All That Falls (20 page)

“I did.”

“Thank you. Try again.”

He glanced around the lobby as if it would offer a subject for conversation. When it didn’t, he beckoned her onto the
elevator. She almost pressed the button for Griffin’s floor, but Lysander reached over and pressed the button for the top floor. She leaned back against the wall, looking at the ceiling.

“Who do you think has been the most important influence on modern music?” he asked.

“On rock and roll? Probably Led Zeppelin.”

“Your reasons for choosing them?” he asked, ushering them into a discussion on the history of music. He was well versed and mentioned several artists whose influences weren’t widely recognized.

The elevator doors opened and they stepped out onto the roof, but she stopped and stared at him in wonder as he continued. He confessed that he’d haunted the recesses of Tin Pan Alley during the twenties, set himself in the path of a gangster outside the Cotton Club to keep intended violence from becoming dangerous to Duke Ellington and his band, and how he’d opened a door on an Indiana college campus so jazzman Hoagy Carmichael, who was drunk and wandering home when seized by a tune he was afraid wouldn’t survive the night unless he played it, could have access to a piano on which to compose. Carmichael wrote “Stardust,” which would establish him as a songwriter.

“You protected the American blues and jazz movement.”

He shrugged. “It was an important moment in the evolution of music. I was enjoying it and didn’t want anything to interfere with their progress.”

She fired off a slew of questions to suck the memories from him. She peppered in her own anecdotes, and they realized that they’d both been in the stadium when the Rolling Stones played Wembley in 2003. Him up above, away from people. Her backstage. They talked about Robert Johnson, Duke Ellington, Eminem, Nirvana, and Mary J. Blige. He told her about the greatest concerts he’d crashed through the ages.

“Nothing compares to the view from heaven, but being earthbound has had its sublime moments.”

She beamed at him as they crossed the roof, feeling buzzed from being able to connect with him so deeply over music.

“Lysander,” she said, catching his arm.

He paused.

She fisted his sweater and pulled him to her. She pressed
her lips to his and kissed him soundly, feeling his body respond. She gave his lower lip, which had already healed from the last time she’d bit him, a gentle tug with her teeth. His hand tightened on her hip.

“You’re a decent distraction. Not much else ever has been, so thank you,” she said and attempted to back away. His hands held fast to her hips.

“I guess I’m a pretty decent distraction, too,” she said with a smile. “We’re up here for a reason, remember?”

“The ledge isn’t going anywhere. If you want to divert my attention some more, do your worst.”

“No, not right now. It’s my turn to shove you against a brick wall, but there isn’t one around.”

The corners of his mouth quirked up, and he let her step away. “Something for me to look forward to then.”

“As you like,” she said, echoing him again. “Show me the artwork.”

He turned and walked across the roof. She strode with him and heard the low curse he muttered. He darted to the ledge and dropped to a knee. As she joined him, she could see the tar-black paint dripping down the sides of the ledge like blood. He pressed his fingertips to the paint and lifted them. It was still wet.

She looked around at the empty roof. They must have just missed whoever had painted over the images. She shook her head.

A scent wafted through the air. Soot and something spicy. Her head turned toward it and so did his. She walked along the edge, and the scent became stronger. She bent. There was a broken glass vial, like the kind used for perfume samples. She touched the black liquid and, for a moment, she was somewhere else, standing on the bank of a black river, steam and sulfur rising, flames licking her heels. A rush of heat swallowed her. Then she was in the rented house where she’d spent the final weekend with Griffin. She saw a wineglass on the bureau and her hand on the glass. She felt breath against her neck. “Drink up. It goes down like nectar.” The liquid was smooth then icy cold as it washed down her throat, coated her insides. There was a strange aftertaste and she felt dizzy. Really dizzy and scared. She couldn’t breathe. Flashes of memory like a strobe
light. Struggling to get away. Someone behind her, hands on her throat. A harsh voice, not Griffin’s. Her heart slam-dancing in her chest, the air too scarce, her body heavy, lids that wouldn’t open. Struggling and struggling. Too weakly.

Stop! Let go!

Please stop…

The world went as black as the tar-colored paint.

“Cerise?”

She swam toward consciousness. “What the hell?” she groaned, jerking to an upright position from where she’d been lying with her head on Lysander’s lap.

