By the time Ke'lev and I made it back to the cottage, I had text messages waiting for me from Chancery, my father, my stepmother, Lavelle, Bardo, and goddamn Doctor Weatherby, but I was out of fucking spoons to deal with any of it. If anything was that time sensitive, they'd know to call me.
There were packages on the stoop. After an initial count, either two hadn't arrived yet or a porch pirate had intercepted some before we'd returned. Oh well. ‘Twas the ‘hood. I was lucky to have a partial delivery.
After bringing the haul in, I made Ke'lev unpack everything as I had a smoke. Then, with his curious gaze marking my every move, I started arranging things on the kitchen table for ease of selection.
“For the nest,” I said and watched his expression morph into pleasant surprise. The look made everything worth it, especially as he took each item, one at a time, back to the bedroom, like he was performing a ritual. Maybe he was.
The weighted blanket, extra pillows, and Rubix cube went first. Then he packed in the heated blanket and the first aid kit.
He left the books, puzzles, and humidifier on the table and went for the tablet. He asked, “Sleep?”
“I'm sober,” I said.
“Sleep,” Ke'lev said again before grabbing my hand and pulling me toward the bedroom.
“Ke, what're you doing?”
He peeled down to his boxers before motioning that I should do the same, but I drew up short with a laugh. “I'm not stripping. Is the nest good?” After he nodded, he motioned for me to get in the damn fort with him. I shook my head. “Absolutely not.”
He slapped the bed insistently.
Fucksake. Well, I wasn't sleeping with him in the buff. I had to draw the line somewhere. I put out my cigarette and got into some pajamas after setting the thermostat to arctic temperatures.
By the time I was ensconced in the nest, Ke'lev's annoyed expression had softened. He made a gratified grunt and pulled me close. It was still fucking hot in the shelter, but trying to roll around and get comfortable just made Ke'lev squeeze me into his chest. “Bro, I'm fucking dying, gimme some space!”
He bared his gnashed teeth at me threateningly, fully exposing both top and bottom sets of fangs.
“It's hot,” I said, trying not to blink.
He gripped the edge of my t-shirt and after a couple protests managed to pull it over my head. Admittedly, skin was better, but not by much. He gave my sweatpants a scathing look, but when I glared back at him, he sighed. Oh, so it was my fault I was a thousand degrees? Yeah, no. The pants were staying on. He'd have to fight me.
Thankfully, the central air did its job, and after half an hour, the temperature was a little more livable.
I was about to nod off when my phone started ringing.
The Imperial March again.
I made a wounded noise and Ke'lev put his fingers on my lips to check me. I said, “I've gotta get that.”
He pushed me back down and braced his hand on my chest, looking over his shoulder for a second.
Another ring.
“Ke'lev, it's my father. If I don't answer, he'll call Remus. If he calls Remus, I'll be put under house arrest—Let me up!” He didn't press down on me, just didn't move. It was like being trapped under a car.
The phone stopped ringing.
I made a guttural, frustrated sound. Then, in a flurry of blankets and pillows, Ke'lev was up and gone, his footsteps eerily quiet for someone with such a big frame.
But then I heard The Board creak and knew he wasn't going after my phone. The Board was my poor man's proximity sensor. It preceded the backdoor. He'd been holding me down because he'd sensed a threat. My annoyance evaporated.
I slowly got up and joined him in the kitchen. He had crooked down a single blind to look outside. The streetlamps didn't work and most people in the area didn't keep their porch lights on unless they were signaling other gang members. But Ke'lev's vision got better and better the closer to pitch it got.
“What is it?” I whispered.
He gestured like he was pulling on a hat or a hood.
Recognition flashed through me.
“Same watcher from the bar?”
He nodded as he glanced at me, his eyes flickering with halos of mirrored half-light.
“Do we need to move?”
He didn't react at first, which would have told me not to be concerned, but then something like worry wrinkled his face, there and gone. He swallowed. He nodded jerkily. I opened my mouth to question his hesitation, but then he braced himself against the doorframe and slowly worked himself to the floor, his other arm wrapped around his middle.
The smell of blood was as good an answer as any.
I went to the kitchen window to get a different angle on our observer.
I couldn't see dick.
But when I used my sight, I had to brace myself against the counter to keep from instinctively fleeing.
The skeleton is the wick.
The light is the fuel.
The flames are always hungry.
A jinn like I'd never seen before stood across the street, unmoving save for the soft, bunsen-like undulations of blue flame that covered its exposed face, further obscuring its features.
I slowly backed away from the window and went about gathering my things. Shoes, shirt, go-bag, check. Eventually, I made it back over to Ke'lev and helped him to his feet. He leaned against me, and I gnawed on my bottom lip to keep myself from gnawing on him.
My phone ringing again might have jump started my heart if my blood pump wasn't already trying to escape out of my mouth.
My hands were shaking when I answered it, but my voice was surprisingly calm. “Chancery, I'm sending a pin. Jinn. Ke'lev's down.”
Chancery processed that and said, “I'm on my way,” before hanging up.
