“He was fighting my war,” Talia said. She could not explain the weight of responsibility she felt over Custo’s death. If she’d just mastered her differences sooner, perhaps both he and Patty would still be alive.
“The world’s war, then,” Adam said. “The point is, he’s gone. I’ll get past it, but not until the demon is destroyed. In the meantime, I’ve got to work. There are some things I have to do alone. Set in motion. Later, you can help me scout out a new place for your convalescence. Somewhere with a little more privacy.”
Another lie, but carried with such sweet love that she had to let it go.
The side of his mouth lifted in a kind of half smile. She’d have to settle for that, though she didn’t like it.
“Now will you just dance with me?” Adam pulled her close again, not waiting for her answer.
Talia wound her arms around him tightly to keep him as close to her as she could, while she could. The melody soared higher to its climax, as if with hope, but the words were about loss. About sundered love.
What did Zoe know about the future to select such a song for her first dance with Adam?
“I’ll be back in a couple of hours,” Adam murmured, feathering a kiss across her lips. He led her from the floor.
Talia caught his surreptitious glance at Zoe when they returned to the chair at Abigail’s side.
Zoe obviously knew plenty, and if Talia had to drown her in shadows to get some answers, she was going to do it. Adam was going nowhere without her.
NINETEEN
ADAM emerged from the dark fete into a muggy New York City night. Above him, a blocky road of glittery sky led through a concrete and glass corridor. The urban smells of stale exhaust, dank gutters, and a life mix of alcohol, food, and metal layered the city’s vital, industrious air. He breathed deeply, taking it all in.
He was glad he was going to end the war at night. Night, like death, was the conclusion of one thing and the beginning of another. Night cast the world in shadow, and therefore, night was Talia’s time. He headed for the deepest falls of darkness to be close to her as he headed toward death.
Adam kept to the alley and zigzagged through the laundry of an adjacent building north of Amaranth to cut across to Fourteenth Street.
No point in trying to track the ship Abigail called the Styx. Adam didn’t trust his sources anymore, and instinct told him that he could accelerate a meeting with the Death Collector if he went through personal channels.
As he walked, he dialed his parents’ number, the number to the picture-perfect family home in the Hamptons where the nightmare began.
Jacob’s intervention.
Punching the combination of numbers released the memory in the box again. Sounds, images, smells escaped to the surface of his consciousness: Jacob’s distended jaw widening. His inhuman teeth. Dad’s tumbled malt whiskey, its peaty smell permeating his study. Jacob’s effortless clutch and sick kiss. Mom’s piercing scream—Adam could still hear it in the back of his mind.
Never in the six intervening years did he think it would end like this.
The phone warbled at his ear. If there were a God in heaven, Jacob would pick up.
Jacob picked up. “Thorne,” he said.
Rage skimmed cold and clammy over Adam’s skin. How that monster could still use the family name—
Didn’t matter. Not anymore. He calmed himself with a controlled breath.
“Hello, Jacob,” Adam said. It was some comfort that he could still guess Jacob’s movements. Jacob would’ve needed a place to stay after his escape from Segue. The family compound had everything he required, including the satisfaction of rubbing Adam’s face in the painful dissolution of the Thorne family legacy.
Silence on Jacob’s end, then, “It’s only a matter of time before we find you and your…harpy.”
Adam bit back a retort and stuck with his plan. He’d rehearsed several tacks in his mind; this seemed the best way to go.
“Well, you can consider me found,” he said. “I need to speak with the demon. Talia wants to cut a deal. I’m acting as her intermediary.”
Jacob grunted. “Whatever she has to say, you can say to me. I’ll get him the message.”
“No can do. I have to speak with him directly. In person. Nonnegotiable.”
“Come now,” Jacob said. “You’ve been fighting The Collective for years. Caged me all that time. I doubt very much that you would capitulate now.”
Exactly so. This kind of change of heart would require a tremendous inducement.
“Talia’s pregnant,” Adam said. He wished it were true, too. Something of her, something of him to leave behind. A little hope for the future.
“Not likely,” Jacob drawled. “Even if she did screw your pathetic, mortal self, it would be way too soon to tell.”
“Talia’s half fae,” Adam explained. “The rules of mortality don’t apply to her. She says she can sense a spark of life within her when she’s in shadow. She bled some after the attack on my loft and it scared her. We’re willing to cut a deal, the specifics of which I’ll save for the demon.”