"Haar-yyy." The points where his lips had touched the double-edged blade were stained scarlet. He'd said sorry. I straightened, my body deadened to emotion.

"Well that's not good enough." I whispered it, not even caring if he could hear.

I could have slid that curved sword down his throat, severing the roof of his mouth, skewering his guts from the inside. I could have twisted it, sending that tip burrowing up into his skull to flay the soft tissue encased there. Instead, with a brisk flick of my wrists, I tore the blade free.

Butch leaned forward, retching blood, and fell again to his knees.

"Don't cry, Butch. All devils speak with forked tongues. This will just make it easier for others to recognize you."

He was bereft of all his senses now, as helpless before me as Olivia had been in his arms, but instead of killing him, I lowered myself to the edge of the bed and watched. I wanted to observe the last seconds of his life, as death marched across his features. I wanted to see if he would heal.

Then I could kill him all over again.

But he did die. The sonofab.i.t.c.h died and left me there in my sister's cream-colored, blood-splattered room, with a hole in the window like some large, gaping mouth. He exited this world the same way he'd entered it-squalling, miserable, and covered in a woman's blood.

I don't know how long I slouched there, bleeding and crying, and intermittently screaming with the rotting stench of this demon's death rising up around me; willing both him and my sister alive again so I could change it all.

Eventually, I stood and turned off the music. Silence buzzed in my ears as I hauled Butch's body to the window and pitched it over the side. I didn't watch his tumble, but the rain had stopped and the whole world was silent, as if it existed in a vacuum, so I heard the thud, and the cracking report of his body hitting pavement. Never say I don't learn from my mistakes, I thought humorlessly.

Then I keeled over and retched up my guts.

8.

"Police! Open up!"

The words rang in my ears as I came to, lying next to my own vomit. Feeling leaden and hollow, I pushed myself to my knees, then my feet, allowing a moment for my head to stop spinning. My mouth was dust-dry, my eyes crusted over with tears. I didn't know how long I'd been laying there, but the night sky had cleared outside the destroyed window, and though the lights of the city still rendered the heavens starless, a soft, crisp breeze blew against my back.

Another knock sounded urgently at the front door, and I drifted into the living room to answer it, my feet reporting hollowly on the tile floor. My martini sat perched on the coffee tray where I'd left it, next to my still unopened gift. Tears stung my eyes again, and I had to blink them away as the pounding continued. A neighbor had finally rang the cops. I wondered why they didn't just knock it down, but swung it open anyway.

Ajax stared back at me. "h.e.l.lo, Joanna. I'd have come sooner, but I was...detained."

Shocked, my response was delayed, and when I slammed the door he caught it easily, wrenching it open again. I backpedaled as he shut it behind him. He made no move to attack, instead c.o.c.king his head to one side, like he'd just thought of something. "Why, Joanna, dear, there's something different about you." He sniffed delicately at the air before snapping his fingers smartly and pointing. "I've got it. You've changed your hair."

He did step forward then, and I retreated into the sunken living room. I knew he would kill me. I was injured and he was fresh, angry, and knew better than to underestimate me, unlike Butch. He also had all the inexplicable powers that Butch possessed, and I didn't know if I could fight that again...or even if I wanted to. What was the point? I'd never been more alone in my life.

"Now," he said, crossing his arms over his body. This time he unsheathed two serrated pokers, one in each hand. "Where did we leave off?"

Okay, so I'm alone. I swallowed hard. Get over it.

Pounding sounded behind me, and I turned and stared, not quite believing my eyes. There, clutching the parapet of the building, was the homeless b.u.m I'd run over, still looking disreputable, and still popping up in the strangest of places. He was mouthing something, pointing and jerking his head toward the bedroom. I turned back to find Ajax as awestruck as I, his mouth open in obvious displeasure.

"Warren," he said, lowering the pokers. "I should skewer you through your useless Taurean heart."

"Warren?" I said.

"Shut up, Ajax, you pathetic excuse for evil. Who dressed you this morning? Certainly not your mother. You look like some B-movie cliche."

I glanced back and forth, less concerned that they knew one another than with their being able to converse between a thick plate of soundproof gla.s.s. And that I could hear every word.

"Don't talk about my mother!" Ajax said, enraged.

"She should've swallowed that load, dawg, that's for sure. Don't worry, she'll make up for it tonight." And he began to make a repet.i.tively lewd motion with his private parts. Right there on the ledge.

