Текст книги "Sixth Grave on the Edge"

Автор книги: Даринда Джонс

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“No, the movie where that girl who gets possessed turns her head all the way around.”

“Oh,

The Exorcist

.”

“That movie was messed up.”

“Yeah, I can see the resemblance. Now, get her off me!”

He doubled over as the car came to a stop. The passengers couldn’t seem to get off the car fast enough. No idea why. The attendant stood there, waiting for me to disembark.

“Ma’am, do you need help?”

“Can you just give me a minute?” I asked.

“I have to load the next group of passengers.”

“Okay, you go get them, and I’ll just stand here and reflect on the beauty in front of me.”

Angel fell to the floor, laughing so hard, he had to draw his knees to his chest. Little shit.

“I’m going to beat you to death with a frying pan.”

“Oh, please,

pendeja,

you don’t own a frying pan.” He wiped his eyes and tried to sober. “That girl’s messed up in the head. Just heal her. You can make her cross.”

“I tried that. Now I have a girl stuck to my face. I can only barely see through her. How am I going to go through life with a girl stuck to my face?”

And again with the fit of laughs. The next group of passengers were boarding. I had to get off this car now. I gave it one more shot. I reached out to her, into her, let my energy meld with hers until I found her huddled in a dark corner of her mind. I wrapped my energy around her, cradled her, and coaxed her closer. That was when I felt it. The trauma of what had happened to her.

“If you’re staying, miss, you need to disembark now,” the attendant said.

“I’m staying,” I said breathlessly, the agony inside her seizing my lungs until she finally relaxed and slipped through.

She’d crossed, but when that happens, I see things. I catch glimpses of the departed’s life. What their favorite pet was or what their first snow cone tasted like. But I didn’t get that with this girl.

“Ma’am, I need to close this door. We’re on a schedule.”

I was still in the middle of her crossing. Images flashed bright hot in my mind, hateful and terrifying. The unimaginable things she suffered through had left her forever scarred, the abrasive texture of her memories undeniable proof. She’d been abused by her mother and ignored by her father, never seen, never cared for, and completely abandoned on the day he committed suicide, leaving her in the sole care of a monster. Even her brother ignored her, most likely because he was scared to incur their mother’s wrath as well. So, instead of standing up for his sister, he joined in, laughing when her mother called her stupid, turning a blind eye when her mother tripped her and she fell with a pot of boiling water. She’d burned her hands and face in the water. Those burns were still visible when she died.

These were the things I didn’t want to see. The things I couldn’t wash away, no matter how much scrubbing I did. Miranda—her name was Miranda—was the product of a failed system. While I didn’t see her death specifically, it was crystal clear she’d died at her mother’s hands in a way that was so horrific, so nonsensical, my mind rebelled, my stomach contracted, and the world pitched to the side. I stumbled when I tried to get off the car. Angel caught me and lifted me to him. No, not Angel. A man. At the moment, I didn’t care whom. I accepted the help, grabbed on to the tan jacket sleeves, and hefted myself up. I just needed to get through the worst of it. Despite everything she’d been through, the most prevalent emotion that she’d carried even into her death was a deep and abiding love for her brother. The same brother who looked the other way when her mother came at her.

I swallowed back bile as the images began to fade. Not that they would ever fade completely, but I needed to find Amber and Quentin. I would have fallen out of the car if not for the man holding me. The attendant hurried over, and I waved him away before pushing out of the man’s grasp and lunging toward the corner of the landing. I grabbed hold of the railing and proceeded to empty the paltry contents of my stomach onto the wood platform. Sinking to my knees, I almost hyperventilated as my stomach convulsed way more times than was necessary, dry heaving until it became embarrassing.

After a solid minute of that crap, I wiped my mouth on my jacket sleeve and took out my phone to dial Amber.

She picked up immediately. “Are you here yet?”

