Vowed in Shadows (22 page)

Behind him, a half dozen talyan—looking lethal and hungry and all sleepy-eyed, except for Nando, who was wearing an eye patch and looked only half-sleepy-eyed—filed into the kitchen.

“I smelled soup,” Nando said. He squinted around the eye patch, as if somebody might be trying to hide his supper.

Lex jostled him. “Out of my way, pirate boy. You're missing an eye, not a leg.” One of the other talyan elbowed him, and he ducked his head with a rueful grunt.

Jonah left them to their dinner and jibes, and took his muddled thoughts with him.

Nim awoke and knew she was alone. She stretched until her spine cracked, then settled on the one pillow.

Not surprisingly, Jonah had sneaked out of their bed. If only she'd gotten around to lashing him to the four posters at the corners. He had too many hang-ups—some might call them morals—to do what he wanted without feeling bad about it. And he had wanted it, she knew, even though she had pushed him a little. Well, pushed him past his hang-ups—okay, morals—which had been a little further than a little.

But she'd made a nice living teasing men out of their morals, so what was this curdling sensation in her chest that made her want to pull the covers up over her head? Did she actually feel guilty?

If Jonah hadn't stopped her, she would have taken Andre's soul. And she hadn't even cared that much for the one she already had. But Jonah
had
stopped her. Still saving souls, Andre's and hers.

And she'd thanked the missionary man by seducing him.

With friends like her, who needed fire and brimstone?

When she shoved the blanket away, the dark lines on her thighs startled her. Not that she had forgotten the demon's mark. Not exactly. But somehow, her night with Jonah seemed unrelated, which was so completely delusional she almost laughed at herself.

The only thing more pathetic than a john falling for a hooker was a stripper falling for the guy in the back row.

Not that she was falling for Jonah, but she could see how some poor girl might, like the long-dead-and-turned-to-African-worm-food Carine—young, innocent, idealistic. Good thing Nim was none of those things. Only a heart as scarred as the insides of her thighs would keep her safe.

Except the demon had all but erased those. Stupid demon.

She grabbed the T-shirt and sweatpants at the bottom of the bed, refusing to think how sweet he'd been to remember that she didn't have any clean clothes. Most men were thinking of ways to get her out of her clothes.

“He's not most men,” she reminded herself. Then she saw her thong neatly draped over the shower-curtain rail. The black cotton was still faintly damp, but the soap had been rinsed out. She shook her head. “He even does laundry. He is definitely
not
most men.”

She kicked her sneakers around the bottom of the tub while she showered, knocking most of the muck off. Good thing they were already black. Afterward, she dressed in the clothes he'd laid out. She propped the wet shoes on the windowsill behind the thick curtain that blocked out the heat and light. Then she went snooping through his room.

Or would have. But there wasn't much to snoop. Her earlier impression of simplicity bordering on austerity was unchanged. No pictures on the dresser. No books except a copy of the Bible beside the table, but the binding wasn't even cracked and there was nothing tucked between the pages. She went through the drawers and found only more T-shirts and jeans and briefs, until she yanked open the bottom drawer. She choked and jumped back before she realized the severed hand with forearm was fake.

She poked it. The naturalistic skin was eerily soft and unmarred, quite unlike his calluses. Obviously, Jonah had decided the hook was more serviceable.

Or maybe that was just another example of his painful integrity. Not even a fake hand for him. Thank God she'd never gotten around to buying fake tits.

She slammed the drawer closed and headed for the door. Hand on the knob, she hesitated, took a breath, and pulled it open.

She'd half expected to find Jonah on the other side, glowering. But the hall was empty. For a warehouse full of men, it was surprisingly clean. Maybe Jonah was in charge of housekeeping too. Unlike the basement, where all the haphazard decorations hung, the walls here were as bare as her feet. As if the league had saved all its focus for its mission of fighting evil.

Which made a certain amount of sense, she supposed. But didn't they hold anything back for themselves? Even the fresh-meat stripper knew better than to give it all away, no matter how loudly the crowd clamored for more, or there'd be nothing left at the end of the night. How much worse for the talyan who fought for years and years?