It took another meaningful look from him to realize he was buying me time. Afraid of telegraphing my intent, I fled without glancing back. I heard Ajax's curse, his feet pounding across tile, but I had the bedroom door slammed, locked, and was already halfway across the bedroom before it crashed open again.

"Give me your hand!" On the other side of the gla.s.s, Warren stretched out his own.

"s.h.i.t," I said, looking down. The breeze was much stronger out there.

"Give me your hand now!" he repeated, and pulled me forward from my center of gravity. I cursed again, but was half pulled, half lifted out onto the ledge, and just out of Ajax's reach.

"b.i.t.c.h!"

"Come and get her," Warren taunted. I'd rather he not, I wanted to say, but the b.u.m was already moving away, palms against concrete and gla.s.s, back against the building. "This way."

He paused at the b.u.t.tress, and held onto me until I was steadied on the ledge. Then he turned and continued moving toward the living room windows. I hesitated. "He'll see us."

Warren glanced back, his hair swirling around his head like some mad professor's. "It's the only way. There's a staircase that leads to the roof. On that side, there's nothing."

I glanced behind me, swallowing hard. There was a swatch of material hanging from the jagged gla.s.s, torn from my blouse when Warren pulled me out, but no sign of Ajax.

"Joanna?"

"Okay." The word escaped on an exhalation and I nodded. We inched around the corner, my feet a mere inch shorter than the ledge's width. I traversed the facade, gaining on him, but a gust of wind slapped at me, and Warren grinned as I hugged the facing.

The living room windows shone like gems in front of us, and the light inside was a beacon, calling me back to reality. What the h.e.l.l was I doing out here?

"Ready?" Warren said.

I nodded, took a deep breath, and followed.

Ajax appeared inside the cozy living room, framed like a slide in a projector. He was in a warrior's stance, legs wide, arms c.o.c.ked, hands fisted around the pokers. Warren seemed unconcerned and kept inching along the ledge, a turtle on a tightrope.

"What do we do if he breaks the gla.s.s?"

"Try not to get hit."

I turned around. "I'm going back."

"Joanna." His voice froze me in place. I turned to find his crazed eyes sober upon mine. "There is no going back."

He was right. What would turning from a possible death to a more certain one do for me? It wouldn't bring Olivia back, or change the fact that I'd killed a man without remorse; and I seriously doubted I could sweet-talk Ajax into changing his mind about doing the same to me. Besides, how many times had I prayed for G.o.d to take away the past? To change events so I could wake up and be happy and normal and...like Olivia. Never once had my prayers been answered.

Or had they?

I looked at the man leading me. Sent from the heavens or not-and I had to admit it was unlikely-I knew one thing: he was not who he seemed. He also held the answers to the events that had plagued me the past twenty-four hours. And I wanted those answers. Besides, I told myself, he was right. There never was any going back.

"I'll follow you," I said, and Warren's face lit in absurd elation. "If you promise me two things."

His brows drew together again.

"First, you have to tell me what the h.e.l.l is going on, and I mean all of it."

"Done! Easy-peasy," he said, and leaned toward me confidentially. "And second?"

"And second? Take a f.u.c.king shower." I wrinkled my nose. If he stunk before, he positively reeked now.

"Such a sweet girl. Glad you're on my side."

"I'm on my side." I edged out, and Ajax appeared again, poised as he'd been before.

"You two finished yakking yet?" His lips moved on the other side of the gla.s.s, but his voice bloomed next to me. "Can we get on with this?"

"By all means. I've got a date with your mama. Gotta get a move on." Warren hopped from one foot to the other with a sharp, jeering cackle. This infuriated Ajax and he rushed the window. I lunged for a vertical post, clinging to it with whitened fingertips. Warren did not, making himself a target.

I squeezed my eyes shut and averted my face as the poker lanced through the window. No crash came. Whirling back, I saw the tip slide through the gla.s.s as easily as trout through water. Warren dodged, wrapped his hand in the tattered hem of his duster coat, and seized the triangular blade before Ajax could withdraw. He yanked, the blade screeching and stuttering through the gla.s.s to the hilt. Ajax's face slammed against the pane, and I gained another post before he'd recovered.

"Let. Go." He s.p.a.ced the words evenly, one eye riveted on Warren.

"You let go."

Ajax must have sensed the futility in arguing with someone possessing the rationale of an asylum patient. That, or he was sick of eating gla.s.s. He pulled away and released the poker. "That's okay. I have another."

