by Elicia Hyder
“Getting worse by the second with you here. Go!”
I blasted the balcony doors open and dragged Vito outside. After checking the street for onlookers, I stretched my wings but kept them dark.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, what are you doing?” Vito struggled to say in the crook of my elbow. He clawed at my arm, desperately trying to keep his feet underneath him.
“Taking you for a ride. You better stop struggling so I don’t drop your ass.”
With a powerful thrust, we lifted into the air.
Samael was waiting when we reached the villa. I had called him from the air. Thankful for the cover of darkness, I silently landed in the alleyway Cassiel and I had run to the day before.
I dragged Vito across the street and through the front door Samael was holding for us. “Where did you find him?” he asked.
“In the middle of a work in progress.” Once we were inside, I released Vito and shoved him into the center of the downstairs living room.
Hopefully realizing he was cornered, Vito took in his surroundings. Samael walked slowly around behind him, and the two of us circled the killer like hungry sharks ready for a meal.
He looked worse here in the bright light of the villa than he had in the bedroom where we’d found him. Dark veins spiderwebbed his face, and his cheeks were drawn, and his eyes were sunken.
“How did you get here?” I asked again.
“Why should I tell you?”
“Because if you don’t, I’ll do this.” I gripped his body with two invisible fists and twisted his torso in opposite directions like he was a human dishtowel.
Nothing happened.
Anybody else would be crying in pain, bent to my will so I wouldn’t break them. Vito Saez—or rather, the body he occupied—didn’t even grimace. I released Vito, and he stumbled forward.
I looked at Samael behind him. Samael just shrugged.
I conjured my power into my hands once more. “This is the last time I’ll ask. How did you get here?”
Vito’s head tilted, and he laughed until he began to wheeze. “Are you really going to kill me? Go ahead. I’m not afraid to die again.”
He really wasn’t. I let my power extinguish. “You’re right. I won’t kill you. How about I send you back to the pit?”
That got his attention. His spine straightened, and his eyes doubled.
“Oh, you don’t want to go back to Nulterra?”
He didn’t answer.
Time to close in for the kill. I took a step forward. “How did you get—”
A fly crawled out his nostril.
I gulped. “How did you leave Nulterra?
Vito swayed. “I told you. I walked. I walked right out.”
“Walked right out to where? Where is the gate here on Earth?” Samael asked.
Vito staggered a few steps.
I looked at Samael and switched to communicating silently. “What’s happening?”
He shook his head. “I’m not sure. He’s controlling the body without occupying it. I didn’t even know that was possible.”
Vito bent at the waist and spewed blackish blood all over the hardwood. It smelled putrid, like rotting meat. I jumped back to keep it from splashing my boots. “Oh damn,” I said, covering my nose to block the smell.
Samael sidestepped quickly toward me as Vito fell to the floor.
Vito vomited again.
I grabbed Samael by the shirt. “He’s dead, and our presence is feeding it.”
He nodded. “At this rate, he’ll die before we get any answers out of him. What do we do?”
“We need to wait for Cassiel.”
“And in the meantime?”
I looked around the living room then smiled. “Think we can find any rope?”
A few hours later, the nearby sirens had quelled and the emergency boats were gone. The only noise that remained in the Venice night was the gentle slosh of the canal water against the buildings. And the sloshing of Italian beer against our glass bottles.
“Think we should check on him?” I asked.
Samael tilted his bottle up to his lips again. “Nah.”
Coming down a side street, I heard the subtle, rhythmic rustle of pants rubbing with a walker’s stride.
Cassiel emerged from the darkness and paused over the bridge when she saw us. “What are you doing?”
I held up my beer. “Drinking. Isn’t that what we do here in Italy?”
Shaking her head and staring at the ground, she trudged forward. I stood from the patio chair we’d dragged down to the front walk. “You OK?”
She didn’t look up until she reached me, and when she did, she walked right into me, dropping her head against my shoulder. My arms froze, suspended for a moment before they closed around her. I looked at Samael for help. He just shrugged.
I leaned close to her ear. “What’s the matter?”
Shaking her head, she took a step back. “Later. Where is he?”
“Inside.”
Her head tilted.
“You told me to keep him alive.”
I followed her into the villa. “My stars,” she said when she saw him.
Vito Saez was duct-taped to an armchair.
She turned and looked at me and Samael in the doorway. “We couldn’t find any rope,” he said.
“What happened to the floor?”
“He started vomiting blood. That’s when we decided it best to step outside,” I said.
With a heavy sigh, she walked over to him, then turned and looked back at us when we didn’t follow. “Am I doing this alone?”
“If you want him to keep breathing long enough to get an answer,” Samael said.
“We tried, but that’s when the blood spray began.” I closed the front door and leaned against it. “We’d better watch from here.”
I wasn’t even sure she’d get an answer from Vito. He was alive, but I wasn’t sure for how much longer. His disjointed soul seemed to be pulling away from its temporary host. His eyes were slowly darkening, and every few seconds, the swirling purple soul seemed to flicker to a position just outside the body.
