Lover Arisen, page 33
She’d never felt like all parts of her were accepted before. Right as they were. And the irony was real.
All it had taken… was a member of another species.
As her downtown exit arrived, she cut in front of a Mustang and descended the ramp that dumped her out on the edge of the business district. The route she had to take to get to the Bloody Bookshoppe was inefficient, but that was the way of one-ways. Pulling up in front of the little store, she stared at the door and remembered stepping through it… into another world.
Police tape, as familiar to her as her own face, crisscrossed the inset stoop, and there was a seal on the jamb.
The sight of it made her wonder what they did when they “cleaned up a scene,” as Balthazar had put it. Did they lift evidence if it linked them or suggested their presence? Or just get rid of the metaphysical stuff? They’d certainly removed anything that proved she’d been there.
The temptation to go in was nearly overwhelming. Instead, she continued on. She’d agreed to leave the silver Honda in the area and bring the key back to Balthazar. He’d told her they’d handle getting the vehicle back to that garage—
Erika braked and checked her rearview mirror. Glanced around. Then twisted in her seat so she could get a second look at the lineup of cars that were parallel parked on both sides of the one-way. Crap, she’d gone by her unmarked.
As she set about making another box formation with the one-ways, she made herself concentrate. Maybe she was mistaken about where she’d left her car.
A second trip around got her the same result.
Absolutely no unmarked.
Where the hell was her car?
* * *
Back at Erika’s townhouse, Balz was taking a shower in her bedroom upstairs. As he stood under the warm spray and ran her bar of Dove soap over his body, he really didn’t like the idea that she was out in the brilliant light of day, traveling over roads that were chock-full of distracted, idiot drivers, heading back to where Devina had killed an old man and pretended to be him.
He particularly hated that last part.
On that note, where the hell was the demon, he wondered as he reached for her shampoo. He’d fallen asleep after they’d made love again, and still no demon in his dreams. That was twice that that bitch hadn’t shown up—
Balz froze with his hands on his head and something made by Paul Mitchell palmed in his hair. As the water continued to wash over him and the shampoo dripped into his eyes, he heard a voice in his head. Lassiter’s voice.
True love is going to save you.
Like an absolute piker, Balz’s hands dropped to his sides and he stared at the tile of Erika’s shower stall.
“I love her. I really do.”
When the sting from the shampoo got irritating, he turned around and faced the spray. Rinsing his hair, he felt a cosmic shift inside himself. The Book didn’t matter. That was why Lassiter had told him to let it go when he and Sahvage had been playing tug-o’-war with the ugly, nasty-ass thing.
Erika was his savior. Not anything in that old tome.
She was his solution.
Hanging his head, he thought about all the don’t-know-why’s of destiny. He hadn’t had a clue about why the demon had chosen him or exactly how she’d gotten into his soul at the moment he’d been electrocuted in that snowstorm. And now, he didn’t know why he was so lucky to have crossed paths with a human who’d changed the course of his life.
He should have felt empowered and lucky.
Instead, he felt just as out of control as before; he only happened to like the current outcome better.
That was life, though. For all the choices consciously made, there were forces at work under the ground of daily and nightly existence, deep aquifers of fate that drove an existence that fluctuated in and out of happiness, sorrow, boredom, fear, up above.
Yet he was grateful.
How could he not be? Except maybe he had more Syphon in him than he wanted to admit. He’d rather be in control.
Cutting the water, he stepped out and used the still-damp towel Erika had run over her body on his own. As her scent rose up to his nose, his libido raised the hand it had. He wasn’t going to do anything about his perma-rection right now, though. He scrubbed his hair dry, smoothed it down with his hands, and threw the sweat suit, as he’d come to think of it, back on.
Out in the shallow hall, he peeked through the open door of the guest bedroom. Erika had pulled all of the shades on the first and second floor, but the ones in there weren’t blackouts and he reared back as if slapped. Closing the space up, even though he was going downstairs, he descended to the kitchen and hit the fridge looking for food.
Condiments. Lots of condiments.
Like she never cooked and only ordered in.
He could relate to that. Back when he’d been living at the Brotherhood’s mansion, the only reason he’d had homemade meals had been the doggen there.
In Erika’s cupboards, he found a box of pasta and a jar of spaghetti sauce. Getting out a pot and setting it to boil, he noticed her laptop was on her table. He didn’t open it. Even if it wasn’t password protected, whatever was in there was her business.
He took out his phone. On the screen, there were all kinds of messages, sent in response to his I-am-alive missive that had gone out just before he’d taken his shower.
An odd thought went through his mind: This is what I am leaving behind.
“What?” he muttered. He wasn’t going anywhere.
When the pasta was ready to be drained, he couldn’t find a strainer so he used a fork to keep the linguine from slipping out down the sink. Dumping the load of carbs in a bowl big enough to toss a salad in, he opened the jar of plain Ragú and doused the tangle like it was on fire.
