Aiden laughed in the face of her anger, as if he was enjoying making her wear a shoe she made him walk around in so often. “That’s the response after months of being apart? I transcend realms to come look for you and you’re mad?” His bark of laughter echoed around the room.
“It’s not funny!”
“It is funny,” he said, shrugging. Her face balled up in anger and Aiden’s response was to pull her close, wrap his arms around her and hold her tight. “I missed you,” he said softly. He placed his nose against her neck and inhaled. “I missed you so much.”
“You’re so stupid,” she muttered in his shoulder as she tried to hide the fact that she was crying.
“Your hair is white,” he murmured as he kissed the crown of her head. “And you’re still short as shit.”
Her head snapped back so she could glare at him but the glare fell apart easily, replaced by laughter. “Holy shit, I’m back. I have a body,” She began touching herself, her arms, her neck, her face. “This is a miracle.”
“Completely unreal. But…” he said as he put a finger under her chin, “I’ve never been so glad in my life that something so ridiculous worked.” He pressed a gentle kiss to her lips and Jin didn’t hesitate. She welcomed his kiss, relishing in the sweetness of his mouth. It felt like heaven, like salvation, to be born into love and life again.
Aiden pulled back, pecked her on the nose and stood up, stretching as he did.
“Where are you going?” she said, curious and a little vulnerable after Discord. After meeting another world Aiden and Zion, her son from another life, and having to lose them, she didn’t want Aiden to be out of her sight. She wanted to touch him and make love to him and tell him about her adventures over the top of pillows.
“Well, I plan on rediscovering your new body, slowly and patiently. To do that, I have to go downstairs to get you a toothbrush, zombie. Your un-dead breath stinks.”
She threw a pillow at him as he left the room laughing.
CHAPTER
ONE HUNDRED TWO
“St. Peter’s?” Sheeda said, groaning. Why do they always go to damn churches? “How long have they been there?”
There was a non-committal noise on the other side. “Less than an hour. Fox just arrived so I would say it’s something big. Not big enough of a force to cause any real trouble. Like they didn’t bring an army or anything.” The line went silent for a moment before the sound of hard candy being rotated in her mouth broke it.
Sheeda smiled into the receiver. “They could have brought a hundred people. I only need one person to test this on. One shot like BAM, you know?” she yelled, holding her hand out like a gun. “These sort of things are always better with a live subject.”
“So cruel,” Dalia said.
“I don’t have a cruel bone in my body. Just a bunch of homesick ones.”
Sheeda heard a distinct beep on the other side and as expected Dalia interrupted their conversation. “It’s Yemzi. I’m going to conference her in.”
There was a moment of silence before Yemzi’s throaty voice crackled over the phone line. “Private Yemzi reporting in.”
Yemzi was a human Glut private assigned to Lower Manhattan. Ever since Sheeda ordered the kidnapping of Aiden, there were more Glut members being dispersed throughout Manhattan to keep The Eleven out of the city and focused on their main goal.
“What’s the matter, Yemzi?” Sheeda yawned. Yemzi had a habit of reporting every few hours, even when there was nothing to report, even after they told her it was very unnecessary.
“We have been monitoring Aiden Choi’s apartment on Spring Street.”
“Yes, yes, Yemzi, that’s–” she sighed. She was doing it again. “That’s what you’re supposed to be doing. Is there anything new? Did a neighbor kill his wife and you were the only witness? Did you see a burglar sneak into an apartment…or better yet did you see anything that had to do with your job?”
Yemzi cleared her throat. “Um, yes ma’am, I did.”
“Really…” Sheeda drawled.
“At approximately five hundred-hours, there was a flurry of movement at Aiden Choi’s residence. I dispatched Uri and Tio to investigate. Inside were about ten or so people, most of them dressed in white. Aiden Choi and one of the ones in white were lying on a bed. They stayed that way for hours until Team Fox left the residence. Then, at approximately seventeen-hundred hours, there was a bright light, blue, then white, then orange, almost like flames. What Uri reported next was amazing, ma’am, just utterly shocking! I knew I needed to see for myself so I joined Uri and Tio on their fireplace balcony.”
