Magic Cries

by Miriam Greystone

  It was such a beautiful lie.

  He wished, with every ounce of his being that it was true; that he was somehow, miraculously, whole again. Knowing he wasn’t, he wished with equal fervor that he had never been born. Soon, any minute now, she would realize how broken he really was; how contaminated and uncurable.

  The thought of it made Jake’s insides turn to ice, made his lungs clamp down and refuse to take in air. He knew just what would happen once she knew the truth. He could already hear the words somewhere in his head, the familiar echo of words he’d heard before.

  “I care about you, Jake. I really do. But you can't be a part of my life unless you're clean. Totally clean. I don't want a junkie.” He could hear the sound of the door clicking as it slammed shut. He could feel himself, cold and alone, out on the doorstep.

  Everyone else who he thought had loved him had done the same thing—the right thing. They’d cut and run. Jake had never blamed them for it. And he knew that when Molly saw the truth, she would have to do the same.

  This brief time that he had with her—this was more of a dream than the fever-dream of drugs he had just woken from. Jake understood that, with a sudden flash of pain that seared all the way to his core. Being with Molly was a dream he wouldn’t get to keep much longer. And when this dream ended, the drugs would be waiting for him like a coyote patiently stalking wounded prey, waiting for the crippled creature to collapse under the weight of its own dysfunction, and then jerk lamely on the ground while it was eaten alive.

  “What happened?” Jake asked, forcing the words out, coughing to clear his throat. Molly’s face was dirty, and the front of her tee shirt was covered with soot.

  Her face hardened. “Well. I didn’t die. That’s the best thing I can say about my day so far. And seriously, the not-dying part didn’t come easy.”

  “Shit.” Jake grabbed Molly’s hand, wanting to feel that she was alright. “You’ve got to be kidding me! I thought you were just going to talk to the woman who did all those paintings. What was her name? Laura?”

  “Lena. And that’s what we did, more or less. But it was a lot more complicated than anybody told me. Lena wouldn’t tell us anything more about how to get to the goblet. She said a lot of other weird stuff though.” Molly shuddered as though there were things she’d rather not remember. “I can tell you all about it later,” she assured him, seeing the unspoken question in his eyes. “Right now, I have to go find Andrew and let him know we hit another dead end.” Molly stood and stretched, grimacing as she arched her back, then pulled open one of the drawers of the dresser that was the one piece of furniture, other than the bed, their room contained, and took out a clean shirt. “He isn’t going to be happy.”

  She peeled off her dirty shirt, throwing it into the corner before slipping on a new one. The heat in Jake’s body soared. Pulled like a magnet across the room toward her, he stood behind her and ran his hands across the warm, smooth plane of her belly.

  “Are you sure you have to go?” he whispered, dipping his head and pressing his lips to her ear. “I could probably keep you busy with something else for a while.”

  Molly laughed and melted into him, letting her head fall back onto his shoulder. She fit perfectly against him. Jake’s heart sped up. Being with Molly was the only thing in his whole life that had ever felt better than a high.

  “Hmmm. That does sound like a lot more fun than talking to Andrew,” she admitted, her voice a little husky. She turned her face toward him and trailed a slow line of kisses from his ear down to his collarbone. “But the sooner I go tell him the bad news, the sooner I can come back.”

  “Wait,” Jake shook off the tingling feel of her skin against his fingers and focused on her words. “Why aren’t Matt and Thia going with you?”

  “It’s almost the second rush.” Molly pointed at the ceiling and, sure enough, Jake could hear the distant rumble of metro cars far overhead that signaled the beginning of the afternoon rush hour. “It’s almost time to serve lunch, and they’ve got to get straight to the Tavern and get the food ready before the crowds show up. I told them I’d go update Andrew on my own.”

  “Sounds like they’re ducking out so they don’t have to be there when Andrew blows his top,” Jake observed, not trying to hide the heat that crept into his voice.

  Molly shrugged. “I told them I don’t mind. Andrew can be a jerk sometimes, but I’m not afraid of him.”

