Wings of the Wicked

10


WHEN I GOT TO SCHOOL IN THE MORNING, I LOOKED for Kate’s red BMW like she had instructed. She was sitting inside since it was about negative four thousand degrees out, so I hopped into her passenger seat.

“What time are they doing their thing today?” she asked, pulling her cell out of her purse.

“Ten.”

Kate scrolled through her phone book until she found the number she wanted. On the second ring, whoever was on the other line picked up. “Yes, this is Diane Monroe,” she said, mimicking my mom’s voice almost flawlessly. “Elisabeth Monroe’s mother. Yes. She has a doctor’s appointment at ten this morning. If you’ll have her excused at nine thirty … Yes, she’ll be returning to class afterward. That’s perfect. Thank you so much. Buh-bye.” She dropped her phone back into her purse. “It’s done.”

“You are going to get me suspended,” I said as nerves wound their way into my gut.

“Only if you’re stupid and get yourself caught.”

“This isn’t going to work.”

“It will if you stop acting like such a boob. If you freak out and look suspicious, then they’ll get suspicious. This is a covert op. Try not to look like you’re up to something, and no one will think that you are.”

I had such a bad, bad feeling about this.

The note excusing me from class came halfway through first period. That meant I got to stare at it for about an hour while my nerves got the better of me and I lost confidence in my ability to pull this off. I’d never cut class before. My heart pounded like a jackhammer as I dropped off my backpack at my locker and headed for the office with just my purse and coat. The secretary was pleasant to me and I signed out, barely able to breathe the whole time.

I followed the directions I’d printed to an older apartment complex on a street off Orchard Lake Road. The parking lot was quiet and the property was heavily wooded. I sat for a few minutes with my car running to stay warm, wondering if Will and Ava had beaten me here. I hadn’t realized I was so tense until my phone buzzed and I jumped with fright. I pulled it out to see that Kate had sent me a text message.

Hows it going, 007?

I took a long, bored breath and texted back.

Nothing yet.

Want me 2 bring u a cappuccino?

That sounded so good.

We arent both skipping school.

U know u want 1.

Movement out my window caught my attention. Appearing from the Grim, Will and Ava dropped gracefully from the sky with their wings wide before feathers and all melted back into their shoulders.

Thats them. text u later.

I turned off my car and pulled my coat tighter around me as I climbed out. It was hard to meet the look of disappointment in Will’s cool green gaze. Every time I did, stabs of ice hit my stomach. I had everything planned until what I’d say when Will got there.

“Ellie,” he said gently. “What are you doing?”

“I should be doing this with you,” I said. “We’re a team. I’m already out of school, so take me with you.”

Then he smiled, much to my shock and relief. “All right. To be honest, I’m glad you’re here. I didn’t want to do a mission without you.”

“I’m ready for this.”

His smile widened. “Then let’s go.”

“Keep your energy suppressed,” Ava said. “Zane has been the guardian of this relic for a long time, and he will sense us coming. We don’t want him to think he’s under attack and retaliate against us. He likes to cause damage and ask questions later—and he can cause a lot of damage.”

“But won’t he recognize you?” I asked, confused as to why he’d start a fight if he knew Ava.

She grinned. “Like I said, I’m not his favorite person. I haven’t been for decades.”

“Just stay calm,” Will said to me. “We’re not expecting a fight. Just be on guard.”

His words made me relax some, but I couldn’t help feeling like something was already very wrong. We climbed the stairs to the third floor and found apartment 310. The door was ajar and the wood was splintered as if it’d been forced open. The ill feeling in my gut spun and festered. I knew we were too late.

Ava didn’t waste any time; she pushed the door open carefully. She summoned the long, vicious talons through her fingertips and crept into the living room. Will followed, calling his sword, and entered on the other side of her, his back close to the wall.

It looked as if a tornado had blown through the apartment. Couches were shredded, their stuffing blanketing the living room like snow. End tables were overturned and one was shattered. Something had smashed the television, and paper, shards of glass and plastic, and a potted plant were strewn everywhere. I looked at Ava, whose face was hard and pale as she examined the room.

