by Linda Welch
Someone picks up after two rings.
“Alain?”
“Rain!” Clide’s voice booms. “Are you all right? Where are you?”
“I’m okay.”
“Tell me where you are and I’ll come get you. We can protect you.”
River is watching me fiercely. Puzzled, I frown at the little phone. “Not necessary. I called to let Sauvageau know I’m safe. Tell him I’ll see him later.”
“Rain, we don’t know - ”
I disconnect.
I square my shoulders and increase my pace. Right now I need friends, not Gettaholt’s reigning lothario. Castle, who sticks with me even in death, and River, a stranger in a strange land who for my sake asked the help of what may be Downside’s two most dangerous entities.
“A hag, huh? Haven’t tackled one of those since … when was it?” I ask Castle.
“Three years gone?” he suggests, tugging his earlobe.
I grin at Castle, then River. “Call Mrs. Grout, tell her we’ll be there at midnight to take a look at her monster.”
*
Castle eyes River. Magic didn’t break Angelina’s spell, knowing Rain needed him did the trick. The bond between a newborn wraith and their mentor is powerful, and the newbie’s feelings can be intense. River is in love with Rain, but true love doesn’t happen this quickly. The emotion is transient; at some point he’ll know he loves Rain but isn’t in love with her, though he’ll be in a mess of pain till then. Castle was in love with his mentor Beach, which created a few awkward moments.
And Rain has no clue. If she has feelings for River it’s as a friend, brother. Or maybe a son, to be nurtured, protected and guided. Castle felt the same when he brought her Downside. Heck, he still does.
But he can’t protect her from Sauvageau. Thank the gods she’s held out. So far. He hopes she doesn’t give in to the bastard, because the guy knows how to pressure a woman. Now he’s dead, Castle can’t go whupping asses should anyone hurt his girl.
He eyes River again. The lad needs beefing up and training in the martial arts. Castle can’t get physical anymore. River can do it for him.
There again, he could take a closer look at Sauvageau, find out what the vampire lover really feels for Rain. He’s invisible, he can do that. Spend some time in the Peralta compound, listen to what’s said, see what’s to be seen. Sounds like a plan.
Castle ponders how Rain would feel should she read his mind, and takes a mental step back. She’d accuse him of interfering, not watching out for her wellbeing. Imagine her pain if he says he knows Sauvageau is a no good son of a bitch. She’d be unhappy with him, for what he’d done and for breaking her heart with the truth.
Yep, she denies any feelings but contempt for the dude, but Castle knows Rain. He’s given her plenty of opportunities to ‘fess up, but you don’t admit to your best buddy what you won’t to yourself. She doesn’t know her eyes are warm when she speaks Sauvageau’s name, or how her lips curve as if about to smile.
What if Sauvageau is emotionally invested in Rain? With the man’s reputation, Castle doesn’t think so, but what if he’s wrong? Could he bring himself to tell her? Castle reluctantly admits his opinion of Sauvageau is biased. To jump at the chance to tell her the man is a swine yet not tell her Sauvageau cares for her would be crass.
He sighs internally. There are some things he shouldn’t meddle with. He’s watched her back for five years, protected her, but he can’t shield her from everything. Rain needs to find her own passage in life, walk her own path and choose who walks with her. It’s time he respected affairs of the heart, her heart, are none of his business.
Time to wing it, babe.
But letting go is hard. He doesn’t want to see her crushed.
As for River… . Castle squints one eye at the youth. Maybe he can distract the lad from his infatuation with Rain, take him under his wing, show him the good times to be had Downside. His feelings for Rain won’t disappear just like that, but time heals wounds.
“River, my boy, how about you and me do the town tonight?”
River raises gloomy eyes. “What do you mean?”
“You heard of bar-hopping?” Castle hoists an imaginary pint.
River eyes him sourly. “It involves getting smashed out of your mind and acting stupid. I don’t want it and you can’t do it.”
“Aw, come on. Two pals having fun, nothing better.”
A tiny smile creeps over River’s mouth and he thumbs his chest. “Nope, it’d be this guy making an idiot of himself all on his lonesome.”
