Otherworld secrets, p.21
Otherworld Secrets, page 21
When he glanced my way, frowning, I pulled out my sword. He flinched, lips forming an oath. Then his eyes narrowed and he settled back into his seat, scowling at me. Everyone else kept haggling over prices, even when I plunked myself down on the table’s edge and started polishing my sword on my shirttail.
“What do you want?” Armaros growled under his breath.
“A fair deal,” one of the men said. “That is all I ever want, Charles. A fair deal.”
“World peace, too,” I added. “He says he wants guns, but what he really wants is world peace. Kill everyone and things will be very, very peaceful.”
Armaros glanced from them to me, then muttered, “I need to take a piss. Work it out while I’m gone.”
I followed him to an alley. “I’m—”
“I know who you are. Balam’s traitor whore daughter.”
“Well, I can see why Dantalian said you make a better soldier than a politician.”
His head jerked up. “Dantalian?”
“I’m playing courier angel today. I’d deliver his message as a singing telegram, but I can’t pronounce the lyrics.”
I handed him the note Dantalian had me write out. It had taken forever because the words were actually symbols—a demonic language.
“Huh,” Armaros said after he’d read it. Then he fixed me with a quizzical look. Wondering why I was helping Dantalian, I was sure, but I wasn’t explaining myself. Dantalian said Armaros would know the message came from him and wouldn’t challenge it, and he didn’t.
“Everything clear, then?” I said.
“Yeah. Can you take a message back to him for me?”
Another example of the language for my research? Couldn’t argue with that. I conjured up a pen and paper, but Armaros waved it aside.
“Just relay a verbal message.”
I motioned for him to go on. He said something in a language my translator didn’t cover—the same one as the note, I presumed.
“Got that?”
I handed him the paper and pen. Again, he waved it off.
“Just pass on the message. Get it close enough and he’ll understand. You need me to repeat it?”
“Uh, yes.”
He said it again, then made me say it back to him. When I got it wrong, he tried again. I repeated it back and—
The alley disappeared.
SEVEN
I expected to arrive in the Fates’ throne room. Instead, I teleported into what seemed to be a vacant house prepped for sale. I’d moved often enough in my life to recognize the look—the faint coating of dust on the windowsill, the walls gleaming off-white, new paint quickly slapped on. I walked to the window, but the sun shone too brightly for me to make out anything beyond it.
As I headed for the hall, I cursed Dantalian for a fool, but not before leveling the same curses at myself.
“Couldn’t Armaros be the one betraying you, Dantalian? No? Okay, sure, I’ll go chat with him, and when he asks me to repeat a line in demon tongue, I’ll do that, too. Why not? It isn’t like he’s going to zap me to another part of the country, rally his djinn troops, and warn them that Dantalian knows all about his evil scheme.”
I tramped down the hall, threw open the front door—and stared out into the blinding white light of nothingness. I cursed some more, then slammed the door.
“Better yet, zap me to another dimension. That’ll slow me down.”
I cast a teleport spell. Nothing happened. Tried another, and another, feeling my power level drain as my panic mounted.
“Cool it,” I told myself. “You’ve been dimension-zapped before.”
And that was exactly why I was panicking. Spells didn’t work well in empty dimensions like this. It could take days for me to escape or be found. On my first case, the Nix I’d been chasing had teleported an ascended angel to another dimension, where she’d stayed for what had been—to her—centuries. She now lived in a padded room, raving mad.
“And that’s exactly the sort of thinking that’ll help you get out of here.”
My voice echoed through the empty house. I turned into a room and sat cross-legged on the floor. When my powers had recovered, I’d try a few other things—
“Mom?”
I jumped up so fast my legs tangled and I fell backward, nearly impaling myself on my sword.
“Mom? Is that you?”
Savannah’s voice drifted from somewhere above me.
“Savannah?”
Her laugh tinkled down. “That is you. Where are we? One second I’m typing a stack of invoices for Paige, and the next . . .”
Her voice drifted off.
“Hold on,” I said. “I’ll come find you.”
Damn Dantalian. Damn him to a thousand hells. I strode into the hall, searching for the stairs. But the hall just kept going, an endless corridor of doors.
“Mom?”
“I’m coming, hon. Just sit tight.”
As I went past a doorway, another voice stopped me.
“Yes, if you can find her again, I’d appreciate that. No, don’t do anything. Just let me know where she is. Let me know she’s all right.”
“Kris?” I said.
I turned to look into a home office. Kris sat behind the desk, slumped forward, forehead resting on his hand.
“Daddy?” Across the room, a door opened and a blond boy of about five poked his head in.
When Kris lifted his head, I saw the face of the man I’d left twenty years earlier. The boy was Bryce, Kris’s younger son, as he looked back then.
Kris managed a tired smile for his boy.
“Hey, bud. I was just coming to—”
“Was that your witch girlfriend?”
The venom in Bryce’s voice made Kris flinch. “Girlfriend? No, I don’t have—”
“Not anymore. Uncle Josef said she dumped you.”
