| |
Bradley
Bradley’d watched Vitae and the oddly-named Aquaylae argue.
He’d looked on with shock when handsome Aquaylae had kissed the man Vitae’d rescued—Dylan something. Bradley’s abject horror had nothing to do with their homosexual embrace or public display of affection.
He stared at the debris littering the floor from Aquaylae’s departure peppering a pool of Dylan’s blood.
Vitae had interrupted their kiss by decapitating Dylan.
Rather than bow to Vitae or attack him, Aquaylae had transformed into a phoenix of raging water and taken away Dylan’s body—the decapitated remains of a man Vitae murdered in arctic-cold blood.
Dear God, what just happened?
Bradley bolted from the room, shoving Sidhe out of his way and battering open doors in his headlong flight from the hotel. He paused only a moment outside the door to track the glowing blue bird carry Dylan’s corpse into the sky.
He grabbed a white motorcycle from the extra vehicles parked in the lot, cranking the key left in the ignition and following the fleeing phoenix the best he could.
Not like I can fly.
Once he was safely away from the hotel of horrors, he parked and watched the sky. He had to help Aquaylae. He didn’t know why or how, but he absolutely had to do something—not so much to make things better, but something to help.
Thunder cracked overhead.
Rain deluged the world.
Quayla
Dylan hung from my talons.
I transmogrified so I could hold him in my arms and stay aloft. I tried to hold his head in place to hide the wound, but the high winds buffeting me made keeping it in place all but impossible. Nothing I could do with Dylan’s body would be right, but I couldn’t think of anything that was right. I couldn’t let him go, but no Divine Ones came to fetch his body. I shouted out for help, but only heard a whisper over the roaring which refused to diminish.
“Ani?”
“I’m so sorry, Quayla.”
“Help me.”
“There’s nothing I can do. I cannot bring him back.”
Fury shot through me like lightning. “Isn’t that what Vitae’s doing with his creatures?”
“No, not exactly.”
“I erased him, Ani. I tore him out of my life. That was supposed to protect him from harm.”
I’d been too involved in the situation to recognize the smells I’d scented at first, but I knew that Vitae had somehow resurrected dead mortals. He’d been arrogant before, but his delusions of superiority never approached false worship of himself.
All that has changed.
“He’s playing God with mortal bodies, Ani.”
“I know.”
“You knew?”
She didn’t answer.
“You knew!”
“I hadn’t dared get too close, but I Saw, Shield Quayla. Now I have Smelled.”
“He smells more Sidhe than phoenix now.”
“It is a close thing,” Anima said.
“Close my feathered ass, he’s not only playing God with mortals, he’s been trying to recreate himself. You heard his rant, he doesn’t need the others because he’s made himself into something he thinks can protect Atlanta all by himself.”
“Is that not what you’re trying to do?”
“Only because I haven’t found a way to save the others. I don’t want this, any of this. I’ve been putting myself last, just trying to get through all this. That’s why I erased Dy—” My voice broke, but I forced myself through choking sobs. “That’s why I erased Sabrina, M-Mrs. Cox and...and Dylan.”
Dear God, what if Vitae’s done that to Sabrina too? He wouldn’t have much patience with her opinionated forcefulness.
Four short, dirty-looking not-so angelic men floated down on neon orange wings.
“Ani?”
“I did not contact them,” Anima said.
“We’ve come to take him Home,” Rusti said.
I stared at the putti. I knew I should give Dylan over to their care, knew I couldn’t take him where they could.
“We will care for him like a mother her babe, Shield Aquaylae,” Rusti said. “You have my word.”
I squeezed my eyes closed and relaxed my hold. The putti eased Dylan from my grip, taking his head last of all. I didn’t open my eyes until they’d been gone a long time.
“What will you do now?” Anima asked.
“Pray for answers.”
Bradley
Bradley stared at the small bronze statuette just beyond the motorcycle’s handlebars. The motionless Angel peered up at him just above her hands. He couldn’t believe what he’d heard escape what he thought was an ornament.
“I-I might have some answers.”
“Who is this?” Asked the man whose boyfriend had been beheaded.
“My name is Bradley, Bradley Sky. Is this the man named Aquaylae?”
The woman’s voice returned. “What are you doing on Quayla’s motorcycle?”
“I was trying to follow the phoenix that took the dead man’s body away, but my car was on the opposite side of the hotel. So, I grab the first thing I found with keys in the ignition,” Bradley said.
“You said you have answers?” Aquaylae asked.
“Are Quayla and Aquaylae two names for the same person?” Bradley asked.
“Yes,” the woman said.
“And who are you miss?” Bradley asked.
“Her name is Anima, and you can call me Quayl,” Aquaylae said. “Now that the introductions are over, how about those answers?”
“Sure, can we meet?”
Anima gave him an address.
“On my way.” Bradley plugged it into his phone, glancing back at the hotel before pulling into traffic.
Quayla
“I’ve isolated him from our conversation,” Anima said.
“Thank you.”
I wasn’t sure what else to say. Anima had sent the stranger to Caelum’s cache where we’d set aside Terrence’s essence. I can’t say I wasn’t glad that Anima was doing the thinking because the only thought circling my brain was Dylan’s final appearance.
No matter how many centuries I lived, I would never be able to get that image of him out of my head. Thanks to Vitae, seeing Dylan’s decapitated corpse through the spray of blood on my face would shadow every good memory.
I landed in the highest building near the cache, transmogrified, and headed down to meet the stranger offering answers. It wasn’t hard to pick him out of a crowd straddling my baby. Bradley didn’t look particularly comfortable on the electric jellybean, but there was no way to be sure whether or not he was even comfortable in his own skin. When I approached, he started to bow then aborted the motion to extend a hand only to hesitate halfway to offering the handshake.
