Wings of Darkness: Book 1 of The Immortal Sorrows Series (14 page)

      I focused so hard on that
leaf, I nearly went cross-eyed.  The stupid thing just lay there, mocking
me.  Heat crawled up my throat, into my face, and prickled along my
scalp.  “Breathe, Isabel.  This should not be painful.  It is as
easy and natural as the beat of your heart.”  Yeah, well, if he only knew
it, my heart was beating like a drum.  Then I realized that he could probably
hear it.  Damn.

     I huffed out a breath. “Easy for
you, maybe, but I’m about to give myself an aneurysm, and the stupid thing
isn’t moving.”  Asher just chuckled at my puny effort.  

    “Isabel Maitland!  What in the world
do you think you are doing, young lady?!”  I jumped about a foot straight
up in the air, I’m sure.  My dad rounded the corner of the house all red
in the face and hands in the air.  For a split second I thought he’d seen
Asher.  Asher, for his part, did a really poor job at hiding the smirk on
his face.  He’d seen me jump, and quickly hide my hands behind my
back.  I felt like a six year old with her hand caught in the cookie jar.
Which was stupid.  I wasn’t doing anything wrong.  At least, not that
my dad could tell.

     I straightened up with as much
dignity as I could manage. It wasn’t much.  “Um, uh, hey, Dad. 
What’s the matter?”  I dropped the leaf I’d been trying to move with the
power of my pitiful little mind and picked up my rake.  I held it in front
of me in a white-knuckled grip.

     My dad gestured to the rake. “What
is this, young lady?”

     I had to stop myself from looking
up at Asher for a possible answer.  He just stood there, solid as a rock,
trying hard not to laugh in my face. “Well,” I said carefully, “this would be a
rake.”

     I got the parental stink eye. 
The one that promised dire consequences for my little bit of teenaged,
smart-assed sass.  “I know what it is.  Why are you out here raking
leaves?  You should be resting.”  Funny how he thought raking leaves
would be overwhelming to my delicate constitution, when he’d been perfectly ok
with me doing all the grocery shopping, earlier.  I wondered how he’d take
it if I told him I was completely healed up.  That probably wouldn’t end
well for me.  I’d learned a long time ago to pick and choose my battles
with my father.  He was even more stubborn than I was, most of the time.

     I dropped my chin, and let my hair
cover my face a little. “Sorry, Dad.  I was feeling better.”  It
wasn’t a total lie.

     His eyes softened and his shoulders
slumped.  “I’m sorry I had a meltdown on you, Izzy.  I just don’t
want you to hurt yourself.”  He reached out and pulled me in for an
unexpected hug.  He’d been hugging me a lot lately.  Normally this
would have been awkward.  In front of someone, Asher, for instance, it was
kind of mortifying.   I squirmed out of his embrace, and gave him a
weak smile.

     Asher must have taken pity on me,
because he walked up next to my father and lightly touched his shoulder. 
Immediately, all the blood drained from my dad’s face. His lips quivered and
his eyes darted.  Briskly, he rubbed his hands together.  “Are you
ok, Dad?”

     “Yeah, I think someone just stepped
over my grave.  Just got a little chill.”  I dared a quick glance at
Asher.  He gave me a slow grin and I swear he winked at me. 

***

     “That is much better, but do it
again, and faster this time.”

     I had sweat pouring down the crack
of my ass, and Asher wanted me to punch him again.  Fine; I’d be glad
to.  I balled up my fist and hit his hand as hard as I could, and hoped it
stung, at least a little bit.  It would serve him right for making me do
this stupid crap, in the first place. 

     Asher wanted me to know some basic
self-defense moves.  He seemed awfully paranoid about my safety, and if I
had any sense, I probably would have been, too.  There was no sign of the
boogie man lurking about.  Unless you counted
him
, of course.  In that case, the
boogie man was definitely lurking about, and he was kind of bossy.

     I tried to tell him that I’d picked
some stuff up from Gwen, over the years, but he insisted on teaching me a few
things, anyway.  Honestly, most of the moves Gwen taught me were pretty
under-handed, but I bet they’d work just fine in a pinch.  Hopefully, I
wouldn’t need to know any of it. I’m not much of a fighter, and I hate
confrontation; that was Gwen’s department, not mine.  The edgiest thing about
me is the highlights in my hair.

