A Gift of Wings (48 page)

“Naphil,” Aidan answered, from his seat on the couch.

Lucky shrugged. “I guess so,” she said. “I don’t feel like I have any extra-special powers or anything yet, but since I don’t seem to be poisoned by whatever that sword left in me anymore, something must have worked.” Smiling, she added as an afterthought, “Oh, and I now have some serious tats on my back.”

When Aidan lifted a quizzical eyebrow, she raised her hands in defense. “Not that I recommend going through a Making to get them. I’m just saying, from the quick glimpse I got, they look pretty cool. Are you ready to go?” Turning to Mo, she added, “Sorry to rush, but, well, ….”

“I know,” Mo said quietly. “Josh.”

Lucky swallowed. “Yeah. We can give you a ride home, though, if you want.”

“Already taken care of,” Kev said, striding into the room. “I’ll drop Mo off and make sure the wards on her apartment are still strong—just in case. Then I’ll catch up to you at Aidan’s.”

Lucky gave Mo a quick squeeze. “Thank you for being here. It means a lot to me. We’ll talk soon, I promise. Right now, I just need to help Josh—and then crash. I think worrying about him is all that’s keeping me moving at the moment.”

“I understand,” Mo said, returning the hug. “Go do what you gotta do. Kev will get me home—and Dad will be there. Even asleep, he’ll be more company than I’ve had for the last several hours.” She made a face. “Sorry, I don’t mean to complain. It was just hard being here alone, you know, when you were all, well, wherever you all were.”

“Trust me, Mo,” Aidan said. “You wouldn’t have wanted to see it. I’m sort of expecting to have nightmares myself.”

“Aaannnd on that cheery note,” Kev interposed, saving Lucky from a response she couldn’t even begin to formulate. “Mo, you got all your things? You live close enough even my Jeep should be able to get you there safely.”

On her way out the door, Lucky followed Kev’s lead. “Just make sure you sit in the front, Mo. The back seat has aspirations of becoming the Hotel California.”

***

Throughout the drive to Aidan’s building—even with him exceeding the speed limit whenever possible—and the tiresome follow-up activities of parking the car, waiting for the elevator, and then riding the elevator all the way up to his floor, Lucky wished they could move more quickly.

Once through the door though, she found her steps unaccountably slowing as she made her way toward the guest room where her cousin lay. She wanted to help him, but she had to admit she was feeling pretty squeamish about what she was supposed to do. Plus, she had her doubts about its efficacy. Except for her sudden healing, she didn’t feel all that different. Could her blood truly now have special properties that would somehow save Josh from becoming—what had Aidan called it?—a “soul sucker”? And what if it didn’t? She shuddered at the thought.

As if sensing her unease, Aidan rested a hand on her shoulder and gave it a brief squeeze. She took a deep breath and, steeling herself for what lay ahead, stepped into the guest room. Josh looked as he had before, encased in ribbons of blue-green light. The armchair in which Lucky had curled when she waited with Josh when he’d first been attacked was pulled close to the bed, and Ben was seated in it, angled toward the bed, one hand resting on the covers just outside the blue-green light rings, as close to Josh’s hand as he could get. Sambethe and Zeke stood on the far side of the bed, looking down at Josh, as they exchanged whispered words. Malachi, as usual, was propped against the windowsill.

At Lucky’s entrance, Sambethe looked up. “Ah, Lucky, our newly Made Naphil. How quickly you must move from one ordeal to another. Come here, please, and I will prepare you for this one.”

Zeke stepped away from Sambethe to make room for Lucky beside the oracle, but he remained close.

“Push up your sleeve,” directed Sambethe.

Lucky did as requested, pushing the sleeve of Aidan’s over-large sweater up to her elbow, and then held her bare arm toward Sambethe. The oracle swabbed Lucky’s skin, just as if she were getting blood drawn in a hospital, except that the area swabbed was around her wrist instead of her inner elbow. And it wasn’t a needle Sambethe withdrew from her bag of supplies but rather a gleaming silver blade. Lucky couldn’t hold back a gasp.

