He leaned in and whispered low near my ear. “Did you consider my offer?”
“Yes.” My response left my lips on a whisper.
“Would you like to do that now, Genevieve?” One of his hands drifted to my hip. He pulled away enough to lock his gaze on mine, willing me to yield.
I opened my mouth to answer, but his expression hardened the second before he sifted me to the top of the steps. He opened the church door and shoved me inside, spinning to face off the enemy he sensed before my VS had even registered a demon presence. Thomas was indeed powerful. One hand on the open door, his broad shoulders blocked the entrance, not that the demon could enter sacred ground. I peered around his shoulder, staying within the church’s vestibule. Gorham stood at the bottom of the steps, a sinister smile creasing his face.
“Such a popular girl, Genevieve.” His flinty gaze shifted to Thomas. “You can’t protect her forever.”
The pale sky darkened to storm gray in a blink. An icy wind shifted the air; the temperature dropped twenty degrees. Gorham’s dark hair blew away from his face, revealing sharp angles and a devil’s grin.
Thomas didn’t move, a man of marble, fixed and cold and reeking of remarkable power. “I can do as I please, demon boy.” The emphasis on the word boy hardened Gorham’s features further. Thomas had serious balls to say such a thing to a demon duke.
My VS spiked, my underlight glowing under my skin, wanting to do its own damage, but Thomas kept his body between me and the enemy.
“Go, Gorham. Tell your master she is not for him.” The throaty sound coming from Thomas made me shiver. And somehow, Gorham obeyed his command, sifting away with a murderous glare still plastered to his face.
When Thomas turned to me, the ice was still in his eyes but not his voice. “Next time, Genevieve.” He didn’t touch me again but simply sifted away. Ten seconds later, Kat ran up the sidewalk, catching sight of me in the open doorway. She darted up the steps and pushed me farther inside.
“Smart idea, but how the hell did you outrun me?”
“I didn’t.” I walked to the holy water, dipping my fingers and crossing myself. I glanced at the white-stone altar up the nave, heading instead toward the statue of Mary and the row of votive candles burning at her feet, casting a golden glow in the shadowed recess.
Kat followed. “How did you get here?” An accusation rang clear.
I lit a candle and whispered a quick, silent prayer for my mother’s soul. I prayed she wasn’t barred from heaven’s gates for her sin of suicide. I prayed this often, needing to know she’d found peace on the other side.
“Genevieve?” Kat prompted me gently, her hand on my arm.
“Thomas brought me here.”
“He showed up again?”
I nodded, staring at the flickering candlelight.
“Well, at least he brought you to safety.”
“Yeah.” There was despair laced in that one word. She heard it.
“What is it, Gen?”
“Nothing.” I crossed myself again, staring at the candle vigil. “I’m just tired.”
Kat pulled me into a side hug. “Tired of running from demons?”
“Yes.” And tired of conflicting feelings about Thomas. I was debating whether to tell her about Thomas and his offer on the plane. On one hand, I needed an unbiased opinion. On the other, I wanted, no, needed the power he offered and feared she’d only talk me out of accepting it.
“Something else is bothering you.” The dim light cast a golden glow on her hair and face. “Did you tell Jude about him yet?”
“Tell me about whom?”
We both gasped and spun, finding Jude standing inside the doorway, his body a line of rigid muscle and tension.
“Um, did you get anything from Razor?” asked Kat, doing a poor job of changing the subject.
“Go, Kat.” His gaze remained on me.
“Okay. Sure.” She gave my hand a squeeze. “I’ll catch up to you later,” she said, sympathy on her face before she sifted out with a whoosh of wind that blew out three candles.
“About whom?” he asked again in such a quiet tone I trembled.
I stepped closer, clearing my throat. I wanted to cross myself again, needing one more prayer before I confessed my secret guardian. “Jude, I wanted to tell you that, well, I’ve been visited by my guardian angel.”
His face darkened further, his shoulders rigid as stone. “Your guardian angel.”
“Yes.” I twisted my hands in front of me, sensing his aura of flame building.
