Lassiter, page 5
As he remembered what she tasted like, a stir of sexual instinct made him pause.
She’ll be here, he thought. Anytime he wanted.
Turning back to the door, he passed through and hated the acidic, clingy sensation—but compared to the tortures of Dhunhd, it was nothing he couldn’t endure.
And then he was on the other side.
The basement corridor was a straight shot of concrete in both directions, all kinds of closed doors with corporate logos offering nothing of interest. He chose left for no particular reason because either way would take him to the outside world—
The security guard came sauntering around the corner down at the far end, his cell phone up in his hands, the soft squawk suggesting he was listening to a game. Uniformed, dark-haired, in his early twenties—and out to fucking lunch: The whistled tune that percolated up from him, a little ditty that was discordant and disorganized with an unreliable beat, suggested he was lax about more than just doing his rounds properly.
The dumbshit was about to walk right into an intruder.
As the mist that had carried Lash through the door dissipated from his naked body, the scent of the human became very apparent, and with proximity also came an assessment of the potential for a good fight. There was none. The kid was fit in the manner of youth rather than activity—no paunch yet, but the shoulders were unremarkable and so were the pecs.
Not that that would matter.
When Lash was done with him.
CHAPTER SIX
What the hell.”
As the words on Eddie’s mind were spoken out loud, he himself leaned in closer to the windshield. Which was not hard to do. The Mini had all of the vertical loft of a Converse All Star, and forget about legroom. He was wearing his knees as earrings and bent into a crouch. If the airbag ever went off? His nose was going to get punched through the back of his skull.
“Are you seeing that?” Adrian demanded as he took his foot off the gas—and then, like it wasn’t perfectly clear what he was talking about, the other angel jabbed his forefinger forward. “That.”
“Yeah, I do.”
The glowing line going down the out-in-the-boonies road ahead of them was the kind of thing you couldn’t miss—and no, it didn’t have anything to do with the yellow stuff painted in the middle. This stripe was on their side of the divider, the phosphorescent trail continuing into the distance until it appeared to make the upcoming corner and keep going.
Eddie looked back at the Northway exit they’d just gotten off. The direction of “Great Bear Mountain” had been all well and good, but as it turned out, it was like telling someone to go find a guy named Mike in Minnesota. The mountain’s footprint covered a massive territory, and for the last however many hours, they’d just been driving around aimlessly, poking into trailheads and pit stops, diners, drive-ins, and dives, straightaways and stop signs.
No Lassiter. Nothing even vaguely Lassiter-like.
Which, considering the guy was a mushroom cloud waiting to happen, was a good thing from a public safety standpoint. Given their mission? It was just more frustration.
“I guess we follow it,” Eddie said as he tried to see around the bend. “Maybe this is the compass we need.”
Ad rocked the gearshift back and forth in neutral. Then he flipped things into first, released the clutch, and eased in the gas. The Mini crept forward, as if the car were hesitant.
“Or maybe we just quit this shit.” Ad glanced over with annoyance. “Lassiter isn’t anywhere around here.”
“And you know this how?”
“You think you’re going to get cable or Internet this far out in the fucking boondocks? No way he’s going without TV.”
“What else do we have to do? We might as well see where it takes us.”
“This is a wild goose chase—”
“The last three years have been a f—” Eddie stopped himself before he -ucked after the fff. “This whole frickin’ thing’s a goose chase. So why not bloodhound after whatever this glow is.”
“It’s fuck.” Ad gave them some more speed. “And I don’t get this clean-living act with your vocabulary.”
As they puttered around the turn in the lane, a thicket of roadside emporiums appeared, stars in the pavement’s Milky Way.
“Do you need gas?” Eddie asked as they approached a Shell station.
“We’re doin’ okay—oh, hey, it’s a McDonald’s, you want to eat?”
“No, just keep going. In case the stuff has a half-life.”
“The fries?”
“No, dummy. The glow.”
As they went by the golden arches, Ad looked across the seats with a yearning that suggested his sodium nitrate levels were low. But he continued on—and so did the weird illumination.
“Taco Bell?” the other angel said with optimism. “Come on, I need a chalupa and so do you.”
“No way. I’m immortal, but there are limits to what my digestive tract will handle.”
“Plop-plop, fizz-fizz—”
“That is not your slogan.”
Ad laughed even though they were passing the purple bell logo. “I love Carter Anderson.”
