“What the hell are you talking about, you can’t take it?” Elysia screeched.
Vix screwed up her face at the sound. That girl could give a fire siren a run for its money.
“I mean…I would have to relocate to Prague. And it’s a big step in my career, lots of responsibility, very little time off initially. But Daniel just proposed and I said yes, and his job is here.” Alyx inhaled and let it out in a huff.
“Well, sure, it would be hard with you guys living in two different cities. But Prague is less than two hours away by train and you and Daniel could visit each other on days off. I mean, distance can be good for couples, right?”
Alyx shook her head. “Daniel would never go for it. He wants me to move into his place next week.”
“Alyx, this is your perfect job. You’ve been slaving away for that asshole Viktor for almost four years. You practically do his job for him. This is your chance to shine.”
“But Daniel’s older than me and I know he wants to have kids soon. There doesn’t seem to be any point in taking a career job if I’m just going to have to give it up soon. Right?”
Elysia frowned. “Why would you have to give it up? Mothers can still work too, you know?”
“That’s not how Daniel sees it.”
“He wants you to quit work?”
“Yeah…”
“But just until the baby’s older, right?”
“No…for good.”
Elysia’s eyes nearly bugged out of her head. Vix could tell that she had so much she wanted to say, but she bit down on her lip hard as if she was trying not to. “So…” Elysia said finally, “what are you going to do?”
Alyx sighed and her head fell back against the wall. “It’s a lovely dream, living in Prague, working on my own collection, but…I guess it just has to be that.”
Vix’s fingers were clawing the window sill so tightly that she thought she might break through the old brittle wood. This is not right. The Alyx I knew would never just shrink back and live a life that someone else laid out for her.
If anything had convinced Vix that they needed to break Alyx and Daniel up, this had solidified her convictions. This wasn’t just about separating two people who were wrong for each other or getting Alyx and Israel back together, this was more than that. This was about the rest of Alyx’s life. This was about letting Alyx live out her potential as a mortal. And it appeared that being with the wrong guy would be enough to stifle her very soul.
“So you turned the job down?” Elysia’s voice floating out the window sounded as heavy and disappointed as Vix felt.
“I haven’t yet,” Alyx said. “I didn’t have the heart to turn it down when they called. I guess I just wanted a few days of knowing that my dream job was mine. I’ll call first thing Monday morning.”
“No,” hissed Vix.
“Be quiet,” Balthazar whispered, nudging in front of her again, ratcheting up the anger that was already swirling around inside her.
I’ll teach him. Vix shoved him aside so she could lean in closest then waited. Sure enough, it only took a few seconds before Balthazar tensed so he could ram his shoulder forward in front of hers.
But she wasn’t there. Vix leaned aside just as he moved, letting him throw his own momentum into mid-air. She held back a smile as he teetered, then fell straight off the branch to the sidewalk below with a thud. Vix felt their mirage shatter around them with a pop to her ears. A groan drifted up to them.
“Balthazar,” Jordan cried. Vix could see him preparing to swoop down. Vix grabbed his arm, holding him back and whispered, “Mortals are watching.”
In other words, Act human. Humans don’t fly.
“Right,” muttered Jordan. He proceeded to climb down the tree like an agile cat.
Vix sighed. Act human, not like Spiderman. Unlike Vix, Jordan had never lived among mortals. He couldn’t act human if his life depended on it.
She followed him to the ground pretending to struggle climbing down the tree like a real mortal would, then pretending that gravity was affecting her when she jumped down the last short distance.
She felt a twinge of guilt when she came to stand beside Balthazar lying on his back blinking at the sky. It hadn’t been that long of a fall, right? And besides, Balthazar was immortal.
Balthazar let out another groan. “Why the hell didn’t He make these mortal bodies with wings?”
“You alright?” Jordan held out a hand. Balthazar took it and Jordan helped pull him to his feet.
Balthazar brushed himself down and inspected each part of himself carefully. “I don’t appear to have damaged my host human.” He waved off a concerned passersby with assurances that he was fine.
