Incendiary (The Premonition Series (Volume 4)) (40 page)

When Buns sees
me, she calls
out, “Sweetie!”
Breaking away
from the crowd, she thro
w
s
her ar
ms around me, hugging me tight
.

“Nice bonnet
,” I say, smiling as Brownie hugs
me, too.

“Don’t let the Russians hear you call it that. It’s a
n
ushanka! I
brought one for you from St. P
etersbu
rg
,” she says
, grinning at me and putting the hat on my head.
She drapes
a matching, long coat around me, too
.

“Russia
? Is that
where you went?” I ask
, grateful for the warmth.

“
Da,
c
om
rad
e
.
That was Zee’s idea,” she says
, rolling her eyes. “He wanted us to try out the spas, but he’s in BIG trouble with me, so I think he was relieved that this whole epic battle surfaced
.”
She wave
s
her hand like he lucked out or
something.

“Timely,” I agr
ee
.
“So, nice party
.”

“It’s retro, right?” she asks
me
, looking around at the medieval walls of the city
. “Straight
out of the Dark A
ges
. I love it!
”

“It’s strai
ght out of something,” I reply, smiling as she hands
me a p
i
erogi wrapped in paper.

“I wanted to do fireworks, but w
e
’
re t
rying to keep it quiet
, so we thought less is mo
re—like you’ve been teaching us—
mi
nivans not Ferraris,” she says
.

“
I think that any
secret you had is out
in Torun. After
the night of fighting, I doubt
if
any of the humans will be in the dark about the
existence of angels,” I reply
, before taking a bite of the p
i
erogi she gave me.

“It
’s all taken care of,” Buns says
nonchalantly. “Everything
within the city
is probably back to normal by now.”

“What?” I ask
. “The whole town is a mess. Dead angels everywhere, trashed buildings,
bullet holes,
mortar in the street
s…blood…smashed cars…” I trail
off
,
watching her shaking her head.

“They sent in the Cherubim
,” she says
with an easy smile
.

“I thought those angels
keep track of sins,
” I counter
, watching
her smile gro
w
bigger.

“Some do a
nd some, well, some
clean up the sinners. I’ll bet the Virtues are helping, too,”
she adds
. I glan
ce at Phaedrus who nods
his head.

“The tavern
we were in was
destroyed—” I start to say, but I stop as she shakes
her head
no
. “Reed’s house—” she continues
to shake her head.

“They probably look the same now as th
ey did the moment before you arrived
here,” she replies
.

“How?” I wonder aloud
.

“Divine design,” she replies
.

Frustra
ted by her explanation, I turn
to Brownie. “
How did you
get here?” I ask
.

“I hitched a
ride with Preben,” Brownie says
, pointing her thumb at the
tall, silver-haired Power
I remember from Dominion’s c
hateau. He
once
helped me when I was on trial there for my life.

“Preben!” I exclaim
. H
is tall
frame i
s
covered by white
,
pro
tective arm
or, but his light-brown wings a
re unadorned.

“A
re you responsible for this
?” he asks
with mock sternness.

“Uh, that
all
depends,” I reply
.

“Does it?
On what?
” he asks
with a look of
intrigue
.

“Have my rig
hts changed at all?” I ask
.
I cross
my arms
, remembering that when I was at Dominion he had told me that the only right I had was to
“
pray for death.
”

“Considerably changed—
we touch you and Tau will h
ave our wing
s,” he says
.

“And your heads,” Brownie adds
, reaching out and patt
ing his cheek lightly
.

“Heads will roll!” Buns chimes
in
with glee
.
The
Power
s standing around her all
seem amused rather than offended by her.

Seein
g the way that Preben is looking
at Brownie
, like she’s edible
, I straighten
up,
glancing at Buns. Buns’s
eyebrow ri
se
s as she nods
her head to my question.

“Brownie, how did you hap
pen to find Preben?” I ask
while Br
ownie’s fingertips gently lift
from Preben’s cheek.

“Uh, hmm, well, he kind
a found my safe house,” she says
, her face turning red.

“He did?” I ask, while she plays
with the ends of her platinum-blond hair.

