Chapter 15

Chapter 15

Azazel’smighty wings beat the air as we made our descent toward the hellgate. A different one than the one he’d brought me through that fateful night of my birthday. Azmodea’s gate was close enough to San Francisco for Azazel to use it to pick me up and take me to Hell, but Taylor lived in Australia...neither Azmodea nor Azazel held control over a gate in the vicinity of Sydney.

Which meant we had to fly into another demon’s territory and use their hellgate—for a price.

Apparently Azazel had called ahead to ask permission and announce his arrival. If a high-ranking demon simply showed up in another’s lands, as he explained to me, it could be seen as an unprovoked violation of territory and might lead to an altercation. Of course, this also meant we had a welcome wagon waiting for us as we neared the gate.

Slightly translucent and mainly spiritual as my form might be, Azazel still had to carry me as if I was solid—to my disappointment, I couldn’t fly on my own—and I clutched him tighter as two winged shapes dropped to our height and flanked us on both sides.

“Our escort,” Azazel murmured in my ear. “They’re mostly for show.”

I glanced at the demons flying alongside us, clad in fighting gear that proclaimed they meant business if push came to shove.

Azazel banked, and we landed in a courtyard ringed by squat buildings reminiscent of the famous Ishtar Gate of Babylon. The blue-glazed bricks covering the walls reflected the light of the torches, the flames dancing over reliefs showing mystical beasts like dragons—although given the reality of this realm, they probably weren’t mystical.

The architecture was beautiful and intimidating all at the same time, a simultaneous statement of splendor and military might.

Our escort landed next to us, their wings rustling as they were folded in a resting position behind the demons’ backs. Azazel was about to stride for the hellgate looming in the middle of the courtyard, built in the same defensively aesthetic style as the surrounding structures, as a voice rang out behind us.

“And what’s that you’re carrying, I wonder?”

Azazel halted, his jaw locking tight. With a sigh, he turned and set me down.

Don’t speak, he told me mentally.

“Elerion,” he said out loud, and inclined his head.

The male demon he addressed stepped out of the shadows of an alcove. With his elegantly cut features, he looked like he’d be the favored model of the next New York fashion show, making designers fall over themselves to put him in their clothes. The way he moved clearly said he knew it too. He carried himself with the sure knowledge of his own beauty, used to wielding it like a blade.

His dark hair was cut short on the sides, longer on the top, some of the strands falling oh-so-carelessly over his forehead. Sharp jawline, high cheekbones, an amused smirk on his lips...but the most striking aspect of his face were his eyes, glowing orange-red like embers in a barely banked fire.

“Azazel,” he said, his tone cultured and precise. “I heard some rumors. Seems they’re true.” He tilted his head and peered around Azazel’s wings to catch a glimpse of me. “You’ve acquired an interesting pet.”

Azazel flared his wings slightly, obscuring me from Elerion’s view, and said in a voice that was dangerously nonchalant, “I would love to stay and chat, but I’m afraid my time is short. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll be going now, as agreed upon in our negotiations for passage.”

“Ah, yes.” Elerion clucked his tongue. “And why would you be carrying a human soul to Earth?”

“My business is my business.”

“Hm. Curious business. Very...unusual. One might even say newsworthy. And you know what they say about the speed with which news travels.” A pregnant pause. “Especially to the palace of Lucifer.”

Fire licked over Azazel’s wings. His voice was deadly quiet. “What do you want?”

“A favor.”

The muscles locked in Azazel’s back. “Nothing that will bring harm to me or anyone in my care. Nor will I expose secrets that are not mine to tell. And should whatever you require conflict with my duties for Daevi, my loyalty will trump the terms of the favor.”

“Agreed,” Elerion said silkily. “You may proceed with your charge.”

Before I could catch another look at the other demon, Azazel turned, scooped me up again and marched toward the gate. He activated it with a series of furiously drawn sigils that lit up in the air for a second and then stepped through the glowing doorway.

The same suffocating darkness as I’d experienced during our first hellgate travel enveloped us again, pressure rose around us, pushed in from all sides, then a plop and Azazel stepped out on the other side of the gate.

I squinted against the bright light—more an instinctual reaction than necessity, as I realized a second later...because the sun didn’t actually blind me. Not in the ghostly soul form I was in.

Still, it was a shock to see sunlight after so much time without it. It glittered on the dew drops collected on the grass, turning the lawn of the park rolling out in front of us into a diamond-studded sea of emerald. All those colors. The verdant green.

So much life.

I inhaled—and uttered a bitter laugh. That’s right. I didn’t have to breathe. Not just that...I couldn’t breathe. No scents tickled my nose, the aroma of the lush natural scenery beyond the reach of my sense of smell. The leaves on the trees above us stirred in a breeze I couldn’t feel, and when I crouched and put my hand on the grass, I didn’t feel the touch of the blades.

