Incendiary (The Premonition Series (Volume 4))

by Amy A. Bartol

  “Xavier, I don’t remember anything but this life,” I say, my eyes imploring his. “I remember high school and you throwing wads of paper at me in the bleachers at assemblies.” I point at him, “And Drivers Ed! You remember—the time you and Cole sat in the back seat of the Drivers Ed car and pretended like every turn I made would be our last?”

  “You were being too cautious,” Xavier says tenderly. He reaches his hand up to stroke my damp hair. “If you had taken those turns any slower, we’d still be there.”

  “Whatever,” I retort, irritated that he’s still able to tease me, even in the midst of this conversation. “My point is that what I remember of you is not flattering.”

  “Junior Prom was nice,” he says softly.

  “Yes and you told me a few weeks later that you didn’t think we were right for each other,” I point out, surprised to realize that I still feel the sting of that rejection, even after all that has happened since then.

  “We were becoming too close,” he replies with a frown. “You were too fragile...I was losing control.” His eyes soften. “What if I told you that being with you gives the night its purpose?” he asks. “I have memorized the curve of your body when you’ve lain in my arms. I’ve listened to your delicate breath, while I’ve pillowed your head on my chest. And one day soon, I’ll be the one who steals your strength with just a kiss,” he says, while placing my hand back on his chest so that I feel the primal beat of his heart under my fingertips.

  “I don’t remember you ever holding me like that,” I murmur, shaking my head and trying to pull my hand from him.

  “You didn’t know I was there,” he says softly. “It was my job to protect you and part of that was protecting you from the knowledge of what we are.”

  “I don’t know you at all. It was all lies,” I repeat, nearing despair.

  “You know me. Soon, you’ll remember us,” he murmurs.

  “And if I don’t?” I ask, seeing pain enter his eyes again.

  “You will,” he replies, like a promise.

  “You can’t tell Reed,” I state abruptly, while my mind tumbles over itself for ways to exact a promise of silence from him.

  “Why not? He has to be told about us,” he replies, and my fingers on his chest curl into a tight fist.

  “Why does he have to know? It’s all in the past—high school. It’s the kind of thing that would make him…” I trail off as I bite my lower lip.

  “He has to be told, Evie,” Xavier replies with his eyes narrowing into a frown. “It’s not something that I plan to keep a secret.”

  “WHY!” I shout, while I pull my hand away from him again. Color floods my cheeks at the thought of Xavier telling Reed anything about what we may have been to each other in a time that I can hardly even imagine, let alone remember.

  “It will answer questions that he must’ve been asking himself since he met you,” he replies.

  “What questions?” I retort, panic rising in me again.

  “He must have wondered how he came between two soul mates,” he says in a gentle voice. “It is an alliance that is virtually unbreakable.”

  “You’re saying you did that?” I ask in a rush. “You came between Russell and me?”

  “Not me…you,” he says quietly. “It was what you asked for: a reward for your mission here on Earth.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say in confusion. “I don’t understand.”

  “You asked for a love of your own choosing, not one that had been created for you. Soul mates are corresponding halves of a whole created to fit together in perfect symmetry. You wanted a love of your own making—your own creation…the ultimate free will. You did it for me—for us,” Xavier says in a reverent tone that only causes me to panic more.

  “No, you’re lying! I’d never do that to Russell,” I say, shaking my head.

  “Things were different between both of you,” he says.

  “Why? Why were they different?” I ask

  “They were different because you love me,” he replies with a smile touching his lips.

  “I love you? You’re saying I chose this mission for you? I chose to be the first angel with a soul?” I ask.

  He nods with a solemn expression. “And I came with you to protect you.”

  “But, then you left me here,” I reply, feeling stiff and taut.

  Xavier’s expression turns almost desperate. “I was called back! I had no choice in the matter: no free will,” he says grimly. “Every moment away from you has been a crushing weight with no relief.”

  “Xavier,” I say, trying to shrug his hands off my arms, but he pulls me against his chest and hugs me.

  Whispering against my hair, he says, “You know me. You must remember me, Evie. It is your singular sweetness—your fire that burns within me and I have to find a way to bring you back to me.”

