by Jessa Slade
“Jonah!” Archer skidded to a stop a yard away. The battle-axe in his hand thumped to the floor, and from the stark widening of his eyes, Jonah wondered how bad they looked.
“She’s hurt,” he said. He would not allow for anything worse.
Archer opened his mouth, then closed it. “Can you stand?”
They must look bad if he had to ask. “I’m fine.” Jonah gathered his legs under him, hoping he wouldn’t tip over and reveal his lie. “We have to get her to the warehouse. The energy sinks will block her lure if she’s still broadcasting when she regains her senses.” Another hope; maybe another lie. He met Archer’s gaze and was horrified to see a spark of pity. He’d rather see fury there at his failure. “I couldn’t stop her.”
Archer just shook his head. “I couldn’t stop Sera either. I’m just sorry it took us so long to get back here. I thought the alarm bells in my head were only about that drinking game. . . .” He rubbed his temple wearily. “Let’s get you out of here.”
Sera limped up to them. The chill of the tenebraeternum clung to her skin.
Behind her, Jilly was streaked with feralis gore. “We need to set his arms first. If the teshuva heals them in that state, we’ll just have to rebreak them.”
Archer’s eyes blazed violet. “Now you two care about hurting someone?”
“No more fighting,” Jonah said. “We need to get Nim out of here. The ferales might circle back if she wakes and casts the lure again.”
“We’ll rip them apart if they do,” Archer snarled. Despite the eddies of teshuva fury, Sera leaned against her mate.
Jilly shook her head. “Now that you’re here, Jonah, you’ll be able to guide her.”
“I couldn’t control her before.”
“It’s not about controlling her.” Sera crossed to his side and gave him a few exploratory pokes in the arm that made his vision blur. “Displaced fractures of the humerus in both arms. But they’re still attached, obviously. No catastrophic blood loss and no excessive neural severing, which is all the teshuva needs to get to work. You’ll be good as . . . before in a couple days.” She held out her hand to Jilly, who knelt beside Nim. “Can I have your bandages? I think you need them less than Jonah.”
Jilly fumbled down her neckline to unwind a swath of gauze.
“Save it for Nim,” Jonah protested.
“She’ll be fine,” Jilly said. “Her hands are healing already.”
Hearing the words sapped what strength was left in his knees. “If she’s okay, why hasn’t her teshuva brought her around?”
Sera and Jilly exchanged glances. “She’ll wake when she’s ready,” Sera said.
He gritted his teeth. “Is that what you said to your dying patients—‘You can go when you’re ready’?”
“And it always worked,” she said. “So don’t worry.”
“Let’s go,” Archer growled. “Maybe you’re convinced this will end all right, but there are a half dozen other wounded who’d like to be done with tonight.”
Sera’s jaw flexed, but she finished wrapping Jonah in silence. She straightened the upper bones, politely ignoring the groan of protest he couldn’t hold back, and bound his arms to his chest. Knowing she’d been a than atologist, ushering out the dying, made him feel as if she were burying him in winding sheets.
Sweat popped out on his forehead. This was how it might feel to have no arms. He’d not been grateful enough for what he still had.
He stood over Nim.
Jilly had straightened his fallen mate so she looked less like a broken doll. He didn’t think she’d appreciate a Sleeping Beauty reference, not with her skin streaked with blood and ichor thick as war paint. He couldn’t even reach down to brush back the tangle of her hair. He’d tip over in his sick fatigue. Oh, and not to forget, he had no hands.
He turned away. “Get us out of here.”
Archer tipped his head toward Nim. “May I?”
Jonah nodded sharply. Archer gathered up Nim’s limp body, careful to support her head against his chest, his two strong arms making easy work of her unconscious weight. Jonah stared fixedly away to where a half dozen talyan, under Liam’s watchful eye and ready hammer, were emptying the tenebrae energy from the last twitching ferales. Swells of demonic emanations swept the brick dust and crystallized malice remains in eerily beautiful ribbons of black and red.
A chunk of the ceiling crashed down, bisecting the patterns.
