Darkness Undone: A Novel of the Marked Souls (11 page)

The vibrations of the car racked her. No, she was shivering.

Sidney settled his arm across her shoulders. “You don’t even notice the cold.”

“I’m not cold.” And still she shivered.

Sera exchanged glances with the devil-man beside her; then she smiled at Alyce. “It’s a little crazy, isn’t it?”

“I was never crazy.” Her voice shattered across three octaves, and the lowest rocked the carriage until the metal around them squealed.

Archer clamped both hands on the wheel in front of him. “Now who’s scaring her?”

Sidney tucked her closer under his arm. “Everybody be quiet for a second.”

The motion of the car still rattled her teeth, but the weight of Sidney’s arm seemed to press the fear out of her. Finally the car caught up with her runaway breath, and she let out a tired sigh.

Sidney stroked her hair. “Okay now?”

“Tell me again—what is ‘okay’?”

“Less loose cannon.”

She nodded against his shoulder. It was his bandaged arm, but he didn’t seem to notice.

From that shelter, she was able to look up at Archer and Sera. “Sidney said you are possessed by devils.”

Sera slanted a look at Sidney, then nodded. “We call them teshuva.”

“Sidney has given them so many names: malice, ferales, salambes, djinn.”

“Those are different,” Sera said. “You’re like us.”

Could she ever be as poised as the woman in front of her? Alyce shook her head.

“There’s so much we want to tell you, and even more we want to ask you,” Sera continued. “That’s why I said it’s … overwhelming.”

“Crazy,” Alyce whispered.

“Just because we don’t understand something right away does not mean it’s a danger,” Sidney said. His tone was instructive, as if he stood at a lectern, but his narrowed gaze on Archer held more meaning than his words.

Archer stared back at her in the small mirror above his head. “Although what we don’t know can kill us before we figure it out.”

Alyce met his eyes. “Sidney says I mustn’t kill anyone.”

“Well, isn’t that thoughtful of him.”

Sera elbowed Archer. “We promised them lunch. It’s not far to Therese’s.”

Sidney stiffened. “The diner at the pier? I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Just because we don’t understand doesn’t mean danger.” The pitch of Archer’s voice was mocking.

“I am hungry,” Alyce offered. “I haven’t been to the pier since the fair.”

Sera gave her an encouraging look. “The art fair this summer? It was fun, wasn’t it? Lots of fried food and not too many tenebrae to fry in return.”

Alyce shook her head. “They called it the World Fair.”

Sidney’s arm over her shoulder twitched. “The World Fair? That was … a while ago.”

“That was 1933,” Archer said. “Great Depression years. Lots of tenebrae.”

Alyce straightened. “You were there?”

His eyes crinkled at the corners when he looked back at her. “Sorry—I must’ve missed you in the million-people crowd.”

“I am shorter than you.”

“I guess that’s why we’re feeding you.”

Sidney’s fingers twitched, tugging at her hair. “But … 1933?” His voice rose. “Alyce, how long have you been possessed?”

Alyce hunched under his agitated intensity, and Sera tsked. “Westerbrook, it’s never gentlemanly to ask a lady her age.” Her tone was teasing, but her half-shuttered gaze wasn’t.

Alyce closed her eyes. All the conflicting signals buffeted her. Why couldn’t they say and look and act just one way? Why did Sidney soothe her with his hands and chide her with his words? She already knew his mouth could be put to better use.

Fortunately, they were quiet again except for the rumble of the metal cage on wheels. She didn’t open her eyes until the light dimmed as they pulled into a building full of neatly aligned cars. When Sidney opened his door, she scrambled over his lap to get out.

Archer was already there, his hand braced on the door frame. His black trench coat fell around him like threatening wings, ready to flare.

She followed the shimmer of violet that chased around the dark lines on his hand. Devil-man.

“You wouldn’t leave before lunch, would you?” His voice dropped. “In the teshuva’s quest to atone for their sins, I think they become overzealous in their privation. But we are still human, if not
only
human. We deserve some pleasures.”

She tilted her head. “Even damned?”

“Especially damned.” He opened Sera’s door, and the mark across his knuckles flared as he held out his hand to
her. She slid her palm across his and pulled herself into his embrace. Her long brilliant red coat flamed against the dark background of Archer.

