10
Glints of gold shimmered from the rich fabric of the Nephilim’s jacket as Remy shifted uneasily on the balls of his feet. The supple leather of his tall boots creaked, but otherwise, that—and our collective breathing—were the only sounds in my apartment. Remy’s gaze flicked from Lil to me and back again, hesitation pursing his painted lips.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” she snapped. “You think any of this is going to be news to me?” At her look, he frowned, but still said nothing. With a huff of irritation, Lil shoved off from the couch, crossing to Remy in a few, swift steps. Absurdly, she reached up and pinched his cheek, cooing like a spinster aunt. Remy stiffened, too stunned to respond. Releasing the skin, she gave the slightly pinkened spot a loving pat. Her irony dripped.
“If that weren’t so endearingly naïve of you, Remy, I’d be offended.”
“Lilianna—” he choked.
In an instant, her smile went feral and she leaned into him, baring all her teeth. “If you can switch up all the pronouns for your transsexual decimus, you’d best get my name right, lover boy.” As Remy sputtered a response, I joined their little party, risking my arm by sticking it between them.
“You two can work out your marital problems on your own time,” I said. “I’ve been up all night, I’m beat to shit, and I still got places I need to be.” I turned my glare on my brother. “Spill it, Remy.”
Muttering her annoyance, Lil pivoted sharply away. She stomped toward the burbling coffee maker, the rifle-crack of her heels making me sorry for my downstairs neighbors. Digging a clean mug from the dishwasher, she started fixing herself a cup, adding an uncharacteristic amount of sugar and cream.
The Nephilim met my gaze, anxiety plainly writ upon his features. I understood his concerns about Lil, even commiserated with them. She was the single most unpredictable person I knew, and I still hadn’t sussed out whether she was an ally or an enemy. Probably both.
“I don’t have time to dick around with this, Remy,” I said. “Just tell me what I need to know.”
His lips twisted to make words, but nothing came out. In the kitchen, Lil stirred her coffee with such vigor that the spoon struck the mug like the clapper of a bell. The harsh and rhythmic clinking set my teeth on edge. I redoubled my focus.
“Some time this week, Remiel.”
The Nephilim struggled to speak again. Once more, his throat seized up before he could bring forth any answer. He shot me a despairing look. Knitting her fingers around the mug, Lil watched keenly through the rising tendrils of steam. Remy extended his hands, palms-up, his mouth tugged unhappily down. Finally, I got the message.
Someone had him oathed.
“You can’t even talk about this, can you?” I asked.
His eyes flicked to Lil. “I can speak under the proper circumstances,” he said tightly.
“Then damn it, Remy, why even bring it up?”
“As you’ve said,” he responded, “it’s something you need to know.”
I vented my frustration with a wordless yell. To hell with the neighbors.
“Perhaps if you gave direct permission?” Remy ventured. “But, Zaquiel, be very specific in your phrasing.”
Frustration gave way to misgiving and I swallowed hard against a rush of unease. Maybe it was a shred of memory, maybe just the way he looked at me, but in that instant, I knew.
“It was me, wasn’t it?” I murmured, breath stolen by sick shock. “This was something I made you swear.”
His jaw tensed. The fact that he couldn’t answer was answer enough.
“Well, fuck,” I hissed.
“Zaquiel—” he choked, but couldn’t finish.
Lil chortled from the kitchenette. “If you boys are going to fuck, how about I give you a little privacy?” At our appalled expressions, laughter cascaded from her throat. “Always so serious.” She took a long sip of coffee, licking her upper lip for traces of cream. “I’ll do you a favor. No charge—this time.” With an exaggerated sashay, she sauntered from the kitchen and headed down the hall. Disappearing through the door to my room, she closed it behind her.
The lock latched audibly.
Remy and I exchanged uneasy glances.
“Did she just give you an out?” I asked.
“She’ll still be able to hear,” he whispered. “Even through the door. I know I would.”
Music began blaring from the back room—Gabriella Cilmi’s “Sweet About Me.” I had no idea where she’d gotten the track—it wasn’t anything in my collection.