“All right now?” he asked.

“I—Did I faint?”

He nodded.

“Bullshit,” she snapped, more at herself than him. “I don’t faint. I’ve never fainted in my life.” Her hands went to her head, and she touched it experimentally. “You caught me?”

“Of course. You almost stumbled over the ledge. I said your name, but you didn’t seem to hear me. The look on your face…what did you see before you passed out?”

“Memories from the night Griffin died—a lot of hours are just gone…or I thought they were.” She looked at Lysander. “There was someone in the house that night. I don’t know what happened—what was done to me.” She shuddered, and dread and fear gave way quickly to fury. She slammed her fist against her thigh. “Damn it! I have to remember. It’s there—” She raised her fist to strike again, but he grabbed her wrist and held it.

“No.”

“I feel—I just want to hit something.”

“Hit me.”

Her eyes widened.

“You can’t hurt me, and if you did, I’d heal in under an hour. Your flesh takes longer to recover; have a care with it,” he said gently.

She shook her head. “You’re the last person I want to hit right now.” She tugged on her arm and he released it.

“What did you see?”

“I don’t want to talk about it. Let’s go. Let’s get off this roof. It reeks of paint and worse.” She shot to her feet and marched across the concrete.

“What do you smell?” he asked, keeping pace as she hurried to the stairwell door.

“I’m not sure.”

“Describe it.”

She jogged down the stairs with him close at hand. Entering the top floor hallway, she strode to the elevator and jabbed the call button. Lysander grabbed her arms and whirled her to face him.

“What did you smell? Tell me,” he said.

“I don’t know. Soot. Spices. Something sulfurous, like spoiled eggs.”

“Yes. Have you smelled it before?”

“I don’t know.”

“Concentrate.”

The elevator dinged, and the doors slid open. She tried to turn, but he held her arms and shook his head.

“Not yet. Think back,” he said.

“I don’t want to think! Not now. Not with you right on top of me. I want to be alone with it.” She tried to jerk free, but he held on. “All right!” she said, and he let her go. “Yeah, it seemed familiar. It triggered a memory just like Griffin’s journal did at Merrick’s. I think—I think someone slipped something into my wine that night. But if I remember that, I must have seen him do it, so then why would I have drunk it? I don’t do drugs. I never have. I’m beginning to think that whatever was in that drink is the reason I can’t remember what happened. And maybe why I couldn’t defend myself if someone attacked me.”

“Who attacked you?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know. The memories are all jumbled. I need to figure out a way to sort them out. I need to
look at Griffin’s songbook somewhere safe—maybe on a bed where I can’t hurt myself if I fall. I need to do a guided mediation using my magic or something,” she murmured, thinking out loud. She turned to him. “Let’s get the book.”

“It’s out of reach.”

She opened her mouth to snap at him, but he cut her off.

“I put it in my house before I went to fight the demons, but I can’t get to my house until my wings heal.”

She scowled at him.

“Tell me everything you remember about your last few days with the musician.”

“No.”

“This is my fight. I won’t be dealt out of it,” he said.

“It’s not your fight! It happened months ago. Long before I met you.”

“Yes, but you’re mine, and any trouble that’s yours belongs to me, too.”

She shook her head sharply, but he continued, “Yes, Cerise. That scent on the roof was from the ash of a slain demon mixed with fresh blood. You might have smelled it tonight because we’re bonded, but then any memories that were triggered should’ve been mine. Instead you say it uncovered your own missing memories. Are you sure?”

Her mind reeled. “Yeah, I think—yes, I recognized the house. The one Griffin and I rented. And when I looked down in the vision I saw my body, my hands. Are you saying a demon broke in that night?”

“Did the smell trigger the memories?”

“When I touched the blackness from the vial that’s what triggered it.”

He frowned. “Why would you have been a target before we even met? Had you ever taken part in a black magic ritual? Tried to call dead spirits or a demon?”

“Of course not!”

“Then someone else marked you somehow. And whoever that is has been serving the demon for months.” His narrowed eyes looked out the window and scanned the horizon. “What is he doing?” he murmured. “And how is it being done? No demon can enter the world without me sensing it. I feel it instantly.”