     Oh, well, this was better than
going around trying to get random items to move with the power of my
mind.  I wasn’t having much luck with that, though I practiced
often.  I figured it was like homework; if I wanted to get good at it I
had to keep practicing till it clicked.  Once in a while I could get a paper to
lift off the table an inch or so, but it was nothing super impressive. Most of
the time, I’d just get frustrated and develop a headache, but I kept trying,
anyway.  Asher spent a lot of his spare time trying to help me learn to
control my Will.  It was nice of him to help me, but secretly, I wondered
if I might be hopeless.  I just wasn’t
getting
it. And I wasn’t getting the whole self-defense thing, either, though he did
keep trying with that, too.  I had to give him credit for that.

     We were in my basement, or as my
dad lovingly referred to it, the home gym.  It was a pretty loose
description, in my opinion.  It still had the original light-colored, wood
paneling and orange shag rug from nineteen-seventy something that came with the
house when it was new.  We had a mostly unused treadmill in the corner, a
second-hand weight bench Dad had found at a yard sale, and a couple of fitness
DVD’s just waiting for someone to blow the dust bunnies off of them and start
Jazzercising.  This was the most use our home gym had seen in a couple of
years, and the air was kind of musty down there.

     “Do it again.  Harder,” Asher
barked out orders as he held his hands up for me to punch.  It didn’t
matter how much fun he was to look at, he was turning into a pain in my ass.  A
bossy
pain in
my ass.  I felt like “Eye of the Tiger,” should be playing in the background. 

     “My arms are about to fall off,” I
whined.  “I’m not training for a fight, dammit.”

     His eyebrow quirked up.  “As a matter of fact, you
are, and you must be prepared.  Now, do it again, if you please.”

     If Gwen were there, she’d have told
me to kick him in the nuts and be done with it.  It was dirty, but as far
as self-defense moves go, it worked beautifully.  “Look, I’m tired. 
We’ve been at this for over an hour, and frankly, I don’t see the point. 
Even if something comes at me, it’s not gonna stop to let me hit it.”

     Asher dropped his hands back down
to his sides.  “You’re right.  This may not be the best way to teach
you, but I want you to be prepared, and I need to know how strong you are.”

     “Not very, but I could’ve told you
that without the boxing lessons.”  My arms were sore, my knuckles stung,
and the t-shirt I wore was stuck to me; I just felt icky all over.  I
probably had pit stains, and I was pretty sure that I smelled less-than-fresh.

     “No, you’re much stronger than I
thought you would be, but still not strong enough to defend yourself against
anything other than a human.”  Good to know.  He eyed me up and down,
and I grew suddenly self-conscious.  “Turn around so that your back is
facing me.”  Yeah, right! 

     “Why?” I was instantly
suspicious.  I flexed my hands, tried to work some of the stiffness out of
them.  Hitting him was like hitting stone; it hurt like hell and it was
totally pointless.

     “Because I asked so nicely,” he
murmured.  I felt a blush creeping up my throat, and avoided looking
directly at his eyes.  If he noticed the pink staining my cheeks, I hoped
he would just think it was from the exercise, and not some random, impure
thought I might be having about him. 

     “Not nicely enough.  Whatever
you have in mind, I’m probably not gonna like it, so I think I’ll just stay as
is, if you don’t mind.”

     Asher’s groan was almost a growl.
Good.  I was glad that I wasn’t the only one who was frustrated. “You are
the most stubborn girl.” He took a deep breath, let it out slowly.  I
definitely did not ogle him when his shirt pulled taut across his chest. 
“Do you trust me?” 

     “Hunh?”  He repeated the
question, since clearly I wasn’t paying attention.

    Did I trust him?  Mostly.  Sort
of.  “Of course I do, don’t be silly.”  It was
me
that I didn’t trust.

     “Then, please turn around.”  I
did it, but I caught myself holding my breath as he came directly up behind
me.  He was invading my personal space, and I kind of liked it.  “The
elbow is the strongest part of your body.  If someone grabs you from
behind, use it.” His hand slipped down my shoulder to my elbow.  I
flinched a little, but probably not for the reason he thought. “Bring it up and
back; aim for my face.”

     “Are you crazy?  I don’t want
to hurt you.” 

     His chuckle was warm, and
rich.  “You cannot hurt me.  Aim high; you are very small.” He was
laughing at me.  Seriously.

     “Fine, but you asked for it.” 
I took a deep breath and threw my body weight behind it when I threw the elbow
at his face.  I didn’t really expect to connect, and was startled when I
felt my arm smack into flesh.  “Oh crap, are you ok?”  I turned
around, panicked that I really might have hurt him.  He’d caught my elbow
in his hand, and not with his nose like I’d so stupidly thought.  And he
was
really
laughing at me now.  He gave my arm a gentle squeeze as he let it go.

