MySoultoSave (7 page)

“Hot damn,” Reid drawled. “Where’ve you been all my life?
Ain’t nothin’ sexier than an angel with a voice to match.”

“Keep your pants closed, Reid.” Tex stood with a broad smile
that hadn’t quite made it into the warning. “You know what my vote is, so I
guess that makes two. Blue?”

Cyana blinked, hesitated. And grinned. “You’re in.”

Her throat clenched and she had to close her eyes again. At
least this time she wasn’t about to toss anything. Except maybe her last hopes.

* * * * *

Since it would have taken the better part of the night to
ride the currents to Pottstown and Jaeryth needed to waste as little time as
possible, he was forced to resort to the train.

Of course, demon trains had very little in common with the
mortal vehicles of the same name. They were constructed not of metal, but
bone—blood-animated, twisted conglomerations of skeletal remains from both
human and animal. There were no wheels or tracks. The bottom of the trains
resembled a great, long misshapen spine, and the sides, curving ribs of various
lengths and thickness. Nothing enclosed the tops. Lower-level demons conducted
them and damned souls served as tenders, fueling the trains not with coal, but
their own blood.

Most souls considered themselves fortunate to serve their
sentences between reincarnations on the trains. It was better than Hell.

The bone spar Jaeryth currently held on to while the train
roared and rattled through the tunnel was thick and beveled, not yet yellowed
with age. A few scraps of leathered muscle tissue still clung to it.
Fortunately—depending on how one defined fortunate—he could not smell the
rotting flesh through the overpowering stench of the Underground. This network
of tunnels deep in Shade was the closest to Hell any being could get without
actually descending into the nether realm.

When the train finally shuddered to a stop beneath
Pottstown, he dismounted quickly and stood on solid ground for a moment until
his bones stopped jarring against each other. He didn’t dare breathe deeply,
not even in relief. At least the rancid air had moved on the train.

Every station in the Underground looked the same. There was
the tunnel, carved through stone-hard earth with deep twin grooves cut into the
floor to slot the spines of the trains. Eternal flame torches were mounted on
the opposite wall, ten feet apart along the length of the station. Pitch black
holes marked the end of the light’s reach on either side. On the platform,
supporting columns of blasted stone stretched from floor to shadow-dappled
ceiling twelve feet above. Beyond them, a wall, more torches and a single set
of earthen stairs leading to the surface.

No benches. No posters. The only sign was a carved wooden
plaque on the center column that read
Pottstown
—in English, not some
ancient demonic sigil or forgotten tongue. There was no need for pretension in
the Underground.

At last, he felt stable enough to walk, if only to escape
the stench. No others had dismounted here and he’d seen no one he knew when he
boarded at Philadelphia. It was a stroke of luck. The longer his whereabouts
remained unknown, the better.

He waited until the train pulled out and the earth stopped
shaking, then walked across the platform and mounted the stairs—which, in
defiance of typical cool, hushed stairwells around the world, were as blazing
hot as the station. He drew shallow sips of air and tried not to pant.

After nearly five minutes and no sign of an end to the
climb, his clothing was soaked through and the taste of sulfur blanketed his
mouth and throat. Hell’s flames. No wonder he never took the blasted train.

At last, the temperature seemed to cool a few degrees and
approach the merely stifling heat of Shade. The stench lessened a bit, its
overtones morphing from charcoal to rotting garbage. Ahead, the stairwell
widened as it approached black wrought-iron gates. A handful of demons and
Tempters milled about beyond them, passing through flickering suggestions of
mortal shapes outside Shade. The surface.

He pushed through the gates, put his back to the Underground
entrance and headed for the human residences. He could already feel her, a
presence familiar as his own wings. How he’d missed her vibrant, fractured
soul.

She would become his again.

Chapter Six

Logan woke with a scream lodged in her throat. Shivering,
she curled tight and coughed past it. Didn’t want to wake her obnoxious
roommate—drenched and sweating as she was, Myra would summon the wing monitor
and they’d drag her off to the med ward for the rest of the night. Those beds
really sucked.

