Page 33 of Vanish Into Light

“It’s like I said before,” Lance said, “we’re looking for a heavenly object. Something that actually camefromheaven.”

“What?” Wallace frowned – but Rose caught the flicker of his lashes, that quick throb of his pulse in his temple. “This is an occult shop. Where would I get anything like that?”

“You tell us,” Rose said, “since you’re clearly lying.”

“What? No, I–”

“It’s this.” Morgan stepped forward, and reached for him.

Wallace yelled, and fell back, hands flying up to cover his face.

Lance made a disgusted sound.

Morgan, undeterred, took hold of the silver pentagram pendant and tilted it toward the light – cold and electric, back here – smoothing her thumb over its surface. “This is it. This is a heavenly token.”

“What?” Lance asked.

Rose said, “Are you sure?” But she knew she was. Morgan didn’t get things wrong.

Wallace’s chest heaved where the pendant had once rested; he’d gone pale and clammy, face gleaming sickly. “I – I don’t–”

“What was it, originally?” Morgan asked, meeting his wild gaze with her own placid, unfathomable one. “It was melted down and recast. To hide it.”

Wallace breathed raggedly through an open mouth, and managed to shake his head, once, despite the tremors that were rapidly claiming him.

“Answer her,” Rose ordered, lifting her gun again.

His gaze rolled toward her, and, after a moment, he blinked, and seemed to decide that she was serious about shooting him. He let out a deep breath and seemed to deflate, becoming even smaller. “It’s not mine. Or, at least, it wasn’t originally. This guy came in the store about a year ago. Asked me to hold onto it for safe keeping. It looked like that when he handed it over – it was a pentagram.”

“Are you still lying?” Rose asked.

“No,” Morgan said, thumb still swiping back and forth over the pendant, staring at it as if transfixed. “He’s telling the truth.”

“Who was the guy?” Lance asked. “Was he human?”

“As far as I could tell. His eyes weren’t…” He gestured weakly to his own with a nod toward Morgan.

“You got a name? An address?” Lance pressed.

“He said his name was Noah. He was – he was terrifying.”

“More than us?”

“Yes,” Wallace said, right away. “You don’t understand, I can’t describe it…but I knew that I had to do what he said.”

Rose stepped in and pressed the muzzle of her gun against his forehead; he went utterly still. “Now,” she said softly, “you have to do what I say. We need an address.”

He stared up at her a long moment, cross-eyed from trying to see the gun to his head. Finally, he gulped, and said, “I don’t have an address. But he said you could find him at the Highwater Club.”

“Gav, you catch that?” Lance asked.

Rose’s earpiece beeped. “Yeah. I know that place.”

“Good. Anything else we need here?” he asked, turning to Morgan.

“I need this.” With a quick, effortless flick of her wrist, she snapped the pendant forward; the cord bit into Wallace’s neck, leaving him gasping, before it broke, and the angel pocketed the token. “Now we can go.”

“The Highwater Club, hm?” Beck hummed in her ear – in all their ears, she supposed – as they left the dingy shop and emerged back out onto the sidewalk. A fine mist had begun to fall, the clouds overhead darker for it. “You all know what that is, right?”

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