by Jessa Slade
He grinned in reply. “But I like to.” He dipped his head again to kiss the red crescents her teeth had left on her lower lip. “Mine to love, and be loved in return. Two halves of the perfect equation. That’s the symballein bond. Not a mystery to be unraveled, but a promise.”
When he kissed her again, the verge peeled back and spat them into the atrium in a wash of etheric winds.
They stumbled across the glass-strewn floor. Archer stood atop a concrete planter, one hand braced on the palm tree, the other on his hip. He scowled at them. “About time.”
Sid lifted one eyebrow. “Not too late, I hope.”
Archer jumped down from the planter. “They ran, most of them. The rats. We killed a couple. Which leaves us with some awkward bones and drifts of grave dust to explain if we don’t vanish right now. And we can’t all pull that trick you did.” He peered at Alyce. “Nice trick, by the way.”
She nodded, distracted. “There was a blue child. …”
“Sera cleared the atrium and found one hidden Cookie Monster. Everyone’s out. The talyan are hiding in plain sight, mixed with the crowd and draining malice to calm everyone. There’s so much confusion, I think we can pull this off. And you two?”
“Not confused at all,” Alyce said.
Sid pulled her, unresisting, into his arms and kissed her. He couldn’t stop himself. He’d never get enough of the innocence, of the temptation, of Alyce.
When they paused to catch their breath, Archer was heading out through the giant hole blown in the side of the atrium. Police cruisers, the still-spinning Ferris wheel, and a lone string of lights dangling from the ruined ceiling provided the only illumination.
“I was confused,” Sid admitted to her. “I thought I wasn’t allowed to want; that I could only watch from the outside. But if a demon can love …”
He brushed a lock of her dark hair from her eyes. He stared down into the clear depths … and saw his love reflected back at him.
He cleared his throat. “Can I say it again?”
She touched his cheek—the ring glinting in the corner of his vision before her fingers slipped down to rest against the quickening pulse in his throat—and smiled. “Forever.”
EPILOGUE
Nim brushed tears from the corners of her eyes, smearing her mascara. “You’re so beautiful in white.”
“Brides are always beautiful,” Jilly said reasonably.
Sera added a happy sniff of her own. “The first symballein wedding.”
Alyce turned slowly in front of the mirror. The neckline, wavy with lace, lay low across her collarbone. Her reven, quiescent, was decoration enough—except for the ring, of course. She held out her hand to admire the rivet. A thread of amethyst light, like embedded filigree, chased through the steel and matched the purple ribbons in her braided hair.
Sidney, though he called himself a traditionalist, had said she should keep the ring on before the wedding. “We’re making our own traditions now,” he’d said.
So she’d given him his wedding present early. The flattened band, forged with Liam’s oversight from the remnants of discarded spectacles, had made Sid laugh and then kiss her. She couldn’t decide which she liked more, the laugh or the kiss; she’d have to indulge in both again, often.
She turned again to check the blades tucked into the chevron sheaths down her spine. Sneaking into a church in the middle of the night on Halloween in a demon-stalked city called for a certain amount of armament.
Therese peeked in the door. “Ready? I don’t think he can last much longer.”
Alyce tilted her head. “He’d wait forever.” When the women snorted in unison, she added, “But I don’t think I can.”
Jilly straightened, as if rising from a strategy table. “Let’s do it then.”
The women filed out, and Alyce looked at herself another moment. Something flickered in the shadows behind her, but she didn’t turn. Her past was just that—behind her; though not to be forgotten for the strengths it had given her. She walked to the door with her head high.
There were no flowers; the last night of October in Chicago had begun with a hard frost. There was no music except the longing sigh of some wayward draft in the rafters. There weren’t enough bridesmaids for all the groomsmen arrayed near the altar.
But there were candles, dozens of little white votives in cracked tumblers, scented of nothing but sweet wax, and all the more lovely for the darkness around them.
And there was Sidney.
She walked down the aisle alone, her gaze on his.
