“Ward.” His eyes glimmered with the gold sparks of his roused angel. “Your kind heart is not needed here.”
“Ex-warden,” she replied, much more mildly but with equal gold admonition. “A kind heart is always needed.”
Bella tensed. Was she going to have to jump into the middle of an angel war right here? Could this night get any worse?
After a long moment, Fane smiled tightly. It wasn’t a beatific smile of the sort favored by saints. It was more the sort an avenging angel gave as he listened to the blood of his enemies snap-crackle-pop on his flaming sword. “I think we have both been around the talyan too long. We have forgotten what we are.”
But Nanette did not soften. “I have not forgotten.” She touched Bella’s arm. “Shall I call that cab?”
Though she desperately wanted to take the angel-woman’s offer, Bella felt the weight of Fane’s glower like that missing sword dangling above her head. And she didn’t particularly want to leave him with the talyan. Who knew what he might tell them? “It’s okay. I need a ride and he has a decent car.”
Nanette nodded dubiously and went to the front desk to buzz them out.
Bella waved as they left but had to jerk her hand back before Fane slammed it in the closing door. She whirled on him. “What did you do with the orb?”
“I left it with the Bookkeeper. He’s trying to decide whether there’s a message from Thorne tucked inside along with the demons.”
“A message other than ‘fuck you’?”
“That part seemed pretty clear.” He crunched over the salt on the sidewalk as he headed for the Porsche. Bella trailed behind, staring down at her boots.
In the old days, salt was used as a defense against evil powers. The ability of salt to draw, purify and preserve on the corporeal plane had been extended to the metaphysical realm. Clothed in flesh, she felt nothing, but as an imp, she had avoided its sting. Did she dare rely on the protective power of potato chips?
She kicked a pebble of salt and watched it bounce across the pavement to hit Fane’s boot. He had stopped at the Porsche and was waiting for her, blocking the passenger door.
She wrapped her arms around herself, her coat suddenly seeming far too thin against the iciness of his glare. “Are we going?”
“Why did you use Nanette to show the wickedness in the orb?”
“Because the talyan and I couldn’t trigger that response.” She met his cold eyes with her own searing glare. “And neither could you.”
He pitched his voice low and intent. “The divine presence is still inside me.”
Who was he trying to convince? If she hadn’t been so miserable herself, she might have enjoyed mocking him. “Probably. But it’s buried so deep, I couldn’t get to it. Even when I tried.”
“I want to end evil just as much as Nanette. Her husband was killed by djinn-men, but I—” He slammed his palm on the car roof.
When he didn’t go on, Bella lifted her chin. “We all face demons. Some of us get to face them with angels inside. Some of us don’t. But the orb didn’t react to her desire to destroy it. It flinched from her love.”
His hand on the Porsche fisted, and his fingernails squealed against the paint. “I have that too.”
She curled her lips in a sneer. “You can’t even say it.”
He took a long step toward her and raised his hand.
Inadvertently, she turned her cheek, not that she thought he would hit her, but she had tried to punch him…
Instead, he laid his long fingers against her cold jaw and tilted her face up to his. His mouth—how did he stay so warm?—slanted over hers, his tongue tracing the seam of her lips with a power that left her gasping, opening to him.
He cupped his hand behind her head, sinking his fingers into her hair, and tilted her to his desire.
She closed her eyes and flattened her palms against his chest, giving in to the kiss, possessed by it, by him.
Finally, he lifted his head. “See?”
Slowly, she dragged her heavy lashes upward, knowing he would see the flash of cloudy gray cataracts. “I don’t,” she said. “So say it.”
She waited for him to show her she was wrong, but he only yanked open the passenger door for her and stalked away.
Tucking herself into the smooth, cold leather as she waited for him to come around, she wondered why she wanted so badly to be wrong.
Chapter 8
Fane peeled the Porsche away from the sidewalk. All the baby Jesuses were gone, so why did he still feel like there were a few dozen accusing eyes staring into the back of his head?
Maybe that was just his angel.
Battles weren’t won with love, he wanted to tell it. One birthday and two thousand years of history were still proving that.
He pedaled the gas, letting the buck of the engine distract him. This time of the morning, the empty street unrolled in front of him, asking nothing, wanting nothing.
Unlike certain other beings he might mention…
“Where are we going?”
And thus began the asking. “Home.”
“You missed the exit for the Coil.”
“My home,” he clarified.
“No.”
“I’m driving,” he pointed out.
“This is a kidnapping.”
“Right. Snatching someone else’s body for your own use. What would you know about that?”
As he said it, he winced. That was cruel, even for him.
Bella didn’t move a muscle, just stared out the window.
What did she see of the night with her imp eyes? Could it be worse than the heartbreak he’d known was out there, even before the angel had come to him?
He didn’t want to remember those days. These nights were hard enough. He gripped the steering wheel as if he could throttle down the memories even as he geared up the engine.
“My house has safeguards,” he offered finally. “More focused than your artifacts. You’ll be safe there.”
“Why?”
“The sphericanum gives all its wardens—”
“I mean why are you giving me a place now?”
He clenched his jaw. “I wasn’t about to leave you at the club without any protection.”
“You did a Vegas-worthy impression of it when you started to drive away with all my Jesuses and without me.”
“I intended to come back.” He’d just been so shocked. And angry. At her for lying about what she was. And at himself, for lying with her.
So now that he did know what she was, how did he justify that last kiss?
He couldn’t. There was no good reason on earth for that kiss.
“Listen,” he started again. “I’m not the bad guy here.”
“No, it’s Thorne who wants to detonate tenebrae bombs on a bunch of vulnerable old people at Christmas…” She snapped her fingers. “Oh wait. You wanted to do that too, didn’t you? To somehow turn the tables on him. If you aren’t the bad guy and then you turn the tables, you become the bad guy.”
Fane grimaced at the tortured logic. “I’m not going to argue about this with you.”
“Because I’d win,” she shot back.
“These are hard times for all of us—”
“Yeah, what was it you said? This season can be such a ‘spiritually difficult’ time for people like me who…” She tucked herself tight, clutching her arms close to her body as if she was remembering the flow of blood from her scars.
Fane swerved to the side of the road. Beyond the narrow ribbon of park, the lake was an unrelieved blackness, like an invading force waiting behind the city walls. He grabbed Bella’s chin and forced her to look at him. He didn’t know what she saw, but he didn’t want her picturing Mirabel’s last Christmas night.
“That wasn’t you,” he reminded her. “You didn’t hurt yourself.”