On the couch, Halley gently rocked as she poked at her toenail polish. Her gaze remained fixated, but I could feel the real focus of her attention. Little tendrils of psychic force inquisitively played across my shields. A few almost slipped under, and I allowed the intrusion… to a point, giving her confirmation that what she tried was working. But my head was an ugly place even on the best of days, so I shut her out before she could grab anything more than surface emotions. With a gentle push, I shifted the layers of protection. She chuffed unhappily through her nose, the only indication that she was aware of the interaction.
“You get further every time,” I affirmed. Crushing her face into her knees, Halley hid a wide, pleased grin. “Pretty soon, I won’t catch you before you’re through. Just be careful, OK?” I urged. “I say a lot of bad words inside of my head.”
“Bad words outside, too,” she murmured, her diction somewhat twisted as her bottom lip dragged on denim.
“She’s got you there, Zack.” The old priest chuckled, accustomed to our psychic games.
“Like you should talk,” I teased dryly. “We didn’t call you Foul-Mouthed Frankie back in the rice paddies because you forgot to brush.”
Halley collapsed into peals of laughter. She’d heard the nickname before, but it never failed to get a reaction. As she writhed delightedly on the cushions, I moved to the far edge of the living room. Silently, I gestured for Father Frank. He quirked a bristling brow.
“You sit tight for a minute, will you, Halley?” I called. “I’ve got to talk with the padre. In private,” I added. “So no tricks to listen in.”
“Aww, Wingy,” Halley objected.
“No arguments,” I said. “You know the rules.”
She slumped like a toddler told to eat all her peas.
“What’s wrong?” Father Frank mouthed. I gestured for him to join me at the mouth of the hall. Deceptively preoccupied, Halley plucked at a thread in the seam of the cushion by her foot, striving to make that part look the same as all the rest.
“I’ll be OK, Wingy,” she said without looking up from her self-appointed task. A reassuring note to her words suggested that she’d already been paying close attention to the underlying emotions of our discreet exchange.
Grabbing the old priest by the elbow, I marched us both into my room, shutting the door behind us. As Lil had done a scant nine hours earlier, I turned on the music, cranking the volume. Billy Joel’s “Goodnight, Saigon” blared jarringly mid-chorus, telling me how we’d all go down together. Not consoling in the least. Disgusted, I flipped the dial back off again.
“Not funny, Lailah,” I called to the empty air. Even if I couldn’t see her, when the music got that pointed, it was safe to assume her will guided the tunes.
Twisting his big-knuckled hands, Father Frank dropped onto the side of my mattress. Springs creaked under his settling weight. From the play of shadows that haunted his eyes, he didn’t appreciate the musical reminder any more than I had. Through that bitter jungle war, he’d survived only because I’d made him my anchor.
I’d come home in a body bag.
Sometimes, I couldn’t tell which of us had gotten the shittier end of the deal.
“Talk to me, Zack,” he said with quiet urgency. “I haven’t seen you look this spooked in a while.”
In the narrow strip of floor between footboard and dresser, I restlessly paced. “Do you know a guy named Zuriel?” I asked, striving to keep my voice down.
His shoulders raised, then slumped. “Should I?”
“Maybe. I don’t know,” I said. “He’s one of my tribe—and possibly a little more.”
“I thought they were all missing,” he responded. The priest tracked my stumping transit, crowsfeet nesting his eyes. “Locked up in jars.”
“Yeah, that’s what I thought, too.” I dashed my fingers through the wild tangle of my hair. Sand tumbled out, left over from the fight at the beach, a few grains cascading down the neck of my T-shirt. Disgusted, I squirmed, flicking the remains from my hands. “This guy blew into town maybe a couple weeks ago. He killed that woman, Marjory. The one from the letter.” Sand teased the fine hairs at the small of my back, seeking points further south. Untucking, I tried to shake them out before they made it into my jeans.
“I remember you talking about her.” He arched a brow at my writhing antics. “You OK, Zack?”