“Hunh,” I muttered. “Does that fix it?”
Remy hesitated, then shrugged uncertainly. Grabbing his elbow, I guided us toward the front bay window, as far away from Lil as the apartment’s narrow floor plan would allow.
“How about this?” I asked. The music blared loud enough that the bassline rattled the leaded panes.
Remy considered, then shook his head. “It was very specific,” he managed.
Curling my fists again, I resisted the urge to hit something—especially my brother. Outside, the gray and watery light of early morning filtered through a break in the churning clouds. Pre-dawn. In another hour, Bobby’s shift would be ending—and with it, my opportunity to view Marjory’s body.
“How the fuck am I supposed to give you orders on an oath I don’t even remember making you swear?”
“The oath remembers,” he urged.
“I don’t have time for riddles, Remy,” I grumbled. “There are always loopholes. Isn’t that what you told me in the car? Find a way around it.”
He scowled, remaining mute as the seconds ticked by. I counted their limping progress, striving to quell my rising temper. Finally, he heaved a tremulous breath, sweeping the heavy tresses of hair from his face. Putting self-conscious distance between us, he twitched a curtain back from the far side of the window, gazing out at the flow of early morning commuters.
“Do you recall our first dinner together last November?” His nonchalance felt brittle and contrived. “The one at that charming family place in Lakewood?”
I ground my teeth, slow to realize this change in subject wasn’t an evasion, exactly.
“Yeah, I remember,” I answered. “You taught me to use some of my powers again.” I moved to step closer so we could talk face to face, but, instantly, he stiffened. Getting the hint, I hung back to let it play out at his speed. “I think you were also testing me to see if my amnesia was legit.”
“For that, I do apologize,” he murmured, still watching the cars rather than looking directly at me. “I understand how difficult those moments must have been. The confusion, the guilt—”
“Guilt?” I snapped, instantly suspicious.
“Of not knowing if even you, yourself, could be trusted.”
That struck a nerve.
“Is that what this is about?” I demanded. “You think I can’t be trusted? You’re the one who’s practically in bed with the snakiest manipulator I know.”
“Saliriel is a survivor,” he responded tightly. “If ever you remember, you will understand.”
That did it. I seized his shoulder to spin him from the window. It was like tugging on a marble statue. He didn’t even budge. So I stalked over to my computer desk. A couple of old T-shirts lay draped across the back of the chair—my idea of a laundry way station. Snatching up the top one, I sniffed it—clean enough—and pulled it over my head.
Feeling less exposed, though only slightly, I paced a restless course from bookcases to hearth and back again. Lil’s music gave way from Gabrielle Cilmi to Meghan Trainor. I recognized the voice, but not the song. The bassline thudded. If the couple downstairs could sleep through that racket, they deserved medals.
“Saliriel practically sold me up-river to that asshat Dorimiel,” I growled. “Does Sal have some connection to this?” I prodded. “That’d be just like her.”
“No,” Remy said. The feeble light from the window traced a geography of shadow across his porcelain features. The only life was
in his lips.
“Then how does any of this tie to a rogue Anakim running around with my face?” I grumbled. When he replied, however, something changed in his voice, lilting as if he recited some long-memorized prayer.
“There is a mathematical elegance to the hierarchies of the tribes,” he said. “Primus, decimus, centesimus.” Crisply, he ticked off the titles, only two of which I had heard previously. “The primus is the font of the tribe. Ten chiefs of ten rule the hundred beneath.” At the mantel, I caught myself swaying in time with his rhythm. The words and the way he said them stirred things deep in the shattered halls of memory. “Within each decade are three sets of three shalish, plus one who stands apart from the nine. The shalish, as groups, work in synergy. The tenth serves as the hand of the decimus.”
Shalish.
