Whatever that meant.
Just as he was closing his eyes, the book settled to an open folio, and he realized that it actually wasn’t spotlit; in fact, it glowed all by itself. And he had to read what had been served up for him, and him alone—
All at once, his physical form aerosoled into an invisible cloud of himself, and he spirited away through the collection rooms to the lineup of windows that faced the Hudson River. Slipping in between the molecules of one of the glass panes, he traveled northward in a scatter, the cold, bracing air registering even though he wasn’t corporeal.
Unless maybe that was just how he felt?
The call to return to downtown, to go back to the Commodore, to reenter the triplex and read what had been provided for him, and him alone, was nearly irresistible. Yet he knew, without a doubt, that there was an infection there, something that would enter him and eat away at his mind and marrow, a disease of the soul that might well be communicable.
Such that he could give it to those he loved most.
He had been narrowly saved just now.
And people didn’t get that lucky twice, especially not in the same fucking night.
What the hell just happened? he thought.
Moments later, the Black Dagger Brotherhood’s mountain loomed on his horizon, high-shouldered and dome-topped, its pine-covered contours establishing one flank of a valley. Protected by mhis, thanks to the Brother Vishous, the acreage was the kind of location that showed up on Google Maps, but, unless you knew what you were doing and where you were going on it, you couldn’t find your way as soon as you set foot on the property.
Everything was blurry. Confusing. Disorientating.
You know, kind of like how he was feeling right now.
As he re-formed, nausea dogged him and he breathed through his nose to get his stomach to calm down—
“What the . . . fuck?”
Instead of being in front of the great gray mansion, he was around the back of the old stone manse, staring up at a set of second-floor windows.
This was not where he had sent himself. Why was he—
The mournful sound of an owl hooting broke through the silence of the night, and he had a sudden urge to get the fuck inside . . . as if there was someone—or, worse, something—coming after him—
From out of nowhere, memories barged into his brain. Between one blink and the next, it was no longer early spring, with the snow mostly gone from the gardens and the winterized pool. Abruptly, it was the dead of winter, everything blanketed in white, the frigid air slapping at his face and ruffling through his hair. He was not standing on the ground anymore. He was up on the side of the house, freestyle-glued to the mortar joints with his climbing shoes and his finger-grips, working on the second floor’s daylight protection shutters. Several of the panels had failed in that blizzard, and he and some of the others had been doing what they could to get the steel safeguards down into place as the storm raged. Yeah, except he was no Tim the Tool Man Taylor with the Mr. Fix-It shit. The electrocution from the motorized gears had been a shock—literally and figuratively—and he’d had no memory of getting thrown off the sill into thin air.
He’d been dead as he’d fallen to the snowpack. Z and Blay had done CPR on him to save his life, and he’d been told it had been touch and go.
To thank them, he’d brought them back a message from the Other Side.
The demon is back.
Those were the words he’d spoken when he’d finally come around, though he had no memory of saying them—and no memory of dying, either. He only knew what had come out of his mouth because he’d overheard a couple of Brothers talking about it, and he was only aware of having briefly been a corpse because of what was in his medical record.
People didn’t get like that if you had a paper cut—
The demon is back.
As he heard his own voice repeat the phrase in his head, sweat broke out under his clothes and he wiped his brow with a hand that trembled—
“You did the right thing.”
As Lassiter’s voice registered from a distance, he looked at the phone in his hand. Bringing the unit to his ear, he said, “I did?”
“I’m over here.”
Balz looked to the right. The angel was way down at the corner of the house, standing in one of the French doors.
“Come here,” Lassiter said as he held out his palm.
“Where did I go when I died?” Balz stared at the ground and tried to imagine what his body had looked like in the snow. Had he been on his back? Had to have been, if he’d been thrown off the house. “I know I didn’t go to the Fade. I didn’t see a door. You’re supposed to see a door, right—”