Corvus squinted against a closer glare, and he looked down. A glass orb had appeared in his hand while he was distracted; something the djinni had been toying with outside his conscious awareness. He fumbled it in surprise and only djinni reflexes saved him. Fury limned the world in bilious yellow. Was the djinni angry at Andre or at him? “You realize if you didn’t tell the talyan what they wanted to know—as you swear you didn’t—they’ll have you followed.”
“I doubled back through a tenebrae infestation like you showed me,” Andre said quickly. He leaned away from the glass orb nestled in Corvus’s palm. “The demon waste will throw off any teshuva.”
“Not forever.” When the youth flinched, Corvus waved his hand. “But I can’t wait that long.”
Andre blinked. “You want them to come?”
Corvus found himself stroking the chain around his wrist. The flesh under the tight links had bruised where the djinni was lax about repairing the damage. The memory of manacles made his skin creep, and a thin stream of demon venom trickled down his arms. His flesh smoldered with an acrid stink that wrung tears from his eyes. From his one eye, anyway. “I need them to finish what they started.” Pain laced the words into a long slur.
Andre’s gaze flickered over him, and Corvus felt each pause like a thrown stone: the drifting eye, his crushed skull, the filthy sleeves stained in the djinni’s poison pus.
But of course the youth could not understand. Corvus didn’t blame him. Even the ancient evil inside him failed to grasp the conviction, and they had been bound together for centuries.
As if annoyed at his recriminations, the djinni yanked him to his feet. His voice cleared, his tongue suddenly agile again as he heard himself say, “Not finish. This is only the beginning. Come, Andre. Walk with me down the pier.”
His hand tossed the delicate ball into the air. Against the hot sky, movement swirled within the glass, like a frantic wave from the other side of a dirty window. Corvus’s focused eye tracked the motion with avaricious delight, but his wayward eye noted Andre’s wary, hunched shoulders.
The end of the pier looked scalded in the heat, with the concrete, water, and sky all charred to white ash. Nothing moved except for the endless waves and the frantic churning within the glass.
Andre peered at the globe. “What’s in that ball?”
“My freedom,” Corvus tried to say, but his tongue tripped as the djinni rose like vomit in his throat. “Our freedom.”
The demon rummaged through his pockets, quick as a thief, and withdrew another glass ball. The djinni tossed the clear orb to Andre.
The youth’s eyes widened, and the globe fell into his warding hands. His brows furrowed. “It’s empty.”
The djinni smiled, and when his lips cracked and sulfur stained his breath, Corvus remembered why they weren’t doing that anymore. “It’s for you.”
CHAPTER 14
When Nim stepped out of Water Tower Place, the sun had fallen behind the buildings but heat still shimmered on the concrete. She raised her hand for a cab, and three large shopping bags slipped to the crook of her arm, already sweaty.
The cabbie started the meter. “Where to?”
She thought for a moment. Shopping, done. Couldn’t go to the club. Couldn’t go to her apartment. Where else did people stay out of trouble? She’d always been curious about those kinds of people. Okay, not always. But lately.
She gave him the address on the outskirts of town.
The lot beside the church was empty except for a staid minivan with the side door standing open. Apparently, the owner expected everyone to stay out of trouble.
Or maybe trouble had already been here.
The cab pulled away, and Nim felt her skin prickle with a sudden chill, despite the humid press of air. She yanked the bags up over her shoulder to free her hands. In case she had to grapple something. Damn it, if she lost another pair of shoes—the cutest Jimmy Choos, on sale too—before she even had a chance to wear them . . .
A woman—her red hair frizzed from its tidy French twist and contrasting unfortunately with her limp orange jumper—backed out of the church doors, leading a vacant-eyed zombie by the hand. “This way,” she was saying. “Be careful you don’t trip—Oh, my.”
The woman stumbled when she saw Nim and had to grab her companion to steady herself. The zombie didn’t falter.
“Hi,” Nim said. “You must be Nanette. I’m Nim.”
“Oh, dear. Another female talya. This is becoming quite the coven.”
Nim jerked her chin back with a snort. “Does three even count as a coven? I figured we’d need at least thirteen or some other unholy number.”
Nanette smoothed a hand over her hair. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to say you were a witch. It’s not a word I would’ve chosen.”
“I’ve been called worse. Mostly by your good buddy Jonah.”
“He left a message saying he’d been by. Is he here?” Nanette’s eyes brightened as she peered past Nim. “I could use his help. I need to move these haints before my husband finishes his sermon and wants his dinner.”
Nim shook her head. “I left Jonah at home while I went shopping.”
“More tenebrae repellent and Chinese throwing stars? Jilly brought me some a while ago, but I’m almost out.”
“Uh, no.” Nim tried to imagine what the somewhat plump and obviously uncoordinated preacher’s wife did with throwing stars. “But I got sexy sandals and a party pack in black from Frederick’s of Hollywood.”
Nanette blinked at her.
Nim rattled her shopping bags. “Now you know why I don’t object to witch.”
The other woman blew out a breath that puffed a wayward strand of red out of her eyes. “Sometimes I understand why the mighty of the angelic host refuse to believe that demons can repent.”
Nim almost felt bad for her. No wonder Jonah had taken her under his one wing. He was drawn to women in need.
The thought rankled, and she caught herself up short. She was just being bitchy. That thought stuttered inside her too. Since when had being bitchy become a bad thing? She started to triple-guess herself, and in her distraction realized words were coming out of her mouth. “I’ll help you move the zombies out.”
“Haints,” Nanette said.
“Do they care what I call them?”
“Maybe not, but I do.”
Nim gave a mental shrug. The woman had bust out with “witch” quick enough. But she was curious about the life Jonah had abandoned. “Do you want help or not?”
It didn’t take long to load up the half dozen passive haints. As Nanette brought them up from the church basement, Nim filled the seats in the minivan, then tucked the remainder into the cargo space in back. The haints listed against one another like pale mannequins. In the thick summer light, solvo glimmered like pearly sweat on their foreheads and in the hollows of their throats. The flecks of soul matter that clung around them were harder to see, even when Nim revved up her demon.
“No seat belts,” Nanette fretted.
“No souls,” Nim said. “Or at least not much.”
Nanette straightened one woman’s sharply angled neck. “You’re right. It’s silly to worry. I’d like to talk more, but I need to get the haints out of town, and since Jonah has been busy . . .” She slammed the hatch on whatever else she’d been about to say.
Nim ignored her to study the sky. The sun had dropped out of sight, but it would be hot for hours. “Speaking of Jonah, can you give me a lift to the warehouse? I spent the last of his money on the cab ride over here.”
Nanette pursed her lips. “Maybe you should have passed on the Frederick’s party pack.”