“I should hate him.”
“You have every right to feel that way.”
Her arms were crossed tightly over her chest and I couldn’t help but notice her eyes were now glistening. “I’m not like those girls who are into guys who treat them like crap. I see it all the time, some of my friends are so pathetic when it comes to loser guys who obviously don’t really love them. They cheat on them, hurt them, treat them like garbage, borrow money from them and never pay them back...and yet as soon as the guy texts, they’re all excited again. Pathetic.”
“I have to agree.”
“I’m not like that.”
“Trust me, Jordan. I don’t believe you’re like that, either.”
A tear slipped down her cheek and she angrily wiped it away. “Then why can’t I hate him?”
My heart twisted. “I guess because real love’s not that easy to destroy.”
“That’s really stupid.”
“Yeah, it is.” I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “But you need to prepare yourself. Things aren’t going to get better for him. His soul is gone. He’s a gray—possibly the last one in the city. If the guys find him, it’s their mission to kill him. He’s a threat and he can’t be helped.”
“There has to be a way,” she whispered.
“I wish there was.”
She looked directly at me as we continued to walk. “Do you really mean that?”
I nodded. “I really do.”
And then I slammed right into Roth’s chest.
“Following me?” he asked when I realized what had happened.
He’d stopped walking, turned around to watch our approach, and I hadn’t noticed a damn thing since I’d been discussing Jordan’s love life, which was, quite possibly, even more complicated than my own.
I searched his face, my heart pounding hard. “Roth, I’m glad you stopped. You need to come back to the church. The guys are worried about you.”
“What about you, Samantha?” His face twisted into an unpleasant smile. “Are you worried, too?”
His tone could easily be described as the opposite of friendly.
“Actually, yes. I am. Look, I know what happened last night was horrible. It was hard for all of us. But you need to—”
“Shh.” He pressed his index finger to his lips. “Do you hear that?”
I stopped and listened. “Hear what?”
“Me not caring about your opinion. But thank you for attempting to give it to me anyway. Do you think you can fix everything with a few words? You’re a teenager, barely out of diapers. You could never understand how I feel. And I don’t really want you to try. Okay?” His cruel grin stretched. “But I am really glad you followed me, even if you brought a friend. Won’t matter in the end, I suppose.”
“And I thought the other demon was a jerk.” Jordan eyed Roth with distaste. “Color me wrong.”
I frowned. “You’re glad I followed you? What are you talking about?”
“He said you’d follow me.” Roth shrugged. “And here we are. Right where I said I’d bring you.” He turned around in a slow circle. “Okay, she’s here. I did what you asked. Let’s get on with it.”
I suddenly realized where we were. It was a grocery store—or at least, it used to be. It had closed down, the sign broken, the parking lot a large expanse of concrete and dark emptiness.
I’d seen this place before—it was in my vision.
My throat tightened. “What’s going on? Who wanted you to bring me here?”
A lone streetlamp still worked and cast a long shadow as the figure approached from the darkness. Other lamps along the street were broken or flickering.
“Beautiful star,” Seth said, a smile wide on his face. “You’re here. I’m glad.”
Part of me relaxed at seeing it was only him. The other part didn’t relax at all. Just the opposite. Especially after him having a starring role in my after-death experience. “Seth...what are you doing here? You know Roth?”
He raised an eyebrow and glanced at the demon. “It’s a very recent development, but yes.”
I scanned the length of the fallen angel. His clothes were dusty and torn, just like usual. His beard seemed even thicker than the last time I’d seen him, the night we’d been at Ambrosia. The strange marks on his arms I’d noticed before had grown even darker and larger. They also trailed up his throat now.
“Um, who is this dude?” Jordan asked, scrunching her nose.
“This—this is Seth,” I said. “He’s a fallen angel who’s been in Trinity a long time. Seth, this is Jordan.”
“Charmed,” Jordan said as insincerely as possible. She eyed Seth as if he was something she’d found stuck to the bottom of her shoe. “Can we wrap this up? I really want to get back to my car and go home. I suddenly feel the need to have a long shower.”
“Seth, what’s going on?” I asked. “You never stick around very long to answer my questions, but I have a lot of them. Why did you want Roth to bring me to you? What do you need to tell me? Have you seen something that might help us?”
“Help,” he murmured. “Yes, that’s what this is about. I’m glad to see you’re better now. All fixed. All improved. Much more useful to me this way.”
A churning had started inside me. There was something going on here. Something worse than it seemed. Why couldn’t I figure out what it was?
Probably because of the one thing I’d always valued most about myself—my ability to be a realist. Even now that I knew that there were strange and magical things in this world happening all the time all around us, I refused to totally accept it. I needed proof. Needed evidence to support the data.
I thought I’d be a writer one day. Maybe a nonfiction one where facts counted more than fantasy. But that’s where my head had been for seventeen years. And right now, it wasn’t doing me any favors.
I had to think beyond what my eyes told me.
Right now, it had to be my gut I listened closest to.
“I dreamed about you,” I said, my mouth dry. “When I was dead for twenty minutes. My unconscious mind conjured you up in particular—all clean and well-dressed and totally sane. Why you?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Seth replied.
