The Complete Hush, Hush Saga Read online

  I heard a voice in my mind. Relax. Trust me.

  “Omigosh,” I said with a burst of clarity. “You’re doing it again, aren’t you? Messing with my mind.” I remembered the article I’d pulled up when I Googled fallen angels. “You can put more than words in my head, can’t you? You can put images—very real images—there.”

  He didn’t deny it.

  “The Archangel,” I said, finally understanding. “You tried to kill me that night, didn’t you? But something went wrong. Then you made me think my cell phone was dead, so I couldn’t call Vee. Did you plan to kill me on the ride home? I want to know how you’re making me see what you want!”

  His face was carefully expressionless. “I put the words and images there, but it’s up to you if you believe them. It’s a riddle. The images overlap reality, and you have to figure out which is real.”

  “Is this a special angel power?”

  He shook his head. “Fallen angel power. Any other kind of angel wouldn’t invade your privacy, even though they can.”

  Because other angels were good. And Patch was not.

  Patch braced his hands against the wall behind me, one on either side of my head. “I put a thought in Coach’s mind to redo the seating chart because I needed to get close to you. I made you think you fell off the Archangel because I wanted to kill you, but I couldn’t go through with it. I almost did, but I stopped. I settled for scaring you instead. Then I made you think your cell was dead because I wanted to give you a ride home. When I came inside your house, I picked up a knife. I was going to kill you then.” His voice softened. “You changed my mind.”

  I sucked in a deep breath. “I don’t understand you. When I told you my dad was murdered, you sounded genuinely sorry. When you met my mom, you were nice.”

  “Nice,” Patch repeated. “Let’s keep that between you and me.”

  My head spun faster, and I could feel my pulse beating in my temples. I’d felt this heart-pounding panic before. I needed my iron pills. Either that, or Patch was making me think I did.

  I tilted my chin up and narrowed my eyes. “Get out of my mind. Right now!”

  “I’m not in your mind, Nora.”

  I bent forward, bracing my hands on my knees, sucking air. “Yes, you are. I feel you. So this is how you’re going to do it? Suffocate me?”

  Soft popping sounds echoed in my ears, and a blurry black framed my vision. I tried to fill my lungs, but it was like the air had disappeared. The world tilted, and Patch slipped sideways in my vision. I flattened my hand to the wall to steady my balance. The deeper I tried to inhale, the tighter my throat constricted.

  Patch moved toward me, but I flung my hand out. “Get away!”

  He leaned a shoulder on the wall and faced me, his mouth set with concern.

  “Get—away—from—me,” I gasped.

  He didn’t.

  “I—can’t—breathe!” I choked, clawing at the wall with one hand, clutching my throat with the other.

  Suddenly Patch scooped me up and carried me to the chair across the room. “Put your head between your knees,” he said, guiding my head down.

  I had my head down, breathing rapidly, trying to force air inside my lungs. Very slowly I felt the oxygen creep back into my body.

  “Better?” Patch asked after a minute.

  I nodded, once.

  “Do you have iron pills with you?”

  I shook my head.

  “Keep your head down and take long, deep breaths.”

  I followed his instructions, feeling a clamp loosen around my chest. “Thank you,” I said quietly.

  “Still don’t trust my motives?”

  “If you want me to trust you, let me touch your scars again.”

  Patch studied me silently for a long moment. “That’s not a good idea.”

  “Why not?”

  “I can’t control what you see.”

  “That’s kind of the point.”

  He waited a few counts before answering. His voice was low, emotions untraceable. “You know I’m hiding things.” There was a question attached to it.

  I knew Patch lived a life of closed doors and harbored secrets. I wasn’t presumptuous enough to think even half of them revolved around me. Patch lived a different life outside the one he shared with me. More than once I’d speculated what his other life might be like. I always got the feeling that the less I knew about it, the better.

  My lip wobbled. “Give me a reason to trust you.”

  Patch sat on the corner of the bed, the mattress sinking under his weight. He bent forward, resting his forearms on his knees. His scars were in full view, the candlelight dancing eerie shadows across their surface. The muscles in his back heightened, then relaxed. “Go ahead,” he said quietly. “Keep in mind that people change, but the past doesn’t.”

