As quietly as possible, I fly over the cavern in the floor. Nearing Reed, I watch his pupils dilate when he picks up my scent. His nostrils flare. He doesn’t move an inch otherwise. I circle behind him. My first touch is to his sides as I slip my arms between his arms and wrap them around his waist. He stops breathing for just a second, but it is a testament to his control that he doesn’t flinch. I press my cheek to his back for a moment as I hug him and breathe him in. The riot of butterflies inside of me is chaos. I want to tear his shirt from him and feel his skin against mine.
I distinctly hear Xavier say the name “Atwater” during his Angel tirade. Tau is calmer than Xavier, but not by much. Xavier turns away from Tau. He strides to the hole in the floor, leaping over it to the other side without even having to fly. Tau calls to him, saying something more. I splay my invisible hands over Reed’s chest, holding him as I hide behind him at the same time. Xavier leaves the same way he came in. Tau follows him, jumping the huge X in the floor. He says something over his shoulder to Reed before he leaves the room as well.
“Are they gone?” I whisper.
“They’re gone,” Reed turns in my arms and wraps his around my invisible body. I let go of my spell and watch his mouth curve in a beautiful smile when he sees me. He leans down and kisses me hungrily.
“Where did they go?” I ask him between kisses, my hands skimming over his firm biceps. “How much time do we have?”
“Not much.” Reed relents and lifts his lips from me. “Tau told me to wait here. Xavier went to bludgeon Atwater and let him know that he will never allow Atwater to have the boatswain here, in Heaven, or in Hell. Tau went to make sure Xavier doesn’t kill Atwater.”
“But Tau still wants you to kill Atwater?”
Reed’s eyebrows pull together. “How did you know that?” I hold onto Reed’s wrists and feel something beneath his shirt. My grasp shifts to just one wrist, while moving his sleeve up, exposing a leather wrist holster. Clasped inside the holster is a spade-shaped blade. I move my hand to his other wrist and find another one.
“Atwater told me Tau wants you to murder him for the boatswain.” I pull his sleeves back into place. “You don’t have to kill the Cherub. He’s going to give the boatswain to you. Heaven wants us to have it. He’s going to make Tau give it to him, and then he’s going to leave it in the shield of the ice angel in the courtyard. It’s the one that has it’s arm aloft and looks like it’s about to smite something.”
“And once I retrieve it?”
“Find me and we’ll leave.”
“How?”
“I haven’t figured that out yet, but it has to be just you and me. Atwater wants you to use the whistle. There’s a special tone he made me learn.”
“A tone?”
“It will make me remember some kind of deal I made.”
Reed grips my upper arms. “I’ll bring it to you.” He kisses me again and it feels as if I’m living on the edge of a blade with him, sharp with painful longing.
The door handle rattles. I let out a little squeak before I whisper another hasty spell. I think for a second that Tau sees me as he pauses at the door and gazes at Reed’s back. Reed has resumed his military posture, but he’s unable to turn around right away and face Tau because of what I’ve done to him with my kisses. I look up at Reed’s eyes. I know he can’t see me anymore. I place my hand on his heart, right where I know my wings to be branded. It’s beating furiously in his chest. With a small smile, he winks at me.
I let go of him. I wait until Tau jumps the cavern in the room. I time it so that I land on the other side just as he touches down. Behind me, Tau murmurs something I recognize in Angel to Reed, “Be ready.” I’m almost to the door when Xavier comes through it with Atwater trailing him. I skitter to the side out of their path. They’re all speaking Angel now. As they pass me, I creep to the door. Behind me, Atwater and Xavier join Tau and Reed on the other side of the room. Tau lifts his arms and pulls a chain from around his neck, attached to it is the boatswain. He hands the whistle to Atwater. The moment that it is in his palm, Reed’s wings unfold out from his back. He rushes Atwater and tackles him, falling with him into the hole in the middle of the room.
Xavier growls. His red wings extend as he dives into the cavern to follow them. In the chaos I bolt through the door and out into the corridor. I have to find a portal. It doesn’t matter where it leads as long as I find one in the next few minutes.
