by Jessa Slade
Her life hardly seemed to compare with Dory’s experiences. But then Jilly thought a moment. What had she missed over the years, hidden behind her walls of defiant self-reliance?
Dory interrupted her reverie. “I saw Leroy, a while back. He wanted me to join that crazy cult of his. Said he could get me off the drugs too.” She eyed Jilly with a touch of mockery. “No prayers or tough- love lockdown, though. They use herbs and acupuncture or some shit. Sounds way better.”
Jilly wondered if she’d be trying for a second intervention soon. The group’s front-gate greeters had booted her off the premises quick enough the time she’d gone. But those gates would be no obstacle to her new demonic powers. “But you didn’t stay.”
Dory shrugged. “Had things to do.”
Jilly pictured her brother succumbing to the cult’s allure, her sister snared by drugs. And herself, with her self-imposed walls that had only kept her neatly corralled for a teshuva with exploitation on its mind. She wondered who deserved the hardest slap. “God, how’d we grow up still so stuck?”
“Blackbird had an answer,” Dory said. “Ask him.”
“Maybe I will.” Jilly could guess what Liam would say to that. Because he was as stuck as the rest of them.
But maybe it was time to get unstuck.
In the daylight, the Mortal Coil looked like a stiletto-heeled stylista after a long night of sweating off ten-dollar martinis: listing, stained, and vastly the poorer. Jilly let the teshuva flow unfettered, but found nothing untoward.
Which was almost odd in itself, considering the talya reports about rampant tenebrae activity the night before.
The front door was locked so she walked the long block to the alley. Sheltered between the Dumpsters, she amped the demon a little higher and gave the locked back door a hard tug. Not locked anymore. Iz would be so proud of her.
The door opened into the bathroom hallway. Where all the best drug deals took place, Jilly knew. She prowled down the hall. Just one soulfly, one hint, was all she wanted.
She stiffened when she sensed the approach.
“Thought I heard someone come in.”
Jilly turned to see Bella.
The club owner leaned in the office doorway, arms crossed. She was dressed in another red baby-doll tee that clashed with her hair, but the beehive was in a loose knot at her nape.
“Thanks for not bringing the double-barreled shotgun,” Jilly said.
Bella patted her hip. “We saloon girls use something smaller and tidier on thieves and varmints these days.”
Whether it was a Taser or Mace or something worse, Jilly didn’t doubt the blind Bella could drill a dime at twenty paces. “Good thing I didn’t come to steal anything. As for the infestation . . . well, I won’t leave anything behind.”
Bella made a noncommittal noise. “Does Liam know you’re here?”
“He’s right behind me.” Jilly kept her tone bland. She figured there was a fair-to-middling chance she wasn’t even lying. “I thought I’d just get started.”
“On . . . ?”
“Finding leftovers from those solvo dealers.”
Bella half closed her pale eyes. “We keep them out.” “Oh, I don’t mind helping out one of Liam’s friends, looking around to make sure you’re good. You know, clear.” No, they both knew she meant good.
Bella’s lip curled, but she took a step back into her office, clearing the way down the hall. She tagged along behind Jilly into the gloomy cavern of the empty night-club. “I’m surprised Liam let you come on ahead. He likes to be on top . . . of things.”
Oh, subtle. “I hadn’t really noticed.”
Fluorescents lit the three bars, but other than that, the club was dark, the high ceiling invisible in the shadows except for the occasional wink of colored spotlight gels like demon eyes as she prowled through the space. Not that her skin prickled with any of that lurking- malice alert.
Bella trailed her around the dance-floor rail. “He’ll do anything for his band of merry men. I’m sure you have noticed that.”
“It’s hard to miss.” Jilly wished the woman would stop talking. Made it hard to crush down the impulse to ask questions. Like, how often Liam stopped in. And how often he left alone.
“He pays me well to let the boys burn off their extra energy here. No price is too high.”
