CHAPTER 7
Jilly craned her neck to follow the course of
his finger down the side of her breast where the knot of the knife
scar had faded to a mere memory on her skin. “Instatattoo. Not
temporary, I’m guessing.” She shivered at the tangled memories of
trickling blood and now her new boss’s erotic touch. God, it was
all fading. Her scars that reminded her of bad choices, her
courage, and—oh yeah—her very life. She
scooted away and snatched up the T-shirt flung over the back of the
couch.
Liam wiped a hand down his face. “The reven is the teshuva’s mark on you. Once, the
patterns told the league how strong and what sort of demon had
crossed into our realm. I’ve read accounts from previous leaders
who organized their ranks by teshuva class and power.” A tick
beside his eye jerked once. “I don’t have enough talyan to give me
choices.”
She studied the mark at his temple. “What’s
yours? How strong is it?”
“Ravager class. And strong enough.” He returned
her narrowed, assessing gaze. “I don’t need to check the archives
on yours. Discord class, undoubtedly.” She opened her mouth to
protest, but he continued. “The reven shows
you passed the first ascension, and the conflicting emanations are
balanced enough that you won’t be pulled into the demon realm.
Against your will anyway.”
She frowned. “Why would I go willingly? As if
this hasn’t been bad enough.” When his expression went blank, she
winced inwardly. She hadn’t meant that quite the way it sounded.
But she didn’t correct herself. Not like they were going anywhere
with that anyway. Discord, right?
All these negative thoughts—blood, demons, the
sad lack of long-term relationship potential despite her new
immortality—were really taking the shine off her afterglow.
He pushed to his feet. “There is much about being
talya that you don’t know, that none of us know. Despite all Sera
has apparently shared with you.”
“You could share more,” she pointed out. “Or have
we shared enough for tonight?”
He gave her another unreadable look, then bent to
collect his clothes.
She indulged a wistful mental sigh at the sight.
Too lean by half, though the sensuous play of muscle under his skin
made her fingers tingle. But she knew better now than to be
tempted. Twice anyway.
Not only was he her new boss; he was her eternal
boss. Meetings around the watercooler could get way complicated
after a few hundred years of clandestine sex.
Or, considering the lamp, table, and transmitter
she’d smashed, even more awkward after not- so-clandestine
sex.
“What have I done?” she whispered as she tugged
her shirt over her head.
In the dim lighting, Liam’s gaze flickered toward
violet. “What we had to do.” He zipped his jeans with a touch more
force than necessary. “It’s how we survive long enough to erase
some of the stain on our souls.”
Here she was worrying about the mark on her skin
when the fatal stain was on her soul. Silly her.
She wiggled into her jeans while Liam searched
for the scraps of his shirt. Sera had promised her a metabolic
boost, but the jeans seemed snug as ever.
Letting the demon in her soul, then the demon-
killer into her body. She was becoming quite the slut. She tried to
dredge up a silver lining. At least she could kick some of the ass
that so seriously needed kicking, now that she’d finally identified
an appropriate target. That target being all of evil. And she was
always telling the kids to set specific, realistic, and achievable
goals.
She was fiercely glad they couldn’t see her now.
She’d always considered herself an outsider, and now continuing the
fight from the shadows would have to satisfy her forever.
As for the satisfaction glowing through her body
tonight . . . She steeled herself against the faint after-sex pang
and pleasure. If Liam could stand there and glower in his shirt
with a handful ripped out of the front, then she could cultivate a
demon-slaying ’tude.
She cocked her hip to kick off her new look. “So
now what?”
His hand scraped through his hair to reveal the
mark at his temple. “Hell if I know.” Then he seemed to realize he
was losing his composure. “You survived the transformation, so we
add you to the league register with your demon’s subclass. Then I’d
like to see what we can learn about that bracelet, so don’t let it
out of your sight. And you still haven’t picked out a
weapon.”
She eyed him disbelievingly. “I’m possessed by a
demon, and we’re going to do paperwork?”
“Paper, rock, or scissors, I don’t care what you
use against the horde-tenebrae,” he grumbled.
She blinked. “Ooh-kay. I gotta pee.”
As she walked away, she swore she heard, “Well,
that won’t work against them.”