Alyce watched from the corner of her eye. The aura that pulsed around them, invisible if she faced them straight on, deepened and darkened, shot through with lightning. Like a storm cloud just for them. Its energy tempted her closer and warded her off.
Not for you,
it whispered,
but somewhere … someone …

“Alyce?” Sidney stepped out of the car, breaking her trance. “Come on. They’ll catch up.”

Archer snorted, and the two fell into step behind. “You know where you’re going, Westerbrook? Liam told London about our secret diner, but you haven’t actually seen it yet.”

“I heard enough,” Sidney growled.

Alyce tagged alongside, but a thread of unease tightened around her. There was more to this lunch than any of them was saying. “I know a place where the old women save bread for the ducks. There would be plenty for all of us.”

Sera’s mouth drew down. “What you do for this city, Alyce, deserves more than stale bread crumbs.”

When they passed between the cars into a hallway of shops, Sera walked beside Alyce. “So, do you usually run away from the devils?”

Alyce looked at her.

Sera grinned. “The purple in your eyes says no.” Her smile flattened with gravity. “Then don’t run from us. Not anymore.”

“You are all so loud,” Alyce said. “So big. So bright to my eyes and impatient. Like the city.”

Sera paused beside a recessed foyer that displayed windows brilliant with colored glass. The lettering on the doorway beyond said
MUSEUM
. “We’re like the glass. Sharp and cutting when we’re in pieces, but together we make something breathtaking.”

Archer walked to the next door and yanked it open. “If by breathtaking you mean we stop things from ever breathing again, then yeah.”

Sera stalked up to him. “Ooh, badass.”

“I just prefer dark sunglasses, not rose-colored ones.”

“But your eyes are so pretty in purple.” She stood on tiptoes to kiss him. He tipped her chin up higher to deepen the kiss, and the ring on his finger matched the pendant around her neck, both opalescent stones shining.

Sidney watched with his arms crossed over his chest, one eyebrow cocked. “The mated talya bond in action.”

Archer lifted his head. “That is not for you to know. Be grateful we’re showing you the verge. It’ll blow your dissertation—and your mind.”

More new words rolled around like careless cannonballs until Alyce thought she might be crushed. “I thought we were getting food.”

“The verge is dessert.” Archer ushered Sera past, then Alyce, but let the door swing shut toward Sidney.

Sidney stiff-armed through with a glower.

The tang of peppers swirled past Alyce, and her stomach growled. She passed Archer, who was talking to the dark-skinned woman behind the counter where silvery tureens brimmed with stews and vegetables.

Sidney slid a tray in front of her. “What do you want?”

“Everything.”

Sera laughed. “Say what you will, the girl knows her mind.”

Sidney ignored her. “Let’s start with something basic.” He nodded at the woman behind the counter. “Just the rice and beans. I’ll have the curry. Extra spicy, please.”

Archer bumped Sidney’s tray with another. “Make it two, Therese.”

“Tough guys,” Sera said under her breath. “I’ll have the rice and beans too, and kanyah for after.”

Alyce curled her lips in and hoped she wasn’t drooling as Therese passed the bowls plus a teapot over the counter.

Sidney leaned closer. “Do you remember your last meal? Maybe before you were possessed?”

“Sid,” Sera snapped. “Really, the only thing worse than asking about a woman’s age is quizzing her about her diet. If you ask her weight, I’m going to deck you.”

“I can estimate her weight.” Sidney straightened his eyeglasses. “It’s the rest I want to know.”

Alyce missed the warmth of him, lingering at her shoulder. “I want to know too, but …” She shook her head, not sure if she wanted to jar the memories loose or warn him away.

Sera herded them toward the far corner with a view to the kitchen. “This is the talya table. You can tell by the extra jars of pepper flakes.”

Archer squeezed into the booth beside Sera, but Sidney put his tray down and pulled an extra chair to the end of the table. Alyce clenched her empty hands. Maybe he’d seen her salivating and didn’t want to sit next to her.

But he pushed a bowl her way along with a cup of yellow-green tea, and she decided to forgive him for the moment. The scents wafted up, complicated in a good way, as words could never be. She closed her eyes and inhaled.

When she opened her eyes, her spoon clattered against the bare bottom of the bowl and the other three were staring at her. Sidney pushed his plate toward her. “I can’t finish.”

