were the desert sands that Dee so often pitied her with. The eyes that stared back at her from the familiar face were full of mischief and vanity, and cerulean like the Caribbean Sea.
“Jerry?”
Confused, he looked at her like a man possessed. Well, like a man successfully possessed.
He nodded, and before she could do anything to stop it or even wonder if she should, he was kissing her.
Chapter 22
It was possible that while he was tossing and turning through the night, experiencing an interplay of soul-wrenching guilt and frustrated need, Marc had become the victim of a secret experiment in which priests were forced to host lab rats for observation in the cavern of their bellies. At least, that’s what it felt like as he stood motionless in front of Riona’s apartment door: as though woodland creatures were using his organs for soccer practice.
This was a bad idea. A terrible, horrific, stupid idea. What the hell was he thinking, coming here alone? If Riona Dade needed spiritual counseling, any number of preachers, rabbis, tribal shamans and a horde of Starbucks baristas were available for consultation in the greater Boston area. It wasn’t like he was the only uniquely qualified person to handle her situation. How did he let himself get here? Maybe he had been a philandering ass in a previous life, and this was karma’s way of getting him back for his scandalous ways.
Marc bit his tongue and remembered that he didn’t believe in karma. Nope, he was just an idiot, plain and simple. Had always been one way or another where Riona was concerned, from the very moment he met her.
His mind flitted back eight to when Dee and he first located the new Keystone. While Dee worked his charms, both physical and magical, over the nurses and staff at the McLean Psychiatric Hospital, Marc enchanted the locks on Riona’s temporary holding room.
“Who are you?”
She looked like a woman who’d gone through hell and back. Alone in a padded room, though luckily not wearing a straitjacket, her slender frame backed against the wall where she sat on the floor. Her red hair could have been coiffed by Picasso; it stood off her head at conflicting angles. The pockets beneath her eyes were so deep and black, he wondered if she snuck in a bare-knuckled street fight before being committed. But what Marc noticed most was the way she didn’t give him more than a passing glance when he walked into the room. She just kept staring at her hands curiously, vindictively, like his presence was of no consequence to her.
“My name is Father Marcello Angeletti,” he began. “I’m here to help.”
“Nothing you can do for me, Father,” she answered in a tone that was neither rude nor welcoming. “Not unless you have a degree in physics or are ready to tell me there’s a tumor in my brain, which is going to kill me soon that explains what happened. Or, if you’re truly a humanitarian, hit me hard enough with something heavy that wakes me up from this goddamned dream.” She winced, giving Marc the first sign of emotion he’d seen — regret. “Sorry, Father. I didn’t mean to …”
He stopped her with the raising of his hands and took a seat on the floor next to her. “It’s okay, my child.” Inwardly, he scoffed. She looked like she might actually be a few years his senior. “I understand you’ve been through quite a night.”
He placed a sympathetic hand on her shoulder, and could still feel the buzz of her power, raw and sharp as newly-cut teeth, crawling over her skin. Not every aura was an open book like that. Half of him wondered why hers was so easy for him to sense. “Would you like to tell me what happened?”
“I’ve already told everyone what happened. The police, the doctors… Why do you think I’m here in the loony bin?”
“I don’t think you’re crazy, Ms. Dade. I am a man of God. I know there’s more to this world than what can be entered into the log of a detective’s casework or measured with a hospital’s instruments. Please, tell me?”
Her eyes lit briefly as her head turned towards his, giving Marc a full view of their bloodshot state. “I don’t believe in God, Father.”
“It’s possible, however, that He believes in you.”
She sighed languidly, but then, obliged, walking him through the terror of her previous twenty-four hours. Her boyfriend, Jerry, had called and told her to get ready to