Wings of Darkness: Book 1 of The Immortal Sorrows Series (24 page)

     Asher’s breath tickled against my
ear.  “Breathe, girl.  Relax.  Be calm.”  His hand came up
and rubbed the tension from my neck in long, slow strokes.  If he wanted
me to relax, that wasn’t going to do it.  My goose bumps had goose bumps,
and I was tense as a bow string.  In spite of that, I found myself
relaxing against him.

     His hand moved away and a few
moments later I felt him stroke my jaw with his right hand.  “Open your
mouth.”  His fingers brushed against my lower lip, and I barely stopped
myself from whimpering.  I should be disgusted, and yet I found myself
more than a little turned on, and I was ashamed. 

     Warmth hit my lips and
instinctively, I opened them.  I heard him hiss against my ear and I
froze.  “Did I hurt you?”  I never heard him make a peep when he made
the cut.

     “No, continue.”  His voice
sounded unusually rough, almost pained. 

     Asher’s wrist pressed firmly
against my lips again and I swallowed to get it over with.  About a
thousand vampire novels would have blood be some sweet, succulent treat that is
always highly desirable; like chocolate dipped in honey and wrapped in
cheesecake.  In reality, it is both salty and coppery, and it is
hot.  It tastes like pennies; very thick, and metallic.  At least
that’s what Asher’s blood tasted like.  I kept my eyes clamped tightly
shut and willed myself to do what had to be done.  As long as I didn’t
think about it I had a pretty good shot at keeping it down.  After all, he’d
fed me blood before, when I didn’t know he’d done it.  This was a piece of
cake.

     Then I had other things to worry
about.  Asher’s other arm slid around my waist and pull me tightly against
him.  He nearly lifted me off my feet as he crooned soft, soothing words,
in an unknown language.  His heart beat steady and strong against my bare
back.  With every pull of his blood, my heart sped up to catch his. 
I could feel him through the connection of the blood; his desperation, and
hunger.  There was something inside him; something old and terrifying, and
I knew that it wanted me. Then, there was something in me that yearned to
answer.  It was a surreal and terrifying moment.

     I have no idea how long we stood
like that.  His blood did unexpected things to me.  My heart raced
and strange visions exploded behind my closed eyes.  I felt myself go limp
in his arms, but I tried to fight it.  I seemed to black out for a little
while.  I woke up and I was no longer being held up by Asher, but lying
beside him on my bed.  My bed… in my room.  I was home again, but
when had that happened?  Did I imagine it?  How long was I out?

     Asher was propped up on his elbow,
watching me.  I was so awfully sleepy.  “How did we get here? Are we
home?”  He nodded, and I was so happy, but still so bone-deep tired. 
“Did I take enough blood?  Did I take too much?”  The taste of copper
was strong, but I felt too weak to move.

     “Yes, you did very well.”  He
smoothed my hair back from my face.  “You need to sleep now, love, let the
change take hold.  You’re safe, now.”

     I fought sleep like a two year
old.  Something was wrong with me. “But, my dad…”

     “Your father has not missed
you.  You have not been missed by anyone.  I planted a suggestion
that you have a migraine headache and must not be disturbed.  You have
only to sleep and everything will be as it should.”  Even as groggy as I
was, I thought he looked pleased with himself, but there was sadness in his
expression, too.  It made no sense.  Nothing he’d done, lately, had
made any sense.

     “Asher, I feel funny.  Is this
normal?”  I felt like my head was floating far above my body.

     For the first time, he looked
uncertain.  “I really do not know.  I have never done this
before.  I do not think anyone has.”

     “Am I dying?”  It really
seemed like a possibility.

     Through my half closed eyelids I
saw him smile.  “That, I can tell you.  You are not dying.  For
that to happen, I have to claim you, and that I will not do.”

     “Why are you doing all this?” 
I tried to motion with my hand, but it was too weak to lift.  My voice sounded
high, and thin; very strange even to my own ears.  “Why me?”  There
was something I needed to tell him.  Something important, but it kept
slipping away.  I just couldn’t catch the thought that kept dancing away
from me; always near, yet just out of reach.

