Speaking of the Devil Page 3

  He watched her as she bathed him, using the showerhead to clean him with icy water that he didn’t feel against his fevered skin. The trembling was beginning to fade, the nightmare slipping away from the forefront of his thoughts as he focused on Camille. She was safe and whole in front of him, pissed off and bitching him out—just like normal. The relief did more than the shower to quell the fear and panic leftover from the dream. When she turned off the water, letting the showerhead dangle down onto the floor, she looked back at him, her eyes piercing.

  Her brows drew together, lines forming between them as she thought. What was it with angels, Clark thought, that they always just stared?

  “What?” Clark growled, feeling alive enough to be pissed, even though he was stripped bare in front of an angel from one of the deadliest choirs, save for the Archangels.

  “This is more than just a hangover, isn’t it?” Camille finally guessed.

  “I told you that I had a nightmare.”

  “What was it?” Camille knew about his dreams, his limited ability to see things yet to come.

  “Don’t remember. Too hungover,” Clark lied.

  “That’s bullshit. Tell me.”

  “Would you get the hell out of here so I can get dressed?” Clark snapped, pushing her back so he could get out of the shower. Water dripped down his body, creating puddles at his feet, reminding him of the dream all over again. His stomach twisted and he turned to the toilet, bowing over it and dry heaving.

  Camille stood beside him, not touching or comforting him. She wasn’t the consoling type by any stretch of the imagination. Clark considered himself lucky that she hadn’t tossed him out a window to wake him up.

  “Go away.” Something about seeing her pinned to that cave’s wall made him feel exposed in front of her now.

  He sensed her rolling her eyes, heard her frustrated sigh. “I’ve seen you naked before, Clark.”

  She had. A lot, actually. Their bodies worked quite well together. She was long limbs and muscles, forming ridges and valleys across her body that were hard as granite. Clark was as tall as her, but his body was slender and muscular enough for a Nephil. They made a sight together, with her kohl-rimmed eyes and his tattoos. They could even be intimidating, a power couple, if Clark could ever be bothered to be serious.

  He was serious enough now, he thought. Nothing like death and despair to sober up a man.

  “For the love of things holier than yourself, would you just leave me alone?” he barked, needing her out of the room.

  “Fine. Meet me in the kitchen. We have things to discuss.”

  With her perfectly clipped words hanging ominously in the air between them, she turned on her heel and glided out, her boots silent across the floor, even though they were the heavy, steel-toed, ass-kicking sort. He was treated to a view of her tight ass in even tighter jeans. Her leather cropped tank top was just low enough in the back to allow for the juncture of her wings, where powerful muscles worked against the sway of the crystalline plumage.

  Clark looked away, puking again.

  * * *

  When Clark was dressed and as presentable as he cared to be, which wasn’t much, he walked into the kitchen. Camille sat at the breakfast table, nibbling on a bagel. She’d made coffee, even though the sun had fully set now, darkness thickening the shadows in the kitchen. A small kerosene lamp bravely cast its tiny light from the table.

  “I’m shocked you even know how to boil water,” Clark said, pouring himself a cup, while the stove warmed his legs. The coffee grinds sloshed thickly along the bottom of the pot. Without the luxury of electricity, the compound’s energy came from back-up generators, which were only used in emergencies, and solar-powered water pumps. Modern coffee makers were a thing of the past.

  “Who is she?”

  Clark swallowed a scolding hot gulp of coffee, feeling it sear his insides back to life. “Who?” he asked, not thinking.

  “That new Nephil from the French convent.”

  Clark looked up, horrified. “She’s a damned nun?” Somehow, that made everything worse. His thoughts of Sophia had never been exactly holy.

  “I don’t give a flaming shit what she is. I want to know who she is to you. Zarachiel said you fainted after you talked to her.”

  Clark didn’t want to talk about Sophia’s sister. It wasn’t the day for it. “I did not faint. I was tired. Besides, why do you care? Jealous?”