A quarter of a mile later and the brief conglomeration of fast food was over. After that, all they had was more forest, the thick tree line an arbored fence like Mother Nature didn’t want any trespassers killing her vibe. And the phosphorescent strip was still going strong—what dimmed were Eddie’s convictions. Maybe Ad was right, and what he’d thought was a sign was just like the Great Bear thing, a nothing burger—
The glow disappeared.
And not just as in ended. As in extinguished completely, nothing more ahead, nothing at all behind them.
“Well,” Ad announced, “this was really great—”
“Stop!” As the angel hit the brakes, they both jerked into their seatbelts, and Eddie pointed to the right. “There’s a dirt lane. See? Let’s go in there.”
His best friend looked through the side window, his seat groaning from the shift of position.
“I’ve always wondered whether Bigfoot is real,” the angel muttered as he spun the wheel and punched the gas. “Maybe tonight’s the night I find out.”
“You wear a size fourteen. I’d say that’s prima facie evidence right there.”
“You’re no fun.”
As the headlights swung around, the nearly imperceptible break in the lineup of trunks and branches became more visible, but only marginally so. And as they bumped off the road onto a pair of dirt grooves, the trees seemed to crowd in.
There was something else, too. About ten yards in, the forest started to not look right, the landscape indistinct in a way that wasn’t tied to fog or weather. He didn’t know what the hell the buffering was.
Ad rubbed the heel of his hand in a circle on the windshield. “I can’t see a damn thing.”
They’d gone another fifty yards or so when a cockeyed cattle gate appeared and Ad slowed them down again. The old thing connected a busted-up chain link fence that had a curlicue of rusted barbed wire as a toupee.
“Look at those video cameras.”
“Keep going,” Eddie murmured as he squinted over the little hood and willed the barrier open.
The visual blurring continued to weave through the environs as they ascended the mountain’s flank, the details of the pines and other trees smudging to the point where they just disappeared into the darkness, the headlights not penetrating very far, the lane appearing up ahead as if it were being built foot by foot as they went along.
What was clear? The series of gates—and they got progressively newer and more sturdy. Eddie opened each in succession, all the while wondering who the hell would go to this kind of trouble to keep trespassers off their property.
“I got a bad feeling about this,” he muttered.
“Aw, come on. It’s an adventure, right?”
“Not the kind we’re going to enjoy.”
The angle of ascent grew stiffer, and the disorientation permeated the car, a fuzzy wave going into Eddie’s body and messing with his mind as nausea turned his stomach.
Finally, they came to the last barrier. Twenty-five feet tall, with signs warning it was electrified, the gate linked up a twenty-inch-thick concrete wall that seemed to go to the ends of the earth in both directions.
As they passed through, the conviction that they had to turn around struck him hard—no really, they needed to never come here again, ever—and Ad coughed into his fist like he also had bile rising in his throat, and the car itself sputtered…
And there it was.
The drive made a turn and revealed a great gray stone mansion and a courtyard with a winterized fountain.
“He’s here,” Eddie breathed. “Lassiter is here.”
Ad hit the brakes and peered upward. “Because he took Bram-damn-Stoker for a roommate—oh, cool, they got gargoyles.”
The grand house had a variable roofline that suggested its layout extended deep into the property to the rear, and it was not hard to picture a Game of Thrones dragon coming around its spire. Off to one side, there was an attached garage that was bigger than most municipal facilities, and on the other, a freestanding miniature version of the larger whole that was clearly some kind of caretaker’s cottage. All around, diamond-paned windows glowed with yellow light—but suddenly, shutters started to come down in a coordinated descent, as if the mansion had taken an Ambien and the stuff was kicking in.
“Make sure you have your halo on,” Eddie muttered as he popped the handle on his tiny door. “I don’t think we’re going to have to knock.”
“My disco ball is like my American Express. I don’t leave home without it.”
As Eddie got out, he assessed the front entrance of the palace. A set of carved double doors was anchored by a set of stone steps that belonged on a cathedral.
With the shutters locking into place at the base of all the windows, Eddie murmured, “They know we’re here—”
Instantly, warriors in black leather appeared from out of thin air, guns up and targeted, their massive bodies blocking the entrance in a clear message that if you wanted inside, you were going to have to go through them.
Vampires, Eddie thought. That Stoker crack was no joke.