     “The look on your face is
priceless.”  The grey in his eyes lightened to almost blue when he was
happy. Not that I noticed.  “You really thought you hurt me.”

     “Yeah, silly me,” I bit out through
my teeth.

     “Your concern is touching, but I
think I will be alright.”  The corners of his mouth remained curled up,
and I really did think about just punching him in the nuts to get this little
lesson over faster. 

     The restaurant was really busy, for
it being a week night.  I hadn’t been in since the wreck, but I was still
a little sore from sparring with Asher, and too lazy to cook.  It seemed
like a good time to visit.    

     Sylvia, the hostess, saw me slip in
the back and squealed, startling at least a couple of customers. 
Hopefully, they didn’t think she acted like that all the time. I grinned as she
rushed over and immediately threw her arms around me.  I was glad to see
her, too. I hugged her quickly, before ducking out of her arms. 

     “I’m just so happy to see
you!”  She snagged a menu on our way past her podium, and hustled me over
to a quiet booth towards the back of the restaurant.  “Here, Hon, sit
yourself down and let me feed you something.”  She dropped into the seat
across from me.  “How’ve you been, Sweet Pea?”

     “I’m good.  How have you
been?”

     “The usual,” she waved a hand
towards the kitchen, “mostly I play referee between your daddy and
Claude.  I swear sometimes I think I should have opened up a Daycare,
instead of working here.  It might have been easier.” 

     I chuckled.  I got a kick out
of Sylvia.  She was a curvy brunette with soft brown eyes and a
not-so-secret crush on my dad.  Dad was oblivious, or at least he
pretended to be.  I think he really didn’t want to complicate things by
dating someone who worked for him; especially since a good hostess is hard to
find.  I wondered how much longer Sylvia would hang onto hope before she
said screw it, and moved on. 

     “Wow, I can’t get over how good you
look.  I thought you’d be all beat up and all-over bruises, still, but
girl you look good.”  She reached across the table and brushed the hair
out of my eyes and tucked it behind my ear.

     “Thanks, that’s sweet of you to
say.” I squirmed away from the motherly touch and cleared my throat. “It’s all
concealer, though.  Good stuff.” 

     I opened my menu and pretended to
go over it.  I already knew what I wanted, I just wanted a moment to get a
breath.  I loved Sylvia, but sometimes she tried to mother me, and I’ve
never been entirely comfortable with it.  “Can I have a Philly
cheesesteak, please?  And a side of steak fries.”  I closed the menu
and handed it back to her.

     “Sure thing, give me a minute and
I’ll put that order in, myself.”  The bell rang over the front door as
more customers came in.  “Oops, sorry, Hon.  I’ll have Emily take
care of you.  I’ve got to go back to work, but I’ll be back as soon as I
can.”  She gave my shoulder a squeeze as she started to walk away.

     “Ok. Thanks.”  I settled back
into my seat and relaxed a little.  It seemed like I’d been gone much
longer than just a couple of weeks.  I’d grown up in this
restaurant.  As a matter of fact, the doorway next to the pantry still
bore the scars of my growth.  Dad used to make me stand to be measured,
and notched the wood with a paring knife.  This place was home to me.

     And the smell coming from the
kitchen was killing me.  My mouth watered, and my stomach growled. 
Spaghetti must be on the special tonight, because garlic and onion perfumed the
air.  Maybe I should have ordered that instead, but I’d been dreaming of
cheesesteak all day.  I could always sneak back to the kitchen and sweet
talk Claude into a hunk of garlic bread.

     I glanced up as Emily brought my
soda to my table.  She had a broad, gap-toothed smile that lit up her
whole face.  “Hey, toots, when are you coming back to work?”

     “Soon, I hope.”  I lowered my
voice a little.  “Dad won’t let me come back yet.  I’m too delicate,
apparently.”

     She nodded, completely missing my
sarcasm.  “He worries about you.  That’s the way dads are; the good
ones, anyway.  Humor him a little while longer, if it makes him feel
better.”  I nodded.  “Oh, hey, give your Philly a little while; we’re
pretty slammed tonight.”

     “So I see.  No biggie; I’m not
in a hurry.  I was just too lazy to cook.”

     She patted my shoulder as she went
back to serving the other tables in my section.  “Glad you’re feeling
better, Izzy.”

     “Thanks.”