Gradually, she realized she couldn’t feel the bars beneath
the thin mattress. Couldn’t see the grated blue security light above the locked
door. Nothing hummed or ticked or droned. She was out of rehab. Alone. Her only
roommate was a stuffed cat.

She groaned, sat up and swung her feet to the floor. One in
the morning. What a popular time for her to be awake. The chills subsided
gradually, but the idea of dropping back to sleep was laughable. Whatever she’d
been dreaming hadn’t been good. And the cold sweat soaking her probably came
from equal parts nightmare and withdrawal. Even now, for just a few seconds,
she could see herself plunging a needle in, letting the rush drown that
deep-seated itch that never went away. It’d be easy. Just once.

Damn it,
no.
She was going to stay clean if it killed
her.

Maybe a hot shower would make her drowsy, or at least relax
her enough to attempt sleep. She hadn’t bothered changing for bed. Just
stripped her jeans off and crawled in, so she wore only a long-sleeved shirt
and underwear. In rehab she would’ve had to dress before she left the bed.
Anything suggestive had been ruthlessly suppressed. Of course, that meant the
inmates—excuse her,
patients
—came up with more creative ways to express
sex. But now she could strip right here and walk down the hall to the bathroom
naked if she felt like it.

She didn’t. Wasn’t quite ready for that kind of freedom yet.

She stood and crossed to the closet. The cool carpet under
her feet only woke her up more. By the time she shrugged into her worn cotton
robe and made her way to the bathroom, she was completely alert. Damn it. If
this middle-of-the-night wakeup was going to be a regular thing, she might have
to resort to sleeping pills. She needed rest.

Especially now that she had a job. Sort of.

The idea that she was the lead singer of Ruined Soul hadn’t
quite taken hold yet. It elated her and terrified her. Already she’d gotten
further in a single night than she had in years before. She was in a solid,
professional band. They had paying gigs. Tex had informed her that the money
wasn’t great, that after they split the payment five ways—the band always put a
fifth into their equipment fund—her take would be around two hundred bucks a
night.

She’d laughed at him. In all her brief stints of employment
between meth binges, she’d never made more than two hundred bucks in a week,
much less a night. Besides, this was getting paid to sing. She would’ve taken
twenty bucks. Hell, she’d do it for free.

But the fears still came close to overshadowing the joy.
There was the stage fright. It’d hit her hard with only three people watching.
What happened when there were fifty, or a hundred? And she’d earned the band’s
acceptance, but that wasn’t enough. She’d have to win crowds too.

Those were bad, but they weren’t her worst fear—relapse.
Using again to escape disappointment, struggle, failure. The crutch would
always be there, waiting for her to pick it back up and keep limping toward
self-destruction.

With a sigh, she undressed and turned the water on in the
shower. It didn’t take long to heat. She adjusted it to a few degrees below
scalding, flipped the switch up to spray.

Logan.

The voice knotted her stomach and broke her skin out in
gooseflesh. No fucking way. She wasn’t going to hear Fred, not here. Shivering,
she practically vaulted into the shower and yanked the curtain closed, as
though she could leave whatever had spoken on the other side.

She held her breath while the hot spray drenched her. Heard
nothing but her own heart pounding in her ears. Either Fred had nothing else to
say or she’d imagined that single word in the first place. A brief mental
relapse brought on by stress.

The water felt damned good and she let it soothe away the
tension. Eventually she figured she might get back to sleep after all. She
waited until the spray started cooling, then reluctantly turned the water off,
stepped out and grabbed a towel. Banks of steam filled the room, condensing on
porcelain and tile, fogging the mirror above the sink. She towel-dried her hair
until it stopped dripping on her shoulders and wrapped the long end of the
towel around her chest. Definitely sleepy now.

What are you doing out here all alone, Logan?

She jumped as if she’d been pinched. This time, the voice
pissed her off—Fred sounded disappointed. “I don’t hear you,” she snapped, and
resolved that would be the last time she answered the imaginary voice aloud. No
matter what he had to say.

You hear me. You’re so close now.

