“Heading into Downtown. I followed the Naga, I know where they took the others.”
“East New York…”
“Right, how did you know?”
“Niko told me… fuck! The scarab!”
“What scarab?”
I dug in my pocket for the small, black scarab Niko had given me, tossed it to the floor, and smashed it under my boot, but it was too late. The Naga were here. I could feel their dark magic creeping up on me like fog. They’d been following me through the scarab. I dashed to my front door and peered out of the peephole. There, coming up the steps, were Sila and Vishal. My throat began to close.
“Aisling,” I said, moving toward the window, “They’re here… the Naga, they’ve found me.”
“Get out of there!”
“You don’t have to tell me twice.”
I climbed out of the window just as Sila and Vishal burst the front door to my apartment open with magic. That was the second time I’d seen that happen, and it was no less horrifying this time than it had been the first, only this time the door shattered into pieces; it wouldn’t ever be closing again. The Naga saw me, hissed, and started sprinting through the living room toward the window, but I was already out and climbing the gantry all the way to the roof.
“Aisling, I can’t see you. Where are you?” I asked.
“Look to the east, eyes up.”
There she was; a blurry, dark dot moving quickly through the clouds. I could hear the Naga reaching the top of the gantry, so I turned around and started sprinting across the roof, not stopping even when I reached the edge. I hurled myself across the gap between buildings, landing gracefully on my feet like I’d done many times before.
My physical training had started on the streets, not at the Black Fortress, and I knew these streets and buildings well.
I turned around after landing and scanned the rooftop I’d come from. Vishal had arrived at the edge first, but he seemed unsure and hesitated. Sila, however, daringly leapt across the gap, tucking herself into a roll as she landed and then turning her serpentine eyes up at me. She hissed, her fangs exposed and dripping with green venom.
“This time you’re not getting away,” she snarled.
“We’ll see about that,” I said, turning tail and running across the rooftop.
Sila came after me like a pit viper chasing down prey. Clearly, she was less proficient with magic than Vishal was, otherwise I’d have gotten a dark magic blast or two full in the back. Lucky me. I reached the ledge on the other side of the building, and even though the next apartment block was taller than this one, I threw myself toward it anyway, managing to grab the ledge with my hands, but only just.
I hoisted myself up and over just as Sila prepared to do make the leap, only she didn’t just jump—she crouched, and then bounded toward the roof with all the dexterity and agility of a snake coiling and striking out. She came at me with her fangs bared, and her fingers splayed, ready to grab me as soon as she was close enough to. I hit the deck and made her overshoot me, but she quickly recovered, and now she had me standing on the edge of the building, with Vishal making his way across the rooftop I’d just jumped from.
I was pinned between them, and there were only two ways out of this that I could see.
“You sure you wanna do this?” I asked. “Because I’ve kicked your ass twice before, and that looks like it hurts.”
She was bleeding too, only her blood ran such a deep red, it was almost black. “There’s nowhere else to run,” Sila said, her syllables drawing out much farther thanks to her enlarged canines and that forked tongue of hers.
“Really? Because I can think of a few places I could run to, but before that I’m going to kill you. You wanna die for Abvat?”
“Abvat is going to take us all home when I’m done with you. That was his promise.”
“Oh, so he’s some kind of prophet, now?”
“He’s the strongest of us. He will use the stone’s power to pull the rift open and take us all home, it is happening right as we speak.”
“You know what else is happening?”
She angled her head to the side. “What’s that, little bird?”
“You’re gonna have to fight two of us, now.”
Aisling’s wings were soundless, her approach completely inaudible. I watched her land gracefully behind Sila, who spun around only when she spotted Aisling’s formidable shadow on the floor in front of her. I readied my dagger, positioning myself just far enough away from the edge of the building that Vishal wouldn’t be able to hit me with one of his magic blasts, and waited for Aisling to strike.
But she didn’t.
Sila turned around to look at me, and when she did, she was grinning. Aisling moved up alongside the Naga, her black eyes fixed on me, her expression hard, and almost cold.