The term was a leviathan that just breached the surface, its hulk a massive shadow spreading beneath the waves. My arms broke instantly to gooseflesh and such a surge of emotion crashed over me, I was reminded of drowning—so deep in the water that up and down became distant abstractions. Lil’s pounding music merged with Remy’s rhythmic patter until I no longer heard any of the words. The room fell away in a wash of memory. No visual details, just a deep and bitter longing. A sense of being severed from something so integral, its loss had no name. A weighty feeling of purpose. Regret sharper than any blade, and…
Isolation. Such a tallied burden of it, I knew it stretched across decades.
Centuries. The thought was mine, its clarity strangely jarring. But I had to walk away. Someone had to choose to end it.
That was ominous, and without context. Nothing further crossed the Lethean precipice. Blinking, I found myself with moisture on my lashes, my hand locked on the mantle in a grip of such ferocity, all feeling had fled my fingers. At the window, Remy’s stance changed, less statue and more a living man again. With a mournful huff, he turned from his view of the street, letting the curtain drop behind him.
“I still can’t break it,” he said.
“What?” Hurriedly, I dashed a hand across my eyes.
“The oath,” he said. If he’d caught that I was crying, he pretended not to notice. “I can only talk around it.”
I peeled my hand from the mantel and dropped heavily onto the couch. I left my half-finished cup of coffee behind, and I didn’t care enough to get back up for it.
“I think you said enough.”
“Have I?”
“I walked away from my own tribe.” I clenched my fists until the knuckles cracked. Scars stood whitely against pale skin—badges from battles I no longer remembered. “That’s it, isn’t it? Malphael said something about it. I didn’t understand at the time.”
Remiel made an aggravated noise. “While all of that is true, you’ve completely missed my point.”
“What?” I demanded. “That some of my people might be pissed at me? They’re gonna have to get in line.”
“No, Zaquiel. Stop being so angry and actually listen.” That only made me angrier and he knew it—but anger was preferable to the gutting sense of loss inspired by that strange, haunting word. Shalish. “Are you the hand of a decimus?” he asked.
The answer came on reflex. “No.”
“Good,” he encouraged. “Now ask yourself, where are the two who stood with you closer than brothers?”
“I don’t fucking know,” I snapped.
Remy bent his rouged lips in a moue of annoyance. “To understand my point with all I am obliged to leave unsaid right now, you must answer that question as well as one other.”
“What is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?” I griped.
He ignored the petty jest, features going stony. “How far do you think you might go to protect those who’ve earned your loyalty?”
I didn’t like the implications of his question, nor the weird slew of feelings it dredged up. “I’m not that guy anymore,” I muttered. Coffee welled bitter at the back of my throat and I fought an unreasoning desire to storm from the room before he asked anything else. On the coffee table, my phone buzzed so hard, it danced spastically across the slick surface. Happy for the distraction, I snatched it up and thumbed the answer button in one brisk motion.
“It’s Bobby,” I said. Remy swept close to lay fingers on my shoulder. Irritably, I shrugged him away. “I’ve got to take this.”
“Jesus, Zack,” the detective said in a rush. “Are you OK? What happened out there?”
Remy continued to hover. I turned and mouthed, “Later.” Lips perched on an objection, he reluctantly withdrew.
“Phone died,” I said. Despite Remy’s distance, I held no pretense that my call was private. With the vampire’s hearing, it probably sounded like Bobby was in the same room—even with Lil’s music rumbling in the background.
“Time’s almost up on my offer,” Bobby said. “Night shift’s just about done, and as soon as the morning people start showing, I won’t be able to sneak you in to see her.”
I glanced to the clock in the kitchen. During that weird exchange with Remy, time had flown.
“How long?” I asked.
“Can you get here in the next ten minutes?”
I’d been up for almost twenty-four hours. What was another few?
“Sure,” I said. “I’ll find a way.”
“I’ll meet you around back by the loading dock,” he answered. “And I’ll wait for twenty, but then I have to go home. It’s been a hell of a night.”
“You’re telling me,” I said. I almost hung up, then paused with my finger over the red button. “Thanks, Bobby. I owe you.”
“Just help us find the daughter.”
He ended the call.
11
“So, we’re going to see Bobby,” Lil purred.
