Dominion: Zoë Martinique Investigation, Book 6 (8 page)

"The supernaturals?" Joe sounded very
sarcastic. "Really? Is that what you're calling them?"

There were a few muffled sounds as I
managed to open my eyes. It wasn't much really—just slits. I saw
boobs.

Mom was kneeling over me, and there
was another commotion as the boobs disappeared.

And I heard a voice I hadn't expected
to hear.

"Move, witch, or
I
will move you
myself."

Azrael.

"This has nothing to do with you,
Azrael. She's my daughter—"

"And whether you like it or
not, Nona, she's
my
daughter as well."

!!!

"TC, don't you touch her!" Joe shouted
from somewhere behind me.

But someone
was
touching me. I knew
it was him. My Vin Diesel muse. He was gentle as he slipped a hand
under my shoulders and then under my knees. He even moved his arms
so my head rested against his chest. I wanted to say thank you, and
tell him he was warm.

But I couldn't talk yet.

And having him hold me was the most
comforting thing in the world right at that moment.

How long had it been since I'd been
held like that? I thought I could feel Azrael's thoughts. I could
certainly hear Mephistopheles and Morgan.

…
shouldn't do this. There
is something else happening here
,
Mephistopheles was saying.

Yes, Brother, there is. A
reveal of just how insidious this place is. I'm taking her with
me.
Azrael's mental voice was softer than
his physical one.

Don't cause a rift at this
time, Azrael.
Morgan's voice sounded
pleading.
We have to work together to get
the
Grimoire
away
from them.

And you do this by hurting
the one creature capable of doing that? All of you disgust me.
She's safer away from the sickness that's eating this place. You
all know Domas is a fool. And you are an even bigger ones if you
believe she can become your Advent. Now get out of my
way.

Advent? Domas? What the hell were they
talking about? And why bring up my dead great-uncle? Other than the
fact he's the cause of all this stupidity.

I felt Azrael move, and I was able to
see some things. I could see Joe nearby as we moved to the door,
and the men with their guns as they kept them trained on
us.

"Sir, if you do not put her down, we
will be forced to fire."

Really? You're gonna shoot the
Phantasm?

Oh. Funny man.

"Sergeant." Joe's voice sound tired
and upset. I felt for Joe. And wow…he must really feel odd having
all that stuff spinning around him. "Stand down. You really don't
want to try that. Not against this guy."

"I'm sorry, Detective Halloran, but my
orders come from Miss Stephens."

"And hers come from me," my mom said
in her you're-in-trouble voice. "Don't even try to shoot the
Phantasm, Sergeant. You won't survive."

Must have worked, 'cause we weren't
shot at. But as we moved to the door, I managed to say something.
"W-wait—" It was soft and so not like me.

Azrael stopped walking, and I could
feel his breath on my check as he leaned in close. "What is it,
Zoë?"

I cleared my throat—and that was about
all I could do as I managed to speak in a room so quiet a pin
dropping would sound like an elephant jumping.

"I quit."

Chapter Nine

The last place I expected Azrael to
take me was Piedmont Park. We landed in the exact spot where Barry
died and I was raped. It was an empty space near the gazebo
overlooking the water. I'd avoided this area since that
night.

At first I'd done it to bury the
memory. After the whole OOB thing started and I saw ghosts, I
avoided it because I was afraid I'd see Barry and that made me feel
guilty. Guilty because he'd died and I lived.

But I had to wonder now—which was
better?

For the past year, everything I'd ever
believed was true had been proven a lie. My father. What I was. My
family. Who I thought was my best friend. Discovering my mom had
set me up—

—
for what?

I was a little surprised to see the
sun was setting. I'd lost track of time since waking up in the
hospital in Montreal—when—this morning? Yesterday?

I wasn't sure if Azrael could read my
mind or he just knew me well enough, when he said in an
uncharacteristically soft voice, "I took you someplace you could
rest. Let the effects of their weapon disappear. Took a while.
Seems they've upped the voltage on those things."

The park was empty except for the
occasional dog walker. It was too cold to be out in the park when
the sun went down. I shivered and saw my breath in front of me.
Azrael wrapped his arms around me from behind. It struck me kinda
funny that of all the people, creatures, and entities—human and
non-human—that could make me feel loved, Azrael was one of
them.

Knowing our history, it was kinda
freaky.

Oh, I was still mad. Screamingly so.
And I felt a bit proud that I hadn't banshee-wailed my mom's ass
into the Abysmal Plane. I wanted to.

In fact, I wanted them all to go
away.

"Thoughts?"

I smiled and settled back against him.
We faced the water, the setting sun's glow of yellow, orange, and
rose the palette for the scene. Everything else was brown, dead for
the winter. "I figured you could read them."

"Sometimes." He set his chin on top of
my head. Yeah, he was that tall. "But not right now. It might be my
own problems clamoring for attention."

"You?" I looked up. "Have problems?
You're the Phantasm now."

"Yep. That's me. The big bad. The
grand muckety-muck—"

"Hey." I elbowed him, and
he laughed softly. "That's
my
moniker for you."

"You're where I got it. In
fact…because of you…a lot of things have changed."

He sounded somber. Why was a First
Born so sad? "Azrael? You okay?"

There was a long pause. "I like it
better when you call me TC."

"TC it is." I was grinning from ear to
ear. "But you still haven't answered my question."

