When he’d pushed her against the wall, that tension had run all through him, ratcheting up with every stroke of tongue. She forced away the thought. “I feel like maybe I’ve run out of chances in my life,” she admitted.
He let his arms fall slack at his sides. “Where there’s life, there’s—”
“Hope?”
“Another chance to die.”
She choked on a laugh. “No girlfriend. No decorator. And not a whole lot of party invitations either, I’d bet.”
“Stalking demons all night cuts into my calendar.”
She restrained a shiver. “That’s what I have to look forward to? Becoming a night stalker?”
“There are worse things.”
“Worse than fighting monsters like that?”
“Being one.” He crossed to the kitchen to fill the coffee cup from a kettle on the stove. He approached her with the mug out.
She took the cup, sniffed. “Demons drink green tea?”
“I drink green tea.”
“You’re a demon.”
“No.” He left her standing by the window and went to the couch, where he pushed the blanket aside. “I’m possessed, not a demon myself.”
“Right. The thing that attacked us . . .”
“Feralis. Rather than possessing humans, ferales manifest physically—very physically, as you noticed—by consuming animal substance from this realm.” He rubbed at his shoulder. “You’ve had several following you, drawn to your demon ascending.”
Where he rubbed his shoulder, the black shirt gaped, revealing paler skin. Her breath caught on a silent intake. “It got you.”
He fingered the edges of the gash. “Guess so. Unless that was you.”
She opened her mouth to deny . . . and couldn’t speak. She had attacked him, after all. Twice, if she counted that violent kiss. Embarrassed heat rushed through her.
The corner of his mouth twisted up. “Demons have shitty tempers. Probably what got them kicked out of paradise in the first place.”
“I didn’t mean what I said.” When he lifted one eyebrow, she clarified. “About killing you.”
He shrugged. “It wasn’t just you talking. But you can understand why you need to be separated from the good folk of our fair city.”
The demon. How could she believe? How could she not believe after what she’d seen, what she’d done?
She leaned against the cold window. “What is happening to me?”
He sat back in the couch. “As the demon aligns with you, the resonating energy spikes. Your strength and quickness will increase, along with the ability to integrate sensory data. You’ll heal from everything except an instantly fatal blow.” His voice was clipped, as if he read from a brochure: The Perks of Possession. “The coldness and killing rage will get worse too, until you reach an equilibrium with the demon.”
“What if I don’t find a balance?” The glowing orange eye flashed in her memory. “Will I become one of those ferales?”
He tipped his head back. “Worse.”
She wrapped her hands tighter around her mug and pulled away from the chill at the window. “What’s worse?”
“A demon is ascending from the depths of your soul. The question is, which of the two demonic strains chose you? A djinni, devoted to evil? Or a teshuva, a repentant demon?”
She paced across the room. “Good demons? Who knew?” She’d always fancied herself sensitive to the unknown, but a secret pitched battle had been raging with no one the wiser. What else had she been missing?
Archer rolled his head against the cushion to look at her. “Did you think good and evil were black and white?”
“Well, sort of, by definition. In the movies, you get a white hat or a black one.”
A smile flickered across his lips. “The teshuva wear gray hats. Teshuva are trying to atone for their wicked ways, to earn their way back into grace. The djinn . . . aren’t.”
She wandered toward the weight bench. The loaded bar held more iron disks than seemed possible. “How can they atone? Why do they need us?”
His relaxed sprawl never changed, but the sudden intensity of his dark gaze speared her. She realized for the first time she’d voluntarily included herself in their little nightmare for two. But after encountering a feralis, she definitely didn’t want to be alone in this madness.
“To make amends,” he said, “the teshuva cleanse this realm of accumulated weaker demonic emanations like ferales and malice. The djinn rile up the lesser demons to make our realm a little more like their hell. Kind of a spiritual terra forming. But neither teshuva nor djinn can manifest fully in this realm. So they need a weapon. Us.”
Speaking of weapons . . . On the back wall, her reflection broke over steel blades of all shapes and sizes. Regular honing had left faint whorls that scattered the light, the designs as intricate and menacing as the reven on Archer’s arm.
And still nothing looked as wicked as the grotesque beast’s claws. “I would think six-shooters blazing would be better.”
“Attracts the wrong sort of attention, useless for close-quarters combat. And unreliable.” His hand, stretched out on the back of the couch, tightened into a fist. “More importantly, our demons have to get up close to do the dirty work. It’s harder to damn from a distance.”
Beside the weapons, another shelf held a collection of small statues. She recoiled at the toy factory massacre. Beanbag animals had been dismembered, limbs replaced with baby-doll or action figure parts. Long blond hair and a shapely plastic leg were crudely nailed to a fast-food toy from a cartoon monster movie, while a grinning, strong-jawed manly face was stapled into the belly of a stuffed pterodactyl. Dozens of the dolls slumped against one another like half-slaughtered soldiers.
“Um,” she said. “Ferales dolls?”
“Our fearless leader decided the league needed to recognize our many years of service. He made Ecco—you remember him from the town car—our morale officer. That is the result.”
She eyed the carnage. “How . . . sweet?”
“Not really.”
She turned her focus to the lounging male, more deadpan than the dolls. Yet for all his outward indifference, he’d kept the trinkets. “So how many ferales corpses does it take to build a ladder over the gates of heaven?”
If she’d hoped for a lightbulb joke, she was disappointed. “I’ll let you know when I get them piled high enough.”
Judging from the well-honed blades, the trail of dispatched demons might reach around the world. Apparently that wasn’t enough. “What do we get out of this unholy alliance? Besides the opportunity to fight forever.”
“Die in battle, and you get back what’s left of your demon-mottled soul.”
She grimaced. “Sounds like we’re getting the short end of the stick.”
“Just make sure the ferales get the pointy end. And take what pleasure you can in destruction, because you’re saving the world along with your soul.”
She shook her head. “Nobody even noticed. A half dozen town houses overlooked the alley.”
“If anybody looked down, they saw some street people Dumpster diving. Or maybe a nice couple walking their bad dog.” At her incredulous huff, he grinned, with a sudden flash of white teeth. “A very bad dog. People see what they think they’ll see, what they want to see. And gray hats are easy to forget.”
She had to admit, she might have justified away the horror. If it hadn’t been drooling all over her. But willful blindness had only ever ended with her walking into walls.
She turned away from the blades. “I want to live.”
“I’m told such a desire is a useful first step.”