“She mentioned something to me once,
when we were in China together—
af
ter the Gancanagh had
taken you. S
he said she wanted to find you and then she wanted to rest for a while. She said she had a little place in Austria
, in the Alps
…
” he trails
off, when
Brownie
smile
s
.

“So, y
ou looked for i
t?” I ask
. “I’m surprised you didn’t follow Re
ed here when he came through his
portal after Brownie.”

“
I was distracted at that moment,
”
Preben
says
, a small smile on his
lips as Brownie’s b
lush deepens
. “I wasn’t expecting him to be there
. A
fter Reed freed you from Brennus’ lair in Ireland, we
had
lost contact with
all of you,” he replies
ruefully
, his light
gray eyes falling on me
.

“We wen
t to the isl
and,” I mutter
, knowing he
was purp
osefully not told our location.

“Yes,
I know,
” he replies
. “You wa
nted to protect Russell from us—
from Dominion.”

“He has an
aspire
now, a Throne, so you
can’t have him,” I respond quickly
, making sur
e that Preben
knows that Ru
ssell will never be their pawn.

“WH
AT!” Both Brownie and Buns ask
in unison.

Preben’s
brow ri
s
e
s
in surprise
as
he says, “I did not
see that coming.”

“Get in line!
”
Buns and Brownie say
together, their eyes wide.

“
A
spire
aside, i
t is no longer up to us—
what happens to him or
to
you,” he says
.

“
Is Dominion
backing down
?
” I ask,
relieved that we won’t have to scuffle over Russell.

“We are out
ranked,” he replies
.
“The Seraphim have arrived.”

“Ah,” I say
, my face filling with heat. “There’s a new sheriff in town.”

“There is indeed,” he says
, his eyes
lifting from me to
t
he space behind me
.

Feeling
cold wind
, goose
bumps ri
se on
my arms as all the angels stand
up just
a little straighter. Buns leans
toward my ear, saying teasi
ngly, “Sweetie, your dad is smokin’ hot!
”

“Shut up
, Buns,”
I mutter
, and
her eyes dance with laughter at my comment.

“Who’s that with him?
Do you know them, sweetie?
” she asks
, forcing me to glance behind me at the
Seraphim who
just landed amid the Power
s on the parapet
. Tau
,
standing a few yards away
,
is staring at me. He hasn’t changed since the
battle;
blood is crisscrossing his white
,
full-body a
rmor
.

My eyes glide over the dark-haired angel standing next to Tau.
I’m surprised to
find that I do recognize him.
He also attended my high school.
“
That one is
Tau
’s
best friend, Cole Martin. They did everything together in school.
”
My eyes shift from Cole to
the other Seraphim next to Cole
and I forget to breathe. My face flushes hot as I stare into Xavier Reece’s eyes.

Xavier is
tall
and
as
built
as Tau
with golden-blond hair,
but it
’s his eyes that are shocking; o
ne iris
is blue and
the other
is green. Mr. Frei
dmen, our
high school
biology teacher, told us
in class that
it
’s
a genetic anomaly
called h
eterochromia iridium
that
causes one iris to have
a different amount of melanin in it, making it a different color. Kenny called Xavier
a genetic sideshow freak
and told us he once saw a dog with two different colored eyes, too
…
Kenny transferred to a private
school after that.

“What’s wrong, sweetie? Do you know that one, too,”
Buns whispers to me, watching my visceral reaction to Xavier.

I stiffen. “Uhh…Xavier Reece
,” I murmur.

Buns looks from me to Xavier and then back to me again. “Was he your boyfriend or something?” she ask
s
.

“Or something,” I manage to say.

“Ex-boyfriend?” she guesses again.

“That’s more like it,”
I mutter.

“
How ex
are we talking
?”
she asks.

“
The kind where you have to take everything that he e
ver gave you and bury it in the
backyard so there will be nothing to remin
d you of how much you love
d
him,”
I murmur, feeling
almost as bad as
I did on the
night
when I had dug that hole.

“Cheesy
Claremont, how
you’ve grown,” Cole Martin says
as
h
is wings retract
behind him in
a sedate, regal way. The snow still clings
to his black
hair that is
a little longer than he wore it in high school.