“I’m here,” I said, filling my hot lungs with the cool air of Sandia Peak. It was always several degrees cooler at the top of the mountain, and it felt good. Helped calm my stomach and clear my head until I could at least see to ascend the dozens of ramps that led to High Finance, the restaurant at the top of the peak.

“We’re sitting outside the restaurant, against the back wall. Please, hurry, Aunt Charley. Something’s wrong and I can’t understand him. He’s signing too fast for me to understand.”

“I’m almost there, sweetheart,” I said, bolting to my feet.

The man held out a hand and I looked up to thank him, only to come face-to-face with Captain Eckert. He’d followed me. Had he been in the same car? I never saw him. He was wearing a tan jacket and knit cap, clearly a master of disguise. Then again, I did have a girl stuck to my face on the ride up.

I could tell by the disappointment lining his features he hadn’t wanted me to see him. I longed so very much to confront him right then and there, but at that moment, I needed him.

“Come with me,” I said, grabbing on to his jacket again for stability. I dragged him until we were both running up the ramps, rushing past the sightseers enjoying the gorgeous scenery the Land of Enchantment had to offer. Eckert helped me every step of the way, catching me when I stumbled, picking me up once when I fell hard onto my right knee. My vision was still impaired by Miranda’s memories. I couldn’t quite navigate the uneven grounds right. The world tipped perilously onto its side over and over. I kept expecting the captain to ask me if I’d been drinking, but to his credit, he kept his mouth shut.

Angel was still there, too. He followed behind us.

Uncaring of anything the captain thought about me anymore, I spoke to him. “Go find them, hon, and tell me exactly where they are.”

“Already did.” He dashed past us and led the way. “Over here,” he said when we topped the stairs to the restaurant. He pointed and I rushed over to Quentin and Amber.

“Aunt Charley!” She ran into my arms. “I’m so sorry. Something’s wrong. He won’t talk to me anymore.”

Quentin sat against the back wall of the restaurant with his head between his knees, his arms covering himself protectively. Miranda had been creepy. I’d give him that. But this was more.

I touched his arm, but he didn’t respond.

“What’s wrong with him?” Amber asked. “We were just going to ride up here and look around, then be back before school let out.”

“When did he start getting upset?” I asked her.

“On the ride up. He got real nervous and then just kind of shrank into himself. He couldn’t look out the windows and kept waving me away from him. A lady asked me if he was afraid of heights, but he said he wasn’t.”

“No, hon, he wasn’t,” I said. I barely took note of the captain hovering nearby. Whatever he was up to, whatever he was planning, he could bite my ass. I rubbed Quentin’s shoulders, trying to coax him back to me while I fought the aftereffects of Miranda’s memories. I squeezed my eyes shut and shook my head to clear it. Her agony was so great, so all-consuming. She’d loved her mother so much and never understood why the woman who gave birth to her didn’t love her back. But the fault surely rested on her shoulders. She’d been so certain. She’d caused her own misery. She deserved it.

It didn’t matter now. She was in greater hands than mine. Hands that truly knew how to heal. He’d help her understand that none of that was her fault.

And if he was as just as I hoped, her mother would spend eternity burning for her transgressions.

I fought so many things at once. Pain, agony, helplessness, and anger. The anger was all mine. I clenched my jaw so tight, my teeth hurt.

After swallowing hard, I tried again with Quentin. “Angel,” I said, waving him closer.

“I’m sorry about that girl, Charley. I didn’t know.”

“I didn’t either, hon. But what can I do for Quentin?”

“I don’t know. He’s still alive. That’s not really my area.” When I turned back in disappointment, he said, “But he’s like the girl. He’s not thinking right. Maybe you could do what you did with her.”

I started to argue with him but stopped and rethought his suggestion. It was certainly worth a shot. I petted Quentin’s blond hair and let my energy gather in my core. Let it build and swell like a rising storm. But before I could send it out, Quentin looked up, his cerulean blue eyes glistening with fear and uncertainty. I let the energy inside me disperse and touched his handsome face. As though it took him a moment to recognize me, he furrowed his brows, then blinked and rushed into my arms.