“So this is what virtual reality must be like,” I muttered. Frowning, I turned to Azazel, who watched me with an inscrutable expression on his face. “How is it that I can see and hear, but my other senses—smell, touch, taste—are disabled?”

“My best guess,” he said quietly, “is that seeing and hearing are the senses a human soul clings to the most. They are the most dominant sensations you rely on, and echoes of these perceptive qualities may be available to the soul even without the input of a physical body. But I’m not sure.” He grimaced. “Not like there’s a manual for all this.”

I blinked at him in wide-eyed innocence. “Did the mighty Azazel just admit limits to his knowledge?” I made a show of peering into the sky.

“What is it?” He sounded so resigned.

“Just checking for the flying pigs.”

“You just missed them,” he replied in a dry voice, “but if we hurry, we might make it back to my house before Hell has completely frozen over.”

Funny how even without a body, I could have sworn I felt amusement curl in my belly.

My gaze caught on a jogger stretching his legs barely twenty yards from us, seemingly oblivious to the still glowing hellgate and the guy with huge black wings so close to him.

“They don’t see us, or the gate?”

“The gate is entirely beyond their perception or reach,” Azazel said, “and unless we choose to show ourselves, we’re invisible to them.” He tilted his head. “Where does your friend live?”

“What time is it here? And what weekday?”

“It’s early Saturday morning.”

“Okay, so she should be home.” If it were during the week, she could already be on her way to work.

I rattled off Taylor’s address in the affordable and comfy neighborhood somewhere toward the outskirts of the city. Azazel scooped me up once more and took to the skies.

It was weird how real and solid his form was to me, my fingers actually feeling his collar where I held on to him. The touch of his arms and hands where he grasped me was just like back in Hell, no strange phantom touch or missing sensation here. I pressed my face into the crook of his neck, inhaled...and his scent filled my awareness. The heat of his skin sank into me. When I licked over the pulse on his throat, I tasted him—the hint of sweat, the faint aroma of his soap, and the note that was purely Azazel.

In a world that was lost to my senses in this form, he was the one thing I could still touch, taste, and feel.

“Is it some form of compulsion?” he asked in a suspiciously light tone.

“What?”

“The licking when I’m flying you somewhere.”

I drew back, and even in this form, an echo of my face heating from embarrassment rolled through me.

“I’m not complaining,” he helpfully clarified, his voice dropping, bringing back flashbacks of what that sensual purr felt like against my inner thigh. “It’s good to know that when I want your tongue on me, all I need to do is take you flying. I’ll make sure to wear less next time.”

The image of my mouth on his cock filled my mind—all the more damnably erotic because I hadn’t gone there yet. With all the various times we’d tangled in the sheets—and on a ladder—I had somehow yet to pleasure him orally.

And now I couldn’t think of anything else.

How it was possible to feel acute arousal without a body, I had no idea, but somehow my soul managed to hum with desire.

“Keep that up,” he muttered, his grip tightening on me, “and we won’t make it to your friend.”

“You started it,” I shot back. “Besides, would we even be able to...with me like this?”

His gaze of searing lightning met mine. “Never tried it.” The smile sneaking onto his mouth was positively naughty. “Wanna be my first?”

I choked back a sound somewhere between a laugh and an eager groan. Hell, the idea of being the first sexual anything for him was deliciously tempting. Considering his age, there likely weren’t many firsts left.

“We don’t have the time,” I said, regret pinching me at the words. Seeing as this was my first visit to Earth, I needed to make the most of it. “Rain check?” I added with a flutter of my lashes.

“Tease,” he murmured and focused on the city below us, but the corners of his mouth kicked up.

He angled his wings to swoop down toward the apartment building I recognized from pics Taylor had sent me.

“That’s her balcony,” I said, pointing out the balustraded platform with a table and a set of chairs as well as a sad-looking palm which Taylor swore was determined to die on her despite her loving care. She’d sent me photos complaining about the traitorous plant. “You can land there and...wait, how do we get inside?”

“I thought we’d crash through the windows like some giant, confused bird and cover the floor in a shower of glass.”

“You’re kidding.”

He raised a brow. “Watch me.”

“No.” I glanced at the rapidly nearing building. “No!”

He wasn’t slowing down. The balcony and its glass door rushed closer at breakneck speed.

“Azazel!”

He snapped his wings half-closed, like a falcon in a killing swoop. We sped up even more. Only a few feet now until we hit the glass square on.

I shrieked.

The door swung open at the last second. Azazel flared and flapped his wings in a skilled slowing maneuver and hopped into the living room through the wide open balcony door. The sound of susurration filled the room as he shook his wings and then retracted them.

Trembling, I slid down his front and rounded on him. “You jerk!”

Laughing quietly, he adjusted the sleeves of his tunic. “You wouldn’t have been hurt even if I did crash through the window. In your soul form, you can walk through walls.” He winked at me.

Ugh.

