At first, I told myself she"d come back, as promised, because that only made sense. How did she expect me to do anything when I was held captive here? But after a while, doubt crept in until it became a full-blown monster. And that monster morphed into the beasts of h.e.l.l, taking over my mind while the screams clawed and scratched at my soul. I tried to fight the nightmare, coming in and out of consciousness, begging Stacey or someone, anyone, to return.
After what could have been a day or a month-just like in the Otherworld, I had no concept of time-the illusion of the Amadis mansion around me disappeared, leaving Tristan and me in a cold, dark room with a low, rounded ceiling and rocky walls. He lay perfectly still in his black leathers on a stone slab while I sat in a ball on a dirt floor.
And I knew then that Stacey wouldn"t be returning.
Chapter 8.
The realization that we were completely alone and on our own snapped me out of my personal darkness. If we wanted out of here, it was all up to me now. The sense of purpose gave me a rush of adrenaline.
After I pushed myself to my feet and stumbled around for a moment, I gained my bearings and an idea of our surroundings. Based on the dirt floor and rocky walls and ceiling, I a.s.sumed that Debbie and Stacey had hidden us in some kind of cave. Feeling my way around the room, I found a small pile of packaged food, but no openings, no exit except a tiny, irregularly shaped fissure several feet above my head, where the wall curved into the ceiling. Low gray light seeped through it. Was that outside? Based on the wind howling through the cracks in the dirt and stone walls, I a.s.sumed it was. What sounded like great forces of water splashing against a hard surface also came from the other side of the rocks, although I couldn"t be sure if waves caused it or rain from a storm. Wedging my fingers and toes into crevices and pushing away the image of scaling the wall in h.e.l.l, I climbed up to peek out and saw that I could fit myself through the hole.
I wiggled my way out and found myself on the top of a mound of huge, gray boulders that made up an island as tiny as our suite back at the mansion. An infinite, dark sea heaved and rolled all around the island, with ma.s.sive waves crashing onto the rocks and spraying foam and droplets high into the air. Dark clouds hovered low enough to kiss the sea, and wind gusts nearly knocked me off my feet. My hair slapped and stung my eyes, and ice crystals blew in my face. A small cloud poofed out of my mouth with each exhale into the below-freezing air, and snow quickly piled up on the boulders. Standing at the top of the mound, I turned in a complete circle. No land could be seen on any of the horizons.
Nothing at all to tell me where we were except in the middle of a cold, raging ocean.
My mood as dark and tumultuous as the sea, I squeezed myself back through the hole and dropped to the floor below. Darkness had fallen outside and swallowed me in here, where Tristan still lay completely unaware on the stone slab. The cold didn"t usually bother me, but this was like the cold of h.e.l.l, seeping deep into my bones, making my body tremble and my teeth chatter. I almost wished for h.e.l.l"s fire. Almost. If only I could shoot a flame out of my palm like my husband and son could, because sparking a web of electricity around me did nothing to warm my body. So I climbed up on the stone slab, lay down on top of Tristan, let my wings come out, and enclosed us within them to hold the heat in.
And my mind churned over ideas of how the heck we were going to get out of here.
Flashing was probably too high-risk. The Normans" traps would likely be defunct now from the war, and even if a trap caught us, there were no Normans out because of the radioactive fallout. But according to Stacey, the Daemoni could roam freely and would likely be the ones to catch us. And me against all of them, while trying to protect Tristan"s body, didn"t make for good odds. Besides, flashing required a destination, and since I had no idea where we were, I had no idea what was in flashing range.
Tristan was the mastermind with this kind of stuff. He"d seen all parts of the world so many times, he could probably pinpoint exactly where we were and also be able to determine the best place to flash from here. But n.o.body was home in Tristan"s body, and there was no way I could save him while stranded on this island. I had to figure out a way to go back to h.e.l.l to help his soul and bring him back.
"Mom! Rina!" I called desperately. "I need you. I need to go to h.e.l.l!"
My pleas echoed noisily around the cave with no response. Or, more likely, the lack of reply was my response. They still refused to help me save Tristan. Which meant I really was on my own. What were the faeries thinking, stranding us here? Or had that been their plan all along? If so, that meant Stacey had been lying to me about needing my help, which didn"t feel right. But I couldn"t care about her or the faeries. Get off the island. Go to h.e.l.l for Tristan. Save our son. Those were my objectives.
And h.e.l.l would probably be the harder part. I doubted I could walk up to a Demon-possessed zombie at a bus station and request a ticket downward when I had no intent to stay there. On the other hand, the Demons didn"t seem too bright, so maybe I could convince one to take me. But since I hadn"t noticed any flying around the island in their native form, I was back to my other problem of getting us off this mound of rocks.
Flying around the island ...
Oh! My breath caught. I"d provided my own answer ... a.s.suming these wings could fly.
"I"m going to get us out of here, Tristan," I whispered against his chest. "I"m going to take care of you like you always take care of me. I"ll make you proud, baby. Just stay strong, okay? Promise me you won"t give up, and I won"t either."
I lifted my head and rested my chin on his chest, staring at his face. How I missed his sparkling hazel eyes and the way I"d get stupid when he winked at me. His glorious grin that still made my knees weak after all this time. His way with words, always knowing what to say to calm me, or excite me, or make me feel better about all the h.e.l.l we"d been through and still had to face. He wasn"t my Tristan like this. Just a sh.e.l.l with a heartbeat.
"Please come back to me." Thinking that maybe he needed to feel my love like he"d had in the past, I pressed my fingers to the stone in my chest while kissing his soft, cool lips. I tried to push love and Amadis power into his body at the same time. He didn"t wake up. "Guess you aren"t Sleeping Beauty, are you?"
