Except maybe the comic books she’d once loved, but those never drooled holes in concrete like that dead monster had. Though there might have been a bit of preteen panting over a man in a mask. . . .
She strode down the street, forcing him to keep up with each strike of her bootheels. She told herself she wasn’t running away. Good thing, since he had no trouble keeping up. Those long legs moved so smooth beneath his duster he practically floated beside her.
Compared with his steely grace, she felt grubby, not to mention shorter than usual. “You know my name. You even know what I dreamed about last night.” Speaking of panting, thank God he didn’t know the details. Did he? “But you haven’t bothered to tell me your name.” She almost winced at the aggrieved tone—not to mention fairly irrelevant nature—of the question. It had been a bad night.
Plus, apparently, now she was possessed by evil spirits. Certainly that excused a reasonable amount of bitching.
“Liam,” he said. “Liam Niall.”
She mouthed it to herself, and the name danced over her tongue. “I thought Irish people had red hair.”
“And here I thought only old people had blue hair.”
She wrinkled her nose at him, just in case he hadn’t noticed the ring through her nostril. “I’ve never been to Ireland. I’ve never been outside the burbs.”
“And I haven’t been back in ages.” His lips quirked without much humor. “Truly, ages. So we have something else in common.”
“No, really, we don’t.”
“Our demons, then.”
She shot him a look intended to make him acknowledge how ridiculous that sounded.
He continued. “Your breathing is better. As the demon settles deeper, it erases evidence of your past life. On the plus side, that means your old aches and pains are healed.”
She slammed on the brakes. His long strides carried him a few steps past before he turned to face her.
She forced the words out past gritted teeth. “What do you know about that?”
“You were injured somehow. That is always part of the vulnerability the demon marks in you.”
He might have been able to guess at her old injury from the way her breath rattled, and maybe he’d noticed that she hadn’t been able to move too fast for too long. But he couldn’t have known when it stopped bothering her. Because she hadn’t noticed herself until he mentioned it.
She took a breath, deep, all the way to the bottom of her lung, past the gnarl of scar tissue she’d seen in X-rays. Nothing. No wheeze, no rasp. She huffed out the breath. “What is happening to me?”
“The demon.”
“Damn it. Stop saying that!”
“Will not saying it make it less true?”
She pushed by him—skin prickling with the awareness that he could stop her without even pulling out that hammer. He was so tall, but he’d moved like a dancer. A murderous dancer, sure. He was rangy too, the duster hanging from his broad shoulders as if he didn’t eat quite enough. Lau-lau would tell her to make him sweet dumplings with duck and plum sauce. If the way to a man’s heart was through his stomach, then he’d apparently closed off his heart a long time ago.
She yanked up her hood and kept walking, faster now. Because she could. And because, maybe, she was running away a little. She hadn’t wanted to explain the strange dreams that had haunted her for most of a week now. Or she’d thought they were dreams—vague, edgy desires ignited by the briefest glimpse of a hot guy in the park while she’d been distracted with her job.
She knew better than to hook up with big, tough-looking males with the smell of iron and concrete and danger clinging close about them. Thanks to her family life, she’d learned how stupid
that
was before she was half Dee’s age. Which didn’t mean she hadn’t indulged the occasional ridiculously trashy fantasy.
Who knew fantasies could come so violently to life? But now after what she’d seen, what she was feeling, to continue to deny that
something
was strange would be even crazier.
Ten minutes of silence brought them to the halfway house. A wire-caged porch light blazed above the front step of the narrow apartment building. Tonight, though, the bright lamp glowed with an odd nimbus, as if some oily smoke hung in the air. She sniffed suspiciously. But the lingering stench wasn’t pot or even cigarettes.
“Sulfur,” Liam said. “Leftover stains from the malice that have been hanging around here.”
She recoiled. “More demons? Here?”
He held up one hand, meaning to be reassuring, she knew. But the gesture revealed the haft of the hammer under his coat. “Your unbound demon has been trailing etheric energies that attract them. But don’t feel too guilty. Some of them were probably already regulars. The kids might as well be tagged ‘Malice eat for free.’ I can feel the negative emotions leaking out of the bricks.”