  And that, Jake thought to himself, is exactly the problem.

  Worry twisted in his gut. He knew that Andrew had never been anything but kind to Molly. But Molly had always been useful to Andrew. Jake didn’t know the details, but he knew there was something unique about Molly’s voice. Something that Andrew was convinced he would need to get access to the goblet that he was so obsessed with.

  Jake couldn’t help but worry how things might change if Andrew decided he didn’t need Molly anymore.

  “I don’t like the idea of you going alone,” he told her. “I’ll come.”

  “Are you sure?” Molly turned to look at him more closely. “You haven’t wanted to go anywhere in a while. Not with your back hurting so much.”

  “I’ll be fine,” Jake looked away, running a hand over the bristle of his too-long buzz cut. He had let Molly believe his injuries were keeping him in bed, rather than the dread of halls filled with sounds and scents and people that his drug-deprived system couldn’t start to cope with right now. “I don’t want you to be by yourself.”

  He wasn’t making any sense, and he knew it. Andrew was the head of the whole Echo community. His voice was more powerful than any of the other Echoes—even Molly, who was fast rising in the ranks and looked to soon become his second in command. And even the least powerful of the Echoes could have had Jake on his knees in a split second, with a single command. He had no defenses against them. If Andrew turned on Molly, it wasn’t like Jake could do anything to protect her.

  But he still wanted to be by her side.

  “Sure, come with me.” Molly’s face lit up. Jake knew that his insistence to stay in their room, in bed, almost constantly, had been worrying her. He’d also been worrying himself. Now she smiled broadly as she watched Jake pull on his shoes. “Maybe we can stop by the Tavern afterward and get something to eat?” Molly added, her voice tentative.

  Jake shrugged. “Maybe.”

  Molly didn’t push, for which he was grateful.

  Jake looked down at himself. He had been sleeping in a black tee shirt and black jeans; the only kind of clothes he had, ever since he fell down the rabbit hole and into this strange world. Jake didn’t mind. The clothes the Echoes had provided to him were far nicer than anything he would have owned. The clothes were a bit rumpled, but there was no point in changing; he would look like shit no matter what he wore. The wounds on his back from Tyler’s beating were mostly healed over, but the deep bruises on his face were taking a long time to fade. Somehow, the longer they took to heal, the worse they looked, changing from swollen pink and gray to deep, bright shades of blue and purple.

  His right hand, which he had thrust deep into a fire on the first night he had been dragged down into the tunnels, was wrapped so thickly in bandages that Jake couldn’t even tell if it was still swollen, or how well he could move his fingers if he tried. He had taken to looking away whenever Matt changed the bandages. The hand didn’t hurt him at all. Molly had used her voice’s power to stop the pain. That was all he cared about. And he had a feeling he really didn’t want to know what his burned limb looked like now, if Matt’s cursing and muttering about hospitals and specialists and stubborn, pig-headed idiots who refused to listen to basic medical advice, was any indication.

  But worrying about how beat-up and shady he looked wouldn’t make things any better. Jake pulled on a black hoodie and shoved his hands deep into the pockets.

  “Ready,” he announced, and plastered a fake smile on his face that he knew wouldn’t fool Molly for a second. But she nodded and opened the door. Togeth
er, they stepped out into the hall.

  Bea

  The angel held out his hand.

  Practically naked, still bleeding a little from where broken pieces of her sailboat had struck against her head, Bea blinked and looked up at him.

  The sun was shining behind him; his shoulder-length pale hair glowed golden. He wore no shirt, and the muscles of his arms and smooth chest were like perfect arches carved in pale white stone. He wore skin-tight pants of black leather and stood watching her expression warily, as though afraid she would turn down what was an obvious invitation to go with him. Where, Bea couldn’t even begin to guess. His black wings stretched out behind him, strong and smooth, and as black as his black leather pants. She could see the veins and muscles that ran through his wings, round and thick as her arm. A single, small, sharp claw curled from their edges on either side. His brown eyes were both dark and kind. His chin was covered with blond stubble.

