It was the last thing I heard before the fire inside me reached my nerve endings, searing me with pain. I tried to scream, but Laney’s lips were locked to mine, drawing everything I was through me and into her, leaving only nothingness behind.
Laney
Mason carefully stretched out the last of the fairy-demon volunteers on the floor, pillowing her head on his own jacket.
I was more thankful for his presence than I could say, certain that he had stopped me more than once before I went too far, drew out more power from these People than I should.
Before I killed one of them.
Now it was down to just me and Mason. I could feel the power rushing through me again, and all I wanted was to draw more. That worried me.
“How will I know when to stop?”
Mason took my hand in his and settled to the floor, sitting cross-legged and leaning against one wall. “You’ll know. I trust you, Laney.”
“I can’t.” I tried to pull away, but he wouldn’t let go, holding on in much the same way he had when I had taken down Bartlef—only this time, Mason was trying to convince me to take his power rather than stop me from it.
I can’t resist this.
I could taste the magic rushing through him, see it sparkling under his skin. Whatever was left of Oma Elaine’s green powder interacted with the power I took in, and although it wasn’t as bright, I was beginning to be able to see everyone’s life-force again.
“Now,” Mason commanded, then screamed when I followed his order.
I didn’t stop until after he had passed out, until the gush of power had slowed to a trickle and the life-light in him had dimmed to a quiet glow.
I considered not stopping then, but I could hear his voice in my head, using the same words he had used with the others. “That’s enough, Laney. Let go now.”
Releasing his hand, I watched him slump back against the wall.
This power—stolen from others, rather than amped up with some weird drug, felt strange.
Better.
Stronger.
Closing my eyes, I sent out tiny tendrils of power, searching for Gunn’s signature.
I half-expected to find him headed toward Josh’s house. Though none of us had said so aloud, I knew we were all worried about the lack of communication since we sent out our distress calls from Oma Elaine’s house.
But it wasn’t.
Gunn was still here, somewhere on the school grounds. I could feel his power—my stolen power, and Oma Elaine’s, and no telling who else’s—thrumming not far away.
I stepped out of the bathroom carefully, yet again following Gunn’s trail, but this time not wanting him to know I was coming, or, more importantly, to know where to find the People I had just drained.
I had no doubt that he would kill them without a second thought.
I had almost been willing to, and I cared about them.
In case Gunn was tracking me, I wandered around the school for several minutes, crossing and crisscrossing my path back into that bathroom.
If I could confuse the issue, I would.
Then I followed his trail straight to where my father, the nala, waited for me.
* * *
Unlike my friends or me, Gunn had been willing to break a lock on a door. He was waiting for me in a darkened classroom, sitting on top of the teacher’s desk, swinging his legs back and forth, and softly glowing with the light of stolen fairy magic.
“Took you long enough,” he said as I walked in. “Had to power up first?”
Instead of answering him, I asked, “Where is the Council?”
He shrugged, but his smile suggested he knew something. “They might have had something important to deal with.”
This was getting me nowhere.
And I had wings now.
Rather than waste any more time with words, I leaped toward him, planning to grab him and rip my power back out of him. He was faster than I expected, though, and managed to meet me in mid-air.
When we collided, it was like an electrical explosion. I threw all my concentration into pulling his power out of him, but that initial shock left me stunned just long enough for Gunn to hook into my borrowed power.
Even bracing for the remembered pain did little to help when he began drawing it out of me. I was able to fight back, a little, but could feel myself growing weaker and weaker.
From the outside, it must have looked odd, as we did little more than hold one another’s upper arms and lean forward, but inside, the power heaved back and forth between us like the swells of the ocean. And every time those swells left my shore, they took a little more of my power with them.
When I realized I was losing, I began to struggle to break away from his grip, but he grinned and held on tighter, pulling harder.
Everything swam around me, and it took everything I had not to pass out.
I cannot let him win. He will hurt everyone I love.
Images of my friends drifted past my mind’s eye, and I sobbed once.
As if from a great distance, I heard Kayla’s voice saying, “They’re in here. We have to hurry.”
Then I felt a hand wrap around my ankle, and a warm energy slide into me from it.
It was like waking up from a nightmare. This power felt different, yet again, from the other two I had experienced that night.
That was because it was human power, not fairy at all.
When I glanced down to tell Kayla to stop before she hurt herself, before Gunn ripped her life-force away entirely, I nearly fell out of the air from shock.
Though Kayla was the only one touching me, she was holding Natalie’s hand. Natalie held Scott’s, Scott held Ally’s, and Ally held Andrew’s. Even Quentin was here, holding tightly to Andrew and looking more than a little panicked.
Kayla looked up at me, a determined expression on her face. “You can do this.”
A flood of their power surged into me, and I turned my attention back to Gunn, my own dark smile spreading across my face.
“Oh, yes,” I breathed. “I certainly can.”
This time, when the tide of power rolled in toward me from my father, I gathered it inside me—not like a rope to be pulled, but like the ocean it truly was: unfathomable, uncountable, and more complex than I had ever guessed before.
