A Gift of Wings (39 page)

“And that extends to willfully endangering your own granddaughter?” Even though his words were harsh, the Cherub’s voice was quiet and contained. Aidan recognized the signs. When Zeke was upset, he didn’t shout, he just got calmer and quieter. Aidan had seldom seen the angel this angry.

“Oh, give me some credit, Zeke!” Lilith said with a laugh. “I chose to make the announcement here, in the presence of her supporters and in neutral territory—and in the presence of the Archangel, I might add. If something were to happen to her between now and the Making, Uriel would exact a strict punishment, and everyone knows that.”

“But it’s not as if she’s under the Archangel’s protection in the meantime,” Kev remarked. “And there are some who would risk punishment—even death—to keep one of your blood from a Making.”

“Yeah, about that,” Aidan inserted. “Shouldn’t we—or at least Lucky—have known about—her parentage—before the Making was Struck? How much more dangerous will that process be for her now?”

“It wouldn’t have made any difference,” Lucky said, reaching out to brush his hand with her fingers. “I would still have done it.”

Zeke’s quiet words were addressed to Lucky, but Lilith was the recipient of his pointed look. “Yes, you would have, because of your cousin, but Uriel, had he known, might never have agreed to consider the Striking at all. Your—grandmother’s timing was—impeccable.”

Lilith laughed again, the sound somehow both musical and sardonic. “‘Impeccable’? Why, I was expecting something more like ‘calculated’—or ‘strategic,’ at the very least. But, yes, I agree. I think my timing was quite ‘impeccable.’”

When Zeke just continued to look at her, a muscle shifting in his jaw, she asked, “With whom are you angrier, Ezekiel—me or yourself?”

Zeke did not deign to respond but turned his face toward Lucky. “You have been awfully quiet. Is there anything you wish to say—or to ask?”

Lucky’s eyes shifted from Zeke to Lilith and back again. She shook her head, her face expressionless. “I have nothing to say to her. Can we go now?”

Aidan thought he saw something flash in Lilith’s emerald eyes, as if Lucky’s words might have caused her pain, but whatever it was, it was gone in an instant—if it had been there at all.

“Yes, I must go now too,” she said airily, already walking away from them toward the door. “But we’ll talk before long, Lucky. We have so much catching up to do.”

Raising her hood over her scarlet hair, she slipped through the door, leaving them alone.

At her departure, the expressionless mask slipped from Lucky’s face for a moment, revealing all her uncertainty, confusion, and fear. Aidan wanted to pull her into his arms and hold her close. But he didn’t. He knew she wouldn’t thank him for it. Not now. She took a deep breath and, squaring her shoulders, steeled her expression once again.

“Let’s go home,” she said.

***

Lucky changed out of the ceremonial garb and back into her own jeans and sweater with automatic, mechanical movements. As she pulled on her boots, she felt almost as if she were dressing a doll. She had barely registered the trip back from Elsewhere. She vaguely remembered following Zeke to the Council Hall’s Gates of Heaven, and she could recall with the visceral precision of physical memory the sensation of compression and the frightening inability to breathe that accompanied the transition through the Gates. Otherwise, the trip was a blur. She didn’t remember when Aidan and Kev had left her and Zeke. She couldn’t remember climbing Zeke’s basement stairs to find the guest room where she’d left her clothes. She had just known that she had to change back into them as soon as possible. She needed the feeling of those familiar things against her skin, something of her own to pull her back into herself, back into her body.

The internal shift that had happened during the Striking had shaken her to her very core, which had been terrifying enough in itself. And then that woman—could she really be her grandmother?—had said what she’d said. Lucky had witnessed what remained of the ceremony as if she were watching a play. Even Uriel’s final pronouncement had seemed distant, apart from her, something that had no bearing on her future, but affected someone else.

