Embrace, Entice, Emblaze (57 page)

“From
the
tree— you’ve only got one outside— and yeah. I 110

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would’ve landed sooner but I overshot. Had to drop down from

the roof. The guy in the penthouse looked pretty freaked.”

“Where’s Salvatore?” Steph asked.

I looked at her with wide eyes.

Did
she
just
miss
what
Zoe
said? She flung herself onto the roof !

THE ROOF!

Zoe’s eyes narrowed in on Steph. “He’s waiting downstairs like a good puppy. You’re welcome to go hold his leash.”

“We’re going out. We came to get you,” Spence butted in. A

good decision, if the look on Steph’s face was anything to go by.

“Anywhere good to go around here?” he continued, exploring the

living room, taking time to look around the corners and down the hall, checking out my place.

“What about Nyla and Rudyard? Won’t you get in trouble?” I

asked, half expecting theirs to be the next dramatic entry.

Spence shrugged as he walked back. “We slipped out. They don’t

really expect us to be in bed by eight every night. They just…prefer not to know, you know.”

“Oh, well, I can’t go. My dad’s away, but he calls every night at a different time after ten. It’s the only rule he has, but I have to stick to it. I barely made it home in time last night. But Steph can go,” I offered. I knew Steph had wanted a night out anyway, and judging by the eager expression she was flashing the entire room, I wasn’t wrong.

“What number does he call you on?” Spence asked, walking up

to the phone that hung on the wall. “This one?”

“Yeah,” I replied suspiciously.

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“Do you have a cell phone?” he asked condescendingly.

“Yes,” I said, getting aggravated.

He lifted the receiver from the wall, started pressing numbers, then looked up. “Cell phone number?”

“Huh?”

“Cell phone num- ber, brains?”

I gave it to him and watched him punch in some more numbers.

He hung up with a dopey smile on his face. “Let’s go.”

“What did you do?”

He rolled his eyes at me. “I diverted your home phone to your

cell. When your dad calls, you can just go somewhere quiet and

pretend you’re at home. Easy.”

It was easy. I couldn’t believe I’d never thought of it before.

“Great!” Steph called out, already at the front door. “Let’s go to Hades. I’ve being wanting to go there all day. I’ll go and wait with Salvatore.” She slipped out the door and that was that.

Spence and Zoe seemed to agree with her suggestion. We were

going to Hades. I guess I’d get that chance to check in on Onyx after all.

————

Zoe sauntered into Hades as if she went there every night, and

claimed a table right by the dance floor. Steph and I spotted her brother, Jase, who was working in the DJ pit. He’s four years older than Steph and works the bar scene all around the city, but he was at Hades as much as he could manage. The DJ pit there was tricked out to the extreme.

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He gave us a sly look that melted into a smile when we approached, but he was mid-set and couldn’t really stop. He motioned for us to wait for five and, I think, yelled “Hi,” but Steph blew him off. She wasn’t about to wait that long to get back to Salvatore.

When we made it to our table, Zoe was enjoying the music and

Salvatore jumped up to get more seats. He really was sweet. Steph beamed every time she looked at him. I noticed that he seemed

equally smitten.

Oh
well, good for them.

“Where’s Spence?” I asked.

“Getting drinks,” Zoe said, bopping in her chair.

“The bar staff here is pretty by the book, and he’s still seventeen, isn’t he?”

“Yeah, but the boy’s got skills.” Zoe gave me a wink and went

back to watching the dance floor. I didn’t imagine she would stay sitting for long.

Sure enough, Spence came back balancing a stack of five shot

glasses and a pitcher of something that looked so naughty I caught myself grinning stupidly. I’d forgotten how much fun it could be to just do something normal. And when that annoying voice from

within cried out,
That’s because you’re not normal!
I tuned it out.

“How?” I asked.

Dapper was a strict and vigilant owner. It was an all- ages bar and restaurant, but he kept a pretty good eye on things. The only luck we’d ever had at drinking alcohol there was by smuggling it in.

“Glamour. It’s my thing.” Spence waggled his eyebrows.

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I laughed.

“Speaking of which,” he said, “we”—he looked at Zoe and

Salvatore— “were thinking it’s time to introduce ourselves properly.

We figure since Steph already knows about you, we’re okay with

her knowing about us too.”

I saw Salvatore nodding— he clearly understood most things— as

Zoe just rolled her eyes.

“Okay,” I said, not sure where this was going.

“All right then, I’ll start.” Spence mockingly put his right hand in the air. “Hi! My name is Spencer and I am an angel carrier.” Zoe whacked him on the arm so hard, it would have broken

if he weren’t Grigori. Spence rubbed his shoulder and looked at her ruefully. “You know, I do bruise and I am still breakable until I have a partner, as everyone keeps reminding me, so careful with the merchandise.”

Zoe motioned as if she were about to hit him again.

“Okay, okay,” Spence said, smiling but also shifting away from

Zoe. “I’m from a Dominations Angel. I’m lacking in the parent

department, since they gave me up when I was born, so I don’t know which one died, not that it matters. I have all the normal gizmos, my sense is taste— and I’m never going to eat an apple again— plus I can glamour. So far just myself and things that I can touch, but I’m working on pushing it further.” He laid his arms wide to finish.

I couldn’t agree more on the apple comment. I don’t think I will ever like them again either, which is a shame because I used to love the apple pies from McDonald’s.