I had to set Ke'lev on the couch to send the pin. While I did, the seraph raked fingers down his shoulders, pulling at slivers of flesh that came loose with a sickening, slick sound. Touched by the dim backlight of my phone screen, I could see him giving me a helpless look.
“Fuck,” I hissed, trying to keep my voice level when all I wanted to do was scream. “Stop that. Just wait. Chancery's coming. We have a protocol for this. When we're back at the tower, we can deal with the feathers. But I need you to focus on staying upright. Can you do that?”
Ke'lev blinked at me. A trickle of blood poured from his hairline, into his eyes. He smeared the red wellspring across his face into a domino mask with the backs of his hands, his expression locked between astonished and afraid as he met my gaze. He held his hands out to me.
Lick them.
I pushed away from him.
Idle hands. Idle hands. Idle hands.
I got up and made myself busy while we waited for Chancery. I couldn't look out the window again. If I saw the jinn, even just confirmed it hadn't moved or—oh fuck—had multiplied, I'd probably properly panic, and there was no room in my life at that moment for panic. Anxiety, sure. Paranoia, awright. Depression, bet. Hunger, yes-so-much.
But panic?
Uh-uh. Panic is not produce.
Ke'lev was falling apart inside, there was damned jinn outside, and I was stuck between both, starving.
I threw a towel and a pair of pants in the seraph's general direction and hoped he took the hint. Then I grabbed up my bag and double checked my gun. I grabbed the parts of the nest that weren't bed clothes and stuffed those in the bag too.
Then I grabbed Ke'lev's tablet and threw it on the couch.
I hovered by the front door for an unknown amount of time, staring at the knob like an interrogator waiting for the prisoner to break first.
The tablet cut through the quiet with a chipper question, “Ko angry?”
“Ko hungry,” I said gruffly.
“Scout can't make it stop.”
“I know. It's not your fault.”
“It is Scout's fault. Scout exists.”
I couldn't look at him. Whatever nuance was getting lost in translation was just going to have to stay lost until my second walked through the door.
I said, “You existing doesn't make this situation your fault. Thinking like that takes away my own agency. I'm responsible too. Are you gonna take my part of the blame from me?”
A minute passed. “Scout will not.”
“Okay.” I swallowed. “Good talk.”
“Ko.”
“Nan'des'ka?” I asked through my teeth.
The tablet said atonally, “The metal is removed. The flesh regenerates.”
“Ah, I know. Lavelle explained.”
“Ko.”
Oh.
“The flesh regenerates.”
Oh no.
“No,” I said. “No… Just no.”
“Would solve—”
“I said no, goddammit!”
“—hunger.”
“I'm not doing that. Ever!”
“Scout is food.”
“YOU'RE NOT FOOD!”
Another minute. “Scout is sorry.”
I took a deep, settling breath. Who is making that weepy noise? Is that me? Where the fuck is my second?
I pressed a wadded shirt into my nose to dampen some of the smell, but then pulled it away in surprise. My nose was bleeding. That wasn't good. It only did that when angels were trying to assure me that I didn't need to fear them, when Spring allergies hit, or when I blue balled the Ouwarawa within me.
Well, it's not Spring, I thought.
A bang sounded against the front door, thumping and dragging on the cheap composite wood. The doorknob rattled and creaked. Another thump resounded, making me flinch and take a step back.
Then there was nothing.
A handful of beats past in which I thought I'd hear Chancery call out or reassure me.
The next thump was accompanied by a cracking noise. A spike of adrenaline shot like lightning down to my feet and I ripped an end table around to brace against the knob. Thud! Another couple steps and a grunt of effort had one of the armchairs positioned too. Thud! I wracked the shotgun and put my back against the wall right next to the door, prepared to feed buckshot to whatever came through.
The brass knob started to glow red. The smells of burning plastic and wood made all the little hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. I could taste iron. A tongue flick told me my nose was practically gushing.
Ke'lev, still on the couch, made to get up to join me, but collapsed in front of the furniture, his body a quivering mass of darkness in the blood-colored dimness. I could see his silhouette boiling.
“For the love of all, do not change shape inside,” I warned him in a reedy whisper. If he transformed in such compact quarters, I'd get shredded by his wings.
If I were an oni, I wouldn't get eviscerated.
No. No. I'm not doing that.
The knob was turning orange. It made unsettling crackling sounds. Then, suddenly, I heard the roar and screech of a sports car skittering to a stop in front of the house. Someone shouted something from the street.
Another blood-chilling thump sounded against the door, but this time it was punctuated by another thud and a dangerous bowing of wood as something else slammed into it.
A crack raced up through the frame next to me and I hugged the gun to my chest. There was a struggle on the other side of the door. Multiple bangs peppered the door and the wall right behind me. I didn't step away even though everything screamed in me to do so. The fear had finally gotten a hold of me, painfully squeezing my throat closed, making it difficult to breathe.
Something raked across the face off the door, and I heard someone bite down on a choked curse. The knob shook.
Chancery.
Chancery is on the other side.
With the jinn.
Move.
Come on, move, damn it!
“To—” I growled. “—ke…”
Move or he dies!
I grit my teeth.
Chancery shouted something, now from a distance.
The knob began to glow hot again.
