Among the Debris (Son of Rain #2)

by Michelle Irwin

  I tried to remember enough French to warn the officer not to make a move or I’d shoot.

  “Uh, ne bougez pas ou je vais la tuer.” My French was stilted, I hadn’t spoken it for years, but I hoped that between my words and my actions he would get my point regardless. “Son sang sera sur vos mains.” Her blood will be on your hands.

  Zarita squeaked in fear. I hoped that it was an act to fool the police officer and not genuine concern. The officer raised his hands in surrender and backed away from the vehicle.

  “Get out,” I hissed at Zarita as I followed her closely, being cautious as I moved so that it appeared that I could fire at any time if the cop didn’t follow my instructions without actually putting her in any danger. I maneuvered carefully over the e-brake to ensure it didn’t jam into my thigh and cause me to squeeze my finger around the trigger by accident.

  Once we were outside of the car, I stood behind Zarita with the gun pressed as hard against her temple as I dared without hurting her.

  Zarita spoke in French, her voice spilling out in a rapid-fire conversation—so fast I could only make out a few words here and there. She was pleading for her life—begging the officer to help her. She was playing along, and not trying to help me, which was a relief.

  “Anglais?” I asked, trying to confirm whether we could continue the discussion in my native tongue.

  “Un peu.” A little.

  “Don’ move,” I instructed again as I moved away from Zarita and toward him, training my gun on his head. Without thinking about the reason behind it, I inflicted my voice with an accent similar to Graham’s, which ended up making me sound a little like a villain from a bad gangster movie.

  Once I was close enough, I reached forward, watching carefully for any sudden movements on the officer’s part, and grabbed his radio, snapping it away from his body so that he couldn’t radio back to base in a hurry.

  “I need t’get away from th’ coast,” I said, using a slow and deliberate tone to ensure he understood what I was saying but keeping the same strange infliction so that he couldn’t recognize my origins when asked about it later. “With a li’l encouragement,” I gave the gun a little shake to indicate that was my method of persuasion, “this lady was kind enough t’bring me this far. I’ll let her go if I have alternative transportation.” I indicated his bike with my head. “Are ya willing to sacrifice ya wheels for a civilian?”

  I kept my gun trained on the poor officer, who watched the gun with wide eyes and swallowed heavily as he nodded.

  “That’s a good man.” Keeping the gun aimed squarely at his face, I circled around so that I could get a hold of him from behind. I’d done it often enough in training with the Rain to know the best way to hold someone hostage from behind was to be up close and personal. Holding the gun out from your body was an invitation to have it knocked out of your hand.

  “Now, we’re gonna wave ’bye to the nice lady, who won’ say anythin’ to the police ’cause I took her address off her license. Isn’t tha’ right?”

  Zarita watched me with fearful eyes—no doubt worried that once she drove away she’d have no way of knowing whether or not I escaped from the police. Part of her fear seemed to be directed to the officer as well, and I wondered whether she thought I was capable of murdering a man in cold blood if he got in my way. The fact that I was part of the Rain had probably never been more evident to her than at that moment. As much as it killed me for her to doubt me that way, it also made me certain that the officer would no doubt be worrying about my intentions too.

  “Be a dear will you, love, and throw me bag out here?”

  She pulled open the driver’s door and reached inside, pulling my backpack from the passenger floor and tossing it on the road near where I stood.

  Pressing the gun against the officer’s head, I instructed him to reach for my bag. He moved slowly, cautiously bending at the knees and only ducking low enough to sling his hands through the straps before standing again.

  He moved his leg and instinct told me he was preparing to fight. “Don’t do anythin’ stupid now,” I warned in a quiet growl meant only for him. “Or I’ll shoot ya first and then kill her just because ya pissed me off.”

  His movements stilled as he looked up at Zarita who hadn’t moved.

  “Now you, get outta here!” I shouted at her. “Go!” I mouthed to Zarita to get her to leave. I couldn’t neutralize the situation until the officer saw her leave without me in tow—otherwise there would still be a question over her involvement.

  Once she’d left though, the situation would turn more risky for me. A good cop would never risk a civilian life, but most wouldn’t think twice about putting their own life on the line to serve and protect.

  The instant Zarita’s car was out of sight, just as the officer began to move—no doubt to fight back against my hold—I twisted the gun in my hand and brought the butt of it down against the back of his head in a sharp, powerful movement. Almost the second my blow struck him, he slumped forward.

  It wouldn’t knock him out for long, but including his recovery time, it would be long enough for me to get a few miles away.

  I used the cord from his personal radio to secure his hands and then helped him to his feet as he started to stir. He offered little resistance as I pushed him to the side of the road. Once there, he sat groggily, trying to gather himself together. I climbed onto his bike and radioed in his location and then, as best as I could in my faltering French, requested an ambulance before ripping the radio from its holder.

  After I was certain he’d be attended to before too long, I started the bike and took off. I had no idea where I was going to go. I would have to lose the bike before long and then I’d be on foot, but first I needed to get a good few hundred miles away. And then, I was on my own again while I waited for Zarita to do her thing.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  FOR CLOSE TO five months, I survived.

