“You need to go to Dawn.” I moved past him to the door. “You need to meet with the powers and convince them to help us. That’s why you’re back, that’s why we let Bane go. So go do it.”
He smiled thinly, a flash of anger lighting up those pretty eyes. “I’m here because this was meant to be. I’m here because this is my body, and yes, I plan to go to Dawn. But not alone. You will come with me.”
I paused, hand on doorknob, hackles raised. “No.”
He canted his head. “It’s not a request.”
Not a request? What the fuck? I turned slowly, deliberately, to face him. “Excuse me? You are not my boss, you are not the boss of anyone here aside from your little black-winged friends. Bane was my boss, and he left me in charge. So fuck you, Lucifer.”
To give him credit, the dude didn’t even flinch at the vitriol in my tone. Instead he smiled, calm as a midnight ocean.
“You have the only weapon that can defeat the shades,” he pointed out. “You are our main advantage, and they need to know that. They need to see it in the flesh. If a neph can put her neck on the line for humanity, shame on them for hiding theirs in the sand. I’ve already spoken to Abigor and Malphas about this and they agree with me.”
Damn. He had a valid point, but I so hated taking back my fuck you. But there was no denying that if Bane were here, he’d have agreed that I needed to do this.
“Next time, lead with the argument and don’t issue orders. When do we leave?”
He held out his hand. “Now.”
Chapter 11
A knock at the door interrupted us.
“Come in,” Lucifer called.
The door opened and Abigor stepped in, followed by Malphas. “The Black Wings are ready for your orders,” Abigor said. He looked paler than usual, probably still shaken by the return of their illustrious leader.
Lucifer nodded. “Thank you for organizing that, but I need to make a short trip first.”
“No.” I touched his bicep without thinking, and then pulled my hand back. “Go speak to the Black Wings first. They’ve waited long enough to have you back. They deserve to see you, to hear words of encouragement. I need to freshen up anyway and check up on a few things.”
Lucifer studied me for a long beat. “Very well.”
Very well? Urgh. Bane would have said, Fucking do it, or, Are you questioning me, Harker? This guy was so … proper. Every moment with him took a chunk out of my memories of Bane. I needed to get away from him.
Malphas followed me out into the corridor. “Serenity. We didn’t know. None of us knew.”
“Yeah, I figured.”
“But we’re grateful for what you did to bring him back. He’s determined to get Abbadon back. Oath be damned.” He smiled. “Once the White Wings join us, we will outnumber the shade army, and with your help, we’ll be able to bring them to heel. They can’t infect us, and if your plan is a success, they will lose potential hosts. The odds will be evened out.”
For the first time since I’d ripped open the veil and released Asher and his army, I felt a delicious spark of optimism, that, yes, we could get the upper hand in this battle.
“Well, let’s hope freeing Lucifer and losing Bane was worth it then. He better have the silver tongue you guys say he does.”
I left him hovering outside the room and headed off toward mine. I needed to wash away this last half hour and get my head straight.
***
“Langley has taken on transport responsibility and speaking to the families of the affected,” Ava said. “Cassie is picking up supplies. We should have the first lot of humans settled at Respite in the next couple of hours.”
“Good. That’s really good. Once that’s done, we can start working on sector three. It’s closest to Respite. We’ll also have an idea of how much space we have to play with by then.”
We wouldn’t be able to save all the humans, but we’d cut the shade host options in half, and once we had the Piper and the ghosts were gone, maybe the humans left outside of Respite would be able to fight infection more effectively.
“Okay, I’ll check in with you soon.” Ava hung up.
I shrugged on a clean long-sleeved top and gathered my hair up into a low ponytail. My body ached and throbbed with power. It had only been a day since I’d expelled a shitload at the hospital, but it was back again, thrumming under my skin, eager to get out.
“Serenity?”
Ambrosius? I switched to aether-sight to find him standing by the bed. “Hey. How are things going with the summoning spell search?”
