Servants of the Storm (26 page)

I breathe out through my nose and glare at him like a bull about to charge.

“You need to pull over.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m thinking about punching you.”

He chuckles softly, and my car coasts to the side of the highway. He leaves it running with the heat on full blast and the lights on, and mist glimmers in the high beams. He stares at me, eyes pitch black. Waiting.

“You think Carly died
because of me
?” I ask.

Each word is soft and cold and hard, a warning.

“Not because of you. Because of what I think you are.”

I want to call forth my mother’s stare of death, or Carly’s sass, but all the acting strips away. All that’s left is me.

“What I am. And what’s that? Crazy?”

“No. A cambion.”

He says it like it’s that simple, but my world turns upside down. I can’t breathe again, and I feel that thick, murky swamp water rise in my throat, like I’m choking in my dreams. My pinkie finger pulses and burns like it’s still there, and I ache to scratch it. But I won’t let him see me do that, scrabble for what’s gone.

“No way. I’m not a cambion. I can’t be. I’m totally normal, and I look like both my parents. Baby pictures in the hospital and everything. And I’m not evil.”

“So maybe you were in the hospital awhile with breathing problems as a baby. Maybe somebody slipped your parents the clear stuff to make them forget about being seduced by demons. It would have been simple enough for a succubus to go to your father and—”

“Don’t you even go there!”

“I’m just saying it’s possible.”

“It’s not!”

He sighs and gives me a dark, dangerous stare. “Remember who you’re talking to, Dovey.”

All I can do is shake my head.

He talks fast, like he has to get it all out before I bust his lip open. “You’re still half your mom and half your dad. They just had some unfortunate succubus and incubus interference. It happens more than you’d guess. Most cambions find out when they’re seventeen or so, but if the demons that helped make you die or lose track of you, you can slip through the cracks. So maybe that’s why you can see through so much of the illusion, how you saw the distal servant at Paper Moon and the photos on the photo board. How you got into Charnel House. How you saw what was really in Carly’s casket. Why you remember things you shouldn’t be able to and why you never do what I tell you to, even when I’m trying my damnedest to influence you.”

He’s kind of excited now, which I guess is understandable. He’s not quite so alone if I’m a half-evil freak like him. But he’s forgetting how insulting it is. He’s forgetting the implications.

“So you’re saying I’m going to go bad when I turn twenty-one?”

“Maybe earlier.” He pauses, stretches his hands out to the heater. Stares at me like I’m a gun he might or might not use, like a tool that’s just waiting there, but one that could also explode in his face. “Anybody can go bad. You just might have a predisposition. Do I seem evil to you?”

“Sometimes,” I grumble, but my heart’s not in it anymore.

The things he’s saying—they add up too much. But I’m not about to stop and think about it. I’m on a mission. I’m in the thick of things. And the reasons behind what I’m seeing don’t matter. What’s important is the same thing that has always been important: saving Carly.

“Get back on the road and take me to your evil twin. Some drunk dumbass is going to hit us, parked like this. My car’s bigger than the shoulder.”

As he drives, our silence draws out into a sort of calm. A quiet acceptance of maybes.

Maybe something did happen when I was a baby. Maybe I was switched in the hospital or had weird breathing problems that they just don’t talk about. Maybe there is a reason I keep seeing the things I’m seeing. Maybe there’s a reason Baker will do anything I say and Mrs. Rosewater gave me Tamika’s role so easily. Maybe
there’s a reason it was so simple for me to sweet-talk my mom, to lie, to face Josephine’s gator party and live.

Maybe I was already starting to guess it for myself.

And maybe I can get more information out of this Gavin Crane guy if I believe it.

My will has always been a bitch of a thing, but now it’s starting to harden up. I promised Carly years ago that I would always be there for her. This far I’ve been flying by my ass, scrabbling to keep up. Maybe if I have the magic and persuasiveness and devil’s luck of a cambion, I’ll have a better shot at actually helping her. Like acting, that’s one more power in my toolbox, and I’ll use it if I have to. To save Carly, and to save myself. As much as I need to find her dybbuk box, I need to find a way to kill Kitty and get my own distal back. I slip off my mittens and hold my pinkie up to the light. How can a little chunk of finger mean so much?

“So how’d Kitty know I was a cambion?”

