by Kristie Cook
“Crap, Tristan, you never showed me that one!”
He chuckled. “I don’t like to use it. I can aim the fire perfectly, but it’s hard to control once it starts spreading. Besides, it’s much more effective to paralyze the enemy—or take them out completely with one shot.”
I gaped at him, realizing I never completely understood just how powerful he was.
He raised his eyebrows. “Your turn.”
I looked down at my hands—my normal, human hands. They had performed all kinds of tasks over the years, from typing to changing diapers, from cleaning to throwing things, from punching a dirt-bag in the nose to caressing my baby’s cheek. Normal, human hands—amazing all on their own. I certainly didn’t expect them to ever shoot fire.
“C’mon already,” Owen moaned, apparently growing bored.
I lifted my left hand and made the same motion as Tristan had. I felt a strange tug, as if a thin thread was being drawn through my veins and out the center of my palm, pulling toward the tree. As soon as it—something—hit the tree, the feeling disappeared. A small wisp of smoke rose and a black dot marked the bark, but nothing singed. And, although I’d experienced a physical feeling, nothing visible projected out of my palm.
“Hmm. Let me see how strong it is,” Tristan said. He walked about ten feet out and stood in front of me. “Try me.”
“What? I’m not doing that!”
He laughed. “If that’s all you can do to the tree, I can take what you have.”
He crossed his arms over his chest and stood with his feet shoulder-width apart. He wasn’t going to budge. I sighed and twisted my hand at him.
“Huh . . . that’s interesting,” he said. His lips pulled into a grin. “I felt an electric current. A shock.”
Like when we touch? I wondered, and he nodded.
I gasped and stared at my palm as if it had turned into some mutant shape, but it still looked the same. “It was always me?”
Tristan laughed again. “Guess so. I guess I pulled it out of you. Now try with your other hand.”
I did. I didn’t feel anything.
“Hmm . . . I felt a little warmth,” Tristan said. “Try again, but with your palm straight out.”
He demonstrated by holding his arm out and his hand up, as if motioning me to stop. I mimicked him and focused on pushing energy through it. I felt a ribbon of . . . something . . . a warm and soft feeling . . . flow through my arm and out my hand.
“Yeah, warmth. Ah.” He smiled. “Amadis power.”
“Really?” I bounced on the balls of my feet with elation. “Like Mom and Rina?”
“Not quite. It’s still pretty weak, but I can feel it.”
I looked at Owen, and he nodded approvingly. My insides squirmed with excitement as I wondered what other abilities I might gain with the Ang’dora. Having powers like this was the shit!
Chapter 14
After the guys decided we’d exhausted the possibilities of any powers I’d gained, Owen fixed cheesy eggs for brunch that he and Tristan inhaled while I picked at mine. I wasn’t hungry at all, my stomach feeling as if I’d already eaten a plate of worms. Anxiety for the afternoon ahead of us writhed inside me. As soon as he finished eating, Owen disappeared.
“Why are we doing it this way?” I asked Tristan as we left the house. “Why don’t we all just flash all the way to the bank?”
“Because we need to be cloaked the whole time, and Owen can’t keep us cloaked when we’re flashing. If we appear in the wrong place at the wrong time . . . there are Daemoni looking for us everywhere.”
“So, this is probably another stupid question, but why can’t we just flash into the vault where the safety deposit boxes are and flash back here when we’re done?”
“Because we need the bank’s key that matches our key to open the box.” I was about to point out that he could easily open it himself if he wanted to, but he caught onto my thought. “It’s against the rules to use magic or powers to gain access to a bank vault.”
My brows scrunched. “Whose rules?”
“The Amadis. No using powers or magic for personal gain.”
“Oh.” I remembered many years ago, when we’d run into Ian, who had left the Amadis for the Daemoni. He’d complained about all the rules and control the Amadis had over him, and now his dissatisfaction made a little more sense. “But this isn’t exactly personal gain. They’re your belongings, right? It’s not like we’re breaking in to steal a pile of gold bars or someone else’s money.”