Breaths coming in short bursts, I pivoted, turned, pressed the barrel of the shotgun against the door—just above the knob—set my feet, and pulled both triggers.
BOOM!
A ringing drowned out the world, but from the fist-sized window I'd created, I could see blood running down the inside of the door, sizzling on the doorknob. Blood? Jinn don't bleed. Oh God. Did I get Remus?
Yellow and white light poured into the living room. I discarded the gun and ripped furniture out of the way. I could feel the oni under my skin rolling and twisting. The furnace inside me begged to be fed.
I ripped the door open just in time to see Chancery lording over a human-sized flame collapsed into sitting on the porch steps. His soot-smeared face was a pale mask of fury. His right arm ended in what looked like a mass of black claws. With them, he bore down on the writhing jinn, goring through the thing's chest and spilling lava and blood onto the steps which ignited briefly before dying out. He slashed again and the jinn went limp, its maw agape like a bin lid.
Instead of exploding like I'd seen them do before after expiring, the thing's humanoid shape simply collapsed in on itself and all that remained was an ember-pregnant, crackling husk. Even the fire that had spilled from it eventually went out. Darkness invaded.
Chancery's voice was muffled, as if underwater. The black claws jutting out of his arm dissipated into black smoke. Then he wrapped himself around me and I made out the words, “Thank God,” and nothing else.
The ringing turned to white noise as he brushed by me into the house and scooped up the strap of my bag. He shoved Ke'lev's shoulder and hooked an arm under his. All the while, he spoke, tones soothing but harried.
Soon I was back on the edge of the porch, eyes fixed wide and aching, staring at the skeleton lounging on the bowed steps, its slack jaw skewed, its position frozen in agony, its chest cavity opened like the teeth of a trap.
I'd seen their bones before.
But they'd been incorporeal, insubstantial, ghostly.
This was real.
What?
The bones were physical.
Human.
And Chancery had killed it.
How? How? How?
Sound billowed inward, like a cleansing flood. The ringing faded. “Dev… Hey!” A tap on my shoulder reminded me where I was. “Kouji.” Chancery locked eyes with me. “There were another two around back. I got the other red, but the blue one ran. Get in the car. They'll be back. The blue ones always come back with more.”
“R-Remus?” I sounded small.
He winced before pushing Ke'lev toward the car. The angel stumbled but kept on his feet as he weaved down the sidewalk, leaving behind nickel-sized splashes of blood.
Chancery grabbed my elbow and pulled me toward the street. “I'll explain later, just get in the damn car. And stop… Stop looking at me like that.”
How could I?
“Explain… Explain now.”
“I will. I promise. Get in the car.”
Everything I knew about jinn was off, by miles. Agents of my curse, I'd researched everything the natural world had written about them. I thought I'd known everything about their kind—that they couldn't be stopped without sacrifice and pain.
But there were different kinds? Reds? Blues? And Chancery knew their tactics, their functions?
I'd lost both my families to jinn.
But my mundane second, who hadn't wanted anything to do with the supernatural or its mechanics a month ago, had killed one in front of me with clearly non-mundane claws. Had he gotten that power and knowledge from Lavelle? In two weeks? Something wasn't right.
I wasn't the jinn expert I thought I was, and I was starting to think I didn't really know Remus either. Either he lied to me about his progress into curse-breaking, or he'd been lying to me for years. My gut told me I didn't want the truth.
The interior of the Supra was as silent as the grave as we sped toward the inner city. Chancery's knuckles were bloodied, clenched around the steering wheel like he'd pull it off the column if given the strength. There was a flutter in his jaw as he chewed on excuses.
From the back seat, the tablet said with a smooth, cheerful cadence, “Scout is happy to see Little Wolf.”
Chancery blinked at the rearview mirror. He muttered, “Little Wolf?” before huffing a laugh. “Good to see you too, Ke'lev.”
“Little Wolf destroyed servants of the adversary. Scout grateful.”
“You're welcome,” my second said, then asked, “When’s the, uh, tide come back in?”
Ke'lev took a while to answer. “Two days.”
Chancery visibly relaxed. “Good. We'll get some stuff for that tomorrow, okay? Unless Boss already has you squared away?”
“Just the nest. Nothing else.”
“He needs more?” I demanded.
Chancery glanced at me. “I figured as much.”
“Figured as much what?” I snapped, slapping the dash. “Why does it feel like I'm the last to know anything? Do you get off on keeping me in the dark? Huh?!”
Chancery looked at the rearview mirror, but Ke'lev didn't come to his rescue. He swallowed, fixing his gaze back on the road. “I gather you didn't ask him anything else about this business because you don't like to pry into anything that isn't right in front of your face. You have a habit of leaving yourself in the dark.”
“Lavelle's opaque enough! I don't need to take that shit from you! Start fucking talking or I swear to God, I'll—”
Chancery burst out laughing, flashing teeth and all.
“Stop it. I'm serious.”
He grinned and turned onto the highway as he asked, “Hey, do you remember when we hired Oscar?”
She'd been one of the three enforcers to die on the night of Adelaide Walker's cardhouse betrayal. One of the better ones, I thought bitterly. Quiet, but efficient. “She's dead. It doesn't matter.”
