“Well, that’s convenient,” Rosemary remarked. “At least I sort of know the area, although I haven’t done as much exploring in Pasadena as I’ve wanted to. It seems like most of the time I’m just shuttling back and forth between Michael’s place and the store in Glendora.”
“I’d like to see your store sometime,” Will said. “I always enjoy exploring a new bookstore.”
Her mouth lifted in a faint smile. “Then you’ll have to come over so I can give you the nickel tour. And that’s all it would be — the shop isn’t very big.”
“I like small bookstores,” he replied. “They’re cozier.”
She didn’t quite shake her head, but he got the impression she thought he was only saying that so she would know he’d never judge her by how big or impressive her business was. He’d been telling her the truth, however; he found smaller bookstores to be more carefully curated, and he had a feeling that Rosemary and her sisters had done a very good job of choosing the selections offered in their shop.
Actually, though, what he really could tell was that they were both making small talk because neither one of them wanted to address what had happened between them in his office at All Saints, a kiss that had forever changed how they felt about each other. Or at least, Will knew that things between them had shifted, that there was a then forever separated from now, and they’d have to decide for themselves what they wanted to do from here on out. He knew what he wanted, but, despite what Rosemary said back in his hospital room, he still wasn’t entirely sure how she regarded the current situation.
Or maybe he was misreading her utterly, and she was skating along the surface of things because she didn’t want to address the other elephant in the room, the one involving the Project Demon Hunters footage, now in the hands of the enemy. It felt strange to think of matters in such stark black-and-white terms, since Will had always counseled trying to see the good in people, to do one’s best to understand why a certain individual might believe or act in a certain way, and yet the enemy here wasn’t simply someone whose political or spiritual beliefs were diametrically opposed to his, but a man who had the blood of demons running through his veins. The fallen angels who inhabited Hell had been adversaries of mankind from the very beginning, and were the real enemies of anyone who followed the path of the light.
Because they were enemies, and of a race utterly inimical to humankind, he didn’t quite know what Caleb — and, by extension, his half-demon father — would even do with the footage now that it was in their possession. Possibly, it had already been destroyed. Or were they holding on to it because they thought it would in some way advance their cause? But that didn’t seem very plausible, since the footage only documented that demons were real…therefore proving that Heaven and Hell were also real, and God as well. It was hard to see how confirming the existence of God could ever help the demons.
Will’s head hurt too much to ponder that particular conundrum right then. Since Rosemary seemed content to let their conversation peter out, he sat quietly in the passenger seat and watched as she guided the Challenger off the 210 Freeway and onto Lake Avenue, then north toward the neighborhood of historic homes where his house was located.
After she turned left on Wilson, he said, “It’s number 1102 — up there on the right. The white house with the green trim. Just pull into the driveway.”
She followed his instructions and parked in a location where he could open his door and emerge right next to the walkway that led to the front door. “Hang on,” she said as she shut off the engine. “I’ll come around and help you out.”
Although he disliked the idea of being so incapacitated that he couldn’t even get out of the car by himself, Will knew she was right to be careful. He’d already jarred his brain enough for one day — a single slip, and he could be right back in the hospital.
So, he sat and waited while she got out and locked the door behind her, then came over to the passenger side of the car and extended a hand so he could steady himself as he rose from his seat. Her fingers felt impossibly slender against his, but he found himself surprised by her strength as he leaned on her arm while she locked the passenger door as well before slowly guiding him up the path to the front of the house.
Never before had the stairs that led from the yard to the porch seemed so tall. Leaning heavily on Rosemary’s arm, Will took each step with exaggerated care, until at last they’d reached the front door. Once there, he reached with his free hand to get the house keys out of his pocket. With some dismay, he realized how badly he was shaking — he couldn’t seem to get the key in the lock.
“Let me,” Rosemary offered, and she gently took the keys from his trembling fingers, making sure to keep the proper one extended, and inserted it in the lock. The door swung inward, and she helped him stumble across the threshold and into the cramped entryway.