“We’re not allowed. That’s how it is.” He abruptly stopped in the brush and lifted my hand in front of me. The air itself seemed to waver, like it does when heat rises from a hot asphalt road. “That’s the shield. Can you see it? Can you feel it?”
I nodded, though I only saw it because the air vacillated when I touched it, and I felt nothing.
“As soon we cross it, we have to flash immediately. I need to concentrate, since I’ve only done this once before.”
The worms in my stomach wriggled again. The memory of Vanessa and the others flashed in my mind, followed by the pseudo-memory of Tristan writhing on the ground in a foreign land. Until now, we had been safely confined within Owen’s shield around the beach house. The estate had served as our refuge. Now we were about to leave its safety, risking our lives or separation again. I felt sick and imagined throwing up worms. Sweat beads popped out on my forehead.
“It’s okay, ma lykita. We’ll be okay.” Tristan lifted me into his arms.
“Just don’t let them separate us,” I whispered. “I don’t think I could live through it again.”
“Never, my love. But we’ll be fine. We’re just going to the bank.” He winked at me, calming my fears. It’s hard to be scared when your mind goes blank. “Ready?”
I nodded and tucked my face against his chest. He took two steps, then flashed us both. The air was sucked out of my lungs, as if a vacuum mask had been applied to my face. In a second, everything changed around us—the feeling of the air, the smells, the sounds. I automatically inhaled deeply, trying to fill my lungs again.
“You did it!” Owen said with a note of triumph. He stood next to a black Mercedes sedan with tinted windows, parked behind a small, brick building. I could see the words Key Largo Christian Church hand-lettered on a sign by the street. Owen had come ahead of us to lease the car because the Ferrari was too small for the three of us and too beat up anyway . . . and because the Daemoni knew to watch for the conspicuous sports car.
Tristan set me on my feet, and Owen started rubbing his hands together.
“Wait,” Tristan said, and Owen stopped, lifting an eyebrow.
Tristan took my necklace off, fished the key off the chain, then returned the necklace to my neck. He handed the key to Owen, who stuffed it into his jeans pocket. Then Owen rubbed his hands together again and thrust them at us. If Tristan still hadn’t been holding my hand, I would have assumed he had flashed. I could see myself perfectly, but there seemed to be nothing but air where Tristan had stood a moment ago, although the sandy ground indented where his feet were planted. Owen had cloaked us. He ushered us into the back of the car, then jumped in the driver’s seat and drove us farther north.
The key I’d been wearing with my pendant all these years opened a safety deposit box at a bank in Miami. Owen pulled the car into a parking garage beneath the building. We followed him inside, staying close to Owen to prevent anyone from bumping into us. The stiff, commercial-grade carpet inside didn’t register our footsteps. As long as we remained silent, no one would know we were there.
I felt uneasy, though. My sixth sense—the one that told me whether a person’s overall intentions were good or bad—didn’t seem to be working. Nobody registered, not even the neutral people. Instead, a low humming sound filled my head. I hoped the Ang’dora wasn’t removing that sense. I’d come to rely on it, especially the alarms the Daemoni set off. Now I felt as if I’d lost one of my connections to the outside world, almost as bad as l
osing my sight or hearing.
With that loss, the feeling of vulnerability slid over my shoulders and down my arms, as if an actual cloak were falling to the floor and exposing us in the midst of the enemy. The feeling was irrational, of course. So was my fear. After all, one of the best warlocks and the most dangerous creature on Earth protected me. Nobody could even see us anyway, and like Tristan said, we were just making a trip to the bank. Daemoni wouldn’t attack now, not with all these people around. I hoped.
Nonetheless, the worms wriggled in my stomach again while Owen showed the banker the key and gave her the safety-deposit box number. The hum in my head intensified, becoming more like a buzz now. Tristan squeezed my hand, as if he could sense my distress.
The woman led us down a narrow hallway to the vault, where she stopped and pressed her hand against a pad attached to the wall to the right of the door. A little light over the pad flashed green, then yellow. She motioned to Owen. Owen held his hand up toward the pad and I felt Tristan shift slightly. The light turned solid green. I assumed Tristan had slipped his hand under Owen’s to provide the correct biometric reading.
