His jaw tightened. “Maybe you’re right.”
“Damn right, I am.” My surge of anger over his fatalistic attitude had helped chase my own away. “No maybes about it. We’re going to fix me and we’re going to fix you. Somehow, someway.”
“FYI, I’m not kissing you, too,” Kraven said to him. “So you can just forget it.”
I shot the demon a look. He wasn’t fooling me with this nonchalant, joking facade of his. Whenever he dealt with Bishop, there was an edge to him—to both of them. Something dark lurking under the surface. Barely restrained animosity.
I continued to wipe at my mouth to remove the taste of Kraven’s lips, disturbed that the kiss had lasted way longer than it had to due to the unexpected mind meld. I looked around. “Something about this area triggered me. Like, out of nowhere. I’ve never felt anything that horribly immediate before.”
Bishop also scanned the street as if searching for clues. “And now? How are you feeling?”
“Better. Just—” I turned my gaze to his “—don’t come any closer to me right now.”
Something slid through his eyes then, something vulnerable, before it disappeared and his expression hardened again.
Then something else caught my attention.
A woman slowly shuffled down the street toward the abandoned house at the end of the block. She was making a mournful, whimpering sound. My blood ran cold. It sounded like she was in desperate pain.
And she sounded exactly like I had only a short time ago.
“She’s a gray,” I said, my voice catching.
At the house, she grasped hold of the bars of the gates and shook them, as if attempting to break them down to get to the house.
Bishop and Kraven shared a look.
“I can’t go back there,” I whispered. “Whatever’s happening to her...it happened to me, too.”
The gray was openly weeping as she clawed at the gates, her shoulders racking violently with her sobs.
“I’ll take care of her,” Bishop said.
My gaze shot to him. I knew exactly what he meant. And it wasn’t to send her to a psychiatrist to work out her problems. A chill went through me. “But she’s so helpless right now. You’re just going to kill her?”
His face was tense. “I’ll talk to her first. But if she’s lost herself...if she’s gone into stasis...we know what that means. She can’t think straight.”
I couldn’t help it; I reached out to grab his arm. “Neither can I sometimes.”
He looked down to where I touched him, his expression tormented. “You’re different.”
“You sure about that?” Kraven asked without any humor.
“Yes,” he hissed. “So let me deal with this.”
The demon waved a hand. “Be my guest.”
I watched tensely as Bishop turned to walk toward the woman. He didn’t reach for his dagger—not yet—but I knew he wouldn’t hesitate if he had no other choice.
I wanted to have an argument for why he couldn’t do this—that the woman was pathetic and helpless and needed assistance. But I knew there was no help for her. What I saw wasn’t a woman who could be reasoned with, but a monster out of its mind with hunger. One who could hurt others—one who could infect others.
She was part of a dangerous disease that needed to be cured.
And there was a beautiful angel of death moving steadily closer to help end her illness.
But before Bishop got within twenty feet of her she cried out, clutched her head and collapsed to the ground. A scream caught in my throat as I watched her begin to literally melt right before my eyes. It was like something out of The Wizard of Oz when the water hit the wicked witch of the west. Smaller and smaller, she sank into the ground...until there was nothing left but a pile of clothes.
It took less than a minute.
I was trembling violently as I faced Kraven. His expression was grim, but not surprised like my own.
“That’s happened before.” My voice quaked. “Hasn’t it?”
He nodded. “Ever since the Source was killed, this is what’s been happening to some of the grays we come across. The Hollow doesn’t open up for these ones—they’re just gone. Makes our jobs a hell of a lot easier, but...” He glanced at me, his lips thinning.
He didn’t have to finish the sentence. As a gray, it could happen to me, too.
“Bishop briefed us on stasis,” he continued. “This chick obviously wasn’t strong enough to handle it.”
You change or you die, Stephen warned me.
This was door number two.
That poor woman. Once she was a girl like me who’d been kissed by someone who made her heart beat faster.
Now her heart didn’t beat at all.
“This proves it. We need to find Stephen tonight,” Bishop said when he returned to us, his expression hard and determined. “There’s no more time to waste.”
Kraven scoffed. “Drop everything and try to find gray-girl’s soul so she’s not the next one to melt into a puddle of sludge?”
Bishop fixed him with a contemptuous look. “There’s a new club I want to check out. Grays have started to hang out there ever since they realized we were keeping a close eye on Crave. I sent Cassandra and Roth there earlier to take a look.”
“So let them handle it,” Kraven said.
“No. We’re going, too.”
This was the first I’d heard about an alternate club for grays. But it made sense. Stephen needed somewhere to spend time—and he had been at Crave almost every single night since he’d returned to the city from university. “How did you find out about this?”
“From another gray.”
“Why would he tell you anything?”