"I think it's because I never worried
about the future before. When I was just a Symbiont, or believed
that was all I was, enslaved to my sister, I only worried about her
needs. And then when we touched…" He moved his left hand to mine
and lifted it up. His mark was hidden under my coat, but just
visible on my wrist. A handprint that had once looked like a henna
tattoo and was now gold, sometimes silver. "I only worried about my
future. What I wanted."

"And now you worry
about
the
future."

"Yeah." He threaded his strong, thick
fingers with my own thinner ones. "Not sure if that was happening
before I stepped into the Throne, or after."

"I don't know. I sort of missed a
couple of months."

"They were actually good months, Zoë.
I think I sort of learned what it was like to have
friends."

I was glad he couldn't see my face or
the surprise on it. "You and Joe grew pretty close."

"I consider him my best friend. And
Daniel."

Wow. Confessions from a lonely
Phantasm? I'd come a long way from arguing with a weenie-mouthed
clown in a hospital room to being in its embrace in a park at
sunset.

This…is weird.

"Does Joe know that? About how you see
him?"

"I think he does. On some level. Of
everyone in your circle, Zoë, I trust him the most. He's stable,
and he's loyal."

"What about Daniel?"

"Daniel, I love. He's my
brother."

"Because of Inanna?"

I was surprised when he didn't answer
right away. And when he did, I wasn't expecting what he said.
"No."

Inanna, the First Born sharing
Daniel's body, was by all accounts Azrael's sister. His older
sister. And the one who sheltered him from their other sister's
wrath when she killed their father and took his place as the
Phantasm. "I don't understand."

"It's complicated, Zoë. Inanna…wasn't
bonded to a human for long periods of time. She served my sister
far longer than any of us before she fled the Abysmal and sought
out a hiding place in the Physical. The first host she chose—she
chose him for purposes of power. She wanted to learn what it was to
be a leader."

"Who was that host?"

"A great woman, lost to history. Her
name was Eshe, a wise leader in Sumeria who often spoke to the
gods."

I didn't know the name, but that
wasn't saying much. "After that?"

"All of those afterward, she chose so
they could teach her, and she taught them. But all were
practitioners of magic, sacred geometry, and science. The one she
chose before taking Daniel was a man named James Wynne."

I chewed on my lower lip. "Why does
that last name sound familiar?" I didn't think it should. I mean,
Wynne was probably a pretty common name.

"His great granddaughter was Nora
Wynne."

I blinked. I did know that name!
"Wait…my mom's mentioned her. But where?"

"I'm afraid that's my fault that you
can't remember. I was distracting you that night."

"What night?"

"The night all of you were
discussing the
Grimoire
and the Cruorem in Nona's shop."

Bingo! Before Allard Bonville dragged
Dags physically through the Abysmal Plane.

I pulled away and turned to face him,
but he still attempted to keep my hand wrapped in his. "She was the
one who destroyed that group. And Inanna was inside her great
grandfather? I thought when a First Born inhabits a human body, you
can't have children."

"James had children before Inanna took
over. He was dying of a rare blood disease and invited her in
freely. She possessed knowledge of the Planes he could only dream
of. But in learning what she knew, he realized the group his
forefathers had created, the Cruorem, was dangerous. And the book
they were amassing was equally so."

"The
Grimoire
."

"Yes. But before then,
Inanna had already hidden away her journal, the one that contained
the spell to eradicate First Borns. And she was using James to go
through the
Grimoire
and remove the spells that could do the most damage. Only the
group discovered what he was doing and Inanna made James disappear
before they could kill him. But they got hold of the
Grimoire
before she could
sift through the spells and remove all of the dangerous
ones."

"And somehow later on his great
granddaughter knew to destroy them?"

"Yes. I'm not sure about all the
details. And the reason I'm telling you this is because so much of
this fucked-up situation is because of Inanna. She was always
someone who had to be independent. Never asked for help. And
because she raised me…" He shrugged. "I developed the same
attitude. Even when she joined with James Wynne, she took control.
He was never allowed to be himself again."

"But she's not like that with Daniel.
He's in control most of the time."

"Which is why I love him
like a brother, Zoë. This is my point. Something about him changed
her. She's working
with
us. She's working
with
him. She's no longer trying to
control things, and I think it's
because
of him. Although I can't seem
to make the others see this. They're all still distrustful of
her."

There was something in his face, a
hint in his expression, that told me there was information he
wasn't giving me. So me, being the bitch I am, guessed. "She's in
love with him."

"Zoë, First Borns don't love
their—"

"No….I can see it. TC, I know when
you're lying, 'cause you suck at it with me." I pulled my hand from
his. "Your sister's in love with her host."

He looked down at me. It
was so different seeing color in his eyes. Before he took the
Throne, they were white. Solid white. "She'd been watching you. I
don't know whose body she had or if she was still in James Wynne's.
She never said. Her plan was to get the
Grimoire
from Maureen, but you and
Dags intercepted her and got it first. And after it was all over
with, and you and Dags were in the hospital, she followed you. She
saw Daniel."

"And…she saw what my Horror did to
him."

"Yes. So she saved him when she
could."

"I'm guessing she's not that crazy
about his feelings for me." I wasn't fooling myself, nor was I
being a bitch. I was aware Daniel still loved me. Even though my
own heart had found someone else.