  I wasn’t sure how. I couldn’t say where I slept from day to day or even what country I was in more often than not. Food was scarce and my energy waned. Most of my days were spent huddled out of sight sleeping—in storm drains, hidden under shrubs or bushes with my thin clothes thrown over my eyes to block out the light. I traveled at night, moving from place to place without a thought over the best place to go.

  Every so often, whenever I thought enough time had passed since I last checked in, I called Zarita collect to find out about her progress. The first time was a week after we’d parted, and her voice filled with such utter relief I was certain she’d thought I had died. She didn’t have any information to tell me, as the items were still being cataloged. She didn’t even trust her team with them, so it was slow going.

  Each time I’d called after that, she’d tell me what she’d found, but it was never anything important. Despite the work she’d done, she’d only processed and translated a small portion of the artifacts. I wanted to wait for her to catalog everything, but I wanted that done already. Only then, would she have any chance of having the answers I sought.

  At first, I’d called religiously every seventh day, but after a while I couldn’t track days any longer. And the disappointment of not having anything new only sent me spiraling further into the darkness. Sometimes it felt like I was asleep more often than I was awake and that even waking up was more effort than it was worth.

  It had been at least a month, maybe a little more, since I’d last talked to Zarita, and I was hopeful she’d made some inroads during that time.

  Pulling myself from the abandoned car I’d slept in during the day, I went in search of a payphone.

  “Clay! I’ve been concerned for you. It’s been an age since you last called, I was worried that . . .” She trailed off and gave an awkward cough. “Well, I was worried.”

  “I’m alive.” I could have said I was fine, but I would’ve been lying. “Tell me you have something?”

  “I’ve got something. I’ve got so much. It’s taken a long time to piece every
thing together, but on the video there was a plinth that tells the story of the sunbird. The whole story.” The enthusiasm in her voice was unmistakable.

  My breath was knocked from me as I remembered the bust that looked so similar to Evie. Zarita’s words were ones I’d been dying to hear, and now I was terrified of them.

  “And?”

  “And you need to read it to understand. To really understand, I mean. It’s time to come see me.”

  “I’m not going to risk going to France again just yet.” I hadn’t called my family, hadn’t sought refuge from the hunt that Charles sent out for me in any way. After all, once I pleaded for forgiveness and returned to the fold, it would be harder for me to contact Zarita without raising suspicions.

  “Come find me in Cyprus. Many of my notes are there anyway.”

  “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  I hung up the phone barely believing that the conversation had actually happened. For so long, I’d imagined those words. My travels had taken me far since then—my body had thinned further, and my beard had grown—but Evie had been in my thoughts the whole time.

  In fact, it was thoughts that had kept me going. My months on the run were nothing but a taste of what she’d had to face her entire life. Not anymore though. With Zarita’s research, I was going to bring about redemption for her. I was going to prove to the Rain, to every ranking member, that not all creatures were evil. Somehow.

  I no longer cared whether Evie had cast a spell on me or somehow woken feelings in me that could be deemed unnatural. I’d long come to accept that even if they were somehow enhanced by her magic, the emotions were mine. It had been my choice to pursue her initially, long before we shared our first kiss.

  It was the hurt I’d inflicted on her in Charlotte that convinced me I was still in control. It had taken me far too long to see it, but the fact that I’d left her after her father’s death—that I’d been able to leave her—proved that I still made my own choices.

  Even if they were the wrong ones.

  With the hope I would soon find a method to secure Evie’s freedom, I picked my way back across Europe until I was in Italy—at the very south of the Schengen Agreement area.

  Knowing I had no other way to get across to Cyprus, I stole a small sailing boat and supplies from the Porto Turistico at Le Castella and began the voyage of hopping around the islands before eventually crossing the Mediterranean Sea. It felt like months passed before I finally arrived in Cyprus, but in reality, it was only a little over a week.

  I dumped the stolen boat at a marina at night, tying it off and skipping out on completing the documentation. Once morning arrived, I hitchhiked my way to Zarita’s house with the determination of a bloodhound.

  My fingers had barely grazed the paint of her door before it opened. She tugged me off the street and into her arms, crying over the sight of me. My name left her lips like an exclamation of faith. A little embarrassed by her affection, I pulled away. “I look terrible, don’t I?”

  Her eyes said yes, but she patted my cheek. “You just need a good feed.”

  I nodded, willing to let her lie to the both of us that it was that simple.

  She refused to allow me to read any of her notes until I’d shaved, showered, and eaten. I had to admit once I’d finished all those things, I felt better. In fact, I almost felt human again.

  When I came out of the bathroom wearing the cleanest and least threadbare clothes I had, she smiled genuinely for me. “That’s the Young Master Clay I knew was in there.”

  Once I had satisfied her need to feed me and had a cup of warm coffee in my hands to keep me alert, I was more than ready for her to share her notes. “So what do you have for me?”

