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“Rébecca isn’t the only one he is punishing.”
I sigh, pull up a chair. “Not this again.”
“Yes, this again. You’ve read the Book of Tithes. You know our history. Your parents, Abacus, your sister, and now me.”
“What treatment was the doctor talking about?” I ask firmly. “What were all those pills you were very quick to hide?”
“Cancer,” she announces stubbornly. “Terminal as far as the doctor is concerned.”
“What?”
“You heard me. Your brother will be next if you don’t act, Azrael. I am an old woman, and I know you won’t care much when I’m gone, but your brother and sister? What will it take for you to understand you must make the sacrifice? It’s the only way to save us.”
“Jesus Christ.” I’m up on my feet, pushing my hands into my hair. “Is that why you’ve refused any treatment? Because you believe that making the sacrifice will cure you? Is that it?”
“It’s not some fanciful belief. I know it. And if you won’t do it, there is another way. Because I’ve read that book too!”
“What?”
She’s saved from answering when the door opens and Emmanuel, Bec, and Willow enter. It’s Willow my grandmother’s gaze falls on, those watery eyes hardening. Her hate somehow gives her strength, making her sit up taller, making her look almost not sick.
She sweeps her gaze over Willow, and the malevolence I feel from the stone statue of Shemhazai is matched. Doubled. Willow must feel it too; I see it, and I step between them, placing myself in front of my wife, my baby, hearing her exhale of breath when I do. Feeling the light, trembling touch of her fingers on the center of my back.
Salomé’s eyes meet mine.
I know I’ve just drawn a line in the sand. If I hadn’t already definitively chosen, if there was any doubt in anyone’s mind, I’ve just erased it. Because I’ve taken a side.
And Salomé knows it.
17
AZRAEL
The doctor and several nurses follow my family into the room. I take the opportunity to usher my wife out, needing to be away myself.
Willow shudders once we’re in the hallway and I hug her to me.
“You okay?” I ask.
She clutches her stomach. “I’m going to be sick.”
I nod, peer down the hall and hurry her toward the bathroom at the end of the corridor. I don’t care that it’s the ladies’ room, but enter with her, and we just make it into a stall before Willow vomits. I hold onto her, drawing that shorter strand of hair that keeps falling out of the updo back, remembering again why it’s shorter. Remembering it was Salomé who took it from her in exchange for the book—Salomé who made an offering of it to Shemhazai, a promise of more to come.
I rub Willow’s back, crouching down beside her. Someone enters the restrooms just as she retches again. Whoever it is must hurry back out.
“It’s okay, sweetheart. It’s okay. It’s normal,” I say, not sure if it’s normal or not.
When the last wave passes, Willow reaches to flush the toilet, leaning back into me as she wipes her mouth with the back of her hand. Sweat dots her forehead, and her hands are shaking.
“Come on. Let’s get you some water.” I help her to stand, keeping my arm around hers. “We’ll get you checked out while we’re here, make sure everything is okay,” I say, wanting to distract her and keep the panic at bay, because I know she felt what I felt in Salomé’s hospital room. I have no doubt.
At the sink, she gargles cold water and splashes her face. I feel helpless as I watch her, rubbing her back, thinking of this day we’ve had, how it began. How it’s turned out.
“Azrael,” she says, finally turning the water off and taking a deep breath in, her eyes red, eyeliner smudged, looking more like the morning after a night out. “She left the gate open. It was her. I know it.”
“Willow—”
“I’m scared, Azrael.”
“Shh,” I say, wondering about the gate. Could it have been Salomé? Would she have done that knowing she was risking Bec’s life too, just for her being in the house? “Come, let’s get you looked over. Come, sweetheart. Shh.”
I keep her tucked into my side as we walk to the nurse’s station, and I ask for a doctor to examine Willow. They send us to a different floor, and Willow seems relieved that it’s a female doctor to greet us. Once they’re settled in an examining room, I step outside to give them privacy while I process what Willow said. I push a hand into my hair and drop into a seat in the waiting area when my phone rings. It’s Emmanuel.
“Hey,” I say.
“She wants to go home. She’s insisting.”
“Of course she is.”
“I’m waiting to talk to the doctor. Where are you?”
“Willow’s getting checked out while we’re here.”