  “Xavier, I can’t come back to you,” I whisper.

  He tightens his embrace for an instant before his arms ease from around me as he lets go of me. “You have no choice, Evie,” he says with a sad smile. “Our futures are weft in patterns that will not allow us to fall away from each other. The fabric of time will tell our story, with or without you willing it. You will know me again.”

  “And Reed?” I ask, fearing what he’s telling me.

  His mouth thins in a narrow line. “Maybe he can become like the sea and forget the shape of things that once were, but now are lost,” he replies.

  “His shape is burned into me,” I respond with intensity, pointing at my chest. “I will never forget him.”

  “‘Never’ is a deceptive concept, Evie,” Xavier replies with an air of calm. “I prefer to wager on always—the infinity ahead to kiss your lips, to touch your skin—to help you rediscover the love between us.”

  “There’s nothing between us, not anymore!” I disagree sternly, crossing my arms over my chest.

  “There is!” he counters with equal heat. “I made you a promise that I wouldn’t allow you to forget me and I intend to keep that promise.”

  “This is insane,” I mutter as I rub my brow with a shaky hand. “You’re speaking of things I can’t even begin to respond to.”

  “What else can I do?” he asks while he threads his hands pensively through his blond hair.

  “You can promise me that you won’t tell Reed anything about this,” I counter.

  “By ‘this’ you mean ‘us?’” Xavier asks, his brows coming together in frustration.

  “Fine—us,” I state with equal frustration.

  “No,” he states emphatically.

  “No?” I retort as my breathing increases.

  “No, I won’t promise you that,” he replies. “He needs to know.”

  A voice from behind Xavier interrupts my thoughts. “Xavier…you told her?” Tau asks with his eyes fixed on me. He’s dressed warmly in a seaman’s coat with a knit cap covering his auburn hair. Beside him, Cole is similarly attired as he scans Xavier’s dripping wet form in front of me.

  “Yes,” Xavier affirms with a single nod. He drops his hands to his sides when he sees Cole standing beside Tau on the cold deck.

  My eyebrows draw together in a scowl. “We’ve just been chatting. Anything else you guys want to tell me?” I ask them all with sarcasm dripping from my voice. “You’re not my mother, are you Cole?”

  A wide grin forms on his mouth before he laughs. “No, Evie,” he says, shaking his dark head. “I’m not your mother. But, we’ve been friends for a very long time.”

  Tau frowns, “I thought we agreed to wait until after we dealt with the Gancanagh.” His gray eyes bore into Xavier’s.

  “She pressed the issue. She tried to throw me overboard,” Xavier responds with a reluctant smile.

  “Evie?” Cole asks, intrigued.

  “This will bring on complications that we don’t need, Xavier,” Tau continues, ignoring his last comment.

  “Complications that I will field,” Xavier replies calmly.

  “Phaedrus
said—” Tau begins.

  “I know what he said,” Xavier cuts him off in frustration.

  Tau gives Xavier a disapproving look before his eyes shift back to me. I raise my chin as I stare back at him, feeling acutely uncomfortable in his presence. “Can we talk?” Tau asks me gently.

  “What would you like to discuss?” I question, turning on him with thinly veiled hostility in my tone. “My aspire—my forgotten lover—my soul mate—or, I know! Let’s talk about my undead stalker! Those are all topics I want to discuss with my long-lost father!”

  “We don’t have to discuss anything that makes you uncomfortable. I’d like to just try being in the same room with you…uh, maybe share a meal with you. We don’t have to even talk if you don’t wish to…” he trails off.

  “You want to have dinner with me?” I ask. A confusing rush of guilt and fear mixed with an appalling sense of hope attacks me. Quickly, I try to swallow past the lump in my throat that the hope has elicited.

  “Yes,” he replies, and I get the sense that he is studying me.

  “Alone? Just the two of us?” I ask, before glancing at Xavier and seeing his jaw tense in irritation.

  “Yes,” Tau replies again, his eyebrow lifting in quite the same way that mine does.

  “When?” I ask.

  “Tonight?” Tau counters.

