“From heaven? Absolutely not.”
“Oh, good. That’s good. Hey, how do you have a cell phone, anyway? I thought cloistered nuns had to give up worldly crap.”
“I’m not a cloistered nun, and I have a cell phone because, in my position, it’s beneficial. It’s all been approved.”
“I’ll need to see those documents.”
“No.”
“Have you ever considered the fact that the term ‘cloistered nuns’ sounds like an appetizer? Or a punk band?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, well, let me know if you hear anything. I’d like to lead a normal life someday.”
“Ten four.”
* * *
Showers were God’s reward for working hard enough to get dirty. I dried off, wrapped myself up in the plush robe Reyes had bought me, and stepped to a foggy mirror.
Before I could wipe it off, a letter appeared in the steam. I glanced around. No one was in there, but another letter appeared as though someone were tracing letters in the condensation with a finger. I stood back and waited for the full message to appear, then read it aloud.
“Spies.”
What did that mean? There were spies here? Did we have a mole in the convent? And if so, who? No, the bigger questions would be, whom was the mole spying for? Whom would he report to?
I reached up and hurriedly wiped off the mirror. Two things came to mind immediately. First of all, that was my dad’s handwriting. It was exactly the same, which was odd and a little disheartening that I’d have the same handwriting when I died. I had thought there was hope for me. I thought good handwriting skills were a perk of heaven. That maybe we’d magically know angelic script and have this fluid, flowing handwriting, but no. I was doomed. The second thing was that there were apparently spies among us.
But who? Who would be—?
It hit me like a nuclear blast. I strode down the hall back to my room. Reyes had left, but I knew one person who hadn’t.
I opened the closet door to the agonizing sobs of the tax attorney. Reaching inside, I grabbed her arm and dragged her out. As long as I kept ahold of her wrist, she couldn’t vanish.
She stumbled to her feet and raised a hand to her face, sobbing uncontrollably.
“Save it,” I said, jerking her arm to snap her out of it. “Who are you spying for? Who sent you here?”
For a split second, I actually suspected my husband. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d sent someone to watch me. But why would she be putting on a show like that?
No, I suspected it was someone who knew I’d try to help her, and they wanted her to get very close to both me and Reyes.
“Answer me, or I’ll—” Crap, I had nothing. What would I do? I was a portal to heaven and threatening to send her there didn’t seem like much of an incentive to talk.
But she stopped crying anyway and glowered at me.
“Who are you spying for?” I repeated.
Her glower twisted her pretty mouth into a defiant smirk.
Suddenly, I knew what to do with her. “I’ll mark your soul. You will be devoured by a soul-eater and cease to exist.”
A split second of fear flashed across her face, but she recovered quickly. “I’m not the only one,” she said. “You have no idea what’s coming.”
“Enlighten me.”
“Bite me.”
“Hmm, no, I think I’ll leave that up to Osh’ekiel.”
Her jaw dropped open. “The Daeva? He’s here?”
“You’re not a very good spy.” She tried to jerk out of my grasp, but I held her tight. “Once I mark your soul, there is nowhere you can hide that he won’t find you.” Then something else hit me. A scent. Lavender. It was coming from the closet and had seeped into her soul. “You pushed me!” I said, appalled, remembering the scent just before I went face-first down a mountainside.
She raised her chin and refused to talk.
Dang it. Where was a waterboard when I needed one? I wondered if an ironing board would work.
But then she had to open her big mouth and make me mad. Not a good idea. “She will never see the light of day on this plane,” the tax attorney said, quite enjoying herself. “He’ll eat her intestines for breakfast. You have no idea the plans he has for your daughter.”
Anger surged through me lightning quick, and before I knew it, I’d marked her. I saw a symbol brand into her soul like a flash of light; then it was gone and all that remained was the burned imprint of the mark.
She gasped, looked at the mark on her chest, stumbled back, but I kept my hold.
Soon, Reyes and Osh burst through the door. Reyes was beside me at once while Osh fairly crooned when he realized what I’d done.
“What have we here?” he asked as the woman cowered away from him.
I turned from him to Reyes. “Your father has sent spies. We have spies! Did you know we have spies?”
Osh’s gaze dropped with guilt. But Reyes’s gaze never wavered from the woman’s.
“Were you planning on telling me?” I asked my husband.
“Not today,” he said.
I stood aghast. No idea why. The guy had more secrets than Victoria.
I thought Sheila was scared of Osh, and she was, but when her gaze landed on Reyes, she screamed and fought my hold. Just as she slipped through my fingers, Reyes took hold of her shoulders. “How many more?” he asked as he shook her.
“I don’t—” She cried out when his fingers bit into her. “Two. Maybe three.”
“What are his plans?”
“I don’t know. I—I swear. He doesn’t tell us.”
He shoved her away from us, the revulsion he felt evident in every move he made. “She’s all yours.”
She caught herself, straightened, and raised her chin, resigned to her fate.
“Dinnertime,” Osh said with a wolfish grin, and what happened next made me pee a little.