His face turned serious. “Remember I said you could choose to show yourself?”

I nodded.

“Don’t.”

I opened my mouth to say something, but he cut me off.

“If you care about the mental health of your friends and family, you need to stay invisible. Like I said earlier, you’d have no way to explain your sudden reappearance, or the fact that you’ll need to vanish again in just a little while. As much as you long to talk with them and reconnect, seeing them from the safety of your own invisibility is the only viable option. It’ll have to do.” His gaze bore into me. “And if you try to tell them the truth, they’ll go mad.”

“Not Taylor.” I shook my head. “She already knows. Remember the séance?”

His features darkened. “I’m not the one who ever forgot it,” was his dangerously silken reply.

Right. I grimaced. “She was there with me. She’d have made her own pact—deal—whatever—” I waved a hand “—but she got scared when the lights flickered after I went first, and she bailed.”

His face was a mask of unforgiving hardness.

Touchy subject still, that whole séance contract thing.

“Anyway,” I said, rushing on past that particular self-destruct button. “The night you came to pick me up, I called her and told her about you.”

He narrowed his eyes. Dark power writhed around him like phantom shadows.

“What I mean to say,” I continued with just a touch of panic, “is that I won’t break her mind if I reveal myself to her. She already knows. She’s the only one who knows.” My voice brittle, I added, “The only one I can actually meet and talk to.”

The harshness in his features softened by a fraction, a minuscule crack in the hard mask of his anger. He stared at me for a long moment, then gave a single nod. “Fine. I’ll wait outside.” He jerked his head at the balcony. “You have an hour.”

“Thank you,” I whispered and watched him park himself in one of the chairs, eyeing the sad palm with a touch of pity.

Taking a bracing breath—I kept forgetting I didn’t need to breathe in this form—I turned toward the closed door in the opposite wall, leading most likely to Tay’s bedroom. She was an early riser, but glancing at the digital clock showed it was barely past six in the morning...a bit early even for Tay, especially on the weekend. Chances were she was still sleeping, and I just hoped she didn’t have company over.

Grimacing, I approached the door and tried the handle. My hand slipped right through it.

Dammit. Blasted ghost form.

You can walk through walls.Azazel’s earlier comment echoed in my mind.

Well, then. Let’s try that.

Closing my eyes, I stepped forward, right through the door. When I opened my eyes again, I stood indeed on the other side, a small, darkened bedroom greeting me.

Taylor was sprawled on her bed, wearing some sort of rainbow-dotted pajamas, the sheets half-tangled around her. Thankfully, she was alone. This whole thing would be a lot more complicated if she’d had someone over.

I bit my ghostly lip—not feeling it, which was another drop of weird in a sea of strangeness—and pondered how to do this. I didn’t want to give her a heart attack.

Maybe I could move something to wake her? Azazel said I could touch things if I focused, right?

I concentrated on a pillow lying on the floor and leaned down to pick it up, trying hard to imagine my fingers actually touching the material instead of slipping through. It took me eleven attempts, but I finally managed to gingerly scoop up the pillow and sort of levitate it in front of me with my ghost hands. I still didn’t feel it, which made for an interesting experience balancing the pillow and keeping it afloat.

No wonder a lot of ghost stories featured objects clattering around in often uncontrolled fashion—if this was the only way how ghosts could move things, it made sense those movements would appear clumsy.

Okay. This was going to be...a bit cliche.

I focused and slapped the pillow down on Taylor’s face.

She shot upright as if hit with an electric shock. Eyes huge and rounded, she whipped her head around to scan the room, her hand groping for the switch to her bedside lamp. Light spilled from the small lamp, and Tay frowned at the empty room.

Right, she couldn’t see me yet.

Focus, focus…

I knew the precise moment I became visible. Taylor’s shriek shook the walls.

“It’s okay, it’s okay!” I held my hands out in a placating gesture. “It’s me! I’m real, I’m not a ghost—well, not really, I mean, in terms of appearance and walking through walls and such, okay, yes, I’m like a ghost, but I swear I’m not dead!”

“Zoe?” Tay clapped both hands over her mouth, her face white as chalk, her strawberry blond hair coming undone from her messy bun.

“Yes.” I nodded and took a slow step closer, as if approaching a skittish cat. “I’m here. For a visit.”

Taylor closed her eyes. “Wake up,” she murmured. “Wake up, wake up, wake up…”

“You’re not dreaming. I’m really here. Look at me. Please.”

She opened one eye and peered at me.

“I know it’s a lot to take in,” I said, “but I don’t have much time. I want to visit my mom next, and I can only stay so long here on Earth before the connection to my body in Hell gets severed and my soul becomes a ghost doomed to roam around here until I turn into a poltergeist and start smashing things and hurting people and I really don’t want to hurt people and—”

“All right, all right!” Tay held up a hand. “I believe you. No way I could come up with that much creative rambling in a dream.”