We sat like that a long time, on the back deck of the restaurant, swaying to the music streaming from inside. Well, I swayed to the music. After a long while, I glanced at my gang. Amber was standing close by, wringing the knit cap in her hands. Angel was sitting against the wall next to us. He seemed very curious about Quentin, and I couldn’t believe I’d never introduced them.

Captain Eckert was leaning against the bright red railing that encircled the restaurant in thick wooden planks. It was a beautiful place and a stunning view.

“What’s wrong with him?” the captain asked.

I pasted on my best glare. “I’ll deal with you later.”

Though the captain wasn’t used to being treated so harshly, especially by one of APD’s lowly consultants, he didn’t argue. He didn’t threaten. He just stood there, observing, probably taking notes and weighing the possibility of getting me fired for mental instability.

After a while, Quentin finally pulled back and told me he couldn’t get on the cable car. He couldn’t go home.

“Is it the girl?” I asked him.

A look of surprise flashed across his face, but it didn’t last. He knew who I was, what I was, and that we had a lot in common. He nodded.

“I saw her, too,” I signed. “She was scared and lost.”

He gaped at me. “

She

was scared and lost?”

“Yes, she crossed through me. She didn’t want to at first, but I … convinced her. She was very hurt by her family.”

“They abused her?” he asked.

I nodded. “Bad.”

“Like hit her?”

“And worse. She was so scared.”

He looked down. “I could feel that, too. I could feel how dark her world was. How empty. It made my stomach hurt.”

“Mine, too, but how did you feel that?” I was beginning to realize Quentin could do more than just see the departed.

“I didn’t tell you.”

“So, tell me now,” I said. I reached over and ruffled his hair.

That got his attention. He smoothed it into place, peeking at Amber, then did the same to mine, ruffling my chocolaty locks while wearing a mischievous glint in his eyes. My hair was a mess anyway, so I just left it.

“If the spirit touches me, I can see how it feels,” he said.

“Wow. That’s crazy.”

“It’s messed up. I don’t like it.” He shrank back when he thought about it.

“I’m sorry. Sometimes the departed carry a lot of baggage.”

“Like suitcases?” he asked, confused.

I chuckled. “Sorry, hearing idiom. Like they have a lot of problems weighing them down.”

“Oh, yeah. Just like people, I guess.”

“Yeah, but that’s super cool that you can do that.” When he stabbed me with a dubious stare, I said, “Try it on Angel.”

“Screw that,

pendeja

.” Angel jumped up, but I took his arm before he could vanish on me and jerked him back down. “This is Angel.”

Angel graced him with the ever-popular head nod, then stuck out his hand to shake. Quentin shook his hand, then asked him, “Do you know ASL?”

Angel shrugged, so I interpreted.

“No, man, I’m sorry. I wish I did.”

I relayed that message but added, “He will learn.”

Angel’s brows shot up, and he nodded in agreement. “That’d be cool.”

“Okay, now that that’s settled, did you feel anything when you touched him?”

Quentin shrugged. “He’s pretty happy. It’s nice.”

“It’s because he has me,” I said, then winked at them both.

“I want to learn that stuff,” Angel said, now very into the idea. “You have to teach me.”

“I ain’t teaching you anything,” I said, speaking and signing at the same time. “Go hang with him at the school in Santa Fe. You’ll learn all kinds of signs.”

“That’s true,” Quentin said; then he looked up at Amber. The minute he did, she fell to her knees in front of us. “I’m so sorry,” he said to her.

“Please, don’t be,” she signed. I was so proud of her. She’d learned a lot in the last two weeks since meeting him. Kids. Freaking little sponges. “I understand. You see things I can’t. I want—” She struggled with the next words, then added, “—I want me and you to be the same. I want to see what you see.”

He frowned. “No, you don’t. It’s not fun.”

