The Five Deaths of Roxanne Love (33 page)

Her lashes lifted, her eyes flashed, striking a chord within him that zinged through every cell in his body. If he kissed her now, she wouldn’t stop him. He saw that in the golds and grays. But he wanted more than compliance. He wanted it all.

He braced his hands on either side of her and waited.
She caught her bottom lip with her teeth, but she made no attempt to escape his loosely constructed cage.

“I’m sorry I lied to you,” he said. “I won’t do it again.”

She nodded uncertainly.

“Even though I want to.”

“Why?” she asked.

He took a deep breath and slowly let it out. “The scavenger demon who shot you, the one with the mask . . . he was here while you were asleep. He told me he’d be sending a messenger. I knew when Manny walked through the door what he was.”

He could see the questions forming in her mind.

“I knew he was a demon the same way Manny knew
I
wasn’t human.”

She swallowed hard and nodded for him to continue.

“You rattled Abaddon’s cage when you sent back his birds, Roxanne. Now he’s scared.”

“Of
me
?”

“That you’ll mess up his plans to take over the world.”

She snorted.

“I’m not joking. He confirmed my theory. Each time your brother has died, demons have found a way in. Each time you die, they find a closed door. The only way to keep you from closing the door that Reece opens is to destroy you—no coming back. Without you, they can keep it open forever.”

She sagged, her hands braced on the edge of the sink all that kept her upright. Santo lifted her and set her on the counter, moving to stand between her legs, hands on her thighs, making it clear that he wouldn’t let her go.

Without looking at him, she asked, “Why am I still alive, then? Why didn’t that demon kill me in my sleep? Did you stop him?”

“Not exactly.”

He’d started down this path armed with anger, thinking he might goad himself into carrying out the deed and have it done with before there was time to regret. Now he knew he couldn’t. Wouldn’t. Ever.

“When they let us go the night they broke into your restaurant, I had the idea that they didn’t know what I was or what you could do. The scavenger shot you, intending to rip out your soul and leave it to wander aimlessly for all of time. He meant for your body to be occupied. By a demon. That was the fate that your friends endured.”

She caught her bottom lip and bit down hard.

“But I was there and I screwed their plan by saving you. Now that they know what we both are, they’re afraid. Especially after you sent Abaddon’s ravens back to the Beyond. They don’t know how you did it.”

“I don’t know how I did it. It was your voice that guided me. I kept hearing you telling me to come
back to you and I knew if I didn’t get rid of the birds, I wouldn’t be able to.”

Her soft words wrapped around his heart and squeezed. He cupped her face and kissed her. He couldn’t stop himself.

“Maybe that’s all you need to know,” he said against her lips. “That I’ll always be waiting for you. You’re not alone in this,
angelita.
Maybe we do it together.”

She caught her breath and leaned forward, resting her forehead on his shoulder. The gesture held exhaustion and defeat, but it held something else as well. Hope. He felt it in the air between them. It filled him up and made him strong.

“They still want you dead. They want me to reap you and clear the way for their invasion. They gave me a choice,” he said, pulling on her shoulders until she sat back and looked into his eyes. “I can take you myself and bring you back to the darkness as mine. Or we try to fight and risk burning forever in the fires of Abaddon.”

She stared at him as she digested that. “There’s no door number three?”

“Earlier, I would have said no. But now I’m not so sure.”

She waited for him to go on, that hope growing in her gaze.

“When someone is going to die, a reaper knows,”
he said in a low voice. “They feel it, a stirring. A calling. And they answer it.”

He waited, so afraid she’d turn away. So afraid he would see fear in her eyes. Or revulsion. It would break him.

“The reaper moves between the Beyond and earth at will. There’s no door, no passageway. It is intended, the reaper’s presence at death. It violates no rules. Do you understand?”

She nodded, though he wasn’t certain she did.

“I’ve reaped a million souls in my existence, yet I only remember you. I held you in my arms for your first breath and I was changed.”

“What are you saying?”

“All these years I’ve thought you cheated me. But, Roxanne, what if it was
my
doing? What if I sent you back?”

A tear spilled over her lashes. “Why would you do that?”

Santo smiled, his heart so full he couldn’t contain it.

“So I could follow you,” he said in an unsteady voice. “So I could follow.”

S
anto’s words washed over Roxanne, as warm as the darkness where he’d waited for her so many times. How could she distrust what she saw in his eyes when it spoke to her on every level? He’d saved her, challenged her, and now he claimed he’d re-created himself, just for her.

“Roxanne,” he said softly, “I would die for you.”

And there it was, a declaration that could have been written in blood. In the space of a few days, Santo had gone from stranger to angel to lover to reaper who’d held her heart for every second of death, every moment of life.

What did she do with this man who told her he’d defied the laws of the Beyond to be with her—
to
reap her
—now that he didn’t mean to reap her anymore?

Santo’s eyes were so full that she was drowning in everything she saw there. She cupped his face with her hands, needing to feel him with more than her heart.

“I could never hurt you,” he said. “You have to believe that. Even when I thought I’d come to take you, I knew deep inside that I could never put out that beautiful light that shines inside you.”

