What? And she wanted him to be?
She was a stupid slut. With a sharp twist, she tied her damp dreads up with a heavy, fleeing-monsters-proof band, and stomped across her apartment.
Jonah was in the hall when she opened the door.
Damn, she’d hoped her imagination had overfigmented how fine he was. No such luck. And she didn’t even do golden boys.
How old had he been when the demon froze him? She guessed not as old as his eyes and his lips, set on stern, implied. Wasn’t gold supposedly a soft metal?
Maybe not if it was molded over stone.
His gaze raked her once, and his expression tightened from primal king mask of gold to pure lemon sucking. “Going somewhere?”
At least he wasn’t going to rant on the clothes. She supposed a fighter who wanted to stay alive—and keep the rest of his limbs—knew to choose his battles more carefully. “You went to Pete’s without me?”
“Thought I’d get it out of the way.”
“Does he still have his head?”
“But not the anklet. He gave me the pawnshop address. Let’s go.”
When he took her elbow, she was grateful for her noskid soles. And the sudden burst of power that let her yank from his grasp. Good demon. She just wished it could kill the shiver of sensual delight at his touch. Apparently, demons didn’t offer protection from pain or pleasure. “Don’t manhandle me.”
His jaw worked. “You didn’t mind before.”
“I was possessed.”
“You still are.”
“Not by you.” She crossed her arms over her chest. No sense letting him see the perky nipples belying her manhandling complaints. “I’m not the one to be anybody’s right hand or half a soul.”
His expression was utterly blank. “What I’ve lost is collateral damage. Our eternal mission is to do what we can against the demon realm, the tenebraeternum.”
She started down the hallway, leaving him to follow or not. Though she didn’t question he would. A girl couldn’t get so lucky. “I’m sure you think you mean well. Aside from almost getting me eaten by a monster, of course. But, really, from what I’ve seen, I think the world is perfectly fine falling into darkness, with or without you. So call me crazy—and considering that I’m still talking to you, I very well might be—but I don’t see any point in joining your little crusade.”
He was a silent shadow on her heels down the stairs and onto the street. “You’d let evil win?”
She stopped abruptly under a streetlight to face him. “You already think I’m evil, don’t you?”
He took a few steps past her but didn’t turn. “I told you, the teshuva are repentant.”
“I’m not talking about the demon. I mean me. I saw the way you looked at me while I was dancing. It wasn’t lust. It wasn’t even a gay guy’s no-pussy-for-me-thanks attitude. You hated it. Hated me.”
“No. Not hate.”
She took a step toward him. “Look at me when you deny it.”
He turned slowly. He must have washed up at her sink before he left the apartment, because the black gore was gone and the hook glimmered under the streetlight with clear warning.
Too bad she’d never heeded warnings.
“We don’t have time for this,” he growled.
“We’re immortal,” she reminded him.
“But most of the people in this city aren’t.”
She stared at him. “Who are you fighting for, Jonah? The city? You?” She held her hands out and waggled her fingers like she was casting a spell. “The woo-woo powers of good?”
“What do you care?” Purple lights flared across his irises.
“I don’t.” She was pissing him off. Good. Maybe he’d answer something straight for once. “But if you can’t tell me why you and that bane demon of yours are fighting, I’m wondering why you care either.”
“Because it was the last promise I made to my wife.”
The words burst out of him like the ichor that had gushed from the throat-slashed feralis.
She took an inadvertent step back, but still she felt the burn, melting toward the core of her as the black blood had sizzled through her skin.
“You are married,” she said flatly. “I asked you about the ring.” And she hadn’t really cared about the answer. Not then, she hadn’t.
“My wife is dead. She died more than eighty years ago.”
Nim’s irritation guttered. “Eighty . . .”
“I watched her grow old while I didn’t, and she died holding my hand.” He stared down at the hook. “She told me God had given me a gift, and made me promise I would use it for his glory.”
Nim blinked. “God sent a demon to possess you? That’s fucked-up.” She shook her head. “Sorry; didn’t mean your wife.” Although, obviously, she was. What a burden to put on someone.
Despite the warmth of the night, she clutched herself tighter. She didn’t have much experience with faithful men. But she could see how a man of faith might indulge a few moral quandaries about fingering a stripper into a mind-blowing orgasm, even for the sake of what remained of her soul. Tricky.
No wonder he hated her.
But she hadn’t made any promises to anyone. Just as no one had ever promised anything to her. And after hearing his story, she rather thought she’d prefer to keep it that way.
“There’s the pawnshop,” she said instead.
Jonah gave her a sharp glance but obviously he didn’t want to tell any more of his story either.
The shop—in a strip mall between a bail-bond agent and a liquor store—was dark, the security grille pulled down over the windows.
She rubbed her eyes. “I never even thought about it being so late.”
“I did. We’ll go around back.”
“You can’t break in,” she objected. But he ignored her and headed for the alley. She hurried to catch up. “Not another dark alley.”
“Let your demon up and it won’t be so dark.”
That knowledge wasn’t making her feel any better about the enterprise. “I’ve never been to jail before.”
“You won’t go now either.” He stopped at the alleyside metal door to the shop. “Besides, no human prison could hold you.”
“How does your boss feel about B and E?”
“Liam understands expediency.”
“God’s name is Liam? I thought he’d be Italian, at least.”
He fiddled with the doorknob. “What? Liam is the leader of the Chicago talyan. He wasn’t a carpenter, but a blacksmith.” The door clicked. “He taught me all locks have a weakness.”
He slipped inside, and she swore to herself and followed.
The low-wattage security lighting barely picked out the shelves of digital cameras and computer-game consoles, locked racks of guns and electric guitars, and the counter display cases of wristwatches, diamond rings, and gold chains. Nim blinked and then blinked again. A strange, nacreous glow was smeared across the countertops, the walls and ceiling, even the floor. She hopped across one streak. “Who spilled the glow-in-the-dark paint?
“Malice sign. Malice are lesser tenebrae—small, incorporeal demons that draw sustenance from greed, despair, indifference. This is a significant presence, although I should’ve guessed they’d swarm in a place like this.”
He headed for the cashier’s station, where the most valuable pieces would be kept close at hand.
“It won’t be there.” Nim edged farther down the counter toward the cheap crystal. “I’m telling you, it looked like junk.”
“Not such junk that your neighbor wasn’t able to unload it here. What does it look like?”
“A dull silver chain, too long to be a bracelet, too short to be a necklace. The links were rough-shaped, not consistent, as if it was handmade. And there was one metal bead strung on it, a hollow tube about an inch long, etched with a design.” She touched the top of her thigh above the reven. “Random patterns, like this.”