“That makes two of us, hobo guy.” Jordan tapped her foot. “Samantha, come on. Let’s go.”
“You’re not going anywhere,” Roth told her.
She gave him a withering look. “You really are a jerk, aren’t you?”
“You have no idea.”
“What’s your deal, anyway? Are you working for this weirdo?”
“You could say that.”
I frowned at Roth. “What does that mean? If you know Seth, why wouldn’t you bring him back to meet the rest of the team? He could help Bishop—they’re both fallen angels with souls to deal with.”
“It’s strange, really,” Seth mused, stroking his beard absently. “Almost funny.”
I tensed. I’d decided to listen to my gut and right now it was telling me something very important. Seth didn’t sound all that crazy tonight. And Seth always sounded crazy—except in my dream.
I looked directly at him. “What’s strange?”
“Why did you assume I was an angel?”
I tried to say something immediately in reply, but faltered. “Well, you told me you were.”
“No. I never said anything like that at all.” He cocked his head, studying me. “You made assumptions based on your dealings with the other angel, the one who occupied your thoughts so much that you barely even noticed me.”
“I sensed your soul.” I frowned, trying to remember what had been said during the first couple of meetings with Seth outside of Crave.
“They’re tricky things, souls. Meant to be a punishment far worse than being destroyed. Humans were meant to have souls. I had a soul when I was human, before I went through the transition and never had a problem with it because it was natural.” He touched his chest. “This one, though, that th
ey seared into me, has always been a challenge. But it’s also been very motivating.”
Seth had been on the streets long enough that there was no helping him with a touch, as I’d been able to do with Bishop up until tonight. His mind had been permanently messed up, his punishment for falling from...Heaven.
Or so I thought.
“Show me your imprint,” I said as firmly as I could. Some things I had to see to understand. To believe. Even when my gut was shouting at me that I already had more than enough proof to know what he really was.
He raised a dark eyebrow as if amused by my request, then turned a little, pulling up the edge of his dirty shirt to show the thick, dark lines of his bat’s-wing-like imprint—the imprint of a demon. My stomach lurched.
“See, beautiful star? I was never an angel. I would take it as a compliment that you assumed me to be one if I was fond of that particular breed of creature. But there’s only been one angel I could ever tolerate. Only one who could tolerate me in return.”
All I could do was stare at him.
Jordan fished into her purse to pull out her phone. Roth snatched it out of her grip and smashed it on the ground.
She shoved him hard, but it didn’t make him budge an inch. “You creep! That was brand-new!”
“I don’t care.”
“You owe me for a new phone.”
“Bill me. And shut the hell up.”
“Samantha!”
But I wasn’t paying attention to her, not to Roth, either. My attention was fully fixed on the demon in front of me, the one I’d assumed from nearly the first moment I’d met him was an angel...just like Bishop. One lost and abandoned by Heaven with no chance to return. No one to help him. No one to care.
He was an exiled demon.
“You’re a smart girl,” Seth said to me. “You already know the truth, don’t you?”
No, please. It can’t be.
I couldn’t have been this blind.
Then Seth moaned as if in pain, bracing his hands on his thighs, his back hunching over. With alarm, I looked down to see the strange, branching black lines move farther down to his hands and onto his fingers.
“What’s happening to you?” I asked, breathless.
“It’s a little sooner than I’d anticipated.” He laughed, a low, pained sound deep in his throat. “Oh, who am I kidding? This is a lot sooner than I’d anticipated, but sometimes, beautiful star, you must make adjustments when necessary. Quick like a bunny. Race to the end so everything can be tied up in a nice, shiny bow. Now, tonight. It will all happen tonight whether I like it or not.”
There was that mad tone of his I recognized more. “Who are you? Who are you, really?”
His gaze moved toward the cityscape to the left. He nodded at the huge outline of the hospital. “When I was first exiled, I woke up in the shadow of St. Edward’s. I took it as a sign that this was where my new life would begin. I wasn’t like the others, I didn’t accept that this was an end and that I had to make peace with losing my mind and losing my power for all eternity. There are always other choices, you just have to know where to look and be willing to do just about anything to achieve your goals. That hospital was my new birthplace. And inspired by that hospital, I was reborn as something much different than I was before.”
I followed his gaze to the tall building with its glowing sign like a beacon in the distance.
St. Edward’s Trinity Hospital.
Each capital letter was large and blue, while the rest of the letters were smaller and white and the now-obvious acronym burned into my eyes.
S.E.T.H.
“My original name was Nathan,” he said softly. “I’m your father, Samantha.”
Chapter 35
It wasn’t shock that hit me like a sucker punch to the gut over this revelation, but more of a sick, sinking sensation that left me cold and shaky. Part of me had already suspected the truth, but my rational mind hadn’t wanted to give it any conscious thought.
Seth wasn’t a fallen angel who’d been in Trinity for years and years while losing his mind to the point that he was stuck on the streets with no home to call his own.
He was Nathan, an exiled demon who allegedly controlled the Hollow and had vengeance as his number-one priority.