Just as he was about to sit across from the laptop, he reminded himself that he wasn’t in a structure that had true daytime shutters. Erika had been great about tacking up a wool blanket over the venetian blinds and the drapes she’d pulled in this room, but it was safer underground.
When he was back down in the cellar, he used his thigh as a TV tray and twirled his little heart out, throwing a good thousand calories into the gaping hole of his stomach.
When there was nothing but a Jackson Pollock of red streaks around the inside of the bowl, he set it on the floor and took his phone out again. The text he composed took a couple of tries, and even then he wasn’t satisfied—
A creak upstairs brought his head up. And also the gun he’d tucked into the front pocket of the sweatshirt.
Well. This could be a problem.
Depending on who or what it was.
CHAPTER FORTY
Rahvyn recognized the dreamscape. It was where she traveled when she was asleep, a neutral ground within the Creator’s master plan. She had started to come here when she began living at Luchas House, as if, with her body safe, the part of her that was connected to the energy in the universe was free to go where it wanted to.
Where it needed to.
She had learned that she could manipulate the landscape at will, adding trees to the flat plane. A meadow full of flowers. A sun in the sky, a cottage in the corner. She could tile it in lavender or yellow, red or pink.
Those were the parlor tricks she had mastered when she had first arrived.
The efforts had been trivial, however. She had the sense, deep within her, that this was an important place, of graver significance than merely a backdrop on which she could play with colors and arboreal fixtures—
A wind she did not create blew across her face, and as her hair was swept along with it, she saw that the waves were back to being what they had once been, no longer white but a rich black. Tucking the locks behind her ears and over her shoulders, she felt an arrival of some sort.
She turned to face whatever it was—
A table.
An unadorned table had materialized upon the deep blue grass, and she took a step back. Looking up at the “sky,” such as it was, she saw nothing above her other than the baby blue clouds she had conjured up to shield herself from her bright red sun. There was naught behind her or coming at her from the sides, either—
An image appeared upon the tabletop, and whatever it was was flickering as if some signal were being interrupted by distance or weather.
She did not go closer.
Until she recognized the shape.
It was square and flat, a box, but one that was not very deep. No, that was not correct. It was not a box, but rather a… book.
Now Rahvyn moved forward. When she was before the object, she noted the way the image of it continued to come and go, a mirage of the actual thing.
The book had a mottled, uneven cover, and the curl of something that smelled bad reached her nose. In all… it was revolting.
And yet she was drawn to the ancient tome. Sure as the thing was calling her name, and had an urgent need that only she could fulfill, she could not look away.
Her hand raised of its own volition and her arm extended on its own.
Just as she was about to make contact, as the image was solidifying into a three-dimensional actuality, as opposed to a twinkling, two-dimensional representation—
Something flashed overhead.
Jerking her head up, she looked to the sky. It was not blue and red any longer. In fact, all the colors were gone from the plane of existence, nothing but grays and blacks and gloom above and all around her.
When she glanced back at the table, the book was real.
And it was demanding that she—
* * *
Rahvyn woke up in a rush, and she put her hand to the center of her chest to hold in her thundering heart. Glancing about at her environs, she saw only the healing room she had been given, the one where the angel with the blond-and-black hair had come to see her, and where the Brothers had cloistered around outside in the hall to speak of what she had done to Nate.
Dearest Virgin Scribe. She still had regrets, fearing that she had saved him only to create another set of problems for her friend.
Perhaps death would have been kinder to him, even as it shattered those who loved him.
And as for the dream just the now? She did not know what that had been about, why that book had come to find her, what it had wanted from her.
Struck by a restlessness that suffused her with twitches, she was compelled into some kind of action, any kind. Slipping her feet out from under the blanket that covered her, she padded over to the bathroom. After a series of refreshments, which included a toothbrushing courtesy of supplies that were set upon the counter, she returned unto the larger space.
Whereupon she looked at the door out.
Driven unto motion, she stepped through into the corridor. And then she walked along the long, white, unadorned hall. Her senses were such that the walls of the clinic, as well as its various underground floors, disappeared, everything becoming transparent and revealing the dramas that were playing out around her: She could see them all, the males and females within the facility, whether they were patients or healers or people who were with machines or computers. She knew their stories instantaneously, drowning in their secrets as they received treatment, rendered treatment, recorded treatment, waited for treatment.
This transparency had happened before, and as the input swamped her, she attempted to put up her psychic boundaries to shut it out. Something about that dream had disturbed her fundamentally, however, and she struggled to marshal defenses so that she could form her own and separate purpose, the segregation necessary for her to—
“Are you all right?”
At the sound of the female voice, Rahvyn snapped out of her tailspin. A nurse in uniform was standing before her, eyes of brown looking concerned, a caring hand reaching forward. She recognized who it was. This was the one who had been checking in from time to time, who had been so nice. And in response to the present inquiry, Rahvyn took a steadying breath—and for a split second, entertained the option of telling the female that in fact, no, she was not all right. She was submerged in the lives of other people.
