by Chloe Garner
She nodded slowly.
So she was on her own.
She could hardly feign surprise, really.
“Is it indestructible?” she asked.
“It probably was while he was alive,” Kelly said.
“He’s dead?” Samantha asked. “For sure?”
Kelly reached out tentatively toward the statue, just brushing his fingertips across it and then drawing his hand in to his chest, perhaps the most human motion Samantha had ever seen him make.
“It’s cold,” he said. “Sucking power. The noise… It’s not right. It’s… death, but not one I’ve ever known.”
“He put his life force into keeping her alive,” Samantha said. “Angels don’t die of old age.”
“I don’t know,” Kelly said, rubbing his hands over his arms absently. “I don’t know what would happen if I were disconnected. It might be like dying.”
“Are there others?” Samantha asked.
“Others?” Kelly asked.
“Of the fallen?” she asked.
“I don’t know. Most of them got hunted down and killed, I think, but no one really talks about it much…” He frowned. “It doesn’t really have anything to do with us.”
She found that perspective odd, but she let it be.
“Why is Jason wet?” Kara asked, approaching with a man in a jumpsuit.
“He fell in the pool,” Samantha said. “He was supposed to come and find you.”
“I found him wandering the front yard,” Kara said. “Had no clue where he was.”
“You give him the speech?” Samantha asked.
“Of course.”
Samantha nodded.
“Good enough.” She turned her attention to the man with the clipboard. “Tell me it’s straightforward.”
“For what you’re payin’, lady, I’d move Shamu like it was nothing,” the man said with a wink. “Order says you just want it packed up in the back of the truck out front?”
“That’s right,” Samantha said. “Very carefully.”
She looked up as Gerald returned with his lawyer. The lawyer put a document under her nose and started pointed at the key numbers and the signature lines. She bent time, relaxing her eyes to read with her peripheral vision, a trick she’d learned years ago, and took in the entire document.
She never signed something when she hadn’t read every word of it, and Benjamin had done nothing but drive that home for her.
In this case, the transaction was straightforward, and the lawyer appeared to be honest.
The price was what they’d agreed to, and the transfer of ownership was upfront.
“This is the provenance it came with,” Gerald said. “We added ours.”
She nodded, accepting the package of papers and signing the sale document.
“I need to call Abby,” she said, looking at Kara.
“I don’t have her number,” Kara said.
“Jason?” Samantha asked.
“Phone probably went in the pool with him,” Kara said.
“Why was he in the pool?” Gerald asked.
“He tripped,” Samantha said. “He’s fine.”
“I’ll go get an indemnity form,” the lawyer said. Samantha sighed and turned to Kelly, handing him the card with the banking information on it.
“Can you take care of this?” she asked. He looked at it curiously for a moment, and then the dawning realization of what she wanted crossed his face, and his eyebrows went up.
“Oh. Yeah. I’ll… go check on Jason?”
“Perfect,” Samantha said.
“We good to go?” the moving man asked.
“You can go ahead and start packing,” Gerald said. “But I want confirmation that the money came across before you load her.”
Samantha nodded. That was perfectly fair.
“It should just be a couple of minutes,” she said, hoping Kelly knew enough of what to tell Abby. With Jason fracturing all over the place, she wasn’t going to have a good view of any of what was going on, and without a phone line active, Samantha’s hair pin was going to keep her from seeing anything at all.
She waited, watching carefully as the moving man wrapped the statue and began building a box for it. A few minutes later, the lawyer reappeared with another piece of paper.
“I need your friend to sign this,” he said. Samantha grimaced at him and read it.
“We aren’t going to sue you because he fell in the pool,” she said dismissively.
“Then you have no issue signing it,” the lawyer answered. She sighed.
“In other news,” the lawyer continued. “The money came across. It’s been a pleasure doing business with you.”
Samantha nodded and glanced at Kara.
“Can you keep an eye on this?” she asked.
“You got it,” Kara answered, and Samantha walked back around the house to the truck where Jason was pulling on a dry shirt.
He looked from Samantha to the lawyer with concern, and Samantha held up the form, keeping a steady gaze to hold Jason’s attention.
“They need you to sign this to say that you aren’t going to sue them,” she said.
“Why would I sue who?” Jason asked.
“Exactly,” Samantha said. “I read it and it’s fine.”
He clearly wanted to poke at her and ask more questions, but instead he took the pen the lawyer offered him and held the form against the window of the truck to sign it.
“No problem,” he said. “Are we coming or going?”
“We’re just about ready to leave,” Samantha said, watching as a second man carefully navigated the lawn in a fork lift. “Just as soon as they get her loaded, we’ll get out of here. You want to stay here and get… stuff recorded?” she hinted. Jason looked bored, but he shrugged.
“Fine. I’ll do my homework.”
“Thank you,” she said. “Kelly will come sit with you in a minute. I don’t need him back there anymore.”
Jason snorted and got back into the truck as Samantha followed the lawyer and the fork lift back into the back yard and watched as they lifted the new-formed crate out of the garden.
