by Emma Holly
“Make sure she still looks handsome,” Connor advised. “The audience has to believe Bathsheba falls for her.”
“So many experts,” the makeup lady clucked. “You’d think I didn’t know my job.” She searched the milling space. “Where is our fearless queen, anyway?”
“Sasha is yakking in the men’s bathroom,” Connor said cheerily. “I think the pressure caught up to him. Andrei was afraid he’d do the same, so he hardly ate today.”
Georgie laid a worried hand on her stomach, but apart from butterflies it was fine. She straightened as she spied a familiar face entering the dressing room. “There’s Yarik. He must want to wish you luck.”
The djinni was smiling, no more the stern instructor. He clapped his pupils on their broad shoulders. “Do me proud tonight, you two. Be careful of each other, but don’t hesitate to grapple. You can go for full contact there. Audiences love watching shirtless, sweaty men strain at each other. Or so my wife assures me.”
He winked at the makeup lady before handing Georgie a freshly misted lilac bouquet. “This is from the whole Ivanov family.”
“Oh,” she cried, bringing it to her nose and immediately tearing up. He’d bought these flowers from someone with magic . . . or a greenhouse. Though it was the dead of winter, the purple blooms were a whiff of spring. “You’ve done so much already. You shouldn’t have!”
“We brought some for Neisha too. We figured our leading men should remember they’re ladies too.”
“None for us?” Connor teased.
“Don’t screw up your performance, and I’ll consider it.”
DRESSED IN RUSTIC LINEN breeches with an animal skin draped over one shoulder, Iksander approached the wings, stage left. He supposed he could pass for an ancient Hebrew—the local idea of one anyway. Connor, by contrast, still wore his makeup robe. The angel pressed fingers to his lips as the swooped front curtains began to lift. The first of their two-part drama was commencing. Iksander understood Connor wanted to see how Georgie fared. His costume, however, was one of the play’s most elaborate. Iksander’s nerves weren’t up to letting him delay getting ready until the last minute.
“Connor,” he said, laying his hand on the angel’s back.
Connor’s response wasn’t what he hoped for.
“The audience is laughing,” the angel murmured without turning. “They understand her being a woman is supposed to be a joke.”
“I hear them,” Iksander said.
Georgie was in the first tableau, kneeling before an altar, presenting Solomon’s humble plea that God would grant him wisdom instead of the more commonly requested material goods. Per their director’s advice, she was playing the character straight. Her inexperience made the delivery funny, on top of which the crowd preferred a mocking take on their historical nemesis.
“She’ll be fine,” Connor said, seeming to need the reassurance. “She’s remembering the words.”
“She is,” Iksander agreed. “And even if she forgets, the stage manager will prompt her. You, on the other hand, need to be fitted in your wings.”
“Not yet. They only take a few minutes.”
Iksander fought for patience. “Strapping on the frame does. Building your seeming to go on top will take longer.”
“I’m quick now. I can spell feathers in under ten minutes.”
This was news to Iksander. Thus far, they’d only run choreography with the light silk wings Georgie rigged. Claiming to want to save a mystery for the performance, Connor had practiced transforming the gear alone at night. The sultan didn’t disbelieve his claim . . . exactly.
“Please,” he said. “I’d rather not be surprised in front of an audience.”
Connor looked at him. “You really are nervous.”
“Yes, I really am. I may be used to crowds, but I’ve never been an actor.”
“Probably your people had to cheer for you,” Connor said, as if just realizing this. “You being their leader.”
Iksander sighed quietly. Sometimes Connor was too honest.
“Oh all right,” the angel surrendered. “But maybe the dresser could strap me in from where I can watch Georgie?”
Relieved, Iksander signaled the assistant. The to-size-for-Connor wings dwarfed the slight young woman. Leather straps secured the harness at chest and shoulders, a bendy wire frame adding stiffness while also allowing different sections to mimic flight movements. After he’d shucked his robe, Connor spread his arms for the dresser to lift the contraption on.
“He’s too tall for me,” she informed Iksander. “If I hold this steady, would you do the front buckles?”
