die? Suddenly, desperately, I wanted to cling to my immortality with every scrap of my strength. Death was bleak, dark, and frightening. All the world's dangers descended on me at once, all the things I'd hitherto been able to ignore. Car accidents. Electrocution. Bird flu. The world was no longer safe.
If the vampires felt any such fears, they apparently decided it wasn't going to get in the way of their last few days as free men. They rose as one and made motions to leave.
"Well, if Jerome's going to get replaced with or without us, then there's no point sitting and moping," said Peter.
"We got cut off without warning," I told him. "We could get reconnected to Hell's circuit board just as suddenly, you know. Aren't you a little nervous about getting caught out in the sun?"
"They're not going to make any decisions in the next five hours," said Peter brashly-too brashly, I thought.
He paused a moment, his gaze drifting to my window and the blue sky beyond it. There, in his dark eyes, I saw the tiniest, tiniest bit of longing. It occurred to me then just how much he must have missed the sun these last thousand years or so. Like the rest of us, he'd willingly sold his soul for immortality. Along with that, he'd gotten superhuman strength and speed in exchange for a dependency on blood, a denial of sunlight, and a job as a dispenser of fear and nightmares. I certainly had regrets about my hellish deal some days; no doubt he did too. And maybe, despite his lax, overconfident attitude about the sun, he truly was aware of the risk of getting fried-and thought it was worth it after all this time.
He and Cody left, leaving me and a still bleak-looking Hugh. I gently touched the imp's shoulder. "I'm sure this'll work out."
He cut me a wry look. "Really?"
I laughed softly. "No, not really. I'm just trying to make you feel better. I never realized before how much you liked your…what would you call it? Imp vision?"
This finally got him to smile. "You always thought of me as a paper pusher?"
"Nah, no one uses paper anymore. It's all electronic."
"Not in Hell," he said, standing up. "They kind of like cutting down forests."
I followed him to the door. "Well, hang in there, and I'll see you tonight."
"What are you going to do with your newfound freedom?" he asked, hand on the doorknob.
I frowned. "What do you mean? This whole thing isn't quite the same for you and me as it is for the vampires."
The look Hugh gave me then was genuinely amused and almost pitying. "Georgina. Your shape-shifting and other abilities are fueled by human life. If you can't do those things, then you don't need the energy-just like Cody and Hugh d
on't need blood. Can't you feel it? The whole system's probably shut off."
I froze and almost stopped breathing for a moment-which might not have been so wise in my current state. " What ?"
He laughed again. "How could you have not considered that?"
"Well…because I was more focused on the entire fabric of Seattle's demonic hierarchy being unraveled. That and the possibility that we could all die." Inside, my mind was replaying his words over and over, like a record that kept skipping: You don't need the energy, you don't need the energy… I shook my head. "I can't believe that. It isn't possible." I'd wanted it for too long, the ability to be with someone without the dire side effects. It was one of those things you always longed for but knew, deep down inside, could never happen. Like winning the lottery. Or, um, living forever.
"Neither is a vampire going into the sun," said Hugh. "Yet here we are." He leaned down and kissed my cheek. "Think about it. This is a once in a lifetime-er, eternity-chance."
He started to leave, and then something I'd nearly forgotten about popped back into the forefront of my mind. "Hugh? Did you get my message earlier? About the Canadian Satanists?" After everything else, a few signs on the Space Needle suddenly seemed absurdly unimportant.
"Yeah," he said, with a grimace. "They had a huge spectacle there, freaked people out. They made the news and got arrested. Not sure what'll happen now. The international thing makes it all interesting."
"Were you able to tell Jerome?"
"No, couldn't get a hold of him-not surprising if that was near the time of the summoning. I ended up getting a hold of Mei, and I think she did something to minimize how much the media found out. She was hoping that nobody in Management would notice."
"Yeah, well, they're all noticing us now."
Hugh's face was hard as he nodded his agreement. "That's an understatement. Have fun, sweetie."
He departed, leaving me standing there and staring at the door.
I was still breathing heavily, my heart thudding in my chest. I needed to calm down and think this through. After all, who knew what could happen if I had a panic attack? Would I go into cardiac arrest or something? All bets were off now. Anything was possible.
I sank down to the floor, wrapping my arms around myself, and focused on slowing my breathing. This was all too surreal. I couldn't process it. It wasn't possible that I could be mortal. It wasn't possible that I could die. It wasn't possible that I could actually touch a man without harming him. Over and over I told myself those things. Meanwhile, Aubrey strolled over to me and rubbed her head against my leg. Reaching out, I stroked her back, barely aware of my actions.
What was I going to do? We had five hours until the meeting, which couldn't come soon enough as far as I was concerned. I needed answers now . I couldn't live with this uncertainty. My heart started racing again. Fuck. I really was going to have a heart attack. Hugh was a doctor in his day job; maybe I should call him about my blood pressure.
Call…
An idea hit me then, and I stood up to go find my purse. Producing my cell phone, I dialed Dante. If anyone might know about this, it would be him. He probably wouldn't know the intricacies of how this affected my infernal standing, but he had to know something about demon summoning. Dark magic was his specialty. Besides, I wanted more than just his expertise. I suddenly just wanted…well, comfort. I wanted to see him. I wanted him to hold me and reassure me. I needed him to tell me everything was going to be okay.
But the phone rang and rang without answer, sending me to his voice mail's friendly message: "Talk."
So much for that plan. I disconnected and leaned against my counter. Slowly, steadily, I felt my brain waking up, trying to find a scrap of reason through my fear. It wasn't in my nature to be passive. I had to do something about this. I couldn't wait until tonight for answers.
