by J E McDonald
Aubrey deserved a good guy, one worthy of her affection, one like Cole. The martial arts instructor had a good soul. It wasn’t nearly as bright as Aubrey’s, but it had shine to it, and Roman couldn’t say that of everyone he’d touched—accidentally or otherwise.
When his mind conjured a picture of the pair of them together, he clenched his hands into fists. Staying with her, both because of the prophecy and something else entirely, was insanity. The moment she’d touched her lips to his cheek, he’d wanted nothing more than to tilt her head to him and change the act of gratitude into something else. He wanted to succumb to the voice inside him that kept getting louder, the one that demanded he take what she offered.
He knew better. He would never be good enough for a woman like Aubrey. He’d never be worthy of her.
The shadows behind him shifted, his scar itching in its familiar way that had him relaxing instead of reaching for the knife strapped to his calf.
“The Orphan Karle is pretty. Yes,” Moe said, coming to crouch beside his leg in the dark. “Much prettier than the demons Ro usually beheads. Yes.”
Roman’s stomach rolled. The thought of Aubrey getting hurt in any way, shape, or form was unacceptable. When he’d first heard the prophecy, the plan had been simple: find the person who was going to facilitate hell on Earth and end them before that could happen. He’d assumed the person would be as steeped in evil as the demons he killed.
Was he going to fail in this task? Was the prophecy right and the Orphan Karle would be the end of him?
There was no way he could harm a hair on Aubrey’s head. And when she’d told him about the sorcerer who had tampered with her memory, he’d been ready to commit murder. If she hadn’t told him the culprit was dead, then he would have had a completely different mission on his mind. One that involved a true witch hunt.
Even if that person was gone, he still wanted to seek retribution for her, give her the peace of mind that had led her to search out the self-defense class in the first place.
Moe circled around his legs. “Must Ro follow her now? Yes? Must Ro put an end to the prophecy now?”
Roman didn’t answer as he turned on his heel and walked in the direction of the rental house. The little demon skittered along beside him.
“Ro hasn’t asked me to repeat the prophecy in days. No. Would Ro like to hear it now?”
Tension pounded in Roman’s temples. “No.” He didn’t need to hear it again, having it as memorized as Moe by now. But the question brought him back to the day he met Gusion, the last time he’d seen the soothsayer alive.
Three weeks ago…
He’d begun his search for the fallen angel months earlier. A near-death experience at the hands of water demons had landed him in the emergency room in Athens, Greece. He’d almost drowned and had been told his heart had stopped. Roman didn’t remember Moe fishing him out of the Aegean Sea, but he did remember a bright light and inhuman voice whispering in his ear, telling him he needed to find Gusion.
After searching for weeks, he found the soothsayer in a seedy bar in one of the worst neighborhoods in Marseilles, France. A fallen angel was caught between worlds, embracing the carnal nature of humanity, but not yet crossing the line into unholy sin. This particular outcast had taken to telling fortunes for money or blow—or a blow.
Moe had come along. Because he used his camouflage, no one batted an eye at the demon ambling beside him. Moe entertained himself by taking sips out of every accessible beer mug in the place. Roman had second-guessed himself about bringing the demon along, but sometimes it was better to have him near than allow him to wreak havoc in the hotel on his own. The maids would only take so much haunting until they decided Roman was the root of all of it.
It had happened before.
Did the owner of the pub know he had a fallen angel for a permanent resident? Had they come to some sort of agreement, or did he remain ignorant? Without touching him, Roman wouldn’t know.
The scar on his wrist twitched differently for fallen angels than demons, but it still let him know when one was near. His gaze settled on the man in the corner, his one hand flat on a deck of cards. He wore a black silk bathrobe, the hood covering a balding head, and appeared human. Roman had seen ancient demons do the same. The older they were, the easier it was to adjust their form. Keeping an eye out for danger, Roman moved toward him.
“I’ve been waiting for you.” Gusion gestured to the seat across from him, then picked up the deck, letting the cards drop one at a time on the table, a soft sound in the quiet pub.
Hesitating, Roman slid into the booth. The vinyl crackled beneath his weight. The fallen angel wore an amulet around his neck, the symbols for demon and angel etched into the surface. He had the face of an eighty-year-old, but there was something…off about his features. Perhaps it was because he had no eyebrows. Gusion picked up the cards and let them drop again.
“Did you send water demons after me?” Roman kept his arms loose by his knives in case he needed to defend himself.
“I did not, though it hardly matters. The end result would have been the same. You needed to be sitting here now, at this preordained time and place.”
Roman tensed, not sure if he should believe him or not. “I don’t put much stock in fate.”
“And I see nothing else,” the outcast murmured.
“Then you could have made it easier to find you.” He’d wasted months searching.
“You could have spoken to me at any time.” Gusion waved his hand dismissively between them. “All I need is a bit of blood and hair to be summoned.”
“Not my style.”
A small smile lifted the corner of his mouth. “Of course not.” His gaze went to Moe a few tables away, interested eyes full of questions Roman wasn’t going to answer.
