My brows knitted and I started to question that, but shook that idea out of my head. “And you don’t know where you went to?”
“No, Trinnie. I mean, I don’t know if it was it,” he said, getting very close to one of the ceiling fans.
“What do you think it is?”
“You know, it.” He reached the fan. The blades sliced through the top of his head. “Purgatory. I was sucked into purgatory.”
Okay. I hadn’t expected him to say that. “Are you sure?”
“I’ve never been, so I could be wrong. The place doesn’t sound rad at all,” he said as the fan continued to churn through his head. It was a very disturbing thing to witness. “But that’s how I imagine such a downer of a place to feel. Like there is no hope and there is just...nothing.”
“That sounds...weird,” I murmured, concerned. It was highly unlikely that what had happened to him had anything to do with Zayne, but a falling bright light that sucked him into what could possibly be purgatory around the same time Zayne arrived? Even if it didn’t, could it happen again? Peanut could be superannoying, but I...well, I loved him like I imagined one grew to love an annoying sibling or something.
I guessed I’d add that to the ever-growing list of things to be stressed about.
“Anyhoo, so obviously I was super-freaked-out and I came to find you, but you weren’t here.” The ceiling fan was now cutting through his face. “What were you doing? It couldn’t be hunting demons or the Harbinger of Doucheness?”
Harbinger of Doucheness? I almost laughed. “No, I wasn’t hunting. I just needed to get out, clear my head and...” I frowned. “I know my vision is bad, but I can see you. Can you please get out of the fan. I don’t think you understand how freaky that looks.”
“Oh, my bad.” He came back down, and even sat himself on the bar stool, hooking one leg over the other, sitting all prim and proper. “So, you needed some headspace? Did you find the space you were looking for?”
“Um. Yes and no.” I came around the island and sat beside him. That was when I realized that he’d sunk into the seat, to his waist. Pulling my gaze from that, I placed the soda on the coaster and prepared myself for the one hundred and one questions that were, understandably, about to come my way. “I saw Zayne last night.”
“Reaaaaally?” Peanut said, drawing the word out before I could continue.
“I know how it sounds, but it’s true.” I met his somewhat visible eyes. “He’s alive, Peanut, and he’s a fallen angel.”
Now he was staring at me in a way I imagined I’d been staring at him moments before. I told him everything, and it took about an hour or so, because I had to keep repeating things. I started eating the Oreos that had been left out on the island around the whole Zayne didn’t recognize me part and I’d nearly finished the entire package by the time I got to the I needed to stab him in the heart thing. Throughout the whole thing, Peanut pretty much freaked out, disappearing and coming back. He floated to the ceiling again and into the fan. Then he bounced around the apartment, but finally he’d returned to the island and seemed to have calmed down.
“So, that was what I was doing last night.” I finished off my Coke. “I was with Dez and we were looking for him. We didn’t find him obviously.”
Peanut stared at me. “And here I thought Gabriel was the worst of your problems.”
A strangled laugh left me. “You and me both.” Stretching over, I grabbed the box of granola bars. I hadn’t bought them, but I didn’t think Zayne had, either, because these were of the unhealthy, chocolate chip variety. “I can’t even think about the Harbinger right now or how in the Hell I’m supposed to stop him before the Transfiguration.”
“Or stay alive until then,” Peanut commented.
Biting down into the bar, I shot him a dark look.
“What?”
“That didn’t help,” I said around a mouthful of granola and chocolate.
“I’m just donning my Captain Obvious hat, okay? I know it’s not helpful, but I don’t even know how to be helpful. Oh! Wait. Maybe I could ask the other ghosts if they’ve seen him.” He pitched forward, halfway into the island.
Sighing, I stared down at the crumbs and my darkest fears sort of spilled out of me. “I have no idea where he is, if he’s even in the city still. What he’s doing or if it’s too late.”
“He has to be in the city,” Peanut stated. “And it can’t be too late. Don’t even think that. It won’t help you or him.”
I didn’t respond at first to the surprisingly calm and measured response from the ghost. Finally I nodded. “I know, but it’s kind of hard not to think like that. It’s impossible to not think about finding him and having to fight him for real. Not because he’s strong, but...”