Veiled (Ada Palomino 1)

“There had been one in my closet . . . if I’d only fucking known.”

“I know, you would have stepped right in by yourself, if you weren’t already dragged there by the demons. Obviously we couldn’t have that. Jacob had to close it. And it wouldn’t have helped if you had gone in. The portals that the demons create are teeming with them on the other side, all dying for ways to break into our world. Sometimes they get caught in the middle, in the Veil, other times they pop right onto our streets. Find a vulnerable mind, an angry soul, and take over. The world is going to shit right now, shootings and bombings and so much fucking hate because the very anger and sorrow we feel makes us vulnerable to them. There are devils residing in everyone, all around us. And the worse the world gets, the more they spread. It’s a vicious cycle and one that you can help stop. I hate to throw in the argument of saving thousands of souls instead of saving one, but I have to.”

“Thousands of souls?” I counter. “Look, I’m sorry the world is destroying itself, but that’s not my concern. My mother is my concern. I’m sure I sound despicable to you, but I would rather save her than all those people I don’t know. People who are probably inherently evil to begin with.”

He sighs softly, looking down. “You don’t sound despicable, Ada. You could never because that’s not who you are. You’re a loving soul and a very loyal daughter. But you have to understand that if I told you the truth, you’d be in Hell right now with no way of ever coming out.”

“But you didn’t know that,” I tell him. “You have no right to decide how I might react. Leave that up to me! You lied to me Jay and now I think you’re lying about everything else! I bet you know who you are. Who you were. And you’re afraid to tell me!”

“Because it doesn’t matter, okay?” he yells right back, with force that shocks me. “It doesn’t matter who I was, it has no bearing on what we are to each other!”

“And what are we to each other??”

He exhales noisily, eyes blazing, and runs a hand through his hair. “I wanted to tell you. I did. I went to Jacob and he said I couldn’t. It was too risky.”

“And you listen to everything he says,” I say snidely. “He says you have to lie to me, you lie to me. He tells you to keep your hands off me, you keep your hands off me.” I know I should stop talking but I’m like a freight train going off the rails, too much momentum to control. “He says I’m forbidden to you, and so I’m forbidden to you. Did you ever think you have free will? That you’re a man of your own mind and heart and action.”

“I have no heart!” he roars at me and I am transfixed to the sight, the fire in his eyes, the vein pulsing at his temple, the flush of red on his cheeks. “And I’m barely a man.” He leans with his two hands against the wall, trapping me inside. He lowers his head, his hair flopping forward, and pinches his eyes shut. “Do you want the truth?”

I can barely speak. I’m sandwiched between his massive arms, watching him as if he’s a lion let loose from his cage. “Yes,” I whisper.

“I know who I was,” he says, so low and gravely I can barely hear him. “Before I died. Before I became what I am. And I wasn’t a good man. I wasn’t a good man at all, Ada.”

For some reason I yearn to touch him, to soothe him. My hand reaches forward to touch his hair as he’s bowed over. He flinches at my fingers as I run them gently through his strands of soft hair. It feels like silk, brings me a strange sense of pleasure.

“Who were you?” I ask.

“My name was Silas Black,” he says. “I was Irish. Born in Dublin in the 16th century.”

I can only stare at him. My hand pauses. “What?”

He raises his head to look at me, my hand falling away. “It was a long time ago. Which is why what I was, who I was, has nothing to do with who I am right now, with you.”

“But you’re a rookie,” I remind him carefully. Pippa’s disbelieving expression when I told her the same floats through my head. “How could you begin again now, so far in the future?”

He cocks his head in form of a shrug. “I don’t know. I try not to ask too many questions. Jacob warns about that. Says it can mess with your head. I believe him.” He straightens up and I tilt my head back to keep his gaze. His arms stay on either side of my shoulders. “But my duty aside, I am not his prisoner. I do have free will. And with this free will I choose to protect you. In the very sense that some Jacobs will give up their immortality to go rogue, to be free and live and die a normal life. I have choices and I make choices every single moment of every single day. And no one, no one, has tested them quite like you.”