Jilly worked her way around a corner banquette backed by a smoky mirror. It looked perfect for the clandestine passing of illegal substances. “Funny. I got the impression they did plenty of burning at the office.”
Bella slid into the banquette and gave her head a pitying shake. “Well, it’s hard to know someone just from work hours.”
Jilly forced a laugh. “Not when all they are is work.” Bella’s expression soured, and Jilly wondered why. It wasn’t like Jilly had anything going with Liam, if that was the problem. That much must be obvious even to a blind woman.
It was also obvious there was no hint of solvo-shredded soulflies anywhere. Maybe she’d been wrong about the club and its owner; the Coil had seemed like such a great place to find trouble.
Disheartened, she slumped into the banquette across from Bella. “Look.” Then she winced. “Sorry. I guess you’ve known Liam a long time.” Not as long as she herself would, of course. “I’m just trying to put a stop to the solvo. That’s a good thing for all of us.” Meaning, like, the world.
Bella sighed. “Shit like solvo takes all the joy out of drinking and dancing and fighting.”
“Right.” Whatever got the club owner on her side. Or off her back anyway. “Well, at least the guys have the drinking and fighting part down.”
“Archer dances now. Thanks to Sera. Anyway, he prowls around the dance floor. We count that. And he needs it.”
Jilly’s lips twitched. “I’m trying to imagine the moody broody bad boy getting his groove on.”
Bella closed her eyes and smiled back. “Yeah, I try to picture it too.” She opened her eyes again, and her pale gaze fixed hard on Jilly despite her alleged disability. “Your boots sound awfully heavy for dancing.”
In the mirror behind Bella’s head, Jilly caught a flash of violet. She blinked, wrestling back the teshuva. “A waitress like you should understand. I like comfortable shoes.”
“Yes, ruts are like that, aren’t they?” Bella put her elbow on the banquette table and propped her cheek on her fist. “I don’t dance either. Tell me, Jilly Chan, what rut were you stuck in before Liam rescued you?”
Jilly wondered which should offend her more, to know that Bella had sniffed around enough to come up with her last name, or the idea that Liam had rescued her from anything. But she wondered at the curiosity when it was so clear the other woman didn’t like her. “I wasn’t in a rut. I had a very rewarding job working with homeless and at-risk youth.”
Bella chuckled. “No wonder Liam chose you. Ah well, he makes a fine boss.”
Jilly opened her mouth to correct the club owner on the choosing, then realized how close she’d come to spilling secrets that weren’t hers. “Yeah. The at- risk part crosses over especially well.”
She didn’t even bother addressing the boss part, but she had to admit Liam was dedicated to his crew in a way Envers had never been with the kids. That had been the start of her conversion, she realized; whatever else he was that drove her crazy, he cared. Deeply and in an all-consuming way. And she was becoming part of it. Sinking into the secrets, becoming part of the league. Becoming Liam’s. She waited for the expected surge of outrage, spiced with claustrophobia.
And waited.
Bella drummed her long nails on the tabletop. “You know, if the league really wanted to put your nose to the ground tracking solvo, you should start at Back of the Yards.”
Diverted, Jilly sat back in the cushions. Dory had mentioned the area too. The old stockyards were long gone, but its rough, industrial history leached through to the modern name. “What’s there?”
“The start,” Bella said laconically.
Wasn
’t everyone full of mystery these days? “Thanks for the tip.” She rose and turned to go.
“I’m going to have to charge you for that lock you jimmied.”
As Jilly strode away, she tossed over her shoulder, “Put it on the boss’s tab.”
She was already gone. Liam knew that even as he walked into the Mortal Coil. The club felt dead, which wouldn’t be the case if Jilly’s vibrant self were anywhere in the vicinity.
How he’d know that he didn’t want to contemplate.
But Bella was already approaching, and he couldn’t just stalk away.
She cocked her head, as if she was studying him. “You’re all fired up about something.” She smiled to herself slightly, as if the words amused her.
“Did Jilly mention where she was off to next?”
