A Gift of Wings (29 page)

She closed her eyes and covered her ears with her hands to shut it all out, only to find to her dismay that she could now see the fine pattern of veins on the insides of her eyelids and hear the pounding of her own pulse and the rush of blood through her veins.

“I can’t take this anymore, Zeke,” she cried out. “Make it stop. Please make it stop.”

“I am afraid I cannot.”

“You’re an angel! You must be able to do something.”

“I cannot take this away from you, Lucky. Only
you
can control your powers. Concentrate as best you can—I know it is hard—on the deepest place inside yourself. Find the stillness, the calm, there. See yourself there; hear the quiet; feel the absence of touch.”

“I can’t!” she sobbed. “There’s too much, too much noise, too much light, too much—everything!”

“Yes, you can.” Zeke’s firm, resonant tones cut through the cacophony in her head like a shaft of light in a dark room. “Because you must. Now concentrate. And breathe.”

Lucky took a deep breath, and another, and another, trying to move inward, trying to concentrate on a place of stillness she wasn’t sure she possessed. After several more breaths, she gradually relaxed the clasp of her hands over her ears and let her arms fall to her sides. She could still hear all the things she heard before, but she discovered that if she didn’t try to shut the sounds out, didn’t fight them, they didn’t seem so intense. In breath, out breath, in breath, out breath. She could still see the pattern of the veins in her eyelids, but she was able to observe them instead of feeling as if she must somehow block them from her sight. In breath, out breath, in breath, out breath. The air brushed her skin, and though its touch was not as delicate as it had seemed only the day before, she no longer felt as if it were trying to wound her.

Going further inward as she continued to breathe deeply, she found herself in a dark cave, sitting cross-legged in a pool of soft light. Images, sounds, tastes, smells, and textures flickered, throbbed, burst, wafted, and slid over the cave’s velvet black walls. Looking around, she paused on an image of water. Concentrating on it, she took it in—and the image brought with it the smell of rain, the clean taste of fresh water, and the chill of the lake against her skin, as well as the sound of lapping waves. Releasing that image, she chose the tactile sense of sunlight on skin, which brought not only warmth, but a flooding of yellow-gold light, the trill of birdsong, and the remembered sweetness of summer peaches.

One after another she chose, learning that she could turn the senses on and off at will, choosing to experience as much or as little as she wanted of any of them at any one time. After a while, she chose none at all and simply rested in the soft pool of light.

It was there that Zeke’s voice found her several minutes later. “Good, very good.”

The words circled around her, deep-voiced and warm, soft like the fur of her cats, and tasting of approval. “Now, come back.”

Gathering herself, breath by breath, Lucky left the still, calm center and opened her senses to the world once again. Sights, sounds, smells, flavors, and textures rushed over her. Taking another breath, she sank a mental taproot into that internal stillness and selected from among the myriad sensations clamoring for her attention only those she knew she could bear. Then, feeling more complete and capable than she had felt in her entire life, she opened her eyes and turned an exhausted but exhilarated face to her mentor. The smile he bestowed on her held all the warmth and radiance she could feel in her own.

“Bravo,” he said, placing an arm around her shoulders and tucking her into his side. “Now, let’s get you home.”

***

“Home,” Lucky discovered, really meant back to Aidan’s, since Zeke did not want her to be alone until her birthday was officially over. Even though she had probably weathered the worst the day had to offer and come out on the other side triumphant, if exhausted, he deemed it best to remain with her until midnight. And since Zeke’s presence in their apartment would, at best, cause Josh to ask uncomfortable questions about who he was and why Lucky was bringing him home with her and, at worst, could interfere with the memory switch Zeke and Aidan had pulled on him earlier, Aidan’s seemed the more logical choice.

By the time they arrived at Aidan’s high rise, Lucky was ready to call it a day and crawl into bed. When she greeted Aidan, a yawn escaped her, and making her excuses through another yawn, she headed down the hallway. She was hesitating outside Aidan’s room, since that was where she had slept the night before, and she had left the t-shirt she’d slept in folded up on the bed, when she heard his boots on the tile.

“What’s wrong?” he asked. “Do you need something?”

“I just…,” she stopped, shaking her head. She couldn’t tell him she wanted to sleep in his room and not the guest room. Now that Josh wasn’t using the other bed, that’s where she belonged.

“It’s okay if you sleep in my room,” he said, as if sensing her unspoken request. When she lowered her eyes, he added in a quieter drawl, “Trust me, I don’t mind in the least.”

Flushing, she lifted her eyes to meet his teasing, intensely blue ones. “It’s just… Josh….”

“I know,” he said, his tone and expression becoming more serious. “I wouldn’t want to sleep in the guest room either if I were you.” Then the flirtatious smile returned. “And I’m quite happy to have you sleep in my bed—again. I kind of like the idea of you tucked between my sheets.”

She narrowed her eyes and tried to glare at him, but the effect was ruined by another yawn.

Aidan’s flirtatious smile shifted to a grin. “I was going to ask you how today went, but you can tell me all about it later.” Leaning forward, he dropped a light kiss on her forehead. “Get some sleep,” he said.

As she stepped inside the bedroom and closed the door, Lucky listened to the sound of Aidan’s footsteps retreating down the hallway and tried not to contrast that brotherly kiss he’d just given her with the embrace they had shared the evening before. Sure, he’d also flirted with her, but that didn’t mean anything. It was best not even to think about him, she decided, discarding her clothes and pulling the borrowed t-shirt over her head. Unfortunately, it was difficult not to when she was wearing his clothes and sleeping in his bed.

But her last thought before sleep claimed her had nothing to do with Aidan. It was the remembrance of the sense of satisfaction and completeness that had filled her when she had stood at the lakeshore with Zeke, knowing she could master her own powers.

