Page 149 of Hellbound

Marian sat on the edge of the bed thumbing through a stack of old Game Informer magazines Paul had brought her. He’d said she had a lot of Pokémon news to catch up on since she’d spent the last two years abstaining from fun.

Then Vale arrived like a dark cloud in the doorway.

Marian looked up to find him dressed in his signature black waistcoat and white button-down, his human guise fully intact. His jacket was draped over his forearm. A scant few wisps of shadow wafted from him.

Her eyes widened as the change in him became clear. Subtle things, but things that ought not to have appeared in a matter of days. Like the grey hairs at his temples and the severe lines of his face that had somehow sharpened further. She couldn’t decide if he looked like he’d aged a few years, or if something had made him appear harsher.

His eyes were the same eerie blue and still luminous under the shadow of his dark, angled brows.

It took way too long for Marian to realize they’d been staring at each other while saying nothing. And Vale didn’t seem at all inclined to change that; he watched like he simply wanted to take her in—the way Marian might have watched the sunrise.

Marian cleared her parched throat. “What are you doing here?”

Vale sidestepped into the room and leaned against the wall. His eyes roved over her slowly, as if searching for wounds her doctors might have missed.

“I’ve come to take you home.”

Marian arched a brow. “Yeah? And where might that be?”

The stern lines around his mouth softened.

“With me.”

Death had come to take her home. To his house in Pasadena.

She pursed her lips, considering him. Considering the absolute typhoon of chaos in her rearview mirror. His lies, his secrets, his true nature. The coercion, the backward ways he tried to tell her he didn’t think she was shit at all. The heady hours in that pool where he’d subjected her to mind-breaking pleasure.

After a moment of silence, he bowed his head.

“Or wherever you consider ‘home’ to be. The North Hollywood meth lab on cinderblocks is an option.”

Marian smiled a slow, sly smile.

“Meth lab on cinderblocks, please.”

She’d only been away a week, but the near empty apartment didn’t feel like hers anymore as she dropped her keys on the folding table. Vale brought them with him when he’d come to the hospital, anticipating that Marian would choose the least desirable destination.

Not even Jeff, the neighbor’s cat, had come to greet her with a welcome back hairball when she arrived.

The ride over was quiet, neither of them saying much. Vale answered her plainly when she mustered the strength to ask a question.

He explained how Paul and his contacts had been tasked with tracking down the remaining Argent. In the chaotic aftermath of Verinne’s death, neither he nor Paul had been able to kill any of the now-mortal remainder. Paul so far had learned that Preeti and one other had fled the state.

But Vale didn’t seem as agitated by that fact as Marian expected him to be. The Argent were mortal, their potential for destruction severely hampered, and as far as Vale could tell, he was still indestructible. He had all the time in the world to hunt down his remaining enemies.

Death would find a way. But the thought of everyone trapped beyond their world in the Remnant tarnished the prospect of a future without the Argent. Unless Hexceit changed their course.

Marian wasn’t sure what she’d wanted from her apartment. Spite had factored in on her decision to come here, but she thought, having not gotten the chance to grab any of her effects before she was kidnapped, that she would have wanted something from this place.

Everything there once belonged to someone else. None of it held any value or meaning for her. Vale walked slowly across the cramped living room to look out the window.

“I just watched someone put a slab of asbestos in the recycling,” he murmured, then looked over at her futon with a frown. “And that belongs in the dumpster.”

Marian cast the futon an affectionate glance. “That’s actually where I found it.”

“Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t buy this building and have it condemned.”

“The rats in the walls would be so sad,” Marian replied absently as she wandered toward her bedroom. Was there anything in there worth keeping? The sheets were nearly threadbare. She stared at the worn teddy bear print.