Or flying.
“Looks like you’ve been busy,” Zach said. “Catch me up?”
. . .
The others arrived a few days later.
A sand-brown minivan snaked down the road to El Greco, this time the sound of the motor catching Lexi’s attention. Yang didn’t react, and that meant Lexi didn’t either. Zach raised his eyebrows at her. They knew that van.
She stood transfixed where she was, covered in soot and sweat, inky hair escaping its braid and her leather apron covering her tank-top and an old pair of work overalls; the furnaces were an oasis of heat in the heart of winter. Her one hand gripped the anvil; the other clutched a piece of wrought iron she was fashioning as a hybrid of mirror handle and weapon, its end tapering into a spear-sharp point. Zach turned away from another furnace with his own hammer in hand, watching the vehicle. They wiped the sweat from their faces and waited.
Three men tumbled out of the van with great bulging backpacks and bright red cheeks. They dropped their backpacks on the floor and faced the two of them, standing shoulder to shoulder. One of them winked.
Lexi released the anvil.
“Is this your doing or mine?” Zach asked.
She fought to breathe. She’d left the mirror at Jerry’s office as a token of hope, not as a summoning. But he’d come, and he’d brought a familiar due along with him.
Jerry grinned. “Hey doll. Thought we’d find you here.” He turned and elbowed Adam. “I told you—didn’t I tell you? Spitting attitude of her grandfather, this one.”
“Marc’s getting married next week and Evy has three kids now. Maybe four?” Farhad scratched his neck apologetically. “We could not tell them. They have too much to lose.”
“But we came as soon as we could,” Adam butted in, waving at Lexi with his stump. He paused as she gasped, then smiled humorlessly and stretched out the arm that tapered to a stub where his wrist had once been connected to a hand. “New punishment if they find you actually wielding a mirror.” He wriggled the fingers of his remaining hand at her. “Not to worry. They didn’t take the favorite.”
Lexi swallowed hard, her heart pounding with gratitude and fear. “This is dangerous. You shouldn’t be here. You have to leave.” She reached out her hands to push them away, yet her arms held back, afraid to touch them, afraid they’d disappear if she did. She did not notice the tears that had built up until they traitorously slipped from her eyes. “It’s unbelievably good to see you but you are literally leaving right now. Get in the van and get out.”
“What?” Jerry stared at her. “You think we dropped by for a house-call? You’re in trouble, Lexi. How soon do you think it’ll be before they catch you?”
The color drained from her face. “You followed me?”
“We couldn’t,” Farhad admitted. “You’ve been careful. Jerry only guessed it was you because we know you pretty damn well—what you know, what you’re capable of, where you could be. And then there was the mirror.”
“By the looks of it, you’ve been skimping on sleep as usual, old roommate,” Jerry added with a grin directed at Zach. “You heard of mirror-making from me back in the day, so consider this your return of the favor. If you’re going to sweep us all up in a revolution, we might as well be a part of the show. Get some credit in the end titles of the movie and all that.”
Lexi glared at Zach. “You’re in on this too? Say something!” She turned back to the newcomers. “You’re insane, the lot of you. You should never have come. This goes for you, too, Zach. Do you have any idea what you’re all risking, being here?”
The four of them stared back at her, their faces hardening. Each pair of eyes harbored its private collection of ghosts and demons; they waved at Lexi behind each cornea.
She stared back unflinching.
“Oh, we know.” Zach sighed. “We thought we could hide, I’ll admit that. And we did for years, didn’t we, Lexi? But the truth always comes out. You know that. It’s bad out there now. It’s going to get worse.”
“A dominion of devils,” Farhad added. “You think you are the only one who Sees, little Lexi? Your Pappou trained you real nice. You hid it well. Bet you didn’t know he trained me, too. He told me it was easier for all of us if we did not know about each other. You want us here, deep down. Yours wasn’t a summoning, but it was a message of hope. That’s good enough for us.”
“They can’t wait to chop off the rest of me.” Adam bared his teeth in what Lexi assumed was a smile. “Might as well make it worth their time. I’m not going down blindsighted.”
