Her Black Heart (The Dark Amulet Series Book 2) (21 page)

“Not at the expense of Jeremiah. He’s been through enough.”

“You would know,” Max said wryly.

Virgil glared at Max. “I would.”

Jere waved Virgil off. “It’s all right. I accept.”

Max clapped him on the shoulder. “Good choice. See you back at Elliott’s place. I have quick errand to run.”

CHAPTER

FIFTY-THREE

Ra’zael

Julia’s legs slid down. When her feet touched the ground, Raz stepped back. He swallowed a few times and tried to catch his breath. She sagged against the tree with her face in her hands. He was pissed at her. And himself. Trying to keep his mind focused on the task of retrieving and destroying the amulet was getting harder and harder, each time he sank into her. Ultimately, he’d have to do the right thing, but damn, it was going to hurt like Netherworld.

“We should get back,” he told her.

She lifted her eyes. “To the hotel? Why?”

“Yeah, why?”

Max.

Raz spun around and Julia covered herself.

“You may want to adjust your pants first.”

He glared at the Healer. “Can I help—”

“Deus told me you have Jeremiah’s wings,” Max said over him. “I need them.”

Raz pursed his lips. “Good. But they’re not on me.”

“Hotel?”

“Yeah.”

“Which one?”

“Hyatt on Michigan.”

“Ooooh, fancy. How are you affording that? As if I don’t know.”

“Shut up.” Raz snuck a peek over at Julia. Her mouth hung open.

“Whatever. Anyway. See ya.” Max waved with his fingers and disappeared.

“What was that all about? What does he want with the horns—wings, whatever?” Julia waved her hand through the air where Max had once been as if discovering teleporting for the first time. “Who was that?”

Raz groaned. “No one. Max the Healer.” He concentrated on the hotel room, praying Max wouldn’t be there when they returned. The purple-haired angel was cool but he wasn’t in the mood for any more comments from the male.

Whoosh. Buzz…

The air changed, signaling his return inside the hotel room. A gust of wind lifted a few of his feathers. He opened his eyes and looked at the ceiling for a second. “Oh, what now?”

Julia appeared next to him and gasped. She slapped a hand over her mouth and backed into him. Raz steadied her with his palms on her shoulders. “I…he’s, he’s…” Her lower lip trembled.

“Sorry. People started showing up and I panicked. There’s a shortage of Soapers you know? Can’t people just be happy with their stations?” Joelle rambled.

Julia sniffled. “What’s a Soaper?” They both ignored her.

“Well, that answers that question. He’s dead,” Raz said.

“Yep. And he stinks too and not just because he’s dead. How do you suppose we get rid of the body? By now, humans would’ve seen the blood at the Pier and called the police. Soapers won’t touch that shit.”

“Will someone
please
tell me what a Soaper is?” Julia insisted, swiping a finger under an eye.

“Remember back on the train when I said not to worry about the mess?”

Julia concentrated for a moment. “Oh, you mean, like, they clean up?”

Joelle nodded. “Exactly, but now—”

“But
now
, Joelle fucked everything up. Should’ve left the body alone.” Raz rolled his eyes.

“See there was this little girl with her mother…sooo yeah.”

“You’re an idiot,” Raz said.

“I know. Help me figure this out.” Joelle raked his hands down his face.

Raz went to the bed where the dead man was lying and lifted the torso up by the shirt. Blood stained the white pillowcase from the head wound at the back. “Really? Had to lay him on the bed?”
He dragged the body into the bathroom and put it into the tub. When he turned around, Julia stood behind him with tears in her eyes. Joelle came in carrying the pillow and sheets from off the bed. He tossed them on top of the dead man.

“I suppose we could burn the carcass.”

Raz chuckled. “Not in the room we ca—”

Ear splitting squeals filled the tiled room and everyone covered their ears. Julia fell to her knees, hunkering on the floor. Raz adjusted to the noise but hadn’t taught her how. He scooped her into his arms. All three of them ran out into the bedroom. Joelle slammed the bathroom door shut.

“Damn you, Joelle. Let’s hope the shadow demons only want the soul.” He set Julia on her feet and paced the room.

“It’s not my fault your girlfriend killed the bastard.”

Raz blanched. “She’s not my—”

“I didn’t mean to. I swear.” Julia shook her head profusely. “Oh, God,” she whimpered. Two feathers drifted toward the carpet at her feet. He looked away; he didn’t want to think about Julia’s grim situation. The only thing that made him feel better was she had only defended herself. The man’s resulting death wasn’t premeditated. Deus wouldn’t have cause to punish her, and the man clearly wasn’t an innocent. The clamor on the other side of the bathroom door ceased with one final cry from the soul. And a lazy one at that. Some spirits left their body and could be found at a considerable distance, and some more indolent ones lay limp inside, not realizing they could move. Although, sometimes the soul was so stunned by a sudden death, they remained paralyzed for a while.

