Fane stepped between them. “No. It’s not like that.”
Bella sidestepped just as quickly, reaching for the door. “There’s no way to whitewash a demon, Fane. Let me go.”
“No one is going anywhere in this storm.” Sera stalked into the lobby, Archer’s menacing mass right on her heels filling up the rest of the small space. “Fane, I can’t believe you made it here without killing yourself. What the hell is going on out here?”
Ecco pointed at Bella. “That is an imp.”
Nanette pressed the back of her knuckles to her mouth, as if she might be sick. “It’s impossible. She can’t be tenebrae. I used to see the evil…”
“There’s nothing evil to see,” Fane growled. “She’s trying to throw herself to the tenebrae as penance for past sins. Which I know you talyan are so fond of.”
“It wasn’t a little sin,” Bella shot back. “I killed that girl.”
Sera peered at her with an academic’s curious eye. “An imp? Slow down while I catch up. I admit, I didn’t read all the league guidebooks when I was interim Bookkeeper, but I thought lesser tenebrae weren’t capable of sustaining a full possession for long.”
“I guess you were wrong.” Bella cut one hand across her middle, as if she flayed herself open for scrutiny. “I’ve been in this body for almost a decade, ever since I drove out the poor soul who was here first.”
Fane put his hands on her shoulders, almost as heavy as her guilt. “There was no you before the imp took the soul’s place.”
She shrugged him off. “Doesn’t matter. The other tenebrae will be coming for me, like they always do this time of year. Their presence could set off Thorne’s bombs. And that would without question be my fault. So let me go.”
Archer unleashed his weapon. The segmented axe flared open, wicked as Death’s scythe, forcing them all back from the door. “No one is leaving. The raw emotions in this space could trigger the bombs without a single malice floating by.”
Sera shook her head. “When the team at Thorne’s headquarters hits, there’s no way the bombs here will stay intact. Thorne will detonate just to retaliate. We have to be ready.” Her violet-shot gaze circled them. “All of us,” she emphasized.
Nanette nodded slowly. “You’re right. We’re all in this together.” She gave Bella a tentative, wobbling smile.
Bella clutched her hands into fists. Pretty ineffective compared to a battle axe, but her fists were all she had, besides the box cutter. “You all are so… blind! You think the tenebraeternum is going to be impressed by your teamwork and acceptance and—”
“Love.”
The reliquary hanging above them all flared. From the tiny crystal windows, prismatic sparkles marked the walls like angelic ichor.
She whirled on Fane. “What did you say?”
He hadn’t gone more than a step away from her despite Archer’s axe. “Isn’t that what you were going to mock next? The power of love?”
She narrowed her eyes, as if she could constrict the sudden pounding of her heart at the sound of the word on his lips. “Yes. That won’t get you anywhere.” After what’d he’d been through, he should know. And yet he was looking at her with those clear blue eyes as if he’d forgotten the anguish.
Or forgiven.
“Maybe,” he said softly, “we just haven’t given it enough of a chance yet.”
The silence between them ticked like a bomb.
After a moment, Ecco rubbed the back of his head. “What the hell are you two talking about?”
“Nothing,” Bella snapped. “With you talyan here and the relics I left, you can hold the line against the tenebrae.” She looked at Sera. “Sid had wished you could bring the verge here, to send the demons back to hell. I will be your walking verge. Send me away and the tenebrae will follow.”
Archer shook his head slowly. “I don’t know how empty you think you are, but you can’t hold that many tenebrae.”
Bella shivered. How did he know her emptiness? Could those bronze eyes wracked with violet streaks see so deep? She didn’t think so. No one saw her.
Sera laid her hand on Archer’s arm and didn’t let go. “We don’t send anyone alone against the darkness. Not anymore.”
“That’s all a demon is,” Bella said bitterly. “Darkness.”
Sera plastered her other hand wide across Archer’s chest, as if he was her Exhibit A. “You forget who you are talking to.”
“The teshuva repented,” Bella reminded her. As if the talya needed reminding she’d been possessed by a repentant demon seeking its salvation.
Nanette clasped her hands in front of her. “And haven’t you repented? Why else did you come to help us except you wanted to make amends?”
The question floated in front of Bella, a star in the storm, beyond her grasp. “As if saying makes it so.”
Nanette shook her head. “Not saying. Believing. And behaving.”
Ecco snorted. “Well, behaving is in the eye of the beholder…”
Fane barged past all of them and took Bella’s elbow. “If you’ll all excuse us a moment.” He didn’t wait for any response but dragged her out of the lobby toward the fish tank.
Bella tried to set her heels, but some of the old people were watching and she didn’t want to cause a ruckus. Instead she hissed at him, “Let me go.”
“You keep saying that, and I’ll keep ignoring you.”
Finally shielded behind the fish, she yanked her arm out of his grasp. She rubbed her elbow resentfully. “I don’t know how you can call yourself a good guy.”
“I don’t.” He boxed her in with the glass behind her. Against the pale glow of the water, his eyes were bright gold. “I’m just a man, Bella, who ended up with an angel. And you are a demon who got a second chance. What are you going to do with it?”
She averted her face. “What about everyone who didn’t get a chance? Mirabel. Your son, Max… You and your wife.”
She thought he would flinch, almost wanted him to, so she could slip away from him. But he didn’t move.
He did close his eyes. “No, he didn’t get a chance. We didn’t get a chance, to know him, to watch him live. No chance. But we loved him so much anyway. I’ll love him always.” When he opened his eyes again, the gold was gone, just the bright blue she shouldn’t be able to see, that pierced her heart. “Imagine what can happen when you do take a chance.”
She stared at him, trying to make sense of his words as if he spoke something even more arcane than the ancient language of the sphericanum and the twisted tongue of the demons.
Slowly, he reached out to cup her cheek, his thumb smoothing over her temple where her glasses usually rested. “I would love you, if you take the chance.”
A panicked breath caught in her chest, aching to escape. What answer it would take with it, she didn’t know, couldn’t guess. What did he see in her that she didn’t see in herself?
“Cyril…” She reached up to echo his touch. The bristle of his unshaven chin against her palm felt too incredibly real, almost painful, as he leaned into her caress.
“They are coming.”
The discordant cry from across the room jolted them together as Fane took a step closer to her. From the lobby and the activity room, the talyan’s cell phones began to ring, scraps of a half dozen tunes jangling.
Sera’s father stood at the big picture window, staring out into the night. “The damned devils are coming!”
Chapter 14
The sound of shattering glass barely reached Fane. It sounded no worse than a tumbler dropped in some distant kitchen, deserving nothing more than a half-hearted “Opa!” and a quick sweeping out.
Then the percussive blast of etheric emanations hit the picture window.
Nothing exploded, of course. Etheric emanations interacted only haphazardly with the worldly realm. But the ornaments Bella had hung over the window swayed wildly, the reindeer seeming to leap on their strings. Just as well the sleigh was empty or it would have spilled all its gifts.