A Shimmer of Angels

by Lisa M Basso

  His wings connected at his shoulder blades. I inched closer to get a better look. A black pattern, almost like a star, spanned the skin around them. Instinctively, I circled the bed and brought my hand up. The wings drew me in. I had to be closer. If I could just touch them, maybe his reasons for breaking me out would make more sense. Maybe, somehow, everything would make more sense: my sight, his existence, Heaven and Earth, the world. My hand hovered inches from where the wings attached to his skin.

  He spun around, his hand catching my wrist with a snap. I gasped, my heart lurching in my chest. The movement was faster than anything I’d seen before.

  “Don’t touch unless you intend to finish what you started.” His voice was as cold as Antarctica.

  He released my hand, and I took a step back, slamming my leg against the corner of the nightstand. “Sorry. I was curious.”

  “Yeah, well, curiosity killed the cat,” he said, voice full of intensity.

  I swallowed and sidestepped him, trying not to let the first ripples of fear show. “Yeah, well, you would know more about killing than I would.”

  He looked away, peering back out the window.

  I glared at him, thankful, for once, for his attitude, a reminder of how I normally felt about him. I clung to that distaste for everything I was worth.

  He cleared his throat, his shoulders still tense. “It’s late. We should hurry. It’ll be rush hour soon. We’ll be lucky if we make it to the city before sundown.”

  He slipped into his shirt. It slid down over his wings before they shimmered through it.

  I followed Kade out of the room at a distance. We maneuvered through a maze of garbage and bodies. There were several people still in the house. The lucky ones had crashed on chairs and couches; the others lay passed out on the floor or in the bathrooms. The pungent reek of alcohol wafted up from dozens of empty red plastic cups and seeped from the unconscious guests’ pores.

  “We’re not flying again, are we?” I whispered.

  “No. Too dangerous during the day.” He tugged a hand through the back of his hair.

  If I didn’t know better, I would have thought it was a lie. But no. I was fresh from a mental institution, being paranoid. Of course we couldn’t fly around during the day where everyone could see us.

  I followed him through the living room and the front door. The crisp mountain air was so much cleaner and sharper than the city. Clouds partially obscured the sun that still burned too bright for eyes that hadn’t been outside in weeks. I blinked against the daylight and shielded my eyes. Trees lined the sidewalk, coating the cold ground beneath my feet with leaves.

  “First, we need to get you out of those clothes.”

  I dropped my hand and narrowed my eyes at him.

  He cut a glare at me. “You are still dressed like an escapee, remember?”

  I looked down at the drawstring pants. And I still had no damn shoes.

  He started walking, and I had to hurry to catch up with him. When we reached the main road, he turned me toward him, looked me up and down, then bolted across the street. “Be right back,” he called from the other side. The forced smirk on his face turned my stomach with worry. He slipped into the vintage clothing store across the street.

  I crossed my arms nervously in front of me as car after car passed, some taking a second look at the crazy girl on the street. “Could she have been the one from the mental hospital I heard about on the news?” I could almost hear them say. I darted a look around, ready for the white coats to tackle me. Get a hold of yourself. I covered the side of my face and leaned against a tree so the numbers printed down the right side of my scrubs couldn’t be seen as clearly by the passing cars.

  Hyperventilation hovered in my lungs until Kade came out of the store and dashed across the street with a black plastic bag in hand. “We’re going back to the party.”

  I opened my mouth to argue, but decided against it. I mean, I wasn’t about to change in the alley.

  Once we got there, he pulled me back into a different bedroom, one on the first floor with black walls and a Van Halen poster on the door. He tossed the bag onto the bed, the plastic rustling as he opened it. “Put it on; I’ll wait outside.” He headed for the door.

  An onslaught of crystals and red satin exploded from the bag. “Wait. What is this?” I asked, afraid to touch the fluffy, bedazzled mess.

  “It’s the day before Halloween. I got you something … fun.” I could see the distain ringing his dark eyes before he left, closing the door behind him.

