“Viviane, stay back,” Colin shouted.
They rolled, and then Nathan was on top.
“Don’t do this, Aubrey,” Nathan warned harshly. “The repercussions aren’t worth it.”
“You’re wrong.” Colin pushed with one foot and rolled.
Nathan used the momentum of the roll to bring his elbow around into the side of Colin’s head. The blow knocked him off-balance, and Nathan came up on top again. Colin held Nathan’s arms away from himself, hands on the other man’s forearms.
For a moment, the fight paused, both men breathing hard.
Nathan said, “This world’s magick tastes like puke, but you’d rather have that than—”
“—than war? Yes, brother. I would.”
“That's why I have to take you back, alive or dead. It’s up to you.”
Nathan twisted his blade-wielding arm free and carried through with a deadly arc aimed at Colin’s neck.
Colin somehow blocked it, and rolling yet again, he straddled Nathan, reared back, and hit the other man in the jaw with weight behind the punch.
Nathan went limp, unconscious.
Colin climbed quickly to his feet, shaking the pain out of his punching hand. He reached for me. “C’mon!”
We ran into the hallway. The driver lay unconscious on the floor.
"Colin! Are you okay?"
"Not now. Keep moving!"
I tried to concentrate on running, keeping up with Colin, and staying on my feet. He led us to the exit stairwell, but instead of turning downward, he climbed up.
“Where are you going?” I cried, tugging back on him, wanting to run down toward the exit instead.
He halted and touched a brief kiss to my lips. “Trust me. C’mon. There’s no time to argue.”
We had only one flight of stairs between us and the top floor. Colin extended his hand in front of him, mumbled something I couldn’t hear, and the door swung open before we got to it. We rushed through into the roof-top bar, threading our way between people dressed in suits and sequins.
I gasped, but Colin didn’t notice and didn’t stop.
We passed a man in a tuxedo playing a baby grand piano. Beyond him, a bank of windows separated the bar from the cityscape beyond.
Colin halted in place, facing the windows. He raised his hand again, palm facing away, and said something in a language I didn’t recognize. I barely had time to register that he was even speaking when the window exploded outward. An enormous crash inspired screams and shouts from the crowd. People lurched away from the point of commotion.
Wind whipped into the room—a demon freed from ages of captivity. It careened around people’s bodies, disturbing their hair and hems. What glass remained clinging to the upper edge of the frame fell straight down and into the bar, scattering over the floor.
The bartender picked up the phone. People piled up at the elevators or cowered on the far side of the room. Two or three brave souls took out their cell phones pointed them at us.
Colin climbed into the window frame.
I rushed forward, grabbed at him, clawed at him, and tried desperately to anchor him inside. “What are you doing?”
“Trust me!” he said, taking hold of my shoulders and looking me square in the eyes. “We have to get off this building. Nathan will be coming after us any second!”
Someone shouted, “Stop!"
Someone else cried, "That’s suicide!”
Broken glass crunched and slipped under my feet.
Colin stood at the window frame, one leg out, one leg in. At the edge there, the wind was stronger. It whipped my hair back from my face.
He said, “I can’t go back with them. I can’t. They’ll kill me.”
“Why? Why would they kill you?”
“I’ll explain everything.” He pressed a kiss to my lips, then looked me in the eyes and said, “Don’t worry. I can fly.”
He wrapped an arm tightly around my waist, and I felt his knees bend.
"No!" I cried, pushing myself away from him. I almost managed to pull him inside, but then he released me. I stumbled backward into the arms of a stunned waiter.
Colin turned toward the open air, spread his arms, and jumped.
I heard screams from all around and cries of, “Oh my God!” and “He jumped!”
The waiter moved me out of his way, stepped to the opening, and looked down toward the street, fifteen stories below.
My life with Colin flashed before my eyes—our past together, and all my dreams for the future. I stumbled to the gaping hole and clung to the frame, swaying there with my hair whipping around my head.