“I know it’s not easy. I’ve known Charley for a long time. She always tries to help dead people and gets in trouble. I wish,” she voiced but didn’t know the sign, so she started that sentence again. “I want I could help her.”

I made sure to put it into my next sentence so she’d pick it up. “I wish we were off this mountain. Your mother is going to kill me about fifteen minutes after the nuns trample me to death trying to get to you. They are all worried sick.”

Their guilt hit me in one rock-solid wave. Good. Served ’em right. Then a thought occurred.

“Wait a minute,” I said as we stood and gathered ourselves. “How many times have you two done this?”

“This is the first time,” Quentin said, his expression full of earnestness.

“I meant, how many times have you two skipped school?”

Their gazes instantly locked; then Amber’s dropped to the ground in guilt.

“Quentin!” I shouted. Or, well, signed really fast. “Amber is twelve years old.”

“I’ll be thirteen next week!” she said.

“I’m thirteen,” Angel said.

I ignored him. “You are sixteen, Quentin. That is so wrong.”

He gaped at me. “You think—?” He stopped and shook his head at me. “No way. She’s just a kid. We’re friends.”

Well, I’d put my foot in it. Amber winced at the pain that overtook her. His words had hurt. Clearly she thought they were more.

I turned to her and voiced my next words, holding my hand up to block Quentin’s view so he couldn’t read my lips. He tried to see past it, but I spoke fast. “He’s lying,” I said to her. “Whatever you do, for the love of all things holy, please don’t let your mother know you two have kissed.”

Quentin may have been able to hide that one, but there was no way Amber could have managed it. Guilt once again radiated out of her.

I gasped and turned to Quentin, appalled. “You kissed her?”

“What? No.”

Amber caught on. She stamped her foot. “Aunt Charley, you tricked me.”

I was still busy being appalled at Quentin.

He stuffed his hands into his pockets before he said another word.

“Wise decision,” I said before stalking away. Or trying to. The world toppled again and I tripped, flying headfirst into Captain Eckert. Oh, well. Better that than pitching myself off the side of a mountain. And he’d be fine once his cracked ribs healed.

12

I have a perfect body.

It’s in my trunk.

—T-SHIRT

I was still wobbly on the way down. Captain Eckert stayed close until he gave up and just wrapped one of his arms around me, holding me tight to his side as we descended. Not that the ramps were that steep. I was just that wobbly. Though the captain and I had a lot to talk about, now was not the time.

He held me all the way to the bottom of the tramway and walked me and the kids to Misery. I left him there with a warning scowl when he asked if I was okay to drive.

I dropped Quentin off at the convent to—just as I’d suspected—a horde of frantic nuns. They rushed out in one solid mass. They reminded me of penguins attacking. Our only hope was to drop into a fetal position and whimper. That stopped them in their tracks. Worked every time. Quentin didn’t follow my lead, but that was okay. I was very willing to sacrifice my dignity for the both of us.

After barely escaping with life and limb, I took a very nervous Amber home and dropped her at her door. It was on the way. Cookie was busy pretending to get ready for her date. Pretending to be oblivious of the fact that Amber was two hours late. She wasn’t the least bit angry. Fear and worry had swallowed any anger she might have had. The anger would hit later. Hopefully I’d be very far away when it did.

We walked back to her bedroom, where she was in the middle of spritzing perfume onto her neck.

“Mom?” Amber said, her voice thin and fragile.

“Oh, hey, hon. You’re late.”

Amber hesitated, then looked down at her feet. “I went to Paula’s house. We made cookies.”

And there it was. The spike of emotion I’d been waiting for, but instead of anger, I sensed a spasm of pain. She was hurt that Amber had just lied to her. “Go do your homework. I’m going out for a while.”

“’Kay.”

The little fairy princess shuffled off, feeling more miserable for having lied. She’d figure that out soon. I had complete faith in her. But Cook was hurt by her deception. No idea why. I lied to her all the time.

The second Amber was out of earshot, Cookie rushed to close her door and whirled on me. “What happened?”

