Autumn's Eyes (Storm Season Book 1)

by J. L. Sutton

  As I was about to turn and continue towards the lounge I caught a glimpse of something dark flash past my window, something that looked like a pair of wings. I walked to the window, and not wanting to open it with the storm still raging outside, I tapped three times. “Sebastian?”

  “I’m here,” Sebastian’s voice called after a moment, barely audible over the storm.

  “What’s going on?”

  “I’m not sure myself. All I was told was to stay outside, and keep an eye on you.” His voice was filled with tension, clearly upset with his orders. “From the waves rolling off you it’s seems like you’ve had a rough night. Get some sleep—we can sort this all out in the morning.”

  “Yeah, like I can sleep now,” I mumbled under my breath as I turned around, realizing too late that he could hear me.

  Not only was I not being told a damn thing when I was the only one who was there, but now I needed a baby sitter too? What, was I made of glass? Then again, this was probably far more serious than I realized. You can’t afford to be stubborn now, not tonight.

  I sighed heavily as I walked to the bathroom and carefully took out the plastic packet containing my gloves before shrugging off my jacket. I knew there was nothing concrete linking me to Reese’s death and anything I might’ve missed would disappear before anyone found him, but I still had to get rid of the gloves.

  I tossed them next to the basin, but as I turned the water on and ran my hands under the tap all I could see was blood. I began scrubbing my hands, obsessively trying to wash off the tainted stains this night left under my skin. I knew it was in my head, but I couldn’t stop myself until my hands felt like they were on fire, bright red from scrubbing. I walked back into the living room and sagged onto the couch, wondering how much coaxing it would take to get Sebastian out of the storm. Slipping off my shoes to check for any bloodstains I felt the last of my adrenaline wearing off and fatigue setting in.

  It was a long night, but I found myself fighting against sleep. It seemed so cold to even think about rest when I was concealing evidence of a murder in the next room. Sleep was for saints, and there ain’t no rest for the wicked. I stayed awake for hours, forcing myself to relive every moment, commit every little detail to memory.

  Reese couldn’t hurt anyone else again, and my promise to Claire was kept, after a fashion. So was it worth the cost? What was the cost? The thoughts circled around my head until I couldn’t keep my eyes open, and against every instinct, every cell in my body telling me not to, I drifted into an uneasy sleep.

  I woke in the dark to the sound of my front door slowly creaking open and I bolted upright, straining my eyes to check my watch. It was just after four in the morning.

  “Sebastian?” I yawned, my voice raw and groggy.

  “He’s just left,” Ivy’s voice drifted from the doorway as she flipped the light switch. I groaned, covering my eyes from the harsh light. “Sorry, I didn’t intend to wake you.”

  “No, I’m glad you did.” I swung my feet off the couch and stretched my aching limbs, not wanting to waste the opportunity to find some answers.

  Ivy sighed as she sat on the far edge of the couch, her lily white dress somehow dry despite the storm still hanging over the city. As I rubbed my eyes I realized she still had wings, though they were definitely fainter, little more than a dim shadow that seemed to flicker in and out of existence. She noticed me staring behind her and smiled, less animatedly than usual. “Dawn never told you about them, did she?”

  When she said it like that, Dawn and wings in the same sentence, I recalled the night she told me what she was, and it clicked into place. seraphim—winged ones. “Why can I see them now, and not before?”

  “The storm.” Ivy shrugged, and as she stroked the tip of her left wing a tiny crackle of electricity trickled down its length. “We usually keep them out of sight—can’t exactly walk down the street looking like this, you know. But when it rains the charge in the air clings onto them, like a static blanket. Makes it damn near impossible to keep them hidden. Spooky, huh?”

  “No kidding,” I whispered. They were a little unnerving, but looking at them now I also thought they were strangely . . . fitting. After what happened last night I was pretty sure I could look past just about anything, though I was a little curious as to why Dawn never told me about her wings. “Now stop trying to distract me, and tell me what the hell happened.”

  “Grouchy in the mornings I see. After you left I called Logan and Alex—neither of them recognized your mystery guest’s scent either. He knew one of us would answer the call so he was smart to leap away and avoid us tailing him, but we were able to follow his trail the way he arrived. From what we can tell he’s been following you. The trail’s fresh so it couldn’t have been for very long, probably just after Dawn turned herself in—but it’s been at least a few days. From there we split up. The others left to find out what the nearby cadres knew, and I came here to relieve Sebastian so he could join them.”

  “I don’t understand. How could he have killed Reese, isn’t that against your laws?”

  “Of course it is.” Ivy nodded, looking away for a moment before she spoke. “The problem with laws is there is always someone that will break them. We’re not all white hats like Dawn. Some have a problem following all the rules, and some turn away from their oaths entirely. The reasons differ, but the result is always the same—they leave their cadre and become renegades, shunned and hunted until they are caught and executed, or worse.”

  “Wait, you can die? Aren’t you already dead?” I asked without thinking, my mouth running ahead of my sense.

  “Everything ends Benjamin,” Ivy said quietly. “Think about it. You know what we are capable of. If one of us decided to go on a killing spree, or tried to subjugate a nation, do you think you could stop us? Do you really think something so dangerous would care about rules if there wasn’t something to lose? Nature always leaves a loophole.”