Thank God his home had only the single story. When he’d bought it, he’d wished he could have afforded something bigger, but now he was glad that the small three-bedroom house didn’t have any stairs. He doubted he would have been able to climb them in his current state.
“Your room?” she asked, her gaze not quite meeting his. Well, he could understand how she might feel a little awkward about taking him to his bedroom. It was a place he would have liked to end up with her at some point, although he couldn’t have guessed that her first look at the room would involve her playing nursemaid.
He wouldn’t sigh. Things happened, and he’d get past this.
“Down at the end of the hall.”
She helped him through the living room along the hallway in question, and on into his bedroom. A brief pause as she reached for the light switch next to the door, and then they traversed the last few steps to the bed. Although he doubted she would have cared, not with much more important matters claiming her attention, Will was still glad that he’d performed his usual morning ritual of making the bed and putting away his dirty clothes, and that everything looked tidy enough. If you looked closely, you could see a faint layer of dust on the mismatched antique furniture, just because things had been crazy at All Saints lately and he hadn’t had much time for cleaning, but at least the place wasn’t a complete pigsty.
Another pause as she reached with her free hand to pull down the bedclothes, and then she turned to look up at him. “Do you need help getting your shoes off?”
While he hated to admit it, Will knew he probably did. Just the thought of having to bend over and undo the black lace-ups he wore made another stab of pain go through his head. “If you don’t mind.”
She shot him a dazzling — but brief — smile. “If I minded, I wouldn’t have asked. Go ahead and sit down, and I’ll take them off for you.”
He went ahead and carefully lowered himself onto the bed, and then she knelt down and untied his shoes and set them on the rug. For a minute, he wondered if she was going to ask whether he needed help getting out of his clothes as well — and what he would do if she did — but apparently she’d decided that the shoes had been enough, because she straightened and reached over to fluff up his pillows.
“It’s better if you stay sitting up,” she told him. “How does that work?”
While he understood the wisdom of not having him lie on his back, he wasn’t sure how comfortable the setup would be. However, once he’d gingerly scooted backward and leaned against the pile of pillows, he found it more relaxing than he’d thought. Also, his head didn’t hurt as much in this position. “Seems comfortable enough.”
“Good.” She hesitated, then said, “How about some tea? Do you have any in the kitchen?”
He did, because he tended to switch over to tea after he’d had his morning cup of coffee. “Yes, there are some boxes in the pantry. That’s where you’ll find the coffee, too.”
The mention of coffee made her appear a little more relaxed. “Thanks. I’ll probably need it to stay awake.”
She’d made the comment in the most neutral of tones, and yet he couldn’t help but experience a
small stab of guilt. Her day had been even more harrowing than his, and now she would have to stay up all night to make sure he didn’t sleep for longer than an hour or so at a time.
“I’m sorry — ” he began, and she shook her head.
“Don’t,” she said. To his surprise, she bent down and kissed him very gently on the forehead. “I’m doing this because I want to. It’s the least I can do, after you put yourself in harm’s way on my account. Just hang on for a few minutes — and I’ll be back with some tea.”
Another kiss, and then she was out of the room. A minute or two later, he heard her opening and closing a couple of cabinets, and then the sound of water running as she filled up the teakettle.
Even though his head hurt and he was starting to notice a whole host of other aches and pains, probably from taking such a hard fall on a wooden floor, Will couldn’t help smiling a little at the mental image of Rosemary bustling around the kitchen, getting the kettle going. It wasn’t so difficult to imagine the two of them in there together, making a meal or possibly cracking open a bottle of wine as they discussed what had happened to each of them that day at work. A certain warmth filled him at that pleasant daydream, a realization that he wanted such a scenario to be much more than just a fantasy.
