Damnation's Door: A Cursed Book (20 page)

It must have showed on my face, because Maria stepped closer to me.

“I know what your sister is,” she whispered. “I know who she was born from, and I’m telling you that you can’t save her from him. If he wants her, he’ll find a way to take her. You need to be ready to deal with that when it happens.”

I tightened my arms around my chest. “You better not be telling me to abandon my sister,” I warned.

“I’m telling you that she threatened me. I’m telling you that I could see the power she used from my front window. I’m telling you that she’s going to be the death of you.”

My first impulse was to slap her. Maria wasn’t “telling me” anything I didn’t already know. She wasn’t preparing me for something I didn’t wasn’t ready to deal with. She was just saying things I didn’t want to hear, because I wasn’t going to let them come true. Dro had made some mistakes, just as bad as the ones I had made, but she was still herself.

I can’t fight this anymore, Connie.

You have lost her.

I inhaled slowly, soothing the storm building in my chest. I didn’t need to talk to Maria. I needed to talk to my sister.

“Thanks for the operation, the food, the clothes, and the advice,” I said, biting out the last word. “We’ll leave right away.”

I turned and walked away, shoving the curtains aside. Warrick came out of the bathroom, shaking a hand through his wet hair. He looked clean even in his dirty clothes, but his eyes were still tired. He smiled at me, though it quickly faded when he saw the look on my face.

“Hey, are you okay?”

“Fine,” I answered sharply. “We’re leaving. Where’s everybody else?”

Warrick didn’t ask what had set me off. Maybe he was getting used to my moodiness. “There’s an apartment upstairs with two spare rooms. Maria let Dro and Max borrow one, and Sephiel took the other.”

“Pack up whatever you can,” I told him. “I’ll get everybody up.”

I started walking for the stairs on the left, then stopped. I turned around and grabbed Warrick’s hand. When he twisted to face me, I kissed him. He seemed surprised, but melted into the kiss easily. I reluctantly pulled away and touched his face.

“Thank you.” I didn’t need to say what for.

Warrick smiled. “Any time, beautiful. I’ll be down here when you’re ready.”

I gave him a small nod and an even smaller smile before turning and jogging up the stairs. There weren’t many, so I was on the second level in no time. It was narrow and wooden with one door for a kitchen and two for the spare rooms. I turned to the one on my right and knocked on it.

Sephiel opened the door. He wasn’t wearing his white trench coat for once, and his white dress shirt had been replaced with a new, clean one that was shorter around the cuffs. With the jeans and sleep-tousled hair, Sephiel looked like a rushed businessman who fell asleep at the office.

“Hey, how’s your side?” I asked.

Sephiel turned and prodded the spot where he’d been stabbed. “Andromenda healed it after caring for you. I am no longer in pain, but…” He stared at his side. “It is strange to feel such a small amount of pain for so long.”

I set my jaw, not wanting to say anything that might suggest I thought of him as a weak human. He was far from weak. Hell, he was one of the strongest men I knew.

Before I could tell him that, Sephiel turned his head up to me. “You look well,” he told me with a smile.

“Thanks. I feel better. Which means it’s time to go.”

His smile dropped like a rock. “Is everything all right?”

“Well, no one’s tried to kill us yet, but we need to get those fragments. Now that we know exactly what they can do to someone…” I shook my head. “We can’t let anyone else near them.”

Sephiel nodded slowly. The door behind me opened, and I spun around to see Max rubbing his eyes in the doorway of the second room.

“I slept like a rock,” he mumbled, “and I still don’t think it was enough.”

“I’ll let you have a nap when we find another safe-house.” I started moving for the staircase. “Tell Dro to get her stuff ready and come downstairs.”

“She’s already downstairs.”

I halted in mid step, then turned on my heel. “What?”

“Dro’s already downstairs,” Max repeated. “She told me she was having trouble sleeping, so she was going down to talk to Maria. Why?”

I didn’t answer him. I rushed down the steps and swung around the doorframe into the middle of the shop. Warrick was there, waiting by the door with backpacks in his hand. He straightened up and looked at me anxiously. Maria stared at me from behind the counter with a curious expression. I walked straight to her.

“Did you see her?” I demanded. My heart was in my throat.

Maria nodded slowly, as if she was having trouble understanding the problem. “She came down about an hour ago said she was going to get some air.”

My nails dug into the counter. I could feel my body beginning to tremble.

“Constance? What’s wrong?”

I barely heard Warrick’s voice. All I could hear was two people repeating two phrases in my head.

I can’t fight this anymore, Connie.

You have lost her.

“Constance? What happened?”

I didn’t have the heart to look at Max when I heard him call my name. I closed my eyes and hid my tears, forcing the words out.

“It’s Dro. She’s gone.”

