“So we’re settled,” Kiera said. She turned back around, jerked the car into gear, and peeled out of the parking lot.
She cruised around, getting deeper and deeper into the kinds of neighborhoods even I used to avoid—and we’re talking even back in the days when I wasn’t above selling a little smack to make an extra buck. She slid the Pontiac into a space in front of a hole-in-the-wall diner with a sputtering neon sign out front announcing they served “Good Food,” but only the G, an O, and a D were lit up.
Personally, I doubted God dined there. Unless God was keen on salmonella poisoning and rat droppings in the hamburgers. But then again, what did I know? We clambered inside and slid into one of the booths, Rose and I on one side, and Kiera surveying us both from the other.
She lifted her arm and snapped, then pointed her finger at the table. Moments later, an emaciated waitress with matching nose and eyebrow rings delivered us water and coffee. I took a sip, discovered the coffee wasn’t nearly as bad as I’d expected, and settled back against the mutilated vinyl booth.
“Okay, partner,” she said. “Tell me all about you.”
I glanced sideways at Rose, who was staring at Kiera, her elbow on the table and her chin propped on her fist. I shifted my gaze back to Kiera and shrugged. “Not much to tell.”
Her brows lifted in an obvious expression of disbelief. “Uh-huh,” she said, but she didn’t press. Instead, she focused on Rose. “So how you doing, Little Bit?”
Rose tilted her head down and mumbled to the table. “Okay. He’s hiding.”
“He?” Kiera’s sharp eyes found mine. “Who’s he?”
“I’m guessing our friend with the super suction hands,” I said, and as Kiera lifted her arm and waved the waitress back over, I willed myself not to shoot my little sister a look of deep recrimination. At the same time, I couldn’t help but wonder about her words. Why would Johnson disappear around this girl? The way I figured it, he’d want to stay around. Learn about his enemy’s assets. And from what little I knew of Kiera, I already considered her a pretty strong addition to Penemue’s team.
I cocked my head as a theory played at my mind. “So you can smell demons, huh? Just your generic demon, or can you pick out a particular one?”
She took a long sip of coffee, then rolled her shoulders. “Depends on how good a whiff I get, and whether I’ve met the little bastard before. This one,” she added with a wave toward Rose, “whoever that was didn’t stick around long. Marked her and skedaddled. Not a lot of scent there.”
“Too bad,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady. “I would have liked to know what demon had a hard-on for her.”
She shrugged. “You work with what you got.”
That you do. And right then, I was working with some very gnarly theories, starting with the jumping-off point that Johnson had disappeared, or at least that he’d buried himself deep, deep, deep inside of Rose. And now I had to wonder if he was afraid that Kiera and her demon-sniffing nose would recognize him.
I remembered what Johnson had said about no matter where he wandered, he still served Kokbiel, and the pieces began to fall into place. I might be the current double agent in tonight’s little drama, but I had a feeling that dubious honor had once fallen on Johnson’s head. More to the point, I was thinking that he’d once worked with Clarence, pretending to be on the Penemue team. And considering it was Penemue who’d ended up with the prophetical champion—me—on his team, I think my hypothesis had a lot of weight. Especially when you add to the equation the fact that Johnson had done most of the dirty work to get me here.
It was Lucas who’d taunted my sister until I couldn’t stand it any longer. And it was Lucas who had smiled at me, oh so victoriously, when I’d pulled the trigger and slammed a bullet through his heart.
Johnson hadn’t sought out Rose because he was a pedophile and she’s pretty.
He’d sought her out because of me. Because they needed me. Because I was the one who had to die.
Why me, though?
Had I done something? Had my mother, my father?
I honestly had no idea, and the idea that it might simply be the cosmic luck of the draw didn’t sit well with me. I wanted a reason that I’d been thrust into this horror. Someone to blame. Something concrete.
And the reality that I might never know why ate at me.
“Pie,” Kiera said, the moment the waitress came over to refill our coffees. “And ice cream. I need sugar. You got apple?” The waitress nodded, and Kiera looked across the table at me. “You chowing, too?”