Haunted (Otherworld 5)

But I did want to. I had to.

So, pushing past the sensation, I knocked. For a split second,

all went dark. Before I could even think "Oh shit," the darkness evaporated. The door was gone. The foyer was gone. Instead I stood in yet another white room. This one, though, appeared to have been built of brick, then plastered and whitewashed, the pattern of the brick just barely showing through. The floor also looked brick, but darker and patterned. In the middle was a large reed mat surrounded by several high-backed wooden chairs, a few tables, and a carved sofa piled with embroidered pillows.

A window covered the far wall. Beyond it was a desert dotted with boxy pyramids. An illusion, I assumed, but a nice one nonetheless. If the people who ran that psych hospital had given such thought to their patients' surroundings, I doubt the haunters would have found them such easy pickings.

"Hello?" I called.

No one answered.

As I turned to look for a door, something moved at the base of the window. I peered around the divan. On the other side, huddled by the window, sat a woman, her back to me. A flowing, silvery robe swallowed her tiny form. She couldn't have been more than five feet tall. Bird-thin wrists poked out of the loose sleeves. Dark hair tumbled over her back, the ends kissing the floor. No wings that I could see, but that billowing gown could have hidden wings and a set of carry-on luggage. One thing was for certain--I sure wouldn't have sent this fragile little thing after a Nix.

"Janah?" I said softly.

She didn't move. I slid across the room, moving slowly so I didn't startle her.

"Janah?"

She lifted her head and turned. Huge brown eyes locked on mine. Those eyes were so devoid of thought or emotion that I instinctively yanked my gaze away, as if they could suck what they lacked from me.

I crouched to her level, staying a few yards away.

"Janah, my name is Eve. I won't hurt you. I only came to ask--"

She sprang. A mountain-lion screech ripped through the room. Before I could move--before I could even think to move--she was on me. I pitched back, head whacking against the floor. Janah wrapped both hands in my long hair, vaulted to her feet, and swung me against a grouping of urns. Pottery shattered and I sailed clear over the divan.

"Div farzand," Janah snarled.

She charged. I lunged to my feet and spun out of her reach. When I cast a binding spell, it didn't even slow her down. I leapt onto the divan and bounded across the cushions, then jumped onto the table. As she charged me, I tried to blind her. Either that didn't work on angels or she was indeed blinded...and didn't give a damn.

I swung around for a sidekick, but a mental barricade stopped my foot in mid-flight. Kicking a mad angel? My moral code may be a little thin, but that broke it on two counts.

I jumped across to an end table and looked around for a door. There wasn't one. The only way out of this gilded cage was the window, and I knew that was an illusion. Here, walls were walls. Even ghosts can't walk through them.

As I leapfrogged back onto the coffee table, I recited the incantation to take me home. It didn't work. Tried another one. Didn't work, either. Whatever mojo the Fates had going in this angel's cell, it was obviously designed to keep her in. All things considered, that didn't seem like such a bad idea. If only I weren't in here with her.

"Yaflan dadvari!" she spat at me.

"Yeah? Right back at you, you crazy bitch."

She stopped and went completely still. Then she stepped back, lifted her arms and face to the ceiling in supplication, and began an incantation.

"Hey, I didn't mean it," I said, stepping to the edge of the table. "If you're calling the Fates, that's fine. They sent me."

Something shimmered in Janah's raised hands, slowly materializing from the ether. It looked like a piece of metal at least four feet long and so shiny it seemed to glow. Etched along the side were inscriptions in an alphabet that looked vaguely familiar.

As the object solidified, a burnished handle appeared on one end. Janah gripped it, fingers closing around the handle, eyes shutting, lips parting, as if sliding into a glove of the softest leather. She raised the object over her head--the pointed shaft of the biggest goddamned sword I'd ever seen.

"Holy shit!"

The words were still whooshing from my lips as that sword cleaved through the table legs like they were sticks of warm butter. As my perch crumbled, I managed to scamper onto a chair. When I dove over the back of it, the sword sheered toward my knees. I hit the floor. The tip of the blade jabbed through the upholstery, within an inch of my shoulder.

Janah leapt onto the chair and plunged the sword down at me. Ghost or no ghost, I got the hell out of the way. Doesn't matter how invulnerable you think you are, facing off against a psychotic angel with a four-foot samurai sword is not the time to test that theory.

I scampered across the room, casting spells as I ran. None of them worked.

"Demon-spawn!" Janah shouted.