by Alexa Land
“Okay, good, because I have a lot of questions. How do I know if I actually have any powers now? Because aside from an initial surge of energy, I feel the same as I always did.”
“Try levitating something, like I showed you during our last lesson.”
I found a quarter, put it on the dashboard, and concentrated as I stared at it. Then I told him, “I’m trying with a coin, but nothing’s happening.”
“You can’t just stare at it, mate,” August said. It was uncanny how well he knew me. “Put some oomph behind it.”
“If I knew how to oomph it, I would.”
“Remember when you finally got the blue balls to work? You didn’t do it by concentrating or overthinking. Just the opposite.”
“You’re right. Hang on, let me try again.”
My gaze flickered between the coin and the road ahead. Then I glanced at the speedometer. The old convertible had maxed out at eighty-five miles per hour. It would take over four hours to reach Phoenix at this rate.
Okay, now that was way too little concentration. I focused on the coin and tried to relax. When I felt a surge of power, I got excited.
But then, the phone shorted out in my hand, and I yelled, “Damn it!” In the next instant, the quarter slid off the dashboard, totally without my help.
It got worse. The phone burst into flames, and I yelped and dropped it, which immediately set the carpet on fire. When I tried to stomp it out, I succeeded in igniting the cuff of my jeans. I swerved to the side of the road and threw it in park, and then I ran around the car as Fig jumped out over the passenger door.
Flames shot up inside the car as I rolled in the dirt to put out the pants fire. Then I leapt to my feet and grabbed the ukuleles, a tote bag, and Ari’s sketchbooks from the backseat. As the front seat caught fire, I grabbed a small painting he’d done of the burrowing owls. I tried to save the rest of the paintings, but Fig bit down on the singed cuff of my jeans and dragged me backwards.
There was a steep ditch behind us, and I lost my footing and tumbled into it. Fig ran down after me, and when I came to a stop, I asked him, “Why did you do that? I could have saved more—” In the next instant, the fire reached the gas tank.
The purple Cadillac lit up the night as it exploded. I flung my hands over my ears and ducked reflexively, while Fig dropped to the ground and covered his head with his front paws. Then he and I both turned to stare at the inferno engulfing the convertible, and when he shot me a look, I said, “Good call. Thank you.”
I got up and dusted myself off, and then I gathered my strewn possessions as I made my way back up the hill. Fig followed me. For lack of any better ideas, we stood there and watched until the fire burned itself out, while I hugged the ukuleles to my chest.
When it was nothing but a blackened, smoking hull, a blue semitruck pulled to the side of the road. A young guy with a beard got out and shined a flashlight around the scene as he asked, “Is everybody okay?”
I assured him we were fine, and when he asked if we needed a lift somewhere, I said, “We could really use a ride to Phoenix.”
He told me, “I’ll be going right through there,” so I picked up my things, and we followed him to the giant truck. I stuck my possessions in the footwell, heaved Fig into the cab, and climbed up gracelessly. Once my butt was in the passenger seat, our Good Samaritan said, “My name’s Joe. Make yourself comfortable, because it’s about four hours to Phoenix.”
I introduced myself and my dog and thanked him for stopping. Fig got comfortable on my lap, and as we rolled back onto the interstate, I muttered, “This has been a hell of a birthday so far.”
I started to organize the things I’d saved as he said, “That’s a real bummer about your car. Was it an electrical fire?”
“That’s exactly what it was.” I unzipped the top of the tote bag so I could add the sketchbooks. When I saw I’d grabbed the sex kit Ari had made for us, I quickly zipped it again.
“Well, look on the bright side,” he said. “At least your birthday can only improve from here.”
“I don’t know about that. There are some…thugs going after my boyfriend as we speak, and if I don’t get there in time, I’m afraid of what’s going to happen to him.”
“Well shit, maybe you should call the police.”
I shook my head. “Let’s just say this falls outside their jurisdiction.”