He looks uncomfortable and shifts in his seat. “See, that’s the thing. Maybe she doesn’t know for sure. It might just be a good guess on her part. From what I understand, demons only know about the cambions they personally helped to make, and they keep it very secret so other demons can’t steal them away. All I can figure is that you didn’t belong to Kitty, that she didn’t help make you. When she took your distal, she might have been making a move on another demon’s property, using Carly to draw you out. Or she might have just been putting your distal
away to make sure you’re a distal servant when you die, just in case. Or she might’ve just done it to piss me off.”

“But at the club. She said you were supposed to dose me. So she knew I was seeing things.”

He shakes his head, angry. “Just because she helped make me doesn’t mean I know what she’s thinking or why she does what she does, okay? I try to stay as far away from her shit as I can. Once I’m twenty-one, I might not have much choice.”

Isaac takes a road I’ve never been on, out into the country. We pass a few trailer parks, including some FEMA trailers left over from after Josephine. My family lived in one in our driveway for a short while; pretty much everyone did, while we argued with the insurance companies and made our houses livable again. But I hated the plasticky smell and the closeness and the way that every gust of wind felt like it was going to rip the top off like a can of cat food and destroy everything all over again. But the trailers I’m looking at now are more than temporary shelter. They have clotheslines and dog runs attached to them. These trailers have become homes.

“Demons not treating Gavin so well?” I ask.

“Not so much, no.” Isaac shakes his head and chuckles wryly. “They don’t have to, no matter what they promise when they’re whispering into your ear. If you don’t demand a contract, you’re bound to get screwed.” I want to ask him why he sounds so bitter, but he’s pissed, and we’re here.

He pulls up outside a FEMA trailer attached to a single-wide
by a duct-taped awning. A beat-up car even older than mine squats out front next to some rusty truck corpses on cinder blocks, and dogs start barking inside. The door bangs open, and two pit bulls scramble down the stairs and fly at the car, growling and snarling. I lock the door and scoot away from the window, remembering all too well what Grendel did to his fence and the opossum.

And of course I’ve scrambled right into the center console. And Isaac. My back is pressed up against his warm side, and he leans close to whisper into my ear, his voice a sinuous and seductive purr.

“You’ve got to act like a cambion. Don’t show fear. Be cocky. Show him your pinkie like you’re proud of it. And drool all over me.”

“What about the dogs?” I say, panicking a little. But it’s not the dogs freaking me out.

“Ignore them,” he breathes. His arms go around me, and he nuzzles my neck. “He’s watching from the doorway. Quit freaking out and start acting, if you want this to work. I know you can do it.”

He kisses me behind my ear, and I almost swallow my tongue and melt into the seat. I’m aware of every cell in my body, every nerve, and for just a second I forget my pinkie and the demons and the fact that none of this is real. I forget that we’re just pretending. I forget that Baker just kissed me, sweetly and with years of open, honest longing. None of that matters. Suddenly I am completely on fire.

“Relax. I’m not that scary. Promise,” Isaac murmurs.

I’m frozen and stiff and swooning and completely unaccustomed to having hot guys breathing in my ear, and he’s wrong. He
is
that scary. Whether it’s real or not, I’m feelings things I’ve never, ever felt before. Baker’s kiss was warmth and comfort and possibility, but Isaac’s touch is like lightning, hot and unexpected and far too exciting for me to pretend anything. I can’t even control my breathing. But I need to get myself together.

I am strong, and I am an actress, and maybe I am a cambion. Whether or not it’s true, I’ve damn well got to act like it right now if I want to figure out how to save Carly. And myself. And maybe Isaac, if he behaves himself.

Not that I really want him to, just now.

I take a deep breath and relax back into him, letting my head fall back on his shoulder. I think about Jasmine, watching her slobber all over Logan backstage. I can do this.

“I love it when you do that,” I say, turning my head to whisper into his ear, and I’m gratified to hear his breathing speed up too.

“Do you now?” he murmurs.

He tilts my chin up just the slightest bit, and his other hand strokes my throat. I can barely breathe, and I feel open and hungry and soft. I look up over my shoulder, and our eyes meet, and I get lost in the blackness and want to wander there forever like it’s a forest of dark trees with velvet leaves where wolves hide, and there’s longing and wanting and kinship, and then his mouth seals over mine softly, and it’s a real kiss after all.

