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“I said could’ve.” Her eyes flashed with irritation and affection at the same time. “What are you doing back so early? I thought you were headed to another mission.”
“They dropped me off early,” I said, dropping the wooden box onto an empty window shelf, next to Luke’s brown and wilting spider plant. “They’re headed there now.”
Esther fixed me with her cool blue eyes. I nonchalantly avoided her gaze and stared at the dry brown leaves of Luke’s plants. My aunt was as observant as they came. She couldn’t miss a speck of dirt on the hide of an elephant. I felt her penetrating gaze grow heavy until I nearly burst.
“Are you cleaning Luke’s office?” The words fell out of my mouth. Anything to change the topic. “He’s not going to like that, you know.”
“I know.” She dropped the cardboard box on the floor. It was already halfway full of papers, books, and a few files. “But if I don’t do it now, it’ll be another century before he gets around to it. Some of these things need to be filed away with record keeping. I don’t want that information getting lost.”
I smirked. “Luke says you’re like a mother hen.”
“And he’s a pack rat.” She wrinkled her nose in disgust. It matched the other dozen wrinkles forming on her age-spotted face. “It’s been too long since he had someone to look after him. I’m just filling in.”
An awkward silence settled on us as I thought about the last person to look after Luke. That had been my mother, Elizabeth Quinn Redding. She’d run off from her hometown of Hanna, not ten miles from here, and arrived at the manor in the middle of a cold winter’s night. They’d met, fallen in love, and married not long after. Sometime within that same timeline, she’d also been possessed by a demon, gotten pregnant, went back home, and had me. I watched her die in Luke’s arms last fall after I sealed the Hell Gate closed. The memory still replayed in my darkest dreams.
“I’m sorry,” Esther said, placing a warm hand on my arm. “I wasn’t thinking when I said that.”
“It’s okay.” I gave her my cheeriest smile, although it felt fake enough to crack my cheeks. “That’s ancient history.”
She nodded solemnly and dropped her hand, returning to shuffling through some papers in a drawer. I watched her for a moment, appreciating how similar she and my cousin, Raquel, appeared. Same height. Same sharp nose and freckles. I wished I could be with her right now, chasing down another soldier from Hell. The past few months had been some of the hardest and best days of my life. I craved more of that excitement and teamwork.
Esther cleared her throat, drawing my attention. “I take it the reason you’re here and Raquel isn’t is because you had another episode.”
It wasn’t a question. I knew she was too observant for my own good. No use in lying.
“Yeah, this one was worse than the others.” I pulled a pile of papers from her stack and began to slowly sort through them. “My demon is growing stronger. She’s fighting back.”
She narrowed her eyes at me. “You think she’ll be able to take over?”
“Possibly.” With a sigh, I dropped the paper I’d been reviewing. “Maybe? I don’t know.”
“Have you been practicing your meditations?”
“Everyday.”
“But you don’t feel like you’re getting anywhere.”
I chewed on my bottom lip. The entire drive back to the manor these thoughts had been whirling around my head.
“I think more than anything, I’m just afraid,” I told her. “Afraid it’s not enough and that she’s going to get too strong. That I won’t be able to pull her back and one of these days, it’ll be me huddled in the dark reaches of my mind.”
She raised her chin and stared at me down the bridge of her nose. Something like satisfaction flashed in her eyes. “At least you can admit that you’re scared.”
I shifted uncomfortably. “Yeah, but it makes me feel weak.”
“Nonsense.” She pushed her long graying hair out of her face. “Those who feel and recognize fear are stronger for it. It is those who reject fear and trample over it who are the fools. Remember that when you decide one day that you’re invincible. It is a healthy dose of fear that keeps us alive, teaches us to treat life with caution. It is what causes us to seek help. I’m glad you were smart enough to seek help.”
The light tinkling of music in the distance caught both of our attentions. It was the way the Nephilim liked to announce the arrival of someone special. A lighthearted little tune, like a jingle played over a TV commercial. Esther perked up to listen, her hands frozen over the trash can.
“Luke’s back with the new researchers.” She quickly set the remaining papers back in their drawers and put the box on the floor. “This can wait. Would you like to come meet them with me?”
My lips managed to curl into a soft smile. “In a minute. I think I need a minute alone before all the madness.”
She nodded her head in understanding. With a pat on my shoulder, she was out the door. I dropped into Luke’s comfy rolling desk chair. It was a dark brown leather, cracked and faded from decades of use, no doubt. Grooves on the armrests gave away the exact location my father’s elbows liked to rest as he sat in this very spot. I ran my fingers over them, wishing he was here so we could talk.
My gaze fell on the wooden box we’d confiscated from the priest. Gabe was sure that Luke would want to have a look at it and discover its mysteries. Part of me stirred at the idea of an ancient angel artifact. Who knew what kind of powers it contained? A book with spells or demon fighting techniques. Or maybe an unbeatable weapon to use against the legions of Hell.
Before I knew it, I’d moved from the chair and toward the window seal. Plucking the box from its spot, I brought it back to the desk and set it carefully in front of me. The wood was stained so dark, it almost appeared black. The symbols along the sides had been roughly gouged into the sides as if with a primitive tool. My fingers trailed the shape of a particular symbol, feeling the sharp turns and corners of the foreign shape.