Jilly ducked her shoulders. “I’ll have to remind Liam to send an anonymous complaint to the city. Make sure they condemn this place.”
“Yeah,” Archer drawled. “Wouldn’t want anything bad to happen here.”
That kept them silent out to the line of haphazardly parked cars.
Archer tucked Nim into a backseat of a truck that had skidded in sideways; then he turned to stab a finger at each of the other women. “You two, separate cars. And not the one with Ecco.”
Sera put her hands on her hips. “We’re not criminals.”
“Actually, you were once.”
“No,” Jilly said. “That was me. Sera was a good girl.”
Archer shot her an acid look. “You meaning female talyan. The league banished you for a reason. And I think we’re getting a hint why.”
Sera’s hands fell slowly to her sides. “Don’t.” There were no demon harmonics in her voice, just one woman’s plea.
Archer scrubbed a hand down his face, over lines of strain the teshuva had been too busy to erase. “Damn it, Sera. Can you imagine how that looked, coming through the window and seeing . . .” A shudder racked him. “Not the ferales. But you, surrounded.”
Jonah bowed his head. The image blistered too fresh in his mind. “Can we go?”
Archer spun away. “Of course.” Sera didn’t follow.
Jonah climbed into the backseat with Nim. He couldn’t hold her, but he could let her lean against him, though her slack shoulder dug into his broken arm as they jolted over the railroad tracks.
“Not to the warehouse,” he told Archer. “Take us to the marina.”
“Jonah . . .”
“You saw that horde. If Nim wakes with the lure still engaged, I don’t think the energy sinks can contain the emanations. Until we have the anklet back—if the anklet is an on-off switch or a padlock or a fail-safe—she’s a danger.” He gave the other man a hard look in the rearview mirror. “And not an ancient-history, theoretical sort of danger either, as you might have noticed.”
“Then you being alone with her—”
“We’ll be safe on the boat once we’re beyond reach of shore. We won’t be carrying any tenebrae evil with us.”
Archer’s jaw worked. “Still, the isolation . . .”
“I suspect you’ll be taking some time with Sera.”
The other talya shrugged. “I see your point. But what about your arms?”
“Maybe I won’t wring her neck.”
With a hint of a smile, Archer said, “Then you’re a stronger man than I.”
In the pre-predawn stillness, the glassy water reflected the marina lights like a second world—dark and perfect. To sink beneath would upset the flawless skin.
Jonah dragged his gaze off the mysterious depths and gave Archer the code to get through the locked gate. He followed Archer, who held Nim in his arms, to the Shades of Gray. As Archer descended into the cabin, Jonah fired up the motors.
Archer returned a moment later. “I put her in the bunk. How are you going to—Oh.” He watched Jonah slip out of the bandage around his half arm and work the throttle with the end of his stump. “The teshuva’s gotten to work on the bone already?”
“Enough,” Jonah answered tersely. He figured the other man would understand what remained unsaid. He tried to force down the heat in his face. He never used the ugly knob of flesh where someone might see. “Although I’d appreciate if you cast off.”
“ ‘Go away’ is what you mean,” Archer said. “Don’t worry. No wise-old-man advice before I leave. I obviously suc
k.”
Jonah’s lips quirked. “Try that tack with Sera, and she might actually apologize to you.”
Archer snorted. “Check in when Nim wakes. When you bring her back, we’ll be onshore to make sure it’s safe.”
And if it wasn’t? For the briefest moment, Jonah thought of leaving the city behind, setting south for the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico, or heading north to find the Saint Lawrence Seaway and the Atlantic. A new adventure. One where he never set foot to land again.
Would Nim trade her stilettos for flip-flops?
He waited until Archer recoiled his lines and stood ready to jump to shore.
“Whatever happens,” Jonah said, “it’s too late to let her go.”
The boat was drifting, and he knew the other talya wanted to return to his mate, but Archer hesitated. “Too late for whom?” With the help of his demon, Archer launched himself to the dock. He turned and lifted his hand in a wry salute. Jonah answered with his stump, and Archer shook his head.
