Vowed in Shadows

by Jessa Slade

  It didn’t take long to load up the half dozen passive haints. As Nanette brought them up from the church basement, Nim filled the seats in the minivan, then tucked the remainder into the cargo space in back. The haints listed against one another like pale mannequins. In the thick summer light, solvo glimmered like pearly sweat on their foreheads and in the hollows of their throats. The flecks of soul matter that clung around them were harder to see, even when Nim revved up her demon.

  “No seat belts,” Nanette fretted.

  “No souls,” Nim said. “Or at least not much.”

  Nanette straightened one woman’s sharply angled neck. “You’re right. It’s silly to worry. I’d like to talk more, but I need to get the haints out of town, and since Jonah has been busy . . .” She slammed the hatch on whatever else she’d been about to say.

  Nim ignored her to study the sky. The sun had dropped out of sight, but it would be hot for hours. “Speaking of Jonah, can you give me a lift to the warehouse? I spent the last of his money on the cab ride over here.”

  Nanette pursed her lips. “Maybe you should have passed on the Frederick’s party pack.”

  “Too late now,” Nim said with excessive cheer. “You going to make me walk home in this heat?”

  Nanette chewed her lower lip pink, clashing even more with her dress and hair. Obviously, she liked to worry. No wonder she got along with Jonah. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. The angelic host I’m meeting to transport the haints, he’s at war with demons.”

  “Of course, but which ones?”

  “All of them.”

  Nim rolled her eyes. “I’ll stay in the van and be quiet.”

  “I could leave you here and come back for you,” Nanette muttered. “But what if Daniel finishes his sermon and comes to church early?”

  “Daniel’s your husband? Don’t worry. I’ll keep him busy till you get back.” Nim smiled with lots of teeth.

  “Oh, please. I don’t worry about him. I’m worried about you. Do you want to spend an hour as his sermon beta tester?”

  Nim shook her head hard enough to make her dreads dance. “For God’s sake—no, really, for God’s sake—take me with you.”

  Nanette folded her hands in front of her, upraised thumbs bumping a nervous rhythm. “Okay. My contact has a habit of ignoring anything he considers beneath him.”

  “Gee, thanks,” Nim said.

  “Which is pretty much everything,” Nanette added. “Just be good.” She thought about that, then revised to “Just don’t be evil.”

  Nanette locked up the church and joined Nim in the van. In the close confines, the zombies smelled faintly of falling spring rain, and Nim took a deep breath. “You’d think they’d smell rotten, wouldn’t you?”

  Nanette checked all her mirrors before starting the vehicle. “It’s odd,” she agreed. “That’s the scent of the solvo coming out through their skin.” She hesitated. “Sometimes I think it’s the perfume of peace.”

  Nim swiveled her head toward the other woman in surprise. “Soullessness is peace? Is a preacher’s wife allowed to even think that?”

  Nanette’s grip on the steering wheel blanched her knuckles. “I wouldn’t say that in front of the other angelic host, of course. But I thought you of all people would understand. They’ve escaped pain and fear and anger.”

  You of all people? Nim bit back a sharp retort. But as she swallowed down the words, she thought she got a taste of Nanette’s meaning. “Trust me, escape doesn’t get you as far as you’d think. Avoiding life isn’t peace.”

  “I realize that. It’s just . . . Did you know that some of the scattered soulflies make their way to the haints?”

  “Jonah mentioned it. They just look like radioactive dust motes to me.”

  Nanette grimaced. “They do glow, pure and beautiful. Because they are pure. You might not care for the difference because your teshuva can’t see it, but the angelic force in me knows only the goodness returned.”

  Nim twisted in her seat to study the haints. Though one was a man and one a woman, they bore the same glassy stare that made them eerily alike. The woman looked ahead, her hands tucked in her lap, precisely as Nim had arranged her earlier. The man had been heavier and more awkward, and Nim had stuffed him haphazardly into his seat, leaving him crooked, so he appeared to gaze out his window. She doubted he saw the passing city.

  She sat back in her seat. “Honestly? If that’s the alternative, I’d rather be part evil.”

