That night, I shivered in the rags of my bed and looked out to the stars. Shimmers of air passed over them, anemoi skimming the wind. The bites along my legs throbbed, and my wrist was deeply bruised from his grip. Within a groove I had hidden a granola bar, and I ate only half. The other half I hid back in the groove. I didn’t trust the benevolence with feeding me would continue. The Rippers complained meal to meal about the monotonous sandwiches, but I could only work with what was in the coolers.
Zofia was anxious to move on, and Makala’s newest feathers were coming in healthy. We would be leaving soon since Japheem’s burned leg wouldn’t interfere with his flying. My stomach had overturned to see the splotchy skin in the changing of his bandages. This injury would have landed a human in the hospital. He was healing on his own, slowly but surely.
I wanted to jump from the cave and dash out my brains on the rocks. Instead I went to sleep and dreamed over and over of doing exactly that. Sometime in the night, I turned over and startled to see the shape of the skeleton. I wasn’t going to share this cave with it any longer. Gingerly, I picked it up and dragged it to the edge, where I threw it down to the water.
“Peace,” I whispered to that poor soul, whoever she had been. The skeleton came apart on the way down, the anemoi fighting over the bones and not all of them making it to the waves. It made me ill, a last indignity visited upon the Rippers’ victim. One day, someone might be dragging my bones out to do the same. I didn’t want them to be toys for anemoi. Returning to my bed, I tried to go back to sleep.
In the morning, the sea was angry and so was Japheem. It had no more provocation than his good humor. I brought him breakfast and he spat, “Why did you not come with me in Seataw?”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
He struck the sofa cushion, not placated by my apology. “Didn’t you realize your thread belongs to me now?”
“No, I didn’t. I’m sorry,” I said a second time.
“Why? Why didn’t you know this? Are you stupid?”
“Yes.”
“Yes! Yes, she says! But her soul tells me this is a lie! You are lying to me!” The waves pounded hard against the rocks outside. “Lying gives you an ugly soul, so stop lying! Make your soul pretty for me!”
It must have blazed, because the plate of food I had given to him was thrown at me. “Take care of that! Take care of that now!”
I bent down to pick up the plate and he shouted, “No! No! No! Get on your hands and knees and eat it like a dog!”
Getting down to my hands and knees, I stared at Adriel’s forgotten key ring. It was the last link I had to the world, to sanity. A low, menacing growl burst in my ear and I scrabbled away to escape an anemoi. Clambering onto the sofa at Japheem’s feet, I pushed up onto the wide back and huddled there as the creature stalked me.
“Funny how sharp the wind can be,” Japheem said contemplatively. “You do not expect that, no.” The cushion depressed at his feet from the almost invisible creature mounting the sofa. Sweat broke out on my forehead.
“Japheem, please,” I whispered. “I’m sorry.”
“Sorry? Sorry for what?” Japheem asked. He put his hand over his ear, mimicking that he hadn’t heard. “Sorry for what, Jessa Bright?”
“For not coming to you in Seataw. For lying. For displeasing you.”
He slapped the cushion so hard that the frame of the sofa cracked. “Everything you do displeases me! It is your fault that I am laid out here, so I asked you to do something to amuse me! When I tell you to eat the food from the floor like a dog, then you eat the food from the floor like a dog. A dog doesn’t stop to think about it. A dog is happy! A dog wags its tail! A dog is grateful for its treat! Bark, dog!”
He was absolutely insane. I barked. The anemoi crept closer and I felt its breath on my shins. I tried to back up further and hit the wall. There was nowhere else to go. Japheem ordered, “Put out your hand!”
“Japheem, no! Please!”
“Put out your hand to the anemoi!”
I was going to have my hand bitten off. The anemoi growled. Zofia watched over the top of her book, undisturbed by it; the other two still had not risen from bed. Jerking upright from his pillows, Japheem grasped my wrist and thrust it out. I screamed, expecting teeth to sink in. He was screaming too, except in laughter. Eyes wide and crazed, he said, “Pet your friend!”