  Bea knew she wasn’t dreaming. He was too strange and glorious for her mind to have come up with this all on its own. Besides, it had been a long, long time since she had a dream this good.

  No, this was really happening. She could feel the ground solid and real beneath her: grass and sand and sun-warmed stones. The sun shining off the waves in the distance was so bright that it hurt her eyes. She looked down at herself; the port from her chemo was still there. Her chest was a flattened valley of still-healing wounds and bunched uneven flesh.

  “I’m not dead,” Bea said again. This time the words weren’t a question.

  The angel nodded, and slowly lowered his hand. Bea looked away from him and out at the sea. She narrowed her eyes, trying to see into the distance, but she still couldn’t see her sailboat anywhere. She wondered if it had been completely destroyed by the storm that had seemed so determined to drown her, or if the little ship had somehow escaped. She thought of the smooth wood of the deck, the crisp snap of the sails. Her throat constricted. Bea closed her eyes, shaking her head and refusing to let unruly emotion rise out of control. She would choose to believe that her boat was still out there: battered and partly broken, but still, somehow, bobbing up and down on the waves. Beautiful. Nearly whole. Free in a way she never would be.

  She rubbed her eyes, ran her hands over her sore neck and her scratched, bare chest and arms.

  “So what happened. Did you pull me out of the water?” Bea asked him.

  The angel winced at the accusation in her voice. Eyes wide and uncertain, he nodded.

  Suddenly Bea felt very, very tired. Grief and nausea welled in her chest.

  “Well, you didn't do me any favors, then. Now I'll just have to find another way to end this.” His smile disappeared, and he looked at her uncertainly. She motioned to her flat, scarred chest.

  “I'm sick. See? I'm . . . I'm dying. The cancer is terminal. They’ve done everything that could be done, but none of it worked. You should have left me. It would have been easier that way. You should've just let me go.”

  Her words rang with anger, but she wasn’t angry at him. She was angry at the cancer. At life. A life that seemed determined to torture her, to hold her down and force her to suffer in a million different, finely nuanced ways.

  The angel crouched in front of her. Slowly, but with no hesitation, as though it were the most natural thing in the world, he reached out and touched her. He pressed his fingers, soft and cool, against her cheek and let them trail down her neck. Naturally, as though he had already touched her a thousand times, he let his fingers slide down to her chest. His touch was barely a whisper, his skin cool and soothing where it touched her ravaged skin. His fingers skimmed first across one scar, then the other.

  A caress.

  Bea had never expected to be caressed there, in the place where the cancer had attacked her, where the scars of a battle fought and lost stood out so starkly against the white of her skin.

  His fingers were so gentle. Soothing.

  Without thinking, she reached down and grabbed his hand, enclosing it in her own. She pulled his fingers to her lips and kissed them. His fingers tasted salty. Like the sea. He smelled like rain and sunshine. His hand was so large, and she leaned her head into his palm and closed her eyes.

  “Thank you, anyway,” she whispered after a moment, straightening up and clearing her throat to hide the emotion in her voice. “I know you meant well. Thank you for trying to help me. It isn’t really your fault—it just turns out that nobody can.”

  They were silent for a long time. The angel hung his head, his eyes obscured by the sun-lit hair that fell over his face like a curtain. He almost looked like he was praying. Then, slowly, still holding her hand tightly in his own, the angel rose, pulling her to her feet after him.

  Bea was so surprised that she didn’t even try to pull away. She rose, standing barefoot in the sand.

  The angel stepped forward, pressing the bare skin of his chest against hers.

  Bea gasped. The warmth of his skin felt so good. She hadn’t even realized she was cold. He wrapped his arms around her waist so tightly he lifted her off the ground.

  Suddenly, Bea understood. She closed her eyes for a second.

  Screw it, she whispered to herself. Who cares what happens next? A gorgeous, shirtless man who doesn’t talk wants to fly away with me. Who the fuck would say no to that?

  She wrapped her arms around his neck, holding him, resting her chin on his shoulder and squeezing her eyes shut.

