Faith (Soul Savers Book 7) (15 page)

But then the wind died
down, and the dark sea rapidly came closer, the foam on the white
caps growing as I plummeted toward them.

“Shit!” I
screamed. I hadn’t been flying after all. I’d only been
catching and drifting on the wind like a kite or a discarded plastic
bag.

Before I crashed into
the freezing water, I pulled myself more upright, tried to bank left
and then right, and those motions worked, but now I was headed
face-first for the pile of snow-dusted boulders. With another twist
of my body to the right, I swerved around the island, the tips of my
wings scraping against the rough edges of the rocks. As I tried to
turn back around to attempt a landing, another wind gust caught me,
and sent me tumbling ass-over-end in the air, rolling like a
tumbleweed until I smashed into the rocks. Any birds in the sky had
certainly joined the Angels in their resounding guffaws. The earlier
list of profanity was nothing compared to what came out now.

“Why do I have
these stupid, useless, piece-of-shit things anyway?” I muttered
as I climbed to the top of the mound, hid the worthless things, and
slid through the opening to drop to the floor inside. My bloody lip
and scraped up palms and knees were already healing, but my ego
wasn’t. I was done for the day. Maybe forever. Since amputating
the things sounded quite painful, I wondered what would happen if I
just kept them hidden forever. Nobody would need to know they even
existed. Assuming I ever saw anyone again.

“Guess what,
Tristan?” I snapped as I walked over to his unconscious body on
the stone slab. “Chalk up one more slash under the Failure
column for me. Not surprising, is it?”

I stopped by his side
and sighed as I picked up his hand. My anger immediately deflated,
pooling into sorrow from seeing him like this. My imagination didn’t
have to work too hard to picture him in Hell, battling the Demons and
probably Satan, too. At least, I hoped he was still fighting. I just
wished he would hurry up and win and return to where he belonged—with
me.

“Please come back
to me, baby,” I whispered against the lump in my throat.

I stared at him for a
long moment, but of course, he remained motionless. My stomach
growled and ached with hunger, but I had to force down one of the
wrapped little cakes Stacey had left, my throat too tight to swallow.
Then I climbed up on the slab, sat next to Tristan, pulled my knees
up under my chin, and stared into the darkness, feeling sorry for
myself. It didn’t take long for tears to moisten my cheeks as I
replayed all of my failures, questioning what I could have done
differently. My heart felt small and heavy as I thought about Dorian
and how I hadn’t done enough to keep him with the Amadis, and
then it broke when my mind moved on to Tristan fighting the Demons in
Hell and how I’d left him there. I was officially the world’s
shittiest mom and wife. Nobody could argue that. Because really, who
else would let their family end up in Hell?
I
was the one who
belonged there. Not them. My self-pity quickly spiraled into a dark
depression.

After an unknown amount
of time passed, I lay down and curled up next to Tristan, wishing I
could pull on his strength and the calming effect he always had on
me. But this body was soulless. He wasn’t really here with me.
Even his unique scent was fading. I grasped his hand again to bring
it to my lips and frowned. It felt cooler than it had before. Pushing
myself up, I studied his face in the darkness. He looked the same,
although his skin seemed paler than it had been.

By the time the dark
gray light shone through the opening above many hours later, the
corners of his lips were blue.

“Oh, no!”

I grabbed his wrist
between my finger and thumb while holding my other hand over his
mouth. My own heart and lungs stopped as I focused on feeling for
signs of life. His pulse and breaths still came steadily, although
disturbingly slow.

“They said the
supernaturals weren’t affected by the radiation,” I told
him as my hand slipped under his neck, feeling the smooth rocks
pressing into his nape. “The faerie stones are still here, so
they should be—” My heart stuttered as something occurred
to me. “Are they not working anymore because the faeries are …
gone? Is that what’s wrong with you?”

My stomach tilted at
this possibility. I couldn’t lose him! I slid my hand under my
corset and fingered the stone embedded in my chest, which was like a
piece of his heart, connecting us. It warmed slightly, as did his
skin under my other palm. But not as much as usual.

“Stay with me,
Tristan. Don’t give up.” I pushed the thought, the
feeling
to him, hoping he felt me. Hoping it would make a
difference.

As soon as my hand
pulled away from the stone, his skin cooled again. Was he not able to
regulate his temperature without his soul? Did his body retain
any
of its supernatural powers? The more I thought about that question,
the more concern grew to worry and then to full-blown anxiety. And
then another thought took my breath.
What if his body is just a
normal body without his soul in it?
Taking him out into the world
with all of the poison from the bombs could kill him. But as his face
grew paler while the short span of daylight passed, I knew that
staying here would definitely kill him.

Lying on top of him,
trying to warm him with my own body heat, I pressed my forehead to
his. “I need to save your soul and that’s not happening
as long as we’re here.”

With renewed
commitment, I climbed outside, brought my wings out of hiding, and
tried flying again, not caring that it was dark or that snow and ice
pelted against my skin. I wasn’t going to give up. I
was
going to save my husband and then my son, no matter what it took.
Hours passed. Cuts and bruises covered my body from all of the crash
landings I made into the rocks. But finally, after a couple hundred
attempts, I flew. And then I landed. Neither was graceful, and I
honestly wasn’t sure I could do a repeat performance, but I’d
achieved the basics.

With a small sense of
accomplishment, I dropped down to check on Tristan before practicing
some more, my feet crunching on the wrappers of the cakes that were
long gone now. He looked worse than he had before. Faint purple
half-moons showed under his eyes. His normally luscious lips were
chapped and turning bluer. His hands were cool, and his fingertips
downright cold. I didn’t know how much longer he could last. At
least if I could get him somewhere warm, his body might have a better
chance of surviving until I could bring his soul back.

