“Works for me,” I said, glaring at Mendoza’s corpse. “Please, take me down.”
He cradled me in his arms and carried me down the stairs to the elevator.
Holding me close, he said, “We need you alive, sugar. No more thoughts of joining the mutt,
capisce
?”
The Dealer’s words dislodged the sobs I was holding on to, and I cried and screamed and railed against him. He pulled me tighter, and I felt true empathy radiate off him. Who would’ve thought a demon, a Daeva, could feel empathy?
When we got to the ground, the men there were dead, as well. “You could’ve marked their souls,” the Dealer said as he walked where I pointed, right up to Reyes’s body.
I scrambled out of the Dealer’s hold and fell beside Reyes. He looked perfect. He had blood from being beaten, but otherwise, he looked perfect. Serene. His long lashes lay against his cheeks. I felt for a pulse at his neck. Waited. Repositioned my fingers and waited again. Nothing.
“Reyes,” I said, urging him to open his eyes. “Reyes, please.”
The Dealer put a hand on my shoulder and tried to coax me off him. I’d draped my body over his and was running my fingers gingerly over his face.
The Dealer’s grip tightened at the same time I felt a presence. I looked up and watched as a darkness pooled near Reyes’s body. It lifted and molded itself into the shape that resembled a human, but its proportions weren’t quite right. Only after it had fully formed did I realize it was Reyes, but only partly so. His demon side had emerged. He was massive and towered above us as the Dealer moved between us.
I struggled to my knees as Artemis appeared beside me, her guttural snarls echoing around us. I held her to me as the Dealer slowly slid out the dagger from his boot. Every time he made a move, Reyes growled, his black gaze moving from me to Artemis to the Dealer. Every time it landed on me, it took everything in me to hold Artemis back. She didn’t recognize him, the man she’d been sleeping with for the last couple of weeks.
He had all of Reyes’s stark beauty, his fluid lines and smooth textures; only his eyes were deeper and blacker, and he had razor-sharp teeth, like the demons I’d seen. Was this what happened when his physical body died? Was this what all the warnings had been about?
Slowly, and with infinite care, the Dealer passed me the knife. “Kill him,” he said, his voice soft, unhurried. “Or everyone dies.” He turned back to me. “He’ll destroy the world, sugar. And everything in it.”
Rocket’s premonition hit me hard. He’d said I would be the one to kill him. He’d warned me that there was nothing I could do to stop it, not without dire consequences. Was that what he meant? Would my not killing him mean the destruction of the world?
Before I could think on it much longer, Reyes knocked the Dealer aside and lunged for me. I slowed time, holding back both Artemis and the Dealer, who was already charging Reyes. I stood and marveled at the Dealer and Artemis. Even though I was holding back time, they were still charging forward, their essences a blur, they were so fast. But I was faster.
I stepped to Reyes, who was also a blur, and placed a hand on his handsome face. Even part demon, he was stunning, more dark and enigmatic than before. When he shook off my hand and gained precious inches, his teeth opening to rip into my jugular, I placed the knife at his heart and pushed, barely breaking the skin.
He stopped. Looked down at the blade. Back up at me. And recognition shone on his face. The knife was already spreading the poison that only a demon could feel. A blackness crept around the insertion point and began to spread, but his attention was fixed on me.
The demon side of him dissolved, and Reyes reemerged. He stumbled back and shook his head as though trying to shake out of the stupor he’d been in. I let time crash back and held Artemis to me to stop her from attacking. The Dealer realized what I’d done and stopped his advance as well. But when time bounced back like a train crashing through me, so did the pain. My knees buckled, and I fell back onto Reyes’s body, but I did not take my eyes off his incorporeal essence. He fell to his knees, shook his head once more, then dropped it into his hands, trying to get his bearings.
“Come back to me,” I whispered to him. I ordered him. “Rey’aziel, come back to me.”
His gaze shot to mine, and he did as I’d asked. He came back.
Then he was in front of me, but Artemis had calmed down. When he touched my face, she whimpered and nudged his hand with her nose. He gave her a quick caress.
I’d looked down, my brows sliding together in confusion. “Come back to me,” I ordered again.
He was grinning when I looked up again. “You have to kiss me, like in all of your fairy tales.”
“Kiss you?” I questioned.