A morbid need to see made me look down at the concrete so far below.
I saw him.
♦♦♦
CHAPTER 33
Colin rose from below on glossy raven wings. They flapped and lifted him, then he rode the air currents like river birds did, letting them hold him aloft. He said something, but I couldn’t hear him over the wind and the crowd. He held his arms out to me, and that I understood. He wanted me to jump to him. He wanted me to fly away with him.
I wanted it too. I wanted to be with him. I stood, using the frame for support.
Colin was beautiful—an angel. The sky opened wide behind him, the heavens full of stars and moon-kissed clouds.
"Take my hand," the waiter said. "He's gone. There's nothing you can do." He didn't… He couldn't see Colin.
Colin swooped close, then rose again, hovering just out of reach. I held first one hand, then both, out to him.
"No!" shouted the waiter.
Colin's lips moved around the word, “Jump.” I heard it in my head.
For the briefest moment, I wondered if I’d completely lost my mind. The thought that I might be hallucinating him hit me like lightning, a blinding flash, and then gone again, leaving only the negative image of it on the backs of my eyelids. I knew then and there that I had a choice. I could remain locked in a colorless world of gray and black, tick tock, where everything was a burden or an injury. I could return to my familiar routine and to the daily grind of hiding who I am from the real world.
Or, I could choose to believe in beauty, wonder, and magick.
The stars above twinkled, and Colin hovered there, his eyes worried and afraid. He held his hands out to me, beckoning, promising to catch me.
I bent my knees, and—
I took a leap of faith.
As soon as my feet lifted off the floor, I sensed the building had abandoned me. The wind took me, but it wasn’t enough to hold me up.
A second later, I was plummeting toward the street, fifteen stories below.
I thought, This is it.
Ahead, tiny cars moved from stop light to stop light and people streamed along, ants carrying the crumbs of their lives. They got bigger as I got closer. The cracks in the sidewalk rose to greet me.
I thought, Today you're pain...
And then, Colin was there.
He wrapped his arms around me from behind and redirected my downward momentum with a harsh jerk that knocked the air out of me. One of my shoes fell off and was swallowed by the Peoria streets. I was rising, up over the city, gasping in lungful after lungful of life.
I slid in his grasp until he had me by the armpits, his embrace tight around my chest. With each downward stroke of his wings, we lifted higher, the air rushing past us, cold and crisp.
The Monsieur Hotel grew small and distant. People at the broken window all looked down, hands over their mouths. One single face, however, was lifted to search the sky, his black, asymmetrical hair ruffled, blowing in the wind.
As I watched, Nathan spread raven wings and took off through the same broken window.
I shouted over the roar in my ears, “He’s coming!”
Colin said nothing, but his body tensed. I clung to his arms, doing my best to ignore the pain of muscles stretched to their limit. His wings stroked harder, pushing us forward harshly with each flap.
I searched the sky for
Nathan, and when I didn’t see him, I knew he was at our backs.
The city was a sea of lights below us. Tiny cars on the highway created a streaming river of blood red and white gold. It blurred together as my eyes glazed with tears brought on by the wind and my fear.
Jarred, Colin jerked us to one side. My legs swung wildly, and I craned my neck trying to see.
Nathan had caught up to us. He was faster, more agile.
Colin was burdened by my body's weight. He veered again, and my body swung to the opposite side. Colin’s grip loosened. I was slipping.
A great black form cut directly in front of me. Feathers raked my face, too close to my eyes for comfort, and a searing pain lit up my left thigh. The roar of wind and wings swallowed my cry.
Colin changed directions again, tearing me away from the onslaught.
My head spun, and before I could recover my equilibrium, another assault sent us diving downward. For a moment, we were outpacing gravity itself. Bile surged into my throat, and I swallowed it back. Coughing, I blinked at the ground far below, rising to meet us.
Colin changed course abruptly, pulling out of the dive and flying upward.
A great raven’s caw split the night.
