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My father had indeed talked to Valerie about her last wishes, and he’d already started making the arrangements by the time we arrived. Jerome took Aurora and Ariel out to feed the unicorn. Mom was glaring at me as only a mother can do, and I didn’t know why.
“Where’s Duke?” she finally asked.
“They went to check in with the sheriff’s department and highway patrol,” I told her. “They’re going to meet us here afterward. Now, why are you staring daggers into me?”
“Your uncle called this morning to find out what time you’d be around, because he’s training you as an apprentice investigator.” My mom spat the words out.
“Oh, well, not really,” I shrugged. “I’m helping him, yes, but mostly because he thinks the person that did this to Bill and Camilla will come back to finish the job. And because although exorcisms may pay decently, it isn’t like I have work available every day. If I can investigate fraud cases like Janet, I can make more money.”
“Why do you need to make more money?” Mom asked.
“I haven’t been hoarding shiny things since the beginning of time,” I told her.
Human evolution and supernatural evolution don’t line up exactly. Humans started in Africa. Supernaturals started in the Americas. My father was born near this area thousands and thousands of years ago. He moved back here when Westward expansion began. Which was why Lucifer and Zadkiel were buried in the plains. Right now, Lucifer’s true form was buried on my parents’ farm.
“No, Soleil, we can do with you what we do with your sister, we’re willing,” Mom said. I blinked at her, clueless regarding what she was talking about.
“If I was only going to live for 50 years or so; that would be fine. I suspect I’ll be around for a good long while; I can’t sponge off my parents the entire time,” I told her.
“Investigating serial killers may shorten your life span!” Mom retorted.
“Mom, Remiel is investigating the serial killer. I’m just making sure Bill, Camilla, and their brood don’t die in the meantime,” I told her and felt a pang of guilt. Valerie had died because I was helping Remiel. I’d traded one life for another, and Jerome and Valerie had been the ones to suffer. I turned on my heels and started toward the door, not wanting either of my parents to see or feel my shame. I reached for the doorknob to go check on Jerome and the door burst open. Its momentum, coupled with my own, made me walk straight into the edge of the door. I felt my face instantly begin to bruise and blood dripping down my cheek.
“Soleil!” Remiel shouted, jumping toward me from the doorway. “Rags and ice!” my uncle snapped. My sister handed me an ice pack as Mom came up to apply paper towels to my bleeding face. My entire face hurt. I had literally walked into a door. Fan-fucking-tabulous.
The kids came running in while blood was still being soaked up by paper towels and ice was still being applied to my left eye. My mom explained what had happened and they all stared at me wide-eyed. Then Jerome snickered, his horror at the situation subsiding.
“Oh man, you have a black eye already,” he said. He touched my hand and I felt magic. Not healing magic—exploratory magic. “The good news is you’re already healing the broken nose and the busted lip will probably be fine tomorrow. Today, you’re going to look like someone hit you in the face with, well, a door.”
“Awesome,” I whispered. When the blood finally stopped flowing, I got up and went into the bathroom with Jerome right behind me. I looked in the mirror. I had a red line that started just above my eyebrow and traveled down, skipped over my eye which was indeed already black and puffy, and picked back up on my cheek. It was only a few centimeters from my nose, which was pushed to the right a bit more than normal. It continued down my cheek, stopping at my lips. Both the top and bottom lip were cut, and then the red line appeared on the tip of my chin on the left side. Both lips were puffy, and I had a feeling that later today the red line would start to turn a dark purplish blue and tomorrow it would be that sickly green-yellow that bruises change into. I healed faster than a human, but not as fast as a full angel. If I’d been my father, the black eye would be healing already, as would my lips. I wouldn’t even have a bruise.
“It looks like it hurts,” Jerome said.
“It does.”
“You’re angry.”
“I walked into a door. I feel stupid and that makes me grumpy,” I answered.
“You were angry before that,” Jerome said. “You sometimes talk in your sleep. you were yelling at yourself last night in your sleep.”
“Jerome, I am so sorry. If I hadn’t had everyone bring the surveillance videos to our house, your mom would still be alive,” I admitted and felt the world swim a little. I grabbed hold of the sink and waited for him to yell at me. Curse me to the moon and back. And I’d deserve it.
