“That’s far enough,” Bishop barked when Mariana tried to side-step him. When she opened her mouth to protest, he held up a hand. “Unless you performed chest compressions last night, you don’t get a say in this. She doesn’t want you here, and I’m making sure you don’t overstay your welcome.”
Mariana snarled at him but quit trying to get farther into my house. Huffing, she crossed her arms but did not continue.
“Tick tock,” I muttered, righting myself in my seat, so I didn’t have to look at her.
“It wasn’t Azrael who killed his children,” she blurted, and I whipped back around to gape at her. Never, not once, had she said my father’s name. But the Angel of Death wasn’t an unknown figure, even to humans. Some called him Thanatos, some called him The Pale Rider, but I didn’t know for sure what he called himself.
My ribs protested my sudden movement, and I unsuccessfully tried to hide my groan. “Guys, let her in enough that I don’t have to twist.”
If I sounded like I’d just run a marathon, then whatever.
They let her in further, and she perched on the edge of my newly restored coffee table that Shiloh managed to fix for me. I kind of hoped it would snap apart under her, but that was just me being petty.
“I’m listening,” I snapped once I caught my breath. This healing shit was for the birds.
Mariana appeared a little paler than usual, her red-painted lips standing out in her colorless face like a beacon. She chewed on her bottom lip for a second before nodding to herself. “Azrael wasn’t killing his children. The ones who died were either in a war amongst themselves, or they were unaware and being killed for sport.”
The story she’d told me—the official story, it seemed—was that the Angel of Death decided he didn’t want the children he’d made and decided death was better for them. He began killing them one by one until it became too tedious, and he switched to eradicating them in droves. Apparently, when a man could live forever, he could also bed a shit-ton of women. When the ABI caught wind of his filicide, they’d devised a plan to bury him.
I could only blink at her for a solid minute. “You’re telling me you buried his ass under a fucking mountain with a damn lake on top to keep him down, and you knew he was innocent?”
I knew Mariana was low, but I didn’t think she was that low.
She shook her head. “I didn’t find out until after. I tried to keep my digging small, but nothing ever added up to me. So I kept at it, chipping away bit by bit until I got it mostly figured out. Honestly, it wasn’t until that idiot Tabitha raised him, did I really put everything together. The bloodthirsty thing he’d been painted as would never have let you live. He sure as hell would never have handed over Tabitha so you could bring Killian back. Once I heard your story, I knew everything I’d been told was a lie.”
A nasty expression crossed her face before she hid it behind her stoic mask. “You know, I thought I was protecting you.” She chuckled, searching the ceiling with her gaze so she didn’t have to look me in the face. “I thought I’d been duped by this awe-inspiring being. That the time we spent together was a lie.”
A single tear slid down her cheek, but she still didn’t look at me. “And now I find out that I have betrayed him in the worst way—not only by burying him in the dark but by destroying his memory. And you still aren’t protected. Isn’t that a kick to the face?”
If this was her attempt to make me feel bad for her, she’d really picked the wrong girl.
“If you think his children were killing amongst themselves, you obviously think someone in your chain of command is involved?” I offered, plucking the meat of the issue out of the emotional bullshit. Did I think Mariana had a heart buried deep in there? Maybe, but the state of it was not my problem.
“I have a couple of contenders, yes.”
“So I have—or had—a boatload of siblings who decided what? Murder was better than family dinners? Why would they kill each other?”
Mariana gave me a chuckle as she wiped at her damp face with the back of her hand. “The throne, Darby. They want Azrael’s throne.”
The Angel of Death had a throne? That made no sense. These people hadn’t read the lore, or if they had, they hadn’t used their context clues. The ABI prison might have been lax about a lot of shit, but their library was top-notch. I’d read everything I could about the Angel of Death, Thanatos, and every other death god in the known histories. None of them had happy lives, and none of them had a throne. Death work was just that: work.