We needed to go now.

I picked up the two
blue faerie stones and tucked them between my breasts. Standing next
to the slab, I slid my arms under Tristan, knowing I could easily
lift his weight, even as big and muscular as he was. But being able
to lift the weight and actually being able to hold him were two
different stories. He was so much bigger than my little body, and
while his weight wasn’t an issue in itself, all of the other
physics were. The only way I could manage to hold him tight enough to
fly with him was to loop my arms around him from behind and lock my
fingers together over his chest, but then his legs dragged on the
ground. Not a problem once we were in flight, but landing would be an
issue.

And then I looked up
toward the opening and realized I had another problem. While I could
squeak out of it, I couldn’t possibly get Tristan through.

“Damn it!”
I shouted.

After carefully laying
him back down, I aimed my hand at the opening and blasted electricity
at the rocks around it. A few pieces crumbled away, but mostly only
dust rained down. I clambered up the wall and while hanging onto the
opening with one hand, I pushed and pulled at a rock with the other,
using all of my strength. It moved about two inches outward, then
stopped. I poked my head through the hole and saw why. One of the
larger boulders blocked it. So I climbed out and tried to move it,
but other boulders, some the size of small cars, kept it in place. As
I studied what I’d called a mound of rocks before, I saw that
they were actually very carefully arranged and packed together to
create the cavern without collapsing in on it. And I had a feeling
Normans had nothing to do with the structure. Something supernatural
probably bound the rocks together.

Awesome
.

I had no choice but to
flash us. I just didn’t know where to go.

“I’ll be
back in a bit, Tristan,” I called down through the hole, as if
he could hear me. And then, because I apparently had a morbid sense
of humor, I added, “Don’t go anywhere, okay?”

Using newly found
takeoff skills, I launched into the air and flew. I tried to imagine
myself looking like a graceful Angel from a beautiful painting, but
in reality I knew I looked more like a poorly made paper airplane
wobbling through the air. Every shift in wind current sent me
sideways for a moment before I could compensate for it. One big gust
threw me into a tailspin that I barely recovered from before crashing
into the sea. But eventually, I became accustomed to these strange
things on my back and improved my control. I was still no beautiful
bird, but I managed to do well enough where I could concentrate less
on keeping myself from falling into the water and more on evaluating
my surroundings.

The wind remained
unforgiving and the air cold. Snow and ice blew sideways at times.
The cloud cover never dissipated, blocking out any moonlight. The
ocean below was black and heaving, throwing itself on a few other
rock islands that were much smaller than ours. I flew for a good
twenty or thirty minutes until finally I saw land. A sheer-faced
cliff covered in snow faced the ocean, and as far as I could see,
snowy land stretched beyond it. I still had no idea where we were,
but it was a starting point. From there, I flew my attempt at a
circle, as rough as it was, around our tiny spot in the sea, but
found no other place to go.

“Well, at least
we have something.”

When I returned to the
cave, Tristan’s body was ice cold.

“Oh,
no,” I gasped as I pressed my hands against Tristan’s
frozen face. “What—?”

Oh, crap
. I
pulled the faerie stones out of my corset and stared at them before
closing my eyes and cussing myself out. What had I done? In my rush
to leave, I’d forgotten to leave them behind to keep Tristan’s
body protected. Hot tears burned my cheeks as I pressed the stones
against his chest.

“Stay with me,
Tristan. Please, baby. Stay with me.”

I lay on top of him,
trying to share my warmth and energy, and it was like lying on a
popsicle. After creating a bubble of Amadis power within me, I pushed
it out of my body to engulf him in the warm goodness. I lifted my
head to watch him as moments that felt like lifetimes passed and
panic began to set in. Finally, a little color returned to his skin.
I blew out a breath I’d been holding forever and collapsed on
top of him, wrapping my arms around his shoulders as best as I could.

“I’m so
sorry,” I cried. “I promised to take care of you, and I
will. But I have to try something. I have to try to flash us out of
here.”

Time had run out, and I
had no other choice. After putting the faerie stones in the inside
pocket of his leather jacket, I moved to sit behind his head, spread
my legs around him, and slid my arms under his and around his chest.
I heaved him upward, into my lap. Then I held on as tight as I could,
hoped we wouldn’t be snagged in a trap, and flashed.

We appeared on top of
the snowy cliff, and a breath of relief rushed out of me.

Based on where we’d
been before Debbie and Stacey rescued us—Washington, D.C.—and
where their cottage was—York, England—I decided to take a
guess that we were somewhere in the North Atlantic Ocean. Maybe
Iceland? Greenland? I groaned with frustration, debating whether
flashing here had been a big mistake, because I didn’t have a
destination for where to go next. My relief had been short-lived.

When I pressed my cheek
against Tristan’s cold one, though, I knew I’d had no
choice. And I had to keep going.

With my arms tight
around his chest, I lifted into the air to gain a bird’s eye
view of our surroundings. For as far as I could see with my keen
eyes, I saw no towns or cities or even military installations. My
telepathy found no mind signatures anywhere around, even as I began
to fly over the top of the cliff and inland. Gray lines appeared in
the snow, confusing me at first, but as I came closer, I realized
they were evergreen trees. Except there was no green to them anymore.
Nor brown, for that matter. Only gray, bare trunks rising from the
ground with spindly branches naked of any needles.