Kristof blinked back his surprise. We’d worked hard to keep our relationship a secret. “Okay, bud. How about we grab some ice cream and talk—”
“That’s why Mom left, isn’t it? Because of your witch girlfriend.”
Kristof’s surprise turned to shock. “No, that’s not—”
Bryce ran off. Kristof hurried after him.
So Bryce had known about us? Blamed me for his mom leaving? It wasn’t true—she’d abandoned them before I met Kristof.
That’s why Bryce hates Savannah, a voice whispered behind me. He hates that Sean treats her like a sister. He hates that his father died trying to save her. He’s never gotten over it, and it’s all your fault.
I wheeled. No one was there.
Djinn.
As Dantalian’s soldier, Armaros would command the djinn. And what was their specialty? Driving people insane.
“Mom?”
“Savannah?” I called cautiously now, realizing she was probably an illusion. I couldn’t be sure, though. I continued down the hall.
“—bunch of stupid bitches—”
“Savannah, please,” a familiar husky voice answered. “I know you’re upset, but talking like that—”
“I’ll talk any way I damn well want. You aren’t my mother, Paige.”
I followed the voices to Paige’s old living room in East Falls. Savannah was there, thirteen again, pacing the floor. Paige sat across the room. She leaned back, long curls spilling over the chair back as she stared at the ceiling as if praying for guidance.
God, Paige looked young. I’d forgotten how young she’d been.
Twenty-two when you got yourself killed and dumped your daughter in her lap.
“You think my language is bad?” Savannah said. “You should have heard what they called my mom. Stupid little Coven bitches. Mom was smart. She left.”
“You need to ignore what they say about her, Savannah. Don’t pay any attention—”
“Just let them say those things? You’re as bad as they are, Paige. As stupid, too. I hate them and I hate you!”
Savannah stormed off, smacking the wall as she went. A piece of molding popped free. Paige slowly got up and tried pushing the molding back into place, hands shaking, blinking back tears, muttering under her breath.
Cursing you, Eve. You know she was. Tell her not to bother fixing that—her house is going to burn down in a few months. That’s what she got for taking in your kid. It destroyed her house, destroyed her reputation, destroyed her life.
“I screwed up, okay?” I yelled. “You think I don’t know that?”
I tramped down the hall.
“You killed her!” Savannah’s shriek echoed through the house. “You promised Paige would be safe, and you killed her!”
I broke into a run. I stopped only when I heard her scream again. I wheeled and saw a furnace. Savannah knelt on the other side of it, facing the wall, sobbing.
I looked at that room and my gut went cold.
“No,” I whispered. “Not this. Come on. Don’t—”
“I’m right here, Savannah,” Paige’s voice drifted from behind the furnace. “Nobody killed me.”
“Oh, thank God.” Another voice I knew so well. Kristof’s. “See, sweetheart? Paige is fine.”
“You killed her!” Savannah screamed. “You killed her! You promised! You promised, and you lied!”
Savannah’s head dropped forward, tears streaming as she sobbed. Kristof stepped forward, arms opening to embrace her. Paige yelled for him to stop. He didn’t.
Savannah turned fast, hands shooting up in a spell. Kristof sailed off his feet. His head hit the concrete wall with a horrible crack. His eyes went wide. Then they closed and he slumped to the floor. Paige ran over to check for a pulse.
There wouldn’t be one.
She was calling for you, the voice whispered. Before Kristof came. Screaming for you. But you didn’t come. And he did. Do you really think she doesn’t know what happened? Doesn’t realize she killed her father? She knows, Eve. She knows.
If only you’d told Savannah about Kristof . . . If you’d let her know he was a good man, let her know you loved him, none of this—
“Do you think I don’t know that?” I snarled. “I know every fucking mistake I made in my life, and I don’t need to be reminded.”
How many people did you kill, Eve? Not just tangentially, like Kristof. But sent to the afterlife yourself?
“Oh, no.” I gave a harsh laugh. “Now you’re getting desperate. That I don’t regret. I never killed anyone that wasn’t just as big a threat to me as I was to them. I don’t feel any guilt over them.”
“No?” said a young voice behind me. “What about me? Do you feel guilty about me?”
I turned to see a boy of about ten. “I don’t know you.”
“I’m Terri Blake’s son. My mom double-crossed you. You killed her. Do you know what happened to me?” He met my gaze. “Do you care?”
“Look, I—”
“What about me?” A woman stepped from another doorway. “John Salton’s wife. Widow, I should say, though I never realized that. I thought he’d left me and the kids. Did a good job of hiding his body, didn’t you?”
“He’d have done—”
“—the same to you,” the boy and the woman chanted in unison, their voices joined by others, more people stepping from doorways, the endless hallway filling. “Had to kill them. Didn’t have a choice. Kill or be killed. The law of the jungle.”
John Salton’s widow leapt at me, teeth bared. “Welcome to the jungle, Eve.”
EIGHT
I don’t know how long I spent in that hell, tormented by the ghosts of those I’d wronged. I didn’t curl up and take it. I defended myself—verbally, physically, whatever it took. When that didn’t stop it, I walked away, only to step into another scene from This Is Your Life.