“I only paid a hundred fifty for it,” Gerald confided to her.
“I’d have gone up to at least one point two,” Samantha answered. They both grinned.
“You see anything else you like?” Gerald teased.
“Not this trip,” Samantha answered, offering him her hand. “Thank you for your time.”
“Thank you for your money,” he answered. “Peter will see you off. I need to get back to work.”
She nodded and crossed her arms.
They got the statue up onto the fork blades and started the slow roll back to the front of the house.
“Can you go keep an eye on Jason?” Samantha asked Kelly as the young angel fell into step next to her. “If he fragments in the truck, it’s possible we never find him again.”
“You think?” Kelly asked.
“No,” she answered. “But with Jason, anything’s possible.”
She had a sudden flashback to him disappearing while Brandt had been hunting him, the time she thought she really had lost him for good, and chastened herself for being so glib.
Kelly jogged ahead while Kara and Samantha walked alongside the fork lift.
“What happens now?” Kara asked, flashing a smile at the driver when she caught him eying her.
“We go home,” Samantha said. “I figure out how to find her.”
Kara nodded.
“I would normally take off, at that point, but Jason needs both of us, doesn’t he?”
“Yeah,” Samantha said. “I thought I could, but I can’t manage him on my own.”
Kara flipped her hair, exposing tan shoulders and glancing over at the driver again.
“It’s not your fault,” Kara said. “It’s bad timing.”
“I’m glad you’re here,” Samantha said. Kara laughed.
“The least useful of us all.”
“No,” Samantha sai
d. “My friend, and someone I can trust.”
Kara narrowed her eyes at Samantha.
“Are you getting sentimental on me, Sammycat? We don’t do sentiment.”
“No, you do tequila,” Samantha answered, and Kara tipped her head back with a long laugh.
“Only when I’m feeling really crazy,” she finally answered. “Though I might trade shots of Jack with Jason, just to see what happens. You ever gotten the kid drunk?”
“Don’t think alcohol works,” Samantha said. “Wouldn’t try.”
“I guess it is a bad plan,” Kara said. “Just boring to only have the two of us drinking.”
“Going to be a long trip,” Samantha said. “I’m going to drive straight through.”
“Even Jason wouldn’t do that,” Kara said. “I’ll take a few shifts.”
Samantha shook her head.
“It’s fine. I’ve done it before.”
“Sammy,” Kara said, stopping and grabbing Samantha’s shoulders. She ignored the driver as he twisted in his seat, trying to get her attention again. “You need to sleep as much as the next woman. I remember what you were like, while the rest of us were planning your wedding. Elliott told me it was because you hadn’t slept in like a week.”
“Two, I think,” Samantha said. “Maybe.”
Kara shook her head.
“You’re not doing that again. Not if it just means you need me to drive for a while. I mean… Girl. That’s just stupid.”
Samantha licked her lips and sighed.
“All right.” She paused. “All right. You’re right. You aren’t one of us, but… I’m sorry. I’ve gotten back into that mentality where if you aren’t one of us, you’re not a part of the plan.”
“You can trust me,” Kara said. “I may not be one of your high strung buzzkills, but I’m still pretty good at what I do. I’m an excellent driver.”
Samantha narrowed her eyes.
“I’ve heard otherwise.”
Kara laughed and threw her arm across Samantha’s shoulders.
“Jason’s been telling lies again.”
<><><>
And so she sat on the throne in her main room, staring at the statue.
Ash had marveled at it for hours, and the demons avoided it like it was likely to explode.
She’d gotten echoing refusals to expose contracts from her other liaison demons, and she’d sent back an airtight contract keeping her affairs private. She’d spent nearly a day on the paradise plane designing it, and she was quite happy with the work.
Lot of good that had done Benjamin, but still, she was happy with it.
Abby said that David and Jenny had been spending all of their time trying to track down any signs of a new hellfactory, and they’d sent her after several promising leads, but none of them had the scope of the ones Samantha had destroyed already, and the two Seekers had instead sent Rangers off to clear out the legitimate finds.
She’d had three hours’ worth of chores to do, and then she’d had to face the statue.
She looked exactly the same, save the hair. Samantha had a hard time looking at her, now, without feeling guilty.
It had been almost three days now.
Isobel could be almost anywhere in the world, with that much time, but Samantha suspected she was still in New York, masked away where someone could work on her at leisure.
It hurt, the idea that Samantha had let her down that badly.
“Sam wishes you would talk to him,” Abby said, surprising Samantha. She realized that she was completely unused to Sam not monitoring the space around her and letting her know what was going on.
“I can’t,” Samantha said, glancing at the woman. “It hurts.”
“Describe that to me,” Abby said, walking around Samantha’s seat and throwing herself across the arms of the other one.
“Like….” Samantha said, grabbing at the invisible fibers that connected her to Sam, a sensation in her chest like being in love with someone who didn’t know she existed. Pain. “Like I’m being stretched and there’s nothing I can do to make it go away.”
She paused.
“How did they get her out?” Samantha asked.
“I don’t know,” Abby answered. “Jason messes with the timeline so much, Sam. I’m sorry.”
