Crescendo h-2 Read online

  I couldn’t pinpoint the memory, but it was within the last year or so. Maybe shortly before my dad died … no. After. It had been a warm day—spring. The funeral was over, my grace period of grieving had ended, and I was back in school. Vee had talked me into ditching class, and in those days, I didn’t offer much resistance to anything. I floated along. I got by. On the thought that my mom would be at work, we’d walked to my house. It must have taken us all of seventh hour to get there.

  As the farmhouse came into view, Vee yanked me off the road.

  “There’s a car in your driveway,” she said.

  “Whose could it be? Looks like a Land Cruiser.”

  “Your mom doesn’t drive one of those.”

  “Do you think it’s a detective?” It wasn’t likely that a detective would be driving a sixty- thousand-dollar SUV, but I was so used to detectives stopping by, it was the first thought that came to mind.

  “Let’s get closer.”

  We were almost to the driveway when the front door opened and voices carried out. My mom’s … and a deeper voice. A man’s.

  Vee lugged me to the side of the house, out of sight.

  We watched as Hank Millar climbed into the Land Cruiser and drove away.

  “Holy freakshow,” Vee said. “Normally I’d suspect foul play, but your mom is as straightlaced as they come. I bet he was trying to sell her a car.”

  “He came all this way for that?”

  “Heck yeah, babe. Car salesmen don’t know where to draw the line.”

  “She already has a car.”

  “A Ford. That’s like Toyota’s worst enemy. Marcie’s dad won’t be happy until the whole town is driving a Toyota….”

  I strayed out of the memory. But what if he hadn’t been selling her a car? What if they’d—I swallowed involuntarily—been having an affair?

  Where was I supposed to go now? Home? The farmhouse no longer felt like home. It no longer felt safe and secure. It felt like a box of lies. My parents had sold me a story about love, togetherness, and family. But if Marcie was telling the truth—and my greatest fear was that she was—my family was a joke. A big lie I’d never even seen coming. Shouldn’t there have been warning signs? Shouldn’t I have been hit with the realization that I’d secretly suspected this all along, but had chosen denial over the painful truth? This was my punishment for trusting others. This was my punishment for looking for the good in people. As much as I hated Patch right now, I envied the cold detachment that separated him from everyone else. He suspected the worst in people; no matter how low they sank, he always saw it coming. He was hardened and worldly, but people respected him for it.

  They respected him, and they lied to me.

  I swung upright on the bench and punched my mom’s number into my cell. I didn’t know what I’d say when she answered; I’d let my anger and betrayal guide me. While her phone rang, hot tears tumbled down my cheeks. I slapped them away. My chin trembled, and every muscle in my body was drawn taut. Angry, spiteful words sprang to mind. I envisioned shouting them at her, cutting her off every time she tried to defend herself with more lies. And if she cried … I wouldn’t feel sorry. She deserved to feel every last ounce of pain from the choices she’d made. Her voice mail picked up, and it was all I could do to keep from flinging the phone into the darkness.

  I dialed Vee next.

  “Yo, babe. Is this important? I’m with Rixon—”

  “I’m leaving home,” I said, not caring that my voice sounded thick from crying. “Can I stay at your house for a while? Until I figure out where I’m going.”

  Vee’s breathing filled my ear. “Say what?”

  “My mom gets home on Saturday. I want to be gone by then. Can I stay with you the rest of the week?”

  “Um, can I ask—”

  “No.”

  “Okay, sure,” Vee said, trying to hide her shock. “You can stay, no problem. No problem at all. You’ll tell me what’s up when you’re ready.”

  I felt fresh tears well up inside me. Right now, Vee was the only person I could count on. She could be obnoxious, annoying, and lazy, but she never lied to me.

  I got to the farmhouse around nine, and slipped into a pair of cotton pj’s. It wasn’t a cold night, but the air was humid, and the moisture seemed to slip beneath my skin, chilling me to the bone. After making myself a cup of steamed milk, I sank into bed. It was too early for sleep, but I couldn’t have slept if I’d tried; my thoughts were still dashing themselves to pieces. I stared at the ceiling, trying to erase the last sixteen years and start fresh. Hard as I might, I couldn’t envision Hank Millar as my father.