Now that she knew he was okay, Vix couldn’t help herself. “Try not to be so clumsy, B.”
Balthazar whipped his head around and narrowed his eyes at her. “You did that on purpose.”
“I didn’t do anything. You’re the one who shoved forward so hard you threw yourself off the branch.”
Balthazar snorted. “If I didn’t know any better I’d think you didn’t want me here, my dear.”
“Feel free to go back to Hell.”
Balthazar gave her a pearly grin that seemed almost too big for his face. “And miss out on your fabulous company? Never.”
Vix sighed internally. Seemed like she would have to put up with him for a while longer. “I don’t have time to argue with you. Alyx is turning down that job on Monday,” she said, looking between Balthazar and Jordan expectantly.
Jordan raised an eyebrow. “Which means?”
“Which means we have about thirty-six hours to break Alyx and Daniel up.”
An arm flung like a lead pole across Israel’s chest. He frowned and squinted open one eye to look down at the offending limb, tanned and skinny and attached to an unmoving body with wild blonde hair that seemed to grab at him like vines.
Oh, right. Tarryn… Tallie. No, Tatiana… I think? Whatever her name was, she had convinced him to stay the night last night. Admittedly, he hadn’t protested too hard.
He slipped out of her grasp without waking her, something he was embarrassed to realize he was a little too good at. He slipped on his clothes and shoes gathered from all about her tiny studio, splashed water on his face, found the least girlie deodorant to spray under his arms, and slid out of her walk-up apartment into the late morning Saint Joseph light, a soft palette of dusty white and gray thanks to the clouds overhead. His mouth was dry and his head pulsed but it wasn’t anything that a little breakfast wouldn’t fix.
The el Souq square, the city’s main marketplace, was between here and his own apartment, and on Sundays especially the place was bustling. He loved coming here. The hustle and bustle of sellers and hagglers, the well-to-do rubbing silk-encased elbows with the grimy poor, the piles of dried beans in sacks like mountains of pebbles, the flower stalls bursting with vibrant blooms and heady scent, the trays of honey cakes being sold out of hand-pushed carts, a paparazzi of bees buzzing about them. And more importantly…
He followed his nose, the smoky, mouth-watering scent of grilling meat guiding him.
Vix, Jordan and Balthazar trailed behind Israel as he slipped through the el Souq markets. He was tall enough that it wasn’t hard to do, his wide muscular build standing out among the crowd. The boy hasn’t lost his grace, that’s for sure, thought Vix.
She had felt a pang when she’d seen him again. He looked just like he had twenty-five years ago when he was part of their supernatural community: same golden skin and dark hair, heritage from his Egyptian roots, and wide, deep-set eyes that seemed darker than their true hazel color because of the intensity with which he stared back at the world.
“Ironic, isn’t it?” said Jordan out of the corner of his mouth, his thick light brown brows down over his mint-tea eyes. “Criminal in a past life. Police officer in this one.”
“I don’t know,” said Balthazar, speaking from Jordan’s other side. “The two professions aren’t
so dissimilar.”
“Israel wasn’t a criminal,” argued Vix. In Israel’s past life she’d come to see Israel as a kind of…brother, and that fierce protectiveness rose up in her even after all these decades that they hadn’t seen each other.
“In his past life he used to run with Mason’s street pirates and used his gifts to climb up buildings so he could steal things,” said Jordan, distaste clear in his tone. “I’m pretty sure that’s the definition of a criminal.”
“It’s called survival.”
“It’s still stealing.”
Vix opened her mouth to argue further but Balthazar interrupted. “Regardless, he’s not an officer anymore.”
“What? Why?” She’d wondered after a day of trailing Israel when he was going to get to his job. All Israel seemed to do these days was drink and kiss strange girls, girls who were definitely not Alyx. “And what is he now?”
“He was involved in…an incident six months ago,” said Balthazar, his voice seemingly tinged with sadness. “After that, he quit.”
