Swallowing hard, Kit lifted her chin. “Then someone should have told you that it’s Kit, not Katherine. Only my parents called me that.”
“Don’t engage, Kit,” Grif warned. Everything was ammo in the warped wings of the Fallen. Besides, Jeap Yang’s words were pinging around in Grif’s mind like hard marbles. It’s going to circle back for her . . .
“Yes. You changed it once they were both dead,” it said now, eyes twinkling darkly. “The name they gave you hurt your ears in the wake of their deaths, so you reinvented yourself.”
“And what’s your name?” Kit asked, without missing a beat, though Grif knew her well enough to see she was rattled. Worry always caused a dent above the bridge of her nose.
“Nice of someone to finally ask,” it answered, flipping Brunk’s lanky hair. “I am reigning statesman of the Third, formerly of the Cherubim tribe, keepers of knowledge, guardians of the Celestial Records, and the once-Pure, now charged with maintaining the chronicles of the Fallen.” Brunk’s strange smile returned. “But you can call me Scratch.”
“As in Old Scratch,” Grif said, finally gaining its attention.
“Very good,” Scratch muttered, though it didn’t look happy or impressed by the interruption. Leaning back in the chair, it folded Brunk’s arms. “You know your Germanic myths.”
“I’ve been doing my research, too.” Grif kept his eyes on the animated body, but addressed Kit in a low voice. “Old Scratch is a popular nickname for the devil, also interchangeable with ‘devils.’ ”
“Yes, we are One and also many,” it said, and showed rows of teeth.
Grif ignored it. “Scrat or waldscrat means ‘wood spirit’ in Old Germanic. It ties in with the forest.”
“It ties in,” Scratch corrected, “with the Garden.”
“The Garden?” Kit asked.
“Maybe once,” Grif said shortly. “But now both are well out of God’s presence.”
“Yes. Shame, that.” Feigning a large yawn, Scratch stretched and turned toward the bar. “Where is that drink? Hey, nurse!”
“I thought your kind feared liquids,” Grif said, when it turned back around.
Surprise flashed in the cunning gaze, before it went suspiciously blank. “ ‘Fear’ is such a strong word. It’s more of an aversion, really. Mostly to water.”
“Especially holy water,” Grif told Kit.
“Ah, but fortunately there’s not a lot of that floating about in these fine establishments.” Scratch plunked its elbows atop the table again. “However, firewater is right up my alley.”
“You have no right to feed that poor man’s addictions,” Kit said angrily.
“I have no right?” Scratch frowned, mimicking her outrage, before slumping again. “I have every right. He handed it to me when he shot the very first load of trash into his body. Trey Brunk hasn’t been clean, or pure, in nine years. He doesn’t need any help feeding his addictions. He’ll never stop.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Of course I do. I’m in him, silly girl. He let me in,” he added, before she could protest. “And now I know what he knows.”
“That’s awful.”
“No, it’s quite fun actually. The tweekers are the best sport. Paranoid little bastards.” It winked at Kit. “Gives new meaning to being chased by their demons, don’t it?”
“Seems like a pretty full existence, Scratch,” Grif interrupted. “Torturing moral criminals in the Eternal Forest, and possessing the sick and addicted here on the Surface.”
Scratch studied Brunk’s fingernails. “We stay amused.”
“Yet you still find time to track down the Lost.”
“You’re talking about Jeap Yang, yes? About five-eight. Terrible hair-stylist. In love with the vein in his left forearm?”
Grif just stared.
Flaring its eyes, Scratch stared back. “What? He was standing on the corner of life and death with his thumb sticking out. I just offered him a lift.”
“That’s a crock.” Straightening, Grif shoved his hands into his pockets. “You’ve been targeting the Lost and confused.”
Scratch smirked. “Gonna go tell Daddy?”
“I don’t understand,” Kit interrupted, shaking her head. “Why would you hurt an innocent soul? One that’s not even destined for the Eternal Forest?”
“Why would I—?” Baffled, Scratch tilted its head at Grif, and pointed as if to say, Get a load of her. But without waiting for a response, it turned back to Kit. “Because I can. Because I like it. Because I’m bored with blighted souls, unfit for Paradise, and each with a narcissistic psychosis that makes them think their predilections are the most original and devious and evil.”