She wasn’t sure how long she had been sitting on the edge of Zeke’s guest room bed, staring into space, too numb to move, when someone tapped on the door. She knew she should ask whoever it was to come in, but she couldn’t shape the words with her lips, let alone find the energy to breathe sound into them. A moment later the door opened, and Malachi stepped inside, quietly reclosing the door behind him. He was dressed in something that looked a lot like scrubs, except, like everything else she’d ever seen him in, they were black. His long braids were pulled back and tied at the nape of his neck. Her eyes followed him as he moved to the wall in front of her, lowered himself to the floor, and sat cross-legged, like he was going to meditate.

He studied her for a minute or two without speaking and then asked, his deep voice just loud enough to be audible, “Are you alright?”

She shook her head.

“It was a powerful Striking. I felt it myself—and I wasn’t even there.”

Her gaze sharpened as she looked at him, but still she said nothing.

“What was it like for you?” he asked.

Again, she shook her head. “I—I don’t know—how to explain,” she said. “I feel like everything is different—and not just with me. Like nothing, anywhere, is ever going to be the same.”

As she spoke, she found to her surprise that she did want to talk about it, that it was something of a relief to put the experience into words. “It felt like I was pulled out of my place in the world and then put somewhere else, and that—I don’t know—like everything else moved around, something sliding into the place I left, while other things shifted to make room for me in the new place. Sort of like a piece of furniture that’s been moved off the showroom floor and into someone’s house, I guess.” She paused before she added in a whisper, “But bigger than that, a lot bigger—and more important.”

“Scary.” The soft-voiced word was a statement, not a question, but Lucky nodded anyway.

“It’s alright to be scared. I was terrified.”

The words surprised a smile out of Lucky. “You? Terrified?”

It was Malachi’s turn to nod. “Oh, yes. I felt like the new place I’d been given had no floor, that the ground had fallen away beneath my feet, and I would never have anything solid on which to stand again.”

“I know the feeling. It gets better?”

One side of Malachi’s mouth lifted in a half-smile. “Eventually.”

“Great. And here I thought you were trying to make me feel better.” As Lucky smiled back at him, she realized that she did feel better. She still felt shaken and sort of like she was walking on eggshells, but for the first time since she’d come to in that big wooden chair, with her knees and temple bruised and aching, she felt like she just might make it through this passage and manage to come out on the other side—wherever that was.

“Did Zeke tell you about—Lilith?”

Malachi nodded but said nothing as he waited for her to continue.

“Who is she? Zeke said Uriel might not have allowed the Striking if he had known she was my—grandmother.” Lucky found it hard to say the word; it felt more than strange to use it for anyone other than G-Ma. Of course, everyone had two of them, but she had only ever known the one. Besides, the term seemed too intimate to refer to a complete stranger,especially one who was not exactly human.

“Lilith is an ancient being—as ancient as Zeke—and, like him, she was once worshipped as a deity. She and Zeke have known one another a very long time, and while I am not privy to the history of their relationship, I believe they were once quite close. I do know that when the ancients divided into Light and Dark, she aligned herself with the Dark. She has been one of Lucifer’s more rebellious subjects. That alone is enough to cause Uriel to refuse the Striking. In addition, there is the question of your mixed blood. The Making ceremony is intended for humans.”

“That’s why Aidan’s afraid the Making will be even more dangerous for me? Because we don’t know what will happen when someone with mixed blood like mine is Made Naphil?”

“Yes,” Malachi nodded. “It is possible that the combination of powers could kill you.”

“But we’ve known it might kill me anyway. Is it really so different than when I was just plain old human Lucky?”

“The Making is always dangerous, the chances of surviving it roughly fifty percent. Your mixed blood is a wild card. It could be that the two powers are like matter and antimatter—the reaction when they mix so strong as to annihilate you, meaning the chance of surviving drops to zero.”

Lucky shivered. “Okay, that doesn’t sound good. Still, dead is dead, right? I was always risking that anyway.”

“Alternatively,” Malachi continued as if she hadn’t spoken, “you could become immensely powerful. And the thought of one of Lilith’s blood having so much power strikes fear into the hearts of many angels—both Light and Dark. That, I’m afraid, means that someone might try to kill you before the Making.”

“My odds of surviving for more than three days don’t seem very high, do they?”

