My heart clenched. How starved had young Levi been for this kind of family?
“Shouldn’t you have illusioned me?” I whispered when he tugged me forward to introduce me. I scanned all their faces, seeking a flicker of betrayal, a phone pulled out to snap a photo. More than ever, I was highly aware of who might be watching.
“I trust every single one of them,” Levi said. “Being House Head, I’ve had to find places where I can be me without it hitting social media. This is one of them.”
Trusting his judgment, I allowed myself to be introduced to the men, most of whom teased Levi good-naturedly about never bringing any friends with him before. I was hugged and given kisses on the cheek as well, which was initially overwhelming. I’d been an only child in a single parent home and was a loner by nature, but there was such goodwill and high humor to this encounter that I found myself awkwardly returning their embraces.
All while Levi watched me with an affectionate smile.
The goodwill, however, ended the second the bocce started. Competitive did not begin to cover it. Their smack talk game, uttered in a combination of English and Italian was superb. And the arguing? Every single throw stopped the game while five or six of them debated the move loudly and with much hand gesturing.
I’d never played bocce before, and while Levi had offered to have me on his team, he was waved away by the undisputed leader of the group, a stocky man who was eighty-five if he was day, called Luciano.
Luce, as he insisted I call him, drilled the proper form into me like a Russian gymnastics coach, but he also mediated on my behalf, his fierce, bushy glower earning me a few points that I probably didn’t deserve.
It was the most fun I’d had in ages. Especially with Levi lit up and joking around with an ease he rarely displayed. Between our turns he was always at my side, his arm around my waist or his hand resting at the small of my back.
My grief over my dad wasn’t gone, but getting to be this way with Levi did much to banish it to a quiet muting.
Levi eventually said we had to leave and the group told me to come back any time. Even without Levi. He grinned, shaking his head, and said something in Italian that made them all laugh uproariously.
Luce motioned me over to his bench, since he rarely got up when it wasn’t his turn. Arthritis, he’d explained earlier. He took my hand and kissed it like a benediction. “You’re a good girl, bella. Take care of that one.”
“I will,” I said through an unexpected thickness in my throat.
Levi didn’t speak until we were back in the Jeep. “Did you have fun?” he said, a tenseness at the corners of his eyes.
“I loved it.”
He tossed his head smugly. “I knew you would.”
“Uh-huh.” I buckled up my seat belt. “What’s next?”
“You’ll have to wait and find out.”
Our next stop was one of Vancouver’s most popular pizza joints. It didn’t take reservations and people waited for hours outside to get in. That wasn’t Levi’s way. Instead he knocked on the back door, which was opened by the famed pizza chef herself. After more kisses on both cheeks accompanied by a soft “Piacere,” to me from the chef in a heavy Italian accent, she led us through the kitchen to a private back room where we feasted on amazing thin crust pizza that she made specially for us.
We talked about things that mattered not a whit in the scheme of good and evil but meant everything in terms of two people wanting to learn everything about the other. Then we laughed, reliving old memories of camp and who had hated who more.
The night ended at Levi’s house, the two of us in bed. The curtains were thrown open to the stars, and the ocean lulled me into a relaxing trance as much as Levi cradling me in his arms and playing with my hair.
For a day that had started in shadows, it had ended in light. Moonlight, but the darkness made the glow that much more precious.
We were woken by Levi’s phone buzzing.
“Take it,” I said, with a yawn. “I should get dressed.” I was fastening my jeans when Levi showed me the text with the red heart and crown emoji.
“Whoa,” I said. “Richard Frieden was laundering money through Hedon? This is almost as good as finding out who in Chariot went after you and the Queen. I mean, it’s not as cool as my all-access pass, but we both know she likes me more.” I yelped as Levi threw a pillow at me, hitting me in the chest.
“That’s only because she hasn’t known me as long. I have it on very good authority that women adore me.”
“Your mom doesn’t count.”
