Of Wings and Wolves (22 page)

“You understand why I can’t let you open the door for him,” Leliel said, and her voice was gentler than before. She almost looked sympathetic. “He wants to return to the other side so that he can free Adam. For the sake of peace throughout the universe—for the sake of all humankind—we can’t allow it.”

“No,” Summer finally said. That one word rasped out of her, weak and pathetic.

Nash had promised to take her to every city, to fly her toward unreachable stars, to chase the moon. He wasn’t using her to get back to some ancient war.

“I’m not evil, and I’m not trying to hurt you.” Leliel’s eyes softened as she rested a hand on Summer’s shoulder. “Angels are not your enemy. We could be humanity’s greatest allies, if you’ll allow it.”

“I don’t need an ally like you.”

“Maybe not here,” she agreed, “but wait until you find out what’s waiting on the other side.”

That got Summer’s attention. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that I’m going to take you to Earth, you and your family,” Leliel said. “Right now. Today.” Leliel raised her voice. “Abram.”

He emerged from the night. Abram must have been watching from the distance, since he didn’t look shocked to see the state of the destroyed garden.

Summer gaped at him wordlessly. A thousand thoughts passed between them in silence.

“It’s time to finish what I’ve started,” Leliel said.

Summer walked down to the
beach in a haze. She was barely aware of Abram at her side or Leliel’s back leading her down the hill. She couldn’t break free of her thoughts.

Several spotlights and a generator had been abandoned near the rocks. Leliel ignored the equipment and kept walking until she was knee-deep in the surf. Her dress floated around her on the waves.

“Behold,” she said.

She spread her arms wide, and the waters parted before her like a plow driving toward the dark depths of the lake. The waves crested and crashed in white arcs, spraying fine mist into the air. The moist sand underneath dried quickly in the air as the tunnel widened, until there was a path broad enough for three people to pass through side by side.

Summer didn’t realize that she had fallen to her knees until her fingers sank into divots where the tide had been moments before. “What the—?”

“A trick I learned from a friend some years ago,” Leliel said. “It’s a petty thing, but impressive to see.” She extended her hand toward Summer, who stared at it blankly. Hands that could split a lake couldn’t be safe to touch.

It was Abram who finally hauled Summer off of her knees. Her shins were covered in sand.

Leliel strode down the path she had created in the water, trailed by the gauzy train of her dress. Summer let Abram lead her into the lake, numb and disconnected.

Sand slurped between her toes as they walked between walls of dark water. It pulsed around her, swaying gently as the wind blew, and Summer thought that she could see fish darting through the waves.

The cave was a dark pit at the bottom of a rocky outcropping in the center of the lake. Water trickled over the doorway. “Come,” Leliel said, and they stepped inside.

The rumbling of the waters was quieter in the cave, and a tiny waterfall drummed out a rhythm over the doorway. Light began to radiate from Leliel’s back—not full wings, but a dim glow that came from everywhere and nowhere. It illuminated the cave with a wash of gold.

Summer could see petroglyphs at the black wall, much like the kind of images she had seen in her history books in her freshman year of college. They were caveman paintings. Primitive images of man chasing beast. And they were arranged in the shape of an archway. She realized with a jolt that she was looking at the way out of the Haven—a path that would lead back to Earth.

“Wait,” Summer said, grabbing Abram’s arm. “We can’t go through. What about Gran? What about Nash?”

“I didn’t bring you down here to use the door,” Leliel said with a pitying look.

The angel drew back her fist and punched it into the wall.

Stone cracked. A sound like a bell shattering on concrete snapped through Summer’s eardrums, and she clapped her hands over her ears, mouth opening in a silent cry. Beneath her feet, the earth trembled and rocked. Only Abram’s hand kept her upright.

Leliel punched again. This time, she struck a symbol that looked like a buffalo, and all of the markings on the wall trembled at the impact of it.

A whining noise pierced Summer’s skull, and then silenced abruptly.

The angel stepped back looking satisfied.

“There,” she said. “That should prevent anyone from passing through.
Now
we can leave.”