Navigating unfamiliar hallways, it takes me awhile to figure out where I am, but I eventually find the aisle that leads back to my room. Flying through the door to Xavier’s room, I land and quickly open bureau drawers and dresser drawers. I almost scream when I notice the Power angel, who must be guarding the door to my room, get up from a chair. His deep voice asks, “How did you—” He looks at the door to my room. Going to it, his gray wings spread wide as he scans my bedroom for me, but my clone has long since evaporated into the air. He closes the door and turns to look at me.
I shrug. “I won’t tell Xavier if you don’t.” He scowls. Hurrying past me, he leaves the room in a rush. “Tattletale,” I mutter.
The time for a delicate search is over. I go to Xavier’s bookshelves and pluck books off one by one, flipping through their pages and dropping them on the floor. Vases are searched, the laptop is opened, rugs are shaken out, bed is looked under, and the mattress too—sheets stripped. Nothing. On my hands and knees, I blow a strand of my hair out of my face. I get up and run to the closet. Clothes fly off hangers as I shove them aside to look inside shoes, open sock drawers—toss out underwear. Nothing.
Outside this suite of rooms, angelic voices are beginning to rise. Powers are flying around like they’re mobilizing for something. I pop my head outside the closet to listen. Panic makes my hands shake. I have to find a portal! The room looks like a typhoon hit it when as I return to it. Slumping down on the bed, I look up at the ceiling, trying to think. What I know about Xavier is he is used to hiding in plain sight. He blends in as human. I glance over at the bedside table. His headphones are attached to his digital music player. Who uses one of those when you can stream music on your phone? I know he prefers vinyl. We used to listen to records in his room for hours. Picking up his on-ear headphones I switch the power on to the music player. My hand that holds the headphones distorts. Instead of playing music, the small phone-like player tries to suck me into it. A portal! I have no idea where it leads, but it’s somewhere other than here, so I’ll have to take my chances.
Now, I have to find Reed. I still feel him faintly, the butterflies inside me pointing me in the direction of my room. He’s somewhat nearby. I hold onto the portal as I move to my room. The tug comes from the door that leads outside onto the icy mountainside balcony. I sprint to it, opening the heavy metal door. It whines in protest from the cold. Stepping out onto the porch, I see nothing at first but darkness and the drift of snowflakes. The butterflies become more intense until, out of the darkness, the shape of my angel takes form. He lands beside me on the stone balcony. His exposed skin is red from cold and he’s quivering from the chill. I wrap my arms around him, hugging him to me. “Did you get the boatswain?” I ask.
“I have it here.” He pulls it from beneath his black shirt. It’s a good thing that his shirt has a detachable panel in the back made for angel wings because without it, he’d be a shirtless popsicle by now.
I waste no more time. “This is a portal. I have no idea where it goes.” I rise up on my tiptoes to put the headphones on him.
Reed stays my hand. “You go first. I’ll follow right after you.”
“Okay.” I shift direction and place the earphones on my ears. Using my thumb, I flip on the music. My body contorts and I’m extracted from the cold world around me and thrust into darkness.
I know where I am the moment I spill out of a record player portal onto the exquisite parquet floor. It’s Xavier’s home in Grosse Pointe. I’ve been here thousands of times. I know my way around it—can navigate every
inch of its five stories. It’s almost like being home.
The well-used record player spins on a turntable in the loft room at the top of the massive house. Xavier and I used to sit for hours here after school, listening to music on it. I never once suspected that it was anything other than a benign way to play music. He never once told me what else it could do. Nor did I ever question why he always let it spin, even when the music wasn’t playing. I thought it had been funny, the way he’d set up a little purple-haired troll in the center of it, letting it travel around in circles. He’d ended up giving me that troll. It was in my room for a long time until the Gancanagh took it. A familiar feeling of angst nearly overwhelms me for a moment.