The bracelet clanked against the porcelain when
she gripped the sink and stared into the mirror. Did she see a
glimmer of the demon in her own eyes? Nope, just a wink of light
off her nose ring. She switched it out for a tiny sapphire stud to
match her hair color. No sense getting her nostril ripped in some
demon scuffle.
She slicked on some cherry lip balm and worked
more gel into her hair. She doubted the spikes were much defense
against anything either, but at least she felt a little taller. She
needed to get her boots back on too.
When she returned to the living room, Liam stood
staring out the window, a tumbler of water in his hand. The
streetlamp outside, shining through raindrops on the glass, added
spangles of light to his pensive face.
For God’s sake, the man killed monsters for a
living. Was being with her so terrible?
And why did she care what he thought?
Anger prickled through her, adding sharp edges to
the room despite the low light. The lingering scent of sex prodded
her temper even higher. This must be what Liam meant when he talked
about the demon rising.
He glanced back at her. From the glint of violet
in his eye, she knew he was responding to her simmering
violence.
“Let’s go, then,” she prodded. Anything to get
away from the scene of the crime.
He took a long drink of the water. She couldn’t
help but trace the line of his throat with her eyes. With the rain
behind him, her overwrought senses tricked her with the feel of
cool water in her own mouth. She swallowed hard to clear the
sensation. She wasn’t interested in living in his skin, no matter
how good he had felt moving against her.
She’d seen how being wrapped in another person
only led to both souls smothering. She could only imagine how much
worse it was when the demon-pocked souls in question had all the
structural integrity of a Star Trek
spaceship at the forty-eight-minute commercial break.
In two separate bubbles of silence, they
descended to the street.
To Jilly’s relief, the herb shop was closed, and
Lau- lau was nowhere in sight.
Liam stalked across the street toward a dark town
car. Jilly hung back as the window went down, but Liam seemed
unsurprised.
The man inside studied them. “Lost the
audio.”
“Technical glitch,” Liam said.
“ESF readings caught the spike. So she made the
transition.”
Jilly angled closer. “ ‘She’ is a badass
demon-exterminating mama now, heading for another shopping spree in
your weapons room, who hates being talked about like she’s not
here.”
The man lifted one eyebrow. “But doesn’t mind
referring to herself in the third person.”
After a moment, she grinned. “Presumptuousness is
okay when I’m doing it. I’m Jilly.”
His dark brown eyes glinted with amusement.
“Archer. Sera’s mate.”
It was her turn to lift an eyebrow. “Mate.”
“She’s still working on a scientific term that
doesn’t make me want to smash something.”
“I’ve heard compromise is the heart of any good
relationship.” She tried to sound encouraging.
He just shrugged. “She is my heart.”
The flat finality of his voice—leaving no room
for argument—set her back a step. To proclaim himself with such
irrevocable simplicity . . . For a heartbeat, she thought she could
hate Sera, and not just for her size-four ass.
Liam growled under his breath and opened the car
door. “Come on.”
She slid in and was relieved when he closed the
door gently and went around to the front passenger seat. The town
car was big, but not big enough. She wanted her space.
Liam hadn’t said anything to her about
mating.
She caught Archer’s glance in the rearview mirror
and focused her attention out the window. But she eavesdropped
shamelessly as Liam made a half dozen calls organizing what sounded
like a covert tactical sweep of the city’s least loved
neighborhoods.
“I’m not coming back before everyone heads out
tonight,” he was saying. “Send Jonah to check the data recorders at
the haint clusters. The mass at Pickers Park had an odd moment this
afternoon and I want to catch if they’re tweaking on something
we’ve missed.” He paused, listening. “Just odd. If I knew why it
was odd, I wouldn’t have to send Jonah, now, would I?”
She snorted to herself. There was more to that
story, but if he didn’t want to explain the kiss, she’d never
tell.
He closed the phone with a snap. “Drop us off at
the Coil.”
Archer’s gaze snapped between them. “Little late
to go the drinking route.”
Archer knew, of course, Jilly realized. He’d gone
through the same experience with Sera.
Fury pulsed off Liam in palpable waves. “It’s
never too late for a drink or a fight, and the Coil is always good
for both.”
His unfocused anger seemed to spill into Jilly’s
space, begging to be picked up and stoked high. She’d worked with
enough wayward teens to recognize that pointless spiral, where no
one could reach outside the shattered expectations and hurt. She
wouldn’t get trapped with him.
