A smile blossomed on her face and she stepped forward. “Are you an angel?” There was a sound of sincere awe in her voice.
I blinked at her. Her eyes twinkled with delight; her smile was a wide half-moon set into her delicate face. She looked at me as if I was something magnificent and glorious, something unreal. I swallowed. No one had ever looked at me like that. I lifted my chin, but didn’t respond. My fingers were twitchy and ready to lash out for my sword if she charged.
She raised her eyebrows, confused. “Lynx?” She looked behind her. “Is he an angel?”
“Yes, he is an angel.” The quality of Lynx’s voice had changed into something reassuring. He had always been a blunt, harsh man, and this voice of rushing streams and earth sounded foreign on his lips. “This is the Angel Giovanni. And I think...he has come to see you.”
Jade let out a nervous giggle. A giggle. I was feeling more bewildered every moment. When did a soul leech giggle? “He came to see me? Why?”
She brought her eyes back to me, and I stared back at her. I opened my mouth and closed it, my thumb grazing the hilt of the daggers attached to my trousers. “I came to see if the rumors were true.”
“Well, are they?” It was the first time that her smile faltered. She was testing me. I did not know what rumors she had heard...what she expected me to know. I could not tell her what I had heard.
“From what I can tell, no. They are not true.” The slicing feeling cut into my throat. I was startled by it, because I had thought that I had said the truth, but then I realized the soldier in me was on guard and unbelieving. He knew better.
Jade smiled wider then. Lynx stepped forward and made a motion for me to come further into the house. “Come in, Giovanni,” Lynx said. “I want you to meet the daughter of Heaven.”
I choked on a breath and glared at him, and then at Jade. Angels couldn’t lie, but Lynx no doubt could. I wanted to hurt him for speaking such a wicked, disgusting thing. Then Jade skipped down the hall and took me by the arm; the feeling of absolute calm surged up within me and I stared at her smiling face. A demon’s trick. It had to be. I pulled my arm away from her and looked away from the hurt evident in her eyes. She pivoted back and I followed her, watching the swoosh of her long black hair. I tightened my grasp on my hilt and focused in on the energy coursing within me. I had seven days to return to the Gold City. I would have to make each one count.
The memory flashed before my vision and then spluttered out, bringing back into focus the dark wood and all its shadows. I didn’t like shadows. The Gold City didn’t have them. Yet, there I was, sitting on a wet log among the cold, rotten leaves staring past a fire pit with the same bewildering girl from all those years ago.
My hand almost went into my pocket, almost reached for that small dewdrop of memory; that tiny gold orb that felt like a cruel reminder of all that I lost.
It was then that I heard the sound, like a mallet to my skull, bang, bang, banging. The sound lurched inside me and screamed that I needed to let her go; that she was other, wrong, and weak. I glared at her. Her heartbeat.
Her heartbeat was a mortal sound and it was hideous. It was almost as toxic as the note tucked into my pocket, almost as painful as a seraph blade into my stomach, almost as ugly as the fact that I had made promises and dreams with someone who would never remember me.
Heart’s beat. I could only imagine if I had one, how broken it would be. The sound of Jade’s was a reminder to never want what you can’t have, and never dream, because dreams weren’t real. I stiffened, consciously building up the walls around myself. Life was for battle, for blood, for glory. I wouldn’t let a girl steal away my purpose again. I looked at her as she slept and then turned away when I realized that I did that too often, every night in fact.
I sat up straighter. I wouldn’t fail the Seraphim again.
4
NANAN
Nanan sat on the small twin bed in the attic. It was too soft, caving in in the middle. She considered maybe it was just her weight, which forced the mattress to give. She wasn’t sure. She just knew that another weight should be occupying it. She ran her fingers over the blankets. There were some tiny holes in places, faded print in others. How could she have let Jade sleep here? In this old bed, with these old sheets, with these old holey blankets? She tightened her grasp on the fabric before standing up.