My hands are still freezing. I rub them together and watch for Reed to come through the portal. He is way more elegant than me when he arrives. He lands on his feet. He turns around, removing the needle from the record player, stopping it from spinning. He closes the lid, locking the portal from our side. I get to my feet. “No one can follow us here, can they?” I ask.
“No—at least not through this portal,” Reed replies. He turns and faces me, catching me as I throw myself into his arms. My knees weaken as my lips yield to his. His hand touches my hair. “Are you alright?”
“Yes. You?”
“I’m fine.”
“What happened with Atwater?”
“We fell to the bottom of the cavern. He gave me the boatswain, told me not to tell the Seraphim that I had it or they would attempt to kill me like they had him. He said there’s a reason they aren’t being told the plan—I would know what it is soon. He said he’d find us later. He wished me ‘Godspeed’. Then, he disappeared into a portal of his own. I narrowly avoided Xavier and found you.”
“It would be nice if any of this made sense.” I turn away from him, looking around me. The room is exactly the same as I remember it. High ceilings, soft overstuffed chairs, and an inlaid wood floor with a map of the constellations set into it. A few fat couches lounge in front of shelf upon shelf of the most exquisite books I’ve ever read. Xavier has a larger, more formal library on the first floor. This smaller one on the fifth floor, however, has always been my favorite. I would often choose a book, and then walk out onto the rooftop patio and read it in the sunshine, or under the moon by twinkle lights and lit wall sconces.
Nothing has changed. Xavier must have had some kind of service maintaining his residence; automatically paying the bills or something, because he was gone for months and it is still immaculate. “Do you want me to tell you the notes for the boatswain?” I ask Reed.
He nods, lifting the chain and boatswain from his neck. It catches the light and glimmers. I shiver, unable to shake the dread it elicits in me. I have no desire to be transported to the past—I’m afraid of what I’ll see and feel there. I don’t want to remember another moment with Emil. I also don’t want a gateway to Sheol to open up and drag me into it. The boatswain is bad news. I wouldn’t mind destroying it right now by squeezing it into a small paperweight.
“We can’t destroy it yet, love,” Reed says, as if reading my mind.
“It’s a really satisfying fantasy, though.”
“Yes, it is. I’ve indulged in it several times myself already.”
I hum the tune for him. He listens intently, and then flawlessly hums it back to me.
“That’s it,” I say breathlessly. I walk to the dormer window. My fingertips skim over the cool metal of Xavier’s telescope mounted on a tripod. The brass shines as if it were polished just yesterday. I lean over, draw my eye near the eyepiece, and close the other one. Before anything comes into focus, I already know what I’ll see. It’s a view of the water—Lake St. Clair in all its frozen splendor. Freighters with red and black hulls crash through the ice on their way to and from the Detroit River.
I straighten and glance over at Reed. He’s staring at a picture of Xavier and me. Xavier is kissing me under the mistletoe at Cole’s girlfriend, Kirsten’s, Winter Wonderland party. Reed lifts the framed photo and turns it over face down on the table. “Where are we?”
“Grosse Pointe. It’s next to Detroit. I lived a few miles that way,” I use my thumb to gesture over my shoulder. It’s like night and day, huh?” I ask. “The haves and the have nots, so close to one another and yet worlds away.”
“You went to the wealthier school?” Reed asks. “One in Grosse Pointe?”
“My test scores were off the charts. It turns out I have an angel brain.” I give him a doleful look. “My scores allowed me to be bused to this school district. It was a hard transition, though. My only friend was Molly for a long time. She was in the same situation as I. She had amazing scores as well—teachers used to ask us if it was in the water where we lived or something.”
“Was it?” Reed asks with a small smile.
“Umm, no. There was stuff in the water where I lived, but I think it was lead.”
“So you went to a nicer school.”
“I wouldn’t say it was ‘nicer’. Nicer implies kindness.”
“People weren’t kind.”
“Some were. Some thought we were trash being brought in—they felt we tainted the gene pool of their hallowed halls.”
“Who would think that?”
“You’d be surprised at how much money matters to some people. They claim it doesn’t, but the minute they find out you don’t have any, is the minute you become undesirable—a parasite.”