     Asher smiled again and stroked my
cheek.  “Sleep, lovely girl, and let the change complete.”  He
side-stepped that question neatly.

     I knew that if I gave in to sleep I
would never be the same again.  “Does it hurt?”

     “Does what hurt?”  I felt him
take my sandals off and heard them drop over the side of my bed.

     “Dying… does it hurt?”  No
matter what he said, I felt pretty sure that I was in immediate danger of
dying.

     Asher seemed bemused by my
question. “You are determined to fight the change, I see.”  A light cover
was pulled up to my chin.  Since I was starting to chill, the cover was
welcome.  “Very well, to answer your question, dying hurts no more than
being born, I imagine.  It is a change; a rebirth.  On the other
hand, the part before actual death is often painful.”

     “That’s comforting.”  I fought
it, tried to stay awake.  Everything looked just a little fuzzy around the
edges, including Asher.

     “I do not want to lie to you. 
Death is a welcome release for many; those who are either too damaged, or too
frail to continue in this life.”  He seemed to think for a moment before
continuing.  “Then, there are souls who fear the change.  They cling
so strongly to life that they cannot pass over.  They wander; lost. 
Those souls are pitiful things.  I told you about them before, do you
remember?”

     “Sorrows.  Immortal Sorrows.
Sounds awful.”  I felt like I was freezing.  I clamped my teeth
together to keep them from chattering.  I heard a low groan and realized
that it came from me.

     “Are you in pain?”  He looked
concerned, at least.  That was good since it was his fault I was in this
mess.

     “I’m f…f…freezing.”  Waves of
chills had me bent almost into the fetal position. I was so cold, in spite of
the cover he’d tucked around me.

     Asher pulled me up against his
body, and immediately I felt better.  He was so warm.  “You never
a…answered my question.  Why are you doing this for me?”

     “Because you are mine. And I am
yours.” My poor heart did a little happy dance, even as dread settled into the
pit of my stomach.  He wasn’t supposed to say things like that to me, but
I liked it.

     I felt him play with my hair, brush
it back from my face.  I was too sleepy to keep my eyes open, and what he
was doing soothed me. I hung onto his every small touch; I didn’t want to be
swept away to this strange, deathly sleep.   My muscles started to
cramp.  I didn’t care what he said, something was horribly wrong with me.

     “Stop fighting this; let sleep take
you.  I will stay right here with you, for as long as you need me. I will
protect you in any way that I can.”

     “I need to tell you something,
Asher, just as soon as I remember what it is.  It’s important.”

     “Hush, lovely girl.” His voice was
deep, hypnotic, and compelling. “You will forget me, once you wake.  You
will forget the Aerie, and everything that you saw there.  You will be
safe, and you will be happy.”

     But I didn’t want to forget
him.  I would never be happy without him; I knew that, now.  What had
I let him do to me?  I started to panic, but I couldn’t fight
anymore.  I was swept away in the strange tide of the change.  The
last thing I felt was his breath against my lips.  “Sleep. Forget. Live.”

     Monday morning dawned, cold and
bright.  Everything felt just slightly off-kilter, sort of like deja-vu,
only that lasts about a second, and it’s gone.  This feeling, though, this
was something else.  It lingered.  I wondered, briefly, if I might be
coming down sick.  It was almost flu season, so it wasn’t totally out of
the question.

     I went through the motions of my
normal routine; brushed my teeth, washed my face, and took Jazzy downstairs for
breakfast. And the whole time I felt like something was just
off
. When I heard my dad
come downstairs a few minutes later, my heart leaped up into my throat,
seemingly without reason.  I ran to him, and hugged him hard, the minute
he was within arm’s reach.  He smelled fresh from the shower clean, with
minty mouthwash on his breath, and I was so happy to see him that I could have
cried.

