by Joey W. Hill
"How do you know about that?"
She shrugged. "I've spent time in the human world. I've studied their history."
"So have I." The shadows were back in his eyes again, the dangerous set to his mouth that made him seem so formidable. But he regarded her curiously. "Won't someone be missing you? Your family? Your great-grandsire?"
"I don't stay in one place for long. They're used to my absences."
"So no one looks after you."
"I look after myself," she said with a trace of irritation. "I got you here."
"Despite my command to leave me."
"It wasn't a command," she protested.
Jonah snorted. "It most certainly was, and you ignored it."
She rose, went to the water. For a moment he thought she was going to dive, metamorphose into her other self and leave him there. Rising, he came up behind her, not yet touching her but standing just at her back. Feeling her hair brush his chest, his abdomen, he gazed down over the top of her head at the swell of her breasts, the pink tips so recently suckled. One was abraded from the fierceness with which he'd laved her, and that enduring mark gave him an odd sense of satisfaction.
"I'm not angry with you, little one. I just didn't want you hurt on my behalf. I am grateful for your help." It was somewhat of a lie, he knew. The darkness had been welcoming, quiet. Even through the pain there'd been a lure to it that had almost made him want to forcibly resist her help.
But she'd been persistent. Thinking about it now, he realized it had reminded him of the presence of the Lady. That determined reassurance that spread from the heart into the rest of the body, bringing a calming peace. Creating a desire to be closer to Her, to step inside Her essence and never leave. When he'd surfaced enough to realize it was a mermaid, risking her life to take him to shelter, it had surprised him. Also thinking about it now, it angered him. In a sea full of creatures stronger, more capable, they'd allowed one young girl to risk her life and sanity for him.
He needed to send her away. She would be in danger here. He couldn't let his weaknesses cause her further harm.
"My lord?" Her voice was soft, her breath on his skin. He had both arms around her, one across her breasts, his forearm pressed to her beating heart, the other wrapped over her waist, holding her against him. His one undamaged wing had swept around and covered her in front, cocooning her. His feathers brushed their toes.
"Yes, Anna?"
She pressed her temple against his jaw, an unexpected gesture of comfort. After a pause, she spoke hesitantly. "I've seen your kind once or twice. At first, I thought I was seeing the wind moving the clouds under the eye of moonlight, but then it was like the glitter of green light that ripples over the sand's surface when you walk upon it. You know, where the weight of your foot ignites the creatures that make the light, telling you they're there and not illusion?"
When he nodded, she continued. "I was floating alone on the surface when they shimmered through the sky. Then they came down lower. Two or three of them."
He could feel her smile pull against his jaw as she recalled the beauty of it. "When the gulls play in the sky, they make it look so effortless, but this eclipsed even that. They danced, the three of them, whirling, twisting, as if they were able to ride the air and yet bend it at once so they could do the most remarkable things."
"Windwalkers," Jonah responded. "They guide the air currents. Alter the tide flow, send seed to the ground, scatter the ashes of things that need dispersal. They are happy creatures."
Apparently, something in his voice turned her regard to him. Under the scrutiny of those large violet eyes with silver rims around the irises, Jonah felt as if he'd been turned inside out. And the view was not pretty.
"There are others," he said gruffly. "Messengers. Healers. Guardians. Watchers."
"What kind of angel are you, my lord? If angels have so many tasks, what is yours?"
I am an angel of death. But he didn't say that. He was afraid if he did, something violent would come forth from him.
He brought destruction. The blood and ash of those he vanquished were part of what the Windwalkers dispersed, before they touched the earth. Swirled away into nothingness, as if the Dark Ones he destroyed never existed. Whereas the bodies of the angels they killed fell heavily to earth and had to be incinerated after the fact.
"What is your purpose, my lord?" she repeated, her head cocked, eyes curious.
Jonah withdrew his touch. "I am not a Windwalker," he said.