The angel’s build was heavier, but Connor and the sultan were close in height. Iksander had no trouble pulling straps through buckles to fasten them. Connor tested the fit by rolling his big shoulders.
“Tighter?” Iksander asked. “I can move the prongs in another hole.”
“I think they’re good. I’d rather the chest and waist were the snuggest parts.”
Iksander bent to work on those straps. It was, he thought, like saddling a horse. Though the skin his fingers brushed was velvet, the utility of the task enabled him to perform it casually. He hadn’t forgotten the shimmer of attraction he’d felt in the soaking tub after his and Connor’s first practice. He’d experienced it a time or two in the interval since. It seemed that, once made aware of his reaction, he couldn’t fail to notice it.
Noticing it, however, didn’t mean he had to obsess.
“How’s that?” he asked.
Connor inhaled to expand his chest. In the process, the leather strap dug into his pectorals, drawing Iksander’s attention there. The male was ripped, to use the human term. He wore the same simple linen pants as Iksander, their roomy fit and his deep breath causing them to fall lower on his hips. Maybe Connor had been doing crunches. As the angel checked the strap at his waist, his abs looked especially cut. The flawless skin that covered them was a creamy gold. Iksander’s tongue touched his upper lip.
Did the angel lay out naked in the sun, or was that his natural color?
“This seems secure,” Connor said.
The sultan jerked his gaze to his face. The angel wore a calm expression, but his soft blue eyes were darker—as if his pupils had expanded. Had he noticed the direction of Iksander’s stare and, if so, what did he make of it?
“Good,” Iksander said. He hoped this was a sensible comment. His tongue felt thick and stupid.
“Great,” the dresser interjected. “Since you’re set, I’ll move to my next to-do.”
Connor’s gaze flicked briefly to watch her go. When he turned back to Iksander, he smiled slightly. “Should I let you see what I’ve been practicing?”
Iksander’s mind was blank. The wings, he reminded. He wants to show me his spell.
“If you would,” he said, gesturing politely.
Before Connor could comply, a cluster of excited youngsters draped in papier-mâché chains scampered up beside them.
“Look glummer,” the stage manager instructed in a whisper. “King Solomon has his magic ring. He’s about to enslave you.”
Connor grinned as the little djinn ran not very glumly onto the stage. “Maybe we should move farther out of the way.”
Moving was a good idea. They retreated to a less trafficked spot in the shadow of a catwalk. There, before a backdrop of pulleys and hanging ropes, Connor composed himself. He closed his eyes, stretched his long arms forward, and cracked his knuckles. Muscles loose, he said a prayer of his own invention.
“My wings are the wings of eagles. My feathers are white and soft. As my Father supports the sparrows, so may I spring aloft.”
His seeming rolled along the wire and silk foundation in a thick, sparkling wave. Following the wake of this current, the wings he’d described appeared.
The sultan’s breath rushed from him in wonder. “That’s amazing. Those look absolutely real.”
“They feel real too.” Connor grinned rakishly. “I thought I
’d be Method.”
Iksander wasn’t sure what that was but couldn’t stop his hand from reaching out. “May I touch them?”
“You might as well. They’ll be unavoidable when we fight.”
Connor turned to present his back. Iksander wasn’t prepared for the marvel in front of him. The leather harness had disappeared. The wings the angel spelled were incredible—huge and rustling and seeming to grow from his shoulder blades. Gingerly, he stroked the feathers along one side. They were soft, of course, but also slightly warm—as if living blood ran through the surfaces beneath them.
Touching them was overpoweringly sensual.
When he drew his fingertips the other way, both the wings and Connor’s back shivered. That surprised Iksander. “You can feel my hands?”
“Of course.” The angel turned again to face Iksander. “These would be hard to use if I couldn’t tell what they were doing. Mind you, I’ll still be levitating. Flapping them wouldn’t actually lift my weight.”
“Seeing you like this is . . . very strange.”
Connor nodded in understanding. “Because I look like your conception of an angel now. I’m sorry that makes you uneasy.”