Lexi stretched out her hands, her heart pitter-pattering perilously as she welcomed them. Jerry. Adam. Farhad. Zach.
They gripped one other’s arms, five humans pledging to sin against the Devil.
36 / Ya’aburnee
“What big eyes you have… the kind of eyes that drive wolves mad.”
–Little Red Riding Hood
The last day of February dawned with fierce clarity, the sun blazing against a metallic horizon, reflecting off the countryside’s carpet of snow. The five of them ate a breakfast of canned fruit and fried eggs, eggs and frying pan provided by the resourceful Farhad. They crouched around one of the furnaces Jerry had lit for warmth, their faces glowing from the flames, surrounded by one hundred mirror frames stacked up against El Greco’s walls. The weatherman on Adam’s portable radio promised another snowstorm soon, clamoring that he hadn’t ever witnessed such a long winter in the area.
“Enough of this hermitage,” Zach insisted. “You’d already gotten into the habit of talking to yourself by the time I showed up. Who knows what other screws are going to come loose if we starve that society-deprived brain of yours.”
“I’m a criminal,” Lexi mumbled around her mouthful of egg yolk. “I can’t exactly go skipping around the countryside.”
Her friend rolled his eyes. “You’re an undercover criminal. And kindly include me in the equation, all right? Think of it as a partnership in crime. Keyword is still undercover. Nobody knows what we’re doing. Allegedly you’re working for that firm of yours—and freelancing is a perfectly acceptable form of work—and I’m taking this semester off to work on my master’s thesis. Don’t we deserve one outing? We’ve got three perfectly capable henchmen to cover our shift. Though in fact—” he waved a hand at the other three, each of them stuffing their faces to stay out of the argument “—I think we all deserve a day off.”
Adam, Farhad, and Jerry cheered behind their mouthfuls, specks of food flying into the air.
“Come on,” Zach urged. “They’ll even babysit Yang.”
The guys were less exuberant about that.
“You’re going to get us killed,” Lexi grumbled.
“Volpina bambolina.” Her friend grinned and managed to pinch her cheek before she swatted his hand away. “I won’t blow your cover if you don’t blow mine.”
. . .
The two of them drove to South Astoria after breakfast, pretending they’d just dropped through their hometown for the weekend. Zach checked into the local Bed & Breakfast downtown, immediately shutting down Lexi’s protestations with the promise of a hot bath. It was heavenly. She would have emerged in July if he hadn’t poked a hand in to turn the spout off.
They left the pick-up in the lodging’s parking lot, ignoring the clouds brewing on the horizon. They took turns leading each other down the quaint cobblestone streets of Old Town South Astoria, to old haunts that belonged to their childhood and memories. The Civil War museum. Jefferson Library. The blue-walled elementary school with its filmed windows and boxes of crayons. The town plaza, just as they remembered it, with no seats available at Red Lobster, Starbucks, and The Auld Shebeen. They stumbled across old friends and classmates, and Lexi’s heart filled at the unexpected hugs she received.
They walked into a phone store and bought a charger for Lexi’s cell; they charged the battery using an outlet of the restaurant where they stopped for lunch. The phone chirped with a new message, which L
exi heard but didn’t attend to right away. The waiter came to take their order, and she forgot all about it.
No one here knew what glass-spewing monster she and Zach had resurrected. No one knew that, a few kilometers away, they’d banded with three more people to break the law. No one knew that Lexi’s past had never been behind her. Her walk became less agitated. Breathing came more easily. She stopped looking over her shoulder, reminding herself that Dominic and Daimon and all the other human hydras of her world had no imminent interest in a tiny old-school town.
At some point, between the plaza and the park, she forgot about them altogether. She’d woken from the nightmare; it was over. Zach’s hand reached for hers. With a mind of their own, her fingers twined around his. They watched the sunset from an old gazebo by Molon Lake, sipping hot chocolate.
“That’s one way to end a good day.” He savored the smell of her hair as she leaned her head on his shoulder. Lexi glanced at the flyer taped to the gazebo’s wooden rails. Stafylakis Winery. Wine Tasting, 6pm. “Can you hold your liquor, foxie?”