I grinned. “I miss you so much.”

Taylor took a trembling breath. “It’s really you. You’re...back. Oh, God.”

She threw the blanket off and jumped out of the bed, and the next second her arms closed around me.

Or...would have closed around me, had I been solid.

Instead, Taylor sort of ended up hugging herself. I stepped back just as she realized, her face crumpling.

“Yeah, about that,” I whispered.

She swallowed, shaking her head. “How?”

“Maybe you should sit down again.”

Dazedly, she nodded and plopped down on the edge of the bed.

I briefly explained about my body being bound to Hell and all that, her eyes growing wider the more I talked.

“My hands,” she said, curling and uncurling her fingers, “they’re in dire need of a full popcorn bowl to hold.”

I huffed a laugh. “So, anyway, he said I’ve got an hour, and—” I glanced at the digital clock on her nightstand “—we still have about forty minutes left.” My initial attempts to move the damn pillow had eaten up more time than I’d like.

“He.” Taylor raised a brow. “Your demon. Wait, excuse me—your demon husband.” She gave me the biggest I’m-going-to-need-you-to-elaborate-on-that look I’d ever seen.

“Yeah…” The word came out as a five-second-long syllable.

“Okay.” She held up a hand again. Taylor was very fond of handsy talking. “Okay. The last time we spoke, you were running from him and you sounded scared as hell.” She paused, considered. “Is that a bad pun to use?” Shaking her head, she went on, “And then you sent me this text—” she pointed a shaky hand at her phone on the nightstand “—this horrible goodbye text which I totally did not re-read every damn day like some weepy masochist, and I’ve been here, ever since, worrying about you and unable to talk to anyone about it because everyone else thinks you either just ran away or got human-trafficked or some shit, and I’m the only one who knows you actually got dragged to Hell by some lunatic demon who can’t take a joke—”

“That’s what I said!”

She glared at me.

“Right. Sorry. Go on.”

“—and I’ve been going crazy over here, Z, like straight-up certifiable and ready-to-be-committed mad with all these whacky ideas of what you might be going through and—” She squeezed her eyes closed, her lips quivering.

Oh, no. Oh, no, no, no. Taylor barely ever cried. She was the tough-as-nails one in our friendship. The one not afflicted by the angry-cry curse. I could count the number of times I’d seen her in tears on one hand.

“Tay?” I asked gently. “Tay, please don’t.”

She sniffed.

It felt like a cold knife to my heart.

“Don’t cry,” I whispered.

“I thought you were—you were—” Her voice was so broken, I couldn’t stand it. “But you’re okay. You’re—wait, are you? Okay?”

I nodded vigorously. “I’m fine, Tay. Really. This form is just weird, that’s all.”

She was quiet for a moment. “Has he hurt you?”

“No,” I said gently.

“But he’s a demon. Who dragged you to Hell.”

“He didn’t actually drag me so much as carried me, and I kind of went willingly, considering the alternative would have been to burn in Hell as a damned soul.”

She blinked.

“Neither of us had a choice,” I explained. “We’re both bound by that contract I made back then. And he’s been...um…” I rubbed my nose, realizing—once again—that I couldn’t feel it.

“What?”

“I mean, we had a bit of a rocky start, but now we’re...uh...on good…” I waved my hands. “...marital...terms.”

Her eyes rounded. “Oh, my God. Zoe Elizabeth Williams! You’re having sex with a demon?”

“Shhh!” I made calm-down gestures and threw a glance over my shoulder. “Why don’t you yell louder so the whole building hears you? He’s right there on your balcony!”

“HE’S HERE?”

“Tay!”

“I can’t believe you’re screwing a demon,” she stage-whispered. “A demon!”

“I know it sounds bad—”

“Wait—what does he look like?”

And there was the Tay I knew and loved. “Okay, so you know the demons from Constantine?”

“The movie with Keanu Reeves?”

“Yes.”

She grimaced.

“He’s nothing like that,” I hurried to say. “I mean, there are ugly demon species down there, don’t get me wrong, but Azazel and his kind...they’re descended from fallen angels, and they all look the part. All of them.”

She narrowed her eyes and pursed her lips. “So on a scale of one to Tom Ellis as Lucifer…”

“He’s off the charts. Like, not even on there.” I made a pew sound and mimicked a rocket taking off. “Through the roof.”

“And he’s a literal demon in the sack?”

“Tay!” I laughed.

“Just making sure I get the details right.” She wiggled her brows, then her face turned serious. “Okay, I’m gonna need you to walk me through it. The whole thing. Start with what happened after we hung up that night. I wanna know everything.”

If I’d been in physical form, my eyes would have filled with tears, for the sheer relief of having someone to talk to about this. And not just someone...but my best friend, who understood and loved me unconditionally.

The words tumbled from me, each sentence a cathartic release, lifting a weight I hadn’t known I’d carried. Taylor listened, nodded, asked questions, made appropriate noises of disbelief or appreciation, and I wanted to hug her so badly for it.

