Revel agreed. “Vex’s order of protection is gone now that he’s dead. It’ll be open season on hybrids.”
“What I really want is to go home.” My sudden, sharp yearning to retreat to my cozy apartment and the familiar faces in the bar almost overwhelmed me. “But the bar belongs to Vex.”
“No, it doesn’t,” Shock said. “The Den belongs to you. I didn’t want Vex coercing you into something because you lived and worked in their business. So I made him put it into a trust for you. You can’t sell it, but it’s yours until you die, and then it reverts back to Michael.”
Allay turned to Revel. “You said Vex could take the bar away from me.”
“I didn’t know it was put in trust for you,” Revel said. “Shock didn’t tell me that.”
Shock grimaced. “It was my idea. I knew you would leave, Allay, if you thought you owed Vex for the bar. Putting it into a trust meant we didn’t have to involve you in the legal stuff. I didn’t want you to feel obligated to him, but I thought the bar would be the safest place for you. In hindsight, I should have told you.”
“Michael knows,” I said with sudden realization.
Shock nodded. “Yes, he set the trust up and manages it. I’m sorry.”
“It doesn’t matter, Shock. Vex owned me, anyway. He was just biding his time before he plucked me off the street.” I felt an easing of the fist clutching my insides ever since I had found Shock almost dead on my sofa. “So I can go home.”
“Are you crazy?” Revel protested. “Your front windows were shot out. You can’t go back there.”
“I know who did that.” I wasn’t ready to tell Revel about my poor attempt at blackmailing Commissioner Mackleby, with his thug for a driver and his empire of licenses and permits. A demon would have known the uselessness of such a drive-by shooting against me, so I could discount my real enemies. “I can call him off. All I need is a phone.”
Shock was jittering up and down. “If you want to leave, Allay, then let’s go. I can make it to work on time if we hurry.”
I smiled at Revel to lessen our abrupt departure; then I ran up the steps after Shock. Revel caught up as we stepped into the elevator. “Call me if you need help.” He said it to both of us, but he was looking at me.
I said something I thought I never would. “Thank you, Revel. You really came through for me.”
His dark eyes looked huge. “That’s what I’m here for,” he said as the elevator door closed.
Once Shock and I were ensconced in the back of a cab, protected by the Plexiglas barrier and heading south to more-familiar territory, I asked, “How was it staying with Revel?”
Shock made a face, scrunching up her delicate nose. “Like living on candy, all sweetness and light. I was hard-pressed to find even the most trivial suffering in that place. I can’t wait to get back to work.”
Her hands were clenching and unclenching, like an addict looking for her fix. It made her even more admirable that no matter how badly she needed it, she would never inflict harm on others to feed off their pain—unlike Dread.
I did notice that she stayed on the far side of the seat. Both Shock and Revel instinctively wouldn’t come close to me. But Ram had reached out for me—several times. He wanted to touch me, even while I was in this desperate need of a new essence. He wasn’t afraid deep down that I was going to snap and try to kill him. Then again, he was the uber-predator—he wasn’t afraid of anyone.
As if reading my mind, Shock said, “What are you going to do about your situation, Allay?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted.
“You have to take a demon tonight. It can’t wait any longer. I’ll help you. It’s supposed to be easier if there’re two to one.”
I groaned, putting my hands to my head. “I’ve been over this so many times. I’m no murderer.”
“Huh.” Shock looked out at the buildings and cars whizzing by. “If I’m going to die, I’d rather it be someone like you who kills me.”
“What? Why would I kill my best friend?”
“I’m just saying—it’s better than someone like Dread. Or Stun. He’s my own offspring, I know, but he’s awful. Would you want their face to be the last thing you see? Would you want to give them more life?”
“I’d be no better than them if I killed someone.”
Shock considered that seriously. “I don’t think so, Allay. You’re nothing like them.”
I knew it wasn’t her fault she couldn’t understand the moral issues at stake. “How do you plan on picking a demon when your time comes?”
“I never thought about it. I may go look up Stun. It would sure catch him by surprise.” Shock laughed thinking about it.
I didn’t.
We were silent all the way down until we reached the East Village. I thought it was prudent when Shock instructed the driver to turn into Alphabet City. I wasn’t going to walk anywhere without someone at my back. I never wanted Goad’s horde chasing me in their psych-ward van again. I turned to look at the cabs following us and wondered which one held Glory’s spy.
The driver pulled up in front of the bar. “Don’t stop the meter,” I told him. “Shock’s going on downtown.”
“Come with me, Allay. You can stay at work until I get off; then we’ll find you someone. I’m not going to let you go out like a light because you’re too finicky to do what needs to be done.”
“You say that as if I were refusing to eat my broccoli.”
“You are. You’ll just have to get over it.” Shock gave me an admiring glance. “By the way, you look great all charged up like this. You should do it more often.”
I opened the door and got out. It was no use arguing with Shock. She made it sound so easy that it made me feel sick.
“I’ll come by later,” Shock called after me. “Don’t you dare go out until I get back.”
21
It was weird seeing the bar closed up at the height of happy hour, with the metal shutter down over the front and the windows of my apartment dark up above. There was trash strewn across the sidewalk, and someone had dumped a six-pack of empty beer bottles at the base of the tree, leaving broken glass scattered on the sidewalk.
I stood looking up at the building.
My place
. I almost wanted to cry. All along, the bar had belonged to me. Somehow it felt different, so perfect yet awful at the same time, because now I didn’t have time to enjoy it.
