A Gift of Wings (27 page)

When she finally awoke, the sunlight filling the room assured her it was morning, which meant she had slept through the night, but she was as tired as if she hadn’t slept at all, and a dull pain throbbed in her head. Harley was nowhere to be seen, and the unlocked door was still closed, so he must not have tried to enter the room during the night. Slipping out of the t-shirt Aidan had loaned her, she pulled on the clothes she had worn the day before. After dragging her fingers through her hair and securing it in a ponytail at the back of her head, she opened the bedroom door and stepped out into the hallway.

She walked slowly down the hall to the living room, where the bright light shining in the floor-to-ceiling windows had her blinking rapidly. It seemed to her as if the room was filled with tiny golden lights and miniature rainbows, and the effect was dizzying. She grasped the back of the sofa to support herself. Finding, to her relief, that the sofa was empty, the stack of bedding beside the coffee table the only indication that Aidan had slept there the night before, she slid onto the seat, leaning her head back and closing her eyes against the dazzling play of light and color.

“Happy birthday.”

Zeke’s resonant voice was as soft as Lucky had ever heard it, its usual evocation of ocean waves replaced by something less substantial and more cloud-like. She was grateful; she had a sense that his normal tones would have increased her dizziness and the slight roar in her head exponentially.

“Thanks,” she whispered, opening her eyes to look at him.

She almost closed them again as the rush of images hit her. Zeke was standing before her, long hair falling over his shoulders, dressed in his usual khakis and button-down shirt, with royal blue Chuck Taylors on his feet. But he was also something huge that towered over her, simultaneously bull, lion, eagle, and man, faces shifting, bodies blurring from one to another, all surrounded by three pairs of wings, which were the dusky blue of a twilight sky.

“Is this what you really look like?” she asked.

Zeke, in all his forms, shrugged. “It is what I really look like to you at this moment.”

He spoke more loudly this time, and the sound rolled over her, wave-like. But instead of feeling overcome by it, she felt herself lifted and borne upon it, supported and somehow taken out of the din in her head.

“How is Josh?” she asked.

“Your cousin is well. When he awoke this morning, he was completely recovered, just as Sambethe promised. I made a few attempts to retrieve his memories of the time between when you left him at the Ferris wheel and when Malachi found him in the Crystal Garden, but to no avail.” The angel, in all his multiple forms, frowned as he continued. “The memories are not blocked, and there is no blank expanse to indicate that they have been erased. His memory simply stops at the point where you got on the ride and starts again when he woke to find Malachi with him. It is as if the time between the two events did not exist for him at all.”

“I want to see him,” Lucky said, beginning to rise from the couch.

Zeke stayed her with a gesture. “He is no longer here. Aidan has taken him back to your apartment. Aidan and I agreed it would be best if your cousin did not remember his time here either. When he leaves him, Aidan will trigger a suggestion I planted in Josh’s mind, and he will remember nothing of yesterday’s odd events. He will instead remember a pleasant day spent with you at Navy Pier, followed by a restful night at home.”

“Is that safe?’ Lucky asked. “What if whoever hurt him comes after him again? Shouldn’t he be prepared instead of having no knowledge of it whatsoever?”

“We did not leave him unprotected, Lucky. He will be monitored for a time, to ensure his safety. Even so, I do not think he faces further danger. I believe yesterday’s attack was meant as a message—and though Josh was the unfortunate victim, he was not, I think, the intended target.”

“A message?”

“For the Fallen. Someone wants us to be aware that they know we have taken an interest in you—and that they are watching you as well.”

Lucky scowled. “Sounds like I need to start battle training as soon as possible.”

“Perhaps that would be wise,” Zeke chuckled.

“Oh,” Lucky gasped suddenly, remembering the messages she’d left when she’d called Josh the day before, “Josh’s voicemail….”

“Taken care of,” Zeke reassured her. “Aidan said you’d mentioned calling Josh. He found your cousin’s cell phone in his pocket and deleted your messages.”

The angel held out a hand to help her to her feet. “Now, shall we see about finding some birthday breakfast?”

