A Gift of Wings (34 page)

She located them a few yards away, not far from the door: two figures covered in dark cloaks. The space around their bodies was slightly blurred, fuzzy, and she understood that they were cloaked in glamour as well. None of the other patrons seemed to be aware of them at all. Lucky looked toward the stage, wondering if Aidan had also sensed them. From the direction of his gaze, she could tell that he had. Otherwise he gave no indication that anything was amiss. He continued to give his all to the song, working the audience as usual. He glanced her way, and she acknowledged, with the slightest of nods, that she too was aware of the strangers.

Studying them through the corners of her narrowed eyes, Lucky wished she could see what they looked like, but the long, hooded cloaks covered them so completely that she could discern nothing about them. They stood in that same spot for what seemed like several minutes, as Lucky watched them as surreptitiously as she could. Then, as if they had finally located what—or whom—they were looking for, they turned their heads toward her table. With effort, Lucky kept herself from moving, so as not to betray her own observation of them.

The strangers moved through the bar with ease, the crowd parting for them even as the patrons evinced no conscious awareness of their presence. Lucky wondered what she should do if they reached her table. Surely, they wouldn’t try to take her from a crowded room? Or, she suddenly thought, what if they were here for Josh? What if they were the ones who had administered the toxin, and they had come back to finish the job?

Anonymity forgotten, she stood up and pushed through the crowd to the other side of the table, so she could be nearer to Josh. She had almost reached his side when her scarf snagged on something and tightened around her throat. Reaching up, she jerked it aside, and the action caused the Light-Bringer’s Medallion she wore to slip free of the scoop neckline of her sweater. As if the action were in slow motion, she saw the medallion flash as it caught the light from the stage, and she stared in surprise as the two strangers froze in reaction.

Then the smaller of the two moved its hood back enough to reveal a fall of scarlet hair and a beautiful, pale face with startling emerald eyes. Catching Lucky’s eye, the woman gave her a small smile that somehow managed to convey a smug satisfaction. Then she and her companion dematerialized, but not before Lucky had seen the flash of yellow eyes beneath the other hood.

“Lucky? What are you…?”

Her cousin’s voice snapped Lucky’s attention back to the rest of the room, making her realize that her actions must have seemed more than strange to everyone else at her table. Josh had partially risen to his feet, a slight frown between his brows. Now, he grasped her arm to steady himself, but as soon as he was standing, his breath hitched, his eyes rolled back in his head, and he collapsed against her.

She cried out his name as she staggered under his weight and struggled to lower them both to the floor. Then she knelt beside her cousin, stroking his hair back from his forehead and listening to his shallow breathing. She was vaguely aware of the people nearest them pushing their chairs aside and making noises of concern, remarking that someone should call a doctor.

Suddenly, Josh grasped her wrist with surprising strength, stopping the motion of her hand on his hair, and when he lifted his eyelids, Lucky gasped. The eyes looking up at her from her cousin’s face were those she had seen in the dream she had had the night Sambethe had given him the antidote to the toxin. Blood-red and feral, they bore no resemblance to Josh’s warm brown ones. Then, just as suddenly as he had grabbed her, his hand fell away from her arm, and his eyelids closed over those red eyes.

By that time, Aidan and Ben had pushed their way through the crowd gathered around them. His face pale, Ben dropped to his knees on Josh’s other side and took Josh’s hand in one of his, murmuring worried endearments.

Kneeling beside Lucky, Aidan said quietly, “Zeke’s on his way.”

Even as he finished speaking, Lucky heard the angel’s resonant voice. “I’m a doctor,” Zeke lied, shouldering his way through the crowd to kneel beside Ben, who shifted back to allow him clearer access to Josh.

Lucky had become accustomed to seeing more than Zeke’s human form when she looked at him. Still, it was a bit disorienting to watch his four faces morph in and out in this bar surrounded by other humans. She shifted her perspective bit by bit until she saw him as she had when she had first met him, as a tall, long-haired, gray-eyed man. His wheat-colored hair spilled over his shoulders as he leaned over Josh, checking his pulse and then touching his head, hands, and heart in a pattern she recognized. He was activating a healing stasis once more. She could see the blue triangle of light wrapping around her cousin’s upper body, but she could tell by the blurriness of its edges that Zeke had also cast a glamour so that the other people surrounding them could not.

