Vowed in Shadows ms-3 Page 5

“I’m uncomfortable with your foul language.” He almost winced at how prim he sounded, how outdated.

  “Oh, so it wasn’t the demon that was uncomfortable with what happened between us. It was you.”

  “I was told the most prudent method to balance your rising demon was the . . . orgasm.”

  “ ‘Prude’ is right,” she mumbled.

  She slammed out of the stairwell and headed down the hall. He stood aside as she opened the door.

  The apartment was messier than when he’d cased it previously, although the same earthy patchouli incense drifted out to tease him. He’d been surprised a stripper kept such a tidy abode. This—the magazines tangled in the folds of a blanket across the red corduroy couch, the dirty dishes piled in the sink—had been what he expected. Obviously, she’d been increasingly disturbed by the restive energies of her unbound demon.

  Nice to know he hadn’t been alone.

  She slipped Mobi’s case from his shoulder. “Okay, then. Thanks for everything. I’ll call you later, yeah? Bye.”

  He gave her a look. Turning her back on him with an aggrieved sigh, as if that would do the trick, she went to the coffin-sized glass case against one wall and slid the snake inside. She bustled past him again to retrieve a bowl from the counter and then returned to the terrarium.

  He wrinkled his nose. “Dead rat?”

  “Can you think of a better use? At least this one won’t morph into a monstrosity like that one you massacred.” She whispered something nonsensical to the snake and placed the dish in a corner. She fussed with the water bowl before closing the lid, then slid a black sheet across most of the case.

  “Praise be.”

  She shot him an arch glance. “That’s not for your sake. Mobi doesn’t like an audience when he eats. When he’s done, he’ll need to be left alone for a day or so.”

  “You dance without him?”

  “Not anymore.” She pointed at the framed poster above the snake’s tank that showed the curves of a woman, breast to hip, body painted in tiger stripes. COMING SOON, it screamed in crimson type, VIVA LAS SHOWGIRLS INTRODUCES BEAUTY AND THE BEAST. “We’re rehearsing for the Showgirls semifinals. I’ll have to take a couple days off, but by the weekend, he’ll be raring to go again.”

  By then, the Naughty Nymphette—like the rat—would be only a bad memory. She’d be fully immersed in the talyan world, never to return to her own. Jonah thought that could remain unsaid for now. “In the meantime, there are a few things we need to work out. The demon, when it came to you, might have felt like a dream or a hallucination. But did it leave you something tangible—a piece of jewelry, perhaps?”

  She shrugged. “Maybe.”

  He struggled to keep his voice level. “Nim, this is important. I noticed you don’t wear any jewelry when you dance.” After Liam and Archer had explained how the women’s teshuva had come to them bearing gifts of mutated metals, Jonah had made a point of checking Nim for jewelry through the week. He had looked very carefully and seen nothing.

  No jewelry, anyway.

  “I hocked it.”

  Her breezy admission snapped him back to painful reality. “What?” He took a quick step toward her, then stopped himself when she stiffened. He raked his hand through his hair. “You sold it? But you never went to a pawnshop.”

  “While you were staking me out, you mean? I have a neighbor who unloads stuff for me.” She lifted her chin when he glared at her. “Nothing stolen. Not anymore. He gives me cold, hard cash for the cheap-ass gifts my loving customers give me. And believe me, that anklet was the cheapest-looking shit I’d ever seen.”

  He paced the tight confines of the room. It was that or shake her. She couldn’t have known, but frustration sharpened his voice. “It was a weapon. A demonic weapon.”

  “It was an ugly anklet.”

  He coughed on a desperate laugh. “The demon should have known you well enough to at least make it shiny.”

  She scowled. “All I knew, I had a weird night and I woke up with some trashy jewelry lying on my floor. Could’ve come from anywhere.” When he rolled his eyes in disbelief, she added defensively, “I have a lot of loving customers, and they tuck their gifts in a lot of places.”

  He held up his hand to forestall further explanation. “Which neighbor? And where does he pawn his goods?” Or evils, in this case.

