A Gift of Wings (30 page)

“Zeke,” Lucky’s voice sharpened as she felt that flash of anger again. “I’m in this now, whether you like it or not, and you can’t just exclude me from conversations or decisions, because you’re afraid I’ll be hurt. I need to know why Sambethe thinks I should go through the Making ceremony.”

Aidan’s hand closed on her shoulder. “I don’t like this any more than Zeke, but I agree you have a right to know. Sambethe says she’s seen a gathering Darkness—she calls it the Destoyer—that she says is unlike anything we’ve encountered before, and that could mean the destruction of—well, everything. And she says that you have to be Made Nephilim to help us defeat it.”

“Then she must know that I’d survive the Making, right?” Lucky turned to look up at Aidan as she spoke.

The hand on her shoulder tightened. “You’d think. But it doesn’t really work that way.”

“The future is not fixed, Lucky,” Zeke supplied. “Sambethe’s visions show probabilities only. And she sometimes sees more than one. Yes, she has seen you as Naphil help defeat this Destroyer, but she has also seen you perish as a result of the Making.”

“Oh.” Lucky rested her head against her drawn up knees and leaned into Aidan’s leg, which pressed against her side as he slid closer to her. “So, what do we do?”

“Look for another option,” Zeke said.

Rising, he continued, “I have work to do—and I’m sure you both could do with some rest.” He smiled at Lucky. “Or some
more
rest. It is now well past midnight, so it seems your birthday is over. You did very well today, Lucky. I could not have asked for more. Would you like me to take you home?”

“Don’t worry about it, Zeke. I’ll take her,” Aidan offered, standing and helping Lucky to her feet. “I need to get out and clear my head anyway.” Looking at Lucky, he added, “If that’s okay with you?”

When she nodded, Zeke said, “That will make my trip a little easier, I suppose. I had thought we might start your training tomorrow, Lucky, but I think you deserve a day off. Let’s postpone our meeting until Tuesday, shall we?”

As he finished speaking, his form shimmered, and he disappeared.

“Yeah, I guess he couldn’t have done that with me, could he?” Lucky remarked.

Aidan chuckled. “Go get dressed, and we’ll get you home another way.”

After she’d pulled on her clothes and retrieved her backpack, Lucky met Aidan back in the living room.

“Do you want to take the motorcycle? Or,” he raised his eyebrows as his wings appeared, arcing above his shoulders, “would you prefer to use a different method?”

Lucky’s eyes widened, and a smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. “Really? You could fly me home?”

A grin stretched across Aidan’s face as he nodded. Lucky laughed. A night flight through the city sounded like just what she needed. From the daylong sensory overload to the grimness of that conversation about Making, the day had been too intense by far. When Aidan held out his hand to her and gestured toward the door with a tilt of his head, she put her hand in his without hesitation.

They took the elevator to the very top floor of the building and then climbed a flight of stairs to the roof. The wind was strong, and Lucky clung to Aidan’s hand. He had dismissed his wings for the walk through the building, but now they sprang from his back once more, opening and spreading wide.

“I don’t usually do this with a passenger,” he said, pulling her close. “Hold on tight.”

Lucky wrapped her arms around his waist, below the point where his powerful wings ended at the base of his ribs, and did as he commanded.

His own arms pressing her close to his chest, Aidan flexed his wings and lifted into the air. Lucky cried out as her feet left the ground and then turned a laughing face to Aidan as she felt the wind blowing through her hair and the slight rise and fall of their bodies in rhythm with the beating of his wings. He grinned back at her, and she laughed again. Turning her head, she looked out over the city with all its lights bright against the night sky. It was magical.

“We can do this better,” Aidan said in her ear. “Let go of me.”

When Lucky looked down at the city far below them and gasped, he chuckled, but his words were reassuring, “Don’t worry. I’ve got you.”

Hovering in the air, he turned her in his arms, so that her back was to his chest. “This would be easier if you weren’t wearing that stupid backpack,” he muttered, “but we’ll make it work.”

Shoving the backpack as far to the side as possible, he wrapped his arms around her waist and then twined his legs with hers. “Now,” he said, “you’re not going anywhere. Just relax and enjoy the ride.”

Then, with a powerful surge of his wings, he thrust them even higher into the air before leveling out, so that they were looking directly down at the city.

“It’s so beautiful!” Lucky exclaimed. She had never imagined looking down on the skyline.

At her words, Aidan turned to circle back over the Loop, varying the elevation of their flight as they moved over and between buildings.

“What if someone sees us?” she asked, as he executed a turn mere feet from the windows of one of the skyrises.

“They can’t,” he answered. “We’re glamoured. Someone might notice a slight smudge where we are, but no one will see us.”

Angling them upward, he looped south.

“Show off,” Lucky said, as he took a few dips and dives around the top of the tallest building.

He chuckled and then laughed out loud when a sharp dive caused her to scream. Still laughing, he urged his wings to a faster beat and headed out toward the lake.

“Oh!” Lucky sighed as they sailed out over the water.

The lake stretched black, ink blue, and gray beneath them, the moonlight painting flashes of silver on the water’s undulating surface. She loosened her hands, which had been clutching Aidan’s arms where they circled her waist, and spread her arms wide, as if to embrace the lake, the sky, the night, this experience. A smile spread across her face at the sheer joy of it all. When Aidan jokingly ordered, “Keep your arms and legs inside the vehicle at all times,” her laughter bubbled over.

With small shifts of his wings, Aidan turned them in slow, swooping curves. Then he took them lower, so close to the water that the tips of his wings just skimmed its surface on the downbeat. He kept them just above the water for a long time, as his wings carried them south toward Lucky’s home.