“The cut will be shallow,” said Sambethe. “A few drops should suffice. As soon as Ezekiel releases your cousin from the stasis, I will make the cut. Are you ready?”

Lucky swallowed and nodded. “Yes.”

“Good.” Sambethe held Lucky’s arm steady with her left hand, while she clasped the gleaming blade in her right. “Ezekiel.”

Lucky didn’t see what Zeke did to remove the stasis. She kept her eyes locked on Josh’s face. She needed to stay focused on him, to think about not what she was doing, but why she was doing it. As the last of the blue bands faded away and Josh began to open his eyes, she felt a coolness against her inner wrist, followed by a flash of pain. Sambethe had cut her with the blade.

When Josh’s eyes opened, Lucky gasped and jerked back. She couldn’t help herself. They were red and feral, just as they had appeared in the dream—or vision or whatever it was—she’d had when she was lost in the darkness. And what gazed out of them bore little resemblance to her gentle best fam.

“The process is accelerating.” Zeke’s voice whipped through the room with the force of a shockwave. “A few drops will not be enough.”

Lucky cried out as the blade sliced her wrist again, deeper this time, and she half-fell onto the bed when Sambethe jerked her arm toward her cousin’s mouth. After shifting into a more stable position, Lucky glanced at her arm and almost passed out. Blood ran from the cut in her wrist down over her hand, glazing it with red. Again she was reminded of her dream-vision. As Josh’s mouth fastened on the wound, she curled her bloody hand up over his cheek and forced herself to look into those frighteningly foreign red eyes. She held her position, eyes locked on Josh’s, hearing only the pounding of her own heartbeat and feeling the pulse of the blood at her wrist and the sucking pull as he drew the fluid into his mouth. She didn’t move or pull away, just held still until the feral red disappeared, and the eyes she looked into were the familiar warm brown ones she’d known all her life.

It was Josh who drew back, his face filled with shock and confusion. Scrambling up to a seated position, he grabbed Lucky’s bleeding arm and gasped raggedly, “God, Lucky, what have I done?”

“It’s okay,” she said, resting her other hand against his cheek before Sambethe pulled her away to clean and bandage her arm.

While the oracle took care of her wound, Lucky looked around the room. Ben was climbing onto the bed with Josh and pulling her cousin into his arms. Malachi was slipping out the door. Kev, who had joined them at some point, was standing behind Aidan and disengaging restraining hands from his brother’s upper arms. As soon as he was free, Aidan rushed toward her. He stopped short of throwing his arms around her, but his desire to do so was obvious.

“Are you okay?” he breathed.

Unable to speak, Lucky just nodded and squeezed his fingers with her free hand.

When Sambethe finished bandaging her wrist, Lucky moved back to the bed, where Josh and Ben now sat side by side. Ben had one arm around her cousin, and his other hand was linked in one of Josh’s.

“Thank you,” Ben said to Lucky, then after a brief pause, “Oh, and—congratulations—on the Making.”

“Which made this possible,” Lucky finished. “Thanks—I guess.”

Josh reached out a shaky hand and caught Lucky’s bandaged arm. After staring at the bandages in silence, he looked up at her with haunted eyes. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to…. You’re my little cousin. I’m supposed to take care of you, not hurt you.”

Lucky sat on the edge of the bed, facing toward him. “It wasn’t your fault. None of it was your fault. I put you in danger in the first place. I’m the one who’s sorry.”

Slipping out of Ben’s embrace, Josh pulled her into a tight hug. When he released her to settle back against the headboard, he once again took hold of her hand. “Ben gave me a seriously abridged version of what happened.”

“Yeah,” Ben inserted. “It went something like, ‘You got poisoned and were going to die and turn into a soul-sucking monster, but Lucky let herself be made half-angel so she could give you her blood and heal you.’”

“Yep, that was pretty much it,” Josh agreed. “Sad lack of detail. I have lots of questions for you—later. Now, well, ‘thanks’ somehow seems inadequate, but—thanks—for doing what you did, going through what you did, letting me….” He stopped, growing pale. “God, just the thought…. I am
so
sorry that you had to…. Anyway,
thank you
.”