“Who in their right mind would want his job? Even tangentially, this job sucks great big monkey balls. A ton of power or not, knowing the lifespan of everyone, knowing where souls are, feeling them drain you all the damn time, feeling their deaths on the way out. Yeah, you can keep that shit. It’s bad enough just seeing ghosts every-fucking-where.” I shuddered, the memory of Greyson’s death hitting me like a one-two punch to the face.
I felt everyone’s eyes on me, and the awkwardness set in. “What?”
Mariana’s gaze was especially sharp as she answered, “Now it makes sense. Azrael was supposed to have an heir. The story was that he killed each of his children to prevent his heir from taking the throne. But what if the real killer was weeding out Azrael’s children? What if he was trying to find the heir? What if there are only certain children who can succeed him?”
“Meaning?” I prompted, not liking where this was going at all.
“Meaning, not all of his kids could take his place—only some of them. Ones gifted with Azrael’s power. I saw those arcaners—the ones they said he killed. None of them had even a whisp of the power that rolls off you. No wonder Hildy kept you practically starved. You would have stuck out like a sore thumb.”
My chuckle was bitter, but I said nothing. What had Hildy told me? I could be seen from space.
Fuck.
And the only reason I hadn’t noticed before now was because I was either under power-dampening prison wards, in my home that had been locked down tighter than Fort Knox, or in the middle of the ABI building…
That was attacked while I was there.
“Fuck,” I groaned, covering my face with my hands. Tears were swimming in my eyes as I thought about the agents who died because I was there. Because I hadn’t put it together.
No. I hadn’t been the one who had them stay. I hadn’t been the one who left important information out. I wasn’t the one who was responsible here.
“You let those agents stay in that building knowing that they were looking for me. Didn’t you?” I accused, horror washing over me. If I could have slapped her, I would have.
Mariana didn’t appear repentant. Hell, I would have taken a little guilt. Something. Instead, her face was a blank mask of indifference. I swore to everything I found holy that if she shrugged, I was going to come off this couch and fucking kill her.
“Your time is up,” I whispered, wishing for the ability to kick her out of my house myself. “Unless you have more to share, I don’t want to see you again. Do you understand?”
“You can’t—”
“I can. I haven’t killed anyone that didn’t deserve to be killed. Can you say the same?”
Mariana shoved to her feet, staring down at me like she had the upper hand. She didn’t.
“Do you have any idea the rage a specter can feel when they’ve been taken before their time?” I asked. I doubted she knew. If she just saw them as power sources, there was no way she’d actually talked to one. No way she’d tried to help them. She had no fucking idea. “How about a whole team of them? If you thought Greyson was a problem, you’d better get your affairs in order. I have a feeling you’ll be dealing with a few more. How many agents did you send to their slaughter again?”
All it would take was a little whisper of a word from Hildy, and she was beyond screwed. Karma really was a vengeful bitch sometimes. I really liked that about her.
“It was better them than you,” she insisted. “They meant nothing, but you�
�� You could change everything.”
Mariana still didn’t get it.
“I don’t want to change everything. I don’t want to take a throne that isn’t mine. I don’t want anything, except to make sure the world keeps turning and bad guys get caught. If you don’t understand that, then I can’t make you, but if you knew me at all…” I trailed off, shaking my head.
I couldn’t make her understand basic decency.
I couldn’t force her to think about other people before herself.
I couldn’t make her give a shit.
And that was the problem.
“Get out. Don’t come back,” I hissed through clenched teeth. I really hoped this time she’d listen. I wasn’t going to be whatever vision of me she had in her head. And I wasn’t going to save her ass.
“You’ll see, Darby. I promise, you’ll understand soon enough.”
19
Mariana left in a huff of a woman bound and determined to make dealing with her a major pain in the ass. It was like she wanted to be thrown out of my house, like she wanted to make everything purposely difficult. I’d never met a woman so insistent on making me hate her.
It figured that she was my mother.
