Once she’d seen that Nick could handle himself, she had turned around and gone back, but it was too late. She had no time to wake the children and make her escape. Both the demons had come back almost as soon as she did.
Worse than that, Nick had gone into Alan’s room and slammed the door. Sin had not the faintest idea what he could be doing there, but she did not appreciate being left out here alone with Anzu.
Anzu did not bother her. He seemed not to notice she was there. He just stood staring out the window, arms crossed over his chest. The sun was setting, throwing red banners over the buildings and crowning them with light. It almost looked like the city was burning again.
For a while Sin sat, waiting for him to do something and reproaching herself for her own stupidity in not running when she could. She would almost deserve whatever the demon decided to do to her.
At last she began to believe he would stay put. There was still no sound from Nick’s room, where the children were.
Sin tried to make herself relax. She had to be strong to get the children out at the very next opportunity that arose. She would not be so weak as to let the chance slip out of her fingers a second time.
She couldn’t relax. She wished something would happen, a disaster, anything she could deal with so she wouldn’t have to think.
Failing that, she wished Nick would get out of Alan’s room so she could go in there and look at his stupid guns and books, put her head on the pillow they had shared last night, and cry.
With nothing she could do, all Sin could think of was Alan. He was locked up in his own body, dying slowly, watching all of this.
She knew what happened to a possessed body. What Nick and Anzu had been saying today was not news. Demons loved to boast in their dancing circles of how they made humans suffer, trapped in bodies that started to fall apart so fast, trapped in a corner of their own minds and screaming.
She had spent hours talking to her mother, trying to comfort her even though she knew that Mama could never respond to her touch, never answer her again.
Alan would go through that, all of that, but even more slowly, and he might have to see people he loved hurt at his hands.
Sin looked across the room at Anzu. He was not using much magic now, and he looked almost like Alan again. She could look at his red hair curling against the collar of his shirt and the solemn lines of his profile, as if he was absorbed in thought, and she could almost think it was Alan.
But it wasn’t. It would never be Alan again.
She was on her feet before she realized what she was about to do, walking softly until she reached the window and the demon.
She stood beside him and thought of Alan trying desperately to survive a little longer, as if she or Mae could possibly hope to save him. She shut her eyes, the setting sun painting the darkness behind her eyelids scarlet and gold.
Sin put her hand at the back of his neck and drew his head gently down. She kissed him on the mouth.
The demon let her do it.
“I’m right here,” Sin breathed. It felt like Alan was close for a moment, even though he wasn’t. “Hold on.”
16
They Have to Take You In
SIN WOKE TO EARLY-MORNING LIGHT STABBING BETWEEN HER eyelashes. She was wedged in the corner of the sofa, and she cracked her neck to get out the crick in it, stretched, and realized that she had fallen asleep with a demon two doors away from Lydie and Toby.
She wrenched herself off the sofa, flooded with horror, and met a demon’s eyes.
“Anzu’s not here,” Nick said.
Sin closed her eyes for a brief moment of pure, deep thankfulness, and then she went for the door. She’d been stupid long enough.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m getting Lydie and Toby out of here.”
“I see,” Nick said. “Well, that makes sense. Alan’s no use to you now.”
“What do you mean by that?”
Nick was in yesterday’s clothes like she was, and he looked as if he’d slept less than the few hours she’d finally caught sitting up on a sofa, but his voice was very clear. “Oh, I don’t know. You openly despise Alan for years, and then suddenly you’re homeless and friendless and you discover a burning desire to go out with him? That’s awfully convenient.”
“I’m sorry,” Sin said. “Are you still cranky because you’ve lost your pet? Tell me, do you think that you’ll be over it soon? How long does it take to replace a really good pet—was Alan special enough to wait a week before you get a new one?”
Nick moved in close to her, tall and strong enough so simply doing that seemed threatening, and Sin held one fist clenched and positioned to punch him in the stomach.
“I never called him that.”
“I never called him a meal ticket, either.”
“And yet the evidence is against you.”
“What about you, Nick?” Sin demanded. “Isn’t the evidence against you? I know your kind don’t have the same feelings as humans. I know you think of humans as jokes, as pets, as playthings. You threw a tantrum and you fought a duel, you lashed out; that’s what demons do. They don’t care! I don’t know how you felt about Alan. You don’t know how I felt, but I can tell you, and it doesn’t matter whether you believe me or not. I loved him, and he’s as good as dead, but I still love him. If there were any way to save him I’d do it, if there were any bargain to make I would make it, but there is nothing I can do and there is no time. I love Toby and Lydie as well; they’re my first responsibility, and I have to get them away from danger. If Alan was here he would understand, because he did anything he had to do to protect you. Now shut up and get out of my way.”
She shoved Nick aside. He didn’t stop her, and she made for the door.
She was stopped at the threshold by his voice. “Did you tell Alan?”
“Tell Alan what?”
“How you—what you thought of him,” Nick said roughly.
Sin looked at the painted wood of the door frame. “Yeah.”