Levi tackled me and I shrieked as he buried his face in my neck and blew a raspberry. He rolled off me, a smug smile on his face. “Frieden did it in the same business venture connected to Jackson Wu.”
“The allegations alone will rock the party.”
“Jackson will be forced to step down and it’ll send that damned legislation into limbo.” Levi punched the air in victory.
“My mother’s legislation.” I sat down on the bed, my shoulders slumped. The legislation had to be stopped, but she and I were in the best relationship we’d had in years. Not for much longer.
Levi sighed. “Yeah.”
I kissed him. “It’s okay. I don’t want it passing any more than you do. We’ll get through it. Together.”
He laced his fingers through mine. “We will.”
It was my turn for a text from the Queen. Or Moran in her name. Hard to tell when the contact was an emoji.
Found the necromancer. An address in Vancouver’s Marpole neighborhood appeared.
Levi sagged against me. “Thank God.”
Me: On it. Thanks.
“I’ll tell Miles,” Levi said, his phone already to his ear.
“Hang on. Tell him to put his people in place outside the house, but I’m going in to cuff Jonah on my own. It’s the only way,” I said over Levi’s protest. “If he tries to put a Repha’im in me, I’ll take his magic. I’m the only one with a clear shot at him.”
Levi nodded and made the call.
Miles’ security team took up position along the sides of Jonah’s place. Levi had not been allowed to come, but I swore I’d phone the second Jonah was safely apprehended. The house was a Vancouver Special, a style of architecture popular in the 1960s and 70s, characterized by its boxy structure, low-pitched roof, balcony across the front, and a brick or stone finish on the ground floor.
This was the first time I’d seen Arkady since Inferno. While Miles conferred with one of his team members, I thanked my friend.
“I really appreciate you flying all over the place for me,” I said.
“Was it him?” Arkady yawned and rubbed his eyes. “Sorry. Too much travel in too short a time. Montreal sucks this time of year.”
“Ottawa.”
“Huh?”
“Didn’t you go see your parents?”
“Yeah, but they were in Montreal with my grandmother. So? Your dad?”
He’d have convinced anyone else, but I’d spent years unearthing other people’s lies and there was an almost palpable tug when I caught hold of one. My fingers twitched and I imagined his words infused with a deep rot.
“You’re lying. Why?”
“Pickle, what would I have to lie about?”
“I don’t know. But ever since we met I’ve been convinced that you moving in wasn’t a coincidence. At first I thought Levi had put you there to keep tabs on me, but he didn’t.”
“You’re being paranoid.”
“Don’t patronize me. I’ll find out what you’re hiding and I swear, if it impacts me or anyone I care about, I will fuck you up.”
The genial expression that he usually wore fell away, leaving a shrewd calculation. “You’ve changed in the past couple days.”
“I’m giving less of a shit,” I said.
“Or more.”
“It’s a fine line. Well?”
“I’m not lying to you. Do with that what you will.” He jogged over to Miles.
I’d been suspicious of him from the get go, and while I could pretend I’d become friends with him to appease Priya, the truth was, I’d wanted to be his friend. He was funny and he’d been there for me. I rubbed my breastbone. The Ash of two months ago would have beat herself up for it.
Even if he had betrayed me, I didn’t completely regret befriending him. But how could I keep Arkady on the team if he was potentially working against me? That said, he’d done his job finding Avi, and I couldn’t be everywhere at once. Nor did anyone else have his particular training and magic abilities. What should I do?
I’d spent so many years making all the decisions on everything in my life that I’d forgotten that I didn’t have to. Not on this. I could discuss it with the rest of my team and get their input. How times had changed.
Miles caught my gaze and nodded. Showtime.
I picked the lock on the back door and crept inside the kitchen. Drawers were being opened and shut from deeper inside the house. I tiptoed to the living room/dining room which was sparsely furnished with a table, a sofa and a TV set. I’d bet this was another rental.