Then a rancid and overripe odor filled my nose and I clamped my hand over my mouth, almost gagging. Something was very clearly rotting. “Oh, God,” I groaned. “What is that?” It couldn’t be the relic guardian. Reapers didn’t rot when they died. They either burned up in angelfire or demonfire, or they turned to stone. Was it human?

Will stepped by me, following the scent into the kitchen, where he stopped in the doorway, his expression turning grave. At his feet was a river of dried blood that had flowed from the kitchen into the dining room.

“What is it?” I asked, my voice trembling.

“Don’t come in here,” he responded firmly. “Stay back, Ellie.”

Ava turned toward him, her gaze darkening. “Is it a body?”

My heart plummeted when he nodded. “Human. She may have heard the commotion and come to check on the place. The face is too badly damaged and her rib cage has been torn open. She was definitely fed on by reapers. There are no large bites, so she must have been killed by demonic vir.”

“How long has she been there?” I asked, bile swarming in my throat. Images of brutal reaper kills I’d seen before flashed in my head, and I was very okay with taking Will’s advice to stay put. I had vision of my own half-eaten body lying at the feet of the mysterious vir that Cadan had warned me about. I could be next.

Will didn’t look up. “Days.”

Ava’s jaw tightened and she stomped toward the back rooms. She kicked open a closed door, took one look, and moved to the second bedroom. Will and I followed right behind her, and in the mess of the bedroom, I could see congealed blood splattered across the walls and carpet.

And the pile of gray stones in the far corner. We’d found Zane.

Ava stepped up to the rubble hesitantly and knelt down, her movements slow and quiet. She picked up the largest piece of stone and cradled it in her hands. Biting down on her lip, she brushed her thumb across stone lips and a square jaw, all that remained of his face. Her shoulders slumped, and she drew a long breath before tucking the piece into the inside of her jacket. She was still and silent for several moments until she rose and stared at Will.

“I’m sure the relic is gone,” she said. “But I know where he kept it in every location he stayed in. I’ll check anyway.”

Will nodded and she passed us both, heading for the kitchen. She pulled open the drawer beneath the stove and slipped her hand inside, feeling left and right across the ceiling of the drawer. With a cry of rage she ripped her hand back out and punched the front of the stove, her fist tearing right through the steel with an agonizing metallic groan. She straightened and ignored the blood running down her arm and pooling at her feet. “It’s not here. They took it. They killed him and took it.”

“I’m so sorry, Ava,” I said, watching her carefully.

Her eyes snapped to mine. “Do not weep for me or for the relic guardian. He did his duty. The only thing of value that we lost today was the relic.”

My heart broke for her and for Zane. I didn’t understand why the angelic reapers valued their lives so little. All life was too precious to just throw away.

A flash of power behind us made Will and me spin around. A blond-haired girl—no, a vir reaper—had appeared in the doorway. I willed my swords into my hands and lit them up just as her large eyes, dark and glossy as obsidian, fell to them, widening in surprise.

“You,” she breathed, gaping at my swords.

Before I could attack, Ava blurred past me and grabbed the girl by the throat and crushed her back into the wall across the hallway. To my shock, the girl knocked Ava’s arm away, freeing herself, and threw a punch. Ava ducked and kicked high, striking the side of the girl’s head. The girl hit the ground, blond hair flying, and rolled right back up to her feet.

“Wait!” she cried, but Ava kept coming. Ava jumped up, kicked into the wall, and propelled herself higher, wheeling through the air to strike the girl again, but the girl leaned back and avoided the blow. “Stop!”

Ava landed and launched herself at the girl again with her foot-long talons springing free.

“Ava, wait!” Will shouted, darting past me to the battling reapers. He grabbed Ava’s shoulder and wrenched her back, throwing her into the wall and putting himself between the two. He called his sword into his free hand and poised it at the unknown reaper in warning. Ava struggled against his grip, blind with rage.

“Identify yourself,” he ordered the girl, who flinched at his voice. “Or I let this one go. She seems to like you.”

The girl straightened up, smoothing out her disheveled hair and touching her jaw, momentarily squeezing her eyes shut with pain. “I’m Sabina,” she said. “I work with Zane. However, judging by the damage here, I assume he’s dead. Is that true?”

