Angeldust

by Peach, Hanna

  “Good. Great.”

  “Yeah.”

  “That was crazy how they found out. Crazy that they were living alongside each other and didn’t realize they were related.”

  “It was.”

  “Crazy how quickly someone can suddenly go from a friend to meaning so much…” He stopped talking. Dammit, was he even talking about Israel and Tobias anymore?

  “Yeah. Crazy, huh?” Her eyes flicked to the door behind him. A look of curiosity stole across Alyx’s face and for a second she chewed on her lip as if she was debating whether to say something.

  “It’s not what you think,” he said quickly.

  “What isn’t what I think?”

  “What you’re thinking, just then. You’ve noticed the door…it’s not what you think.”

  “So that’s not Cleo’s room.”

  “It is but...”

  “It’s really none of my business.”

  “She has nightmares…from her drug withdrawals…”

  “She is very beautiful…”

  “I feel sorry for her so I’m just helping her.”

  “…and very experienced.”

  “Jesus Christ, Alyx. I just sleep in the chair next to her just in case she goes through a withdrawal because I feel sorry for her. Nothing’s going on between us. It’s more of a nuisance, really.”

  “I see.” She didn’t sound convinced at all. “It doesn’t matter anyway.”

  “It matters to me.”

  Alyx inhaled. “No, Jordan. What I think shouldn’t matter to you.”

  “Alyx, you taught me that I could love. How do I get over that? I can’t just turn my feelings off.”

  “You…you need to try.”

  Alyx wouldn’t meet his eye. She mumbled some excuse and disappeared before he could stop her. Jordan slumped against the door and swore under his breath. That had not gone well.

  * * *

  Cleo remained leaning against the inside of her bedroom door, the fingers of one of her hands pressed hard against her lips, trying to hold back the sob that was building up in her chest. She knew that Jordan was still on the other side of the door and she didn’t want him to know that she had heard every word. Every single hateful word. He would have more reason to feel sorry for her then.

  “…I feel sorry for her…it’s more of a nuisance really…”

  She had to stop these feelings she was developing, whatever this was. She thought he was feeling them too but Jordan clearly wasn’t. He still loved Alyx.

  “It does matter to me…Alyx, I can’t just turn my feelings off…”

  Jordan wanted Cleo, even if he denied it to himself. Last night had been evidence enough. Jordan had been the one to curl into her, to pull her into him. But having Jordan want her wasn’t enough. She was beyond trying to deny to herself that her feelings for Jordan were just physical, although they had certainly started out that way.

  Jordan loved Alyx, not her. Even if Jordan did give in to his desires for her, she wouldn’t be in his heart.

  Chapter Four

  Tobias rushed down the wide curved stairs to the main entrance of the castle. Down at the bottom, Marin was waiting for him. Marin was a thick, tall, muscular FreeThinker, one of Lukas’ friends. He had only barely recovered from his torture by Samyara but he had insisted on going out to search for Ana too.

  Tobias stopped before Marin, relief filling his veins. In Marin’s arms he held Ana, asleep with her head tucked into his neck.

  “Oh thank God, she’s okay. Where did you find her?”

  “She just appeared at Tara,” Marin explained. “She was hysterical, nonsensical. Screaming for Lukas. I had to knock her out with a bit of borrowed DreamWalker.”

  Tobias brushed the hair back from her face. There didn’t appear to be any bruising or abrasions on her. “At least she’s alright.”

  Tobias looked up in time to catch the look on Marin’s face. There was something else that Marin wasn’t telling him. “What is it?”

  “It might be nothing. A trauma thing from whatever she’s been through.”

  “Tell me.”

  “Tobias,” Marin said slowly, “when she arrived in Tara, she didn’t know who I was.”

  * * *

  Lukas barreled through the doors into Tobias’ office. He stared around the office. Tobias was behind his desk. Jordan was standing at one of the bookshelves in the office. But there was no Ana.

  “Where is she?” Lukas demanded.