Keeping to the shadows, I made my way down the hallway to the master bedroom where Jonah threw clothes into suitcases. There was a suitcase sitting closed by the door. I tested its weight. It was heavy enough for my purposes, so I flung it at Jonah, knocking him facedown onto the bed. Pulling out magic suppressing cuffs, I pressed my knee into his back and wrenched his arm around his back.
He fought back with a crazed determination, but I was stronger.
Jonah twisted his head around and his eyes widened. “You. Did you kill Gunter somehow?”
I snapped the first cuff on him. “Just lucky.”
The air rent apart with a loud sucking noise. The room hung in two jagged pieces, separated by a chasm of swirling blues and purples.
The front door splintered with a loud crack, Miles yelling at his people to find me.
I struggled to clamp the second cuff on Jonah. I’d just snapped it around his wrist when I was sucked backwards into the chasm.
Jonah, meanwhile, seemed totally unaffected by the force that grabbed me and hauled me into the darkness.
The last thing I heard before everything went black was him saying, “Let’s see how your luck holds up now.”
Chapter 26
My eyes adjusted from pitch black to a dim gloom revealing that I stood on a faint dirt path in a desolate wasteland. I yawned, trying to pop my eardrums, but the silence that bore down on me like a physical force didn’t change, and when I licked my lips, I tasted dust.
I spun around, frantic to find that jagged seam and claw my way out like a zombie from a grave, but it was gone. In my panic, my foot slipped off the path.
A mass of smudgy black shadows rushed toward me. I bit back a scream, scrambling safely onto the trail.
The Repha’im hit some invisible shield on either side of me, battering up against it again and again.
Oh hell. The realization sank into me with an icy certainty.
Welcome to Sheol. Population: millions of Repha’im, and me, Ashira Cohen, one living human who needed an exit strategy stat.
The ring! I slid the wooden ring off its chain and onto my finger. Come on. I visualized the library as perfectly as I could, willing myself out of here, but I didn’t budge. The gold token didn’t work either.
I didn’t bother trying to attack the Repha’im. All of humanity’s dead against me? No, the best I could do was stay on this path that stretched out endlessly in either direction and pray the shield kept them from devouring me. Replacing the chain under my shirt, I started walking.
Dust clogged my nostrils and scratched the back of my throat. I squinted, blinking furiously, my eyes watering as a fine layer settled over me.
I’d been trudging along for some time when I tasted freezing cold water. The world blurred, the path disappearing in favor of a murky current rushing past. The mouthful became a lungful and I coughed, clawing at my throat and fighting against the unseen hands that held me down. My magic was too sluggish to send into my enemy.
I was pulled up for one blessed moment, just enough for a final gasp of air, the hair almost pulled from my scalp before I was shoved under again. Drowning sucked balls. Icy panic suffused me, every breath a choking inhale of more brackish water. I flailed my arms, thrashing to live but to no avail. Death claimed me.
I came to back on the path in Sheol, curled up in the fetal position and hyperventilating. Without sound. My shoulders were sore, and when I touched one with wrinkled blue prunes of fingers, it was bruised. Exactly where those hands had held me down.
What the fuck kind of hallucination had that been?
Masses of Repha’im continued to batter up against both sides of the invisible shield, hard enough to rattle the ground.
I broke into a sprint, hoping to outdistance them, but I ran out of steam before there was even a break in their number. Panting, I pressed a hand against the stitch in my side. Best to conserve my energy, though dehydration would probably kill me first.
If I couldn’t run to an exit, I’d have to think my way out. What did I know about Sheol? It was the land of death, silence, and forgetting. Break it down, Ash.
Death. I continued along the dirt track, walking with the best posture I’d ever had, not wanting any part of me to touch the spirits that were just inches away. They were a pulsing force waiting for a single misstep to land me in their clutches so they could suck out my life essence in a futile attempt to rejoin the land of the living. For a bunch of dead people, their eager anticipation rolled off them in giddy waves.
Full up on the death part.