We looked on as Osh backed her against the closet door, not as though he were about to eat her alive, but as though he were about to make love to her.
“He’s just waiting for the right moment,” she said in one last act of defiance, one last attempt to scare us shitless. It was working. On me, at least.
“And what moment would that be, love?” Osh asked as he caressed her neck and lifted her face to his, his touch as gentle as a summer breeze.
She curled her hands into fists at her sides, waiting for the inevitable. “That moment when no one is looking.”
He leaned into her, pressed his hips into her, ran his lips along her neck. “We’re always looking, love.”
The grin that spread across her pretty face was both sad and terrifying. Her gaze landed on me and her grin widened. “Not always.”
Before I could ask what she meant, Osh bent over her and covered her mouth with his, the sensuality of the act surprising. And arousing. A shimmer of light escaped from between their mouths, and Osh pulled back from her, just enough for me to see her soul passing out of her and into him. His eyes were closed, his hands holding her head as she stared wide-eyed at the ceiling. She seemed to weaken almost instantly, her fists relaxing, her arms falling limp. Then her body grew more and more transparent. She began to dissipate. Pieces of her drifted into the air like ashes until she disappeared completely.
Osh braced an arm against the door and rested his head on it, his shoulders rising and falling with each heavy breath he took.
“How did you know?” Reyes asked me.
“My dad, I think. He told me there were spies and it just made sense. Mostly because she didn’t make any.”
“Any?” Osh asked, still panting.
“Sense. She didn’t make any sense. She was way too put together, too smart to be so upset she couldn’t even talk to me. And why in here? Where Reyes and I slept?”
“And talked,” Reyes added.
I sat on the bench, Reyes still holding my hand as I said, “That was kind of amazing.”
“Thanks for the meal,” Osh said,
crossing his arms over his still-heaving chest. His shoulder-length dark hair hid most of his face, but from what I could see, he was quite satisfied.
“I probably shouldn’t have done that. Isn’t that, you know, God’s job?”
“You are a god.”
“Not here. Not in this realm.”
“Since she was sent from hell, I doubt he minded.”
“From hell?” I asked, surprised.
Reyes looked down at me, his presence so powerful, I wanted to melt into him. “Who else would spy for my father?”
“You mean, she had been sent to hell and Lucifer sent her back? To spy on us? Is that even legal?”
“It would seem so,” Osh said. He laid his head back against the door, still recovering.
“Can you take someone’s soul who is still alive?” I asked him.
“Only pieces of it unless it’s been marked. Otherwise, I have to wait until those who have lost their souls to me die.” He bowed his head and looked at me from underneath his lashes, the wolfish grin back and darkening his features. “Then they’re all mine.”
“But, as per our agreement, you can eat only the souls of those undeserving of them.” I knew that good people had lost their souls to him. I’d saved one from him a few months back and made him promise to be more selective.
He lifted a shoulder in agreement. A reluctant agreement, but an agreement nonetheless.
“Hey,” I said, “I could mark my stepmother for you.”
Reyes sat down. “You can’t mark your stepmother.”
“Just a little mark. Barely visible.”
Osh laughed softly and stuck his hands in his pockets.
I grabbed a bottled water off my nightstand and nestled back beside the son of evil. “So, why do Daeva eat souls?”
Reyes spoke from beside me, his gaze hard on Osh’s. “It’s what they were created to do. Work. Fight. Entertain. Live off the suffering of others.”
“And what were you created to do?” he asked.
“Send people like you to their deaths.”
“Wait,” I said, holding up a time-out sign. “When did this turn south? We were all friends a minute ago. Weren’t we all friends?”
“It’s all good,” Osh said, sobering. “Rey’aziel tends to forget where he’s from sometimes. And that we were created by the same being.”
“But not in the same fires,” Reyes said. “Not of the same substance.”
Osh shrugged an eyebrow, unfazed.
“Maybe you’re a spy as well,” Reyes said.
“Maybe,” Osh replied. “And maybe you know more than you are letting on.”
“Maybe.”
So, now we were playing the maybe game. What was going on? They’d been getting along famously, then this. I decided to change the subject.
“So, explain to me this whole marking thing,” I said to Osh. “Are there others on earth who eat souls?”
“Yes,” he said without elaborating.
“Are they all Daeva?”
“No. I’m the only Daeva ever to both escape and make it through the void.”
He was right. Reyes’s tattoo was a map to the gates of hell. It was how he could traverse the oblivion, the void between this plane and his. He was literally a portal to hell while I was a portal to heaven. And we hooked up. Stranger things had happened; I was certain of it. He told me once that most all of those who tried to get onto our plane from hell never made it through the void. They were stuck there, slowly going insane. I wondered what would happen to one of those creatures if it finally, after centuries of living in the void, actually made it onto this plane. What would it be like?
A shudder rushed through me with the thought.
“You know,” I said, realizing something else, “all twelve hellhounds made it through the void and onto this plane. Someone had to have helped them.”
Reyes nodded. “I would guess that whoever summoned them had a hand in that.”
