“Afternoon.” He stared out at the sea and the beachgoers far below.
“Eli, I’m sorry. Please don’t hate me. I didn’t mean to—”
He spun and grabbed me by the elbows. “Emma Jane, stop. Don’t apologize. I won’t have it. You have done nothing wrong.”
I swallowed hard, searching his blue eyes. They were darker now—the color of the sea—and a knot of regret lodged at the back of my throat. “But I am sorry.”
“I’m not,” he said and let go of my arms. “I realize now I had no choice. This was my destiny. You were my destiny. I love you, Emma Jane. That hasn’t changed. It can’t. I only regret the position I’ve put you in.”
“What position?”
“I was never meant to return home. I realize that now. I was destined to fall. Your duty demands you banish me.”
I shook my head. “I don’t care. I won’t do it. I couldn’t.”
“And yet you must,” he said. “I’m sorry, Emma Jane. If I could take this burden from you, I would.”
“Shut up, okay?” I said. “There’s no one here telling me to take your head or anything. Just…just stop talking about it.”
“They don’t know,” he said. “I closed my mind to them before we… There’s no tolling bell or angelic announcement when one of us falls. It’s a quiet passing. The bond is broken painlessly. They won’t realize I’ve fallen until they reach for me or until they see me. They’ll sense it then. They’ll know. And then they’ll turn their backs on me forever.”
“So we just won’t let them see you,” I said, digging deeper and deeper into my comfy denial. “We’ll just stay right here…until the end of time.”
He laughed, nervous, but the sound of it lifted some unseen weight on my chest. “We’ll stay…for a little while. Like I said, I’m not finished visiting with what I hold most dear in this world.”
Eli pulled me into his arms and kissed me, the warm tingling feel exactly as it had been before. He was exactly as he had been before.
Nothing had changed, I told myself, ignoring the tiny prickle of reality itching at the back of my brain. Nothing’s changed.
“If we’re going to truly take this little vacation from reality, we might as well make the most of it. What would you like to do? What is your fantasy?” he asked. “The choice is yours. Anything you want.”
“Seriously?” I asked, sounding far more lighthearted than I felt.
“Of course.”
“I wanna fly.” My smile widened at the thought. “I mean, for real—with wings and everything. Is that too corny?”
“Yes. But I’ve been told I excel at corny.” With no more warning than that, an explosion of brilliant light flared out behind Eli. Within the light I could see the undulating shadow of feathers, his wings spanning over his shoulders, the tips brushing the patio floor. I reached out, expecting that my fingers would pass through the illusion, but instead brushed the softest down. Eli trembled at the touch.
“You felt that?”
His smile brightened. “Why wouldn’t I?”
In that moment, with his wings shining behind him, his smile gleaming, and happiness filling his eyes, Eli was more beautiful than I’d ever seen him. He opened his wings, spanning twice as wide as he was tall, the intensity almost blinding.
“Ready?”
I nodded, breathless. “Uh-huh.”
He turned me around so my back was to his chest and wrapped his arms around me. I closed my eyes, indulging in the bone-melting comfort of his embrace. Then with a graceful shift of muscles he launched us into the air.
Somewhere over the Mediterranean Sea, or the Italian countryside, we let ourselves forget the consequences of what we’d done. We were together, happy, and in love.
Nothing else mattered.
Chapter Twenty
For five unforgettable days and nights, Eli and I lived as man and woman. In Positano, we were a normal couple—swimming in the warm Mediterranean Sea and lounging in the sun all afternoon. Later, we joined a few of the short cruises to the small, uninhabited islands dotting along the coast. We’d swim in the ocean with the other couples or sneak away on our own to explore.
The evenings were spent combing through the small shops or dancing with new vacation friends at the local nightclub. We ate dinner at Lo Guarracino every evening, and every night we turned our backs on everything we had once upheld and chose each other again.
It wasn’t until the fifth day that I noticed the light on my cell phone blinking. We’d bought a charger in town, but after I plugged it in days earlier I hadn’t checked it again. I hadn’t wanted to spoil the illusion.
I’d missed nearly two hundred calls…almost all from Dan. “Shit.”
“What is it?” Eli asked, striding in from the balcony. He looked so normal, his leather sandals slapping the soles of his feet, a quarter slice of orange in his hand.
We’d gone shopping for me, buying a few sundresses, flip-flops, shorts, and tanks, but with Eli’s powers he had any choice of clothing he wanted. Like most of the men in town, he wore neutral-colored shorts and crew-neck shirts. Not that it mattered. The man looked good in anything. He had a way of making even pedestrian look sexy.
We’d planned to rent scooters after a late lunch and ride along the famous, cliff-hugging roads of the Amalfi coast. But after seeing the scary number of missed calls on my phone, reality was already bullying its way into our dream world.
“I don’t know. Something’s up,” I said, thumbing the voicemail icon.
I listened to the first message. “Emma, it’s Dan. I need you to come to the station as soon as possible. They’ve been going over the surveillance videos. You’re on every tape. We have to talk to you about this. Call me back.”
My voice mail moved to the next saved message. “It’s me again. You have to come to the station. Seriously. Now. Call me back.”