  I saw what they were capable of. With all that power it was easy to imagine how they could cause untold chaos if they weren’t controlled, but the idea death could die a second time sounded like the opposite of natural. Then again, I was talking to a dead girl. Logic meant very little these days.

  “But why me? I don’t even know him. Why was he following me? Why would he kill Reese when I didn’t, and why did he leave me alive?”

  “I really don’t know,” Ivy said, “but we will find out, you can be sure of that. Until we do, we’ll be keeping a close eye on you, just in case he decides to come back. Something like him can’t be trusted to see reason, and their unpredictability makes them that much more dangerous.”

  “He did what I couldn’t,” I said miserably.

  “Yes, but you didn’t do it for the right reasons. Now get some sleep, you look terrible,” Ivy said as she stood up and walked to the door, a small smile spreading across her lips as she turned off the lights. “Night, handsome.”

  I rolled my eyes, trying my best to look more sarcastic than tired. “Goodnight, Ivy.”

  23. Breathe

  I woke a few hours later to an empty apartment, something I was grateful for after the last few days. The first thing I did after breakfast and a shower was to visit my sister. Lisa was having a bad day, but honestly I didn’t mind. Being able to see her again, to spend a few hours dealing with her troubles instead of my own, and knowing I would have the chance to do it next week, and the week after. That made all the difference in the world. It was amazing how much you could miss someone in a few days if you thought you may not have many left.

  Nothing changed, of course. I still had no idea if I made the right choice, why I felt so conflicted, who the seraph that killed Reese was, or why he did it. But looking into my sister’s teary, baby blue eyes made me remember no matter where my path took me or who I became, I still had a part to play. That’s what really mattered in the end—being there for her when she needed me. As long as I was willing and able to do that, I could face myself in the mirro
r. The rest would come with time.

  As I sat with Lisa on her bed, gently stroking her hair and whispering words to calm her something crossed my mind. Just like Dawn, there were two sides to me. The one that let the memory of Claire make me lower my weapon, and the other who had so desperately wanted me to pull the trigger. I don’t think I would ever be sure if I did the right thing last night, but I was sure both sides didn’t regret the choices I made, or the outcome.

  I spent the next few days trying to settle back into my routine, trying being a generous description. After everything that happened this past week fetching the mail, shopping for groceries, and paying the bills seemed far less important than it used to. All I wanted to do was see Dawn, but for the moment the other seraphim seemed dead set on keeping their distance. On someone’s orders, no doubt. I knew they were watching me, from time to time I would notice their presence briefly before it disappeared, though none would reveal themselves. I didn’t have much right to complain, not really. I was grateful for their protection. It was still beyond frustrating though—not only did they have to waste their time looking after me when they could be doing something else, but it felt like I couldn’t even repay the favor. I needed to get Dawn released, and quickly. She wouldn’t mind babysitting duty, and I would much rather have her watching over me.

  Still, even with my fate was more or less corrected and my promise to Claire fulfilled, I felt a little . . . hollow. I didn’t expect that, but it did give me some insight into the inner workings of my mind. Reese’s death haunted me, yes, but it also gave me the push I needed to see what was in front of me. I didn’t want to live like this anymore—moving through the motions while I hid under the shadow of something awful that happened to someone else, something that was always outside of my control. It took far too much from me, and I didn’t want to waste any more time treading around phantoms. I liked this new inspiration. It was a heady feeling, but before I let myself explore it there was something else I had to do.

  It was just after midday as I drove through the rusted, grey iron gates covered in creeping ivy. I was dreading this trip, so I slowly wound my way down the narrow brick road that led through the city cemetery. I left the car idling on the curb with the door open, closed my eyes, and for a moment I imagined myself somewhere else. How strange it was that not only did I willingly keep company with Death, and I would rush into a situation where my life was at stake without blinking. But after all these years I still had to work up the nerve to set foot in this place. I was ashamed to admit since Claire died I was only here four times—the day I carried her casket, and every year on the anniversary of her birthday.

  At first I told myself it was too painful, the wounds too fresh. Then as time passed the excuses began to vary. I thought nothing good could come from my visits. It would only reopen the wounds, that I didn’t deserve to see her while her killer walked free.

  The truth was this place didn’t make me feel closer to her—it did exactly the opposite. Seeing her grave beside a long line of remarkably similar headstones made her absence so much more real, almost like every time I came here just made it easier for Claire to take her place among the faceless, buried and forgotten. Just a name carved on a piece of stone.

  Come on Hadley, you need to do this. The longer you sit here stalling the more difficult it’s going to be. Nodding briskly I killed the ignition, climbed out of the car and slammed the door with a touch more force than necessary. My feet seemed to drag behind me as I shuffled down the small footpath that ran along the edge of the cemetery, the neatly cut grass flattened and trampled from years of use. When I reached the right aisle I turned and followed the grave markers, counting as I went until I reached the seventeenth from the end.