“Do you have something to tell me?” Tensing, he waited for Gusion to say something he probably didn’t want to hear.
“You need to pick a card.” The soothsayer spread them out in an arc across the battered surface of the table.
It was a regular deck, a red crisscrossed pattern on the backs like at a casino. “I didn’t come here for games.”
“That’s not how this works. You need to pick a card or you get nothing from me.”
Roman hesitated. Taking something from a fallen angel was a sure-fire way to mark your soul, but they hadn’t made any agreement.
“Sometimes we must do what goes against our nature for the greater good,” Gusion added.
If the statement had been made to comfort, it did the complete opposite. But Roman wasn’t going to waste the last few months of searching to give up now. The outcast wasn’t getting anything from him.
As he reached forward, the air beside him shifted, and he knew Moe had come up next to him. Roman pulled a card from the middle and turned it over. The jack of clubs.
The soothsayer’s eyes became glassy, and he spoke.
“Beware the Orphan Karle, the key to opening the gates of Plight and a vessel of destruction. Chaos will overtake this world, ending life as you know it. Before the end of the autumnal equinox, nothing but debris will remain of Wickwood unless you make the ultimate sacrifice. Without your reckoning, those you hold dear will perish. By the time I’m finished speaking, my lifespan will be counted in hours.”
No sooner had the words left Gusion’s lips, than three fire demons burst through the door, intent on carnage. When the dust cleared, Roman and Moe had been the only two left in the pub. The fire demons had taken Gusion with them. But before they’d left, the fallen angel had written the name Karle on the table in blood.
It had taken Roman another two days to locate the fire demons’ trail. By that time, Gusion was dead, tortured to death, barely anything left of him. If the fire demons had been after information, they’d probably gotten what they wanted.
Even now, remembering that day made his head hurt. Swallowing, he stepped around Moe and kept walking. The stakes were too high for him to become distracted. He’d c
ome to stop the hell on Earth, and he couldn’t let a woman with coffee-colored eyes and a cheeky smile get in his way.
Wickwood. It always came back to Wickwood.
15
Silence filled her little blue Civic as Aubrey drove south out of town. She avoided glancing over at the man in her passenger seat. When she’d pulled up to the store at nine o’clock, Roman had been waiting and slid into the seat without a word. She’d forced a “good morning,” but she hadn’t really been feeling too “good” about it.
Restlessness hadn’t allowed her to sleep last night. She kept thinking about what he’d said to her. I’m not the guy for you. The words still hurt. But as rejections go, he’d let her down easy.
She could keep things professional and business-like, as any good employer would do. He’d put her in her place, and she could stay there. She’d ignored the little voice that told her she should head out of town on her own without stopping to pick him up. There wasn’t any need to be childish about it.
At least he’d been fine about letting her drive. A lot of guys she’d dated wouldn’t have been. Her car never felt smaller than with him taking up half the front seat. But she had to admit, despite the now uncomfortable silence between them, she liked having him there. Being in the driver’s seat kept her panic of highways at bay, but the farther they drove into the wetlands south of town, the more tension stiffened her shoulders, the more her grip tightened on the steering wheel.
If being rejected wasn’t enough to deal with, Finn was driving her nuts. He kept fogging up her side window, writing the word “no.” She was done with the ghost’s opinion of Roman—nothing was going to happen in that department anyway. Roman had made that clear.
“About yesterday,” he said quietly after her car had eaten up a few miles.
The tension in her shoulders increased. She couldn’t look at him. Couldn’t speak.
“I can’t stay in Wickwood for long.”
“It’s fine,” she said, her words coming out fast, almost interrupting him. She forced her hands to relax on the steering wheel. “Nothing to worry about.” Aubrey kept her eyes on the highway.
Her statement stopped his attempt at conversation. It didn’t deter Finn, though. Her ghost wrote the word “stop” in the window. She swiped at the writing, removing it before Roman could see. She’d never erased Finn’s words before, and it made her chest hurt to do so. It felt like she was silencing him, and she knew it wasn’t fair when he had such little sway in this world as it was.
But Finn wouldn’t stop. She didn’t want Roman to know how agitated her ghost was becoming the farther and farther they got out of town. She already knew Finn didn’t approve of Roman, but having a fit about it wasn’t helping.
Aubrey leaned to the control panel and put the defrost setting to full blast. She could feel Roman watching her and knew she probably looked bananas with the repetitive window wiping.
At least the address for the farmhouse wasn’t far out of town, only twenty minutes. Gritting her teeth, she told herself she only needed to bear Finn’s erratic behavior for a little while longer.
She turned off the highway where the man on the phone had indicated, and drove along a gravel road for five more minutes before the yellow and green house came into view. Mature trees lined the curving driveway, leading her to park beside a blue sedan. The grass in front of the house could use a mow, but it was obvious whoever had lived here took care of the property. Potted flowers hung from boxes in front of the windows, bigger planters beside the front door. A porch swing sat angled on one side of the veranda.