  “Of course an exotic dancer would say that,” Nanette murmured.

  So, Jonah had left more with his message than “I was here,” apparently.

  “Stripper,” Nim corrected archly. “Exotic dancers sometimes forget to take their clothes off. I never do.”

  Nanette let out a breath that might have been a disdainful huff, but sounded a lot like a laugh. “You aren’t what I expected.”

  Exactly how much had Jonah said in that message? “Well, I don’t expect you hang out at many strip clubs.”

  “Not since the year Daniel and I spent ministering to sex workers.” Nanette nodded with satisfaction when Nim choked. “Daniel said they were some of the most sensitive, giving women he’d ever met.”

  Nim flattened her palms over her thighs. Neither the reven nor her old scars were detectable through the thin cotton of her capris, but they burned in her memory. “Yeah, if that’s what he said, I can see how I’m not what you expected.”

  “I noticed they also had the worst self-esteem problems.”

  “Not an issue with me, I promise you.”

  Nanette opened her mouth as if she would say something, then just shook her head.

  As they crossed into the North Shore neighborhoods, the wider expanse of the estate-sized lots revealed the late sun, but the heavy overhang of old trees and lush green lawns cooled the road. Nim shifted in her seat. If the haints smelled of rain, the neighborhood smelled of old money. “Jonah said you moved the haints down south, where they wouldn’t raise awkward questions.”

  “My warden here has a quiet lake property where he takes the haints.”

  “Of course he does,” Nim muttered.

  “Cyril Fane is a powerful man, with an even more powerful angelic force,” Nanette warned. “Don’t make trouble for yourself, or me, or the talyan.”

  Nim clenched forefinger to thumb and ran them across her lips with a zipping sound. She slouched back in her seat as Nanette pulled into the driveway of a particularly Gothic mansion, half-hidden behind massive oaks. The windows were as narrow as pinched lips, and the gables arched like condemning eyebrows. Yeah, she could’ve guessed an angel lived here.

  Nanette idled the van in front of the three extra-tall garage doors. “Wait here.”

  “Happily,” Nim said. When Nanette gave her a sharp look, Nim lifted both hands innocently. “What? Me and the zombies’ll be right here.”

  “I’ll have Mr. Fane open the garage. You pull the van inside and start moving the haints to the other vehicle. I’ll keep him occupied.”

  “I thought I was staying in the van.”

  Nanette gave her a look. “Were you actually going to stay where I told you?”

  “Probably not.”

  “Then just do this.” Nanette’s tone wavered between threatening and pleading. “I don’t want to have to call Jonah.”

  “Well, I don’t want to see him either. At least not before I put his wallet back.” Nim huffed out a breath. “I said I’d be good. Okay, not evil.”

  Nanette gave her one more look and slipped out of the van.

  “You’d think somebody possessed by an angel would be kind and sweet and trusting,” Nim said to the haints as she shifted into the driver’s seat.

  They didn’t answer.

  Nanette knocked at the door and stood waiting a few heartbeats longer than Nim would have before the door opened. She disappeared inside without Nim getting a glimpse of the home’s master.

  It was another long wait, and Nim was resting her
palm on the horn in the middle of the steering wheel when the garage door rumbled upward. She growled something rude, thought about revving the van to give everybody—well, everybody but the haints—a little thrill, thought better of it, and sedately pulled into the garage.

  A gleaming silver Lotus took up more than its fair share of the oversized garage. Even in her pique, Nim wouldn’t dream of scratching the little beauty, so she maneuvered the minivan carefully as the garage door came down, keeping neighborly nosiness out.

  “How come the league doesn’t drive high-performance British sports cars? We’re fighting evil too.”

  The only other vehicle in the garage was a compact motor home, shiny new but still dowdy compared to its sleek garage mate. She wished she could indulge the demon in her and stuff the zombies into the tiny Lotus, but her love of overpriced consumer goods—if not Nanette’s entreaty to be good—constrained her, so she turned off the van and went to the RV instead. The door was unlocked, and she ushered the haints into their new seats, moving them slowly so as not to dislodge their clinging soulflies. She buckled them in and then turned to poke through the drawers of the family mobile. Nothing. Not even a knife in the untouched cutlery organizer.