“And how often has this angel visited you?” Steel in those words.
“Three times.” I shook my head. “No. Four, including just now at the parade.”
Jude moved closer but didn’t touch me, his flaming aura skating along my skin.
“Four times you’ve been visited by an unknown Flamma, and you’re telling me now only because I forced you.”
The accusation, the truth that I’d hidden something, someone from Jude made me swallow hard. Beneath the veneer of anger in the hard planes of his face lay hurt.
“I was going to, but—”
“What’s his name?”
He instinctually knew my guardian was male, making me appear guilty for hiding his existence. I probably wouldn’t have hidden the existence of a guardian angel if Thomas was female.
“His name is Thomas. I was going to tell you, but I knew you’d be upset about him. So I-I’m sorry, Jude. I didn’t mean to—”
He shook his head and glanced away toward the altar of Mary and row of votive candles.
“I’m upset that you couldn’t trust me, Genevieve. And the reasons you decided to hide this from me. How do you even know he’s your guardian angel?”
His dark gaze found me again, full of the pain I’d put there.
“He told me he was.”
Jude laughed, a bitter sound that made my stomach knot. “And you believed him. How can you be so naïve after all you’ve seen? To simply believe whatever a Flamma tells you?”
“I’m not being naïve,” I snapped, becoming defensive he’d think me so stupid to trust blindly. “He saved me. Twice. Just now, as a matter of fact. He could’ve sifted me anywhere, but he brought me here.”
His glare turned murderous. “You sifted with him. Willingly.” Not a question.
“He’s…he’s always brought me to safety.”
“What I find even more interesting is that never in these times he’s apparently visited you have I sensed any fear from you.” He spoke of the unexplainable connection that existed between us. When I was in danger, he always knew, sensing my panic along this bond we shared. He always came to me when I was in trouble. “This means,” he continued in a cold tenor, “that you trust him, that you feel safe with him. Perhaps more.”
The last was an accusation I was just about ready to protest when a gray-haired lady, white veil perched on her stiff curls and a cane in her hand, poked her head around the corner into the vestibule. Putting a gnarled finger to her pursed lips, she shushed us. Jude opened the church door and stepped back for me to pass through. He made sure to stay far enough away to keep from touching me. My heart twisted.
“Jude, I’m sorry.”
He blew out a frosty breath, exasperation in every line of his face. And pain. The temperature had dropped again. “I know you are.” He zipped his jacket higher. “Come. I’ll take you back to the hotel.”
“You don’t want to talk about—”
He silenced me with a cold glance. “No. I don’t want to talk about him. I’ll find out if he is who he says he is. You can do as you see fit,” he said with a resignation I hated to hear in his voice, as if I’d chosen Thomas over him. “But I insist you use caution and not let yourself be caught alone with him again until I know if he truly is your guardian.”
He held out a hand for me to sift away. I placed my hand in his and stepped closer, forcing him to look at me.
“Jude, I don’t want you to think that there’s
some other reason I didn’t tell you about him.”
“Enough.” He closed himself off to me, growing more distant by the second. He squeezed my hand, not gently. “Time to get you back.”
We sifted away as the first flakes of snow began to fall.
Chapter Fifteen
After an exhausting morning of shopping and lunch at a midtown sushi restaurant, I begged Mindy to let me take the afternoon off. The Museum of Modern Art was nearby, and I desperately needed alone time. Kat and Dorian had been trailing us all morning, so I was well guarded. No sign of Jude. Of course.
I coasted past an exhibit of an abstract sculpture—a blob of bronze with malformed limbs, multiple eyes and three horns. For a split second, I wondered if the sculptor was a demon, mimicking the spawn of hell in this grotesque work of art.