  Ass.

  I paced for a few moments, making sure a red satin poodle with a crystal collar wasn’t going to jump out and attack me, before I removed the outfit from the bag. Crystals dripped from the bust of the corseted top, which, to its credit, had more fabric than the separate skirt. The ultra-mini bottom, basically just a huge puff of tulle with an elastic waistband, wouldn’t leave much to the imagination. I left the clip-on devil tail and a red sequined horned headband in the bottom of the bag. This costume was so not anything I’d ever wear.

  I shook my head and searched the room for something—anything—else, but it looked like a clothes bomb had gone off in here, and everything smelled like pot and B.O. Unless I was comfortable running around in late October in dirty, too-large boxer shorts, then I didn’t have much choice.

  I undressed and pulled up the skirt, then wrapped the corset top around me, but couldn’t reach the laces. I groaned, covering up my chest as best I could before quietly calling out for Kade.

  The doorknob turned, but the door didn’t even open enough to creak. “Does it fit, little devil?”

  Little devil? Keeping my back to him, I peered over my shoulder. “You’re an ass. And I need help.”

  He grunted and swooped in, tugging the laces of the corset so hard my boobs almost jerked out of the dress. I readjusted the top before another unnecessarily hard tug stole my breath, and took back my previous assessment: “ass” was too kind a word.

  My back must have been bare between the laces because I could feel every brush of his fingers causing chaos over my skin. The satin ribbon skimmed the back of my thigh, reminding me how much leg was showing. And of course there was a wide gap between the top and the skirt, revealing a good deal of midsection. I’d be more covered up in a bikini. Another swift tug.

  His fingers worked fast, like he’d done it a thousand times before. The final tug knocked the breath right out of me. “That, right there, that sound. That’s how you know it’s tight enough.” For the first time since we woke up, he no longer sounded like he hated me.

  “Good to know.” I sucked in air and found it a little too hard to breathe. I pulled my skirt up a bit to cover more of my midsection, but quickly changed my mind when I looked in the full-length mirror in the far corner of the room. “But could we make it a little looser?” I looked over my shoulder at him.

  He shrugged. “We could if you want your tits to pop out.” Oh, so he was still angry then. Good to know.

  “Tight it is, then.” I tested my movements. The corset cinched in my waist, accenting my curves.

  I glanced at Kade, who was staring at me, expression unreadable. “You’re mighty good with a corset,” I said, testing the waters.

  “This isn’t my first time at the ball.” He avoided looking at me. “You look good in tiny clothes, by the way.”

  I shot him a glower and decided I was much too dignified to respond to that. He was right, though. I looked hot. The crystals clustered heavily on top and thinned at the bottom all the way around the blood-red fabric. The color seemed to brighten the shade of my hair and my too-pale skin, and I’d never seen my eyes so green. But there should still be twice this much fabric.

  I moved away from the mirror. “What now?”

  “Now, we borrow a car.”

  “You mean steal.”

  “You want to get home, right?”

  I sighed. “Fine.”

  “It’ll take me a few minutes to hotwire someth
ing. Meet me out front.” He opened the bedroom door and walked outside.

  I rolled my eyes and went back to the living room, where I fished in the nearest person’s pocket. No keys, but he had a cell phone. I palmed that and spotted the bulge of what I hoped were keys in the pocket of a guy passed out on the couch. I inched my hand in and pulled out a set of keys.

  Score.

  By the front door, three sets of shoes sat unattended. I looked down at my bare feet and decided to try the Chucks first. Too big. I tried the flat ballet slippers next, but could only wriggle about three quarters of my foot in. I sighed at what was left. Super-high black heels studded along the back with silver spikes. They were a little loose, but they had to be better than bare feet. I tested my balance, having never worn heels over two inches before.

  I wobbled outside to find Kade half inside a black car, fiddling with the wires under the steering wheel. I stood over him, blocking out his light. When he looked over, I jangled the keys.