  “You going to chop off his head too?”

  “Not before he directs me to the anklet.” When was the last time he’d had to justify himself to another? The feeling chafed like the hook against his scar tissue. “I have never chopped off a human’s head, and I don’t plan to start. Is that answer enough?”

  She crossed her arms, jaw set mulishly off-kilter.

  “Nim,” he said with strained patience. “If there’s a demonic weapon loose in the city, don’t you agree it’d be wise to find it?” With each word, his voice got louder.

  “I suppose I should’ve asked for more money.” And still she hesitated another moment. “It’s Pete, down the hall in 713. But he won’t answer the door for just anyone. I’ll go with you.”

  “Clean up first. The blood on you will unnerve him more than I will.” Jonah scuffed the hook along his thigh as he gave her a once-over. Just looking at her made his missing hand twitch. “After we retrieve the anklet, I suppose you have to meet the rest of the league. You should wear something . . .”

  She set her arms akimbo, the tight clench of her fingers dragging the already low-slung waistband another inch past her navel. “Wear something what?”

  He backpedaled mentally. “Something without ichor holes.”

  “Remember how you said you really liked my honesty?”

  “I don’t think I said that exactly.”

  She wrapped one long dread around the rest and tucked the edge under in a makeshift restraint and stood square to face him. “Honestly, I don’t want to go anywhere else with you. I don’t want to meet anyone you know. Now that I think about it—actually, I didn’t even really have to think about it—I don’t want to know you.”

  The scornful words grated along his nerves. “Biblically, it’s a little late for that. We can’t reverse this.”

  “Who said anything about reverse? If I really am faster and stronger, I figure I’m going to have a killer new routine worked out before the Viva Las Showgirls finals. I might even try fire dancing, since I’m immortal and all.”

  He stared at her. “You’d turn your damnation into a striptease?”

  “What are you doing with it that’s so much better?”

  “Destroying evil.” The hook dug into his leg. “Winning back my soul.”

  She shrugged. “That monster only attacked because you lured it in. And you only notice your soul is lost because you’re still looking.”

  “Wrong.” He all but choked on the word. Her casual denial of what had happened to her—not disbelief, just dismissal—shocked him. “Possession wasn’t a choice, and neither is what you do next. The demon chose you to fight.”

  “I’m a lover, not a fighter.” The sharp edge to her smile belied her words. “It should’ve asked me first.”

  “It did. Not in words. Still, you accepted it.”

  She waved one hand. “Entrapment. It’ll never stand up in court.”

  Frustration made his temples throb. “You’ve already been judged and found guilty. And sentenced.”

  She wrinkled her lip. “By you.”

  “I played no part in your possession.”

  “Didn’t you?” A merciless glint brightened her fathoms-deep eyes. “I saw you in my dream, you know. The one where you said the demon came to me. It was you I thought I was letting in.” A hint of violet lurked within the glint. “Into my body.”

  Startled heat flashed through him. Liam had implied that both female talyan had had premonitions of their coming possession. At the same time, their partners had been driven to restlessly roam the streets, the unbound teshuva energies resonating with the demons already possessing them. T
he league leader had never said outright that the women had seen their ordained mates. Had been tricked by the image of the male talya meant to stand beside them.

  He had been willing to lead the demon’s unwitting quarry from darkness toward the light. But he would never have chosen to be the temptation that caused her downfall. When he told her she’d had no choice, he realized once again, the same had been true for him. “I’m sorry.”

  She tilted her head. The dreads shifted across her shoulders but never obscured her far-too-perceptive eyes. “You had no hand in it—other than the hand you had in me an hour ago—yet you’re here to save me, even though you hate me. Why?”

  “I don’t hate—” He bit off the protest. It wasn’t going to convince her. He continued, each word more clipped than the last, “When my sword hand was severed, the impairment left me out of step with my demon. I need a partner to rejoin the battle.”

  Her gaze ticked over him, from his boots to his face. “Maybe you just need to learn another dance.”

  “A tenebrae tango,” he agreed. “We will fight together.”