“Good,” Nick said. “He would’ve liked that.”
She didn’t know what to say in response. She bowed her head for a moment, then went to get the kids.
Lydie was awake. When the door opened, Sin saw her freeze and clutch Toby tighter. Then she recognized Sin and sat up.
“I’m so sorry,” Sin said. “I should’ve got you out earlier, but I’m getting you out now. Give me Toby and grab your things.”
Lydie threw herself off the bed and began stuffing all their loose clothing in the bag Mae had given them. Sin lifted Toby in her arms and he started to fuss, cranky and scared. Sin rubbed his back and tried to soothe away the low, continuous whine.
“Want to give me that bag?”
“No,” Lydie whispered, and then more firmly: “I’ve got it.”
Sin gave her a smile. “Then let’s go.”
She was calculating as they left the bedroom: The money she had would keep them in a hostel for a few days, and by then they would have a flat. She’d just have to make another appointment to dance, and fast.
The important thing was that they would be safe.
The front door opened before she could reach it, and Anzu stood in the doorway and stared, horribly close to her. Nick strode into the hall to her side, and even though it might pique Anzu’s curiosity, she was glad to have him there. Lydie immediately hid behind him.
“What’s going on?” Anzu asked, sounding faintly puzzled.
“They’re leaving,” said Nick. “Get out of the way.”
Anzu did not move, and, somewhat to Sin’s surprise, he did not look at Nick.
He looked at her instead.
“Why are you leaving?”
“I don’t think this is the best place for Toby and Lydie to be right now,” Sin said honestly.
“Why not?” Anzu asked. “I have no interest in hurting them. What use are they to me? I don’t take bodies under sixteen. None of us do.”
Toby was full-on wailing now. Sin could not fight with him in her arms. She did not even dare raise her voice, but no matter whose body he had, at that moment she would have loved to kill Anzu.
“He’s scared of you,” she pointed out, and tried to control her voice, give a performance that would get her by him. “He’s scared of both of you,” she added, glancing at Nick. “And even if you don’t mean to hurt them, they might get hurt in an accident around you guys.”
Anzu gave Toby a considering look that had her baby cringing back, whimpering into Sin’s neck.
“They might get hurt in an accident anytime at all,” he said softly.
Sin did not let herself react as if it was a threat. “That’s true,” she said. “But it’s more dangerous around demons. Since you have no interest in us—”
“I didn’t say that.” Anzu smiled, lazy and malicious. He reached out a hand and touched Sin, trailing a finger along her arm, too close to her baby brother, then letting his hand fall away. “I have no interest in them.”
Demons only ever touched people for one of two reasons. Sin’s stomach did a slow roll of horror.
But she had no time for horror.
“Well, I am fairly interesting,” she murmured, determinedly calm. “But I have these children to think of.”
“Oh, they can stay too,” Anzu told her carelessly.
He could afford to be careless: She had her two vulnerabilities out in the open, and if she provoked him or Nick did, it would be the easiest thing in the world for Anzu to take revenge.
Sin caught Nick’s eye and tried to convey that to him. She had no way of knowing if her message got through to him, but he stayed perfectly still as she stroked Toby’s hair, desperately trying to hush him. Anzu could crush Toby’s skull like an eggshell and still have Lydie’s life to bargain with for her good behavior.
She had to get the kids out, before he stopped thinking of them as a minor inconvenience to put up with and started thinking of them as leverage.
“I really think it would be best if I took them away. You can’t possibly want them here.”
Anzu touched her arm again, this time not lightly. He did not mind how tight he grasped, or if it hurt her.
“Have I been unclear? You’re not leaving.”
She had very little choice, then, except to do the one thing she had promised herself she never would, and go beg for help.
“No,” said Sin, holding her head up, keeping her voice perfectly serene. “I’m just going to drop the kids off somewhere else. Then I promise you, I will come back.”
She moved forward, calm and sure, not allowing her self-possession to falter for a moment and projecting the absolute conviction that he would step out of her way.
And he did, moving back until he hit the wire mesh wall. He stood against it, black eyes intent. At that moment he looked like nothing so much as a bird of prey escaped from its cage, burning to return to the hunt.
“Where are we going?” Lydie asked when they were on the Tube, in one of the old trains with fuzzy orange benches rather than separate seats. Her voice was a bit muffled because she was pressing her face into Sin’s arm.
It was hard to say the words because it still seemed unreal that she was doing this, the thing she had tried so hard to avoid doing for so long. But if she could do it, and she had to, she could say it. “I’m bringing you to my father.”
“Jonathan?” Lydie asked, surprising Sin, though she supposed it was natural Lydie knew. Mama had talked about him a lot, which Lydie and Toby’s father had hated. “Is he nice?” Lydie inquired, sounding a little afraid.
“Yes,” Sin said firmly. “Yes. He’s very nice.”
Lydie seemed to be trying to burrow her way into Sin’s side.
“Maybe I should stay with you. Toby should go to your father, of course, because he’s only little. But maybe I could help.”