He grabbed the phone. “What?”
“I set it up.”
The Worm. Corvus closed his eyes, calming his breath. “When? Where?”
“Actually, she contacted me. She had some questions about her demon. I told her to meet me tomorrow night at the lab.” There was a hesitation on the other end of the line. “She hasn’t responded yet.”
“She’ll come.” Corvus paced the edges of the room. “You’re the league’s Bookkeeper. Of course, you’ll have her answers for her.”
Frustration leaked out in his voice, but he didn’t bother to hide it. The Bookworm would suffer any indignity gladly in pursuit of his very own demon.
“I’ve found something else you should know.” The Bookworm’s voice shifted, a note of sly satisfaction hardening his tone.
“Oh?” A warning rang in Corvus’s head. With a city between them, had his Worm grown a spine?
“The wound in the Veil where Sera’s demon crossed is still raw.” The Worm paused. “Because of an unusual side effect when she is the presence of her talya lover.”
Corvus stilled. “Her lover.”
“Ferris Archer. The djinn may not think much of the teshuva, but this one talya alone has destroyed a legion of your lesser brethren. Through Sera’s link, the two of them have forced tenebrae back across the Veil.”
The stillness in Corvus turned to ice. “How can that be?”
“Demons come out. Why shouldn’t the reverse be true?”
“Because . . .” Words failed Corvus.
The Worm huffed out an impatient breath. “I’ve explained before. The Veil is nothing more than an energy barrier. A meta-seraphic barrier fueled by the suffering of bound souls, true, but still merely energy itself in the end. To be harnessed by those with the knowledge and the proper tools.” Even distance couldn’t conceal his sneer. “That power isn’t constrained by the convoluted mythology that binds you.”
Corvus tightened his grip on the phone. “You said the solvo blanks would draw a djinn. But the demon was teshuva. You said the female talya would be unbalanced. Instead, this talyan pair could be a hindrance.” Could they even be a threat? Impossible. Nothing had ever stood against his demon. “You swore through your studies you had found a way to finally part the Veil.”
“And I have,” the Worm snapped. “With the solvo blanks, I set up a potent, dark resonance. Those soul-emptied husks of undead damned should have attracted an answering darkness that would leave a breach we could exploit. Sera’s analogous penance trigger made her the demon’s target, but her lifelong refusal to yield to death and damnation twisted the resonance back on itself. The mirror of the other-realms coughed up exactly what we sought: a way through the Veil. I just didn’t realize the reflection would be so . . . bright.”
“And what other reflections have you missed, Bookkeeper?”
The Worm was silent a moment. “It won’t matter. Archer and Sera don’t grasp what they have between them. Most of the time, they’re fighting against it and each other. Besides, they are only two people. Just keep them apart. Once we tap the Veil and cull the energy we need, two talyan—hell, all the leagues in the world—won’t matter in the end.”
Corvus pictured the peacock-bright hues of the bruised Veil torn asunder—not at all the businesslike venture the Worm envisioned, he knew. He closed his eyes against the rising acid sting. “True. Hell won’t matter in the end.” Birnenston leaked under his lashes, burning on his cheeks.
“I’ve done my part. You can’t cut me out now.” The Bookworm’s voice rose eagerly. “How do I prepare for the demon?”
Corvus realized he’d left the door on the cage open. He turned. The crow was still inside, too frightened to fly out.
Weren’t they all?
When he spoke, his tone was soft at last. “Stop here on your way to the meeting with Sera Littlejohn. I will make you ready for your reward.”
Archer’s agitation grew with every minute gone. Would she wait?
He couldn’t go back to his loft. Niall had staked out the place. Archer had almost stumbled on Valjean before he sensed the other talya. If Valjean was tracking him instead of Corvus, Niall must have decided his best bet to find the djinn-man was using Sera.
With an urgency thrumming in his blood, the chill of coming night energized him. He shook his head. Feeling lighthearted just because he was on the lam? How sad was that? Although he supposed ditching garbageman duty was a plus to becoming an unrepentant demon.
At the greenhouse door, Sera met him with the point of a five-foot bamboo stake.
He reared back, hefting one of the plastic bags. “I brought Thai food. I see you have the skewers.”
“I wasn’t sure it was you.” She eased her grip. “In the past few seconds, I managed to invent a lot of monsters fumbling around out there.”
“My hands were full.” He edged past her. “Re-arm the door. Code’s SOLO-2-10.”
In the garden’s heart, he laid out a little feast. Sera filled two plates, wafting the aroma of peanut sauce and limes. “Starving,” she mumbled around her first mouthful.
“I didn’t mean to take so long.” He started to explain, then stopped himself, cursing the sense of partnership that almost made him slip. She didn’t need to know they were being hunted by both sides now. “Lots to do.”
“I’ve been thinking, since I’ve had nothing else to do.” She gave him a flat look, then continued. “I want to try a few experiments with the pendant stone, the desolator—”
“Numinis. ‘That which makes the gods lonely.’ ” He pushed his plate away, his stomach tightening. Great, the one time she was willing to stay home and indulge her academic side. No Bunsen burners for her, no nitro or C-4. Oh no, she wanted to play with hellfire.
“If it can trap other-realm emanations, I bet it does make them lonely. Probably scared shitless too.” She shrugged. “Not that gods shit. Presumably. But if we can find the key to accessing the matrix, we might have a clue how Corvus intends to break through the Veil.”
Which was worse? Letting her play with fire, or telling her that she might burn down the world? So he explained Bookie’s discovery of the reason behind the persistent opening in the Veil.
He left off Ecco’s corollary and finished with, “So, I’d say we have a pretty good sense why Corvus wants you.”
“I’m doing it?” The chopstick clattered out of her hands. “Me personally? I can’t even blame my demon.”
She could blame him. “It’s just another symptom of possession you’ll need to master. You already look like a natural with a spear.”
She rose to pace. “You say that as if I might not usher in the end of three realms.”
He stepped in front of her and ran his hands over her arms, as if he could banish the chill dread in her eyes. “You aren’t going to make anything bad happen.” Not without him, anyway, and he wouldn’t let anything bad happen. That’s why he’d brought her here.
She looked up at him bleakly. “Not meaning to doesn’t necessarily stop it. I can tell you that.”
He paused, fingers wrapped around her arms. The feel of her was a distraction. No wonder the demon shied away from touch. It was hard to concentrate on salvation when sin felt so good. “I thought you wanted a few days of paradise vacation, and here you are talking shop.”
“Right. End of the world. Same old, same old.”
“It is. We’ll ask Corvus. He’s seen two thousand years of this.”
She pulled back against his hands. “Two thousand years?”
Archer sighed and released her. Why did he keep revealing things she didn’t need to know? He’d get himself in trouble one of these times. “He was a Roman gladiator before the djinni possessed him.”