He was getting way ahead of himself, he knew. That she’d kissed him again — even though those had both been very chaste, very delicate kisses — seemed to indicate she didn’t think she’d made a mistake, that she wanted him to know she also welcomed this new closeness between them. Even so, it was a big leap from a few kisses to imagining a life shared together.
Still, he wanted his thoughts to settle there for a time. It comforted him to think they might have a future.
All they had to do was make sure the demons didn’t get in the way of that future.
It was a little weird to be in Will’s kitchen without him, to have to poke around in the cupboards without any guidance as she looked for some mugs for their respective cups of tea and coffee. But everything was laid out logically enough, and the kitchen seemed remarkably neat for a man who obviously lived on his own. The only thing out of place had been a plate and a mug sitting in the sink, probably set there when he’d left in the morning, so many hours ago now. The tidiness made her feel more comfortable poking around in the kitchen; if the place had been messy, she would have been jangly, even more on edge than she already was. Obviously, Will wasn’t the kind of guy you’d have to nag to make sure he didn’t throw his socks on the floor.
As she was waiting for the kettle to boil, she rinsed off the mug and its matching plate, and put them both in the dishwasher. The appliance seemed newish, as did the gas range and the refrigerator, as if Will had replaced all of them a few years ago. Actually, although she guessed the house had to be at least a hundred years old, it looked as if the kitchen had been updated in the recent past, with butcher-block countertops and the cupboards painted sage green with a friendly weathered faux finish. Despite her jangling nerves, something about the space felt soothing, and she could feel herself begin to relax.
Not too much, though. She wasn’t sure they were safe here the way they would have been at Michael’s house, since she had no idea whether Will had any demon-repelling wards in place like Michael did. Or maybe the house was somehow sanctified because a minister lived here.
No, that was silly. This house wasn’t holy ground the way a church would be. Even so, she knew the knot of tension at the back of her neck had begun to ease itself once she was here at Will’s house and away from the hospital — although she jumped a little when the kettle began to boil, the noise startling her out of her reverie.
She’d decided to make Will some peppermint tea, since she wasn’t sure whether caffeine would be a good idea. The fragrant aroma as the tea steeped made the room seem that much more homey, although it was soon overridden by the heavier scent of the brew she had going in the no-frills Mr. Coffee machine that sat on the counter.
Soon enough, both the coffee and the tea were ready, and she carried the mugs — Fiestaware in cheerful shades of tangerine for the coffee and turquoise for Will’s tea — back with her to his bedroom. His eyes were closed as she entered the room, and she wondered if he’d fallen asleep already, but he opened them at the sound of her footsteps on the wooden floor.
“That smells good,” he said. His voice seemed a little stronger now, possibly because he sat in his own bed and didn’t have to expend any more energy than was strictly necessary.
Rosemary thought that must be a good sign. Yes, they’d need to be careful for the next twenty-four hours, but Will was a strong man in good shape, and he clearly was already beginning to bounce back from Caleb’s attack. “I made you peppermint tea. I hope that’s okay.”
“It’s perfect. Thank you.”
He took the mug from her and allowed himself a careful sip. Rosemary spied a coaster on the nightstand and set her coffee down on it, then went across the room to fetch a side chair that had been placed near the window. After bringing the chair over to Will’s bedside, she sat down and lifted the mug of coffee. It was still almost too hot to drink, but she blew on it a few times and took a very small sip. Strong and black and bitter — and yet still better than that crap she’d gotten from the vending machine at the hospital.
“How do you feel?” she asked.
His mouth quirked a little. “Like someone backed my car over me a few times. But I’ll live.”
And thank God — or whoever was running things — for that. A few more inches to the left, and he would have cracked his head against the wall as he went down instead of merely slamming it into the floor. Just pure dumb luck; she had a feeling Caleb hadn’t exactly been pulling his punches…or his glowing balls of fire, more to the point.
“Good,” she said, trying her best to sound casual. “I was kind of hoping you’d stick around for a while longer.”