Her tears blurred her vision and clogged her throat, making it impossible to speak.

“Don’t leave me,
angelita
,” he said. “Please don’t leave me.”

His plea broke the bonds that held her back. Leave him? She couldn’t imagine life without him now that she’d had him beside her, at her back. Protecting her. Loving her.

You cried when you left it the last time,
Ryan had said. She believed him.

She knew a side of Santo that he didn’t know himself. The presence that had touched her soul and made it stronger. He gave a piece of himself each time he let her go. And he did let her go.

Because she wouldn’t have left him if he’d fought for her. Even then, he must have known he wanted more, and to get it, he had to set her free.

So I could follow.

Come back to me
.

“I won’t leave you,” Roxanne told him now. “I won’t leave you again.”

He grabbed her up in his arms and held her tight against his chest. She felt his tears as he buried his face in the crook between her neck and shoulder. Her own tears streamed down her cheeks.

When Santo kissed her, he tasted of salt and reprieve, a man who’d seen everything he cared for slipping away and had only just realized he need only tighten his grip to keep it. She pressed her nose to his chest and breathed in the scent of him, holding it in her lungs, in her heart. He gave her his kiss like he gave her his life. A pledge, an act, a moment shared for all of eternity.

Every kind of horror imaginable waited outside their closed door, but right now there was only Santo, his arms holding her, his mouth soft against hers. Opening the door meant letting in reality. They kept it closed and made love right there on the bathroom counter. Santo with his pants at his knees, Roxanne with her underwear discarded on the floor.

But when he joined his body with hers, time stood still and all that existed was this man she’d fallen in love with while running for her life. He’d risked the fires of Abaddon to find her.

She was willing to risk more to keep him.

Roxanne resisted facing the world outside their small sanctuary for as long as possible, but finally, with obvious reluctance, Santo led her out. Reality and a future
that included demons awaited, no matter how much she wanted to pretend they didn’t.

Before they left Reece’s condo, Santo insisted on damage control.

“There’s a small chance we might get out of this,” he told her. “The less we leave behind, the better.”

He used bleach to wipe down all surfaces, including the gun that the scavenger had given him. After it was clean, he left it on the blanket covering Manny. She could tell he hated leaving it behind, but as they’d acknowledged too many times, bullets would not win this showdown, and keeping the gun would tie him to what the police would see as the cold-blooded murder of an innocent, disabled victim.

Roxanne washed the bedding in the spare room, using more bleach at his insistence. While they waited for the sheets to dry, Santo told her about Gary’s visit and explained the deal he’d offered in more detail.

“I knew when I heard the key in the door that it was the messenger he promised,” Santo told her. “I didn’t want to give Manny the chance to say where the meeting would be. I was too afraid. I knew you’d want to go if you thought there was a chance your brother would be there.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Roxanne said. “Remember in your hotel when I thought I saw Manny sitting in the corner?”

He nodded.

“It was his spirit. He never moved on to heaven.”

“He won’t either. The demons made sure of that.”

Roxanne swallowed hard, unbearably sad to think of her friend lost between worlds.

“Manny came to me in a dream,” Roxanne went on, explaining what Manny had said to her while she was sleeping. “I should have known when he walked in the door that he couldn’t be the Manny I knew, but I wanted to believe he was still alive.”

Santo pulled her against his chest and pressed his lips to her temple.

“They’re going to be at the mall,” she said in a small voice.

“The mall?” Santo repeated, surprised. “Why there?”

“I don’t know. I guess if Gary intended for Manny to be my guide, he had to pick a place I’d believe. There’s a restaurant there that Manny always loved. We took him to it for his birthday every year. If Manny were alive and asked to go to his favorite place in the world, it would be there.”

Santo nodded gravely. “So what now,
angelita
? Is that where we should go?”

“Gary thinks his message was delivered. He’ll be expecting us.”

“Not really. You saw the shade—the demon inside
Manny. It left him when his body couldn’t be used anymore. I’d wager the scavenger knows that his messenger is dead.”

Roxanne took a deep breath. “Manny said Reece would be there.”

The look Santo gave her made her want to cry. There was so much sympathy in it that she knew his next words would hurt.

“If Reece has been with the demons all this time . . . he might not be Reece anymore.”

“No. I would feel it.”

“How?”

“You asked me once if I felt Reece with me in the darkness. I told you, I sense him. And I sense him in life, too. Two halves, one whole. Twins, remember?”

“Good and evil?”

“A little of both in each. I won’t leave my brother to fight this battle alone, Santo.”

He nodded. “Then we go.”

A
rizona Mills mall, where the Rainforest Café was located, sat squarely on a mile of property bordering the college district on one side and the weirdly “old Mexico” town of Guadalupe on the other. One of the last indoor malls to be built before the dawning of the boutique-style outdoor shopping center, the Mills consisted of over one hundred eighty shops and restaurants in one climate-controlled location.

In short, chaos confined.

Over the years, it had become a favorite of teenagers, gangbangers, and a seedy element that followed bargains in a herd. Roxanne remembered that it had always been crowded, and today was no exception.