     Sneaking into the kitchen and
begging Claude for a crust of garlic bread was definitely in order.  I
wiggled out of my booth and headed to the back of the restaurant for some
unrepentant scavenging.  It was for a good cause; I was starving.

     I was almost even with the bathroom
when someone slammed into me from behind.  Blindly, I stumbled through the
door, and into the dark.  What the hell?  Why were the lights
off?  And who was rude enough to hit me in the first place?  A tiny
icicle of fear needled into my brain when all of Asher’s warnings came back to
me.  I had to be careful. 
Things
were watching me. 
Things
wanted to kill me.

     But I hadn’t been careful, had
I?  I’d walked downtown, blissfully unaware of my surroundings, other than
to notice how pretty the leaves were since they’d started changing
colors.  It was a beautiful, autumn night.  A beautiful night to get
myself killed, if I wasn’t careful.

     The bathroom was pitch black.
 I wasn’t entirely sure which way I was turned, or how far away from the
light switch I was.  Without my sight, I had to rely on my other senses.
 Water dripped from the tap, steadily getting on my last frayed
nerve.  I could have screamed for help, but I didn’t know what had grabbed
me, and I didn’t want my dad or anyone else getting hurt because of me.  I
should have listened to Asher.  He’d tried to tell me.  He’d
literally drilled it into my head.  I wasn’t safe anywhere.

     There was labored breathing in the
dark.  I listened hard as I tried to get my bearings.  I picked up
two heart beats, and the cloying scent of cheap perfume.  Unless my
attacker was a ho-bag demon, I had a pretty good idea who I was trapped in the
bathroom with. 

     “You can turn the lights on,
Jenny.  I know it’s you.”  A nervous giggle as the door lock clicked
into place.  They wanted to scare me, and a couple of weeks ago, it would
have worked.  Now, after some of the stuff I’d seen, I was actually
relieved it was just them.

     “We are going to have a little
talk.”  There was movement to my left.  My head swiveled as I
listened.  She sidled up close to me, sneaking along in the
darkness.  The weird thing was, my vision seemed to piece itself back
together, the longer I stayed in the dark.  I began to make her out, and
over by the door, guarding the light switch, was her little buddy,
Tiffany. 

     I suppose I should have been
afraid, but mostly I was just pissed off.  Jenny had made my life hell for
years, and I’d taken her crap because I didn’t want to rock the boat.  I
didn’t want to get labelled as a troubled kid who fought in school. 
Instead, I’d let myself become a doormat.  She was a bully and a bitch,
and I’d had enough, finally.

     “What do you want to talk
about?”  I kept my tone quiet, almost conversational.  In my head, I
went over all the stuff Asher had taught me. 

     “I want to talk about Alex. 
He’s mine, and you need to remember that.”  She was behind me, almost
within reach.  Adrenaline spiked and my heartbeat kicked up a notch.

     “That’s not what he says,” I said,
carefully.  “He says he’s done with you.  He says you’re a nasty
bitch.”  Alex was actually too nice to say anything of the sort; I just
threw that in there for fun.

     She chuckled low in her
throat.  “Alex likes it nasty.  He’s not as sugary sweet as he lets
on.  He’s got a mean streak, too, just like me.  He just doesn’t want
you to see it.”  I doubted that.  Gwen was meaner than Alex. 
Hell, I was meaner than Alex.

     “If he’s so bad, then why do you
want him back?”

     “Because I like him bad. 
Sometimes, I even like it rough.”  That’s when she pounced on me and
grabbed a handful of my hair.  Her claws were against my scalp, tearing at
my skin, trying to make me scream, and I finally just
lost
it.

     My elbow flew back and connected
with Jenny’s nose with a satisfying crunch.  She screamed so loud and
pitiful that it sounded like she was dying, and the lights flared
overhead.  Tiffany stood with her hand over her mouth, eyes huge, just
taking it all in.  I’m pretty sure she was surprised that it wasn’t me
doing all the screaming and crying.  Jenny’s nose gushed bright, fresh
blood, and her eyes poured tears.

     “Due brode by ducking dose!”

     “I’m sorry, I couldn’t understand
you.  I think your nose is broken,” I offered helpfully.  She wailed
as she scrambled for the bathroom mirror. 

     Tiffany ran over to her, wanting to
help, but she didn’t have a clue what to do.  “Don’t just stand there, do
something!  Call 911!”  She had to be joking.  They had attacked
me, and I was supposed to help?  Um, no.