  Camille surged up from her chair, sending it toppling over. “Jealous?” she growled, the sound enough to make Clark’s stomach tingle. Sure, Camille scared the hell out of him sometimes—like now—but it also turned him on. “Me? Jealous of a half-breed?”

  “Watch it,” Clark said, turning back to his coffee. “I’m a half-breed.”

  “A half-breed of a half-breed,” Camille corrected, snapping off the words. “Tell me before I rip it out of you.”

  “If you hurt me, who would you come crawling to for a good lay?”

  Wrong thing to say. Clark knew it, but he said it anyway, smirking at her over his mug and waggling his eyebrows. Camille’s nostrils flared, her feline features turning into one of a furious lioness. “Crawl to you? You think that’s what I do? I allow you to have my body. You’re the luckiest bastard on Earth and Heaven!”

  “This is not what I would call lucky. This,” he said, gesturing between them, “is why I don’t date.”

  “Is she some other slut you’ve slept with?” Camille shouted over him, her voice like razors. “Don’t think I don’t know about the other Descendant whores you bed at night.”

  “Watch it,” Clark repeated, standing up for the Descendants on principle. “And I sleep with Nephilim too. I don’t mind. Besides, we never talked about being exclusive.”

  Camille’s mouth dropped open, as if her rage couldn’t be contained anymore. She screamed, flipping over the breakfast table and sending Clark’s coffee shattering into the wall. Slowly, he looked up at her from where he sat in the middle of the room.

  “Who is she?” she screeched again. Her wings pulsed out, shattering the room with sharp prisms of light. Clark blinked and looked away, his eyes watering.

  “Sophia’s sister,” Clark said just to make her put her wings away.

  Camille froze. The silence grew tense with the weight of Sophia’s ghost in the room between them. Clark didn’t know how Camille would react; he’d spoken to her of Sophia only a few times, enough that she understood the depth of his feelings. Enough that she knew she was a rebound, even though she warred against it.

  Saving them all, Zarachiel entered then. Clark looked over his shoulder to see the Archangel’s eyes quietly shifting between Clark and Camille. He was the only other being who knew of Clark’s twisted relationship with Camille, and this wasn’t the first time Zarachiel had walked in on a fight. It wasn’t even the first time he’d seen the breakfast table turned into kindling against the wall. Without comment, he went to the coffee pot and poured Clark another cup, which he handed over before turning down the stove and setting the nearly empty pot off the single cooking eye.

  Camille tucked her wings away, lifting her chin. “What is it?” she snapped at Zarachiel.

  She didn’t like Archangels and hated Michaela. Back during the war, Camille had actually fought on the holy side, which, confusingly enough, was the bad side. After one day’s battle, Iris had insisted on looking for wounded. They’d found Camille there, a wing broken during her fall from the battleground in the sky. They’d taken her back with them, and Clark had fixed her wing after many painful, failed attempts at using his fickle magic. Clark didn’t really think Camille’s hatred of Michaela grew from that time, when she’d believed Michaela was a traitor. That didn’t make sense. After all, Camille had decided to help Michaela in the end. In Clark’s opinion, Camille was jealous of his relationship with Michaela, even though he and Michaela had only been friends.

  Ignoring Camille’s question, which only rekindled her rage, Zarachiel turned to Clark. “What�
�s wrong?”

  “Dream.”

  A simple word, but Clark knew Z would understood easily enough. “Want to talk about it?”

  “No.”

  “Good. Because we have a problem.”

  “The girl?” Clark asked, meaning Sophia’s sister. Dread coiled in his gut.

  “Not exactly.”

  Clark felt a little guilty about his immediate relief at Zarachiel’s words, but he didn’t get too worked up about it. “Then what?”

  “There’s been a…death.”

  Clark stood, setting his coffee on the counter and sidestepping a jagged table leg. Refugees dying from injuries or sickness wasn’t a rare thing. They dealt with it as it came. Clark’s mind was already picturing the map of the town, wondering how far they would have to travel to get the body. “What sector?”

  “It’s not a refugee who died. It’s a Descendant.”

