“Your place, then.” I paused. “Are you parked somewhere very close? And do you still keep your spare key taped under the rear wheel arch?”
“Yeah, but why…?” He stopped, and tucked a hand into his other pocket. What came out was a handful of metal shards. “Well, shit.”
I glanced down, amusement touching my lips. “There’s also the free willy problem.”
“I don’t see it as much of a problem, but I agree that others might.” He grinned. “So, do we make a mad dash and hope no one notices?”
“Wiring snakes aside, my clothes won’t stand up to a mad dash. I’ll get us out of here, but you’ll have to bring the car around to the building’s entrance.”
“Sounds like a plan.” He turned sideways and waved me forward grandly. “After you, my dear.”
We carefully retreated. Amaya’s steel was quivering by the time we made the stairs, so it was with some relief that I realized not only had the wiring in the stair shaft remained unaffected by the blast, but also by the magic.
When we reached the foyer, Jak pulled off the remains of his sweater and wrapped it around his waist, effectively hiding the ventilation spots around his balls.
I waited until he’d left, then said, “Reaper, show yourself.”
For several seconds there was no response; then heat washed across my skin and the reaper appeared. He wasn’t what I’d expected – although I’m not entirely sure what I had been expecting.
I mean, he, like Azriel, was of medium height, with warm brown skin and mismatched blue eyes, but his hair was a rich honey color rather than black, and there was a multitude of scars crisscrossing his chest and well-muscled arms. Another scar stretched from just below his right temple to his chin. He also bore two swords rather than one.
What surprised me, though, was his expression. It was positively hostile.
“What do you wish?” His voice was cold. Unforgiving.
I eyed him warily. “Do you intend to intervene if I get into trouble?”
“I am here to keep you safe until the keys are found,” he said. “Nothing more, nothing less.”
Meaning, I suspected, that he would keep his distance and be totally unsociable. Azriel might have done the latter when he’d first appeared, but never the former. “What of Azriel?”
He crossed his arms. “We all bear the name of Azriel to those of flesh.”
Animosity practically oozed from his pores. Why? What in the hell was going on? “You know who I mean.”
“Perhaps I do. And perhaps it is none of your business.”
“But it is my business. I don’t —”… want my child growing up like I did – not knowing anything about his father. But I swallowed the words, not wanting to admit something that personal to a stranger – especially such a hostile one.
Besides, it was something I should have thought about before I’d banished Azriel – and it was yet another reason to call him back. I added, “I just want to know he’s okay.”
“He lives. Anything more you have no need nor right to know.”
The urge to smack this particular reaper was strong enough that I actually clenched my fists. But I very much suspected that would not be a good move. He was angry enough to stab me with his swords and claim provocation to higher powers. “Why the attitude, reaper? What the hell have I done to you?”
“What have you done?” He shook his head, as if in disbelief. “Duty is all to those of us who guard, and duty unfinished is a crime against all.”
Meaning my Azriel was in trouble. Serious trouble. My gut twisted at the thought, but even so, anger flared. “What of the way he failed me? He forced me —”
I cut the rest of the sentence off. I was talking to air anyway. The reaper had disappeared.
“You could at least have the decency to hear me out, you bastard.”
The reaper no doubt heard, but he was unlikely to care one way or another. And to be honest, no amount of lashing out – whether verbally or physically – was going to make me feel any better.
Only getting Azriel back in my life was ever going to do that.
I swore again and stalked out of the building. Jak’s red Honda pulled up a heartbeat later, and I quickly climbed in.
He glanced at me as he pulled away from the curb. “You look like a woman with a problem.”
“Yeah, and it’s a universal one called men.”
He grinned. “May I point out that we males think much the same about you females?”
“When you’re not trying to get into our pants, you mean?”
His grin grew. “Even when we’re trying to get into them. So who’s trying to get into yours?”
I crossed my arms. “No one.”
“That is a problem, I agree.”
I snorted and whacked his arm. “That’s not what I’m annoyed about.”
“Then what’s upset you? You were fine when I left to get the car. What happened in the five minutes it took me to get back here? Did the wiring attack again?” He hesitated, his brief glance shrewd. “It’s to do with your reaper, isn’t it?”