Walking away from her, he squatted, naked and pensive, at the water's edge, his functional wing automatically spreading to balance him as the other stayed in a protective half fold. "You've given me some of what you know of angels. Let me give you something I know about mermaids." His gaze rose and pinned her. "A mermaid can't shapeshift unless she is a descendant of the royal house of Neptune, from the bloodline of one particular daughter, cursed by her love for a mortal human."
Anna became very still, and the energy in the cave pressed in even more closely, making it harder for her to breathe. "That is true," she said at last.
He nodded. "It's time for you to go, little one. I cannot endanger one of Neptune's children further. Particularly not one I'm sure he values like a jewel in his trident for her courage."
She blinked. "I don't understand."
Oh, of course you do, she told herself. It was just magic to heal him, you ridiculous child. He's an angel. He's done with you now.
Jonah rose, the shadow of his body making her traitorous limbs shudder in the remembrance of him on top of her, surrounding her as she held him. A fleeting impression, so fleeting she'd call it illusion except she'd learned long ago she couldn't permit herself that kind of cynicism and keep her sanity.
"It's too hazardous for you to be here if the Dark Ones are still seeking me. You've done more than anyone could have asked, and certainly more than I deserve."
She was not going to make a fool of herself. Anna looked down to see his fluids trickling down her leg, her body still flushed and swollen from his attentions. It almost overwhelmed her, then and there. She closed her hands into fists at her side, trying to hold it in.
"If there's nothing more you need, then, my lord." Forcing herself to swallow, she looked up and met his gaze squarely, though she had to firm a trembling chin. She could see understanding in his eyes, regret. If it masked pity for her naivete, she might just die. "How long must you stay here before you can surface?"
"Awhile," he said vaguely. Then he turned away, bending to pick up the battle skirt that had been carelessly tossed aside in their passion. He wrapped it around his hips, belted it, though somehow the concealing garment just emphasized the sensual beauty of his body. If anything, it made him even more appealing, snugging in across his hips, the hem stopping so high on his bare, muscular thighs. Was her moisture on him? Of course it was.
Anna focused past it, tried to concentrate on a niggling sense of wrongness about his response, something that was pushing through her personal concerns. "Awhile, my lord?"
"Aye. I'll rest here a bit, little one. Perhaps more than that. It's a quiet place. A good place." His gaze drifted to the spot where they'd lain. "Already with good memories."
While she was gratified a miniscule amount, her gaze traversed the damp cavern with its bare traces of heat coming from the fissures. It seemed lonely, barren, with the bones of the dragon and nothing else for company. But she was not an angel. What did she know of them other than what she'd learned in the past several hours?
What did she know of anything? She was hardly more than a child to one such as him, anyway. Except for those few moments when she'd been far more than a child.
To suit his purpose.
Six
DAVID sat cross-legged on a bank of clouds, staring down at the mist drifting across the alternating green and blue terrain of the earth's surface. Mostly, he focused on the blue area. He'd made the clouds solid beneath him in order to support his weight. He tried to keep that i
n the back of his mind, despite his other urgent concerns. He didn't want to have his thought flow interrupted by the sudden yank of gravity as he let his attention wander and found his seat had become like the diaphanous waves rolling below in translucent clusters.
He felt Lucifer approach, settle next to him, his black wings brushing David's carefully folded white ones in an affectionate greeting before Luc tucked them in and squatted, his toes curling onto a cloud sphere that formed at his behest and fit just beneath the curve of his feet as if he were an eagle atop the small gold ball of a flagpole.
"Show-off," David said absently, though the worry line of his brow didn't ease.
"I need not your opulent throne, youngling," Lucifer said, casting a glance at David's self-made chair. "But I suspect you've been holding vigil here awhile."
"Have you heard anything?"
"He is below the Line. That's all we know. He fought off an exceptional number of Dark Ones. His captains thought he'd gotten free with them. They are much distressed about it. He was separated from the others. It was a fierce fight. Their numbers were great."
