I released my Sight again. My stomach twisted on itself, a burning, bitter feeling. "Shiela," I said quietly. "Stars and stones, it's all but your real name, isn't it? Lasciel."
"It's close," Shiela agreed quietly.
"Harry?" Butters whispered. His eyes were very wide. "Who are you talking to?"
"Shut up a minute, Butters," I said, staring at her. She regarded me quietly, her eyes now steady on mine. "That's what Billy was talking about. Bock started looking awfully odd when I was speaking to you at the bookstore. And you never interacted with anyone else. Never opened any doors in the store. Didn't pick up the book when I was looking for it." I glanced down at my hand, where she'd written her number in permanent ink. It was now gone. "Illusions," I said.
"Yes," she said calmly. "Some of appearance only. Some of seeming."
"Why?"
"To help you," she said. "I told you that I could not make open contact with your conscious mind. That is why I created Shiela." She gestured down at herself. "I wanted to help you, but I couldn't do it directly. So I tried to do it this way."
"So you lied to me," I said.
She arched a brow. "I had little choice in the matter."
"What about after you made contact with me?" I said, and my voice was bitter too. "I used the Hellfire and you came to me in a dream."
"That was after you met Shiela, if you will recall," she said.
"But you didn't need Shiela anymore."
"No," she said. "I didn't. But I found that I..." She rolled her shoulders in a shrug. "That I enjoyed being Shiela. That I enjoyed interacting with you as one person to another. Without being regarded with fear and suspicion. I know that you understand what it is like. You've felt it often enough in your own life."
"But oddly enough," I said, "I haven't gone off and pretended to be someone else to gain another's trust."
"You've felt that isolation for less than two score years, my host. I've lived with it for millennia."
"Yeah? How long were you planning on stringing me along?"
Her soft mouth turned into a firm line. "I was going to tell you once the night's business was done-assuming you lived through it."
"Sure you were," I said.
"I told you," she said. "I didn't want it to become a distraction for you."
I barked out a harsh little laugh. "And why should I believe that?"
"Because your death would mean the death of this part of me," she said, gesturing down at herself again. "The thought shadow of Lasciel would not survive your death-and the true Lasciel, my true self, would remain trapped for who knows how long. You have no idea of what it is to be trapped without sound, sight, or senses, waiting for someone to bring you forth from oblivion."
I stared hard at her. "I don't believe you."
"You need not, my host," she said, and gave me a little bow. "But that makes it no less true."
"You kissed me," I said.
Shiela- Lasciel's eyebrows lifted and she gave me an almost whimsical smile. "When I said that it has been a long time since I was close to anyone, I meant it. I enjoyed that contact, my host. As, I think, did you."
"Oh, let me guess," I said. "You did that for me, too. Because you wanted to help me."
"I kissed you because I desired it and because it was pleasurable. If you will recall, my host, I did help you. I gave you the summons to call the Erlking, did I not?"
I opened my mouth and then closed it again, struggling to find something to say.
"I have never wished you ill, my host," she said. "In fact, I have done all that I can to assist you."
I suddenly felt very tired and rubbed at my forehead. I reminded myself that Lasciel was a fallen angel. That she was one of the thirty demons of the Order of the Blackened Denarius. That she was known as the Temptress and the Webweaver, and that she was ancient, powerful, and deadly dangerous at the art of manipulation. She could not be trusted; nor could her little carbon copy that had taken up residence in my head.
But she had helped me. And she had kissed me. Sure, a kiss was just a kiss, but her desire for it, her hesitation, the sense of yearning to her had been genuine. She had wanted to do it. She had enjoyed it. She was one hell of a good kisser.
Hell being the operative word, I reminded myself.
"I can still help you, my host," she said. "You are a powerful mortal, but your foes are more formidable still. They will kill you." Her face took on an expression of frustrated protest. "Let me help you survive. Give me the chance to preserve myself. Please."
I stared at her for a moment. She looked lovely and sincere and afraid.
She looked exactly like the kind of woman in trouble whom I could never turn away.
"I have no intention of dying," I said quietly. "But you aren't going to be part of the equation."
"If you don't-"
"Save it," I told her quietly. "I know how this works. First I allow you to help with this problem. Then with the next one. Then with the one after that. And at some point I'll need more power for what will probably look like a very good reason and dig up the coin. And then you'll be able to do pretty much anything you want with me." I shook my head. "That's one big, long, slippery slope. No."
She clenched her jaw, her expression frustrated. "But I do not wish you any harm."
"Maybe," I said. "But there's no way for me to know that."
She arched one dark eyebrow at me.
Then, as quickly as blinking, the building was on fire. It rose up in a sudden explosion of heat and flame that engulfed the bare studs on the walls and chewed at the floor. Vicious heat assaulted my back, a searing pain that left me with no choice but to move forward. Behind me the fire roared up higher, and I looked around frantically, suddenly panicked. The only portion of the building that wasn't being swallowed by rising, hungry flame led to the broken window. I sprinted to it, spotted the old iron of a fire escape lattice beneath it, and ducked down to go through onto the fire escape before I was burned to charcoal.
And then the flames vanished, the air became cool once more, and the beat of rain replaced the roar of flame. I stood at the window, one leg raised onto the sill, the rain soaking my chest and my jeans.
And there was no fire escape outside the window.
There was only a long, long drop to the sidewalk beneath.