  I swung out of bed and marched down the hall to my mom’s bedroom. I flung open her hope chest, searching for her high school yearbook. I didn’t even know if she owned one, but if she did, the hope chest was the only place I could think to look. If she and Hank Millar went to school together, there would be pictures. If they’d been in love, he would have signed her yearbook in some special way that would signify it. Five minutes later, I’d thoroughly searched the chest and come up empty-handed.

  I padded to the kitchen, looked through the cupboards for something to eat, but found my appetite gone. I couldn’t eat, thinking about the big lie my family had turned out to be. I found my eyes traveling to the front door, but where would I go? I felt lost in the house, restless to leave, but with nowhere to run. After standing in the hallway for several minutes, I climbed back to my bedroom. Lying in bed with the covers pulled up to my chin, I shut my eyes and watched a reel of pictures slide across my mind. Pictures of Marcie; of Hank Millar, whom I barely knew, and whose face I could conjure up only with difficulty; of my parents. Faster and faster the images came, until they blended together in a strange collage of madness.

  The images seemed to lurch into reverse suddenly, traveling backward through time. All color drained from the reel, until there was nothing but fuzzy black and white. It was then that I knew I’d slipped into the other realm.

  I was dreaming.

  I was standing in the front yard. A rowdy wind swept dead leaves across the driveway, around my ankles. An odd funnel cloud swirled in the sky overhead but made no move to touch down, as if it was content to bide its time before striking. Patch was sitting on the porch rail, head bowed, hands clasped loosely between his knees.

  “Get out of my dream,” I hollered at him over the wind.

  He shook his head. “Not until I tell you what’s going on.”

  I pulled my pajama top tighter. “I don’t want to hear what you have to say.”

  “The archangels can’t hear us here.”

  I gave an accusatory laugh. “It wasn’t enough manipulating me in real life—now you have to do it here, too?”

  He lifted his head. “Manipulating? I’m trying to tell you what’s going on.”

  “You’re forcing your way inside my dreams,” I challenged. “You did it after the Devil’s Handbag, and you’re doing it now.”

  A sudden gust of wind blew between us, causing me to take a step back. The tree branches creaked and moaned. I untangled my hair from my face.

  Patch said, “After the Z, in the Jeep, you told me you’d had a dream about Marcie’s dad. The night you had the dream, I was thinking about him. I was remembering the exact memory you dreamed about, wishing there was some way I could tell you the truth. I didn’t know I was communicating with you.”

  “You made me have that dream?”

  “Not a dream. A memory.”

  I tried to digest this. If the dream was real, Hank Millar had been living in England hundreds of years ago. My memory spun back to the dream. Tell the barkeep to send help, Hank had said. Tell him there is no man. Tell him it is one of the devil’s angels, come to possess my body and cast away my soul.

  Was Hank Millar—Nephilim?

  “I don’t know how I overlapped your dreams,” Patch said, “but I’ve been trying to communicate with you the same way ever since. I got through the night I kissed you
after the Devil’s Handbag, but now I keep hitting walls. I’m lucky I’m here now. I think it’s you. You’re not letting me in.”

  “Because I don’t want you inside my head!”

  He slid off the railing, coming down to meet me in the yard. “I need you to let me in.”

  I turned away.

  “I was reassigned to Marcie,” he said.

  Five seconds passed before everything fell into place. The sick, hot feeling that had churned in my stomach since leaving Marcie’s spread to my extremities. “You’re Marcie’s guardian angel?”

  “It hasn’t been a pleasure cruise.”

  “Did the archangels do this?”

  “When they assigned me as your guardian, they made it clear I was supposed to have your best interests in mind. Getting involved with you wasn’t in your best interest. I knew it, but I didn’t like the idea of the archangels telling me what to do with my personal life. They were watching us the night you gave me your ring.”