Joelle opened the bathroom door. “Do you think one of you could grab a laundry cart from housekeeping? I have an idea.”

Laughter bubbled up from Raz’s chest. “Terrible idea but I think it may be our only option.”

“I’ll go find one,” Julia said and slipped out of the suite.

CHAPTER

FIFTY-FOUR

Amalya

The air inside her niece’s apartment broiled. Amalya fanned herself with her wings. “Is it hot in here?” she mumbled under breath. She wrung her hands. Hazel’s expression was unreadable. “Oh, God, what’s it say? Please tell me.” With her eyes clamped shut, she could see all the tiny capillaries and black spots on the back of the lids. A cold sweat dampened her back. “Well?”

Hazel grinned.

“Just get on with it. Sorry. I’m impatient.”

“Pregnant.” Hazel’s eyes flipped up.

“Oh, God.” She shouldn’t be surprised. She and Elliott had been having unprotected sex since before their mating ritual. Amalya paced, flapping her wings. Her breaths came out in short bursts. “If
anyone
thinks they’re taking
my
baby, they better think again.”

“It’ll be all right,” Hazel comforted her.

“Like Netherworld, it will.”

Hazel raised her eyebrows. “Nether-what?”

“Hell. That’s what they call it.”

“Who?” Her niece cocked her to the side and squinted.

“Netherworld is Hell. It’s another realm. Just forget I said anything.” Amalya waved dismissively and continued on her quest to wear the varnish off the floor. She took a deep breath. “Hazel, hey ah, I may need you to do me a favor in about nine months.”

***

Jeremiah

Safely back inside Elliott’s apartment, Jere exhaled slowly. His father came out of the bedroom and reclined on the chair in the living room. The male’s glassy eyes fixed on the sliding glass door. “Are you all right, Pater?”

“Never been better. Can’t you tell?”

“Um, no,” Jere replied. “Max is meeting me here.”

Elliott turned his head to look at him. “Hmm. What did you do?” The male’s voice was deeper than his own.

“What makes you think I—”

“‘Cuz I would.” He faced the door wall again. “You’re not a Sacred anymore, are you?”

The male sighed like it was his last breath—quiet and depressed sounding.

“I’m to be Soaper, but I get to look like myself.”

“That’s fantastic. Good for you.”

“Why do I get the feeling you’re not happy for me?”

“Oh, I—”

“Don’t worry about him. He feels like a failure. As if his DNA is responsible for you falling,” Max interjected.

The purple-haired Healer angel had arrived dressed in black patent-leather pants, platform boots, and no shirt. As a Sacred Jere had been forced to wear white cloths draped over his body. He liked the carefree way Max dressed. He had his own style.

“But he didn’t do anything wrong.”

“You two can discuss that at another time. Let’s get this over with. You’ll want to get on your hands and knees. This is going to hurt like a bitch.” Jere assumed the position and braced himself. He dug his claws into the carpet and padding. Max came around to his head and knelt down in front of him. “Sorry, man. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. Elliott? A little help?”

His father stooped over and held him around the waist. “I’m sorry, my son.”

Jere frowned. Why was everyone apologizing?

Max palmed his ram-shaped horns. “Ready?”

“Yeah,” Jere said. “Where did you get those?”

“I wasn’t talking to you.”

Elliott tightened his grip. Sharp agony shot throughout Jere’s upper back. He screamed incoherently. There were no words to describe the excruciating pain. Tears streaked down his face and fell off his chin. He thrashed against the prison created by the other angels to the point of exhaustion. His muscles no longer functioned as they should and couldn’t support him anymore. Thank Deus, Elliott was there to catch him. If only he’d been able to be there when he’d fallen prey to Abaddon in the first place. His father eased him down onto the floor. Jere’s vision dimmed and he conked out.

Images flooded his mind of the life he had before Netherworld. He wasn’t happy. Although he didn’t dislike ushering humans into Arcadia for an afterlife of peace and tranquility, his own life was unfulfilling. Lackluster. Boring. He needed change and Abaddon offered an alternative to the mundane. “You’ll never be bored,” he’d said. The statement had been a lie; even torturing damned souls was monotonous.

His back throbbed and knees felt like they were bent the wrong way when Jere opened his eyes. He wasn’t on the hard floor anymore, but on the couch lying on his stomach. Soft gray feathers blanketed him.

Oh. Thank. Deus
.

