If she thought he was going to let her keep the last one… “Let’s go.”
“Something’s wrong.”
“I told you already—”
“I don’t care what’s wrong with you now. Get your head out of your ass and let your angel eyes out. Something is wrong here.”
Hands fisted against the bottoms of his coat pockets, he stalked across the lawn. “If they see us out here—”
“Never mind what they’ll see.” She rocked back on her heels, revealing the manger where she’d been about to put the statuette. “What do you see?”
He blinked back the sting in his eyes from the rising wind, but the oily sheen of the glass orb where the baby should have been nestled writhed sickeningly in his vision. “What the hell?”
She nodded. “There’s a soul bomb in the manger.”
Chapter 7
Fane immediately called the league despite Bella’s half-hearted protest. “If the bomb releases soul shards, it’ll bring tenebrae from all directions, you know that,” he told her. “The teshuva can contain the damage.”
She wrapped her arms around herself though nothing seemed to stop the chills wracking her. “I know. Just…please don’t tell them…” She tucked her chin into her coat. “I don’t want the damage they contain to be me.”
Fane lifted his chin and studied her down the length of his clearly-never-been-punched-hard-enough nose. “You have to tell them eventually.”
Why, when they hadn’t figured it out yet? But she didn’t say that. “I know,” she repeated. “But I want to do it my own way.” When his expression didn’t change, she added, “I want to do it right.”
That seemed to mollify him, at least for the moment. Anyway, he was too busy making calls on his cell phone. While he did, she walked the perimeter of the building, and when she returned, he was standing with his hands on his hips, staring impatiently at her.
“Four more,” she told him. “Quite a bit bigger than this, and they are all wired. Looks like a mess of trigger, timer and accelerometer.” She angled her face away. “Guess it’s a good thing we stopped by.”
He mumbled something she wasn’t sure she wanted to decipher.
She was spared any need to reply when the porch light blinked on.
“I called Nanette too,” Fane said. “She’ll need to know everything.”
Bella huffed out an exasperated breath to obscure her flicker of dismay. She didn’t get much chance to cultivate attachments with other people, and the angel-woman had been kind enough. While Nanette had seemingly forgiven the talyan for their role in her husband’s murder, would she be so merciful toward a creature of the tenebraeternum? “Don’t tell her about me either. She’ll have enough to worry about.”
He nodded once, curtly, and strode toward the other angelic possessed. Bella didn’t want to be surrounded by their flickering golden stares, but neither did she particularly want to wait at the street for the talyan who were no doubt gunning their crappy cars en route even as she dithered.
She followed Fane.
Nanette pulled the door half shut behind her and wrung her hands. “How did this happen?”
“We don’t know.” Fane glanced at Bella. They might not know how, but they did know when. The soul bombs hadn’t been in place when she took the baby Jesus. Not that a timeline helped them particularly.
Nanette clutched her housecoat around her. “Do we need to evacuate? We’re understaffed, but I can call in nurses and families.”
Bella cleared her throat. “If it was a real bomb, maybe. But if the tenebrae are targeting the home, moving everyone will just add to the chaos. Adding to the chaos is never a good idea when dealing with the horde. Better to hunker down.” She slanted an accusing stare at Fane.
He ignored her. “We need to check the interior too. I want to find every orb.”
Nanette waved them inside. “How can this be happening again? Corvus was defeated.”
“But evil wasn’t,” Bella said. As if to underscore her point, a trio of beat-up @1 sedans turned the corner, targeting the nursing home like mangy sharks. “Why don’t you walk me around?”
The angel-woman nodded distractedly, and Bella didn’t look back as the talyan poured out to confront Fane.
Inside, the home was almost ridiculously warm and smelled of cinnamon. Despite the fear and anger that had torqued through her since Fane’s return to the Mortal Coil, Bella felt her tension ease. She slipped out of her parka and left it on the bench by the front door.
“I can’t believe you two found these things,” Nanette said as they crossed into the spacious living area.
“Believe it,” Bella murmured. “Does Sera’s father go outside?”
“Not so often when the weather is bad. Why?”
The old preacher had noticed something amiss. “What does he do when he’s inside?”
“Well, he watches TV here with the others and takes meals in the dining room, of course. And he likes to watch the fish in the aquarium.”
Bella peered into the unlit gas fireplace. Nothing. “Fish, hmm? Show me.”
Nanette led her around the far side of the living area toward the dining room. “Here, where everyone can enjoy them.”
“Yeah, everyone.” Bella circled the large freshwater tank. “See anything new?”
“Honestly, I’m not sure I’d—Oh. Oh no.”
The glass orb in the tank wasn’t as large as any of the others, but it had the same oily gleam, though the fish seemed unbothered. They cruised past the slowly roiling surface, their jewel tones distorted and weird.
Bella sighed.
“They were in here,” Nanette whispered. “The demons were in here.”
Bella pursed her lips. “The demons are everywhere.” She lifted the lid on the tank.
Nanette shifted uneasily. “Maybe we should leave it…”
“I think we were supposed to find it. Otherwise, why put it in such a public spot?” She wondered whether the bomber had been rushed, bored, out of souls, or what, that they’d only found a half dozen of the weapons. Certainly she should be able to ascertain a motive. After all, she was a monster too. She wriggled her fingers to expel the shakes. “Besides, if it goes off, the talyan are already here.”
The fish fled as she slid her hands through the cool water. She touched the orb’s surface carefully but found none of the wires of the versions outside. It did, however, feel as slimy as it looked, though nothing obvious slicked off on her fingers. She lifted the dripping ball from the tank, half tensed for a kaboom. But the oily luster continued its slow-motion boil across the surface, uninterrupted.
Nanette stared at the bomb, nibbling her bottom lip. “Maybe we should break it. Shouldn’t the souls be freed? It’s wrong to keep them imprisoned.”
“How very angelic of you,” Bella said. “But let’s stay down-to-earth for a little while longer, okay?”
She headed for the home’s activity room where Fane and the talyan had convened.
Nanette pulled the double doors shut behind them and faced the talyan. “Bella found one bomb inside. In the fish tank.”
Talya eyebrows shot up as Bella displayed the fist-sized orb, but the littlest talya—Alyce, who had come to the league as a rogue—nodded. “Thorne.”
Fane stiffened. “How can we be sure?”
Alyce shrugged and leaned against Sidney, her Bookkeeper mate, who wrapped his arm around her waist. “Thorne was a bomb maker in his solely human days life. And he likes fish.”
“Then why—?” Fane rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Never mind. So how do we spring this trap on him?”
Sid frowned. “I consider myself a fairly clever fellow, but I don’t think I follow.”