by Jessa Slade
Sid stared at the turbulent doorway into hell. The demonic entity within him didn’t retreat, but the triplicate thud of his heartbeat rattled his chest. “That possibility scares me even more than the ones that had already occurred to me.”
They climbed back to the storeroom, and Alyce limped across the tile floor into the kitchen area while Sid pushed the shelves into place.
He followed her, frowning at her halting progress. “Our teshuva came back online as soon as we got beyond Thorne’s reach; yours should’ve healed the worst of that wound.”
She twitched aside the hem of her bedraggled dress and twisted to look down at the back of her thigh. “It’s still bleeding.”
The intake of breath at the sight of her white skin stuck in his throat. He couldn’t even blame the demon for that inappropriate lustful reaction. Here she was, soaked and hurt, and his thoughts immediately went to removing the remainder of her clothes.
“Let me see.” He turned her away from him beneath the bright kitchen light. “Bend over the counter there.” He’d never found it so hard to concentrate. His hands actually shook as he lifted her skirt.
The sight of her thigh, streaked with blood and livid with internal bruising—human fragile—doused him like cold lake water. “I don’t understand. Did Thorne land a shot with some antidemon bullet?”
When he probed the surrounding tissue gently, she tightened her grip on the edge of the stainless steel. “I fell into one of the machines downstairs.”
“There shouldn’t have been anything hazardous to the teshuva, nothing to interfere with its energy after we got away from Thorne’s djinni.” He frowned. “But something is preventing the wound from closing.”
She flinched away from his fingers. “It didn’t hurt when Thorne was chasing us. I ran without limping.”
“Other things to worry about.” Then he thought about what she’d said and followed the tight clench of her hamstring higher up her leg. “When Thorne was after us, our teshuva were out of commission. Something your humanity handles better than the demon?” The muscle was so contorted, no wonder she limped. He’d felt the old scarring during her physical at the lab—and when they’d gotten physical later—but that didn’t explain the flare-up now, unless during the attack something old had been uncovered. Nothing like new wounds to refresh old pain. But why would the djinni attack exacerbate an injury when her clashes with other tenebrae had resulted in talya-standard healing?
Down the curve of her thigh, where the tendons narrowed toward the back of her knee, the jagged tear thinned, but his fingers brushed a hard knot too hard even for teshuva-strengthened musculature.
Her eyes widened when he plucked a paring knife from the magnetized rack above the cutting board.
“It won’t hurt much more,” he promised. “But something got you, and it needs to come out.”
Alyce’s gaze locked on him. He slid the knife between the edges of the wound, and her eyes flared brighter violet. “It wasn’t the djinni.” Her voice broke into the lower demonic register. “It was the angel.”
“What—?” Sid hesitated when the knife tip scraped against another metal. “Don’t move.”
As if the contact had completed a circuit in her, the memory poured out. “I was in the hay field. Only winter stubble was left, but we needed broom straw.” She touched her forehead to the counter, muffling her words. “I saw them fighting. Angel and djinni. Light and dark.”
“You witnessed an etheric battle? Anyone with skewed vision—children, artists, schizophrenics—might see demons or angels, which is why they’re supposed to be more circumspect.”
“I shouldn’t have been there. I was young, and it was near dark and so cold, but it was better there. …” She lifted her head with a hiss when he prodded deeper. “Better alone in the dark than in the house with my father’s body. We were waiting for the burial, waiting as long as we dared because we knew that as soon as he was in the ground, we’d be chased from the farm to pay his debts.”
Though the narrow blade did little extra damage, he tightened his jaw against the horror of cutting into her. He felt as monstrous as those who had carved apart her childhood, scavenging for any treasure. “Who won, angel or djinni?”
“I don’t know. They screamed as they fought, and the frozen ground boiled into steam that blinded me. I ran, but too slow. There was a burst of light—angel gold or djinni yellow; I don’t remember—they were too much alike. I fell.”
