“Done,” Soul said. “Bomb first.”

“Whatever.”

Soul gave me instructions. I shoulda refused.

CHAPTER 20

Your Faith Has Waned and All but Disappeared

First, I bubbled time, which was a lot easier than once before. I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing, but I pulled in the Gray Between and folded it around me like a cloak. No nausea. Weird. But then, the Glob in my pocket seemed to warm even more, as if the lightning had activated it this time. Maybe a lot of the changes in my magic were the result of its power.

I took a single, solid sterling silver stake and entered the silvered gate, stepping over the vamp. Sat on the floor near the sparkling geode, not touching it, not bringing it into the bubble of time with me. I crossed my legs like a yoga position. My feet were pawed, big as dinner plates with retractile claws, so it wasn’t graceful. I hadn’t even noticed that I’d been barefooted. Bare-pawed? Whatever. The puma pads were resistant to the cold and the rough surfaces. I began to tap on the geode’s coarse outside. Soul had said to tap on the stone with a specific beat, a rhythm that reminded me of one of Aggie’s drums. Soul had said, “This is a ceremony, outside of time, in the midst of battle. But it is a ceremony that has no rules, one that you must feel your way through, as you feel your way through a dance, each step the result of the previous.” What she meant was that I’d be flying by the seat of my pants. As always.

I tapped, a slow steady pace. The sound waves, initiated in the Gray Between, entered the geode in regular time, supposedly setting up a vibration. What would have been long minutes, outside the time bubble, passed. The sparklies inside the geode didn’t alter. More time passed. I settled into the rhythm: hard, soft, soft, soft. Hard, soft, soft, soft. A tribal drumming.

I crossed my legs, relaxing into it. TAP, tap, tap, tap. TAP, tap, tap, tap. TAP, tap, tap, tap. My heart rate settled into the beat, old as tribe. Old as time. The beat slowed. TAP, tap, tap, tap. . . . TAP, tap, tap, tap. . . . TAP, tap, tap, tap. And slowed again.

The magics gathered in the geode began to mutate. To form a single throb in counterpoint. To spark in time to the tapping, to quiver outside the pulsation. I softened the beat. Tap, tap, tap, tap . . . tap, tap, tap, tap . . . tap, tap, tap, tap . . . The magics in the crystals, a soft, glowing, golden light, dropped from the mouth of the cut stone, ragged and tempestuous, and climbed up to twist around my stake, like a snake made of glowing barbed wire. Up the stake. Around my fingers. My hand. Wrist. My arm. Prickling and faintly stabbing. Across my body with a spiteful, tingling sensation like electrified water and heated metal. And down to the Glob in my pocket. The Glob absorbed it. Absorbed it all.

The weapon lay hot against my blistered leg. It contained so much energy that it glowed through the cloth of my pants. And still I tapped, though the rhythm was so slow, so soft, that my wrist barely felt the drop and bounce of the silver stake. The geode glowed palely, the energies sliding elsewhere. Or maybe elsewhen. The crystals grew darker, vacant.

In the corner of the parking area, I saw motes of power dancing, the motes moving in time with my own rhythm. Then growing closer together. In the halted sleet, a pale glow began to coalesce. Brightening. Tap, tap, tap, tap . . . tap, tap, tap, tap . . . tap, tap, tap, tap . . .

A man stepped out of the glow. A man with wings. I knew him. Hayyel. Angie Baby’s angel. I had seen him before, for an instant that was seared into my brain. He had changed everything and everyone around him in that instant of time . . .

But no. Time wasn’t a factor or a boundary for whatever this being might choose to do. I wasn’t sure if he had any boundaries. Did any angel, beyond the will of God?

Hayyel ducked under the partially open garage door, and I smiled at the thought of him having to duck beneath anything merely matter, merely physical. This was the first time I had seen Hayyel in person for more than just an eye blink of time. He was beautiful, his skin darker than Eli’s, and glowing from within. Wings he folded as he moved, all in teal and charcoal and iridescent black. And who knew angels wore jeans and T-shirts?

