But even awash in the competing demonic energies, she still felt the bite of the October wind. It was not a good feeling, and yet …
Despite Sidney’s rejection, she hadn’t faded back into the demon’s hazy spell. Her teshuva had settled, finally, into its place in her soul, the rivet ring a reminder that she was strong enough to control her dread. She was still Alyce; she still remembered.
Damn him for ruining her.
Not for taking her to bed. She’d wanted that. Not even for giving her back the horrifying memories of her penance trigger and possession. No, she was ruined merely because she felt she was. Because she felt at all. Ruined, razed, left in rubble, her feelings lay like broken foundations around her, only shattered glass and sharp stone and fragments of what could have been.
Thorne must have felt the same, to see his boat burned and sunk, the enemy breaching his gate. No wonder he wanted to pull the cold and darkness around him.
She understood. But all she had was her meager power, that simplest of emotions—fear. She wasn’t like Nim, Jilly, and Sera. Whatever power they drew from the symballein bond, she didn’t have the strength to take for herself. She was alone again. At least she still had the comfort—cold and alien, but comfort nonetheless—of her demon.
It coiled within her, its agitation tightening her throat and choking back her tears.
“Thorne can’t believe he’ll just widen the verge,” Nim said.
“He has Fane’s sword,” Jonah said. “No doubt he believes he can do quite a bit.”
“He could set loose many souls,” Alyce finished. “How many people are on the pier right now?”
They fell silent, and as if in answer, the voice of the crowd rolled over them.
Sidney shifted. “Alyce, you told me once you’d never seen Thorne hurt anyone.”
She stared at him. “I told you once I loved you. My judgment is not to be trusted.”
“So,” Nim said into the awkward silence, “down we go.”
“We could call in a bomb threat,” Amiri said. “Put those traffic cops to good use clearing the pier. And we wouldn’t even be lying.”
“That might work.” Sidney rubbed his chin with his Bookkeeper abstracted expression. Then abruptly he focused. “But you don’t agree, do you, Alyce? I recognize that look.”
She had a look? And how did he know what she was thinking almost before she did? “If you try to warn everyone, you’ll panic them. I’ve seen frightened mobs. We’d bring the city’s tenebrae down on our heads, never mind what’s waiting on the other side of the verge.”
Nim swore under her breath. “Then we just go in. With the lure power of my teshuva, I should be able to hold—”
Jonah wrapped his arm around her waist. The gleaming hook rested at her hip. “We should be able to hold.”
“We should be able to hold any crossover demons in the basement until reinforcements arrive.” Nim crossed her fingers.
Nobody called her on the wishful thinking.
The five of them eased past the line into the diner, amidst much grumbling. “Hey, no cutting,” one man said.
“Maybe you want to take our place?” Amiri growled under his breath.
Inside, Jonah cornered Therese. “Can you get everyone out of here?”
She glanced dubiously around the full seats. “They won’t be happy.”
“We don’t need the negative emotions,” Alyce warned. “We should just go.”
“Stop in the kitchen on your way,” Therese urged. “I have knives. Good knives.”
“Nothing to rival a sword, though,” Sidney murmured.
As they descended the ladders, Alyce cast a wary eye over the space. Even with her teshuva at high alert, there seemed no end to the space. The walls were lost in shifting shadows with no apparent source, as if large, unseen forces moved between them and the light.
The verge was widening, with all of hell on the other side. And hell was hungry.
CHAPTER 25
The transmuted glass and bone husk that marked the verge was invisible in the mist. Sid wasn’t sure whether it was worse to see the disturbing mouth of hell, or to know it had gaped wide enough that now he was looking past its tonsils.
His demon-altered vision skipped and pixilated, like a smudged DVD, as it tried to reconcile his human knowledge with what he was experiencing, collating the physical and metaphysical planes. But even as the Bookkeeper in him marveled, he knew he had nothing to compare.
Except maybe the nothingness that haunted Alyce’s eyes.
She was right behind him on the ladder, her big black boots nearly on his fingers as she hastened downward. He wanted to shove her back up the ladder, out to safety.
But there was no safety out there, and besides, that wasn’t what they were about.
He realized then that he’d never—not even when that long-ago bottle had broken in his waistband and the smell of blood and liquor had choked him—felt anything to compare to the dread that gripped him now.
Thorne was nowhere to be seen either. Damn, at least a flaming sword could have lit a few of the shadows.
When they got to the bottom, Amiri clutched his own short sword vertically in front of him, though there was scarcely room on its hilt for his nervous double-handed grip. “This isn’t right. Where are we?”
“The Veil, the no-man’s-land—the no-demon’s-land—stuck between the realms,” Nim said. “And now there’s a gateway through the Veil. Why do you think we called it the verge?”
“Because it sounded cool.” Amiri’s voice cracked.
Jonah shot him a glance. “I know this isn’t what you’re used to. The male talyan have hunted strictly on our side of the Veil, picking off the horde dregs. Now you’re seeing what’s beyond. Ladies’ night starts here.”
Amiri shook his head, a little wildly. “The dregs have been plenty bad enough to keep us busy. And sometimes dead.”
“Oh, you can die here too.” Nim stood as close to Jonah as their drawn weapons would allow. The curves of their knives nearly matched—his large enough to qualify as a sword, hers smaller and balanced for throwing. “The rules are different here on the edge of hell, but that one stays the same.”
Nim raised her hands, and Jonah hunched his shoulders as her knife waved near his ear. As she stretched herself to full height, the cuffs of her skinny-leg jeans lifted to reveal an anklet curved over the strap of her high heel shoe. The talisman glinted with violet highlights.
Alyce made a soft sound, and Sid angled himself between her and … and whatever might happen next. She twisted the asylum rivet around her finger as if the restless movement might rev her demon.
Maybe it would; what the hell did he know?
Nim’s brows furrowed. “Who’s out there?” she whispered. “You’re hungry? Then come get us. You know you can’t resist me.”
Sid swallowed against the menace that deepened her voice. The shadows seemed to have no such concerns. The swirling gray mist tightened into double vortices, spiraling in toward Nim’s outstretched hands.
Jonah stood behind her. His good arm wrapped low over her belly and anchored her to his chest. His sword arm—literally a sword in place of his missing hand—waited, cocked to eviscerate anything that came too close.
Not that even a wisp of mist could have worked its way between their bodies. Their perfect accord tugged at Sid, and he put his hand over his chest as the emptiness in him answered the damning lure.
He and Alyce had been given the chance to bond. But he’d been afraid. In his heart, he’d fancied himself some bold pursuer of knowledge. Instead, he’d run from the mystery.