Jonah turned away and set his course.
CHAPTER 18
She came awake with her pulse racing in a disorienting double beat. Where was she, with this creak of wood and humid tang? Had she passed out in the bathroom with the sink faucet running again? That time, she’d roused with tap water halfway up her nose, which taught her to always pass out in bed. Now she was naked—that part she was used to—but she was wrapped in a bedsheet with a striped pattern she didn’t recognize. She sat up and hit her head on a ceiling that was much too low.
A boat. She took a calming breath and caught the scent that settled her heartbeat into a single, steady beat. Jonah’s boat.
She slumped back and hit her head on the wall behind her.
Jonah peered down through the open hatch, silhouetted against the bright sky behind him, his bare toes curled around the upper step. With his appearance, the scent of sun and water strengthened. “I thought I heard you moving around.”
“What . . . ?” Her voice cracked.
He stepped down into the cabin, and she forgot for a moment what she was going to ask. Had the missionary man been left behind? Here, instead, was the adventurer. Bare chested, with his sandy hair tousled by the wind, he looked like some dashing, carefree sailor, too cavalier to bother with piracy.
He rummaged through the mini fridge and returned with a can of lemonade. But he couldn’t hold it out because his good arm was strapped to his chest.
She sat up again, clutching the sheet to her chest. At least she remembered not to bonk her head this time. “You fell!”
“I got up again.” He ducked to sit down on the berth beside her.
“We both did.” She took the can, then extended her other hand out in front of her. Narrow white scars crisscrossed her palm, almost invisible except where the light hit just right. “I couldn’t make it let go.” Her words caught again in her throat.
“Drink. You need the sugar.”
“Got vodka to go with it?”
“Your head doesn’t hurt enough?”
She grimaced and touched her hair. The dreads were bound into one thick snarl where the feralis had grabbed hold. She popped the tab on the can and took a long swallow. The tart sweetness tasted like heaven. “Why are we out here?”
His hesitation was so minor, she almost missed it. “You need quiet to recover.” When she narrowed her eyes, he sighed and added, “By quiet, I mean no more hordes of tenebrae.”
Her fingers dented the can. “They’re still out there?”
“Maybe. Somewhere.” He hesitated again, longer this time. “I tried calling Archer for news, but we’re getting some etheric interference.” She took a breath, and he interrupted. “Don’t worry about the tenebrae. They might be out there, but we’re even farther out here.”
“If the demons can’t get to us, what’s interfering with your cell phone?” He didn’t answer, and she said flatly, “Me.”
He shrugged, awkward with the bandage.
“God, I almost killed you, Jonah. You should’ve thrown me over the rail while I was out.”
He tugged again at the constricting gauze. “You make it sound so easy with no hands. Plus, you woke up for a bit a while ago. Don’t you remember?”
She tipped her head against the wall. As if she’d knocked the memory loose, she vaguely recalled the weight of him beside her on the bed, the whisper of his breath against her cheek. No groping hands, though. Now she knew why. “You said everything was okay.”
“Since you weren’t unconscious anymore, I even believed it.”
How could he say that with even his good arm bound tight? She rolled her head against the wall to look at him. “I don’t remember how you got us out alive.”
“Don’t thank me. Our league brothers arrived to save the day just as we got free from the feralis.” He grimaced. “And by ‘free,’ I mean ‘plummeted to our uncertain death.’ That was thanks to me.”
The note of bitter self-censure in his voice made her wince. “Better a free and uncertain death than what that feralis had planned. I think it wanted my scalp for its collection.” She rubbed at her temple. “I remember falling, but not landing.”
“No doubt you knocked the teshuva offline for a moment when you hit the ground.”
“And now I’m back, broadcasting on all channels, calling all demons,” she said. “Maybe if you hit me in the head a few more times, we could change stations.”
“From bad to worse. That’s what happened to Corvus. We thought he died in a fight last winter, but he came back, his human half crippled and his djinni less inhibited than ever.”
