I looked around the room again. “Where’s Clara?”

  It was as if she was just waiting for us to look for her. She stepped out from the midst of the gathering, in a frilly white dress, her hairstyle matching Charis’. She came up to us and took my hand.

  I squatted down so we were at eye level. Charis joined me. “Now what?” I asked.

  “He’ll try to change things, to undo what we’ve made,” she said. “It will be hard for him, because the memories bind us and give us strength. They’re more real to us than anything he can conjure up, and true creation is hard to destroy. He doesn’t really know how to make, he just fakes it. The cracks are everywhere if you know where to look.”

  “He found us pretty fast in New York,” Charis said.

  “He knows New York well. It will be harder for him to find us here.”

  I didn’t completely understand the rules of the game of hide and seek we were playing, at least not on the surface. Clara was an extension of us, so there had to be some base part of ourselves that knew what was going on.

  “So we just hang out here until he catches up?”

  She nodded. “Yes, daddy. Then we have to run again, and we have to be quick. Leave too soon and he’ll be able to follow right behind. There is no leaving too late.”

  I knew what she meant. I could still hear the cracking of the Tommy gun ringing in my ears. “How do we know if it’s the right time?”

  “Things will change,” she said. “That’s the clue. It’s the right time when we see him. We have to all be together, not touching but close by. Think of a memory. Any memory to get us away, but detailed is better. It makes us harder to find.”

  “Okay, let’s just concentrate on staying together then,” I said. “What happens if he kills us?”

  She rolled her eyes at me again. It was super cute, but I hated when she did that. “He didn’t know you could do this. Now that he does…”

  She didn’t need to finish. I got it. He wouldn’t let us live long enough to remember again. Maybe he wouldn’t let us live at all. I could picture an endless cycle of rebirth and murder, from now until never.

  “So the longer we survive the more powerful we get, right?” I asked. “The more powerful we get, the easier it will become to defeat him.”

  “Yes, and no. Remember the balance, daddy. Always remember the balance.”

  The answer gave me a chill. I leaned forward and kissed her on the cheek. “Thanks, Clara.” She was so real sometimes.

  I stood back up and looked out at the assembly of soldiers and citizens. There was nothing to do but wait for Ross to show his face. When he did, we would leave.

  “Any particular memory you’d like to visit?” I asked Charis. I was trying not to think too much about this one.

  She laughed. “How about the time you made out with Tammy Robinson?”

  I could feel my face turning red. “I was sixteen,” I said.

  “It was very cute. Your first chance to get to first base.”

  She was patronizing me. “I’ve learned a lot since then.”

  “You guys,” Clara said, tugging on my pants. “Let’s get something to eat.”

  Charis laughed again. Could it be possible that we might actually be able to enjoy ourselves in this place, even if only for a few fleeting minutes at a time? It was nice to not have Ross right on our tails for once.

  The three of us wandered through the house, drawing curious glances from the others because our kid was the only kid around. She didn’t seem to notice, using her nose to track us to a table of American classics. Pie, turkey, potatoes; it was like the original Thanksgiving. It smelled great.

  “You don’t really need to eat,” I said.

  She looked up at me and stuck out her tongue. “Daddy, think in metaphor.” She grabbed a loaf of bread and took a bite from the end. “I don’t want to have to spell everything out to you.” Her words were mumbled with a mouth full of food, but I heard them all the same.

  “Quite a little darling,” I said to Charis.

  “I think she’s perfect,” she replied, her eyes holding mine.

  “I never thought of you as the motherly type.” Not that I ever thought of myself as a father either.

  “Me neither, but I see you and I together when I look at her. I like that.”

  Together, but not quite. Being in the Box hadn’t exactly left us any time to do anything even close to what I had shared with Tammy Robinson. Still, I knew what she meant. Watching her die so many times had been pure agony.

  A murmur started to rise from the living room, and before I knew what was happening Charis… Red Dress Charis came running into the room, holding her dress wrapped around her and looking back over her shoulder. She slammed right into me, her face snapping up to look into mine, her eyes wide with fear.