“What did you see, Yemzi?” Sheeda asked, the young private now capturing her attention and also her anxiety. Yemzi babbled nonsensically for a moment, trying to get the words out and Sheeda snapped at her. “Spit it out!”
“The woman on the bed disappeared! Or…morphed…I don’t know. She was there and then she wasn’t! Her body was completely replaced by someone else’s! I recognized the face!”
“Whose face was it?”
Yemzi inhaled, dramatically. “It was Jin Amaris’s.”
There was silence, thick, impenetrable silence before Sheeda snapped into action. “Yemzi, keep your position. Do not move from it until you receive a command to do so. Dalia, I will call you back in a second.”
Sheeda waited until she heard the dial tone before she jumped up from the leopard patterned chaise in her personal room. She didn’t bother with shoes or slippers as she raced down the steps, mildly thankful that she’d opted to wear a smart pantsuit instead of that long tulle skirt she’d just bought. She walked into Lucan’s office without knocking. The man never locked it, claiming he had an open door policy for those who would help him change the future.
Lucan looked up and over the screen of his laptop and lowered his glasses. “I’m guessing the building is on fire?”
“No,” Sheeda said, her breath short in her chest, “the entire earth is. Maybe our plans?”
Lucan’s brow hitched. “You’re usually a little more…composed than this. What’s wrong?”
Sheeda thought about the ways she could tell him. Show him a picture, say something along the lines of “Min Mamaris is back” and have him play a guessing game, but Lucan was in a good mood and she didn’t want to ruin it. So she just said it. “Jin Amaris is back. On Earth. She isn’t in Caeli. She is here.”
Slowly, he closed his laptop, crossed his arms across the top of it and stared at her. “Are you sure?” he asked, calm and his voice steady despite hearing the news.
“Sure, yes. Yemzi just reported it in. She was doing surveillance on Aiden Choi’s apartment–”
“I don’t remember telling anyone to do surveillance on his apartment.”
“Yes, yes,” she huffed, “but I do remember you giving me authoritative powers over Glut and that’s where I thought they were needed. And that’s not the point. Jin Amaris is back, Lucan. In the flesh. Something has gone wrong.”
Lucan tapped his desk, a lavish 16th-century piece that looked like it belonged right in Au Courant. Matter of fact, his entire office looked like a room snatched right out of the home of The Above. He continued to tap on his desk and Sheeda thought he would have reacted a tad bit differently. He wasn’t an excitable guy by any measure of the word but this was just plain bizarre. “We haven’t been able to get in contact with Elle. Not for some days now.”
Sheeda gasped. “Do you think they know?” Sheeda would feel horrible if that girl got in trouble because she assisted them.
“Pythia Del isn’t sure. It could be Ose. Without them, she can’t connect. But if what you just told me is true, then Jin Amaris and Aria Jinni are two separate entities now. There is no way that Jin Amaris was strong enough to survive the demarcation event and leave with her original body. She must have found another. That soul fragment…” Lucan sighed. “It’s something we can deal with in the morning. We are running some final test on the Triple6 tonight.”
Sheed
a eyed the silver bullet sitting on the corner of Lucan’s desk. “What kind of test?”
“You’ll have to ask Durham. He’s the scientist.”
Sheeda hummed. She approached his desk and placed her hand near the bullet. “Oh, another thing…” before he looked up, she slipped the bullet off the desk and into her pocket. “Fox and Cobra have converged down at St. Patrick’s. Was thinking of paying my ex a little visit. Been a while since I’ve terrorized Kithlish.”
“Don’t. What those idiots do at this point doesn’t concern me,” he said, opening his laptop back up and returning to whatever he was doing before Sheeda barged in. “Nothing they do can stop what we have planned.”