“Humor me.”
I had a feeling I knew what he was about to remind me. Old embarrassment sat like lead in my stomach as I crossed my arms and looked out the window. “The fuck does she have to do with this?”
“Remember how you didn't know she was a chick until we were in Denver? We got too few rooms, and you made a big stink about how it didn't make sense for her to have her own space. And then Logan explained that none of us felt comfortable rooming with a lady. I remember your face. No one else caught it, but later I asked you why you hadn't realized. I knew you hadn't read her whole file because you never do if I read it too. You still have that bad habit.” His exasperation was tempered by bald amusement. “Remember what you told me?”
I groaned, “That was ten years ago.”
“So, you remember?”
Flustered, I'd said, “Listen, I dunno who you think I am, but I don't make it a habit of checking what's in the pants of all my enforcers! How the hell was I supposed to know?”
I said through my teeth, “Point?”
The smug shit chuckled. He said, “Ke'lev's seraphim. They made Nephilim back in the day, right? How d'ya think they did that, Boss?”
“What's that have to do with the—?” It clicked. Tide, like, guided by the moon. The salt brine of creation. The blood that comes and goes. And Chancery had pointedly brought up Oscar. I put a hand to my face. “Don't tell me.”
My second hummed in approval. “When it comes to people's looks, you're oblivious.”
From the backseat, Ke'lev asked, “Little Wolf knows what helps?”
“Yep. We'll swing by a convenience store. It doesn't bother me any,” Chancery said, adding under his breath, “Unlike someone we know.”
“Hey! I've shopped for plenty of girls, and you know it! I've just… never shopped for a girl that looked like… Shit, Ke'lev, have I been…? Are you a she or a he or a…?”
Chancery's shoulders were shaking with mirth as Ke'lev said helpfully, “Scout is Scout.”
“Yeah, but what's your gender?”
“Gender.”
When it felt like my brain was going to get cooked by both confusion and humiliation, Chancery gasped and said, “Sorry! I—heh heh! Dev… Dev, he's both.”
“Yeah, but what're his pronouns?”
“I don't think angels care about that kinda thing. I didn’t think you cared about that kind of thing.”
Ke'lev repeated, “Scout is scout.”
I rubbed the bridge of my nose as Chancery raised his eyebrows at me.
After taking a moment to process that little revelation, I hissed, “Care to explain the shadow claws then? Don't tell me you've always been able to do that. I'm not that oblivious.”
Chancery's cheer vanished. He said quietly, “No… They're new. It's… It'll be easier to explain at the tower.”
“We're going to the tower?”
“Ke'lev needs somewhere he can fly, and I need somewhere I can protect you until the blue jinn is dealt with. The only other place is too far out of the way for tonight.”
Dealt with, he said, with all the confidence of someone who'd dealt with them before. What the fuck? What the actual fuck? I sat with that for a minute or two. Then I asked, “Daijoubu ka?”
“Hm?”
“Are you okay?”
“Me? I wasn't the one that just—”
I waved a hand to forestall him. “Like… Using that doesn't hurt you or anything does it?”
Chancery's frown relaxed. When he spoke, his tone was flat and emotionless. “No. It doesn't hurt.”
He's lying. “Are you okay now?”
He rolled his thumbs against the steering wheel. I noticed the veins on the back of his right hand stood out against their bones, swollen and dark. “Yeah,” he stated. Then he deflected with perfect pitch: “You fucking scared me though.”
“I scared you?”
He whinged, “You unloaded a shotgun into a jinn through the door, Dev! How'd you know I had distance?”
I shrugged. “I didn't.”
He could tell I was fibbing but still let me tease him. “Crazy prick. What if you'd shot me?”
“If the jinn were still alive, I would've gotten your keys and made a run for it. Front-left pocket.”
“Cold, Boss,” he said with a smirk.
After we made it to the east side, Chancery handed me a disposable eCig out of the center console. “Sorry. No tar in my car,” he said without a hint of remorse. But then his face softened, and he said, “You need something to take the edge off.”
I didn't say anything, just ripped on the plastic and held the vapor in my lungs for longer than necessary.
The smell and the itch managed to distract me from the temptation sitting in the back seat.
Chancery knew about the hunger. Either Lavelle had told him, or he'd figured it out for himself after all.
After finding his reserved spot in the tower's underground parking, Chancery pulled the e-break and said to me, “I need you to go up first. Shower. Get the blood off you. I'll bring Ke'lev to the roof. After he's done a loop, we'll see you in the penthouse.”
“I look that bad, huh?”
Chancery gestured at his face. “You're tusky.”
Tusky?! Oh, great. Add that to the growing list of things to get anxious about!
I put a shaking hand to my mouth and Chancery barked a laugh. “Eek! I'm kidding! You're just gray. Sick-looking, not demon-y.” He rubbed the back of his neck before absently wiping ash on his pantleg. “Sorry, I thought you'd take it as a joke… After washing off, you should take a bath. With bubbles.”
He got out of the car and went to the trunk. I chanced a look back at Ke'lev. That was a mistake. I fumbled for the car door and surged out of the vehicle to escape.
“Y'good?” Chancery called over after I was done retching.