It rolled Brunk’s eyes, first the left, then the right. “And I’m tired of torturing the terrible souls who deserve every heinous thing they have coming to them. I want something new and fresh and novel. I want those who are tottering right on the edge of moral depravity, and who will tip my way given just one little poke. I want the Lost. Better yet, I want something pure that I can make Lost.”
It stared at Grif in bald challenge, but Grif just shook his head. “Too late, Scratch. I’m a Centurion, both angelic and human. You’ll never touch me.”
“Who said anything about you?” And it turned to Kit, gaze like glue, sticking where it shouldn’t. “But I’d love a chance to climb inside you, Kitty-Cat.”
“Sit back, old boy,” Grif said, his voice a low growl.
At the same time, Kit whispered, “Don’t call me that.”
Scratch ignored them both, leaning forward. Brunk’s top lip elongated into a thin sneer. “I’ll call you what I like, and I’ll take what I want. You think I’m merely bound to those pitiful humans who invite chaos into their lives through addiction? Think again! I feed, as you put it, on the emotions that prompt those addictions. Drugs and alcohol are nice little hors d’oeuvres, but rage and envy and doubt are the entrées I savor most. That’s when the Chosen—any of you!—are truly possessed. And that’s when I’m at my fucking best.”
A whimper, near to a keen, escaped Kit’s throat as she edged back again, and she looked up, waiting for Grif to contradict Scratch’s words. Grif just shook his head. He knew a lot, but he didn’t know this.
“The damned belong to me,” Scratch continued, seeing it had them both rattled. “That’s not in question. And the Lost are just the damned-in-training, though they don’t know it. But you, Kitty-Cat? You, with your bright soul and open heart?” Phrase and lips twisted around each other like invading roots. “You are just some choice bit of beauty that I have not yet broken.”
Grif’s hands were around Brunk’s neck before anyone took a breath. He squeezed, and heard branches snapping in the man’s trachea.
“Uh, uh, uh,” Scratch chided, even as its eyes rolled back in Brunk’s head. “Hate the sin, not the sinner.”
Growling, Grif released Brunk’s throat. It was right. Hurting Brunk wouldn’t let him touch the spirit inside. “You will never touch her, hear me?”
“That’s right,” Scratch said, clearing its throat. “Because I don’t want to touch her. I want to possess her.”
“What’s going on here?” Dennis was back, but, unsurprisingly, none of them had seen him arrive.
“Ah,” Scratch said, glancing down as it pulled a pair of shades from Brunk’s shirt pocket, shielding the stardust in its eyes from Dennis. It didn’t want the human to interfere, but it wasn’t quite done yet, either. “Finally. My drink.”
It held out Brunk’s hand, but Grif snatched the shot glass up as soon as Dennis set it down. Scratch’s attention immediately swerved to Grif as it lowered Brunk’s chin. “Give it.”
“No.”
It tilted Brunk’s head. “What? A trade?”
Grif inclined his head. “The drink for the others.”
“You mean, the Lost. Like Jeap?”
Grif nodded once. Scratch had inhabited Jeap’s body, so it not only knew the boy’s thoughts and
feelings, it possessed his knowledge as well. That’s how it’d located Brunk, who ran in the same crowd. If Scratch was hunting Lost, he’d know whom else Jeap was hanging with.
“Two more,” Scratch said, confirming his thoughts.
“What the hell is he talking about?” Dennis asked.
Scratch ignored him. “I want the drink first.”
Grif jerked his head. “I don’t think you need another drink, after all.”
“Withholding a man’s addictions from him isn’t an effective deterrent,” it snapped, slamming palms on the table before composing Brunk’s features into false stoicism. “Take it from a seasoned sinner, that’s no way to give up a vice.”
“Then how?” Dennis asked, still thinking he was talking to Brunk. He missed the cold calculation in the responding smile. Grif did not.
“Well, first you have to pick a specific sin. You must commit yourself to it fully. Then”—it paused for a beat—“you gotta throw yourself into it.”
