Jessa Slade: The Darkest Night

“Dear Marked Souls,” she muttered as she wrote. “Today I had a death wish…”

He couldn’t help himself. He laughed. The sound came out like a ghost, white and drifting in the frigid air. “I figured I could risk the meeting since my friend would want to tell me off one last time. Nothing the sphericanum likes better than chastising.”

“Charming fellow.”

“She.” Fane shrugged. “And at least she’d shoot me in the face, not in the back.”

Bella poised the pen over the paper again. “Admires honesty in a woman above all. Has a sweet-ass ride. How about I write a personals ad for you instead?”

His amusement chilled. “I don’t do personal.”

“Christmas must be very lonely for you.” She gave him a catty grin to match her glasses.

He gripped the edge of the bar. “I thought we were making this quick.”

“By all means, go on.”

He glowered. “Tell Liam the sphericanum has also noticed the change in tenebrae activity. Where we—they—were seeing an uptick in demonic energy, since Thorne took over—”

She tapped the pen against her lower lip. Like her beehive hair and her faux fur heels, her wide mouth was another shade of red too lush to be real. “Took your sword, you mean?”

So much for bee-stung lips. She was the stinger. He inhaled once, slow and deep, reaching for the peace that was his. Or had been his when his abraxas was in his hand. Of course, the peace had really been his only when he was chopping demons to pieces.

The cheap plastic of the counter creaked under his fingers. “Since Thorne, the sphericanum, like the talyan, have had fewer tenebrae encounters—”

“But that’s good,” she interrupted. “That’s, like, the definition of good. No evil.”

He shook his head and continued, “Fewer encounters even though the amount of ambient demonic energy has not decreased.”

“So the horde hasn’t gone anywhere. They are just…” She let out a shaky twist of breath.

“Waiting,” he finished. “For something. Which can’t be good. Why is it so damned cold in here?”

“Because it’s almost the longest night of the year.” She fell silent—miraculous, he thought, with unnecessary acidity—her head bowed. Then she tucked the pen behind her ear. “What’s your poison?”

The abrupt zag of their conversation loosened his grip on the counter and his anger. “What?”

“A drink. It’s what I do here.” She stripped out of her heavy parka, revealing the vermillion-hued wrap dress underneath. “What do you like?”

The wrap’s deep V neck revealed more of her cleavage than seemed necessary on a winter night when the bar was closed. His fingers itched to pull the V tight around her pale skin. “I don’t drink.”

“Ever?”

“Ever.”

“Which explains why you’re such a dried-up old sourpuss.”

He yanked his attention away from where it had wandered. “Excuse me?”

“Oh. Did I say that aloud?”

“To my face.”

“Well, I hear you like honesty in your women.”

“I don’t do women either,” he said through gritted teeth. To be teased when he couldn’t even remember the last time…

“I thought a lot of religions were anti-gay,” she mused. “It’s good to know that at least the sphericanum—”

“I’m not gay,” he said.

“—accepts you,” she went on blithely. “You should be so proud. Not flaming, sadly, not since you lost your sanctified sword—”

“Enough.”

“How do you get consecrated weapons to be fiery, anyway? Is it, like, holy lighter fluid? I bet you were convenient to have around at all the blesséd barbecues.” She accented the word just as the sphericaenum did, but with an added fillip of scorn. “I wish it was summer right now—”

He lunged across the bar and put his hand over her mouth. Against his palm, her lips were soft, yielding, very unlike her words. His bare skin tingled where he touched her, as if the static electricity had zapped him again.

Behind the cat’s-eye glasses, her cloudy eyes widened.

“Just pour.”

She nodded slowly. He pulled back his hand.

Her mouth was still that lush, unbelievable red, leaving not the barest smudge of lipstick across his skin. Maybe he’d been wrong to think she was all artifice. Certainly whatever she thought seemed to spill out of those lavish, red lips.

She washed her hands at the sink and turned to the wall of liquor behind the bar. On other nights, he’d seen the wall lit, light sticks on each shelf gleaming upward through the glass bottles, row upon row of smooth, flowing, jewel-toned sculptures celebrating wickedness and wantonness. Although it was all dark now, still Bella’s hands went unerringly to each bottle.

Almost against his will, as if he’d already had too much to drink, he found his gaze tracing the shape of her through the wrap. The deep red was a ruse. Though it screamed for attention, underneath she was actually fine boned, tall only because of her ridiculous red boot heels, and almost fragile, like some retro Irish fairy. No wonder Liam Niall, the boss of the Chicago talyan, had gravitated to the Mortal Coil. With his own rough Irish history, he must have found some comfort—or at least familiarity—in the acerbic Bella McGreay.

For some reason, the thought of the tall, rangy league leader and the club’s mistress made Fane’s hackles prickle. He reminded himself Niall had found the love of his warrior life when he hooked up with the spunky Jilly Chan. The symballein bond linking male and female talyan had only been legend—even the sphericanum’s ancient records had forgotten when the bond was truth—but in his short, unwilling time with the Chicago talyan, Fane had seen legend come to life.

What a miracle for the demon-ridden man, to find someone whose soul—flaws and all—perfectly aligned with his own…

Over her shoulder, Bella asked, “Why don’t you drink?”

Distracted by his own thoughts, Fane answered a touch too honestly, “Because for a time I was doing too much of it.”

She turned, a tumbler and a shot glass in one hand, an unlabeled bottle in the other. The tumbler was cupped under her palm, the shot glass full of some dark liquid pinched with her finger inside the rim. She set the glasses on the counter and pushed the tumbler toward him, then downed the shot and licked her fingertip. “So why are you drinking now?”

He looked away from her dampened finger. “Because recently I haven’t been doing it enough.” And he’d come to rely too heavily on the temptation-blunting effect of his lost abraxas if the mere glimpse of her tongue made him this edgy.

She filled her glass again, all the way to the rim this time. “I hear you. The talyan have been in here almost every night, bitching and drinking. First Corvus Valerius and that solvo drug turning people into soulless zombies and then soul bombs breaking open portals into hell. Now Thorne Halfmoon. God knows what he’ll do.”

“God might know, but He hasn’t shared any info with the sphericanum.”

She lifted her glass. “Maybe the devil will tell.”

He clinked his glass against hers. “Here’s hoping.”

Suddenly reckless, he tossed back half the tumbler. The bite and rush of whiskey sour heat made him gasp. He idly noted he couldn’t see his cold breath anymore. Although if someone lit a match…

Bella lifted one brow. “Like it? The whisky’s a single cask from a local distiller, with a little secret of my own.”

“Fire and brimstone?”

She laughed, although the sound was almost hollow. “Something like that.” She poured a third shot but just held it.

The warmth drifted down through his belly, and he studied her more closely while taking a wary sip. “So what’s your deal, Bella?”