“I’m filthy, and it’s driving me nuts,” I explained, finally ripping the whole shirt over my head. I chucked it into the dirty pile beside the door. I hadn’t even been wearing that shirt at the beach. Fucking sand.
“I can see that,” Father Frank said mildly. He politely averted his gaze as I stripped. Clean clothes were mounded in a laundry basket near the closet, and I rifled through them, grabbing fresh jeans and another T-shirt at random. I added a clean pair of boxer briefs from a drawer. “Didn’t that letter also mention a daughter?” he queried, staring fixedly at my curtains. “Don’t tell me she’s dead, too.”
Stepping into the jeans, I fumbled for the tongue of the zipper. It was wedged in the folds of the denim.
“Not yet—at least, I don’t think so,” I said, trying to tease it out so I didn’t rip the thing apart like I had with Marjory’s purse. “That’s one of the things I need to find out, but I’ve got a shit-ton of stuff to do first.” Finally zipped, I yanked my belt from the cast-off pants. The buckle chattered noisily as the leather slid through the loops. “Zuriel’s running around with my Vulcan and a set of keys to this place. I’ve got to report the theft and get the locks changed before I do anything else.”
“All this happened last night?” he asked.
Bitterly, I laughed. “I’m only giving you the high points, Padre,” I said. “We’d be here for hours if I went over everything. I don’t have that kind of time.” Leaning over, I tried to shake the lingering sand from my hair before pulling the fresh shirt over my head. What I needed was a shower, but that wasn’t happening. “Worse than the keys, the guy has some kind of spell that lets him wear my face. We look identical.” The old priest’s back went ramrod straight as he digested this revelation. Tucking my shirt, I tapped him on the shoulder so he knew it was safe to turn around. “It could be the spell, but he also matched my clothes, right down to the jacket. I get the feeling he’s been watching me for a while.”
The iron gray of his brows thatched. “You have any idea what this guy wants?” I must have telegraphed some measure of my wounded horror, because he leaned forward urgently, just short of rising from the bed. “What haven’t you told me?”
“He made me burn my connection to Marjory,” I answered thickly. “She was an anchor, just like you. And he wanted to watch.” The severed hole panged where she had been. “This is intensely personal, Padre. Something connected with another of my brethren—Tashiel.”
A muscle in his jaw ticked. “I’ve heard that name before.”
“What?” I demanded. “When?” Narrowly, I resisted the urge to shake him. Instead, I crossed to the far side of the room, the muscles on my forearms cording beneath the black webwork of the sheaths. I held my hands in fists, clenching and unclenching. Father Frank rose, shaking loose his own tension.
“Couple years ago,” he said. “You’d learned about something he’d done. It had to be awful, given your reaction, but you wanted to hear it from his lips before you passed judgment. Those were your exact words, by the way.” He threaded fingers through his hair as he remembered.
“Do you know what it was about?”
Unhelpfully, he shrugged. “No clue,” he said. “Whatever it was, it really pissed you off. I asked a couple times. You clammed up about it. I knew when to stop asking. You don’t always tell me your business.”
“Figures,” I said. “The old Zack compartmentalized his whole life. Secrets inside of secrets.”
Keenly studying my face, Father Frank leaned a shoulder against the bend of wall separating my closet from the entrance. “You know, I worry a little when you talk abou
t yourself in the third person.”
“You should try it in my head sometime,” I scoffed. “With so many memories gone, that guy really doesn’t feel like me.” Looking away, he pensively rubbed the hard angle of his jaw. The gesture was uncannily close to one of my own—like facing a mirror fast-forwarded forty years.
“You got a lot on your plate, Zack,” he said finally. Heaving himself from the wall, he took a step toward the door. “I’ll let Halley know lessons are canceled for the time being. After I walk her home, I’ll head back here and handle the locksmith.”
“You fucking walked?”
“It’s less than a mile on a beautiful day,” he answered. “Of course we walked. Poor kid’s got to get out some time. Think it’s any kind of life cooped up in a single room?”
