Authors: Kelley Armstrong
Something flew at the door. It hit with a patter, like rain, some of it falling to the carpet. Bright red drops of blood sprayed across the wall and carpet.
Jaime shut the door fast and locked it. Then she looked around frantically for real weapons.
Weapons? Against something that was killing a trained Cabal operative? Her gaze rose to the window.
Was it big enough? It better be. She wrenched the towel bar,
stumbling back in surprise when it actually came free in her hand. Thank God for shoddy construction. She wrapped the bar in a towel to muffle the noise, then smashed out the window. She managed to get most of the glass cleared, then someone—or something—began yanking on the door.
A quick sweep of the remaining glass and out she went, ignoring the slivers that bit into her stomach as she wriggled through. Had she been thinking, she’d have gone feet first. She didn’t, and tumbled headfirst to the ground, managing to land in an awkward somersault and bounce back onto her feet. It wasn’t exactly martial arts, but sometimes decades of yoga paid off.
The motel backed onto a field, with boggy forest about fifty feet away. To either side, the building stretched out at least half the distance. The forest was really Jeremy’s domain, not hers. She took a few running steps along the back wall, then saw a shadow stretching out from the far end. Another joined it. She spun, her back going to the wall. Through the broken window, she heard the bathroom door give way with a crack.
She looked out across the weed-choked field to the forest. She took a deep breath, then she started to run.
We walked along the road, with Mom casting blur spells every time a car passed.
“Maybe a cello case,” I murmured, eying the sword as she reappeared.
“Will I look like a cello player? Or an assassin hiding an automatic rifle?”
Valid point. My mother didn’t look like an assassin, but she looked even less likely to set foot in a symphony hall.
“A hockey bag would work,” Mom said as we continued on. “Once, just after I got the angel gig, I had to deliver a message to your dad at his hockey game, and we weren’t exactly eager to share my new occupation with his teammates yet, so I hid it in his bag.”
“My father plays hockey?”
“
Plays
might be an exaggeration. More like watches from the penalty box.”
I laughed. “That I can see. But, um …” I looked at the sword. “It’s an angel sword, Mom. Stuffing it in a hockey bag just doesn’t seem right.”
“It’s a tool, baby. One that come with some serious …” Her face clouded for a moment, then she shook her head. “Let’s just
say that while I’ve grown fond of wielding a four-foot hunk of metal, I don’t have a problem with stuffing the damned thing in whatever does the job. Irreverent, yes, but the Fates expect no less of me.”
“Okay. Well, a hockey bag might work, but your chances of finding one in New Orleans … ?”
“Mmm, you’re right. A sports store is still our best bet, though.”
It was. I left her outside, went in, and returned with a bow case. We still weren’t getting through any metal detectors, but Mom could walk around like a normal person, which meant—as Jaime warned—that she did bump into a few people before she got the hang of being corporeal again. I’d also bought myself a mock turtleneck tank top, which covered the cut on my throat.
We took a cab to the dead sorcerer’s place, which we got from his ID, along with his name. Shawn Roberts. He lived in the French Quarter, in an apartment over a shop selling high-end masks.
He didn’t live alone either. He had a wife. And a Rottweiler. Both figured prominently in his wallet photos. Both were home, as a quick call from a pay phone confirmed. No, I hadn’t asked to speak to the dog, but I heard it barking. And barking. And barking.
“Who the hell keeps a Rottweiler in an apartment?” Mom fumed as we stood beside the building. “And it’s two in the afternoon. Shouldn’t she be at work?”
We stepped back for a couple of drunken tourists with pink drinks in plastic cups. Mom stared after them then grabbed my wrist to check my watch.
“Little early, isn’t it?”
“We’re a block from Bourbon Street.”
Her face screwed up, as if she didn’t know what difference that made. Then she winced. “Damn, I really have been dead
too long. Also been away from New Orleans too long. I kept wondering what that smell was.”
“The faint traces of rotting garbage, urine, and vomit, mingled with street cleaner. Eau de la French Quarter. And four things you probably don’t smell in the afterlife.”
“True.” She took a deep breath. “As disgusting as it is, it does bring back pleasant memories. I did a lot of business here in the old days. I loved New Orleans, almost as much as I loved Savannah, Georgia.”
