Thorne laughed. “That won’t kill me.”
“Not kill you, no, only incapacitate you with a hollow point bullet I’ve stuffed—like a very small lead and gold Christmas turkey—with shavings from an angelic sword.” Sidney smiled back at the djinn-man. “Then I’ll kill you.”
Thorne’s expression blanked. A thin ring of virulent yellow glowed around his pupils. “You didn’t find that in your archives.”
Sidney shrugged. “I found the sword fragment in Alyce, disrupting her demon. And I’m guessing—just guessing, mind, but I’m willing to explore opposing viewpoints if you’re so inclined—it’ll do the same to you.”
Thorne sat up straighter in his chair. “A sphere relic in her? I wondered why …” His smile returned, but twisted. “I knew you were special, Alyce, with that glow around you. But you weren’t my redemption; you were just fucked up. Two wrongs don’t make a right, and two outcasts still can’t find an in.”
Alyce froze. His mouth was distorted in the lying smile, but the words between his lips were straight and true. “I found a place. You could too—”
“No.” He surged to his feet. The force of his djinni heaved in answer, but it didn’t break free as Sid lifted the gun. “I won’t be part of the misguided, hopeless few again. Unlike most of my ancestors, I’ve lived long enough not to repeat my mistakes.”
Sidney’s gun never wavered. “You’re not part of the gathering djinn?”
Thorne slowly sank to the chair again, not in defeat, but with infinite weariness, one elbow hooked over the back. With a flick of his fingers, he indicated the casino beyond. “Forget the ahaˉzum; I have all this. What more could a tribeless Indian want?”
Alyce stood against his glowering regard. “If you don’t want more, give me back my teshuva’s talisman.”
Though he didn’t move, Thorne’s sprawling stance became more of a lie. “I needed nothing of yours, ever.”
“Then give it back.”
He sat straighter and rephrased, emphasizing the words. “I never stole from you.”
Alyce considered his tone. He sounded bored, which worried her. Was he telling the truth this time?
Without the restraint the teshuva should have given her at possession, she would never have the confidence of the other talya women. She’d live out her immortal life with constant fear of drifting back to rogue. She tamped down the rapid thud of her heart, but it thumped back like a body that wouldn’t stay buried. “The teshuva’s memento was all I had.”
Thorne shook his head. “You had only the rags on your back when they dumped you out of the asylum.” He leaned forward again, his arm still hooked over the back of his chair as if he tried to hold himself back but couldn’t. The yellow rings of his eyes expanded. “I saw you that first night, stinking of the hospital and stumbling from the benzos; do you remember? You attacked me.”
She pursed her lips. “The teshuva must have been starving.”
“I hit you hard enough to knock you out of your shoes—no loss—but you kept coming. You were fearless.” His fingers splayed across his desk. “To the djinni, you shone like …” Abruptly, he pushed himself back. “Just as well I never found my inner light if it’s so damn crippling. But that was the angel relic in you. It’s gone now. It was never meant for either of us, and here you are, on the path laid out for you from the beginning.”
The realization froze her. What other path had he yearned for? Whatever it had been, he was right; it was closed to them now.
If she hadn’t been so still, she wouldn’t have heard Sidney’s infinitesimal sound of agreement. He refused to meet her gaze.
“But there is a new path,” he said. “The doorway leading into the demon realm. Why were you there, Thorne?”
Thorne gave him a lazy smile. “You want answers? So do I. Let’s bet on the flip of a coin.”
“I’m not a gambling man,” Sidney said.
Thorne scoffed. “Alyce would bet me.”
“I’d fight you again.”
“Alyce.” The warning in Sidney’s voice trembled through her.
She lifted her chin. “What do you want to know, Thorne?”
“The verge was Corvus’s doing. Why?”
Sidney stared at the djinn-man a long moment, then shrugged. “Corvus’s djinni wanted to unleash hell on Earth. Corvus wanted to be free. They both got what they wanted.”
Thorne huffed out a laugh. “Idiot. He had money, power, and eternal life, and still he needed more. Why did—?”
“Our turn,” Sidney interrupted. “If you have everything you need, what do you want with the verge?”
Thorne’s lip curled. “Nothing. But the others do. And I wonder why.”
Sidney stiffened. “Who are the others? Where are they?”
“Ah, my turn,” Thorne said with singsong teasing. “Why is the league keeping the verge open?”
“Because nothing in our archives tells us how to stand on the edge of hell and ask it to go away.” Sidney fixed the other man with an unwavering stare. “Do you know how to close it?”
“No, and even if I did, I wouldn’t go up against the forces who want it.”
“And who is that again?”
Thorne leaned back in his chair. “Maybe I will call this hand.”
“We’re not betting,” Sidney reminded him. “We’re trading.”
“My people never got the best trades from your kind, especially when you have the gun. We’re doing better with the betting.”
“You can’t change the rules.”
“I’m the house.”
Sidney’s jaw worked on his irritation, chewing back words. And words were all they had against the djinn-man. They couldn’t actually shoot him, not with the unwitting passengers aboard; they could only force him to hold his djinni at bay.
Words were such little things—well, not all of Sidney’s were little—but Alyce had seen Thorne flinch from some of them more than at the threat of angelic bullets. “If you had my love, Thorne, would you turn from the dark?”
Despite the threat of the sphericanum bullets, demon energy swirled in terrible waves, prickling her skin.
Thorne sat utterly still. His face seemed carved from some otherworldly stone, harder, darker, colder. The stone split and his white-toothed laugh tore through the simmering ethers. “What a stupid question. Something old Corvus would have asked; he was likely senile even before his head was bashed in, you know.” He placed his hands in front of him, half hiding his mouth with his steepled fingers. “I told you I have no interest in following his path, especially if it takes me to the verge of hell.”
“Then stay away from his handiwork,” Sidney said, “or you might suffer his fate.”
Thorne stiffened. “We might have been able to trade, but you will not order me in my own territory.”
“Friendly suggestion only,” Sidney said. But Alyce heard the insincerity in his voice. Not that he tried particularly to hide it.
Thorne stood. “Unless you want to test that symballein bond, get out.”
“We’re in the middle of the lake.”
“I guess that is the path you chose. You can’t shoot me without a mess you don’t want to clean up either.”
He advanced on them, circling the desk, and the force of his reviving demon pressed them back. Behind them, a sliding glass door opened to a small deck, the overhang of the deck above leaving it deep in shadow.
A pitched fight didn’t work for either of them, but a no-fuss drowning … Left with no option, she and Sidney backed out the door.
She was glad for the floating lesson when she saw there was no rail around the deck but only black water a few feet down. She shivered.
Sidney must have seen. He turned back to Thorne. “We’ll wait to return to the dock. Then we won’t speak to you again.”