Torn(12)

But I couldn’t. I could never accept that.

And so I walked away from Deacon and aligned myself with my enemy.

FIVE

“You wanna tell me where you’ve been?” Clarence said. He was sitting cross-legged in front of my apartment door. “I’ve been calling and calling, and you’re not even answering your damned cell phone.”

“I turned it off,” I said. “Sorry. I didn’t think. I—” I ran my fingers through my hair and made an effort to look frazzled. It really wasn’t hard. “I’ve had a rough day.”

“Day? You’ve been gone for more than twenty-four hours. I’ve been pacing a damned path in this shit carpeting they’ve got in your hallway.”

And the weird thing? There really was a worn pattern in the carpet. Not, I’m sure, because he was pacing with worry. More likely he was afraid his newly sworn Pawn of Evil had gone AWOL.

I slid my key in and opened the door. He slouched inside ahead of me, then plopped himself down in one of Alice’s armchairs. “Make yourself at home,” I mumbled.

He sighed, then kicked his feet up on an ottoman and took a long, slow breath. “Can’t help it,” he said. “I’m too damn relieved you’re okay.” His fedora was slanted down over his bulgy eyes, and stretched out like that, he looked less froglike than usual. He looked casual. He looked comfortable.

And I hated him all the more for waltzing into my life and looking like an ordinary guy. Because he wasn’t ordinary. He was evil. He was the frog-faced little worm who’d gotten me into this whole mess, and before this thing was over, I would see him dead.

Not now, though, I thought, even as the weight of my blade in the thigh holster tempted me. Not now, because I’ve made a deal with an even worse devil.

What was it they said about the devil you knew?

Briefly, I wondered if I wasn’t screwing up big-time by not telling Clarence what Johnson was up to. Tell Clarence, and get him and Penemue working behind the scenes to figure out a way to get Johnson out of Rose. And they’d do it, too, because I was Prophecy Girl. The über-warrior chick with Rand McNally blood.

More than that, there was no way they’d want Johnson and Kokbiel to succeed with their plan.

I was tempted. So, so tempted.

But in the end I kept my mouth shut.

Being a double agent was one thing, but I wasn’t sure I had it in me to be a triple agent. More than that, I simply wasn’t willing to take the risk. Because if I took it and failed, I’d pay with Rose’s life. And that was unacceptable.

So instead of saying anything to Clarence, I did what I was supposed to do: I played it cool.

I drew in a breath and tried to act like a girl whose entire system of reality hadn’t once again been turned askew. A girl whose sister hadn’t been violated by a demon.

A girl who wasn’t slowly, with every kill, becoming the thing she most despised.

“So?” he said, his arms tossed out to the sides, his shoulders rising in a deep shrug.

“Uh . . .”

“Your story? Where have you been? Egan’s dead,” he said, referring to Alice’s uncle. “There’s evidence of a ritual in the pub’s basement, and you’re nowhere to be found. So, yeah. I’ve been worried.” He exhaled loudly. “Damn glad to see you’re okay, but you scared the crap out of me. So where the hell have you been?”

Where I’d been wasn’t a topic I intended to delve into in depth. Instead, I wanted to scream that I wasn’t okay. That it would never be okay until I got my hands around Johnson’s neck—his neck and not Rose’s—and squeezed until I felt every last drop of life ooze out of him. I wanted to take a knife and gut him. I wanted his blood spilled, and I wanted to be the one to spill it.

“Yo? You gonna answer my question?”

I blinked, realizing that Clarence had not only stood up and moved to the window, but that he’d been talking, and I hadn’t been listening. “What question?”

“I talk, talk, talk. But do you listen? Nope. I’m only Clarence, your handler, your mentor. Not like I’d be worried about you. Not like I’d—”

“Clarence. What question?”

“I asked where you’ve been. I asked what happened. Bodies all over the damn pub, and I can’t find you anywhere.”

“Bodies?” As far as I knew, there was only one body, Alice’s uncle Egan, aka the man who murdered Alice. Once I’d figured that out, I wasn’t terribly inclined to show him any sympathy. And, yeah, I killed him.

Not that I wanted Clarence to know that. Fortunately, Deacon and I had come up with a story that mixed fact with fiction. I only hoped it would fly.