His smile was small, gentle, but when he took her outstretched hands, the power that surged through her was beyond everything.
A bit of metal clinked against her ring, and she looked down at the key he pressed into her palm.
“I found us a place here,” he murmured. “It’s small—seems talyan are paid worse than Bookkeepers—but it has a library and a roof garden with a glimpse of the river, and we can walk to work. I haven’t signed yet, but it’ll be ours if you like it.”
“Does it have a good kitchen? I want Therese to teach me how to cook.”
“You don’t have to cook for me. If we’re going to find Thorne, I’m guessing we’ll be out most nights anyway.”
“I’m not doing it just for you,” she said. “It’s for me. And for us.” She squeezed his hands and smiled up at him. “I’ll bring the knives.”
They turned to stand side by side.
Liam rested with both palms planted on the haft of the war hammer propped between his feet. “I am no priest. Obviously. And words at a wedding are usually about starting a new life together. Which seems unnecessary when it’s so damn clear the bride and her groom are eternally bonded, not by their demons, but by the fitting match of their souls. So I’ll just wish you happiness.” He stepped back and took Jilly’s hand.
“And peace,” Archer murmured.
“Passion,” Nim countered with a wicked grin.
Sidney raised Alyce’s hand to his lips. The ring warmed to his breath when he whispered against her skin, “And love.”
GLOSSARY OF TERMS
abrasax: An angelic-possessed’s blessed weapon.
ahāzum: A gathering of djinn; forbidden since the First Battle.
ascendant: The rise of a demon within a possessed human; refers to the initial incident of possession and subsequent risings.
birnenston: Also, brimstone. A sulfuric compound leached from some demonic emanations interacting with the human realm.
desolator numinis: “Soul cleaver”; a demonic weapon.
djinni: djinn (pl.): Upper echelon of demonkind; fallen angels who are content to stay fallen.
djinn-man: A human possessed by a djinni.
ether: The elemental energy of spiritual and demonic emanations.
feralis: ferales (pl.): Lesser demonic emanation encased in a physical shell of mutated human-realm material. Physically strong, but not so impressive in the brains department.
heshuka: The unknown darkness; from Aramaic.
horde-tenebrae: Blanket term for lesser demonic emanations, including malice, ferales, and salambes. Also, tenebrae.
ichor: A physical by-product of demonic emanations not compatible with the human realm.
league: Isolated clusters of possessed fighters assigned to high-density human-population areas with the mission of reducing demonic activity.
malice: Incorporeal lesser emanation from the demon realm, typically small and animalistic in shape with protohuman intelligence.
mated-talyan bond: The synergistic combination of male and female possessed powers.
reven: The permanent visible epidermal mark left by an ascended demon.
salambe: Highly emanating demonic form from the same subspecies as malice.
solvo: A chemical version of the desolator numinis; produces opiatelike effects in humans while splitting off the soul.
sphericanum: The realm of angels, separated from the human realm by the gates of heaven. Also
used in reference to the ruling body of angelic powers.
symballein: A token, such as an engraved metal disk, that is broken into two pieces and used to establish identity when reunited; from Greek.
talya: talyan (pl.): 1. Sacrificial lamb; a young man (Aramaic). 2. A human, typically male, possessed by a repentant demon.
tenebrae: Blanket term for lesser demonic emanations, including malice, ferales, and salambes. Also, horde-tenebrae.
tenebraeternum: The demon realm, separated from the human realm by the Veil.
teshuva: A repentant demon seeking to return to a state of grace.
Veil: An etheric barrier between the human and demon realms and composed of captured souls.
And don’t miss Jonah and Nim’s
captivating story,
VOWED IN SHADOWS
Available now from Signet Eclipse.
Jonah knew he’d finally broken through Nim’s resistance when she numbly agreed to return to her apartment to clean up and kicked up hardly any fuss when he didn’t bother asking her address as they got into his car
“You followed me home,” was all she said as she settled into the passenger’s seat, and she sounded more resigned than angry, so he neither confirmed nor denied.
