Iridescent (Ember 2)

by Carol Oates

  title page

  Iridescent

  ...

  Carol Oates

  ...

  Omnific Publishing

  Dallas

  Copyright Information

  Iridescent, Copyright © 2012 by Carol Oates

  All Rights Reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without prior written permission of the publisher.

  ...

  Omnific Publishing

  10000 North Central Expressway, Dallas, TX 75231

  www.omnificpublishing.com

  ...

  First Omnific eBook edition, October 2012

  First Omnific trade paperback edition, October 2012

  ...

  The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  ...

  Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

  ...

  Oates, Carol.

  Iridescent / Carol Oates – 1st ed

  ISBN: 978-1-62342-904-1

  1. Angel—Fiction. 2. Nephilim—Fiction. 3. Romance—Fiction. 4. College—Fiction. I. Title

  ...

  Cover Design by Micha Stone and Amy Brokaw

  Interior Book Design by Coreen Montagna

  Dedication

  For Eric

  Because you believe I am capable of anything, I can believe it too.

  Prologue

  THE YOUNG GIRL TWISTED around and around, calling out for someone to answer, but no one did. Sound echoed off the mirror-covered buildings, deceptively hollow and ghostly. There was nothing but silence. The city had swallowed up every living creature. She called again, fear gripping her heart.

  “Hello!” the girl screamed at the top of her voice, her trembling fingers cupped around her mouth.

  Dizziness swept over her—it felt as if the very buildings were spinning. The wind whipped up, a swirling cyclone of heat and dust. The ground shuddered. She looked up to the sound of crunching glass in time to see the windows above vibrate, more like disturbed water than something solid and impenetrable. A noise, as loud as thunder, exploded all around her. The girl fell to her knees under a relentless shower of shattering glass.

  Chapter One

  AN OMINOUS QUIET HAD FALLEN over the townhouse. Nothing seemed to stir, no creaking floorboards tread on or pipes groaning. Outside, it appeared as if the entire city of Acheron had stilled in mourning. Candra’s feet felt as though thick, heavy layers of lead sheeting covered them instead of the leather pumps she’d put on while dressing. Each labored step to the second floor tortured her. Her trembling fingers clutched onto the smooth, polished banister as she willed herself to not give up and fall to pieces before she reached her bed. She wondered if the silence was her imagination playing tricks. If anything, the city had been awash with more activity and noise than usual recently: the screeching of brakes, sirens, gunshots, crying… She refused to cry—not yet.

  Candra bitterly regretted leaving Ivy’s wake early. She hadn’t been able to handle all those people crowded into the tiny Irish bar with its cracked leather-topped stools, paneled walls and tables that wobbled and sloshed drinks around glasses. The thick, bitter smell of stout and whiskey clung to her hair and clothes and mingled with the cold stench of death, incense, and moss from the mausoleum. A chill, seeming as permanent as the marble that separated the living from the dearly departed, ached in her bones.

  She’d regretted telling Sebastian she needed space as soon as she’d left. If he were with her now, he would scoop her up in his strong arms and carry her up the stairs to bed, just like he had the day Ivy was murdered.

  And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest!

  The words popped into her head from nowhere. A stinging pain swelled in Candra’s chest. Icy cold slithered over her skin, threatening to finally pull her under and break the composure she had managed to hold onto all day. She gripped the banister tighter until her hand burned from the pressure and her knuckles were in danger of splitting her skin. The pain swept over her like a tidal wave, choking her with dry sobs. Not one tear leaked from her eyes. Not here. She refused to allow Sebastian or Brie to find her curled in a ball halfway to her room after she’d convinced them she was coping. She couldn’t afford to be broken, not with war looming in the distance and her, the only advantage they had, even if she couldn’t fathom what that meant yet. She bore a striking similarity to a new piece of electronics missing its instruction pamphlet. No one could figure out how to make her “work.”

  After several calming, deep breaths, she forced herself to climb the remaining steps, only to flick the light switch in her room and be met with utter darkness. The drapes efficiently blocked the glow from the street lamps outside her window. She had insisted Sebastian close them when she’d woken up. The sun had been shining, and it had felt like an affront to Ivy’s memory to enjoy the warm rays filtering in. Rain would have been more fitting on the day Candra had to say goodbye to her best friend.

  She flicked the switch again and again, each time harder and allowing a little of her frustration to release on the inoffensive piece of metal and plastic. The idea of messing around with stepladders didn’t help to brighten her mood. She closed the door with a groan and reached for the lamp on her desk. Nothing.

  “I think that might have been me. Re-entry was a little bumpy.”

  Candra spun toward the female voice, grabbing the first thing she could get her hands on. “Who’s there? What do you want?” Adrenaline fired through her body, tensing every muscle and constricting her heart to pump faster.

  “Seriously, what are you planning to do with that—iPod me to death?” the disembodied voice teased lightly from the corner of the room where the darkest shadows lurked.

  Candra blinked, trying to adjust to the blackness, but instead, all she saw was stars. The voice belonged to a stranger, even though something about the tone made Candra’s insides jump up into her throat. She looked down, scarcely able to make out the outline of the small silver player in her hand and the strings of the earpieces hanging like limp spaghetti over her fist. She hastily reached back with her free hand and snatched up the study lamp, dropping the iPod to the floor with a clatter.