Joe glanced at my profile. I could only imagine how he’d interpreted that. But then he switched gears and stomped on the accelerator as he said, “I guess we’d better hurry up and get your ass to Phoenix, then.”
When we were about an hour outside the city limits, I noticed a silver SUV barreling down the interstate headed west, which abruptly executed an illegal U-turn. They pulled up beside us and rolled down a window, and when Ty stuck his head out and waved, Joe asked, “Do you know those guys?”
“They’re my friends. Can you stop somewhere?” As he pulled to the side of the road, I gathered my belongings and said, “Thank you for the ride. I really appreciate it.”
“I’m glad I could help. Take care of yourself and that boyfriend of yours, okay?”
“I’ll try my best.”
Fig and I ran to the SUV, which had stopped a few yards ahead of the truck. When I reached the open passenger door, August informed me, “You look like shite.”
The dog hopped in first, and then I climbed into the passenger seat with my big, awkward armload of belongings as I blurted, “What are you doing here?”
“Picking you up, obviously.”
“I see that. But how did you know where I was?”
“I used a locator spell on you after your phone went kaput. I assume you burned it up instead of moving the coin.”
“Exactly, and the Cadillac went up in flames with it.”
August muttered, “Only you.” As he slammed on the gas and merged back onto the highway, I grabbed for my seatbelt.
Laurie and his husband were in the back seat, and Ty said, “Hi Griffin. Why don’t you pass that stuff to me? I can put it in the back for you.”
I thanked him as I handed everything over. A moment later, Laurie said, “Something’s alive in that bag.”
Ty looked in the tote, and then he pulled out the translucent vibrator. The tip was rotating in a big circle, and Laurie frowned and asked, “Is that…fun?”
I felt myself turning red as I muttered, “I don’t know. We haven’t been willing to find out.”
As Ty shut off the toy and returned it to the bag, August said, “Let’s try to work the locator spell for your angel. We really should be stationary while we’re doing this, but time is of the essence. Do any of those things belong to your boyfriend, Griffin? The more personal, the better. Although, maybe not quite that personal.” He gestured at a butt plug, which Ty had retrieved after it fell out of the bag.
“The sketchbooks,” I said. “They’re his, and I know they mean a lot to him.”
Laurie stacked the drawing pads on his lap, unfolded a piece of paper, and said, “This first map is just to narrow it down to the right area. We’ll use a street map next, once we know where to focus our search.”
I muttered, “Ow,” as Fig stood on my thighs and stared August down. Then I pivoted around and looked at the so-called map that Laurie had spread out on top of the sketchbooks and asked, “What the hell are those, dancing waffles? Wait, are you using a placemat with a children’s menu to find my boyfriend?”
Laurie looked embarrassed. “It’s also a nice, compact map of the whole city.”
“Where did you get it?”
“At a twenty-four-hour restaurant next door to the rental car office. I got us coffee while August was doing the paperwork for this vehicle.”
“Okay,” I said. “Just do whatever you’re going to do with that placemat. And Fig, sit down, please! August is driving and clearly not up to anything, so you don’t need to watch him like a hawk.”
The dog sat on my lap but kept an eye on the driver, and as Laurie began to recite a
spell in the backseat, August said, “I don’t suppose you figured out how to use your magic over the last few hours.”
“I wasn’t exactly alone in that truck, so it would have been a bad idea to start levitating coins like a poltergeist.”
“Well, I hope you figure it out soon, not just for your boyfriend’s sake, but for ours, too.”
Ty chimed in, “Did you really have no idea you were dating an angel?”
“None. I was always afraid of telling him the truth about me, because he just seemed like a regular guy. Well, no he didn’t. He was amazing and extraordinary, but he also seemed perfectly human.”
Laurie joked, “The wings weren’t a tip-off?”
“Yeah, turns out, he hid them. Not unlike those fangs of yours when you go out in public.” His teeth looked totally unremarkable at the moment.
Laurie went back to his spell. After a few moments, he frowned and shut off the overhead light, and then he repeated it once more. Finally, he told us, “Something’s not working.”
