As soon as he fell into me, all he felt was relief. He’d left a wife and daughter behind, but they were long dead. He couldn’t figure out how to follow them.
I absorbed three more souls before I felt a hand on my shoulder.
“It’s time to stop,” Bishop whispered in my ear, his voice sounding so far away.
I wanted to answer him, but there were more people who wanted out of this realm. They wanted out of their misery. Being stuck here with no family was hurting them. They missed their people. They wanted to rest.
I tried to articulate this to Bishop, but I couldn’t. It wasn’t time to stop.
Taking another soul, I felt the burn and realized too late that Bishop had been right. I was taking too much.
A group of specters were gathered in a small huddle in front of me. Some of them couldn’t speak anymore, some were agitated and could turn. I felt horrible for them—caught between two worlds with no way out.
“I can’t take you,” I whispered, the regret hurting my heart, “but I’ll be back. You’ll get rest soon. I promise.”
I had never made a promise like that to a ghost. I never promised them anything. There was something daunting about keeping a promise to someone who had already died. It meant really keeping it because there was nothing else for them to do but hound you until you did.
Promises to the dead were dangerous.
Most of the specters nodded and wandered off, but a few lingered, maybe hoping I’d change my mind. When I didn’t, they stormed off in huffs of rage, luckily not having the power to turn even if they were of a mind to. No one had thought of these people in centuries—no one had leant them power. For that, I was really, really grateful.
Despite how good I felt elsewhere, the burn in my chest was a little concerning. It didn’t hurt exactly, but there was an aching pull to it that had me up and off the stone bench. The only upside to the whole thing was that even though my chest felt like I’d eaten one too many carnitas, the rest of me felt great. Coupled with the fact that I wasn’t glowing, and I was coming up aces.
But something was calling me forward, out from under the willow and out in the cemetery proper. Sarina and Bishop called my name, but their voices had a far-off quality, as if they were underwater. Slanted headstones and crack monuments littered the small space. The grass was overgrown in a lot of spots, and the moss was out of control.
This was a quiet place, a place where even the wind was still, and the birds didn’t sing. I knew I was alone, but that didn’t concern me. The burn in my chest, though, that did. The silence filled me with a bit of peace. Well, I thought that, and then the call of a raven scared the absolute shit out of me, making me jump.
Perched on a cracked headstone, it’s blue-black feathers almost shimmered in the sunlight. It cocked its head at me before it resettled itself. I’d never seen a raven up close and had no idea how fucking big they were. The bird cawed at me again, its wings shivering a second before it took flight, soaring up and circling around before diving for the ground.
A second before it looked like the raven would hit the ground, the air seemed to shimmer around it, and then the raven wasn’t a bird anymore.
It was a man.
I managed a single gulp before I got myself under control.
“Hello, Azrael.”
20
Azrael appeared less unkempt than the last time I’d seen him. Long gone were the ratty clothes and scraggly locks. His hair had been cut at some point, the ends landing about shoulder-length, and with it out of his face, I could glimpse a long scar that cut around his left eyebrow and followed the curve of his cheek, stopping at his jaw. He’d selected a dark suit to wear, the color imposing more than I’d thought it would be.
But he was the Angel of Death. I couldn’t see him wearing rainbows and glitter.
I had no idea if he could change his appearance at will or if he’d had to procure those duds, but the result was a slight bit more intimidating than I had planned for. In my head, I’d assumed he was likely still in his prison, and it would be a mind-meld sort of situation. Him being in the flesh was a bit more daunting.
“Hello, Darby,” he murmured, his voice a crooning sort of calm that seemed honed out of eons of practice calming the newly deceased. “I hear you wanted to speak to me.”
I gulped for real then. “From who?”
The absolute last thing I needed was to get ambushed in the middle of Haunted Peak.
Azrael gave me a gentle smile, shaking his head. “No one. I possess the ability to sense my children—especially when they wish to speak to me. No one except your friends know where you are. You’re safe here.”
I wanted to feel warm and fuzzy, but people were dying. Plus, I just wasn’t a warm and fuzzy kind of girl. Answers, though, those I could do.
But although I had the prospect of answers right in front of me, my mind went blank. I didn’t know where to start. Did I lead with what Mariana had done, or the un-nested vamps killing people, or his children killing each other for sport? I could ask how he’d been for the better part of last year, but everything just seemed too…
“Trivial?” he supplied, plucking the thought from my mind as his smile grew wide. “Your concerns aren’t trivial. I think they are rather important. It has been a long time since I’ve spoken to one of my children—especially one so concerned about…” He paused, seeming to search for the word, “the welfare of the dead.”
“They don’t stop being people when they die. They’re still them. They still have wants and needs and business to attend to. Death doesn’t change that. It just makes the important stuff sift to the top of the bullshit.”
Azrael gave me another smile like I’d just said something cute, which earned him a frown from me. I wasn’t cute. I was odd, and I liked that about myself. He began to chuckle, which irritated me for no good reason. I guessed to him time didn’t mean much. Death didn’t mean much.