The color of the wings didn’t matter. Amalya’s were black and you didn’t hear her complaining. Of course, they were beautiful. The pain subsided and a smile lifted the corners of his mouth. He brought a hand up to his face. Where once clawed hands were, he now had blunt nails. And the best part, the color of his flesh returned to, well, flesh color. His mother had darker skin than his father. He was somewhere in between, with hair as white as snow. Human souls always eyed him oddly. One had remarked that he looked overly fake-n-baked with bottle platinum blond hair. Whatever that meant. As a goat demon, his hair was dark. He sat up. His hair tumbled forward off his shoulders. The hair remained black. He grabbed the ends and stared at them. Panic punched him in the gut. “Is there a mirror around here?”

“In the bathroom,” Elliott said from where he was lounging in a chair. “But I wouldn’t go in there…”

Jere sprinted down the hallway, pitched sideways. His lack of balance threw him off kilter. Getting used to the weight of the wings and normal legs would take some time. He banged into the wall several times.

Behind the bathroom door, he heard voices. He twisted the knob and pushed the wooden panel open. Frenzied movements and lots of moaning and grunting filled his senses. He shielded his eyes with an arm.

“What in Deus is going on?” Jere backed up and slammed the door shut. Elliott chuckled from the mouth of the hallway. “That’s messed up.”

“No, that’s Virgil. And don’t ask about the female.”

CHAPTER

FIFTY-FIVE

Julia

Finding the wheeled canvas laundry bin had been simple. Julia snatched the cart while a housekeeper cleaned another room. She pushed the cart down the hallway toward the suite. Before she knocked, Joelle swung the door wide.

“That was quick,” he said.

Julia sniffled again when she saw the body on the floor double-wrapped in sheets.

Ra’zael hefted the body onto his shoulder in a fireman’s hold. She wondered if the limbs would already be stiff. How long did rigor mortis take to set in? She shuddered. Somehow her own bloody corpse hadn’t been as revolting as this one. The face was pallid.

“Is he…is he stiff?”

“No. That would take another hour or so,” Raz told her. “Pull the towels and stuff out of there.”

She scooped the linens out onto the floor and he fit the body inside the bin. Joelle helped her cover it up. She gagged the whole time. “Now what?”

“Take the body to the roof and pitch it off,” Joelle said.

“I’m sorry? That’s your great plan?” Julia asked.

Raz laughed. “I told you it was terrible.”

“It’s not terrible. Why are you laughing? It will give the Soapers time to erase the camera feeds while the police are called and all the humans go nuts for a little while,” Joelle said.

“Hmm, actually that’s not a terrible idea. I’ll warn the Soapers. You two dump.”

Julia blew out a breath.
Okaaay…to the roof.

The elevator arrived at the penthouse. Fortunately, the room was unoccupied, or at least no one was home. She wasn’t interested in poking around to find out if someone was staying there or not. Joelle teleported inside and unlocked the door. “How come we didn’t just flash inside the room with the body?” she whispered.

“Empty bodies don’t do so well during teleportation.”

“Wait, you mean—”

“He wasn’t dead yet when I found him. So, no, I wasn’t going to finish him off. Like I said, I freaked out. Which is weird because I’m usually so good under pressure. Seeing Raz again…”

“Anyway,” Julia cut in. “Can we hurry this up, please?” She opened the sliding glass door to the balcony while he gathered the deceased. A gust of wind blew her hair back. Guilt punched holes in her stomach and she heaved but managed to not to puke. “Maybe we should say a few words.”

Joelle chuckled. “That’s such a human thing to do. Have at it, if it makes you feel better. But words can’t help him where
he
went.” He stepped over the track and without hesitation threw the body off the terrace. Julia rushed to the side and looked down. The sheets unraveled, drifting away on the air current. They caught a breeze and ended up hitting the building, snagging on the brick. The body dropped like a boulder. Faint shouts carried upward. A pedestrian pulled another person out of the way. More people screamed and parted right
before her would-be mugger smacked the pavement. She cringed at the impact sound. Some others jumped over the corpse. A guy on a hover-board steered around him.

“Get away from the side.” Joelle tugged on her arm. She was too weak with emotion to protest and allowed him to spin her around. With tears in her eyes, Julia looked up at him. She froze; his eyes were speckled green. “What?”

“Nothing. Your eyes are unusual is all.”

“Most angels’ are.”

“Raz’s aren’t. Well…” That wasn’t exactly true. The irises looked like raging fires during…during…when? Heightened emotional states? Sex? “I have to get back to Raz.”

Joelle’s expression fell. “You’ve seen them change?”

“Sorry.” There was no reason for her to apologize but the angel’s frown made her empathize with him. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“Why would that upset me?”

“You love him. I didn’t see it before. At first, I thought you were going to mess things up for me. Get me in trouble or something. I dunno, but you didn’t because you wanted to help him by helping me.”

“I want him to be happy, yes. He’s been gone a long time.” There was a sound behind them. Joelle looked over her head; she pivoted. An unfamiliar angel appeared in the doorway.

Whoosh
. Joelle disappeared.