“The reaper’s right,” Cameron said. He was standing at the foot of the bed, hood up, hands stuffed into pockets. I had a feeling Brooklyn had dragged him there, and Glitch seemed none too happy about it, if the parade of glares he continually cast Cameron’s way were any indication. “It would fracture your soul. Even if you survived, you would never be the same again.”
Brooke turned back to him. “My soul isn’t fractured, and Lorelei’s strong. I think she could handle it.” She winked in support.
Cameron hunched his shoulders and lowered his head. “Actually, it is.”
“What?” She raised her brows in question.
My grandparents looked at him askance as well. For all of their knowledge, even they couldn’t see what Cameron could.
After taking a draught again, he said, “Your soul. It’s fractured.”
She scooted around to him. “What do you mean?”
“That’s why it’s so different. So amazing.”
“Amazing how?” she asked, her suspicion growing.
He offered a one-shouldered shrug. “I don’t know. I’ve just never seen anything like it. It’s broken. There’s a crack down the middle and while the aura all around you is normal, a light projects out of the fissure, so bright that when you stand just right, you’re blinding.”
“So,” Glitch said, his head bowed in thought, “you’ve been checking out her crack?”
After a tense moment of silence, we burst out laughing. Well, most of us. Apparently Glitch wasn’t trying to be funny. He glared at Cameron accusingly. Naturally, Cameron glared back. Someday I would find out what had happened between the two of them, but for now, the uneasy truce between the two supernatural beings in the room was enough to tide me over.
Grandma had filled me in on the events since last night. Apparently, Jared was being hailed as the town hero after saving Tabitha’s life and thwarting an attempted kidnapping. She told me that, in fact, most of the townspeople did not know about the Sanctuary or the ancient society, which made sense because my grandfather never mentioned it in his sermons. It really was a secret, made up of believers from all over the world, about fifty of whom lived in Riley’s Switch.
My grandparents already had men fixing up the apartment behind the house for Jared, and I could tell they were getting used to his presence. My grandmother wasn’t nearly so jittery, and she’d even joked with him a couple of times. But she still insisted on calling him Your Grace.
So all this was going on while I lay waiting to be discharged from our urgent-care facility after staying all night for observation. I’d suffered a concussion at the hands of Mr. McCreepy. I almost felt bad that he’d died, but Jared said his soul no longer belonged to him anyway. He’d sold it long ago. The sheriff’s report confirmed everything, and I was beginning to see the bright side of having him in our secret club. The fact that he was in on the whole thing, even in Mr. Davis’s office that day, freaked me out. The guy could act.
Mr. Davis, on the other hand, was going to be a problem. He had not been shown the secret handshake and was apparently growing more suspicious by the moment. We would have to walk on eggshells around him for a while.
I sobered and asked Jared the other thing that I couldn’t let go of: “Do you know what happened to my parents?”
He shook his head. “I’m sorry.”
“That’s okay.” I couldn’t help but be disappointed.
With a knowing smile, he added, “But I do know that if your parents were pulled into the lower dimension, Lorelei, if that’s what happened, even the gates of Hell cannot hold the righteous. They would not be there still. There are rules, remember?”
I took a deep breath, determination guiding me. “That may be true, but I have to know, Jared. I have to find them.” A quick glance toward my grandparents revealed the emergence of hope in their eyes. They were thinking the same thing. Surely, with the help of an archangel, we could find my parents, their daughter and son-in- law.
After placing a hand on his forearm, I asked, “Will you help me find them?”
He lowered his head. “I will do everything I can, everything in my power, but I can’t make any promises.”
“No, that’s okay. I understand.” I couldn’t help the zing of excitement that rushed down my spine. We had a chance, and it was more than we had yesterday.
But Jared’s expression turned grave. “Now that you know what I’ve done, perhaps my aid will allow you a small amount of generosity. It’s still early, but someday I will ask if you can forgive me my trespasses.”
I rolled onto my side, astonished that he would even say such a thing. “How can I forgive you when you haven’t done anything wrong?”
“Lorelei,” he said, releasing a slow, controlled breath, “I have kept you a prisoner on this plane. When you realize that, when that time comes, I will ask again.”
“I’m pretty grateful for that part as well,” Grandpa said, relaxing his guard just a little. He took Grandma’s hand into his own. “Maybe where you come from what you did was wrong, but around these parts, we call that a miracle.”
I couldn’t have agreed more.
“So what now?” Brooklyn asked.
What now, indeed. I knew one thing for certain: I would never give up on my parents. They had risked everything trying to protect me, to protect the world. I would find them, no matter what it took.
“That woman in our dreams,” Glitch said, “she said you now had a mission. Is it to find the dark spirits? Is that what this is about?”
“That is a good place to start,” Jared said.
Cameron nodded in agreement. “And we need to find the man who opened the gates in the first place. If he has the power to summon demons, there’s no telling what else he’s capable of. Or what he’s done in the last ten years.”
“Do you think that’s who’s after Lorelei?” Grandma asked. “The man that reporter referred to as his boss?”
“It’s possible,” Jared said.
“Well, that’s disturbing on a thousand different levels,” Brooke said.
Once again, I couldn’t have agreed more, only I’d lost myself in the dark depths of Jared’s eyes. I tended to do that when he looked at me. Or when he looked at anything near me. Or pretty much whenever his eyes were open. He’d shaved, but a shadow darkened his jaw nonetheless. His mussed hair fell over his brow, the tips getting caught in his ridiculously long lashes when he blinked. His sculpted mouth was the most delicious thing I’d ever seen, and I wanted so very much to kiss it. But that would’ve been a tad rude with Grandma and Grandpa right there. Especially considering their distrust of him.
“I’ve been thinking,” Brooklyn said as I gawked at the god sitting next to me, “if you two get all lovey-dovey and decide to elope to Las Vegas where Jared uses his powers to clean up at the poker tables and you guys buy a mansion in the Manzano Mountains with twenty-seven rooms and decide—because you’re rich and all—to buy a new computer, can I have your iMac then?”
“Brooke,” I said, cringing as Grandpa cleared his throat and suddenly had a window to inspect. Not Grandma, though. She didn’t budge an inch, her gaze unblinking as she waited for my answer. “Um, no, you’re not getting my iMac.”
“Dang.”
“iPrecious stays with me. I have to write all this stuff down. I
Jared grinned. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
I let my eyes drift shut and stilled the thoughts swirling in my head. The truck hitting me. Jared saving me. The fights, the ancient society, the visions. I pushed it all away and focused on the warmth of Jared as he sat beside me. With one final thought trying to surface—the demon inside—I forced it down with a hard swallow and whispered, “We’re fine.”