Maybe that was why she was here. . . . No, she shouldn't be thinking she'd somehow been specially chosen to—what?—show the ascetic talyan how to be selfish and extravagant hedonists? She really doubted Jonah would go for that.

Except the missionary's touch had been about more than the mission. She wasn't deluding herself about that.

A door ahead of her opened, and the blond woman, Sera, peered out. “I thought I told you. . . . Oh, Nim, it's you. I figured Liam was still skulking around after I told him to get some rest before the night rush. Come in, will you?”

Nim chewed at the inside of her lip. These girl-on-girl scenes usually made better fantasies than reality, but . . . She stepped inside.

Jilly sat up in bed, her chest swathed in bandages up to her armpits, her jaw set off-kilter in a mutinous slant. She scowled at Sera. “If you think you can keep me quiet by telling bedtime stories to the new kid on the block . . .”

Sera crossed her arms. “Do you want me to call Liam instead?”

Jilly huffed. “He'll wrap the gauze over my head.”

“I like the stories where the evil stepsister gets eaten,” Nim offered.

Jilly gave her a narrow-eyed stare, as if she suspected who the evil stepsister might be; then she grinned. “Sorry, I don't do well when I'm stuck in bed.”

“I do some of my best work there,” Nim said. “Maybe I can give you some pointers.”

Jilly's grin upended, and Sera laughed. “You fit right in here, Nim.”

Nim considered. “Have you ever had someone who didn't?”

Sera shrugged. “From what I've read, the league was never big enough to take its members for granted.”

“Except when it decided to evict its female half,” Jilly said.

“And yet here we are again,” Nim said.

They stared at one another, three women who'd never have found one another in the big city, except for the demons that bound them.

Nim went to grab a chair. The stuffed wingback sprouted a few loose threads, and the desk beside it was missing all its drawers, but the room was cozier than Jonah's, even with the massive hammer hanging beside the door. Nim decided it was the extra pillows that softened all the hard edges. Certainly Jilly was no gentling influence, not with the twin crescent knives hanging next to the hammer.

She dragged the chair closer to the bed to prop her feet on the carved footboard. “So here we are. Sisters in arms.”

“Which reminds me,” Jilly said. “You need a weapon.”

“Besides my apparent ability to dazzle unwary demons and wayward souls?”

“Sometimes it's nice to have a pointy thing too,” Sera said. She settled at the foot of the bed and hummed thoughtfully. “Doesn't it seem providential that between us—the lure, the trap, and the end”—she pointed at Nim, then Jilly, then herself in turn—“we are some particularly heavy armament?”

Jilly snorted. “Love the league-speak. Did Archer call us that? But if by ‘providential,' you're using the definition ‘supplied by God,' then no, I don't think it's providence.”

“Considering the whole demon-possession thing,” Nim agreed.

“But the teshuva fight evil,” Sera said. “Which puts them on God's side. Theoretically, at least.”

“And we know how you like your theories.” Jilly's teasing tone took the sting out of the words. “But we also know God hasn't claimed the teshuva. That's why they're still fighting.”

Nim curled her toes around the plump butt of an ugly winged kewpie carved into the bed. “I figured out a while ago that hanging your self-worth on the approval of a distant father figure is a really bad idea.”

Jilly nodded vigorously, but Sera sighed. “Still, it seems to me that us coming together is an opportunity the league hasn't had before.”

“The league did have female talyan before,” Jilly reminded her. “And kicked us out.”

“We won't be letting them do that again,” Nim said.

“When I first showed up,” Sera said, “Jonah was adamantly against female talyan.”

Jilly harrumphed. “Self-righteous bastard. As if the choice was his.”

Sera tsked. “It's obviously not conceit. I think he holds women in too high esteem to believe they—we—should be vulnerable to possession.”

Nim slouched lower in the chair. “Not a problem with me. The esteem thing, I mean. That's how he ended up with me. To teach him a lesson.”

