Hannah Jayne: Under Attack

I watched Alex’s jaw tighten. The taking—and losing—of the Vessel of Souls was a sore subject for him. I cleared my throat and tried to give Nina the look of death—loosely translated as “shut up already”—but she persisted.

“I mean, if I’m going to risk my afterlife to help you ...”

“You don’t have to risk anything. I asked for Sophie’s help.”

“Okay, if my best friend is going to risk her first life to help you ...”

“When Alex was in favor—” I started.

“I got duped, okay?” Alex said. “I heard about the Vessel, I lusted for it, I stole it, and then someone stole it from me.”

Nina sat back, impressed. “Way to get your wings cut off, lust monster.”

The look of sadness in Alex’s eyes stung. I wanted to slip my arms around him, to brush the clutch of curls that lolled over his forehead, but the air suddenly seemed heavy and charged. Somehow, a heartfelt “there, there” didn’t seem to suffice for someone who had stolen the Vessel that could change the fate of the world, had been thrown out of Heaven for it, and was now relegated to a life of day-old donuts and subpar mu shu in the earthly realm.

“What about the guy who stole it from you? Are you sure it’s not on his mantle somewhere? Maybe holding the remains of his Aunt Fanny or something?” Nina asked.

I watched Alex’s Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed thickly. “I’m sure. He was destroyed. The Vessel wasn’t recovered.”

“Destroyed?” I asked, my voice coming out in a harsh whisper.

“I’m just lucky I got what I did. And a second chance. I can actually go back if I return the Vessel. It would prove that I no longer lust for power.” Alex’s eyes held mine. He blinked, those soft eyelashes batting, and I would have scoured the world for him, right there in that moment.

“Yeah, see right there—I’d be out of the angelic realm in a heartbeat.” Nina licked her fingers. “So, you’ve got me. We’ll do it. Heck, I’ll even go a few rounds with your ex. I can take her.” Nina flexed a nonexistent bicep.

“No,” Alex said firmly.

“What’s she going to do? Kill me again?” Nina grinned at her own cleverness.

I rolled my eyes, but Alex’s look stayed hard. “I mean it.”

The same chill seemed to creep up my spine and I hugged my arms across my chest. “Is anyone else freezing?”

Nina and Alex stared at me and I yanked the afghan off the couch. “Oh. Right.”

Nina yawned, exposing sharp incisors. “Evil, schmevil. How bad can a fallen angel be? And what’d she do to you? Break your heart? Cheat on you with Cupid?”

“Just stay away from her, okay?”

I pushed away my dinner, suddenly feeling very full. I wanted to believe Alex. I wanted to believe that he had our best interests at heart. Ophelia could be bad news. Fallen angels always are. So was Ophelia really that bad—or did Alex really have something to hide?

I looked at him sideways, my appraisal hidden by a few strands of hair that fell over my forehead. I didn’t want to love him, didn’t want to feel that rush of adrenaline that washed over me whenever he walked through my door, whenever he walked back into my life. I wanted to believe all the best about him. In the Underworld I could see through magical veils. Horns, fangs, tails, bad intentions—everything that could be hidden with a charm or a spell was hung out in clear sight to me, but when it came to Alex Grace—and love—everything was as clear as mud.

“Do you think she’d really try and come after us?” I asked.

“Maybe. She might consider you an enemy, especially if you were standing in the way of her getting what she wanted. But believe me, you’d know if Ophelia was after you. She’s never been one to keep a secret.”

Nina snorted. “Does she travel with a marching band or something? Like, the fallen angel’s equivalent of the angelic trumpets?” She grinned, her fangs catching the light.

I narrowed my eyes at her. “You really have a way of comforting people.”

“Hello? Vampire, remember? Empathy has never really been our strong point.”

The thought of Alex’s psycho-killer ex-girlfriend rattled me a little, but with the entire Underworld behind me, I wasn’t that concerned.

“I don’t think she’d be able to find us.” I jutted my chin toward Nina. “Nina doesn’t have a paper trail above ground and mine’s pretty limited. We’re pretty far off the grid.”

Nina held up a finger. “Except for my Facebook page.” She whipped out her iPhone and started mumbling to herself while she typed. “Am embarking on a Heaven and Earth scavenger hunt.”

“Way to keep under the radar,” I said.

Alex bit his lip, considering whether or not to share his information. Finally he sighed and said, “Ophelia—and fallen angels in general—can read minds. They don’t really need to go looking for anyone—at least not the conventional way.”

Heat surged from my toes to the frazzled red hair follicles on my head. I thought of all the nights I had lain awake, thinking of Alex’s firm chest, the way he tasted, those soft, full lips pressed up against mine. “All the time?” I asked meekly.

Alex grinned, breaking the somberness in the room. “If we so choose.”

I promptly tried to erase all further thoughts of Alex in anything other than wholesome activities—including the velvety sweet tone of his voice as he murmured in my ear. It wasn’t working, so I urged my inner voice into a loud rendition of the Gilligan’s Island theme song. And then I imagined Alex’s smooth chest glistened up with coconut butter as he reclined on the beach.

“Damn,” I muttered.

Less than thirty minutes later, two sets of chopsticks poked out of a host of empty takeout boxes and a few fat grains of fried rice and packets of soy sauce littered the table. I eyed the backpack Alex had left untouched on the dining-room table and pointed to it.

“So, what’s in there?”

I really hoped it wasn’t a scrapbook of Alex’s past relationship with Ophelia. I knew it was childish, but I earnestly prayed that in the time since they had been apart, Ophelia had sprouted a tail, horns, a unibrow, or a beer belly—anything that might render her patently undatable—as though Alex’s description of her imminent evil wasn’t enough.

Alex unzipped the pack and slid out a stack of leather-bound books. Nina wrinkled her nose, and I coughed, covering my nose over the dusty smell of old paper. “What are those?”

“Various accounts of the history of the Vessel.”

I picked up one of the books, squinting at the worn gold writing on the spine. “There are books about it? I thought it was supposed to be hush-hush.”

“Well, you can’t exactly get them on Amazon.”

“ The Vessel of Souls and the Origin of Evil, ” Nina read. “Ooh, I’ll take this one.”

I poked through the stack. “Looks like people have been searching for this thing for years.”

“Eons,” Alex said without looking up. “Searching for it, documenting the things they know about it, even the things they just think they know.”

I slid a thin volume out from Alex’s backpack and opened it, leafing through the handwritten pages. “This one looks more like a journal,” I said.

Alex looked over my shoulder. “That’s the journal of the last guy who was seeking the Vessel.”

“What happened to him?”

Alex shrugged. “Don’t know. I didn’t get a lot of back-story with the books.”

Nina kicked her feet up on the table and crossed her ankles. “Hmm. I’m guessing that means you didn’t pick these up at our local Barnes and Noble?”

I watched Alex’s Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed. “No. I sort of took them. From Ophelia.”