Crossing my arms, I scowled. “Away?”
“Jason received a letter requesting assistance. It referenced some paranormal intrigue on the west coast. Something about a stolen throne and an octoid morph.”
I jumped to my feet and stomped away. “Why now?” I’d just gotten him back from the dead. Literally. “I’ll go with you.” I moved toward the roof exit. “What all do I need to take?”
He caught my hand and pulled me back. “No, Woe.”
“Why you? You’re supposed to be here.”
I laid a hand over my still-flat stomach, thinking of our baby, wondering for the hundredth time if what color the eyes would be. Brown? Silver?
He pressed his lips to my palm and stared into my eyes. “Jason has to stay here to watch over New Haven City, and you can’t go,” he nodded toward my middle, “for obvious reasons.”
“Lev?” I already knew I’d lose the fight, but I wasn’t ready to give up yet.
He kissed each of my fingertips and pressed another to my palm. “Lev hasn’t left the church in ages. Jason thinks Lev is agoraphobic.”
That would be a strange development for a whale shifter.
I whispered, “Why can’t Vic go? She’s always going.”
Arún stopped his ministrations and gave me a look. “Don’t make this harder than it needs to be.”
“What does some shifter across the country have to do with me? With us?” I didn’t care that my voice had become a wail. Arún was my husband, and I wanted him to stay. Not go off on some weird mission for Jason.
He wrapped his arms around me and put his mouth to my earlobe, the warmth of him sent shivers through me.
“We think it has something to do with the Boss,” he said. “Which means it has something to do with you. Which means it has something to do with the Fae Realm, too.” He feathered kisses along my jawline. “Which means it’s something I should take care of.”
“When do you go?”
“Tomorrow.”
I sighed as much from defeat as from pleasure. “So soon?”
“The sooner I leave, the sooner I can return.” His eyes widened. “Oh, Lev asked me to give you something.” He gestured toward a small paper bag tucked beneath the leg of the lawn chair.
Ignoring the package form Lev, I studied the silver-white of Arún’s irises. “Why does it always have to be you?”
“Because it is my honor to keep you safe.” He moved to the seat and drew me onto his lap. “But, mostly, because I refuse to live without you.”
“I could go,” I murmured, burying my hand in his hair.
“Not in your condition.” He pointed to my middle. “Not with our baby.”
“My condition doesn’t make me break more easily.”
“No,” he said. “It doesn’t.”
He drew his finger down my cheek, and I shivered when he took my chin between his thumb and first finger. His lips met mine. I melted into him and wrapped my arms around his broad torso.
“I could help,” I said, my voice muffled against his chest.
He kissed the top of my head. “There’s so much more at stake now. I won’t risk you both.”
I had to give him that. Even if I didn’t want it to, our child changed things. Maybe more than I realized. I lived for more than myself alone… But I didn’t have to like it.
I laid a hand on his bare chest. “Take me home.”
He shook his head. Slowly. Sadly. “I have more plans to work out with Jason,” he said. “You could come down with me?” He brightened, his tone hopeful. “I bet Vic would be happy to see you.”
“Not tonight,” I said, climbing to my feet. “I’ll wait for you at home.
He nodded but didn’t relent in his decision. “I’ll join you as soon as I can.”
I swiped the paper bag from beneath the leg of the chair. At the edge of the roof, I made a fist, and the paper bag crinkled in my hand. “Love you.”
“And I love you.”
Then I leapt into the air.
Knowing that Arún and Jason probably still had hours of planning ahead of them, I didn’t go home right away. I circled the city, following warm updrafts into the clouds and then cooler currents down. The recklessness of it would have put Jason into a coma, but I didn’t care.
Over New Haven City Park, I turned toward the reservoir. Eating by the water always helped calm me. The reflection of the harvest moon danced across the surface, the image alluring.
I chose an abandoned spot to land. There were enough rumors of our kind circulating the city. When my feet grazed the dirt, my wings retracted into my back, and an owl hooted in the distance as I crossed to the bench nearest the water.
When I settled on the cold, stone seat, a neighboring tree shadow grunted and rolled over. On a hacking cough, a figure sat up, sending layers of newspaper covering slipping away.
In the dim light from the street lamp, I could just make out an old man in ragged clothes, seated in the center of a tattered sleeping bag.
A hoarse voice asked, “Who’s there?”
“I mean you no harm,” I said.
He squinted and took a deep, wheezy breath. His whole body flexed as he drew in air. “Who are you?”
“No one.” I moved closer.
“Nobody’s no one,” he said.
“Who are you?” That close, I could see the dirt in his hair, and the holes in his clothes.
“A forgotten old man.” He spoke matter-of-factly, face pointed up at me, and his eyes unfocused. “But I am not no one.”
I waved my hand between us. “Can you see me?”
“Not so well as I used to.”
Not at all, I bet.
He went on. “Just what do you think you’re doing here? Didn’t they tell you this is my spot to sleep?”
“They didn’t.”
He cursed then, and his bluster made me smile. It didn’t frighten me as he meant it to. He wouldn’t believe I used to be an angel even if I shook my wings in his face.
He harrumphed. “I won’t share my spot.”