“Aisling?” I asked, “What are you doing?”
“I’m sorry,” she said, “I’m really sorry.”
“Sorry for what?”
But I knew, in my gut I knew, she’d been the one. She had been the lookout, she was in the skies, watching the group from below, making sure they wouldn’t be ambushed while they waited for me. Aisling was also privy to all of Draven’s conversations with the rest of the Order, she knew where we’d landed, she knew where we’d go, where we would be waiting. She had passed that information to Abvat and his people, and when the Naga came for Draven and the others, she had remained quiet and had watched them all get captured.
“You treacherous bitch,” I hissed.
“You don’t understand,” Aisling said, “He has a way home, Seline. I tried to convince Draven to just go and talk to him, to maybe come to some sort of agreement, but Draven outright refused. The Naga are not to be trusted. The Naga are vicious, they’re liars, they’re selfish manipulators. The irony is that so is he, and so am I. We have more in common with the Naga than he wanted to admit, and that animosity clouded his judgment.”
“So, what, Abvat promised he’d take you home so long as you betray your own people?”
“Yes. That’s exactly what he did. And I don’t know about you, but I want to go home. I don’t want to fight in this war, I don’t want to be stuck on this planet. I want to go home, and I’m going to go home… but you don’t have to die. You can come with us.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Why does that sound like a load of bullshit?”
“Because you want it to sound like that, but you’re not like Draven and the others. Draven is obsessed with these wars we’re all fighting, all he wants to do is train soldiers so that he can be the biggest and the strongest, to right some great wrong in his past. Why do you think the trials are so unfair? He only wants the best.”
“And that gives you the right to sell him out to the Naga? What do you think they’re going to do to him? To Aaryn? Or Crag?”
“I don’t care what they’re gonna do to them. They’re everything that’s wrong with this whole situation. Seline, don’t you want to go home? Remember who you were?”
A sharp pain struck the side of my head like I’d been hit with an ice pick. I winced from it and shut my eyes, wondering if Vishal had snuck a lucky hit on me, but when I opened my eyes, I wasn’t standing in front of Sila and Aisling anymore. The space around me was flooded with light, and blessedly warm. I could feel wet dirt under my bare toes. Birds were chirping, and the air was thick with the scent of a hundred different types of flowers; flowers I had never smelled before and yet I felt like I’d been around them my entire life.
I was in a greenhouse. A huge, glass dome arched overhead, birds fluttering around near the highest point, the bright sun filtering through. I could feel its heat on my skin, the sweat on my forehead. My fingers, I saw, were caked with dirt and… as I took a whiff, I realized I could smell it, that earthy aroma you just didn’t get much of in New York.
Someone spoke nearby, and I spun around sharply. Ahead of me there were aisles of tall green stalks brimming with what looked like some kind of beautiful, u
nbelievable orange fruit and there, not far from where I was standing, I saw someone—although I didn’t see a body at first, only a huge set of gorgeous, white wings.
My heart was pounding, my head felt way too light, and my mouth had gone dry all of a sudden. Tears were brimming from my eyes, making my vision wobble. There was a woman in front of me, kneeling in the dirt, her hands deep inside of it. She had hair like mine, pure white and almost glowing, and she had it held up in a loose bun, strands of it falling down the side of a slender, stunning, but tired face.
I was about to speak, when the woman started to turn her head toward me, smiling, then the memory shattered, and I was back in New York. The flood of sounds and smells was instantaneous and overpowering. I’d fallen to my knees, my hands were flat on the floor, my dagger a foot or so away from me. My chest tightened. My heart, shit. I thought I was having a heart attack, or a panic attack at least. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think; everything had turned to crap in my mind.
Get up, Seline, I thought, but my body wasn’t responding. My arms were shaking from supporting my weight, and to make things worse, one of the shadows ahead of me was starting to approach. Aisling? I wasn’t sure. Neither shadow had wings. Get up, Seline; get up or they’re gonna kill you! I swallowed hard, trying to hold onto the memory of the woman I’d seen in that greenhouse, trying to zero in on her face, but I hadn’t seen her face, the memory had broken before then.
