Finally, Betsy shrugged. “Guess that’s why I came here.”
Wrapped in gauze, Zane at least looked tidy. Sera gave Betsy a hug. “Liam will take you home. Use the money to refill your black bag. We might need you again.”
Betsy’s lips twisted. “Fine. But don’t you forget, no one can fix dead.”
Sera nodded—but death just wasn’t the scariest of her fears anymore.
CHAPTER 19
Archer slumped on the chair outside Zane’s door, a weary bookend with the talya across from him, listening to the rasp and hitch of breath from within the room.
Perversely, bright sunlight gleamed through the window at the end of the hall, low in the winter sky but undaunted. Archer would’ve poked it out had he a knife long enough.
It was the least he could do for the man inside.
Why had he allowed anyone else to guard her? He’d known what stalked her and had been painfully aware of her innocence of what unholy evil could be done to her. But edgy with the longings she aroused in him, he’d let someone else take his place.
And Zane bore the consequences of his dereliction.
His own chest wrenched with every labored breath he heard. He welcomed the pain as penance, wishing he could truly take the other man’s wounds upon himself.
The scuff of footsteps down the hall made him raise his head, though the other talya never even glanced up.
The silhouette approaching was backlit by the sun, the head haloed in a golden corona, the outline carved away by gleaming light until all that was left was a slender, ethereal darkness that burned into his brain.
The figure raised its arms, and for a heart-stopping moment, Archer thought flowing wings would surely follow, arch up to shatter the too-small corridor, while a fiery sword pierced his heart. . . .
Another step closer, and the shadow fell over his face. He squinted.
Sera thumped her arms down, her expression twisted in frustration. “What are you doing out here? Go sit with him. And lose the long faces.”
Archer pulled his scattered thoughts together. Not a seraphim come to slay him as he so richly deserved, but just Sera, demon-ridden, coming to tongue-lash him.
The other talya rose uneasily. “He’s still unconscious. And he couldn’t see us anyway.”
She sighed. “Even unconscious, he’ll know you’re there, that you care. And he doesn’t need to sense your doom.”
“Is there some reason to hope?” Archer murmured.
Sera turned the blast of her hazel eyes on him. Freed from her ire, the talya slunk down the hall, out of sight. “With that attitude, you just stay out of here.” She marched into the room.
Despite her injunction, Archer followed to lean in the doorway.
She tidied the bedside table where Betsy had left antibiotics and extra bandages—as if the teshuva needed those. The league didn’t even stock aspirin.
If the teshuva had gone . . . He drained the thought as thoroughly as any malice. But the shards remained.
Sera talked softly about the sunlight outside, the wind clearing the clouds, the contrast of sun’s warmth and wind’s bite that made it hard to decide whether to stay in or go out.
“Have to put up with the one to enjoy the other, I suppose.” She pulled up a chair to the bed and brushed her fingers over Zane’s forehead. The rest of him had disappeared behind a shroud of bandages.
Archer’s fingers closed into fists so hard the muscles ached all the way up his arms.
She glanced up at him, then gestured to the chair opposite her. He shook his head. She scowled, but he noticed that the light caress of her hand never changed.
“Archer’s here too, Zane,” she said. “He feels terrible that you’re hurt. But not as terrible as I do.”
Archer drew a breath to refute her on a few key points, but on the sheet, Zane’s hand twitched. Archer caught the movement and straightened. “Is he coming around?”
Sera took the slack fingers in her own. “You don’t have to wake up yet. When you’re ready.”
Archer shifted from one foot to the other. “He might be able to tell us more about the djinn-man.”
“You have Valjean and everyone else with an ounce of tracking sense roaming the city. You sent one team with Bookie’s mobile spectral tracking machine, even though you’re not sure it works. The only useful thing you haven’t done is stuck me out as bait . . .” She took a calming breath. “Anyway, what more can Zane tell you?”
“Not the where,” Archer acknowledged, “but the why.”
She lifted Zane’s hand as if he were evidence. “Does that matter at the moment?”
“You, the constant seeker, ask me that? Why’s the biggest question.”
“I meant the djinn-man’s plans won’t change just because Zane finishes his rest. We’ll know soon enough.”
That sounded a little too much like “The end is nigh” for Archer’s comfort. He scowled. Since when had the thought of the end become something to be feared instead of welcomed?
He stared at her in dismay and slowly backed into the hall.
She couldn’t make him afraid to die. He wouldn’t allow it. That fear would make him useless. Everything he’d lost would have been lost in vain.
The hallway was dark. The sun had succumbed to the clouds again. So much for her theory about taking the bad with the good. It was all bad, and to forget that, even for a second, only made the rediscovery more painful.
If spring came back around, it wouldn’t touch him. He’d have to blame his momentary hope on the teshuva within him that still thought it would win its way back into grace.
Idiot demon.
Wrapping the fury of betrayal around him like a fine trench coat, he stalked down the hall.
If Zane was twitching now, his teshuva would have him awake in another hour. They’d get their answers then, and the end they’d bring on would be like nothing the djinn-man could ever have imagined.
“You were almost caught.” The Worm paced, wringing his hands with such frenzy, Corvus wondered he didn’t tear them off.
Perhaps his next sculpture should be a carrion bird, some great-winged, soaring beast that descended to earth only to thrust its naked beak into the soft flesh of the welcoming dead.
But the thought of those feathers, more black on black on black, made him shudder. The damn crow was hard enough—so hard that for the first time since he’d stolen the techniques of colored glass from his Roman masters, he’d thought of giving up.
He was glad there would be no next time.
“If you get caught,” the Worm was shrieking, wriggling closer, “they’ll know—”
With a lazy snap of his wrist, Corvus reached out and wrapped his fingers around the man’s throat. “Worms serve a useful function, but they turn up in multitudes wherever there is dirty work to be done. So a wise worm keeps a low profile.”
The Worm pried at the fingers around his neck, eyes bulging even more than usual.
Corvus loosened his grip. “Don’t test my patience. I find my grasp on it tenuous of late.”
The Worm stumbled back out of reach, rubbing his throat. He croaked, “Is that why you killed the talya?”
“I freed him.” Corvus turned to the window to look at his sculptures. The seagull in flight, his first, was still his best, he thought. Ever since, he’d tried to recapture that abandon of line and wildness of raw material. The faintest touch of blue threaded through its belly had been an inspired act, as if the bird launched itself toward the wide-open ocean, the pure waters reflected in its white feathers. He almost heard its mournful cry.
The annoying chuckle of the crow interrupted his reverie. The wretched bird had stuffed itself into its water dish and was flinging up a spray as it bathed and gargled.