  Suddenly I wasn’t so sure I wanted this. On almost every level, Patch terrified me. But deep down, I didn’t think he was going to kill me. If that was what he wanted, he would have done it already. I glanced at his gruesome scars. Trusting Patch felt a lot more comfortable than slipping into his past again and having no idea what I might find.

  But if I backed out now, Patch would know I was terrified of him. He was opening one of the closed doors just for me and only because I’d asked for it. I couldn’t make a request this heavy, then change my mind.

  “I won’t get trapped in there forever, will I?” I asked.

  Patch gave a short laugh. “No.”

  Summoning my courage, I sat on the bed beside him. For the second time tonight, my finger brushed the peaked ridge of his scar. A hazy gray crowded my vision, working from the edges in. The lights went out.

  CHAPTER

  24

  I WAS ON MY BACK, MY CAMI SPONGING UP MOISTURE beneath me, blades of grass poking the bare skin on my arms. The moon overhead was nothing more than a sliver, a grin tipped on its side. Other than the rumble of distant thunder, all was quiet.

  I blinked several times in succession, helping my eyes hurry and adapt to the scant light. When I rolled my head sideways, a symmetrical arrangement of curved twigs poking up from the grass solidified in my vision. Very slowly I pulled myself up. I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the two black orbs staring at me from just above the curved twigs. My mind worked to place the familiar image. And then, with a horrific flash of recognition, I knew. I was lying next to a human skeleton.

  I crawled backward until I came up against an iron fence. I pushed through the muddled moment and recaptured my last memory. I’d touched Patch’s scars. Wherever I was, it was somewhere inside his memory.

  A voice, male and vaguely familiar, carried through the darkness, singing a low tune. Turning toward it, I saw a labyrinth of headstones stretching like dominoes into the mist. Patch was crouched on top of one. He wore only Levi’s and a navy T-shirt, even though the night wasn’t warm.

  “Moonlighting with the dead?” called the familiar voice. It was rough, rich, and Irish. Rixon. He slouched against a headstone opposite Patch, watching him. He stroked his thumb across his bottom lip. “Let me guess. You’ve got it in your mind to possess the dead? I don’t know,” he said, wagging his head. “Maggots squirming in your eyeholes . . . and your other orifices, might be carrying things a bit too far.”

  “This is why I keep you around, Rixon. Always seeing things from the bright side.”

  “Cheshvan starts tonight,” Rixon said. “What are you doing arsing around in a graveyard?”

  “Thinking.”

  “Thinking?”

  “A process by which I use my brain to make a rational decision.” The corners of Rixon’s mouth pulled down. “I’m starting to worry about you. Come on. Time to go. Chauncey Langeais and Barnabas await. The moon turns at midnight. I confess I’ve got my eye on a betty in town.” He gave a catlike purr. “I know you like them red, but I like ’em fair, and once I get into a body, I intend to take care of unfinished business with a blonde who was making eyes at me earlier.”
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br />   When Patch didn’t move, Rixon said, “Are you daft? We’ve got to go. Chauncey’s oath of fealty. Not ringing a bell? How about this. You’re a fallen angel. You can’t feel a thing. Until tonight, that is. The next two weeks are Chauncey’s gift to you. Given unwillingly, mind you,” he added on a conspirator’s grin.

  Patch gave Rixon a sidelong glance. “What do you know about The Book of Enoch?”

  “About as much as any fallen angel: slim to none.”

  “I was told there’s a story in The Book of Enoch. About a fallen angel who becomes human.”

  Rixon doubled over with laughter. “You lost your mind, mate?” He welded the outer edges of his palms together, making an open book with his hands. “The Book of Enoch is a bedtime story. And a good one, by the looks of it. Sent you straight to dreamland.”

  “I want a human body.”

  “You’d best be happy with two weeks and a Nephil’s body. Half-human is better than nothing. Chauncey can’t undo what’s been done. He swore an oath, and he has to live up to it. Just like last year. And the year before that—”

  “Two weeks isn’t enough. I want to be human. Permanently.” Patch’s eyes cut into Rixon’s, daring him to laugh again.