Chapter 16

It wasn’t the first time Dro had left me. It wasn’t the first time I had lost her.

But this was worse than all the other times, even when I was certain she had left and would never return…

For nearly three days, I did nothing but search. I barely ate. I barely slept. I started at bus stations and cab corners, keeping my head down and quickly asking if anyone had seen a pale girl with white hair and bright blue eyes. Nobody had, and the moment they eyed me suspiciously was the same moment I left. They probably thought I was crazy.

I hadn’t gotten to the crazy phase yet, but I was desperate, so I was coming close. I went to the homeless shelter and talked to them as calmly as possible, but they could offer me nothing but pity and free food.

My next stop was hotels and bed and breakfasts. Dro didn’t have a lot of money, but she would appeal to the goodness in people with the hopes that they’d help her. I was less optimistic, and much more aggressive. I made the owners talk, but they hadn’t seen her either.

It wasn’t long before I hit the alleys and the dark streets. Dro and I had been homeless before, so living under cardboard and dirty blankets wouldn’t be new to her. I grilled every sickly addict, threatened every hooker, punched every thief, and came up with nothing.

Fucking, goddamn
nothing.

That meant she didn’t want to be found. Not even by me.

I cursed myself for protecting us the way I did. She would know how to stay hidden and how to survive on her own. She would know how to disappear completely.

The rain was soaking through my hoodie, the cloth over my head dampening the greasy hair beneath. My hands were tucked under my armpits for warmth, but it didn’t help. I was freezing, walking on a road that would lead to somewhere. I could only hope that it would take me to my sister.

You won’t find her
, the realistic voice in my head told me.
If she doesn’t want to be found, she won’t be. You taught her everything she knows. She’ll live.

But what about the monsters?
Another part of my brain argued.
They’ll be looking for her.

That’s what she wants. She left because she doesn’t think you’re strong enough to protect her from them. She left to keep you alive.

She left because she thinks she’ll be the reason you die.

Eventually my body couldn’t handle the cold anymore. The rain was pounding on my head now, and I needed a place to get out of the storm. To my right, I could see the lights of a gas station shining in the distance. It was the only place I’d seen for miles. If Dro had gone this way, she would have needed to stop.

If
she went this way. She could be anywhere by now.

I was too damn tired to keep thinking about what my sister did or didn’t do. I shut off my mind and walked into the gas station.

I must have looked like a drowned rat, because the cashier stared at me with wide-eyed disgust. I ignored him and walked through the store. My eyes picked up everything, but registered nothing.

While I continued to wander aimlessly around the store, the door opened and a man came through. He shivered loudly and shook off the water on his sport jacket.

“Hey, Sam,” the new man said. I glanced at the newcomer out of the corner of my eye. He was a trucker. “Hell of a storm, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, not a good night to be out. I tried to tell that to the girl I just dropped off.”

My head twitched ever so slightly toward the cash desk. I edged closer to them as inconspicuously as possible.

“You picked up another stray? That’s going to get you into trouble one day, Matt.”

“What was I supposed to do? Let her walk alone in the dark? You should have seen her, Sam. Pretty little thing, pale as snow, weird white hair, sad smile. I couldn’t leave her out there. She wouldn’t have made it. Can I get some Marlboros?”

“I don’t have any stocked yet. They’re in the back. Give me a second.”

Sam the cashier walked out from behind the counter toward the back room. I had seconds before he came back. I walked to Matt’s back.

“You picked up a girl with white hair?” I asked.

Matt jumped at the sound of my voice, turning sharply. “Whoa, you scared the hell out of me, sweetheart.”

I ignored his outburst. “I overheard you. Did you pick up a girl with white hair?”

He looked at me curiously. “What’s it to you?”

“I’m looking for her. She’s my sister.”

“Your sister.” His raised eyebrows proved that he didn’t believe me. “Sorry, honey, but you don’t look anything like the girl I picked up.”

“She’s adopted, and you’re going to take me to the place you dropped her off.”

“And why would I do that?”

I turned my eyes into slits and walked closer to him. I moved my hands to my hips, pulling up the hoodie just enough for him to see the hatchet I was carrying. He backed up instinctively. “Because I’m in a very bad mood right now, and if you care about your well being, you’re going to do me this simple favor.”

Matt wasn’t much bigger than me, and he was probably wondering if he could run or call the cops before I caught him.

Then he looked at the hatchet on my belt, and decided not to test the theory out. He turned and walked out of the gas station with me hot on his heels. When we walked back into the rain, I put my hand on my hatchet in case Matt got it in his head to be brave. He swung into the cab and opened it for me. I hopped in the passenger side, glanced at the radio, and switched it off. Matt looked at me nervously.

“I figured Sam would be right one of these days,” he muttered, turning the ignition and starting the truck. He put his hands on the wheel and looked at me nervously. “How much trouble am I going to get into?”