“Well, if this isn’t the best welcome wagon I’ve ever seen,” Ad said in a cheery voice. “I feel right at home!”
Eddie shot over a glare that was studiously ignored. Then he focused on who he guessed was in charge: One of the fighters was standing at the head of the steps, his military haircut and grim, dark blue eyes suggesting that he was very comfortable with killing things—yet the fact that neither he nor his troops had immediately pulled a trigger was a clear indicator that he had a brain.
Lifting his palms up, Eddie said, “We mean no harm. We’re just looking for—”
Behind the fighters, the cathedral doors blew open by some tremendous force, the carved panels slamming back against the stone jambs. What appeared was the stuff of nightmares: A tremendous male, his eyes hidden behind black wraparounds, his powerful body clad in black leather, his waist-length black hair, which fell from a widow’s peak, draping his powerful shoulders.
With the illumination streaming out from the interior, it was as if he were supernatural.
Except he was not. He was mortal. And his presence made the others uncomfortable—though no one broke ranks, their expressions tightened, and Eddie couldn’t understand why. The guy looked like he could will death if he wanted.
But enough with the size-up.
“We’re looking for Lassiter,” Eddie said in a loud, clear voice before things escalated. “We’ve come for the angel.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Rahvyn could not believe she had found Lassiter.
She had not understood the golden arches that she had been shown by the Book, and this eatery, wherever it was, had not been her intended destination. Yet when she had re-formed? She had found herself before the very landmark that had been illustrated—so clearly, this was the ancient tome’s doing, this coming here.
“Would you like fries with that,” Lassiter said unto her.
Staring up into the male’s eyes, she briefly lost her voice. Such extraordinary eyes he had, all the colors at once ringing round his pupils, the hues swirling and iridescent—and his gaze was not the only thing that arrested her. Though her memory of him had been keen, it was nothing compared to his actual physical presence, his blond-and-black hair gleaming in the dull lighting, his shoulders so broad under his black pullover, his lower body filling out loose black pants she recalled being referred to as joggers.
Breathing through her nose, she scented earth and pine upon him, and she remembered what the Book had shown her… firelight on a stone wall. Mayhap he had sequestered himself away on a mountain somewhere—
Something was off. Something was… wrong about him.
Shaking herself to attention, she nodded down at the crinkled napkin and the empty burger box on his tray. “Are you leaving the now, then?”
Please do not go, she thought.
“I can wait while you eat.” He slid back into the bench. “Join me?”
Putting her tray down, she sat across from him and recalled the words he had spoken to her. “Forgive me, but I do not know whether I want fries.” She tilted her cup toward herself, even though she knew there was nothing in it to inspect. “And it appears as though I have forgotten my drink.”
Verily, she had forgotten everything when she had seen him sitting alone and staring out the windows. But she had been worried that he would send her away if she had no food.
“Here, have my Coke.” He put his cup on her tray. “Or what’s left of it.”
As she focused on the straw sticking out of the plastic top, all she could think of was that his lips had been on the thing.
“Wait,” he said, “I’ll just go fill your own—”
“No.” Her voice was sharp. “I would prefer—this is rather fine.”
With a flush, she picked up his drink. Cupping her palms around its base, the cold transferred through her skin and into her bones, and it felt like a warning. But she brushed that off by staring at the face that had haunted her.
“You have lost weight.” As one of his brows twitched, she feared she had offended him. “You look well, though. Very… well.”
He closed his eyes and sat back in the bench. Then he let his head fall loose as if he were staring through his lids at the ceiling.
“How did you know I was here?” He leveled himself and smiled, though the expression did not change the heaviness in his eyes. “Or do you come here often.”
“I have never been here before.”
He focused down at the fake wood table between them, and as the silence grew deep as a well, she glanced around at the humans who milled to and fro, gathering their sustenance, carrying it out or sitting down to eat. She envied them their easy lives.
“Would you prefer me to leave,” she asked as she tightened her hold on his cup.
“I already said goodbye to you,” he murmured. Like he was speaking to himself.
“Yes, you did. I was there.”
When he turned to stare out into the night, at the golden arches, she studied his profile. He had a fine nose, straight and true. And a jaw that was flexing and relaxing as if he were grinding his molars.
Tck-tck.
She looked toward the sound. Over at the bank of self-serve soda machines, a man was putting his cup under a green tab that read “Sprite.” Nothing was coming out, but he kept trying the little lever, the tck-tck released anew each time.