“An incident?” Vix watched as Israel stood at the side of one of the wooden stalls stuffed with fistfuls of ornate iron and colored glass lamps hanging like fat grapes, the once desert-orange vibrancy of the stall’s cloth roof now faded to a dusty brown. He had his hands in his pockets, appearing to wait for someone as he eyed the crowd. “What incident?”
Balthazar smiled brightly at her. “Are you going to admit that you need me and my information?”
“I don’t need you.”
“Oh really? Then perhaps you’d care to tell me why our old friend here decided to jump from one side of the law to the other?”
“If you don’t—”
“Shh, both of you,” said Jordan. “Look.”
Vix watched, peering around the stall, as Israel slid into the crowd and bumped into a rotund man. There was a flash of his hands at the man’s hip pocket. After making his apologies Israel skirted down the side of a stall.
Vix’s eyes widened. “He didn’t.”
“Oh yes, he did,” said Jordan.
They followed Israel and found him standing at a stall that sold grilled meat kebabs, the barbequing smoke wafting towards them, making Vix’s stomach rumble. But the smoke wasn’t thick enough to hide the small leather purse Israel held in his hand.
Vix inhaled a sharp breath. “He did. He just pickpocketed that man,” she hissed. She couldn’t believe what she’d just seen. She shoved down the urge to run over there, slap the back of Israel’s head and give him the lecture of his life. Or at least this life.
“What did I say?” Jordan sounded a little smug. “Once a criminal—”
“Oh, shut up, Jordan.”
They watched as Israel bought three beef kebabs on skewers with his pilfered coins. The stall keeper wrapped them in thin, greasy paper and handed it to him along with several cheap napkins.
They continued to follow Israel through the crowd and out of the el Souq markets, eating his kebabs as he walked with the air of a man without guilt.
“So,” Balthazar said, “aren’t you going to ask me what happened to our dear boy?”
Vix gritted her teeth as pride warred with curiosity. “I don’t need your help. I don’t even know that whatever information you’ve supposedly got isn’t an outright lie.”
Balthazar shrugged. “Suit yourself.”
Israel finished his two kebabs and left the last wrapped in the paper. When he rounded the corner to his apartment block, Petr was already leaning against the bricks waiting for him. Petr was a slip of a boy, no more than eleven years old, but with sharp eyes that missed almost nothing. The young boy straightened up and brushed down his rags as he caught sight of Israel.
Israel had caught Petr trying to steal from him when he was an officer. Instead of clipping him around the ears or carting him off to the nearest police station, Israel had bought him a hot meal and convinced him to help Israel carry some of his groceries home. Israel then handed the boy the exact amount of euros that he had been trying to steal. Since then Petr waited for him most mornings, ready to perform whatever errand Israel had for him, often giving Israel leads and valuable street gossip that he wouldn’t have otherwise gotten. Even after Israel had left the force, he’d still found ways to “employ” the young Petr.
“Hey, Petr.” Israel patted his belly. “I bought too many skewers for breakfast and now I’m so full I’m going to burst. You want my last one? I’d hate to throw it away.”
Petr’s eyes widened and the tip of his small pink tongue poked out of his mouth. A low growl emanated from his stomach. Petr grabbed the package that Israel offered him and tore the paper apart trying to get to the juicy meat inside.
Israel ruffled his hair as Petr pulled the last piece of beef off with his teeth. “If you’ve got time, I need a paper from down the newsstand. Just slip it into my mailbox as usual.” He dropped one of the stolen coins into Petr’s palm. “You keep whatever change there is, okay?”
There would be change. More change than the paper was worth, and Israel could have picked up a paper at any number of stands on his way here. But he didn’t.
Petr saluted him and ran off. Israel watched him leave before trudging up the steps to his tiny, shitty apartment. Hey, at least it was cheap.
“Are you sure this will work?” asked Jordan.
“Yes, I’m sure.” Vix watched the door to Israel’s apartment building. Based on a phone conversation she’d overheard through Israel’s open window, she knew Israel would be coming out soon into the early afternoon to meet an old school friend who was back in town. “Alyx and Israel are meant to be together. All we have to do is get them to meet and true love will take care of the rest.”