But she wondered how a man as strong and
dedicated as the league’s leader could subtly remind her of a lost
and frightened child.
Then she steeled herself against the yearning to
soothe his ire. Her mother had catered to a string of men like
that; not a heritage Jilly was interested in perpetuating,
especially with the eternity angle. He wasn’t one of her unofficial
wards; if anything, she was one of his. When Liam glanced over the
seat back at her, she studied her nails as if the slightly ragged
blue paint held the secrets of the universe.
He straightened in his seat with a muttered
curse.
As she’d surmised, the Mortal Coil was a bar, but
she hadn’t thought it would be so trendy. Liam seemed more a
pint-at-a-pub man than a vodka-martini-by-the-dance-floor
boy.
The neighborhood around them was in flux, torn
halfway between art gallery and pawnshop—one loft balcony was
strung in delicate paper lanterns, while the one below had been
tagged with an illegible scrawl of gang sign. The place seemed
poised to pull itself out of the muck. Or collapse again and
die.
Despite the sketchy surroundings and early hour,
a line of shivering hipsters snaked halfway down the block. Archer
stopped the car at the front of the line.
Liam stepped out and opened the door for her. She
got out, felt the weight of stares on her
less-than-red-carpet-ready self. Liam nodded to the bouncer, who
returned the nod, and they slipped inside.
She glanced back as the neon and heat of the club
enveloped them. “Does he know what you are? He can’t have guessed
you’re anyone, not with the crappy cars you drive.”
“The league’s investments have seen better days,”
Liam admitted. “But his boss still likes to see me.”
She persisted. “Does the boss know what you
are?”
Liam hesitated. “She knows more than she lets on.
About many things. Which is why I want to talk to her.”
Though the stuffy darkness of the club was
utterly different from the open chill of the park, Jilly was
uncomfortably reminded of the soulless cluster by the way this
crowd also stood in random array, absorbed in their drinks and the
blue-green glow of their cell phones. She sheltered behind Liam’s
height and let the flare of his duster clear a path to the
bar.
He wedged a hip between two patrons and made a
place for her under his arm. She gritted her teeth at the casually
possessive gesture and slipped in, since she wanted to hear the
conversation.
Her gaze skipped over the two bullet-headed
bar-tenders and went directly to the curvaceous woman whose red
beehive was just a few shades off her red baby-doll tee, so that
she seemed to vibrate at that end of the spectrum. Her eyes behind
the cat’s-eye glasses, however, were almost eerily devoid of
color.
“She’s blind,” Liam murmured. “Don’t let that
fool you.” He raised his voice. “Bella.”
The woman took a few steps down the bar, overshot
them, then edged back again. “Liam, darling. How good to see you.”
Her smile was sharp, bordering on cruel. “And who is this charming
little thing with you tonight?”
Jilly shifted, wishing there was room to move out
from under Liam’s arm. She hated feeling petite. Almost as much as
she hated feeling laughed at. “Hello, Bella.” She resisted the urge
to add “Lugosi.” No self-respecting vampire would keep that hairdo.
Maybe the woman couldn’t see, but she was as blind as a vampire was
vegan.
Liam dropped his hand to her shoulder as if he
sensed the snark-attack coming on. “This is Jilly. I was hoping
you’d have a minute to talk.”
“Have you brought her for my blessing?” On the
word “blessing,” Bella’s smile widened. “Or will you be busting up
my bar like you do with your boys?”
“Just talk,” Liam said.
Bella lifted her face as if to scan the room.
“It’s quiet for now. Let’s go in back.”
Considering the techno beat coming from the dance
floor, it wasn’t quiet at all even in the cramped storeroom. A
spindly chair next to an overflowing ashtray was the only seat
beside the cases of liquor bottles, and Bella settled herself there
with a sigh.
She kicked off her Mary Janes. “Sorry for the
stink, darlings, but my feet are killing me.” She smiled at Liam,
more coy this time. “Or are you here to tell me something even
worse is coming?”
“I try to keep you in the loop. You’ve been good
about the men blowing off steam here.”
She reached unerringly for a pack of cigarettes
and a lighter on the shelf behind her. “You always pay the damages,
and your boys—even at their worst—tend to
keep those even-worse things at bay.” She tapped up a cigarette.