I close my eyes and turn to find a better angle, and his hand cups my jaw, and his lips are the softest thing ever. His other hand finds my hand, and our fingers entwine like our missing pinkies are yearning for each other, and it feels like we’re a solid circle, a complete connection. It’s electric and dark and deep all at once, and when his tongue parts my lips, I meet him willingly.

Something slams into the window glass behind his head, and we startle apart. One of the dogs is biting at the glass, its teeth scraping as it slobbers. I try to retreat to the passenger side, and Isaac pulls me back against him. But the moment is lost; I feel awkward and ashamed and silly now, and guilty, like I’m betraying Baker, even though I didn’t make him any promises.

Isaac is too good an actor. And I forgot and let him get to me.

“It’s just a dog,” he says.

“I know that,” I snap.

“We could kiss again.”

“He’s watching us.”

“That’s the point. Are you ready to go?” He says it stiffly, like I’m the one who’s being unreasonable and I laugh like it’s the funniest thing ever and lean in, way close.

“I’m always ready, sweetheart,” I say seductively, and so help me, I lick his ear.

“Hot freaking damn, Dovey,” he says, voice shaky. He pulls away and shoves me toward my door.

I just smile at him.

I guess he’s never seen me act before.

The dogs are still barking, and one of them slams into the driver’s side door, rocking the car. With a heavy sigh Isaac mumbles, “Let’s get this over with,” and opens the door hard. The dog whimpers and charges right back into the trailer. The other one stops tonguing my window to follow it, tail tucked between its legs. Cowards. By the light of the TV shining inside the trailer, I can see a tall guy standing there, holding a can and a lit cigarette in one hand.

“What the hell, Raleigh?” the guy says in a smooth, lazy voice that was made for radio. “It’s four in the damn morning. You’re going to wake up the neighbors.”

But the words don’t match the inflection. He’s amused. Baiting, even. I don’t think he would mind if we chopped up the neighbors and shot them out of a confetti cannon. This guy? He’s an actor too. He takes a drag from his cigarette, and the glow of his cherry isn’t enough to show me his face. I imagine one side is smiling, welcoming. And the other side, like some comic book character, is ravaged, evil, and twisted.

“How goes it, Crane?” Isaac calls in the same playful tone.

I toss my mittens onto the passenger seat and hurry around the car to the warmth of Isaac’s side. He slings his arm around my shoulder, and I lean into him as my eyes adjust to the darkness. Crane’s eyebrow goes up a notch, and he smirks.

“Not as good as it’s going for you, man,” Crane says. “Who’s the chick?”

Before Isaac can answer, I wave with the pinkie-free hand and say, “Hi. I’m Jasmine.”

“Yeah, and I’m Mickey Goddamn Mouse,” Crane says, but he’s still amused. “You guys want a beer?”

“Sure,” Isaac says. I just smile and shrug, my shoulders heavy under Isaac’s arm.

Crane disappears into the trailer, and we follow. It smells of stale smoke, staler beer, wet dog, and something even deeper and darker. Like a bear’s den. Crane goes to the fridge, ducking his head to keep from scraping it on the ceiling. Isaac’s tall, but he’s standing fine. Crane has got to be at least six-four.

He clicks on a light in the kitchen. It flickers into life as he turns to give us our beers. I’m almost disappointed that his face is symmetrical, handsome, even charming. I was hoping he would look evil, but Isaac did say cambions were generally attractive. While Isaac is blond, mysterious, and almost pretty, Crane is brunet and clean-cut, like a classic good guy, a broad-shouldered all-star quarterback. But there’s something hiding under his smile. I don’t trust him one goddamn bit.

“What brings you by Casa de Crane?” he asks, motioning us onto a disreputable-looking couch.

Isaac sits, pulling me into his lap. Since it means that less of me is touching the stained paisley corduroy and crushed pillows, I’m grateful. I lean back against him and compulsively check that Carly’s necklace hasn’t fallen out of the deep pocket of my cargoes. Nope, still there. Isaac pops his beer, and I pop mine and pretend to take a sip. It smells like dry, moldy grass, and I’m not about to drink anything Crane gives me. But I can pretend.

“I wanted you to meet Jasmine,” Isaac says with an easy smile. “You ever met a cambion chick? She’s a wildcat.”