“Those aren’t people you want in your life anyway. It’s okay to let them weed themselves out early.”
“Where were you when I was growing up, Reed?”
“Waiting for you,” he replies, as if it is the only explanation. “So, you and Molly traversed the class line to come to this school district?”
“You could say that. We crossed the line between Detroit and Grosse Pointe for sure. We both had more intelligence than most kids, but not enough money to keep up with them.”
“And then you met Xavier?” Reed asks.
I nod. “He was in a lot of my classes. He transferred in from a school in Germany. His mom was from a wealthy family there, but they both spoke perfect English. She and his father were not together in the traditional sense, at least, that’s what he told me. They were still married, but they hadn’t lived together in years. It turns out that he really doesn’t even have parents, does he?”
“No, not the way you’re thinking. He was born of fire.”
“Rebecca, his fake mom here, wasn’t around much. She was always on her way somewhere, traveling. But I liked her when she was here. She was really kind to me.”
“Was she a Reaper?”
I shrug. “I don’t know. Maybe? It would fit her personality. I never even suspected that she could be anything other than human.”
“Are you sure?” he asks.
“Wait, what?”
“You may have suspected she was an angel. You may have even found out, but they wouldn’t allow you to know it for long.” Reed picks up the white knight from the marble chessboard, toying with it in his hand. “You remember Torun?”
“Yes,” I whisper.
“A lot of things there were completely destroyed by angels. Even in a blizzard, people saw what was happening in their city.”
“You erased their memories?” I ask.
“Not me. I was with you. A host of Cherubim most likely performed the task, putting things back together and making things right once more. The underground bar probably looks the same today as it did before Valentine’s friends crashed through it to pluck you from it.”
I think about all the things I may have witnessed but cannot possibly remember. I have a key to all of it now. It’s in Reed’s hand. I’m just not certain I have the courage it takes to face my past.
“You spent a lot of your time here before coming to Crestwood?” Reed asks. He picks up another framed picture of Xavier and me. It’s from Homecoming our sophomore year.
“Yeah. I spent a lot of time here, mostly as Xavier�
�s friend. We were friends before we were anything else.”
“Just like in Heaven?”
“I don’t know. I can’t remember that part of it,” I admit. “Do you need me to hum the notes again?”
Reed shakes his head. “I know it. Do you trust Atwater?”
“Not completely, but what choice do we have? I need to know what happened so I can figure out how to kill Emil. He holds all the cards. I want some of my own.”
“I’ll be with you. I’m always with you. Are you ready?” he asks.
“I’m ready,” I whisper. I look at the pictures that line the table next to us. They’re all of Xavier and me. Reed places the boatswain between his lips. The first note sounds like a scream. It raises goose bumps on my flesh. The world around me fades. The next few notes break apart the room, opening it up to pure sky. The final note from the whistles makes the sky collapse in on me. I’m lost in darkness. I fall. The only sound I hear is Reed’s strong heartbeat, until it is replaced by beautiful, mournful sounds from a solitary piano as gunshots ring out in the air.
The smooth ivory-colored piano keys beneath my fingertips are cool to the touch. Forlorn notes float in the air while I play Cannon in D for the monster standing behind me. Emil’s ever-present, oppressive shadow looms nearer, darkening the keys. The scent of his flowery shaving soap is enough to make me physically ill. With it, I smell the acrid odor of smoky gunpowder in the air. Terrifying rapports of guns and bullet shell casings rain onto the floor above us. They taper off as I come closer to the end of the song until the only sound is the achingly beautiful fade of the final note. Then…stillness. The silence is even more frightening then the noise.
My mind is buzzing with thoughts of Xavier. He should be somewhere close. I’m supposed to meet him by the bridge. My scattered thoughts and prayers hurtle through my mind, making me flinch as Emil’s fingertips brush my hair away from my nape. He bends and presses his lips there. I don’t move, but my pulse races with fear and loathing.
Iniquity (The Premonition Series Book 5) Page 19