I muttered, “Maybe because he’s not hiding behind a giant waffle.”
“Let’s switch to the big map,” Laurie said. “Ty, could you help me look to see if anything changes color or lights up? It’ll be a tiny pinpoint on a map this size.”
As Laurie unfolded a map that was about four feet wide, Ty asked, “If we can find Griffin’s boyfriend this way, doesn’t that mean the wraiths can, too?”
“They don’t need to use a spell,” August explained. “They’ll be tuned in to…well, his frequency, I suppose. I don’t fully understand it, but all angels are hardwired together, in a manner of speaking. The enforcers are always monitoring that bandwidth to make sure everyone is toeing the line. That’s how they knew the moment this one slipped up.”
I said, “And being around a lot of people drowns that out?”
“To some extent.”
I thought about all of that before asking, “The enforcers work for who, exactly? God?”
August shook his head. “There’s a hierarchy among angels, and the fallen are at the bottom of the heap. Other angels keep them in line.”
I muttered, “Okay, so he couldn’t tell me what he was. But why didn’t he tell me he knew I was a warlock? It would have made things so much simpler.”
August glanced at me as he passed a sports car like it was standing still. “And how would he have explained knowing that, if you were supposed to think he was just a regular human?” He had a point.
While we were talking, Laurie worked the spell, and then he turned the light back on and did it again. A minute later, he announced, “The angel isn’t in Phoenix.”
“Are you sure?” When Laurie nodded, I said, “Maybe you’re doing the spell wrong.”
“He’s not,” August told me. “If he was, I would have taken great pleasure in correcting him.”
I asked, “Could they have caught up with him before he reached the city? They were moving quickly when they crossed my path.”
“He’d be every bit as fast as they are. As long as he didn’t slow down for anything, he should have stayed ahead of them.”
I thought about that before saying, “He was already tired when he left me. If his original plan was to make it to Phoenix and he just couldn’t quite get there, maybe he found a hiding place.”
Laurie turned to a blank page in one of the sketchbooks, found a pen, and drew California and Arizona. Then he recited the spell yet again. I watched the page closely, but nothing happened. He repeated it with the light off to see if anything lit up, and there was still nothing. Then he met my gaze and said, “That doesn’t mean he’s dead. He would be a microscopic dot on a map this scale. Maybe we just can’t see it.”
I asked, “If he found a way to mute the signal he gives off so the wraiths can’t find him, would that also make this spell ineffective?”
“Yes, it would,” August said, “but I don’t think an angel can bespell himself like that. Otherwise, most fallen angels would do that so they could live their lives in peace.”
Ty had been doing something on his phone while all of that was going on, and he looked up at me and said, “If I was him and too tired to make it all the way to Phoenix, I would stop here. All that energy would definitely hide his signal.”
He turned the screen to face me. On it was an aerial shot of some sort of massive industrial complex, and I asked, “What is that?”
“It’s a nuclear power plant, and it’s about fifty miles outside Phoenix.”
“That’s it,” I said. “I’ll bet you anything that’s where he’s hiding.”
Laurie asked, “How can you be so sure?”
“Because Ari’s smart, so he’d figure out the same thing Ty just did. If he was too tired to reach Phoenix, he wouldn’t just give up and let the wraiths find him. He’d hide someplace like this, and I’m sure there’s nothing else like it out in the desert.”
“Okay,” August said. “So, how do we get there?”
Ty found the directions on his phone and told him, “Take the next exit. We need to backtrack.”
August had been in the left lane, so he swerved across the interstate to take an exit we’d nearly passed. I grabbed Fig to keep him from getting flung off my lap, and then I told Ty, “You’re brilliant. Thank you for figuring this out.”
He murmured, “I just hope I’m right.”
Maybe half an hour later, the power plant loomed in the distance, and I asked, “How are we going to get in? Security must be incredibly tight at a nuclear facility.”