His scream of pain echoed throughout the building, but I continued to drain him until every drop of power had flowed from him to me. As I did so, I funneled part of it back to Kayla and my friends, creating a feedback loop of ecstasy that I could have stayed in for months.
If not for Kayla.
When Gunn slumped in my hands and my wings were the only thing holding us aloft, Kayla said, “That’s enough, Laney. That’s all. Please.”
I settled to the floor, landing lightly on my feet and folding my wings against my back, easing Gunn’s body onto the cold, white tiles.
“Where did you come from?” I asked.
Andrew answered. “Kayla called. We weren’t about to leave you to do this alone.”
Kayla shrugged at my confused glance. “It was worth a try.”
Suddenly, all my human friends were circled around me, hugging and laughing, examining my wings and acting as if they had suspected something exactly like this all along.
I didn’t tell any of them that when I looked at them in the ether now, I saw in them as much fairy magic as I did human life-force.
And I had no idea how that might affect them.
Chapter Fifteen
Laney
Mr. Bevington and the rest of the Council arrived at the school moments later—not long, but long enough that had it not been for my human friends, I would be dead.
As it turned out, Gunn had lied. He hadn’t arranged for any distraction. Nothing fatal, anyway—he had apparently managed to keep messages from going through, much as he had blocked off communication from within the school.
Then the Council had taken its sweet time coming to the conclusion that we were taking too long to meet
them, and they should search for us.
They found us all crowded into the girls’ bathroom, as I worked on restoring power to the demon-fairies who had helped me.
I got the feeling that Josh’s dad thought the Council members were pretty spineless. As soon as we were all up and moving around again, Mr. Bevington suggested we go back to his house.
I liked that idea.
I had something I needed to do.
* * *
“Are you sure you’re comfortable with this?” I whispered to Josh as we sat on the bed in his room later that night. “I don’t fully know how to control this … whatever it is.”
The harsh lines of his face made him look older than they had when I first met him at the beginning of the school year—and it was only the beginning of December. I couldn’t remember the last time I saw his slow, sure smile.
“I am absolutely certain.” His voice matched his face. Harsh. But also stronger than ever before.
He didn’t move, though, so I reached out to unbutton his shirt. I could feel his breath catch in his chest as my hands brushed against him. I worked to keep my own breathing steady, to avoid acknowledging the way my heartbeat jumped at the feel of his skin beneath me.
Harness that power.
I could almost hear Oma Elaine’s voice talking me through it.
Like a pianist before a concert, I flexed my fingers before using the heel of my hand to gently shove against one shoulder. Josh followed the silent instruction to turn around, until I could see the smooth, unblemished skin of his back.
Unblemished in the human world, at least. Closing my eyes for a moment, I concentrated on shifting my senses to the ethereal. The sounds of the world outside Josh’s room faded as if muffled by a soft blanket, and I knew I had succeeded.
I opened my eyes and clenched my teeth against the gasp that wanted to escape.
Two parallel scars slashed down from right under Josh’s shoulders to right above the waistband of his jeans. The ridged, knotted skin still shone an angry red, as if some deep infection burned beneath the skin.
If this was what the Fairy doctor called healed, I was suddenly glad I hadn’t seen it before.
“Bad, huh?” Josh no longer whispered, but his words seemed edged in silence, anyway, an effect of the ether on my senses.
Glancing down at my own hands, I realized that the silver glow was back.
“Be still.” I placed both hands on Josh’s shoulders, just above the starting point of each scar. Staring at the angry blemishes, I memorized their shape for a long, silent moment.
My hands pulsed, and I closed my eyes against the wave of sensation that shuddered through me, almost too much to bear.
Follow your instincts.
Keeping my eyes closed, I drew my palms down the scars slowly, allowing the sensations to pulse through me. The uneven bumps of flesh. The slick slide of scar tissue. The freezing heat of iron, seared into the skin. And under it all, the pounding throb of sheer rage.
I drew it all into me.
Nala.
Vampire.
Born to draw out the power of the People, take it into myself.
To transform it.
If that was true, then I would use Josh’s own power to heal him—even if all I had ever done before with the power was kill.
I could shape this energy, turn it to my own ends.
I can. I will.
With that thought, I pulled harder, envisioning a reservoir of power just behind me, holding everything I drew through me, glowing brighter and brighter. As my sliding hands reached the bottom of the scars, I lifted my palms away, leaving my fingertips touching the ruined skin.
When only my middle fingers brushed against the ridges, I flipped my hands around so my hands faced upwards. I could feel something twist, twining around my wrists, and I gave an internal tug against it.
An almost audible crack made my eyes water, like the popping of eardrums against the pressure of an airplane in flight. Like the sound of my own wings snapping into sight in the gym. It surprised me enough that I opened my eyes again.
The scar-lines along his back split open like burst seams, the darkness beneath them seeming to run deeper than the width of Josh’s body. Starting with his heart.