Silence. I was good on that front, too. People bitched about all the noise we lived with on a daily basis, wishing they could get away to the woods or out on the water and have some peace and quiet. Except our world was never truly silent. There was the rush of wind in the leaves, the lapping of waves, a bird’s call.
This was true, pure silence and it terrified the shit out of me. With every passing second lacking sound, I became less and less certain I was still alive. My feet made no noise and my breaths were snatched away before they left my mouth.
That left forgetting. Except, I hadn’t forgotten anything. In fact, I’d experienced someone else’s death. Their memory? Was that key to getting out of here?
From one step to the next, the sky brightened to a hot glare, and the path morphed to sand under my bare feet that was a sharp burn. The thump of my heart kept time with the voice in my head screaming Run!
I clutched the scroll in my hand tighter. I’d found the second piece, tying us with Chariot. Not much further. My Attendant would be waiting and I’d be safe from the man with the portal magic.
Starbursts exploded behind my lids, a searing agony doubling me over. A blade stuck out of my middle and blood gushed out through my fingers onto the red sands of the Negev. If you ignored the part where my pink fleshy bits were hanging out, the crimson stain I made on the ground was kind of pretty, almost like one of the crown anemones that blanketed this area in February. Admittedly, I wouldn’t bring this particular bouquet to a dinner party, but there was a certain fascination factor to seeing myself from this particular angle.
Pro tip: shoving your large intestine back into your body wasn’t an effective use of your death throes. I launched myself at the man in the Bedouin robes, slapped my palm against the bloody ear hanging raggedly from his head, and sent my magic into his.
It tasted of dates and the sirocco. My pain ebbed away, his magic wrapping me in a gauzy haze that delivered me into the arms of death on angel wings. With my last vestiges of awareness, I snared his magic in the red forked branches I created. White clusters bloomed, decimating his powers for good.
The scroll tumbled from my hand onto the sand. I had one last glimpse of sunshine before darkness claimed me.
I snapped back into full awareness, traversing the same narrow path through the silent, gloomy land once more.
I pulled up my shirt with still-blue fingers. Sure enough, there was a gash across my middle, accessorizing my chic waterlogged look.
Two deaths. I was the thirteenth Jezebel. Was there an exit? And if I didn’t make it out in time, would I die for real? I had no way of knowing, but I was damned if I was going to find out.
My third death was actually quite pleasant. There was a bed, for one thing, and my family was grouped around, weeping. Not fake cries either, where the intensity of their wails are in direct proportion to how fast they want you to bite it to ransack your jewelry box. They were really upset. Except they kept calling me Liya, which was weird.
Wasn’t my name Sherlock? No, wait… Jezebel. That felt more familiar but not quite right either. Was it my middle name? I watched the flames dance in the hearth across the bedroom, and as I took my last wheezing breath, a chunk of wood crumbled into the flames.
Ashes.
I stood on the path once more, repeating my name over and over again. That was how this place got you. The forgetting part. I had to remember my name or I’d never get out of here.
But then my brain trumpeted a warning. Beware twelve.
I shook my head. Twelve what? What else had I forgotten here?
Between the third and fourth deaths, I tried using my magic to get out. There was nothing to send it into. No foundational magic to disassemble, and even if there had been, taking Sheol apart was not prudent.
The sixth time I died, the crack of gunfire echoed off the dense press of trees in the Black Forest. The shock of the bullet to my temple made me gasp and seize up. The world went tight and black and it was pretty much over. A total upgrade from death number five which had involved a rare poison and vomitus convulsions.
It was taking me longer to remember my name, but every detail of each death I’d experienced was burned into my brain. This place was not going to claim my identity—or my life.
I manifested a dagger and carved the word “Ash” into my flesh, a soundless scream tearing from my throat as the skin parted. Blood dripping, I kept moving forward.
Shadows & Surrender: A Snarky Urban Fantasy Detective Series (The Jezebel Files Book 3) Page 26