Jessa Slade: Darkness Undone

His hackles prickled at the evidence of her demon’s restlessness. “You are still you, with the addition of a repentant teshuva demon seeking redemption via the destruction of the horde-tenebrae in this realm. Those would be the ferales, malice, and the salambe lurking in the alley.”

The hush prickled through him, more eerie than her disembodied voice, before she finally spoke. “Am I not damned, then?”

“Ah …”

“I knew that too.”

Could her voice get any colder? “If by ‘damned,’ you mean the inexact lay definition of ‘condemned to eternal punishment,’ then I suppose, yes. Since you are immortal and you are compelled to destroy the tenebrae, that could indeed be construed as eternal punishment. At least until you are killed. But if you’re thinking of damned in a more speculative sense as divine seraphic judgment … well, then probably still yes, but with ultimate interminable results unsubstantiated and thus subject to some academic dispute.”

In the absolute silence, he thought she’d left. The swish of blood through his ears resembled the echo of a mocking laugh, and he wished he’d just kept his mouth shut.

Finally she said, “You make my head hurt.”

If only he could see her. Not being able to judge her mood put him at a distinct disadvantage, which was not a place one wanted to be with the demon-ridden. “The tenebrae can kick my ass, and so can you, but I can at least induce headaches.”

A breath of air moved against his bare skin, as if she’d taken a few steps closer to him again. “You are not like me? I thought the restless spirits wanted you.”

“I’m not possessed by a teshuva as you are, no, but the demons are drawn to dark emotions, and I’ve been … jet-lagged. The ferales would have made an in-flight snack of me if not for you.”

“It wasn’t just the … the ferales. … I don’t know what …” She blew out a frustrated breath. “It made me come to you, here.”

A Bookkeeper could serve in a league for decades before encountering a newly possessed talya in need of guidance. This wasn’t her teshuva’s virgin ascension, and yet in some ways she was even more innocent—erratic and deadly, but innocent.

And she was his.

Though the taste of her still lingered on his tongue, he tamped down the surge of possessiveness. He spackled over the improper craving with a more respectable crust of impersonal kindness. “I have much I can tell you.”

“Can you use fewer words?”

She’d come a little closer yet, judging from the volume of her voice. He’d never understood how someone could hear a smile, but in the lightless depths of wherever she’d dragged him, he imagined the relaxing of the tension in her vocal cords, the softening of her lips.

Her lips …

A skitter of nerves raced up his arms and down his spine, leaving evidence of its passage in the tiny prickling of goose bumps on his skin—his exposed-to-her-demonically-enhanced-vision skin. He breathed out slowly until the prickles subsided.

“I’ll try to keep it simple,” he said.

It was a good reminder. He was making a complication of his half nakedness when obviously she’d had no choice but to remove his shirt. While it had been some time since a woman had taken away any of his clothing—the last incident, he supposed, had been his laundress, taking in his dry cleaning—he shouldn’t read more into it.

Yet he wished he could remember her touch when she’d removed his coat and shirt—for his notes, of course. Had she been rough or tentative? Aroused? He meant her teshuva; had it been ascendant at the time, or had her human emotions of compassion and sympathy guided her?

Any other sort of arousal was … incidental.

His shoulder was mangled but manageable, but he wanted to get to a dose of antibiotics. Although ichor might not kill him, the pathogens on a feralis carcass were nasty.

And he wanted to bring the girl with him, back to the @1 warehouse and the male talyan.

This was the chance of a lifetime—to witness the triggering of the long-extinct symballein bond between two talyan. What Bookkeeper wouldn’t risk an inconvenience like sepsis for such a chance? While the leagues held themselves aloof even from one another, Bookkeepers tried when possible to stay in closer contact to share insights, advance their mission—and claim bragging rights when it came to such amazing finds as this.

He hoped the hectic racing of his pulse didn’t scare the girl. “What shall I call you?”

“Hadn’t we agreed on damned?”

“A bit awkward to shout across the room at cocktail parties, don’t you think?”

“More words. Cocktail parties? I have yet to hear even one rooster in this city.”

“Rooster?” He swallowed the rest of the question. How long had she been possessed? Most talyan were reluctant to share their origin stories. That was one of the timeless complaints of Bookkeepers trying to keep accurate records. “At a cocktail party, the women wear flattering dresses, and the men drink too much. It’s not as much fun as it sounds.” He hesitated. “But if, for example, I wanted to leave a boring gathering and I wanted you to come with me, how would I call to you across the room?”

She whispered, so close to his ear that he jerked in surprise, “Call me Alyce.”

He squinted. Was she that paler patch of darkness? “I appreciate the rescue tonight, Alyce, but I need to get home.” Actually, he had a few intervening steps before getting back to London, but he didn’t need to bore her with his problems.

The charcoal shape in the black recoiled. “You can’t leave. You haven’t told me everything yet.”

“There’s a lot to tell, and it would be easier to explain if I could see you.” He tamped down the note of exasperation. “Plus, I could really use a shower.”

“A shower?”

He kept his face studiously blank. “A bath.” Maybe he couldn’t see, but she could, and he didn’t want his incredulity undermining their tenuous rapport.

“A bath …” Her drawn-out sigh was wistful this time, as if she were imagining the lap of water and bubbles on her skin. Hell, he’d gone only one nonstop flight without bathing, and he shared her yearning.

He did not mean “shared” as in sharing a bath. …

He tried to grab the thought, but it spun out of his control—Alyce, lithe and wet, dark hair streaming. … A ripple of shivery heat racked him. Could it be the beginnings of the infection, perhaps? “Antibiotics, acetaminophen, reality check,” he muttered. “Stat.”

Fingers danced across his forehead, her touch cool and fleeting. “You are speaking nonsense again. Are you fevered?”

“Yes.” He grasped the excuse even as he edged away from her hand. “Do you have my clothes?”

“Ruined. But here; your eyeglasses are in your pocket.” She pressed the frames into his palm. “I think nothing of mine will fit you.”

Now she had a sense of humor. He perched the specs on his nose, as if there were something to see besides darkness. “I just need to find a phone without being arrested for public indecency.” He’d turned down the league phone Liam had offered. He needed to maintain a certain researcher-subject detachment, after all. It seemed unlikely he’d find a landline in Alyce’s lair.

“There is a box of phone very near here.”

“You can read?” Ah, and here he’d told himself he wouldn’t do incredulous.

“Not as much as you, I am sure.” A note of affront stiffened her tone. “But the letters on the side of the box are very large.”

He winced. “I didn’t mean—”

“Shall I take you there?”

“Please.”

He startled at a rusty groan and turned toward the rectangle of lesser-darkness that appeared in the black. She’d opened the door. The trickle of ambient light gave him hardly more information, but there wasn’t much to see, anyway.