The Sinner

“But what—?”

“Enough,” he snapped. “I don’t have time for your endless interrogations.”

I hugged my elbows. “You’re in a bad mood.”

“I grow restless,” Casziel said. “I did not come to This Side to sit in your tiny apartment all day. And neither, I might add, should you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You have the whole of New York City at your disposal, and you keep yourself tucked away here.”

My cheeks burned. “That’s not true. I take walks and…do things.”

“Not that I’ve observed.”

“Well, you shouldn’t be observing me.”

Casziel shrugged, tore into his second Pop-Tart. “Can’t be helped. I needed a human who hasn’t been plagued with my kind. Your light hasn’t been dimmed. Yet.”

“I have a light?”

He fumed irritably, as if this information were common knowledge instead of completely insane.

“Between the realms of the living and the dead, is the Veil.” Casziel held up his Pop-Tart to demonstrate a barrier. “Humans exist on This Side. The dead exist on the Other Side. Demons crowd as close to the Veil as possible in order to do their work on humankind. Like moths drawn to the light, ravenous and desperate to feed.”

I imagined winged, writhing bodies slavering in the dark against a gossamer curtain, trying to get at the humans on the other side.

“And angels? Do they ever come to This Side?”

“Some do. If they have unfinished business here.”

“My dad…?”

“Has unfinished business. He won’t tell me what it is, so don’t ask.”

I flinched at Casziel’s cutting tone, feeling chastised and small. I hated that any communication with my father was up to a demon, when I wanted nothing more than to have Dad to myself and tell him everything I never got to say while he was alive.

A tension, stuffy and hot, filled my small space until Casziel’s low, soft voice cut through the silence. “Your father says there is nothing to regret, Lucy. All that was left unsaid between you, he reads in your heart.”

Tears pricked my eyes. “He does?”

“He does.”

I drew a shaky breath. “Thank you, Casziel.”

He nodded; his hard anger had softened to something almost warm. The moment stretched, our eyes locked, and I felt a strange ache of nostalgia, though I couldn’t tell if it came from him or me. A current running back and forth between us. Faint messages over a telephone line. I couldn’t make them out, but I had the feeling I got when I closed a romance novel—wanting something I didn’t have.

Or no longer had.

Six

“Well, I guess we should get busy,” I said, giving my head a shake. “You need a big, redemptive idea, and I need a dress for a work function this weekend. We can walk over to the Macy’s at Herald’s Square and brainstorm along the way.”

Because who doesn’t take their demon shopping?

The surreal nature of this whole situation swooped on me, as if I were trapped in a strange dream. But I was wide awake, sunlight was streaming in through the window, and there was a beautiful man in my kitchen eating Pop-Tarts and asking me to help save his soul.

“I’ll just go get showered and dressed.” I gathered some clothes to take with me in the bathroom. “You can watch TV or…do that.”