“Sit down first.”

She did as I asked and I explained the entire event in detail, including the part about Captain Eckert. And what he’d been up to. He had to be behind all the panhandlers and the cop with the camera.

“What is that man’s deal?”

“I wish I knew, but I wanted you to be aware of the fact that Amber behaved beautifully, Cook. She never left Quentin’s side. And she’s learning so much sign. I’m terribly proud of her.”

“She just lied to me.”

“Yes, and I promise you, she feels worse about it than you do.”

She turned a hopeful gaze on me. “Really?”

“I give it a day. She’ll tell you the truth. She wants to talk to you about what happened so bad, Cook.”

The corners of her mouth crinkled in a relieved half smile.

I got up to leave. “Before I forget, I want you to find out everything you can about the girl in the cable car. Her name was Miranda Nelms. I want to know if they charged her mother and brother with anything.”

“Her brother, too?”

“Long story. You don’t want to know.”

“No,” she said, holding up a hand in lieu of a stop sign, “you’re right. I already know more than I want to. I’ll get on it first thing tomorrow.”

“Perfect. Are you ready for your date?”

And the apprehension was back in full force. “I just don’t know what to wear.” She tossed aside the pair of pants she’d been holding.

“I would definitely suggest keeping the pants, but you do what makes you most comfortable. Besides, your date is gay.”

Surprise lit her face, and the apprehension she’d been feeling dissipated. “That’s great. I don’t have to worry about impressing him. He wouldn’t be into me either way, right?”

“Right. He works for APD dispatch, but I doubt Uncle Bob knows him or the fact that he’s gay.” I snorted. “That would suck. All of our hard work would be down the drain if that were the case.”

“And you’re meeting Robert there, right? To make sure he sees us?”

I checked my watch. “In one hour on the dot. Are you okay with leaving Amber by herself for a while?”

“After what happened? No. I’m leaving the cop Robert sent over with her. And I’ve asked Mrs. Allen to check on her as well.”

“Cook, the last time Mrs. Allen checked on her, Amber ended up in the hospital.”

She nodded before saying, “It wasn’t Mrs. Allen’s fault. She was just trying to check up on Amber.”

“In the dark, with a her hair in curlers and a Scandinavian mud mask on her face. Amber tried to run from her and ran face-first into a doorjamb. I’ll never understand why Mrs. Allen didn’t just turn on a light.”

“It’s okay.” She patted my leg consolingly. “All the swelling is gone now, and I’ve asked Mrs. Allen to just knock and wait for the plainclothes to answer the door.”

“And you think that’ll work, do ya?” I chuckled. It sounded maniacal. It didn’t quite have that refined edge of psychosis that I was going for, but it worked. I pointed to her closet. “Pants? Not that I don’t appreciate a nice pair of pantaloons as much as the next girl, but most restaurants require they be covered.”

I gave Amber a hug before I left and suffered the long trek back to my place. Five steps later, I pried my door open with a hefty nudge from my shoulder, then stumbled inside when it gave. Reyes had patched it temporarily—at least I could open and close it now—but I’d need a new doorframe. That man did not know his own strength. Of course, he hadn’t considered the fact that my door had been unlocked when he decided to crash through it. I righted myself and stopped. Something was different about my apartment. What could it be?

Oh, yeah. My place had been ransacked. Son of a bitch. Every drawer I could see had been turned inside out. Every item I owned upended.

I jammed my fists onto my hips. “Mr. Wong! Didn’t we talk about this? You are the worst guard ever.”

The scene was strangely familiar. I went from room to room, but nothing else had been disturbed. Only the living room and kitchen had been upended. The intruder must have found what he wanted and—

Zeus!

I ran to my kitchen and tore through the knife drawer. Carefully, because it was the knife drawer. I figured hiding the dagger in a drawer full of kitchen knives was ingenious. I was wrong. It was gone.

