Jessa Slade: Forged of Shadows

“The battle between good and evil does seem to call for a certain fortitude of spirit,” Liam agreed.

“You think?”

They waited in silence a moment.

“Did Ecco get surveillance set up in her apartment?” Liam asked.

“Energy sink. ESF recorder. Audio. He wanted video. Sera nixed it. Said the bad ol’ boys’ club would have to rent their porn just like regular nonpossessed assholes.”

Liam sighed. “Why do I get the feeling that adding another female possessed is like peeking through the underwater view port on the Titanic ?”

“Ice is all you’ll be peeking at.” Archer smirked at him. “So you’re ready to acknowledge that you want her?”

Want. That one word zinged through Liam like a bullet off bone, leaving a jagged wake. “What does want have to do with being talyan?” His voice sounded harsher than he intended. The teshuva couldn’t risk wanting—not when wanting dovetailed so closely with sin. With an effort that tightened his throat, he modulated his tone. “She’s another fighter. We need those. Desperately. I’ll find someone to help her through possession.”

He believed in all his men, valued each of them for their unique abilities. But this job . . . He folded his hands together, interlaced fingers over tautly strung tendons. “You could do it.”

Archer recoiled. “No. I found the other half that fits my broken pieces. And she’d break me into dust if I let anything come between us.”

“For the good of the league—”

Archer’s eyes flashed violet and his voice thrummed with the double-octave lows of demon harmonics. “Not for the world itself.”

“Ah, right. How could I forget?” Liam subsided. His grip eased. “I’ll find someone.”

“Idiot,” Archer muttered.

Liam let himself out of the car. The instinctive violence of Archer’s reaction just went to show why the league’s leader couldn’t get so involved. A leader had to keep perspective, which would be impossible if he got too close. Too close to anything, or anyone.

“Where are you going?” Archer rolled down the window and leaned out. “I thought you’d stay through the night, pining hopelessly outside her window, too self-sacrificing to make your move, too entangled to walk away.”

Liam shot him a withering glance. “It’s not a romance, jackass. It’s death and damnation and doom, remember?”

Archer slapped the flat of his hand on the steering wheel. “Exactly.”

They stared at each other for a minute.

“I’m going to find a feralis and tear it apart,” Liam offered conversationally.

“Have a lovely evening.” Archer settled back in his seat. “Bring me a nice cup of tea when you can’t stay away any longer.”

Liam stalked away, neck stiff to stop his gaze from lingering where Jilly had gone. There was no one he trusted more than Archer to keep anything dangerous from making its way through her door.

Anything dangerous. Like Liam himself.

In the bright light of the new day, everything looked . . . strange. The breath-stealing low temps hardened the outlines of the buildings against the sky until the city gleamed like a razor stropped to a killing edge. Over the rims of her sunglasses, Jilly studied the street for signs of idling dark sedans, lurking monsters, and tall duster-clad men bearing war hammers. So far, nada, which actually made the day even more surreal.

After one last glance around, she let herself into the halfway house. She spiked her windblown hair into place as she came to attention just inside the office door stenciled DAN ENVERS, ADMINISTRATOR.

The man behind the desk leaned back in his chair. “Jilly.” He drew the two syllables out slowly. “You shouldn’t come back here. It’s confusing for the children.”

Flatly, she said, “It’s confusing because there was no reason to fire me.”

“Budget cuts—”

“Oh, please. I didn’t make shit for wages.” She rolled her eyes when he frowned at her cursing. “I don’t do this for the money.”

“Now you don’t do it at all.” He tapped the eraser of his pencil against the desk, as if to rub her out. “I let you do the park outreach as a volunteer, but I can’t have you traipsing in here—”

“I came to make sure Dee and Iz are all right.”

The pencil stilled in his hand. “Why wouldn’t they be?”

“If you don’t know, maybe you shouldn’t have fired me.”

He rummaged across his desk and freed a sheet of paper. “Roll call says they’re both at breakfast.”

A filament of the steel in her spine softened. Liam had kept his word about getting the kids back safe.

So what else had he been truthful about last night?

She shot a reinforcing burst of concrete around the spine steel. “Iz was right. Andre got into some bad trouble.” She hesitated, trying not to remember the burgeoning helplessness she’d felt in the alley, worse even than when Envers had handed over her walking papers. “I saw something last night—something weird I can’t explain.”

Envers lowered his head into his hands, the pencil stuck up between his fingers like a rude gesture. “You aren’t supposed to encourage the children in their mass delusions. Look at you. You’re as bad as they are.”

She gripped the doorframe, anger driving her blue-polished nails into the wood. “Is that why you got rid of me?”

Staring down, he seemed to be addressing the papers more than her. “Do you know how many kids we lose? And don’t count Andre, since he’d already gotten himself kicked out.”

The question rocked her back on her heels. “Too many.”

He tossed the pencil at her, glowering when she didn’t duck and he missed anyway. “You don’t even know actual numbers, because you just deal with the next one, and the next one. You have no idea what it takes to keep this facility operational.”

“It’s not a facility. It’s a home, the only home these kids have, and it may not be safe anymore.”

“Safer than the streets, that’s for damn sure. Ask Andre. If you ever find him.”

He tugged at his shirtsleeves, collecting himself. “This isn’t your job anymore, Jilly. Go find some other oppressed people to save.”

She could follow the sweet tang of pancakes and fake maple syrup to the dining room, get her cell phone back from Dee. But they’d have questions she couldn’t answer.

“Security knows the situation,” Envers said. “Don’t make me call them.”

“I don’t make anybody do anything. That’s your trip, not mine.”

“The children need someone willing to use her authority, somebody who doesn’t get in even more trouble than they do, not another rebel without a chance. We’re done here, Jilly.” He made a note on the paper in front of him, dismissing her like she was just another item to be checked off his list.

As if pretending something didn’t exist made it go away. God, she’d always hated that sort of bullshit. She took another deliberate step forward. His head snapped up at the thunk of her boots.

“Maybe I don’t keep all the stats like you do.” She remembered Liam’s promise and echoed it with her voice pitched low. “But since I have all this free time, I’ll find out what happened to Andre, and I’ll be sure to let you know if he would’ve had a chance.”

The weight of his stare followed her out.

She stalked down the street, fists thrust into her pockets. Just as well she hadn’t tried to go in last night with Liam watching if Envers had told the night crew to toss her out on her ass. What a coward to assign the task to someone else.

“A real man does his own dirty work,” she muttered.

“Yet the women still get to clean up after.”