     My dad chuckled, surprised, and
gave me his patented one-armed hug.  After a few awkward seconds, he
patted my shoulder, and tried to get away to make some coffee.  I clung to
him even harder.  Slowly, his other arm came up and just held me close as
I buried my face against the starched front of his white shirt.  The sound
of his heart beating next to my ear was both comforting and terrifying at the
same time.

     I was acting like a lunatic. 
He knew it.  I knew it, too, but I couldn’t seem to help myself.  My
throat was tight, and my eyes started to sting a little bit.  Horrified, I
realized that I was about to start bawling all over my poor father, for no
apparent reason.  He hated it when I went all girly on him; he would be
traumatized for the rest of the day.  I had to get a grip on myself.

     I pried my fingers off of his
freshly-wrinkled shirt, and turned away quickly before the first tear could
fall.  Quickly, I wiped my nose on the back of my hand. “Honey, is
something wrong?”  He sounded almost afraid to ask, and who could blame
him?  It was a good question; something felt terribly wrong with me.

     I reached for the coffee pot and
filled it up about half-way.  I’d waited too long to answer him; the
silence was uncomfortably loud.

     “No, um, I’m fine, Dad.  I
just… I was just really happy to see you.”  I cleared my throat a couple
of times as I carefully measured three teaspoons of coffee and dumped them into
the filtered basket.  I kept my back to him the whole time. I needed just
a little more time to get a grip.

     “Izzy, if you need to take some
time off from school today, it would be ok.  You know that, right?” 
The cabinet door squeaked when he opened it.  He really needed to oil the
hinges.

     “No, thanks anyway, Dad.  Gwen
will be over anytime now, to give me a ride.  I feel ok.  I don’t
think I slept well, is all.”

     His mug thudded dully as he set it
down beside the gurgling coffeemaker.  “Honey, you haven’t been acting
right since you had your wreck.  Maybe we should get you in to see a
doctor; maybe even a therapist?  The nurses told me that sometimes, after
a major trauma, people develop Post-Traumatic-Stress-Disorder.”  He
wouldn’t meet my eyes.

     Oh. Wow. My dad thought I was
crazy, and maybe he was right.  I was acting like a crazy person. 
“No,” I said quietly, “I’m ok.  I can deal with it.  Really.” I
turned back to him, with my best fake smile firmly in place.  “I think I’m
just hormonal or something.  It’s probably just PMS.  No biggie.”

     My poor father turned scarlet red
all the way to his hairline.  I didn’t mean to throw him straight into
panic mode with my “girly issues,” but I had to distract him somehow.  I
had to get him off the subject of me going to see a doctor.  Deep down, I
knew that no doctor would be able to fix my problem.

***

     All the way to school, my mind
played tricks on me.  I felt like I was missing something vitally
important.  Like the last piece of a puzzle was absent, and it would never
be complete without it.  Strange and terrifying visions kept catching me
off guard.  I started to think that maybe I did have PTSD from my wreck.

     It was true, I had been having
strange dreams since I woke up in the hospital. I also tensed up a little when
riding in cars, especially at night with headlights coming at me. 
Sometimes I even got a little nauseated, but I figured it was normal after
something like that, and I’d just have to learn to live with it. 

     Gwen pulled into the school parking
lot, and suddenly it all came crashing down, and I knew what was wrong with
me.  The school looked like it had been at the center of a war zone. 
The walls were collapsed on the side near the gym; windows were blown out, and
cardboard temporarily covered the holes.  Caution tape cordoned off that
area of the school.

      A memorial of sorts was
resurrected near the gym doors.  Flowers were stacked, bouquet upon
bouquet, alongside pictures and small mementos.  A few sad-looking teddy
bears sat among the tokens of a town’s grief: their fur matted from exposure to
the elements. Everything came rushing back to me. The angels… the
Aerie…Mairya…Asher. 

     I felt sick, and a little light-headed.  Heat rushed
into my face and I thought I might pass out. It took a moment to remember how
to breathe, but when I did, it helped me calm down enough to survey the damage.