“We need to get him out of here and back to Aidan’s, where Sambethe can examine and treat him,” Zeke said, his voice just loud enough for Lucky and Aidan to hear.

Aidan nodded, and rising to his feet, he made his way back to the stage. He assured everyone that Josh was going to be alright and promised that while the band wouldn’t play a complete set, they would do a few more songs, once Josh had been moved. Everything would go much more smoothly, he added, if everyone would return to their seats and step aside for “the doctor.”

Ben had returned to Josh’s side as soon as Aidan’s departure had cleared a space for him. “I’m coming with you,” he said.

Lucky promised to call him as soon as she had any news and was trying to think of an excuse strong enough to make Ben stay, when the young man turned to Zeke with a determined expression. “Zeke,” he said, “tell her it’s okay if I come with you.”

Wordlessly, Zeke nodded his assent. Casting a curious look at Ben, Lucky said quick good-byes to Mo and Eric, and after receiving a supportive squeeze from Mo, she fell in beside Ben so they could follow Zeke as he carried Josh out of the bar.

To her surprise, Malachi was waiting outside. Dressed more casually than she had ever seen him in black jeans and a black ribbed sweater, he was leaning against a black SUV, which was double-parked with flashers activated. She wondered how he’d gotten there so quickly. He opened the back door as Zeke approached and helped the angel slide her cousin into the vehicle.

Lucky and Ben slipped into the back seat as well, and Ben lifted Josh’s head to pillow it on his lap. Zeke climbed into the front passenger seat as Malachi slid behind the wheel. He drove fast and skillfully, somehow managing to maneuver in and out of traffic, breaking every possible speed limit, without once making Lucky fear for their safety.

As soon as they’d parked in the visitor’s section of the garage for Aidan’s building, Zeke dematerialized, flashing himself to Aidan’s apartment, so that he could let them in. Ben wouldn’t allow Malachi to take Josh from his arms. And Lucky was surprised when the slender young man carried her cousin as easily as if he weighed nothing. Malachi nodded to the security guard while they awaited access to the building. Lucky gauged from the guard’s easy response that he was unable to see her cousin’s unconscious body in Ben’s arms. When she focused her attention, she was able to see a slight blurriness around Josh’s figure, an indication that he was hidden by some kind of glamour.

To Lucky, it seemed as if time expanded the closer they came to getting help for Josh. The elevator ride to Aidan’s apartment seemed to take as long as the entire trip from the bar, and as she followed Malachi’s long strides down the hall to the guest room, she felt as if they were moving in slow motion. It was only after Ben had placed her cousin on the bed, and Sambethe, who had arrived while they were transporting Josh up from the garage, had begun her examination, that Lucky felt time resume its normal speed.

When Sambethe shooed the rest of them from the room because she said they were interfering with her concentration, Lucky led the way down the hall to Aidan’s sparsely furnished living room.

Déjà vu all over again,
she thought, as she stared out the large windows overlooking the city lights and the lake. Was it really only two days ago that she’d stood in this same place, worrying about Josh, as he lay encased in blue light in Aidan’s guest room? It had seemed too good to be true when Zeke and Sambethe had assured her he was healed, but she had wanted to believe it. And with Zeke’s assurances, how could she not have? She shivered as she remembered the strength of Josh’s hand on her arm and that flash of red eyes. If he didn’t survive this, or was somehow permanently harmed because of it, she wasn’t sure she could ever forgive herself. If it hadn’t been for her, the members of the Dark who had done this to him would have had no reason to single him out as a target.

She was shaken out of her thoughts by a hand on her shoulder, and she turned to find Ben at her side. As soon as he had called Zeke by name, she had suspected the young man was Naphil, and she wondered why neither she nor Aidan had ever realized it. She never voiced the question. Before she could speak, Zeke had come to join them, holding out steaming cups of tea.

Lucky took hers gratefully, feeling its warmth seep into her fingers. She even managed a small chuckle when Malachi remarked, “You must have lived in England at some point, Zeke. Like the British, you seem to find tea to be the appropriate response to almost any situation.”