  “You said there are others like us? Go fight with them.”

  “I have. For a very long time.” Bitterness rippled through him in ragged waves, the same way the teshuva’s thwarted energy swirled and jammed in his gnarled scars without escape. “It was for one of them, I was maimed. And now I can’t . . .”The phantom muscles in his missing hand cramped, sending spasms along his reven. “Now I am even less than I was.”

  She tucked in her chin with a dubious look. “Less? Really? So you were, like, Superman before?”

  “I could never fly.”

  “But the anklet—the demon weapon—gives you superpowers ?”

  “No. Without you, the anklet means nothing. But your demon is uniquely aligned with mine, in ways we can’t understand.”

  “Can’t understand?” she said, exasperated. “You mean, ‘don’t want.’ ”

  “Wanting isn’t a consideration.”

  She peered at him. “It’s always a consideration. You just have it sealed up tight. Which is bad, because when that one wanting hits you—and it will—it’ll be worse than if you wanted everything.”

  “How very . . . voracious of you. Meanwhile, I believe together we can drive the horde into hell.”

  “Oh, you just want me to be your new right hand.”

  Said aloud, in her mocking tone, he realized accusing her of mercenary tendencies had been unfair. Now that his perfidy was revealed, he saw no reason to conceal the worst of what he was. “You’ll be the other half of my damaged soul.”

  CHAPTER 5

  Nim let the hot shower soak away the last of her aches. Jonah had said the demon wouldn’t or couldn’t purge the pain, but parboiling disguised it well enough.

  If only the water could wash away everything she’d seen, everything he’d said.

  Other half of his soul?

  She leaned her head back under the spray until water ran up her nose and she snorted.

  “It’s not as poetic as it sounds,” he had said, with a quickness usually reserved for monks disavowing Playboy TV. “Whether possession is a cause or effect of the vulnerability in our perpetual idiopathic etheric force—our souls—we don’t know. But the result is a flaw. Not physical, but within.” He tucked the hook under his left arm, as if he was guarding himself, and rocked to his heels. “The etheric pattern of your demon—and what’s left of your soul—resonates with what remains of mine and binds us. That’s all.”

  “So we’re in a spiritual three-legged race,” she said. “Tied together in the potato sack of our souls.”

  From the tightening of his jaw, she guessed he wasn’t a fan of summer camp games. Maybe he thought she had cooties. Although wouldn’t the demon’s healing take care of that?

  She touched the swirling black mark on her thigh. Reven, he’d called it. She scrubbed her skin until it was bright red, just in case he was quicker with a Sharpie than he’d let on. But she didn’t truly expect to erase it.

  Great. The one gift she couldn’t pawn. She’d lost or abandoned or broken so much over the years. She couldn’t believe anything—even a demon—would want to bind itself to her.

  And Jonah wanted her too.

  Or maybe “want” was the wrong word. He needed her.

  The golden boy. Captain of the S.S. Stuck-Up. Even missing his right hand, his self-possession fit him as snug as fishnet stockings. Self-possession—ha. Not that he’d appreciate the fishnet comparison either; too transvestite-y, not to mention full of holes.

  How it must grate on him to need someone like her.

  She got out of the shower and padded into the bedroom. Buck naked.

  But he was gone. The twinge of disappointment hurt more than her ankle. Well, she’d just wanted to shock him again. And he wanted her to wear something nice to meet his friends. Fuck him.

  The other half of his soul? That was what he needed from her? It seemed so crazy. But after all that had happened, how could she keep denying? Saying no had never done her any good. But there had to be something in this for her.

  And she didn’t need another reluctant half soul. Thanks, anyway.

  She rummaged through her closet for an outfit worse than the shorts and found a denim micromini and fitted white baby-doll tee. No bra. For the sake of city ordinances, she slipped on a black lace thong. From the bottom of the closet, she dragged out a pair of black high-top Vans and laced them. Tight. Like, get-the-fuck-out-of-town-in-a-hurry tight.

  She was a slut, but not a stupid slut.

