The Darkest Night (5 page)

Why did people insist angels were so judgmental? They had nothing on the former African missionary man and the teshuva demon glinting violet in his eyes.

Fane let out a sharp breath between his teeth. “When you were maimed, you took on a symballein mate you didn’t want to be your right hand, to replace what was no more. And now you would kill for her, die for her.”

Jonah spread his left hand wide. “What you say is true. So?”

“I had that myself once, but I lost it—yes, I lost it, out of a weakness I can never defend —and was given the abraxas as recompense. And so I want it back.”

After a long moment, the talya jerked his head once, as hard as if Fane had punched him. Was that supposed to be an acknowledgment of some sort? Jonah turned on his boot heel and stalked away, leaving Fane to follow or not.

He followed.

They went upstairs. The old warehouse had been a salvage operation, so the upper level was full of trash and ostensible treasure. A bare space had been cleared in the middle of the clutter except for a dozen mismatched chairs in a circle. A half dozen talyan sat around the child-sized sarcophagus. Why did anyone in Chicago, even demon-ridden warriors, need a sarcophagus of any size? On top of the marble lid was perched a pretty silver tea service with mugs as mismatched as the chairs.

Jonah pointed his hook at one of the empty chairs.

Fane hesitated, waiting for his angel's instincts for trouble to finally rouse. Nothing. With a nod to the talya beside him, he sat.

Nim smirked. “Welcome to a talya coffee klatsch.” She handed him a tea cup brimming with a yellow-green liquid. Leaves floated on top. His angel stirred restlessly.

Oh sure, now when they were being friendly his angel warned him off. Too late.

He tossed back the whole damn cup's worth. And gagged. “Now I know why you need the sarcophagus.”

Nim snickered. “Jilly's landlady told us it's an ancient Chinese remedy to stoke your inner fire when it is cold and dark out. Tomorrow night is the longest night of the year, you know.”

Fane licked his lips and winced at the sting of cayenne on his tongue. Even as the initial burn waned, the slower spice of ginger glowed within him. He closed his watering eyes for a moment, waiting to spontaneously combust. On the backs of his eyelids, he swore he saw red, red in all shades, like flames dancing, writhing. Which reminded him of Bella… He popped his eyes open to banish the erotic image. “I'm on fire all right.”

Around the circle of chairs, the talyan stared dubiously into their cups.

Fane stared back at them. “You mean none of you have tried it yet?”

At the far side of the circle, Ecco—the biggest of the overly large talya, only made bigger by the black tank exposing his broad shoulders—shook his shaved head. “Jilly's landlady is a witch. I'd never drink anything she gave me.”

Jonah grinned. “I told you the warden would.”

And Jonah had been his vote of confidence? Great. Fane slammed his mug on the tray upside down. “Ex-warden. Which is why I'm here.”

Ecco scoffed. “Why would we want you on our side? You're a loser.”

After one slow blink to calm himself, Fane said, “Because I have nothing else to lose.”

All around the circle, talya heads nodded. Of course, they understood.

The circle came back to Ecco, who lifted one shoulder infinitesimally. “Can't ever have enough cannon fodder.”

That had gone easier than he expected. Fane smiled. “So when are we going after Thorne?”

* * *

He left the warehouse feeling... Well, feeling a little charred. But that was to be expected in the presence of demons, even repentant ones. The second cup of hell tea had added to the sensation. But he thought they would make a place for him, more or less willingly, when they confronted Thorne again.

From the industrial district to Lake Shore Drive which would take him northward and home was a quick jaunt, but he found himself on a more circuitous route through a thin scattering of sleet.

The Mortal Coil was blacker than the @1 warehouse, not a hint of light showing from any of the windows. Even the ouroboros in the circle of stained glass above the door was dim, only its yellow eye still glinting in the darkness. Perhaps he should drive on…

The Porsche stuttered to a halt as if of its own volition.

Fane found himself at the front door. From the angle where he stood, sheltered in the doorway, he caught another glimmer between the black-out curtains drawn over the windows. He ignored the white sign with its rude rejection and knocked.