  He wriggled out from the car and stood, brushing himself off. “Maybe there’s hope for you yet.” He tried to snatch them from my hand.

  I jerked them back. “We’re borrowing. This is only until we get into the city. Then you’ll call the police and leave an anonymous tip about a stolen car.”

  He grunted, but didn’t argue. I handed over the keys. When he clicked the button, the car in the driveway’s headlights popped on. It was a two-door, lowered, purple Acura with a spoiler and shiny rims.

  Wonderful.

  Kade started the car. It vroomed to life when he pulled up to me and threw the door open. I sighed and climbed in. Getting caught in a stolen car would not be awesome, but I couldn’t hide in the party house forever.

  Three hours was a long drive, and I’d never been a patient road-tripper, so I unlocked the cell phone I took off the first partier and punched in Lee’s number. I couldn’t wait any longer to talk to my best friend. I had no idea what to tell him. Maybe I could dance around some of his questions. The phone rang and rang. His voicemail came on. “Lee, it’s Ray. Call me at this number when you get this. Sorry I’ve been … away. Hope you’re doing well, and—well, just call me.”

  Kade darted sidelong glances at me every few seconds. I squirmed, not wanting to give any thought to this new shift happening between Kade and me. It was scary and uncomfortable, and this was going to be a long ride.

  I pulled up the web browser app on the smartphone, checked my e-mail, then I checked Lee’s social network pages. The last post on each one of them was a picture. A black-winged angel with a dark-blue background.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  I sat back in the leather seat, bouncing my heel out of my borrowed stilettos. Lee was drawing the same angel Allison and Tony had before their deaths. Tucking my elbows in tight to my sides, I focused on my breathing.

  “Ray? Ray, you okay?” Kade watched the road, keeping one hand on the wheel, and felt around for my hand, eventually settling for my arm.

  “I think my friend’s in trouble.”

  He didn’t answer, just removed his hand to shift, pushing the car faster. The stolen car handled well on the tight mountain turns, but we were so screwed if party-boy woke up and reported it. The bright purple paint would give us up instantly.

  “Kade, I need to know everything about Az. Anything that might help me save Lee.”

  “I haven’t seen my brother in decades.”

  Brother. He’d called Cam brother, too, the day they were both at the diner. I frowned. He glanced over at me, but I checked the phone again, still staring at Lee’s drawing.

  “Not the same way as humans. Brother in the sense we have the same maker, grew up together, and fought together.”

  “Oh.” I sent Lee a text and waited for a response. “So do you all know each other?”

  “Of course not. There aren’t many of us left these days, but newer wings are still made, and, though it isn’t common, angels still Fall. One side can’t see the other’s wings. Good thing too, otherwise we’d all be annihilated by now.”

  Complete angel annihilation wouldn’t be so bad for me.

  “Look, I don’t know how or why you’re involved in all this, but—”

  I cut him off. “Whatever you’re going to say, don’t. I’ve made my peace with it.” Sort of. “I just need to know about Az.”

  “Gotcha. Cliff’s Notes version. When an angel Falls, those still in good standing are forbidden to interact with the Fallen, unless their paths cross while an angel is on a mission. Then it usually breaks down to last man standing. Az fell decades before I did, so there’s no way to know how powerful he’s become.”

  “How did he Fall?”

  “Harm. He turned cold, calculated, and he took a human life.”

  I imagined someone with white wings as beautiful and pure as Cam’s being splattered with human blood. “At the diner, you said succumbing to human emotion was the way your kind Falls.”

  “I said a lot of things.”

  I drew my gaze over to Kade. He’d been lying to me. Probably this entire time. What else had he been lying about? This morning maybe, when I woke up in his arms. Last night, when he said there was someone on the SS Crazy’s roof with us to scare me, to get instant payback for the way I dragged him up the California coast to break me out. And before, about Mom. He had to be lying about that too. I’d struggled with myself, pushing harder than I thought I could stand to put the slightest inkling of trust in him, and he’d played me. I didn’t want to look at him, didn’t want to be in the same car with him.