  She checked that Mobi had eaten his dinner, then went to the window to stare down at the dark street. Maybe she should run now. Whatever tie bound her to Jonah might not break, but she’d see how far it could stretch.

  Or did she just want to see if he would chase her?

  A tremor went through her, and she could have kicked herself with her own speedy sneakers. Whatever had driven that wildness in the Shimmy Shack’s private room had been a one-shot deal, he’d said, a way for her and her demon to get to know each other better. Jonah had kept himself as separate as he could through the whole ordeal, even with his body raging to get in on the action. He was one of those disapproving types who wouldn’t be swayed by a bit of swaying flesh.

  What? And she wanted him to be?

  She was a stupid slut. With a sharp twist, she tied her damp dreads up with a heavy, fleeing-monsters-proof band, and stomped across her apartment.

  Jonah was in the hall when she opened the door.

  Damn, she’d hoped her imagination had overfigmented how fine he was. No such luck. And she didn’t even do golden boys.

  How old had he been when the demon froze him? She guessed not as old as his eyes and his lips, set on stern, implied. Wasn’t gold supposedly a soft metal?

  Maybe not if it was molded over stone.

  His gaze raked her once, and his expression tightened from primal king mask of gold to pure lemon sucking. “Going somewhere?”

  At least he wasn’t going to rant on the clothes. She supposed a fighter who wanted to stay alive—and keep the rest of his limbs—knew to choose his battles more carefully. “You went to Pete’s without me?”

  “Thought I’d get it out of the way.”

  “Does he still have his head?”

  “But not the anklet. He gave me the pawnshop address. Let’s go.”

  When he took her elbow, she was grateful for her noskid soles. And the sudden burst of power that let her yank from his grasp. Good demon. She just wished it could kill the shiver of sensual delight at his touch. Apparently, demons didn’t offer protection from pain or pleasure. “Don’t manhandle me.”

  His jaw worked. “You didn’t mind before.”

  “I was possessed.”

  “You still are.”

  “Not by you.” She crossed her arms over her chest. No sense letting him see the perky nipples belying her manhandling complaints. “I’m not the one to be anybody’s right hand
or half a soul.”

  His expression was utterly blank. “What I’ve lost is collateral damage. Our eternal mission is to do what we can against the demon realm, the tenebraeternum.”

  She started down the hallway, leaving him to follow or not. Though she didn’t question he would. A girl couldn’t get so lucky. “I’m sure you think you mean well. Aside from almost getting me eaten by a monster, of course. But, really, from what I’ve seen, I think the world is perfectly fine falling into darkness, with or without you. So call me crazy—and considering that I’m still talking to you, I very well might be—but I don’t see any point in joining your little crusade.”

  He was a silent shadow on her heels down the stairs and onto the street. “You’d let evil win?”

  She stopped abruptly under a streetlight to face him. “You already think I’m evil, don’t you?”

  He took a few steps past her but didn’t turn. “I told you, the teshuva are repentant.”

  “I’m not talking about the demon. I mean me. I saw the way you looked at me while I was dancing. It wasn’t lust. It wasn’t even a gay guy’s no-pussy-for-me-thanks attitude. You hated it. Hated me.”

  “No. Not hate.”

  She took a step toward him. “Look at me when you deny it.”

  He turned slowly. He must have washed up at her sink before he left the apartment, because the black gore was gone and the hook glimmered under the streetlight with clear warning.

  Too bad she’d never heeded warnings.

  “We don’t have time for this,” he growled.

  “We’re immortal,” she reminded him.

  “But most of the people in this city aren’t.”

  She stared at him. “Who are you fighting for, Jonah? The city? You?” She held her hands out and waggled her fingers like she was casting a spell. “The woo-woo powers of good?”

  “What do you care?” Purple lights flared across his irises.

  “I don’t.” She was pissing him off. Good. Maybe he’d answer something straight for once. “But if you can’t tell me why you and that bane demon of yours are fighting, I’m wondering why you care either.”

  “Because it was the last promise I made to my wife.”