My eyes burned. “You can make it up to me by giving it back. Simple.”

“Nothing’s simple anymore. For me or for you.”

Regular reasoning wasn’t working. I needed to up my game. “What do you want? Protection from my friends? I’ve already asked them not to hurt you. They won’t.”

“Sure, they won’t.”

“What else do you want?”

“Bargaining, Samantha?” A glimmer of a cold smile played at his lips. “Has it really come to that?” Then the smile died. “I know what this is. You’re trying to slow me down so your buddies can catch up. Aren’t you?”

“No, I came after you by myself. Nobody else saw you.”

There was no more patience in his gaze. “Goodbye, Samantha.”

I clutched onto his arm, digging my fingernails in hard. “You’d really walk away, just like that? I guess I was wrong about you. You really are a selfish asshole.”

He spun to face me, grabbing the front of my shirt and yanking me forward. My anger fell away, replaced by fear. He had nothing to lose right now. And there was nothing friendly or kind in his eyes. Instead, all I saw was endless pain. “You’re right. I am a selfish asshole. But you were also right about Jordan. I love her and don’t want to hurt her. She’ll be better off when I’m dead. Because this stasis? I hope like hell it kills me tonight. I don’t know what I’d turn into if it doesn’t.”

He shoved me back so hard that I fell to the ground, twisting my ankle. As I scrambled to get back to my feet, he started running away.

I tried to pursue, but white-hot pain shot through my ankle. I whimpered out loud, limping as fast as I could in the direction he’d fled. I got as far as the next block before I realized he was nowhere to be seen.

He could die tonight from stasis and he still had my soul, and Carly’s soul, too.

It was over. I’d failed.

“Damn it,” I whispered, my throat closing. Hot tears streaked down my cheeks, but I furiously wiped them away. They wouldn’t be any help right now. Tears never helped.

“There you are.”

My gaze shot to the right. Sitting on the curb was someone I recognized immediately. Someone I’d been searching the city for, just as I’d been searching for Stephen.

“Seth!” I didn’t want to take my eyes off him in case he disappeared like an elusive ghost, but I had to crane my neck to keep searching for Stephen.

He was gone.

“It’s over.” I inhaled sharply, raggedly, and forced back the burn of tears. All I could feel now was the pain in my ankle. I let myself drop down onto the curb next to him.

“Over? It’s hardly started, beautiful star.” He called me that, beautiful star, and I had no idea why. One day I’d have to ask him why that was his chosen nickname for me when I cared enough to know the answer. “One by one they’ll all disappear until there are none left. But that doesn’t mean it’s over. Soon, but not yet.”

Didn’t sound like much had changed when it came to Seth. The fallen angel always talked like this—half insane homeless dude, half Yoda. I knew he saw things, important things. Visions, kind of like what I had sometimes. Somewhere deep down there was importance to the things Seth said to me.

Over? It’s hardly started.

Okay. Good to know, I think.

One by one they’ll all disappear.

Grays? They were disappearing, thanks to stasis. Thanks to the team’s nightly patrols and Bishop’s shiny knife.

Until there are none left.

A chill went through me at this. I guess I didn’t need a code breaker to help figure out that hidden message.

Seth looked much the same as he had the last time I’d seen him. Of an indeterminate age—anywhere from thirty to fifty. Dark hair, shaggy, dark beard, black eyebrows. Unfocused brown eyes. There weren’t many lines around those eyes, which told me he was probably on the lower end of the age scale. Possibly even younger than that.

I noticed something different about him this time.

“What are those?” I asked.

He glanced down at his arms. The sleeves of his shirt had been pushed up. On his skin were wispy lines, like a tattoo. He pulled his shirt down to cover them.

“Part of the package,” he said. “Comes with the territory, I’ve realized. They’re pretty, don’t you think?”

Not really, but I chose not to comment. I wondered if an angel or demon stayed in the human world long enough, they’d gain those marks. “I’ve been looking for you, Seth.”

“Hard to find myself sometimes. We all get lost from time to time.”

“There’s someone I need you to meet. Another fallen angel. He’s found ways to deal with...his soul.” Ways that made me queasy whenever I thought of him cutting himself. “But I need to know if there’s anything else he can do, anything you tried when you first fell that helped?”

Seth grinned to show perfect, white teeth, so unexpected in his otherwise ungroomed, grimy face. “Forget him, beautiful star. He won’t matter in the end. And now the time grows close—close enough to touch.”

“The time for what?”

“Can’t you feel how close you are?”

I shook my head. “What are you talking about? Close to what?”

Seth cocked his head and gazed at me as if mesmerized by what he saw there. “Your death, of course.”

Chapter 17