“Did you hear anything I just said?” I demanded. “There’s another Anakim on the loose who’s hell-bent on destroying any person connected to me. That means you and that means Halley. This guy’s not fucking around, Padre. He didn’t just torture Marjory. He inflicted maximum pain and then he bound her spirit to her dead corpse so he could keep going. Wrap your head around that for a minute.”
The man I’d once intended to become my father speared me with a look of steel first forged in the jungles of Vietnam.
“If you’re trying to scare me off, Zaquiel, you can stop,” he said. “As for Halley, take her home. With all those wards and spells, you got her place locked up tighter than Fort Knox.”
“This guy can walk through walls and I don’t know what else,” I insisted.
He squared his broad shoulders, facing off with me in the narrow space between closet, dresser, and door. Even with the years stamped upon his brow, I could see the fierce, young soldier he had been.
“Could you get in the Davis place if they weren’t your wards?” he asked.
“That’s not my point,” I said.
“I know your point,” he responded. “You’re worried for us, and I appreciate that.” Sputtering heated objections, I tried to interrupt, but he only raised his voice to drown me out. “Halley, I understand. She’s an innocent, and her life’s hard enough without your people breathing down her back. But me? I knew what I signed on for, Zack. So give it a rest. You may carry wings on your back, but you’re still just one person. Accept my help with the locksmith, and get on with the rest of your day. When I’m done, I’ll go keep an eye on Halley.” Pointedly, he touched the hard lines of the gun at his back. “You know I can handle myself.”
I glanced to the clock on the dresser. The afternoon was already winding down.
“I’m not going to win this one, am I?”
He snorted. “You won this argument yet?”
24
Still, I took precautions. Three times, I had Father Frank take down and re-arm the wards, just to show me that he could. Never mind that I’d taught him how to do it months ago. That knowledge had never been put to the test, not like this.
“Come on, Zack, this is getting old,” Father Frank said.
“Just one more time,” I insisted. “I don’t want this guy in my apartment, especially not with you inside.”
Through the door, I heard him grumble, but the old priest did as he was told. I wouldn’t have been so pushy if it had been anyone else. My chest still ached with the gnawing emptiness where my link to Marjory had been. I couldn’t even remember forging my tie to her, yet severing it had hurt as much as cutting off my own hand. I didn’t want to imagine what it would feel like to lose Father Frank.
“Satisfied?” He raised his voice to carry from inside, making no effort to mask his growing impatience. From my position in the hallway, I pressed a hand against the webwork of energy, testing its tensile strength. The barrier held firm. Delicately, I prodded at the moorings, trying to unwind them without the use of the pass phrase. All the sigils around the doorframe flared briefly, and a warning surge prickled against my palm. A scent like hot metal teased my nose.
“Yeah,” I said. “It’ll hold.”
With a harsh whisper of syllables, he took the whole thing down again. The bubble-pop of power blew cold fingers through my hair. Locks rattled and, a moment later, the door swung open. Father Frank leaned an elbow against the jamb.
“Of course it will hold,” he said. “You made it. Now get going. Locksmith’ll be here in less than an hour. I won’t be stuck here for long.”
“I still think you should head back with Halley,” I said. “It’ll be safer for both of you.”
“We’ve been over this, Zack.” He sighed. “Get out of here already. You’ve got a missing woman to track down. I’ll have the new keys waiting for you at the Davis house.”
At the sound of her last name, Halley quitted the couch and slipped past the big man, ducking under his outstretched arm. She maneuvered her passage in such a way that she avoided all physical contact with both the priest and the door, as if folding space halfway through the narrow aperture. Taking up a position at the top of the stairs, she curled her toes over the first step through the thin soles of her shoes, rocking precariously over the edge. She didn’t say it was time to leave, but there was no missing her message.
“All right, fine,” I relented. “Let’s go.”
Ushering Halley to my car, I held the passenger side door open as she clambered inside. She sat woodenly in the deep bucket seat of the Hellcat, although she fussed when I grabbed the seatbelt and started fastening it for her.