“It’s no cure-all, but I find that it offers some small comfort.” With a wry smile, the Cherub added, “Besides, making it gives me something to do other than wait.”

Lucky wondered how many times in his unimaginably long life Zeke had felt helpless to do anything other than wait—or make tea. It was hard to believe a being so powerful could ever feel helpless, but she knew there were many things outside of his control. She couldn’t decide if that knowledge was reassuring or immensely troubling.

“Ezekiel,” Sambethe beckoned from the hallway, “I would speak with you, please.”

That can’t mean anything good,
Lucky thought, as Zeke followed the oracle-cum-healer down the hall, and Ben found a seat on the couch. She shot a troubled glance at Malachi, seeking some indication that she was wrong, but she found her own fear reflected in the tightening of his jaw and the small frown that knit his brow. The look he turned her way was sympathetic, but he made no attempt to offer empty reassurances. Like her, he remained silent—and waited.

When Zeke returned, his expression was grimmer than she had ever seen it, as if his responsibilities weighed more than heavily on his winged shoulders. He looked at Lucky, still standing by the windows, and gesturing toward the black leather couch, said quietly, “Sit down. Please.”

Heart filling with dread, she sat down between Ben and Malachi. Then she turned to Zeke with wide, anxious eyes.

“Sambethe—,” Zeke cleared his throat. “Sambethe says she was mistaken about the nature of the toxin that was given to your cousin. His condition is much more serious than any of us suspected.” He studied her, his gray eyes containing a depth of sorrow that nearly made her heart skip a beat. “He will die, Lucky. And, worse than that, when he dies his human death, he will become a Wraith.”

At his words, Malachi bit out a quiet oath.

“What’s a Wraith?” Lucky asked, afraid of the answer.

It was Ben who answered. “A Wraith is a kind of demon—one that lives by taking the souls of humans.”

“And there’s nothing you can do?” Lucky turned to Zeke in desperation. “Nothing Sambethe can do?”

Zeke shook his head. “No, there is nothing
we
can do.” Again, he paused and looked at her in sorrow. “Helping your cousin is up to you, Lucky.”

“Me? What can I possibly do to help him?”

“The only thing that will save him is the blood of a Naphil, and one who shares his own blood.”

“He needs my blood?” Lucky was filled with relief. “And the blood of a Naphil? Ben is Naphil, right? We can mix some of his blood with mine and give it to Josh.”

Zeke shook his head again. “No, Lucky, it’s not that simple. The
Naphil
has to be of Josh’s own blood.”

“But I’m not…,” Lucky began. Then her heart plummeted as realization struck. “I have to go through the Making.”

As if pulled by magnetic force, her eyes swung toward Malachi. “They said it
killed
you, that you only survived because of your Gift.”

Malachi nodded. “That is true.”

Lucky made a noise somewhere between a sob and a humorless laugh. “So, it’s likely to kill me, but it’s Josh’s only chance? If I die, we both die, but if I survive, we both live.”

She held that thought for a moment, then made the only possible choice.

“I’ll do it. Of course, I’ll do it.”

Decision made, she once again turned to Malachi, her face determined. “Can you help me? Can you teach me anything that will help me survive it?”

“I don’t know.” His deep voice was thoughtful. Leaning forward, he took both her hands in his, his long braids sliding over his shoulders as he did so. “But I will help you in any way I can.”

Lucky swallowed the lump that had appeared in her throat. “Thank you,” she whispered.

“You are quite certain about this?” Zeke asked. “Once the agreement is made, you cannot change your mind.”

Lucky answered without hesitation. “Yes, I’m certain. I have to try. If there’s the slightest chance….” Her voice trailed off.

Zeke nodded his understanding. “Yes. Very well. I will contact—”

He stopped speaking as the apartment door opened, announcing Aidan’s return. None of the group said anything as they listened to his booted footfalls crossing toward them, with a brief pause for him to retrieve the piano bench.

Once he had joined them, he stood, holding the bench, his eyes shifting from Zeke to Ben. “I should have known.”

Then, looking at each of them in turn, he added, “I take it Josh isn’t doing well.”

Zeke cleared his throat. “No, he is not. Sambethe is with him.”

“Take your seat, Aidan,” Malachi added quietly. “There’s more.”