“Shemhazi is with them.”
The typing stopped. Lucan looked up, his face calm except for the visible tick just under his eye. Sheeda needed him to react, she needed him to do something other continue to be calm. He’d been reserved and reticent since his fight with Pythia Del. She’d been the same. Not that she was all that invested in their personal relationship but if it caused their leaders to act like this, she would rather they fuck and make up.
“Gather everyone in the living room,” he commanded.
Sheeda fought her temptation to smile, instead, succeeded in keeping her face stoic and objective. “Yes, sir.”
CHAPTER
ONE HUNDRED THREE
George looked down at the plans in his hands. They were pretty solid– a surveillance pattern that covered the three areas The Eleven were thought to be: the Tong Tunnels, a brownstone in Brooklyn that belonged to Feilong, and Zicon’s warehouse.
“Although I think I may have scared them off from the warehouse it’s still worth looking over,” he murmured as he placed the halokite down and stood next to Hugo.
Chance was stuffing the loops of his shoestrings into the side of his boot when he looked up at George, a strange look on his face. “You’re not as scary as the stories. I mean, I can feel your strength, I know you’re
strong as hell but…you’re not a demon.”
George’s brows rose. “A demon?” he chortled as he thought about how Koke would take that. “I deserve the stories.”
Chance stood tall, towering over George. “Deserve them?” he asked, curious.
“Yeah. The stories aren’t false. I did everything they said I did.”
“So why are you helping us?” Sissy tried from her seat. “If I felt as wronged you felt, I wouldn’t be helping. It would take the world turning upside down for me to help.”
“Isn’t our world turning upside down?”
Sissy nodded slowly with George in agreement.
“I need to save my grandson. He is the way he is because his father and I failed him miserably. This war is the result of our miscarriage of grief. I won’t let him pay for our sins.”
“Moving,” Hugo drawled. “Really, Shem, we’re all touched.”
“Eat a di–” he began before he realized where he was.
“We all have our assignments,” Hugo said, taking a step away from George with a chuckle. “Let’s report back here in twelve hours.”
There was a firm nod from all involved and they made their way around the sanctuary, all silent, all lost in their thoughts about their missions. As they began up the long aisle towards the exit, the large bronze doors cracked open and light and sound from the street leaked into the cathedral. The group froze instinctively. George moved to the front of the group. Father Gutierrez was in his office, the cathedral had been closed to visitors and the custodial staff had come and gone.
The bronze doors groaned all the way open and an assembly of figures entered the cathedral. The rest were confused at their appearance but George recognized them immediately.
“Everyone back up,” he instructed as he stared at them from the opposite side of the long aisle.
“Who are they?” Key asked.
The person in the middle of the group of newcomers tilted his head back. “GRANDFATHER!” he bellowed, his voice, the word, his anger, bouncing off the high cathedral walls.
George sighed low and quiet before he answered Key’s question. “The object of our surveillance.” It was then that George and he presumed everyone else, felt their collective spiritual mass travel through the cathedral until it brushed up against them.
The sensors they wore that alerted them when they were near a spiritual mass matching the members of The Eleven started going off.
“Well, this isn’t going according to plan at all,” Hugo murmured, pulling out his pistol. Everyone copied his actions, withdrawing their guns and pointing them down the aisle. “Back up. I refused to be cornered when they decide to attack.”
Another collection of nods and hums of agreement and the group turned, heading for the back exit with Hugo, Spencer, and Marcus covering the rear.
“You’re running, Grandfather?” Lucan questioned. “How brave of you.”
“I’m not running, Azrael,” George yelled over his shoulder as they reached the steps that would lead them away. “I’m protecting you.”
“This was supposed to be a heartfelt reunion! But you see, I know you better than you think I do. You didn’t think I would let you ruin this for me, did you?”