  Winged guards were currently perched on the rooftops all around the townhouse—Grigori, the ones she had come to know as Watchers and convinced herself were gargoyles as a child. Back then, they had terrified her when she saw them move. It had been her father who told her they were there to protect her. She’d forgotten about it for years, until a few months ago when an obstinate, egotistical angel had saved her life.

  How did this stranger get inside? How did she get past the guards?

  Suddenly, a dim pink glow brightened the room, casting a triangle of light across the floor. Long shadows crept outward to the darkness still surrounding Candra, while, on the other side of the brightness separating them, light only skimmed the encroacher. Candra’s heart clenched and then hammered against the inside of her ribcage. She tested her hold on the weighty brass lamp in her hand and yanked the cord from the wall.

  At first glance, the intruder gave the impression of a young woman, leaning against the wall by the corner lamp—the last one still working. Smooth jet-black hair hung loose over her shoulders. A tight tank barely contained an ample cleavage bolstered by her crossed arms, and a pair of cotton shorts exposed her long, shapely legs. Candra estimated the woman to be probably about an inch taller than her and registered the sleek cut of muscle under her olive-toned skin. Size didn’t matter; the woman’s athletic
build was of no consequence. If Candra’s suspicion proved correct, she might as well be four foot nothing, weigh seventy pounds, and knock Candra down dead without breaking a nail.

  The woman was a smidgeon too beautiful, too graceful in the way she held her body. Her facial features were a trace too symmetrical, from her pouting lips to the delicate slant of her narrowed, almond eyes. These differences would be hardly recognized for anything more than a lucky combination of genetics by anyone else, but Candra recognized them for what they were—the hallmarks of the angelic.

  The woman’s arms dropped unceremoniously by her side, and she released a long, drawn out breath. Candra flinched and shifted her weight from foot to foot, gauging her body for balance.

  “I know what you are,” she accused, angry that they couldn’t give her this one day. They’d chosen when she was alone, physically and emotionally at her lowest point since the night Ivy died. Something else about the woman didn’t sit right: she wore pajamas from Candra’s wardrobe. She quickly explained it away, telling herself if the angelic intruder had used her wings, she would have torn up her own clothes. Angel wings were made of celestial matter and hidden by force of will most of the time. However, in times of great emotional upheaval or at the angel’s choosing, they became very real.

  “You really don’t, do you?” the stranger whispered, almost as if she didn’t care if Candra heard or not. Her dark eyes softened, and her eyelids lowered in obvious disappointment.

  It wasn’t a hostile action. At the same time, Candra knew the woman possessed a preternatural ability to move like lightening if she desired, and she contemplated the pros and cons of attacking first. She deliberated whether first strike would give her the element of surprise or any advantage at all. At the same time, she was painfully aware of a niggling feeling in her gut. Something wanted to break through the haze of adrenaline, fear, and sorrow wracking her body.

  “You’re one of them, the ones my father warned Draven about,” Candra spat viciously. “Come get me if you can. You have no idea what I’m capable of.”

  She was bluffing. The one thing she was capable of in a fight with an angel was dying. She displayed her own part-angelic nature by not gasping on the thin air at high altitudes. She saw angel wings, although she didn’t possess her own, and she showed an ability to use a curleax—a healing stone—although she passed out cold afterwards. The only other time she had done anything bordering on angelic, her skin had glowed with an iridescent light, and she was pretty sure it wouldn’t help in a brawl. Her battle plan consisted solely of her and the lamp.

  The woman pushed herself off from the wall and straightened. Candra sucked in a breath, despite her heart pumping so hard it squeezed her lungs to the point the air she took in was miniscule. Rage bubbled up inside her, fizzing and spiting, making her blood boil. If it wasn’t for the ones like this invader, the ones who overthrew the Arch and then set their sights on Earth, Ivy would still be alive, instead of laid out on satin in the cold and dark. Her soul languished in a supposed paradise now ravaged by war. Candra let out a howl, half-agony, half-battle cry. She lunged forward at the same moment the young woman stepped into the full illumination from the lamp and stared Candra down with dark eyes—the exact rich, gleaming green color of ivy.

  Chapter Two

  ALL FIGHT LEFT CANDRA as remorselessly as an arrow from a well-worn bow. She froze, her hand aloft and ready to strike out with the lamp. “Ivy?” Her voice sounded weak, brittle. To say the name without feeling the accompanying stab of pain proved difficult.

  The young woman nodded slowly once. Her shoulders relaxed significantly along with a relieved sigh.

  “Ivy?” Candra repeated, only vaguely aware the woman had already answered. She looked nothing like Ivy, and at the same time, Candra could see Ivy in everything about her. Ivy’s eyes looked out at her from a stranger’s body. Blood drained from Candra’s face, and her knees buckled, ready to give way. It can’t be…

  Fury bubbled up again, zinging through her blood. Her muscles acted without conscious decision. “It’s a trick. You can’t be her,” she yelled, bringing her hand down hard toward the stranger’s head.