  “You have to understand where I’m coming from. Kay, she … things ended badly. I was angry for a long time. You were …”

  “The perfect revenge,” I filled in, realizing it was true. Tears pricked my eyes. All this time I was merely a play thing, a toy in a tiger’s cage. A way for him to hurt Mom from beyond the grave. Just another way I lived in Mom’s shadow. First I’d become the burden after her death, the crazy daughter who couldn’t handle her passing without seeing wings. Then when I realized Laylah was growing into Mom, inheriting her long hair and heart-shaped face, looking like her in a way I never would. Now I was a Fallen angel’s crumpled do-over. I held tighter to myself, pressing my arms across my stomach until the corset’s boning dug into my flesh.

  Kade jerked the wheel, correcting the car’s path. He glanced from the road back to me several times.

  “This isn’t the right time. You had a bad night. The drugs and—”

  I wiped my cheeks with the back of my hand. “I’m fine.” But I so wasn’t. My emotions were stitched haphazardly together, and the thread that held them was blowing loose in the breeze. “Let’s just stay on Az. What can he do?”

  He said nothing for a long time. Of that, I was grateful. It gave me time to collect myself.

  “Az is one angry S.O.B. He’ll be able to influence them.”

  “The way you and Cam did at the diner, to my customers?” Up until now I’d avoided saying Cam’s name, for both our sakes, but after what he’d revealed, I didn’t care anymore.

  I watched him roll his shoulders back. I would have smiled, if I could.

  “The Fallens’ influence is different. It comes from a darker place. Usually that makes it stronger than what the others can do. As far as what else Az can do, I have no idea. Our kind gets stronger with every life taken.”

  “So he could have unmatched power.” The thought prickled my skin.

  “He could have the ability to compel someone to do almost anything, or, if he’s really pushing himself, he could even amplify whatever emotions are lingering inside the human, however small. Both are dangerous.

  “But what about the drawings?”

  Kade glanced at me while switching lanes to get around a van with luggage piled high inside. “What drawings?”

  I pulled up the web browser again and showed it to him. “Two of my classmates drew this not long before they supposedly killed themselves. And now Lee’s been drawing it.” I
closed the browser, unable to look at it again, my stomach turning. “And Caroline. Two nights ago, the girl across from me drank cleaning supplies. When I looked in her room, that picture was on her wall.”

  Kade’s eyes cut to me. “At the mental institution?”

  Technically it was a mental health clinic, but I couldn’t argue with that association; hell, even I’d called it that before. “Yeah.”

  “I … felt something on the roof last night. Just before we jumped.” So Az really had been there. Maybe Kade hadn’t been lying about everything. “I thought—it must have been a fluke, but I think he was there, watching us. I could feel him.”

  “Feel him?”

  Kade ignored my question. “We have a problem. Your friend, your classmates, your family, they could all be in trouble.” He studied me for so long I almost had to warn him he was still driving. When he finally looked back at the road, he clamped his jaw together and shifted again, weaving through the cars in front of us.

  I tried calling Lee again. Voicemail.

  “Why was he there? And why would he be after Lee? Why my family? So the deaths were following me around?” I grabbed his sleeve. “Has anyone else died?”

  “I’ve been keeping an eye on the news. No other deaths at your school.”

  But what about my family? The longer he sat in silence, the deeper his warning sank in. Lee, Dad, and Laylah. Weight gathered on my chest. I squeezed my eyes closed, determined to fight the panic attack. Would Az swoop in and force the hand of everyone I cared about?

  I tried a different approach since Kade didn’t want to answer my previous questions. “It’s been almost a month, right? Why would he wait so long to kill again? And how likely do you think it is that he’ll go after my family?” I asked the last question almost too quietly.

  He flicked me a glance, and his expression softened before he looked back to the road. “I didn’t mean to worry you. Just thought you should know the worst-case scenario. The probability isn’t high. If he’s after your friend and he waited three weeks to take him, my money’s on him having a plan.”