  Rixon raked his hands through his hair. “The Book of Enoch is a fairy tale. We’re fallen angels, not humans. We never were human, and we never will be. End of story. Now, quit arsing around and help me figure out which is the way to Portland.” He craned his neck back and observed the inky sky.

  Patch swung down off the headstone. “I’m going to become human.”

  “Sure, mate, sure you can.”

  “The Book of Enoch says I have to kill my Nephil vassal. I have to kill Chauncey.”

  “No, you don’t,” Rixon said with a note of impatience. “You’ve got to possess him. A process by which you take his body and use it as your own. Not to put a damper on things, but you can’t kill Chauncey. Nephilim can’t die. And have you thought of this? If you could kill him, you couldn’t possess him.”

  “If I kill him, I’ll become human and I won’t need to possess him.”

  Rixon squeezed the inner corners of his eyes as if he knew his argument was falling on deaf ears and it was giving him a headache. “If we could kill Nephilim, we would have found a way by now. I’m sorry to tell you, lad, but if I don’t get into the arms of that blond betty soon, my brains will bake. And a few other parts of my—”

  “Two choices,” said Patch.

  “Eh?”

  “Save a human life and become a guardian angel, or kill your Nephil vassal and become human. Take your pick.”

  “Is this more Book of Enoch rubbish?”

  “Dabria paid me a visit.”

  Rixon’s eyes widened, and he snorted a laugh. “Your psychotic ex? What’s she doing down here? Did she fall? Lost her wings, did she?”

  “She came down to tell me I can get my wings back if I save a human life.”

  Rixon’s eyes got wider. “If you trust her, I say go for it. Nothing wrong with being a guardian. Spending your days keeping mortals out of danger . . . could be fun, depending on the mortal you’re assigned.”

  “But if you had a choice?” Patch asked.

  “Aye, well, my answer depends on one very important distinction. Am I roaring drunk . . . or have I completely lost my mind?” When Patch didn’t laugh, Rixon said soberly, “There’s no choice. And here’s why. I don’t believe in The Book of Enoch. If I were you, I’d aim for guardianship. I’m half considering the deal myself. Too bad I don’t know any humans on the brink of death.”

  There was a moment’s silence, then Patch seemed to shake off his thoughts. He said, “How much money can we make before midnight?”

  “Playing cards or boxing?”

  “Cards.”

  Rixon’s eyes sparkled. “What do we have here? A pretty boy? Come here and let me give you a proper clatter.” He hooked Patch around the neck, pinning him in the crook of his elbow, but Patch got him around the waist and dragged Rixon to the grass, where they took turns throwing clobbering punches.

  “All right, all right!” Rixon bellowed, throwing his hands up in surrender. “Just ’cause I can’t feel a bloody lip doesn’t mean I want to spend the rest of the night walking around with one.” He winked. “Won’t increase my chances with the ladies.”

  “And a black eye will?”

  Rixon lifted his fingers to his eyes, probing. “You didn’t!” he said, swinging a fist at Patch.

  I pulled my finger away from Patch’s scars. The skin on the back of my neck prickled, and my heart pumped much too fast. Patch looked at me, a shadow of uncertainty in his eyes.

  I was forced to accept that maybe now wasn’t the time to rely on the logical half of my brain. Maybe this was one of those times when I needed to step out of bounds. Stop playing by the rules. Accept the impossible.

  “Then you’re definitely not human,” I said. “You really are a fallen angel. A bad guy.”

  That squeezed a smile out of Patch. “You think I’m a bad guy?”

  “You possess other people’s . . . bodies.”

  He accepted the statement with a nod.

  “Do you want to possess my body?”

  “I want to do a lot of things to your body, but that’s not one of them.”

  “What’s wrong with the body you have?”

  “My body is a lot like glass. Real, but outward, reflecting the world around me. You see and hear me, and I see and hear you. When you touch me, you feel it. I don’t experience you in the same way. I can’t feel you. I experience everything through a sheet of glass, and the only way I can cut through that sheet is by possessing a human body.”

  “Or part-human.”