"Can't She . . ." David's voice trailed off as Lucifer looked toward him, dark eyes tinged with red. He had long black hair to his waist, his lean and strong body emanating power, great age and an intimidating level of wisdom he could quickly transform to censure if he felt it was warranted.
Since David had become an angel, he'd learned that the mysterious Lucifer was neither the fallen angel nor the horned specter of evil suggested by human religion. While that was reassuring, he was in charge of Hell, and no one crossed the Lord of the Underworld lightly.
"You know She will not offer help below the Line unless it is asked in a true manner. Even under the most terrible duress, he remains one of Her generals. Her Prime Legion Commander. All he would have to do is direct the merest wisp of a thought to Her and She would answer. If needed, She would send Raphael immediately to heal him. He has not called. Either he has no need of aid, or he is dead."
David lifted a shoulder. "The Dark Ones don't think he's dead. They're seeking him still."
"I know." For a moment, there was a grimness around Lucifer's mouth. "He and his angels, including you, defeated many, but there are always some that escape and must be hunted."
"If they capture a live angel, use his energy--"
"Jonah would destroy himself before he'd allow that to happen, no matter what his state," Luc said firmly. "You are worrying too much."
"As are you," David murmured. "Else you wouldn't have joined me here." He looked down at the blue patterns of the oceans. Even at this height, he could detect their movement, the vast deepness. "He drew some of them away from me, purposefully, to protect me."
"You are still learning, while he can handle many."
"I think he could obliterate them all with just his will," David said slowly, "but perhaps it was his state of mind that struck him from the sky."
Lucifer shifted to look at him. Like most angels, he and Jonah had never been men, their souls part of the seraph from the beginning. Whereas David was a made angel, no more than thirty earth years. He'd been a human, his mortal life lost as a teenager, but his soul had been called to the service of the angels, as certain pure souls were, rather than to reincarnation.
Jonah had seen centuries of battle and Lucifer . . . well, his purpose was something different, but he'd certainly been around quite awhile. However, David's quiet levelheadedness and his lack of ego made Lucifer give weight to the young angel's words.
"You have noticed his recent state."
"We spend time together, and he was getting . . . quieter. Sometimes I sensed something almost like despair in him." David met Lucifer's eyes. "He was lonely. Adrift. Luc, angels mate, don't they?"
Lucifer's gaze sharpened. "They do," he said cautiously. "Balance often comes in pairs, David. But time is far more relative for us, so for most angels it is centuries before the urge comes. We are all males, so those who desire females find their other halves outside of our species. And angels mate only once, no matter the life span of whom they choose."
"Like swans," David said thoughtfully.
"I've never thought to compare Jonah to a swan. Perhaps a rather irascible hawk. Ah, to Hades with it." Lucifer directed his piercing gaze down toward the sea. "I've known him a very long time. You have known him a very short time. And yet we both love him well, I think."
Reaching out, he pulled on a handful of feathers, nearly toppling David from his perch. "Come, chick. Do you feel like taking a swim?"
David rose, steadying his stance, his wings spreading out. "I do."
"Then let us go see what the ocean can tell us about our missing brother."
JOINING Magic was just a tool. A manipulative, diabolical tool that drew out every ounce of energy from her soul and mind, creating the illusion that it formed a permanent binding to another. Now Anna knew why so many females had such sad crushes on the first male they lay with. Like she did.
It seemed the farther away she swam, the more she felt the need to return to him. No matter he'd all but brusquely ordered her to leave, and he certainly hadn't asked her to check with Mina about anything.
She told herself she was going to Mina to find out if there was anything else she should do to heal the angel, get him back into the skies, out of that cave. Beyond where she could reach him physically, which might help banish him from her mind.
And fish will fly.
In the odd order of things, she considered Mina her closest friend, more like family than the many cousins she had. Of course, Anna was beginning to suspect she had a weakness for believing relationships to be far more than the object of her affections did. Most likely, Mina had never thought of her as a sister. Maybe not even as a friend. But then, Mina maintained her solitude the way a skeleton guarded internal organs, single-mindedly determined in its function.
