by Jessa Slade
The marks on his arms dripped poison with its fury. Once again, he and the demon were in accord. Someone had stolen the congregation and, with it, the one who had met his eye.
“Jilly wants something.” Archer paced outside the kitchen.
Liam craned his neck past the other man. To think he’d ever underestimated how sometimes playing leader to a bunch of violent, paranoid immortals got in the way of more important things. “Dinner maybe?”
Archer snorted. “Oh, that’s not all she wants.”
“Just because your mate offered to serve up your choicer bits if you volunteered her for KP duty again doesn’t mean all women fear subjugation by slotted spoon.”
“I’m telling you, when a woman feeds her man, she has plans.”
“I’m not her—” Liam took a deep breath. “Well, I’m not entirely opposed to the idea.”
Ecco stumped down the hall. “What ideas are we talking about? And what is that smell? I want that.”
Liam fixed Archer with a smug stare. “See? Sometimes it’s simple.”
“Did you just call me simple?” Ecco shouldered past him. “Out of my way.”
One by one, other talyan drifted into the hall. Liam had sent off the addicts—except for a couple who’d refused—to various rehab programs, courtesy of Sera’s previous life and hospital connections. With the coming twilight, that left only the prehunt crowd at the warehouse, restless and well aware they, unlike the junkies, had no chance of casting off the compulsions that rode them.
They milled outside the door to the kitchenette, reluctant to edge by him, until Liam fell into Ecco’s wake.
Jilly stood at the stove, a cheerful red-and-white-striped towel hanging from the back pocket of her jeans. The knot-work bracelet was shoved high on her forearm. She didn’t look around, just said, “Get a bowl.”
Ecco stepped up with alacrity. He towered over the petite Jilly with his outstretched bowl like some Oliver Twist on ’roids. She ladled out the soup, and Liam heard the eager inhalation of the talyan behind him as the fragrance rolled over them.
An elbow in his ribs shoved him aside, and the talyan streamed past him to get in line, never mind the usual teshuva-triggered avoidance of close contact. Or, God forbid, a little respect for their leader.
Good thing they’d never find out what a hard time he’d given her about slapping down the platinum card for the stockpot big enough to cook down a feralis. Not that the whiff of chicken and dumplings coming his way had anything to do with demonology. Heaven, maybe.
He waited in the doorway, arms crossed, while his crew filed past the stoves. From the dinky oven, Jilly handed out fist-sized domes of lightly browned biscuit. Almost the same color as her eyes, he noted idly. The tightening in his belly was definitely hunger. Of what sort, he wasn’t entirely sure.
He wished he’d held firm at the grocery store when she wanted to get the insanely expensive industrial-sized jar of honey. Not necessary, he’d argued. Talyan didn’t need to be sweetened up. Listening to the men’s pleased murmurs as they drizzled spoonfuls of the golden glaze over their biscuits, he realized he wanted that all for himself.
As if he’d touched her shoulder, Jilly met his gaze across the long metal table lined with talyan focused on their bowls. She lifted her eyebrows and tipped the pot toward him. Almost empty. She filled a last bowl and slid it across the counter.
After a moment, he pushed away from the door. The clink of spoons against empty bowls accompanied him across the room along with the low murmur of voices as the men leaned back. Content, he realized.
He walked up to Jilly. “Taming the savage beasts?”
“Maybe.” She handed him a biscuit.
The dough warmed his palm. “Thanks.” He propped his hip on the counter. His mouth watered and he forced himself not to tip the bowl to his lips. No sense acting the savage, half-starved beast.
She hummed to herself. “I used to cook for the kids. I miss it a little, I guess.”
A velvety dumpling slipped over his tongue with a hint of rosemary. Despite his pleasure—maybe because of it?—he couldn’t take his attention from her. She scanned the room with lips pursed. He imagined her keeping watch over her kids and was half tempted to start a food fight. Except the soup was too good to fling.
When she turned that eagle eye on him, he said, “You know it’s good.”