  “But, aren’t we supposed to arrive at the castle by this afternoon?” I inquire.

  “We should arrive within the hour,” Tau replies.

  “We’ll be there that soon?” I ask. The air suddenly feels suffocating and heavy. Adrenaline ripples through my bloodstream, like water through narrowing channels, making me feel lightheaded.

  I must look wobbly because Tau pulls me into his arms and holds me lightly against his chest. “Close your eyes.” I struggle to take a deeper breath. “Picture yourself wandering beneath the moon’s golden reflection,” he says in a gentle voice as my cheek rests against his shoulder, “the heady scent of languid flowers in their first blush, carried on a balmy breeze; the elemental feeling of cool, evening sand beneath your feet; and the secret knowledge that you are one with it all.”

  A tear slips from my eye to roll down my cheek while I inhale his scent and find it to be so familiar to me—the scent of my home—of my childhood. Slowly, my hands come up to lightly touch his back. “You smell like the night to me,” I whisper as my arms involuntarily tighten around him.

  “Evening was when I could get the closest to you,” he replies in a soothing voice. “When you were a baby, I could hold you through the dark hours...just you and me.”

  “You could?” I ask.

  “You were so gentle and sweet…I was afraid to touch you at first. You were so human then…fragile and tiny.”

  “You were afraid of me?” I ask, not picking my head up from his shoulder. “Don’t you meet with the Fallen in Sheol?”

  “Yes,” he replies, “but none of them has ever stolen my heart nor left me without words to ponder its loss.” I close my eyes tighter so that I won’t cry. “Will you have dinner with me tonight?” he asks me again as my arms loosen on him.

  “Okay,” I agree in a voice that is barely audible.

  “Thank you,” he replies with a smile in his tone.

  Letting go of him, I keep my eyes averted from Tau as I walk toward the companionway of the ship. “Evie,” Xavier calls to me. “We need to talk as well.”

  I pause for a moment before I glance at Xavier. “You’re eternal, right?” I ask him in a rhetorical way. “I’m betting that you can wait.”

  CHAPTER 17

  Ireland

  Russell

  Long, slantin’ shadows fall like fence posts over the deep-red, embroidered tapestries linin’ the wall in the hallway. This corridor, with its tall, narrow windows leads to the Archive Room. Knowin’ where everythin’ is in the Gancanagh estate doesn’t make it less creepy; in fact, it might be more so ‘cuz I’m used to seein’ it well maintained and full of activity. Now, shattered glass and broken furniture litter the rooms like a frat house at the end of the term.

  Anya rubs her nose again, tryin’ hard to ease the burn of the sweet, cloyin’ odor of the Gancanagh. If I wasn’t so completely infuriated with her, I’d feel bad for her, but as things stand, it just makes me smile.

  “You should’ve smelled it before they were evicted,” I mutter to her. “Naw, come to think of it, you should’ve been in the caves with them. Now that was rank.”

  Anya ignores my comment and moves her hand back to a ready position on her bow. She stalks ahead of me a few paces, gettin’ closer to Reed, Sorin, and Elan at the front of our unit, which is exactly where I want her to be: protected in the center.

  I glance behind us several times as we make our way down the hall to ensure nothin’ is comin’ at us from behind. In this position, I have a clear view of Anya, and I plan on keepin’ it until we know what we’re dealin’ with here.

  Reed speaks into his wireless headset, which sends his voice echoin’ to the earphone, “Approaching the Archive Room.”

  Preben’s voice responds in our ears, “North Tower’s clear—anything interesting in the Archive?”

  “We’ll let you know when we get in,” Reed replies.

  Preben says somethin’ in Angel, which makes Zephyr smile.

  “What’d he say, Zee?” I ask, ‘cuz I hate bein’ left out.

  Zee shrugs negligibly. “He called dibs on any Faerie armor,” he replies with a twinkle in his eyes. “Faeries are known for their intricate metalwork, especially armor and weapons.”

  “Does he know they sing?” I ask, rememberin’ Red’s memories of the weapons in the Archive Room singin’ for her when I used my clone to talk to her in her captivity.