“How? You just broke the door,” Abram said.

“There’s still a fissure between the universes that we can reach. Once no more humans native to Earth are on this side, Nashriel will be incapable of crossing over again. Let’s go.”

Leliel whirled and walked through the cave’s exit without waiting to see if the twins would follow her.

Abram began to follow before Summer stopped him.

“Wait, you don’t understand. We have to get Nash to this thing, this—this fissure. We can’t leave without him!”

“You talked to her, didn’t you?” Abram asked. “You heard what she said that Nash had done. He’s a war criminal. He’s been using you!”

“Can we believe her? Can we trust anything she says?”

“Can you trust Nash?” he snapped.

“I would trust him with my life,” Summer said, hanging tight to her brother’s shirt. “Please, Abe. Listen to me. We can’t leave without him. He’ll be trapped forever.”

He hesitated, but only for a moment. Then he hauled Summer toward the door, and she didn’t have the resolve to stop him. Leliel was waiting for them on the other side, hand extended. There was a distant rushing sound, like a river echoing through a gorge.

The path to the beach wasn’t open anymore. Water rushed toward them, folding together like a deck of cards being shuffled.

Leliel was closing the path to the cave.

The last thing Summer wanted to do was let Leliel drag her away, but she wasn’t given a choice. Abram tightened one hand on her arm, and he gave the other to Leliel. All three of them soared into the air as the water sealed beneath them, crashing closed on the door—and Nash’s last chance for escape.

The balam were intimidating because
of force of numbers, rather than raw strength, and they were good at what they did. They swarmed Nash like a hive of insects. Whenever he turned his attention to one, another would swoop in. Their teeth were like razors. Their fingers were tipped with blades.

But Nash had fury on his side, and desperation. He lost himself in the blur of battle.

Limbs flashed, blood splashed. Screams shattered the night.

Finally, he succeeded in seizing one of the little bastards, and he slammed the balam’s head into a rock. It died in his hands with a tiny wail.

The other two flitted into the air with banshee screams. Nash could only respond with a scream of his own, deeper and louder and a thousand times more pained. Though he couldn’t find the strength for words, they seemed to understand his sentiment.

The survivors flew into the night, leaving him alone with blood on his hands and a corpse at his feet. He struggled to stand.

“Bastards,” he hissed, touching the gouges on his chest and arms. His flesh was in ribbons, but his physical form would restore itself. He had
much
bigger problems at hand.

The balam that he had thought to be dead stirred beneath him. A low moan rumbled from its chest. “Where is she?” Nash asked. “Tell me, and I will spare you.”

A pale, long-fingered hand lifted. The balam pointed one bloody claw toward Lake Ast before going limp.

Nash took to the air, powering through the wind and night toward his house. He flew like a man possessed, and within a few minutes, his house appeared. All he could see was the dancing orange light of flame on the hillside.

His home was on fire.

Nash dropped beside his garden and stared in numb shock at the trees dancing with flame. The entire orchard was consumed. Every branch, every leaf, every blade of grass.

He didn’t care about the garden itself. He really didn’t. All of those hours he had spent maintaining it—they were barely a heartbeat in his long history. But it shattered his heart to lose that little piece of home, like he was watching the last scraps of his past become consumed by fire.

There was a folded piece of paper resting on top of the garden wall. Nash felt like he was moving in slow-motion as he reached out to lift and unfold it.

I have destroyed the door beneath the lake and taken custody of Summer and Abram. I know there is a third in their family. You will bring the last of the Earth natives to me, or I will wring Summer’s neck. Meet me where the sun rises.

Leliel hadn’t signed the note, but he still recognized her handwriting after so many years. No other could have written in the looping symbols of the ethereal language anyway.

He read the note again, and then a third time.

Leliel had Summer and Abram. She wanted Gwyneth. If she had all three of them—if she took all of them back to Earth—then the fissure would not yield to him. Nash would never escape. He would be trapped in the Haven for the rest of time.

Yet if he didn’t surrender Gwyneth to Leliel, Summer would be killed.