I held up a thumb as my other hand pinched off the blood running from my nose. “Mostly champagne.”
“There's lamb kabobs in the fridge. Tziki sauce in the door.”
If Chancery ever stops taking care of me, I might actually die. I huffed, “You need a girlfriend, Remus.”
He sniggered. “After you, Boss.”
12Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6NJusKxv1O
~~~
12Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9TLnUoKgOT
I washed a kabob down with a quart of water and some pain meds. I prayed everything would stay put long enough to do something about the headache pounding behind my eyes.
I must have fallen asleep in the tub because the next moment I was conscious, Chancery was handing me another glass of water after pressing it against my cheek.
As I drained it, he silently reached over and pushed the electronic stopper to drain everything else. But when the level was at half, he pressed it again and ran more water to heat things back up. He tested the temperature and flicked his fingers dry. “Take your time,” he said quietly. “Nothing can touch us here.”
My words were slurred as I said, “Get me a cigarette.”
He sat on the tub edge. “Counteroffer. You rinse the soap outta your hair and you can smoke in the living room.” Then he mumbled an aside: “Dunno why we have three balconies. Not like you use them.”
I pouted. “Why're you freakin’ babying me?”
“‘Cause you're acting like a baby.”
I submerged myself and waited for him to leave before resurfacing.
Later, I found Chancery in the living room cleaning my shotgun. He noticed me hovering, but didn't speak. He was chewing on something again. I toweled off my hair as I watched him.
He was out of his suit jacket, with sleeves rolled up to his elbows. He had a mark or tattoo on his right forearm. It looked old. I hadn't seen it at the bar, but then, I hadn't been looking for it. Unlike everyone else in Midori, who were tatted up from ankle to neckline, Remus had been an exception. Even his wackadoodle brother had a full back piece, but not the younger elite. Growing up, even through our rebellious phases, Chancery'd never even seen a needle. I'd never asked him why. It hadn't really mattered, I'd thought.
Seeing the smoke-like shapes on his skin made me nervous, like something inalienable about the universe had been violated while my back was turned.
I meant to grill him about the ink. Instead, I asked. “Ke'lev?”
“Master bed, setting up the new nest. He said the room smells like you the most.” He made a face. “Apparently you smell like copper and green apples.”
I mirrored his perplexed expression. “Angels’re weird.”
“You don't have room to talk,” he said with a small smile.
I grunted and sat beside him.
After giving the weapon one last wipe-down, he set the gun aside and upholstered his own sidearm. Flicking rounds out of the magazine onto a towel spread on the coffee table, he asked, “Feeling any better?”
“Cut the shit. Tell me about the shadow magic. Does it have something to do with this?” I reached for his arm, but he jerked away from me.
He set down his pistol and twisted to rifle through the pockets of the jacket thrown over the back of the couch. He set a black ring box in front of me.
“Remus, you shouldn't have.”
He rolled his eyes. “Open it, numb nuts.”
I narrowed my eyes at him, irked that he'd dropped all the honorifics or pet names between us. I didn't like it. I'd been feeling a step behind him for the last few hours. The lack of deference to our positions in power made the crack between us feel like a ravine.
Inside the box was a ring that once belonged to my grandfather. The old Devereaux crest, with its three Xs surrounded by a laurel, was embossed on its face. The band was inlaid with six emeralds, three on each side.
“I thought she was buried with this,” I said neutrally.
Chancery said, “Kazumi gave it to me on your thirtieth birthday. I gave her mine.”
“Promise rings?”
He snorted. “You're hilarious. No, we traded each other something as collateral in case either one of us were killed. She and I never planned on telling you, but I… can't justify it anymore. You are who you are.”
“What's that mean?”
“Exactly what I said.” He squirmed under my scrutiny. “If you were anyone else, I would've been dead years ago. Firsts know where they stand with their seconds. It's in their name. If it comes down to you or me, you're supposed to save yourself.”
“It'll never come to that.”
“It has, Boss. A dozen times or more. And every time, I have to pivot to keep you from sabotaging yourself or your reputation.”
I glared at him. “Well, fuck me for giving a shit about my people.”
“That's not the point I'm trying to make.”
“Then you better get to it before we die of old age… or I shoot you.”
He smiled warmly at me. “See. This is why I can never take you seriously.”
“Remus.”
He took the ring back and asked me, “Why'd you never mention that you could see her?”
I kept my frustration in check, but my patience was wearing really thin. “I'll tell you after you tell me what all this has to do with your fucking hand.”
He opened his mouth to argue, but then nodded. “After Sydney died and you found out about the Ouwarawa, Kazumi tried to induce her own transformation. It didn't work. We suspect that's why she got passed over by the group heads when they were selecting your dad's successor. Your father must have known since we were kids that she didn't have all the genetic markers he wanted in an heir.”
“Why would being able to turn into a demon make any difference? Midori is on the mundane side of our lives. Does that mean the tops know we're Stewards? How come this is the first time I'm hearing about this?”
Chancery shrugged. “I dunno. I just can't think of any other reason why they would pass over Kazumi for you.”
“Holy fuck, ouch.”