“If you’ve never been here before, how did you know where to find me? Or was this just a McDonald’s lottery you happened to enter.”
“I should not have come.”
Rahvyn went to put his cup back on his tray, but it caught the lip and started to fall—
Lassiter snatched the drink before it tipped over, but the force of his grip popped the top and Coke went everywhere in slow motion, the explosion shooting up a cascade of brownish liquid. Except suddenly, between one blink and the next—it was not soda. It was blood in the air, red as a ruby and thick as syrup—
The smell of burned flesh and chemical smoke flooded her nose, spearing into her, as she saw the portrait of the King in the Book, a black tide rushing in toward him from all four corners.
Death.
Rahvyn screamed and jumped up in the bench, her legs getting caught under the table, her arms paddling and flipping her tray, the burger, still tightly wrapped in its paper, going the way of the soda. The blood.
Abruptly, she was lurching as well, off-balance and falling, too. As her vision swung in a wild arc, she saw the ceiling Lassiter had not stared at, and next came the hard landing as she hit the floor. With her breath kicked out of her, her head rang like a bell, confusion and panic tangling her thoughts—
The one grounding she needed, indeed, that she had been searching for, appeared right above her, Lassiter’s face taking up her entire field of vision, blocking out the places to sit and eat, the humans who were gathering about her, the drinks machines.
All she saw was him.
The angel was talking to her, his lips moving, his strange and beautiful eyes boring into her own as though he were trying to will her into coming around.
She deciphered nothing of what he was saying. Part of that was the paralysis in her mind from the impact… but most of it was because of what she saw.
Or what she did not see.
Lassiter’s aura was gone. There was no longer a shimmer around his head.
* * *
It was the smell that woke the demon up.
As Devina’s lashes fluttered, her nose wrinkled and she fought a sneeze. What the hell was that stench? It was like rotten meat… and baby powder?
“What are you cooking?” she muttered into her pillow.
She was lying facedown on their bed, and she was so relaxed, so languorously satisfied, that the energy required to roll over and focus on whatever her lover was doing in the kitchen was more than she could be bothered with. Her body had been so perfectly used, so ridden and owned, so contorted and penetrated, that she just wanted to enjoy the float for a little longer.
She’ll be here, he thought. Anytime he wanted.
Turning back to the door, he passed through and hated the acidic, clingy sensation—but compared to the tortures of Dhunhd, it was nothing he couldn’t endure.
And then he was on the other side.
The basement corridor was a straight shot of concrete in both directions, all kinds of closed doors with corporate logos offering nothing of interest. He chose left for no particular reason because either way would take him to the outside world—
The security guard came sauntering around the corner down at the far end, his cell phone up in his hands, the soft squawk suggesting he was listening to a game. Uniformed, dark-haired, in his early twenties—and out to fucking lunch: The whistled tune that percolated up from him, a little ditty that was discordant and disorganized with an unreliable beat, suggested he was lax about more than just doing his rounds properly.
The dumbshit was about to walk right into an intruder.
As the mist that had carried Lash through the door dissipated from his naked body, the scent of the human became very apparent, and with proximity also came an assessment of the potential for a good fight. There was none. The kid was fit in the manner of youth rather than activity—no paunch yet, but the shoulders were unremarkable and so were the pecs.
Not that that would matter.
When Lash was done with him.
CHAPTER SIX
What the hell.”
As the words on Eddie’s mind were spoken out loud, he himself leaned in closer to the windshield. Which was not hard to do. The Mini had all of the vertical loft of a Converse All Star, and forget about legroom. He was wearing his knees as earrings and bent into a crouch. If the airbag ever went off? His nose was going to get punched through the back of his skull.
“Are you seeing that?” Adrian demanded as he took his foot off the gas—and then, like it wasn’t perfectly clear what he was talking about, the other angel jabbed his forefinger forward. “That.”
“Yeah, I do.”
The glowing line going down the out-in-the-boonies road ahead of them was the kind of thing you couldn’t miss—and no, it didn’t have anything to do with the yellow stuff painted in the middle. This stripe was on their side of the divider, the phosphorescent trail continuing into the distance until it appeared to make the upcoming corner and keep going.
