bind where he’d risk his life and limb and soul for some twisted scheme.
Something clicked inside Robert. His pulse slowed and he felt cold, and strong in a way that he’d never felt before: impervious on the inside.
“No thanks,” he said. “I’ve had jobs before. None of ’em ever seemed to work out for me. Guess I’m what you’d call a lousy employee.”
Sealiah’s smile faltered.
He pushed his luck and added, “If that’s all you wanted to say, no offense, I’d just like to be left alone. . and left to forget, ma’am.”
Robert went back to his towel and lay down, crossed his arms behind his head and gazed up at the infinite blue sky (but also watching the Infernal out of the corner of his eye).
Sealiah stayed where she was, staring at him, still smelling insanely good to Robert. Her lips pressed together, and the air around her heated and shimmered-but then she chuffed with amusement.
“You are stronger than I realized.” She came over and sat on the blanket next to him.
This close, Robert felt her pulse thrum in the air between them. His blood wanted to race and catch up and run with hers. He took a deep breath, though, and kept his cool.
She scooched closer. A few drops of seawater dripped onto him. “You want to be left alone, Robert? Really? Are you hiding? Licking your wounds?” She looked him over as if he were a prime rib.
He shrugged.
“You can, you know,” she said. “But in a few months, perhaps a year or two there will be no neutral parties left. There will be nowhere to hide.
Robert was suddenly thirsty. More than anything he wanted to grab one of those beers just within his reach and drink the whole thing. But to do that he’d have to reach past her, touch her, and that would be like falling. . and he wouldn’t be able to stop himself once that happened.
She leaned closer. “You will eventually have to choose a side.” Her breath whispered over his chest, and gooseflesh pebbled there.
It felt great, and Robert became dizzy for a moment, but then found his mental footing again.
“Then,” he told her, “I choose
Sealiah threw back her head and laughed. It sounded like funeral bells. Birds in the nearby trees took wing, screeching in fear.
“I was correct to choose you as my champion against Mephistopheles,” she said. “In a sense you possess the strength to do for me more than any other ever has. . ” Her voice trailed off as if she’d just realized something and it had halted her super seductress act dead in its tracks.
She blinked and shook her head. “I can help you as well. I could make you stronger than you ever dreamed. All you need do is remain my champion, Robert Farmington of Arkansas.”
Her fingertips brushed against his forearm, and shivers of pleasure arced from her to him.
“And all you need do is swear one tiny oath of loyalty.”
“No way.” Robert pulled away. “No oaths. No contracts. No blood ties. Like I told you: I’m done working for
She looked him a long time. The ocean pounding sounded like a typhoon.
“No,” she finally said, “I can see that now. You are
Again, for a moment, she didn’t look like any Infernal he’d ever seen before as the skin between her perfectly smooth brows crinkled with frustration.
Her gaze then dropped to the sand and she murmured, “Is it because. . I am what I am? You think me evil? Twisted? And you believe that is all that I am?”
Robert heard the hurt in her voice. Infernals were really good liars, though, so he couldn’t be sure it wasn’t just a game. Robert was always rushing to save damsels in distress. This time, though, something told him this was real vulnerability, something maybe none other had ever seen in the Queen of Poppies.
“Isn’t that all you are?” he asked. “Maneuvering Eliot to your side, and getting me and Fiona to kill Mephistopheles? All those tortured damned souls you keep in Hell?” He licked his lips, afraid he’d said too much, but nonetheless he pressed on. “
“You wound me with the truth.” She looked up, the pain shining in her eyes. “We were once all so much more.”
She pulled her legs into a kneeling position and stretched out her arms. “And perhaps for you, Robert Farmington, I can summon one brief glimpse of our past.”
Sealiah arched her back and looked as if something red-hot had been shoved into her center-and then light burst forth and blazed pure white: she was a creature of divine beauty that shone
And then it was gone, and Robert was left blinking at splotchy purple afterimages.
Sealiah lay huddled before him, panting. “That is what we once were.”
She sat up, her face pale and lined with exhaustion. “And I fear you are correct: we are no longer those creatures. My last chance to touch that part of me dies with your refusal, hero.”
She slowly stood and stumbled back toward the ocean.
Robert got to his feet. “Wait.”
She stopped but kept her back turned.
Sealiah was the ultimate damsel in distress. She wasn’t human-Robert had to remind himself of that, but did she have to be human to need saving?
What if he could save her? Change her? That might change everything.
He’d never been able to say no to any woman who needed help. It wasn’t in his DNA.
And what needed saving in all the worlds more than a fallen angel?
Still with her back to him, Sealiah whispered, “You also said you wanted to forget, Robert. I could. . could help you with that as well. I would look forward to it.”
Forget? Could he?
Fiona? Everyone at school? And the League?
Robert didn’t think so, as much as he wanted that. But maybe-just maybe, he could grow out of his mistakes and regrets and become something
He took her hand, whirled her around-pulled her into his embrace.
Sealiah curled against his chest, and tilted her head up.
They kissed and wrapped around each other.
The ocean surged about their feet and splashed up their legs.
Robert felt as if he were drowning.
He let the tide of her passion take him.
Eliot couldn’t figure it out. This was just too much stuff.
He stepped back and looked over the items spread on his bed: jeans and sweaters and T-shirts, soap, toothbrush and toothpaste, first-aid kit, flashlights, a white-gas stove, tent, sleeping bag, rain jacket, sun hat, parka, waders, a box of extra guitar strings, and books-stacks and piles of ancient tomes and scrolls and moldering texts that were his required reading for the summer. The books by themselves weighed fifty pounds.
He
Could he really do this?
Yes. He’d already made up his mind. The rest was just details.
How he’d come to this particular life-altering decision was a combination of logic, guesswork. . and a feeling that he was 100 percent absolutely correct. It was instinct: like a plant heliotropes toward the sun, or stone falls because of gravity.
