Page 86 of Hounded: Ashes to Ashes

Tucking it under my arm, I started back toward the group when someone tapped my shoulder from behind.

I whirled around, pulse jumping and nostrils flaring as I faced the man who had managed to take me by surprise.

Not a man. An angel.

Evander was dressed in a custodian’s uniform and holding a dustpan and broom. He didn’t work here. He didn’t even belong here, which meant he’d come looking for us.

My hound growled.

“Always such a friendly fellow.” Evander huffed a humorless laugh.

For as easily as I could sniff out tarnished souls or hound-possessed humans, I’d never been able to sense the angel’s presence. He was often nearby, closer than I wanted him, and more interested in our lives than he had any business being.

“What do you want?” I asked.

“We need to talk,” he replied.

Leaving would lead him to Indy, so I was forced to stay put and hope the spite in my glare would cow him. Evander didn’t relent, instead crowding into me and lowering his voice as he carried on.

“You know things,” he said. “Things you’ve been keeping them from me. About Hell. About Indy.”

His blue eyes targeted me with icy intensity, and my lips peeled back in a snarl.

“Why would I tell you anything?” I snapped. “We aren’t friends, Evander.”

“But we could be allies,” he said. “We should be in this. You need help.”

“Not yours.”

I stepped backward and, again, he closed the gap. We must have been making a scene on the boardwalk, standing in plain sight, both looking our most severe while talking circles around each other.

“Listen here, puppy dog,” Evander said gruffly. “You are out of your depth. Plain and simple. That phoenix is a coveted resource. I was happy to sit by and let you two play house, but now the rest of Hell is involved, and that creates a problem for me.”

I stopped listening the moment he referred to Indy as an object instead of a person. It made the angel no better than Nero, a fiend I despised, seeing only what “that phoenix” could give him and caring little for the measures required to get it.

“We’re done talking.” I turned toward the midway, the opposite direction of Sully and the others. If Evander followed, I would lead him in circles until we both grew bored of the chase. But I’d only taken one step when his next statement stopped me.

“He’s dying, Loren.”

I jerked around, nearly colliding with a woman who cut too closely past. The forced dodge staggered me, but not nearly as much as the angel’s words.

“What did you say?” I asked.

Evander’s heaved breath caused his shoulders to droop. “His fire is going out. Maybe it’s out already. You would know.”

I bristled at what sounded like an accusation. “Indy’s immortal,” I replied. “He doesn’t die.”

Not permanently, anyway.

Evander’s brows drew together to form a line. “Nothing that was once human can be truly immortal.”

His matter-of-fact tone left little room for doubt. Indy’s firewasgone, along with his wings and, more recently, his tears. Sully had called it regressing, but maybe…

“The phoenix power has kept him alive for a long time,” Evander continued, “but the bird is dying. If the demons manage to capture Indy, they’ll use what’s left of him, and he’ll be gone forever. A vapor. A wisp?—”

“I understand,” I grunted.

Evander frowned. “Do you?”

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