  Tobias’ face was grim. “Come in. Close the door.”

  Lukas did so and moved to the front of Tobias’ desk.

  “Have a seat,” Tobias said.

  “I don’t want to sit. Where is she?”

  “Lukas, I really think you should sit,” Jordan said.

  They were stalling. But why? He spoke through clenched teeth. “Tobias. Tell me where Ana is.”

  Tobias and Jordan traded a look.

  “What?” Lukas demanded, staring back and forth between them. In his stomach a cold fear began to percolate. Something was going on. Something was wrong.

  “Lukas,” Tobias began slowly, his face lined with concern. “Before I bring you to her, I need you to be…prepared.”

  A cold deathly grip curled its hand around his stomach and squeezed. “Oh my God. Is she alright? Is she hurt?”

  “She’s not hurt. Not that I can tell but…”

  Lukas’ hands flew to his hair, tugging at it. What were these games then? Ana wasn’t hurt but there was something very, very wrong. “Tobias, whatever it is. Tell me.”

  “Ana…isn’t herself.”

  Lukas swallowed the hard, painful lump that appeared in his throat. “What do you mean ‘she’s not herself’?”

  * * *

  Alyx closed the door to her room. She swept the room for any demon-bug spying devices. She didn’t trust Balthazar one bit. She found none.

  Only then did she pull out the charm Raphael had left for her. She sat in her chair, dangling it from one hand. It looked like a round metal coin on the end of a necklace wrapped in a mirage. When she touched it the mirage faded away to reveal an eight-pointed star within a circle all in silver. Engraved around the outer and front edges of the circle were the shimmering words,

  “Look within your soul to find the path to the truth.”

  What the hell did that mean?

  She stared at the charm, reading the words over and over again. She supposed that “the path to the truth” could be a metaphor to mean the location of Raphael’s missing Amulet piece as Balthazar suggested, but what did it mean to look within herself? What did she actually have to do?

  Was the answer inside her? Did she have to say the answer to the riddle out aloud? So, what was in her soul?

  “Um, love,” she tested, “love is in my soul.”

  Nothing happened.

  “Light.”

  Still nothing happened.

  “Eternal life.”

  Nope.

  “Abracadabra?”

  The shimmering ink seemed to wink at her. “Come on,” she let out, frustration making her nerves jangle, “tell me what the answer is.”

  The charm, of course, did not reply.

  Jesus Christ, she was sitting here talking to a piece of metal. She must be going mad.

  Maybe Tobias could help. He might know more about Raphael. Or Jordan. He was good with riddles. But, she remembered, Mayrekk did say that only the Guardian could understand the riddle.

  “Alyx?”

  She jolted from her chair and snatched the charm into her fist. She relaxed when she saw who it was. “Israel, you scared me. I didn’t hear you come in.”

  Israel chuckled as he moved towards her and wrapped her in his arms. “You were concentrating pretty hard. Do you know when you concentrate you stick the end of your tongue out?”

  “I do not.”

  “You do. Makes me want to kiss you.” He leaned down her and brushed his lips against hers. His tongue grazed her lips teasingly
but he kept his mouth just out of the reach of her greedy lips. It was teasing, tantalizing torture. Just before Alyx thought she might lose her mind, he closed his mouth over hers. She floated herself off the floor so that they could deepen the kiss.

  Finally he pulled away. Alyx sighed happily in his arms. This, a girl could get used to. Who knew that one day she might find more time for kisses than blades.

  “So,” Israel asked, “what are you working on that requires such concentration?”

  Alyx had all but forgotten. Again. He did have that effect on her. She showed him the charm, explained what it was and read out the riddle hidden under the mirage.

  “And you thought that ‘abracadabra’ would work, huh?” Israel said.

  Alyx blushed. “You heard that? I thought it couldn’t hurt.”

  “But it didn’t.”

  “Nope. Nothing has so far.”

  “Can I help?”