“Something hit you. And it’s still here.” Sweat stung the corner of his eye. All his previous surgeries had been on lifeless feralis husks, not soft, shuddering flesh. “That battle you witnessed was your penance trigger, one end of the fault line that ended with your possession.”
“By the time I staggered back to the house, the mourners had come and gone, only muddy footprints left behind. No one noticed I’d been missing.”
Sid gave the knife a tiny twist. On a spurt of blood, the embedded object surfaced in a gleam of glassy gold.
“I guess the djinni won that battle.” He grabbed a towel from a clean stack near the dishwasher and pressed it against her knee. When he pulled back, the wound was already closing, and the shard was nestled in the middle of the bloody cloth. To his demon’s mesmerized vision, the shrapnel—just a bit shorter and narrower than his finger—flickered like the last flame of a dying campfire. “No wonder your teshuva’s been on the blink; this fragment came from an angel’s sword.”
CHAPTER 17
Alyce was relieved she’d left her wool coat hanging on the back of a chair when she’d gone down into the verge crypt with Sidney. At least she had something to hide her drenched, stained clothes. Across the empty diner, he revealed the sword shard wrapped in the bloody towel to Liam, Archer, and a half-dozen other muttering talyan.
She sat with Nim and Sera. Jilly had stayed at the warehouse to mastermind the night’s hunt. Apparently, the league had chosen new prey.
Or maybe it had been the other way around. She rubbed the back of her thigh. The knot that had been there so long—longer even than her possession—had flattened. She knew when she looked again, it would be gone, just as the limp and other wounds had disappeared. Dared she hope the scar tissue that had tangled her mind would vanish too?
“I ruined another pretty dress,” she told Nim.
The talya woman shrugged. “I’ll introduce you to the miracle of bleach in the delicate cycle. And credit cards.”
Alyce let out a relieved sigh. “The league has strange machines for everything.”
“Nothing strange enough to let us zip between realms on a whim,” Sera said.
“Is that what happened to Thorne?” Nim sat back. “Corvus opened the verge, but he had no control over it. Jonah and I were with him in the no-man’s-land at the end, and he and his djinni were as shit-themselves scared of falling into the tenebraeternum as we were. It might have been where they came from—where all demons come from—but it was no place they want to go back.”
Sera drummed her fingers on the table. “So, what did Thorne want with the verge? You say he implied the djinn are talking behind our backs, and we already fought them once at the church. If they are gathering, by definition it can’t be for anything good.”
None of them had an answer, so they sat in silence.
Therese bustled up. “What can I get you?”
“Answers?” Nim suggested.
“Tea?” Therese countered.
Sera nodded. “And bring four cups.”
Therese returned with a tray of unmatched china. She poured for all of them, stared at the fourth cup a moment, then sat. “Liam may close the diner. Because it is dangerous, he says.” Her accusing gaze shuttled between Sera and Nim.
“Don’t look at me,” Nim said. “I eat danger for breakfast. But I think that’s not what Liam wants you to serve.”
Sera nodded. “When he suggested you move the diner here, he thought it would be a good opportunity.”
“It has been,” Therese said. “I wo
uld have lost everything when my last landlord sold out.”
“By good opportunity,” Sera clarified, “I think Liam meant unlikely to have strange men creeping around in the basement.”
“There are many strange men creeping around the basement right now,” Alyce pointed out.
Therese tipped her teacup toward Alyce in an approving salute. “Exactly. Is this danger confined to the basement?”
Sera opened her mouth, then closed it when Nim said, “Not really confined, no.”
“Life is risk,” Therese said. “That I know, even if I don’t understand all you are doing.”
“You should tell her,” Alyce said. “No one wants to be kept in the dark.” She contemplated that a moment. “If they have the choice.”
Sera cleared her throat. Nim drank her tea.
So Alyce hunted for the words to explain to Therese. “A slave woman, Tituba, near my village outside Salem, was accused of witchcraft. She disappeared; probably she was killed. Could you run? If you had to?”
Therese shrugged. “It’s never that easy, is it? The chains are not always so obvious.”