  “Well, I don’t suppose an archangel keeps his fiery sword in his motor home.”

  She took one last breath of the haints’ sweet scent and pushed the drawer closed.

  “I hope this Fane character doesn’t drown you in the lake like a litter of abandoned kittens,” she muttered.

  “What’s your solution?”

  At the brisk crack of the baritone voice, Nim straightened abruptly and smacked her head on the corner of the kitchenette cabinetry. “Son of a bitch.”

  The man in the doorway frowned. Beyond him, Nim could see Nanette wringing her hands.

  Nim clutched her skull and scowled at the other woman. “I thought you were keeping him occupied inside.”

  The man lifted one eyebrow, even higher than his house’s gables. “While you rifled my RV?”

  “Good God, no. I’d take the Lotus.”

  In the background, Nanette made frantic lip-zipping motions. Nim rolled her eyes and walked toward the man, forcing him back a step so she could hop down.

  He inspected Nanette, who clasped her hands in front of her. “When you said you brought help, I assumed you meant another host of your sphere.”

  “You know what assuming makes you,” Nim said.

  “Nim,” Nanette snapped. “You are being purposely provoking.”

  “Yes, provocative is what we strippers do. It comes naturally when we’re around rich men.” She unleashed a flirtatious grin. “Hi, I’m the Naughty Nymphette, dancing Thursday through Monday at the Shimmy Shack. Until my clientele was brutally murdered by demons. Now I’m fund-raising for a new battle fleet for the Chicago talyan. Care to donate the Lotus? It’s going to a good cause. Well, not a good cause, precisely. You got a lock on that, I’m told. But a repentant cause, which, I’m sure you’ll agree, is almost the same thing.”

  That eyebrow lifted another impossible degree. “I always thought the talyan were more taciturn,” he mused.

  “There are a lot of changes going on,” Nim said. “But from what I hear, the angelic possessed aren’t really into change.”

  “I’m so sorry, Mr. Fane.” Nanette glowered at Nim. “If he smites you, what am I supposed to tell Jonah?”

  “Did I say ‘rich men’ earlier? I meant ‘rich, handsome men.’ ” Nim widened her smile.

  And Cyril Fane was handsome. He was just old enough to look like he’d made his own money, and buff enough to dance under the name Virile Cyril, if he’d been so inclined. Nim decided not to say that aloud.

  Fane had turned his sinister eyebrows on Nanette. “I thought the sphericanum had made the demarcation between the blessed host and”—his gaze shifted briefly toward Nim—“the others clear to you.”

  Nanette’s hands clenched but she did not lower her head. “You did.”

  His voice was mild. “And yet still you seek them out.”

  “Actually,” Nim interrupted. She didn’t trust that quiet tone. “I found her.”

  He whirled to face her. “I will return to you in a moment, heshuka,” he snapped. Thunder deepened his voice, and sparks, hot and gold, erupted from his glare.

  Nim blinked. Ah, right. That was why she didn’t trust him. Her muscles tightened and her pulse ramped up as her demon got uppity at his tone.

  A low hum echoed from the motor home behind her. The haints had twisted their faces toward the spat. Their blank eyes reflected gold. And violet.

  She flexed her hands, and the gloom of the closed garage shifted into the eerie black light of the roused demon. Waves of ether pulsed around them, bouncing off Nanette and the haints in scattering ripples.

  “No,” Nanette said. “Stop it, both of you.” Her voice lacked Fane’s celestial boom, but held a mother-hen insistence that required at least nominal obedience. “Our purpose is the same.”

  “Not so,” Fane said. “Theirs is salvation. They fight against the darkness not for the glory of the light, but merely to save themselves.”

  Nanette set her jaw. “The result is the same.”

  Fane’s expression darkened. Obviously, he wasn’t used to being contradicted. “They betrayed us once and embraced the shadows. Would you follow them into the dark?”

  “I didn’t betray you,” Nim said. “I don’t even know you. Although now that I do . . .”