“As long as you take me to my sister and don’t try any tricks, none.”

Matt pulled out of the parking lot slowly. He avoided looking at me as much as possible.

“You’re not a liar, right? You’re not going to kill me?”

“No,” I told him. “But I do have a very short temper.”

The trucker gritted his teeth, and didn’t say anything else.

I was grateful for that, because I had other things to think about. Like what I was going to say to my little sister when I found her again…

“I still haven’t seen anything,” Max said. “She might be trying to block me.”

The grief in his voice pierced my memory, bringing me back to the harsh reality of Dro disappearing.

I’d been so lost that I wasn’t able to concentrate on where we were walking. I blinked, and let the world settle around me. We were moving briskly from the
Mercado Juárez
market district toward the
Colegio Latino Américano
, one of the colleges. The street on the left was lined with brightly colored shops and hole-in-the-wall diners, which contradicted the massive stone and wrought iron fence on the right that guarded the college.

This street, like so many others, was empty of any living person. Scattered corpses lay in pools of blood. Some of the pools had been turned into smudges, like the bodies had been dragged away by hungry demons for food.

I should have been grateful that there wasn’t anyone to confront us. Except that I didn’t want to avoid a confrontation. I wanted to find someone, and beat answers out of them. I wanted to find a demon and make it scream. I wanted to find one of Mateo’s Blood Thorns and send a message to my sadistic ex.

I wanted to do anything to ease the ache in my chest.

The guys were struggling to keep up with me, and none of them were telling me to slow down. They knew better than to get in my way.

“Constance,” Max said warily.

“I heard you,” I snapped.

He paused. “I wasn’t going to repeat myself,” he told me quietly. “I was going to ask where we’re going. It has to be somewhere Dro is headed, right?”

I slowed down just long enough to think. I didn’t actually know how to answer him. My original plan had been to scour old hideouts and places I’d worked to find Dro, but she knew I’d come looking for her, and she wasn’t going to make it easy. There weren’t going to be any convenient truck drivers to take me to her. Dro was going to stay away from anywhere she assumed I would look.

But she had to have gone somewhere. She wanted to end this as much as I did, and the only way to do that was…

I stopped walking, staring ahead and seeing nothing.

“Constance?” Warrick’s hand touched my shoulder, but I didn’t feel it.

“No,” I whispered. Horror strangled around my throat like a noose. “No, she wouldn’t.”

“Wouldn’t what?” Warrick moved in front of me, gripping my shoulders and trying to get me out of my trance.

I hated that all three of my friends were staring at me, waiting for me to tell them what I couldn’t doubt now. But I didn’t want to say it. Saying it would make it true.

Then you might as well face it. The sooner you do, the sooner you can find her before it’s too late.

I closed my eyes and sighed. “Dro won’t be in any place familiar to her or me. She’s not going to hide. She’s trying to find him. She’s looking for Lucifer.”

I heard Max’s sharp intake of breath and watched Sephiel’s face pale. Warrick squeezed my shoulders and looked at me sadly. I twisted out of his arms before he could hold me and watch me break down again. I turned to Max, who looked completely crushed.

“Why?” he asked. His eyes were glistening. “Why would she do that?”

“Because she wants to stop him,” I said. “It’s the only thing that makes sense.” And I was too afraid to think of any other outcomes.

Max swallowed. “Then I won’t be able to find her,” he said quietly. “Lucifer will block everything I see.”

“What about Mateo, Drake, or the slayers? Can you still see them?”

Max’s eyes lit up briefly. “You think they’ll have seen her?”

“I’m not sure. But if they have, I’ll make them tell us. And if not, we can find out where the fragments are. Maybe if we destroy enough of them, we can draw Lucifer’s attention away from finding Dro, and keep her safe for a little bit longer.”

Max nodded. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath to concentrate.

“Attacking Lucifer and his sycophants directly is by far your most dangerous plan yet,” Sephiel remarked from my left.

I looked at him. “How else are we supposed to do it? We can’t keep running and hoping we’ll get lucky potshots. We were going to be in this position sooner or later, Seph. You knew that.”

His blue eyes were impatient and dark. “I did. But that was also before I knew Michael and his Seraphim were seeking to cleanse the city of its evil.”

I faced him directly. “You think they’re going to be a problem?”

Sephiel’s impatience turned into unease. This didn’t seem like a conversation he wanted to have.

“I think Michael will be closer to locating Lucifer than Andromeda will be. He still retains incredible power, and if she crosses his path, he will use her to provoke the King of Hell.” He dropped his head. “And he shall not be gentle about it.”

The memory of Michael’s cold, hard eyes flashed through me. He would have killed me with a flick of his wrist, and only kept us alive to keep Dro in compliance. If he got his hands on her…