“We’re working on it.” He studied me intently. “What about you?”
“Me?”
He walked toward me, that intense look still on his face. “How are you feeling?”
“I’m fine. Just about to head off to Dawn with Ba—Lucifer.” Shit, now he was looking at me with sympathy, and it was the last thing I needed. “Don’t. I’m fine, okay. I’m going to be fine. And once we have the White Wings on board, it will all be worth it.”
He nodded. “Oleander is about to leave for the clifftop house, and I will go with him. The library there is vast, and two heads are better than one.”
“Good. Getting rid of the ghosts is essential to the overall plan.”
“I know and we will. The Piper is real. I know this, I just do not recall the summoning ritual, but it is out there, and we will find it.”
“I know you’ll do your best. Also, while you’re there, look for anything we can find on these shades. Any titbit of information that might be lying around.”
“I doubt there will be anything. I believe they may predate the written word, that they predate even the winged.”
“Then anything on how we might be able to remove an entity from a host without forcible expulsion or extermination.”
His brow crinkled. “What is this about, Serenity?”
I massaged my temple; my headache had returned. “Drayton. I know he’s still alive, trapped inside Xavier, and today, Orin and I saw Xavier and we heard Drayton. He spoke to us.”
“Xavier spoke to you …” Ambrosius looked confused.
“No. I mean, yes. He spoke to us but with Drayton’s voice, the exact inflection, and he warned us not to kill Xavier.” The skeptical look on his face made my head hurt more. “Look, just do it, okay. Please. I can’t explain it, but Orin was there, he heard it too, and we … we just need to find a way to help him, okay?”
Ambrosius shrugged. “I will keep that in mind when going through the texts, but Serenity, our priority is the Piper.”
“I know.”
He nodded and then stepped through the wall. Gone. I slipped out of aether-sight and reached for my boots. A knock on the door was followed by Ryker’s scent as he entered the room.
“I don’t like this. We don’t know him,” Ryker said as I pulled on my kicks.
“Hello to you too.” Ignoring the itch and bite in my limbs, I straightened to face him. “I assume the him you’re referring to is Lucifer?”
“You assume correctly.”
“Bane would have wanted me to do this. It’s why he left in the first place.”
Ryker pinched the bridge of his nose. “It’s not Lucifer I have a problem with. It’s the White Wings I don’t trust. He shouldn’t ask you to go with him.”
“We don’t have a choice.”
“I’m coming with you.”
“No. That’s not a good idea.”
He cupped my shoulders and looked down into my face with his crystal-blue eyes before pulling me into his arms. “Dammit, Harker. How can I keep you safe if I’m here and you’re there?”
I relaxed in his embrace and reveled in his hands running up and down my back. His fingers threaded through my hair, and he cradled the back of my head with his huge, axe-wielding hand. I leaned back into his palm and gazed up at him, my big, blond, blue-eyed, crazy axe guy. He’d taken me under his wing from day one. Shielding me, keeping my secret, and then slipping effortlessly in
to role of best friend and snuggle buddy, and somewhere along the way, he’d taken residence in my heart. Somewhere along the way I’d fallen for him. It wasn’t a passionate, I-need-to-tear-off-your-clothes kind of love like it had been with Bane. This was a steady thrum in my veins. It was a promise to have and to hold.
“Everything will be all right,” he said with confidence.
His lips were tantalizingly close, and the urge to kiss him was sudden and fierce. I inhaled sharply, and his attention fell to my mouth. I reached up to touch his chin and trace his bottom lip with my fingertips. His eyelids fluttered closed for a brief moment, and the muscles in his arms jumped. I was tired, so tired of fighting my wants, and every day I kept my mouth shut was another missed opportunity.
“I need to tell you something.” My voice was hoarse. “I don’t know what’s going to happen over the next few hours, or days, but I need you to know.”
“Serenity …” He searched my face, trying to gauge what I was about to say.