He hadn’t even started. Sera and Archer sat with spoons poised and still sparkling clean.

Alyce took a slower bite, savoring. “Thank you, Sidney. Sera, may I have the peppers, please?”

Archer snorted. “Yeah, she’s talya.”

Sera grinned at her. “Serves that teshuva right if you burn it out of you. It should have fed you better.”

Sidney leaned back in his chair, arms crossed, subtly distancing himself. No, not so subtly, Alyce thought. Maybe she shouldn’t have asked for the peppers, but the spreading warmth felt nice. And he had chosen to sit over there, away from her.

Sidney tapped the hinge of his eyeglasses, as if ticking off possibilities in his head. “How much of the memory loss might be long-term metabolic shock, not just faulty demonic integration?”

Sera passed pieces of kanyah around the table. “The teshuva provides perpetual physical maintenance, but some of the fine points get lost. Like daily sixty-thousand-mile overhauls without the detailing.” She leaned against Archer. “And some of those details are really important.”

Archer wrapped his arm over her shoulder. “Don’t need a memory to massacre tenebrae. And after a while—never mind how long a while is—maybe you don’t want to remember.”

Alyce met his hooded gaze, the sugared peanut treat sticky in her fist. “I try to remember, when Sidney asks.”

“Yes,” Archer said softly. “Let’s go downstairs and see what else gets shaken loose.”

Sidney stayed firmly in his seat, blocking the way. “I don’t like this.”

“You haven’t even seen it yet,” Archer said. “As a Bookkeeper, don’t you think you should not like something only with full knowledge of what you’re not liking?”

Sidney’s jaw clenched, and Alyce wondered what words he was holding back. He never seemed to bother holding back words, so they must have been very bad.

“I want to see,” she told him. “If it can help me remember, if it can help you, I won’t be afraid.”

Archer’s low laugh raised her hackles. “No reason to stop now.”

Sid had worked with enough ancient papyrus scrolls to know when something was crumbling out of his grasp. The harder he clutched, the quicker this meeting was coming apart.

He flanked Alyce as Sera led the way to the back of the diner where Therese gave them a distracted wave. Archer shouldered aside a full shelf of canned goods, easily balancing the heavy load to let Sera push back a plywood panel. She dropped out of sight, and Alyce reached out for the edges of the dark opening.

“Wait,” Sid said. When she perked up, clearly hopeful that he would think better of this, he nudged past her. “Let me go first.”

Could the talyan have found a more rickety descent? An old extension ladder was propped haphazardly on a painter’s scaffold forty feet above the ground, and an even older ladder spattered with paint spanned the lower distance. The wooden frame stuck a purely spiteful splinter in his palm as he clutched the rails.

When he got to the dirt floor—half silty mud, as if a flood had passed through a tomb—he forgot the petty pain as he followed a thick tangle of power cables to a row of glaring klieg lights. The aluminum hoods were focused with unblinking intensity on a … What?

In the middle of the otherwise empty chamber lumped a meter-high hillock of bleached bone and twisted glass. If he squinted, he could decipher the outline of the detonated soul bomb Sera had described in a few terse paragraphs in the league archives. The glass orbs embedded in the freakish sculpture had contained the energy of damned souls like spiritual shrapnel. When the bomb had gone off, it had left a crater, not only in the floor, but through the Veil between the realms and right into hell.

Mostly, though, the verge looked like an unwanted exhibit shoveled straight out the door of the Art Institute’s newest wing; abstract post-futuristic surrealism at its ugliest and most nonsensical.

Sid pushed his spectacles higher and tilted his head.

Nope. Still ugly.

Alyce dropped to the ground beside him with a splat. Conscious of her limping steps in the uncertain footing, he half turned to steady her.

From the corner of his eye, the hellhole gaped like a screaming mouth, aimed right at them.

“Holy shit!” He jumped toward the ladder, one hand on the highest rung he could reach.

Alyce, however, took a halting step forward.

Sera moved to join her. Archer leapt down from the scaffold above, his leather trench coat flapping. Sid flinched as the other man’s boots barely missed his head. When he straightened and faced the verge, its glassy fangs seemed to have lengthened while he wasn’t watching, each point glistening with a drop of black poison.

Alyce whispered, “It’s hungry too.”