He ignored her question. “You’re angelic?”

“Of course I am.”

“Ellie,” Will said, meeting my eyes and then looking pointedly at Sabina.

I knew what he wanted me to do: test her the way I’d tested him the day we met, so many lifetimes ago. The unknown reaper’s black eyes, eyes that reminded me of Ragnuk’s demonic glare, were fixed on my swords again. Eyes that made me doubt her angelic heritage.

She looked back up to my face. “I know who you are, though I never thought I’d ever see you myself. You’re real.”

“Sure am,” I said, a little embarrassed by her invasive staring. Occasionally I met a reaper like her, one who had heard about me for hundreds of years but had never come across any of my incarnations. To most reapers, I was like Bigfoot, just a ridiculous story with a few questionable pieces of evidence left behind. I stepped up carefully to Sabina, who held out her arm, opening her palm. I raised my sword.

“Do what you must, Preliator,” she said.

I cut her hand, angelfire covering her skin. I lowered my sword, and she held up her palm so we could see the wound healing to perfection. Sabina was an angelic vir, just as she claimed.

Ava shook herself away from Will’s grip and their gazes clashed, her anger with him deadly clear. He’d done the right thing and she knew it, and I guessed that made her even more furious. She rolled against the wall and examined her arm, which ran with blood.

“I’m sorry,” Sabina said to Ava. “I didn’t kill him. He was my friend. I’m sorry, if he was yours too.”

Without a word, Ava was gone, storming from the apartment and slamming the door shut behind her.

I started to follow her, but Will put a hand on my shoulder to stop me. “Wait,” he said gently. “Give her a moment.”

He was right. I began to believe that Ava and Zane had been much more than just lovers—and for a long time too, if she knew where he preferred to stash the relic he protected.

“Your name is … Ellie?” Sabina asked, studying me in the curious, shameless way that many reapers had. After all, it was kind of a human thing for children to be taught not to stare.

I nodded.

She looked at Will. “And you’re the Preliator’s Guardian. It is incredible to meet you both. Were you here for the Constantina necklace?”

“The what?” I asked, confused.

“The relic,” Sabina explained. “The Constantina necklace that Zane was sworn to protect. If he’s dead, then they probably found it. They wouldn’t leave unless they had it.”

A shiver went through me. “By ‘they,’ you mean Bastian’s vir.”

Her jaw set. “Bastian has been searching for the necklace for some time.”

“Why are you here now?” I asked, still a little suspicious of this stranger.

“Zane hasn’t returned my phone calls for a few days,” she said, her voice falling. “I came to check on him and found you. Is he in there still?”

She must have been referring to his stone remains. “Yeah,” I said. “But the relic was gone from under the stove.”

She blinked at me, confusion filling her gaze. “What? The stove?”

“That’s where Ava said he kept it,” I elaborated.

Sabina blinked again, her confusion now mixed with surprise. “I never knew where he hid the relic. He never told me.”

And with that, I knew the truth between Ava and Zane, and suddenly I felt even worse for her than I had seconds ago. There was nothing more sad than losing the one you loved.

“Zane is gone,” Sabina said. “I need a new mission. Do you have need of me, Preliator?”

“Um…” I was a little taken back. I thought of Ava and Marcus, who made up our little army. Even they might not be enough.

“I’m a good fighter and I’m strong,” she urged.

I watched her carefully. “Is that what you did for Zane? Fought alongside him?”

“When he needed me,” she said. “That’s why I came today. He’d never gone this long without contact. I’ll give you my number and you can call me anytime. It would be an honor to fight for you.”

These reapers and their missions. I took out my phone and saved Sabina’s number.

“Let’s go,” Will said, and touched my arm.

I followed him out to my car, where Ava sat on the hood, staring into the woods beyond the parking lot. Will stopped, but I kept going and stood next to her. She didn’t look at me or acknowledge my presence, but her blue-violet eyes were red and raw. The space between us was fragile in the chill air, the uncertainty like tiny cracks spreading through thin glass.

