“And I thought the other demon was a jerk.” Jordan eyed Roth with distaste. “Color me wrong.”
I frowned. “You’re glad I followed you? What are you talking about?”
“He said you’d follow me.” Roth shrugged. “And here we are. Right where I said I’d bring you.” He turned around in a slow circle. “Okay, she’s here. I did what you asked. Let’s get on with it.”
I suddenly realized where we were. It was a grocery store—or at least, it used to be. It had closed down, the sign broken, the parking lot a large expanse of concrete and dark emptiness.
I’d seen this place before—it was in my vision.
My throat tightened. “What’s going on? Who wanted you to bring me here?”
A lone streetlamp still worked and cast a long shadow as the figure approached from the darkness. Other lamps along the street were broken or flickering.
“Beautiful star,” Seth said, a smile wide on his face. “You’re here. I’m glad.”
Part of me relaxed at seeing it was only him. The other part didn’t relax at all. Just the opposite. Especially after him having a starring role in my after-death experience. “Seth...what are you doing here? You know Roth?”
He raised an eyebrow and glanced at the demon. “It’s a very recent development, but yes.”
I scanned the length of the fallen angel. His clothes were dusty and torn, just like usual. His beard seemed even thicker than the last time I’d seen him, the night we’d been at Ambrosia. The strange marks on his arms I’d noticed before had grown even darker and larger. They also trailed up his throat now.
“Um, who is this dude?” Jordan asked, scrunching her nose.
“This—this is Seth,” I said. “He’s a fallen angel who’s been in Trinity a long time. Seth, this is Jordan.”
“Charmed,” Jordan said as insincerely as possible. She eyed Seth as if he was something she’d found stuck to the bottom of her shoe. “Can we wrap this up? I really want to get back to my car and go home. I suddenly feel the need to have a long shower.”
“Seth, what’s going on?” I asked. “You never stick around very long to answer my questions, but I have a lot of them. Why did you want Roth to bring me to you? What do you need to tell me? Have you seen something that might help us?”
“Help,” he murmured. “Yes, that’s what this is about. I’m glad to see you’re better now. All fixed. All improved. Much more useful to me this way.”
A churning had started inside me. There was something going on here. Something worse than it seemed. Why couldn’t I figure out what it was?
Probably because of the one thing I’d always valued most about myself—my ability to be a realist. Even now that I knew that there were strange and magical things in this world happening all the time all around us, I refused to totally accept it. I needed proof. Needed evidence to support the data.
I thought I’d be a writer one day. Maybe a nonfiction one where facts counted more than fantasy. But that’s where my head had been for seventeen years. And right now, it wasn’t doing me any favors.
I had to think beyond what my eyes told me.
Right now, it had to be my gut I listened closest to.
“I dreamed about you,” I said, my mouth dry. “When I was dead for twenty minutes. My unconscious mind conjured you up in particular—all clean and well-dressed and totally sane. Why you?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Seth replied.
“That makes two of us, hobo guy.” Jordan tapped her foot. “Samantha, come on. Let’s go.”
“You’re not going anywhere,” Roth told her.
She gave him a withering look. “You really are a jerk, aren’t you?”
“You have no idea.”
“What’s your deal, anyway? Are you working for this weirdo?”
“You could say that.”
I frowned at Roth. “What does that mean? If you know Seth, why wouldn’t you bring him back to meet the rest of the team? He could help Bishop—they’re both fallen angels with souls to deal with.”
“It’s strange, really,” Seth mused, stroking his beard absently. “Almost funny.”
I tensed. I’d decided to listen to my gut and right now it was telling me something very important. Seth didn’t sound all that crazy tonight. And Seth always sounded crazy—except in my dream.
I looked directly at him. “What’s strange?”
“Why did you assume I was an angel?”
I tried to say something immediately in reply, but faltered. “Well, you told me you were.”
“No. I never said anything like that at all.” He cocked his head, studying me. “You made assumptions based on your dealings with the other angel, the one who occupied your thoughts so much that you barely even noticed me.”
“I sensed your soul.” I frowned, trying to remember what had been said during the first couple of meetings with Seth outside of Crave.
“They’re tricky things, souls. Meant to be a punishment far worse than being destroyed. Humans were meant to have souls. I had a soul when I was human, before I went through the transition and never had a problem with it because it was natural.” He touched his chest. “This one, though, that they seared into me, has always been a challenge. But it’s also been very motivating.”