“First you have to say yes, then you have to kiss me.”
I heard sirens in the distance and wondered who’d called the police. “I have to say yes?”
He sat beside me and nodded.
“And what am I agreeing to?”
“It’s a simple yes/no question, Dutch.”
His proposal. “You’re blackmailing me.” I couldn’t help but feel appalled. And a little flattered.
He shrugged. “If that’s what it takes, okay.”
I looked down at his face, bloodied and bruised, but still so impossibly handsome, my heart ached. “Yes,” I said, realizing how silly I’d been to make him wait for the answer I’d always known in my heart I would give. I could not live without him. It would be like expecting a sunflower to live without the sun. Without further ado, I placed my mouth on his.
He sucked in a soft breath from under my mouth. I leaned back. His incorporeal body was back where it belonged. “You look like heaven,” he said.
“That’s weird, because you look like hell.”
He laughed, then winced in pain.
“Are you really okay?” I asked.
“He’s fine,” the Dealer said as though disappointed.
Then I heard another voice. A female voice. One with a distinct nasally quality to it.
“Well?” she asked, standing beside me and tapping her bare toes in the dirt next to me. “What are you going to do about this?”
I looked over at her body, an all-consuming dread coming over me. No way. No way in hell was I going to put up with that witch for the rest of my life.
“Cry?” I asked.
“I’m dead, aren’t I?”
“Pretty much.”
“This is your fault.”
The sirens were getting closer. How was I going to explain all this?
“Jessica, look,” I said, trying to rush her, “you have to cross. I can’t do this with you.”
“Cross? Through you?” She sneered at me. “I would rather die.”
I started to point out the obvious, but she disappeared before I got another word out. Being haunted by a former best friend turned enemy number one was so going to suck like Tornado Alley in April.
I glanced up at the Dealer. He stood with arms over chest, his top hat perched to one side. “Mr. Joyce’s soul,” I said, reminding him that we had yet to settle a certain bargain.
He lifted first a shoulder, then one corner of his mouth, then the brim of his hat in a silent salute. “It’s all his.”
Relief washed over me, but it was short-lived, as a line of official vehicles raced toward us. Agent Carson led three other SUVs onto the scene. It had bullet holes in it when it swerved to a stop, covering me in dust. Her questionable act provided the perfect cover for me to quickly stash the knife, sliding it into the boot of my nonbroken ankle before the dust settled around us.
When she stepped out, I flattened the leg of my jeans and said, “You totally did that on purpose.”
Her men bolted from the vehicles, and she rushed over to me as Reyes eased up. Someone told him to stay put, but he rose to his feet anyway. So stubborn.
“Carson,” I said after she checked for a pulse on Jessica’s throat.
I couldn’t look at her. It had been a long, long drop, and it showed. I glanced around. The Dealer was gone, of course.
“There are more on the roof,” I added as an agent helped me to my feet. I balanced on one foot to keep my weight off the broken one. It would heal in a few days. A cast would only annoy me, so I didn’t let the extent of my injuries show. “I heard gunshots after I escaped them.”
Agent Carson barked a few orders, sending men into the elevators before giving me her attention. “I suppose you have an explanation.” She looked at me first, then Reyes, then back at me.
I pulled my lower lip between my teeth and shrugged. “I’m still working on it.”
A plethora of cop cars were speeding onto the site, lights flashing and sirens blazing.
“Well, hurry,” she said, ordering another of her men to guide them. “We’ve been tailing you, worried something like this might happen.”
Reyes pulled me to his side, expertly taking my weight with skilled nonchalance. “Then you’re late,” he said, seeming annoyed.
Uncle Bob showed up then, as did the captain, and I wondered what it would be like to have him on our team. Would it be nice for Ubie to have someone to talk to? He used to talk at great length with my dad, but their relationship seemed to be cooling a little, much to my despair. Maybe having the captain in on the whole departed thing would be good for him.
He rushed over, but before he could say anything, Reyes lifted me into his arms and carried me toward Ubie’s SUV. No one seemed particularly alarmed that Reyes looked like he’d just fallen from a seven-story grain elevator. His clothes did, anyway. His dark skin was unmarred, flawless, and whether that was a result of our kiss or just his natural ability to heal at the speed of light, I didn’t know.