While at a more endurable level of water, Mina's home was still in the upper reaches of the Abyss. The forbidding pit was a perfect neighbor, to Mina's way of thinking. Most creatures, except those that lived in its darkness, avoided any prolonged proximity to it.
As she looked for that cave opening, Anna let herself rise out of the Abyss cautiously. She'd felt such a squeezing sense of relief when light began to permeate and she could once again see, recognize her surroundings. She was also relieved that she didn't feel the presence of the Dark Ones. Of course, without Jonah, she suspected they would ignore her. Much as angels would on a normal day. Just an inconsequential water creature, not significant in the elaborate machinations of Heaven and Hell.
Her bruised feelings couldn't deny that, at the last, Jonah had seemed reluctant for her to go. When she'd moved into the water and shifted back to her mermaid form, he'd told her how to get back to the main throat of the Abyss. Made her repeat the tunnel directions to him several times, apparently to assure himself she would not get disoriented again.
"If the Dark Ones are still out there, little one, you'll feel them. And if you feel them, you go the other way. I forbid you to worry about me. I can handle myself, now that you've helped me heal my wing."
Though he himself had admitted the wing was not yet ready for prolonged flight, and she suspected from the careful way he moved that it impacted his balance.
She'd been hurt by his dismissal, but if she was going to be ruthless with herself, she knew that was her own doing. It had been magic, requested honestly and freely given. So she pushed aside the personal, female reaction and focused on what she was certain was far more important. Something more than the wing was wrong. She wanted to talk to Mina, who, of anyone, would be least likely to think her crazy.
"Are you completely insane?"
The hiss startled her, for it seemed to come at her from several directions at once. Anna yelped and spun, finding herself for one harrowing moment amid a tangling bed of black strips of cloth. They swept away from her like a man-o'-war's forest of tendrils as Mina drew back, pulling the cloak she al
ways wore around her, guarding the true shape of her form. "Come in here, out of sight. It's not safe to be in the open near the Abyss right now."
Mina swam into the opening of her cave, which required careful maneuvering for it was camouflaged by myriad inhospitable forms of sea life, including a rampant garden of stinging fire coral. The only portion of her lower body visible beneath the cloak was two sleek black tentacles, each nearly six feet long, that helped propel her along and served as an extra pair of appendages when she needed them. While Mina was of the mermaid people, like Anna, she was also something more than that.
So many things that connected them, and yet they were the same things that kept their relationship a wary one at best. When she stopped inside the shadows of the cavern, Anna knew this was as far as they would go. She had never been deeper than fifty feet into Mina's home. But she was certain that was more than anyone else had been permitted.
Mina was just a handful of years older than she was, the only mercreature the merpeople preferred to see less than Anna. It didn't keep them from seeking her out for her highly effective potions and spells, however. Anna had never asked her for either. Once she'd gotten old enough to go out alone and knew how Mina's story tied to hers, she'd tracked her down. Mina had threatened to turn her into a cat and let her drown if she didn't go away. Anna offered to help her gather plants in the more populated areas Mina didn't like. It took time, but eventually Mina agreed, and the uncertain bond had begun.
Now, seven years later, Anna was no more certain of her welcome at Mina's than she'd been the first time she'd come here. It just depended on Mina's mood. But Anna had learned not to take exception--much. Once or twice she'd caught the witch staring at her as if entranced, a chilling bloodlust in her vacant eyes. On those days, Mina had snapped out of it only to order her away, telling her never to return. But Anna always did.
Thinking about it now, Anna saw a similar connection between Mina's darkness and what she'd sensed in Jonah. As if he and Mina both were engaged in a personal struggle with demons they didn't care to discuss. She didn't know if Jonah's demons had been with him throughout his lifetime, but she knew Mina's had. So perhaps it was more appropriate than she'd first thought to seek Mina's help.