“Just leave that to me.” August glanced at me and added, “If we were able to figure this out, then his pursuers could too, especially if they’d been following his signal and abruptly lost it. As it now stands, the lot of us really aren’t a match for three wraiths, or even one for that matter. So, if you’ve got anything up your sleeve, Griffin, now would be the time to whip it out.”
I murmured, “I’d love to, believe me,” as I rubbed my forehead.
“Seriously,” he said, “if the wraiths find us here, this will become a suicide mission, unless you figure out how to use your powers.”
“It might be like the first time you threw a fire ball at me. I was only able to toss it away when I was under duress, so maybe it’ll all come together when we’re in the heat of the moment.”
“For the record, I tossed a ball of light to you. Then you charged it with electricity and almost burned your house down, so let’s hope it doesn’t go quite like that.”
“You know what I mean, though.”
“I do, but we’re all taking quite a chance. It’s like walking into an old west-style showdown without knowing if our gun is loaded.”
“You’re right,” I said, “and given that, I’ll totally understand if you want to sit this one out. You’ve never even met Ari, and here I am, asking you to risk your life for him.”
“I’m doing this for you, Griffin,” August told me. “Plus, kicking some wraith arse sounds like a damn good time, as long as we live to tell about it. You should probably know something though, not that I think it’s going to dissuade you from rushing in to save your boyfriend. In the first few days after your powers come in, they’re not capable of regenerating.”
“What does that mean?”
“In simple terms, whatever you use today will be gone forever. You can think of your powers like seeds. Earlier tonight, you took delivery of all the seeds you’ll ever have. They replaced whatever was in you to begin with, so now this is it, the full extent of your power. If you use up seeds by battling the wraiths, you’re burning through a finite resource. But if you were to wait a few days, the seeds would have a chance to take root. Then you could keep harvesting the leaves again and again, and you’d have an infinite supply of power.”
I muttered, “You really love your metaphors.”
“These are abstract concepts, and you don’t strike me as an abstract kind of guy,” he said. “I just wanted you to be clear on what this could mean for yo
u long-term. It’s quite possible to use up all of your magic today and wind up—”
“Ordinary.”
“I wasn’t going to use that word, but yes.”
“Well, thanks for the information,” I told him, “but I’m still planning to go in there and fight with everything I have, assuming I figure out what the hell I’m doing in time. Nothing is more important than Ari.”
“Not even being the most powerful man in the world?” When I frowned at him, August said, “I know you’re going to give it your all to save your boyfriend. I just felt it was my duty to make sure you understood the trade-off.”
“No contest. It made me happy when the spell suppressing my powers was lifted, and I was looking forward to being more than this. But I’ll trade all of it in a heartbeat to save the man I love.”
“Now you just need to figure out how to light that powder keg, so we can all live through this,” August told me. Yeah, no pressure.
Surprisingly, he drove right up to the main gate when we reached the plant. The armed guard in the kiosk looked wary as he approached the SUV, and August rolled down his window and said, “Good morning, mate. Be a dear and open the gate, then forget we were ever here.”
The guard returned to his station without a word, and when the gate swung open and we drove through, I whispered, “Holy shit. I know you have the power to compel people, but up until this moment, I never fully realized how dangerous that is. What if we were terrorists? Blowing up a nuclear power plant would kill thousands of people.”
August said, “Speaking of which, as much as I want you to find your power and blast the wraiths to kingdom come, be careful in there with rogue bursts of energy, mate. The goal here is definitely not to cause a nuclear meltdown.”
After he pulled into the employee parking lot and cut the engine, August turned around in his seat and said, “You two stay with the car. You may need to compel anyone who comes around asking questions.”
It was obvious he was trying to keep his family safe, but Ty complained, “We didn’t come all this way just to sit it out.”
“We didn’t know we’d end up at a nuclear facility with as much security as Fort Knox,” August told him. “There will be cameras everywhere, and I won’t be able to compel whoever’s watching them. That’s why the dog needs to stay here, too. He’ll raise red flags, and we could quickly lose control of the situation.”