  Patch’s mouth tightened at the corners. “When you touched my scars, you saw Chauncey?” he guessed.

  “I heard you talking to Rixon. He said you possess Chauncey’s body for two weeks every year during Cheshvan. He said Chauncey isn’t human either. He’s Nephilim.” The word rolled off my tongue in a whisper.

  “Chauncey is a cross between a fallen angel and a human. He’s immortal like an angel but has all the mortal senses. A fallen angel who wants to feel human sensations can do it in a Nephil’s body.”

  “If you can’t feel, why did you kiss me?”

  Patch traced a finger along my collarbone, then headed south, stopping at my heart. I felt it pounding through my skin. “Because I feel it here, in my heart,” he said quietly. “I haven’t lost the ability to feel emotion.” He watched me closely. “Let me put it this way. Our emotional connection isn’t lacking.”

  Don’t panic, I thought. But already my breathing was faster, shallower. “You mean you can feel happy or sad or—”

  “Desire.” A barely-there smile.

  Keep moving forward, I told myself. Don’t give your own emotions time to catch up. Deal with them later, after you have answers. “Why did you fall?”

  Patch’s eyes held mine for a couple of counts. “Lust.”

  I swallowed. “Money lust?”

  Patch stroked his jaw. He only did that when he wanted to conceal what he was thinking, the giveaway to his thoughts being his mouth. He was fighting a smile. “And other kinds. I thought if I fell, I’d become human. The angels who’d tempted Eve had been banished to Earth, and there were rumors that they’d lost their wings and become human. When they left heaven, it wasn’t this big ceremony we were all invited to. It was private. I didn’t know their wings were ripped out, or that they were cursed to roam Earth with a hunger to possess human bodies. Back then, nobody had even heard of fallen angels. So it made sense in my mind, that if I fell, I’d lose my wings and become human. At the time, I was crazy about a human girl, and it seemed worth the risk.”

  “Dabria said you can get your wings back by saving a human life. She said you’ll be a guardian angel. You don’t want that?” I was confused why he was so set against it.

  “It’s not for me. I want to be human. I want
it more than I’ve ever wanted anything.”

  “What about Dabria? If the two of you aren’t together anymore, why is she still here? I thought she was a regular angel. Does she want to be human too?”

  Patch went deathly still, all the muscles up his arm going rigid. “Dabria’s still on Earth?”

  “She got a job at school. She’s the new school psychologist, Miss Greene. I’ve met with her a couple times.” My stomach gave a hard twist. “After what I saw in your memory, I thought she took the job to be closer to you.”

  “What exactly did she tell you when you met with her?”

  “To stay away from you. She hinted at your dark and dangerous past.” I paused. “Something about this is off, isn’t it?” I asked, feeling an ominous prickle make its way down my spine.

  “I need to take you home. Then I’m going to the high school to look through her files and see if I can find something useful. I’ll feel better when I know what she’s planning.” Patch stripped the bed bare. “Wrap yourself in these,” he said, handing me the bundle of dry sheets.

  My mind was working hard to make sense of the fragments of information. Suddenly my mouth went a little dry and sticky. “She still has feelings for you. Maybe she wants me out of the picture.”

  Our eyes locked. “It crossed my mind,” Patch said.

  An icy, disturbing thought had been banging around inside my head the past few minutes, trying to get my attention. It practically shouted at me now, telling me Dabria could be the guy in the ski mask. All along I thought the person I hit with the Neon was male, just like Vee thought her attacker was male. At this point, I wouldn’t put it past Dabria to deceive us both.

  After a quick trip to the bathroom, Patch emerged wearing his wet tee. “I’ll go get the Jeep,” he said. “I’ll pull around to the back exit in twenty. Stay in the motel until then.”

  CHAPTER

  25

  AFTER PATCH LEFT, I PUT THE CHAIN ON THE DOOR. I dragged the chair across the room and rammed it under the door handle. I checked to make sure the window locks were in place. I didn’t know if locks would work against Dabria—I didn’t even know if she was after me—but I figured it was better to play it safe. After pacing around the room for a few minutes, I tried the phone on the nightstand. Still no dial tone.