Nothing. The glimmer cut out and then returned, as if someone had moved between the light source and where he stood. But the door remained stubbornly closed.

The glimmer returned and cut out again. Was Bella trying to come to the door? Was something preventing her? His heartbeat accelerated, and he tried the door knob. Locked. But he’d been in too many fights to let the surge of adrenaline go unused.

He’d also been in enough fights to know the frontal approach wasn’t always the best, especially for an angelic possessed going up against demon-ridden whose supernatural sidekicks included perks such as increased speed and strength, not to mention immortality. So he jogged around to the alley.

A beat-up hatchback was parked near the back door, trunk open but empty. He closed it to keep the weather and any other transients out, then ran a hand over the hood: still warm despite the plummeting temperatures.

Sure enough, the back door of the club was unlocked, as if the unloading implied by the open truck had only just completed. Fane pushed through.

The back door was at the end of the bathroom hallway, black except for the red exit sign over his head. His toed thumped something hollow and plastic in the path, which he nudged aside. He strode down the dark hall toward the main room of the club, guided by the intermittent blinking he’d seen from the front step.

He crossed into the cavernous space.

And stopped.

Arrayed around the room at all the entrance points, like the lookouts of a besieged army, were small, nearly identical statues. Most were swathed only from the waist down, and some were molded with their bare, pudgy arms outstretched as if to hold back an enemy, like aggressive half-naked lawn gnomes.

Taken out of context, it was a full heartbeat before Fane recognized them.

It was a platoon of infant Jesuses.

He shook his head, as if he could clear the baffling imagery, but the weird collection remained. Mostly life sized, the effigies had clearly come from a variety of displays. Some had the hard shine of ceramic, though the majority were plastic, and one was transparent, like glass. Fane winced; he’d probably kicked another baby Jesus out of the back door.

From the shadows near the front, a figure emerged. For a second, Fane’s heart skipped, and he had the fleeting thought one of the statues had come to life.

But no. Instead of the short, pale, pudgy shape of another modeled infant, Bella—slender and head-to-slippered-toe red—emerged into the blinking light of one of the figurines.

Fane put his hands on his hips. “What the hell?”
Bella unspooled a power cord. “I know, seriously. Why does a baby Jesus need to blink? It even has a frequency dial.” She demonstrated on the controller in her hand, cranking up the speed to disco rates.

The statue beside the front door blinked a frantic SOS Fane couldn’t decode.

The feeling of cluelessness made him want to lash out, but the cavernous room held only the babies and Bella. “Never mind the blinking.” He bit out each word. “Who buys a couple dozen nativity scene Jesuses?”

“Only a crazy person, obviously.” She dropped the cord but didn’t leave the tangle of reaching white arms. “So you think I’m crazy?”

At first he thought the twist of her lips was self-deprecating. But when he parsed her tone, he decided she only meant she hadn’t bought them at all. What sort of evil person would
steal
baby Jesuses right out of their mangers?

He took a hard step toward her, letting his boot heels ring on the floor so she would hear he was pissed. “Let me guess. This is some sort of theme party you’re planning, something so sacrilegious you had to close the club so you could invite only the worst sort of pathetic deviants.”

“No.” She crossed her arms, plumping up her breasts into the deep scoop of her long-sleeved shirt. The red and orange stripes bowed and the front buttons bulged under the pressure of her agitated breathing. He might have thought she was mocking his own similar stance except he knew she couldn’t see him. “There’s no party. No one else is invited.” She tilted her head, making him pointedly aware he was included among that no one.

Since a sick house party was the only reasonable explanation, he was left with nothing. To think, he’d wanted to stop by and see her, to see how she was doing after…after their encounter, and to thank her for passing his message to the talyan through Nanette and sharing the tip on Sera’s demon-sensitive father. He rather suspected the suggestion had mellowed the talyan toward him, for no good reason but he appreciated the opportunity and wondered how she’d known that little trick.

But now here he was, facing a more twisted mystery. If only he’d been content with the one-night stand.

“Walk away.” Her low voice seemed to thrum in his chest, almost an echo of his thoughts. “Just leave.”