“Ava,” I said. “I am sorry. Don’t think his death doesn’t matter. I know he mattered to you. I’m sick of you reapers and your feelings of worthlessness. The relic is gone, but it’s not as important as anyone’s life. We’ll get the necklace back, I promise you.”

To my shock, she smiled sadly, gazing through the trees. “He mattered to me, but the only thing that mattered to him was that stupid necklace.”

I studied her face. She took a deep breath and seemed to grow smaller, more vulnerable. A single tear fell from her eye. She wiped at it angrily, as if it were an ugly blemish she wanted no one else to see.

“He loved me,” she said. “I know he did. But his duty to protect the relic was more important to him. So I left him to his duty. I knew he’d die because of it one day, but I wanted to live my life. He was so angry when I left. That surprised me—how furious he was with me. He was so willing to hate me, but so hesitant to love me.”

Tucking her hair behind her ears and folding her arms across her chest, she looked at me finally, offering me a kind, hopeful smile. She looked so human in that moment. “At least he put up a hell of a fight, huh?”

I smiled weakly back. “Yeah.”

“I just want to know why no one else heard,” she said, and suddenly she was all business again. She straightened herself and looked to Will. “What do you think?”

He shrugged. “Think about Nathaniel’s aspect. If the attacking reaper was strong enough, he could wipe the minds of any humans close enough to have overheard. Either they never noticed or they remember nothing of the incident. Human minds are easily tampered with. Nathaniel would have had no trouble covering this up.”

“Right,” Ava grumbled bitterly. “Well, Bastian has quite the assortment of thugs. I’m sure he’s got a vir for every occasion.”

The idea of Nathaniel, or another vir, being capable of manipulating the human mind disturbed me. It seemed like the ultimate violation of a person. The mind was supposed to be a safe, sacred place, and for it to be torn open and completely vulnerable was a terrifying idea. I had no clue how to protect myself against such an attack and prayed that I’d never have to.

Suddenly, I couldn’t bear to be in the parking lot, so close to that place of death. “I’ve got to go back to school,” I said briskly. “I can only get away with playing hooky for so long.”

“All right,” Will said. “But let’s go back to Nathaniel’s and eat first. You should have a rest before going back.”

That sounded like a wonderful idea. As soon as the thought of food entered my mind, my stomach clenched and growled. I blushed when I saw Will grin.

He gestured toward my car. “Let’s get out of here.”

We rode back to Nathaniel’s house. Ava took off, and Will made lunch for the two of us. When I glanced at my cell, I saw a text from Kate but didn’t answer it. Instead I checked the time.

“I’ve got to run,” I said, stuffing the phone into my back pocket and taking my dishes to the sink to scrub them clean and stick them in the dishwasher.

Will watched me silently from his seat at the table before he rose to follow me out into the living room toward the front door. He caught up to me and pulled lightly on my fingertips, slowing me to a stop. I turned to him and smiled, studying his gaze when he didn’t say anything.

“What’s up?” I asked, allowing him to pull more of my hand into his own and rub my palm with his thumb. He sucked in his upper lip, and I knew then that he was nervous. My smile faded.

“I have to tell you something,” he said. “Because it’s not right that I keep this from you any longer. I don’t want to keep anything from you.”

“Okay …”

“Do you remember when we said no more secrets?” he asked as he stared at the ground, his voice faint and small.

I swallowed hard and something tightened in my chest. “Yeah.” The word was almost nothing.

“It’s been eating away at me,” he said. “Devouring me from the inside out.”

I shook my head, studying his dull green eyes in confusion. “What are you talking about?”

“I thought everything was over.” His voice was cracking, and he took a long, deep breath to steady it, but the effort was useless. “I believed that I’d failed for the last time, that you were gone forever, because of what I’d failed to do for you.”

Fear tightened around my throat as I tried to figure out what he was trying to tell me.

“I loved you,” he continued, looking up to meet my gaze at last. “And I was broken for so long. For forty years, I waited and waited and searched for you. I hadn’t seen Nathaniel in over a decade, and I was so alone. Marcus and Ava came around a few times, and after being alone for so long, I stopped thinking or feeling. I hated myself for losing you.”

I felt an urge to reach for him, but I was afraid to. “I don’t understand. What are you trying to tell me?”

