Jessa Slade: Forged of Shadows

“That doesn’t seem particularly fair.”

“Resisting temptation is easy when you’re feeling strong.”

The restless flick of the box cutter in her hands stilled, and a shadow darkened her eyes. “What do you know about temptation?”

A curl of awareness made him stiffen against his teshuva’s sudden predatory interest. “I can tell, based on the trailing ethers around you, that the demon came to you—what?—last night? Or maybe the night before.” Guilt pricked him. “I had people looking, but they couldn’t find you.”

“Until too late,” she murmured, echoing him. “Nothing like these things . . . these demons came for me before tonight.” She pinned him with a needle-sharp gaze. “Before you.” Then her eyes widened.

“What?” He stared into the black rounds of her shock-expanded pupils, seeking that first hint of violet.

“Before you,” she said again to herself. “I thought it was a dream.” Her gaze tripped over him, and his skin prickled as if she’d physically swept her hand across his body. She lingered on the mark at his temple, avoiding his eyes. “Never mind. Th is is crazy. I have to go.”

He didn’t want to let her go. Because, he convinced himself, the league needed all the fighters that came its way. Not to mention the world didn’t need any rogue talyan, confused by their demons, wandering the streets without purpose. At least the battle between good and evil offered job security.

“Take the escort I’m giving you,” he urged. “For the kids’ sake, if not for your own.”

That brought her gaze back to him. “Don’t try to manipulate me.” Despite the exotic cast of her features, her tone was raw icy Chicago street. “Especially not with the kids.”

“Noted.”

After a moment, she blew out a breath. “Fine, somebody can walk me to the halfway house. And don’t bother telling me not to go.”

He stepped back, out into the street, giving her room to come out of the alley. She kept the box cutter in hand.

She skirted the carcasses warily, her lip curled in disgust. “I don’t want one of those inside me.”

“You’ve been possessed by a teshuva, a repentant demon,” he reminded her. “These are ferales. Lesser emanations from the tenebraeternum—the demon realm—that merge and mutate human-realm matter into corporeal husks like these.”

She eyed him with only somewhat less disgust. “Maybe I don’t want a . . . a teshuva in me either.”

If only his advance team had had more time to build up a dossier on Jilly Chan. Maybe some of her secrets would give him an insight to her personality, a clue, a weakness that would bring her around more easily. Though he had a sneaking suspicion that her weaknesses were even better guarded than the rest of her.

“It chose you for a reason,” he said. “Something made you vulnerable. You let it in, and if you reject it now, it will tear open that vulnerability on its way out. You’d never be whole again, in body, mind, or spirit.”

She flattened one hand against her ribs, under her breast, as if she had a stitch in her side. “If there’s something inside me, then I’m not whole anyway, am I?”

“Better than the alternatives.”

“Which are?”

“Death and damnation now.”

“Instead of?”

“Death and damnation later.”

She huffed back something that sounded like laughter. “As a killer, you’re pretty impressive. As a welcoming committee, you suck.”

“Thank you,” he said drily. He glanced across the street, signaled with two fingers to the alley, then with another finger pointed out the path the third feralis had taken. He gave the roundup sign to have the talyan finish sweeping the area, and he fell into step beside Jilly.

She watched him. “What was that?”

“Giving the crew their orders.”

“The crew. Of other demon-possessed killers.”

He ignored the incredulity laced with mockery in her voice.

“So you’re their boss?”

He lifted one shoulder in a reluctant shrug. It felt as if the weight of the world pressed down on him there, but that was just the heft of the hammer.

She kept the width of the empty sidewalk between them. “How many demons are there?”

“Not as many repentant teshuva as quite unrepentant tenebrae. You’ll meet the rest of our league eventually.”

He watched her study the night, eyes narrowed and nostrils flared so that the ring piercing winked. She couldn’t know it, but the demon was already changing the way she looked into the shadows. Although something about her told him she’d always faced the darkness with defiance.

Who would make a good partner for her, with her prickly punk attitude? Haji was too quiet. Jonah was too straitlaced. Maybe Ecco, with his crude humor. No, she’d eviscerate even that powerful fighter and ask no quarter.

The final stages of possession could get ugly as the human and demonic elements struggled to find a new balance. Archer and Sera had been reluctant to explain the details of how they’d gotten through that last dangerous night. He’d have to bully past their shared silence so he could make the right choice for Jilly.

God knew, possession was hard enough already.

To distract himself from the memories that threatened, he asked, “What were you doing poking around this part of town so late?”

“It’s part of my job, keeping an eye on the kids.”

“Wouldn’t it be safer to keep an eye on them at the halfway house instead of roaming crap neighborhoods after midnight?”

Her lips twisted in wry agreement. “Iz got it into his head to investigate the disappearance of a friend of his.”

“What do the police—” Liam stopped himself. “I suppose the authorities don’t have a lot of time to spend on a missing street kid.”

Her lifted eyebrow implied he’d get no cookie for that brilliant deduction. “Luckily, Dee ratted him out and brought me here. And if you hadn’t come . . .” Her smile upended and vanished.

He didn’t try to reassure her. Better that she was frightened.

After a moment, she composed herself. “The kids have been talking strange lately, and Iz blamed Andre’s disappearance on things I couldn’t believe. I tried to tell him Andre had been getting into some nasty stuff. Not strange, just nasty, like dealing solvo.”

Dismay stiffened Liam’s spine. “Solvo and strange are more closely linked than you know. If Andre was using, you should write him off.”

One hard shake of her head rattled her blue spikes. “I don’t write anyone off.”

“You don’t get a choice with solvo addicts.”

“There’s a way back from everything—”

“Not from being soulless.”

“Soulless? But that’s crazy. . . .” She fell silent.

“Solvo is the chemical distillation of a demon weapon called desolator numinis . The soul cleaver.” He let her walk most of a block without speaking. “You’re thinking about what you’ve seen tonight, and that maybe it’s not so crazy after all.”

“No,” she said softly. “It’s still crazy.”

“But true.”

She hesitated. “It would explain some things.”

He put his hand on her arm to stop her. At the feel of her, the shock that went through him had nothing to do with demons and everything to do with temptation. God, when was the last time he had touched a woman? The lack of a ready answer halted him in his tracks.

When she faced him, her widened eyes exposed the darker ring around her golden irises.

He shook off the potent jolt. If it didn’t rouse his demon’s warning, then it didn’t matter. Never mind what else might rouse in him.

“Look over there, by the fast-food place,” he told her.

After a long moment, she dragged her startled gaze off him and followed his directions. “What am I—Jesus, what is that?”