“Thank you,” I said at last.

“For what?”

“Listening to my fantastical ramblings, being there for me.” I lowered my eyes. “I don’t have anyone else to tell this to. My mom...even when I go see her now, I can’t even show myself, let alone talk to her. She’ll never know what really happened.”

“I’m so sorry, Z. I can’t even imagine.” Her fingers flexed, and she curled them to a fist, as if resisting the urge to reach out and squeeze my hand. “I mean, it’s a blessing in disguise that you get along with that demon, but...losing your family like that…” She shook her head. “And here I was thinking that moving to Australia was hard, that I’d have to see if being that far away from my folks would work out in the long run. I can’t imagine never speaking to my mom or dad again, hugging my sister, or hanging out with old friends.”

I pressed my lips together. “I thought I’d come to terms with it,” I whispered. “But I’m not sure I ever will.”

“I get that.” She nodded slowly. “But hey—I’m here. You’ve got me. Anytime you need to talk, you just come right over, okay? No matter what, I’ll drop everything.”

“I want to tackle-hug you so hard.”

“Well, you can settle for another pillow slap if it makes you feel better.”

My smile was fragile. “Kinky.”

She shrugged, the hint of a grin on her face. “You know me.” Squinting at me, she added, “Speaking of kinky...you said your demon was here?”

“He’s waiting on your balcony holding a wake for your dying palm tree.”

“I want to see him.”

“Um…” I grimaced. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea…” I trailed off at the expression on Tay’s face. Crap. I knew that look. There was no reasoning with her.

She jumped up from the bed, marched over to her closet, pulled out a robe and put it on. Casting me a try-to-stop-me glance, she stomped over to the door, yanked it open...and stopped short, her gaze on the balcony.

“Didn’t you say he’s here?”

“Yeah, but he’s invisible,” I whispered behind her.

She fixed me with a stare over her shoulder. “Is this a case of ‘I totally have a hot boyfriend, but he lives in Canada’?”

I covered my face with my hand. “Tayyyyy…”

She advanced on the balcony, and I hurried after her in a near panic. I could see Azazel lounge in his chair still, his head tilted toward the commotion in the living room, but judging by Taylor’s roaming gaze as she stepped toward the door, he hadn’t made himself visible yet.

This was going to be a disaster.

“Wait,” I hissed, and tried to hold her back, but of course my hands slipped right through her. Ugh.

Tay stood in the open door to the balcony, peering outside.

I saw the precise moment Azazel locked on to her. His gaze flicked to mine over her shoulder.

“Really?” He raised a brow.

“Is he still here?” Taylor whispered at me.

I gestured wildly in all directions instead of speaking.

“This is exactly why you shouldn’t show yourself,” Azazel said.

“Why isn’t he showing himself?” Taylor asked.

Lord help me.

“I’m not a party trick.” His voice was a low snarl.

“He doesn’t want to,” I said to her under my breath, hoping my tone conveyed enough warning.

Of course, Taylor being Taylor, she totally ignored that warning. “Why not?” Her eyes sparkled. “Is he afraid?”

Oh, no. She didn’t.

Lightning flashed in Azazel’s eyes. He rose from the chair in one fluid, lethally graceful motion, his gaze fixed on Taylor, who still didn’t see him, given her lack of reaction.

I jumped right in front of her, my arms outstretched toward Azazel. “Don’t!”

Dark power pulsed from him as he closed the distance, his eyes glowing with an inner fire beyond the swirling quicksilver I’d come to know. Grasping me around the waist, he lifted me with effortless strength and deposited me behind him before I could so much as squeak.

Azazel loomed right in front of Taylor now, shadows writhing about his body. Her eyes darted back and forth—then stilled and focused on him. She sucked in a breath and stepped back.

“You wanted to see me?” he purred.

Slack-jawed, Tay stared at him.

I peered around him to glance at his face. Good God. He’d amped up the mesmerizing factor of his hard-cut beauty to a dazzling degree. I wasn’t even looking at him directly, and I wanted to sink to my knees and worship his masculine perfection.

Tay gaped, obviously thunderstruck.

He tickled her under her chin. “Demon got your tongue?”

She uttered a sound of helpless awe.

“Azazel,” I ground out and tugged on his arm.

He dipped his head and looked at me from under his lashes. “Did you think I was going to hurt her?”

“I…”

“She’s your best friend and your only confidante. She could be trying to knife me, and I wouldn’t harm a hair on her head.” He shrugged. “I’d simply bedazzle her.”

“Like you’re doing now?”

His smile was blindingly brilliant. Taylor sighed.

“Quit it,” I hissed.

“I do have to make a good impression on your best friend.”

“I think you have—”

“Earn her seal of approval, and all that.”

“Stoooooop.”

“As you wish.”