  Camille stiffened but remained silent. “Who?” Clark asked.

  “Jenna.”

  The room went incredibly still, like the angels were freezing the air particles in place, while Clark processed the single word.

  Jenna was a Descendant who had spent her share of time in Clark’s bed. She was pretty: pixie red hair and sweet eyes. She looked nothing like Sophia, which was why Clark liked her so much. She was shy, a bit of a nerd. She mainly focused on her Descendant studies and helping with the refugee children. Clark couldn’t imagine any kind of accident she could’ve gotten herself into. Her duties were one of the safest ones. She never left the compound.

  “How?” Clark asked, completely confused. He was too baffled to be sad.

  “Murder.”

  * * *

  Clark, Zarachiel, and Camille walked through the chilly halls of the compound, their footsteps echoing against the stone floors and walls. Thick drapes were pulled tightly over the windows to keep out the winter’s chill. Yet the icy air still settled deep in Clark’s lungs, pricking him like a million little needles. Watching his breath condense in the air kept his mind off Jenna. Off her murder.

  Sensing something was wrong, Descendants milled about in tight groups, whispering amongst themselves. In other tightly clustered groups were Nephilim, who watched as Clark walked past, their eyes flickering between his face and his arms. The power on his arms gave him the credibility to be their leader, but he was still just a young guy who was a little too weird with his pink hair and smart-ass mouth.

  They had to cross almost the entire length of the compound, passing the armory, chapel, hospital, and meeting hall. The hue of the stone and quality of mortar changed as they walked. The compound had been added to over the years, fanning out like a fattening cow. Before the war, the place had looked pretty modern, but since the plagues and downfall of society, the Descendants had reverted to using the torches that had once lined the walls in decoration. Now they burned in earnest to light the way. The lights and ever-present stone made Clark feel like he was walking through a medieval castle, as if he’d been lost in time.

  He huddled deeper into his sweatshirt, wondering where in the hell he’d left his leather jacket, as they walked toward the east wing, where Jenna and the Lost Kids resided

  They’d taken to calling them the Lost Kids because ‘orphans’ just sounded too depressing in an already-sad time. Some were too young to understand what had happened and why their parents were dead. How could you explain angels and war and horror upon horror to a little kid? So it had been Jenna’s idea, along with some other Descendants, to name them the Lost Kids after the Lost Boys in Peter Pan. For now, the children didn’t attend school, so they pretended to live like modern day Peter Pans and just be children stuck in a world where they never aged, where the worst thing they had to think about was evil Captain Hook.

  Clark had even dressed up as Captain Hook once to bring some excitement to their little role-playing game. He’d had as much fun as the kids. He’d met Jenna that day.

  Now he walked into her apartment and held his breath so the bitterly cold air wouldn’t freeze him from the inside out. The living room was her ‘home-base,’ as she’d called it. Half-sewn costumes littered the furniture. Props and crafts of all sorts lined the floors. An open bottle of glue was left out, drying beside a mermaid’s tail.

  Back down a narrow hallway, Clark saw the bedroom’s light was on; the murder clearly warranted the use of valuable generator resources. A few Descendants and a Nephil named Ezekiel milled about inside to examine the body. Clark’s stomach twisted, still sore from earlier. As the leader of the Nephilim, he hoped he didn’t throw up inside, but he had his doubts.

  Zarachiel and Camille wasted no time stepping around the living room’s disaster zone and heading straight for the bedroom. Clark took his time, lingering through the familiar apartment. In the kitchen, his eyes landed on the back of a chair, and he went cold. His leather jacket, the one he’d been missing, hung on the chair, where he’d left it the last morning he and Jenna had been together. His eyes darted away. If no one had found it yet, they would eventually. Questions would be raised, and Clark would have to explain himself.

  “Clark?” someone called from the bedroom. They were waiting on him, it seemed.