We flew up, ever higher, into darkness, into clouds, into the heavens.
A shadow appeared to my right, bearing down on us with ferocious intensity. Nathan’s face, twisted with cruelty, came out of the darkness. His black wings obscured the moon, but I saw that he still had the shimmering blade in his hand.
“I’m sorry,” Colin shouted. “I need my hands.”
And he released me. It happened so fast I didn’t have time to clutch at him. One second, my back was pressed to his chest, and the next, I was dropping in open air, falling straight down through misty tendrils of cloud that clung to my skin and clothes, wet and chilled.
It took my mind a moment to catch up and realize that I was falling and screaming at the top of my lungs. The wind howled in my ears, assaulted my face and flapped my clothes sharply against me. With each passing second, the ground below grew closer, bigger, and more detailed. I fell straight toward suburbia, spinning head over heels.
Time stretched oddly. I had only a few seconds, or was it minutes? My thoughts focused on what was below me. The people down there went about their lives as I plummeted toward them. If I hit one of their houses, I wondered, would I break through into a bedroom? There was a swing set in a back yard. Would my sudden appearance scar a child for life?
That, very probably, would have been my last thought, but a flash of lightning lit the roof of the house below, and thunder cracked at my heels.
A moment later, someone slid up my body and wrapped arms around me from behind. We swooped upward, my legs dangling wildly as I was forced to change direction. My stomach lurched again.
“It’s okay. We’re okay,” said Colin next to my ear. “He’s gone—for now.”
Colin’s body was a warm comfort against my back, but the rest of me was freezing, quaking with the rush of adrenaline.
“Put me down!” I shouted.
“Let me find a good spot,” he replied.
He flew along the Illinois River. I tried to relax, but my fear wouldn't let me. Every muscle in my body was tense, some on the verge of cramping. I couldn’t stop shaking.
♦♦♦
CHAPTER 34
We spiraled downward, passing between Peoria’s skyscrapers. Gradually, we descended, until finally, Colin landed us on a rooftop. Gravel crunched underfoot, painful to my shoeless one.
As soon as I was standing on my own two feet, I turned around and screamed at him, “You dropped me!”
My body was shaking so violently that my legs gave out and I sat down hard. “You dropped me!” And then, I was sobbing. My fury at him for leaving me had been building for months. “I can’t believe you fucking dropped me!”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry. I had no choice.” He put a hand on my shoulder and crouched beside me.
I ran out of steam and collapsed into Colin’s arms. Bombarded with emotions I couldn’t control, my body racked with wet sobs like sucking wounds, I couldn’t do or say anything else. I leaned on him, and he held me. I realized then that, even though I’d pretended Colin was alive, I hadn’t fully believed it until I’d seen him. Relief sifted in amidst the fear, anger, and shock as I clung to him. He was solid, warm, and breathing, not a hallucination. I inhaled his scent deep into my body. My hands curled of their own accord in his shirt, as if they might refuse to let go when the time came.
We stayed there for the longest time. I had no words.
Then, as my tears subsided, and my brain picked up—more or less—where it had left off, I felt another great wave of anger rising in me.
I shoved him away. “You let me believe you were dead!” I said, voice pinched with accusation. I stumbled to my feet.
“I’m sorry.” He stood too and stepped toward me, reaching to brush at an errant strand of my hair. “Bella faked my death to protect me from Nathan. I hated lying to you, but it was for your own safety.”
I shook uncontrollably, arms wrapped around myself. "Why? Why is he after you? This has gone way beyond a sick dad trying to find his amnesiac son."
“I can explain,” he said. “I will explain, but you’re bleeding, freezing, and possibly in shock. We need to get you somewhere warm.”
Darkness oozed in at the corners of my eyes, and as my knees began to buckle, I said, “You can fly.”
“Told you so,” he replied.
The ground dropped out from under me yet again.