George ignored his grandson as Hugo guided the group towards the South Transept Entrance that led to 50th Street. As they edged around a pew, George ran into the back of Sissy. Confused, he looked over her shoulder and noticed a group of four standing near the large wooden doors.
Where the hell did they come from?
“How long has it been since you’ve fought against other angels? Centuries?” Sheeda crowed. “You underestimate just how strong we are because you’re unpracticed in facing this level of strength.”
George raised a brow at her gallivanting speech. “You all didn’t seem that strong in the warehouse,” he reminded.
“Yeah…heard you were really easy to beat. Lost your touch, kitten?” Key smirked, using the pet name he gave her from so long ago.
She turned red angry eyes at the Fox General “I wasn’t talking to you, asshole!” she fumed.
Key winked at her.
“But she’s right,” George said to the group. “This is different. They are strong. They will fight different, dirty. Be on your guard.”
“Remember the treaty,” Hugo reminded. “Do not attack until they attack you.”
“I don’t know about that.” Lucan began walking up the aisle, pulling off his suit jacket and tossing it across the back of a pew. “I can guarantee you will attack me first.”
“What makes you so sure?”
“Because no matter what you do, no matter how much you prepare, no matter what precautions you take, you always, always misstep when it comes to your loved ones. You couldn’t save my mother, you couldn’t save my father, and you couldn’t save yourself.” Lucan tilted his head to the side and smirked. “You can’t save shit but you’ll die trying.”
George exhaled loudly and moved to the front of the group. He rubbed the bridge of his nose. “You’re getting on my last nerves, boy. Make a point or shut up.”
“A point.” Lucan nodded. “Sure. I can do that.” He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and pressed a button on the screen. “Bring her.”
Her?
The light flooding in behind Lucan bent when two figures walked in. One was blindfolded with white rope binding her hands together. The other pushed her along through the antechamber until they were next to Lucan.
George's eyes widened and his fist clenched at his sides. No!
Lucan carefully slid the blindfold down from her eyes. Imane winced from the bright lights in the cathedral until her vision cleared and she visibly flinched when she recognized who was in front of her.
“Hello, Aunt,” Lucan gently greeted her. “Dellie didn’t hurt you, did she?”
Pythia Del scoffed behind him. “I would never.”
George growled. “What are you doing with her?” He pinned Pythia Del with a stare. �
�Why are you doing this? Why cover for me if you were just going to do this?”
Pythia Del gave him a look, pained, but squared her shoulders and looked him dead on. “You were supposed to stay away. That was the agreement. I never…ever thought you would show back up fighting against us, Shemhazi!”
“So you kidnap my daughter?” he spat. “I should have killed all of you.”
“I’m giving you the chance, Grandfather,” Lucan declared as he loosened and removed his cufflinks before pushing his sleeves back and over his forearms, revealing tattoos he didn’t have when George last saw him. He flexed and the outline of the tattoos highlighted in gold. “If you can beat me, she’s free to leave.”
“Why not be a decent person and let her go?” he yelled. “Didn’t your father’s death teach you anything?”
“Yes. It taught me one thing. When I lost my mother, I lost the humanity in me.”
“You didn’t know your mother, Azrael! You knew Aria and she loved you. She loved you to death! She saved you!”
Lucan looked away, a smile pulling at his lips, but George couldn’t tell if it was fond or derisive. “She did. Dad was good to me, too…” he agreed, nodding. George continued looking at him, wondering if that was the key to all of this. That it had been so long since someone had reminded him of Aria and Yeong’s love that it had hardened him.
“But the night Ose told me about the way Caeli just… threw away my true mother, let her die when they could have saved her, I knew,” Lucan snarled. “The night Ose told me how Aria killed my father, trapping him, ignoring his cries for mercy, and slaughtered him, I knew. I knew that if I had been older, followed in my father’s footsteps, tried to right the wrongs Caeli created with their ethical arrogance and backward thinking, then I would be just another grave beside my mother and father!”
A Third of the Moon and the Stars Struck Page 56