Eddie looked back at the Northway exit they’d just gotten off. The direction of “Great Bear Mountain” had been all well and good, but as it turned out, it was like telling someone to go find a guy named Mike in Minnesota. The mountain’s footprint covered a massive territory, and for the last however many hours, they’d just been driving around aimlessly, poking into trailheads and pit stops, diners, drive-ins, and dives, straightaways and stop signs.
No Lassiter. Nothing even vaguely Lassiter-like.
Which, considering the guy was a mushroom cloud waiting to happen, was a good thing from a public safety standpoint. Given their mission? It was just more frustration.
“I guess we follow it,” Eddie said as he tried to see around the bend. “Maybe this is the compass we need.”
Ad rocked the gearshift back and forth in neutral. Then he flipped things into first, released the clutch, and eased in the gas. The Mini crept forward, as if the car were hesitant.
“Or maybe we just quit this shit.” Ad glanced over with annoyance. “Lassiter isn’t anywhere around here.”
“And you know this how?”
“You think you’re going to get cable or Internet this far out in the fucking boondocks? No way he’s going without TV.”
“What else do we have to do? We might as well see where it takes us.”
“This is a wild goose chase—”
“The last three years have been a f—” Eddie stopped himself before he -ucked after the fff. “This whole frickin’ thing’s a goose chase. So why not bloodhound after whatever this glow is.”
“It’s fuck.” Ad gave them some more speed. “And I don’t get this clean-living act with your vocabulary.”
As they puttered around the turn in the lane, a thicket of roadside emporiums appeared, stars in the pavement’s Milky Way.
“Do you need gas?” Eddie asked as they approached a Shell station.
“We’re doin’ okay—oh, hey, it’s a McDonald’s, you want to eat?”
“No, just keep going. In case the stuff has a half-life.”
“The fries?”
“No, dummy. The glow.”
As they went by the golden arches, Ad looked across the seats with a yearning that suggested his sodium nitrate levels were low. But he continued on—and so did the weird illumination.
“Taco Bell?” the other angel said with optimism. “Come on, I need a chalupa and so do you.”
“No way. I’m immortal, but there are limits to what my digestive tract will handle.”
“Plop-plop, fizz-fizz—”
“That is not your slogan.”
Ad laughed even though they were passing the purple bell logo. “I love Carter Anderson.”
A quarter of a mile later and the brief conglomeration of fast food was over. After that, all they had was more forest, the thick tree line an arbored fence like Mother Nature didn’t want any trespassers killing her vibe. And the phosphorescent strip was still going strong—what dimmed were Eddie’s convictions. Maybe Ad was right, and what he’d thought was a sign was just like the Great Bear thing, a nothing burger—
The glow disappeared.
And not just as in ended. As in extinguished completely, nothing more ahead, nothing at all behind them.
“Well,” Ad announced, “this was really great—”
“Stop!” As the angel hit the brakes, they both jerked into their seatbelts, and Eddie pointed to the right. “There’s a dirt lane. See? Let’s go in there.”
His best friend looked through the side window, his seat groaning from the shift of position.
“I’ve always wondered whether Bigfoot is real,” the angel muttered as he spun the wheel and punched the gas. “Maybe tonight’s the night I find out.”
“You wear a size fourteen. I’d say that’s prima facie evidence right there.”
“You’re no fun.”
As the headlights swung around, the nearly imperceptible break in the lineup of trunks and branches became more visible, but only marginally so. And as they bumped off the road onto a pair of dirt grooves, the trees seemed to crowd in.
There was something else, too. About ten yards in, the forest started to not look right, the landscape indistinct in a way that wasn’t tied to fog or weather. He didn’t know what the hell the buffering was.
Ad rubbed the heel of his hand in a circle on the windshield. “I can’t see a damn thing.”
They’d gone another fifty yards or so when a cockeyed cattle gate appeared and Ad slowed them down again. The old thing connected a busted-up chain link fence that had a curlicue of rusted barbed wire as a toupee.
“Look at those video cameras.”
“Keep going,” Eddie murmured as he squinted over the little hood and willed the barrier open.
The visual blurring continued to weave through the environs as they ascended the mountain’s flank, the details of the pines and other trees smudging to the point where they just disappeared into the darkness, the headlights not penetrating very far, the lane appearing up ahead as if it were being built foot by foot as they went along.
What was clear? The series of gates—and they got progressively newer and more sturdy. Eddie opened each in succession, all the while wondering who the hell would go to this kind of trouble to keep trespassers off their property.
“I got a bad feeling about this,” he muttered.