“Ava and I grew close,” he said, looking away from me. “We …”

“So it’s true, then. You slept with Ava?”

“Yes.” The word was barely audible, barely anything more than a small exhale of air through those lips I’d kissed and loved.

“I don’t even know what to say.” I swallowed hard.

“You don’t have to say anything, Ellie.”

My fingers were numb. I tightened them into balls and stretched them back out to regain sensation, but as I did, the rest of my body began to lose feeling everywhere. “So she’s not demonic or a spy or anything. The only reason she hates me is because you slept together. All this time, you told me there was nothing between you two, and there was.”

He started to reach for my hands. “She’s only my friend. She is nothing compared to the way I feel about you.”

“You don’t have sex with people who are only friends!”

“Ellie.” He sighed my name in that way of his that could calm me during any storm but this one.

“You told me it wasn’t what I thought! You lied to me!”

“I didn’t lie to you,” he said tiredly. “I never dated her. We were never anything more.”

“Well, you wanted something from her!” As soon as I said it, I was sickened by myself. I didn’t even know what I was saying anymore.

His expression darkened and his brow furrowed as anger boiled to the surface. “I didn’t want anything from her! It was a mistake!”

Tears were streaming down both sides of my face now, pooling in the corners of my mouth. I didn’t know how I’d gotten so upset so quickly. “So you broke it off with her? Just like you did with me?”

“I thought you were gone!” he repeated, his voice breaking. When he spoke again, his voice was lower, but he had little more control. “I was dead inside. I believed I’d lost you, the only thing that made my life worth something! You are all I knew, Ellie, and I’d died along with you. I never loved her, never loved anyone but you in all these centuries. You were gone and I gave up. When I found you again, barely a year afterward … I can’t describe to you what it felt like to see you again after believing with every last thread of my soul that you were gone forever. Seeing your smile brought me back to life and killed me again at the same time. I felt like I had to tell you, after all these centuries, how much you meant to me, how much I have always loved you, in case I lost you again and you never came back. In case I never got to say it to you at all.”

I was sobbing now, and at some point I had sat down on the sofa and hadn’t even realized it. I buried my face in my hands, tugging at my hair, desperate to rip the images of Will and Ava kissing, touching, out of my head forever. He sat tentatively next to me, but he didn’t reach to comfort me, didn’t murmur into my hair the way he often did when I was upset. He did nothing. When I pulled my hands away from my face and looked at him, he was watching me, his eyes dull and dark. It wasn’t like we were together then, or even now, and it wasn’t like he cheated on me. I didn’t have a claim to him, but I felt like I did, and knowing all that didn’t make it hurt any less. I couldn’t be mad at him or hate him, because I didn’t have a right to.

I stopped crying, wiped at my face with my hands, and climbed shakily to my feet. I faced him, looking down at him where he sat. He took my hand, his gaze lingering on it soberly, and I allowed him to pull me close. His touch was warm, unsteady, and gentle as he ran his fingers across my palm and wrist and then wrapped both his arms around my body. His palms opened on my lower back, and he tugged me toward him gently as he sat there, and he rested his face against my belly. He gave a small squeeze and kissed me there, his lips pressing to the sweater I wore. It took me a few moments to regain my composure and the strength to pick my hands up to touch his face, lift his chin, and smooth my fingers over his rough cheeks, his lips—and then he smiled beneath my fingertips, and my heart broke.

“I need you,” he said, and turned his face to kiss my palm.

Something collapsed in my chest and my lips trembled. “I need you, too.” I ran my fingers through the silk of his hair.

“Nothing has ever meant more to me than you,” he whispered. “You are all I know.”

“Don’t say that,” I said, shaking my head. “It’s not true.”

“I have never lied to you.”

I had to leave before I started crying again. I pulled away from him, and his hands slipped from around my waist and fell. “I’ve got to get back to school before lunch hour is over.”

“I know,” he said.

Without saying good-bye, I left Nathaniel’s house and drove back to school. The rest of the day went by in a blurred daze, and I made a point of avoiding meeting Kate, only texting her back to tell her that I had learned nothing at all.