His sorrow had me struggling for air. To be so lost. So alone.
“Are you going to come in anytime soon, because it’s getting really late.”
I jumped in surprise to see Sister Mary Elizabeth standing outside Misery.
Awe swelled inside my chest. “Did the angels tell you we were coming?”
“No, I saw you pull up.”
“Oh.” That was kind of anticlimactic.
“And the angels never tell me anything. I just kind of overhear their conversations.”
“Right. I forgot.”
I coaxed Quentin out of Misery and introduced him to Sister Mary Elizabeth and the three other sisters who’d come out to greet us. They huddled around him like mother hens, checking a scrape on his face and a large cut on his wrist. A couple of them even knew ASL, to my utter delight. He’d be fine. For now, at least.
They herded us into the convent, made us soup—which tasted much better than the vomit that still lingered in my mouth—and hot chocolate, and then proceeded to ask me a million questions about what it was like to be the grim reaper and what it was like when people passed through me until the mother superior came in and broke up our party. Sister Mary Elizabeth had told them all about me, so it was only natural they’d be curious. I couldn’t help but notice how they skirted the issue of Reyes. They knew who he was, what he was, and how we were connected.
I turned to Quentin. He’d been having a riveting conversation with Sister Ann about how Xbox had the best graphics and the best live streaming. Sister Ann knew her game systems, and she had completely disarmed the shy youth.
He put the sunglasses back on so he could understand me.
“You’re going to stay here awhile—is that okay?” I asked him.
“Can I stay with you?”
“No, you need to be on holy ground to be safe. My apartment is more, well, unholy.”
He nodded and looked around him, pretending not to be affected by the prospect of staying in a house with a bunch of nuns, though he did seem kind of relieved.
“If you need anything, text me.” I handed him my card. “Wait, do you have a phone?”
He patted his jacket and jeans pocket, then pulled out a phone with a huge smile. Then it faded as he tapped on keys. “Dead,” he signed with one hand.
“I can get you a charger,” Sister Mary Elizabeth signed, her enthusiasm endless.
“Thank you,” he said gratefully. Then he asked me, “What’s your name sign?”
I bowed my head in mortal shame. “I don’t have one. None of my Deaf friends will give me one. Every time I ask, they say they’re still thinking about it. It’s like they’re avoiding the issue.”
“Why?”
“I think it’s because I have so many good qualities, they can’t decide which one to focus on for a name sign.”
He chuckled softly. “Hearing people are crazy,” he said, his signs vague, as though pretending I wouldn’t understand him.
“Oh, yeah?” I asked, puffing up my chest. “Well, Deaf people talk with their mouths full.” I burst out laughing at the oldest joke in the Deaf handbook.
Quentin rolled his eyes, and I took the opportunity to go in for a hug. At first he stilled; then he almost draped himself over me, hugging me back like his life depended on it. We stayed in that embrace until Quentin loosened his hold. I kissed his dirty cheek as we pulled apart, and he bowed his head in that sweet, shy way of his.
“I’ll be back soon, okay?”
“Wait,” he said, suddenly worried. “Do nuns eat bacon? I really like bacon.”
Sister Mary Elizabeth tapped his arm to get his attention, then signed, “I love bacon. I’ll make some for breakfast, okay?”
He nodded, then let the sisters, thrilled with the prospect of protecting him, usher him out to show him the living quarters where he could bathe and get a fresh change of clothes. He seemed relaxed and grateful, which made me relaxed and grateful. And I could tell the mother superior had taken a shine to him. Something deep inside her stirred when her eyes met his, something warm and maternal, and I wondered what memory surfaced when she looked at him.
After everyone left, I pinned Sister Mary Elizabeth to her chair with my infamous fluster stare. She didn’t seem to get flustered, though, if her bright, slightly ADD gaze was any indication. A gaze I could totally relate to.
“I know what you’re going to ask me,” she said in that rushed way of hers.
“Good, then I don’t have to ask. What have you heard?”
Sister Mary’s superpower lay in her ability to hear the angels. Literally. Like a supernatural wiretap without the wires. It was how she knew about me and about Reyes and about Artemis. She’d been listening to supreme beings talk about us for years. I could only wonder what they had to say. I wasn’t that interesting.
She bowed her head and stared into her tea. It was unlike her. She was about to give me some very bad news.
“They’ve discovered a way to track you.”
Oh, well, that didn’t seem too bad in the grand scheme of things. “Who? The demons?”
“Yes, the fallen. They’ve devised a new plan.”
“They’re possessing people,” I said in disgust. “Is that their big plan? To take over humans’ lives? To destroy them? They possessed that boy for no reason.”
“They had a reason.” She ran a fingertip through some spilt sugar granules. “They’re only possessing people who are sensitive to the spiritual realm. Who are clairvoyant.”