  “Just don’t fucking drop me,” she warned him, and she felt his chest vibrate with gentle laughter.

  A sudden wind rose around them. When she felt the ground disappear from underneath her feet, she lifted her legs and clamped them tight around his waist. She could feel his wings moving, ever so slightly, up and down, up and down.

  It reminded her of sailing.

  Jake

  Things had changed a lot since Steele’s invasion of the Refuge. Molly had told the Echoes that they had to make their underground home into a fortress, and they really took her words to heart. Echoes patrolled the halls in pairs of two, their eyes probing every corner, inspecting the face of every person who walked past. The gas lanterns that were spaced out every few feet along the tunnel had been turned up as high as they would go so that they exposed bronze pipes covering the ceiling. The lanterns flooded every inch of the passageway with a rosy red light so bright that it forced all the shadows away, and left the intricately tiled floors tinged with red.

  The biggest difference, though, was in the faces of the people they passed as they walked toward Andrew’s rooms. Before, Jake remembered the feeling of discomfort that would creep down his neck as he walked among the Echoes. He was among them, but not one of them, and every time he met someone’s eyes, it was clear that everyone around him was always conscious of that fact. That feeling had disappeared. Jake wasn’t sure if it was because word had spread about what Steele had done to him, and his experience had, in their eyes, earned him an honorary place among them. Or, it might just be, with the new threat that seemed to loom above them all the time, the Echoes had no more time to worry or care that Jake had taken up residence in the Refuge.

  They reached the arched iron door of Andrew’s room. It had been left propped open, and Molly leaned inside.

  “Have you got a minute, Andrew?” she called out. “I’ve got an update for you.”

  “Of course! Come right on in!” Andrew answered, the warm silk of his voice making Jake shudder. He walked toward them as they entered, his hands held out in greeting. Andrew had always had a slightly unkempt look. His chin-length red hair tended to fall into his face, and he always seemed to have a shadow of red stubble edging his face. But since Steele’s attack, dark bags had gathered under Andrew’s eyes. The stubble on his chin had lengthened and grown thicker. His blue eyes, which had always sparkled with excitement and a bit of smugness before, had grown a bit hazy from lack of sleep. And Andrew’s study was a disaster. Half-empty coffee cups lined every inch of available table space, of which th
ere was very little. Open books, scattered papers, and high stacks of printed paper filled every corner of his space. The walls were covered with maps, drawings, and notecards lined with his tight, furious scrawl.

  “Are you doing okay, Andrew?” Molly asked, her eyes widening a little as she looked slowly around the room. “Maybe you need to get some sleep.”

  Andrew’s warm smile faltered. “I’m fine,” he answered, a little too sharply. He seemed to bite back a longer reply, looking down as he rubbed his forehead. “There’s just too much to do. We can’t afford to waste time.” He pulled out a map and tapped it anxiously with his finger. “The entrance to the cave is covered by water. Apparently, there is only one day a month that the water recedes far enough for the opening to be accessible. The day after the full moon: that’s two weeks from now. We can’t afford to waste time; I’ve got to try for it then. Steele is hot on the heels of this thing. If he finds another way in, or figures out a way to get to it before I do . . .” He looked up at Molly expectantly. “What did you find out from Lena? Tell me everything.”

  Jake hung back, watching Andrew’s face carefully as Molly described what had happened. Andrew’s eyes hardened, his lips pressed tight. His hands balled into fists at his sides.

  “So you didn’t learn a single thing that can help us,” Andrew cut in, as Molly’s story was drawing to a close.

  Molly’s shoulders stiffened, but when she answered there was no heat in her voice.

  “Not really,” she admitted. “I think Lena is just too determined to have nothing to do with us.”

  “And so the three of you just let her walk off?” Andrew folded his arms over his chest, his eyes boring into Molly’s. “You didn’t do anything more?”

  Jake edged closer to Molly, till he was standing right at her elbow. He didn’t like the way that, when Andrew’s charming expressions and friendly smiles disintegrated, they left something cold and hungry in their place.