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“See, was it so hard just to get on with it?” asked Zoe. “I’m from an Archangel, I’m minus a father, and I haven’t seen my mother in over three years. I have normals, my sense is hearing, plus I have an affinity with nature. I can manipulate it to assist me, mostly with motion.” Wow, I’d never heard of that. “That’s how you used the tree as

a slingshot?”

“Yeah. I’m still ironing out some of the kinks, but that’s the

general gist.”

I was surprised to hear that neither Spence nor Zoe had parents.

I’d thought things were tough for me with Dad, but at least he

was there and I knew, as dysfunctional a family as we were, that he loved me.

“So, I guess I’ll fill you in on Romeo here as well,” Zoe went on.

Steph put her hand up. “Wait! He can speak for himself. I can

translate for him.” She looked at Salvatore and he nodded.

I was starting to gather that he could understand most things he heard in English. His difficulty was mainly just speaking it himself.

After he spoke for a moment to Steph in Italian— which

sounded lovely, just hearing him speaking comfortably and in a

normal tone— Steph turned back to the rest of us.

“Salvatore is by a Virtue Angel, his father died of…” Steph’s

eyes opened wide as Salvatore went on. “Oh, I’m sorry,” she said to Salvatore before looking back at us. “His father died when he was five days old in an airplane crash; he was a pilot. He has all of the normal gifts that come with being Grigori, his sense is sight, and he is a…seeker of lies. He says it is like what Griffin can do, but where 115

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Griffin is totally in tune with truth, in identifying its presence and delivering it, Salvatore is dialed into lies, to the layers of deceit that construct and surround them. Eventually, through his gift, he will be able to see the threads of one lie that has led to another and another.” Steph looked to Salvatore nervously and he nodded in

approval of her explanation.

“So to sum up,” Zoe said, rolling her eyes and pointing at Spence,

“glamour.” To herself: “Nature.” Then to Salvatore: “Lie detector.” Then she looked to me. “So? What’s your deal? We already got the built- in wristbands figured out. What about the rest?”

I suddenly had stage fright. Not because I was scared to say, but because I now had to admit that I didn’t know.

“Well…I…I still don’t know much about my angel giver. My

guides didn’t…
wouldn’t
tell me. Griffin says I may never know.” I didn’t go into the other option Griffin and I had discussed: the possibility that I had come from an angel so high in rank that its identity could be withheld at its wish.

“I…well…My mother died giving birth to me. She was Grigori

too.” I swallowed through the lump in my throat. “I have all five senses, and I can sense exiles from a long way away if I’m trying,” I said self- consciously, aware that I was editing as I went along. I hadn’t even mentioned to Lincoln and Griffin that, on a couple

of occasions— the airport most recently— I’d suspected my senses extended to something else. The night Onyx and Joel had attacked at Hades was the other time I’d felt it. The only person who knew about that was Phoenix.

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Salvatore moved forward in his seat, straining to understand

everything I was saying. Zoe gave Spence an “I told you so” look.

“And,” I went on, “as for gifts, some of that is still a little unclear too. I seem to be able to stop exiles from a distance, put them into the kind of lock most Grigori require contact for, more than one at a time, and when I was injured and didn’t have my dagger, I…I was able to strip an exile’s powers even when he did not will it.”

Zoe, Salvatore, and Spence exchanged glances. Steph’s gaze, like mine, was flitting between them, trying to work out what they

were thinking. She was nervous for me too. Spence poured the

lethal concoction from the pitcher into the five shot glasses and slid one toward each of us. He looked at Zoe again, and she shrugged and grabbed hers. We all followed.

“Well,” Spence said, “fuck me.” He drank.

With one more shrug from Zoe and a sigh of relief from me, we

all drank…and drank.

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chapter
eleven

“For I have sworn thee fair, and thought thee bright, Who art as
black as hell, as dark as night.”

WILLIaM shaKespeaRe

When I spotted Dapper working behind the bar, I excused myself.

From the moment we’d entered Hades, I had sensed at least one

exile. He wasn’t as obvious as most and I got the feeling he was trying to be inconspicuous. Th e others hadn’t said anything, so I wasn’t sure if they could sense him.

On my way up to the bar, I walked right past the exile. He had

ginger hair and a slim frame hidden beneath a well- worn leather jacket, and he was lounging on one of the sofas. I tensed instantly, bracing for the fi ght that should have been guaranteed, but the exile just watched me walk by and didn’t even fll inch. In fact, he didn’t seem surprised to see me at all.

By the time I reached Dapper, I was a bit stunned. “Dapper!” I

called out, waving him over.

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He rolled his head back and sighed when he saw me.

I leaned over the bar. This wasn’t the kind of stuff you wanted everyone to hear. He moved marginally closer after a moment.

“Have you had many exiles in here lately?” I asked.

He shrugged, moving back a bit.

“You
do
realize there’s one in here now?”

His eyes darted toward where I’d seen the exile.

He knew exactly who was in his bar.

“There have been a few lately,” Dapper admitted. “They don’t

bring their troubles here, and I don’t cause them any either. You make sure it stays that way!” He moved back, but not before

adding, “And if I catch you drinking in my place again, I’ll take pleasure in barring you.”

I gave him a sheepish grin and decided I could pick up this conversation at a later, more sober, time. “I’ll, umm…” I started retreating.

“You
and
your friends!” he called out after me.

Unexpectedly, I was actually starting to like Dapper. Even