It would seem that one Mr. Dealer of Souls had decided to visit while I was out. The little shit. He’d pay. Literally. I wasn’t cleaning up this mess. I’d hire a service or something, and make him pay for it. Damn it.

I picked up my bag and went to confront a demon in human’s clothing.

* * *

After finally getting Artemis to scoot over enough for me to fit in, I started Misery up and summoned Angel. I was headed to the last place I’d seen the Dealer and asked Angel where the Daeva lived. I’d assumed he lived close by where the game had been held. According to Angel, I was right.

Artemis decided my lap looked more appealing than the seat Mr. Andrulis had recently vacated. I was going to miss that man. As a result of Artemis’s fussiness, I drove down Central and up San Mateo with a fully grown Rottweiler on my lap until I reached a residential district off a side street. She caught sight of a cat—the horror!—and bound off me, using my ovaries, Beam Me Up and Scotty, as a launchpad. I had to admit, it hurt.

The Dealer’s house was nothing like what I’d expected. It was kind of nice, for one thing, with xeriscaping in front and rich terra-cotta walls with thick wood trim. I walked up to a carved natural wood door with a patina knocker shaped like a deer skull, but he opened the door before I could use it.

“I want the dagger back.”

A smile that was so pretty, it stunned me flashed across his face. The kid was gorgeous. No doubt about it. He wasn’t wearing the top hat. It sat perched on a wall hook just inside the door. And his long black hair hung just a tad past his shoulders.

He widened the opening. “Come in.” When I stood my ground, he added, “Please.”

Okay, he said please. How dangerous could he be? Conceding, I stepped across the threshold and said, “I mean it. I want that dagger.”

“So you can use it on me?” he asked, closing the door. “So you can sink it into my chest?”

“Duh.”

He strolled into the open living area. It was very plush with lots of beiges highlighted with a soft Mediterranean green.

It was hard to imagine he actually owned this house. While I realized he only

looked

nineteen, he still

looked

nineteen. He still looked like a kid who should be flipping burgers at Macho Taco—or, well, burritos—when in truth, he was thousands of years old.

“You own this?” I asked him.

“Nah.” He tossed a throw pillow aside and gestured for me to sit. “I killed the owners and ate their souls for breakfast.” When I deadpanned, he shrugged and said, “It’s a rental.”

“The knife.”

“What makes you think I have it?”

“Please,” I said, scoffing at him. “What if I promise not to use it on you?”

He sat in a wingback chair across from the sofa, stretching one leg out and hitching it on the bottom of a beautiful iron coffee table.

“I would offer you something to drink—”

“I would just decline it.” I sank onto the sofa.

“Figured as much. That knife could be very dangerous in the wrong hands.”

“Like yours? Is it dangerous in your hands?”

He didn’t answer. Instead, he studied me, a curious gleam in his eyes, and it reminded me he had a certain power. He was charismatic and charming, no doubt, but he also had a magnetism that went beyond the average supernatural being. The other demons I’d encountered were nothing like him. For starters, he didn’t have slick black scales or razor-sharp teeth.

“You can stop now.”

“What?” I asked, surprised when he pulled me out of my musings.

“Trying to figure me out.”

“I was just contemplating the fact that you don’t have scales and pointy teeth.”

“I wouldn’t be too sure about that,” he said, accompanying his statement with a dimple.

“How were you able to get the knife? Demons can’t even touch it without it infecting them.”

“Good thing I’m not a demon.”

Right. I knew that. Technically, he wasn’t a demon. “So, it won’t kill you?”

He lifted one shoulder in a half-hearted shrug. “I wouldn’t go that far.”

So, he could touch it, but it could still kill him. The same thing could be said about my relationship with knives. Or pretty much anything. Or anyone. “You said the knife had a glow to it. What does it look like in your eyes?”

“I don’t know. It just has this soft sheen that I could see even through your pants. Kind of what a human soul looks like.”

“Like an aura?” I asked.

“Well, yeah, but more like the soul itself.”

“Oh.”

When it didn’t sink in, he asked, “Can’t you see them? Human souls?”