Cassiel ripped the tape off the man’s mouth. Part of his lip came off with it. She dropped it on the floor and gripped his head by his black hair, forcing him to look at her. She gripped both sides of his ashen face. “Who are you?”
“Il mostro de Venezia,” he said with a bloody smile. “Signore Vito Saez.”
“How did you come back from Nulterra?”
“Moloch brought us through the gate.”
“Us? How many other humans?”
“Two others.”
Cassiel looked at me.
“We’re missing one,” I said quietly to Samael.
“Who were the other two?” Cassiel asked him.
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
“Nulterra is not a social club,” he said.
Her hands were squeezing his skull so tight her fingers were turning purple. “Where is the gate?”
He didn’t answer.
She leaned closer. “Where is the gate?”
“La Isla del Fuego,” he hissed.
“What does that mean?” I asked.
“The Island of Fire,” Samael translated.
“Where is it?”
He shook his head. “I’m not sure.”
“Sounds appropriate.”
“Yes, it does,” he agreed.
“I only know of two islands with that name, or a variation of it, anyway.” Cassiel forced Vito to look at her again. “Where is the island?”
“In the sea.”
“Tell me the truth!” Cassiel shouted, her fragile patience finally cracking along with Vito’s cheekbones and jaw.
He gasped and coughed and showered her face and shirt with blood. I crossed the room and grabbed her arms, pulling her backward. “That’s enough for now. Come on, Cassiel.”
Vito slumped forward as much as the tape would allow. Dark blood oozed out of hi
s mouth and dribbled down the front of his shirt. Cassiel turned and crumpled against me again.
I held her head against the crook of my neck. “What is it?”
“I want him to die,” she whispered into my shirt. “I want you to kill him right now.”
I nodded against her hair. Then I caught Samael’s eye and jerked my head to beckon him forward. I passed her off to him, then turned toward Vito once more.
He was close to death already.
I finished him.
Then the world swirled to black.
I woke up sometime later in the guest bed upstairs with no memory of anything following Vito’s final execution. My head throbbed, and when I sat up, I nearly passed out again from the pain and dizziness. I took several deep breaths and rubbed my throbbing temples.
The shower was on in the bathroom, and I heard it cut off.
I waited for Cassiel to emerge.
She didn’t.
I finally pushed myself up. Thankfully, the pain in my head had calmed. I walked to the bathroom door and knocked. “Cassiel?”
Nothing.
Then I heard the tiniest shaky gasp for air.
I waved my hand in front of the knob. The lock clicked, and I pushed the door open slightly. “I’m coming in.” When I heard no objection, I walked inside.
Cassiel was wrapped in a towel, sitting against the side of the tub on the floor. Her hair was hanging wet over her bare shoulders, and her face was red from crying.
I sat down beside her and held her hand.
After a few beats of silence, she let out a quiet sigh. “The girl he attacked tonight…she’s dead. Well, her body’s on life support, but Jaleal took her to Eden.”
My face fell.
“She’s pregnant too. It’s a boy.”
Damn.
I leaned my head against hers. “I’m sorry.”
She sniffed. “I’m not supposed to care about them.”
“Yeah, you are.” I looked down at our hands joined together. “Otherwise, why would the Father have put you in charge?”
“Maybe.” She looked at me. “You fainted.”
I frowned. “I passed out. Men don’t faint.”
A small smile spread on her face.
We were quiet for a while. I squeezed her fingers. She squeezed mine. Then I drew her hand to my mouth and kissed her knuckles. “Come on,” I said. “Let’s go to bed.”
While Cassiel dried her hair, I lay on the bed and texted Azrael. Vito Saez is dead, but not before claiming another victim. A pregnant woman.
My phone rang. It was him. I tapped answer and put the phone to my ear. “Hi.”
“I’m glad you caught him.”
I sighed. “Yeah, me too. When I killed him, I passed out. Has that ever happened to you before?”
He laughed. “No.”
“It’s not funny. My head still hurts.”
“Poor kid.”
“Shut up, Azrael.”
“Did you find out where Vito came from?”
“A place called La Isla del Fuego. Ever heard of it?” I’d tried googling the place. A big island off the southern tip of Argentina came up, but its name was slightly different.
“Seems like I remember an island by that name or something similar in the South China Sea.”
“Thanks, I’ll try searching for that.”
“What’s your plan?”
“Tomorrow, I’m coming back to Asheville to return your blood stone before we go to Eden.”
“I appreciate the heads-up.”
“You’re welcome. What’s going on with Adrianne?”
There was a beat of silence before he answered. “I’ve tried to convince her to do fetal blood sampling, but she’s afraid it could hurt the baby.”
“Is that why you’ve sent her away?”
More silence.
“Az?”
“She’s gone with her mother on a shopping trip.”
Sure. But the less I knew, the better, so I let it drop. “Has there been any more trouble at Wolf Gap?”
“No. Your family is safe, and as much as I hate to admit it, Chimera is making them even safer.”
“What did she find out today?”
“She was able to pinpoint how Moloch got into the mainframe. He tapped into the connection coming in from the main Claymore servers in New Hope. Tomorrow, she’ll set up Wolf Gap to run independently, and add a few more fail-safes to Echo-5.”