The banker didn’t even notice how Owen hadn’t pressed his palm flat against the pad. Just a few days ago, I probably wouldn’t have noticed either. Realizing there were so many things we could do with these magical powers made me also realize the Daemoni could do the same. In that moment, I gained a new perspective of how some criminals got away with their crime sprees undetected—they didn’t work alone. Or they weren’t quite human.
With a hiss and a swish, the vault door slid open automatically, opening into a room about the size of a standard hotel room. Rows and rows of safety-deposit boxes lined the walls, from floor to ceiling, corner to corner, making the room feel as if it was covered in stainless steel. A chest-high, stainless steel table stood in the center of the room. The woman led Owen, and us, inside the vault, selected a box and slid it out of its designated space, placing it on the table with a thunk. She and Owen both stuck their keys into the end of the box and it made a clicking sound. She slid the lid just a hair’s width to ensure it was unlocked. Then she stepped outside and closed the door to the vault to give Owen privacy.
Owen waved his hands at us, and there Tristan stood, right next to me, already reaching for the box. I held my hand out in front of me, flexed it and opened it again. I did a quick visual check of Tristan’s whole body, hoping my own looked just as real and there as his did. We’d been cloaked much longer than I’d been the other day, when Owen drove me out of Key West. I hadn’t felt any different while cloaked—then or now—but I supposed some part of me worried both of our bodies might have disappeared forever.
Tristan lifted the lid of the box to reveal several stacks of hundred-dollar bills, a pile of white envelopes, some documents laying flat, and a host of keys littering the bottom. He placed the envelopes and documents on the table and started picking through the keys.
“London, Athens, Hong Kong,” he muttered under his breath as he chose specific keys, each approximately the same size as the one that had hung on my necklace. He looked up at me. “Sydney?”
“Sydney what?” I asked stupidly.
“Do you think we might go to Sydney?”
“Australia? Oh, yes. Definitely. But not to live. I want to live here, in Florida, if possible.”
“It might be a while before we can come back, but we will.” He selected a few more keys and stashed them into his jeans pocket. He also stuffed several bundles of cash into his pockets, and then mine and Owen’s, too. Then he picked up the stack of envelopes and started flipping through them. I peered over them, noticing the flaps weren’t sealed. I could see passports and driver’s licenses and realized they were various forms of identification. Tristan stopped at one. “How about Nikolai Skovorsky? Is that the father of Ms. A.K. Emerson’s son?”
I lifted an eyebrow. “How would she meet a Russian, especially at nineteen?”
He shrugged and continued through the rest. He stopped on the second-to-last one and grinned mischievously. “Owen Allbright.”
Owen grabbed the envelope and pulled out the documents. “You trying to steal my identity?”
I looked at the identification pieces—a Montana driver’s license with Tristan’s picture and Owen’s name. Tristan chuckled.
“Just for an emergency. You never know. But, sorry, you’re not marrying my wife.” He snatched the papers back from Owen and stuck them back in the pile. He looked at the last one. “It looks like Jeffrey Wells. Does that work for you? A.K. Wells?”
“As long as it’s not Tristan Knight, Owen Allbright, or some ridiculous name that makes no sense, I don’t care. I just want to get out of here.” My fingers pressed against my temples. I didn’t know if the vault’s stagnant air or the tension of the day caused it, but my head thrummed, creating a dull ache.
Tristan put everything away and Owen cloaked us before calling for the banker. When she opened the door, she looked at Owen, then around the room, as if expecting to find someone else in here. She must have decided she’d been hearing things, because she turned on her heel and led us back to the lobby.