Bane had said they loved me, Ryker included, but if it wasn’t the kind of love I had for him then I didn’t want to see the pity on his face. I closed my eyes. “I know you care about me and that we’re friends, but it’s more than that for me, has been for a long while. It just took losing Bane to accept it.” I opened my eyes and stared into his dilating pupils. “I love you, Ryker … more than a friend should.”
His breath hitched and he dipped his head.
A loud knock on the door had us springing apart. My face burned and twin spots of color highlighted his cheekbones. He felt the same. In that unguarded moment it was written all over his face. My heart soared.
Orin popped his head around the door. “Lucifer’s ready to leave.”
I nodded. “Okay.”
“We’ll finish this conversation later,” Ryker said, back in control.
I nodded and followed Orin out of the room, butterflies fluttering in my chest with the knowledge of what had almost happened.
In the corridor outside, I took a left toward the roost, but Orin took my hand and tugged me right. Oh, yeah. Of course. It wasn’t Bane we were going to meet.
“Where is he?”
“Outside. Flexing his wings. They’re pretty impressive. The other Black Wings are psyched to have him back. I have no idea what they talked about in their meeting but they seem pumped. Funny, considering they aren’t actually allowed to interfere in human affairs.”
“But they can protect themselves if the shades attack them.”
“Yeah.”
We took the stairs to the foyer, and a blast of cold air swept to meet us. The double doors were open and voices could be heard outside.
It sounded like a crowd, as if … “Don’t tell me he has an audience.”
“Okay, I won’t.”
“Can you tell the others about Drayton. Just tell them what we heard and saw?”
“No problem.”
We stepped outside and into a throng of Black Wings. Feathers brushed my face and my arms, and boots crunched on gravel as bodies parted to let me through. They were big and menacing and powerful, and yet they were useless to the humans. An army that could only go up against the shades in the name of protecting themselves, and this was why Lucifer was here, to get us an army to take the focus off the humans. Yeah, it helped to remind myself why we’d set him free. It helped to give it all purpose.
And there was the man himself, dressed in black … Bane’s black shirt. It fit perfectly and didn’t look as if he was about to burst out of it. His dark hair had been swept off his face and into a low ponytail accentuating the perfect-cut features that combined to make up his visage. The only part of him recognizable as Bane were his eyes, and they were fixed on me now, drinking me in as I strode toward him.
“Are you ready to leave now?” he asked. His voice was still deep like Bane’s had been, but the gruff edge was gone, smoothed away by the transformation.
“Yeah, let’s get this over with.” I stepped up to him, expecting him to open his arms, so used to Bane simply scooping me up. He blinked, taken aback, and anger rose up in my chest, sudden and fiery. “What? You got a problem with touching me? You’re gonna need to carry me, genius.”
It was uncalled for and harsh, but it felt good … for about a second. I pinched the bridge of my nose, ignoring the shocked chatter behind me. “I didn’t mean to snap.”
He took a step closer to me and then tucked a loose strand of my hair behind my ear. “I understand.”
My eyes burned. “Yeah, well, it would help if you were more of a dick.”
His laughter was a gruff, gravelly sound that was so Bane it made me ache to hold him, even if it was just pretend.
“I’ll try my best to work on that,” Lucifer said. He gently tugged me into his arms, and I glanced over my shoulder to see Orin incline his head. It’ll be all right, that gesture said.
“It will be all right,” Lucifer echoed. “Now, hold on.”
“Wait, you were gone before Arcadia was born, how will you even know where to go?”
He smiled sadly. “I just do.”
Bane … He knew because of Bane’s memories. I swallowed the lump in my throat, wrapped my arms around him, pressed my face into his neck, and closed my eyes. The air shifted, his wings stroked the air, and then we were flying.
***
The world beyond my eyelids turned red and then orange.
“We’re approaching Dawn,” Lucifer said.
“They have wards. We need to be careful.”