“Not when looked at from a certain angle,” Malachi conceded. “But you have a number of powerful beings who are willing to risk their lives to protect you between now and the Making, and that raises your odds considerably. In addition, while what happens at the Making is largely out of our control, I believe I can help you increase your chances of surviving it.”

Lucky’s heart lifted as she latched on to the slightest possibility of surviving the coming ordeal. “I knew you’d think of something,” she said. “When do we start work?”

“Soon,” he replied, rising to his feet. “But first you need to get something to eat. The Striking depleted your energy, and our work together will be intensive. You need to replenish your reserves before we get started.”

“Yeah, I guess I do,” Lucky said when she found the simple act of standing surprisingly difficult.

“Don’t worry. Your strength will come back once you’ve eaten.”

As he led Lucky to the dining room, Malachi shortened his steps to accommodate her slow ones. If she hadn’t felt so generally not herself, Lucky would have been embarrassed by her weakness—she had no more strength than if she had spent several days fighting the flu. But since nothing else about her felt at all normal, she accepted the weakness as part of the package and walked as slowly as she needed to, pausing every few steps to lean against the wall and rest. Malachi made no comment. He just waited with her until she was ready to go on. He could no doubt have picked her up and carried her to the dining room without even noticing the extra weight, but she was grateful that he didn’t. She assumed it was because he had been through his own Striking that he understood her need to do this on her own—no matter how difficult it was or how long it took.

When they finally reached the dining room, it was to find a feast awaiting them. Zeke had pulled out all the stops. There were salads and meats and pastas, tiny sandwiches and quiches and vegetables of various sorts—and the desserts! Lucky didn’t know if he’d had the food delivered, somehow managed to prepare it himself, or magicked it into existence, and she didn’t care. Looking at the laden table, she realized that she had never felt so hungry in her entire life.

“Ah, there you are!” said Zeke, entering the room through a door that appeared to open into the kitchen. He was carrying a large pitcher. “I was just going to fill the water glasses. Sit, please. Anywhere is fine.”

Happy to oblige, Lucky dropped into the chair nearest her. Malachi took the seat across the table from her.

“Aidan and Kevin should be joining us soon,” Zeke said, as he filled the final glass with water and headed back toward the kitchen.

As he exited through one door, the brothers strolled in through the other. They had been in mid-conversation, but Aidan stopped speaking when he caught sight of Lucky at the table.

Crossing the room in two long strides, he sat down in the chair next to hers and turned toward her, concern filling his blue eyes. “How’re you doing?” he asked.

“I’m weak, but Malachi says that’ll pass once I eat—which I’m definitely going to do,” she said, managing a small smile. “I think I’m hungry enough to eat half of everything on this table.”

Kev chuckled, surveying the table’s contents. “That’s saying something. There’s enough food here for a small army.”

As Kev settled into the seat next to Malachi and across from Aidan, Lucky noticed that he too had discarded his ceremonial clothes and was back in the jeans and green shirt he had been wearing that morning. She was intrigued by how different he seemed when he was in his
Ha-Satan
role. She had to admit she liked the way he looked in his ceremonial garb, but he seemed more comfortable, and more approachable, when he was just being Kev.

Aidan’s touch on her hand drew her attention away from his brother, and she felt a momentary flash of guilt. Turning her hand so she could wrap her fingers around Aidan’s, she gave him what she hoped was a reassuring smile, just as Zeke returned from the kitchen and took his place at the head of the table.

As she ate her fill of the delicious food, Lucky learned that she was the reason for the feast. She had until midnight that night to eat as much as she wanted. After that, she had to fast until the Making was over. Maybe her enormous appetite was a blessing in disguise, since it would enable her to eat more than she normally would have. She had the feeling she’d need every bit of energy she had to make it through the next few days.
If I make it through.
She cut that thought off right there. Such thoughts offered no help, and she didn’t have the time, the energy, or the inclination to dwell on negative possibilities. If she was going to get through this—and she had every intention of doing so—then she had to focus on what she needed to do to succeed.

“Are we starting work after we eat, or do I have some time to take care of some things?” She directed the question at Malachi as she dropped a large dollop of whipped cream on top of a generous slice of berry tart.