Wind brushed against my knuckles. I had balled my hand into a fist, all that I could do to protect myself. My eyes were closed in anticipation. Then Japheem whispered gently, “Open your hand, Jessa. Open your hand to pet the anemoi.”
Trembling, I forced open my fist. The anemoi panted on my fingers like a dog. Japheem let go of my hand. “Now you will need both hands to fold my clothes. Yes! The first Jessa struggled to tend me when she only had one hand. But you don’t need all of these fingers. Which one do you think you can do without? Pick, and I will grant you this gift. Pick and say thank you, Japheem!”
In a voice barely above a whisper, I pleaded, “Japheem, may I keep all of my fingers? Please? I would like to keep them.”
“No! They are not your fingers. They are my fingers! Mine since you fell from the cliff and I choose to feed one to an anemoi! So you will pick and thank me, or I will pick and you will still thank me. This is what I want! Which finger do you need the least?”
Makala was coming down the corridor. “Leave the girl enough to make my breakfast.”
In the moment he was distracted, I leaped from the sofa, over his legs and the anemoi to land hard on the floor. The crack leading out to the grass was right there beyond the empty recliners, and that grass was all I could see. I darted between the chairs, kicking the sketchpad away, and grabbed the pole of one of the solar lamps. The anemoi darted in front of me to block the crack in the rock wall. Clobbering it with the end of the lamp, I dispersed it into shreds of wind. It would only take moments to reform, but I wasn’t going to wait moments for that to happen.
Miles from anywhere. That was all right. It wasn’t miles I had to travel.
I burst out into the shock of daylight. It was mid-morning and warm, the sun flushing away the cool of the caves from my skin. Hills stretched to the east, to the north and south, but it was west I wanted. I dropped the pole and darted through the tall grass to round the cliff. The anemoi were below my cave, waiting for me to jump. They weren’t beneath the cliffs anywhere else so they might not catch me in time. The rocks and those thundering waves would do the rest.
My whole life didn’t flash before my eyes as I bore down on the edge, running faster than I ever had in my life. But I saw my parents, smiling and relaxed on the deck of their cruise ship, and my Grandpa Jack rustling through a chip bag to avoid the green ones. I saw my friends at both schools sitting around the tables at lunch, laughing and shouting. I saw Jaden, who was truly Zakia, bending down to help a lost little girl home. I saw Cadmon floating to me in the fairy rings, Drina and Taurin in a comfortable embrace, Kishi’s dazzling speed up to the sky. And I saw Adriel, flying beside me and whispering for me to go faster, go faster, to jump and die and be free.
I belonged to myself, not Japheem, and I was bringing my life to a close.
Just as I reached the edge of the cliffs, the ocean a beautiful yet tempestuous blue sweep to the horizon, I was jerked to a halt. Japheem spun me around roughly and wrapped his hand around my throat. His music picked apart my body and his wings were hideous in the light. “How dare you run? How dare you run from me? Did I tell you to run? Did I?” He shook me. I tried to force air into my lungs, and pried fruitlessly at his fingers to loosen his grip.
“I did not tell you to run! I did not tell you that it was time to die! I make these decisions, Jessa Bright, I make them for you now. You have no more decisions. You have no choices. You are dead! And since you want to die, I am going to keep you forever. Forever until you are white and bent and your body decides to die on its own. But until then, you serve me with every breath and you do not run!” He shook me. Then his
grip loosened a little and I gobbled in air. Bringing his face close to mine, he whispered, “Tell me. Do you want to die?”
The answer was no, that I wanted to live and serve him until I was elderly. But the words caught in my throat. He would see the truth in my soul should I give voice to those lies, so I screamed, “Yes! I’d rather die than live with you!”
“Maybe you should, yes! Yes! Maybe the anemoi should rip you to pieces on the way down!” His fist tightened and he lifted me off the ground. My feet dangled over the edge. The waves crashed to the cliffs in a deafening blow.