Bishop held my gaze steadily. “Let’s just say I can be very convincing when I want something.”
Kraven snorted. “Better leave it at that. Wouldn’t want to disturb gray-girl’s delicate sensibilities.”
I stared at Bishop. “Wait. Are you saying you tortured the gray?”
“Some people need convincing before they decide to be helpful. This one was particularly unwilling to chat.” He shrugged. “He talked, that’s the main thing. I got the information I needed.”
A shiver ran down my spine. “I’ll take that as a yes.”
Just when I thought I’d figured out what to expect from the angel, he threw me another curveball. And the worst thing was, I didn’t hold this against him. He was right—some people needed convincing. But it still put a sick feeling into the pit of my stomach that he’d go to such extremes to help save me.
I looked into his blue eyes, wishing I could read his mind like the others.
But maybe I could. Maybe he was just really good at shielding—and the mind melds and memory melds were something completely different he couldn’t control.
“I know you’re doing this for me,” I whispered. “Thank you.”
His dark brows drew together and that edge of something vulnerable returned. Then that very human expression disappeared like magic and he tore his gaze from mine.
“We need to go check out the club right now,” he said.
“Fine,” I agreed, my tentative tone turning fierce. “And don’t even think about trying to stop me from coming with you.”
A small amount of humor returned to his beautiful blue eyes. “Of course you’re coming. Stephen sees us, he’ll make like Houdini and disappear. You’re the bait to keep him right where he is.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Bait, huh?”
“Bait who likes to get herself in serious trouble whenever possible.”
“That would be me.” I nodded slowly. “Just do me a favor...both of you...”
The demon and angel both looked at me.
“Don’t kill him—even if we do get my and Carly’s soul back.” Putting it into words felt like I was jinxing it, but I had to say this. “He’s just as freaked out by stasis as I am. Call me crazy, but if there’s a way, I want to help him, not hurt him. Okay?”
Bishop blinked. “You want to help him.”
I nodded.
“You know—” a full grin appeared on his entirely too kissable lips “—maybe I’m not the only crazy one here, after all.”
Chapter 15
“Hooray,” Kraven said drily. “Another all-ages kiddie club. How exciting.”
He was wrong about many things. This was one of them. The club Bishop had taken us to didn’t cater to the underage crowd like Crave. Ambrosia was decidedly adult and crowded.
I’d heard of it before. Very popular, and wall-to-wall busy seven days a week. Carly once suggested we get fake IDs so we could sneak in and check it out. Since that was just after my near-arrest for shoplifting, and I’d been extremely paranoid about coloring outside the proverbial lines again, I’d refused to let her talk me into it.
Carly’d always liked chasing adventure way more than I had. I’d always, with very few exceptions, played it safe.
But nothing was safe anymore.
It was ten o’clock when we finally got there. I feared I’d get carded at the door—one of the few tests I’d inevitably fail. I knew Bishop wasn’t able to do the angelic influence thing that the others could. And demons didn’t have that particular skill.
But he’d figured out another way of influencing humans—one that worked nearly as well. He produced a roll of bills and paid off the bouncer. That was all it took to get a hand stamp and entrance. Money talks.
I’d heard a lot about the club, read articles about it on the internet, but it was even more impressive in person. A billionaire had bankrolled it for his Victoria’s Secret model girlfriend—who was named Ambrosia—and it had that sexy, high fashion meets big bucks look. And to add to the cool factor, the most hopping part of the club was three stories belowground. I checked my coat upstairs and we descended a glass, spiral staircase studded with crystals, sparkling under the pot lights.
Downstairs, the place was packed—despite it being a Monday night. The bar was in the middle, and the huge shiny black-and-silver dance floor to the far left. It put Crave to shame. Everywhere else, in the main area and in the many more private alcoves, were plush designer sofas and chairs, as well as tables where well-dressed patrons could mingle, drink champagne and sip cocktails.
But, just like at Crave, the music pounded. It was the one thing they had in common.
“This is where you think Stephen is?” I asked Bishop. Stephen was only nineteen, not that that seemed to matter all that much, as evidenced by how easy the bouncers were to pay off.
“It’s a guess,” Bishop said.
There were also at least two hundred other souls here in this club. I couldn’t ignore that fact no matter how hard I tried, especially after how out of control I’d been only a short time ago on the street. I fought hard to keep my focus and not let my hunger take over—my constant, invisible, inner battle.
Bishop glanced around our immediate area. “Where did Kraven go?”
I looked over my shoulder and spotted him almost immediately. The golden-haired demon was impossible to miss, even in a crowd. “By the bar. He’s getting a drink.”
“Typical. He’s always preferred getting drunk to working.”
I looked at him, surprised. “Demons can get drunk?”