“What you should do is look for an apartment,” Rain says. “And one for me while you’re at it. Castle can help. I put my name on the register but if you nose around, perhaps you’ll find when someone’s about to move out and I can go directly to their landlord.”
Castle sighs. Not as much fun as getting River pickled.
*
Chapter Twenty-Three
On the bluff south of the smoldering Blayne mansion, naked, Alain Sauvageau watches the three wraiths. Three. “Castle, you old hound. So you’re still here.”
He releases his Sight and sees only Rain and River. They’re soon gone.
Warning of what approaches, the ground beneath his feet trembles, though not enough to damage the terrain. Alain knows the tremor for what it is: his transgression has not gone unnoticed. His Lord forgot him until the moment, the second, the instant he broke the cardinal rule and now he’ll pay for it. But better now than waiting, so he has no time to dwell on what he’s giving up. He has regrets, but made his choice.
He knew it for the right choice when he saw Rain battered and bloody in Calla Blayne’s mansion, and when she walked from it with her friends.
A phantom pain pierces his chest. Regrets. Rain.
He’d like one more time with her. And to tell the Peralta he’s leaving. He’ll disappear, as if he cares nothing for those left behind.
One moment he surveys a landscape empty of people, the next a man is on the bluff with him. Taller than Alain, the newcomer’s hair falls in coiling black ringlets to his shoulders, pearly-white skin molds his bones and his eyes, like the demon’s, have no pupils and are all gold. His sage-green, three-piece suit, glaringly white shirt with white silk ascot billowing between the lapels and highly polished black shoes are immaculate.
He walks to Alain, looks up at the roiling sky and says in a rich baritone, “Lovely day to die, my dear.”
Alain makes a gruff noise deep in his throat. “I never thought to see you again, Camael.”
“Surely you didn’t believe you’d get away with this?”
“I hoped He’d show mercy. I should have known better.” Alain looks inward, remembering another age, another dimension, another life. He sighs slightly. “Let’s get on with it.”
“Tsk tsk. So eager to leave all this behind, are we?”
“I have no say in the matter, so do what you must.”
“In all this time, I half expected you to eventually break the edict of noninterference but I never imagined you would sacrifice yourself for a woman.”
“Do not speak of her,” Alain hisses as red bleeds into his eyes.
“She thinks you are a demon. You were beautiful, once, dark angel.”
The beast surges before he beats it back down. This is what you become when you’re not only cast out, but cast down into the Pit and escape through the Fire. “I have not been an angel for millenniums. He sent me below and made me a monster, a brute.”
“Twice cast out, twice cursed, above and below,” Camael muses, for he hears Alain’s thoughts. “How the mighty hath fallen.”
“I was not cast from the Pit, I fought for my freedom.”
“It hardly matters now. You are right, laddie, time to finish this.” Camael’s voice turns sharp-edged. “Kneel.”
Alain sinks down with head held high, looking up at the red sky.
“Are you ready?”
“One moment.” Alain looks over the expanse of bu
ildings and open land to where the streets merge in a tangle which is Gettaholt City. What will the Peralta think when he doesn’t return? Foolish, to let that concern him. In a moment he’ll have no concerns, he won’t exist.
“Now,” he says. He knows what comes next. Camael will wrest him from this body and destroy him. Camael will unmake him.
Alain thinks he is prepared, unwilling yet compliant. Nothing in heaven or hell can stay this course. He thinks he’s ready, but grunts and calls out when Camael’s hands plunge into his back through flesh and muscle. Rigid, he strains against the agony; veins pop out on his forehead, his eyes bulge and express bloody tears. He has never experienced such pain, not when his Lord cast him out, nor when the Fire scalded him.
He does not go easily. Drawn out slowly, agonizingly, the survival instinct makes him fight to remain, howling, clawing at the body which houses him.
Alain draws in a lungful of warm moist air; it is heavy and damp on his skin, it tastes different. His cheek rests on disturbed soil.
I’m alive? He clearly recalls the incredible pain, trying to hook his talons into anything of substance, senses fading as he’s wrested from the body.