Will smiled and sipped again at his peppermint tea. “That’s my plan.” His expression sobered almost immediately, though, and he asked, “What happened back there?”
Rosemary knew he wasn’t talking about the hospital. “We don’t need to talk about that right now. You should rest.”
“I am resting. But I want to know what happened. How did you manage to get us away from Caleb Lockwood?”
It was strange to hear Will using that last name, although it was the correct one. Not as strange as having to remind myself that Caleb isn’t even completely human, she thought, and drank some more of her coffee. In a way, it was good that the brew was so bitter, because that was pretty much how she felt whenever she thought of the man who’d tried to insinuate himself into her life. What an idiot she’d been, falling for his facile charm.
But because Will was looking at her expectantly, she realized she needed to tell him something. Yes, he should be resting and not taxing his brain, but he’d probably be more agitated by a mystery he couldn’t quite figure out than by hearing the actual truth. Problem was, she didn’t know for sure exactly what had happened. She’d tapped into a power she didn’t even know she possessed, but how she’d managed to do such a thing, she couldn’t begin to guess. The whole situation still unnerved her, since she had absolutely no idea when those powers might decide to flare up out of nowhere. True, they’d only appeared when she and Will had been directly threatened, but….
One more swallow of over-caffeinated rocket fuel, and she set her mug of coffee back down on its coaster. “Caleb threw a ball of fire or something at you, and you were knocked out when you fell and hit your head against the floor. Do you remember any of that?”
Will shook his head. “The last thing I remember is Caleb dropping out of the crawlspace.”
It wasn’t terribly strange to lose a few of the minutes that immediately preceded a traumatic head injury. Still, Rosemary couldn’t help feeling a little dismayed that he didn’t recall how he’d confronted Caleb and asked him to hand over the hard drive, or the way he’d tried to take out the part-demon by
using a slick tae kwon do maneuver on him. But none of that was terribly important. She hoped those memories would return in time, and if they didn’t, well, she’d fill in the blanks at that point.
Instead, she told him how his fall had knocked him out, how Caleb had wrested the hard drive away from her by using those same flames to torture her.
“I honestly think he was going to kill us both,” she said. “Which I suppose would be the logical thing to do — for someone like him, anyway. But I…stopped him.”
Will’s brows pulled together in a frown, and then he seemed to wince, as if the movement pained him. He swallowed some tea and then said, “How? By appealing to his better nature?”
Her mouth twisted. “I don’t think he has one. No, it was something I did — he tried to send those flames of his against us, and I — well, I don’t know how I made it happen, exactly, only that I created some kind of shield that surrounded both of us, and Caleb’s flames just bounced right off. After a second attempt, he realized he wasn’t going to succeed, and so he disappeared.”
“Into thin air?”
“Basically.” Thinking about it now, Rosemary realized how surreal that moment had been. Yes, Caleb throwing fireballs had been weird enough, but there had been something even stranger about watching him vanish right before her eyes. That was the sort of thing you expected to see in a movie or a TV show, not with someone who occupied the same room as you. As she recalled, there had even been a weird little popping noise when he disappeared, as if the air itself had rushed in to fill the void he’d left behind. “And as soon as he was gone, I called 911.”
A silence then as Will appeared to process what she’d just told him. He sipped from his mug of tea, then said, “You’ve never shown any sign of that kind of ability before?”
“No,” she replied immediately. That was one thing she was sure about, even if the rest of her world currently felt as though it had begun to operate at right angles to reality. “I’m a psychic, but that just means I get feelings about things, or sometimes have dreams that come true.” Or talk to ghosts, she added mentally, although she didn’t know whether Colin’s dead girlfriend had appeared to her because she was psychic, or simply because Madeline had known that Rosemary and Caleb were searching for Colin’s footage. “I’ve never had any sign of telekinetic ability, or whatever you want to call what I did back at that house. It wasn’t even conscious. It just sort of came from…nowhere.”
Unmarked Graves Page 3