  “Please, if you can make sense of it.” She handed over the charm to Israel. It looked so delicate in his strong hands as he turned it over. She watched his scar on his top lip dance as he spoke out the riddle on the charm under his breath. “Raphael said that only the Guardian could understand the riddle, which means me.”

  “So all you have to do is to use your extra special Guardian powers to figure it out.”

  Alyx blinked. “My…what?”

  Israel frowned. “Well, it makes sense why only the Guardian would be able to figure out the riddle if figuring out the riddle requires you to use a gift or knowledge that only you have because you’re the Guardian.”

  “Oh my God.”

  “Just call me Israel.”

  “Israel, you’re a genius. You deserves kisses for that.”

  “It was nothing.”

  “Big fat kisses.”

  “Well, if you insist.”

  “No. You deserve more than kisses. You deserve…naked kisses.”

  “Naked kisses?”

  “Ridiculously, scandalously naked kisses.”

  Israel’s eyes widened and he made a strangling noise in his throat. Alyx took this opportunity to snatch the charm back from him. She began to turn away but he stopped her with a hand on her arm. He stepped closer into her, his eyes darkening that delicious devilish green when he was thinking of one thing. Alyx sucked in a breath as her body heated starting from when their skin meet.

  “I’d like my reward now,” he said, his voice dropping low and thick as his hands began to move up her arm. His nose and lips traced her neck and she could feel him breathe her into him. Her mind felt like it was short-circuiting, the air humming between them. “Alyx, my reward.”

  “Your reward?”

  “I do believe you said I deserved kisses…naked kisses…in fact, I do remember you said, and I quote, ‘ridiculously scandalously naked kisses’.” His gaze lowered to her mouth. “I want to claim my reward.”

  “I…um…” she didn’t have a chance to finish her sentence. Israel lips closed on hers. Her world darkened around them as their connection twisted around them both. His fingers found her face and the skin on her neck as he deepened the kiss. His tongue running across hers made her body begin to tremble. I can’t get close enough to you, angel, he whispered in his head. I want to be under your skin. She hadn’t even realized she had fallen into him, something that her Guardian bond allowed her to do.

  Her Guardian bond. The answer to Raphael’s riddle.

  Alyx pulled back, her body moaning at her for pulling away from his sweet mouth. “We’re going to get carried away. Again. We’ll lose another day. I need to solve this riddle and find the missing piece of the Amulet and stop Michael from destroying our planet.”

  Israel groaned. “What happened to the usual ‘sorry, honey, I have a headache’ excuse?” He sighed, seemingly resigned, but he didn’t pull away. He grabbed the back of Alyx’s neck and held her in place as he stared deep into her eyes. “Fine. But when this is all over, you and I are going to spend some major alone time without any distractions.”

  “Major alone time?”

  “Ridiculously scandalously naked alone time.”

  Alyx felt her body flush. “Okay.”

  Israel placed a kiss on her mouth. It was heated and full of promise and he gripped her as if he feared that she might disappear. Alyx felt herself melting into him, her mind disappearing into this complete bliss that only Israel could weave around her. Her resolve began to fall away. What was one more day? She deepened the kiss and pressed her body against his.

  This time it was Alyx’s turn to groan when he pulled away. “Why did you stop?” she moaned. “We don’t have to stop. What about naked kisses?”

  He leaned his forehead on hers, his breath rushing hard around her cheeks. “I don’t know. Something about saving the world.”

  “The world can wait.” She moved to kiss him again.

  But he wouldn’t let her. “No, no, angel, you were right. You need to solve that charm to keep the world safe. I need to stop distracting you.”

  Alyx sighed deeply, staring at Israel with a great sadness as he pulled almost completely away. It seemed that there was always something more important than their love. Something else that had to be focused on. When would they have time for just them? Bitterness rose into her mouth. It wasn’t fair.

  He noticed it immediately and pushed a strand of hair from her cheek. “What’s wrong?”

  “Do you ever wish we were just two normal boring people?”

  “Boring?”