She nodded. “The more they come together as a team, the more likely they are to survive.”
“I meant your cooking. The halfway house’s loss was our gain.”
She ran her gaze over him, foot to head. He held himself still though his skin prickled even with his demon dormant again. “A strong wind could blow you over. Well, assuming it was a demon-driven wind. Which, lately, it has been.”
“I’m not Roald. I won’t walk off into the ether.”
She met his gaze without blinking. “No one intends to wander off.”
He put the bowl down gently and said, “I am not one of your wayward youth.”
Though she half shuttered her spicy sweet eyes, he felt the spark jump between them. “Yeah. I got that.”
The flare of attraction was hot and sudden and pointless. He took a step back to let it sputter out. “Thanks for dinner.”
She spun away to wash her hands.
Subtle, he thought.
Around them, the talyan were rising and stretching, ready for the night. Jilly dried her hands and tossed the towel at the sink. “Okay, let’s go.”
“Go?”
“Find Corvus. It’s why you let the other addicts go, isn’t it?” She pinned him with a baleful eye. “I suppose they’re wearing tracking collars.”
He met her gaze. “No. I have talyan following them.”
“Fishing.”
“Protecting. If they go running back to Corvus, they could be in danger. But I haven’t heard anything back from the guards yet.”
Ecco walked between them, rinsed his bowl, and put it in the dishwasher. “If Niall fucks up whatever you’re talking about, come to me.”
“Go, teamwork,” Liam said wryly.
“Thank you,” she said over him.
Ecco flexed. “He’s not the sort to appreciate a real handful of woman.”
“Stop while you’re ahead,” she suggested.
“See you on the street, then.” The other talyan, following Ecco’s example, cleared their dishes.
Jonah brought up the rear, added soap, and started the machine. “Your sister is still here.”
“Is that a problem?” Jilly’s tone implied it better not be, and Liam wondered if he should frisk her for paring knives.
Jonah shook his head. “She’ll be safer with us. I heard Sera is bringing her angelic friend to talk to Dory.”
Jilly nodded cautiously. “She told me Nanette’s ministry has a background with substance abuse.”
“Not to mention, she can heal with a touch.” Jonah gave a decisive nod. “I hope it works.”
When the last talya had gone, Liam huffed. “Anyone else you want to wrap around your finger?”
She glared at him. “Not really.”
He walked out, knowing she’d follow.
“Maybe Nanette can help Dory where I can’t,” she said from behind him. “But I can at least make sure Corvus and his solvo and his salambes won’t be waiting for her on the other side.”
“We might not find him tonight.” Liam cautioned.
“We have forever, but Dory doesn’t. We’ll find him.”
If the determination in her eyes counted for anything, he knew they would. He couldn’t leash her. He shouldn’t even want to. The league—hell, the world—needed her fire and zeal.
With a thud of bootheels, she matched his pace down the hall. “I want a sword or something.”
The fate of the world might be looking up, but he was doomed.
A wind that still stung with winter’s bite hissed down the street in front of the warehouse to tug at his coat, and the pull of the hammer mad
e his shoulders ache, though he’d carried it for a century without noticing its weight. Jilly’s jab about being like Roald stung.
She was so used to thinking that broken was a problem, she couldn’t see that cracks were good camouflage out here. Cracks let the steam out, made him look bigger when all the pieces were spread out. Cracks were good for a lot. He silenced his grumbling when Jilly appeared.
She’d pulled the spikes of blue-striped hair into twin tufts bristling like antennae on either side of her head. A few errant strands trailed over her wary golden gaze. He eyed her with trepidation and wondered aloud, “What are you packing? I shouldn’t have left you down there by yourself. A chain saw? Suitcase nuke?”
She snorted. A flicker in her hands, and she revealed a double-curved weapon only a little wider than his spread fingers. The two half- moon blades overlapped so that the horns of one pointed outward while the horns of the other wrapped back to protect the hand. The middle of one moon was leather wrapped where she gripped it, but the other exposed edges gleamed with sharp-honed perfection.
