“To go where? My place is gone. This place is ruined.” And he wasn’t even willing to acknowledge this monstrous force between them.
He steered her toward the door. “At least you’re traveling light, like a good talya.”
“Not funny.” She balked on the sidewalk. He guided her to one side, out of the way of the stream of men. “What do they expect me to do?” she whispered, catching the sidelong glances.
“Nothing. They’ve learned not to expect.”
“They’re hoping.”
“Definitely not that.”
But she knew he was wrong.
She waited while he retrieved his league belongings and, for lack of a better plan, climbed into the box-laden SUV when he held the door for her.
She stared out the tinted window that turned the already-dreary day to twilight. “Who is he?”
“A powerful djinn-man who knows what you are.”
She wasn’t surprised that he could follow her thoughts. “Which is what, exactly?”
“Something equally powerful, judging by his reaction.”
“Trying to kill me.”
Archer shook his head. “He hasn’t tried to kill you.”
She looked at him in dismay. “He burned my house down.”
“Which isn’t the same as trying to kill you.”
“Killed others,” she murmured.
“And their souls went up or down as destined.”
“No consolation,” she snapped. “It never was, even when it was just my day job and not my life, like it is now.” She laughed harshly. “My life, however long that may be.”
“The djinn-man could kill you,” Archer said flatly. “He hasn’t. He’s got you—all of us—off balance, on the run. He wants something else.” He ticked his finger on the steering wheel. “Also no consolation, I suppose.”
She stared at him a moment. “Not really, no.” Then she turned her attention back to the road. “Where are we going?”
“My place. We’ll drop this load and get my system synced with Bookie’s updates. We need to know why this djinn-man wants you.”
“Nothing good,” she muttered.
“We’re demon-ridden. Good was never an option.”
CHAPTER 17
At his loft, they unloaded the truck. Despite the ache in her healed arm, she found relief in the mindless task of ferrying boxes. He never let her out of his sight—nice to know when she was the target of some supremely badass demon.
While he messed with his computer, she steeped a pot of tea. As if unseen forces flowed around it, the bed drew her gaze.
He’d excused himself for rejecting her because he’d almost gotten her killed on the hunt. But if a djinn-man was gunning for her, did getting accidentally dismembered by a raging feralis even count as a worry?
Archer dumped a laptop into her hands, startling her out of her daze. “This has the annotated library of Bookkeeper studies over the last few-hundred years. Find everything on demon crossings and the effect on the Veil.”
“What am I looking for?”
He gave her a hard look. “Everything.”
She settled in the chair on the other side of the couch, so she didn’t have to face the bed, and buried herself in the small screen. When he brought her a cup of the tea she’d forgotten, the water was stained dark as the sky outside.
She blinked and started to get up. “What time is it?”
“Time for me to go out on rounds.” His hand kept her pinned to the chair. “You stay here. Don’t leave. Don’t let anyone in. I’m setting the perimeter alarm. Someone will be close by.”
She lifted her chin. “I’m not afraid. Cautious, yes.”
“Then maybe you’ll stay alive.” His fingers tightened. “We’ll find him.”
“We have forever,” she reminded him.
He took a step back. “Call if you need me.”
She watched him go from the window, knowing he could see her but not caring.
The loft, with its isolated pools of lamplight, felt vast and cold. She heated the tea again, managed only to make it bitter, and went back to the computer.
Her search yielded little in the way of Veil crossings. Demonic emanations seemed unidirectional. Djinn and teshuva crossed into the human realm and stayed. Though horde-tenebrae energy could be dispersed and took time to regenerate, if a djinn and teshuva host was killed, the higher strains of demon simply possessed another soul and continued on their heretofore separate paths of wickedness or repentance.
The only interesting note was a centuries-old meditation describing the Veil as woven from atoning souls. Such souls formed a natural—or supernatural—barrier between the realms.
Sera shuddered to think of such never-ending suspension. That her demon had breached the Veil to send the malice and ferales back seemed unprecedented.
The hours passed, and she fell asleep on the couch. Archer returned just after dawn.
“Sera.” Weariness roughened his voice and brought out the lingering Southern jangle. “Just me. I’ll sleep like the dead, so make all the noise you want. Don’t leave.”
Without waiting for a reply, he’d headed for the bathroom. He didn’t even turn on the lights.
That didn’t stop her imagination from supplying the pictures. She lay back, listening to the water. He hadn’t walked as if he’d been wounded during the night’s fighting, but no doubt he’d keep his shoulders square, whatever the maiming.
Thoughts of his shoulders led naturally down his arms to the demon mark. Thinking of his reven made her think of her own, framing her hips, which—of course—made her think of his hips, grinding against hers under the spray of warm water. . . .
She took a deep breath. When she heard him collapse into bed, she waited long enough for him to fall asleep before she got up.
She continued her work from the evening before, but somehow ended up searching Civil War firearms. She learned he’d been cruel with himself about his poor aim. It hadn’t been uncommon for powder-packed guns to backfire, though she supposed the demon was an unexpected addendum.
After a quick glance toward the bedroom, she turned her search to Civil War-era Archers. He’d said his father was a farmer. She hit on a note for a James Archer of Louisiana, owner of a thousand-acre cotton plantation and father of Ferris and Emily. Then she saw it was a death notice. Though the man had been in his grave a hundred and fifty years, she had to fight back a welling sadness for the tormented son he’d left behind.
She scanned for files on Emily. Maybe there’d been children. Then she stopped herself.
She remembered how Archer accused her of butting into her patients’ most vulnerable moments. Only this time, instead of trying to reconcile people to death, she’d have to explain someone who hadn’t died. Even if she found descendants, how exactly would Archer introduce himself? Hello, I’m your great-great-grandmother’s brother. Why, yes, I am looking spry for my age. Aren’t you glad you got these genes?
She shook herself. Demons weren’t genetic. Then she thought of her depressed mother, her father’s dementia. Different kinds of demons.
She shut the laptop. People and history, long dead, all of it. When he’d said he’d lost everything, she hadn’t quite imagined how much he’d had to lose.
She leaned back and closed her eyes. How long ago, how much, none of it mattered, because it hurt just as much. Even the demon couldn’t take away that pain. Why did she imagine she could?
“Did I get you up too early this morning?”
Though his sleep-softened voice sent her heart racing, she held herself still, glad she had folded the screen down. She cracked one eye open. “Just taking a break.”
He was barefoot, still in his flannel pajama bottoms. Two buttons held a wrinkled oxford closed around his navel, revealing a long, open vee of chest.