My father.
I was having a serious Luke Skywalker moment.
“He’s your father?” Jordan’s words dripped with disbelief. “Seriously?”
All I could do was stare at him—and I tried to use what little clearheadedness I had left to read his mind when he met my gaze directly.
I could read the minds of angels and demons; I’d done it before.
I could find the real truth beyond his twisting words before it was too late. Although, I honestly didn’t know how much more truth I could handle and still remain vertical.
His brown eyes, not quite the same shade as mine—but now that I was looking, pretty darn close—weren’t giving away any secrets. His walls were up and they were as thick as the concrete we currently stood on. It would take a long time to break through.
“So, I brought her to you like you asked me to,” Roth said tightly. “Time for your side of the bargain.”
“You bargained with him?” I asked, my voice quiet.
“I sure did.” Roth didn’t sound the least bit ashamed.
“For what?”
There was a pause before he answered. “For Cassandra.”
I couldn’t help but tear my gaze off the man standing before me to look at the other demon. He tried to hide it but I saw it, that bottomless grief in his dark eyes.
My throat was thick. “Cassandra’s dead.”
He shook his head. “No, she’s not. She was hurt, but she wasn’t dead yet.”
“The Hollow wouldn’t have taken her if she wasn’t a split second from death.”
“But now I know who controls it and can give her back.”
Right. That would be Nathan. “If he promised you that, he was lying. Cassandra’s gone. I wish it was different, too, Roth, but it’s the truth.”
Jordan had gone very quiet, standing off to my left. I wasn’t sure if she’d started trembling due to the temperature or from the subject matter. Likely both.
“Roth, you have served me well tonight,” Nathan said. It was time I stopped thinking of him as Seth, a name I associated with an angel I’d wanted to help. “You will be well rewarded when the time comes.”
“I don’t want any damn reward. All I want is Cassandra returned here like you promised.” His brows drew together. “Is Samantha right? Were you lying to me? Is she...dead? Forever?”
Nathan took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. He didn’t reply to Roth; instead, he directed his attention toward me again. “It’s difficult, being a demon who was once human. There are certain requirements for the job, very few all that pleasant. You know, I’m sure, all about the balance that must be maintained, don’t you, Samantha?”
“It’s all about balance,” I replied.
“So bloody important, this balance. What do they think will happen if something disturbs it? Will the whole universe implode?” Nathan’s lips curled under his beard into a very unpleasant smile. “No. Not the whole universe. Only Heaven and Hell. They believe they are timeless and immortal, but they’re dependent on souls. My sister messed that up—or at least, they saw her as a threat. My kid sister, a threat to Heaven and Hell. They think the same about nexi, Samantha, never doubt it. For two vastly different places, they have many similar goals. Keep the balance, follow the rules, toss out those who don’t toe the line. Destroy those who are a threat or make them too crazy to try to seek revenge.”
“And that’s what you’re doing. Seeking revenge.”
“They did this to me.” His jaw clenched and again he grimaced as if a tremor of unbearable pain rippled through him. The branching lines extended farther like vines traveling over his hands and up his neck to trace his jawline. “And they will feel my wrath like nothing they’ve eve
r known before.”
I swear, I felt a rumbling beneath my feet like a small earthquake.
Jordan’s gaze darted around as she tried to steady herself on what should have been solid ground. “What was that?”
The image of the city being sucked into the dark vortex made a chill race down my spine. This was the place. This parking lot. This is where the vortex appeared and took everything with it, leaving nothing behind.
Just how powerful was this demon?
“If that’s so, why haven’t you done it already?” I asked, swallowing my fear. “It’s been seventeen years since Anna was killed. Why have you waited this long for revenge?”
His expression tightened at the mention of her name. “You know about Anna.”
“Natalie told me a lot.”
“Of course she did.” His jaw clenched. “Natalie loved to talk. Seventeen years of endless talk. I was glad to finally be rid of her.”
Roth glared at the demon. “You made me a deal. Are you reneging on it?”
Nathan hissed out a breath. “Being burdened with a soul is not an easy thing. Sometimes the madness grips me when I stay here too long. It can’t be helped. If I don’t return to the Hollow right away, I have found other ways to cope.”
He reached out and gripped Roth’s throat.
The demon gasped. “What are you doing?”
Nathan’s eyes glowed red. “Coping.”
Roth dropped to his knees as if the strength had left him in a rush. And I could feel it like a tingling sensation on the surface of my skin—his energy. Nathan was stealing his life energy.
I grabbed Nathan’s arm. “Don’t kill him!”
“If I was trying to kill him, it wouldn’t take this long.” He released the demon who collapsed all the way to the pavement. “Trust me, beautiful star. I have full control over this power. And I have no doubt, you do, too.”
Roth’s chest heaved as Nathan loomed over him.
“The angel is lost to you. Forget her and move on. Trust me, boy, obsession of this kind will only destroy you.”
A moment later, Roth’s eyes closed and he slumped to his side, unconscious.
A cry of fear escaped Jordan’s throat and she stumbled back a few more steps.
Wicked Kiss (Nightwatchers) Page 35
