Page 8 of Ember and Ash

“I got this weird vibe off of Jeremy when he was declared innocent. I can’t explain it. I’m not sure he is innocent.”

“Don’t do that to yourself, Ember.”

“It’s making me uneasy, Oliver. I need to dig around—”

“No. I’ll dig around if you really feel strongly about this. You still have ethical confines to work under anyway. I don’t, not when I work for the office that tried to prosecute him. I will start digging today, and I’ll come by and bring you dinner tonight.”

He’s going to get himself killed. “You know what? You’re right. I’m tired and emotional. You can talk me off my ledge over dinner. Call me before you come over, though, okay?”

“Anything for you, Ember,” he says, and the line goes dead.

An hour later, Jeremy still isn’t answering his phone, and I’m climbing the walls. I have no idea what happened to me in that courtroom, but I felt an unexplainable evil rip through me, and I swear it touched my very soul. That evil was him. If I’m insane, it’s the really over-the-top kind of insanity, because nothing will convince me that what I saw when that monster touched me was my imagination. He made me see them die in brutal detail. He made it happen, and that sick bastard loved it.

I don’t know how he did it. He’s not normal in some way. Or maybe I’m not normal.

When pacing doesn’t calm my nerves, I actually have to use a technique a therapist used on one of my clients who’d been through a traumatic event. She had my client fill her mind with the process of counting, and it created a sense of control for her. And that’s what I do now. I count. I’m still counting when my cellphone rings with several back-to-back calls.

My father’s secretary informs me of a rush of press attempting to reach me through his firm, and I instruct her to ignore all requests. A few minutes later, my father himself is on the phone, lecturing me about my handling of the matter, which apparently sucks. On the bright side, my parents are sticking to their norm of promise and retreat. They’re not coming back to see me. They’re staying in Europe and far away from Jeremy, which works out. That’s exactly where I want them. At this point, I don’t know what to do with myself, and I’m feeling dirty from the prospect of earning money for freeing a killer.

I hit the shower, but there’s no washing away the guilt that coils in my belly and wreaks havoc. I know me. I won’t get past this until two things happen: I understand where I went wrong and do something to fix the problem that was created.

I dress for comfort and to avoid drawing attention to myself in a pair of black jeans, a black V-neck T-shirt, and matching black boots. With my car still parked at Starbucks, I order an Uber to pick it up. A short time later, when I’m tucked inside my own car, I decide to do something that is probably—okay, definitely—not smart: I drive to Jeremy’s apartment.

I have to stop him from killing again.

The Sacred Book of Nephilim

Blue is the color of Seraphim, an angelic being, regarded in tradition as belonging to the highest order, analogous with light, ardor, and purity. But the most brutal of all demons was once a Seraphim. When you mix Seraphim and Nephilim, do you find light or darkness?

Chapter five

Twenty minutes later, I pull my Camry to a stop on the street opposite Jeremy’s rather seedy South Austin apartment building. Guilt driving me, I’m committed to somehow saving the world from Jeremy, and I waste no time in parking, killing the engine, and exiting my car. I pay for the parking meter, my skin crawling with the sense of being watched, my gaze shifting all about, expecting someone from the press seeking an interview, but I find no source for my discomfort besides my own nerves and anxiety. Or is it him? Is it Jeremy?

Watching me?

Expecting me?

I dart across the street toward the cluster of four-story red-brick buildings before I talk myself into leaving. I ignore the crosswalks half a block down on either side of me. There are no cars coming, and I wish this section of town was busier this time of day. In the masses, there is sanctuary, a place to hide, and people to talk to or beg for aid. Instead, I discover a human vacancy, and with it, exposure and vulnerability. Truly, I can’t believe that I’m actually about to visit a killer in his own lair, alone and without backup, but indeed I am. I comfort myself with the fact that the desolate streets create a false façade of being alone. There are other tenants—people who will hear me scream if I’m terrified into such an action.

Unless the nearby tenants are at work, of course.

Quickly, and in defiance of my now aching head I didn’t get ahead of after all, I walk the path that leads to the inner section of the building that should be his. Once I’ve ensured I’m at the proper structure, I follow the signs on the walls and stop at Jeremy’s ground-level apartment. With a calming breath, I knock on his door and wait. I have no plan and no idea what to do about Jeremy, but I need to know that I still have the chance to do it—whatever it is. Feeling anxious, I knock again and wait some more.

A door behind me opens, and I turn, but only halfway, unwilling to place my back to Jeremy’s door. An elderly woman with curlers in her hair pokes her head out. “If you’re another one of them reporters, he’s not home. And before you ask, I don’t know where he is.”

“Is there a landlord who might?”

“Bella Marks,” she says. “Apartment 404, but she won’t be home for a couple of hours. She works another job.”

I dip my chin her direction. “Thank you. I’ll come back.” I start walking, feeling the woman’s eyes all sticky on my back as I depart but I’m not leaving without answers. If that means I have to wait awhile, so be it. I rush across the empty street to my parked car, grab my briefcase and purse from inside, and hike toward the cute little coffee shop I’d spied earlier, roughly two blocks away. You gotta love Austin, Texas, with all its quirky mingled neighborhoods. My steps are quick, my nerves quicker, thumping faster than my feet and reminiscent of my walk to the courthouse on pretty much any given day. I’m ridiculously relieved to reach my destination. The doors chime in alert, and I wave to the barista and park myself at a table. With caffeine as my friend, I spend the better part of two hours drinking too much coffee and reading through Jeremy’s file, trying to discover what I’d missed, but I find nothing.

I’m deep in my review when my phone buzzes on the table next to me with a message from Oliver: On target to be at your place at seven. I glance at the clock on my computer. It’s already after five. How have I let so much time slip away? I’ll never hear the end of it from him if he finds out I’m not home resting, let alone that I’ve gone looking for Jeremy. I don’t reply to the text. It’s sneaky, I know, but I desperately need him to believe I’m asleep.

But I darn sure get moving.

I scoop all my files into my briefcase, bundle up, and I’m just passing the counter when a tall, thin man with glasses steps in front of me, and we collide. I gasp and almost double over as ice rips down my spine and an image of a man, this man, consumes my mind. His eyes glow yellow, and, oh my God, he’s choking a woman.

“Excuse me,” the man apologizes, his hand closing around my arm, and nausea curls in my belly. “Are you okay?”