“Not really. Not like you. Not until they’ve passed. Then I can see the dickens out of them.”

He straightened in his chair. “Surely you can see your own light. It’s blinding.”

I shook my head. “Not so much.”

“How can you mark souls if you can’t see them?”

That threw me. “Um, I didn’t know I was supposed to.”

His surprise turned to anger. “You’re kidding me.”

I reached down and waited for Artemis to appear by my side. She rose up from the floor into my hand. I scratched her head absently as the Dealer took her in.

“What is your name?” I asked, changing the subject. “I only know you as the Dealer.”

“Is that what you told her, Rey’aziel? That I was a Dealer?”

Only after he said that did I feel Reyes. He materialized more fully, and his heat rushed over me in a scorching wave. Naturally, he was angry.

He stood in his hooded cloak directly between the Dealer and me. “What are you doing?” he asked, his voice cold and hard like marble.

I rose to my feet, but Reyes still towered over me, his robes undulating around us. I couldn’t see his face within the folds of unending darkness that enshrouded him. “The Dealer took the dagger. I was trying to get it back.”

“You would come here, you would face this thing, alone? After everything we talked about?”

“Apparently.”

My humor did not amuse him.

I sighed. “Believe it or not, you are not helping this situation. I knew I’d have a better chance of getting it back without you here.”

“You have a better chance of losing your soul to him, that’s for certain.”

“Can you just have a little faith in me, Reyes? I’m not stupid.”

His cloak disappeared, falling around him in a cascade of smoke and fog to reveal his requisite jeans and a navy button-down with the sleeves rolled up, exposing his sinewy forearms. He looked really good. He walked up to me until we stood a couple of feet apart, coming dangerously close to invading my personal space. “That, my dear, remains to be seen.”

He continued forward, and just as we were about to touch, he dematerialized in a burst of smoke, his essence enveloping me for just a moment.

But I went from flirty to furious instantly. I looked at the Dealer. “He did not just say that.” I knew Reyes was still there. He hadn’t left. He wouldn’t, I knew. But he was giving me as much privacy as possible.

One corner of the Dealer’s mouth tilted up. “He has a point, you know.”

I sat down, my back stiff. “You’re on his side?”

“On this, yes, I am. You take your role too lightly.”

A sigh slipped past my lips. “My role in what? Taking down the monsters in the basement?”

“No. The only monster that matters. It’s imperative that you live.”

“It’s imperative that you give me back the dagger.”

“What will you give me in return?”

Uh-oh. “This is the bargaining part, right? Where you try to steal my soul?”

“If I wanted your soul, I’d have it.”

“I have to give it over willingly.”

“Oh, you would.” The grin that spread over his face was a little disturbing. “Quite willingly. It would be easy. Too easy. And that’s what makes me nervous.”

No one had any faith in me whatsoever. What would it take to convince them I was competent? Maybe if I stopped getting tortured and beaten up every few days. That would be a good start, anyway. I made a promise to myself. No more getting tortured for—I counted on my fingers—two, no

three

months.

“Why are you so invested in this?” I asked him. “What do you have against Lucifer?”

“The fact that he enslaved me isn’t enough of a reason?”

“Okay, that’s a pretty good one, but I’ve come up against his slaves before.”

“The mindless creatures who came after you? Do I seem mindless?”

“Not especially. Or you didn’t until you broke into my apartment. You’re paying to have it cleaned up, by the way.”

He lifted an acquiescent shoulder. “If I give you back the dagger, you have to do something for me.”

“And what would that be?”

“You have to let me be a part of this. A part of the fall of Satan.”

Sounded easy enough. “Look. You seem to know a lot about all of this. It’s been kind of like hands-on training for me. I just … what am I supposed to be doing? Reyes wants me to figure it out as I go, but—”

“Rey’aziel is afraid of you,” he said. “That’s why he doesn’t want you to know everything. That’s why he wants to put off your knowing everything as long as he can.”