I was supposed to be Ziva’s mentor. Maybe she could be mine.
Her mother nodded and then flung the door wide and stomped back to the couch. She plopped down, took a long drag on a cigarette, and a big gulp of something that smelled like beer. “Thank god. She sees things that aren’t there, did you know that?”
I didn’t know how to answer.
She took another gulp and tossed the empty can across the room. “That weird little brat has been nothing but trouble since the day I had her.”
That had been that.
I found myself on a corner where a small sound dragged me out of my contemplation. I crouched to listen, despite the sounds of the city. In the distance, horns honked and people yelled at one another.
There.
Someone whimpered, begging for mercy. I couldn’t tell if it was a woman or a child, but it as an opportunity to do some good. Maybe make Arún proud.
Straightening, I closed my eyes and focused on the sounds a few streets over. Something stretched inside me, and I felt the Fae magic roll over me as my wings unfurled, iridescent and black.
I threw myself into the air, wings spread out beneath the moon and stars.
I landed on the top of a nearby building, fighting flashbacks as I listened to the frantic whispers in the alley below. I studied the shapes in the moonlight and then jumped over the roof edge to the top level of the fire escape.
I pulled a tube from the pouch on my belt. I wouldn’t wait any longer. Placing the tube between my lips, I slipped a dart into the other end and blew, sending the shiny metal hurtling toward the figures below. A grunt rewarded my aim. Thirty seconds later, the largest of the two shapes fell over.
I leapt into the air and circled the alley once, trying to determine if the smaller figure was all right. No sounds drifted up to me.
I frowned, hovering above the pavement. Had I come too late?
If I landed, I might regret exposing myself like that. There were enough rumors about paranormal creatures in the city already.
The smaller shape scrambled to their feet and bounded into the moonlight. Ziva’s voice broke the silence. “You came.”
Brown eyes reflected the street lights behind us and her curly black hair was swept into a ponytail over each ear.
“You knew I would come?” I crossed my arms and shook my feathers.
“I knew.”
“How did you know?”
“I just knew that I would be safe and that you would be here.”
“Do you know how dangerous that was, Ziva?” I wanted to shake her.
“Maybe,” she said. “But you needed me, and I knew you would be here. I knew to whimper just then so you would find me.”
She tilted her head to study me. As her lifted, her eyes widened, and she danced on her toes. “I just knew, like I knew you’d get your wings back.”
I scowled at her. I’d visited so many people in my millennia as an angel.
“Who’s that guy?” I jabbed a thumb over my shoulder.
“The doorman. He followed me out. He watches me while mom is at work. He’s nice.” She glanced at the snoring man behind us. “It’s against her rules for me to be out on the street.”
“It’s dangerous, Ziva.” The kid had tricked me, and I wasn’t quite sure what to do about it.
“He was going to take me back in, but I wanted him to let me stay out. I knew you’d come soon enough.”
“How did you know?” The whimpering hadn’t been as nefarious I had originally believed. It had been a ploy to get my attention.
Ziva grinned up at me. “Sometimes I don’t just see things, I know things, too,” she said, reaching for the feathers that hovered overhead like a child enamored with a balloon. “I am safe.”
Her faith in me was so sure, so certain, so simple; and it felt like I was staring into the sun. The beauty so bright I had to squint into the face of it. She’d whispered hopeful words in my ear when we first met. When I needed it, somehow, Arún reached across the miles between us and sent Ziva when I needed someone to love. I felt close to him when I was close to her.
It was weird and dramatic. So much soap opera. I shook my head. Maybe it was the hormones.
I bent down to her eye level and squeezed her shoulders. “How have you been?”
“I want a pair just like yours,” she breathed, still enamored with my wings. She ran her fingers through the iridescent feathers.
We moved away from the snoring man.
“You aren’t happy,” she said, slipping her hand into mine, the contrast between her dark skin and my paleness stark in the moonlight.
My smile faded, replaced with sadness, and my shoulders drooped. She could always see through my façade.
“Everyone has their jobs, and I’m stuck at home.” Waiting on a baby. It wasn’t fair to think that way, but there it was. I was still trying to figure out if it was Arún’s doing or Jason’s.
She nodded.
“I’m a little lost, I think,” I said finally, stopping in the middle of a cracked portion of sidewalk, gloom-whitened weeds overgrown at the edges.
Ziva nodded as though my words made perfect sense. “Everyone gets lost sometimes. Sometimes it helps to ask for directions.”
“Ask who?”
“I don’t know,” she said with a bashful giggle.
“You know everything. Are you sure you don’t know?”
“I don’t know everything.” Her eyes widened. “You’re teasing me.”
“I am.”
She beamed at me.
“What do you see?” I couldn’t help the question.
“Things I don’t understand.” She stared over my shoulder before focusing on my face.
“Can you tell me?”
“Not until I understand them.” She tugged on my hand. “Take me home? I’m tired.” She pointed to her third-floor window in the apartment complex beside us and yawned.
“Would you like to fly back?” The man on the street would wake any moment, none the worse for wear. He might have a little headache, but that’d be it.
