Damn, but Corvus was strong. The djinn- man’s hands closed around his skull, and Liam wrenched backward to prevent Corvus from twisting his head off.
“Liam!” Jilly’s cry was a clarion call in the darkness. With a sudden shock, his vision snapped into hunter’s light. Eerie tracers of etheric energy patterned the room. If only he could turn those tracers into bonds to trap the ascendant djinni.
Instead, he jolted forward again to head-butt Corvus. The reven at his temple flared, bright enough that even he could see the violet gleam blazing from the interrealm rift that marked him as possessed.
Corvus staggered back. He reached for Dory as he fell.
“No, you don’t,” Liam growled.
But Dory held out her arms, wrapping herself around the windmilling djinn-man. They went down in a tangle. That looked like a setup. Liam released the hammer.
Jilly dragged at his elbow. “Don’t hit her.”
Like he’d done the salambe- ridden woman in the haint-haunted apartment. He’d known that moment would come back to get him.
In a heartbeat, the djinni rose in a smoky yellow column. It dragged Corvus up behind it more quickly than any human could have moved. Dory was knocked aside in a loose-limbed sprawl.
With Jilly crowding close, Liam couldn’t swing without risk. Corvus gave him a single meaningful look, his lazy eye rolling as if in sympathy. Then the half- loose djinni yanked him backward out the window.
“Damn it,” Liam growled. “Not again.”
The glass shattered. Corvus disappeared, with that faint teasing grin still on his lips.
Liam raced to the window. He could hope for a terrible splatter, but they were only on the second story. An easy fall for a powerful djinn-man.
Sure enough, Corvus landed on an abandoned car. His impact knocked the cement blocks out from under it and the dent in the roof was impressive, but he swung himself down and landed on his feet.
He glanced up once, meeting Liam’s gaze, and then he ran.
Liam pulled himself into the window frame, ignoring the shattered glass.
“Oh no.” Jilly’s cry drew him back. “No.”
He paused for a moment, torn. Literally and figuratively, judging by the amount of blood pouring from his hands.
He went to Jilly.
She was cradling Dory. “Not again,” she moaned, echoing his words.
No, not again. This time it was worse.
The faint whiff of rain clung to Dory, and her smile was vague.
Unlike angels and djinn, the teshuva had lost the ability to see souls when they were exiled from both heaven and hell. But Liam didn’t need that dubious talent. He knew what he wouldn’t see.
Dory had lost her soul.
CHAPTER 28
Jilly guessed she must be crying because she saw the spatter of wet on her hands as she clutched Dory, but she didn’t feel anything. “Too late,” she whispered.
Dory blinked up at her. “Jilly.” Her voice was thick, and her words came slowly. “Hey. Is it late? That must be why I’m so tired.”
“Yeah.” Jilly knew the other talyan had gathered. A few had gone in pursuit of Corvus. She’d heard Liam issue the order. But he’d stayed.
So had Sera, and with her, Archer, who hovered near the window as if he’d rather be out on the street. “You’d think Corvus would’ve developed a healthy fear of heights after I threw him out the last window.”
Sera shushed him.
Jilly could have told her his flippancy didn’t bother her. Nothing hurt her. “Dory, where’s the rest of the solvo?”
“I took it all. He said then we could be together.”
“He’s gone,” Jilly pointed out.
“No. We’re together.”
Jilly supposed her sister was right, in a way. Soulless together. She glanced at Liam. “We have to get her somewhere safe, somewhere the salambes can’t find her.”
He hustled them out of the apartment and down the hall, his fingers firm around her arm. She didn’t protest. His grip steadied her. No, more than that, held her together.
She’d had to attend court dates with her kids, and once, identify a body of a young man who’d passed through the halfway house. She’d done it with tears—half sorrow, half frustration—burning in her eyes.
Escorting her sister’s upright cadaver, she summoned the strict control Liam had pushed so hard. She placed her boots with precision, side by side with his, her eyes dry as the tenebraeternum’s bone-dust wind.
One tenant peered out as they passed, her salt-and-pepper hair in rollers. “That’s right. You empty that trash out of here.”
Sera wrinkled her nose. “She’s no worse than the rest.”
The old woman returned the grimace with a snarl. “Oh, she’s the emptiest kind of all.” She slammed her door.
Jilly tried to summon up some curiosity about whether the woman was another like Lau lau, mysteriously cognizant of the war around them. But it was hard to care when she couldn’t feel.
The league had been on foot, and there was no way they were going to summon a cab in this neighborhood. They made it only halfway down the block.
“I’m tired,” Dory repeated.
Liam glanced at Archer. “Find us a ride.”
“Around here, they’re probably already stolen anyway.” Archer disappeared down a side street with Sera in his wake.
Liam settled himself on Dory’s other side. “Let’s keep moving. I don’t like the way those malice are gathering.”
Jilly glanced up, the first hint of feeling coming back to her. A feeling of fear. “Can they get to Dory?”
“Without her soul, I don’t know why they would. Which is what’s worrying me.”
Jilly shook her head, trying to get some sense back. Of course he was right. The malice fed on negative emotions. Dory was just one limp noodle of indifference, not a meal at all.
Still, she kept an eye on the flittering oily shadows that paced them down the street. “I got in the way, didn’t I?”
“You were worried about Dory.”
She noticed he hadn’t said no. “I should have been focused on Corvus.”
He kept scanning the shadows. “Your impulsiveness is no more changeable than . . .” He hesitated. “I was going to say your eye color, but of course that changes, even more often than your hair, I imagine.” He rubbed his temple. “Don’t blame yourself.”
“Do you blame me?” Her voice sounded small in her own ears.
He was silent a moment. “Maybe I don’t know any more why we’re doing this. Is it to save our souls? The world? Or to save people like your sister?” He shook his head. “I’m as lost as you are, Jilly.”
And that was her fault, she knew. He’d led the league fine, one fight, one night at a time. Then she’d come barging in.
“I won’t make that mistake again.” She didn’t add that she had no more reasons to make that mistake. “I’ll be the perfect talya. I’ll do whatever you say.”
She bit back what sounded awfully like a sob. No need for her feelings to come back now. Just as well if they’d stay dead forever.
Liam didn’t respond, his gaze fixed on a car turning the corner ahead. “There’s Archer.”
She sagged, relieved he didn’t scoff. She wouldn’t blame him for deciding she was more trouble than she was worth.
The late-model Cadillac that pulled up next to them sparkled more than anything on the street, obviously well loved.
“There were plenty less flashy,” Sera was saying as Liam opened the door.
“Yes.” Archer drew the syllable out with teasing patience. “But he said he had anything I could possibly want. I wanted his car.”
“He meant the drugs or possibly that girl on his arm, obviously.” Sera quieted when Dory moaned. “How’s she doing?”