Hayyel wove his way through the room, pausing a moment to look into the faces of Soul and Blue Girl—Cerulean. Then down to me, where I sat on the floor of the cage, tapping. He said, “You have disturbed the direction of time. The texture of time. The intent of time.”

“How does time have intent?” I asked. “Does that mean it has free will? Or that it’s bound to the will of another?” Tap, tap, tap, tap . . . Tap, tap, tap, tap . . . Tap, tap, tap, tap . . .

Hayyel didn’t reply. “You have saved lives,” he said, as if finishing a monologue.

“Yeah? How many?” I looked around the room. “Counting the humans outside and the vamps inside, maybe twenty? That many are dead at my hands in the last few days.”

Hayyel smiled, and I swear if I hadn’t been covered in blood and gore, exhausted, and beating on a rock I’d have melted into a puddle. The man—the being—was gorgeous, even in the aftermath of a battle. “No, Dalonige’i Digadoli. You have saved three hundred eighty-nine thousand, six hundred twenty-seven humans and Mithrans and many more of Yahweh’s assorted creatures.”

Shock shut me up. Beast took over, pressing down on my brain. I continued to tap, but she spoke, her English halting. “The I/we of Beast. Is better hunter than Jane or big-cat alone. Our broken soul, it is healed. You offered us strength and power. I/we ate it. I/we became all that is Beast. We are more than Jane or big-cat. You made us so.” Tap, tap, tap, tap . . . Tap, tap, tap, tap . . . Tap, tap, tap, tap . . .

Hayyel’s smile widened. “Yes. Much more. But there has been a price. Death seeks you outside of time. There has been pain, temporary bondage, loss of love. Injury. Wounds so deep they have scarred your soul. Your faith has waned and all but disappeared.”

That last part was for me. I wanted to argue about the statement. I still had faith. Didn’t I? Tap, tap, tap, tap . . . Tap, tap, tap, tap . . . Tap, tap, tap, tap . . .

“Has it been worth the price?” the angel asked me.

I answered, “My family and my friends are still alive. So yes.”

“The drinkers of blood, predators in human form from across the seas, bring more pain. More suffering. You will have to sacrifice much to keep those you love alive and safe.”

“Nothing new there.”

“No. Nothing new beneath the hand of God.” Hayyel pointed to the middle of my/our chest. “The new configuration of energies is yet another strength.”

“Ducky.”

The angel shook his head, either amused or exasperated. “It too comes with a price and with limits and with temptation. Use it with discretion. With wisdom. And, Jane Yellowrock, love wisely.”

“Right. Totally, dude.”

Hayyel laughed. It was a musical sound, like bells and harps and gypsy violins. “I have healed your soul home. You are welcome.” Before I could reply, the angel Hayyel disappeared in a trail of golden sparks.

I stopped drumming. The sound of the tapping, deeper than I remembered, hung on the air, multiple echoes all out of sequence. I set down the stake. Pulled a small throwing knife and pricked my finger. I replaced the small blade and stuck the bleeding hand in my pocket, wrapped my fist around the Glob. Drew it out. Centered myself with a single deep breath. And slammed it down on the trap of the arcenciels.

Which really was a bomb.

As if my eyes were faster than the no-time of the Gray Between, I saw my fist hit it. The geode cracked. Shattered. Power blasted out, a shock wave, a deadly concussive force. The Glob went hot, a scalding might. And it sucked all the power back into itself.

My fist busted through, smashed the geode into a bazillion pieces. Everything within shattered. Every single quartz crystal inside the rough exterior split and crushed and fell into a sparkling ruin. And the Glob pulled it in, absorbing it all.

As I watched the destruction, I realized that the specific vibration of the tapping, inside and outside of time, had weakened the geode’s skin and prepared it for destruction.

The silvered cage tremored. Cracks began to run down the bars. Spreading like the veins in a bolt of lightning. Slow, but in neither real time nor Gray Between time. Something outside of both. Something created by the power of the rhythm.