Before we hit the park, we did swing by the apartment just in case Zayne somehow remembered the police and for me to let Cayman and my ghostly roommate, Peanut, know that I was alive.
The apartment was empty of all three of them.
Figuring Peanut was with his new friend who could see him—something I still needed to check on—or off doing whatever ghosts did in their spare, undead time, Dez and I had then headed to the park. Cayman had actually texted right before we got there. I had no idea how he’d gotten my phone number, but he’d sent a message that said, Are you still alive? I’d sent back a quick, Yes, and then received a response demanding proof that it was me and not an “asshole archangel” with my phone.
I’d texted back with, You’re afraid of me.
Yep. It’s you. Be safe. Roth would be mad if you got killed on my watch.
I really had no idea how to respond to that.
But all of that felt like an eternity ago.
Frustration burned its way through me as we passed by the bench I’d been sitting on when Zayne had arrived for what felt like the hundredth time. I stopped this time, scanning the dark tree line. At least it had stopped raining. The air was still weirdly cold for July.
Only a few steps ahead of me, Dez turned around. In his Warden form, his skin was a deep gray and as hard as granite, and the two thick horns that parted his hair could puncture through steel. He kept his large, leathery wings tucked back just in case I walked into one and lost an eyeball. Right now, most of him blended into the night. “Do you see anything?”
“Godzilla could be hiding among those trees and I wouldn’t be able to see him.”
“Sorry. I meant do you feel anything?”
“No.” I placed my hands on my hips. “Either he’s no longer in the park or he’s staying back.”
“Did he strike you as a type to stay back?” Dez asked, his voice raspier in his true form.
“Not particularly, but what do I know? It’s not like I ever met a fallen angel before.” I shook my head as my gaze fell to the outline of the bench. “I think we need to check someplace else.” Or I needed to be out here without Warden babysitters, because there could be a sliver of a chance that Zayne wasn’t coming close because of the Wardens. “Where? I have no idea.”
“He could be anywhere in the city.”
“That obvious piece of knowledge isn’t exactly helpful,” I replied.
Dez chuckled as he walked toward me. For someone so large, he moved as silently as a ghost. Zayne had been that way, too.
A sharp burst of agony pierced my heart.
He is that way, too.
“But we could try thinking like Zayne,” he said, stopping close enough to me that he was no longer a blob of shadows. Now he was a dark mass in the shape of a Warden. Improvement. “And I know—we have no idea what could be going through his mind, but we know what would go through his mind if there were some part of him still operating, and we know where evil tends to gather together.”
I stared at the general direction of his face while I mulled that over. “That’s smart.” I blew out a breath. “All right. If there’s a part of Zayne still operating, I think he would go...he would go to the apartment, but we were there and there was no sign of him. I think he’d go to...” I rubbed the heel of my palm over my aching hip. “The treehouse! The one at the compound. That was important to him.”
“I’ll have Gideon check there,” he said, pulling the cell phone out of the back of his tactical pants that somehow didn’t shred when he shifted. “Anyplace else?”
“A place that sells sandwiches without bread?” I said, and the tug on my heart threatened to pull me all the way to the ground. “The ice cream parlor! But that wouldn’t be open. I guess he could break in, though.” I racked my brain. “I think he used to like walking through the park area around the National Mall.”
“I texted Gideon to check out the treehouse,” he said. “We can canvass the other places.”
“Don’t you think we should check out the treehouse, too?”
“Gideon will be smart about checking out the area. He’ll do it without being seen,” Dez said. “And if Zayne is there, he’ll let us know.”
I guessed I was going to have to take his word on that. Another place popped into my head. “Crap. What about Stacey? He’s really close friends with her. Do you think he’d search her out?”
“If he didn’t seem to really recognize you, I doubt he’d go for her,” he said, and that was a relief. “But I’ll get eyes on her place.”
“What about the places where...where evil goes?” I asked as we started for the exit of the park. “Not that Zayne is evil,” I added. “He just might be...unconsciously evil.”
“I don’t think Zayne is evil. If he was, I don’t know if you’d be standing here.”
I didn’t have to concentrate to feel Zayne’s hands around my throat, clamping down—hands that had been cold. I had no idea if he would’ve killed me if I hadn’t touched him, but he had stopped. If he was truly lost already, my touch would’ve meant nothing.
“They’d go where the people are. At this time of night, they’d be around the bars and clubs,” Dez continued. “There is a club where many of them hang out. Roth has or had a place above the club. He could take a look around, but I have no idea if a Fallen would go there—if demons can sense what he is or what he’d even do to them.”
Considering that none of the Wardens had any idea where Roth and Layla were currently, I murmured something along the lines of getting Roth to check out this club.
Dez shifted back into his human form as we neared the parked SUV. He pulled on a plain, dark-colored shirt he’d snatched somewhere from the back seat area, and I wondered exactly how many of them he had stowed away.
Then we were off, and I told myself not to get hopeful. Which was pretty much like telling myself not to eat the whole bag of chips.
Even though it was well past most people’s bedtime, there was still traffic, but we reached the ice cream parlor in record time, slowing down for Dez to check the building out. No lights on. No apparent signs of a break-in. My hope took a blow, but that had been a shot in the dark. Ten minutes later, we arrived at our second destination.
The National Mall.
There was a surprising amount of people about for the time of night. Dez remained in his human form as we started walking, and it didn’t take very long before I felt the heavy tingle of awareness along the nape of my neck.
My senses sharpened as I eyed a group huddled under a tree. I couldn’t make out any of their features, but I knew what I was feeling. “There are demons here.”