there when I needed you. I thought maybe that was still true, but apparently I was wrong.”
Patch’s eyes didn’t waver from mine. “Want to tell me what this is really about?” When I didn’t answer, he dragged out one of the kitchen chairs tucked under the table. He sat, arms crossed, legs stretched out languidly. “I’ve got time.”
The Black Hand. That’s what this was really about. But I was scared to confront him. Because of what I might learn, and how he might react. I felt sure that he had absolutely no idea how much I knew. If I accused him of being the Black Hand, there was no turning back. I would have to face the truth that held the power to break me down to my very soul.
Patch raised his eyebrows. “Silent treatment?”
“This is about telling the truth,” I said. “Something you’ve never done.” If he’d killed my dad, how could he have looked me in the eye all those times, telling me how sorry he was, and never told me the truth? How could he kiss me, caress me, hold me in his arms, and live with himself?
“Something I’ve never done? From the day we met, I never lied to you. You didn’t always like what I had to say, but I was always up-front.”
“You let me believe you loved me. A lie!”
“I’m sorry it felt like a lie.” He wasn’t sorry. There was a look of stony fury in his gaze. He hated that I was calling him out. He wanted me to be like all the other girls and disappear into his past without so much as a peep.
“If you felt anything for me, you wouldn’t have moved on to Marcie in record time.”
“And you didn’t move on to Scott in record time? You’d rather have half a man than me?”
“Half a man? Scott is a
“He’s Nephilim.” He made a careless gesture in the direction of the front door. “The Jeep has more value.”
“Maybe he feels the same way about angels.”
He shrugged, lazy and arrogant. “I doubt it. If it weren’t for us, his race wouldn’t exist.”
“Frankenstein’s monster didn’t love him.”
“And?”
“The Nephilim race is already seeking revenge on angels. Maybe this is only the beginning.”
Patch raised his ball cap and dragged a hand through his hair. From the look on his face, I got the impression that the situation was far more dangerous than I’d originally been led to believe. How close was the Nephilim race to overpowering fallen angels? Surely not by this Cheshvan. Patch couldn’t mean that in less than five months, swarms of fallen angels would invade, and eventually kill, tens of thousands of humans. But everything in the way he held himself, down to the very look in his eye, told me that was exactly what was in store.
“What are you doing about it?” I asked, horrified.
He picked up the glass of water I’d poured for myself and left on the table, and took a drink. “I’ve been told to stay out of it.”
“By the archangels?”
“The Nephilim race is evil. They were never supposed to inhabit Earth. They exist because of the pride of fallen angels. The archangels want nothing to do with them. They’re not going to step in where Nephilim are concerned.”
“And all the humans who will die?”
“The archangels have their own plan. Sometimes bad things have to happen before good things can.”
“Plan? What plan? To watch innocent people die?”
“The Nephilim are walking straight into a trap of their own making. If people have to die to annihilate the Nephilim race, the archangels will risk it.”
The hairs on my scalp prickled. “And you agree with them?”
“I’m a guardian angel now. My allegiance is to the archangels.” A blaze of killing hate rose in his eyes, and for one brief moment, I believed it was directed at me. As if he blamed me for what he’d become. In my defense, I felt a wash of anger. Had he forgotten everything from that night? I’d sacrificed my life for him, and he rejected it. If he wanted to blame someone for his circumstances, it wasn’t me!
“How strong are the Nephilim?” I asked.
“Strong enough.” His voice was disturbingly devoid of concern.
“They could hold off the fallen angels as early as this Cheshvan, couldn’t they?”
He gave a nod.
I hugged myself to ward off a deep, sudden chill, but it was more psychological than physical. “You have to do something.”
He shut his eyes.
“If fallen angels can’t possess Nephilim, they’ll move on to humans,” I said, trying to break through his hands-off attitude and reach his conscience. “That’s what you said. Tens of thousands of humans. Maybe Vee. My mom. Maybe me.”
He still said nothing.
“Don’t you even care?”
His eyes flicked to his watch, and he pushed up from the table. “I hate to rush out of here when we’ve got unfinished business, but I’m late.” The spare key to the Jeep was lying in a dish on the sideboard, and he pocketed it. “Thanks for the key. I’ll add borrowing the Jeep to your tab.”
I parked myself between him and the door. “My tab?”
“I got you home from the Z, got you off Marcie’s roof, and now I let you use my Jeep. I don’t give out favors for free.”
I was pretty sure he wasn’t joking. In fact, I was pretty sure he was dead serious.
“We can work it so you pay me after each individual favor, but I figured a tab would be easier.” His smile was a taunting curve. First-class-jerk smug.
I narrowed my eyes. “You’re actually enjoying this, aren’t you?”
“One of these days I’m going to come to collect on the favors, and then I’ll really be enjoying it.”
“You didn’t loan me the Jeep,” I argued. “I stole it. And it wasn’t a favor—I commandeered it.”
He gave his watch a second glance. “We’re going to have to finish this later. I’ve got to run.”
“That’s right,” I snapped. “A movie with Marcie. Go have fun while my world hangs in the balance.” I told myself I wanted him to go. He deserved Marcie. I didn’t care. I was tempted to hurl something after him; I thought about slamming the door at his back. But I wasn’t going to let him go without asking the question that burned my every thought. I dug my teeth into the inside of my cheek to keep my voice from unraveling. “Do you know who killed my dad?” My voice was cold and controlled, and not my own. It was the voice of someone who was filled to the very tips of her fingers with hate, devastation, accusation.
Patch stopped with his back to me.
“What happened that night?” I didn’t bother trying to hide the desperation in my voice.
After a moment of silence, he said, “You’re asking me like you think I might know.”
“I know you’re the Black Hand.” I shut my eyes briefly, feeling my whole body sway under a wave of nausea.
He looked over his shoulder. “Who told you that?”
“Then it’s true?” I realized my hands were balled into fists at my sides, shaking violently. “You’re the Black Hand.” I watched his face, praying he’d somehow refute it.
The grandfather clock in the hall chimed the hour, a heavy, reverberating sound.
“Get out,” I said. I wouldn’t cry in front of him. I refused to. I wouldn’t give him that satisfaction.
He stood in place, his face cold with shadow, mildly satanic.
The clock counted through the silence.
“I’ll make you pay for it,” I said, my voice still oddly foreign.
“I’ll find a way. You deserve to go to hell. The only thing that could make me sorry is if the archangels beat me to it.”
A flash of hot black crossed his eyes.
