“Really sorry about that,” I apologize to Max again. He’s looking around, totally out of it.
Then it’s like he notices me for the first time.
Still a bit unsteady on his feet, he steps back and gives me the once over.
I mean he really looks me up and down.
Well, I guess I can’t blame the guy. When he last saw me I was a gawky fifteen-going-on-sixteen-year-old, and now I’m nineteen. I’ve filled out a little. And I’m wearing the Lululemon equivalent of what Halle Berry had to wear in Catwoman.
“Ada?” Max asks.
I can’t help but smile. I didn’t think Max would be the one to give me a much-needed ego boost, but here we are. “In the flesh.”
“Shit,” he says, still blinking, still stunned, still…lingering. “Wow. This is the first time I’ve realized how much time has passed. You’ve changed. You’re like a whole woman now.”
Oh my god. I can feel everyone’s eyes on me. Even though I’m pretty good at accepting compliments, this makes my cheeks burn.
Luckily, he’s quickly distracted by the fact that Dex is possessing Perry at the moment and the conversation swings that way.
It’s for the best. I don’t need any distractions right now, and even though it felt good as hell to have another man give me the eyes, especially when he’s never looked at me like that before, I have a job to do, and it’s to save his ass.
Although, now that we’re all in here, I’m trying to think of how to do this. I mean, even though Max is dead, he’s also here, in the flesh. He’s real. He feels pain. Desire, maybe. All that stuff. Which means that Perry was right when she said that entering the house is like entering the Veil.
I just don’t know how exactly I’m going to get him out if we’re already here…
“This is so fucking weird,” Max says to himself, either about Dex possessing Perry or just this whole situation.
“You think you’d be used to weird by now,” I tell him. “You’re dead.”
He gives me a loaded look. “Thanks for the reminder, Blondie.” Ohhh, I hate the Blondie nickname. This better not be the start of something. “Now, you going to get me out of here or what?”
“Wow,” I say slowly, hand on my hip. The nerve of this ungrateful flannel-coated lumberjack. “You’re awfully impatient for someone who just went to Hell. Better be nice to me, or I’ll send you back there.”
He gives me a wry grin. “I reckon I’d like to see you try.”
“You guys,” Lana breaks through our conversation, staring at the ceiling in fear. “She’s on the floor above us.”
No time to waste.
I peer at Maximus, trying to see if there’s some kind of veil around him that you can’t really see. “You’re so close, you’re pretty much here already. I wonder why Perry and Dex weren’t able to do this.”
“Maybe this is your destiny,” he says, his voice lowering as his eyes lock with mine.
I give him a tight smile. “I doubt you’re my destiny.” Don’t get any ideas, hotshot. I already had a man who took that role.
Then I frown, trying to place all that excess emotion that thoughts of Jay just stirred up, and try to manipulate it in the air.
It works.
A line appears in front of Maximus, burning like the edges of paper. It continues to burn until it forms a flickering doorway. This must be it.
“Come on through,” I tell him. “Step over the line.”
Maximus stares at the line of fire in front of him. Lifts his leg to step over.
Perry screams. “Hurry! It’s behind you!”
I was so focused on Max that I didn’t even think to look at what else could be in the Veil with him.
And what is, is the scariest fucking thing I have ever seen.
It almost defies description—it’s a big black beast with tiny white eyes and claws and the soul of damnation, and it’s running right for us.
Max jumps through and I frantically try to close the portal, but it’s too late. The burning lines are snuffed out, but the beast leaps through the air and lands in the room with us, on the ceiling, it’s leathery inky tail wavering like a giant cat about to strike.
It doesn’t even look at me. It wants Perry.
Max knows it too.
He goes straight over to her, standing in front of her for protection, willing to sacrifice himself all over again.
Are you ready? Lana says, but when I look at her, I realize she’s speaking inside my head. Shit, she can do that, too? One of us, one of us! I want to chant.
I think so, I tell her. Lana doesn’t even have to tell me what she has planned, I can feel it. The demon is way too dangerous and advanced for me to handle on my own (I mean, I did conquer the infamous Legion, but I had Jacob and Jay’s help with that). But Lana can manipulate the beast, making it easier.