He nodded, and rubbed his fingertips along his jeans, as if wiping off a stain. “It’s good we have a state between us now. Good we don’t have to work together.”
He paused again, then, softly, “I’ve never been able to get the taste of his soul out of my mouth.” Shame blinked and seemed to come back to himself. Seemed to notice I was in the room.
“So you want to know if you and Zayvion have a shot at being Soul Complements? More than Terric and I, more than Chase and Greyson. For one thing, neither of you is a screwed-up killer. That’s a step in the right direction.”
“Have you ever told anyone about . . . about this?” I asked.
He shrugged, just one shoulder tucking up toward his ear. “They heard what they wanted to hear. They think what they want to think. I know what I was thinking and feeling. I know what I did. Do I regret it? Every damn day. But that doesn’t change what I did.” He fingered a cigarette out of his pocket, lit it, and exhaled smoke toward the window, which I only now noticed was cracked open.
“You were young. Maybe, what? Nineteen, twenty when it happened?” I asked.
Shame sniffed. “You going to stand here talking about the past all night, or were you actually going to do something to save Zay? ’Cause yakking isn’t doing him much good.”
Okay, I got the hint. Subject closed. For now.
“I’m going to take a shower,” I said.
“Why bother? This is bound to get messy.”
“I don’t care. First I shower.”
“And then?”
“Then I’m going to hunt. My way.”
“I’m coming with you,” he called as I shut the door.
I didn’t want him to, not because of his story, but because he looked exhausted. But I knew there was nothing I could do to stop him, short of getting in a fistfight. Which I’d probably lose. I might not be hurting, but I wasn’t at my best either.
I shucked off the pajamas, and got into the hot water. The marks down my arm and hand were dulled to a flat gray. It was strange to see the marks without the metallic shine, without any color or magic in them at all.
But in a way, it made me feel strong. I hadn’t always had incredible amounts of magic surging through me. Sure, I was born with a small magic. I paused, concentrating on if I still felt that small weight within me. It was there, candle-flame bright, but not as powerful as the magic I usually held.
Still, that wasn’t nothing. And I had a feeling it was a lot more than most people had right now.
I finished washing, got out, got dry, and put on my clothes.
My father had been strangely quiet since we’d hunted Greyson. I wondered if he was still in my mind.
Dad? I thought.
The moth-wing flutter brushed against the backs of my eyes. He was there. A little stronger than he had been before. I swallowed, and tasted the familiar wintergreen and leather of his scents, smelled it in my nostrils, tasted it at the back of my throat.
Still possessed by my dead father? Check.
Small magic still inside me? Check.
Pissed off that some skank and her boyfriend tried to kill my lover? Hells, yes.
I found a brush and pulled my hair back. It wasn’t quite long enough to put in a band, but I’d need a haircut soon to keep it out of my eyes. No time for that now. I had a world to save.
I strode out of the bathroom. Shame must have left and returned. He wore a black trench coat. Belted. I had a feeling he was packing a lot of weapons underneath it.
“How you want this to go down?” he asked.
His eyes were a little glossy, like the grips of a fever raged through him. But he was still himself. Still willing to stand beside me and save Zayvion. I probably shouldn’t, but I trusted the man, dark past and all.
Was it a bad idea to take a crazy, bloodthirsty Death-magic user on my little stroll around the city? My dad in my head rubbed at the backs of my eyes. Well, I didn’t care what he thought.
A phone rang. Mine. In the pocket of my coat that hung over the back of the other chair in the room. I picked it up before it could ring a third time.
“Yes?”
“Allie, this is Detective Stotts. I need you to meet me in Eastmoreland, at