“So what is it this time?”
“I’m hoping you can tell me. When I warned you to
keep the solvo out of here, you’d already noticed there were . . .”
He hesitated. “Untoward effects.”
Her expression was shuttered. “You don’t stay in
this business long if you can’t tell the difference between a drunk
and a real danger. I knew solvo was no good-time club drug.”
“You’ve been keeping track of the addicts. Jonah
saw you at one of the clusters. Why?”
She pursed her lips, rouged yet another shade of
red. “They interested me.” When he waited, she shrugged. “I find
them very peaceful. Like watching fish.”
Jilly jerked once.
Bella angled toward her, the upswept corner of
her glasses catching the light from the bare bulb hanging overhead.
“You think that’s sick?”
“You could do something
instead of just feeding off them.” Jilly bit off the rest of the
words.
Bella turned back to Liam. “She is very new on
your crew, isn’t she? What do your boys think of your fresh
meat?”
“It’s not like that. Besides, the shine wears off
quickly.” He rubbed the mark at his temple as if, Jilly thought, he
could feel her dagger glare. “I want to know if you’ve seen
anything odd in the clusters lately.”
Neither he nor Bella seemed to think his choice
of “seen” was inappropriate. Jilly realized he was willing to make
use of any resource, however weird—or more
weird, she supposed—to pursue his mission.
Bella tilted back in the chair. “I haven’t been
out lately.”
“Fish get boring,” Jilly growled.
“After a while, you get the sense they might be a
little more like waiting piranha. Then they do not seem so
peaceful.”
Liam perked up. “Piranha? Did you see—?”
“Nothing,” Bella said. “Just an impression. But I
can tell you there’s more solvo on the street now than ever. James
tosses out at least one pusher a night, and if I eighty-sixed
everyone at the bar who shows signs of having indulged . . .” She
shook her head. “But you’ve never told me why it’s so bad.”
“I didn’t have to tell you,” he reminded her. She
made a moue of displeasure, but he went on. “Just keep an eye out,
okay, and get word to me if you get the heebiejeebies.”
Bella’s smile returned, more calculating than
ever. She flicked the lighter. “I’ve got your number,
darling.”
On their way back past the bar, she poured three
different drinks, her hands picking deftly among the bottles. “On
the house this time,” she said as she tipped back her own glass and
returned to her work, the cigarette behind her ear.
Liam and Jilly took their drinks and continued to
an empty spot along the railing overlooking the dance floor.
Jilly looked into her glass and snorted.
“Absinthe. How chic.”
“Speaking of which, now that you’re immortal,
don’t you think you’re too old for blue hair?”
“Even if you’re immortal, don’t you think you’re
still too young to be such a drag?”
He took a draft from the pint of dark beer Bella
had drawn him. “I’d look terrible with blue hair.” The tip of his
tongue caught the faint shimmer of foam on his upper lip.
She froze at the pang of lust that arrowed
through her. Damn, how could she blame that errant sexual escapade
on saving her life if she wanted a repeat performance now with no
excuse? She downed her evilly green glowing drink in one swallow.
The herbal astringent puckered her throat and she made a
face.
Liam was watching her. “How are you
feeling?”
“Better.” When he raised an eyebrow, she realized
that might’ve been a little insulting. She let it stand. “Why’s
Bella so odd?”
He gave her another look. “She who is possessed
probably shouldn’t throw stones.”
“I’m not stoning her.” Although the thought held
a certain appeal. “Is she human?”
“As far as I can tell. I’ve been wondering if
she’d serve as our new Bookkeeper.” At her questioning sound, he
explained, “The league has always had an outsider, not talya, who
acts as historian and researcher and sometimes our last connection
to the worldly realm. We’ve been without a Bookkeeper for some time
now.”
At his suddenly forbidding tone, Jilly asked,
“Did the last one die?”
“Unfortunately, no.” He didn’t elaborate. “Bella
guesses that we are something more than we seem. And she has hinted
at connections that could be useful to the league, underground
resources that keep us out of the everyday eye.” He returned his
attention to Jilly. “I hoped having you along would make her more
comfortable about joining the crew, knowing there are other women.”
He scowled. “When I make Sera come here, she makes me dance.”