When they had almost reached the Point, Aidan lifted up from the water and flew into the city again, bringing them to ground in an alley a couple of blocks from where Lucky lived.

“Sorry about the touchdown location,” he said, as he disappeared his wings, “but I don’t want anyone to see us materialize out of thin air.”

As his arms slid from around her, Lucky turned toward him. “Oh, Aidan, thank you,” she said. “That was just—wonderful.”

She shivered as the wind touched her back, surprised at how cool the night air felt now that his arms were no longer wrapped around her, and his body was no longer pressed against hers.

As if reading her thoughts, Aidan put an arm around her shoulders, tucking her against his side. “It was, wasn’t it?” he said.

They walked the rest of the way to her building in silence. Lucky was aware of little except the warm weight of Aidan’s arm across her shoulders and the brush of his hip and thigh against her with each step they took.

“Well, this is it,” she said when they stood in front of the steps that would take her up and away from him.

Aidan remained silent as she stepped out from under his arm and pushed her hands into her pockets. Neither made a move to leave, the silence stretching between them. Then Aidan reached out a hand and lifted her chin with his fingertips. “I never did wish you happy birthday, did I?”

Lucky shook her head, her heartbeat accelerating.

Taking a step closer to her, Aidan lowered his head until his mouth hovered just over hers. “Well, then,” he breathed against her lips, “happy birthday.” Then he kissed her, soft and gentle and sweet.

When he moved away several moments later, Lucky felt somewhat dazed.

“So, sounds like you get tomorrow off?” Aidan asked, one corner of his mouth quirking upward.

“I guess so,” she responded, hoping she didn’t sound as breathless as she felt.

“The band has a gig tomorrow night. Since you couldn’t make the last one, do you want to come?” When she nodded, he added, “I wonder if my voice will have the same effect on you now that you know what I am and what you’re capable of.”

Remembering what she’d told him the last time, Lucky grinned back at him. “I’m sure it will be very… moving.”

He chuckled. “I’ll pick you up about 8:00 then.”

“I’ll be ready,” she replied, smiling up at him.

He leaned in for another brief kiss and then gently pushed her toward the steps. “I’ll wait here until you’re inside.”

When she had opened the door, she turned around and looked back at him. “Good night,” he called softly.

She waved at him, then stepped inside and closed the door behind her. When she looked back through the glass, he was gone.

CHAPTER 20

Josh was sitting at the table, alternately scribbling notes in the margin of the book he was reading and spooning cereal into his mouth, when Lucky stumbled through the dining room the next morning on her way to the kitchen for coffee.

“Hey,” she said, unsure of what to say to him. The last time she had seen him he had been lying on the bed in Aidan’s guest room, after drinking some blood-red potion that Sambethe had concocted. But he wouldn’t remember any of that.

Josh looked up from his book. “Hey. Happy belated birthday. Did you have a good time with your friends?”

Even though Lucky knew his memories were altered, she still found his matter-of-fact manner disconcerting. She nodded, and as he waited for her to elaborate, she tried to think of something to say about the day before. “We—spent a lot of time—wandering around downtown. I—saw the city in a way I’ve never seen it before.”

He raised his eyebrows in a question, and she sought for an explanation that would make sense of her odd statement. “Maybe it’s because I turned eighteen, I don’t know, it just all seemed—magical—somehow.” Before he could question her further, she added something about her need for coffee and escaped to the kitchen.

Josh didn’t seem at all concerned or surprised when, instead of joining him, Lucky took her coffee and headed back down the hallway to her room. She wondered how long it would take her to feel comfortable with him again, to stop being afraid that she’d say something to trigger the ghost of a memory from a series of events of which he was currently blissfully unaware.

She considered calling Mo, but the thought of her friend served only to increase her discomfort. She couldn’t tell Mo what was going on either, so she’d have to make up some story about the day before.

Lucky had never been a good liar—had never had to be—and the knowledge that she was probably going to have to practice a certain level of deceit for the rest of her life made her insides squirm. Now that she walked in two worlds, she would be forever dissembling with her friends and family who knew just one. The new world of angels and demons of which she was now a part was not something she could share with them. They wouldn’t believe her if she tried. And if, by some miracle, they did, their knowledge could put them in danger. She couldn’t do that to them. With a sudden sense of loss, Lucky realized that she might never be completely comfortable in her old world again.

As she was contemplating that disquieting thought, Josh appeared in the open doorway, wearing a jacket and with a backpack slung over his shoulder. “I’m off to the library. Then I’m going to meet Ben later so we can hang out for a while. They’re playing tonight, by the way. Did you know?”

Lucky nodded. “Aidan’s picking me up. Are you going?”

She was surprised when Josh didn’t remark on her relationship with Aidan, but just nodded in return. They exchanged a few comments about seeing each other later, and then he left. The sense of relief that filled her when the door closed and locked behind him, and she heard him descending the building stairs, carried equal parts guilt and sadness in its wake. Lucky had never felt such a sense of distance from her best fam, and her discomfort was only amplified by his ignorance that anything was amiss.

Thoughts about the loss of friends and family and the very real drawbacks to leading a sort of double life preoccupied Lucky as she fixed and ate her breakfast. By the time she had finished eating and cleaned up the few dishes she had used, she had decided that despite the fact that she didn’t know what to tell Mo about the day before, she was going to call her anyway. She missed her friend, and she really wanted to talk to her.

Guilt assailed her when she turned on her cell—she had turned it off the day before at Zeke’s suggestion—and found that Mo had called her several times. She had left three messages, starting with a cheery “Happy Birthday” message and ending with a frustrated and hurt “Where are you? And why are you not returning my calls?”

Feeling like the worst best friend in the world, she dialed Mo’s number. The feeling was not alleviated when Mo answered the phone with a reserved “Hello.”