She let go of my hand long enough to clap. “Could we?”
“If you promise to call the doorman and let him know you made it home.”
“I promise,” she said, dancing on her toes.
Her joy washed the frustration from my heart, and I scooped her up. She wrapped her arms around my neck. For several hundred feet, I flew straight up, the ascent steep enough to make her giggle in my ear.
After a sharp turn, I circled once before I turned toward her bedroom window. I set her down on the fire escape, then she climbed through her window, skipped across her toy-littered floor, and slipped between her bed covers.
Following her in, I tucked her into her bed and kissed her forehead. I turned to go. “Next time you want me, hang a sign on your window,” I said.
She laughed at that. “You’ll come if I hang out a sign?”
“As soon as I see it.” It wasn’t on my normal route, but I would have to make it a habit to fly down her street. She was a child, and promises mattered. The metal rattled as I stepped out onto the fire escape.
“Your baby loves you.” Ziva’s voice rang out clear in the silent room.
I tripped on my own feet, and my heart missed a beat. Unable to breathe, I turned back. The weight of vengeance had never felt heavier than in that moment. It was the millstone around my neck, and, for the first time, I wished I could lay it down.
Ziva continued, “She loves how happy you are when you dream of her daddy.” She stared at my belly. “And she can’t wait to meet you.”
With that, she yawned again, and her eyes drifted closed.
Frozen in place, I trembled from head to toe. Somehow the little girl could communicate with my baby…
Arún’s baby.
Our daughter.
I backed out of the room and stepped into the air, flapping slowly. A thunderstorm built in the distance and the updraft buffeted me as I descended over the p
avement, trying to hold the pieces of my shattered composure. Vic’s words echoed in my mind.
“Maybe it’s time to put your vendetta to rest. Live and let live,” she said. “Arún doesn’t want you to spend your life that way.”
Life went on, and peace beckoned to me.
When my feet touched down, my knees buckled, and something fluttered in my middle.
Not something. Someone.
I wrapped my arms around my middle, threw my head back, and laughed.
13
Inside
Jason
Unseen Street had its own time that moved independently of New Haven City, generally controlled by spells or magic. Every time I’d snuck into the place, the time shift was different. It could’ve been sunrise at home and sunset there. As we hurried along, that trip was no different.
Once we were through the portal, nightfall became springtime blue sky and bright sunshine as white fluffy clouds floated by. The scent of a weather spell wafted in the light breeze. A small family of dragons lumbered by.
Hundreds of smells assaulted my nose; were-creatures and magic nearly over-powered me, and it was impossible to sort them all out. It was like being on the bank of a pond filled with stagnant water and decaying fish. Sometimes my inherited gift wasn’t as easy to live with as I would’ve liked.
My boot heels tapped against the paved street and the sound bounced from building to building as we moved through a boundary wards that slid over my skin like sandpaper. Mara hurried along in front of us, her eyes on her steps. Hair that had fallen from her braid curtained her face.
Otherwise, it wasn’t much different than mortal pedestrian life in New Haven. In general, the majority of paranormal creatures craved civility. We were in a neighborhood that had been enclosed in a weird spell.
“How far?” Lev asked.
“Not much more,” she said.
“Which lane do you live on?” The answer would help define what she was.
Unseen Street referred to at least a half-dozen boroughs that ran parallel to one another. Each had its own name and its own variant atmosphere, divided by either force fields or magic.
My predecessor had made it clear when I had been sworn in; the place wasn’t friendly, and we didn’t intrude on that independence. It didn’t keep me from donning a disguise and sneaking in to see the sights once or twice.
Unseen Street had its own bartering system, their own minimal set of laws that operated independently of those of mortal men, and they actively—sometimes militantly—resisted any meddling.
The lane we traveled on was the one nearest the main point of entry and contained the atmosphere most like New Haven. We passed by the reservoir that served as the highway in and out of Unseen Street for aquatic creatures. Surrounded by benches made of bushes and plants, the water feature existed as a thorn in my side. Any creature that traveled by water managed to avoid my detection altogether. Like Mara?
I couldn’t be certain what she was, but water creature could make sense. Maybe Lev had a cult following out in the Pacific.
“Is it far?” I asked Mara.
“No,” she said, hurrying along.
Lev shot me a look, and I shrugged.
“What?” I mouthed at him.
“Leave her alone,” he mouthed back.
I shook my head. He was being uncharacteristically reckless, and he had to know suspicion poured off her like water. Her arrival. That she knew his name. That he lived at the church. And that she knew the only way to get him to leave the Cavern. He risked every bit of it to get a glimpse of a trinket that probably didn’t exist.
While leading us into a trap that did exist.
He had to know we were in the middle of springing a trap. We should have talked about it. I swallowed, trying to get rid of the grit in my throat. Three sets of hurried footsteps echoed back, and made it sound like we were being followed.
Maybe we were.
Two blocks passed and, half-way down the third, Mara led us to the front door of a four-story building. It looked much like any New Haven brownstone. She pulled a key from her pocket and pushed it into the lock. Once open, she ushered us inside.
