“Episodes where I feel like I’ve fallen asleep. Where I’m one place and wake up somewhere else. It’s weird.”
“You never told me about this.”
“The fire Mother talked about in her diary? When we were on that dig in Africa? It happened then. I was playing in our bungalow, but I woke up in front of the burning bungalow, a pack of matches in my hand.”
Dear God. Chills broke out on Angelique’s skin.
“What did Mother say?”
“She just gathered me up, bathed me, and put me to bed. Nothing was ever said. I was young. Confused. I didn’t make the connection. Mother said the fire woke us all. But I think I started that fire, that I deliberately tried to kill that family, Angie.”
Angelique took Isabelle’s hand. It was cold as ice. “You wouldn’t do that.”
Isabelle turned hard eyes on her. “Wouldn’t I? We don’t know that, do we? A demon could do anything. Who knows what else I’ve done. I’ve lost lots of time during my blank episodes over the years, Angie. I have no idea what I’ve done.”
“Don’t buy into a self-fulfilling prophecy. You can change who you are, or who you think you are.”
“I don’t think so. I think what I am-or what I’m supposed to be-is already set on a course. It’s out of my control and there’s nothing I can do about it.”
“You have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Isabelle turned to her, and the look in her eyes was downright frightening. “Don’t I? I know more than you think.”
That voice, the tone, the way her eyes had gone cold and flat. For a split second, it was like Isabelle had left the room, replaced instead by someone else entirely.
Isabelle spoke nonsense, and it scared Angelique.
“Let’s go downstairs and talk to the others,” Angelique said. “Maybe they can offer some answers.”
Isabelle blinked, then shrugged. “Sure. Give me a minute to freshen up and change clothes.”
Isabelle slipped into the bathroom and closed the door. Angelique felt a cold chill slip through the room, then it warmed again. She wrapped her arms around her chest and stared at the closed bathroom door.
Just a moment ago, when Isabelle was talking about her future, Angelique had felt fear. She had never in her entire life been afraid of her sister. Angry, frustrated, any emotion under the rainbow, yes. But fear, no.
Until now. Was that because Mother had sheltered her from Isabelle’s influence all those years? Had Angelique been oblivious to her sister’s faults? Had she let her own concern for Isabelle blind her to the truth?
Maybe she had. Maybe she’d protected Izzy to the point where she hadn’t seen the truth right in front of her.
Something just now had changed in Isabelle. From one second to the next, it was like a different person had entered her sister’s body. And just like that, she’d changed back.
Something about Izzy wasn’t right. Angelique hoped to God the Realm of Light could help her.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Ryder didn’t know what he’d done or said to Angie, but whatever it was, he’d fucked it up. She was pissed off or upset. At him, or maybe about something else.
Okay, definitely about the contents of her mother’s diary, that was a given. But he figured it was more than that, and it had to do with what he’d said to her in her bedroom.
Dammit, he’d never been good with women and dealing with their emotional shit. He should have let her leave the room and dwell by herself instead of following her and trying to make her feel better. All he’d done was make it worse, and now he couldn’t figure out how to fix it, especially since he didn’t know what he’d said that was so wrong.
Why couldn’t women be direct like men? Why couldn’t they say exactly what was bothering them, instead of trying to hide their emotions? It would be a lot easier if Angelique had just slapped him upside the head with whatever he’d said to upset her. Then he could have corrected it, or re-explained it in a way that wouldn’t hurt her feelings.
Maybe. Or maybe not.
Why was he even bothering to think about this? Why did it even matter to him whether her feelings were bruised?
Because you care about her, dumbass.
Yeah, yeah. And look where that was getting him. Nowhere at supersonic speed.
Screw it. He had more important things to do. Nice, distracting things that didn’t have to do with women and emotion and caring. He walked down to the massive library-or he supposed they called it the great hall-where Dalton, Michael, Mandy, and Trace were going over the diary.
“Anything?” he asked.
“From what we’ve been able to gather, it appears Monette-the girls’ mother-met up with one of the Sons of Darkness,” Michael said.
“Not just a run-of-the-mill demon, then,” Dalton said.
“No. From her description of the hunters’ destruction of the demon, and his name, it was a Lord.”
“So, he was out trolling for a human host for demon baby-making?” Ryder asked.
“Seems that way. And succeeded, too.”
“Do you know the names of all of the Sons of Darkness?” Ryder asked. “Is there like. .a flowchart or something?”
Michael snorted. “We do know who they all are and actually, yeah, there is a flowchart. The Realm has had contact with all of them and we’ve catalogued them through the centuries. We know who lives. . and who has died.”
“Like Ben and Bart.” Ryder knew those two for certain since he’d been present at both their deaths. Other than those two, he was in the dark.
“Are there always twelve?” Ryder asked, remembering that when Lou told them about the Sons of Darkness, he mentioned twelve Lords.
“Yes. There are always twelve. When one dies, another is-promoted, I’d guess you could put it-as a Lord to take his place. They are the master rulers of the demons.”
“And are we part of all this?” Angelique asked.
Angelique and Isabelle stood in the doorway. So similar, and yet different in so many ways. He could easily tell them apart, even though their faces were mirror images. Yes, hair color and style were different, but he knew Angie, could pick her from Isabelle even if their hair had been exactly the same. Maybe it was because he knew Angelique better; her body language was different from her sister’s.
There was just something different about her. . something in her eyes as she looked at him. At least for a brief second before whipping her gaze away to put her attention on Michael.
“You are indeed part of all this,” Michael said. “Come on in and join us. I’ll try to answer as many of your questions as I can.”
Angelique took her sister’s hand and led her into the room.
Ryder noticed that Angelique took a seat next to Mandy, as far away from him as possible-like across the room.
Yeah, she was definitely mad at him. And she wouldn’t make eye contact with him.
“We’ve been studying your mother’s diary,” Michael said.