There was so much I had never gotten to do in this life. Yet there was so much I had. I would rather live only to seventeen years old and have flown with an angel, my angel, than die at one hundred having never done so. A short life with magic was better than a long life without any. My eyes bulged as I stared at Japheem’s twisted face and ugly eyes. I thrashed for air and white spots appeared in my vision. The waves grew louder, and it was the blood roaring in my ears. My lungs cried out for air, but I could get none to them with his fist digging so hard into my flesh. No matter how I clawed and scratched at his arm, he refused to let go.
Japheem was laughing and screaming at the same time, the sound wild over the uninhabited lands. I blinked and saw more of those spots. Some had color. They were coming from behind him, gold and sapphire, emerald and silver and ruby. Japheem’s wings were beating slowly, blotting them from sight when they curled in and revealing them when his wings pushed out. The white spots were drifting down but the others were racing . . . racing over all of those hills in our direction . . .
The Ripper saw something in my face, or a reflection in my eyes. He turned with a ball of muddy archus appearing in his palm just as the brilliant gold and sapphire lights raced out in front of the others. And then he dropped me.
Chapter Sixteen: The Battle
I fell from the cliffs, looking up helplessly to Japheem’s back. Time slowed down, so that every second drew out to infinity. Anemoi raced up past me to Japheem in the grass. Fire burst out and then the blue and gold lights exploded through it and shot downwards after me. I couldn’t even scream for them.
A tremendous boom rattled through the cliffs, rocks and dust shaking loose from the sides. Hands burst out from those sapphire and golden balls of light to catch my own. Suddenly there was a floor beneath my feet, only a few meters above the rocks where I had been about to dash myself to pieces.
“Hey, kiddo,” Kishi said casually. One of the Kreelings’ guns was holstered to her waist. “Fancy meeting you here.”
I was held aloft between them, the scream I hadn’t been able to voice tearing from my throat. Adriel’s face was hard as he pulled me closer to him, Kishi letting go of my hand so he could embrace me. Droplets from the waves splashed on my legs.
“You caught me,” I whispered.
“I will always catch you,” Adriel said, his wings blazing from the sunlight while beating in a steady rhythm.
“But how? How did you know to come here?” I asked.
“We traced the signal from my keys. That black fob on it, remember? We have those in case Cadmon hides them. It sends out a relay to our computers. They aren’t good for very long-range, so we’ve been sweeping south mile-by-mile to try to pick it up. Zakia saw that Ripper girl taking you in this direction, and the stolen car she drove to the high school was from a city not far from here.”
“Hate to break up the reunion, guys, but we’ve got anemoi,” Kishi said. A sword of fire came to her hand. I drew away from Adriel to look upwards in fear. The cliffs shook as fire blasted over the edge, illuminating briefly the shapes of four anemoi stalking through the air to us. Another growled behind Adriel.
“Up!” I yelled, although we were already starting in that direction. The anemoi coming from overhead lunged, two blown apart by Kishi’s sword and the others pouncing for us but missing. Another sword burned in Adriel’s hand.
At the top of the cliffs was a scene of total chaos. The grass had disintegrated in the fires to scorched earth beneath. People were everywhere, all four of the Kreeling hunters and the rest of the Graystones, the Rippers and even Zakia. Silea took aim with a gun and those strange golden links called atah’pay blasted out to ensnare Zofia. Makala shrieked like a banshee and in retaliation threw fire at Silea, who was whisked away by a streak of silver. Barasho was charging Drina and their swords clashed with a spray of fiery sparks.
Throwing fire indiscriminately, Japheem whirled around to see us in the air. Then he yelled, “Anemoi! Kill her! Kill her now!” They gathered in a pack around him, five and then six of the anemoi, and they ran off the cliffs. Kishi shouted for Adriel to fly me away. She was gone in a streak of blue, and we were racing over the ocean with the wolves in pursuit.
After the horrid jangling music of the last days, to hear those perfect chords resounding in my body was bliss. I had been saved, and everything was going to be all right. The ocean was gorgeous beneath us, the sweep of blue going out to the horizon. Wind teased along its surface and brought it into sharp ridges, which sank down as quickly as they formed. I lulled to hear the music and Adriel said, “Jessa, stay awake!”
