Veiled (11 page)

I blink at him, feeling all sorts of violated. “You don’t know me,” I sneer at him, on the defensive in a second.

He shrugs, not seeming to care. “In some ways yes, some ways no. You can learn a lot about a person through their dreams. It’s your subconscious, split open and bare for all to see.”

“You mean for
you
to see.” I try not to shudder, wondering what he saw over the years. It’s not fair that I couldn’t remember him being there, not fair that I myself can’t interpret my own dreams, discover my own subconscious. “Was it just my dreams you were poking around in?”

He rubs his lips together, hesitating. I don’t like hesitation. “I can go in your dreams, from anywhere I am. It’s like looking through a window, into your head. Sometimes I step through that window.”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“Yes, it’s just dreams.”

I don’t believe it. “You haven’t just…
portaled
into my life at some point or another?”

“I haven’t needed to until the other night,” he says, eyes sliding to me. I can read nothing in them. “I won’t do it again, unless I have to.”

“Right.”

“You’re my ward, Ada,” he says gravely. “I’ve been connected to you since the wedding. I can’t read your thoughts. I can’t see into your conscious mind. But I can feel you, from anywhere. Sense your state of mind, what you’re feeling.

“Can you sense what I’m feeling right now?”

He nods. “You don’t like this. You feel violated. Like I’m an intruder. You feel vulnerable. You don’t like me. And yet part of you still does.”

I roll my eyes. “What part?”

Wait, don’t answer that.

“I think you know,” he says, his gaze on me again, scrutinizing. I quickly turn away, feeling like my body has betrayed me and then realizing he probably knows that too. “I don’t mind. It’s important that I be likable to you, Ada.”

I let out a dry laugh. “It’s important you be likeable? Do you realize how much of an android you sound like right now?”

“Sorry,” he says quickly. It’s probably wishful thinking that I see an ounce of shame in his expression. “I don’t mean to sound callous. Impersonal. It’s just . . .”

“The way you are?”

He nods, reaching down to turn the radio knob. The car looks like it only gets AM and crackly blues song comes on. “When you’re immortal, you don’t have a fear of death. If you don’t have a fear of death . . .”

“Then you’re not human.”

“Fear gives people their humanity. Fear of loss. I fear nothing.”

And for the first time in a while, I feel afraid being around him. It’s unsettling, this slightly robotic version of himself. He’s being honest, too honest, lacking the very human fear of judgement.

I look out the window, the properties becoming smaller as we approach the city. “You must fear failure. Otherwise you wouldn’t care what happens to me.”

“I don’t fear failure but I also don’t welcome it. In fact, it’s not about fear at all. It’s about duty. My job comes from deep within my bones. It is to protect you until you can protect yourself.”

Somehow our conversation has gotten even more interesting. “What do you mean until I can protect myself?”

He doesn’t say anything for a moment.

“Jay?” I coax him. “You can’t say that and nothing else.”

He breathes in deeply and I wonder what it’s like to breathe yet have no use for it. “Each Jacob’s job is different for each person. As you know. My job is to guide you through the now and protect you until you are strong enough, smart enough, to protect yourself. Then I move on. Start again as someone else, for someone else.”

“But what am I protecting myself from? I mean, other than demons in the closet.”

“Well that’s precisely it. Because that’s one tiny piece of what’s happening around you.” He chews on his lip, brow furrowed as he thinks. I can tell he wants to tell me something, maybe something he shouldn’t.

“And what’s happening around me?” I ask quietly.

“I haven’t just been in your dreams,” he admits. “I’ve been watching you. In real life. From a distance. Sometimes closer. You’ve never noticed me. Until the other day.”

At Sephora. “Why were you there?”

“To watch over you. To make sure you weren’t harmed.”

My eyes widen as I sit up ramrod straight. “Harmed? What the hell would harm me? The people in the kiosks in the mall, throwing hand cream and cell phones?”

“Ada, you’ve been seeing ghosts for some time now. But those aren’t the only things that can harm you. It’s the demons you aren’t seeing yet. They sure as hell see you.”

A soul-deep chill runs through me. I shiver. “Demons? I haven’t seen anything…”

“As I said, you aren’t seeing them yet. And until you do, you’re vulnerable. There are many slips and portals in this world, places for them to sift in and out. They know your smell, they have for years now. The more powerful you get, the older you get, the more . . . adult, womanly, you become, the more they’ll want to seek you out and take you.”

Demons have been fucking hunting me all this time and I never knew it? I hold up my hand, unable to comprehend any of this. “Wait, wait, wait. Perry was twenty-three when she really started to lose her . . . see ghosts. My grandmother, she—”

“You are not Perry,” Jay says quickly, his gaze hard, piercing right into me. “You are not Pippa. You are Ada Palomino and your story is completely different. You are completely different. You have a fight ahead of you, one that goes far beyond what you’ve seen in your dreams.”

Well, fucking
shit
. “Please tell me some good news,” I whisper to him, my nails digging into my palm. “Your bedside manner sucks.”

“
I’m
your good news.”

I glance at him. Of course he’s completely serious.

“Right,” I mutter. “Bound by supernatural duty.”

“And I am bound,” he says. “To watch and protect. To make you open your eyes. To teach you to fight back.”

I shake my head. I’m pushing everything he’s saying away. It’s much easier this way. “I’m starting school soon. I’m still struggling with what happened to my mother. I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear any of this. I’ll keep out of the closet. I’ll ignore my mother in my dreams. And I’ll keep being used to seeing the occasional ghost. But that’s it.”

I may not have loved my life at the moment but at least I knew what to expect from it. I knew to move on, I knew what to accept and get used to. No one asks to see ghosts but I was still managing it quite well in my day to day life. Everything Jay just said to me has no place in the life I’m supposed to have.