  “Stop.” Nanette’s voice rose, not quite to a shriek, but getting there. “Before you say something that starts another war.”

  “Yeah.” Nim put both hands on her hips, not to be flirty, but to square herself against Fane. “A war with the bad demons is bad enough.”

  “I meant another war like the one that fractured the realms at the beginning of the world,” Nanette said.

  “Oh.” Nim thought for a moment. “Well, I don’t go back that far either.”

  Fane’s lips twisted in an unkind smile. “And this is the weapon the teshuva think will win them their salvation. You’d be lucky to empty enough half-starved malice to redeem a thimbleful of your soul.”

  Nim bristled. “Nobody uses thimbles anymore. And we’re not stopping with malice anymore either. We’re aiming for the djinn this time.”

  Fane didn’t so much as twitch, but the haints groaned at the flare of power that belled through the garage. A faint thump issued from the motor home where one bonked its head against the window, drawn to the swelling energy but trapped by its seat belt.

  “Oh, Nim,” Nanette whispered.

  “Going after the djinn?” Fane’s voice wasn’t much louder than Nanette’s.

  There was a saying, Nim remembered, that upon finding oneself at the bottom of a hole, the wisest course was to stop digging. She’d always figured the saying was for people who had another way out.

  She propped her hand on her hip. “I think the teshuva got tired of waiting for the Holy Rollers to get rolling and found their own set of wheels. Not as nice as yours, of course. But maybe not so indicative of a tiny penis either.”

  Nanette took a step back.

  The muscle in Fane’s jaw ticked in opposition to the vein throbbing at his temple. He’d have to do something soon, Nim mused, or his head would explode.

  He laughed.

  Nanette took another step back, but Nim just smiled in return.

  “You talyan have a death wish,” he said. “That’s why the teshuva grant you immortality.”

  “We all have our little flaws,” she admitted.

  “No,” he said. “We all don’t.” His irises glinted gold. “Shall I drop my pants to prove it to you?”

  Nanette took two more steps back and bumped into the stairs that led up to the door of the house. The door that, Nim realized abruptly, was ajar. With Jonah standing there in silence, bound in the absolute stillness that made her think of a peaceful dawn on some gorgeous, remote mountain . . . right before it avalanch
ed.

  He steadied Nanette with a hand at her shoulder and she let out a piercing shriek.

  Nim winced. This wasn’t going to go well. As if the rest of the visit had been so stellar.

  The waves of ether had crisscrossed into such confusion she’d missed the demonic aura that must have preceded his arrival. But she couldn’t miss the hellish fury that raised the blood to his cheeks and sparked violet along his reven.

  She considered Fane’s challenge. Angels had a sense of humor. Who knew? “Keep your zipper up. I already have too much of a good thing.” She met Jonah’s glittering stare. “Hey, lover.”

  CHAPTER 15

  She was going to be the death of him. Unlike his wife, with whom he should have grown happily old and who had instead inadvertently fated him to eternal life, Nim—his intended salvation—would be his doom.

  Jonah just hadn’t thought it would be so soon. And against an angelic host, not even the tenebrae, who were supposed to be his prey.

  She sauntered toward him. The snug black pants clung so low, he caught a glimpse of the reven gleaming at her hip bone under the hitched-up hem of her skimpy tank top. She stopped in front of him and handed him his wallet.

  His pulse spiked, and he tucked the wallet into his back pocket, refusing to wince when the angry thrust yanked his jeans taut across his suddenly attentive shaft. At least he could die happy, his body reminded him.

  His tone was harsher than he intended when he asked, “What are you doing here?”

  Before she could answer—and he could see her shuffling through the various possibilities in her head—the man across the garage raised his voice. “What are you doing in my house, talya?”

  “I knocked,” Jonah said. “No one answered. The door was unlocked.”

  “Because no one else in this neighborhood would have dared test it.”

  “Just as well you don’t live in my neighborhood.” Jonah didn’t bother mentioning that the door had been unlocked after he got through with it. “We lock our doors. We keep our pants on too.”