Page 43

Rome

“Dude, it is not working to follow Hubler.”

Spin didn’t waste any time getting to the point of his call.

“What’s going on?” I asked. “Did he spot you? Is Monkey giving you trouble?”

“Of course he didn’t see me. Nobody can see me when I don’t want them to.

” Spin’s indignation made me roll my eyes.

“And Monkey’s fine. But Hubler is all over the place, and I can’t get close enough to travel with him.

He has more security than the president!

We can follow his itinerary on his Internet site, but neither of us is able to teleport, and relying on civilian flights barely gets us there in time to hop on a plane to the next place.

Oh, and the Council credit card was declined this morning. ”

“Sorry. We just found that out ourselves.”

I’d received a text from Hank as we were moving the clothes from the washers to the dryers. He’d been keeping us in the loop since our Sanctuary phones were all off.

I should have contacted Spin and Chance right away, but riding herd on Kerry distracted me.

“The Council officially pulled the plug on missions,” I explained now. “We’re not in lockdown yet, but the wardens ordered teams to withdraw from the field unless actively engaged with the enemy. We’re on our own, and operating without sanction.”

“Then I guess it won’t do any good to ask you where the nearest outpost is,” he grumbled. “Look, I only got twenty bucks on me. That isn’t even going to get us a hotel room tonight. Make that less than twenty. Monkey’s decided to buy a soft pretzel.”

“Where are you?”

“Chicago airport.”

“Okay, we’ll send you some money.”

“You get rich all of a sudden?”

“Kerry did.” I didn’t bother to explain further. “Until we find Gemma, he’s our bank.”

At the back of my mind was the thought that, after we found her, we’d have to return to the Sanctuary and face the music. I wondered what consequences the Council would dish out.

Then again, if we stop a demon prince’s long-range plan and shut down the Alchemists’ nephilim trafficking ring, we might be rewarded instead of punished for ignoring orders.

“That’ll take care of the finances,” Spin said, “but what about following Hubler?”

“Where is he now?”

“On a plane bound for San Francisco.”

“Wow. He is all over the country.” My eyebrows flew up. “Let me talk it over with Kerry, and I’ll get back to you.”

“Roger that, bro.”

#

Spin

Monkey grabbed my sleeve and tugged me into a little newspaper shop, where she flitted around until she found a rack of news magazines and tabloids. Her eyes scanned each title until she settled on one and held it out to me.

I took it, looked at the price, and raised my eyebrows. When did magazines get so expensive?

“Monkey, that’s the last of my money. We’ll be in trouble unless Rome comes through and sends us more.”

She shrugged.

“Yeah, you’re right. Fifteen bucks isn’t going to buy much else.” As I reached for my wallet, my temper erupted without warning. “You’re a real burden sometimes, you know that?”

I said it in a mean tone, too, which was not like me. Worse, I kept going. It was like my mouth decided to pour all my frustration onto her, and none of it was her fault.

“If you’d talk to me, it would help! I’m doing the best I can to guess what you want or need, but I can’t read your mind! Why won’t you say something?”

I knew the betrayal in her eyes would haunt me for a long, long, long time. I was sure that, years later, the image would pop up in my head ,and I’d curse myself out all over again.

She turned and walked away—and I stood there with that dumb magazine and watched her go, so absorbed in a moment of self-righteous anger that I actually considered leaving her at the airport.

She wants to walk away? Fine! Let her walk away. She can find some other poor sucker and drain his wallet and give him the silent treatment!

My anger never lasts long. It’s like a bubble that fills up in a second, then pops just as quickly. When it does, I’m left to clean up the fallout.

Only this time, I’d messed up something I wasn’t so sure I could fix.

#

Anne

I remember bits and pieces, some more clearly than others.

I remember my power being stolen, and my friends disappearing one by one until only I remained.

I remember demons dragging me to the White Room, and I remember what happened there.

I remember mismatched intervals of light and dark trekking across the walls. My world had shriveled to a rotation of pain and the absence of pain, though, and days and the counting of them had ceased to matter.

I remember how hope dwindled to a thread as thin as spider silk until I finally accepted that no rescue was coming.

I remember an obsidian-eyed man came into my prison one day and stared at me for several long minutes, then left. After that, the demons stopped taking me to the White Room, stopping coming in all together, and I was grateful to be forgotten.