He lifts his head and looks at muted colors through lashes caked with dirt. Grass. A tree. Smoke lingers in the air.
“What have you done?” Camael asks.
Alain pushes up on his elbows. Dirt and a few blades of withered grass stick to his sweaty body. He has never been this filthy. “Camael? I don’t… .” he begins, and stops as he remembers where he is, and an idea of what happened comes to him. An idea, because lacking his angel-self to probe his inner and outer aspects, everything is conjecture.
His mouth curves. He chuckles. The chuckle becomes a deep belly-laugh and Alain curls on his side with hands clutching his stomach.
After a few more chuckles, he sits up, then gets to his feet. He draws in a huge, satisfying breath and shows his teeth to Camael in a way which cannot be described as a smile. “Camael, how nice! I didn’t expect to see you again so soon. Actually, I didn’t expect to see anything.”
“What are - ?” Camael cries, bending to grasp Alain’s shoulders. He drops his hands as though his fingers burn and jerks upright.
“You… .” he continues. “You are an abomination.”
Alain gives Camael an amused look. “You think? But a living abomination.”
“This is impossible.”
“Has no one told you? This is Downside. Nothing is impossible.”
Alain lingers on the bluff and takes stock, and all traces of self-satisfaction dissolve. The cold realization that his true self is no more and he can never have any life but this one is a crushing weight which makes him sink to the ground with head in hands. This body should have crumbled to dust, yet it lives. He’s human; he knows this by the steady pulse beating rhythms through his veins. He fears being locked in this body with all its frailties. He’s been many things in his long, long life, but never before a simple human male.
But the turmoil passes and he can look ahead. If he’s learned anything in his lifetime, it’s that you do the best with what you have. He still has something to build on, an established life to continue and perhaps better, challenges to meet. He’s no longer an angel, that part of him is no more; Camael unmade him. But he sacrificed his life for another and Camael couldn’t destroy a soul infused with the purity of a selfless act. His Lord didn’t allow it.
Alain smiles. His Lord knows all. Neither forgotten nor forgiven, he’s been given a stay of execution. He’ll die as a human male, how long does he have? Seventy, eighty years if he lasts into old age. It will have to be enough. So much can happen before then, the possibilities are endless.
Far from despairing, he feels reborn and it is invigorating, frightening, exciting.
There has never been a shapeshifter such as he, who can lose one part of himself and the other survive. His soul keeps him alive. Hopefully, it will keep him sane.
He won’t call Clide, he wants to walk and enjoy the day. So, immediate problem first - how does a naked man walk through Gettaholt without raising eyebrows?
*
I finish assembling the last cardboard box I got from the market. Are they enough? I didn’t realize I own so much stuff. River and Castle are still out looking for apartments. I’m number one hundred and four on the register, so will move into a room at the Meridian Motel on the north side tonight. It costs less per week than the apartment so I won’t suffer for cash, but the room is a rat hole and the motel is next to the freeway. I’ll go deaf from traffic noise and suffocate from lack of oxygen in the tiny room.
I hope Castle doesn’t drive River batty. Nah, a big dose of Castle will be good for him, they have to get used to each other if we’re going to work together.
I phoned Val and he’s not happy I didn’t bring his pack in on the kill. I didn’t explain I couldn’t, nor tell him what happened, only that the spell caster can’t bother his family now. Will he be suspicious when the story comes out in the newspapers? Mysterious fire destroys Blayne mansion. Chairperson Calla Blayne is missing. Will everyone presume she’s dead?
I don’t particularly care. She’s gone, along with Phaedra, Wool and the nameless elf.
I want to call Alain. Thinking of him, my stomach performs a slow flip. I want to see him. I won’t do either. It’s too ridiculous for words, a wraith pining for a crime baron who sees her as nothing more than another pair of tits, so it will all go away if I ignore it. Ignore him.
I groan. I’ve had enough of my emotions flip-flopping. Are everyone’s feelings this conflicted? No, not feelings. I know what I feel for Alain but that doesn’t mean I like it. Commonsense and the survival instinct tell me to stay away from him, even though my heart says otherwise.