I smiled. “I remember. As for why Roberts’s wife is home …” I pulled a couple of business cards from Roberts’s wallet. His wife’s. Being a considerate husband, he must have handed them out for her. She was a baker. The work address matched their apartment.
“Damn,” Mom said.
“We’re going to have to lure them out. Question is, what would get both the woman and the dog—”
A whistle. Followed by a happy bark. I leaned out from our hiding place to see the woman in the photos walking from the building, the dog on its leash.
“Our timing is excellent,” I said.
I’d grabbed break-in supplies from the sporting-goods store. Amazing what you can get there. Not exactly regulation cat burglar tools, but they’d do the job.
I had rods that approximated picks, but Mom’s unlock spell handled that. Then, as she stood watch, I rammed a pencil into the keyhole and broke off the tip.
“Adam’s trick,” I said. “Makes it hard to open. It’ll give us enough advance warning so we can escape.”
“I have a perimeter spell for that.”
“Which you can use. Never hurts to have backup.”
Inside, the place reeked of dog—the smell of fur and canned food and the faint odor from a time or two when Rover must not have been let outside fast enough. Which made me think …
“We need to work fast,” I whispered. “She might just be taking the dog for a pee break.”
I took the computers. There were two—both laptops—on desk shelves. The first started up fine, no password required. It was hers. The second was protected. I didn’t have time to crack it. As it was a laptop, I couldn’t easily snag the hard drive. I could take the whole thing, but that would be noticed a lot faster than a missing hard drive.
So I joined Mom in her search. She’d hit pay dirt. A cell phone. Roberts didn’t have one on him when I checked, and I figured he’d left it in his car. This was an older model that he must not have been quite ready to ditch. The SIM card had been removed, but he had plenty of contact information saved on the phone itself. Enough for us to track down whomever he’d been working with.
We took the phone and left.
We headed for a coffee shop. Easy enough to find in the French Quarter. I’d withdrawn cash near the sports store—Lucas had deemed it safe enough, as long as I promptly left the immediate area after I used the machine. I’d given some to my mother so she wouldn’t be wandering around with empty pockets.
“Remember I used to do that?” she’d said. “Always made sure you had a few dollars in your pocket?”
“I thought that was for emergency phone calls.”
“You’d only need a quarter for that. I just … I remember when I was little, I liked having some money on me. Made me feel safer.”
I’d never thought of it that way. Even now, I wasn’t really sure what she meant. I guess we’d had very different childhoods.
I didn’t know much about hers. Just that when she’d left it behind, she left behind everyone in it.
We picked a narrow shop that advertised slow-drip coffee. I had no idea what that was, but it sounded promising.
As we went in, Mom pulled out a five and said, “My treat.”
“Not with that.”
She looked at the menu board and stared at it a moment. Swore. Then took out a ten.
“You go sit down,” she said. “I’ve got this.”
“Okay, I’d like—”
“Mocha with whipped cream and sprinkles.” She grinned. “Right?”
I wanted to say yes. Damn it, I really wanted to, but my expression gave me away.
“So what you drank at twelve is not what you drink at twenty-one, right?” she said.
“Mmm, no. Sorry. But if you get a chance to meet Adam, you can buy
him
a mocha. He loves the sweet stuff.”
Her smile softened. “I hope I do get a chance to meet Adam, baby.”
I blushed, and remembered our kiss after the bomb blast. Did he mean it
that
way? God, I hoped he meant it that way, even though it was a completely inappropriate concern under the circumstances.
I took a deep breath and started to say I’d have an espresso, then remembered where we were and changed it to café au lait. Not my usual drink, but there’s something about New Orleans that makes it the only choice for caffeine.
I went out the side door and found a table in the alley. Mom arrived a few minutes later, with two café au laits and an assortment of baked goods.
“I figured you must be hungry. I know I am.” She sat down.
“Which feels really strange. Took me a minute to figure out what it was.”
“You don’t get hungry, I take it.”
“Nope. Never tired either.” She took a long drink of her coffee, then closed her eyes and shivered. “Damn, that feels good. I’ve spent ten years drinking coffee in the afterlife, feeling like there’s something missing.”
She took a cranberry-studded cookie from the selection, and I bit into a red velvet cupcake. She waved at my choice, “Some things don’t change.”