“Come on, Dev. I'm not saying you're incapable. I'm just saying, Kazumi was on a different level, in the business sense. She was the logical choice. She was efficient, unemotional, and strategic. She had college degrees and dry ruthlessness. You… You care too much. You're… Man, how do I say this without sounding like a dick?”
My lip curled. “Too late. You may as well double down and say it.”
“You're too soft for this line of work.”
He sounded like my father. I grumbled morosely, “How many more traitors do I have to cut up and dump in the lake before I'm hard enough for this fucking life? Another fifty? Another hundred?”
He shook his head, his expression distant, cool. “That's not what I mean.” He shook his head again. “It's not your body count. It's what you do after the bodies are buried.”
I stiffened up like he'd tazed me.
He said, “I know what it does to you. Kazumi did too. So… after it was clear the jinn weren't going to stop any time soon—”
“At the lake, you acted like you didn't know anything about it. It was never my curse. It was bad luck. It wasn't magic. It was the consequences of my own actions.”
“Dev—”
“Shut up! You gaslit me into thinking I had to shoulder this alone! You lied to me! You've been lying to me! What the fuck am I supposed to think? You could be lying to me right now! No! Stop shaking your head! What did I do to make you think you couldn't trust me?”
“Because you don't trust me.”
“I trust you with my li—”
“Fuck you!” He shouted. “To you, your life isn't worth shit! You trust me with your life, but you won't trust me with mine!”
I pushed myself off the couch.
“Kouji!” He grabbed my arm and pulled me back down. “Listen, goddamn it.”
“Don't fucking touch—”
“Listen to me!”
I glared at the hand on my forearm, twisting bones around the slug still buried in me. The fucker was going to leave bruises.
He shook me as he said, “I've come to terms with you. I don't expect the same. I never have… But Kazumi saw the writing on the wall. At some point, one or both of us would get caught in the crossfire and then you'd break. You did. After she died, you were never the same. You still might never be.”
“You don't think I'm fit to work?”
“That's not—Would it kill you to listen to the words that are actually coming out of my mouth, for once?”
I took a deep breath to quell any violent impulse responses—responses that, no doubt, would get me decked or shot instead of verbally answered.
He let me go with an apologetic glance at my arm.
He said, “Ghosts don't cling to people. They haunt places and objects—empty vessels. Living people are already occupied by their own souls, and the spirits of their guardians. Kazumi figured that if either one of us bit it, we could stick around on an object. We chose our heirlooms. She's not attached to me. She's attached to the ring.”
“But you have her guardian.”
“We didn't bank on that. At least I didn't… Angels don't follow the same rules as souls. Just like with demons, we can have a whole host inside of us and probably never know it… But I'll be honest with you. All the shit we planned? I didn't think it would work. I thought she was full of it. You know me. This supernatural shit doesn't sit well with me. It never has. But it gave her peace of mind and planning it out with her in the background gave me something to focus on when I wasn't worrying over you.”
That sounded more like the Chancery I thought I knew.
He waited for any dissent, but when I just waited and watched him, he took a breath and said, “But it did work. I just… didn't think it would be her. I didn't want it to be her. If it had been my choice, I'd have picked neither of us. But it happened. She died and it… She came back. You know she came back.”
“Yes.”
“You see her?”
She was leaning on the back of the couch, but she wasn't watching Chancery. Her dead, beetle-black eyes were on me, red lips slightly pulled back from blackened teeth. She looked annoyed. She gestured at Chancery. She mouthed the words, “Kiite, baka.”
“I am listening,” I grumbled.
“Motto yoku,” she chided. Listen harder.
“You hear her?” Chancery asked.
“She says you're an idiot.”
A smile cracked his face. “No, she didn't.”
“Okay, she called me an idiot.”
“That tracks.”
“Fuck off.” Then, after a moment, I said, “I told you she'd never leave you. I meant that literally.”
He frowned at the box in his hand.
“I thought you and Chichi had written her off after she died. I couldn't talk about her when I wanted to.”
His gaze was cutting, accusatory. “You made it clear you didn't want anyone talking about her. Every time I brought her up, you shut down. You told me to stop talking about her like… she wasn't there.” He sighed. “Okay. Maybe I made my own assumptions.”
“When did you find out your Hail Mary worked?”
“Lavelle told me. And then she… taught me how useful it could be to command ghosts.”
“Command?” Sounded like necromancy to me.
“Well, not command really, more like… invite, I guess is the more appropriate word. I invite Kazumi to manifest, and she usually does.”
My mind was spinning. “Manifest? Like Ke'lev?”
“No,” he said, clearly uncomfortable. He raised his right hand and said, “You know ghosts can manifest in all kinds of ways on their own—sounds, voices, cold spots—but that's pretty much it. But if they're given something to help tie them to the material world, they can become physical themselves. I'm… not a very good anchor though. She's supposed to be a sword, but I've only been able to make her into knives.”
“How do you become a good anchor?”
“If we had a stronger bond while she was alive, it might be easier to summon her. I've got no doubt that if her guardian was tied to you, you could wield her without an issue. But I'm a subpar substitute.” He shook his head ruefully. “I guess I should be thankful I can do even this. The outcome is the same… Well, the ability to kill jinn anyway. You explained the gambit of the supernatural set before. What beats ifriti? Humans. What's more human than a weapon made from pure soul stuff?”
