Niall was quiet. “What is going on here, Archer? All this other-realm force, focused on our fresh talya. Why?”
“We’ve been the metaphysical garbagemen for centuries, taking out the tenebrae trash. Maybe it’s time to think about the source of the pollution.”
“Not our job,” Niall cautioned.
“Says who? The demons possessing us that can’t speak? A few cobbled-together treatises? You’re the one who said we’re losing this war.” The water went on in the bathroom. “Never mind. I’m under control here. I have things under control here. Don’t send anybody to replace me. We’ll talk later.”
“Are you stuttering?” Niall’s querulous voice came down the line. “I thought you were fine.”
Archer disconnected as Sera stepped barefoot into the living room, her face soft and her hair still rumpled from sleep.
He wished he hadn’t said “under control” twice in a row. Made him sound out of control.
“My alarm clock is smashed.” Her voice sounded husky. “What time is it?”
“Dinnertime.”
She glanced past him. “Any doughnuts left?”
“That’s not dinner.”
“That means you ate them all without me.” She pursed her lips.
He really was out of control if that tiny pout raised his pulse. “I mean we need to get some real food into you.”
She plucked at her pajama bottoms. “My clothes were trashed too. I don’t have anything to wear.”
Ah, he wished. He let out the breath he’d been holding, then inhaled again to catch her honeysuckle scent. “Niall’s sending over reinforcements. They can pick up dinner on the way.”
“I feel useless. I can’t even cook since I don’t have dishes.”
“You can still do laundry,” he said helpfully. “And, with some training, destroy unholy apparitions.”
“There’s a career path.”
“In a line of work this gory, we call it multitasking.”
She blinked at him owlishly and wandered back into the bedroom.
By the time Jonah and Raine arrived with Thai food and books, Sera had shuttled a few loads of laundry to the basement with Archer as mule and escort.
She stuffed handfuls of earth-toned cotton and satin into the trash chute.
“Um,” he said, not helpfully.
She glared at him. “Some creep had his hands in my underwear drawer. I’m not wearing them.”
“I wasn’t going to insist, really.”
She shoved an empty laundry basket at him. Even setting her up with a heaping plate of pad thai and a monstrous tome while he cross-referenced his list of angels and djinn couldn’t distract him from wondering what she was wearing under the flannel pajama bottoms and baggy T-shirt.
“I think I should go hunting with you.”
That distracted him from her clothing or lack thereof. “No.”
She speared the last spring roll with more than necessary force. “I heard Jonah tell Raine babysitting me is taking fighters off the streets.”
“Jonah has a big mouth.”
She frowned at him. “But is it true?”
“There aren’t enough of us at the best of times. That’s why these are the worst of times.”
“Do you think these are the worst?” She pointed her chopsticks at the unbound manuscript. “Parts of the Dark Ages sound grim, and the Second World War. It says demonic activity intensifies during times of war, since incidents with strong spiritual resonance in this realm draw the other-realms. That explains Zane during Vietnam and you during . . .”
“Where do you think the phrase ‘War is hell’ came from?” He fixed her with a grim stare in case she thought she’d be getting a more personal explanation.
Her lips twitched to one side in irritation. “Anyway, if you need to hunt, go. I’ll just watch. I’m not stupid enough to get in the way.”
“You fought the feralis. You fought me—”
“That was different,” she protested.
“And you wanted to go after the malice.”
“But I didn’t.” Her triumphant tone implied she’d made her point.
“You don’t have any clothes.” He sighed to himself.
So he hadn’t been as distracted as he’d hoped if he defaulted to that argument. “No. No hunting for you.” When she drew breath to keep arguing, he said with brutal finality, “I know thanatology is the study of death, but do you want someone to die to satisfy your curiosity?”
She swallowed. “Why would my going with—?”
“Leave them to fight in peace.” He shook his head at the irony. “Protecting the weak and innocent is what gets a man killed.”
She narrowed her eyes. “I’m neither weak nor innocent. I’m demon-ridden too, remember?”
As if he could forget. “Possessed, yes. A warrior, no.”
“Not yet.”
“Maybe never. We don’t know what you are yet, why you’ve been possessed.” He gestured at the manuscript. “That’s why you’re studying—”
She smacked her hand on the page, lifting a puff of dust. “I’ve studied one of the greatest mysteries of all—up close, in person, for years—and it didn’t get me anywhere. Why continue down that dead-end road?” She smiled humorlessly at her own joke.
“You might as well, because I’m not taking you hunting.” He pushed to his feet and stalked across the room. “Excuse me a moment. I need to have a word with Jonah and his big mouth.”
He’d never been one to run from a fight, so he merely walked out quickly. Why he thought he’d won just because he’d had the last word, he wasn’t sure. He knew she wouldn’t be satisfied. So after he assigned Jonah and Raine their tasks for the evening, he returned to the apartment to mollify her with some suitably grisly tales of old hunts. If worse came to worst, he’d tear open another vein to his past. That had kept her quiet.
He stepped into the kitchen, wondering why he was so looking forward to another quiet night at home. Then the quiet really hit him.
Sera was gone.
CHAPTER 11
“Stay home, cook, and clean.” Sera stomped through the front door of the nursing home. “Oh, it’s okay if I don’t cook? Well, screw you, old fart. How ancient are you anyway? Cro-Magnon?”
“Hardly a day past ninety-ish, missy.”
Sera rocked to a halt. “Mrs. Willis. I didn’t see you.”
“So who’s the blind one around here?” The frail figure on the bench curved as if time were shaping her back into the brown ball of clay from which her maker had formed her. When Sera shut the door, a scrap of the quilting in her basket wafted to the floor.
Sera bent to retrieve it. “Lost one.”
Mrs. Willis gripped her hand. “My sisters would be sad. We’re all working on it together, you know.” Her cataract-filmed gaze drifted. “You might not cook, but you can finish a piece for your sisters.”
Sera gently untangled herself and tucked the colorful bits of material into the basket. “I only have brothers, Mrs. Willis, remember?”
The old woman shook her head. “So who’s the blind one around here?”
Sera stifled a sigh as she checked in with the evening nurse, then went to her father’s room.
She tapped at the open door. “Hi, Dad.”
He didn’t move from his seat beside the window where the square of darkness completely surrounded him. She braced herself against the jolt of pain and walked in.
She tugged another chair into place beside him. “Wendy said you liked the chocolate I brought while you were sleeping a few days ago.” She hesitated. “I guess it’s been more than a few days. A lot’s changed lately.”
She studied his face. Not much had changed here. Still the same, strong-planed features she’d watched twice a week at the pulpit for years. More gray around the temples, but far too young for this place.
“You could come live with me again,” she murmured. “You’d never notice I wasn’t getting older.”