Nim thrust out her lower lip. “Oh, I still love him. I just might kill him before I tell him so again.”
Not wanting to know more, Fane guided the Porsche out behind the stream of dark sedans. Spatters of ice in the rain made threatening stars on the windshield until the wipers swept them away.
Nim rattled her papers. “First stop, the old post office building. There was another fire last night. They’re calling it a creosote build-up, but it burned a long time, so it could’ve been birnenston combustion.”
“Maybe just a feralis nest,” Gavril said. “Can’t have been much birnenston if they managed to put it out at all.”
“Let’s hope it is just a lone feralis,” Fane said. “Having Thorne holed up in a major landmark straddling the expressway could get…tricky.”
Nim grinned. “Us talyan delight in tricky.” She punched his shoulder. “That’s you now, too.”
“Don’t let her touch you, man,” Pitch said. “If Jonah smells her on you, he’ll take off your arm.”
Nim flipped him off over her shoulder. “I’ll smack you too.”
He puffed out a dismissive breath. “Save it for your symballein.”
As Fane sped toward the post office, he wondered about the symballein bond. The Chicago league had only recently rediscovered the truth behind the ancient talya legend. The alignment of flawed souls had seemed an unbelievable notion, imagined by desperate men staring at an eternity—or until they were killed—of solitude.
When the sphericanum learned of the discovery, there’d been some quiet grumbling among wardens. How could the damned deserve such a bond? The sphericanum’s official response: If the demon-ridden talyan had to cobble together the pieces of two shattered souls to make one undivided, that was nothing to envy.
And yet…
For no good reason, his mind’s eye conjured up a vision of Bella sprawled on his white sheets, her hair in a red corona, reaching for him.
That was nothing holy. Quite the opposite.
And yet…
He was glad to see the Art Deco bulk of the old post office looming over the expressway. Better to fight than to think.
Nim looped her elbow over the back of the seat. “Remember, this is recon only. We are not to engage.” She directed a schoolmarm glare at Fane. “Even if the sword is there. Okay?”
He gave her a steady look. “Don’t make me lie to you.”
She pinched the bridge of her nose. “God, you could so be one of us.”
He cruised the darkened building and circled the long block before parking around the corner. The talyan griped about the extra walk.
“That’s what happens when you drive a nice, memorable car,” he said.
“There will be security cameras in the post office,” Nim warned. “Our teshuva interfere with the electronics enough that they won’t get a good picture of us. But you…”
Fane pulled a black ski mask and black nitrile gloves out of the center console.
She slapped his shoulder again. “Oh yeah, you could definitely be a talya.”
They vaulted the chain link fence around the perimeter—Fane forced himself not to breathe hard and vowed to add an extra thirty minutes to his daily workout—and cased the building. Vandals and rats had been through before them, as well as the fire department who had put out last night’s fire, but other than a lone malice that fled shrieking through a broken window, they found no tenebrae activity, not even a feralis snacking on the bones of unlucky rats. Or vandals.
They exited on the river side, and Fane stared across at the city. Against the black, glistening sky, the glass and steel spires of the city—lit from below—looked suddenly strange to him. Gorgeous and tough…and so vulnerable. Like someone else he knew…
Nim pulled out her cell phone and dialed. “Post office is empty.” She paused, one hand on her canted hip. “Well, I know, and I love you too, but I’m not staying home just because— Seriously? Dude, I totally almost put you on your ass at practice the other day, with one hand tied behind my back. Metaphorically. Maybe you should be the one who… Hold on, I have another call.” She muttered as she switched over, “I don’t know who he thinks…”
The other talyan’s phones erupted in competing ring tones of classical and hip hop.
Fane’s hackles rose at the urgent cacophony, as if the angel already knew.
“Kilbourne and Chicago.” Nim’s crisp tone was all business. “Got it.”
Pitch consulted his phone. “We’re probably fifteen minutes out.”
“Ten,” Fane said.
Nim grinned at him as she spoke to the talya on the other end. “We’ll be there in eight. Wait for us.”
They raced for the Porsche. Fane vowed to add forty five minutes to his workout.
The ice held them back but they cornered at Kilbourne nine minutes later.
Nim shook her head. “You let me down. I guess you need more time on the practice floor too. You and Jonah can make a date of it.”
The Porsche was a silver shark among piranhas as the @1 sedans filed into the industrial area. A scrubby, empty lot spread away from them on one side. On the other side, the big, low buildings were all dark, and the parking lots slotted with tidy rows of delivery trucks, abandoned until after the holiday.
Liam paced through the sleeting rain as his league assembled. “No visual confirmation,” he was saying to those already arrived and the talyan on their phones still incoming, “but heavy tenebrae activity. Birnenston accumulation, ichor sign, and lots o’ rotten egg stench. Still, it’s a huge place and we would’ve missed it if Bella hadn’t found the stamp on one trigger housing.”
Fane stilled. He’d left her safe in her apartment, surrounded by seasonal cheer to protect her against the unrepentant demons that wandered the longest night of the year. “She brought a tenebrae bomb back to the Mortal Coil?”
Liam held up one finger. “I’m calculating odds on we’ll find Thorne, or at least his workshop where he assembled the tenebrae bombs. This is big, people, so let’s be on it. When everyone is here, we go.” He closed his phone and divided the present talyan into teams.
Fane took a step into the league leader’s space. “Bella took a tenebrae bomb with her?”
Liam frowned at him. “No. She’s at the nursing home. Archer said she showed up earlier today with some artifacts she thought would ward off the tenebrae when the bombs blow. But when she was setting them up, she noticed the manufacturing stamp. If we find Thorne’s plans, we might be able to—”
Fane cut him off. “Bella can’t be out tonight.”
Nim, who’d come up behind, chortled. “Oh, you’re another one of those dominant, controlling, maddening mates.”
Fane froze, the icy rain sneaking down the back of his coat. Or at least that’s what it felt like.
Dominant? Fine. Controlling? Maybe. Mad? He hadn’t been before.
Mate?
“You don’t understand,” he snarled. “It’s dangerous for her.”
Nim crossed her arms over her chest. “Well, then what the hell are you doing here?”
Behind her, Fane focused on Jonah, stalking toward them across the slick asphalt, violet fires in his talya eyes.
What indeed?
Fane spun to face Liam. “She can’t be alone.”
“She’s not alone,” Liam pointed out. “Archer and Sera are there. Nanette is there. Ecco is on that team, of course. There’s—”
Fane straightened. “I’m not there.”
The league leader shook his shaggy head. “But most likely, Thorne is here. And your abraxas.”