Viper fast, quicker than I'd have guessed, he had the second weapon spearing through the window, angling toward my gut. I a.s.sume everyone has a moment of terrified realization right before their death. I was no different. That sliver of a blade was the sharpest thing I'd ever seen. I antic.i.p.ated pain, knew I'd be skewered through, and wondered if I'd feel the impact when I fell to my death.

Wondered, briefly, if Olivia had.

I didn't feel it. I waited, eyes squeezed tight, and still it didn't come. Having already braced myself for the hereafter, I found this relatively unnerving. I opened one eye. Ajax and Warren were staring at me, wide-mouthed and wordless. I looked down. Bending halfway to the hilt, the steel blade looked rubberized. Then its ruined tip began dissolving, dripping onto the stone ledge, and then down the side of the building like liquid mercury. Nonplussed, I glanced back up at the two men. Were supernatural beings supposed to look that surprised?

"Ah-ha! Eureka! I found her, Ajax! I found her!"

"I found her, you noxious bag of air."

"Yes, but too late. Too late, and now look. She's too strong for you! Just as we'd hoped. Just as I knew!"

"She's not!" To prove it, Ajax yanked the first poker from Warren's grip, which he'd loosened in his excitement, and thrust again. An inch away from my body it melted like snow. He tried again, with the same results, then dropped the stub with a cry of rage.

By now Warren was almost doubled over with laughter, tears streaming down his dirty cheeks as he wobbled precariously from one foot to the other. "Too strong! Too strong!"

"I don't understand," Ajax said to me. "You can't have that kind of strength. You're an innocent."

"Yeah, that's what Butch said. Right before I killed him."

"Butch was here?"

"What? Can't you smell him?" I asked nastily, bolder now that I was safe. Not counting the two hundred foot drop behind me. "Why don't you use your nose? Sniff him out?"

They both stared, like I was the abnormal one there. Warren found his voice first. "You can't smell the dead, Joanna. You've erased his scent, his essence. It's as if he never existed." He turned to face the man on the other side of the gla.s.s. "Isn't that right, Ajax?"

Ajax had begun to shake. "You b.i.t.c.h. You f.u.c.king b.i.t.c.h."

"Are you disrespecting me, Ajax?" Warren said. "Are you? Because if you are-"

"I think he's talking to me."

"Oh," Warren said. "Go ahead, then."

"I'm going to kill you, you know that?" Ajax told me. "I'm going to find you and I'm going to f.u.c.king kill you."

"How?" Warren asked. "You can't scent her, therefore you can't find her."

"Temporary. When the aureole wears off I'll be on you like peanut on b.u.t.ter."

Stupid thing for a homicidal anorectic to say.

"Or like a cat on a mouse." Warren pointed at Ajax's feet.

Ajax screeched, and wheeled backward. Luna hissed and began to stalk him, her b.u.t.t swaying in a mean saunter, tail high and shaking. Ajax continued backing away, casting uncertain looks around him to make sure there were no other feline attackers. Shaking, he made his way to the door.

"This isn't over," he said, pointing at me. "Not by a long shot." Then he fled out the front door just as Luna charged.

"We can go in now," Warren said.

Luna met us inside the bedroom window. She was licking a paw-buffing her knuckles, it seemed-as she waited for us. She moved over as I climbed through, and wound about my legs, probably expecting a treat. I scooped her up and buried my face in her fur the way Olivia had. The purr shook her body and reverberated into mine.

"I didn't know your sister had a cat."

But somehow he knew I had a sister. Had a sister, I thought again, and felt the tears well. "Yeah. She did."

Warren fell still. Inhaling deeply, he glanced at the window before turning back to me, and his expression-usually so crazed and wild-eyed-was blighted. "Oh G.o.d, Joanna. I'm so sorry."

"You don't smell her anymore, do you?" My voice was small and didn't hold much hope. Warren only stood there. I looked away. "Neither do I."

"We have to get you out of here."

"Yeah," I agreed, not caring where we went. "Let's get me out of here."

Warren didn't speak as we walked the five blocks to a roadside motel-not to me, at least-and that was fine. He did, however, keep up a babbling monologue-something about baboons on Mars-which had the few pedestrians we did encounter steering a wide berth around us.

Beneath the garish red flash of a neon sign, a clerk wordlessly handed Warren a room key, and gave my blood-soaked and torn clothing a quick once-over without the slightest change of expression.

Oh yeah, I thought, noting the way Warren's shoulder-bent stoop gradually straightened as we crossed the dusty asphalt lot, this b.u.m had a lot to answer for.