“That’s excellent.”
“It really is. You made a good call bringing her in.”
I smiled. A father’s pride never gets old.
The bathroom door opened and Cassiel walked out wearing a white cotton T-shirt and gray cotton shorts. Her hair hung loose over one shoulder, and she was barefoot.
“Az, I need to go. We’ll see you sometime tomorrow, probably late morning.”
“All right, have a good—”
I pulled a Fury and hung up before he could finish.
I sat up and put the phone on the nightstand charger. “Feel better?”
She walked around to the other side of the bed and pulled back the covers. “No. But I’m glad he’s dead. At least he can’t hurt anyone ever again.”
I rolled onto my side to face her, propping my head up in my hand. “Yeah. Never again.”
Lying on her back, she gripped the comforter that was pulled up to her chest. “I hate being on Earth. Everything feels too much here.”
The tension radiating off her was almost palpable. “I know. We’ll go home tomorrow.”
She nodded. “Would it be all right if we slept close tonight? My nerves are still so—”
“Shh.” I scooted closer, pulling my pillow over beside hers. Then I tangled our feet and slipped my forearm under her neck. “Better?”
“Thank you.”
I was still propped up on my elbow. My black hair falling around my face as I looked down at her. She reached up and pushed it back, then let her hand linger on the side of my neck.
Slowly lowering, I kissed her.
And she kissed me back.
Nothing happened.
At least not after that kiss, anyway. That mind-blowing, Eden-shattering kiss.
When the sun rose the next morning, she was still in my arms. I hadn’t slept that well on Earth…maybe ever.
Samael had cleaned up the mess in the living room, vaporizing the body and all the blood. The smell was thankfully gone.
We said our goodbyes downstairs. “What’s your plan?” he asked.
“I’d like to have one last meal before we leave Italy. Then I want to return to Asheville and make sure Iliana is safe and give the blood stone back to Azrael.”
“Please send my regards,” Samael said.
“I will.” I offered him my hand, and he shook it. “Thanks for all your help.”
“Of course. I’ll see you back in Eden. Goodbye, Cassiel.”
She smiled. “Goodbye.”
When Cassiel and I left, we had a quick late breakfast on the Calle dei Morti, then we walked to St. Mark’s Square and toward the water. She paused in the middle of the open piazza to admire the basilica one last time.
Bright rays of sunlight bounced off the church’s domes and the colorful mosaics that filled its arches. “I must say, Venice is as beautiful as I’d always heard it was,” I said, unable to keep my arm from slipping around her waist.
She nodded and smiled. “It really is.”
“That’s a big compliment coming from a snob like you.” My fingers dug into her hip, and she flinched, laughing.
After a second, she rested against my side. “I ate pizza from a bar. You are no longer allowed to call me a snob.”
“Whatever you say.” Looking up at the church again, my head tilted to the side. “It looks a little like the Avronesh, doesn’t it?”
“I can see that. If the Avronesh was about a hundred feet shorter and had tiny people standing on top.”
I squinted, looking at the building. “I thin
k those are angels.”
She laughed. “That’s funny. If they only knew, right?”
“If they only knew.” My laughter faded, and I rested my head against hers. “You know, even with hunting a killer, this is my first time away from Eden that I’ve had even a little bit of peace.” I sighed. “Thanks for that.”
She turned around in my arms. “After last night, I should be thanking you.”
I bent to kiss her again. This time, she dodged.
I pulled back with the surprise.
She flattened her palms against my chest. “Warren, with everything going on and my position on the Council…”
I stepped away. “Say no more.”
“I just think it’s better if we stay friends until everything’s resolved, and then see if maybe—”
I laughed, but none of it was funny. “OK.”
She was saying we should cool it until after the fate of my daughter had been carried out.
Awkward silence hung between us for a moment. “Come on. We’d better catch the water taxi back to the mainland,” she finally said.
“You’re right.”
Then I turned and walked off without her.
Chapter Nineteen
Reuel was the first to see us when Cassiel and I arrived in the front yard of Echo-5 again. He waved from the entrance to the building. I waved back, and we started toward him. Even though I’d checked when we were inside the breach, I scanned the building to be sure its emergency shutters were closed.
The parking lot was now full. Two heavily armed members of SF-12, Pirez and Wings (I remembered their names without a problem) stood with Reuel near the armored door. The three of them were laughing. Hard.
“What’s so funny?” I asked as we walked up.
Pirez had tears sparkling in his eyes. “Reuel’s telling us stories about the boss. Did he tell you about Azrael’s invention for a floating tank?”
Reuel shrugged. “It was just a boat…with guns.”
Pirez and Wings cracked up again.
I pointed at Reuel. “Az is going to kill you.”
He grinned.
“Is he here?” I asked.
“You just missed him,” Wings said, still laughing.
That was strange. “I assumed he’d be micromanaging the cybersecurity issues.”
Pirez dabbed the corners of his eyes dry. “He was, but Ionis stopped by with a message. Then they left together. Said he’d be back as soon as possible.”