Fifty feet from the house stood a detached double garage and a shed a little farther along from that. A massive vegetable garden took up a good portion of the side yard, where tall stalks of unharvested corn reached for the sky. Aubrey turned off the car and let out a breath. She thought she’d seen the end of Finn’s writing, but as soon as the engine stilled, the letter D appeared beside her in the fogged window.
She swiped at it, then wrenched open the door. “Let’s get this over with,” she muttered. Usually she looked forward to finding new items for the store, but today nothing felt right. She heard Roman behind her, following her up the cobblestone walkway to the front door. When she rang the doorbell, she shot him a glance.
His eyes were on her, his expression blank.
The thick door opened, then the screen. A younger man, maybe in his early thirties, stood there staring at her. Handsome features were topped with short brown hair and brown eyes.
Trying to get rid of the strain plaguing her all morning, she tried to give him a bright smile. “Hi. Are you Edward? I’m Aubrey Karle. You called about the estate sale?”
The man’s focus went from her to Roman behind her, something shifting in his eyes that made her tense. Was it anger, maybe? If so, why? Because of Roman’s presence? But in the next second, he looked back at her with a wide smile. “That’s me. I’m Edward. Welcome.” He stepped back and held the door open for them to enter.
His loud used-car-salesman voice made her flinch, and she shot Roman a glance over her shoulder. The placid expression he wore earlier had changed into alertness.
Returning her gaze to Edward, she hesitated, then stepped inside. Unexplained nervousness made her edgy. She was suddenly very glad Roman came along.
The house looked as well cared for inside as it did on the outside. Leather furniture took up a large portion of the living room on the left side, along with plants in a bay window, and a Victorian tea cart beside that. A long hallway led off from the living room, presumably to bedrooms beyond. A glance at the kitchen had her rethinking her earlier assessment. Dirty dishes were stacked high beside the sink, and the countertop was littered with discarded take-out containers.
She walked farther inside, her eyes tracking to Edward. His smile had fallen, but he sent her another one a second later. Roman followed her in, his presence comforting her at her back.
Her eyes skimmed over everything in the living room: a tea set on the cart like it was about to serve two, and knitting in a basket beside the couch.
“Was it someone close to you who passed away?” she asked, focusing on Edward again.
“My grandmother.” His flat tone sent prickles up her spine, but everyone handled grief differently.
“I’m sorry for your loss.”
“Thank you.” Another flick of his narrowed eyes toward Roman made her want to hurry things along.
Aubrey swallowed. “How would you like to do this? Are there items you’re looking to sell specifically?”
“Everything’s for sale. Feel free to look around and make me offers.”
Not the sentimental type if everything was for sale. In a way, it made things easier.
“All right,” she said, moving slowly through the hallway to see more of the house, passing the family pictures on the wall. “Is it just this floor or is there a basement too?”
“There’s nothing in the basement.” The words came out fast and clipped.
“Okay,” she said, wondering at his change in tone but intent on exploring. She passed by a bathroom and peeked into a bedroom with a four-poster bed. White lace curtains bracketed two tall sets of windows. A light blue bathrobe lay across the corner of the bed, waiting for someone to retire for the night.
Aubrey stepped inside the room, but it felt strange to do so. There were lots of things in this house she could sell in her store, but for some reason, making an offer on any of it had her stomach rolling.
The full-length mirror on the far side of the room drew her deeper into the room. Her breath caught. Gorgeous. The flowering scroll work around the top and sides gave it a delicate appearance, even though it looked like solid oak. She didn’t have anything like it in her store.
The surface fogged and she tensed, but this time she let the letters form.
Get.
She swallowed, waiting.
Out.
Her whole body stiffened.
Now.
When she heard movement behind her, she stepped close to the mirror and wiped the words away. She turned and found Roman in the doorway.
“We should go,” she said to him, already moving past him with speed in her steps.
He nodded quickly like the same thing had been on his mind, then followed to the front door. They found Edward in the same spot they’d left him, his stare focused on her.
“I’m sorry,” she said on the way by, not even pausing. “I don’t think there’s anything here that suits my store, but thank you very much for your time.” She threw the last words over her shoulder, hurrying out the door and down the steps.
Her heart kept hammering as she unlocked the car with jerky movements. Roman slid in the passenger seat.
Edward stood on the veranda, staring at them with scorching intensity as she backed up her car. He didn’t look away. She broke his gaze when she shifted into drive. Gravel from the driveway sprayed out behind her. As she headed off the property, she glanced in the rear-view mirror.
Nothing but the screen door bounced in the wind.
16
Roman noted that the tension in Aubrey’s shoulders didn’t ease as they drove farther away from the property.
It was the same for him.
There’d been something off about the man at the house. The way he’d looked at Aubrey, with a glint in his eye, made Roman want to punch a fist through his face. And the way his intensity increased the longer they were there, like Roman’s presence disturbed him, didn’t help. He’d thought Aubrey oblivious to the weird vibe the man gave off, but then she’d shot out of there like her feet were on fire.
Something had spooked her.