“Maybe there are some demons that you can’t feel?”

He shook his head. “Even the lowest-ranking demons make my senses scream. That ash you smelled came from one of the most powerful demons in hell. It came from
him
. From Reziel.”

“He’s here?”

“No, but someone uncovered his ashes. It’s been a very long time since he was flesh. No one could’ve found traces of his ashes without being guided to them. Reziel’s in close contact with a human being. The thing I don’t understand is if someone has his ashes and if Reziel can instruct them so clearly, why haven’t they done a ritual to raise him by now?”

Of course he didn’t expect an answer from her, which worked out since she didn’t have one.

“When your wings heal, you’ll show me the songbook, right? You wouldn’t let me look at it before because you worried it would draw demons to me, but that’s moot now, isn’t it? Being tied to you makes me a target?”

“It does.”

“So we’ll look at the book together. Maybe there’s something in it that will give us a clue as to how Griffin and I came into contact with Reziel’s representative.”

He nodded.

“Can’t we get to it some other way than by flying? There’s no road access?”

“None.”

“Helicopter?”

“It’s on the shear face of a mountain. There’s nowhere for a helicopter to land.”

She rolled her eyes in frustration. “So if you’d lost your wings, you could never have gone home again?”

“If I’d lost my wings, losing my earthly possessions would’ve been the least of my concerns.”

She sighed. “Let’s go to Griffin’s apartment. I doubt we’ll find any evidence of the demon there since we’re in the Etherlin, but it’s worth a try.”

“And if there’s blank paper, I can try to recreate the artwork from the ledge. Especially the end where there was a symbol that might have been the artist’s signature.”

They stepped into the elevator and descended. Emerging on Griffin’s floor, the bland hall with its uninterrupted beige
soothed Cerise. When she’d spent a lot of time in the building, she’d been annoyed by the dull halls, but at the moment even an explosion of color would’ve been an assault on her frayed nerves.

She braced herself at the door. The apartment had been Griffin’s, but so much of how it looked could be attributed to the purchases she’d made. Andy Warhol prints, the lotus blossom wall tattoo, the funky blown-glass chandelier, and the cranberry velvet chaise longue were all her choices.

When the door opened though, she wasn’t assaulted by a barrage of memories. The thing that hit her immediately was the smell of food. Her brows rose, and she strode into the apartment.

Propped against a mountain of pillows and wrapped in a blanket on the chaise, Jersey Lane looked like a ghostly little doll.

“Hey,” Cerise said with a smile. “Hayden’s last text said they weren’t letting you go till tomorrow.”

“I’m okay, so they let me go this afternoon,” Jersey said with a crystal clear voice as lovely as the best-tuned instrument. Then Jersey’s eyes widened and she sucked in a gasp, pressing back into the pillows like she wanted to disappear through them.

Cerise glanced over her shoulder at Lysander, who wasn’t doing anything more menacing than being seven feet tall.

“It’s okay, Jerz, this—”

“It’s him. He’s the angel I saw when I died.”

“The what?” Dorie asked.

Cerise whipped her head toward the kitchen, and her heart sank at the sight of her younger sister coming out with a bowl of soup.

“What are you doing here?” Cerise demanded.

Dorie’s full attention was glued to Lysander. “I called Hayden to check on how Jersey was doing. He needed someone to stay with her.”

He should’ve asked me,
Cerise thought furiously.

“I wasn’t busy, so I came and made with the pillow-fluffing and soup-making. Cream of broccoli with yummy garlic croutons,” Dorie rambled. “Who’s this, Cer?” she asked, never taking her eyes off Lysander.

“He’s a friend,” Cerise said. “And now that we’re here, you can take off.”

Dorie set the soup on a tray next to the chaise and then put the tray on Jersey’s lap. “Eat up.” Dorie circled the chaise and walked straight to Lysander, thrusting out her hand.

“I’m Dorie Xenakis. I’m a muse, too.”

Lysander folded his arms across his massive chest and gave her a look that could’ve blistered the paint from the walls. Dorie took a step back. “Do you speak English?”

He continued to stare at her with an expression so filled with fury that it raised the hair on the back of Cerise’s neck. She crossed the space to her sister in three long strides and grabbed Dorie’s arm.