The unfairness twisted inside her, threshing up the anger that never really settled. She could counsel her hospice patients to peace all day long and never feel it herself. What stillness she found had only ever been some paralyzing mix of doubt and confusion.
“Oh, Dad, I never wanted to talk to you about God, about death and Mom. About boys.” She lowered her face into her hands, her lashes a dry prickle against her fingertips as she closed her eyes. “And now, when I need you, I never will.”
How pathetic and stupid and childish to run away from her apartment. She’d boasted to Archer that she never backed down from a challenge. But how could she join the fight to save the world? She hadn’t saved her mother, couldn’t save her father, and had done a downright terrible job of saving herself.
Finally she looked up. The rain had started again, the first drops streaking the window, smearing the streetlights into watery stars.
Her father stared directly into her eyes. “Who are you?” His voice was low.
“Daddy?” She forced a smile. “It’s me, Sera.”
“What are you?” He pushed back in his chair. “What thing are you?”
She reached out. “I’m Sera, your daughter.”
He bolted from his chair, slapping her hand aside. “Don’t touch me.”
A stark chill swept her except where her hand burned with the shock of his blow. Her fingers curled into a fist. Like an echo, something in her turned away, resigned to the banishment. She clutched her hand against her chest as if she could hold on. “Daddy.”
“Get thee away from me. Away.” His voice thundered in the small room. “I cast thee out, Satan.”
“I’m not . . .” Her throat locked on the words. What was she, after all?
Lost. Archer had warned her. With sudden ferocity, she longed for his uncompromising presence, to fit herself against the strength of more than just his body. Only he, who’d killed the man he’d been, could understand what moved in her now. She looked up at her father.
He met her gaze and screamed.
The cry ripped through her. She jolted, knocking over her chair with a bang. She found herself on her knees in front of her father and held out an appeasing hand.
He cowered back. “Satan, Satan, Satan.”
She clamped her hands over her ears.
Wendy and an orderly burst into the room. The nurse hastened to the screaming man and folded an arm over his shoulders. He nestled against her, pointing at Sera.
“What is that light? It burns.” He straightened a little, eyes widening. “Let her go.”
Without warning, he lunged, gouging fingers aimed at her eyes.
The orderly hauled her to her feet and slung her toward the door. “You’re making it worse. Get out of his sight.”
She stumbled out with one hand on the wall. She felt more feeble than the hunched old woman standing with her quilting basket at the front door.
Mrs. Willis patted Sera’s shoulder. “Your pappy remembers being a preacher, so he’s still swearing fire and brimstone.”
Sera dredged up a weak smile. “I just feel bad for upsetting him.”
“You’re a good daughter.” Mrs. Willis scowled. “Your brothers visit, but they don’t stop to talk quilting. Too busy, those boys. But your pappy was proud when he knew to be, and he’s proud still, somewhere.”
Sera tried for a slightly more sincere smile, until she saw Wendy coming toward them. Mrs. Willis disappeared into the television room. The evening news clicked on, the cheerful tone belying the description of a recent rash of addicts overdosing. “. . . Practically rots its victims from the inside,” blared out into the hall. She knew how that felt.
Wendy gave her a hug, but Sera couldn’t ease her muscles to return the embrace.
“That was bad,” the nurse said. “Arnie is calming him down. Arnie’s a little abrupt with visitors, but he’s got a nice touch with the confused ones.”
“Maybe I shouldn’t come back,” Sera murmured.
Wendy shook her head. “Don’t get melodramatic. One bad night doesn’t mean forever.”
Sera couldn’t help herself. She laughed. If only the other woman knew.
But Wendy smiled in answer. “See? Better already. You know there’ll be bad spells. He just took a bit of a fright. But I want Arnie to walk you out. Mrs. Willis noticed that guy’s been standing by the sidewalk since you came in.”
Even before she turned, Sera knew whom she’d see. The darkness of his trench coat swallowed up the light of the nursing home sign, and the flickering drops of rain made him look like something from a grainy old black-and-white movie. Probably the bad guy.
She sighed. “I know him.”
Wendy’s expression said she still thought she should get abrupt-with-visitors Arnie.
Sera contemplated sneaking out the back. But she’d have to ask Wendy to deactivate the alarms that kept the dementia patients from wandering. And that would oblige an explanation of why she wanted to sneak out. “Can I call you later to see how Dad settled?”
Wendy didn’t drag her eyes off the figure at the street. “Call me tomorrow. I think you’re busy tonight.” Her gaze finally snapped to Sera and widened.
“Now who’s melodramatic?” Sera stalked out the front door.
Archer waited for her at the end of the walk. “Turn left and keep walking. Do not stop.”
“What—?”
When her steps slowed in confusion, he wrapped his fingers around her elbow and propelled her forward. “At least one feralis, maybe two, are closing on this position. And I count three malice on this block alone.”
“Why—?”
“You’re a lure for every demonic influence in the city, beaming wrath and anguish like a fucking lighthouse of doom. And that djinn-man is out here, somewhere.”
“But why didn’t—?”
“We placed energy sinks around your apartment.” His grip tightened on her arm until she winced, but he never stopped scanning the darkness around them. “The sinks are reverse engineered from angelic artifacts and absorb the emotional output of possession.”
“Stop answering my questions before I ask them,” she snapped.
“Then answer one of mine,” he snapped back. “What the hell did you think you were doing, leaving your secured apartment?”
“How was I supposed to know it was secured?”
“I told you we were protecting you.”
“I thought you meant you, personally.”
“I was.” His voice was half demon snarl. “Until you left.”
So much for thinking he understood her. She hunched her shoulders against the rain needling down the back of her neck. “I wanted to go out.”
“I told you no.”
“And just what makes you think I’d listen?” As they passed under a streetlight, it abruptly dimmed. In the sudden shadows, a blob of deeper darkness fell toward them.
She shoved Archer away, and he stumbled onto one knee. She batted the dark shape away from her face.
A biting chill enveloped her hand, spreading like a killing frost up her elbow, toward her brain and heart.
Archer was at her side in an instant. “That was stupid.”
She gritted her teeth. “You’re welcome.”
“I haven’t gotten slimed by a malice in a very long time.”
Maybe she only imagined the pointed claws and prehensile tail wrapped around her elbow, but she definitely felt gnawing teeth. She gagged on the stench of rotten eggs. “Get it off.”
“You wanted to hunt. Lesson one. Don’t get slimed by malice. It stings.”
Stung like knives of ice. And creeped her out. And stank. “Lesson learned.”
He raised his head, a glint of violet in his eyes. “The feralis is circling. Drain the malice and let’s go.”
“Lesson two would be helpful right about now.”