     “Why?  She’s not dying.” I surveyed
the damage with a cynical eye.  There was blood all over Jenny.  Her
outfit was ruined.  “Take her out the back way with the rest of the trash,
before she makes the other customers sick.”

     “You cannot be serious?  She
can sue you,” she pointed out, hands on hips.

     I shrugged the threat off. 
“She could, but she did attack me in the first place, and you did help
her.  Two against one is pretty chicken shit, don’t you think?” Jenny’s
face was already ballooning up; she’d be black and blue by morning.  It
was highly gratifying. “Your best bet is to get your sorry asses out of here
before I call the cops.”

     “Due’ll be dorry!”  Even
injured, Jenny just couldn’t keep her mouth shut.

     She surprised laughter out of
me.  “The only thing I’m sorry about, is that I didn’t do that years
ago.”  Her tearing eyes widened as I leaned up against the cold, porcelain
sink next to her.  She even shrank away from me a little bit. It’s
probably terrible, but I enjoyed it.  “The way I see it, you can either tell
everyone you fell down… at home, mind you, or you can tell everyone that I
kicked your ass.”

     “You didn’t kick her ass,” Tiffany
broke in, all snarky and superior, “you got in a lucky shot.”

     “I haven’t kicked her ass yet, but
it can be arranged.  Yours too, if you don’t shut up and get out.”  I
walked over to the door and unbolted it.  “And Jenny?”  She glared at
me above the hand she held over her bloodied nose.  Tiffany handed her a
huge wad of toilet paper to help her catch the drips.  “Alex can date
whomever he wants.”  She just stuffed toilet paper up her nose and walked
past me with what little dignity she had left.

***

     I felt awesome!  Years of
being bullied by Jenny Stevens had come to an end.  A screeching halt,
even.  Ding Dong, the Witch was dead.  I could have skipped all the
way home, I was so happy.  I couldn’t wait to tell Gwen all the gory
details.  I felt ten feet tall… or at least five and a half feet tall, for
sure.  Whatever.  The point was, I felt like a total badass.

     I’d gotten rid of Jenny and Tiffany
without anyone in the restaurant really noticing.  The wait staff was
hopping, and Claude was busy cooking.  My dad was in the office going over
the books.  So I slipped them out the back door without anyone the
wiser.  Then I scavenged around the kitchen while I waited for my
cheesesteak to be prepared.  And it was fantastic.  I swear it tasted
better than any I’d ever had before.  They say revenge is a dish best
served cold, but hot cheesesteak served after a fight you actually win is
freaking awesome.

     I wasn’t paying attention as I
walked home; just be-bopped along, blissfully unaware, reliving the moment when
I finally got the best of my life-long bully.  I think I might have even
hummed “Eye of the Tiger,” softly, to myself.  You’d think I would learn
to pay attention, eventually, but no.  I was hit from behind for the
second time that night.  Another cheap shot, and this time it actually
knocked me to the ground, onto my hands and knees.  Gravel bit into my
palms, and I literally saw red from a couple of bloody scrapes.

     “Dammit, Jenny, I’m not gonna tell
you again—“

     My words were cut off by a cackle
that definitely was
not
from Jenny Stevens.  It had a nails on chalkboard quality to it, and the
stench suddenly surrounding me was horrible.  If I had to pin it down, I
would say it was sun-ripened sewage with just a hint of dead skunk, thrown
in.  My stomach gave a heave and I had to fight to keep my dinner
down.  “What the hell?”

     Something was off.  That
wasn’t Jenny, not by a long shot.  I raised my head slowly, knowing that
my luck had really run out this time.  It wasn’t another Reaper, like I
originally thought, but maybe that wasn’t such a good thing.  Whatever it
was, it was huge, and
ugly
. 
In the streetlight I caught a glimpse of feathers and scales, and what had to
be two heads sitting atop two long, skinny necks.  It looked like a
two-headed vulture.

     It snatched me off my feet before I
stood up.  My stomach dropped into my shoes.  The thing flapped its
wings, spreading its stench, and flew straight up in the air with its claws
firmly embedded in my jacket.  I was too scared to scream. Not that it
would have done much good, if I had.  Really, even if anyone had seen what
was going on, would anyone stop to help me?

     “Oof!  This thing is
heavy.  Fly faster before I drop my side!”

     “Quit yer bitchin’ and hang onto
it.  If you drop it, it’s yer head, not mine.”

     “I don’t see what the big deal is
about this one, is all I’m saying.  There are younger and lighter ones we
could have grabbed.  Don’t know what’s so special about this one,” the
thing muttered sullenly.