Fresh goose pimples raced over every inch of her skin. Not
once in all the years he’d haunted her had Fred responded directly to what she
said. And what the hell did he mean, she was close—close to what? To him? The
bastard didn’t even exist. His voice was something in her head, some misfiring
cluster of brain cells projecting her worst subconscious thoughts in what was
probably a blend of known male voices in her life. That’s what the
alphabet-soup doctors at the clinic would’ve said, anyway.

You’re mine.

Across the room, the water vapor swirled and parted, as
though something moved through it, toward her. The steam thickened, bunched,
whispering around the shape of a leg, an outstretched hand—a face. A man’s
face, transparent and sketched in the mist. The apparition’s lips moved, formed
the shapes as she heard the sounds.

Logan…

A scream locked her throat, stopped her breath. She bolted
from the room.

Panic smothered her conscious thoughts. The next thing she
knew, she was huddled on the living room couch, every light turned on, cell phone
in her hand and open to the address book with Tex’s name highlighted. She
gulped in a succession of ragged breaths and moved her finger away from the
call button. What would she say? That the voice in her head, the one she’d
never told him or any of the counselors about, had materialized as an invisible
man in her bathroom?

Friend or not, he’d drop her right back into rehab—or maybe
a psych ward.

When her racing heart calmed a little, she told herself that
she couldn’t possibly have seen what she thought. It was just steam and
exhaustion. Frustration that Fred had followed her after all. No, it wasn’t
even that. There was no Fred.

And she wasn’t crazy.

Eventually, she convinced herself to move. She headed for
the bedroom, dressed in a T-shirt and shorts, grabbed a blanket and returned to
the living room. So much for getting back to sleep. Cocooned on the couch, she
flipped through the scant selection of television channels and settled on a
cheesy Lifetime-style movie with bad acting and irritating background music.

The idea of grabbing a snack crossed her mind. Before she
could act on it, she slipped into slumber.

* * * * *

She had not only heard him, she’d seen him this time.

Jaeryth sat, more or less, on the chair in Logan’s living
room, watching as she drifted to sleep on the couch. She had definitely seen
him in the bathroom—or more likely, a suggestion of him. Further proof that he
was right.

He’d planned to return to his district tonight, just to make
an appearance and keep Ronwe from getting suspicious. But she’d seen him. She
could be fully awakened at any moment. It would be far more satisfying to
return and report that she had manifested, and watch Ronwe choke on his
pronouncement.

He would stay, and tomorrow he’d double his efforts. His
district would be fine without him for a few days.

With a satisfied smile, he settled in to watch over Logan.

Chapter Seven

That could’ve gone better.

Logan walked away from the Greenleaf Senior Residence,
waiting until she got a block or so down to light a cigarette. The interviewer
had been an administrative supervisor by the name of Velma Swanson, a thin and
harried-looking woman who had not been amused by the Scooby Doo joke she’d
tried to make. Things had only gone downhill from there.

When they’d gotten to the point of discussing her past
experiences, it had become apparent that a few crucial items had been left out
of whatever memo Velma had received about her—like the whole reformed junkie
thing. From the instant she’d mentioned rehab, the woman hadn’t been able to
shoo her from the office fast enough.

She was pretty sure she wouldn’t be getting a callback on
this one.

Well, at least it was over. And for once, Fred had been good
for something—he’d freaked her out enough that she’d actually looked forward to
leaving the house. Now that she’d managed to relax a little and had nothing
pressing to do until band practice tonight, item number one on her list was to
get something to replace the god-awful suit. She refused to wear this thing to
one more interview.

Even Velma, with the fashion sense of a woman who hadn’t
cared what she’d worn to work since the eighties or so, had given a little
nose-crinkle sniff at her attire.

She didn’t have much money at the moment, but she should be
able to get emergency assistance at the welfare office. After all, it was for a
good cause. The quest to get her off the dole and stop wasting the state’s
money on her worthless ass. So she’d spend a million hours in the waiting room,
and then hit the thrift store. And celebrate later by burning the god-awful
suit.