“Aw, come on. It’s an adventure, right?”
“Not the kind we’re going to enjoy.”
The angle of ascent grew stiffer, and the disorientation permeated the car, a fuzzy wave going into Eddie’s body and messing with his mind as nausea turned his stomach.
Finally, they came to the last barrier. Twenty-five feet tall, with signs warning it was electrified, the gate linked up a twenty-inch-thick concrete wall that seemed to go to the ends of the earth in both directions.
As they passed through, the conviction that they had to turn around struck him hard—no really, they needed to never come here again, ever—and Ad coughed into his fist like he also had bile rising in his throat, and the car itself sputtered…
And there it was.
The drive made a turn and revealed a great gray stone mansion and a courtyard with a winterized fountain.
“He’s here,” Eddie breathed. “Lassiter is here.”
Ad hit the brakes and peered upward. “Because he took Bram-damn-Stoker for a roommate—oh, cool, they got gargoyles.”
The grand house had a variable roofline that suggested its layout extended deep into the property to the rear, and it was not hard to picture a Game of Thrones dragon coming around its spire. Off to one side, there was an attached garage that was bigger than most municipal facilities, and on the other, a freestanding miniature version of the larger whole that was clearly some kind of caretaker’s cottage. All around, diamond-paned windows glowed with yellow light—but suddenly, shutters started to come down in a coordinated descent, as if the mansion had taken an Ambien and the stuff was kicking in.
“Make sure you have your halo on,” Eddie muttered as he popped the handle on his tiny door. “I don’t think we’re going to have to knock.”
“My disco ball is like my American Express. I don’t leave home without it.”
As Eddie got out, he assessed the front entrance of the palace. A set of carved double doors was anchored by a set of stone steps that belonged on a cathedral.
With the shutters locking into place at the base of all the windows, Eddie murmured, “They know we’re here—”
Instantly, warriors in black leather appeared from out of thin air, guns up and targeted, their massive bodies blocking the entrance in a clear message that if you wanted inside, you were going to have to go through them.
Vampires, Eddie thought. That Stoker crack was no joke.
“Well, if this isn’t the best welcome wagon I’ve ever seen,” Ad said in a cheery voice. “I feel right at home!”
Eddie shot over a glare that was studiously ignored. Then he focused on who he guessed was in charge: One of the fighters was standing at the head of the steps, his military haircut and grim, dark blue eyes suggesting that he was very comfortable with killing things—yet the fact that neither he nor his troops had immediately pulled a trigger was a clear indicator that he had a brain.
Lifting his palms up, Eddie said, “We mean no harm. We’re just looking for—”
Behind the fighters, the cathedral doors blew open by some tremendous force, the carved panels slamming back against the stone jambs. What appeared was the stuff of nightmares: A tremendous male, his eyes hidden behind black wraparounds, his powerful body clad in black leather, his waist-length black hair, which fell from a widow’s peak, draping his powerful shoulders.
With the illumination streaming out from the interior, it was as if he were supernatural.
Except he was not. He was mortal. And his presence made the others uncomfortable—though no one broke ranks, their expressions tightened, and Eddie couldn’t understand why. The guy looked like he could will death if he wanted.
But enough with the size-up.
“We’re looking for Lassiter,” Eddie said in a loud, clear voice before things escalated. “We’ve come for the angel.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Rahvyn could not believe she had found Lassiter.
She had not understood the golden arches that she had been shown by the Book, and this eatery, wherever it was, had not been her intended destination. Yet when she had re-formed? She had found herself before the very landmark that had been illustrated—so clearly, this was the ancient tome’s doing, this coming here.
“Would you like fries with that,” Lassiter said unto her.
Staring up into the male’s eyes, she briefly lost her voice. Such extraordinary eyes he had, all the colors at once ringing round his pupils, the hues swirling and iridescent—and his gaze was not the only thing that arrested her. Though her memory of him had been keen, it was nothing compared to his actual physical presence, his blond-and-black hair gleaming in the dull lighting, his shoulders so broad under his black pullover, his lower body filling out loose black pants she recalled being referred to as joggers.
Breathing through her nose, she scented earth and pine upon him, and she remembered what the Book had shown her… firelight on a stone wall. Mayhap he had sequestered himself away on a mountain somewhere—
Something was off. Something was… wrong about him.