  “Get out of my way,” she said, looking backwards again.

  “Landon, this never happened,” the real Charis said.

  Ross was here already? I pushed fake Charis out to arm’s length.

  “Let me go,” she demanded. Her foot whipped out into my leg. I felt the pain of my kneecap shattering beneath the force, and I fell to the ground. Fake Charis’ eyes narrowed and flared an angry red.

  “Not so fast,” Charis said. She had grabbed a serving fork from the table, and she jammed it into her counterpart’s neck, and then threw her across the spread.

  I couldn’t heal here, not like I had outside the Box. Charis lifted me up and put her shoulder beneath mine so I could stay off my leg.

  “Excuse me, sir?” The waiter was back. Charis didn’t wait for him to do anything surprising. She slammed the flat of her hand into his nose, and he flopped backwards with a groan.

  “Is it time?” she asked Clara.

  She was still chewing on the bread, taking smaller bites and looking around. “Not yet.”

  “Why don’t you heal your father, like you did in the house?”

  “Sorry, mommy. I can’t. It isn’t safe.”

  What did that mean? “Let me go,” I said. “I can manage.” She slipped out from under me, and I brought my weight down gently. It hurt, but I had a lot of experience with pain. “We need to get out of here.”

  I heard the sound of a musket hammer drawing back. There was a pop, and a ball of iron whizzed by my head. I found the shooter across the room, a soldier with a wide grin.

  “Really? Not yet?”

  She smiled up at me. I noticed a couple of her front teeth were missing. “Okay, we can go now,” she said. “We need to get out that door.” She pointed back at it, only ten feet away.

  Ten feet was nothing unless your leg was broken. He pulled the hammer back again and took aim.

  The waiter’s silver platter was resting a few feet away. With a thought, I brought it up in front of us, just in time to catch the second bullet. I started limping backwards, until Charis scooped me up and tossed me over her shoulder like a sack of potatoes. The entire house burst into flames around us.

  “Going somewhere?” Ross asked. I felt him tug on the platter, and I countered it, showing him that I could.

  “See you around,” I said. I felt Charis shift as she kicked open the burning door. A wash of frigid air flowed in around us.

  “Enjoy it while it lasts, kid,” he said. He let go of the platter, ducking under it as it sped by. He crouched there while the flames engulfed him, his face framed by the fire.

  Chapter 14

  I sat on the edge of the bed in a small room at the Hilton Hotel, right outside of JFK airport. I cradled the scripted stone that held the Box on my lap, running my finger along it, tracing the lines of pulsing blue power that proved that Landon and the Beast were still in there. I tried not to think about what he might be going through, or how much pain he might be in. I tried to concentrate on what would happen next.

  The Leaf was quiet, but its range was limited. Ken had left a more conventional motorcade in Amagansett, three Cadillac Escalades to transport the Nicht Creidim back to base with their prize. I took the one that Ken held the keys to. It was too bad none of them would be coming back to claim the others.

  The alone time while driving had led me back to considering how easily I had killed Elyse’s cousin. He had redeemed me, had He not? I was doing His will, and His work. So why did I feel like there was a part of me that was still a demon, and a monster? The thoughts almost brought me to tears, and to questions I could only resolve with faith in place of understanding. I believed in my goal. I believed in my purpose. It had to be enough.

  They would miss Ken’s return, of course. They would send people out to discover what had gone wrong. They would find Elyse’s knife in his chest, assuming Ulnyx and Sarah didn’t hide or destroy the bodies. They’d miss the Escalade too, which is why I’d driven it to La Guardia, set it on fire, and then taken a cab to the other airport. They’d figure that out eventually, but not before I was on my way to… where?

  I hadn’t known, so I checked into the hotel and sat in the room there, holding the Box like it was a baby. I’d taken a little more time for myself, to be alone with it and think. To allow a minor calm before the major storm I knew was soon to come. Every party who knew anything about the Divine or the Beast wanted their hands on the Box, and now the only thing between it and them was me. And while I was almost indestructible, I was still dependent on mortals to be able to do much of anything.