♦
When I came to, I was in a bed, covered with a heavy down comforter. It smelled good, felt warm, and I had to fight the urge to snuggle deeper and go back to sleep. Memories of Colin and our flight pulled me all the way to consciousness.
I was wearing a man-sized t-shirt and thick baggy socks, and someone had bandaged my wounds. When I moved, I was sore all over, especially my back and shoulders. I threw aside the covers and a chilly draft put goosebumps on my skin. I wrapped the comforter around myself.
Beyond the room's window, a pall of darkness obscured the surrounding landscape. The moon had fallen out of sight beyond the horizon. I wondered if Corona was okay. I hoped she had called Lettie for help. The sound of her arm breaking and the sight of her shrinking into the distance, face distorted with anguish, haunted me, and my stomach went uneasy again.
I found the door ajar and voices murmuring beyond it, so I crept over and pushed the door a bit wider. Beyond, a long corridor extended, lined with other doors.
Colin said quite clearly, “…supposed to do, Bella? I had no choice. Nathanatos showed up at the Monsieur with her.”
I recognized Doc Bella's voice. “How did he find you?”
“I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. We’re all here now, safe and sound.”
I slipped into the hallway and padded toward their voices.
Bella’s laugh held tension. “Safe and sound? You think so? It’s only a matter of time before he tracks you here.”
“So, we leave a little early. What can it hurt?”
Colin stood by the living-room fireplace, his hand on the mantle. He had exchanged his wet clothes for a pair of jeans and an emerald cable-knit sweater. His hair had grown. A mass of auburn curls haloed his face, chaotic and untamed. Otherwise, he looked exactly the same.
Bella wore an old-fashioned housecoat, and her white bony legs showed between its hem and the fur-lined slippers on her feet.
The final face in the room surprised me the most. Ajani leaned against the wall by the window, holding open a crack between the drapes so he could see out, as if on guard duty. He glanced over his shoulder, dark eyes landing on me, and his lips curved into that old familiar smile. He resembled my friend, the man I’d sweated with five days a week, for more than thirteen years. But he wasn’t and had never been that man. I didn’t know how I could ever trust him again. I didn’t see how I cou
ld trust any of them.
“I guess,” said Bella to Colin, “we have no choice. I’ll start—”
Ajani cleared his throat, then said, “Miss Viviane. You’re awake.”
All eyes turned to me, and Colin crossed the room in a handful of strides to put an arm around me. “Viv, how are you feeling? I was so worried.”
“I’m feeling very ready for that explanation you promised me.”
“Sit down, dear,” said Bella. “I’ll make us some hot chocolate.” She stood. “Ajani, if you would help me, please?”
Feeling like Alice through the looking glass, I let Colin lead me to the couch.
Ajani followed Bella from the room, and Colin sat with me.
Colin asked, “Are you warm enough?”
“Yeah.” I touched his face, his neck. "I can't believe you're here." Moonbeams glowed inside me, taunting me, daring me to follow them. I was tempted, and it would have been so easy to catch them, far too easy.
Colin laughed. “I know. I'm sorry. If there'd been any other way…” He pulled the blanket more tightly around me.
I studied his face. “You need to tell me what’s happening.”
“I know. I want to tell you everything, and I will.”
“How about we start with the wings?” I reached for his shoulder and pushed it away from me, twisting him so I could see his back where the wings had been.
He chuckled. “I put them away.”
“You mean they come off?”
“No. I fold them into a…magickal pocket.”
“Bring them out.”
“Now?”
I nodded, though my heart had started a pitter-patter of protest.
Standing slowly, eyes locked on me, he moved to the center of the room. He didn’t even need to concentrate. Suddenly, the wings were just there, unfolding. They spread large behind him with a whoosh and a crack—the sound of clean linens flapping on a clothesline.
My mouth opened on a huff of breath.
Colin tipped his head back and laughed. “You should see the look on your face.”
“You should see the wings on your back!” Breathless, I asked the only thing that came to mind, “Is it unlucky to bring them out in the house? Like an umbrella?”
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