“So where are the choirs of angels?” When he didn’t answer, she cocked an eyebrow at him. “Oh, you meant whatever the cost to us, the league.”
He opened his curled fingers and revealed the shard. In the bright sun, the broken edges of the glass glinted like teeth. “As you mentioned before, the angelic forces do not linger forever in their chosen hosts. We aid them in their errands in this realm without the benefit of immortality.”
An image of Jonah’s grim mouth as he’d spoken of his wife flashed through her mind “There are downsides too. But you get no ninja skills either, huh?”
“Nothing to compare with the meanest teshuva.”
She pursed her lips. “That does explain why evil always seems to triumph.”
“But if you aren’t evil—”
“Some of us aren’t,” she interrupted.
He ignored her. “Then we should join forces.”
“The enemy of my enemy,” she murmured. Isn’t that the way Jonah felt as well? He had taken her on despite hating everything she was. He had reached out to her despite everything he’d seen. And he’d seen it all. She shook off the thought. “Give me the feralis chunk.”
He passed it over with visible reluctance. “What will you do?”
“Take it to Liam Niall.”
“And the league leader will be willing to risk all his talyan on this suicidal endeavor?”
She smiled grimly. “It’s what they live for.”
She made Fane take her to the mall. When he balked, she pointed out, “I can’t tell the league I’ve been hanging out with an angel all day. They’ll crucify me. Not for real. But they’ll believe I stopped by the club to get my wardrobe. Such as it is.”
He wouldn’t give her the credit card. “I’m not showing this stop on my expense account.”
She sniffed. “Angels have expense accounts? No wonder we’re losing. Everybody else is covering their asses, and only we talyan put ourselves out there.”
“You more than most,” he said.
“You’ll make it all up billing the city for cleaning up the club, thanks to me,” she shot back. She wished her voice hadn’t wavered at the end.
She bought a bustier—vinyl, not leather, tragically—and matching strappy black sandals with fuck-you heels. She threw in a shiny black, thigh-length trench coat, which was a steal on sale because, after all, it was August in Chicago.
As they left the mall parking lot, she leaned back in the Lotus seat and stroked the leather. This was where she’d been headed: the moneyed men of Vegas and their endless needs. And now she was going to . . . “Take us to the cemetery.”
Fane sighed. “There’s nothing there.”
“Nothing except her body.”
He sighed again, gusty enough to blow Amber’s soul across the city. If it hadn’t been trapped by the horror of its last moments. But he did as he was told.
At the cemetery, she slipped into the black coat.
Fane squinted. “You look like a slutty-hippie-manga Death.”
“That’s the nicest thing you’ve said to me yet.” She slammed out the door, hoping Mobi got frisky in the hot car with the angel-man.
The new grave had a view of an oak tree. Nim stared down into the open pit. The diggers hadn’t backfilled the hole yet, and the top of the casket gleamed like her vinyl trench under a scattering of white rose petals. Another bouquet of white roses drooped in the heat atop the blank granite headstone.
Nim fisted her hands in her pockets, fury coursing through her. Amber or Myra—something should’ve been carved on her rock.
Nim took a breath. Of course, Myra’s family, whoever they were, hadn’t had time to carve anything, but somebody had cared enough to leave the flowers and the crumpled tissue, white as a wayward rose except for the mascara stains.
Nim pulled her hand from her pocket and opened her fingers. The semifinals ticket wadded in her palm was damp with her sweat. But the gaudy gold imprinted on black and red still glittered in the sunlight: VIVA LAS SHOWGIRLS.
“Not this showgirl,” she murmured. “Either one, actually. I guess we skipped straight to the finals.”
She stood and tossed the ticket into the grave. She snapped off one of the roses and took a last look back. Her fingers clenched around the stem, but the thorns had been shaved down to nothing.
At the Lotus, she held out the rose to Fane.
He studied her with the same look he gave Mobi. “What? Her gold fillings wouldn’t come out?”
She threw the flower at his head. “When you go to clean the club—if that’s your euphemism for pretending you’re winning this war against evil—take the flower to her. Tell her she’s resting in peace. If she can find it.”
He dropped her off at the outskirts of the warehouse district, which she thought was cruel, considering the blazing sun, especially since the talyan would still be snoozing off their previous night’s adventures and wouldn’t notice her return.
“Wouldn’t want all your subterfuge to go to waste,” he said.
So she trudged the last long blocks to the warehouse. Mobi twined over her shoulders, energized by the heat. “I know;you would’ve liked Vegas. But the show must go on.”
After the heat outside, the cathedral cool of the warehouse interior soothed her skin. She went down to Sera’s lab and laid the feralis fragment on the counter. The unnatural mix of muted shell and hazed glass glimmered in the screen-saver light from the computer.
She found a sticky note and scrawled What is this? with an arrow pointing toward the shell. She cleared a little space on the cluttered counter so the two items would stand out. Then she went to Jonah’s room.
He was still dead to the world, as if she had never gone. She rather wished she hadn’t.
She slid Mobi into his cabinet and herself into the shower. Washing off the sweat was easy; the remembered stink of the club . . . not so much. But she scrubbed her skin until the teshuva couldn’t keep up with the sting.
When she got out and padded nude into the bedroom, Jonah was propped up on the pillow, arm behind his head. The sheet was crumpled around his waist. The shopping bag lay on the bed where she had tossed it.
He watched her. “A surprise?”
“Oh yeah.” She climbed onto the bed and straddled him.
His gaze cut to the bag. “Aren’t you going to show me?”
“That’s not the surprise. That’s the distraction.” She leaned down to set her lips under his ears. He shivered at the gentle breath she blew against his skin.
“Probably I should be terrified,” he murmured.
“Of the surprise? Or the distraction?”
“Of you.”
She circled her hips over his, the sheet scant protection from his heat. “You don’t seem terrified.”
He settled his hand high on her thigh, his thumb nestled between one of the faint match-head scars and the black tracery of her reven. “I’m waiting.”
She sighed and sat back. “I went to the club this afternoon.”
His fingers closed reflexively, and she winced as his grip drove into a nerve. As her words had, apparently. “There weren’t any demons,” she said quickly.
“I can’t even imagine how you think, after less than a week of possession, you’re qualified to make that assessment.”
“Nothing killed me, did it?”
He rolled, dumping her off. Not expecting the eviction, she sprawled ungracefully on the sheet. He stood and faced her. His body was hard, his erection straining toward her, but his expression was harder yet and utterly closed. “I can’t trust you, can I?”
The accusation stung hotter than the shower. She didn’t even have the gnarly dreads to toss back over her shoulder with pointed disdain. “Did I ever give you the impression you should?”