No more wallowing. She crossed to Jade’s dresser drawers and ruffled through Jade’s clothing, reached back to the corner, and pulled out a leather-bound dream catcher. She pulled it out and looked at the binding, running her weathered fingers over the old stitching. She’d had it tucked away for so long... an entire chest of hidden, blessed talismans in little corners of this room. This was the first one she had placed here. Jade didn’t even notice the night that Nanan had slipped into her room when she had been screaming in the dark. Nanan never mentioned it, and never asked about the nightmares because she knew what it was like to have them; she knew that some things were meant to stay secret and haunt the poor soul that it sought after. Still, she came in and held Jade as she flailed and writhed. She never woke up, but she did start to settle down against her large frame and breathe in slowly, deeply. That is when she had put the dream catcher in the room, in hope that it would catch the nightmares plaguing her thoughts, save her from them. It hadn’t. Nanan tossed the dream catcher in the trash angrily. She looked around the room and wondered whether any of the talismans stuffed into closets, floorboard, and dressers worked. She assumed not. It was her fault too; she blamed herself completely. She had hidden the talismans just out of precaution. She hadn’t whispered blessings to them or done any of the proper rituals; in her haste, she had simply pulled them out of the dusty chest in hopes that they still had some of the bayou magic from her mama still clinging to them. They used to work on her and her little sister. They had gone years without a single nightmare... that is until their lives had become one.
Holding on to the talisman, a prickly sensation settled over her, followed by flashes of images tumbling into focus. Skull masks. Black smoke. Her mama’s intoxicated dance around fires. The smell of freshly killed dead things gaping open and bleeding out into swampy earth. The musk of the bayou. The slurping and ever-slow movement of the swamp. And then...her sister’s eyes. Eyes that dimmed and lost their light right in her powerless arms. Nanan caved and bent over, feeling a gut-wrenching pain in her stomach; a wave of nausea collided with her. She heaved in heavy breaths, shaking her head, trying to shake free of the memories.
Nanan grasped at the dresser and pulled herself upright. She tore through the room, sprinting as fast as her weight would allow, yanking free the clothes and material that covered all of the voodoo tokens. They all had failed her. Failed Jade. She had failed so many people she loved. That is why she moved out here. Far away from the tin swamp houses and the knowing eyes. It had been Connor’s grandfather who’d had the mercy to find her a place. It was he, who had warned them. But they didn’t listen and they all paid for it. This house was supposed to be a sanctuary from past pains, but now it harbored new ones, fresh and gaping just like the birds that used to be split open and pinned down on the earth all those years ago. Fresh and bleeding. The tokens were precariously balanced in her arms as she left the wrecked room, just as wrecked as her life felt. She tipped the chest’s top open with her foot and let everything tumble inside. She glared at it all. Miserable relics. She wasn’t sure if she could truly step back into that life of smoke and blood and terrible things, but she would if she had to. She would if it would save her Jade.
Jade’s lovely face flickered in her mind. Her tanned complexion and bright green eyes had been so familiar. She knew from that first day she would protect her. She just didn’t know how much protecting that girl would need. She swore under her breath, remembering another set of bright green eyes. Another thing dead and gone. Nanan wasn’t a woman who cried. She was strong and steady like an oak, but just as she found Jade—afraid of drowning on the pier—she w
as afraid all the sorrow that swelled in her heart would burst through like a broken levy. She was afraid of drowning. She stood over her chest of past pain and nightmares and wept until she had no tears left.
5
JADE
I clawed at the mass on top of me, scratching at his face. He squeezed my throat, his eyes sharpening.
“Fight. Fight!” His voice was a lilting growl that rumbled our bodies, a pressure that rattled my bones. Black spots invaded my vision as my lungs fought for oxygen. I thrust my hips forward as he had taught me in an effort to gain some momentum to move out from under him. He pulled himself closer and squeezed me between his thighs. My strength faltered, my hands losing purpose in their thrashing motion. I fell limp under him; there was no more fight in me. I searched Giovanni’s face, hoping he could see my own look of surrender, hoping that he was capable of a fraction of pity.
