I walked around to the side lawn, then the back. It was big for New Orleans, with plenty of space on the sides between the neighbors’ houses. Patches of grass were black where magic had struck like lightning, but a few live oaks had survived the war. They were gorgeously creepy, Spanish moss hanging down from long, gnarled branches.
Fog swirled in a sudden shift in the wind, rising in a column that spun like a dervish until it sank to the ground. And in that moment, before the fog lifted again, I saw a dark figure move across the lawn between the arching branches of the oaks.
My heart began to pound. I hadn’t actually expected to see anything out here. Not after my run-in with the wraiths, and the fact that Zach had chased them off tonight. And maybe it was nothing. My very overactive imagination. Or someone from the family who wanted fresh air.
But what if it wasn’t? I ran through the possible options. One, a wraith, waiting for another chance to attack. Two, a nosy neighbor. Three, someone else doing their own investigation about the wraiths who’d attacked Emme.
I thought about yelling for Liam, but that might have scared the person off. And I didn’t want to do that. If someone was spying on the Landreaus, or if the wraiths had come back for another bite, we’d need to know.
My boots, thankfully, were silent and soft, and didn’t make a sound as I snuck around and into the grass. I darted to the closest tree, waited for a moment in case I’d made too much noise, ears straining for sound.
I knew I wasn’t as scared as I should have been. It wasn’t that I thought I was invincible; I wasn’t naive. But I was being careful, and I figured the odds were better that whatever was out here would run away as soon as it saw me.
As slowly and quietly as I could manage, I looked around the trunk of the tree I’d been sheltering against. There, at the other end of the alley of oak trees, maybe forty feet away, stood a man. He was tall, broad-shouldered, with light hair. The darkness had dulled colors to black and white and gray, so I couldn’t tell much else.
Then the wind shifted again, moving fog and shadows, and revealing the arch of wings at his back.
I froze, and my bravado wavered. There was a chance it was an innocuous Para—a cloud nymph, maybe, what we’d have called a Nephele.
But most things with wings were things to be avoided. Angels with their golden bows, Valkyries with their deadly spears. Both were ferocious fighters.
Memories rushed me, made my hands shake with adrenaline and fear. But like I’d done so many times before, I put them away. There wasn’t time to be weak, to be afraid. Especially not if one of them had managed to avoid Devil’s Isle and was hunting again.
I shook my head. After last night, I didn’t have the right to assume all Paras were enemies anymore, no matter how terrifying. I had to be more open-minded. And I had to be very, very careful.
I moved around the tree, took one step forward, then another, until I stood in the middle of the trees, nearly in line with him.
If he’d had a bow and arrow, I’d be a straight and easy shot.
“No,” I mouthed. I wasn’t allowed to think about that.
I screwed up my courage, took a breath. “Who are you?” I called out.
The man turned back to me. I still couldn’t see his face, but his eyes shifted golden in the pale light that sifted through the trees.
“Golden eyes, better be wise,” went the war song that warned children to stay away from angels.
There was a shift of light as his wings retracted, disappeared. That was one of the reasons angels had been so terrifying during the war: You didn’t know they were angels until they were preparing to fly.
Darkness engulfed him again. I couldn’t tell if he was friend or foe, if he was waiting for a moment to strike—or looking for the same information we were. After all, the wraiths’ violent existence only strengthened the idea that Paranormals were bad, dangerous, and always our enemies.
“Claire?”
I jumped at the sound of Liam’s voice, glanced back in surprise. And when I looked at the tree line again, the man was gone. “Damn.”
“What are you doing?”
“There was someone out here.”
His gaze shifted to the oaks, scanning back and forth. “Where?”
I pointed out the spot. “I think it was an angel.”
“I haven’t seen any angels outside Devil’s Isle. You’re sure you saw wings?”
I nodded. “Yeah. And I’ve seen Nephelai and Valkyries. I know how to tell the difference, even in the dark.” Especially in the dark. “It was an angel.”
“I’m not sure getting closer to it was a great idea.”
“And you’d have let him fly away?”
“Fair point.”
“Damn right it is.” I walked forward, both of us searching for a clue about who the angel had been, and what he’d been doing here.
Liam crouched, hands folded in front of him. “Here,” he said, pointing at a shoe print in an area just soft enough to hold the impression.
“Why would he be out here?”
“I don’t know,” Liam said, and I didn’t like hearing that tight, concerned tone. He was worried. He rose again, and we stood in the dark for a moment.
“Thank you for coming here tonight. For Gunnar. And for me.”