And Brunk’s body was suddenly hurtling toward Kit, reaching for her shoulders. She squealed, but she’d been taken by surprise and was slow. Meanwhile, Grif, holding the drink, backed away, not wanting to spill a drop, so it was Dennis who stepped between Kit and Brunk, grabbing the man’s filthy shirt and tossing him back in his seat.
Scratch let Brunk’s hands drop, and gazed up at Dennis in fascination. “Oh, this is interesting.”
“What the hell is wrong with you, Brunk?” Dennis shook him so that the man’s head wobbled on his body.
“Keep that thing away from me.” Kit, still standing, folded her arms protectively around her body.
Grif slammed the shot glass down in front of Scratch. “Here. Just drink it and leave.”
Dennis shifted away, shaking his head at Brunk’s strange behavior. Scratch adjusted Brunk’s T-shirt like it was straightening tuxedo lapels, then made a show of lifting the shot glass. It toasted Kit with the golden liquid.
“I’ll leave,” Scratch said, enunciating each syllable sharply, “when I’m damned well ready.”
And it threw back the firewater, licked its lips . . . and began to scream.
“What the hell—” Dennis grimaced and the air around them grew cold, and Kit backed up even more, but Grif just stood there, palming the glass vial he’d been concealing, now empty of its contents.
“Good-bye, you soul-stealing bastard.” Grif’s voice was so low that only another angel might hear it. Scratch howled in reply, straining against Brunk’s flesh, causing the man’s neck to pop—snap, snap—as it twisted Grif’s way.
“I know you now!” Wind and leaves whipped through every syllable. “You won this round, but I won’t forget! I never forget!”
And the fallen angel left its host body as quickly as it’d arrived. Brunk slumped forward, face slamming against the tabletop with a sick, fleshy thud.
“Jesus,” Dennis said, rubbing a hand over his face. His expression was stunned. “He looked . . .”
“Possessed,” Kit finished, swallowing hard. Grif glanced down and saw that her hands were shaking. He took one in his own and gave it a small squeeze. He’d done what he had to. Scratch wasn’t going to get to Kit.
Brunk’s gaze rolled back in place. The whites of his eyes were pristine, the irises dark as molten chocolate.
“Trey?” Kit asked gingerly, leaning forward.
Brunk took one good look at her face, glanced down at empty shot glass in front of him, and vomited all over the table.
Rearing back, Kit barely saved her bamboo handbag. Filth spewed from Brunk’s body, noxious and acidic and seemingly endless. Only Grif knew why. The liquid he’d prepared after he’d caught Scratch trying to wrangle away Jeap’s tortured soul comprised something Pure. It expelled all impurities from mortal flesh, including fallen angels . . . and the addictive matter Brunk had been poisoning his body with for years.
It took a while.
Kit was at Grif’s side, giant question marks in her gaze, but he shook his head. He’d bring her up to speed later.
“Jesus, Brunk,” Dennis said, when there was a break. “What the hell are you on?”
“He’s okay,” Grif muttered. “He’s just . . . detoxing.”
And now that he’d had a taste of real Purity, Brunk might even be able to beat his addiction. What was unholy could never exist alongside what was Pure.
Waiting until Brunk was between spasms, Grif reached out and put a hand on the man’s shoulder. Dazed, dizzy with all the fresh oxygen zinging through his every mortal cell, he took a moment to focus, but when he did, his eyes were clearer than they’d likely been in years.
“Two more tweekers, Trey,” Grif said, holding the gaze. “Just like Jeap. Where are they?”
Tears of understanding welled in Brunk’s eyes. “Oh, God.”
“Where, Trey?” Grif demanded, because Scratch had the knowledge, and he’d gotten it from this man.
But Brunk was having an extremely delayed rush of survivor’s guilt. Without the addiction as a barrier between him and his emotions, he was facing for the first time what drugs had done to him, and his friends. “I hid the last of my stash. I wouldn’t share. They didn’t have any more money, so when Jeap told them about the croc, the crocodile,” he clarified, with a shudder, “and how cheap it was, they jumped on it.”
“Who, Trey?”