Next saved message. “Em, c’mon, where are you? If you’re screening my calls…” He sighed. “Just get in here. I mean it.”
Around message twenty, something in his tone hardened and anger transformed it into his cool, cop voice. “Emma Jane Hellsbane, you are required to come down to the station for questioning. If you don’t come voluntarily, they will send a squad car to your house to pick you up. You understand? I’m not playing. Call me back.”
By message fifty and day two, anger had melted into worry and demands had turned to pleas. “Emma? Dammit. Are you even getting any of these messages? I need to know you’re okay. Forget about the surveillance videos. Just call me back. Let me know you’re okay. Please.”
Late on day three, Dan had reached some turning point. “Hi, Em. I don’t know if you’re getting these or not. I talked to your mom and sister and no one’s seen or heard from you in more than seventy-two hours. I told them I’d find you. And if you’re out there somewhere, I will. I swear it. Just hold on. I’ve got the whole force looking. I’m sorry about everything that went down between us. But I still care about you. I know the kind of…people you deal with and after all these attacks against illorum and their magisters going on… God, just be okay. Just be okay.”
He only called once on the fourth day, but he didn’t leave a message. Same thing on the fifth day. My mother’s messages weren’t much different, insisting that I call her back and a steadfast refusal to believe anything bad had happened to me. They were all worried sick.
I hung up without listening to all the messages and turned to get the slacks and silk blouse I’d had on when we first arrived. “I have to go home.”
Eli came farther into the room, stopping next to the bed while I grabbed my clothes from the dresser. “What’s happened?”
“They finally took a good look at the surveillance tapes and noticed I was at every crime scene.” I pulled my yellow sundress off over my head and stepped into my black dress slacks. “I have to figure out a way to explain it. This won’t take long. I’ll pop back home, talk to Dan about the tapes, and come right back. A couple h
ours—tops.”
“No, Emma Jane. It’s over,” he said.
“Shut up. It’s not over. It doesn’t have to be,” I said, buttoning my blouse. “I just have to check in and then I can sneak right back. This will work, Eli. We can put it off until another day.”
He closed the distance between us, taking my hands just as I closed the last button. “Emma Jane, I won’t hide here like a coward while you face the consequences of our actions alone.”
“I don’t mind.”
“I do.” He kissed the knuckles of my hands, pulling me close. “We knew this moment would come. We’ve stolen as much happiness as we dare. It will have to do. Another day is here. It’s time.”
“No.” My voice was little more than a whisper, and I fought to blink back tears.
“Yes,” he whispered and leaned down to press his lips to mine. The kiss was so soft yet so full of emotion, I couldn’t keep the stream of tears from breaking free and wetting my cheeks.
“I love you,” he said against my mouth and a light wind rustled through my hair. Even with my eyes closed, my body and mind sensed the movement as we traveled across the globe.
When I opened my eyes we were standing just inside my front door. It couldn’t be over. I wasn’t ready. Eli still held me in his arms, and I turned my head to press my cheek to his chest. The muscles under my face flexed as he reached over to flick on the entryway light.
It had been after ten in the morning in Italy a moment before which meant it was a little past four a.m. in Pittsburgh. My house, untouched for days, was dark and quiet—the summer crickets chirping outside provided the only sound. My stomach tightened, dread weighing like lead inside me. I didn’t want to be there. I didn’t want to face what I knew was coming.
“I can’t believe you’re just giving up.” I hadn’t meant to sound angry until I realized that I was. “It was working. We had everything, and you’re just going to walk away from it…from me.”
“No. Never. I wouldn’t leave you, Emma Jane. Not unless you asked it of me—unless you demanded it of me,” he said.
“So take me back. I’m demanding that. Let’s run before it’s too late.”
“What about your family, your work?” he asked. “There are more lives affected by our actions than just yours and mine.”
“You think I don’t know that?” I turned my head to look up at him. “But if they knew what we’ve gone through, what we’re risking coming back… If they knew how we felt about each other, they’d understand.”
“If they knew, if anyone did, I would be battling for my life.”
“No, Eli. They wouldn’t do that to me. They wouldn’t expose you.” But even as I said it, I wasn’t sure it was true. My family was all about religion. Would they keep our secret if they knew Eli was a fallen angel?
I didn’t have time to think about it before someone pounded on my front door.
“Police. Open up.” I knew that voice.
Dan? The door exploded inward and Eli turned, shielding me with his back. A rush of bodies surrounded us, gunmetal flashing in the bright light of my entryway.
Everyone was shouting at once.
“Hands up. Get your hands up,” the cops rushing in around us said.
“This is my house.”
“Lower your weapons, officers.” Eli circled with them, keeping himself between me and their guns.
“Hands up. Hands up.” They weren’t listening to anyone.
“You broke my door.” I pushed at Eli’s arm, trying to shove him aside so I could bitch eye to eye with the cops. “What is this? You can’t just barge in here.”
“Emma?” I heard Dan’s voice on the other side of Eli, and I finally managed to shove him hard enough to knock him off balance. He moved aside, clearing the path between Dan, standing in my doorway, and me.