He raised an eyebrow. “He used to be human.”
“So did you,” I reminded him, and was rewarded with an immediate tensing of his expression. It was almost amusing, really. He was like Pavlov’s dog. Ring a bell, the dog salivates. Mention his past, Bishop gets grouchy.
“Right,” he finally allowed. “Well, some things don’t change. Alcohol and other drugs still affect us. If we’re not careful.”
“Maybe he wants to drown the memory of...what he had to do to me earlier.”
There was no humor in his eyes anymore. Instead, there was a flash of something much darker. “That kiss?”
My cheeks burned. “Yeah, well. He doesn’t like me.”
“He likes you more than he likes me. He hates my guts.”
“You think he still holds it against you that you killed him and sent him to Hell? Shocker.” I honestly didn’t mean it to sound as smart-ass as it came out. But there it was.
“Let’s keep looking for Stephen,” Bishop said tightly.
I deflated. My confidence came and went, really. Right now, it went. “Sorry, but you’re the one who gave me that enticing piece of information and now you want to pretend you never said anything.”
He studied me for a moment, expressionless, then a grin finally tugged the side of his mouth. “You are bound and determined to learn my deepest, darkest secrets, aren’t you?”
“Determined is a good word. Obsessed might be another one.”
His smile only grew, the expression working like an arrow shooting straight into my heart. “Obsession can be a dangerous thing, Samantha.”
My gaze moved to his lips. “Don’t I know it.”
He wrenched his attention from me to scan the club, and then turned around to face me full-on. “Am I too close? I’d rather not make this difficult for you.”
I swallowed hard, ignoring the constant hunger being near him brought forth. “It’s always difficult when I’m close to you.”
His jaw tensed, and he turned away. “Then I should give you some space.”
“I didn’t mean it like that. It’s better now than it was before.” I grabbed his arm, and electricity sparked between us. He tensed and turned back to face me.
Then he immediately directed me away from the crowd and off into a quieter alcove, past a translucent crystal-beaded curtain. The loud music still blared from the live band and I couldn’t even make out what the lead singer was singing, but it was slightly muted here, giving the illusion of privacy.
“Bishop, last night when I saw your memory...” I began. I had to get this out. It weighed on me like a two-ton elephant sitting on my chest.
“Let’s forget about that.” His attention moved to something over my shoulder, but I think he was simply trying to avoid eye contact.
“But that’s just it—I don’t want to forget it. I know you think I might have seen something that you didn’t want me to see. That somehow it’s going to make me dislike you or fear you. But you’re wrong.”
He gave me a wry look. “Then I guess you didn’t see nearly as much as I thought you did.”
“Why can I do that?” I whispered, my voice hoarse. “I know I can do the mind-meld thing, but it’s not like I can control it.”
“You’re a nexus.” He moved closer so he could also speak quietly in case we were overheard. The song had ended and the band slowly eased into the next one. The buzz of conversation beyond the curtain swirled around me. “You have a strange power over the ethereal and the infernal. That includes me. Add that to the fact that you took a piece of my soul...well, that gives you certain powerful abilities.”
As much as I’d l
ove to be someone who just readily accepts every mind-blowing thing that has happened to me over the past couple of weeks, I wasn’t that girl. The less I thought about my birth parents and what that meant—and I honestly didn’t know exactly what that meant—the less freaked out I got.
“I don’t feel so powerful,” I said, swallowing hard. “I don’t know why anybody would even be concerned with someone like me. There’s no way I could throw anything off balance.”
“I think you underestimate yourself.”
Bishop was still too close to me, and his warm, spicy scent made it nearly impossible for me to concentrate. “Have you ever known of another nexus?”
“They’re rare, but yes. Once, years ago, I met one.”
“What happened?” I asked, breathless.
He met my gaze. “I killed him.”
I gasped. “Oh, my God.”
His brows drew together and he watched me, as if wary of my reaction to this jarring statement. “You always say that you’re the one who doesn’t hold anything back and I’m the secretive one. But I don’t want this to be a secret. I need you to know this, now that you’re aware of what my job was.”
I worked it over in my mind, trying to reject it, but I knew I couldn’t. “So it was an assignment for Heaven—this nexus was bad. A real threat.”
He nodded, his jaw tight. “This is exactly why I know you’re different.”
“Why?”
He surprised me by giving me a small grin. “That you even have to ask me that proves it all the more. You know that a nexus—while very rare—can’t access their powers while their human soul covers up what they really are.”
“Yeah. Natalie told me that. That’s why she had Stephen remove mine.”
Something unpleasant crossed his expression at the mention of my aunt and Stephen. “The nexus I dealt with removed his soul through dark magic. Blood magic.”
I gulped. “I’m guessing that doesn’t involve magic wands and fairy dust.”