Jilly smiled, picturing his lean self in a white
leisure suit, busting a Travolta. Then her amusement faltered. “I
bet you’d have fine luck with Bella if you came by yourself and
offered her a place in your . . . league.”
“No need to insinuate,” he said. “Bad enough
having female talyan, which at least has precedent if I’m willing
to go back a few thousand years. A female Bookkeeper goes against
our entire history.”
“Your history is not your future. I tell—told the
kids that all the time.”
“I am not one of your naive runaways.”
“No.” Jilly pushed her glass away.
Liam stared into his beer, as if he might find
answers there instead. “Still, you’re right that what has worked
before isn’t working now. I’ll do whatever I must to lead the
league into these new dangers.”
Into danger, she noted. Not out of. But she
supposed that part hadn’t changed. “Even if that means accepting
the inevitable woman or two. How open- minded of you.”
Violet flared across his eyes, more intense than
the strobe of the club’s pulsing lasers. “Our last Bookkeeper
betrayed us and lost his soul and his mind in a very bad bargain. A
friend of Sera’s found a place for him among the angelic host. But
he’s alive simply because, without his soul, he can’t die.”
She let his anger wash over her. From experience,
she knew better than to cut short the words now that he’d
started.
Sure enough, he went on. “Sickeningly, I take
some consolation in his predicament because at least he brought it
on himself. The others, the talyan, I send
out to their pain and destruction.” His voice dropped, which only
underscored the anguish rather than fed the anger. “They go out and
suffer and die on my word.”
She sat in silence with him for a minute. “As I
understood it, they go out because it is their destiny, one they
absorbed with the demon. Unless your demon double was there for all
their possessions too?” She gave him a wry look.
After a moment, his lips quirked. “None of the
men mentioned it.”
“Then maybe you’re assuming a little more guilt
than is due you.” She kept her tone neutral. “I’m sure you can lay
claim to enough wickedness without that.”
He finished the beer in a long gulp and thumped
the glass down with extra force. “You are teasing me.”
“I don’t tease.”
He swept her with a glance that shifted from
violet to a smoldering blue. “No. I guess you didn’t.”
He was trying to distract her. The heat that
traced over her skin sank deeper, into her bones, like a hook that
drew her helplessly to him.
But she was not helpless. Hadn’t been for a very
long time. She refused to contemplate how the demon playing on that
fear had gotten her here. Could a discord demon play at all, or
would it be out of tune? The fleeting, irreverent thought gave her
the impetus to lean along the railing and put her hand on his arm.
The shock doubled back along her nerves, but his eyes widened.
Good.
She met his gaze, dark not with the rising demon
but with desire. The sparks between them snapped a little higher.
Then she deliberately removed her hand, letting her fingers trail
up his arm for a heartbeat. “I just wanted to remind you, Liam,
sometimes it’s not all about you charging in and taking
command.”
His eyes crinkled with sudden amusement. “I can
hold back, let someone else go first.” He wrapped his long fingers
loosely around her elbow and reeled her closer. “Didn’t I?”
The darkness of his long coat around his wide
shoulders made a private space at the crowded rail. While she
struggled to decide whether she was more annoyed by his male
arrogance, insolent manhandling, or the fresh jolt of lust that
shot through her, he said, “Now let’s see what you can do.”
She stared up at his mouth, remembering the graze
of his lips on her skin. “Here?” The boss man was kinkier than
she’d guessed.
“No horde-tenebrae here,” he said. “We’re done
with our drinks. Next stop, draining a malice.”
She jerked her gaze up to his eyes. He hadn’t
grabbed her arm just to continue their touchy- feely moment. He was
studying the bracelet peeking out beneath the cuff of her jacket.
The silvery metal seemed to absorb the light around it, deadening
the air.
Yeah, it sucked all right. “The horde. Of
course.” The reason they were here. The reason he was here with
her.
The memory of the headless feralis in the alley
snuffed the embarrassed heat lingering in her cheeks as they left
the club, Liam cutting a swath through the crowd. It would never
occur to him to think of leading her on. He’d simply lead and
expect her to follow.
And it was one thing to think about taking on a
trio of ferales with a box cutter when she was in crisis- hero
mode. It was something else to head out, stone-cold sober despite
the wimpy absinthe, with the intent to slay demons.
They passed the bouncer with another man-to-man
nod from Liam. Would she ever master that distant coolness? Or did
one have to have a big, dangling . . . hammer to pull it off?
