Cadabra

The elevator doors never close.

They just stay open behind us.

Soft piano still drifts from somewhere overhead.

Paradise City.

Slow.

Elegant.

Wrong.

Nobody moves.

Not me.

Not Kristy Lee.

Not John, standing inside the elevator like he’s waiting for a bus instead of whatever comes after watching a man turn into living judgment.

Calm.

Still.

And somehow—

His shirt isn’t wrinkled anymore.

A minute ago, he looked like a man who slept in his clothes and forgot where he parked.

Now every crease is gone.

Collar straight.

Sleeves smooth.

Not a speck of dust.

Not a drop of blood.

Not one sign he just turned a lobby full of armed lunatics into modern art.

I stare a second too long.

Because I don’t see him clean himself up.

Don’t see him fix his clothes.

Don’t see him move at all.

When my eyes finally find his face, there’s no smile.

No dry humor.

No amused little twinkle.

Just a hard—

Grave—

Almost mournful look.

Like John already knows how this day ends.

And hates every second of it.

That—

More than the wings—

More than the fire—

More than the whole glowing-angel thing—

Scares the hell out of me.

He doesn’t step out of the elevator.

His allowance got us through the door.

Whatever happens in here belongs to us.

Across the penthouse, Ted Polmey still has his gun raised.

Mostly.

His hand has started shaking.

His mouth hangs open.

For the first time since I’ve known him, Ted Polmey looks small.

Because standing twenty feet away, bathed in the warm lantern light of his overpriced little kingdom, is his daughter.

Ginger.

Black heels.

Sleeveless black dress covered in tiny sparkles.

Roses and doves winding down her left arm.

Red lipstick.

Wild hair pinned high.

Long artist’s fingers resting against the silk divider beside her.

Right pinky crooked exactly the way I remember.

She looks like she just walked out of a funeral—

And won.

Ted’s face loses what little color it has left.

“No.”

His gun lowers an inch.

Then another.

“No…”

Ginger smiles.

Slow.

Patient.

Dangerous.

“Hi, Daddy.”

Ted stumbles backward so fast he nearly knocks over one of his stupid little bonsai trees.

“No.”

He shakes his head.

“I watched you die.”

His voice breaks.

That might be the most frightening thing yet.

“I buried you.”

He points the gun at her again, though now it looks less like a weapon and more like something he’s holding because he forgot what else to do with his hands.

“You’re dead.”

Ginger tilts her head.

“Aw.”

Her smile widens.

“That hurt my feelings.”

Ted’s breathing turns shallow.

Fast.

Panicked.

“No.”

He shakes his head harder.

“No. This is them.”

His eyes dart toward the elevator.

Toward John.

Toward something he doesn’t understand.

“The Veil.”

His voice rises.

“Those porcelain-faced freaks.”

He looks back at Ginger.

“You’re one of theirs.”

He swallows.

“Some kind of voodoo puppet.”

Ginger laughs.

Not loud.

Not mean.

Worse.

Soft.

Like she’s remembering a joke nobody else understands.

She starts walking.

Not toward him.

Around him.

Dragging one finger along the edge of Ted’s marble desk.

Across crystal.

Across gold.

Across money.

She looks at his kingdom the way a realtor looks at a condemned building.

“You always hated surprises.”

Ted turns with her.

Gun tracking.

Hands shaking.

“Stay away from me.”

Ginger ignores him.

She stops at the private bar and lifts a crystal decanter. Holds it toward the lantern light.

Amber whiskey glows inside.

She pours herself a drink.

Neat.

Because apparently death doesn’t ruin your taste in liquor.

Her crooked pinky curls around the glass.

A tiny detail.

A perfect detail.

Ted sees it too.

Something inside him breaks a little more.

Beside me, Kristy Lee leans close.

She doesn’t take her eyes off Ginger.

“Gene.”

Her voice barely makes it out.

“Something’s wrong.”

I keep my gun raised.

My left pinky throbs beneath the ruined tape, keeping time with my pulse.

“Just now noticing?”

Normally, that gets me punched.

Instead, Kristy Lee’s fingers find my sleeve.

And hold on.

Hard.

That gets my attention.