  “Yes—that is essentially why Preben wants one,” Zephyr answers, speakin’ of the tall, silver-haired leader of the Dominion Powers.

  Reed left the assignment of the other Dominion teams to Preben after choosin’ ours. Sorin, Elan, and Tycho are the only Powers Reed let accompany us, ‘cuz I think that he worked with them in China and they earned his trust.

  I look ahead then to the enormous, wooden doors encompassin’ the far wall. They’re not merely ostentatious ‘cuz they almost reach the ceilin’, they’re also adorned with intricately carved dragonheads clawin’ outward, like vicious sentinels frozen in the instant before they could surge forth from their mahogany prison.

  Sniffin’ the air, I say in a low tone, “Hold up, Reed.”

  The angels ahead of me halt, becomin’ still as I creep forward toward the doors.

  “What is it?” Reed asks.

  I sniff the air again. “I don’t know…magic, I think, but the smell is different…ashen and smoky, like a campfire,” I explain, tryin’ to find the source of the energy. “Y’all got marshmallows?” I ask, over my shoulder with a slow smile.

  Glancin’ behind me, the angels all stare back at me, puzzled.

  “Never mind,” I mumble, wishin’ Red was here.

  Reachin’ out to the doors cautiously, all the hairs on my arms rise in response. Light shines swiftly from the carved Faerie writin’ on the archin’ eaves above the doors, while frightenin’ crackin’ and creakin’ come from the wood. Hastily, I step back from the edifice.

  A curlin’, dark roil of smoke tumbles and rises from the large nostrils of the fire-breathin’ beast etched within the doors. The dragonheads’ expressions change from tragic to fierce while they animate and move with struggling jerks to free themselves from the timbered plane.

  “Naw, don’t get up on our account,” I murmur in a sanguine tone I’m not feelin’.

  The heads pivot toward me as one scaly cranium lurches violently in my direction, its serpentine neck comin’ within inches of my face. A thunderin’ voice punctures the air as it speaks. The voice is somethin’ between the sound of a biker gang startin’ up their engines and a launch at Cape Canaveral. The vibration from it causes what is left on nearby tables to shatter before th
ey hit the ground. Couple that with the smell of brimstone and burnin’ flesh that rolls out of its mouths in smoky plumes and it’s enough to make me feel a second of regret for havin’ come on this mission.

  When the rumblin’ voice from the dragonhead subsides, I ask, “Anyone catch that?” while backin’ up further from the snarlin’ beast tearin’ away from the door inch by inch.

  Wood splinters in tremblin’ cracks as the two-headed dragon strains to get out of it. Spatterin’ flames leap into the air like the inferno from fire-breathers at a carnival sideshow, while the heat from them rushes oven-hot around me.

  “Y’all can feel that, right?” I ask Reed and Zephyr at my sides.

  “No, faerie magic is useless against us. Is it warm?” Zephyr inquires with a grin.

  “Yeah, it sorta is, actually,” I nod with an ironic twist of my lip. “What’d it say?” I ask, sweatin’. “Do y’all know?”

  The ground rumbles as one huge claw scrapes the floor in front of the door. Sharp, mahogany talons tear the ancient rug in long, jagged knife-lines, while the stone floor cracks beneath its weight.

  “Please tell me that someone knows Faerie,” I say hopefully.

  “I know it,” Reed replies, soundin’ like he’s concentratin’.

  “You gonna let me in on what it said or not?” I ask, before cringin’ when the beast throws back its heads and roars triumphantly as its second set of talons dislodge from the wood, poundin’ on the floor with a startlin’ BUMP.

  Reed, ever the professional, says calmly, “It asked this question: ‘When confronted by the knowledge that all is lost, save the disgrace of death, what is your weapon of choice?’”

  “It wants to know what weapon I’d pick if I know I’m gonna die?” I ask, frownin’ at his face.

  “Yes,” he states.

  “Do you think it’s a trick question?” I shoot back. “I mean, if we’re wrong, what do you think will happen?” I ask, attemptin’ to sound casual.

  “I think the beast will continue to grow until we solve the enigma or it kills you,” Reed replies without much expression. “Do you know any anti-dragon charms?”