“It does,” he insisted, his smile gone. “Death means quite a lot, actually. Maybe not the same way it does to you, but I am older than time and twice as tired. And perceptions change.”
Hauling up my big girl pants, I asked, “Do you know who is trying to kill me? Or why?”
There was no finesse or pleasantries. I was a one-woman wrecking ball, and he was the target.
Azrael’s chuckle was bitter this time. “You know why, Darby. It’s the same reason almost all of my children have died over the years. Power. Young ones want it, not realizing what a yoke it is. If they understood how heavy the burden of power was, they wouldn’t want it. But you know, and you don’t want anything to do with it.”
I snorted. “Of course I don’t. I have enough power as it is. I don’t need more. I don’t need anything—I don’t want anything.”
Azrael leaned against a crumbling monument, his chuckle reaching me, even though I had a feeling it was meant to be quiet. “And that is precisely why you have it. Others would burn themselves up, turn themselves into monsters. You, my dear, do neither. You give it away to people in need. You wonder if the souls in this cemetery will get peace. You honor the dead.”
“Yeah, yeah. I’m a fucking saint. So, you know the ‘whys,’ but not the ‘who,’ then?”
Were my words brash? Maybe. But I disliked when people avoided my questions—even if they were timeless death deities who could crush me like a bug.
He began laughing, the sheer joy of his mirth making tears roll down his face. Was it a little like a chihuahua barking at a grizzly bear? Kinda. At least this grizzly found me funny.
“You are refreshing, Darby Adler. I’m glad you are still among the living.”
Time to wake up, kid. There’s no resting yet. Not for a while.
Those words echoed in my brain, the familiarity of his voice sounding like a gong in my head.
“I take it you’re the reason for that.” Even healed, the realization hit me hard enough I needed to sit down. I planted my jeans-covered ass on the ground so I didn’t
pass out. “I died, didn’t I?”
Azrael’s laughter subsided. “In a way, yes. But just for a moment. It wasn’t your time. I made it so you wouldn’t leave before then.”
I was glad I was sitting down for that one. “What does that mean?”
Was that my voice that sounded like a child? Yes, it sure was.
“It means you didn’t die before your time. Simple as that.”
My irritation got the better of me. I swear, I had no intention of yelling at a death deity, honest. “That’s not what you said. I interrogate murderers for a fucking living, Pops. Don’t try to skirt the issue with me. What did you do?”
His narrowed eyes and flinty smile did not spell good things for my survivability in this situation. Not. One. Bit.
“I fixed it. That’s what I did. Most people would be grateful.”
“Most people don’t want the mercurial nature of Fate to carry on undisturbed. They want what they want when they want it and fuck everyone else. I am not most people.”
He snorted, and gave me a look that said, “No shit.”
No wonder he and Mariana got on so well—or at least well enough to make a kid. They both were a pair of no-answering, skirting-around-the-issue irritants who loved to piss me off.
“Hey, that’s not fair,” he said, reading the insult from my thoughts. “I’ll answer your questions.”
“Good,” I grumbled and started shooting off questions rapid-fire. “Who had the un-nested attack the ABI? Why were you entombed under a fucking mountain? Why does my mother think there is a throne for me to take? What did you do to me in that ravine that has you so cagey? Which one of my siblings wants me dead?”
Azrael huffed. “I don’t have the answers to most of that.” He held up a hand when I opened my mouth to protest. “But I’ll answer what I can.”
I quickly closed my trap and waited for him to continue.
“I don’t know why the un-nested vampires were called to the ABI building. I can only assume since none of those souls have made it to me. Like you, I believe they were summoned for a targeted attack on both you and Mariana. Possibly to cut off your resources if they were unable to capture you or your information.”
I wanted to growl, but I held my tongue. My hissy fit wouldn’t do anyone any good.
“As for my imprisonment, well…” He trailed off, wincing. “I believe the reason I was interred was not the official statement. I believe I was locked away so your sibling could maneuver without my interference.” He frowned then, an emotion ravaging his face for a moment before it was gone. “I do regret my actions, though. I did not kill my children, of course, but while it was in my power to prevent them from killing each other, I did not. It was the only reason I went willingly.”
Then it all became clear. Azrael couldn’t be killed. He couldn’t be imprisoned. He couldn’t be held. Not without his consent.
He was never in a cage.
“Correct,” he confirmed, his gaze on my face. “I’ll ask you a question so you may understand. Can you hold death in your palm? Can you see it? Can you stop it? Why would anyone believe they could lock it away?”
Because they were fools. Fools with a delusion of grandeur unbefitting the known reality.
“See? You get it. Your friend Jimmy has it right, though. I went back to my cell willingly when you asked because you needed to call your father forth. You needed to believe in something—in what you were doing so you had the strength to bring him back. I know you are my child, but Killian Adler raised you. I am not so proud that I would deny his role in your life. Just like you, it was not his time. It was hers, though.”
Tabitha.
I still didn’t regret taking her life. I wondered if that made me evil, if I was on the road to becoming something vile.