I felt the shift in energy as he pulled his power back into himself. The shadows retreated into his skin, the magnetic allure of his beauty toned down to normal levels. Which were, of course, still heart stopping in their effect.

Leaning back against the balcony railing, he slid his hands into the pockets of his pants and winked at me. I gave him major side-eye in return.

Taylor blinked, shook her head, and took a deep breath. She studied Azazel from head to toe and back up again, then turned to me.

“Girrrrrrl.”

“I know.”

“That’s…”

“I know.”

She nodded, her brows raised, lips pursed. Facing Azazel again, she asked, “Do you have a brother?”

“Tay!”

“Sister,” Azazel smoothly said.

Taylor seemed to ponder that. “I remember, Zoe mentioned that. Is she gorgeous like you?”

“Tay!”

“As her brother, it would be inappropriate for me to comment on the looks of my sister, but she’s never lacked for suitors.” He tilted his head to me, a glint of humor in his eyes. “Zoe here may be able to give you a better assessment of Azmodea’s attractiveness.”

“Wow, look at the time,” I shouted.

“Well, if she’s half as fine as you are,” Taylor said to Azazel, “a girl might just consider switching sides…”

“Shouldn’t we be leaving?” I asked with a hint of desperation.

“I also have a nephew,” Azazel threw in.

Taylor’s face lit up. “Oh, that’s right, Zoe told me about him. Yummy Mammon, right?”

Azazel leveled a stare at me.

“I feel like we really should be leaving!” I flailed wildly.

“Please tell Mammon I’m open to some demon possession of my own.” Taylor fluttered her lashes.

“Byyyyyeeee!” I grabbed Azazel’s arm and tried to pull him away. Of course, it was like trying to move a tank.

I turned to Taylor. “It was great to catch up with you, but we must be going now. I’ll be back when I can, ‘kay?” To Azazel I said under my breath, “We’re leaving. Now.”

“We still have a few minutes.” His eyes twinkled.

“Now!”

He sighed. “Pleasure meeting you, Taylor.”

“Mhm.” She cocked a brow. “Say hi to Mammon for me.”

With a wink, he extended his wings. They flared over the railing of the balcony behind him, fire licking over the gleaming obsidian feathers.

“Whoa!” Taylor stumbled back, her eyes huge.

“Show off,” I muttered.

He beckoned me with a crooked finger. “Hop on, babe.”

Babe?Oh, he was laying it on thick. “I swear, if you start calling me bae...” I growled.

His grin was all sorts of wrong.

Facing Taylor again, I said, “I love you, Tay. Feel hugged.” I blew her a kiss.

“Ditto, Z.”

I turned to Azazel and waited for him to scoop me up with one arm under my knees and the other behind my back, as usual, but he made no move to pick me up.

His smirk caused a flutter in my ghostly stomach. “I said, hop on.”

Oh, you—

Rolling my eyes, I grabbed hold of his tunic, jumped up and slung my legs around his waist. He caught me with his hands under my butt, wicked amusement playing over his features.

“I’ll get you back for that,” I pressed out.

“I’m aquiver with fear.” With his hands on my ass, he pushed my hips closer to him, right against the unmistakable hardness at his groin.

My fingers dug into his neck, arousal flooding my ghostly form.

“Get a room,” Taylor said laughing.

“Why get a room,” Azazel muttered, “when we can just do this?”

By now I recognized the telltale prickle that accompanied switching between visibility and invisibility—somehow Azazel brought me along with him as he made the change.

“That is equal parts cool and weird,” I heard Taylor say—right before Azazel let himself fall backwards over the railing.

Still holding on to me, he snapped his wings closed, and we plummeted down.

I shrieked, grabbing him tighter, my legs holding his hips in a vise grip.

Ghost form or no, instincts made sure I died about a thousand deaths in the few seconds of free fall before he flared his wings out and shot upward again with powerful beats.

His mouth at my ear, he murmured, “That’s what you get for Yummy Mammon.”

* * *

“Right there,the house on the corner lot,” I said, pointing to the small single-level home that was just a step above a trailer as Azazel swooped low over the little town.

After we’d gone back to Hell through the gate in Sydney, he flew me to yet another demon’s territory, since Azmodea’s gate in the east of the San Francisco Bay Area was hundreds of miles away from Forest Grove, the little town on the suburban outskirts of the Portland metropolitan area in Oregon.

Thankfully, the demon whose gate we had to use this time wasn’t interested in why Azazel needed access, and we proceeded to Earth without issue.

Now Azazel shot me an arch look. “You do realize I’m familiar with your mother’s house?”

“Why—” I broke off and glared at him. “You watched me?”

“I checked in on you every once in a while,” he corrected, “in the never-dwindling hope that you might marry before your twenty-fifth birthday.”

“Perv.”

“You weren’t that interesting as a teenager,” he said matter-of-factly. “And I never watched you in your room.” His lips twitched. “Not until after you went off to college.”

