“Don’t think about it,” Archer said. “Just do what comes naturally.”
“Supernaturally,” Echo said. When they glared at him, he waved one hand. “Continue, please.”
Archer glanced at Bookie. “Do you have the equipment set up?”
Bookie gave a curt nod. “As you requested last night.” He wheeled a squat cabinet closer to the table. Sera was reminded of a hospital crash cart, only in this case, they were offing something, not saving it.
Bookie saw her attention and despite his pique, seemed unable to prevent himself from explaining. “The ether-spectral field detector will record emanations from you and the malice. Probably fairly consistent with readings we’ve taken before.” He glared at Archer. “In our realm, lesser demons manifest as an etheric shell, if you will, containing spectral energy. When a talya captures a malice or incapacitates a feralis, the teshuva’s emanations overwhelm the lesser-demonic field, altering its pattern. Once closely enough aligned, the lesser energy is subsumed within the teshuva energy, leaving only the exhausted etheric shell—drained.”
“Like sucking down a beer bong and tossing the can over your shoulder,” Ecco murmured. “Without the burp.” No one looked his way.
“That’s why you don’t tangle with the djinn, only horde-tenebrae,” Bookie continued. “The teshuva can’t overcome the stronger emanations of the djinn.”
Sera pictured Nanette hefting a beer bong. “How do angels fare against the djinn?”
“God’s chosen warriors share nothing with us,” Archer said tightly.
For once, Ecco and Bookie muttered in annoyed agreement.
Sera shifted as Bookie aimed a palm-sized satellite dish at her. “So where does that energy go?”
“Anecdotal evidence from sensitive talyan”—Bookie’s scornful look eliminated the men in the room—“and untested theory indicate the matched demonic vibrations rejuvenate the teshuva and help maintain the human form over many years and otherwise fatal wounds. If improperly balanced, the energy could destabilize the teshuva, leading to unpredictable behavior in the possessed talya.” Another scornful, if carefully unfocused, look.
“Definitely seems like more research is needed.” Sera tried a smile on Bookie.
He stared back. “I suppose that’s why we’re here.” Amidst the reflected stainless steel in his glasses, the inky bottle of malice roiled like a second pair of pupils.
Her stomach followed the uneasy motion. “Okay then.”
She reached for the beaker. From the corner of her eye, she saw Ecco straighten, then subside when Archer shook his head.
She grasped the seal, half expecting it to burn or freeze or shock her. But the thin gold foil just flaked away under her fingers.
Behind the red eyeball, the malice boiled out like greasy smoke. The room filled with the stench of rotten eggs and worse gone putrid. Ecco swore. Bookie gagged.
Sera sunk her fingers into the writhing loops.
It never regained the vaguely animalistic shape of a roving malice. It only mewled. She couldn’t decide if pity or disgust moved her more.
She thought of her conversation with Nanette and remembered how Archer had accused her of talking the malice into oblivion. “Somebody told me that good and evil might be hopelessly intertwined.” She twisted the malice between her fingers, then glanced at Archer. “And somebody else hoped maybe they aren’t.”
Archer’s half-lidded gaze glimmered with a barely suppressed hunger, as if only they two stood in the room. He’d accused her of trying to psychoanalyze the demon, but whom was she trying to heal?
She folded the malice in on itself. “If terror and torture roam free as malice and ferales, where are the parallel shapes of beauty, joy, compassion?” Ether compressed like oily cobwebs under her hands. At most she could make a spit wad, not even a paper airplane. “How can I reshape one malice into a thousand origami cranes to make a wish come true?”
She’d heard the wary hope in his voice before, wondering if there might be an end to his fighting. That she might be the end.
But her past told her she could have hope or she could have the end; the agony of hope unrequited or the peace of inevitable death. Not both.
The moment spooled out, the room fading to sketched monochrome lines, except for the violet streaks in Archer’s tarnished bronze eyes. In his clenched hand, tendons stood stark under the black of his reven, as if he could smash ether under his fist. With his demon’s help, he’d bound hope and death into one convoluted and ruinous wish.
In the empty, echoing space that linked them, she said to him, “I’m sorry, but I will not be your end.”
She spread her hands.
“Quit mooning at him,” Ecco snapped. He jumped forward to grab at the malice, jolting her. “You’re going to lose it.”
Before she could even flinch, Archer caught her. He pulled her close, his big body steady and unsettling at the same time.
His breath against her temple raised shivers down her spine, through the unseen marks encircling her thighs. “You trying to lose me again?”
He wrapped his fingers possessively around her arms, brushing her breasts. The shock she always felt at his touch leapt between them, and the fragile bubble where she’d spoken just to him imploded. Rocked on her feet, she held him fast.
The malice unraveled in a cascade of pitchy streamers until only the stench remained.
Bookie cleared his throat. “Very pretty.”
“Where did it go?” Ecco turned a tight circle.
Archer straightened with a growl. “I told you to let her do it.”
“She tried to let it go.” Ecco dragged in a deep breath, as if he could sniff out the malice through the stink. “If you hadn’t stopped her . . .”
Sera ducked away from Archer to stand on her own. “It’s gone, all right.”
Ecco blinked. “But there’s nothing left.”
She pinned Ecco with a gimlet stare. “If I’d known you like malice in your shower . . .”
Archer studied Bookie expectantly. The Bookkeeper fiddled with the dials on his machine, his brow furrowed. He muttered.
“Well,” Archer prompted.
“It happened so fast.” Bookie straightened his glasses, a faint tremor in his hand. “I can’t quite believe—”
Archer frowned. “Didn’t you get it?”
Ecco pulled out a pack of cigarettes and lit up. Cloves masked the sulfur stench. “I’m not getting slimed again just because you forgot to push ‘record.’ ”
Bookie whirled on him. “It’s not that simple.”
“Demon here. Demon gone. Gone where?” Ecco peered over Bookie’s shoulder. “What’s this braid of light?” He pointed with the cigarette, the glowing cherry tracing the readout. “Here’s where the malice is draining, like usual. But here looks like the inverse, as if somebody wove it back together, except light instead of dark.” His brow furrowed. “When Archer grabbed Sera.”
Sera took a step around Archer’s big frame to see the screen. The spirograph pattern could have been the exploding malice’s good twin, the splintered strands winding back toward some bright, elusive center.
“Yes, it’s unusual,” Bookie said with cool reluctance. “I need time to decode and match against previous readings. Unless you can figure it out by yourself.”
“Whatever.” Ecco took a hard drag off the cigarette. “As always with you people, been fun.”
Archer waited until the talya’s footsteps faded down the hall. “About Sera’s necklace.”
Bookie jerked his head up. “She told you?” He frowned at Sera. “I thought we agreed to wait until I could convince the league not to kill you out of hand.”
“I’ve pissed him off once or twice, but I took a chance Archer wouldn’t slay me without better cause.”