“It’s balanced like a good cleaver.” She smiled and flipped the knife in her hand. The edges winked under the streetlights.
He winced. “The demon can’t regenerate lost fingers.”
“I won’t lose anything.”
Apparently she didn’t count that missing chunk of her soul. He squelched the hollow thought. “Just be careful. The teshuva lends you some natural—supernatural—talent in the mayhem department, but you shouldn’t put all your faith in it.” He rubbed his forehead. “Never mind faith. I mean you shouldn’t take chances with the demon if you don’t have to.”
The knives disappeared into her pocket. “I won’t,” she said. “Either one.”
Quiet as bats, the talyan left the warehouse. They edged around him and disappeared into the night, their black clothes merging with the gloom as they separated.
“Alone?” Jilly murmured.
“There’s too much evil for the good—or at least the repentant—to bunch up. I’ll recall them if we have cause.”
“You don’t sound like we have a chance.”
How to explain to her that after a certain number of years—decades, for instance—it was hard to sound like anything? “Finding Corvus isn’t something we’ll leave to chance. Come on.”
“I need to do something first. Can I borrow your phone for a second?” She was scowling at him even as the question “Why?” formed on his lips. So he handed it over without asking, just to prove he could.
She punched in a number, waited. “Dee, it’s Jilly.” A spate of girlish squeals rang from the phone. Jilly grimaced and held it away from her ear. “I’m fine.” She paused. “I know. Yeah, I got another job.” She half turned from Liam. “No, I’m sure not all bosses suck as bad as Envers. Listen, can you come down to the alley for a couple minutes before lockout? I’ll be there in a few minutes. Bring Iz, okay? And I want my phone back.”
Liam studied her after she hung up. “You can’t tell them.”
“What?”
“Anything. That’s why it’s easier to let it go. Let them go.”
“I let them go all the time. When I can’t help them, when I can. They all move on. I get that.” But her stiffly held shoulders belied her acceptance.
His tyro fighter didn’t accept anything without a fight. Even when she couldn’t win.
When their cab pulled up across the street from the halfway house, the two teens were just coming down the stairs. The four of them met around the side of the building, out of sight of the front door.
The girl threw her arms around Jilly with the same delighted squeal Liam recognized from the phone call. Despite her enthusiasm, Dee fixed him over Jilly’s shoulder with a stare too knowing for someone her age. “Your new boss is hot,” she stage-whispered as she handed over Jilly’s cell phone.
Jilly pulled back. “Who says he’s my boss?”
“He has that ‘you got time to lean, you got time to clean’ look.”
Jilly snorted. “Yeah, we do a lot of cleaning.”
Dee faked a gasp. “But not leaning, I hope?”
“Definitely not.” Jilly gave the teens a once- over. “You two doing okay?”
They both nodded, Dee more decisively than Iz.
The young man studied Liam. “You know what happened to Andre. You know that thing we saw in the alley. That’s why you wanted to see me and Dee.”
Liam lifted one eyebrow. “My advice? Just say no.”
Dee snorted, sounding a lot like Jilly. “We’re not dumb.”
Which didn’t really indicate whether she thought drugs were dumb or he was for even bringing up the alternative. When Jilly gave a faint shake of her head, he tightened his jaw against the urge to demand compliance. Did they think they were immortal? On solvo, they would be, without even the ability to regret the choice.
“Andre won’t be coming back.” The faintest thread of uncertainty wavered in Jilly’s tone. “But if you see him around, I want you to stay away from him. No matter what. And then I want you to call me. I’ll leave my phone with you, Dee.” She programmed in the @1 business number. “And restrict your texting to after class, yeah?”
Dee rolled her eyes but accepted the phone with a nod.
Iz stuffed his hands in his pockets and gazed sidelong at them. “Why’d you leave, Jilly?”
She hesitated, and this time Liam gave her that slight shake of the head. “Nothing to do with you guys, you know that. You already figured out that sometimes real life takes a hard left turn and your only choice is to follow where it leads.”