She stopped and turned on her heel to face the
bouncer, her jacket only half zipped. “Bella mentioned you’ve had
to toss some solvo dealers lately. You confiscate any fake IDs? I’m
missing one of my halfway-homeboys.”
The bouncer looked her over as he passed another
couple into the bar. His gaze lingered a moment on the neckline of
her T-shirt. Then he dug through his back pocket and brought out a
fistful of IDs. “We hand ’em over to the police once a week.”
She shuffled through the cards. “I don’t see him.
It was a long shot, but thanks.” She handed back the plastic stack
with a smile.
Liam fell into step beside her. “What was that
about?”
“Those were some pretty half-assed fakes. Not a
competent lamination in the bunch.” When he lifted an eyebrow, she
shrugged. “I worked with budding juvenile delinquents, remember? I
know my fake IDs. I’m guessing bouncer boy tosses the wannabes and
passes at least a few of the pros for a cut of their profits.” She
slanted a glance at Liam. “I wonder if Bella knows.”
His brows drew together. “She knows how dangerous
the desolator numinis chemical is.”
Jilly gave him a look. “Anyway, now we have a
line on the dealers we can follow.”
“Follow to what?”
“To what got Andre, to the source of solvo. Or at
least a step closer.” At his deepening frown, she continued. “To
get solvo off the streets.”
“That’s not our primary goal.”
“To end evil—”
“We battle demons.” He strode ahead, forcing her
to hustle to keep up with his long stride.
“Solvo dealers are
demons,” she pointed out.
“Of the human kind. We’re more literal
minded.”
“The definition of insanity is hoping for
something different when you’ve been doing the same thing over and
over for—”
“For eons. Since the dawn of man.”
They passed below a broken streetlight. In the
shadows, the edge of his jaw and cheekbone seemed harsher.
“Of man,” she reiterated. “Not woman. You said
female talyan just appeared on the scene.”
“Reappeared,” he said reluctantly. “We have old
texts mentioning them. Just nothing recent. And by recent, I mean
eons.”
“You said you were willing to do anything. You
even did me—”
He slammed to a halt. “You have no idea what
you’re talking about, what we’re up against. Just like you never
really knew what those kids were facing, even though you were out
on the street every day. At least Sera had a degree, and she was
just helping people die. What makes you think you’re ready to fight
the power if you don’t know how to wield it?”
Each accusation snapped her like a whip, cutting
deeper. She stumbled a step back, as if she could avoid his words.
“If you think I’m so useless, why am I here at all?”
“Ask your demon. Oh, wait. You can’t, since it’s
trapped inside you. You have no one to ask except me.” He
straightened to glare down at her. “And I’m telling you, all that
fury you’re beaming at me is about to bring down a world of hurt on
both of us.”
“What do you—?”
A malice boiled out of the alley, another up from
the sewer grating in the gutter, still another down from the
shattered light. A flood of oily black smoke swept around them at
knee level. At the stench of rotting egg, tears poured from her
eyes.
With a strangled curse, Liam grabbed her hand and
leapt onto the roof of a battered sedan parked at the curb. They
landed with a thump, and the peeling vinyl of the rooftop shifted
under her boots. She kept hold of his coat and scrambled to right
herself.
The malice milled for a moment, as if they’d lost
the scent.
“I hate it when I’m so right,” Liam
murmured.
The malice swirled into a horizontal funnel cloud
of blackness. The open maw stretched wide enough to encompass the
car itself.
She clutched his coat tighter. “You said malice
traveled in small flocks.”
“And you said you wanted new.” He shrugged under
her grip. “Since when are you so clingy?”
“I’m looking for your hammer.”
“Xiao-Jilly, now is
really not the time.”
She would gladly have knocked his head off. “A
swing and a miss, you jerk. We’re about to get massacred.”
“No material weapon can stop them. We have to
match our demonic emanations to theirs and siphon them off
etherically, but I have never seen a mass formation like this. One
by one, my ravager could overwhelm this lot in a night, maybe two,
but all of them together . . .”
“There’s something you can’t do? Any other time,
I’d be fascinated, really. But about plan B?”
“I’m hoping that will come to me in the next few
seconds.”
Then the maw, all obsidian razor claws and
sparking crimson eyes, closed over them.