     Parts of the school stood, solid as
a rock, just like it had for the last forty years.  Kids walked through
the doors just like always. They didn’t run away in fear, like I
remembered.  “Are you ok, Iz?”  Gwen sounded unusually subdued as she
glanced from the destruction, back to me.  She bit her lip and watched me with
sad, sympathetic eyes.

     “Yeah, I think I just need more
sleep,” I said, my voice sounding high and thin.  “It all looks so gutted,
doesn’t it?”

     “It does,” she agreed, “but I’m
just glad you’re back and safe. I was worried about you, the whole time. 
If you want to talk about it, I’m very available.”

     I had trouble taking my eyes off
the wreck that was our school, but at her words, my head swiveled towards
her.  “What do you mean,” I asked, cautiously.  I was certain Asher
had ordered Grim to take her memories.  Just like Asher had tried to take
mine.  Had tried, and failed.  He must have changed me more than he
planned. If he’d had his way, I wouldn’t remember a damned thing. 
Jerk.

     Gwen pulled her car into her
favorite spot and cut the engine.  “Cut the crap, Iz.  I know all
about your boyfriend.”  My heart skidded to a halt, then took a painful
double beat.  “Surprised?  I do pay some attention.”

     “How did you know?”

     “Well, once you see one of them,
you never forget, do you?”

     “Them?”

     She lowered her voice as a couple
walked by the open window.  “Them.  The Reapers.”

     “Oh, no, no, no.”  She wasn’t
supposed to remember them.

     “Grim likes to hear himself
talk.”  She drummed her fingers lightly on the steering wheel. That’s how
I knew you were relatively ok.”  She did remember.  Everything.

    “You weren’t supposed to know about any
of this crap.  You weren’t supposed to be involved.”  The car seemed
to heat up about twenty degrees as I tried to get hold of myself.  Maybe I
would get to have my melt-down after all.

     “Well, I do, and I am.  So if
you want to talk about it, I’m here for you.”

     I felt like bawling my eyes
out.  Everything was ruined, the school was destroyed, and now Gwen was
involved.  My hands trembled in latent reaction as I continued to look
over the wreckage of the school.  “I caused this, Gwen.  It’s my
fault they came here.  It’s my fault the school is destroyed.”

     Gwen reached across the seat and
hugged me, quickly.  “It’s not your fault, Iz.  There’s no way you
could have done anything other than what you did.  And it’s not totally
destroyed.  There’s still a lot of it standing.”

     I swallowed hard.  This was
worse than I expected. “I know this is a stupid question, but how long have I
been gone?”

     “A few days, but the weird thing is,
nobody seems to notice, but me.  Every time I called your house, your dad
just said you were taking a shower or out shopping.  I think they messed
with his head.”  I didn’t have to ask who ‘they’ were.  The
angels.  They messed with a lot of things.

     I bit my lip and cleared my
throat.  “Did I miss anything?” That sounded ridiculous; obviously, I’d
missed everything.

     She shook her head.  “Not
much.  A few news vans and camera crews.  They’ve brought in grief
counsellors for the students.” She pointed over towards the gym.  “Part of
the school has been blocked off, where the most damage occurred.  Luckily
the ‘storm’ took out only a very small area of the school so they were able to
use other parts of the school for classes.  There’s a math class in the
cafeteria, after lunch, and Chemistry is being taught in the library, now.”

     “How many died?” 

     She hesitated before answering,
clearly not wanting to upset me further. “Three kids and a teacher.  Two of
them were sophomores and the other was a freshman.”  I must have had a
look of horror on my face, because she rushed on.   “There’s a prayer
vigil this week end, if you want to go.”

     I shook my head.  “There’s no
point.  The only one listening to our prayers is a sociopath.”

***

     Alex caught up to me at
lunch.  He set his plate down next to mine, and I nearly jumped out of my
skin.  I’d been jumpy all day: my nerves were raw.  There was just so
much sadness walking the halls with the students who remained. It was hard
being there, especially knowing that it was all my fault. I would have given up
and gone home, but Gwen was my ride, and I didn’t want her to skip class just
because I had trouble dealing.