She snorted. “Who would’ve thought humans could have a mitigating influence on evil.”
“And on good too.” He leaned back next to her. “Cyril Fane’s angel would have cast us back from whence we came, with extreme prejudice. Fane himself didn’t want to get guts spattered on his pretty car.”
Nim looked down at the can in her hand, twisting the tab in a circle until it broke off. “You haven’t yelled at me for that yet.”
“Hasn’t been time. And now, compared to this latest escapade, it hardly seems worth noting.” She mimed perking up in relief, but he didn’t smile. “Plus, I was just waiting until you were conscious so you could truly appreciate my rage.”
She slumped again. “Okay, well, go ahead, then. I can take it.”
“I don’t think I can. Not anymore.”
His words, low and distant, rattled her. “A good screaming match can really clear the air. Maybe a slap or two, to make up for me almost killing everybody in the league.” When he didn’t respond, she put the lemonade down and touched his leg. “I want to make it up to you, Jonah.”
“If you’re about to offer a blow job next, don’t.”
She withdrew her hand, wondering if she was actually on fire from her cheeks all the way down past the sheet around her breasts, or if it only felt that way.
“Your concept of this bond between us is fucked-up,” he said bluntly.
For the first time, a curse from him didn’t make her want to laugh. That she had pushed him so far beyond his boundaries didn’t seem funny anymore. “Jonah—”
But he didn’t let her continue. “And so was mine,” he admitted. “I wanted you for all the wrong reasons.”
“Saving the city from hell is a wrong reason?”
He shook his head. “I wanted you the same way the men at the Shimmy Shack did. For myself.”
She stared at him. Was it just another symptom of her fucked-up view of the bond that her heart stuttered in hope when he said that?
“I don’t know how,” he said, “but if there’s a way out of this, I’ll let you go.”
Her heart lurched to a standstill.
“Let me go?” The words fell from her lips, as cold as a malice sting.
“I’m not going to be another one of those men to you.”
“But you’re not. You’re—”
He waited, but nothing else would come from h
er mouth. “You wouldn’t dance without a bouncer.” His hand, trussed against his belly, tightened into a fist. “Without the anklet, I am not enough to be the anchor, the control you need.”
Hot denials tried to bubble up past her frozen throat. How could he be so wrong? She surged out of the bed, cracked her head on the low ceiling again, and spun to face him. She had to wait a minute for the spinning room to catch up with her spinning head. “I make one little—okay, one fairly substantial—mistake, but for a good cause—you know, saving the city—and I’m outcast.”
He frowned at her—probably because she was naked—and pushed himself upright, grimacing when he jostled his arm. “It’s not you—”
“Sure, that’s what they said when they caught me with the neighbor man—‘It wasn’t your fault, Elaine.’ And meanwhile, the horror and disgust is all over their faces when they turn away. Or when I took off my clothes for money that first time. ‘Oh, she’s damaged goods; it’s not her fault dollar bills are falling out of her panties.’ Hey, at least the lust was an improvement.”
“Nim—”
“What else is immortality good for? I get to make mistakes. I don’t have to be perfect, I don’t even have to be good, and I still get to try again. If I’m broken, I get another chance to fix myself.” She stopped, aghast at the way her chest was heaving with sobs. She’d decide when her chest heaved, thanks anyway, not her stupid hang-up on some holier-than-her jerk. “If you don’t want to take that chance, that’s your choice. But you can’t drag me down with you.”
He gave a sharp bark of laughter, but not in amusement. “That’s what I did, though, didn’t I? Dragged you out of the sky. I almost killed you. Your soul would have been lost at my hand.”
She stared at him. Her soul? He was worried about her soul? “That is so what I get for falling for a missionary man!” She whirled on her heel and stomped into the tiny bathroom. If only the door was heavier, she could have slammed it.
Splashing water on her face rinsed away any evidence of the sobbing. She stared down at her hands gripping the sink. While she was knocked out, someone—not someone; Jonah—had wiped away the grime. Even her fingernails were clean.