He wanted to, he really did. But though he’d lost his abraxas and the sphericanum had revoked his warden rank, he still shared himself with a divine presence. He couldn’t let this outrage pass.

He took another step toward her. “You know I won’t go. This is a mockery, not just of the symbols but the spirit of a holy season.”

“I wasn’t mocking. I needed them.”

“No one needs a couple dozen Jesuses.”

She sniffed. “More than a couple dozen branches of Christianity would say
you
are being sacrilegious.”

Through clenched teeth, he emphasized, “You can’t steal Jesus.”

“Actually, I stole a bunch of them.”

“And you’ll be taking them back. Get your friend in here and start loading them up.”

She wrinkled her nose, making her glasses lift and shine the blinking baby’s light at him. “What friend?” She looked as confused as he felt.

“Your wheel man, whoever helped you carry off the statues.” Fane steeled himself against a ridiculous surge of jealousy. She had asked someone else for help when he’d been here only a few nights ago. Of course, he wouldn’t have helped her steal from nativity scenes, but she hadn’t even bothered to hint she had more sins in mind than what they’d shared.

Bella shook her head. “There’s nobody else here. No friend.”

The bitterness in her tone rang true to the unpleasant spite he struggled to subdue. Which meant… “You drove yourself? Then you’re not…”

She turned away. “I don’t know where you all got the idea I was blind.”

He closed the distance between them in three strides and yanked her back around, the slender muscles of her arm tight under his fingers. She kept her face averted, but the blinking light caught the clouded white cataracts in her eyes. “We thought it because that’s the impression you gave us. You’re a thief
and
a liar?”

She lifted her chin finally. “I don’t know where you got the impression I was anything but.”

“You’ve been helping the talyan.”

“Will you leave me alone about this? I don’t see things the way you do—”

Frustration and disappointment jolted through his muscles, making his restraining grasp spring open. His lip curled. “Clearly not, if you think what you’ve done here is in any way justifiable.”

Rather than escape, she swung toward him. “Oh, so
tonight
you want to get on Santa’s nice list?”

The reference, even oblique, to their previous encounter made his face flush—his whole body, really—and knowing she could see it only mixed his embarrassment with anger.

“We’re taking them back, all of them, to wherever you stole them,” he snarled.

She straightened, her jaw set, even though her red fuzzy slippers rather undermined the intensity of her resistance. “I won’t.”

“I’ll make you.”

“You can’t.”

“Watch me.” He marched around her and headed toward the blinking baby Jesus.

“No!” Bella grabbed his arm, but her slippers had no traction on the dance floor and he hauled her onward. “You can’t!” This time, her tone was less refusal and more desperation. “I need them. It’s almost the solstice.”

She’d said that before. “If you want Christmas decorations, you can buy your own. I’ll loan you the money. You can repay me…” Well, that came out of him a little more suggestively than he’d intended.

But she didn’t taunt him, just hauled more urgently at his arm. “It won’t be the same. These have meaning, they’ve been given meaning.”

“Yes, meaning for other people. And you can’t steal sentiment. You have to make your own connection to the heart and soul of the season.”

“You don’t understand. I can’t.”

The way she’d sounded when she’d said she had no friend made him hesitate. He glanced down at her as she stared up. Her lips were slightly parted with her distress, her fingers a warm insistence on his arm, and her eyes glinted. Maybe just a reflection of the burglarized blinking baby, but maybe tears.

He stopped. “I can help you find the way.”

“You?” She laughed, shrill, like a needle skipping on a record, and let him go. “You and your angel? Without your lighted sword?”

He stiffened at the disbelief in her tone and the tinge of loss he felt as the sensation of her touch faded. “With or without the abraxas, I’ll make sure you do the right thing.”

“You can’t.” She spun around him to block his way toward the statues and held out one hand, her slender fingers spread like a pale star against the darkness behind her.

Her insistence held a note of panic that gave him pause, but he had already drifted once from the path with her. Without his abraxas, he was vulnerable—in more ways than one. “The right thing is what I do.” And it was all he had.

Bella shook her head violently, threatening to bring down the red tower of her hair. “You can’t take them. They are the only wall holding back the demons coming for me!”