She raised her head long enough to challenge him with her eyes. The first snowflakes of the afternoon tumbled onto her face. “Last one to the car buys the first round.”
“Shocking,” he said. “Coming from The Girl Who Just Drinks Tea.”
Something stirred inside Lexi, caged so deep within her ribs she’d forgotten it was there. It spurred her to put down her cup of chocolate and sprint off into the trees, pausing long enough to scoop up a snowball and throw it back towards the gazebo with a laugh.
. . .
A snowball pounded into her face, shaking a memory free from a crevice in her mind. Lexi reeled from the impact, falling back on her rear. She wiped the snow from her eyes.
“Shit!” Zach ran to her through the snowcapped trees. “Lexi!”
“Jesus.” She spat out a mouthful of snow, half-expecting to spit out a few teeth along with it. “No need to smash my head off.”
“Are you okay?” He crouched next to her, smoothing back her hair, reaching for her face. “I’m so sorry!”
“Grew up in South Astoria, did you?” Her brown eyes met his green ones in a faceoff quite different from the one they’d had as children. “Your aim hasn’t worsened.”
“What?”
“You lived in brick house with gray shingles. Green shutters on the windows, two dogwood trees near the front door. Your family rented that place for a year, didn’t they?”
Zach stared at her until his eyes widened. “How do you know that?”
“Did you or did you not behead my snowman?”
His face flushed a deep red.
“Holy crap,” Lexi said. “My mother was right about you.”
. . .
“Like it?”
“It’s not bad…”
“So, yes? We’re buying this one?”
“I wouldn’t say this one. The next one might be better.”
“Oh my God, we’re going to be here all night.”
“I thought we had all night.”
“Zach, seriously? You’ve finished half a dozen glasses already.” Lexi thrust her hand into his face and wiggled her fingers. “How many?”
“Seven,” he said with a grin. Her stomach churned as his hands circled her waist and jerked her closer to him. It was a wonderful kind of churning—the butterfly wings, the tap-dancing fairies, the stupid hormones cooking up a dangerous cocktail. “Now will you relax?”
“I’m confiscating these.” Lexi dug her hand into his coat pocket. She used their closeness to her advantage; the cold metal of the keys distracted her from the warm nearness of his mouth. “You may have brought us, but I’m taking us back. You keep doing your thing.”
“You smell delicious…”
Lexi bit her lip. Love is weak, she reminded herself. Love is blind. Love meant picking one human out of seven billion and saying: This one… yeah, I fancy this one—I’ll let this one ruin the rest of my life... “You know we’re just ten minutes from El Greco. If you start to feel woozy…”
Zach shook his head vehemently. “We’re crashing at the B&B tonight. Sleeping bags be damned, I’ve gone too long without a bed. And how are you not the least bit tipsy?”
She grinned at that. If you hadn’t chugged fire-encrusted raki, you didn’t know the definition of liquor. Khalil and George had taught her well. “I’d hate to see you on drugs.”
“I’m already on the strongest one,” he said.
Lexi found it hard to think up a reply. In another life, in another world… she would have let herself dream of a future with Zach, whether that translated into days or weeks or years. Now she had to pretend she didn’t love how the alcohol loosened Zach up, that she didn’t tingle when Zach’s fingers brushed against her hair, that she enjoyed being the grown-up in this situation. He was a good man. A good friend. She couldn’t mess things up with Zach. He was the only thing that still made sense in a world choking on its own vomit.
It was a matter of survival.
“I need to grab some water,” she said. “Remember, the clear nonalcoholic stuff? Want some?”
Zach leaned his head forward, and his face grew suddenly sober. Serious. He cupped Lexi’s face in his hands. Her mouth filled with heat as he kissed her. When she closed her eyes, his lips became the world. His tongue traced against hers, spelling things he couldn’t yet say.
They tore apart to breathe.
“Fuck,” he whispered.
And Lexi was flying.
. . .