“Not even for a minute?” I rattled the paper bag in my hand. “I thought I would watch the stars on the water while I eat.”
“Eat?” He took a long sniff and leaned forward. “What’s that I smell?”
“Hot cross buns.”
His stomach growled.
I considered him anew. He probably hadn’t had anything to eat since who knows when. Lev always baked more than enough. “Are you hungry?”
He frowned but didn’t answer.
“I have more than I can eat.” It wasn’t true, but he didn’t need to know that. “I wouldn’t want to waste anything.”
He rubbed his hand through his dirty hair and over the back of his neck. “Well, we can’t have that.”
I pressed the rolls into his hands. “I’ve had all I want.”
He opened the bag, pressed the edges to his face, and took a deep breath. When he lowered it, he sighed. “Boy, don’t that smell like heaven.”
“I wouldn’t know,” I said. It did, though. Heaven smelled like a bakery.
He raised a hand. “Thank ye, miss.”
Before I could answer, a girl darted through the lamplight, slowed long enough to wave, and then disappeared around the curve of the walking path.
“Did you see that?”
“Not really,” the old man said around a mouth full of hot cross buns.
“It was a girl. She waved.”
“Oh, that imp always runs through here this time of night. She’s out checking on her mama, and I can just about set my clock by her.”
I jumped to my feet, fighting the chill of terror. “Why would she do that? It’s dangerous out here.”
The old man didn’t answer but shoved another bread into his mouth.
In the distance, the shadow ran across the path again, moving from shadow to shadow. I bolted after her.
Two blocks later, she glanced over her shoulder and grinned, but she didn’t stop.
“Wait,” I yelled. “Don’t you know it’s dangerous for a girl in the park?”
At the next apartment building, she slowed. She jumped, grabbed the end of a fire escape ladder, jerked it down, and scrambled up it. Then she retracted the ladder.
I caught up to her as she reached the first metal landing.
She waved again. Like she knew me. “Not going to fly up here after me?”
That brought me up short. I glanced around, expecting a trap. “What do you mean?”
“I see things.” She beamed at me. “I saw your wings before you had them, and now I know you have them.” She crossed her arms and kicked her hips to the side, perfectly comfortable with the middle-of-the-night conversation.
I scowled. “Wait. What?”
“A few months ago?”
I shook my head.
“It’s me.” She gestured toward herself. “From the subway.”
And then I remembered in a flood and staggered back.
The girl that held my hand through an overwhelming wave of claustrophobia. Her black curly hair stuck out in all directions, and her brown eyes reflected the street lights like stars.
She climbed two more stories. “I see you,” she called down. Her voice echoed off the buildings. “Are you lonely like me?”
I glanced up and down the empty street. Still, I ducked behind a nearby dumpster to unfurl my wings.
In a few flaps, I hovered in the air, beside her.
I wasn’t lonely. Not yet. But I had a hitch in my programming that made me susceptible to lost little girls, and I couldn’t get past the plea in her tone.
“Hello,” she said, and she beamed with a light that wasn’t the moon. Something shined inside her, and the peace in her eyes drew me.
“Hi,” I said. “I’m Woe.”
She stuck out her hand. “I’m Ziva.”
Her fingers were cold against my palm, but they fit easily in mine. She pumped my hand twice and then let go. “Pleased to meet you.”
“Why are you out here all alone?” I crossed my arms. “It’s not safe.”
“Mom works. Mom sleeps.”
“Is she sleeping now?”
Ziva shook her head from side to side. “She wants to get rid of me, I think.”
I tilted my head, unable to tell if this was exaggeration or not. “Is she at work right now?”
Ziva nodded. “She made her boss mad, and he put her on the night shift. I want to help, but she says I’m too young to be put to work yet. Maybe if I brought her some money, she wouldn’t be trying to get rid of me.”
Her words took my breath. It was a horrible thing to believe, a terrible weight for a child to bear. I swallowed the lump in my throat. “Where does your mom work?”
Ziva shrugged and started up another flight of metal stairs. “Working at a gas station not far from here.”
Flying, I followed. “What were you doing? The park isn’t safe at night.”
“You sound like my mom.”
“She’s right.”
“Except she says I’m going to get her arrested for letting me run all over the city whenever I want to.” At the next landing, she turned back to me. “I had to make sure she got to work.” She studied her toes. “Sometimes she doesn’t.”
“Doesn’t?”
She moved to a window that had been left open a crack, the glass pane crisscrossed with tape. She hooked her fingers beneath the edge and gave a mighty grunt, straining to raise it.
“Oh, here, let me do that.”
“No,” she said. “I got it.” On her third yank, the window slid up and opened wide enough for Ziva to climb inside.
“The park isn’t safe,” I repeated, trying to peer around Ziva for clues to why her mom only sometimes made it to work. Shadows shrouded the unlit interior.
Ziva turned around and placed her palms on the window sill. “I told you. I see things.”
I landed on the landing, and my boots pinged against the metal decking. “What does that mean?”
She frowned and looked to the side as though searching for the words. “I can tell when someone wants to hurt me. Their face is squiggly and weird. Though, not really, it’s just like I can see that with my insides.”