“But it took your father eons to create you, you who had the map imprinted on his body. He created a portal. Without the map that you and only you have, even he can’t cross onto this plane easily. Is that right?”
He lowered his head in thought. “Yes, it is.”
“Then how would he help them get here?”
“She’s right,” Osh said. “Whoever summoned them must have already been on this plane.”
Reyes stood and started pacing as Osh bent his head in thought. They were trying so hard to figure out the puzzle. They had been for months. I still couldn’t imagine why Osh was helping us. He hated Satan. I got that. But there seemed more to it than just hatred. He had an ulterior motive. I could feel it.
And why tell me what I could and could not do? I could destroy him with even the minute amount of information he’d already given me about my past, about my powers. I decided to learn more while I could.
“Why can I mark people?” I asked out of the blue. “I mean, why me?”
“Comes with the gig,” Osh said, his head still bowed in thought. “Only the reaper can mark the souls of humans. Well, God can, of course, but why would he need to? And I think Michael can. And the Angel of Death, naturally.”
“The Angel of Death? For real?”
“For real.”
“Wow, so what else comes with the gig?” I asked, fishing. “I mean, what other marks could there possibly be?” He’d let it slip once that I had five marks, five avenues of judgment as the reaper. Since I can see into people’s souls, I can see what they did with their lives and how they treated others, I had the ability to judge, jury, and execute. I wanted to know every avenue I had at my disposal.
“You have five marks, and what you say is law. Only God can supersede your decision on any soul.” He looked up at me then, his brows knitting in suspicion. “Why?”
“I just want to know what I can do.”
“You will know,” Reyes said, “when you pass and you ascend to become the grim reaper. If you take the job.”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“Because you are a god. You have an entire universe to run.” He looked away from me. “Why would you stick around here?”
“Good point,” I said, teasing him yet marveling at how matter-of-fact they made it all sound. How everyday.
“What other marks?” I asked Osh.
Osh eyed Reyes a moment before continuing. “You can brand a soul for heaven or for hell. You can brand a soul for termination, which is essentially what you do when you mark one for me. It’s kind of like free game. You can mark one as a wanderer, a soul with no home who must wander the wilds of the supernatural realm, forever considering their mistakes. And you can give the mark of designation.”
“Designation?”
“You can assign that soul a special purpose on earth, and no other supernatural being can argue with your decision.”
“Like when the president appoints a chief of staff?”
“Pretty much. That soul can no longer be touched.”
I was still confused on a couple of points. “So, if I marked a soul for termination and you weren’t here to eat it, what would happen to it?”
“It would burn away over the course of a few days. It would be very painful. So, in a way, I’m performing a public service.”
“Of course you are. And when I found you, what were you doing then?”
“Hey, everyone has to eat, and I can only bargain for souls. They must be given willingly.”
“But you trick them into giving up their souls.”
He spread his hands wide, acquiescing. “That was the old me. This is the new.”
“You no longer trick them?”
“Oh, I trick them. Really, it’s just too easy. But I only trick the bad ones, remember?” he added quickly when I scowled at him. “Child molesters and such. As per your request,” he mocked.
“And people who talk at the theater. Don’t forget people who talk at the theater.”
One corner of his mouth tipped up. “I
wouldn’t dare.”
Reyes walked to the window and looked out over the lawn. Even as dark as it was out, we could still see the departed.
“I once ate this woman—,” Osh started.
“Dude, I don’t think I should be hearing this.”
“I ate her soul,” he corrected.
“Next time, open with that.”
“And she tasted horrible, like an ashtray with kerosene in it.”
I fought my gag reflex. “No way.”
“Crazy thing was, she didn’t even smoke while she was alive.”
“Then why? Surely she wasn’t born bound for hell?”
“She was a very feared drug lord. Ruthless. Barbaric. She killed anyone who got in her way. A lot of people died in her crossfire. Even children. We are all tainted by the decisions we make.”
“And the taste of our souls reflects that?”
“It does.”
“Huh. I wonder what mine would taste like.”
“Cherry pie.” He grinned from ear to ear. “Very tart cherry pie.”
“How would you know that?”
He ignored the threatening scowl Reyes had cast him and winked.
“You’ve tasted me? Oh my God, I feel violated.”
“Please, it was just a nibble.”
“I totally should have paid more attention in Bible school.”
“I don’t think they teach about the Daeva. We aren’t important enough to merit a mention.”
I narrowed my eyes on him. “Somehow, I don’t think that’s true. Are there more?” I asked Reyes.
“Exponentially more.”
His shoulders took up the entire expanse of the window, so I nudged against him. He wrapped an arm around me and stepped to the side. He was right. Our shindig had grown exponentially.
“Do you think there are spies among them?”
“I do.” He looked down at me. “But they could be anywhere. Anyone.”
I nodded. “Is that what you and Angel were talking about in the clearing today?”
When he didn’t answer yet again, I tsked. “Just remember, you brought on the wrath of the reaper all on your little lonesome. By the way,” I added, looking at Osh. “I was just kidding about the people who talk at the theater.”
“Damn it,” he said, feigning disappointment.