I was left only with the smell of the dirt, the warmth of the sun, and the feeling of… mother.
My fingers twitched, my heart gave a hard thump, and clarity returned to my mind with the rush of blood. The shadow ahead of me had turned to a set of boots. Adrenaline rushed through me like someone had opened a faucet and sent it flooding through my veins. Clenching my jaw, I grunted as with a quickness I didn’t know I was capable of, I scrambled for the dagger, got to my knees, and plunged it into the midsection of the person advancing, realizing only as I buried the dagger in all the way to my hand that it was Aisling.
She stared at me, her eyes wide, blood spilling out of the corners of her mouth. “Wh—” she tried to say, but the words got stuck in her throat.
Sila roared and came at me, hatred in her eyes and venom—literally venom—dribbling down her chin. I pulled the dagger out of Aisling’s abdomen and she staggered back clutching the wound. Sila moved around her and engaged me, her own knife swiping, her hand searching for anything she could grab. I should’ve tied my hair up when I had the chance, but I hadn’t, and now it was a liability.
“Sila, what’s happening?!” I heard Vishal call out, his voice echoing in the gulf between buildings.
“We’re having a sleep-over, dickwad!” I yelled as I parried Sila’s movements, ducking, and weaving, and striking out when I thought I saw an opening. She was good, very fast and agile, able to twist her body in ways I couldn’t dream of. One day, Sila was going to make some guy—or girl—very happy with all that flexibility. Unless, of course, I killed her here, on this rooftop. But I knew there wasn’t time for that. I needed to get to Draven and the others before Abvat did whatever the hell with the stone, and I needed to get there quick.
Something was happening, something in the air felt different; like a static charge, a current you walk through that makes your hair stand on its ends. I was running out of time. Everyone was. Sila lunged at me with her dagger, and it came way too close to my thigh; it took all I had just to dodge out of its path, but I’d managed to trip myself up and now I was lying flat on my back. She came at me again with her knife. I rolled to the side, and it struck the concrete floor, taking a chip out of it. Sila attacked again and again, not giving me a chance to get up, until finally she decided to stop trying to stab me, and she pounced on me, pinning me to the floor.
“You’re gonna pay for what you did to me,” she snarled, then she opened her mouth and her fangs grew even larger, and more menacing. She arched her neck, but before she could strike, a small, ginger cat came flying from out of nowhere and attached itself to her face. Before I knew it, another cat leapt on her and started slashing at her back with its claws. A third cat jumped into the fray, and a fourth, and a fifth. Sila was grunting, screaming, trying to bat them away, but there were so many cats.
Her weight shifted, and I was able to not only lift her and send her crashing to her back, but also sit on her stomach. The cats scattered as she fell, and Sila snarled at me, her face covered in scratches and cuts which were deep enough to start bleeding. There was no time to hesitate. I slipped the tip of my dagger into her throat, and it pierced her skin so easily I almost couldn’t believe how effortless it was. The Naga shook and convulsed. I pulled the dagger out and watched her blood spill and pool and drip along the sides of her neck to the floor. I stayed on top of her until the light faded from her eyes, which slowly started turning white like they were filling with fluid.
Vishal screamed from the other rooftop, clearly sensing the death of his sister in arms.
“Are you going to get moving, or are you going to watch her a little more?” asked a voice I wasn’t expecting to hear.
Rey. When I looked up, there was the silver tabby, sitting on the rooftop surrounded by cats, with blood on its paws. “What are you doing here?” I asked.
“No time for questions. You need to go, now. Get to the others.”
“What about the Naga? And Aisling?”
“Let us deal with them.”