Bewildered as she was, with her new demon scarcely settled and its capabilities still unknown, he didn’t want to risk pushing her. Not if he didn’t have to. The soothing power of a hot shower was allowable, now that she couldn’t convince herself her world was still the same.
Her teshuva had already sealed over the scrapes on her knee, and the ugly bruise on her hip was fading fast. But the streaks of blood on her tawny skin remained, and the feralis had spattered ichor on her, burning holes in her already indecent shorts.
He retrieved Mobi’s case from the backseat while Nim unlocked the security screen on the front door of the old brick building. Side by side, silent, they walked past the rows of mailboxes. He paused at the elevator, then had to hurry a few long steps to catch up with her when she opened the door to the stairs.
She smiled at him crookedly. “What? Are your legs broken?”
“You live on the seventh floor.”
“Apparently, you haven’t been watching me all that closely. I always take the stairs. Did you think taking an elevator gave me these legs?”
On cue, his gaze dropped to her legs, as if he had to make an assessment. Even streaked with blood, they were gorgeous. Slender ankles, toned calves, and reven-marked thighs that curved into well-rounded buttocks … not that he could see those overflowing handfuls, even with her indecent shorts. But he remembered.
Until the day some feralis took off his head, he’d never forget.
He snapped his attention to her face. “You like to do that. Make me look at your body.”
She padded up the stairs, her bare feet slapping her ire on the treads. She’d refused to put on the sandals he’d retrieved from the feralis’s maw. “That’s how I pay the rent.”
“You do it to distract.” He realized he was watching the sway of her hips, back and forth, as she climbed the stairs. Distracting? Worse: mesmerizing. “You didn’t like to think that I’ve been watching you when you weren’t in charge.”
She stopped so abruptly he almost collided with her. “Watching, but not closely,” she reminded him.
“So you want me to watch closer. But only those parts you want me to see.”
“Thanks for the analysis. Will you charge me for that, along with the orgasm?”
Though he was coming to understand her tactics, the low blow brought heat to his cheeks. “It was necessary.”
“The psychoanalysis?” The wicked twinkle in her eyes dared him to disagree.
So he did. “No, the … orgasm.” In all his years, had he ever said that word aloud? He rubbed his thumb against the base of his ring finger, ticking the band with his nail.
Suddenly, uneasily, he wondered what else he’d be forced to do. He’d only wanted a way to fight harder, to redeem himself. He hadn’t quite anticipated that opening himself to another meant … to another person. To Nim.
She continued up the stairs. “The demon likes to fuck you? But not be fucked.”
“I’m uncomfortable with your foul language.” He almost winced at how prim he sounded, how outdated.
“Oh, so it wasn’t the demon that was uncomfortable with what happened between us. It was you.”
“I was told the most prudent method to balance your rising demon was the … orgasm.”
“‘Prude’ is right,” she mumbled.
She slammed out of the stairwell and headed down the hall. He stood aside as she opened the door.
The apartment was messier than when he’d cased it previously, although the same earthy patchouli incense drifted out to tease him. He’d been surprised a stripper kept such a tidy abode. This—the magazines tangled in the folds of a blanket across the red corduroy couch, the dirty dishes piled in the sink—had been what he expected. Obviously, she’d been increasingly disturbed by the restive energies of her unbound demon.
Nice to know he hadn’t been alone.
She slipped Mobi’s case from his shoulder. “Okay, then. Thanks for everything. I’ll call you later, yeah? Bye.”
He gave her a look. Turning her back on him with an aggrieved sigh, as if that would do the trick, she went to the coffin-sized glass case against one wall and slid the snake inside. She bustled past him again to retrieve a bowl from the counter and then returned to the terrarium.
He wrinkled his nose. “Dead rat?”
“Can you think of a better use? At least this one won’t morph into a monstrosity like that one you massacred.” She whispered something nonsensical to the snake and placed the dish in a corner. She fussed with the water bowl before closing the lid, then slid a black sheet across most of the case.