“What?”

His voice was all innocence. “Had to keep a closer eye on you as you approached your mid-twenties.”

Ah, yes, to manipulate my boyfriends into proposing. I was still sore about that. But right now, the other implication of what he said riled me up far more—while it also irritatingly aroused me, not that I’d ever admit it. “How much exactly,” I gritted out, “did you watch me?”

A smug smile snuck onto his face, and his voice dropped to a sensual purr. “Enough to know how you like to be touched.”

I probably should have been scandalized. And I would have been. Totally. I’d have mustered up real outrage about his unethical snooping…if I wasn’t so much in favor of the result.

He landed in a whirl of wings and set me down right in front of the door to the small backyard just as I heard my mom’s voice.

I froze where I stood.

The window to the kitchen was open, allowing parts of her conversation to float outside. As if in a trance, I stepped closer, looked inside.

My mom sat at the small kitchen table, her phone at her ear. Her hair, the same dark brown as mine, only cut shorter, was tousled, as if she’d run her hand through it a hundred times today. The last few years had brought her a few wrinkles, but now her face appeared haggard, the lines deepened, her skin pallid. She seemed to have aged years since I last saw her.

Even in my spirit form, the echo of my heart cringed at her sight, at the sorrow and grief that hung about her like a heavy mantle.

“No,” she said, her voice hoarse. “No, I do understand, but—” She paused, and her features tightened. “She wouldn’t just leave. Maybe you could—” She closed her eyes, her free hand on the table clenching to a fist. “Please, if you could just send another officer to question—yes, I know. I get that. I just think—” She paused again, swallowed. Her tone turned bitter. “I’ll have a nice day when I know what happened to my daughter.”

She glared at the phone, the call apparently ended, and let the device fall to the table, burying her face in both hands. Her shoulders shook.

Something broke inside me.

I started for the door. Azazel caught my wrist. His face harsh, he shook his head.

“Don’t.”

“I need her to see me,” I rasped. “She needs to know.”

“No. You think you’re doing her a favor by revealing the truth, but you’ll end up hurting her more. Most human minds aren’t meant to understand what lies beyond their senses. There’s a reason we don’t run around showing ourselves here on Earth. Taylor was different because she was present during the séance and has known since you were both thirteen. Kids are more open. If you spring this kind of knowledge on an older human, set in their ways, you risk irreparable damage to their psyche.”

My mom’s sob yanked my gaze back to her. I hadn’t seen her cry like this since the early days after my dad’s betrayal. My entire soul hurt watching her.

“She’s already suffering,” I ground out, pulling to get my wrist free of his grip. “I can’t harm her more than this. Let me go.”

“No.” He slung an arm around my waist.

“Azazel, please.”

His grip was implacably firm. I tried making myself visible, but the telltale prickle never came—he kept me invisible, unheard.

“Please,” I begged, my voice as brittle as I felt. “I can’t just—”

My words died at the sight of my aunt walking into the kitchen. Stopping my struggle against Azazel’s hold, I stared numbly. Aunt Cora was my mom’s younger sister, the only other close family we had left. Both my maternal grandparents had died years ago, taken too soon by cancer and heart attack. Working long hours at a law firm on the East Coast, Aunt Cora hadn’t been able to visit us much in the past years. Sometimes we didn’t even see her on Thanksgiving or Christmas, when she had to work overtime for some clients.

But now she was here, outside of any big holiday...to comfort my mom in her time of grief.

That broken part inside my soul fractured a bit more.

“Hey,” Aunt Cora said, sinking into the chair beside my mom and stroking over her back. “Hey. Shhh. Still nothing?”

My mom shook her head, her eyes reddened. “They’re not even really looking for her. They still think she just ran away. She wouldn’t. She just started a new job, for God’s sake!”

“I know.” Aunt Cora pulled my mom in for a hug. “We’ll keep looking, and digging, okay? I know some people who could help.”

Mom nodded and blew into a tissue.

Aunt Cora’s voice grew quiet. “Have you decided if you want to go?”

My mom’s features hardened. “I don’t know yet. I don’t know.”

“Well, you have two more days to make up your mind, and I’ll be here for another week, so even if you want to go after the funeral, I can come with you.”

Funeral? If they were still looking into my disappearance, then it couldn’t be my funeral they were talking about. My soul became very, very still, dread stealing through me on icy claws.

“I just…” my mom whispered. “I always thought, the day he died, I’d be… Happy is the wrong word. But I’ve been angry with him for so long, and there’s just so much pain, I thought there’d be...closure. But now…” She rubbed a hand over her face.

I felt like I’d been dunked in ice water. No. Oh, no, no, no.

“Yeah,” Aunt Cora said, taking mom’s hand. “It’d be nice if everything were black and white, hm? Feelings aren’t rational. You guys were married for as long as you’ve been apart now, and you loved him once. It’s never that simple turning your back on that.”