Mentally, Samantha’s eyes roved the sections of New York that she knew by memory, looking for places where it would be safe to hide someone.
“I could try to figure out who sent demons to get her, but everyone did,” Samantha said. “I have no idea who actually got her.”
“You’ll figure it out,” Abby said. “That’s the key.” She motioned to the statue with a casual sweep of her hand.
“How do you know?” Samantha asked. Abby turned, putting her feet on the floor and leaning out over her knees to look at the stone.
“I don’t know,” the woman said. “Everything kind of bends around it, you know?”
“No,” Samantha said, standing. “Show me.”
Abby shrugged and stood, bunching her hair between her hands and letting it fall again.
The psychic went to stand in front of the statue of Isobel, looking at it for a moment before holding her hands out to it, palms front, and just standing.
“You can’t feel the pull?” she asked. Samantha raised her hands and closed her eyes, summoning all of her focus.
“No,” she finally said.
“Ah,” Abby said. “It’s the time.”
“I don’t understand,” Samantha said.
“It’s the time that this statue has existed, tied to something else in space. Does that make sense?”
It did, in point of fact, and it was a type of language Samantha had only rarely heard Abby use. It sounded more like Carter than it did Abby.
“It’s still tied to her,” Samantha said. “I don’t think that it’s going to keep her alive, anymore, but it’s still tied to her the way it has been for…”
“I can’t tell you how old it is,” Abby said. “That angel keeps me from being able to see anything about its history. I can’t even tell you how Maryann found it, that’s how much this stupid things messes with me. It’s like a black hole, sucking time in. But it’s old, Sam. I can feel it. Old.”
“Yeah,” Samantha said. “It is her. And it always has been.”
She jumped, mentally. Went running out of the room to find something useful.
Failed to.
Checked the garage.
The kitchen.
Finally came back with a tenderizer.
“Sam,” Abby said with alarm. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“She doesn’t have this hair anymore,” Samantha said. “She’s cut it all off. So it shouldn’t hurt her.”
“What?” Abby asked, trying to stop her verbally, to argue it out more, but Samantha took a swing at the hair, just the end of it, a foot or so off of the ground, breaking the stone.
It was just a tiny fracture in the granite, one that honestly wasn’t altogether that different from some of the age lines in it other places, but it was enough.
Abby gasped and stumbled away.
“Sam,” she said. “Let me go.”
Samantha waited as Abby fled, then hit the spot several more times.
Any ordinary rock would have broken under that force, but it held.
Samantha dropped the mallet and looked at the fissure.
Looked up at the rest of the statue as the second half occurred to her.
Drew Lahn.
The angel blade slid through the rock like it would have flesh, and the stone turned to ebony hair that floated to the floor as a single lock.
She stared.
Black hair.
Realized she knew exactly what the next step was.
“Kelly,” she bellowed. Kelly glitched into the room in front of her looking alarmed.
“What is it?” he asked.
“You ready to go kill some demons?” she asked.
He frowned, then noti
ced the hair on the floor.
“I thought you’d never ask,” he said.
<><><>
The hair brought them to a building at the city university before it went dead.
Samantha had never seen soul merging do that, but Benjamin was good. The warding on the building was impressive.
Students went in and out in small numbers, owing to the late hour, but they seemed unaffected by it.
Kelly couldn’t go in.
“They know I’m here,” Kelly said.
“Benjamin knew to expect you,” Samantha said. “He just put up defenses.”
“No, I tripped an alarm,” Kelly said. “I can feel it in my teeth.”
“Awesome,” Samantha said.
“I’m sorry,” Kelly said.
“It’s not your fault,” she told him. “Go find Sam and ask him to track down Lange. He should be able to do that, even with me blowing a hole in what he could see at the meeting. If Lange is still in town, send him here to help. I need to keep moving. If they know you’re here, they know I’m here, and Isobel is in big, big trouble.”
“You should have brought Kara and Jason,” Kelly said. Kara and Jason had thought the same thing, but after Jason had been nearly run-through at their last encounter, and with Kara simply not up to this level of encounter, there was no way Samantha could have let them come.
Sam was gone.
That only left Kelly.
And now Kelly left.
Samantha drew Lahn, trying to avoid coming within a range of any of the students where they’d be unable to avoid noticing that she was carrying a sword. Down the hall of a classroom building. At a prestigious university.
Dang.
They weren’t going to make this easy.
She put the blade back away and slid through the doors, eyes open watching for demons.
She would have to recognize them, without Sam or Kelly to point them out to her. If there were demons here she didn’t know personally, they’d be able to walk out past her without so much as a blink.
They’d be looking for a place where they could count on no one expecting to get in, and they’d be glitching in and out, so they wouldn’t need all of the doors between here and there to be open.
They wouldn’t even need there to be doors.
Up or down?
The main hallways were still populated, and the classroom doors had glass in them. Samantha was guessing that it was either a basement or an attic of some kind, where they’d chosen to hold Isobel, and as far as she could see, it wasn’t going to make a difference to the demons involved.