Mail was strewn across the floor of the foyer—bills, invoices, several red Netflix envelopes, and lots of junk mail. There were no dirty packets of money waiting to be handed off. I was done with that forever.
I hesitated at the inner door to the bar, dreading what I would see. But the phone was in there, and I needed to find out how Pepe was doing.
It was dark inside, with only the silvered east light coming from the windows in the back. Tables were pushed into odd clusters and some of the chairs were down.
I stepped inside carefully, but found no crunching glass. Flipping on the light revealed the front windows had been repaired with new plate glass, and the floor had been scrubbed clean of blood. The bar looked as if it could be opened right now. Michael had taken care of everything, getting it fixed in record time.
I really wanted to open up. I was tempted to throw one last huge party, but it would be too dangerous for my patrons.
I called Michael. He answered on the first ring. “Allay? Is that you?”
“Hi, Michael. Yes, I’m back at the bar.”
His voice was so familiar, like a father’s. “I’ll be right there, Allay. Don’t you go anywhere!”
I tried to protest, to say I just wanted to check in, but Michael was already heading out his door. So I waited in the cool, shadowed bar, the muted sounds of the street making it seem as if I were far away from everything, suspended in a bubble in a teeming ocean.
I could have sat there forever.
But it wasn’t long before Michael came knocking at my door. He gave me a big hug right there in the foyer. He was an aging bear of a man, solid and reassuring. He looked as if he hadn’t gotten much sleep last night. He worried too much about everything, including me.
How could I have ever doubted him?
“It’s so good to see you,” I told him.
“My dear, what happened to you?” He held me away and gave me a good look up and down. “Were you hurt in the shooting? You disappeared and nobody knew where you were.”
How could I lie and say I was fine when I was dying? “I’m sorry, I should have called you sooner. This whole thing has been a big mess. My cell is gone, so don’t try that number.”
“I have. Too many times.”
I led him into the bar to a table at the back. Through the windows I could see the tree next door hanging down over my yard. “How’s Pepe?”
“He’s recovering well. He should be able to get out of the hospital tomorrow. He had to have his bowel resected, but his health is good and the doctors say he’s healing fine.”
“Thank goodness.” My relief knew no bounds. It was my fault Pepe had been shot. “Is his family all right? Do they need money?”
“All taken care of. I’ve made sure they’ll get disability payments, and the medical bills are coming directly to me.”
“Thank you, Michael. And thank you for fixing the bar up. The new windows look great.”
“That’s what I’m here for.”
That was what Revel had said. Funny.
I had to talk to him about it. “Shock told me about the trust. Why didn’t you ever tell me you don’t own the bar?”
His tone grew more serious. “Allay, from the moment I met you, I thought you deserved a break. When your sister got Mr. Anderson to buy the bar for you, well, I was thrilled. Who wouldn’t be? I knew you would take care of this old girl. And I was glad to still be able to manage the financials, to make sure you didn’t get off track.”
Michael shook his head, remembering. “But as I got to know you better, I told Mr. Anderson that you should be informed. I didn’t like lying about it. He refused, and your sister agreed with him. She came to my office to convince me to leave well enough alone. She said you were too proud, that you wouldn’t want to be beholden to anyone. I knew how happy you were here, and selfishly, I didn’t want you to leave. Did I do wrong?”
“No, you meant well. And it doesn’t matter in the end.”
Michael frowned. “I don’t like the sound of that. The end of what? The police said you reported a friend of yours was kidnapped by the prophet. Is that true? Don’t tell me Mr. Anderson was involved in the shooting.”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“The police don’t have any leads that I know of. They’ve been asking for you. They want to talk to you. Follow-up questions, they say.”
I groaned. “I suppose I have to do it. But not tonight. I need one night of peace; that’s all I ask for.”
Michael was still concerned. “Where have you been, Allay?”
“I went to see the prophet when I found out he bought the bar from you. Things got . . . a little out of hand.” I hated lying to him. “It turns out the guy I thought they kidnapped was actually lying to me all along.”
“How are things between you and Mr. Anderson?”
I left him lying on the floor of his own cage, nearly dead. Dread should be supremely grateful that I had spared his life. But he was arrogant enough to want to kill me for seeing him brought so low. “That’s yet to be determined.”
“Well, he doesn’t have any control over you or this bar. So it doesn’t matter whether you’re on friendly terms with him or not.”
“So I really do own the bar?”
“All right and tight. For the rest of your life.”
The thought of my life lasting barely longer than tomorrow ended the pleasant mood Michael had put me in. I arranged to meet him at the precinct to speak to Lieutenant Markman the next morning. I hoped I’d have a coherent story put together by then.
When I disappeared, there were going to be a lot of questions asked. Shock would have to be prepared to deal with that.
In fact, I could leave a few pointers for the police right now. With Shock safe from Ram, my biggest concern was making sure Dread didn’t revive Vex’s plan and stage a religious resurrection with himself as the star. I could atone for my part in the fraud and bribery committed by the church by exposing them through my death. There was a certain poetic justice in that.
After I went missing, the cops would pull my phone records. They would see that I had called Commissioner Mackleby from my cell the night before the shooting, and if I called him now from the bar, that might help the cops make the link between him and the church.
I also had something to say to Mackleby.
So I called him, hardly expecting him to be home at seven thirty on a Wednesday evening. Most men of his stature were out having dinner or at a social function.