No. It couldn’t be.

“I mean,” Aunt Cora went on, “we can always go after the funeral so you don’t have to see them. And then whether you want to cry or spit on his grave—or both—no one will judge you. I’ll be there for you either way.”

My ghost form trembled. My whole spiritual core shook with the chilling implication of their words. “Azazel,” I whispered.

He’d grown very still behind me.

“Has my father died?”

He was quiet for a moment. “I don’t know.”

I trembled some more. “How can you not know?”

“I’m not omniscient.” His voice held an edge. “And I didn’t keep tabs on your father. You were estranged.”

“Let’s get something to eat,” Aunt Cora said. “Take your time to think about it. It’s all a bit much right now… First Zoe, then…” She bit her lip. “We’ll figure it out, okay?”

Mom nodded and rose from her chair.

I turned, and Azazel let me go enough so I could face him. “Take me to my father’s.”

His expression was guarded. “Are you sure?”

“I need to know,” I rasped.

He regarded me for a few seconds, but whatever he saw on my face made him give a curt nod. “Does he still live in the same house?”

“Last I heard, yes. The two times he moved, he let me know the new address.” I pressed my lips together, numb though the gesture was. “Not that I ever wrote, or came to visit.”

“Let’s go, then.”

He scooped me up once more, this time the usual way, and I looped my arms around his neck as he took off into the skies, my spiritual form churning with a sickening feeling, like toxic sludge spreading through my system.

My dad’s new family had made their home in Gresham, all the way on the other side of Portland. By car, it would take an hour—or more, during rush hour—via the 26, but Azazel flew the distance in less than thirty minutes.

He touched down in the yard behind a house in the craftsman-style so typical for the region. It wasn’t a big house...but still larger than my mom’s bungalow. Familiar, old resentment stung me. I’d grown up in a house like that, when I thought we were a normal, happy family. Before I found out that the people closest to you can lie to your face for years and years, keeping secrets that are ticking bombs.

Clenching my ghostly fists at the poisonous bite of old anger and hurt, I took the steps to the back porch and walked right through the closed door into the kitchen. I swept my gaze through the room, noted the little signs of family life strewn about the surfaces—a used plate on the table, a school book—math—on the countertop, notes and photos on the fridge.

Pulled by inevitable, self-destructive curiosity despite myself, I stepped up to the refrigerator and took a closer look at the pics pinned there with magnets. Two girls laughed from most of them, at different ages, some photos showing them as toddlers, some newer ones revealing that they were now teenagers.

Their hair was lighter than my dark brown, but their eyes...hazel like mine. Like my father’s.

I’d never seen my half-sisters.

In the initial chaos after the separation and divorce, there was no room for a weird kind of family meeting, and in the years that followed, I was determined to ignore my father’s repeated attempts at contact, and to pretend I had no blood relatives on my dad’s side at all.

Seeing them now, even if only in photos, was like a knife to the heart.

They looked like me, and yet not.

The soft sound of the door opening and closing behind me shook me out of my contemplation of the most painful kind of mirror I’d ever faced. Azazel’s energy brushed my back, his presence like a bulwark of calm in the roughening sea of turmoil threatening to capsize me.

A female voice came from somewhere toward the front of the house. Dread filling my soul, I stepped out of the kitchen and followed the short hallway to the living room. My gaze snagged on the woman sitting on the couch—blond, in her forties maybe, I immediately knew her to be Olivia, my dad’s second wife. Not just from the one photo on the fridge that showed her and the girls, but from how her features were reflected in her daughters’ faces...while those same faces still managed to be eerily similar to my own.

Dressed in black jeans and a black sweater, she held her phone to her ear and took notes on a pad.

“Yes,” she said, her voice soft. “And how much for the larger wreath?” She wrote something down. “Okay. What’s the word limit for that one?” Again, she scribbled a note. “Uh-huh. When do you need the text finalized?” Another note. “Thank you. I’ll be in touch.”

She hung up, laid the phone on the table and rubbed her eyes.

Something loomed over me, ice-cold and dark, like a giant wave in a stormy sea, building, building, building so high that it blocked out the sky.

“Megan,” Olivia called and rose from the couch. “Emma.”

Footsteps thundered on the stairs behind me, and I stepped aside just as a teenage girl walked past me into the living room.

“Em’s not coming,” she said.

“Did she find something in her closet?”

“No.”

Olivia sighed then raised her voice and said, “If you’re not down in a minute, we’re leaving without you, and I’ll pick a dress for you, and you’ll wear it so help me God.”

“No, I won’t!” came the shouted reply from upstairs.

“Yes, you will!” Olivia yelled back. “I’ll not have you wear jeans and T-shirt to your father’s funeral!”

The wave crested.

I trembled, trembled, a tiny speck in a furious sea of darkness as the ice-cold water crashed down with a roar, cutting off light and sound and warmth, and dragged me under.