CHAPTER 19

Lucky was startled out of sleep by a moist nose poking into her ear. As she came fully awake, she also felt the pressure of two little paws, one on her head near her ear and the other planted on her cheek.

“Harley,” she said, turning her head, “get off me.”

She shifted over in the bed and turned on her side, so she could face the ferret. Harley was sitting back on his hind legs and looking at her. She could see his bright eyes glittering in the dimness that passed for dark in the city. She reached out a hand and stroked his soft fur. After a couple of minutes, he curled up in an upside down ball beside her.

Lucky lay there for a few more minutes trying to get back to sleep, but she was wide awake. A glance at the clock on Aidan’s bedside table told her it was not quite midnight. She threw back the covers, careful not to disturb Harley, and slipping through the door which the ferret had left ajar, she padded down the hall toward the kitchen to get a glass of water.

About halfway down the hallway, she became aware of voices coming from the living room. Zeke and Aidan were still talking then. Feeling self-conscious, she glanced down at herself. Her legs and feet were bare, but Aidan’s t-shirt was long enough on her to be a dress, so she decided it was foolish to turn around. She might as well get that glass of water after all. A few steps later, she stopped in her tracks, realizing that they were talking about her. She crept as near to the end of the hallway as she could without being seen and pressed close to the wall as she listened.

“Sambethe keeps insisting the girl should be Made Nephilim,” Zeke’s voice was a soft rumble.

“No!” Aidan responded. “Absolutely not. It’s too dangerous. You know that as well as I do. I didn’t ask you to help her survive the onset of her powers so she could be sacrificed to some misguided attempt at a Making. By all that’s holy and unholy, Zeke, even Malachi….” Aidan’s words trailed away, leaving the rest of the thought unspoken.

It was a moment or two before Zeke replied, and his voice was as quiet as Lucky had ever heard it. “And what happened during Malachi’s Making was unprecedented, a direct result of his Gift. We could not expect anything similar to save Lucky.”

“I was at the ceremony.” Aidan’s voice was subdued. “It was terrifying. He had to have been in so much pain…. And when he died….”

Lucky was puzzled by Aidan’s words. Malachi
died?
But she had met him, spoken with him. What was Aidan talking about?

“I just wanted to get out of there,” he continued, “but we had to stay for the full three hours—even though he was dead. They were getting ready to remove his body—and I was already scoping out the quickest path to the door—when the sigils on his back began to glow, and he started gasping for breath. Then those huge black wings of his appeared.”

“The Making killed him, but his Gift brought him back,” said Zeke.

There was a moment of silence, and then he continued, “I have asked him if he has a sense of whether or not Lucky would survive. He does not. He says his vision is clouded. Perhaps the girl’s fate has already become too intertwined with his own, as it has with all of ours. Or, perhaps, since the subject of the question is a Making, it is too similar to his own past to allow clear vision. Whatever the cause, he sees nothing.”

Lucky knew they were motivated by concern for her, but she still felt a sudden flash of anger at the fact that they were talking about her and whether or not she should go through this thing called a Making as if the decision were theirs, and she had no say in the matter. No one had even mentioned it to her. Wait, Sambethe had said something about it, hadn’t she? In the lounge at the OI, after she had spoken about the Destroyer and unwinding threads in that strange sing-song voice. Lucky had asked what she meant, and Sambethe had said she, Lucky, must be Made Nephilim. The words had meant so little to Lucky at the time that she had forgotten about them until now. But Zeke obviously hadn’t. Zeke had been talking to Sambethe about it all this time. Zeke. Her anger found its focal point. He had spent the entire day with her, and he hadn’t said a word about this. Now, here he was talking it over with Aidan as if it had more to do with him than with her.

“I can’t believe you!” she said, storming into the living room.

Two pairs of surprised eyes turned in her direction. Well, five pairs of eyes, since she could see all four of Zeke’s faces. Staring into his gray human eyes, she continued, “Were you ever going to tell
me
about this? Ask
me
what
I
think? Give me enough information to make a decision about it myself?”

“How much did you hear?” Zeke asked.

“Enough to know you were talking about Making me Nephilim—as if you all have the right to decide what happens to me,” she flashed back. Her eyes finding Aidan’s, she added in a more subdued tone, “And I heard the story about Malachi.”

“Then you heard enough to know how dangerous a Making can be,” Zeke said. “You should not even be asked to consider it unless there is no alternative. The process could cost you your life.”

Lucky shivered. Aidan picked up his blanket from the night before, which was still lying folded beside the couch, and held it out to her. Although she was unsure if her shiver was due to the chill in the air or the thought of losing her life at a Making, she accepted the blanket and draped it around her shoulders. When Aidan shifted positions to make room for her beside him on the couch, she shook her head and settled on the floor near his feet. Pulling her legs up under the blanket, she wrapped her arms around her knees.

“What exactly is a Making?” she asked, her anger forgotten. “How does it work?”

Zeke sighed, but he answered her question. “It is a ceremony in which a number of angels or Nephilim each bestow a portion of their powers on a human Sensitive. If the Sensitive survives—and many do not—then he or she will become a Naphil, no longer fully human, but part angel. Made Nephilim have the same powers as born Nephilim: superior strength, accelerated healing, wings—and a Gift. Each Gift is different, unique to the Naphil, and first manifests anywhere from three hours—as in Malachi’s case—to several days after the actual Making.”

“Why do people do it—if they know they may not survive?”

Again Zeke sighed. “Different reasons for different people. Some do it for the promise of power; some because they—or we—believe it is necessary to help our cause. Some do it to help someone they love.”

“Why does Sambethe think I must be Made Nephilim?”

Zeke sighed yet again, this time heavily. “Lucky, please, could we not have this conversation at this time? I do not want to discuss this as long as there are other options.”