  With feet like cinder blocks, he trudged down the hall, looking up at the last possible second. He didn’t want to see this, to witness the end of yet another person caught in the aftershocks of this horrible war. Jenna wasn’t Sophia. She wasn’t Michaela. Or Camille. She wasn’t even Zarachiel, Gabriel, Uriel, Simiel. She wasn’t a fighter. She was just a young woman trying to help some kids feel a little better about being orphans. She wasn’t meant to die, but she went just as brutally as the warriors, as those on the front lines.

  Murdered. Where was the sense in that?

  The people were pressed against the bedroom’s wall, next to the door, where Clark had entered. Most were Descendants who worked in the special police force within the estate and town. The only non-humans in the room were Zarachiel, Camille, Clark, and Ezekiel. Ezekiel was a Nephil that Clark’s mom had sent down from Pennsylvania to help Clark transition into the Nephilim’s leader. The half-angel was older, his long beard gray in the corners. He wore the plain garb of the Amish—as was the way of the Pennsylvania clan, his back straight as a board. He didn’t even look up when Clark entered the room.

  The people in the room formed an odd sort of semi-circle around the bed, which played as a focal point to the evening’s proceedings. There, stretched out across the sheets, was Jenna. Her wrists were bound, tied tight against the frame so that her arms were spread out wide. It was very clear how she’d died, although Clark had never seen holy fire used on a human before.

  The special fire wasn’t meant to be used on anything but angels. Holy fire was a wicked trick from the Watchers’ magic. It had proved useful in some cases from Clark’s adventurous past, but it was brutal, indelicate, and utterly lethal.

  Only a holy sort of fire could have burned Jenna from the inside, charring her veins so that they stood out, black and singed, under her creamy skin, which was only slightly withered and dehydrated. The fire had burned slow, because her body was arched up, straining against the restraints, frozen in what could look like ecstasy. Except it wasn’t; her face was agonized, her mouth stretched open in a silent scream. Her eyes, once warm and lovely, were crispy with fright. Her legs were rigid with pain. She looked horrible and wretched, death having been unkind to her, as it most often was.

  But, then, this wasn’t really death. This was murder. There wasn’t sense to it, and that made him the sickest. Clark turned and threw up again, luckily finding the trashcan beneath the little desk beside him.

  “What the hell, Clark?” Liam, the current Keeper of the Descendants, said. “Keep it together, man.”

  “He’s badly hungover,” Camille offered.

  Clark looked up just in time to see Liam, who Clark actually liked, cringe in understanding. News of Sophia’s sister had spread quickly, it seemed. “Ah, well, do you need a minute
, Clark?” Liam offered, his tone more understanding. “I know you and Jenna were close.”

  Someone made a crude whispered comment about how well Clark knew Jenna. He turned to the right as some of the younger Descendants snickered. He instantly knew who’d made the comment. Dylan was a large, muscular guy with a brutish face and shit for brains. They’d never gotten along, ever since childhood, when they’d played on the playground in the Descendants’ elementary school. He winked at Clark, who opened his mouth to speak, but before he could, Liam interjected.

  “Dylan!” the Keeper barked. “Shut your bloody mouth, before I shut it permanently.”

  “Sorry, boss,” Dylan said, sounding anything but.

  “Get out of here and watch the front door.” Liam jerked his thumb over his shoulder, indicating the front door.

  “But I’m seated!”

  Being ‘seated’ to Descendants meant being called up to represent a spot on the main council, who, as a whole, represented the interests of the entire society. The council was lead by a Keeper, normally an older Descendant, who spent many years on the council. Technically, Clark wasn’t a seated member, but since the Descendants and Nephilim had merged however awkwardly post-war, he, along with a chosen few Nephilim, took up another part of the council.

  “I don’t give a damn what you are when you make despicable comments about a dead lady. Now get the hell out.”

  Realizing that Liam was serious, Dylan shoved his way through to the door, giving Clark a particularly hard knock on the shoulder. Clark wanted to smart off, but he saw Jenna out of the corner of his eye. Carefully, he closed his mouth, swallowing his retort. Jenna didn’t deserve any of this, and if her soul was still inside her body, she certainly didn’t deserve hearing two assholes make dicks of themselves in front of her.