I held out my hands. “May I?”
He shook his head, tucking his hand into his lap. “I'm still working out the quirks. I don't trust it yet.”
“How many times have you used it?”
“A few. Before Lavelle, I used it by accident…” He worked something over for a moment before he admitted, “You know when you were in the hospital, and we moved you because the Riders had sent an assassin?”
I narrowed my eyes.
He said, “It wasn't a Rider. It was a jinn. I uh… I didn't really know what it was until later. But it… You told me that they couldn't be seen by human eyes, so I figured it couldn't be one. It had to have been a pyromaniac or something, I told myself. But I killed it. I put my hand around its throat and it… I extinguished it.”
I slowly got up and Chancery let me. I went for the bag by the front door and returned to the couch with my lighter and smokes.
Half-way through my first cig, Chancery said, “I… didn't know what to think about what was happening to me. It wasn't until you sent me to Lavelle that it all started to click.” He sighed. “You know, it's funny. I thought for sure you sent me to Lavelle because you knew what was happening to me. But it turns out you just wanted me out of your hair. Why? What've you been plotting for the last three weeks that couldn't involve me too?”
Plotting? He and Montenegro both. Hell, everyone seems to think I'm working fifty different angles even while idle. As if my life revolves around being ten steps ahead of everyone else. I'm not that complicated.
I kicked my feet across his lap and rested back against the arm of the couch. “You suffocate me.”
He didn't reply. I'd stunned him.
I said to the ceiling, “I find it hard to believe you make a mediocre anchor. You and Kazumi loved each other. What greater bond could exist?”
“Of course I loved her. She was my sister. But you two are blood. That means more to the ghosts on the other side.”
I let out a bitter laugh. “Remus, forget the smoke screen. We all know you and her were an item.”
“Who's we?” he asked seriously.
I finished my cigarette, and my hand roved around for the pack before Chancery handed me another stick already lit. I traded him for it before saying airily, “Everybody, dummy.”
“Bardo didn't say that, did he?”
I frowned, thinking. “Well, not him. He would've never gossiped about his first like that.”
“Solberg?”
“No, you know how he is about things that aren't his business.”
“Oscar? Logan? Charr?”
“No. I wasn't really that close with any of them.”
He was silent a moment more before he said, “No one ever said Kazumi and I were together like that, Kouji.”
“You were sobbing over her grave like—”
“My fucking sister had just died.”
I blinked. “I didn't do that.”
His voice was pinched, verging on cold. “‘Cause your fucked up dad said Devereauxs don't mourn the dead. The dead don't care about your feelings, he said. It’s a waste of time. I was there when he said it. His daughter wasn't even in the ground yet and already he was pushing you into a fucking corner. I saw that too; that look on your face when you realize you're trapped. When you want to scream. I've seen that look on your face a thousand times, Kouji.
“But I'm not a fucking Devereaux. And if… If you felt like you couldn't cry over her, I was going to.”
I'd never heard Chancery ever bad mouth Chichi. The way he always deferred to my father's orders over mine—the way he always called my father whenever I was out of line… I never thought that that obeisance might all be driven by survival. That all this time, Chancery resented him in the same vein that I did.
“But,” I began limply, “I saw it. It was obvious.”
“What? Didju catch us makin’ out or something?”
“Well, no. You two were trying to hide it, especially after Chichi started cracking down on Bardo.”
“Just before she died, you mean. Your timeline’s ass.”
I dared a look down my chest and saw him staring at me with a half-disgusted, half-bewildered expression like he was more insulted than anything.
“I never saw you with anyone else,” I said.
“Huh?” Now he was angry. Why?
“Growing up, I never saw you with anyone else. But you and Kazumi were always…”
“Were always what, Kouji?” The eyebrows were up, unimpressed with me. “Come on, tell me. What mental gymnastics have you been performing in your free time?”
“Oh, come on! You two were always sharing coy looks and laughing with each other and… You know, secret couple-stuff.”
He blinked at me. “You don't think we were maybe laughing at you? Because you're an oblivious trash can fire of a human being?”
“That's bullshit. You… You two were always talking and sharing inside jokes.”
He scoffed incredulously, “Yeah. That's what best friends do.”
“You never do that with me.”
His face went blank.
I said, “If you weren't together, then why’d she give you her guardian? Why didn't she give it to me? I just don't…” I don't get it. “She would’ve given it to me. But she gave it to you because she loved you.”
His smile didn't reach his eyes. “The jinn were never really going after you, were they? They were going after your family. Giving you another guardian wouldn't have fixed the problem. No, what you needed was a weapon to fight back. And that weapon needed its own protections. Whether it was me or Kazumi didn't matter, so long as someone near you could survive long enough to protect you.
“Ke'lev is a nice addition to the defense, but he's still an angel and he's not proven against jinn… You still need someone who can fight them specifically."
“So that's it. Kazumi didn't give up her guardian out of love. She did it out of what? Practicality? Plans?”