The doorbell rings. It must be River. I slide between the bed and boxes to open the door.
Alain stands outside. What’s that old saying? “Speak of the devil and he’ll surely appear.”
He’s … . Gods, what is he wearing? He’s soaking wet, which not only molds the red T-shirt to arms and chest thick with muscle, it accentuates how tight the shirt is to begin with and how it strains at the seams. The hem barely reaches his navel and leaves his hips bare, and a damp, sparse line of dark hair disappears in the low-slung jean’s waistline. The blue jeans are snug, too. Oh boy, are they snug. His hair is messy, untidy, not stylishly rumpled, and dripping on his shoulders. No shoes or socks, dirty bare feet and dirt smudges his face and arms. He’s thoroughly bedraggled.
He looks ridiculous and at the same time amazing.
I hoist my jaw back up. “Alain, you look … um… .” I hide a smirk behind my hand. “I’ve never seen you in jeans.”
He smiles broadly and gestures at his clothes. “These? I stole them off a washing line.”
Good grief. I tip my head slightly on one side and give him wide eyes. “Are you going to tell me about it?”
He’s still grinning. “Later.”
There is something different about him and I don’t mean his clothes or the filth. It’s his attitude, a boyishness in his smile and the relaxed posture.
He loses the grin. “I came to see how you are.”
“I called Clide. Didn’t he tell you I’m okay?”
“On the phone.” He glances to one side. “I needed to know firsthand.”
“I’m fine.” I bend over a box and check the taped seams.
“Why the boxes?”
“I’m moving out.”
“Of Gettaholt?”
The tight tone makes me glance up. “No, just to another apartment.” When I get one. He doesn’t need to know where I’m going, I’m sure he can find out if he wants to. I concentrate on a seam, running my thumb along it. “I expect you have things to do.”
But he doesn’t take the hint. I look up again to see him wearing an indecisive expression.
If Alain doesn’t start acting like Alain, I will freak out.
“I do have business, Rain. Wit
h you,” he says gruffly, coming nearer. “I’ll come to the point.” He sucks in a breath before continuing, and speaks slowly, as if to ensure I don’t miss a word. “When I last saw you … don’t deny you have feelings for me.”
I come upright. Blazing hells in a hand-basket. I don’t know where to put my face, so turn away to hide my expression. “Yes, I do. Indifference.”
His arms come around me, his hands clasp over my breastbone. “Don’t lie to me, Rain.”
I should move, but his body pressed to my back and corded arms surrounding me feel sublime.
“Be with me, Rain.”
“Haven’t we had this conversation a dozen times already?”
“I want you, you want me, discussion is redundant.”
I wriggle in his arms but they don’t budge. “Until you have me, and everything will change, won’t it.”
“Why should it?”
“I’ve seen your women. Here one minute, gone the next.”
“They weren’t you, my sweet.”
He nuzzles my hair. His voice is low and so damn sexy I quiver. “I’ll tell you why you rebuff me. Your feelings for me scare you. You don’t want to be hurt. But life is an adventure, Rain, you have to take risks when you want the rewards.”
I’m tense all over. “I take risks all the time.”
“Not with your heart.”
Gods, this is too much. I can’t stand it. I struggle, really struggle and his arms snap apart to release me. Moving away, I spin to face him and angrily pass the back of my hand down my cheek. My eyes are hot and moist.
I try to make my voice cold but it wavers. “Get out.”
“I won’t force myself on you.” Talking must be difficult with a jaw that tight.
“You just did!”
His eyes lock on mine, then he drops his head. He sighs, and looks at me again. “Whoever said old habits die hard was right. I was arrogant. I didn’t mean to treat you cavalierly.” His voice becomes gentler. “Rain, I know what you’ve heard about me. A lot is true but it’s in the past. I’m a different person now.” He smiles faintly. “Yes, I know – how many men have said that to a woman when it’s meaningless placation? But it’s true. All I’m asking for is a chance to prove how much you mean to me. Tell me what you want and I’ll put my heart and soul into giving it to you.”