She bristled. “I’m surprised you feel anything through that superiority complex.”
He gazed over the top of her head, unruffled. “Don’t snarl at me. It’s just the truth.”
“How are they supposed to feel? Some of them have been abused or neglected. The ones that lie about it are just confused, trying to get their feet under them, trying to spread their wings. They don’t need people like you judging them.”
His calm expression smoothed into utter nothingness. “I only care about the consequences. And all these roiling emotions are prime breeding and feeding ground for the tenebraeternum—the eternal darkness. Doesn’t matter if you don’t want to hear it.”
Jilly ground her teeth together. While she never thought she could keep the kids safe from every threat that faced them, she’d always believed she at least knew what the threats were. Gangs and drugs. Homelessness, lack of education, and early parenthood. Missed opportunities and bad choices.
But demons?
How could she protect them from
demons
? Real demons, not the metaphorical kind. Apparently, she hadn’t even been able to protect herself.
She flexed her chilled fingers, wanting to reach into her pocket for the box cutter, knowing it was pointless. She glared up at the man beside her. “Okay, what do I do? How do I kill the . . . the malice? How do you knock the head off an incorporeal being?”
That brought his aloof gaze back down to her. His lips twitched, finally giving his chiseled features a sign of life. “You can’t. But don’t worry about the house tonight. That whiff you’re catching is the smell of drained malice. My people have been keeping the block clean since we started looking for you. All that’s left is the stink.”
She nodded once stiffly. “Well, thanks, then.”
He cocked his head. “That’s hard for you to say, isn’t it? I thought that’s one of the first things you should teach a kid, how to say ‘thank you.’ And ‘please.’ ”
The way his tone dropped half an octave sent a flush through her. She glowered. Dee would have pegged that as a come-on. But come-on or criticism, she wasn’t interested. Never mind the eerie sense of familiarity that kept her measuring his body against hers.
She cared only about the kids. If Andre had faced those real demons, they needed her more than ever. “Will the monsters come back here?” She bit at her lip. “Will they follow me?”
“Maybe. If they do, we’ll take care of it. There’s a device we can install—an energy sink—that will lessen the negative vibes in the future.”
She nodded, didn’t even bother saying thanks again. He didn’t seem influenced by her gratitude or lack thereof. He didn’t seem affected by much of anything—a real tough guy. Remote and composed. The worry nibbled at her that she was going to owe him. Big-time.
She studied the building a moment, the front facade a checkerboard of small windows, some of them lit even this late. Or early, depending on which side of sleep she considered herself. Teens kept strange hours.
“You said your people brought Dee and Iz back here safely?”
“Yes.”
She spun on her heel and stalked away.
After a few steps, he caught up with her. “You’re not going in? You’re just going to believe me?”
She grinned at the note of shock in his voice, glad to have thrown him off at least half a step. “Dee’s room light is on. She’s fanatical about her privacy, so I’m going to assume it’s her and that Iz made it back with her.” She cut a glance his way. “Unless I should think you’re lying to me.”
“We try not to lie. We have enough dings against our souls.”
She stuffed her hands in her pockets. “Then there’s nothing more I can do for them tonight. Except maybe bring down more monsters. I’m going home.”
“It’s a long walk. I’ll call a ride.”
She rocked to a halt. “You know where I live?”
“I did save you from certain death,” he reminded her. As if that was an excuse for stalking.
Her indignation soon bled away. She supposed it
was
a damn good excuse.
She said nothing as he called from his cell. Within a minute, a dark sedan pulled up. Not a cab. “Your people again?”
He nodded and held open the door for her. She hesitated, but what was the point? She felt wrung out by the night’s oddities and the sneaking realization that there were more dangers facing her than climbing into such a carefully nondescript car with such a strange man.
“You could have murdered me already, right, and left my body in the alley? I mean, if you’d wanted to. No one could have stopped you.”
“Yes, I’m an unholy powerful fighter. No, I wouldn’t have left your body anywhere. I’m unholy powerful but also surprisingly tidy.”