When the kiss ended, Lexi allowed the shock of it to sweep through her body. It felt like a light jolt from a weak voltage, the kind that wakes you up and shimmers through you like an orgasm. She let Zach hold her, melting into his embrace.
That is when, peering over his shoulder, she saw the red-scarfed man.
He was leaning against the bar, grinning at the pretty bartender behind the counter, pointing to a bottle behind her back. The young woman smiled and turned with a flourish, her dyed copper hair gleaming like fire. She snatched up the bottle and poured the man a drink as smoothly as if her gleaming arm was an extension of the syrupy liquor. She batted her eyelids at him. The man turned his head, bored already, and let the bartender pout at his profile.
“No,” Lexi breathed.
For a moment she froze, leaning against Zach’s chest. There was a throng of people between her and the man at the bar. They might as well have been ghosts for all the substance and protection Lexi felt they could afford right then. There was no way this could be coincidental, but it was real. She grabbed Zach’s shirt and tugged him behind the nearest cluster of people.
“We need to go,” she hissed.
He would have been more than happy to oblige had that been said in a different tone of voice. The tightness of her face drained the humor from his. “Didn’t you want to buy some wine for the guys first?”
“Screw the wine.”
Zach didn’t budge. He tilted her chin up with his finger. “What’s wrong?”
She clutched at her stomach. Her heart was screaming at them to run; her head desperately wanted to peek around the crowd. “My stomach hurts. Really bad. I think it was something in the appetizers—the salmon rolls maybe.” She took a deep breath, no longer faking the pain. “Find the kitchen, ask for a bottle of Coke—please? I just want to use the washroom. I’ll be right out.”
Zach’s eyes sharpened at the fear in her voice. “Are you sure you don’t want me to come with you?”
“Sure,” she snapped. “I’m not going to throw up, but… you’ll have to give me a few minutes.” Crude, she knew. But it shut him up, like she hoped it would.
And it would buy her time.
“I’ll be right back.” He kissed her forehead and hurriedly made his way across the room.
Lexi watched Zach go. She deserved that much. She dug her phone out of her coat pocket and flipped it open, reading the text message she’d neglected earlier. It was from Pappou. The house
is being watched, he’d written. When had he written it? Why the hell hadn’t she come to town to buy a charger sooner? Why hadn’t she paid any damn attention? Don’t come back. I’ll come to you.
Her head snapped back up as she pocketed the phone again. The man hadn’t noticed her yet—or perhaps he pretended not to. Lexi’s eyes tore over him, pain intensifying in her gut like a knife stab, the white-hot sensation rendering her breathless for a moment. She noticed the details he’d meant for her to notice—an old-fashioned fisherman’s cap in his hand and a braided blue leash around his wrist.
She clenched her fingers around the keys and stepped out beyond the throng of people.
The man from the bar had made his way across the room, drink in hand. He seemed taller than Lexi remembered, wrapped in a black coat and that blood-red scarf. His chiseled features had retained their charisma and their edge. She was shocked to note how many little wrinkles etched his skin; it was probable they always had.
He saw her. His eyes widened, then narrowed, and his face tightened.
Lexi stepped closer until Dominic’s eyes met her own. She counted on the assumption that he wouldn’t dare harm her in a public place. After all, he was a celebrity now.
“Murderer,” she said.
37 / To Grandfather’s
House We Go
“When the Fox hears the Rabbit scream he comes a-runnin’, but not to help.”
–Thomas Harris
Lexi watched Dominic from the rearview mirror. She couldn’t discern his face yet, through his windshield and the thickening snowfall, but he was getting closer. Despite her head start, a pick-up truck was no match for an Audi.
A delay had happened unexpectedly, stumbling between them like a jigsaw piece cinching into place. John Stafylakis—the owner of the winery—had emerged from the crowd and rushed forward to clasp Dominic’s hand and clap him on the back. “Aaaah, there he is!” Stafylakis’ black beard wobbled as he laughed and turned to beam at the scowling female bartender. “So glad my daughter’s fiancé could join us for such a special evening!”
The Wake Up (The Seers Book 1) Page 18