So she hadn’t hurt him.
Infuriated, she hauled back to throw—
Devina stopped. Retracted her arm. Focused on what she held.
The symbol was heavy in her hand, heavier than it would have been if she’d weighed it—because the angel had left something behind in the metal…
Thanks to the hood ornament having clipped some part of his body, probably his leg.
Well, well, well … wasn’t this a bright spot on the horizon.
Objects, particularly metal objects, retained part of their possessors, and even though there had only been a split second of connection, the pain the impact had caused Jim, the raw mental state he had been in, the weakness of his corporeal form … all of that meant that something of him had been fused into what was now a very, very valuable commodity to her.
Extending her tongue, she licked his blood off the outer rim and smiled.
Inadvertently, he had given her the key to his castle.
Chapter
Twenty-one
When Sissy opened the door to Jim’s house, it was a cliché that the thing creaked. And as she shut herself in and looked around, shades of seventies horror movies, the kind she’d watched with her sister on Sundays, came back to her.
Stalling out in the front receiving hall, she didn’t know what to do. The Englishman had dropped her off here in the same way Chillie had tossed the paper onto the porch—except the angel’s aim had been better. She’d made it to the front door on the first try.
And now, left to her own devices, her anger, her sense that destiny was for shit and fate just another word for “screwed,” made her feel as though someone had their hands around her throat and was squeezing.
What was she going to do now? She had no idea where Jim or his roommate were, and no clue what she could do, if anything, to help them…
Surrounded by the colossal old mansion, with all of its decayed luxury, her mind retreated from the present and sought shelter in memory, her thoughts going back to happier days, when the week had had a reliable rhythm of work and time off, when her family had been something she’d had the luxury of taking advantage of, when her goals had been things like graduating from Union and finding a job … and maybe meeting a guy she could marry.
Sundays had been all about Vincent Price for her and Dell.
Those horror movies she and her sister had been into had been the “safe” sort of scary-scaries. Nothing gruesome, like the Saw series, but old-fashioned stalwarts like The Abominable Dr. Phibes and The House of Usher and The Innocents. It had been an arguably strange tradition, she and Dell impatiently waiting until family dinner was finished and their homework done before raiding their father’s DVD collection and snuggling up in the basement in the dark. They had watched one or two before bed every week during school.
It had been the best way to chill out and get ready for the six-thirty alarm clocks of Monday and the pressure of the M-T-W-R-F ahead.
Mom had maintained that they were sick in the head. Dad had been so proud that he was raising the next generation of movie appreciators. She and Dell had just liked being together.
Haunted by the past, Sissy walked into the parlor and turned on one of the glass lamps. Its shade was probably a single season in the sun away from total disintegration, the creamy yellow a function of age-staining rather than any decor choice.
Boy, her sister would love this place, the furniture all a mystery because it was shrouded, the faded Oriental rug big as a lawn, the dark wood molding carved so deeply it was like a horizontal statue running around the high ceiling.
From what she’d seen, the entire house just offered more of the same.
It was the kind of fancy living that people wrote books about, but this version had been distilled through the grinder of a reversal of fortunes, a case of history not translating well into the present thanks to a lack of funds.
Pity.
Crossing over, she lifted up one of the sheets. Underneath, a faded green velvet sofa with all kinds of curlicues looked orphaned.
She ripped the covering off. Went on to the wing chair next to it and did the same. Kept going around the parlor, moving faster and more violently, until dust hung thick in the air and a pile of dirty laundry took up most of the middle of the room.
At least she’d gotten to the bottom of something.
Not her issues, though. Not in the slightest.
The angel who’d escorted her here from the hospital had magically transported her across town, but it had been without explanations—he’d told her nothing about herself, her situation, or exactly how he’d pulled off the relocation. He’d also left alone things like how he was tied to Jim, and why he’d come to them, and what his role was.
Just more black holes to add to her collection.
Pacing around, she followed the oval pattern on the carpet because it seemed like the only clear path open to her. That anger that had taken root earlier was rising again, making her feel trapped in spite of the fact that the door she’d come through was not locked, the house had dozens and dozens of rooms, and unlike in her previous life, she had no one she had to answer to—no parents, no teachers, no roommates at Union.
She was free.
So why the hell did she want to scream.
Hard to know what exactly started it, but before she knew what she was doing, she was frantically searching the fireplace’s mantel, going up high on her tiptoes in those borrowed sneakers, patting the cobwebbed shelf around the candelabra and the—
The little box rattled as she brought it down, and yup, there were matches inside.
Moving in a jerky frenzy, she ripped a sheet off the pile, shoved it into the fireplace, and struck up a flame.
Holding the teardrop-shaped glow to eye level, she stared into the yellow heat, and the fury in her expanded even further, flowing through her body, changing the shape of her, growing deep within—sure as if it were cultivating in her soul, finding crevices to root among and take over from.
Dropping to her knees, the cold marble bit into her skin through the sweatpants, but she didn’t care—she brought the tiny fire to the tangled wad and held it there. Smoke rose first, a tendril forming and then quickly thickening into a rolling river.
Proper flames appeared, flaring up, licking at the sheeting, consuming the cotton fibers with increasing greed.
Unable to look away, Sissy reached behind herself, stretching out until she connected with the soft pile she had made. Dragging more forward, she fed the heat, pushing the sheets into the blaze, feeling the burn on her hands, her wrists, her arms, her face.
In her head, a string of curses was like the fire she was creating, flaring to life, consuming—
“What the fuck!”
Sissy ignored whoever it was, utterly focused on her inferno as she wondered what else she could put in it. The drapes. She could rip down the—
Hard hands grabbed onto her shoulders and yanked her back—and that was when she lost it. Just f’in lost it.
As if detonated, she went crazy, screaming, kicking, biting at whatever she could get access to. And as she attacked, her vision whited out, nothing registering except the need to hurt someone, anyone—
With the inner explosion came a freakish strength.
Which was how she ended up twisting around and kneeing her captor right in the balls.
“Fucking hell—fuck!”
For a split second, the hold on her loosened, and she took advantage of the release, bolting out from the smoke-filled parlor and tearing for the front door. Grabbing the handle, she ripped things open and launched herself off the steps, landing in a messy sprawl on the wide sidewalk. Shoving her hair out of her face, she—