     “Hey, take it easy.  I come in
peace.”  Alex set a can of Mountain Dew down on my tray.  “I even
come bearing gifts,” he said, with a grin.

     Gwen smiled, tried hard to be
cheerful for my sake. “Contraband caffeine, Iz. You better take him up on it,
or I will.”  She’d been happy and upbeat all morning, and coming from Gwen
it came off as forced and wrong.  She’s just not a happy and upbeat kind
of girl.  Although, I did appreciate her trying.

     “I’m sorry.  I’ve been like
this all morning.  Thanks for the soda.”  I took the can and popped
the top.  A long swig later, and I felt much better about
everything.  Caffeine can cure most things, I find; maybe not all of the
things that were wrong with me, but most things.

     “So, I was thinking, since the
haunted house the other night wasn’t so great, that maybe you might let me make
it up to you?”  Alex folded and refolded his napkin, but he still hadn’t
touched his sandwich.  He wanted to go out on another date?  A hollow
feeling settled into the pit of my stomach.  The last one seemed like it
was a lifetime ago; so many things had changed so much.  I had changed so
much.

     “What did you have in mind,” asked
Gwen.  “Because it had better be good, and I mean outstanding, to make up
for that disaster.  And I better not end up babysitting your sissy-assed
buddy again.”

     “Gwen!”  If I could have
reached her across the table, I would have kicked her.  She just shrugged
my warning off.  She knew my legs were too short to reach her to do any
damage.

     I turned to him, instead. He
watched me hopefully.  I didn’t want to disappoint him. “It’s all good,
Alex. The other night wasn’t that bad.”   

     It really wasn’t
that
bad, other than
Gwen ended up taking her date home, before he had a total panic attack because
he was scared stupid by clowns.  Then, there was the bimbo vampire and the
toxic cloud of fog machine juice.  There was also blaring music and some
pretty good special effects, and who could forget the big finish?  Real
live Reapers running amok. And Asher. 

     Asher.  He’d tried to take my
memories.  I wasn’t sure how I felt about that.  Hurt. Confused,
mostly, but there was anger there, too, simmering beneath the surface. I sighed
softly to myself.  Just thinking about it made me bone-tired.  I
couldn’t wait to go home and crawl into bed and pull the covers over my
head.  I was completely sick of angels and Reapers and crazy, supernatural
shit. 

     Thinking about hiding under the
covers gave me pause.  There was
something
there, teasing just at the edges of my tired little brain. 
Oh, no.  Oh, hell no… I’d woken up in my pajamas, but I’d fallen asleep in
the backless, purple dress.  How had I gotten into my pajamas, and where
was the dress?  Only Asher knew the answer to either of those
questions.  I wasn’t sure that I really wanted an honest answer, even if
he would give me one.  My face burned at the thought.  If I could’ve
gotten my hands on him at that moment, I would’ve strangled him.

     Alex said something, and Gwen
nudged me under the table with her toe to get my attention.  She could
read me so easily, and she knew when I was off in la-la land.  I turned to
Alex, and tried to look alert and interested in whatever he had in mind. 
He didn’t need to deal with my drama. “So, what did you have in mind?”

     He’d shredded the poor
napkin.  “Well, the Jack O’ Lantern festival starts this Friday.  I
wonder if you ladies might like to join me.”

     Gwen stopped her sandwich halfway
to her mouth.  “Let me get this straight—you want to take both of
us?  Won’t you be afraid people will talk?  I don’t want to be part
of your harem, lover boy.” 

    Poor Alex turned beet red and choked on
his ham sandwich.  “Be nice, Gwen.” I thumped him dutifully on the back.
He turned puppy dog eyes on me.  Distantly, I wondered why I wasn’t more
moved by the puppy dog eyes.  I should have been.  Any other girl
would have been.  I, on the other hand, found it kind of irritating. It
was almost like he was trying to manipulate me.  Nah, I thought, that was
just me being a bitch.