Then all of it—everything under those scars, hidden behind the ether and beneath Josh’s skin, the sickness centered in his torso, everything—came gushing out of him in a steady stream so dark that for a moment, I was certain it was blood.
When the torrent hit my hands, though, it didn’t stain them red. Instead, it rushed into me, through me, and back out to the reservoir behind me, creating a whirlpool of dark swirling through the silver light.
Something—or someone—infected him with this.
I filed the thought away to discuss later, when we had recovered from this latest battle and had time to figure it out.
As it passed through me, I felt it all.
The heat of our first kiss. The pain of the cold iron. The anguish of knowing his wings were gone. The misery of the last weeks. The fear that my father had provoked in him.
The way he blamed me.
Blamed himself. His father, my father, Bartlef.
And through it all, that burning rage infecting everything.
I took it all, nearly choking on the emotions running through him.
By the time the flood slowed to a trickle, Josh leaned against the headboard in the darkened room, barely able to sit up straight. I trembled, too, but I wasn’t done yet.
Closing my eyes, I began to pull the power the other way, out of the reservoir, starting with a single silver thread. As I moved it through me again, I stripped away everything that tasted of infection. It surprised me to realize that some of the most painful elements—the anguish of his recovery in the hospital, for example—were silver-bright, rather than coated with the infection I expected, but other elements that didn’t seem like they should be horrible felt slimy and rotten in my mind.
Strand by strand, I wove something new, my eyes closed, my hands first sliding over Josh’s back, then waving in the air between us.
When we both began to collapse, Josh turned enough to catch me in his arms, so we sank gently to the bed rather than crumpling all at once. But my hands kept moving, waving, weaving, directing the untainted strands to build upon one another, while the others sank back down in the reservoir, disappearing below what was clean and strong and good.
By the end, I was almost delirious. I don’t know when I finished, but it was sometime after Josh lost consciousness.
Then I slept, waking later to find that my sense of the ether had dissipated with my nap. I listened for a moment but heard nothing. Not even any traffic out on the highway.
Everything about my normal, human senses told me that this was the middle of the night, that healing Josh had taken hours, and I had slept for hours beyond that.
With that thought came the realization that we were lying on his bed, my head pillowed against his bare chest, his arms wrapped around me.
I shivered at the realization.
Then I shivered in a less interesting way when I realized that Mr. Bevington must have decided to let us stay as we were.
“Hey, sleepy.” Josh’s voice sounded louder in the unusual stillness of the night.
“How long have you been awake?” I sat up, untangling myself from his arms, then scrambled to my feet. Josh followed suit.
I felt rather than saw his shrug. “A few minutes.” Worry crept into his voice; I could hear the hesitation before he spoke. “How is it?”
“I don’t know. I need to look.” I closed my eyes, waiting for the telltale muffling of the real world to let me know I had slipped into the ether. It took longer than it had before, and made me realize how completely exhausted I was. A quick check of my power reserves confirmed what I had already known—that I had almost nothing to draw upon.
I didn’t know how long I would be able to stay in the ethereal realm, even. Or worse, what
might happen if I dropped out of the ethereal without enough reserves even to draw on someone else’s power.
Could I actually stop being the nala?
I pushed the question aside for the moment. This wouldn’t take long. “Turn around.”
Working hard to keep my voice steady at the sight of his back, I whispered, “Flex your flight muscles.”
Josh rolled his shoulders once, and his new wings unfurled.
His old wings had been a bright, silvery blue-green, and soft, like expensive leather stretched across the framework of a giant bat’s wings. They had been stunning.
These new wings were no less gorgeous, but they were different from any other Fairy wings I had seen so far.
They were, for the most part, still a silvery blue-green—more silver than anything else, glinting brighter than before. But rather than a single piece of soft, leather-like skin, these wings were woven, like…
“Like lace,” Josh whispered as he moved the tips of his wings around in front of him to examine them. He was right. But there was nothing delicate or feminine about these wings. Where the holes in a lace fabric would be was a fine, translucent webbing, shot through with a dark red color that matched the color of the ridges outlining the bone structure defining the wings.
A shade of red that matched my own wings.
They were stunning.
And they were utterly unprecedented.
I hadn’t really thought it was going to work. From the look on Josh’s face, he hadn’t either. We stared at each other in the soft glow of the ether, our eyes wide.
And then Josh began to laugh—the most joyous sound I had heard from him in a long, long time.
When he finally caught his breath, he took my hand and slipped out of the ether. I followed him, reveling in the warm touch of his hand on mine.
He turned to me with an irrepressible smile. “This is going to take some explaining.”
Chapter Sixteen
Josh
We slipped out of my room quietly. Laney clutched my hand, and I felt her drawing on my power as she had before, but this time it didn’t hurt. It wasn’t like being drained, like with the wing repair. No. This was more like . . . something we were sharing rather than something she was ripping away from me.
Flightless (Fairy, Texas Book 2) Page 10