  The lamp didn’t make contact. Fingers caught around Candra’s wrist, holding her back with little effort. Candra grunted, pushing harder. It was as if the woman was made of stone, as if Candra was attempting to move a living statue. Blood pounded in her head, and her eyes stung with the beginning of a headache. She curled her other fist into a ball on reflex, but the woman was quicker and gripped that hand too.

  “I have no intention of letting you mess up the pretty.” The green-eyed stranger scowled, making barely-there lines form between her brows. She flicked her head, swishing her long hair over her shoulder and pressed her lips into a straight line.

  Confusion riddled Candra. She wanted to believe in her heart that it was entirely possible for Ivy to be here because, well, because if angels were possible, anything was possible. However, the other part of her had seen and experienced so much recently. It warned her not to trust herself. Watchers could get inside a person’s head and make them believe anything the Watcher wanted them to believe. She scrunched her eyes up tight, wishing hard it could be true and her best friend had returned to her.

  “Sebastian.” Candra whispered the word without realizing it. She longed for his presence to help her through this. Perhaps if he was here with her, it wouldn’t be happening at all, she thought to herself. Maybe the grief and pressure had finally gotten to her and she had snapped. Perhaps the vision before her merely consisted of vapor and shadow, like the monsters children witnessed slinking out of their closet at night.

  “I bet beautiful, creepy, stalker guy can talk some sense into you.”

  Candra’s eyes flashed open, wide and astonished. A numb prickling sensation trickled downward toward her elbow, and her hand began losing feeling from lack of blood. “What did you just say?”

  The woman blinked, and Candra noticed for the first time that there was no glimmer of gold in her eyes. All Watchers had flecks of gold in their eyes. Not simply golden color, their eyes reflected light as if they contained hints of the precious metal. Every single one of them except for Brie, who was technically not a Watcher any longer since she’d fallen to raise Candra as her own child. This stranger had pure green eyes, as if someone had poured smooth paint into her irises. Candra caught her breath.

  Seeming to deduce that she was finally getting through, the woman loosened her hold a little and drew Candra’s hand down.

  Blood rushed back into her fingers with an acute pain, leaving her unable to keep her hold on the lamp. The makeshift weapon dropped from her hand to the wooden floor with a sharp clang. Candra knew in her heart and soul that this was real and not some delusion created by her tormented mind. Some part of this person standing in front of her with an amused expression was Ivy. The woman’s dark pink lips turned upward on one side in a knowing smirk.

  Like a domino display toppling relentlessly onward, relief spread quickly through Candra, and her entire body relaxed for the first time in months. Nothing else mattered for now—not the war, free will, or destiny. She was getting a second chance; they both were. All the things Candra hadn’t shared with Ivy before rushed forward in her mind and became a topsy-turvy mess of words. She had Sebastian, Brie, and now Ivy back again. Her eyes began to flood and overflow, and a smile so wide it hurt stretched across her face.

  “It’s really you, isn’t it?” She beamed.

  “In the flesh, so to speak.” The green-eyed stranger stepped back, holding her hands at shoulder level, and twirled. “And what a lovely flesh it is.”

  Candra’s eyebrow drew down at her attempt to be lighthearted. On impulse, she reached out and pinched the woman’s arm hard.

  “Ouch!” She swatted Candra’s hand away lightly and covered her arm where a red mark bloomed, looking down and then back to Candra’s sheepish grin.

  “Just checking.”

  “Well, n
ext time, pinch yourself to check if you are delusional.” The woman, who Candra now accepted was Ivy in some form, glanced up at her and then back to her arm. When she took her hand away, the mark was gone and her skin had returned to smooth and flawless.

  “What are you?” Candra asked, leaning forward to take a closer look at Ivy’s arm.

  “Now, that is the million dollar question.” She laughed without humor and moved to sit on Candra’s bed, one of the few pieces of furniture in the large room.

  The space was predominantly plain and decorated in neutral colors. Abstract paintings hung over Candra’s bed and seemed to depict wings, depending on the perception of the viewer.

  The woman winced and sat down easier the second time. “It seems not every injury heals so fast. Remind me to ask his hotness why I had to land smack on my ass on a hard wooden floor with a nice comfy mattress six inches to the left.”

  “Sebastian,” Candra thought aloud, rushing back to her desk.

  Ivy was beside her before she got a chance to dial and pulled the phone from her hand.

  Candra turned to her and tilted her head in confusion. Her face hurt when she frowned, the result of persistent gloom for several days.

  The woman held up the phone, fixing her gaze on Candra in a way that made her want to shrink back. Green-eyes cleared the number and placed it back on the desk.

  “We need to talk first.”

  “Wouldn’t this be easier if everyone was here so you don’t have to tell it over—”

  “I can’t tell them everything,” she cut Candra off mid-flow.

  Candra narrowed her eyes. She believed this person was Ivy, and so she should trust her, but the very last thing she needed right now was more secrets. For some reason, her instinct wouldn’t allow her to accept what her head and heart already believed.

  The woman sat again, this time placing her hands down first and then lightly sitting until she fully positioned herself on the thick plush down of Candra’s comforter.