I fought. I resisted. I raged. But eventually the djinn won. I don’t remember anything after that.
NINE
I heard a voice whispering, “Shhh, shhh, it’s okay,” as a hand stroked my head. I opened my eyes. I was in one of those empty rooms, curled up on the floor, my head cradled on a lap.
I twisted to see Kristof.
“Hello, gorgeous,” he said.
I stared at him. Then I blinked and pulled away. “It’s not really you.”
“No?”
“Prove it.”
He paused, considering, then said, “How would I do that?”
I sat up. “What do you mean?”
“Well, the usual way would be for me to tell you something only I know, which would work if you suspected I’m an impostor. But if, as it seems, you’ve been hallucinating, then I could be a product of your imagination, meaning I’ll say whatever you want me to say, which doesn’t prove anything at all. On the other hand—”
I threw my arms around his neck and hugged him.
“Proof enough?” he said.
“It is.” I pulled back. “How did you get here? Wherever here is . . .” I looked around.
“Tangiers, it seems.”
“No. I was in Tangiers, and then . . . You said I was hallucinating. I’m still in Tangiers, aren’t I?”
“Apparently. You’re trapped in some sort of mental construct. A typical djinn trick.”
“Which I’d know if I’d done my research. But how’d you find me?”
“You called, I came. As for how I got here, as you know, I’m a master of teleportation.”
I laughed and settled in, hugging my knees to my chest. “Like the time you tried taking me to the beach and we ended up in the Sahara?”
“It had sand. I only appear to have trouble teleporting because I need to conserve my powers to properly fulfill my role as the hero’s wise and nurturing girlfriend.”
I sputtered a laugh.
He continued. “Every hero needs a sidekick. I’m the wise and nurturing girlfriend, who sits on the sidelines, counseling him to make better choices, and picking him up when he invariably ignores her advice and falls.”
“Ah, but if you were a real hero’s girlfriend, you’d be the one needing rescue.”
“True.” He sighed and stretched his legs. “It’s the one part of the role I’m finding difficult to fulfill. But I’m working on it.”
“Are you working on the girl part, too?”
He arched his brows. “Do you want me to?”
“Never.”
We sat in silence for a moment. My hands started shaking again, and I shoved them into my pockets.
“I screwed up, Kris. Big surprise, huh? You tried to slow me down, and I ignored you. But you won’t even say I told you so.”
“You beat yourself up enough, Eve. You don’t need anyone else doing it for you.” He pulled me onto his lap. “We can fix this. Just tell me what happened.”
“I—” I glanced around and shivered. “I will. Just— I want to get out of here and clear my head first.”
“A distraction? Now that is definitely one of my sidekick specialties.”
He murmured a teleport spell. The house evaporated and I dropped a foot onto a soft mattress. I looked around to see Kris’s houseboat.
“Nice aim,” I said.
“Did I mention those expert teleportation skills?”
“How about those expert distraction skills?”
“Coming right up,” he said, his mouth lowering to mine.
TEN
A half hour later, I was in bed, covers twined around me, telling Kris everything that had happened as I watched him fix me a snack. Ghosts don’t need food any more than they need sleep or sex, but an afterlife without passionate nights, lazy mornings, and breakfasts in bed isn’t the kind of eternity I want.
Ghosts do the things they enjoyed in life, necessary or not, and for Kris, one of those things was cooking. His ex-wife took off when their boys were little more than toddlers, and he’d been determined that they’d never suffer the lack of anything for it. Including homemade meals.
Today he was keeping things simple. When he brought over my tray, it held a glass of milk and a peanut butter and jam sandwich. My ultimate comfort food.
“You really do this nurturing thing well, you know,” I said.
“It’s a front. Underneath, I’m a cold, ruthless bastard.” He sat on the end of the bed and pulled my legs over his lap. “So you think Armaros is behind the coup?”
“Of course. What else—?” I caught his expression. “I’m missing another possibility, aren’t I?”
“You could be. Dantalian perhaps?”
“Overthrowing himself? That makes no sense. Why would he stage—? Wait. Key word there? Stage. You think it’s a setup. If the djinn cause enough trouble, the easiest way to subdue them would be to grant Dantalian early parole. And the last thing he’d want is me poking around. So he sent that coded message telling Armaros to distract me. That double-crossing son of a bitch. I’m going to—”
Kristof didn’t cut me off. He didn’t need to. I may not be PhD material, but I am occasionally capable of learning.
“That’s exactly the attitude that got me into this mess in the first place, isn’t it?” I said. “Dantalian will only deny it, so I’m wasting my time, which is better spent stopping Armaros and his djinn before they do more damage. Then I can deal with Dantalian.” I glanced at him. “Right?”
He smiled. “Right.”
I’d already spent too much time in the ghost world, so twenty minutes later I was back where I’d started, in the ascended angel staff lounge, where a stocky, dark-haired guy cursed as he tried to get the coffeemaker working.
I conjured a fresh cup for him.
“Show-off,” he said.