I remember growing hungrier and colder and weaker until everything became dim and dull and dark around the edges. Fading, just like me.

I remember voices piercing my stupor. My eyes unshuttered when a flame-haired girl touched my arm.

My ears unstoppered when a boy brought me a blanket and told me he would take care of me until I could do so myself.

He told story after story until I climbed into his lap and laid my head on his chest.

I remember thinking that there could be no lovelier sound in the world than the endless thump-thump of his heart.

#

Spin

I found her doing yoga in a kids’ play area.

There were children climbing all over the place, and presumably their parents were the grown-ups sacked out in nearby chairs.

Nearly all of them were ignoring Monkey, the kids too busy screaming and the adults either too jet-lagged or world-weary to care, but a couple of the men had their whole focus on her instead of their kids.

One was obviously curious, which I could understand. It wasn’t every day you saw a girl curled backward with her toes on the top of her head. The other one, though…

Sinking to my knees next to Monkey, I shot that guy a glare loaded with power.

Dude’s face went slack, then he got to his feet in jerky movements and marched away like an automaton.

When he didn’t stop to claim any of the kids, it only confirmed for me that he was a predator, and I’d been justified in sending him away.

I hoped the power lasted long enough for him to walk right into the bay and sink down to Hell where he belonged.

I turned my attention to Monkey. I didn’t know what to do. I wasn’t a transitionist or a counselor, and I usually ended up pissing off even regular people just by being me. What chance did I have to help a traumatized muse?

After we first found her, I’d had the idea of getting Kerry to talk with her.

Chance had healed her physical injuries, but I hoped Kerry could maybe get her to open up a little about the abuse she’d been through.

Then we lost Gemma and that plan became impossible.

His head was in a war zone, and I wasn’t subjecting my girl to that.

You’re all she has right now, I told myself. And she chose you. There were five other people she could have latched onto, and she chose you.

“Listen.” I swallowed the lump in my throat. “I’m sorry I snapped at you. I don’t usually lose my temper like that. I’m mostly frustrated because we’re out of cash and we have to rely on Rome to get us some. I’m not comfortable being dependent on somebody like this.”

I didn’t add that I was cranky because she hadn’t been sleeping well, which meant I hadn’t been sleeping well. How could I blame her for having nightmares?

“And I didn’t realize that you might be feeling a similar discomfort by being dependent on me . That’s probably a burden for you. Being stuck with me, I mean. I am aware that I can be a jerk sometimes. And I’m sorry I started to hassle you about not talking.”

My temper sparked again, but for a different reason. If I ever found the one who’d destroyed her voice…

“I’ve heard you talk in your sleep, so you shouldn’t be self-conscious about it with me, but I understand why you’d rather be silent around other people. I talk enough for both of us, anyway.”

I smiled, but she still didn’t look at me, and I gave up on humor.

“Look, if you want to go back to the Sanctuary, I’ll drop you off at the outpost here. They can shuttle you home.”

She dropped out of the yoga pose to lay flat on the floor with her head buried in her arms. Her shoulders started to shake.

“No, no, no!” I groaned. “I don’t want you to go. I like having you with me, but I’m a guide, not any kind of healer, and I’m tied up helping Kerry for I don’t know how long. It’s not an ideal situation to recover from what you’ve endured.”

She moved her head enough to peek at me through her hair. I wasn’t surprised to see tears skating down her cheeks.

“I want you to stay if you want to stay,” I whispered, “and I’m sorry I was mean.”

She blinked and propped herself up on one elbow, and her ink-black eyes finally met mine. Moving slowly so I didn’t startle her, I reached over and used my sleeve to wipe her face. She waited until I lowered my hand, then used her index finger to trace on the floor.

She’d done this before—drawn letters on a nearby surface for me to read what she was writing. Good thing I was spatially oriented or it wouldn’t have worked.

“Wait. Start over.” I moved to lie down next to her. “I should have bought you a notepad and a pencil.”

She wanted to know what Kerry was going to do once he caught the bad guys. She’d spelled Kerry as Cary. I put my hand over hers and moved her finger in the right way to spell it.

“Teams are supposed to take any prisoners to the Sanctuary for interrogation by the Council,” I hedged.

I didn’t want to lie to her, but I wasn’t sure the truth would be a good idea, either.

She asked what I thought Kerry would do and underlined his name so hard, her fingernail turned white.