“Still,” I said. The kid had an answer for everything. “Can you introduce me to your mother?”
She stared at me a long time, chewing on her bottom lip. Myriad emotions rolled over her face. She took a step back and placed her hands on the window.
“Sure,” she said finally. “Come back tomorrow. I think she has off.”
The window slammed shut.
3
The Ensemble
Lev
Our Lady of the Park, Catholic Cathedral, New Haven City - One Month Later
Checkmate. In three.
I lifted my fedora to scratch an itch at the back of my head. Replacing the hat, I studied Jason as he studied the chess board he’d set up on the square coffee table between us. I caught Woe’s eye as she lounged on the settee, and I winked at her.
A grin split her face. She knew as well as I did that something had been bothering our fearless leader.
Jason shifted, adjusting his cassock and tugging on his priestly collar. He wore both to keep up appearances. Jason made a habit of being formally dressed in his priestly garb, but he hadn’t conducted a service in over a month. His face in silhouette, he balanced carefully on the upended trash bin he had decided to use as a seat.
Jason was more than distracted. We’d been playing for hours, and our weekly appointment had run into the scheduled monthly briefing. We were only going through the motions of competition, biding time until the last member of our troupe showed up.
Since the death and resurrection of Woe’s husband, Jason insisted on a meeting every week to discuss what we knew and strategize. He was hunting for the mastermind behind the plan that had successfully killed Arún.
The supposed Mastermind didn’t know Fae princes could come back to life, so Woe’s husband was in hiding. Nobody knew he was actually alive, and we were in much the same place as we’d been the day after the initial murder. Yet Jason was adamant that we had to be prepared.
Tucked away in New Haven, not far from the city park, our headquarters were two levels beneath the church front. Above ground, the upper level had the layout of a cathedral and a small loft apartment that Jason lived in. The pews stayed mostly empty since Jason was more a keeper of the paranormal and only planned enough functions to get by. It wasn’t an official church, and he wasn’t an official priest. More like a friar.
Parishioners preferred the other churches in the neighborhood, and it had been easy for Jason to slip into the background while he concerned himself with paranormal affairs.
Jason frowned at the pieces between us, but he said nothing. It was taking him longer than normal to decide anything.
Hundreds of years before, a priest declared the paranormal needed minding and a secret order was born. The sect operated worldwide, but none of the Keepers knew who the other Keepers were. Once older members reached a certain age, they selected an apprentice, an eventual successor. If they passed before they could, the position was assigned. In Jason’s case, he was selected by the Keeper that freed me from the shipping crate back in 1851. Gifted with the same abnormally long life that Jason would have, the previous Keeper before lived well into his hundreds, and he served in the capacity almost until the end.
One level down, Jason had an office and a library filled with early writings and books of all kinds. The entrance to the Cavern took up the rear wall of the church library. Years ago, I’d been led down a flight of stairs and a narrow stone corridor into an expansive room that echoed when I spoke. Our footsteps had been hurried as we crossed in front of six smaller caverns, three on each side. At the last one on the right, he’d introduced me to my new home, complete with fireplace and cot. Then he brought me into the Athenaeum.
Hidden from the human world in the bowels of Jason’s parish, we playe
d chess in the Athenaeum—our underground library, where most shelves were so full that the books were two rows deep with even more stacked on the floor. A metal spiral staircase provided access to the catwalk and the second story of the vast collection.
Knowledge gleaned from centuries of study surrounded us. Paranormal non-fiction tomes resided on the second level, filled with many one-of-a-kind titles. Subjects of a mortal interest were on the ground floor. Only the Librarian knew where everything was.
I’d been a Keeper longer than Jason had been the leader, and despite his recent turmoil, Jason had been a good List Keeper. With the added benefit of his nose, he could sniff out paranormal, supernatural, were-anything, and shifter-everything.
“Are you going to play?” I asked, knowing it would set him on edge. I opened and closed my suit jacket.
“Don’t rush me,” Jason growled.
I waited in my red velvet wingback chair, puffing my cigar. I had been sitting in that chair for most of my life since I had come to the church. It had been my favorite spot for longer than Jason had been alive. From there, I could watch the fire. When I wasn’t baking, I spent hours in the room, thinking, trying to remember my life before arriving here. The dancing flames always calmed me.
“I miss Arún,” Woe sighed. “He should be here.” She gestured around the room. “Not on the West coast, chasing some phantom octopus woman.”
To his credit, Jason didn’t argue.
Woe laid a hand over her middle. It had been almost three months since Woe lost her husband, two months since she’d discovered the impossible. Historically, fallen angels don’t make babies. They could marry and live until their mortal coil falls apart, but they’d never reproduced. History didn’t account for marrying a Fae. Arún and Woe were a one of a kind couple until he sacrificed himself to save her from the hunger-drunk peacock shifter in Central Park.
When I glanced at her, she lay on her back on the chaise lounge, a damp washcloth over her eyes and forehead, suffering through morning sickness. Even unwell, her complexion reminded me of moonlight on the ocean. Her waist-length dark tresses fanned out over the settee that matched my chair. It always took her until noon to get going.
Leviathan's Rise Page 2