Iksander swallowed. “I’ll get used to it.”
“Angels don’t need wings to fly, you know. Those are simply symbols for humans, to signify angels’ heavenly connection.”
This conversation was too surreal. “Are you really what you say?”
Connor’s one-sided smile was wry. “Whatever I am, I’m not alien from you. As I used to tell Georgie, we’re both created beings.”
“Maybe,” the sultan said unsurely.
“If you doubt it, that says more about your mindset than our supposed differences.”
Tempted to pet him again, Iksander curled his fingers into his palms. “However different we are or aren’t, when the crowd gets a load of you, they’ll go crazy.”
A roar of laughter from beyond the curtain said they were going crazy now. Connor craned to see what had happened. “Asmodeus just tricked the ring from the king and took on his semblance. Now Georgie’s pretending to be Neisha, pretending to be Solomon.”
Iksander turned to look. Georgie/Asmodeus thrust her magic ring in the air, the hand that wore it fisted in victory. “Now I shall free my people . . . and maybe visit my harem.”
Her sly aside inspired more laughter. Iksander saw the audience reaction delighted her. Her eyes were twinkling with enjoyment.
“It’s my harem,” Neisha cried in her fake Solomon voice. “Keep your dirty paws to yourself! Guards, arrest this imposter!”
“You’re the imposter,” Georgie said. “Only the real Solomon could swallow an evil djinni and spit him into the sea.”
Iksander pressed his thumb knuckle to his teeth as Georgie summoned up her magic. The special effect was helped along by smoke and lighting, but Georgie still had to spin an illusion.
“Crap,” a crewmember cursed as the smoke machine let out a farting noise but no vapor.
“I said,” Georgie repeated, “only the real Solomon could swallow an evil djinni and spit him into the sea.”
“I’m too big to eat,” Neisha said, helping her stall for time. “And I taste disgusting.”
Georgie fought not to laugh and then fought for concentration as the cranky smoke machine finally chuffed out a dark gray cloud. Neisha used its cover to sneak offstage while Georgie’s magic shrank a flailing image of her to bite size.
“Ptew,” she said, pretending to spit the miniature Neisha out. Right on cue, the lighting crew made a pinpoint spot arc to the back of the theatre.
“Do the splash,” the stage manager hissed a bit too audibly.
The sound guy jerked and played what sounded like a whale belly-flopping up in the balcony. Iksander covered his face in horror and amusement. No way could little Neisha have created that much tumult.
“Hm,” Connor mused. “Maybe there are a few kinks to smooth over . . .”
BY THE TIME GEORGIE took her second and final curtain call, she wasn’t sure whether she wanted to collapse or do a victory dance. The smoke machine’s failure had been the first of a string of errors. In truth, so many things had gone wrong she wondered that the audience clapped so hard.
Maybe their screwups improved the comedy?
Ah well. At least they’d survived it.
“I’m never doing that again,” Sasha moaned as Georgie embraced him.
“You’re doing it again tomorrow,” Neisha teased mercilessly.
Georgie hugged the girl, assured Sasha tomorrow’s performance would go better, then dashed to the dressing room. She calculated she had just enough time to remove her itchy gray beard before Connor and Iksander kicked off the second half.
Shoulder slaps and laughs from the crew delayed her return. To her dismay, Iksander was onstage already when she reached her out-of-the-way watching post. The sultan was a little stiff but not as bad as her. His eye-popping, half-naked body was naturally expressive—naturally graceful too. Chances were, the audience was paying more attention to his physique than his acting skills.
Pushing her worry for him aside, she focused on the drama.
Georgie didn’t remember the alternate life in which she’d attended Sunday school. More recent reading informed her that, in the original Jacob and the angel tale, Jacob had been human. In tonight’s version, Jacob was a djinni, driven from his home by war and hoping to find refuge in the territory his estranged brother Esau ruled.