A flood of emotion flickered across his face—relief, confusion, pain…and when he looked at Eli still looming protectively beside me…anger. “Where the hell have you been?”
My hands fisted, and heat rose up the back of my neck. I clenched my teeth, every muscle in my body tensing as my heart became an irate beat in my chest. “What are you doing breaking down my door?”
Dan’s eyes narrowed at my tone, his lips going into a tight white line across his face.
It took another half heartbeat to realize that the rage surging through my veins and turning my vision red, wasn’t mine. It was Dan’s. A pinch of heartache squeezed my chest before the anger returned. I pushed his emotions from my mind, reaching deep to find myself under the tsunami of feelings swamping over me.
The pain was still there, just like Dan’s, only mine was colored with regret. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have snapped at you.”
“We’ve been looking for you,” he said.
“I know. I just got your messages. I was…out of reach for a few days.” I glanced at Eli before I could stop myself.
Dan followed the look and seemed to draw his own conclusions. “For business…or pleasure?”
I threw a quick glance at the officers still surrounding us, guns drawn, and looked back to Dan. “Okay, we need to talk, but now is really not the time. I got your messages. I’m sorry it took so long, but I came back. Voluntarily.”
A guilty wash of sweat chilled my back. He’d ended things with me, but I still felt as though I owed him an explanation. I’d been trying to convince him he was wrong about me, that I could ignore whatever was stirring between Eli and me and be happy with him anyway. And then I’d gone and proven that he’d been right all along. He deserved to know his instincts were good. He deserved the truth.
Dan straightened, chin high. “Put away the weapons, guys. I got this.”
The two officers lowered their guns, sliding them back into the holsters on their hips. “You’re Emma?” One of them, a buzz-cut blond I’d seen around the station, asked. He snorted, looking me over like I’d just refused to donate to this year’s policemen’s ball. “Caused a lotta fuss around here. Be more considerate next time. Pick up a phone.”
“Right.” I nodded. What else could I do?
“Guys,” Dan said, gesturing with a flick of his head for them to leave. When they were on their way, Dan said, “Eli, you mind giving us a minute?”
“Yes,” Eli said behind me.
“Eli.” I twisted to look at him. I’d never known him to be rude.
He kept his attention on Dan. “I am a messenger of God, Daniel. There is nothing you have to say to Emma Jane that requires my absence. The threat to her has recently increased. I will not leave her side. Not even for you.”
“Yeah?” Dan gnawed his bottom lip for a second, eyes narrowing. “We’ll see about that.” He looked at me. “You comin’ to the station?”
“Now?” I asked. “It’s not even five a.m yet. What are you doing here?”
He looked embarrassed for a minute, glancing away and back again. “No one’s heard from you in days. We notified the news stations, put together search parties. But since I know what kind of freaks you deal with in your spare time, I figured your disappearance might have something to do with the supernatural. So I convinced the chief that I thought you might just show up at home and he let me put a detail on your house. When I finally saw the hall light come on, I sent them in.”
“And he assigned you?”
“I volunteered,” he said.
Of course he had. I would have done the same, had I been in his position. “I’m so sorry I freaked everyone out. I wasn’t thinking. Fred tried to kill me and—”
“What?” Concern pushed him forward a step. “Why the hell would Fred want to kill you?”
“It’s okay. He just wanted the gibborim to believe I was in real danger. He figured the only way to do that was to actually put me in danger. I held him off until Eli showed up and talked some sense into him.”
“So you were with Eli?” His dark blue eyes shifted over my shoulder to the angel behind me. Because Dan was an unmarked nephilim whose power wa
s still dormant, he couldn’t sense that Eli had fallen, but he wasn’t stupid. How long would it take for him to figure it out?
I exhaled, searching for courage. “Yes.”
Dan nodded, maybe a little too fast, his gaze flicking from me to Eli and back again. “Yeah. Whatever. None of my business anymore, right? Anyway, I need you to come with us to the station and answer some questions about the surveillance tapes.”
“Am I a suspect now?”
“Em, they’ve got proof that you were at every murder scene. Sometimes you’re there before we are. You gotta know how bad that looks,” he said.
“But you know I didn’t kill those people.”
“What am I supposed to do, tell the chief the real killers were power-hungry, half-human, half-angel freaks trying to add to their collection of angelic swords?”
I flinched at the term freak, but knew he didn’t mean to include me in the description. “Tell him you know I didn’t do it because…because you just know.” Yeah, I knew how dumb it sounded, but sometimes dumb just can’t be stopped. “Besides, I don’t have a motive.”
“You also don’t have an alibi and you let yourself get caught on tape.” Dan sighed. “We’re not arresting you. We just want to ask some questions.”
“Questions I won’t be able to answer honestly.”
He shrugged and glanced at Eli. “Guess having an angel over your shoulder causes more problems than it solves.”
“Dan, please…”
But he just shook his head, turned, and walked out of my house.
§
It was four thirty by the time we got to the station. Eli had kept his word and hadn’t left my side. But once in the station, the buzz-cut blond from earlier decided to end our buddy system.
Hellsbane 02 - Heaven and Hellsbane Page 23