“Tim and Jeannie.” He covered his face with his filthy hands. They were no longer roving, no longer tweeking, but they shook with guilt. “You gotta help ’em. They can’t stop, just like Jeap couldn’t stop. They stole his stash and left him in that flop, but they took the codeine. He’d already showed them how to make it. It’s my fault. I wouldn’t share.”
“No, it’s their choice,” Grif said, over Brunk’s blustering sobs. “But you can help them by telling us where they are.”
The distraught man lifted his head, and squinted at Grif. “They stay with Timmy’s mother mostly. She kicks them out, but they know her bingo times, and they sneak back in when she’s gone.”
“Where?”
“Shangri-La Apartments, in Meadows Village.”
Grif shook his head. It meant nothing to him.
But Dennis jerked his head toward the door. “Got it.”
Yet it was Kit who led the rush from the bar. And as the sounds of retching resumed behind them, Dennis and Grif had to run to keep pace. Meanwhile, the men at the bar—each attending to his own vice—never even looked up.
Chapter Eight
Meadows Village wasn’t far, yet rush hour was just beginning, and traffic was bad at every turn. Grif took the time to fill Kit in on what’d happened at the bar. Or at least what he knew of it. He’d been as surprised as she was to learn that Scratch could inhabit the living through their negative emotions as well as their addictions. He’d have to talk to Sarge about it, but it made sense in theory.
“The fraction of the Host that turned against God was one-third of all angels. That’s why the fallen are called the Third. They were immediately banished from God’s presence, and cast into a place it would never be felt again.”
“The Garden of Eden,” Kit said.
Grif nodded. “Now the Eternal Forest. They’re reluctant inhabitants, but they’re a part of it, too. Both are withered and decayed, completely lifeless.”
“Except when they possess the living.”
Except, Grif now realized, when the living somehow gave up possession of themselves.
“And so the people who die and end up in the Forest? They’re the same?”
“They’re the only source of energy, entertainment, and power that the Third possess.” Grif pursed his lips tight. “But don’t feel too bad for them. Nothing good or pure can exist when blotted entirely from God’s presence.”
He waited, but Kit remained silent as a violent shudder worked its way down her spine. Her beautiful lips were pressed tightly together, too. She was trying to keep from crying.
“It’s the Forest, Kit,” Grif said so
ftly. “Not a walk in the park. You felt how cold his breath was. Magnify it fivefold. Shelter and food? Nonexistent. Same with water, though the Third despise it anyway. Water is a symbol of life—of baptism and rebirth—and nothing that truly lives can exist in the Forest.”
“It sounds . . .” Her voice trailed off as she tried to let the Forest bloom in her own imagination. Few humans, though, had a place in their minds for this kind of madness. “Hopeless.”
“Hope is a gift from God,” Grif said softly. “The Third rose up in mutiny against God, and humans do it on a case-by-case basis. The perversion of free will, God’s greatest gift, lands you there. The Forest is those perversions made manifest.”
“And what about me, Grif?” She glanced over, and there were tears in her eyes. “It said it wanted me, but I can’t imagine living in a place without hope or love.”
“Of course you can’t.” Grif wanted to comfort her, but there was little he could do while she was driving. “You’re made of those two things, with a healthy dash of grit thrown in just to spice things up.”
She didn’t look comforted. “It can touch me. It wants to possess me.”
“It . . . imprinted on you somehow.” Grif shook his head.
“Like what? Some evil baby chick?” Her nerves were getting the best of her, and she jerked the wheel. Grif reached out, and held it in place.
“You were the first person it has seen in, well, God knows how long. The first who wasn’t evil or dirty or doomed. Or Lost. It said you were bright, and light—”
Kit shuddered, and Grif felt helpless. He opened his mouth, but Kit was already pushing past the moment. “How did you destroy it?”
“I don’t know how to destroy an angel.” But he was damned well going to try to find out. “It’s only banished.”
“So how did you banish it? What was in that bottle?”
“Love,” he finally answered. He glanced over when she only stared. “It’s more toxic to them even than water. In fact, if it were to wash over Scratch like the baptism they so hate, I bet then you could destroy it.”
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