Dorian leaned against a wall behind the exhibit, arms and legs crossed. He gave me a nod as I moved on, following a docent’s instructions toward the Impressionism exhibit. As I wound through the corridors, the quiet reflection of others as they stared in contemplation soothed me. Anxiety had rattled my nerves from the second Jude left me at the hotel after our unpleasant conversation in the church. I’d been restless ever since, hardly able to enjoy what was supposed to be a fun day of shopping with my best friend. She knew my heart wasn’t in it and gladly let me leave after lunch. Ironically, she assumed I was upset about my fake breakup with Jude in the airport. We weren’t broken up, but I’d hurt him. I’d told myself I was just waiting for the right time to tell him about Thomas, but the truth was that something about the angel pulled me. Not like Jude did, with burning magnetism that threatened to cripple me with longing. More like a gentle tug, promising safety in his arms.
I heaved a sigh and moved on past a monochromatic exhibit of modern art. Not my style. But my breath caught when I passed Van Gogh’s Starry Night. I stopped, but only fleetingly, recognizing the manic yet beautiful strokes of an artist going mad. Strokes I’d seen too often in my life, in my childhood as I watched my own mother falling into madness. I continued on, passing a lovely dancer by Degas—all innocence and beauty—and a colorful Victorian scene by Renoir.
I rounded a corner and froze, gazing on a wall-to-wall painting of Monet’s Water Lilies spanning at least twenty feet. My pulse slowed. My body relaxed. I stood at one end and drank my fill, inching along the wall to capture every nuance of color. Greens muted into purples which faded into gold and white puffy clouds, then transformed again to patches of vibrant blue and joyous green. One couldn’t tell where the sky began and the water ended, the reflection a seamless blur, one moving into the other. The canvas ended in darker waters—indigo, midnight blue, black—murky depths reflecting no light at all. I stepped back and sat on a bench in the center, marveling at such a piece and the calm, sound mind who created it. My heart clenched, wishing my mother had found solace in her art in the end. But she hadn’t. It had become a tool, a release for her madness, not a balm to soothe her anxious soul.
“Beautiful.” Kat sat next to me.
“Yes.” I smiled. “It is.”
She said nothing. Just sat and gazed with me. Other onlookers passed before and behind us while we looked on in silence. When my mind had found a place of peace, my body no longer knotted with nerves, I finally spoke.
“Jude is angry with me.”
“Possibly,” she said, arching an accusing brow. “He should be.”
“Thanks. I knew I could count on you to cheer me up.”
“If you want someone to blow sunshine up your ass, I’m not your girl.”
I sighed. “Yeah. I know.”
“But I can tell you this. I doubt he’s as much angry as he is just upset.”
“Awesome. That feels even better.”
“Gen, just give him a day or so. He’ll be fine.” She nudged my knee with hers in a friendly gesture. “But honestly, what did you expect? It’s like you were hiding a lover.”
I scoffed. “Please. You know that’s not true.”
“Do I?”
“Thomas is not my lover, nothing of the kind.”
“See. It’s even in the way you say his name.”
My God. Could she tell? If she or Jude only knew about the dream, the thoughts of his wintry scent wrapping my mind with some illicit desire, I’d die. This was just some angel infatuation or something. I gripped my opal pendant like an anchor holding me to Jude. These feelings of Thomas came unwarranted and unwanted.
A little girl stepped close to the Monet, reaching out with tiny fingers. “Don’t touch, sweetie,” said her mom, taking her hand and leading her on.
“At the church yesterday, before you got there, when Thomas told Gorham to piss off, Gorham told him he couldn’t protect me forever. It was like they’d met before or something.”
Kat shifted her gaze from the painting to me. “Really?”
“I thought guardian angels kept to the shadows. Isn’t that what you’d said?”
She fell into deep concentration. “They do, but it wouldn’t be unheard of that he’d stepped forward and made himself known to threats of yours before. Still…it’s not common either. Guardians protect through influence on humans. Rarely do they confront their enemies outright.”
Guardian demons, or lower demons, come out in droves to attach themselves to human hosts. But angels didn’t behave like demons. My VS hummed a warning. “So what does it mean that Thomas has become so visible recently?”
She fixed me with a grave expression. “It means he’s taking more interest in you than a guardian angel should.”
I blew out a ragged breath. “That’s what I thought.”