She noticed he didn’t disavow the murder part. She huffed out a long sigh and climbed into the backseat.
Liam settled beside Jilly, conscious of her heat near him in the closed space. And her scent. No perfume for the punkette pixie, just the wet leather of her boots and the waft of some fruity hair gel when she pushed back her hood. And the faintest hint of something else, something wild. Something just her.
Too bad his teshuva protected him against even the simplest head cold. He didn’t need to be distracted by sniffing after a temptation he knew he couldn’t indulge.
He kept his knees tucked in, careful not to brush against her as he reached into his back pocket for his wallet. He pulled out a business card and handed it to her.
She looked down at the simple black card with its two lines of white text: a phone number and the symbol @1. “At one?”
“Atone,” he corrected, running the implied letters into a single word. “Possessed humor.”
“Dial the devil at 666-6666?”
He started to correct her because the number on the card was quite ordinary. Then he realized she was joking. As if he’d forgotten where he put it, he dredged up his sense of humor. “That phone number was taken already. I guess evil has a better business manager and marketing department than repentance.”
Her piercing winked at him when she snorted.
On the quiet early- morning streets, the ride to her apartment didn’t take long. They idled, double-parked in front of her building. He wished they could circle the block, keep her beside him. To keep her safe, he told himself.
“What does Andre look like?” he asked abruptly when she reached for the door handle.
She paused. “He’s sixteen. About five-eight, one seventy. Black Latino. Shaved head. Homemade tattoo of a skull on his left calf. Last seen in a dark blue hoodie and jeans. I can get you a recent photo.”
He wondered whether she kept an updated description of every kid in her charge so close to the tip of her tongue. How many did she lose? And how could she be willing to suffer the heartache of not saving them? “If I promise to have my people keep an eye out for him, will you not go looking again?”
She considered long enough that he figured she was going to tell him the truth. “Not tonight.”
“Fair enough.” The demon would ascend soon and she’d be too busy to worry about one missing teen.
Soon she’d be lost herself.
He studied her. “You know we’re not likely to find anything good.”
“If you find anything at all, at least we’ll know. Which is more than we often get.” Her expression was shuttered as she stared out the window at her door.
“You’re already getting better at controlling your emotions.” He tried to sound approving. “You’ll need it.”
She slanted a glance at him, so full of rage his breath caught. A hint of violet flickered in her eyes, as if the aurora borealis had drifted too far south. The demon, coming out to play. “Yay, me.”
“I’ll let you know what we learn. And if you need anything, anything at all, call that number,” he added, knowing she wouldn’t.
She crumpled the business card in her fist. “Sure.” She jolted out of the car and stomped to the door.
Liam watched her go. “She couldn’t be sweet and easy, like Sera?”
Archer slung his arm over the front seat. “You must be talking about a different Sera.”
They both winced as Jilly let herself inside and slammed the door, never looking back.
“I suppose it’s unreasonable to expect a demon to possess a nice person,” Archer continued. “Even angelic forces aren’t really interested in nice people.”
“The battle between good and evil does seem to call for a certain fortitude of spirit,” Liam agreed.
“You think?”
They waited in silence a moment.
“Did Ecco get surveillance set up in her apartment?” Liam asked.
“Energy sink. ESF recorder. Audio. He wanted video. Sera nixed it. Said the bad ol’ boys’ club would have to rent their porn just like regular nonpossessed assholes.”
Liam sighed. “Why do I get the feeling that adding another female possessed is like peeking through the underwater view port on the
Titanic
?”
“Ice is all you’ll be peeking at.” Archer smirked at him. “So you’re ready to acknowledge that you want her?”
Want. That one word zinged through Liam like a bullet off bone, leaving a jagged wake. “What does want have to do with being talyan?” His voice sounded harsher than he intended. The teshuva couldn’t risk wanting—not when wanting dovetailed so closely with sin. With an effort that tightened his throat, he modulated his tone. “She’s another fighter. We need those. Desperately. I’ll find someone to help her through possession.”