  “You know, just two mortals with normal boring lives who met and fell in love and had wondrously boring problems like what movie we’d watch on a Friday night and whose turn it was to wash up…”

  “Sounds lovely.”

  “…and whether we would have two kids or three.”

  He laughed and pulled her into a hug. She buried herself in his arms and allowed the familiar smell of him to soothe her. He whispered in her ear, “The answer is, of course, seven.”

  “Seven?”

  “Yes. We’d have seven kids.”

  “Seven!”

  “Yeah, I want a truckload of them with you,” he grinned. “Someday. Wait…can we have children? What would they be? Half-keye, half-Guardian badasses.”

  “Badasses.” Alyx shook her head. “You’re as bad as Sparrow.” She poked his side and pushed her chin onto his shoulder. “And you’re avoiding the question.”

  He sighed as he pulled her in closer. He held her so tightly that she was almost unable to breathe. Whatever…she didn’t really need to breathe anyway. “Sometimes I wish we were just two normal people. But we are who we are and we have what we have, angel. We’re so lucky just to have found each other.”

  “But you’ll die one day,” she blurted out. Heaven have mercy, this was not the way to bring up this sensitive topic. Alyx recalled the vision that a demon had shown her once of Israel as an old man even as she remained immortal. In this vision Israel had died of old age. Something that she would be faced with one day even if they survived Michael. She hadn’t told Israel of this vision yet.

  “Everybody dies…” Israel trailed off. “Oh, right. You wouldn’t. Immortal being and all that.” In his voice Alyx could detect…jealousy. Jealous? Of her? But she would be the one who had to live without him. Why would he be jealous of that? For the first time in her life, she cursed her immortality.

  “Then what? What…” her throat squeezed up, as this familiar fear rose up in her, clogging up all her cells, and she sucked in a breath as if to let out a scream. What would she do when she lost him? Tears filled her eyes as she tried to imagine her life without his kisses, without his presence by her side, without his strength and his love. She couldn’t imagine a world without him. It wouldn’t be one she would want to live in. “I can’t live without you, Israel.” Her fingers clawed into his shirt as if she could forever anchor him to this Earth. “I can’t. Don’t make me try.”

  Israel pulled her closer and shushed into her hair. �
�Angel, let’s not worry about that now. One earth-shattering problem at a time. We need to stop Michael first to make sure that there’s still an Earth for us to have these problems in.”

  “You’re right.” Alyx took a deep breath and forced herself to let all these swirling questions go. One thing at a time. If they didn’t find this missing piece of the Amulet before Michael did, there wouldn’t be a future for them to worry about.

  “Of course I am.” Israel grinned. “I’m the genius, remember? So, what was your great idea spurned from my genius?”

  “The things I have because of my Guardian status that no one else has are: the responsibility of protecting you...”

  “I really am God’s gift.”

  “My ability to go in your head…”

  “Providing you hours of unbridled entertainment.”

  “And my ability to find you in a sea of…souls.” The answer struck Alyx. “Of course.”

  “What is it?”

  “It’s how I can sometimes find you. I can turn on some sort of…Soulsight. I can see all the souls on this planet. I am drawn to yours.” She placed the charm in her palm and evened her breath. Then she cleared her head and let go.

  She felt her skin dissipate into everything and her vision blurred then shimmered as if she had just stepped though something. She saw Israel’s body disappear into a radiant light before her. His soul beckoned to her, looking more beautiful than anything she had seen before. But more importantly, she saw it. The blue shimmering dust trailing out like an arrow from her hand.

  Raphael hadn’t left her a charm. He had left her a compass.

  Chapter Five

  Lukas paused at the door to the room where Ana was resting. Tobias placed a gentle hand on his shoulder. “Are you okay?”

  Lukas closed his eyes as the very conversation that broke his world in two echoed in his mind.

  “It appears that Ana has lost some of her memory.”

  “She…what?”

  “We’re not sure of the extent yet.”

  “So what, you think she’s lost…a few weeks? Months?”

  “I think more.”

  “What, like, a few years?”