  In the Jeep. The night before we broke up. I remembered.

  “As soon as I realized they were watching us, I took off. But the damage was done. They told me I’d be out as soon as they found a replacement. Then they assigned me to Marcie. I went to her house that night to force myself to face what I’d done.”

  “Why Marcie?” I asked bitterly. “To punish me?”

  He dragged a hand down over his mouth. “Marcie’s dad is a first-generation Nephilim, a purebred. Now that Marcie is sixteen, she’s in danger of being sacrificed. Two months ago, when I tried to sacrifice you to get a human body, but ended up saving your life, there weren’t many fallen angels who believed they could change what they were. I’m a guardian now. They all know it, and they all know it’s because I saved you from dying. Suddenly a lot more of them believe they can cheat fate too. Either by saving a human and getting their wings back”—he exhaled—“or by killing their Nephil vassal and transforming their body from fallen angel to human.”

  I reviewed in my mind everything I knew about fallen angels and Nephilim. The Book of Enoch told of a fallen angel who became human after killing his Nephil vassal—by sacrificing one of the vassal’s female descendants. Two months ago, Patch had attempted this very thing by intending to use me to kill Chauncey. Now, if the fallen angel who’d forced Hank Millar to swear fealty wanted to become human, well, he’d have to …

  Sacrifice Marcie.

  I said, “You mean it’s your job to make sure the fallen angel who forced Hank Millar to swear fealty doesn’t sacrifice Marcie to get a human body.”

  As if he thought he knew me well enough to guess my next question, he said, “Marcie doesn’t know. She’s completely in the dark.”

  I didn’t want to talk about this. I didn’t want Patch here. He’d killed my dad. He’d ripped away, forever, someone I loved. Patch was a monster. Nothing he could say could make me feel otherwise.

  “Chauncey formed the Nephilim blood society,” Patch said.

  My attention snapped back. “What? How do you know?”

  He looked reluctant to answer. “I’ve accessed a few memories. Other people’s memories.”

  “Other people’s memories?” I was shocked when I shouldn’t have been. How could he justify all the horrible things he’d done? How could he come here and tell me he’d secretly examined people’s most private and intimate thoughts, and expect me to admire him for it? Or even expect me to listen to him?

  “A successor picked up where Chauncey left off. I haven’t been able to get a name yet, but rumor has it he isn’t happy about Chauncey’s death, which doesn’t make sense. He’s in charge now—that alone should have wiped away any remorse he felt over Chauncey’s death. Which makes me wonder if the successor was a close friend of Chauncey’s, or a relative.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t want to hear this.”

  “The successor has a contract out on Chauncey’s killer.” Any further protesting on my part died forming. Patch and I shared a look. “He wants the killer to pay.”

  “You mean he wants me to pay,” I said, my voice barely pushing through.

  “Nobody knows you killed Chauncey. He didn’t know you were his female descendant until moments before he died, so there’s little chance anyone else knew. Chauncey’s successor might try to track down Chauncey’s descendants, but I wish him luck. It took me a long time to find you.” He took a step toward me, but I backed up. “When you wake up, I need you to say you want me as your guardian angel again. Say it like you mean it, so the archangels hear it, and hopefully grant your request. I’m doing everything I can to keep you safe, but I’m restricted. I need heightened access to the people around you, your emotions, everything in your world.”

  What was he saying? That the archangels had finally found my replacement guardian angel? Was this why he’d forced his way inside my dream tonight? Because he’d been cut off, and no longer had the access to me that he wanted?

  I felt his hands slide to my hips, holding me protectively against him. “I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”

  I stiffened and shrugged free. My mind was in a tempest. He wants the killer to pay. I couldn’t shake off the thought. The idea that someone out there wanted to kill me was numbing. I didn’t want to be here. I didn’t want to know these things. I wanted to feel safe again.

  Realizing that Patch had no intention of leaving my dream, I made my own move. I fought against the invisible barriers of the dream by forcing myself awake. Open your eyes, I told myself. Open them!

  Patch gripped my elbow. “What are you doing?”