“I’m sorry, Halley, but you’re going to have to put up with that,” I said, adjusting the lap belt so it didn’t bind. “It’s against the law for you to ride without it, and I really wouldn’t want you to get hurt if something happened with the car.”
Mewling unhappily, she plucked at the chest-strap where it angled across her shoulder. It rode a little high, so the edge brushed her throat on one side. I tried to adjust it, but there wasn’t much I could do, given her size.
“I hate those things, too,” I admitted. “If you really don’t like it, you could always ride in the back,” I offered. “You’d only need a lap-belt there.”
She shook her head with such conviction, her thick braids whipped wildly around her head. I drew back sharply to avoid catching one with my face. Her hand fell away from the troublesome strap, alighting briefly on the edge of the driver’s seat.
“I get it,” I said. The girl said nothing in response, but I’d spent enough time around Halley to catch the little shift in where her eyes were focused—from her knees to my hand, then quickly back again. The movement was subtle enough, most other people would have dismissed it. But, sometimes with Halley, all you got was a blink. That was the best she could manage when crossing the vast gulf between her brain and the outside world. “You’re always welcome to sit with me, Halley, you know that,” I assured. “Now, I’m going to close this door and come around to the driver’s side. I want to see you still in that seatbelt when I sit down.”
She made it clear that she didn’t like it, but she complied. Once I settled in, I fastened my own belt and started the car. Pulling out onto Euclid Heights, I turned in the direction of Lancashire. Halley’s head swiveled around and she stared morosely back toward Coventry Road—that was the route she was accustomed to taking. Her dark brows drew together and she started fussing with the seatbelt again.
“I know this isn’t the way Father Frank normally takes you,” I said. “Just bear with me—this is going to involve some creative threading through back streets.”
She continued plucking at the seatbelt where it touched her neck, falling into a rhythm that grew less restless and more self-soothing. I didn’t try to stop her. The girl’s head drooped forward, one braid partly unraveled from where she’d pulled it free of the hair tie.
“Why?” she asked.
“I don’t like driving past the cemetery,” I explained, taking the turn at Overlook and following the curve of the road. “With everything that happened there, I thought you’d want to avoid it, too. That place is full
of bad memories.”
“It helps to see,” she replied. She offered nothing further, lips pouting around her thoughts. Her gaze drifted to the window and she tracked the slow progression of blazing red maples that lined the lane. The heavily tinted glass caught a sliver of her face, reflecting the curving landscape of one broad cheekbone. Her dark iris glimmered above it, a deep and placid lake. In silence, I wondered how many horror-tinged memories drifted like specters beneath that deceptively calm surface. The girl had endured so much at that cemetery—not just Terhuziel’s brutal attentions, but threats from the Gibburim-ridden Garrett, the tumble from the edge of the Garfield Monument, and a near-disastrous trip through the Shadowside with me.
I’d saved her life and killed her, all in the space of five minutes. If not for Bobby’s quick-thinking CPR—
The tightness that gripped my throat threatened to choke me. I swallowed hard against the surging mess of emotions that scattered my thoughts. Shifting tensely in my seat, I refocused my attention to the unfolding of the present—the car, the girl, the quiet lane threading through post-war bungalows and brick apartment buildings, all of it edged with trees. Those horrors were behind us. Halley was safe, at least for the time being.
I’d do anything to keep her that way.
“Who is the red man?” she asked suddenly.
It sounded like a left-field question, an utter nonsequitur spilling from the disorganized chaos of a scattered mind, but I knew better. With convulsive intensity, that tightness returned, and a sick little thread of guilt slithered through my gut.
“What did you say, Halley?”
“The red man,” she repeated. “At the cemetery. He stands behind you.”
She was talking about the Crossing near the mouth of the Mayfield Gate. I’d almost died there, and, in the imprint left from that event, it was possible to see the Nephilim Primus like a great red shadow stretching behind my back. She could see it as clearly as I could—a little too clearly for comfort. The scar on my palm twisted like a snake inside my skin, and I gripped the wheel to hide the sudden tremor in my hands.
The Resurrection Game Page 15