He huffed a laugh. “Doesn't that sound just like her? She was just like your dad in that respect. Cold, calculating, and rational… Not like you.”
“That still doesn't…” I was still grappling with the fact that he'd lied to me for so long and I hadn't noticed. I was still trying to figure out how I could've been so wrong about the nature of their relationship. They'd been partners, but not romantically so. I'd always thought Chancery's undying loyalty stemmed from that alone. Why else go to such lengths to serve the Group? Why would he give up so much of himself?
Monty's betrayal told me that seconds could bite the hand that fed them.
Constantine taught me that seconds could be restless and act on their own.
Louise's indifference to Mercy's activity told me that seconds didn't have to be anything more than glorified babysitters.
But Chancery had always been the ideal second. From our childhoods, he'd been my lingering shadow. We'd been forced to sleep in the same room, eat the same food, wear the same clothes, train with each other, go to the same classes—the same after school activities.
It hit me then—the thing I never wanted to think about, because thinking about it made me feel like a monster by association: Remus had never been given a choice.
A family had to give up a son, and Remus was the one selected out of four potential candidates.
An honor. A privilege. Destiny.
He’d never want for anything ever again.
But at what cost?
We've had our fights, our disagreements, and there were times, especially in high school and college, when he straight up told me to kick rocks and fend for myself, but he'd always come back. He'd always apologize. Often, he was made to do so by his father or mine. But when he came back with a smile and a laugh, he played the coercion off like they'd told him to do something he was already planning to do. As if he had a vote. As if he had any real agency.
When I started seeing Clara, I noticed his distance—his spending more time with Kazumi and Bardo. Newly in love myself, I thought I'd finally figured him out. Ah, twenty-year-old me thought. I get it now. He works so hard because he's in love with my sister. Good for him. I hope they can make it work.
It never occurred to me that he was just giving me space—that he was working out his own feelings.
After Clara died, he moved back in with me. I hadn't thought anything of it. I wasn't well. He was a rock in a sea of shifting sand. I didn't question it.
And then there’d been Sydney and the baby—His horror when he found out they were both gone—How broken up he'd been, even more than me. At the memorial, he'd said, “I know, more than anything, that she made you happy. I can't imagine what you're going through… but I'm here. I'm here if you need me.”
I didn't question anything. He was my second. That was what seconds were supposed to do. They were supposed to give themselves up for the greater good. They were supposed to serve. They were supposed to obey.
But what second was actually like that in practice?
I’d never questioned his loyalty or his motivations.
Maybe I should have.
I whispered, “If you had a choice—If you could go back in time…” I felt his eyes on me, but I couldn't look at him. “Would you choose this life? Be honest with me.”
He didn't answer. He raised my feet and extricated himself from the couch. He pulled a blanket out of a hideaway end table and flung it over me. “If you're not going to the nest, at least don't sleep cold,” he said.
“Remus.”
“Drink a glass of water. Good night.”
“Remus!”
He killed the light on his way to the spare room and didn't look back.
He'd left the guns, ammo, and kit out.
I slowly sat up and took stock of the room, now cast in sharp monochromes, cut up by the light pollution of the cityscape at my back.
I took one last drag on my smoke before putting it out.
Kazumi was leaning against the wall across from me, arms crossed over her chest. Only half her face was illuminated. She was staring at me, face impassive and indifferent. She was my undying judgement.
“Nan'da?” I demanded of her ghost.
She backed through the wall like into a hedge maze. Her head, left exposed, looked like a painted paper mask hanging on the wall. She said in English, “No one wants to be a slave.”
“Then what? He's the one and only second to be truly indoctrinated?”
“You've always treated him like that—that because he serves you willingly, he doesn't deserve your respect.”
“No one who really knows me would willingly serve. I thought he loved you. That made more sense.”
“You're still a fool.”
“I can't believe you died for him.”
“Weren't you listening? I died for you.” She slipped into the wall as the veranda lights went out, and darkness swallowed the rest of the room.
I didn't sit with myself for much longer. I got up and went to the master bedroom, peeling off my layers as I went. I crawled under a wall of sofa cushions and then a warm hand grabbed my arm and pulled me into the folds that smelled like honey and metal.
Ke'lev peppered my hair and cheeks with greeting kisses before relaxing, a question in his sudden stillness, concern.
I hated the jinn.
I hated that Kazumi was dead and still knew more than me.
I hated that every time I looked at Chancery, I felt trapped. But wasn't he even more hamstrung than me? If he wasn't my second, what was he? The thought that I'd somehow contributed to the Steward's agenda made me sick. Had I made Chancery like this? What about Bardo? Oh God, Solberg was training to be my father's new second. Had I gotten him out of one grooming situation just to put him in another?
We're any of us really free?
I hated that I didn't know.
Nothing makes any sense.
Ke'lev sighed against my neck as he gently hugged me to his chest. I wrapped my hands around him and squeezed him back, rubbing my face against his shoulder to get rid of any lingering wetness in my eyes.
He rolled onto his back and brushed hair out of my face as I tucked into his side.
I whispered, “Still here?”
He held my hand against his chest. His molten core hummed like a white noise machine.
At least this made sense.
ns 15.158.61.23da2
