Iniquity (The Premonition, #5)(85)

My hand goes to my forehead. “It’s that bad in Detroit?” I ask, completely shocked.

Buns shakes her head. “No, sweetie, the souls are in Crestwood. We can feel them from here.”

“What is it like?” I ask. It occurs to me that I should know the answer to this. I remember Heaven. I’ve met more Reapers than I can count, but I never interacted with them to any great degree. I’m ashamed to admit that, even to myself. I was different than I am now. I had bought into the angel caste system to a certain degree. I accepted the way things have always been, instead of how they should be.

Brownie looks at Buns before she says, “It doesn’t hurt at all if I go right away to a reap and do my job, but when I try to resist, my pain increases the longer I wait.”

“Maybe it’s a little like being in labor?” Buns looks at Brownie for confirmation.

Brownie raises her shoulders. “I wouldn’t know about childbirth, but if it is, I’m not ever signing up for that.”

Buns winces and bends forward, clearly in pain as well, but trying hard to hide it. I touch her back, asking, “How do I help you?”

“You can’t. I need to reap,” she pants.

“Has it ever been this bad, Buns?”

“No. Whatever’s happening there, in Crestwood, feels like the end of the world. It’s like nothing I’ve ever felt before.”

I hand Buns a glass of champagne. Zephyr walks behind me and pulls a bottle of vodka from the shelf. “They might do better with this.”

He starts to pour out some shots. I blanch. Without thinking, I place my hands on Buns’ shoulders. I whisper a spell, asking her pain to come to me. It does. Like lightning strikes, her pain climbs up my arms in jagged, yellow bolts. I redirect the sizzling snarling pain. Removing my hands from her, I clasp them on the neck of the champagne bottle, stuffing the glowing bolts of white-hot pain down the throat of the bottle. I shove the cork back into it. Pain shakes and flashes inside its emerald cage in a raging tempest.

Buns stands up straight. “Sweetie, you’re like a redheaded witchdoctor!”

“Are you okay?” I ask.

“I’m much better!”

Brownie groans. “Do me next!”

“Zee, hand me that other empty bottle,” I order. When he does, I repeat the same spell I used on Buns. Yellow lightning strikes climb from Brownie up my arms. I channel them into the container, and then cork that one, too. Anya gets close to the first bottle. Tapping her finger on it, she stirs up sparking chaos inside.

“Thank you, Evie!” Brownie stands up on the rung of her barstool and reaches over the counter. She liberates the shot from Zephyr’s hand. Without really tasting it, she swallows the vodka and sets the glass on the bar.

“It didn’t work?” I ask.

Brownie dabs her mouth with a bar napkin. “Oh no, it worked. I just really like vodka.”

I look over and see Russell watching me. He raises his eyebrow in question, asking me silently what else I can do and what else I know. I pick up two flutes of champagne and walk toward him. Behind me, Zephyr tries to remove the cham-pain bottles from the bar, but Buns stops him. “What are you doing with my pain?”

“Getting rid of it,” Zephyr replies.

“Don’t take my pain. I have plans for it.”

“You have plans for your pain?”

“Yes.”

Zephyr’s cunning grin matches hers. “Tell me of these plans.”

I hand Russell a glass. He taps the rim of it to mine before sipping from it. “I never figured you for a Tigers fan.”

He makes a funny face. I point to the navy-colored knit cap on his head. He tugs it from his tawny hair, using his fingers to comb it. “Oh, this,” he holds up the hat, “was Buns’ idea. She got ‘em for us when we stopped for gas.”

“How was that?” He looks confused, so I add, “Stopping at a gas station convenience store?” Of course I’m referring to our aversion to going into one since our brush with death at the hands of Alfred.

He shrugs. “There are worse things than fallen angels, so I just try not to think about it. And I like my hat.” He puts it back on.

“It’s not too late, you know?”

“Too late for what?”

“You can still take Anya and go somewhere—I have all the money you’d ever need—you can be happy.”

He shakes his head. “I’m in this fight, Red. I can’t be happy livin’ with your ghost, knowin’ I could’ve helped you and I didn’t.”

“That’s just it, Russell. You won’t have to live with my ghost either way.”

His brown eyes see right through me. “That’s not what I meant, and anyway, I always liked your ghost. It would be a shame not to see it around once in a while, so I have to finish this with you so I can start over fresh, like you intended.” There is no bitterness in his words, just honesty.

“If all goes well, you won’t have to fight Emil ever again.”

“If all goes well, you get to live, ‘cuz I gotta tell you, Red, I don’t think eternity will be half as interestin’ without my best friend in it. Or him,” Russell tips his glass in Reed’s direction. “I kinda like him and I never thought I’d ever say that.”