"Let's research this ourselves, Aubrey," I said. The average human knew nothing about the true nature of Heaven and Hell and how we operated. Yet, every once in a while, if you looked hard enough into arcane writings, you could stumble across a piece of truth that some adept mortal had uncovered. Ninety-nine percent of what I'd find would be inaccurate, but an Internet search could uncover some grain of truth about demon summoning. It was a total long shot, but it was the best I could do for now.
Only, when I went to get my laptop, I discovered an unfortunate fact: I'd left it at the bookstore. I groaned. Now what? Another plan shot down.
You idiot , a voice inside me chastised. You're a few blocks away. Get off your ass and get it .
That logic made perfect sense, of course. Until I looked out the window.
The same fear I'd had earlier returned. The cars moving along Queen Anne Avenue seemed too fast, the wind stirring the trees too strong, the people on the sidewalk too dangerous. How could I go out there? How could I put myself at risk? Better to stay in here where it was safe.
And yet…how could I wait around? I was going to go crazy if I sat here. Glancing down at Aubrey, I saw her watching me with her green eyes. She had that infinitely wise look cats had sometimes. It wasn't exactly encouraging, but it soothed me a little.
Okay. I could do this.
I found my coat and started to shape-shift my messy hair into a neat arrangement-except, of course, I immediately realized I couldn't shape-shift it. Not a problem, I assured myself. I did my hair all the time when I wasn't in a rush. This was no different. With a quick dash to the restroom, I brushed my hair into a sleek ponytail and prepared to face the world.
Stepping outdoors, I was blasted with stimuli. I stood on the steps to my building, shell-shocked and unable to move. This had never happened to me. Never, never had I been afraid of the world. I'd always rejoiced in it and been eager to see what it had to offer. Slipping my hand into my purse, I reached for my cigarettes, seeking them like a safety blanket. When I took them out, I realized something else. I wasn't necessarily immune to them anymore. This stasis probably wouldn't last long…but how could I risk it? How could I expose myself to carcinogens when I had no idea how vulnerable I truly was?
Putting the cigarettes back, I took a deep breath and plunged forward.
The distance to the store was barely three blocks, but it felt like miles. I walked as far away as I could from traffic and flinched each time someone passed me. When I finally reached the intersection to cross over to Emerald City, I was sweating. Queen Anne Avenue is not an overly crazy road. This particular spot had three lanes and steady traffic, with a moderate speed of 30 (which meant people could usually be found going 35–40).
Nonetheless, standing there, I might as well have been trying to cross I-5 itself, with five lanes racing in each direction. The crosswalk was red, giving me time to build up courage and remind myself that I'd crossed here hundreds of times-jaywalking more often than not. I was being irrational, freaking out at things I had no business worrying about. The light dinged and gave me the go-ahead.
I set out, each step agony. I'd almost reached the far curb when a Honda turning on red from the cross street suddenly pulled into the intersection, having only checked for cars and not pedestrians. Seeing me, the driver slammed on her brakes a bit more harshly than she probably needed. They squealed, and the car came to a stop about two feet from me. While moderately alarming, this wasn't anything that probably would have scared me too much under ordinary circumstances. The car had stopped, after all, and I was almost across anyway. Yet, I was so on edge already that when I heard the brakes and saw how close she was, I simply froze. I stood there, caught-literally-in the headlights.
I couldn't think or move. It was so stupid. Seven more steps, and I would have been safe. The woman's panic over avoiding me turned to annoyance when she realized I was blocking her way. She pressed down on her horn, which was a particularly loud and obnoxious one. Unfortunately for her, it was ineffectual. If anything, the noise simply froze me up more.
Suddenly, someone grabbed a hold of my arm and started tugging me to the curb. The bit
ch in the Honda kept honking, and I think I was nearly as startled by it as I was when Seth yelled to her, "Oh, shut up already!"
His steady hands guided me to the sidewalk where I promptly froze up again, oblivious to the curious cars and pedestrians. Cupping my face, he forced me to look up at him. His eyes were like warm molasses, and something about them spread comfort through me and brought me back to myself.
"Georgina, are you okay?"
My whole body trembled, and it took me a moment to gather myself and speak. "I…I think so…"
His voice was so, so gentle when he spoke. "What happened there?"
I blinked back tears. "Nothing…that is…" I couldn't finish. I was going to break down, then and there, right on Queen Anne Avenue. I hated myself for being so weak and scared.
"Never mind," said Seth, taking hold of my arm again. "It doesn't matter. You're safe. Let's go inside."
If any of my co-workers saw Seth leading me through like an invalid, I didn't notice. In fact, I was barely aware of the trek at all until we were inside my office. Seth sat me down and then shut the door. He leaned down toward me.
"Do you need anything? Water? Something to eat?"
Slowly, almost robot-like, I shook my head. "N-no. I…I just came for my laptop."
The normal look of timidity he'd worn around me lately had vanished, replaced by something stern and concerned-something that wouldn't rest until he knew I was okay. He was no longer the shy author who feared looking at me and always gave me a wide berth. He was once again the man I'd dated, the man who'd always been able to read my moods and step up to help.
"Georgina, please. Please tell me what happened."
It looked as though my tears were going to stay away, and now that I was indoors, in familiar territory, I allowed myself to feel a little braver. "Why are you being so nice to me again?"
He frowned. "Why wouldn't I be nice to you?"
"Because…because…I wasn't very nice to you the last time we talked. Even after you gave me the book."
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