Liam couldn’t completely stifle his cough of amusement.
Iz glared at him. “You were the left turn, weren’t you?”
Liam shrugged at the flare of antagonism. “Don’t worry. She doesn’t follow all that blindly.”
After a moment, Iz’s stance softened. “Sometimes that’s good, right?”
“Yeah. Remember that next time some stranger comes around offering you candy.”
The teens groaned.
Jilly glanced back at the street. “You guys need to be inside before doors close. Just remember.”
After a bit more groaning, the girls hugged again. Iz hovered close, leaving Liam on the outside of the little circle.
He and Jilly waited as the kids made their way back inside. The door latched with an audible click.
Jilly sighed. “They’re no safer than before.”
“And in no more danger,” Liam reminded her. “The boy could be a Bookkeeper someday. He has the eyes for it.”
Jilly shuddered. “There’s a career path I’ll never suggest.”
He gritted his teeth at her vehemence. “Right. Wouldn’t want to give anyone the chance to help save the world.” He strode out of the alley, forcing her to keep up.
“That’s our job, remember?”
Despite his stiff jaw, the question slipped out. “And do you still blame me for it, as Iz does?”
She stuffed her hands in her pockets, then winced and pulled one hand out to suck her finger where she’d obviously nicked herself on the crescent-moon blades. “You explained already, my penance trigger was tripped long before I met you.”
Her answer no more addressed his question than the kids had agreed to stay away from drugs. But she didn’t need to like him to do her job. The more she feared for her hooligans, the harder she’d work. It only weakened his cause to reassure her.
And revealed a weakness in himself that he wanted her reassurance at all. His spine prickled, as if he’d swung his hammer too wildly and left himself undefended. He couldn’t afford to expose his doubts about his leadership. The talyan had enough monstrous, ceaseless fears to deal with on a nightly basis without his adding to their burden. Of course she blamed him. He blamed himself for not somehow warning her off, even knowing she couldn’t have—maybe wouldn’t have—listened.
Lucky him, the needs of the league ground on, and didn’t care about his momentar
y lapse. As a poor smithy fleeing starvation, he would’ve been grateful to know that he’d always have a place. Instead, he suspected she would be less prickly to that smithy than the league leader he had become.
He took them back to the apartment where they’d found the haints. Already, the encrustations of birnenston were sloughing off the walls and ceiling in the absence of the sustaining demonic emanations. The rumble of the L rattled the broken plywood over the windows, and a few beams of light shot across the room.
“What are we looking for?” Jilly frowned down at a pile of dust, all that was left of a burned-out haint.
“Darkness.”
“It’s already night.”
“Call your demon.”
“Oh. That darkness. What am I—”
He touched her arm to turn her back toward the dust, and all his senses sharpened, slanted.
She stumbled back from the pile when a cloud of scintillating flecks coalesced, their pattern vaguely man-shaped. “Tell me that’s not a soul. Or leftover sliced and diced soul.”
Throughout the room, other glowing clouds hovered. “Oh God,” she whispered.
“I doubt he’s around at the moment.”
“What are we going to do?”
“Nothing. We can’t repatriate them with their destroyed bodies, although they seem unwavering in the search. And apparently they can’t find their way to wherever an unbroken soul should go.” He released her to rub his temple. “Just remember how you summoned the teshuva to see. If we can find more, these soulflies could lead us to other haint haunts. I don’t like this sense of something smoldering.”
“Not these. The bodies are cold dust and gone.”
“Yes, but back home, the peat marshes could burn underground, unnoticed, and then blaze up out of control.” He let his hand drop to his side. His fingers ached with the pressure of his involuntary fist. “Where there are burned-out haint husks with soulfly smoke, there’s bound to be hellfire.”
“Salambes. Maybe even Corvus.” She shuddered, watching the soul flecks. When she hugged herself, the knot-work bracelet glinted with their reflected emanations. “And he left these shredded souls to wander. Lost. No, trapped. Never to be freed.” Her eyes seemed dull as the ashed coals in a cold forge.