“I still feel them too,” Alyce said.
“Tituba,” Nim said abruptly. “That’s Nigerian for ‘atone.’”
Sera stared at her. “Excuse me?”
Nim shifted in her chair. “Since Jonah spent so much time there, I’ve been reading about African demons.” She quickly took another sip of tea.
Therese pushed her cup aside. “Demons?”
“That is what is in the basement,” Alyce said. “That is what sits with you now. Lodged within our souls.”
Sera and Nim groaned in tandem. “You make possession sound so … creepy,” Nim complained.
Therese blinked at them. “You are possessed. By demons.”
“Repentant demons,” Sera said. “We’re good guys.”
Therese glanced toward the male talyan. “And them?”
“Bigger good guys,” Nim said. “What’s in your basement is … not good. And we wanted to keep it buried.”
“But it is not your battle,” Alyce said, “so you should be able to run away if you choose.”
Therese stared at her cup. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Besides ‘You all are stark raving mad’?” Nim nudged sugar packets across the table. “Here, these help.”
“Demons,” Therese mused. “That would explain things.” She pulled her cup back to her and dumped in three sugars. “I won’t run. And not because I am such a slave to my fear that I am too stupid to run.”
“Then you’re doing better than I did,” Nim said.
Therese shook her head. “I think you are doing much good. How can I help?”
“You already do,” Sera said. “By giving us a reminder why we’re here.”
“I left my home once. If nowhere in the city is safe, then I would rather do what I can.”
Perhaps his demon had warned him of the talk behind his back, because Liam approached their table, hands on his hips. “Therese,” he started.
She stood. “You can’t close the diner. This is our place. All of yours. And mine. We will make our stand here.”
He lifted an eyebrow at the talya women. “You sharing trade secrets?”
“No secrets,” Alyce said.
“Not anymore anyway,” Nim amended.
Before Liam could demand an explanation, Alyce stood and went to find Sidney. He must have explanations by the dozen by now.
He was helping Pitch push the shelf back into place. “And we need to finish draining the crypt before we can seal the hole in the floor. I wish a bolus of concrete could do the same to the verge.”
Pitch grunted. “What’s the demonic equivalent of concrete?”
He’d probably meant the question facetiously, but Sidney straightened, his eyes losing focus as he considered. “Demonic quick-set …”
Since he would stand there until an answer came to him, Alyce moved in front of him. She couldn’t help the jump of her pulse as his gaze locked on her.
“They found the gun in the muck,” he said. “Also in the muck were all the printouts recorded during the fight. So we don’t know if Thorne accessed the verge. We can just add that to the list of things we don’t know, such as what he’s doing next.”
Alyce thought a moment. “We could go to his boat. That is his only home.”
Pitch snorted. “You think he just tells everybody where it is?”
She nodded. “He has signs all along the river.”
Pitch stared at her. “Why didn’t you say so?”
“You didn’t ask.”
There was so much he wanted to ask her. Sid sat beside Alyce in the back of Liam’s car as they cruised streets parallel to the river, looking for the signs Alyce had told them about.
“What kind of signs?” Pitch had demanded. “Signs like ichor smears? Like talya heads on pikes?”
“Like big pictures stuck on tall posts,” she’d said.
“Billboards?” Sid straightened. “He’s a djinn-man with billboards?”
Now Alyce leaned over his lap to point out the car window. “Over there. Across the bridge.”
THE RIVER PRINCESS EVENING CRUISE. The words were left justified to make room for a woman with Caucasian coloring, a Native American costume, and breasts by a plastic surgeon with more silicone than ethics. Her high-heeled moccasins pierced the Web site address at the bottom of the sign.
“Rich men get on. Poor men get off,” Alyce said.
“Riverboat gambling isn’t allowed on the lake.” Jilly, in the front passenger seat, poked at her phone. “Internet search says the River Princess has a few outstanding complaints—all from legitimate offshore casinos—but no associated investigations.”