“Hey,” Lucky said, giving his fingers a squeeze. “What are best fams for?”

***

Hoping that Malachi hadn’t yet left, Lucky slipped out of the overfilled guest room and hurried down the hall, her boots clicking on the marble tile. She breathed a sigh of relief when she saw the object of her thoughts silhouetted in front of the wall of windows, staring out at the city far below. Slowing her steps, she moved to join him. For several moments, they both gazed out at the city lights in silence.

“So, it worked, I guess,” Lucky said, her voice subdued.

Malachi neither spoke nor moved, but Lucky did not take his non-response to mean a lack of interest or a refusal to engage. She recognized it for what it was: an opening, a kind of space into which she could speak until she found what it was she wanted to say.

“Remember, after the Striking, when I told you I felt like I’d been pulled out of my place in the world and put somewhere else? Well, I still feel like that. Only now, I feel like I’ve been emptied out too. It’s like I not only don’t know
where
I am, I don’t even know
who
I am anymore. Does that make any sense?”

Malachi remained a tall, silent presence at her side.

“I don’t know what to do. I mean, I knew I had to help Josh, but now that I’ve done that—I don’t know. I’m not
me
anymore, Malachi. I don’t know who
I
am. What do I do now?”

As the silence stretched, Lucky thought maybe Malachi wasn’t going to talk to her after all, but he finally spoke, his deep voice as quiet as hers. “Now, you rest. You don’t have to
do
anything. Tomorrow, you will do—whatever you do. Do not try to force yourself into doing or being anything in particular. Just wait and rest and let the work of the Making reveal itself as it will. Do not fear emptiness. It is the dwelling place of possibility. Nothing can be added to a vessel that is already full.”

It was Lucky’s turn to stare silently out the window, contemplating the city lights below and the dark depths of Lake Michigan beyond.

After a time, she sighed. “I must be getting used to your cryptic ways, because I think that might actually make sense—especially the part about resting.” She stood beside Malachi for another minute or so, watching the lights of the tiny cars going up and down Lake Shore Drive, like blood flowing through the city’s veins. Then, turning away from the window, she wandered over to the couch and, after pulling off her boots, curled up on one end, tucking a throw pillow under her head. She was asleep within seconds.

***

Ben and Josh were the last to leave. Aidan had invited them both to stay, fearing that Josh might still be feeling weak. But Josh had insisted that he wanted to go home, and Ben had been more than ready to take him. Aidan thought about carrying Lucky to the bedroom, but he didn’t want to risk waking her. Instead, he just covered her with a blanket, before he too got ready for bed. The sky was still dark, but it wouldn’t be long before it began to lighten. It had been a long night, and he could use some sleep himself.

Before removing his jeans, he checked his pockets, and his fingers closed around the locket Lilith had given him. He’d forgotten all about it—not that he’d had an opportunity to give it to Lucky anyway. He frowned as the chain slipped from his fingers and onto the dresser, wondering once again how the object had come into Lilith’s possession.

CHAPTER 32

Lucky cried out, jolting herself awake. She pushed herself up to sitting, hoping she hadn’t been loud enough to awaken Aidan. Running a shaky hand through her hair as her heartbeat slowed to normal, she recalled the dream. She had been standing on the roof of Aidan’s building looking down on the moving lights that brightened the night. The wind had buffeted her the way it had that night Aidan had flown her back to Hyde Park, and she had been exhilarated by it. Giddy with the wind, with the lifeblood of the city flowing and circulating around her, and with her own newly born Naphil powers, she had leapt out into the air, spreading her wings…. But she had no wings, and she wasn’t flying but falling, faster and faster, plummeting toward certain death. Her heart began to race again just remembering.

She pushed the blanket that was covering her aside, and the bandage on her wrist caught her eye. She unwound it to find that the wound made by Sambethe’s silver knife was healed; her wrist bore not even the faintest of scars. Without the evidence of the blood-stained bandage, she might have believed she had never been wounded. Apparently, her new status as Naphil had given her some extra abilities after all.