Her voice came from directly over my shoulder. I turned to find her leaning over the back of the couch, so close, I nearly faceplanted into her cleavage. She grinned like that had been her intention. Quickly, I scrambled to my feet. Music still blared from the back room, and it had covered her approach.
“Dammit, Lil.” I bent to unplug the cellphone’s charger, winding it up to stuff it in a pocket. “Why do you always have to do things like that?”
“Why do you always notice?” she countered. Provocatively, she rolled her shoulders, making a dance of everything between and beneath.
Heat swept to my ears. Scooping up my jacket, I pulled out the SIG, checking its magazine and chamber. The Legion was full. I knew that already, but my hands needed the distraction.
Remy cleared his throat with a “hrmph,” that managed to sound both annoyed and relieved. He picked imaginary lint from the arm of his frockcoat.
“You should meet me at Club Heaven later so we can discuss this in private.”
“Oh, we’re not done.” I slipped the handgun back into its holster, then shrugged into the jacket. The arms snagged on my wrist sheaths, and I tugged everything into place with the ease of habit. “Not by a long shot, but this has to come first. Bobby’s on a schedule.”
“How is your little Korean-American friend?” Lil taunted.
“Is that supposed to be funny?” I snapped. “You shot his partner. Garrett still can’t use that arm.”
She made a noise of disgust. “For this kind of grief, next time I’ll shoot to kill.” Hoisting herself from the couch, she moved to retrieve her white leather purse from a side table. With prim, curt gestures, she tucked it under one arm. “The guy was possessed, Zack. I solved your problem. You should thank me, not complain.”
A host of objections wrangled just behind my lips. I managed to choke them all back. Pointedly, I looked to the clock in the kitchen.
“I don’t have time for this.” Stepping over to the door, I took down the wards, then started work on the more conventional locks. “You two have to leave.”
“You know that guy’s going to try again,” Lil warned. Instead of following, she stepped into my kitchen. When I gave her a look, she shot me one right back
. “What? I’m turning off your coffee maker. You want to burn the place down?”
“No,” I responded.
She marched across the hardwood. “You’re putting a lot of trust in your wards, Zack.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Leave one of us to babysit.”
“I don’t trust either of you in here, not unattended—no offense, Remy.” If the Nephilim felt any rancor, he didn’t let it show. He was doing that statue thing again. I was close enough to be certain that he really wasn’t breathing. A little creeped out, I faced off with Lil. “Even you didn’t want to tangle with my wards,” I said. “That speaks volumes.”
“The defenses are good,” she allowed, “but nothing’s perfect, flyboy. Wouldn’t want your precious collection of action figures to take a walk.” Lil glanced at my desk, her gaze fixed tellingly on a slim wooden case angled between my memorial figurines of Han and General Leia. She’d guessed what it had inside.
The Anakim equal to the Eye of Nefer-Ka, the Stylus of Anak contained all the most devastating powers of my tribe in one easy-to-use package. If a rogue member of the Anakim was after anything in this apartment, it was that. No way I was going to leave it.
“Your concern has been noted,” I said. Maneuvering around Remy, I threw open the door. “Now get out so I can reset the first layer of my defenses.” I all but shoved them both into the hall.
“You can’t just—”
I cut her off by slamming the door in her face. She snarled her outrage from the other side, furiously working the knob. I barely beat her to the lock.
“You’ll want to move that hand,” I warned.
The manic twisting of the doorknob abruptly ceased.
Whispering the sigil phrase, I breathed power into the waiting lines of magic. Row upon row of minutely etched symbols glimmered to life, pulsing blue and silver, and then fading from sight. Lil’s hissing intake of breath, muffled through the door, brought a smile. If I could get that kind of reaction from the Lady of Beasts, I was doing something right.
Before locking the final layers into place, I scooped up the container with the Stylus of Anak from where it rested in its invisible circle of protection. Spidery threads of power snapped as I lifted it away, their aggressive defenses fizzling in response to my signature. Had anyone else touched it, those defenses would have blasted them into their next incarnation.
The Resurrection Game Page 7