The silence that stretched on after her departure was a physical weight in the room. I was trying very hard not to feel guilty, but I wasn’t doing a very good job of placing the blame where it damn well belonged.
It was bad enough my mother out and out admitted to being a soulless she-beast, but even with all the information she’d given us, I still didn’t know who was behind it all. The ABI was vast, and I didn’t exactly have good intel since the place had been breached.
I could ask a certain someone, but I didn’t know how. All the plans in my head just ended with me blowing up.
“What are you planning?” my father asked, the wariness in his tone surprising me. I didn’t know why it would surprise me. The man knew me better than almost anyone except for J.
“Nothing.”
“Oh, man,” J muttered. “I know that look. That look is the reason I spent the back half of the summer of my junior year repainting old man Duxbury’s barn.”
I scoffed. “Exactly zero people told you to start a bonfire in his hayloft, J. You did that shit to yourself.”
“It was an accident,” he hissed back. “You said I should use my telescope in a high spot. How was I supposed to know the lanterns would explode and set the whole damn place on fire?”
“Not. The. Point. I have an idea, but I don’t know if I can do it. Not without help, anyway.”
“Ya want to talk to Azrael, don’t ya?” Hildy grumbled, sitting as far from me as he could and still be in earshot. It was weird seeing him in color, and I had to wonder how much power he was using to keep his form. Well, that and how in the hell did he just know these things? This was the first time I’d heard Hildy say my birth father’s name, and it freaked me out a little.
I knew Hildy was in the loop on all things death-related, but it was still weird.
“I don’t know. Out of all of us, he would know what went down back then, wouldn’t he? And if he still absorbs souls even being where he is, then he might know things we don’t. I know it’s only been a day, but he might have more than we do. Maybe the spells that hid the killer’s face from me might not work on him. He might have…something.”
“That has to be the worst plan I’ve ever heard of, and you’ve come up with some fucking whoppers in your day,” J announced. As if he hadn’t come up with just as many in his lifetime.
“You got a better one? I’m listening if you have one.”
No one said anything, and I stared at each of them in turn.
“I think you should go,” Jimmy murmured from his perch at my island, and I nearly jumped at the sound of his voice.
I had completely forgotten the giant man was there. Damn Fae magic.
“You seem to have a connection to the man—deity, whatever—he might speak to you.”
“The bigger problem is actually talking to him. How in the hell am I supposed to do that?”
“With what everyone has said, I think he went back to his prison on his own. I don’t think he’s being held there. I think he’s choosing to stay.”
Jimmy’s suggestion had merit, but I wouldn’t know until I got there, and it was the getting there that was the problem. I hadn’t managed to get off this couch yet. How the fuck was I supposed to go up the mountain?
“Might need to make a pit stop at a cemetery or two on your way, lass. That specter did a number on ya.”
I swallowed down bile. As far as I knew, I was safer here in my house than I would be traipsing around cemeteries on my way to go talk to the Angel of Death.
“Come on,” Sarina said, offering me her hand. “Let’s get you dressed.”
Getting dressed while injured was the fucking worst. I hadn’t had so much as a broken bone since I hit puberty, so broken ribs, healing wounds, and a boatload of bruises on top of a near drowning was not exactly in my wheelhouse. I was a whiney, pitiful mess as I longed for sweatpants and a blankie.
Whose idea was this? Oh, right. Mine.
I could have kicked myself. I probably would have if it wouldn’t make me hurt from head to toe.
Dressed in jeans, a Ramones T-shirt, and Chucks, I prayed I wouldn’t need to draw a weapon of any kind because just the thought of putting on my holster made me want to cry.
Sarina was busy stuffing clothes and weapons in a small duffle bag she’d pulled from my closet.
“For when you heal and can dress by yourself,” she said, and managed to wedge my vest in there, too.
“Thanks.” Really, I was ridiculous. Putting my bra on alone had been a chore of epic proportions. “Do you think this’ll work? Talking to Azrael, I mean?”