He roared, releasing me and slapped me across the face so that it whipped sideways and I could see the wet moss underneath us, the dreary grey day smothering us into the earth. “Don’t you dare faint on me, weakling!” He stood up and the air rushed into my lungs. My body was a recurring shudder, afraid of opening its eyes, afraid of breathing, afraid of standing, because it would only be a moment before he had me panting in pain again.
“You are never going to impress the Seraphim with your pathetic skills. They will never allow you to join their ranks. And, we will never survive Hell’s circle and save Lynx if you can’t even survive a fighting drill.”
The disgust etched into Giovanni’s face made me feel like a small, insignificant thing among the rotten leaves, like a petal-less flower wilting into uselessness. I curled into a ball as coughs racked my body. I saw the kick coming a second too late; it slammed into my stomach, knocking the wind out of me. I rolled over and pushed myself up to my hands and knees.
A choked, unfamiliar voice rasped out of me. “Has…anyone…ever…told…you…that…you’re insane?”
Giovanni was soundless. He circled me, predatorily. He wasn’t finished with me yet. He wouldn’t be until sundown, when the Angel’s power weakened because of the darkness. The sun was an orange—plump and juicy in the sky—promising pain for many more hours. “No. I have been told that I am the best soldier in all of Heaven. I have been told that I have trained the most lethal assassins and fighters. And because of that,” his smooth expression winced for a moment as he grit out, “I am here training you.”
I looked at Giovanni. Dozens of blocks, kicks, and punches raced through my mind, but the faint feeling that nagged at me whispered that there would never be enough time for those moves to make it to my hands or legs, that my body was too sluggish to move at all.
Giovanni didn’t advance. He stood perfectly still and stared back at me. My shoulders heaved up and down with each breath, my breath hitching on oxygen and pain. I tasted blood. Seeing him, a still and perfect statue, made me feel even more incompetent, even more ridiculously inept, and I nearly plopped back onto the ground. I didn’t. I stood tall and faced him. My knees nearly buckling underneath me.
I could feel my body slowly recuperating, cuts closing, bruises healing, my breath evening out. I watched as my skin knit back together and the bluish tint to my skin turned pink and then tan. I sighed as I rolled my shoulders back. Giovanni’s gaze threatened pain. My thoughts snagged. Why couldn’t I just be a regular girl? Why couldn’t I be back in Louisiana with Connor’s arms wrapped around me? Why couldn’t I just be a nobody who blipped off the radar and lived a long life full of smiles, gumbo, and laughter? Instead, I was me. A half-breed demon who had to save the people she loved. I squared my shoulders, feeling steadier on my feet. I had much to prove. Too much. But there was too much at stake and I could not crumble, could not give up.
Connor was waiting. I shivered remembering the slacken look on his face in the hospital bed—just a breath away from death. The absence of him made me feel empty and alone. He was my light-filled man, my Connor, and I had to go back for him. I had promised.
Then there was Lynx. The old man who held me and whispered he was sorry in my ear. The old man with a voice like crashing waves, and eyes full of wisdom. The old man who saved me, loved me, and because of that, stole all of my memories. Lynx was somewhere deep in the center of Hell being tortured by my mother.
The Seraphim were also waiting. Waiting on their champion, a warrior to join their ranks, and here I was—a helpless wreck who could barely fight against one unarmed angel.
And then, finally, the world…the world was on the verge of collapse. And when it did…if it did…angel wings and nightmares would cover the earth with their wrath.
Too much. Way too much.
I didn’t wait for Giovanni to say attack or to make the first move. I clenched my fists and hurdled forward, my worry, pain, shame, and determination fueling my strength. I could not be on the defense. I had to be the warrior, because if Giovanni was right, war was coming. And we could not lose.
6
CONNOR
Mom looked up at me as I stepped into the kitchen, but there wasn’t a fake smile on her face. Her face was taut with concern, with apprehension. The house had been quieter, even more unbearable since my uncles went out on the fishing boats. They wouldn’t be home for weeks. Mom was alone to deal with her recently hospitalized son, a son who she apparently thought was still a suicide risk. Without looking, I knew there weren’t any sharp knives in the drawers. She had hid them away. I looked at her and gave a weak, “Hey, Mom.”