“I figured you’d know, since she said you were right behind her.” Bella’s smile tightened. “I guess she meant you were playing catch-up.”
He rubbed his forehead. “Jilly?”
“She’s looking for the source of all things evil. Solvo,” she clarified when he looked up sharply. “I suggested a good place to score.”
Liam’s hands clenched, though he kept his voice mild. “You might have stalled her.”
“She didn’t seem interested in waiting around. Quite unwilling to heed orders, I’d say. Must be maddening.”
“Yeah,” he muttered.
Mad didn’t even begin to cover it. Furious. Outraged. Those sounded better.
He found himself out on the street and realized he wasn’t sure he’d said good-bye to Bella. Something about an addition to his tab. He’d send her a fat check and hope that covered everything. He didn’t have time to flow Bella and Lau- lau into his understanding, not when Jilly’s every move threw him another twist.
Why did it not surprise him that a knot-work demon had chosen her?
He knew Jilly hadn’t taken a vehicle from the league lot, and the outskirts of the old stockyard district were close enough to walk. She wasn’t that far ahead of him that he couldn’t catch up in his car and drag her home.
He wove through traffic with more than a few honked horns, wondering how he could call a warehouse of mismatched antiques home. And why did he think to stop her from pursuing her last purpose in life? Even before the demon possessed her, she’d been a vigilante crusader.
His only task should be to aim her like the weapon she now was. Of course, he needed to have the weapon in hand to aim it.
Never mind how badly he wanted her in hand.
He skirted the L with a wary eye. Full daylight was no guarantee of protection from the tenebrae, but at least they still seemed to prefer the night. The human-clad demons, however, went about in all weather.
The elevated tracks turned away from the road, and he drove straight into the bland industrial park. He rolled down the windows, the ravager demon’s senses blown wide.
The stockyards had closed long ago, gone with the railway lines that had once fed cows and immigrants into the massive killing sheds. Even the limestone arch that had marked the yards as “slaughterhouse to the world” was gone, relocated to the historical museum where it stood in much more genteel surrounds.
And still Liam swore the smell of blood and shit lingered over the concrete.
He slicked one hand down the prickling hair at his nape. Not his demon, just bad memories. He cruised the main streets. It was Sunday, he realized, which explained the empty parking lots. Less traffic, fewer witnesses; always good. How hard could it be to find one short but curvy tyro demon-killer in an empty industrial park?
His nostrils flared at a bitter drift, and he peered out the passenger window at a plume of smoke curling from behind one of the buildings.
That might be a reasonable place to start.
CHAPTER 19
Liam slalomed the car around the back side of the building and found himself in a confusing maze of stacked truck trailers. Though his pulse tried to leap ahead, he slowed the car. Wouldn’t want to careen around a steel box and flatten Jilly. Although she’d deserve it.
Rising above the roofline, the whorl of smoke was now a widespread black wing. Why stop with the bad news of ferales frolicking in the daylight when they could attract attention with smoke signals too? What the hell had she gotten herself into?
And he knew it was her. Where there was smoke, there’d be his fiery female talya, no doubt.
His.
Damn it.
He saw an opening between the trailers and gunned the car past the last obstacles. In the middle of the barren space, glittering with the urban confetti of broken glass, Jilly stood, arms wrapped around herself, facing a smoking mound of debris.
He was out of the car and at her side in a heartbeat. “What happened?”
“Nothing.” She gestured at the pile. “I found them like this.”
“They” were bodies, charred and crumbling even as he watched. The smoke was half dust, spiraling into the sky.
“Haints.” Jilly’s voice was dull. “No sign of anything else. If you squint, you can almost see the soulflies against the black.”
Fury rose up in him, far blacker than the smoke and dust. “And what if there had been something else? Say, Corvus, lying in wait for you to blunder in.”
She shook her head. “He was as freaked by our last encounter as we were. I think that’s what happened here.” She gestured at the pile. “He was cleaning house. This is just the garbage he left behind.” She clutched herself tighter. “Just garbage.”