As it turned out, Zeke spent the entire day with Lucky. After dropping Josh at home, the angel informed her, Aidan was going to work with Malachi and the rest of the troops. Included in the substitute memories Zeke had given Josh was one of Lucky telling him she had made plans with friends for the day, so he wouldn’t be worried about her. At some point, she would have some explaining to do with Mo, but she would cross that bridge when she came to it. In the meantime, she was free to spend the day with Zeke, experiencing the full force of her powers and beginning to experiment with them, to learn to master them rather than letting them master her.

They started with breakfast at a downtown diner, because, Zeke said, the crowd of patrons would provide Lucky with ample opportunity to work with her expanding senses.

The trip to the restaurant alone made Lucky feel as if she were living in a very different world from the one in which she had grown up. She knew she was in Chicago; she recognized the buildings, the sounds of traffic, and the hustle and bustle of the city. Yet, at the same time, everything was different. There was a new depth to her vision as she looked around her.

She still saw myriad tiny rainbows and spotlights when the sun shone brightly. When it dipped behind a cloud, they disappeared, but only to be replaced by dancing shadows in various shades of gray. The lights and shadows played around the buildings, even the cars and buses, so that it looked as if over the brick and stone, the metal and glass and plastic, each was wrapped with an intricately patterned quilt of light and dark. And the people! Each person was enveloped in a field of colored light, each one unique, with threads of gold and black mapping their bodies. Lucky felt a little as if she were looking behind the scenes of a play she had been watching all her life, seeing how the parts came together to make the whole. She felt dizzy from it all and held on to Zeke’s supportive arm to keep from losing her balance.

“In time, you will learn to turn it off and on at will,” the angel assured her. “You will find it impossible to sustain such heightened perception for an extended period of time. The human mind—even for a Sensitive—is not designed to comprehend so much at once.”

Inside the restaurant, Lucky was not as distracted by the play of light and shadow, which was much less pronounced indoors. But she was more than compensated for the loss by an increase in her awareness of the people—well, beings—around her. The restaurant was crowded, and she and Zeke had to wait for several minutes before they could be seated. Lucky gazed around the room, dazzled by the colors and patterns surrounding the patrons, a number of whom didn’t seem to be human. She noticed that many of those non-humans seemed to know Zeke. Some offered him small nods in greeting, while others glanced at him with recognition, but looked away without acknowledgement.

Before Lucky could ask Zeke for an explanation, a waitress, menus in hand, arrived to show them to a table. As Lucky scanned the menu, her stomach growled, and she remembered that she hadn’t eaten anything since lunch the day before. When the waitress returned with glasses of water, Lucky was ready to order. She asked for French toast and grinned when Zeke requested pancakes with
two
sides of bacon. While they waited for their food, he asked her to look around the room and describe to him what she saw.

She described the auras of the humans and the shadows of wings she saw on those she assumed to be angels, as well as the sharp-looking teeth and stony looking skin she saw on others. And she asked Zeke about the beings who had nodded to him and those who seemed to know him but refused to acknowledge him.

“There are very few among the Fallen or the Dark who do not know me—or at least know of me. Some I have taught or fought beside. Others I have had to—discourage—from certain behaviors. One consequence of being a leader is that one seldom pleases everyone.”

When their waitress arrived with the food, Lucky smiled at the eager way Zeke reached for one of the many slices of bacon on his plate, as well as his evident enjoyment of it. Then she tucked into her own breakfast. She was surprised to find that her sense of taste also seemed to be heightened. The flavors of the food were more intense, more layered, than they had ever been before. While they ate, Zeke continued to ask her questions about what she perceived in the room. She responded, asking occasional questions of her own. By the end of the meal, she felt not only physically fed, but as if she also had a great deal to digest mentally.

As they left the restaurant, Zeke asked if there was anything special she would like to do for the rest of day. Lucky started to respond that she had no real preference, but then she realized that it had been several days since she had seen G-Ma. Her grandmother had been a part of all her birthdays, and despite the change in G-Ma’s health and the corresponding change in their relationship, Lucky didn’t want this year to be an exception. She explained the situation to Zeke, who agreed to accompany her on a visit.