“Well I never,” said Balthazar. “Vixen Demetri, you are a closet hopeless romantic.”
“Oh, shut up,” she said, her cheeks heating up.
“And this has to happen in less than twenty-four hours?” Jordan snorted. “Twenty-four hours. That’s not love, that’s pheromone-induced lust.”
“He’s coming,” Vix said as the lobby door swung open and Israel stepped out. She shoved Jordan and Balthazar back behind the wall. “Get out of sight.”
Balthazar saluted and the two of them disappeared under his Mirage magic.
Vix may not have magic of her own, but that wouldn’t stop her. She had more than enough bloodink, distilled blood from a Seraphim with inherent magic, tattooed onto her arm to do what she needed to do. She walked out onto the sidewalk, moving towards Israel, and loosened the scarf around her neck. As she approached she drew upon the AirWhisperer bloodink tattoo, the shape of a circle with wavy lines cutting across the center, hidden under her jacket. It rushed through her veins like a sharp icy wind, causing her heart to beat faster and her fingertips to tingle like she was about to grab a live wire. God, she loved using magic. It could be addictive. To some of their community of angels…it was.
Vix sent out a controlled gust of Air that picked up her scarf and blew it straight into Israel’s face, wrapping it around his head. He skidded to a halt on the sidewalk, letting out a short cry as his hands flew up.
“I’m so sorry,” she exclaimed as she reached up to help him pull the scarf off. She brushed her fingertips against his forehead and, using magic drawn from her MemorySong bloodink tattoo, she implanted a tiny memory. Earlier she had implanted a corresponding memory in Alyx’s mind by using the same trick.
She fought the urge to pull him into a bear hug and slap his back affectionately or to punch him for forgetting her.
“The wind today. It’s just crazy,” Vix said to Israel, trying to look as apologetic as possible as she wound her scarf back around her neck.
He no longer had a scar cutting across his top lip. He probably wouldn’t even have those three silver knife scars across his torso anymore either. Of course he wouldn’t. As a mortal he didn’t have half the supernatural population trying to use him and the other half trying to kill him.
Isr
ael frowned, his eyes slightly glazed. “Oh, it’s fine,” he said almost absently.
Vix smiled as she watched Israel walk away. Her plan was going to work. She knew it would. Alyx and Israel were meant to be together.
An unwanted worm of unease wriggled its way through her excitement. She knew she wasn’t supposed to mess with fate. But if fate wasn’t doing its job properly, then she had no choice, right?
Besides, what was the worst thing that could happen?
“Vix…if you get caught,” warned Jordan. Vix, Jordan and Balthazar were standing on the roof of one of the office buildings in the Saint Joseph finance district. Up here the city looked like an uneven patchwork of steep slate roofs and orange brick, the city’s thirteen cathedrals piercing the gray sky with their spires like sets of black or copper fangs. The locals had even taken to jokingly calling them “demon’s teeth”.
“Stop being such a worry wart,” Vix said. “We won’t get caught. It’s a Sunday. Hardly anyone except for Mr. Uptight Accountant is in the office today.” She slipped over the edge of the roof and hung upside down mid-air, her fingers curling under the grimy top sill as she peered into the window of the top floor of Peterka, Jezek & Ferret and into Daniel’s office. This was an old brick building built pre-war, which meant solid, imposing walls and columns, and tall, slim windows shaded by overhanging sills where gray vines twisted around crouched stone monsters that spat rainwater from their mouths. Jordan and Balthazar leaned over a low decorative wall that hid the rainwater drains at the edge of the roof, behind which was a steep slope of slate tiles.
“What do you see?” Balthazar hissed down to her.
She waved at him to shut up.
Inside the office Daniel was in a suit—crisply ironed dark pants, white dress shirt, no jacket—and sitting at his desk, tapping away at his keyboard. It was ridiculously tidy, all the book spines neatly lined up in the bookcase, the piles of paper on his desk in neat piles, his jacket on a hanger on a coat rack by the door. Even his coffee mug had a coaster underneath it. Alyx is marrying this guy?
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