Just a couple of weeks earlier, the decision would have been simple. Nash would have gladly surrendered one mortal life or a thousand if it meant that he could escape the confines of the Haven. But now, the very thought of losing Summer was unbearable.

If Leliel killed her…

Nash unfurled his wings and took to the air once more.

eighteen

Flying with Leliel was nothing
like flying with Nash. Summer had felt perfectly safe cradled in his arms, while being with Leliel made her dizzy with nausea. The lake and mountains seemed to spin below her. The fingers encircling her wrist were terrifyingly slender, just a tiny shift in grasp from dropping her and her brother.

A rock from the lake’s shore had been stuck to the bottom of Summer’s foot, and she felt it peel away from her skin. It spun through the air, turned tiny, and then disappeared. She watched it tumble with a rising sense of panic.

Summer would have a long time to regret her fall before she hit.

Cold air whipped over her face, and her shoulder ached as Leliel flapped harder, drawing them through the clouds. The world around them turned to a foggy haze. Then they broke through, and the stars were waiting for them on the other side. Their song felt discordant tonight, out of tune, as though disturbed by Leliel’s arrival.

The navy blue sky began to lighten. By the time the sun faded into view, it felt like Summer’s shoulder was going to wrench free of its socket.

And then the sun appeared.

It was so much smaller than Summer expected—no more than a pinpoint of brilliant light and heat. But it was so bright she could barely look at it without wincing.

They soared toward it. As they approached, the air looked like it rippled around them, swirling and fragmenting. The clouds trembled. A single, chiming note grew in volume, louder than the stars.

Summer realized belatedly that the sun wasn’t like the stars—just a mere illusion suspended in the sky.
It’s the fissure!

Leliel released her wrist.

Fear rushed through her stomach in the moment of weightlessness, but Summer didn’t even get a chance to scream before her knees impacted something hard. She landed face-down on cobblestone.

Cobblestone?

Pushing herself onto her hands and knees, she stared at the ground surrounding her. It looked like an ancient road built of white stone. But it was no more than a fragment, barely half of a city block suspended in midair, and the clouds clung to it like a low fog. The angel had somehow summoned a platform for them to stand on.

Abram didn’t look surprised at all. He helped her stand.

“What is this?” Summer asked, shading her eyes from the harsh light of the sun. Her knees were shaking.

Leliel dropped beside them gracefully and folded her wings behind her. Feathers swirled around her feet. “Think of it as a scaffold,” she said. “A builder must stand somewhere when birthing her universe.”

“And that’s the fissure,” Abram said, lifting a hand to block out the light of the tiny, furious sun.

“That’s the fissure,” Leliel confirmed.

It seemed cruelly ironic for the way out to have been hiding in plain sight all these years. Abram took a step toward it, but Summer clung to his arm, trying to hold him back. They couldn’t go through. Not yet.

“You’ll like it on the other side,” Leliel said with a cool smile. She was either oblivious to Summer’s panic, or she simply didn’t care. “It’s much more interesting on Earth than it is here. Of all my creations, I must say, this Haven is the least inspired of them all.”

A buzzing noise filled the air, and a pair of balam soared toward them, grasping one another’s hands as they careened through the clouds. Their childlike faces were filled with fear.

The instant they landed on the edge of the platform, they began to chatter in shrieks. Abram tensed underneath Summer’s fingers, and his hand crept toward the small of his back. Judging by the smell of gunpowder, he was hiding a gun underneath his tuxedo jacket.

“What do you mean?” Leliel asked, her sharp gaze focused on the balam. They shrieked again, and she said, “Then he’ll be here soon. Well enough. I’m ready to end this.”

Before Abram could draw his firearm, the platform trembled under Summer’s feet. Another gibborim stepped onto the edge. Summer had almost forgotten how hideous they were. How could a Heaven that produced something as wonderful as Nash make creatures like
that
?

Abram drew a handgun from the small of his back. “Get behind me, Summer,” he said, lifting the pistol.

Leliel pushed his arms down. “Don’t shoot. They won’t hurt you.”

“But you said that Nash sent them to kill us,” Abram said.