“I’m assuming you have everything you need for the moment,” Reyes said to Carson.
She started to protest, but one look at the determined expression on Reyes’s face convinced her otherwise. “I’ll need both of your statements first thing—”
“She needs to get home,” he said to Uncle Bob, his tone brooking no argument.
Ubie nodded, offered another quick nod to Agent Carson, then walked over to open the door for Reyes, who he sat me inside, his movements gentle, unhurried. His profile was so strong, so amazingly perfect, it was hard not to stare. I wondered if I would ever get used to his exquisiteness. To his blinding perfection. Prolly not.
“Yes,” I said, repeating my answer in case he didn’t hear me the first time.
Despite the time lag, a charming set of dimples appeared at the corners of his full mouth. “You already said that.”
“I know. I just wanted to make sure you heard me.”
“Just remember that feeling a moment.”
“Why?” I asked suspiciously.
He didn’t answer. Instead, he motioned Ubie over to us.
“Would you mind obstructing the view?” Reyes asked him. Ubie’s brows slid together in concern, so he explained. “She is going to start healing immediately. This has to be set.”
I gasped when I realized he was talking about my ankle. It felt engulfed in flames, but it was nothing I hadn’t been through before. Still, the thought of Reyes setting it—of it being set at all—filled me with terror.
Uncle Bob nodded and shifted his weight until his body was blocking the view of the officers on-site.
I gripped Reyes’s arm, clawing at him as he slid off my boot. He almost brought me out of my seat as Ubie peeled off one hand and took it into his. After studying my lower extremities, a feat I couldn’t bring myself to do, Reyes glanced back at me, his deep mahogany eyes sympathetic when he said, “Bite down.”
Fear spiked like a nuclear explosion in my head. “Maybe we should—”
A sharp pop sounded in the small space, and the pain that shot through me evoked a gasp loud enough to turn the heads of those around us. Reyes’s arms were around me instantly, and I clutched on to him, buried a scream in his shoulder as the pain—a pain that had risen so high and so fast, I’d almost passed out—ebbed. When it reached a level tolerable enough for me to trust myself not to cry out in agony, I eased my hold. Only then did I realize Uncle Bob still had my hand, his thick fingers engulfing mine until all that was visible were my fingertips.
22
On a scale of one to stepping on a LEGO,
how much pain are you in?
—SIGN IN HOSPITAL
Two days after the incident that would come to be known around the world, or at least around the office, as the Great Silo Tragedy, I quite bitterly hobbled to the entrance of the New Mexico Women’s Correctional Facility, crutch in one hand, case file in the other. Cookie had managed to track down what happened to Miranda. She got a copy of the case file. It explained what had happened to her, why she’d chosen to haunt a cable car, and what became of her abusive mother.
I had a funeral to get to later in the day, but this morning was set aside for one woman and one woman only: Miranda’s mother. The woman who had abused her daughter so severely, the girl could not escape the mental repercussions even in death.
I needed to know. What she did to her daughter was unconscionable. I needed to know if she felt remorse of any kind. If she took responsibility for what she’d done. If she knew how severely her actions had affected her gorgeous child. If she cared. How anyone could do such a thing was far beyond my realm of understanding. Did it take a sociopath? Or simply an utter bitch?
I pulled some strings, namely the one I had wrapped around Uncle Bob, and had him call the women’s detention center to set up an interview. He told them I was a consultant working on a case for APD and needed to question Mrs. Nelms about an old case. Which would explain why I was sitting in front of a large pane of glass, waiting for Miranda’s mother to arrive.
She was in prison, thankfully, for her daughter’s death, but she’d never admitted to any wrongdoing. The court transcripts showed that she’d professed her innocence even after a jury of her peers had convicted her. Even after a judge had sentenced her to fifteen years in prison. She’d probably be out on parole in a couple more years. If she failed my test, I’d be waiting.
A large woman stepped into the room. I was surprised. In the mug shot from her arrest record, Mrs. Nelms was painfully thin, the lines of her face hard and cracked like the plains of an unforgiving desert. She’d gained weight while in the big house and cut her horrendously bleached-out hair. She now wore it short and didn’t look so much like a crack addict as the stalwart matriarch of a Russian girls’ school. Neither look was appealing.