  I could feel myself becoming more lucid. I could feel the warmth of my sheets, my pillowcase soft against my cheek. All the familiar smells associated with my room comforted me.

  “Don’t wake up, Angel.” He smoothed his hands against my hair, trapping my face, forcing me to look him in the eye. “There’s more you need to know. There’s a very important reason why you need to see these memories. I’m trying to tell you something that I can’t tell you any other way. I need you to figure out what I’m trying to tell you. I need you to stop blocking me.”

  I jerked my face away. My feet seemed to rise up from the grass, drifting toward the stirring funnel cloud. Patch grabbed for me, swearing under his breath, but his hold on me was featherlight, imaginary.

  Wake up, I ordered myself. Wake up.

  I let the cloud consume me.

  CHAPTER 18

  I WOKE UP WITH A SHARP INTAKE OF AIR. MY ROOM was settled in shadow, the moon glowing like a crystal ball on the far side of the window. My sheets were hot and damp, tangled around my legs. The clock read nine thirty.

  I flung myself out of bed and went to the bathroom, filling a cold glass of water. I gulped it down, then leaned against the wall. I couldn’t fall back asleep. Whatever I did, I couldn’t let Patch back in my dreams. I paced the upstairs hall, frantically trying to keep myself wide awake, but I was so worked up, I doubted I could have slept if I’d wanted to.

  Several minutes later the throb of my pulse had died down, but my mind wasn’t as easy to settle. The Black Hand. Those three words haunted me. They were elusive, menacing, taunting. I couldn’t bring myself to look them straight on. Not without feeling my already flimsy world start to shatter. I knew I was avoiding finding a way to let the archangels know Patch was the Black Hand, and my father’s killer, to protect myself from the shameful truth: I’d fallen in love with a killer. I’d let him kiss me, lie to me, betray me. When he touched me in my dreams, all my strength crumbled, and I felt myself being tangled up in his net all over again. He still held my heart in his hand, and that was the biggest betrayal of all. What kind of person was I, when I couldn’t bring my own father’s killer to justice?

  Patch had said I could tell the archangels I wanted him as my guardian angel again through the simple act of saying it out loud. It seemed logical, then, that I could shout out, “Patch killed my dad!” and be done with it. Justice would be served. Patch would be sent t
o hell, and I could slowly start to rebuild my life. But I couldn’t pull the words up, as if they were chained down someplace deep inside me.

  Too many things weren’t adding up. Why was Patch, an angel, mixed up with a Nephilim blood society? If he was the Black Hand, why was he branding Nephilim recruits? Why was he recruiting them in the first place? It wasn’t just odd—it was illogical. The Nephilim race hated angels, and vice versa. And if the Black Hand was Chauncey’s successor and the new leader of the society … how could that person possibly be Patch?

  I squeezed the bridge of my nose, feeling like my head might crack from chasing the same questions over and over. Why was it that everything surrounding the Black Hand seemed to be an endless maze of trapdoor, after trapdoor, after trapdoor?

  Right now Scott was my only reliable link left to the Black Hand. He knew more than he was letting on, I was sure of it, but he was too scared to talk. The tone of his voice when he’d spoken of the Black Hand carried sheer panic. I needed him to tell me what he knew, but he was running from his past, and nothing I said was going to make him turn back and face it. I pressed my forehead into the palms of my hands, trying to think clearly.

  I called Vee.

  “Good news,” she said before I could get a word in edgewise. “I talked my dad into driving back to the beach with me and paying the fine to get the boot off my car. I’m back in business.”

  “Good, because I need your help.”

  “Help is my middle name.”

  I was pretty sure she’d already told me bad was her middle name, but I kept my opinion to myself. “I need someone to help me look through Scott’s bedroom.” Chances were, Scott wasn’t going to keep any evidence detailing his involvement with the Nephilim blood society out in the open, but what alternative did I have? He had done a terrific job of not giving me direct answers in the past, and after our last encounter, I knew he was wary of me. If I wanted to find out what he knew, I was going to have to do a little legwork.