I went in first. Lev hung back, waiting for Mara. No children and no pets greeted us at the door, and the darkened interior reeked of magic. In the faint light that filtered in through a gap in the old-fashioned curtains, a kitchenette occupied one corner, a bed another, and a living area that was situated directly in front of us. The whole setup reminded me of a motel room from the sixties.
“Why does it smell like magic in here?” My question broke the quiet.
Lev glared.
Mara shrugged. She tossed a throw pillow aside, then sat down on her sofa. “It’s Unseen Street. It all smells like magic.”
“You don’t,” I said.
“Don’t what?” she asked.
“Smell like magic.”
Lev looked like he might add something else, but he scanned the room instead.
“Where’s the toy?” He took a step toward her, his expression pinched.
“Oh, so sorry, I almost forgot.”
“I didn’t forget,” Lev whispered, and he cleared his throat. He wasn’t lying when he’d said he would risk everything to find his family, and his façade of trust was wearing thin.
Mara jumped up from the dilapidated furniture, crossed the room to her twin-sized bed, and started dragging cardboard boxes from beneath it. Lev moved each one to the center of the room.
The trap should spring closed at any moment. It would be the perfect time to attack. I made a beeline for the window, bumping my hip on the arm of the couch in my haste. I peeked out the window at a handful of creatures out on the street.
Most of them shared humanoid form, but a few were unusual enough that they would have caused a stir on the streets of New Haven City. One wore a hood, his furry hands clasped in front of him. Another had a black-and-white marbled head and wore a bright orange jumpsuit. I didn’t want to know where he’d gotten it from.
I couldn’t pick out any followers, and nobody seemed interested in where we’d gone. None.
I crossed my arms. “Can we hurry this up?”
“Yes, hurry, please,” Lev grumbled. “We must get back.”
Mara’s movement increased in speed.
Keeping my place beside the window, I puzzled out what I knew about her. On the one hand, Mara had a dignity, an air of confidence, and a formal tilt to her chin. But on the other, she had a retreating, scatter-brained quality that didn’t bear that out. It could be her missing memories or her experience with the shifter.
All I knew for sure was that she’d gotten us both to follow her without any trouble.
Once Mara had retrieved all the containers, she rummaged through them in the center of the room. She scowled at each one, sometimes blowing the dust off the top or lifting the cardboard lids to peer inside.
At the tenth container, she announced, “Ah ha!” Then she knocked the lid off the box and reached inside. “Found it.”
Instead of lifting the prize from inside, she grasped the box and placed it on the coffee table in front of Lev. “The shifter said this was yours.”
Lev met my gaze, and I dipped my chin. If he was going to find out what had gotten us dragged into the weirdest place in New Haven, he should get on with it. He rummaged inside the container, pulling out several squares of fabric. He admired each, wasting precious moments on flattery.
“Scarves?” I ground out.
Mara shook her head. “No, keep searching, Lev.” She leaned forward and stared into his eyes.
I shivered. The whole setup felt like a trap. I glanced back out the window. No one was stopping in front of the brownstone. Men in black suits weren’t currently converging on our little party.
Lev rumbled, and one side of his mouth turned upward. He’d found something. “Here it is,” he said.
I left my post and settled on the corner of the coffee table. Lev dropped the white carvin
g back into the box as though it’d burned him.
“What was it?” He didn’t answer me, just backed away from Mara’s box and sank back into the couch.
Mara’s face was a mask of concern. “What is it, Lev? I thought you’d be happy?” He didn’t respond, probably mute from the shock.
I grasped the corner of the box and pulled it close.
There.
A white form swam among the jumbled mess of scarves. I squinted, then reached in as I realized what it was. Lifting the figurine from the box, I ran my hands from head to tail fin. The expertly carved sperm whale had been sanded smooth, the woodgrain bleached by the sun. I guessed that it was made of driftwood. I observed Lev from the corner of my eye, uncertain why this affected him so much. “Lev?”
My friend stood as though he wanted to take the carving from me, but he clutched his chest and choked on a sob. The movement knocked the fedora from his head, and it rolled away as tears leaked from his eyes.
“Lev?” His reaction concerned me. Not much upset him.
“William,” he whispered as he collapsed on the polished, mother-of-pearl floor.
Mara dashed forward and reached him before I could. Wrapping her arms around him and whispering words in his ear, she pulled him close. As she spoke to the unconscious Lev, she met my gaze without flinching. Her eyes turned bright.
Images of Arún being consumed by the peacock shifter warred with the reality in front of me. My knees weakened as the air moved around us. Mara meant to kill Lev.
I had to do something. Anything.
A bright light enveloped both of them, and I yelled, rushing forward. But I was too late and a dome settled over them. It blocked me from reaching Lev or Mara and filled with a spider web made up of strands of magic. Mara laid them over Lev as fast as she could, her lips uttering words that I couldn’t hear. She wove more spells until I couldn’t stand to stare at Lev any longer, he was covered in the neon light of incantations.
I tried to force my arm inside, but the shield didn’t budge. The longer I pushed, the hotter my skin grew until at last, I stepped away. I held my injured, blistering hand against my middle.
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