“Yeah. I banished him – justifiably, I might add – but I wish I hadn’t.”
“Then unbanish him.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“Why not?”
Why not indeed. I hesitated. “What he did – it was bad, and it’s something that can’t be undone.”
“Was it worse than me starting a relationship with you to get a story? Worse than Lucian killing your mother, then bedding you for information?”
I opened my mouth to say yes, then stopped. Put like that, the answer was actually no. Even if Azriel had a tendency to keep secrets, he’d never been anything less than honest about his intentions or his priorities – and his priority had always been, first and foremost, his duty to secure the keys for the reapers. All else was secondary.
I might be furious with him, might feel betrayed by his actions, but he’d always warned me he would do whatever he deemed necessary to get those keys. Or die trying.
Why would he think my life – or rather, all my future lives – were any less expendable?
He wouldn’t. As the hostile reaper had pointed out, duty was all to a reaper. It rose above everything, even family and love. He might care for me, but that would not have stopped him from doing what needed to be done in order to finish his mission.
The only thing that had stopped him was me. I’d sent him away, thereby forcing another to take his place. I’d made him fail, and he was now paying the price.
I scrubbed a hand across suddenly stinging eyes and swore yet again.
“So,” Jak murmured. “Not as bad.”
“No.” I hesitated. It felt a little weird discussing this with Jak, of all people. And yet, he was also the one person who would understand betrayal, even if from the other side. “But I don’t know if I can move past —”
“Relationships are hard work,” he interrupted. “They’re all about give and take. If Azriel did the latter rather than the former, the question you have to ask yourself is, are you willing to walk away? Or is whatever lay between you special enough to work on a fix?”
Yes, it is. I stared at Jak for several heartbeats. “When the hell did you start doling out such astute relationship advice?”
He smiled. “I’ve had more than my fair share of broken relationships, remember. And you didn’t answer my question.”
“That’s because I haven’t actually got one.” A lie, but I wasn’t about to admit my feelings to Jak before I admitted them to Azriel.
“Then I suggest you do so – and before the gulf between you gets too wide to traverse. Besides, running away from a problem is never a good idea.”
Which was an echo of what Aunt Riley had said to me when I’d first woken in hospital after being dragged back from death.
I hadn’t wanted to listen to her back then. Hadn’t really wanted to listen to anyone – not even when my own intuition had suggested that banishing Azriel was the worst possible move I could ever make. I’d been far too angry.
But somewhere between waking this morning and now, my brain cells had finally started functioning again. The truth of the matter was, despite the pain and the hurt, despite the sense of betrayal, I needed Azriel in my life. I just had to hope that it wasn’t already too late to get him back.
I grabbed a quick shower at Jak’s in the vague hope that it’d wash away all the bits of fluff and debris that were both on and in my skin – the Aedh magic didn’t always re-form clothing as precisely as it deformed it, and it wasn’t unusual for me to have annoying bits of fiber sticking out of my flesh for days after becoming Aedh – then went in search of clothes. I found a pretty, knee-length dress at the back of the wardrobe in the spare bedroom, but had no such luck when it came to underwear – for which I was kind of glad. It would have been a little too weird if he’d kept any of that after all these years.
But just as I was about to pull on the dress, I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the mirror behind me, and froze. Because my reflection now bore a series of tattoos that ran up the back of my neck and disappeared into my hairline. They were a mix of patterns that sometimes resembled the known – one looked vaguely like a rose, another like an eye with a comet’s tail – and at other times looked nothing more than random swirls. But these weren’t any old tats. They were a tribal signature – Azriel’s tribal signature.
Obviously, when he’d leashed our energy beings and bound us together forever, I’d become part of his tribe. His family. The one he was apparently refusing to see because of his shame at being a dark angel.
And for the first time since I’d woken up in the hospital, I had to wonder – at what cost to himself had he made me one?
He’d once said that if we’d assimilated – if we’d become so attuned to each other that our life forces merged – his reaper powers would become muted, and he would never again be able to function as a soul bearer. So in saving me, had he sacrificed his own desire to once again escort souls?