Already, the black smoke was thinning as the haints crumbled. If anyone had seen the alarming sign in the empty park and called it in, there’d be nothing left by the time a police cruiser was dispatched to check it out.
“If he is gone,” Liam made sure his tone indicated he wasn’t willing to give her that pass, “then it was only a short time ago. The fact there’s anything left of these bodies at all means the salambes abandoned these bodies recently.”
They witnessed in silence. Just as she’d said, if he glanced to one side, he glimpsed the translucent shards of soul matter. At first, the flecks held a vaguely columnar shape, but as the bodies flaked away and the dust lifted on the breeze, the soulflies wandered off. Truly lost souls.
A thin stream of them began to spiral down toward Jilly and that damned bracelet, but she continued to stare into the ashes, oblivious.
“Why would you leave the warehouse?” He kept his voice neutral.
“Because I have to do something and everyone else seemed occupied. You know, sharpening their swords for tonight and whatnot.”
“I wasn’t sharpening any sword,” he said tightly. “I do all weapons prep before I sleep.”
She shot him a glance piercing enough to shame the well-honed tips of her crescent knives. “You said we should stay away from each other.”
“That was not what I said.” He was fairly certain it hadn’t been that. At least not so bluntly.
“That was the logical extension of what you said.”
“Since when are you logical?” He tried to rein in his temper, but the lingering sour stench of burn made him edgy. “Logical would not lead you to believe that Bella has your best interests at heart.”
“I think it’s likely she has no heart.” Jilly turned her face to the sky. “I suppose I could find out.” She glanced back at him. “She wants you, and not just because of the cat-and-mouse fun of the who-knows-what game you’re playing together.”
“She wants what seems like my money,” he corrected. “And maybe the power she senses. Not exactly the basis for a long-lasting relationship—even without the demonic-immortality angle.”
“I’ve seen worse reasons to fall in love.”
That word again. He didn’t like how it kept popping up around him, a pretty package with an undertow of pain like a candy-coated malice.
“The quiche was great,” he said. Anything to get off the other subject.
Her lips twitched. “Also not a reason to fall in l
ove, whatever Lau-lau might say.”
He scowled. “What is it with you females and love?”
Her smile faded. “Nothing. Not a damn thing.” She stalked away from him.
He had to take three long steps to catch up with her. “Where are you going?”
“To find what I came for. Corvus’s hideaway. Dory said he liked to deal from here. What if there’s a stash of solvo, or a lab, somewhere in all these buildings?”
“We don’t know how Corvus makes it. Bookie took that secret into his soulless funk.”
“Then now’s a good time to find out how they did it. And stop it. Maybe even reverse it.” She avoided the smoldering mound. “For some.”
“You really think you can put a soul back in its body?”
She halted and turned her considering gaze on him. “The body is just another trap. Isn’t that why your touch brings me back to myself when the demon realm is all around us?”
A strange heat lanced through him, half satisfaction that she would admit he’d affected her, half anger that she considered it a trap.
Oblivious, she continued. “Why shouldn’t we be able to lure the soul back, just as we lured the salambes?”
He shook his head, trying to fling off his internal mayhem and evaluate her words. Considering how she fretted over her hoodlum charges, he shouldn’t be surprised she would bulldoze any pesky obstacle—like, oh, cold hard reality—that stumbled into her path. Still, it was one thing to talk a young gangbanger into considering college, and something else again to trick a spirit into its shell.
On the other hand, if anyone could do it . . .
Your touch brings me back to myself.
He gestured for her to proceed.
She searched his face, one hand restlessly twisting the bracelet around her wrist. “You don’t even believe me. You don’t have to come along.”
He gave her a long look but didn’t speak. When she strode off, he stayed close on her heels.
They quartered the nearest buildings in the hopes of finding a sign of demon activity, a thread of birnenston, something. But the few remaining soulflies dissipated, lacking even the will to follow Jilly.