  The headstone I chose for Claire was smaller than most. An uncut chunk of white quartz marked her grave. Only a tiny square surface on the face was worked on, just big enough to have her name and the dates added. A simple, unadorned headstone that between all the polished granite and marble crosses stuck out better than anything else—just the way she would’ve wanted it.

  I sank slowly to my knees, ignoring the sensation of wet grass sliding over my jeans, and brushed the tips of my fingers over the rough stone. My chest tightened reflexively as an echo of hollow longing coursed through me, clenching my insides together so tightly I could barely draw a full breath.

  My father told me once that for years after my mother died he came to her grave and spoke to her. He told me even if she couldn’t hear him, taking the time out to remember her was what got him through those long years without becoming bitter. Thinking about that conversation made me realize I threw myself into finding out what happened to Claire instead of truly taking the time to mourn her passing like I should’ve. So I sat, my wet knee’s digging into the soft earth as I tried to lift the crushing weight off my chest long enough to try.

  “Hon, its Benjamin. I . . .”

  My throat tightened. I felt so foolish doing this, like at any moment someone would appear behind me and start laughing. The irony that I was struggling with this, yet I had no trouble speaking to Dawn or Ivy who were, roughly speaking, also dead, wasn’t lost on me. My head bounced back and forth between childish, misplaced anger at her leaving me here alone and desperately wishing I could bring her back. More than that, I think I felt guilty because it took me this long to find the strength to do this. I hung my head in my hands, running my fingers through my hair as I tried to find the words.

  “I should’ve been here three years ago. I miss you Claire. I miss you so damn much, and I don’t know how to tell you that. You would’ve known what to say, you were always so much better with words than me.” I exhaled slowly, my thoughts shifting to the last night I saw her. “I think more than anything I want you to know how sorry I am, for everything. For all the nights I was working late, all the times I missed you leaving in the morning. You deserved so much more. For what it’s worth, I kept my promise. I know it was a foolish thing to make in the first place, you wouldn’t have even wanted me to, but I think in a way I had to. I needed something to hold on to. Everything is so different now. I’ve had to do a lot of things I never imagined myself doing just to stay sane. I don’t think I’m the man you knew, not anymore. I lost him somewhere along the way, but I know he’s still there somewhere. So I’ll make you a new promise, a real one this time. I promise you I will try to be that man again.”

  I sighed heavily, closing my eyes as I reached around my neck and opened the latch of the chain around my neck. The ring slid off the thin silver rope and landed in my palm. I turned it over in my hand, admiring the way the little diamond sparkled in the sunlight for a long moment before I dropped it into my shirt pocket. Working quickly with the knife I brought I cut a small square out of the grass below her headstone, and set it aside. Then, taking the flat of the blade, I pushed the loose soil up as I dug a small hole. When I was satisfied with the depth I took the ring in my hand, squeezed the gleaming stone tightly and buried the ring before returning the layers in order, smoothing them into place so no one would ever be the wiser.

  I got to my feet, brushing my knees off as I turned to leave, and I found myself looking back. “You took a part of me with you when you left, but I still carry you with me every single day. I will never forget you.”

  I walked back to the car in a daze, barely noticing the direction my feet were taking me. So it came as quite a shock when I looked up from the winding path to find Sebastian lounging quite comfortably on the hood of my car.

  He sat upright as I crossed the road and smoothed his hair—black with shocking blue stripes today. I stared at him for a long moment before I realized I was looking for a pair of wings that wasn’t there.

  “Been looking for you all morning, Dawn said I would find you here.”

  I couldn’t help cracking a small smile at that. Of course she would guess my whereabouts before anyone else. “You saw her? How . . . Is she okay?”

  “Oh she’s fine, all th
ings considered,” Sebastian said, his impish smile hinting at something he found amusing. I crossed my arms, raising my eyebrow as I waited for him to share the joke. He held my gaze for a moment before he chuckled. “You missed an entertaining night. Logan thought it’d be a good idea to tell Dawn what happened to you. Big mistake. She got real quiet, and then she, well, I’ve never seen her so fired up before—reminded me a bit of you, actually. For a while there I thought we would have to stop her from tearing his arms off.”

  I cringed at the image, little Dawn throwing herself at Logan who was more than twice her size. Was she really so concerned? Yes, that sounded like her. It seemed I wasn’t the only one who had trouble thinking straight when the other was involved. “Please tell me she didn’t do something to make things worse?”

  “Don’t go worrying now. She does plenty enough of that for the both of you. Which reminds me,” Sebastian paused as he reached into his left pocket. “She asked me to give you this.”

  His hand snaked out, sending the object spinning into mine with perfect accuracy. It was a neatly folded piece of heavy white paper, still cool to the touch from Sebastian’s skin. I opened the message and smiled, easily recognizing her elegant handwriting.

  You are a stubborn, reckless fool Benjamin Hadley, and I am glad you are safe.

  I shook my head as I leaned against the door, how fortunate I was to have someone like her concerned for me. She really was a better friend than I deserved. “You came all the way here to bring this to me?”

  “Unfortunately, no. But forget about that little detail for now,” Sebastian said dismissively as he reached down, producing a bottle of scotch along with two Styrofoam cups from behind the car. “You look like you could use a drink.”