Liam grunted. “Thorne must know somebody—or he knows where some body is.”
“The sailing schedule shows open boarding tonight,” Jilly said. “Shall I make reservations?”
“We didn’t have time for a company picnic this summer,” Liam mused. “What with battling evil.” His smile was sharper than the princess’s heel. “And talyan do like to gamble.”
Alyce shifted in her seat. “What do we want with him?”
“Whatever he wanted with the verge,” Sid said. “He’s the closest connection we have to the intentions of the djinn, and if they have plans for the verge …”
“He won’t tell.” Fretfully, she tugged at her seat belt. “Well, he might, just because he likes to show how clever he is. But he won’t tell us anything useful if we all confront him.”
Sid bristled. “Do not say you want to get on a boat with him alone. Whatever relationship you had with him was … was before, not after you threw a paver at his head.”
“At his hand,” she corrected. “Because he was trying to shoot me.” She let the belt retract with a snap. “That is the kind of relationship we had.”
Liam drummed his fingers on the seat back. “You have a better idea, Westerbrook?”
“If the River Princess is Thorne’s base of operations, a quick, quiet recon might find something, anything, on this gathering of djinn.” Sid scowled at Alyce. “Without unnecessary shooting.” He smoothed the scowl when he glanced back at Liam. “After our run-in today, chances are Thorne won’t be wasting his time on a pleasure cruise, so I’ll have the place to myself.”
“You?” Alyce’s voice was small.
Sid didn’t look at her. “I’m the obvious choice. Best qualified to judge any information Thorne left lying around. Least valuable if the mission goes awry.”
“I don’t rank my talyan for sacrifice,” Liam said.
Jilly tapped her phone on the dash in counterpoint to Liam. “We could follow in Jonah’s boat. The Shades of Gray is outfitted for running dark. If you get dumped overboard, we can recover you.”
Sid tried for talya humor. “Alive or dead?”
“Yes,” Jilly said.
“No,” Alyce said.
“You’ll go together,” L
iam said. When Sid drew a harsh breath, the league leader pinned him with a glare. “Just in case sacrifice seemed like an option.”
Alyce nodded and settled back in her seat.
Sid wanted to scream his rejection.
When Liam had first contacted the London league, seeking older records than any kept in the New World, he’d danced around the information he wanted. Eventually, he asked what they had on long-extinct symballein pairings. Specifically, how long did the bond last?
Once the Bookkeeper masters had overcome their shock that the symballein bond existed, they’d laughed at the commitment phobia that reared in the face of eternity.
Now Sid understood. Liam hadn’t feared the bond lasting forever; he wanted to make sure it did.
That was hard to do when half the bond was stretching toward suicidal curiosity.
For once, Sid didn’t mean himself. But damn it, if he couldn’t talk the Bookkeeper talk anymore, and he didn’t walk the talya walk, what was left?
“Thorne has hinted, more than once, he wanted something from me,” Alyce said quietly. “What if it was my teshuva’s talisman? What if he took it? The thing that could make me a real talya.”
Sid scowled. “You are possessed by a repentant demon. That makes you a real talya.” If he said as much to himself, would that make it true?
“You know what I mean. I want it back from him.” The determination in her voice left no room for discussion. With the removal of the interfering angelic relic, the drifty Alyce was coming into focus—hard, sharp focus. “What time does the River Princess leave?”
“Not until nine,” Jilly said. “Easier to slip out of sight, I suppose, and deal the cards in the dark.”
“Then we have time,” Sid said.
“For me to change clothes?” Alyce asked. “This dress would terrify even a djinni.”
“For me to teach you to swim.”
Back at the warehouse, Alyce was hustled away in the triad of women to find a swimsuit and something suitable for a night of breaking and entering. Sid went down to the labs.
For a long moment, he stood in the doorway of the darkened room, listening to the soft whir of the mainframe as it rolled over some problem in its mechanical guts. Such a comforting noise as it methodically and dispassionately—oh, and bloodlessly—worked its way to a solution.