  “First there’s this,” she slipped some papers in front of me.

  “What is it?” The handwritten pages looked old, the writing inked with care.

  “Shakespeare. An original. There are copies that have leaked and survived of course, but the Rain found value enough in that particular copy of the piece to want it hidden. I think it’s something to do with the description of events surrounding the penning of the text, rather than the verse itself.”

  I read through the poem that was in front of me. A few paragraphs were highlighted.

  So they lov’d, as love in twain,

  Had the essence but in one;

  Two distincts, division none:

  Number there in love was slain.

  Hearts remote, yet not asunder;

  Distance and no space was seen

  ‘Twixt this Turtle and his queen:

  But in them it were a wonder.

  So between them love did shine

  That the Turtle saw his right

  Flaming in the Phoenix’ sight:

  Either was the other’s mine.

  The last paragraph ran through my mind over and over. “What does this mean?”

  “It describes the love between a turtledove and a phoenix, and their union.”

  “I don’t understand what this has to do with what you were researching.”

  Zarita smiled knowingly. “Maybe nothing. But here—” Zarita shuffled through some paperwork and passed me a computer printout. “That’s a modern translation of the story that accompanied the poem, Shakespeare talks about outside inspiration.”

  I read through the story, and everything tilted off balance.

  In it, William Shakespeare described a visit he had from the fair people—the fae.

  Oberon, the queen’s consort, had apparently sought out a great bard to render into human history a prophecy made by his queen, Tatania. I dropped the page to the table. A prophecy that foretold of a love affair between two would-be enemies.

  “Is this some sort of fucking joke?” I asked.

  “I can understand why you would think that.”

  “These are the characters from A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”

  “This poem was released after that play, but I believe it was written before.”

  “So fairies visited him and gave him the idea for this poem? You really believe that.”

  She chuckled. “You shouldn’t take everything at face value, especially not everything written by someone who masters in allegory and metaphor.”

  It was understandable that she was skeptical. She’d already confirmed that she didn’t believe any of the stuff she was investigating. I understood that. It was hard for most scholars to accept that myths and legends from history weren’t just hokum and make-believe.

  For me though, it was impossible for it not to be literal. As it sank in, the truth written on the page was more likely than the story merely being a product of Shakespeare’s imagination. The question that remained though, was what it meant. Not only for the truth about Shakespeare’s inspiration, but for me. For Evie.

  A small part of my mind whispered it was a prophecy of the love between a phoenix and a dove. The image of the Rain Elite, the one on the chain I’d given to Evie before she’d left me, was a dove. Could it be a prophecy about Evie and me? I refused to trust it. If it came from the mouths of fae, it wasn’t to be trusted.

  Only . . . I read it through and a weight dragged at my heart over the stanzas once more. The poem contained an unmistakable sorrow, a lament for love lost to death. It made me less inclined to believe it. It couldn’t be a prophecy. Not about Evie and me anyway.

  I wouldn’t let her be harmed because of the way I felt about her—wasn’t that why we were on two different continents.

  Images of a dream floated back to me. I’d first had it in Detroit, but it’d played through my mind on more than one night since. Me and Evie face to face in a treatment room.

  A gun in my hand.

  A shot ringing out.

  Closing my eyes, I dropped the paper onto the table. After an exhaled breath to shake the images from my mind, I glanced back up at Zarita. “What else have you got?”

  “This,” she said, handing me another sheet of paper.

  It contained
an extended version of the sunbird legend, in the form of a poem. The rhythm and cadence were lost in translation, and I had to read it twice to make sure I had the information right, but I could understand Zarita’s excitement about it.

  “This explains the gaps mentioned in your research,” I said. “It explains everything.”

  What the notes explained—what Evie herself probably didn’t know—was that the sunbird was a permanent fixture inside the soul of a phoenix, but it was also a separate entity. One woken by key events. Before it’d been woken, and once it eventually returned to sleep, everything that the sunbird was would lie in wait for the next generation.

  Under certain circumstances, a phoenix could even bear a child naturally—normally through reproduction.

  It explained why there were generations that passed without fire. It also meant that, with the exception of her hair and eyes, a phoenix could live just like a normal person. Unnoticed and completely harmless. It was only influences like the Rain attacking that caused the sunbird to waken, as well as one other specific set of circumstances.

  “I told you, didn’t I?” Zarita asked. Her eyes flashed with an unmistakable excitement.

  “Mortal peril or the kiss of her one true love,” I read.

  “Once the sunbird chooses a partner, the process is irreversible,” Zarita explained, reminding me of words I’d read that felt like a hundred lifetimes ago. “She is changed, and so is the partner. It’s like soul mates, but not. The best way to explain it in western terms is true love.”

  “Agape,” I said with a smile.

  “Exactly. Even though it’s not quite right, it also is. The bond between a sunbird and her mate is one of pure love.”

  “Can I keep this?” I asked. She’d already agreed to email me through all the information, but I wanted the physical pages to read until I had access to the electronic copy.