“Life isn’t fair, Ada,” he says, a rare hint of softness to his voice. “You know this. Sometimes we’re dealt a hand we never see coming. Sometimes there are only two choices. To live. Or die. And sometimes there is a third choice.” I glance at him. “To suffer in Hell for all eternity.”

“I’m not sure I want coffee anymore,” I mumble.

But within minutes we’re downtown, finding the perfect parking spot right in front of one of my favorite coffee shops. The same one my sister used to work at, Stumptown.

I peer at the shop as I get out of the car, happy to see it crowded and full of people. I need a caramel mocha with extra whip cream and syrup, stat, and I need it delivered by a barista who pronounces my name wrong (saying “Ad-a” instead of “Ay-da”), and I need to be surrounded by yuppies and hipsters and life as usual. I don’t even bother asking Jay how he knows I love it here.

We get in the shop and he offers to grab my coffee. I’m not sure what money he’s paying with, how and if Jacobs get paid at all, but I’m not arguing. My blogging revenue is low these days with my lack of posting and I’m more than happy to snag a seat.

As it happens, my favorite spot, a small booth by the window, is free. I’m wondering if all this good fortune is serendipitous or if it’s somehow connected to Jay. Because if he can arrange for no traffic and a great parking spot and my favorite seat, then surely he can arrange for me to not be stalked by demons. I would assume, anyway.

I watch him as he gets the coffee. He’s not one for small talk, even with the gorgeous and overly chatty barista that is giving him the eye and leaning over just enough so her cleavage is popping out over her apron. She obviously finds him as ridiculously handsome and stupidly manly as I do. He doesn’t look down though, doesn’t indulge her seduction attempts. Only smiles politely.

I suppose, being an emotionless immortal, he probably doesn’t care about those kind of human appetites. Then again, I had caught him staring at my ass. And I sometimes feel this heat behind his gaze, something instinctual rolling off of him. Granted that mainly happened in the dream and in my dreams my subconscious is as horny as anything.

And what had he said? That he knows how I like him? He knows I’m attracted to him and doesn’t care?

Typical fucking guy.

He comes back with the drinks in hand. The barista had called out my name wrong as I thought.

“You must get that a lot,” he says, sliding me the cup. “Ada is a pretty name though. Do you know what it means?”

“Nobility,” I tell him, removing the lid and taking a good hard whiff of all the sugar and caffeine. “My mother was sure to remind me of that often.”

“It suits you,” he comments.

I take a sip, eyeing him. “Thanks.” I’m not sure how to take his compliment. I have a feeling he doesn’t dole them out often. I clear my throat, letting the sugar flow through my system, calming me. “So. Did you pick the name Jay or did you just wake up with it?”

He palms his cup of coffee, staring at me over it. He waits a beat. “I woke up with it.”

“And you don’t remember the name of who you were before?”

He shakes his head.

“Do you know at least where you came from? The century? How old you were when . . .”

“Jacob says I am, I was, in my late twenties.”

“Too old for me then,” I comment dryly.

He just stares at me.

I manage a smile. “And that’s all you know?”

He nods slowly before taking a tepid sip of his coffee. He sits back against the chair, eyes going to the window.

“There is a wall in my head,” he tells me, voice low. “There is a door. It’s black. Heavy. It’s locked. And I don’t want to know what’s on the other side.” He pauses. “It doesn’t make a difference what’s there. I am Jay, now. Who I was before doesn’t matter.”

I feel like he’s trying to convince himself of this.

“But aren’t you curious?” I tell him. “What if who you were could influence the way you are? What if the way you act isn’t just instinct from being a human being, it’s from being a
specific
human being?”

His Adam’s apple bobs in his throat as he swallows and he gazes at me with cold eyes.

“It doesn’t matter,” he says again. “The past is the past.”

“The past makes us who we are,” I tell him.

“As a human, yes,” he says, looking around to see if anyone is listening. Thankfully the coffee shop is pretty loud. “In case you need a reminder, I am not like you. I may look like I am but I assure you I’m not. And even if that were the case, the past doesn’t define us. It’s what we do here and now, today, that does. This world was built on second chances.”

His eyes go to the street, a strange flash of clarity coming over them. If I wasn’t watching him so closely, I wouldn’t have noticed. His brows come together, his hands tightening on his cup. Then it’s gone and his gaze is back to being cool and opaque, indifferent to the world. I wonder, if just for a second, he was tempted to try and unlock that black door inside his head.

I swallow thickly. “You’re a strange date.”

He nearly smiles at that. “I suppose you’re right.” He looks back out to the street again and stiffens noticeably.

I follow his gaze. For a moment I think I see a person, a long, shadowy black figure with no face, just an ever-widening hole, standing by the entrance to a laundromat. But when I blink I realize it’s just my eyes playing tricks on me. It’s only a shadow of the building and a black crow hopping about, pecking garbage up from the ground.

“Do you see that?” Jay asks quietly.

“The crow?” I ask.

“Did you see anything else?”

“I . . . I thought I saw a man. Or a creature. Like a living shadow. But it was just a trick of the light.” But even my voice sounds weak, like I can’t be convinced of it myself.

“That’s how they’re starting to appear to you. How you start to see them. It’s not a trick of the light. What you saw was real.”

Another sickening chill runs down my spine. In this heat of summer, I’m starting to think I need a sweater on me at all times. “Where is it now?” I whisper.

Jay nods at the crow. “Animals are perfect conduits.”

I think back to the raven I saw the other night outside my window.

“So what am I supposed to do?” I keep my voice low, not because I’m afraid someone will overhear me and think I’m crazy, but because I can’t muster the strength. “What would have happened if you weren’t here?”