No love was lost between those siblings. Rivals from the womb, Jacob conspired with his mother to steal Esau’s birthright as firstborn son. Savvier and less impulsive than his twin, it might be argued that—on merit—Jacob deserved to inherit. All the same, Jacob knew he’d done wrong by resorting to trickery. Fearing Esau would reject his plea for sanctuary, Jacob sent his family and servants ahead with gifts. Left alone by a riverbank, he waited to see if the bribe would be accepted. Because he was still a God-fearing djinni, he paced and prayed and finally stretched out to sleep.
Georgie thought removing his animal skin mantle to lie down on made a nice visual.
The stage lights dimmed and blued to suggest moonlight.
This was Connor’s cue to enter.
As he strode toward the stage, Georgie wasn’t the only watcher whose eyes widened. Connor had transformed her crude wire frame beyond recognition—his wings more convincing than she’d dreamed they could be. Gasps of amazement rang out backstage and in the audience. Connor being Connor, she expected him to grin, but for once he stayed serious. His wings cast huge shadows before him, stretching all the way to the orchestra pit. Angels weren’t positive figures to the djinn, not since abandoning their former allies to take humans’ side instead. Appropriately, the figure Connor created was simultaneously awe inspiring and ominous.
When he did smile at the rapt audience, his expression was cunning. His un-Connor-ness startled Georgie. He was generally so straightforward. Who’d have thought that, of the three of them, he’d be the best actor? Miming for the audience to hush, he circled Jacob’s sleeping form. The angel’s prowl was seductive but also threatening. Whatever he intended, it didn’t bode well for the unconscious man.
A normal person might roll tension from his shoulders before a fight. Connor lifted his wings and shook them. The ruffling sound of the feathers sent shivers through his spectators. The sound guy seemed to have pulled his act together. When Connor abruptly brought his palms together, the noise they made was a thunderclap.
Jolted awake, Iksander sat up in confusion.
“Why do you sleep, Jacob?” the angel demanded. “One has come to whom you owe respect.”
Jacob stopped gawking to narrow his eyes at him. “What do you want?”
“Tut-tut. You should ask rather what your Father does. Or do you intend to try your tricks on Him?”
Jacob rolled to his feet, no doubt preferring to face his antagonist head on. “What do you want?” he repeated.
�
�Only to remind you your family may be in danger. You did send them in your stead to appease your twin.” Connor feigned playfulness as he cocked his head. “Then again, I suppose tricksters can just as easily turn coward. How it must frustrate you that, despite your best efforts, your brother sits on his own throne now.”
“What frustrates me is a traitor trying to teach me my business. My brother hates me, but he won’t harm women and children. As soon as I know my offerings have been accepted, I’ll cross the river and join them.”
“Maybe you will,” Connor said silkily, “but you’ll have to get by me first.”
This was too much for Jacob’s temper. With a bull-like growl, he ducked his head and rushed full-speed toward the angel. When his shoulder hit Connor’s gut, the angel sailed backward. Thus began the crowd-pleasing fight Yarik choreographed.
The pair didn’t have a ring. Earth-brown mats padded the stage instead, with weighted trees and boulders providing surfaces to rebound off and do tricks on. As a djinni, the character of Jacob was allowed to smoke. Iksander used the ability to escape a seemingly inescapable headlock. Connor countered that by flying him into the air before plummeting down in a body slam. Three times he did this, after which the sultan pretended to be too drained to change form.
He wasn’t, however, too tired to continue the combat.
With an agility few humans could have managed without wires, he ran up the side of a tree and somersaulted backward over the angel’s head. The audience loved this, roaring with delight as he attacked Connor from behind, leaping onto his back and clinging like a monkey to box his ears one-handed.
The sound guy added oomph with his recordings.
From the angle Georgie stood, she could see how the moves were cheated to prevent real damage. Nonetheless, she winced at the collisions. Some of the force the men used was genuine.
She groaned along with the audience when Connor bench-pressed Iksander above his head, spun him around like a helicopter, and shot-putted him into the first row. Belatedly, she realized Yarik and two assistants were planted there. The trio caught Iksander and tossed him back to Connor.