  One last deep breath, and I put the Box across the room, out of my own easy reach. I returned to the bed and reduced my grip on Elyse, allowing her to regain her body while I clung to her like a parasite.

  “You did it,” she said. She started to get up, but I clamped down on her again, and made her sit.

  “Leave it over there. We need to talk.”

  “You want to know what to do now, correct?” She sounded amused.

  “It would be helpful. I’m not convinced this isn’t the part where you betray me. You don’t really need me anymore.”

  “Don’t sell yourself so short, Rebecca. I’m not going to betray you, and I do still need you quite a bit. You’re crazy if you don’t believe Sarah will catch up to us, or at least has the potential to. Besides, he’s insisted that if I’m to get what I want, we can’t do it without you.”

  “Who has insisted?” I had searched her memories and there was nothing in there about her supposed clandestine meetings with an anonymous tipster. Or maybe it was in there, but she was somehow blocking it from me. I was never completely sure if I was taking control or if she was giving it.

  “You’ll find out soon enough. For now, I’d appreciate a shower, a new pair of panties, a meal, and a little sleep. My head is killing me. Four hours, no more, and then we need to be on the next flight out to Peru.”

  “Peru?”

  “Cusco, to be specific. That is where I was supposed to meet him once we’d recovered the Box.”

  “This contact of yours, how do you know you can trust him?”

  “I have no choice. Neither do you, and neither does Landon.”

  “You do have a choice. Dante said they had a way to destroy to Box. You could let him do it. It would solve your problem.”

  She shook her head. “Dante is relying on a demon who was banished from Hell. Do you think I’m about to trust that over the person who has been right about everything so far?”

  I couldn’t argue. We had the Box, which meant I had control over Landon’s fate. All I had to do was hang onto it. “Fine. I’ll do it your way.”

  I wrapped myself around her again, taking away her control and relegating her to the subconscious. Controlling her was becoming so easy, it was almost as if I were alive again, and her body was my body. I stripped off my clothes, grabbed a fresh pair of undies from the pack, and went into the bathroom. Elyse might have had a headache, but I shut that part of her down, closing off the nerves so that I didn’t feel a thing. I washed off the salt and sand and blood under a hot torrent of water, and afterwards wrapped a towel around me and ordered room service. I was nodding off when it arrived.

  The sound of the knocking surprised me, and I jumped to my feet ready for a fight. The aggression turned to embarrassment as I went over to the door and opened it for the porter. He was an older man with a thick mustache and a pot belly. He stared at me, his face flushing, before pushing the food into the room.

  “Bacon cheeseburger, fries, and a soda,” he said. “Where do you want it?”

  I motioned to the center of the room, and he pushed the cart in. His eyes lingered on my bare legs.

  “I have some clothes that need to be laundered immediately,” I said. “Can you take them, or do I need to call for someone else?”

  He arranged the meal on his cart. “Hey, cool lamp. Where’d you get it?”

  I saw he was looking at the Box, which I had been either tired or stupid enough to leave on the table. I was surprised he could see it at all.

  “An antique store in Montauk. Can you take the clothes?”

  He turned his head back to me, his eyes tracking top to bottom again. “I don’t think we have launder services on site. We can’t get anything back in less than twenty four hours. Did you say Montauk? I have a nephew who lives out there. Which store? He loves antiques, he’ll be pissed he missed this one.”

  He could see the Box, and he was showing a little too much interest in it. “You left the food. If you can’t help me with the clothes, please see yourself out.” I leaned down and back, my hand searching for a knife. He was making me uneasy.

  He put out his hands. “What, no tip?”

  I couldn’t find a weapon, so I stepped towards him and put my hand on his throat instead, shoving him up against the wall. “Are you going to leave, or do I need to kill you to get rid of you?”

  His face turned white, and his body fell limp. “No… no… I’m so… sorry. I just wanted… you know… a tip. I’ll go… please… please just let me go.”