She swallowed hard and nodded to the corner of the room. I didn’t expect to see her there, which was stupid of me. Of course, I should’ve thought she would come.
She had lost her too.
Nanan stood up slowly, her eyes like needles pointed at me. “Connor, my boy, where is my Jade?”
I flushed, because the desperation in her was somehow apparent in the low even sound of her voice. She needed me to know the answer, to have the solution and to ease her fears. I didn’t. I was as lost as she was.
“I—I don’t know,” I said.
Her eyes stayed on me, intently weeding through secrets and lies, searching for the truth. “No,” she said finally. “No, you don’t know where she is.” She walked around the table and stood in front of me, her small, round frame pitching slightly back so that she could look up at me. “You don’t know where she is,” she whispered, “but you know what she is.”
I gulped in a breath. Mom leaned in looking concerned, worried about what this small woman would do to her son...but she hadn’t heard what Nanan said. She couldn’t have. “Nanan, Connor has been through a lot these past few weeks. Maybe you could come back another time.”
Nanan didn’t look at Mom. Her eyes locked on mine and she cocked her head to the side. You know what she is…the words were a combined threat and a promise. Nanan knew something. “Do you want me to come back, Connor? Or do you think we should talk?”
A promise and a threat simmered between us.
The words were out of my mouth before my mind could quite grasp their meaning. I stared back at her and said, “We need to talk.”
Nanan sat on the porch sipping Mom’s ice tea, rocking on Dad’s old rocker. She looked free and at ease. There was no indication that this was the same woman, who just five minutes ago, hinted at knowledge of the supernatural. I felt awkward sitting in the chair beside her, silent. My body was screaming with questions. What did Nanan know? Did she know everything? Had Jade told her? We stared out onto the yellowing grass baking by the sun. Nanan made a clucking sound before settling deep into the chair.
“I miss yo’ daddy, boy.” She sipped on her tea. “As I know, you miss him.”
“Yes, Ma’am. I do.”
“It tore me up to see the Sight claim him like it did...they say that when you get the Sight as an adult, it drives you mad.” She stopped rocking. “I know that his blood didn’t call to him when he was young. I watched for it... and I was so happy when he grew up as a he
althy, normal young man. Then he met your momma and it looked like he would have a happily ever after.”
I stared at her, blinking. The Sight? Nanan knew that Dad would get the Sight?
“How—how did you know?”
“Your daddy’s papa had the Sight, just like his father before him. It passes through the bloodline you see, father to son.” She looked off into the trees. “There are all kinds of Seers—ones that see the Other world, ones that can sense the Other world, ones that can speak in the Other world’s tongue, ones that can even see the future.” She shifted her gaze to me then. “Your granddad could see the future...”
I never knew my grandfather. They said he died after a long battle with hysteria. For some reason, we didn’t talk about him, but I hadn’t asked either. He was in the photo in the upstairs hallway. A completely average-looking man hiding a host of secrets. I felt like my world was being strangled with secrets.
“Yes, he could see the future. He saw ours...yes, he saw ours.” Her expression turned distant and wistful.
“What do you mean, Nanan? W do you mean he saw ‘ours’?” I stiffened and asked.
“A long time ago, my own Momma had us growin’ up on the bayou. We were just two girls and Momma. Papa died on a shrimp boat. Momma became so stricken with grief that she started going to see the Voodoo doctors in New Orleans and they would promise her that they could help her communicate with Papa. They told her ways to mix potions, cast spells, and...and hurt people who hurt us. And there were lots of people who hurt us...oh, yes. Lots of people.” Her fingers grazed her knuckles. On them were thin scars. I never had noticed them before. I felt ashamed that I didn’t think of Nanan as a person with a past. She was just the tough old lady down the street. The lady who had always been there. Yet, my grandpa lived and I had known nothing about him. Our past was riddled with so many unknowns that I felt I could trip into a chasm of them. I felt unsteady, unsure. I was glad I was sitting down.
Fire and Shadows (Ashes and Ice #2) Page 2
