He was getting tired of the constant refrain of, If only Eddie were here…
Unfortunately, he didn’t think it was ever going to be any less apropos than it was right now.
The angel had left his cane behind.
As Sissy got up and started to fold her new clothes neatly, she spied it leaning against the counter by the stove.
It wasn’t as if she didn’t see Adrian’s point. When she had been in Hell, the only thing she had prayed for was getting out. Now that that had been granted, it seemed like a criminal lack of self-preservation to want to run any risks with herself.
But if Jim had thought that way, she’d still be down there.
I thought you and Jim were together.
Oh, God, had he really said that? Thought that?
Jim was the savior for a lot of people. Getting her out of there had been part of his job description—right?
Remembering the sight of him by that bathtub, she thought, Well, it might have been a little more personal than that. But things ended there between them.
Right…?
With the clothes back in the bags, she picked up her load and headed out—only to snag the cane as she passed by, tucking it under her arm.
As she walked through the house, she wondered where Jim was, what he was doing, whether he was fighting or going a diplomatic route in whatever conflict he found.
Probably not diplomacy.
Up in her room, she was surprised to find that when she opened the drawers, a waft of lavender rose up into her nose. The liner paper was bright and fresh as the day it must have been laid down, the flower pattern winding its violet and green way all around the fragrant sheets. With quick efficiency, she filled the dresser, shut everything up tight … reopened things and picked out a pair of yoga pants and a loose T-shirt.
Adrian had not been too far off base on her size. Both were baggy, but they were a better fit than Jim’s gigantic clothes by a mile.
She had no idea where the laundry was in the house, but for all she knew, they washed things in the sink and hung them to dry—
Sissy froze.
Above the bureau, there was an old mirror hanging on the wall, its glass wrinkly, like the ones that had been in her grandmother’s house. And as she met her own eyes in its uneven surface, her reflection was at once stunning and entirely unremarkable—it wasn’t as if her features had changed, or her hair was another color.
There was something way different, however.
Glowing around the crown of her head, like a diadem of subtle candlelight, was a halo.
Just like the one Jim had.
Reaching up, she patted at it and felt nothing, no barrier or resistance. It was there, though. The mirror might have been an antique, but it worked just fine—
Creaking overhead brought her eyes to the ceiling. Someone was walking around up there, the footfalls uneven—either because the path was obstructed or…
Grabbing the angel’s cane, she rushed out. She wasn’t sure where the way up was, but she was damn well going to find it.
So many doors. Into bedrooms. Another sitting room. Bathrooms. She kept going, passing by the main staircase, and finding much of the same on the other side—
Down at the far end, light glowed around the jambs of a shut door, and she knew before going over and opening it that there would be a set of stairs going up.
“Adrian?” she called out.
Abruptly the lights flickered, browning briefly as if from a power surge—and it nearly dissuaded her from going up. When they stayed on, however, she decided to ascend.
“Adrian…?”
Breathing in, she smelled the most amazing bouquet of flowers, the scent a complex, multilayering of fragrance that put to shame those liner papers big-time. And then she heard chanting, soft, repetitive, insistent.
She tiptoed up the rest of the way, peering around the rough-cut balustrade at the top.
The flames of black candles waved lazily in invisible currents, bathing the attic from rafter to floorboard in soft, warm light. Cedar blanket chests and antique Louis Vuitton traveling trunks cast shadows, while hanging rods of old clothes appeared to move in the fluctuating illumination. Cobwebs hung in gossamer strings, undulating as if by the breath of ghosts, and the wind whistled through cracks somewhere.
But none of that really registered.
Halfway down the expanse, Adrian was sitting cross-legged, and rocking back and forth with his eyes closed. Stretched out before him, on a bed of mismatched blankets, was what she guessed had to be a body. A white sheet covered the person from head to toe, nothing showing of what was underneath.
The mourning was obvious in the tenor of the song, the painful tension in Adrian’s face—
The angel stopped abruptly, his head ripping around to her.
“I—I’m sorry,” she said, holding out his cane. “You left this downstairs. I thought … you might need it.”
There was a good distance between them, twenty feet or so, but she saw the tears on his cheeks before he swept them away with a brisk hand.
“Leave it there,” Adrian answered in a voice that cracked.
“Who is that?” she asked.
“None of your business.”
“Is it your brother?” A man like that wasn’t going to be upset over just anybody, and that certainly wasn’t a woman under there. Way too big. “Is it?”
Adrian turned back to the shroud. “Close enough.”
“I’m sorry for your loss.”
“So am I.”
Sissy was careful with his cane, laying it on top of one of the chests and making sure it didn’t roll off. It seemed like the only way she could take care of him.
“Did she take him from you?” she asked.
No reason to specify the “she.”
“Yeah, she did.”
As Sissy stared across what seemed like miles as opposed to yards, she found the tableau of loss painful to look at. This was what her family was living through, her mom and her dad, her sister … her friends, her roommates and teachers at Union, her old teammates.
All because of that demon.
How many? she wondered. How many lived with the aftermath of what she had done?
She remembered Jim sitting in that bathroom, weeping by the tub.
“Was he an angel, too?” she asked gruffly.
“More like a saint.” Adrian reached out and tugged at the sheet, smoothing the tiniest wrinkle. “Eddie was the very best of all of us. That was why she killed him.”
“When did this happen?”
“No more than a week ago.” Adrian rubbed his face again. “I was right beside him, I should have heard or seen … something. It just happened so fast.”
“I need to help.” As his head came back around, Sissy crossed her arms over her chest. “Whatever it takes to get her, I need in on it.”
The angel stared at her for the longest time. Then he returned to his friend. “I’m getting an idea why Jim thinks you’re special.”
“Wha …?” She couldn’t have heard that right.
“And if you want to go after Devina? You want to ingest that poison and maybe die again from it?” He nodded. “That’s your right. I won’t stop you.”
Sissy exhaled. “Thank you.”
“Not something you should be grateful for, honey. Now … if you don’t mind?”
“Your cane’s right here.” She laid a hand on it even though he wasn’t looking. “Right here.”
“Thanks.”
Sissy whispered her way down the steep stairwell and closed the door silently. Then she tiptoed back to her own room.
Inside her skin, she was not quiet, however.
Her anger was roaring.
Chapter
Thirty-six
Jim left Nigel where the archangel lay. Not like the guy needed to go anywhere—and Devina couldn’t touch him now that he was gone.