  I released my grip and backed away. He started running for the door. Once he was gone I slumped down on the bed, my appetite lost.

  I’d only had the Box for a number of hours, and already I was paranoid. Just because he was Awake didn’t mean he was dangerous. He might not have even known he could See the Divine. Not everyone did. Besides, how could anybody possibly have found me so fast? I cursed myself for my foolishness. I had spent five years in Hell, and here I was falling apart at the first sign of trouble. Maybe instead of rejecting that part of me, I should embrace it? It might be the only thing that could help me in the hours and days to come.

  There was one thing I was sure of. The sooner I got to Peru, the better.

  I put the dirty, salty clothes back on, shoved the Box into my pack, and headed for the door. I should have just gone to the airport in the first place, and spoken to Elyse there, instead of wasting my time in the hotel room. I would’t make that mistake again. I could eat and sleep on the plane.

  There was no point in checking out. I put the glove to my face, glamouring myself into a fat old woman before I fled the room, taking my time heading through the hallway and down into the lobby. When the elevator doors opened at the bottom, I passed by the still-scared porter, who had wrangled up a security guard. I had no doubt the front desk was on the phone with the local police, and depending on what was said, I was sure the Nicht Creidim would be back on the scent in a matter of minutes.

  I exited the hotel and grabbed the first cab I could, sliding into the back seat and slamming the door closed. I needed to get out of New York by land. The airports would be crawling with too many teams from too many sides before I could sneak a flight out. Which direction would they not expect me to go?

  “Penn Station,” I said. I could get a train from there to anywhere, and the crowds would be thick enough to keep me obfuscated.

  A grin in the rearview mirror was my reply. The driver’s head dipped, and I saw a flash of red behind his brown eyes. “My lucky day.”

  He didn’t know who I was. He couldn’t have known what Elyse was. I’d made sure to cover the Eye, and he shouldn’t have been able to see through the glamour anyway.

  “Excuse me?”

  I saw his smile again. “Penn Station. It’s a good fare.” He turned his head to look at me, his smile widening even more, revealing a set of sharp incisors. A vampire.

  “Hungry?” I asked, catching his eye.

  He returned his gaze to the road. “You don’t smell like a Divine. I don’t See a Divine, and you don’t look like a Divine. Glamoured?”

  “Two pieces of advice. Mind your business, and keep driving. I’m not an angel.”

  He laughed, but didn’t turn around again. He was silent for a couple of minutes, but I guess he couldn’t help himself. “You aren’t a demon either. Not a were, not a vamp… hell, you aren’t even one of those newbie pricks that have been popping up recently, screwing everything up for the rest of us.”

  “Didn’t I tell you to shut up?”

  “Not directly. Hey, I’m not trying to butt into your business. I’m just making some small talk with a fellow tortured soul, or whatever kind of soul you have. I’m not going to get to feed on you, I might as well chat. My name’s Randolph, by the way.”

  Randolph. I searched my memories. “Not Randolph Hurst?”

  That made him turn his head again. “Do I know you?”

  I tried to keep my face from betraying me. Randolph had been one of Merov’s associates, in charge of the blood trade inside city limits. He’d always been a cordial vamp, a thinker instead of a fighter. Give him a sword, he’d just as soon prick himself with it. Give him a dollar, he’d turn it into a million within a week.

  I’d killed Merov and Landon had shut down the exchange, and then some. It seemed now Randolph was stuck working as a cabbie. Or at least he was posing as a cabbie to assist himself with some other scheme.

  “No, but I know you.”

  For someone like Randolph, that was the best way to break any thoughts he may have had about finding a way to profit from me.

  “Demon, then,” he said, “and not a minor creature like myself. There haven’t been too many of your type around New York since the assault on that church. It’s been great for business, but you know how some of our kind can be. Take away the leadership, and they resort to all kinds of bull. The angels being busy with the bigger fish hasn’t helped on that front. They used to be great for keeping the less subtle fiends out of the way. Anyway, you come to set up a new hierarchy? If you have the guts and the power to do it, and you know who I am, then you know how I can help you.”