I swear I see her flinch.
Then her eyes go past me to the window.
I turn and see the lights from the Mercedes go on outside.
Jacob.
Eight
“I’ll be right back,” I tell Ada, quickly putting down the wine and running to the hall, throwing on my coat before heading outside, hearing her go, “Perry?” before I close the door on her.
I’m not about to miss this opportunity.
I run right in front of the Mercedes before it has a chance to pull away, and though the headlights are blinding me, I can tell Jacob is probably cursing me under his breath.
Satisfied that he’s not going to drive off, I head to the driver’s side where he manually rolls down the window and eyes me.
“Miss Palomino,” he says to me in his dry British accent, his thick red hair and amber eyes glowing in the street lamp, the scars on his face looking craggy in the shadows.
“Mrs. Foray,” I correct him. “And hi. Sorry to flag you down like this but I was hoping I could speak with you.”
He presses his lips together for a moment, squinting at me with distaste. Then he sighs. “I figured you would at some point. Why don’t you hop on in?”
“Where are you going?” I ask, feeling a bit uneasy about getting in the car with him, though I don’t really know why.
“To get a pack of smokes,” he says. “Old habits die hard, don’t they?”
There was definitely some extra meaning in that.
“Sure,” I tell him, going around the back of the car, sliding in the passenger side.
Here’s the thing about Jacob “The Cobb” Edwards: He’s not normal. And I don’t mean it in the way that I’m not normal, I mean it like I’m not sure he’s even mortal. While he looks like he’s in his late fifties, he’s been around since who knows when, not quite a guardian like Max, I suspect something of more importance and power. He used to be the manager for Sage Knightly’s rock band Hybrid in the 70s and he infamously died, buried beneath a pile of bones in a crypt in Prague.
Alas, death never seems to be final for these gingers. Jacob said a friend pulled him out of Hell, and I have a feeling I know who it is. Now Jacob lives with the Knightlys next door.
“Buckle up, love,” he says smoothly, putting the car in drive. “Can’t be too careful these days.”
I fasten the seatbelt as he pulls the car around and heads down the street. I know Dex and my dad are probably still burying the birds so I send both Dex and Ada a quick text letting them know I’m with Jacob.
I feel Jacob’s eyes on me, and I slide the phone back into my coat pocket.
“Don’t want them to worry now, do we?” he says, reaching over to the console and turning up the heat, his gaudy gold watch glinting as we pass under the lights. The car is freezing, but I didn’t want to say anything.
“How did you know I was going to talk to you?” I ask him, pulling my coat closed. Please don’t tell me he’s all-knowing, all-seeing, because that’s going to get really annoying.
“Because you’re here,” he says, glancing at me. “Surely you have questions about Ada.”
Okay, so he doesn’t know everything. I abandon my plans to ask him about Max for now.
“What’s wrong with her?” I ask. “She seems tired and on edge but she won’t speak to me. She barely texts me anymore, doesn’t tell me shit. Even my dad seems like he’s falling apart.”
“She’s been having a tough go of it lately,” he says. “Normally I wouldn’t confide in you behind her back, but I do have to keep the order of things, and things have certainly been going out of order.”
My heart clenches, hating that I’ve been kept in the dark. “What happened?”
“Not just one thing. Many things,” he says with a sigh, adjusting his grip on the steering wheel. In addition to the watch, he’s got some giant gold rings with gems in them, which strangely complement his brown velvet blazer and orange shirt. The man dresses in everything awful about the 70s, though tonight he’s a little more subdued.
“And what are those things?” I ask, failing to hide my impatience.
“She really doesn’t tell you anything?” he asks mildly, brow raised, and I have to say it hurts to hear. “Well then. Over the last year she’s been training, as you know. With me, with Jay. She’s become quite adept at opening and closing portals. She doesn’t quite do any fighting yet, but that will come. What happened with your mother and Legion, well that seemed to be a one-off thing.”
“So she’s not Ada the Demon Slayer yet?” I ask. It feels ridiculous to say it like that, but that doesn’t stop it from being true. Besides, the more outlandish it sounds, the more it sounds fake, and the less I worry about her.
“Not quite,” he says. “And luckily there hasn’t been a lot of need for it. Until recently.”
“Why recently?”
“I have some ideas. Energy is a strange beast. There aren’t a lot of you out there, the ones who can see behind the Veil, but you all seem to come together and find each other, don’t you?”
I nod. I’m thinking of how Dex and I found each other. I’m also thinking about my doctor, Lana Leivo, and how she’s like me too.
He goes on. “The Veil walls are growing weak in places, and it doesn’t help that Jay and Ada are…well, together.”
Oh, so he knows about that. I was always under the impression they were hiding it from him.
“I know you knew that,” he says, eyeing me. “And I have to say, they did a bloody good job of keeping it under wraps. Your sister is adept at putting up walls and keeping things from me. From you too, it looks like. Or perhaps all the Palomino women have this gift?”
I say nothing.
“Unfortunately, it is forbidden all the same. The more they are together, the worse things will get, and when they were out there trying to push back demons and close portals, things got sloppy. They got sloppy because they are too entwined with each other and not thinking clearly. So I did what I had to do.”
I think about what Ada said, that Jay is gone.
“You killed him?” I whisper in horror.
Jacob laughs. “Oh, love. Where your mind goes shouldn’t surprise me.” He gives me a wry smile. “No, I didn’t kill him. I just transferred him to someone else.”
“Oh my god. That’s somehow worse.”
“It’s not worse,” he says, his gaze growing sharp. “They both knew this could happen. They knew the risks.”
“So she’s never going to see him again?” Like, holy shit, how the hell is Ada even handling this right now? No wonder she was crying over the birds.
“She’ll see him again,” he says. “This is just to break their bond. He’s taking care of someone else right now and eventually he’ll come back to her. They can start fresh.”
I shake my head, feeling absolutely awful for my sister. I hunch forward in my seat, my stomach hurting. “They’re in love with each other,” I manage to say. At least Ada is madly in love with him.
“All love stories must end,” he says rather cryptically. “They all have their bumps in the road.”