“Praise be.”
She shot him an arch glance. “That’s not for your sake. Mobi doesn’t like an audience when he eats. When he’s done, he’ll need to be left alone for a day or so.”
“You dance without him?”
“Not anymore.” She pointed at the framed poster above the snake’s tank that showed the curves of a woman, breast to hip, body painted in tiger stripes. COMING SOON, it screamed in crimson type, VIVA LAS SHOWGIRLS INTRODUCES BEAUTY AND THE BEAST. “We’re rehearsing for the Showgirls semifinals. I’ll have to take a couple days off, but by the weekend, he’ll be raring to go again.”
By then, the Naughty Nymphette—like the rat—would be only a bad memory. She’d be fully immersed in the talyan world, never to return to her own. Jonah thought that could remain unsaid for now. “In the meantime, there are a few things we need to work out. The demon, when it came to you, might have felt like a dream or a hallucination. But did it leave you something tangible—a piece of jewelry, perhaps?”
She shrugged. “Maybe.”
He struggled to keep his voice level. “Nim, this is important. I noticed you don’t wear any jewelry when you dance.” After Liam and Archer had explained how the women’s teshuva had come to them bearing gifts of mutated metals, Jonah had made a point of checking Nim for jewelry throughout the week. He had looked very carefully and seen nothing.
No jewelry, anyway.
“I hocked it.”
Her breezy admission snapped him back to painful reality. “What?” He took a quick step toward her, then stopped himself when she stiffened. He raked his hand through his hair. “You sold it? But you never went to a pawnshop.”
“While you were staking me out, you mean? I have a neighbor who unloads stuff for me.” She lifted her chin when he glared at her. “Nothing stolen. Not anymore. He gives me cold, hard cash for the cheap-ass gifts my loving customers give me. And believe me, that anklet was the cheapest-looking shit I’d ever seen.”
He paced the tight confines of the room. It was that or shake her. She couldn’t have known, but frustration sharpened his voice. “It was a weapon. A demonic weapon.”
“It was an ugly anklet.”
He coughed on a desperate laugh. “The demon should have known you well enough to at least make it shiny.”
She scowled. “All I knew, I had a weird night and I woke up with some trashy jewelry lying on my floor. Could’ve come from anywhere.” When he rolled his eyes in disbelief, she added defensively, “I have a lot of loving customers, and they tuck their gifts in a lot of places.”
He held up his hand to forestall further explanation. “Which neighbor? And where does he pawn his goods?” Or evils, in this case.
“You going to chop off his head too?”
“Not before he directs me to the anklet.” When was the last time he’d had to justify himself to another? The feeling chafed like the hook against his scar tissue. “I have never chopped off a human’s head, and I don’t plan to start. Is that answer enough?”
She crossed her arms, jaw set mulishly off-kilter.
“Nim,” he said with strained patience. “If there’s a demonic weapon loose in the city, don’t you agree it’d be wise to find it?” With each word, his voice got louder.
“I suppose I should’ve asked for more money.” And still she hesitated another moment. “It’s Pete, down the hall in 713. But he won’t answer the door for just anyone. I’ll go with you.”
“Clean up first. The blood on you will unnerve him more than I will.” Jonah scuffed the hook along his thigh as he gave her a once-over. Just looking at her made his missing hand twitch. “After we retrieve the anklet, I suppose you have to meet the rest of the league. You should wear something …”
She set her arms akimbo, the tight clench of her fingers dragging the already low-slung waistband another inch past her navel. “Wear something what?”
He backpedaled mentally. “Something without ichor holes.”
“Remember how you said you really liked my honesty?”
“I don’t think I said that exactly.”
She wrapped one long dread around the rest and tucked the edge under in a makeshift restraint and stood square to face him. “Honestly, I don’t want to go anywhere else with you. I don’t want to meet anyone you know. Now that I think about it—actually, I didn’t even really have to think about it—I don’t want to know you.”