I pushed myself off the floor just in time to catch sight of a ball of black, sizzling magic streaking toward me. I ducked and it whooshed past my head, sailing aimlessly into the sky where it dissipated against the clouds. Vishal had fired it blind. He really couldn’t get over here, and even though the moment totally didn’t call for it, I found this small fact hilarious. That particular Naga couldn’t jump like her sister could.
Out of the corner of my eye I could see Aisling crawling away, her wings—recently unfurled—drooping, her stomach bleeding. Already there were cats surrounding her, twenty, or maybe even thirty of them.
“How did you know I was here?” I asked.
“What did I say about questions?” Rey yelled. “The Naga tried to come for Bastet, so I figured you’d gotten yourself into trouble.”
“Where is she now?”
“Safe, but you need to leave.”
“Wait!” Aisling screamed, holding her bloody hand toward me. “You can’t just leave me here.” She was crying, her face wet with tears. “I just want to go home!”
“You’re not going home,” I said, “But you’re probably also not gonna die right now. You’d better hope Draven doesn’t make it back alive from this, otherwise you’re going to have to answer to him.”
Rey jumped on top of a steam vent near the spot where Aisling was crawling. Her eyes furrowed, and her hand suddenly erupted with deep blue light, but before she could summon whatever magic she wanted to summon, two of the cats nearest to her dashed over to her head and scratched her face. Aisling screamed as she tried to fight them away, but the cats wouldn’t relent, nipping and scratching at her skin until she curled her wings around her body to protect her from the cats.
“She’s not going anywhere,” Rey said, “But you need to go. I find it ridiculous I’ve had to say this three times.”
“Right.” I headed for the other side of the building, moving away from Vishal. “If I don’t make it back, tell Fate—”
“Tell her yourself, I’m not your errand boy.”
I nodded, then I turned around and faced the edge of the alley. First, I glanced at the gantry, then at ground level, some ten stories down. Taking a deep breath, I stepped off the ledge and plummeted to the ground, but I didn’t smash into it. My speed simply slowed enough that I was able to land on my feet. I looked around, breathing quickly from the rush.
Next time, I’d land on one knee like a real badass.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The more minutes ticked by, the more I wished I could use my kithe to get to w
here I needed to go. Lucky I happened to have stashed spare cash into my emergency backpack, otherwise I couldn’t have taken the subway and I’d have had to walk all the way to the other side of Brooklyn, but the trip still took way too long. I couldn’t sit still, I couldn’t stand still, and I’d all but ground my fingernails to bone before I’d even made it to the halfway point.
Worse, that feeling I’d had on the rooftop, that dread I’d felt, it was like there was a hole inside of me yawning open, almost like hunger but coming from the outside. Rain was starting to fall by the time I exited the subway to catch the next L-Train. The skies had darkened. Distantly, I could hear thunder rolling. None of this was particularly strange in New York, and yet it all felt different, wrong somehow.
I waited impatiently at the carriage door as the train pulled to a stop, then I bolted through it as soon as it opened, taking the stairs off the platform four at a time and running in the direction of the creek. I was well aware that this whole part of town was Naga territory. The Naga, more than any other supernatural that fell through the rifts, were a communal species always looking for others of their kind to live with. That put me at a decided disadvantage here, because it meant I could be spotted by one of Abvat’s spies at any second, but time was running out, so there was little room for stealth.
The sky above me grumbled and cracked, and as I looked up, I saw the clouds… they were very slowly starting to churn. It was happening, whatever it was, and it was happening right now. Niko had told me Abvat had a place near the creek, though considering he may have been in on the little ambush the Naga had prepared for me back at his club, I was starting to wonder about the validity of this intel, but the roiling clouds overhead told me I was at least in the right area.
People walked past me, ignoring me for the most part. I’d thought about asking someone if they’d spotted any balding, oily skinned, weird looking dudes around here, but that was probably going to be totally wasted time. I ran for the creek, keeping my eyes sharp for signs of shifty looking Naga, who were easy to spot thanks to those reflective eyes of theirs, or for any big signs with the words “ABVAT’S HIDEOUT IS HERE!” written on them.
Wings of Light Page 18