There was no denying his fixation had catapulted beyond protector. The look in his eyes and his sensual touch on the plane were enough to confirm the suspicion he wanted more than to keep me safe. Yet I sensed no danger. Well, not the kind of danger I’d become accustomed to—the threat of death and torture and pain. The true danger came from within me—the longing to follow his magnetic lure, to taste the bit of pleasure he promised with his eyes. I wondered if the temptation of Thomas had more to do with my frustration of not being able to fulfill my desires with Jude. I couldn’t figure out how he had me in such knots. I wanted to tell Kat again about his offer to give me the power to sift, but guilt and my own need to have that power kept my mouth clamped shut.
Kat stood, her movements stiff as if anxiety poured through her as it had me for the past few days. “Be careful, Gen. He may be your guardian angel, but that doesn’t mean he has all your best interests at heart.” She walked away, vanishing from the room, leaving me alone with Monet. I stared into the painting, finding myself reflected back in the blurred patches of light and darkness.
I wished Thomas would simply fade away. Another part of me wished he wouldn’t. He intended to give me the power to sift. I was afraid the temptation would be too great for me to resist.
Chapter Sixteen
Mindy and I meandered through the lobby of the Majestic Theatre, following Miss Donna and Mr. Bridges toward the staircase to our box. Mr. Bridges had indeed pulled out all the stops and obtained some of the coveted box seats, the best in the house.
Mindy looked terrific in her silky silver mini-dress. I’d decided on a one-shouldered floor-length in deep crimson with a high slit, both of which we’d found on today’s shopping spree. Once more I caught a glimpse of Dorian lurking in a corner, dapper in a black suit. He nodded and smiled his approval as we wound up a flight of stairs. At the end of a corridor, we entered the last of the isolated box seats, the one closest to the stage.
“Gorgeous,” marveled Mindy, taking a seat. Mr. Bridges and Miss Donna settled in behind us.
With red-cushioned chairs and gold trim on the banisters under warm chandelier lighting, the atmosphere was the perfect setting for our Broadway performance, The Phantom of the Opera. Excitement whirred in the gentle hum of voices as people bustled to their seats. Strains of the orchestra warming up floated to the balcony—bows acro
ss strings, horns sounding up the scales, a flute’s high trill. No sign of Flamma anywhere. Not even Dorian or Kat. They must be keeping their distance, watching from below. I pulled out the Playbill and flipped through it.
“Oh, he’s hot,” said Mindy, pointing to the actor playing the hero, Raoul.
I laughed. Mindy thought everyone was hot. “What about him?” I pointed to the masked phantom, his disfigurement not completely concealed.
“Ewww. He’s the villain. Of course he’s not hot.”
I sighed, gazing out across the sea of people, wishing it were that easy to pick out friend from foe. The lights dimmed. Mindy clapped her hands in excitement. A hush fell over the theatre as the play began.
A monochromatic scene of an auction unfolded where an elderly Raoul in a wheelchair reminisced about the opera house of long ago. When the grand two-ton chandelier was illuminated with a flash of lights and lifted above the audience, the stage transformed into a past where color, sound and song erupted into a cacophony of vibrant beauty. Enraptured by the play, my heart reached out to the Phantom. Cast out by society, darkened by circumstance and inhumanity, a genius turned monster due to a world’s rejection and isolation. The only way he could be loved was to steal it under the guise of the Angel of Music and capture Christine’s heart with a lie. By the time the chandelier crashed into the stage with a bang of pyrotechnics at intermission, my spirit felt heavy under an onslaught of emotions.
We meandered to the second floor lobby where Mr. Bridges brought us each a glass of house wine.
“Are you ladies enjoying the show?”
Mindy and I gushed our appreciation. He smiled and wrapped an arm around Miss Donna, whispering in her ear. They were a sweet couple, content with each other. For the hundredth time, I thought of Jude, fingering my opal pendant, wondering what he was doing. In between, my thoughts skated to Thomas, a compulsion I couldn’t seem to wipe away.
I sensed Kat. She hovered in the lobby behind a haughty group of women who were flashing their diamond-laden fingers as they prattled about the first act.
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