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“Yes.”
“He was sent to retrieve a soul, but found a trap instead. Ten more reapers found their deaths before I tracked down the person responsible.” Azriel paused, and regret touched the air. But over what it had cost him, I thought, not what he’d done. “I was not a dark angel—not a Mijai—at the time, but I did what I had to do to uncover the killer.”
Which was what he’d advised me to do not so long ago, and the only reason I’d come here to see Jak today. “And doing what you had to do involved sex with a human?”
“Yes. Seducing the killer’s former mistress was the only way I could uncover his location.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Why couldn’t you have simply read her mind, or even waited until he came to see her again?”
“As I said, she was his former mistress. Apparently he’d stopped seeing her just before the killings began. And though it is extremely rare, there are minds reapers cannot read—that is why you sometimes see the classic gray shroud form of reaper.” He shrugged. “Violence was out—I would not desecrate my position as a soul guide that badly—so my only option was seduction. It took two weeks to gain her trust and get the information. That time was… enlightening.”
I bet. “So you became a Mijai because you seduced a woman?”
“And scattered the soul of my friend’s killer to the four winds, never to be reborn.”
Holy shit… He really had got his vengeance. “How the hell are you even still alive?”
I might not know a whole lot about the reaper world, but I did know that sort of action was out of bounds unless it was ordered by whoever was in charge of the Mijai. Or dark angels, as they sometimes called themselves.
“It was a close decision,” he said softly. “And I am still paying for my actions, even as a Mijai.”
“So your becoming a Mijai, and then being assigned to follow me, is part of that punishment?”
“Yes.”
No wonder he’d been so hostile at the beginning of all this. “So when this assignment is over, will you be forgiven?”
“I doubt it. My sin was great. My penance will be a long one.”
I eyed him for a moment, suspecting there was more to his punishment than what he was admitting. “And you don’t care, do you?”
“I care that I will never again be a guide. Beyond that, no.”
Because he’d avenged his friend. And to think I’d once thought this reaper wasn’t capable of emotion.
I lifted my cup, then paused, the coffee washing warmth across my lips. There was another odd glimmer in the shadows behind Azriel. It definitely wasn’t smoke from the deep fryers or anything like that, because it was stationary under the vents. Steam would have been sucked out.
What? His voice slipped into my mind as smoothly as dark silk.
I think we have company.
Where? He didn’t move, but blue fire began to flicker across Valdis’s sharp edges, a sure sign that sword and master were ready for action.
It’s behind you.
His eyes narrowed a little, and power slithered through the air. His, not that of whatever it was behind him. It is neither a ghost nor a day walker—although there is one in the room.
I raised my eyebrows. Day walker?
The spirit of one who has left his living body to roam this world.
Ah. An astral traveler. So what about those shimmers of silver I keep seeing?
Those, he said, his mind voice flat, are Ania.
I had no idea what that was—other than that it wasn’t of this world—but right now there was a more important question. Why didn’t you sense them before I did?
He hesitated. My concentration was wholly on you rather than on our surrounds. It is a mistake I shall endeavor not to repeat.