Lucky was pleased to find that the play of light and shadow did not seem as dizzying to her now. She was able to adjust her visual focus so that the flickering colors and patterns no longer interfered with her vision, but appeared as a kind of screen overlaying what she had formerly thought to be the “real” world.

Not having to direct single-minded attention to her vision and her balance on the way to the ‘L’ stop, she told Zeke about her last visit with G-Ma. She remembered her grandmother’s half-finished painting and her final warning. Now that she knew Zeke and had learned about the conflict between the Angels of Light and the Angels of Darkness, she found both even more ominous than before. But when Zeke asked her to describe the painting, she was able only to give a vague impression of massing gray clouds. She couldn’t begin to capture the sense of menace the image had conveyed. She wondered if G-Ma had made any progress on the piece in the last several days.

After entering the ‘L’ station, Lucky swiped her card to go through the turnstile before turning to offer it to Zeke, who was behind her. With surprise, she saw that he was already sliding a card of his own through the reader.

“You take the ‘L’ often?” she asked, a smile tugging at the corners of her lips. “I wouldn’t have thought that would be necessary for you.”

The Cherub returned her smile with twinkling eyes. “I do indeed usually prefer—less conventional—methods of transportation,” he assented, looking down at the card in his hand. “But as it is sometimes necessary to travel with others who do not share my abilities, I find it useful to keep one of these on hand.”

While they waited for the train to arrive, Lucky found herself again grasping Zeke’s arm, as this time the sounds threatened to overwhelm her. There were so many people, and the din of their conversations combined with the noise of the trains entering and leaving the station and the blaring trumpet of a street musician, all magnified and expanded, made her want to cover her ears. It was all too much. When she began to
see
the sounds in waves and zigzagging lines of color, she thought she might pass out. Closing her eyes didn’t help; the colored lines and waves were still projected against the insides of her eyelids. Zeke’s other arm went around her for support as she gasped and leaned against him.

“I completely understand now why you had to get to me before today,” she muttered into his shirt. “I can’t imagine how I’d have handled this on my own.”

“The worst will pass in a moment,” he told her.

His words proved to be true. In a short time, the clamoring din receded, and instead of cacophony, Lucky could now hear layers of sound, nuances, notes, and cadences that were previously outside her range. Everything she heard now had more texture, sounding like Zeke’s voice had always sounded to her, as if it were substantial, multi-dimensional. The additional lines and waves she saw settled into another visual screen through which she viewed the world.

By the time their train arrived, she was steady enough to release Zeke’s arm and step aboard. But that didn’t mean she felt confident of her ability to balance on a moving train. Instead of standing inside the doorway, she moved farther into the car to find a couple of empty seats.

Settling into the seat next to her, Zeke said, “You are doing quite well, you know. You are a very strong young woman, Lucky. I have known many Sensitives who were nearly traumatized by the sudden onslaught of their abilities, even with adequate preparation and support. You, on the other hand, are integrating them very quickly. I believe Sambethe may have been right about you.”

“Right about me how?”

Zeke held her gaze with his own for a moment before he spoke. “She said that you will somehow play a decisive role in the coming conflict between Light and Dark. She does not know how or why, only that it is so.”

Lucky felt a chill running up her spine as he spoke. His resonant voice was so serious and his eyes, looking into hers, so grave.

“I’m not sure I’m ready for that kind of responsibility just now,” she said.

Zeke’s gray eyes softened as the corners of his mouth turned upward. “You don’t have to be. Now, we are just going to visit your grandmother, and you are going to continue receiving and integrating your new powers. Whatever the future holds, we will face as it comes.”

The rest of their ride was completed in silence, as was the walk to the assisted living facility. When Lucky lifted her hand to open the door, Zeke stopped her, offering to shield himself with a glamour that would hide him from everyone but Lucky, if she preferred. That way he wouldn’t interfere with her visit with her grandmother, but would be there to provide support if her powers threatened to overcome her.