A nervous chuckle escaped him. “I’m sorry, Kale, I have no idea how I’m supposed to address you. Do I call you master or something?”
Niagara Falls roared in my ears.
Master? That arrogant son-of-a-bitch!
I took a deep breath and offered Bradley a firm handshake. “Like I said, you may call me Quayl—Quayla if I am reborn female.”
Bradley’s answering handshake was a little clammy. A queer expression crossed his face. “You can change gender?”
“Yes.”
Delight washed the rest of his expression away. “Do you change gender at will or does it have to do with rebirth?”
“I thought you were the one providing answers.”
“Yeah, sorry. Master, I mean Vitae doesn’t answer questions.”
“I imagine Vitae barks orders and insults.”
Bradley ran a hand to the back of his hair. His eyes shifted away from me. “Yeah. You know I’m really sorry about what he did to your boyfriend.”
The waterfall returned, fed by a hot spring of volcanic heat.
“Quayla, your Johammer is not exactly inconspicuous,” Anima said. “Perhaps we should move this discussion out of public view.”
“Why does she get to call you Quayla while you’re male?”
I rolled my eyes and opened up Caelum’s cache.
“Nice place you have here,” Bradley said.
“It’s just a supply cache. I’m not exactly spoiled for options.”
I dragged Bradley inside and closed the door. I would’ve brought my baby in too, except there wasn’t enough room. Caelum’s wall of weapons sent Bradley’s jaw to the floor and drew his fingers as if each firearm had a gravity of its own. I indulged him as long as I could stand it before demanding his story. Despite being inside a small concrete room without any windows, Bradley whispered his tale.
When the obviously intelligent medical examiner finished, I just stared. The whirlwind of unbelievable actions taken by the always proper Vitae left me tumbling through a tornado with a broken wing.
“You know thinking about it, you might be able to use Vitae’s old warehouse. We didn’t leave much behind, but he owned it outright and I doubt he’d expect you to hole up there,” Bradley said.
“He may have a point Quayla,” Anima said. “I’m not sure how Vitae purchased the property considering I’ve been the one to facilitate most of Vitae’s financial transactions. However, it seems based on Bradley’s timeline there is a high probability our inability to locate Vitae was due to cloaking runes around Vitae’s warehouse.”
The world still felt as if it were in a tailspin, but even if we didn’t take over Vitae’s old warehouse, I wanted to see it. “Take us there.”
Bradley made no objections to riding bitch on my Johammer. A tactical headset allowed us to communicate on the move, hoping to escape police notice since we didn’t have a second helmet.
We found the warehouse unlocked and the security system offline. A hook near the door held keys, and a giant pentacle drawn in blood dominated the center of the warehouse.
Taint and dust vied for aromatic supremacy while something unsettling prickled my skin. It took a moment to realize I’d plunged into an eerie hush that extended not just to my ears but to my other senses. I wasn’t blinded or deafened but in some kind of sensory deprivation bubble that protected occupants from the outside world.
Bradley started to play tour guide. I hushed him with a gesture and drew both my Karambit hilts.
Several cages in the back held the rotting remains of faeries left behind. They’d been drained of blood and probably magic. Even out of his blight-loving mind, I couldn’t imagine Vitae being wasteful. The side workroom contained a smaller version of the lab Bradley had described filling the hotel basement. Scratches on the floor of a walled-off area suggested what was once a bedroom.
Most of the warehouse was a shock, but the back dock held a surprise too. A shrink-wrapped pallet contained half a dozen stone basins. I didn’t have the tools or the talent to carve new nests but Anima assured me Rusti and his ilk could do the job for us.
I struggled to take joy in the bit of good fortune, but the horrors of the day left no room for anything other than sorrow.
We re-entered the main warehouse to find someone just inside the outer door eyeballing the pentacle.
Detective Sabrina Foxner looked up and my heart skipped a beat. Relief washed through me—at least until she drew her gun and pointed it at us. “Hands up, both of you.”
Dear Creator what next?
“Bradley Sky you’re under arrest, charged with criminal trespass, grave robbery and misappropriation of bodies from the morgue.”
Anima
A firestorm of essence drew Anima’s attention away. Ignis rampaged through a huge combination church and university, sending mortals running for their lives.
Earth essence shook another part of the city, drawing her to the eastern perimeter in time to see Terrance’s earthquake demolish a civil war era church and the neighborhood surrounding it.
Tornado alarms brought her to Caelum as his winds shredded an old synagogue.
Atlanta’s faithful ran screaming from the wrath of a mortal madman. Anima had no idea why the Fae Kissed druid forced her shields—the city’s protectors—to attack places of worship, but she needed to return to Quayla.
Together they could find a way to stop the carnage.
We have to stop them.
Anima shifted the city beneath her until she’d centered over Vitae’s warehouse once more. A police detective slipped inside.
Anima turned to a shimmering mirror, speaking through the angel network to warn Quayla, but Quayla didn’t reply. Whatever Vitae had done to the place to keep her from finding him before, seemed to prevent Quayla from hearing Anima through the statuette.
She had to warn Quayla, not only about the detective, but the destruction caused by the other shields.
Those radios. Maybe I can enter ethereally and speak into one.
She grabbed the edges of Atlanta and dragged herself closer to the warehouse. At first, the spirit building resisted her. The barrier was enough to keep her out if the barriers weren’t her focus, but she had strength enough to penetrate the fortress ward if she focused.