“I see them.” He swerved and dipped. I opened my eyes and looked over my shoulder. The world was a haze of pink, yellow, and green—a rainbow dome covering the pearly gates. How much power had it taken to build this ward?
“Combined divine power,” Lucifer said. “It’s solid. There won’t be any getting in without them allowing it.”
We were getting close now and dropping altitude. Something glinted at us from beyond the ward and then a whooshing sound filled the air. A bolt of metal sliced past my ear, stopping my breath and tightening my muscles. Lucifer banked left.
“What the heck was that?”
“I don’t—”
The air was filled with the whoosh and slice of bolts cutting through the sky toward us. Lucifer went into auto-flight, dipping, diving, banking, and rising to avoid the shots. But he was carrying me, and it must have been throwing off his balance, because there was a definite wobble to every move he made no matter how expertly done.
Shit.
I pressed my lips to his ear. “We need to get onto the ground.”
He nodded curtly. “Hold on!”
And then we were diving like a fucking bullet headed for the tarmac. There was no way he’d be able to stop. No way could he pull up in time. We were going to go straight through the earth and out the other side. A scream locked in my throat. I held on for dear life while the air roaring in my ears joined the rush of blood in my head. And then my whole body jerked in his arms as we came to an abrupt halt.
My feet kissed the ground, but Lucifer didn’t release me. Good, because my knees felt like jelly. He cradled me, whispering in a language I didn’t understand. His hands smoothed down my hair and slowly my pulse stopped trying to claw its way out of my veins.
Boots slapped the ground and Lucifer’s grip on me tightened. I pushed at his chest, wanting to see who was approaching, and reluctantly he released me.
The gates were open and a large White Wing stood there with several other White Wings flanking him. His golden beard winked in the sunlight.
Michael shook his head in wonder. “Lucifer? Is that really you?”
“In the flesh,” Lucifer said.
“This can’t be true. You can’t be here.”
“And yet I am,” Lucifer said. “Now, don’t you want to know why and how?”
Michael’s chest rose and fell erratically, and then he stepped through the wards and walked toward us. “I’m listening.”
Chapter 12
Lucifer paced the tarmac, hands on hips, chin tucked in. His wings trailed behind him, formidable and gleaming obsidian in the butter-yellow rays of the sun. The wards glowed in front of us, shielding waiting guards toting bolt guns aimed at the ground. Michael had retreated to the hub of Dawn to speak to the Powers and fill them in on Lucifer’s return. He’d been gone a while.
“What is taking so long?” Lucifer asked. His boots made fresh tracks on the dusty tarmac as he shifted trajectory.
It was a rhetorical question but what the heck. “I don’t know.”
He glared at me, the first real flash of temper I’d seen from the calm and collected Black Wing. It was kinda comforting and a grin tugged at my lips.
He exhaled through his nose. “They should be dragging us through the wards, begging me to tell the story of how I tricked them.”
Arrogant much? “Or maybe they just don’t care anymore.” The words just popped out, but they made sense.
It had been over a century, and while at first the White Wings may have been bothered by Lucifer’s disappearance, they’d moved on, come to an agreement with the Black Wings, and created Arcadia. So much had changed. Maybe Lucifer just didn’t hold as much value to them anymore. Ice trickled through my veins. Had we made a mistake in choosing him over Bane?
I looked up to find him watching me. He’d stopped pacing now, and was just … staring at me. “You wish I were gone.”
I rolled my eyes. “Hardly a revelation.”
He sighed. “I will not continue to apologize for my existence, Harker.”
My temper flared. “Don’t. Don’t call me that, and don’t say it … like that.”
He made a sound of exasperation and turned away. His shoulders were obscured by the rise of his wings. Why hadn’t he put them away? Bane always tucked his away when not in flight. And what did I care anyway?
Movement at the gate was followed by Michael’s return. He passed through the shimmering wards and walked toward us, shaking his head solemnly.
Shades of Midnight_an Urban Fantasy novel Page 10