I smiled. “Yes, I still have a sweet tooth. Just not for coffee. Okay, let’s check out this cell phone.”
She took it from her pocket. I held out my hand. She hesitated then put it back into her pocket.
“Not yet,” she said. “Jaime’s safe. We’re safe.” She took a sip of hers. “So tell me about Adam.”
I blushed again and shook my head. “Nothing to tell.”
“Oh, there’s plenty to tell.” She tilted her head, studying my face, then gave a wistful smile. “I’ve missed so much, haven’t I?”
I wanted to say no, she hadn’t, not really. But that was silly. Nearly half my lifetime had passed since her death. I imagined what it would have been like if she’d been there. What would I have told her about Adam? Would I have sought her advice? Or would I have been terrified of it? Worried she’d say he was too old for me? That she might tease me and tip him off?
Except, if she had been there, the point would have been moot, because there would be no Adam in my life. No Paige. No Lucas. No werewolf Pack. No interracial council. No Cabals, except maybe the Nasts, and only because we’d be hiding from them, my mother trying to keep me safe, which meant keeping me away from the Nasts.
No Adam for me. No Kristof for her. A completely different life for both of us.
A better life?
It felt disloyal to admit that this life
was
better for me. Painful to admit it was also better for her. But it was. I’d said earlier that I wanted to ask if she was happy. Now, looking over at her, I didn’t need to. I’d always thought of my mother as a free spirit, loving to wander, needing to see everything, do everything, be everything. But now, as I looked back, I didn’t see wanderlust. I saw an anxious restlessness that had kept her up at night, when I’d sneak in and find her staring out the window, only to turn and announce we had to leave again. There wasn’t anticipation in her voice on those nights—there was regret.
She was different now. Grounded. Centered. She was still constantly in motion, fingers rubbing her coffee cup, gaze surveying the alley. But it wasn’t anxiety, just my mother’s usual watchfulness.
“Tell me about you,” I said. “About your new job. Being an angel. That’s gotta be cool.” I grinned. “Considering the size of that sword, I’m guessing angelhood isn’t about playing harps and listening to prayers.”
“It’s not. Glorified bounty hunter is more like it. We go after anyone and anything raising hell where they shouldn’t be. Imps and demi-demons, hell-dimension escapees, general afterlife shit disturbers.”
“Which explains why you were hot on Leah O’Donnell’s trail. So that happens a lot? Souls escaping hell?”
“Not like that. If they do escape, it’s from a minor, temporary hell dimension. More like a holding cell for folks who need a time out before they’re ready to join—or rejoin—afterlife society. And they’d escape into the afterlife or some other realm on our side of the veil. It takes serious mojo to come here, which is why
the Fates should have guessed Leah’s escape wasn’t an isolated incident.”
“But you like the job?” I said. “You seem to be okay with it.”
“The job’s fine. It’s the deployment I could live without.”
“Deployment?”
“Ascended angels are celestial soldiers. Career soldiers. We live in the angel realm, like a soldier lives in barracks. Every now and then we get leave, but otherwise, it’s a calling, not a nine-to-five job.”
“But Kristof … ? You don’t live with … ?” I paused. “No, wait. That’s why Jaime says you’re on walkabout—when you’re deployed. She can’t contact you and he can’t contact you.”
She nodded. “Three months on, three months off. They started with six and six, but I’ve renegotiated.”
“And that’s the part you’re not okay with. Being separated from him.”
“We’ve learned to deal with it. I’ve learned to stop bitching about it. I like the job. Love it, though I hope the Fates aren’t eavesdropping on me admitting that. As for your father … Let’s just say I go AWOL more than any other ascended. Fortunately, my partner and I have the best soul-skewering record around, so as long as I don’t flaunt it, the Fates look the other way.”
I leaned forward. “Tell me a story.”
She stopped sipping her coffee. “Hmm?”
“You used to tell me bedtime stories. Wild adventures of yours—suitably cleaned up, I’m sure. Tell me one now. From the afterlife. You don’t have to clean it up anymore.”
She laughed. “Actually, I might, since the one I have in mind involves your father. All right, then. An afterlife story. Once upon a time, your dad was in court, defending a half-demon who …”