And wondering why she did not save the ones who were dying.
Just as she had Nate.
Rahvyn remained silent, however. She knew the kind of aid she sought was outside the scope of care offered by the female. By anyone.
“I am rather hungry,” she said roughly, such that she could justify her presence outside of her room. “Is there a kitchen herein, perhaps?”
“Oh, yes.” Relief marked the nurse’s pleasant face. “If you’d like, you can go back to your room and I’ll have someone bring you whatever you want?”
The idea of being cooped up made sweat bead along Rahvyn’s forehead. “I’d prefer to sort it myself? If that is possible.”
“Well, there is a cafeteria.” Directions were provided. “Just follow the signs, then. It is not fully open, but there are choices for you there.”
“Thank you very much indeed.”
There was a little more conversation that Rahvyn did not attempt to follow, and as they stepped apart, she realized she had retained nothing of the instructions for the location. The last statement proved enough, however.
She followed the signs.
After going around many turns and down a couple of straightaways, she caught the scent of food. It was not of the First Meal variety, however—and that, coupled with her sense that daylight had indeed arrived aboveground, informed her that it was not yet dark again.
She could not leave.
A set of double doors soon presented themselves, and proved a portal into a broad space fronted by stainless-steel countering and many glass-fronted units. Therein the equipment was an endless supply of available sustenance, as well as a long stretch of serving buffets, all of which were shut down, likely due to the hour. Walking over to a display of fruit, she took a tray and helped herself to an orange. An apple. A cookie wrapped in cellophane. A bottle of water. A premade sandwich—
Rahvyn stopped, the sense that she was being watched calling her to look over her shoulder.
Past all of the food offerings, there was an open area fitted with tables and chairs, the well-lit consumption gallery capable of accommodating a hundred diners or more.
It was empty. Except for one person.
There, far, far in the back, facing the wall, but turned to look at her…
…was Nate.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
As Balz tracked the footfalls overhead, he did a quick dive into the firepower duffle and took out two clips and another autoloader. Up on the first floor, someone was definitely moving around and it was not Erika. She wasn’t due back yet, for one thing, and more to the point, he knew what she sounded like as she went around her home.
Going over to the base of the stairs, he willed off the lights and plunged the cellar into darkness. Then, being careful to stay out of the area where the illumination from the kitchen would stream down the stairwell, he trained both guns up at the closed door.
And waited. Sooner or later, they would come down to the basement.
The footfalls were heavy, and sure enough, they got closer to the cellar door. Balz remained as rock solid as the carpet-covered concrete he was standing on, certain that whoever it was, whatever it was… wasn’t a shadow. They didn’t weigh anything to make that kind of sound—
“I’m not the target you’re looking for,” came a dry voice on the far side of that closed door.
“Lassiter?” He lowered the guns. “What are you—”
The angel opened things up. “Well, you texted me—”
“—doing here?”
“—to come over, like I’m going to ignore that?”
“I didn’t actually hit send.”
“Oh, I smell spaghetti. Do you have any left?”
As the Scribe Virgin’s replacement came down the wooden steps, Balz had a moment of what-if-it’s-not-really-him, but then the subtle glimmer of the male’s halo registered—and that demon had a lot of things floating around her, but not anything that was like sunshine.
“You know, Balz, you didn’t have to choose your wording so carefully.” The angel marched right over to the chair next to the couch and sat down. “I mean, come on, my English skills top sitcom level at best. I’m not even on one-hour dramas when it comes to vocabulary.”
Balz blinked. Then he willed the lights back on and went over to the couch. “Okay. And ah, no, I ate all the pasta.”
“Bummer. But that’s cool, I’ll hit a Domino’s on the way home. Pizza Hut is too rough on the stomach.”
As Balz sat down, too, he tucked the guns behind one of the cushions. Then he eased forward and plugged his elbows into his knees.
“What do you have on your mind,” Lassiter asked gently.
“If you knew I was texting you without me hitting send, you know what I’m thinking about.”
“Humor me anyway. Besides, it’s nice to hear ourselves talk, isn’t it? I mean, I’ve always found that to be true, especially if the ‘ourselves’ in a question happens to be me.” The angel pointed to himself. “But I’ll give you the stage and mic right now.”
As Lassiter settled back and got comfortable, crossing his legs knee to knee, as opposed to assuming the more classic air-your-junk lap triangle that most males did, the guy looked like he couldn’t decide whether to be a member of a hair band or a gentleman’s club. The blond-and-black locks on his head and the Steven Tyler–ribboned layers of black and red on his body voted the former. His elegant hands and composure suggested the latter.
“I need to know…” Balz cleared his throat and glanced around Erika’s cellar. Then he laughed in a short, hard burst as he thought about that phone call he’d tried to have with V. “I’m not sure you’re going to even hear what I’m saying.”
“We’re four feet away from each other. But if you want to go the charades route, that’s fine with me. It’ll slow us down, but the element of guesswork could be fun. Plus exercise. Word.”