Because Kristy Lee isn’t scared of much.

And right now—

She’s scared.

Not of Ted.

Not even Ginger.

She’s afraid of the barefoot woman in white standing across from us.

Rachel Lewis.

She hasn’t moved.

Hasn’t flinched.

Hasn’t reacted to Ted falling apart.

Or Ginger coming back from the dead.

Or John turning into something with wings.

Or me.

She just stands there—

Watching me.

Smiling.

Warm.

Familiar.

Wrong.

I feel her before I understand what’s happening.

It’s the same warmth from the hospital.

From the dreams.

From the moments I can’t explain.

Almost.

This feels sweeter.

Stronger.

Easier.

Like somebody heard the song and made a copy without understanding what it meant.

Every time I look at her, I want to move closer.

Kristy Lee tightens her grip.

Like she can feel me slipping.

Ginger notices.

Of course she does.

She takes a sip of whiskey and watches all of us over the rim of the glass.

Then her eyes settle on me.

“Well…”

She smiles.

“I’ll be damned.”

I frown.

“That makes one of us.”

She laughs.

Actually laughs.

“Still funny.”

She takes another sip and studies me with her head tilted.

“You really did all this?”

She motions toward the open terrace doors.

Toward the city.

The sirens.

The smoke.

The flashing red and blue lights far below.

“Motorcycles.”

Sip.

“Food trucks.”

Sip.

“Tear gas.”

Sip.

Her smile widens.

“You always did like making an entrance.”

A cold knot forms in my stomach.

I knew Ginger.

Everybody in Paradise knew Ginger.

Hard not to.

Party girl.

Rich girl.

Ted Polmey’s daughter.

A walking bad decision.

The kind of woman who made men forget they had standards and women remember exactly why they did.

Hell—

Ginger and I once shared one very poor life choice and half a bottle of whiskey.

A mistake neither of us ever bothered pretending meant anything.

She painted my helmet two summers ago.

Stayed up half the night getting the flames wrong because she said fire ought to look alive.

So no—

It isn’t strange that Ginger knows my name.

She knows my face.

She knows what I’m like after half a bottle of whiskey and one bad decision too many.

But she shouldn’t know the boy I was before Paradise.

Nobody here knows him.

Not Kristy Lee.

Not Ted.

Not Patricia.

Nobody.

But Ginger looks at me like she knows fourteen-year-old Gene.

Eighteen-year-old Gene.

Twenty-year-old Gene.

The version of me I buried and never told anybody about.

That version.

That’s new.

So how the hell—

Rachel takes one small step toward me.

Quick.

Possessive.

Like the distance between us offends her.

My body answers before my mind does.

I move toward her.

Kristy Lee yanks me back half a step.

Rachel stops.

Her smile never changes.

But something shifts behind her eyes.

Something old.

Something patient.

Something that doesn’t like being denied.

Every time Rachel takes a step, Kristy Lee pulls me back.

One woman calling me forward.

One refusing to let me go.

Ginger sees it.

Her smile grows.

“Oh…”

She looks between the three of us.

Rachel.

Kristy Lee.

Me.

And suddenly—

Ted doesn’t matter anymore.

Ginger takes one last sip.

Sets the glass down.

“Looks like Gene’s getting bored.”

Nobody moves.

Nobody breathes.

Then Ginger looks directly at me.

“Maybe…”

She starts toward a red silk divider near the far wall.

“…he’d rather talk to someone from his past.”

She disappears behind it.

Ted’s gun lowers.

My pulse doubles.

Kristy Lee’s fingers dig into my arm.

Even Rachel—

For the first time—

Looks uncertain.

Ginger doesn’t come back out.

Someone else does.

Long auburn hair.

Blue eyes.

Soft smile.

My lungs forget what they’re doing.

My gun lowers.

I don’t lower it.

My body does.

Twenty years disappear.

No Paradise.

No Ted.

No Village.

No Kristy Lee.

Just a girl standing in the Texas sun while I try to work up the courage to tell her everything she already knows.

My mouth moves before I decide to speak.

“Abby.”

Her smile softens.

“Only you ever called me that.”

My heart doesn’t stop.

It does something worse.

It remembers.