The drone in my head increased, and the sound itself multiplied, becoming several different buzzing sounds, each with its own quality and volume. It felt like bees actually flew around inside my head and grew agitated with no way to escape. The sounds grew louder and more intense. Panic started to rise in my chest with the onslaught, making it difficult to breathe. I fought the urge to cover my ears and shut my eyes, as if that would silence the ruckus. A moan that would likely become a scream lodged itself in my throat. I’d never had asthma, but I thought I knew what it felt like now. My chest burned as I tried to draw in a breath, but couldn’t. I felt Tristan’s arm slide around my waist, and he pulled me against him. I didn’t realize I’d been trembling until I stopped with his closeness. We finally left the busy lobby and entered the garage. The hum quieted, leaving only the ache.
Once in the backseat of the car, I leaned my head against Tristan and curled my body into his. I instinctively knew right where he was and how to fit myself within his contours, even when I couldn’t see him. It had already become second nature again, as if we’d never been separated. His lovely scent and calming touch soothed away my anxiety. As Owen drove onto the highway, the headache dissipated.
“I have no idea what came over me,” I finally said. “My head sounded like a beehive. And it kept getting louder, especially in the bank’s lobby.”
“Where there were more people,” Tristan said, and then added, “more thoughts.”
“You think all that noise . . .” I didn’t finish. Of course, he was right. The buzzes, each with their own unique sound, were others’ thoughts trying to enter my mind. My heart sank at the realization of what it meant. “I can’t ever be around people again. It’s too painful.”
Tristan gave me a squeeze. “You just need to get used to it and learn better control. Rina can do it. I know you’ll be able to.”
It wasn’t a question of whether I would be able to. I didn’t know if I wanted to.
Owen drove us back to Key Largo. He didn’t drive as fast as Tristan did, and I could feel Tristan’s impatience. He didn’t say anything, though, and just held me, for which I was grateful. I felt a strange tension hovering just beyond us, as though waiting for Tristan to let go of me so it could seize control of my body.
Before we separated so Tristan could flash us back to the beach house and Owen could return the car, we drove down a dead end street, to a small beach in Key Largo. The sun hung in the western sky, still more than an hour from setting, providing a perfect backdrop for pictures of the author with her long-lost lover. Owen turned the car off, and we all just sat there for several long moments.
“It’s as good a place as any,” Tristan finally said.
Owen turned around in the seat and waved his hands at us. I felt relieved to see Tristan again. I decided I didn’t particularly like this cloaki
ng device. It was convenient and even necessary, but it had been too long since I’d seen my husband’s face for it to keep disappearing.
I wished my sixth sense would fix itself or return or do whatever it needed to do so I could rely on it again and feel a little less vulnerable. It was near dinnertime, and the beach appeared to be deserted. A pier with a tiki hut at its end jutted over the water, but no fishermen dangled rods from its edge. There was no one around to sense their intentions or for their thoughts to buzz into my head. Yet I felt exposed, as if someone—or something—watched from out-of-sight.
“They don’t need to be good pictures,” Tristan instructed Owen as we walked out to the sand. “In fact, people should have to look closely and just assume that it’s her. The vaguer and blurrier the photos are, the less likely they might recognize us in the future.”
Tristan and I walked up and down the small beach, Owen staying behind us to catch our profiles and nothing more with the camera. Though I hadn’t made any public appearances for a few years, when I wasn’t exactly at my best, we didn’t want to take any chances of recognition in the future. Tristan and I held hands, walked arm-in-arm, kissed a couple times and even pretended to play at the edge of the water. It shouldn’t have been hard to look like the reunited couple we really were, but my nerves were on edge, and I couldn’t completely play the role.
When we finally turned to cross the hundred yards to the car, the beehive grew in my head again. Just a low hissing sound at first, but the noise quickly grew louder, into a hum and then a buzz.
“Him.”
“Who?” I looked up at Tristan. We’d been walking in silence. Why would he suddenly blurt that out?
He peered down at me. “What?”
I realized that though the word had come clearly, the voice was unrecognizable. Not Tristan’s.
“They’re here.” Again clear, but another unfamiliar voice.
My heart picked up speed as I looked around. I saw no one. But I knew we weren’t alone. The buzz grew louder, and I clamped my hands over my ears to block it out. It didn’t do any good, of course. The sound came from within.