Sarina straightened and got that far-off quality to her gaze that meant she was trying to see what would happen next. “I don’t know,” she muttered, frowning. “Seeing his line isn’t the easiest. You are fuzzy but he is a big blur of possibilities. I think there is just too much death tied to the both of you. It’s tough to see past that.”
It wasn’t exactly the comfort that I was looking for, but I appreciated her honesty.
“Thanks,” she said, and I remembered all too quickly that Sarina could read my mind.
I winced at the thought of what she’d gleaned from me.
“No, really,” she assured me. “Some people don’t like when I can’t answer them. But you—even if you don’t like it, you appreciate it. It’s nice.”
It was tough to be thanked for being a decent person, and I wondered who had hurt her and if they paid for it.
No, Sarina. Don’t answer that. Just let me wonder, okay?
“Okay,” she replied, smiling.
Our first pit stop was dropping my father off at the office. The last thing I needed was to watch him get hurt again. I really couldn’t handle it. Of course, that earned a ten-minute lecture on keeping my own ass out of the fire, to which I nodded and smiled and assured him I would be on my best behavior.
I was lying my ass off, and I think he knew it.
Still, I told him I loved him, gave him a hug even though it hurt, and waved goodbye. Then when he was out of earshot, I begged Bishop to ward his office with everything he had. Zip in, zip out. I couldn’t spare Hildy this time, and the worry was going to kill me.
Our second order of business was stopping by the oldest cemetery in town. I chose this place—rather than the one closest to my house—because I wanted the souls that really wanted to leave. The thought of absorbing a soul with actual unfinished business made my heart hurt something awful.
After the way it had already been bruised, it deserved a break.
Haunted Peak Memorial Cemetery was in the historic district of town and held graves older than dirt. The oldest one in residence was interred in 1523. Most of the headstone had been rubbed off and the ghost was long gone, so I—along with the rest of the town—had no i
dea who it belonged to. Some said it was a Vatican priest. Some said it was an early settler. But if I was looking for old graves, this was the place.
Bishop helped me perch on one of the stone benches. This particular bench was under a weeping willow that mostly hid me from prying eyes. It didn’t really matter. No one came to this part of town.
Even in broad daylight, this little piece of Haunted Peak was a ghost town. Set back from the town proper, the historic district was a forgotten memory, a place for buildings to crumble and cemeteries to fall into disrepair. The bench I was sitting on had a spiderweb of cracks in it, the stone on its last leg.
It was proof positive that Southerners only remembered the histories they wanted to and forgot the ones they didn’t.
There weren’t a bevy of souls left in a place like this. Many had moved on, hopefully to their rest. The ones that remained, I hoped I could give them peace.
I tried to remember how I’d done it up at the lake, but after sitting there for more than five minutes, my inherent impatience got the better of me.
“How am I supposed to do this?” I asked, my eyes still closed as I tried to figure my shit out.
I could hear the exasperation in Hildy’s voice when he answered, “You’re supposed to call them to ya, lass. With your mind. Invite them to move on. It shouldn’t be too hard.”
He said that, but I didn’t see him sending souls to their final rest.
Huffing, I tried to open my mind, to see the souls coming to me. A cold touch fluttered over my hand, and I opened my eyes. A brunette ghost, about my age when she’d passed, had approached. She gave me a beaming smile, and then she moved to hug me.
Instead of a hug, she seemed to fall into me, the faint kiss of her memories touching my mind as my aches eased. Her name was Margaret and she’d died of… sepsis from a cut on her hand. The details of her life were faint, as if the time she’d spent as a ghost leached them away from her.
The next soul to approach seemed less benign, he scratched at his face, flickering in and out of sight. He seemed in pain, like he was trying to come to me, but his body wouldn’t let him. Mentally, I pulled at him, reeling him in. All it took was one touch, and he fell into me. His name was Tobias, and he’d been a businessman of some kind. A store owner maybe. He’d lost his life to a robbery, shot dead in the middle of a store as his killer stole his money.
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