“Not at all. Tabitha—as you knew her—deserved to leave this world. You saved countless souls by denying her poison from the earth. What she wanted, what she was trying to accomplish by raising me? It would have meant an end to the order of things.”
“She wanted the throne. Your throne.”
Azrael nodded, but gave me a sly grin. “Funnily enough, she would never have been able to take it. Power of that magnitude? It would have burned her up from the inside out. Either way, she was dead—it was only a matter of time.”
“But—”
“I said what she wanted would mean the end, not what she would have been able to accomplish. She might have survived that time and tried again. She might have tried again and again, consuming souls left and right until she cut a swath through an entire population. Who knows what she would have tried to steal to attain that power? A spurned woman is a very dangerous being.”
I shuddered. It was bad enough to think about Tabitha diddling my dad, but I wanted to gag when I pictured her and Azrael together. Was there such a thing as mind bleach?
“Not me.” Azrael shuddered. “I believe one of your brothers.”
Still disgusting, but at least I wouldn’t be picturing it.
“I believe that is where she got the idea in the first place. She was an acolyte of one of my children. Believed that she would one day be at the right hand of Death himself. Not realizing that the children who desire my throne care for nothing and no one but power. She started out as a misguided young woman. She died a monster.”
“And that’s what my siblings are? Monsters?”
Azrael smiled, his grin stretching wide to reveal blindingly white teeth and a double set of upper and lower fangs. I doubted he was showing me them to scare me, but they did all the same. Quickly he sobered, his gaze getting the same far-off quality Sarina’s did when she was searching the future. “Not all of them. You have a sister out in the world somewhere. She’s not a monster, even though she thinks so. I have a feeling you’ll be finding her soon enough. Many of the ones who were torn from this earth were innocent. They had no idea of their lineage, nor possessed the power to be a threat. It didn’t stop your siblings from murdering them, anyway.”
It hurt my heart to think of all the lives that had been stolen for a stupid bid for power. What did more power get anyone, anyway? More heartache, that’s what.
“How many siblings are we talking about here? One? A million? Somewhere in between?”
“Alive? I’m not sure. I believe it’s just the two, but there could be more.”
At that, I raised an eyebrow. I mean, could the man have used a condom. Like once?
Azrael chuckled. “Yeah, I know. Keep it zipped next time. Got it. To my credit, it was a lot of women over an exceedingly long period of time.”
I held up a hand. “I really don’t need to know the details.”
Azrael’s gaze got that far-off quality again, like he was listening to something I couldn’t hear.
“It’s time for you to go. There is a problem for you to fix.”
I stood. “What about you?”
He smiled at me. “Don’t worry about me. I’ll be around.”
21
It was tough to reconcile the image of Azrael turning into a raven and flying away in my brain. I knew I saw it, sure. Intellectually, I was aware of shifters turning into animals, and sure, I’d seen them transform a time or two. But when Azrael did it, it was as if you could shake your head and just assume it was all a dream.
Maybe it had been.
If it hadn’t been for the black feather resting against the toe of my Chuck’s, maybe I could have believed it was all one long fever dream.
A hand closed around my upper arm, startling me. It really shouldn’t have. The buzz of souls around me was as loud as ever.
“Darby?” Bishop called softly in my ear, and I managed to peel my gaze from the feather. Bishop looked different. His skin, his hair, his whole self, had an extra something about them. Like a light but not. I couldn’t put my finger on it. “You’ve been out here a while. Are you okay?”
I frowned. My talk with my father hadn’t seemed that long, but I had a feeling reality and Azrael
didn’t exactly go hand in hand. “I’m fine. All fixed up. Just for curiosities sake, you did see me talking to a man out here, right?”
Bishop shook his head, concern etched on his face. “I saw you walk out here and sit down on the ground. You looked like you were talking to someone, but all I saw was a raven.”
Once again, Azrael was a sneaky, sneaky death deity. The last time we’d spoken, no one could hear our conversation, and they all looked at me like I was a nutter. Nodding, I bent and retrieved the feather. Just like the raven had, the feather shimmered a bit at the edges, an iridescence to it that spoke of twisted realities and magic.
“You see the shimmer on this, right?” I asked, still examining the feather.
Bishop stared at the feather in my hand for a moment before sliding his gaze back to me. “I don’t see anything but a feather. However, I can feel the magic rolling off of it. You were talking to a man, you said?”
“Azrael. We can skip the trip up the mountain. I got about all I’m going to get out of him for now. He said there was a problem for me to fix?”
Bishop shook his head in confusion. “Other than your siblings trying to kill you? No, I don’t know of another problem on our docket.”
Over Bishop’s shoulder, I spied J striding out from under the willow tree, his pace almost a jog.
“It’s time to go,” he called, stopping as he waved at us like he was on a flight line ushering in a 747. Even from here, the only way I could describe his face was frantic.
Houston, I have found our problem.
Following J, Bishop and I raced through crumbling headstones and patchy grass back to the willow where Sarina was pacing like she’d just gotten a heavy bit of bad news.
Dead and Gone (Grave Talker Book 2) Page 13