I wanted to surrender to it, yet I forced my eyes back open. We were in terrible danger. He snapped me closer to him at a loud snarl. An anemoi was sprinting through the air close by. Rolling us over, Adriel lashed out with his sword. The wolf wheeled outward to avoid being struck, and I screamed, “Adriel!” A second wolf was barreling straight down from the heavens.
He rolled us back over and jerked to the left. The wolves came together and charged after us, one of them baying breathily and an answering howl coming from the distance. When I looked back to the cliffs, they were gone. All there was in any direction was the blue of the water, and a thick gray cover of clouds above. The farther we went out over the ocean, the darker the gray was becoming. We were traveling at a great speed, even if I couldn’t feel the extent of it. The anemoi were still catching up. The one in the lead ran beneath us, Adriel’s sword swiping out to lop its head from its body.
The waves had been angry at the cliffs, and out here they were raging. He flew us up several meters since waves were rolling in higher and higher crests, with drops of rain falling down from the clouds. A streak of dark smoke shot past and I pointed to it. Adriel said, “I need both of my hands! Hold onto my waist!”
Fighting the lull of the music to stay cognizant, I wrapped my arm around his waist and pushed two of my fingers through his belt loop. His feathers curled over my skin as his wings beat quickly. He threw out a ball of brilliant fire to that stream of dark smoke, which slammed through a wave to avoid it. The fire turned the wave to steam. For a moment, the dark smoke flickered into Japheem’s dirty yellow wings. Then he disappeared.
Anemoi dodged the roiling waves. There were four of them now, baying and snarling, one coming apart in the smack of a wave and reforming on the other side. The seconds it took for that to happen moved it from the lead of the pack to the back.
The rain changed from falling to pelting, rapping hard on our bodies. Adriel dipped lower and weaved around the waves to let them disperse the anemoi temporarily and get more space between us. I squinted ahead for Japheem. It was hard to see anything among the towering waves and sheets of rain coming down. No dirty yellow or streaks of smoke, only the grays and blues of a sea at storm. Water splattered on our faces, Adriel skimming low and then shooting up a towering wave so the anemoi would strike it.
Dark fire shot straight for us when we crested the wave. Behind it was Japheem, a streak of smoke headed our way. He was flanked by anemoi, both of them bowing out to surround us. Still Adriel climbed, had to climb, because racing behind Japheem was a mountainous wave. This was no storm swell but a freak wave that would have toppled a ship. Adriel split apart the anemoi closing in from the left with archus fire and we raced up frantically to not be crushed by that wave bearing down. The second anemoi, which hadn’t been running as fast, was nipped un
der and torn apart.
We burst above the top of the wave, all three of us, and Japheem struck out so hard with his sword that it knocked us back when it clashed against Adriel’s. The water roared and churned beneath us, Japheem screaming, “She is mine! She bears my mark! You did not claim her so I did!”
“She belongs to herself, not to either of us!” Adriel shouted. Fire burst from Japheem’s hand. Soft feathers curled over my arm as we spun down to escape. But we couldn’t stay down here with the waves reaching up everywhere, and hungry to pull us in. Japheem spun down after us, and then he moved to the side to avoid archus fire that had rushed down from the sky.
“Take her!” Adriel said. I was pulled away from him. Kishi jerked us up out of the waves. We spun and spun to elude the muddy fire shrieking up to catch us, and then we crashed through the cloud layer with the sounds of clashing swords ringing in my ears.
“We can’t leave him down there!” I said hysterically.
It was so eerily quiet and peaceful up here, with the sun shining down blithely on the upper surface of the clouds. Kishi’s wings were dazzling as she held us above them. “He will fight better if he’s not worrying about you.”
Something growled.
We looked down to the clouds, where many anemoi were forming. Gasping, I said, “Go!”
Earth/Sky (Earth/Sky Trilogy) Page 31