Shaking herself to attention, she nodded down at the crinkled napkin and the empty burger box on his tray. “Are you leaving the now, then?”
Please do not go, she thought.
“I can wait while you eat.” He slid back into the bench. “Join me?”
Putting her tray down, she sat across from him and recalled the words he had spoken to her. “Forgive me, but I do not know whether I want fries.” She tilted her cup toward herself, even though she knew there was nothing in it to inspect. “And it appears as though I have forgotten my drink.”
Verily, she had forgotten everything when she had seen him sitting alone and staring out the windows. But she had been worried that he would send her away if she had no food.
“Here, have my Coke.” He put his cup on her tray. “Or what’s left of it.”
As she focused on the straw sticking out of the plastic top, all she could think of was that his lips had been on the thing.
“Wait,” he said, “I’ll just go fill your own—”
“No.” Her voice was sharp. “I would prefer—this is rather fine.”
With a flush, she picked up his drink. Cupping her palms around its base, the cold transferred through her skin and into her bones, and it felt like a warning. But she brushed that off by staring at the face that had haunted her.
“You have lost weight.” As one of his brows twitched, she feared she had offended him. “You look well, though. Very… well.”
He closed his eyes and sat back in the bench. Then he let his head fall loose as if he were staring through his lids at the ceiling.
“How did you know I was here?” He leveled himself and smiled, though the expression did not change the heaviness in his eyes. “Or do you come here often.”
“I have never been here before.”
He focused down at the fake wood table between them, and as the silence grew deep as a well, she glanced around at the humans who milled to and fro, gathering their sustenance, carrying it out or sitting down to eat. She envied them their easy lives.
“Would you prefer me to leave,” she asked as she tightened her hold on his cup.
“I already said goodbye to you,” he murmured. Like he was speaking to himself.
“Yes, you did. I was there.”
When he turned to stare out into the night, at the golden arches, she studied his profile. He had a fine nose, straight and true. And a jaw that was flexing and relaxing as if he were grinding his molars.
Tck-tck.
She looked toward the sound. Over at the bank of self-serve soda machines, a man was putting his cup under a green tab that read “Sprite.” Nothing was coming out, but he kept trying the little lever, the tck-tck released anew each time.
“If you’ve never been here before, how did you know where to find me? Or was this just a McDonald’s lottery you happened to enter.”
“I should not have come.”
Rahvyn went to put his cup back on his tray, but it caught the lip and started to fall—
Lassiter snatched the drink before it tipped over, but the force of his grip popped the top and Coke went everywhere in slow motion, the explosion shooting up a cascade of brownish liquid. Except suddenly, between one blink and the next—it was not soda. It was blood in the air, red as a ruby and thick as syrup—
The smell of burned flesh and chemical smoke flooded her nose, spearing into her, as she saw the portrait of the King in the Book, a black tide rushing in toward him from all four corners.
Death.
Rahvyn screamed and jumped up in the bench, her legs getting caught under the table, her arms paddling and flipping her tray, the burger, still tightly wrapped in its paper, going the way of the soda. The blood.
Abruptly, she was lurching as well, off-balance and falling, too. As her vision swung in a wild arc, she saw the ceiling Lassiter had not stared at, and next came the hard landing as she hit the floor. With her breath kicked out of her, her head rang like a bell, confusion and panic tangling her thoughts—
The one grounding she needed, indeed, that she had been searching for, appeared right above her, Lassiter’s face taking up her entire field of vision, blocking out the places to sit and eat, the humans who were gathering about her, the drinks machines.
All she saw was him.
The angel was talking to her, his lips moving, his strange and beautiful eyes boring into her own as though he were trying to will her into coming around.
She deciphered nothing of what he was saying. Part of that was the paralysis in her mind from the impact… but most of it was because of what she saw.
Or what she did not see.
Lassiter’s aura was gone. There was no longer a shimmer around his head.
* * *
It was the smell that woke the demon up.
As Devina’s lashes fluttered, her nose wrinkled and she fought a sneeze. What the hell was that stench? It was like rotten meat… and baby powder?
“What are you cooking?” she muttered into her pillow.
She was lying facedown on their bed, and she was so relaxed, so languorously satisfied, that the energy required to roll over and focus on whatever her lover was doing in the kitchen was more than she could be bothered with. Her body had been so perfectly used, so ridden and owned, so contorted and penetrated, that she just wanted to enjoy the float for a little longer.