She meant to sound snarky, and Jilly chuckled as intended, but Sera just gave her a long look. “The demons do resonate, with us and with one another, but for once, it's not meant as punishment.”

Nim shrugged and held on to her dismissive tone. “You'd have to ask him about that.”

This time, Jilly didn't laugh. “Liam said he's never understood how Jonah was possessed. Oh, he's pieced together the spider story over the decades, but it doesn't explain why a demon chose him. He had a job and a wife he loved. He was involved in his community. Such connections usually offer protection against possession.”

“Maybe he wasn't as connected as he'd want us to think,” Nim said. When the other two women stared at her, she shrugged. “Just a guess.”

“You'd know,” Sera said.

“No, I wouldn't.” Despite her best effort, Nim couldn't bury the bitter note. She'd woken up alone, after all.

“Regardless,” Sera said soothingly. “We're all in the same place now.”

“Right. Somewhere between doomed and fucked,” Jilly mused.

Nim snickered when Sera frowned. “You sound like Archer.”

“Your mate's a clever fellow.”

“Tell me that again when you find out he masterminded an end run around Liam's decision to wait on finding Corvus.”

Jilly shrugged. “They're both big boys. Emphasis on the ‘big.' ”

“That's what I'm worried about.”

“They'll work it out.” Jilly shook her finger at Sera. “And I think you're unfair to rat on him. Especially when I suspect you have plans of your own, to go with your theories.”

Sera's blush was bright on her pale skin, and Nim murmured, “Busted.”

Sera shot her a look and shifted uneasily on the bed. “Well, there's no point in them risking their lives and their souls for no good reason.”

“How about an evil reason?” Nim asked.

“I propose a training run before we tangle with Corvus,” Sera said. “The three of us and our teshuva, of course. The lure, the trap, the end. Let's give the demons a chance to make us what they intended us to be.”

“A weapon,” Jilly said.

“An end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it weapon,” Sera confirmed. “But we'll start smaller. I know Ecco will help us round up a few malice. We can handle those individually with minimal danger. If together we are something more, it'll be obvious against the poor malice.”

Nim snorted. “Poor monsters.”

Jilly sighed. “She feels bad because she hears them screaming when she seals them behind the Veil again.”

Sera wrinkled her nose. “Will you do it?”

“It gets me out of this bed.”

Sera stood. “Tonight, then. When Liam takes his crew out hunting, I'll send Ecco to catch a few malice. One quick and easy test and then we'll take our findings to the males. That's when we'll go after Corvus.”

“Set it up,” Jilly said. “I'll be done bleeding by then. And Nim will have some clothes that fit.”

Nim plucked at the oversized T-shirt. “You're letting me go through your closet? We must be BFFs.”

“I just don't think any woman should have to face death and damnation in sweatpants.”

Sera headed for the door. “I'll let you know when and where.”

Jilly waved her off. “I'll be here,” she said sourly. She turned to Nim. “I'm shorter than you and got more bootie, but if you don't mind hip-huggers . . .”

In the end, Nim found everything except shoes. Jilly wore a half size smaller and her tastes ran to thick-soled boots.

“Not sexy to dance in,” Nim said as she backed out of the closet.

“But damn good for feralis stomping.”

“Ah, a career-minded girl.”

Jilly gave her a look in the mirror as Nim zipped her new black capri pants. “In some ways, this was an easy transition, both for me and Sera. We already had a history of helping others.”

Nim adjusted the straps on the tank top. No support, really, but she was used to that. On several levels. “Oh, I was in the service industry too.” She turned away from the mirror. “Don't worry. I might not have been a dogooder like you two, but I've always been a survivor. If this is what I have to do to survive, then this is what I'll do.”

Jilly's frown didn't abate. “And I thought Jonah's zeal was unnerving.”

“It is. That's where we match. Or not so much match as fit together. Missing puzzle pieces.” Nim studied the other woman. “Would you have chosen Liam? If the demon hadn't done it for you, I mean.”