“You don’t know that, you aren’t omnipotent. I don’t forget the laws of cause and effect. You can beat yourself up with doors all you want, but the fire, my mom’s death curse, and all of this, none of it is your fault. If my father hadn’t been murdered, I wouldn’t have been in that neighborhood where you found us, I would have been in a different house, I would have had a different life, one in which my mom never received her death curse. But my father was murdered, betrayed by his own coven. Ultimately, the only one responsible for my mom’s death is the person that set your house on fire.”
“How’d you get to be so wise?” Remiel asked from behind the teen.
“I’ve had to practice,” Jerome said. “If I didn’t, I’d blame myself for both of my parents’ deaths. They both died because I have so much power. If it weren’t for my power, my dad wouldn’t have been murdered and they wouldn’t have put a death curse on my mom. It’s the first thing Camilla and I started to talk about, my desire to accept responsibility for the actions of bad people. My parents’ death isn’t my fault, neither of them. Soleil, you didn’t kill my mom. The person that cursed her did that, even if it required the intervention of another wicked person with a firebomb to finish the job.” Jerome’s words didn’t absolve me of guilt, but he was right, and I knew it. I was able to let go of some of my anger. I hadn’t killed Valerie; the death curse and some jerk with a Molotov cocktail did, and I was going to see him punished for it. If we got lucky, he’d be a supernatural and be able to serve two or three-hundred years in prison.
“Azrael says you’re a quick learner, even though you don’t have much drive,” Remiel said to me.
“That’s nice,” I answered with a touch of sarcasm.
“I put the books I owned about investigator law in your car already. You can start reading them this week. Today, you’re coming to my office,” he said.
“What about my office?” I asked.
“We both have wings—it’s too small,” Remiel answered. What about a babysitter? What about my boyfriend? What about my life? I wondered.
“What are you doing?” Jerome asked, sounding suspicious.
“I’m going to learn to be a private investigator.”
“And you’re starting with a murder case?” He narrowed his eyes at me.
“Sort of,” I shrugged. “I’m going to assist Remiel with this case and learn from him.”
“What happens to me if you die?”
“I’m not going to die,” I told him.
“I know you’re not going to die of old age or falling off skyscrapers, but you aren’t truly immortal,” Jerome said.
“Jerome, if you don’t want me to help Remiel, say so and I won’t. But I assure you, nothing is going to happen to me.”
“But it could,” Jerome answered, sounding small and child-like.
“Yes, it could. But unless they cut my wings off and I die of blood loss, it’s unlikely,” I said, glancing at my wings in the mirror.
“Could you survive being shot?” Jerome asked.
“I have,” I said, pulling down the corner of my shirt and exposing my left shoulder. There was a small circular dark patch of skin there, the only reminder of my one and only time encountering a possessed human with a gun. “Zero out of ten, would not recommend or do again.” Jerome let out a long, loud sigh.
“I don’t know why I’m worried, I saw you defeat a hell prince and I saw you conjure your uncle’s soul back into his true form.”
“Both of which are scarier than a serial killer,” I nodded. “Even if the killer turns out to be a supernatural.”
“Yeah,” Jerome looked at me. “Make me a promise, just one.”
“If I can,” I said.
“If you get captured by a serial killer, you’ll bring forth a demon to put in him. Make sure it’s a prince or duke, one you’re familiar with,” Jerome said.
“You want me to call forth a demon and perform a possession as a form of protection?” I asked him.
“Yes,” he answered. “Even with all his rage, I noticed Beelzebub didn’t try to kill you when he had the chance. I think demons are afraid of you and respect you because of it. I’m positive that if you performed the possession, they would stop the human from trying to kill you,” Jerome said.
“I promise,” I said, thinking this entire conversation had stepped onto the luxury coach of the crazy train that was hurtling toward a concrete wall at the speed of sound.
“Soleil, I know you think I raised the zombies in the graveyard, but I didn’t. I just put them back down. It was you that called them forth. I felt your magic when it brought them over. They can’t resist your call, just like they can’t resist your commands. Since all of the Stygian is built of Lucifer’s magic, I think you could call him forth if you needed to and I know he would protect you.”
“Lucifer is an angel,” I said.
“All demons are angels,” Jerome touched my hand. “I felt his love for his brothers and for you that night.” I stared at Jerome. And I stared at him a little longer, holding his hand in my parents’ bathroom, both of us now standing in front of the mirror. Jerome often looked older than 14, but right this second, he looked younger, so much younger. Yet, I felt his words had truth in them, a truth that I didn’t understand. History in angel school had bored me to tears, and maybe Jerome had learned something I hadn’t.