I prayed for his soul next, that it would stay strong enough to escape from h.e.l.l, but then I chastised myself for thinking prayer would help. n.o.body was listening. So I returned to my plans for learning what these wings could do until I fell asleep laying on my husband.
After what felt like several hours of sleep and regeneration, I stared upward at the fissure between the rocks, waiting impatiently for the morning light. It seemed to take forever, making me wonder if the sun would ever rise. Had I not slept as long as I thought I had? Were my hours turned around? Finally, dark gray light came through the hole. I"d barely scaled the wall, squeezed through the opening, and explored the little island when it began to fade again. That and the blizzard that still blew full force clued me in that we were near the North Pole in winter. Or were we? Without knowing how much time had pa.s.sed while I"d been in the Otherworld, I didn"t know the month, or even the year, here on Earth. So for all I knew, we could have been off the coast of Antarctica, near the South Pole, in June or July.
Only one way to find out.
"Here goes nothing," I muttered as I brought my wings out of hiding.
Although they were enormous and covered in feathers, I could barely feel their weight. I even looked over my shoulder to make sure they were actually there. They kind of cupped against my back in a vertical position, the tops of the arches about an inch over my head and the bottom tips by my feet laying on the cold, wet rocks under me. As they spread out seemingly on their own-it took me a moment to realize I"d commanded them to do so in order to see them better-the shock slammed into me like a freight train.
I had wings! Freakin" wings!
How was this even possible? I knew I was far from being an Angel, but these weren"t Demon wings either. They were thick and feathery, and I was unable to help myself from admiring their purple and black beauty, even when their presence shocked and confounded me. What did their shape and colors-their very existence-mean about who and what I was? I considered this question only fleetingly before telling myself not to go there. I probably didn"t want to know the answer.
"Wings," I said aloud, although my voice was lost on the wind. I just needed to speak the word because some weird part of me thought doing so would somehow make this moment less surreal. It didn"t. "Well, let"s see what you can do."
I thought of my wings opening up further and spreading out to my sides, and they responded like any other part of my body would. The tips lifted from the ground, stretching out and away, each feather reacting and moving appropriately. I hadn"t even fully extended them yet, and they each reached over a foot beyond my fingertips, making my wingspan at least seven feet across.
"These are kind of cool," I had to admit.
I"d been a.s.suming I could fly with them, but it occurred to me now that maybe I couldn"t. Maybe they didn"t work like that. But what other good would they be? What other purpose would they serve? Perhaps none except to be an annoyance, but that made little sense. I"d received them in the Otherworld, so surely they"d been given to me for a reason. Ca.s.sandra had said I was there to be prepared, so the wings must have been what she meant. Even if I didn"t believe in the Angels" purpose for me anymore, I knew firsthand that their gifts didn"t come lightly. So unless this was a punishment, which it very well could have been, I"d go with my first a.s.sumption that they were useful. This had to mean they"d allow me to fly.
I just wasn"t sure how. Did I jump in the air and flap them like a bird? Did they somehow lift me off the ground on their own? Testing my control, I wiggled my back and shoulder muscles, pulling them in and pushing them out, and then I stretched them further outwards, imagining how birds spread theirs wide when they took off for flight. I made them as big as possible.
Then the wind gusted up, caught my wings like sails, and launched me off the boulder.
"Ack!" I yelped as my feet caught against the rocks, and then in the crevices between.
I stumbled backward, stepping on my wings several times, unable to figure out how to catch myself because the wings kept getting in the way. I tripped and rolled all the way down the mound of rocks, the momentum and the wind working together to push me along with no chance of grabbing onto something. My breath flew out of me as I stopped right before plunging into the angry sea. I lay facedown with a jagged rock jutting into my stomach, salty spray hitting my face, and a string of profanity spewing out of my mouth back at the water.
"Son of a mother-effin" witch," I swore as I pushed myself up with my hands.
I couldn"t help the glance around to make sure no one had seen that. And then I wished someone had, because I desperately missed all of the people who would have been laughing at me. Tristan, Owen, Vanessa, Dorian ... Where were they all now? Would I ever see them again?
Rather than letting it bring me down, the feeling of loneliness gave me a surge of determination.
"n.o.body can save Tristan but me, and I have to do that before I can worry about anything else."
I stomped up the pile of rocks again, stood at the top, and turned my back to the wind this time before spreading the weird, feathery appendages emerging from my shoulder blades. This time when the wind gusted up, I sprang up and out, away from the rocks. I thrust my shoulders back and forth, and then undulated my whole upper body in an attempt to flap my wings. They didn"t respond, and I could only imagine how ridiculous I looked. If not for the howling wind, I"d probably hear the shouts of hilarity from the Angels watching me through the veil. My body did move, though-about five feet from where I"d been, but only because gravity brought me down lower on the mound of boulders.
Why couldn"t I just lift off like a rocket and soar upwards? Wasn"t that how the Angels did it?
And with that thought, my body jetted into the air.
Ice and snow pelted into my face as I shot twenty-five feet above the top of the rock island before I even realized it. With another thought, I spread my wings to slow my ascent and gain some control. Thinking of Dorian and birds in flight, I leaned my body forward. And I soared.
"I"m freakin" flying!" I shouted, fist-pumping the air as I sped over the violent sea below. I"d figured it out. I"d done it. I would get Tristan and myself off this island in the middle of frozen nowhere.
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.
"s.h.i.t!" 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 sc.r.a.ping 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 a.s.s-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-s.h.i.t 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 b.l.o.o.d.y lip and sc.r.a.ped 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. n.o.body would need to know they even existed. a.s.suming 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 h.e.l.l, 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 h.e.l.l and how I"d left him there. I was officially the world"s s.h.i.ttiest mom and wife. n.o.body could argue that. Because really, who else would let their family end up in h.e.l.l? I was the one who belonged there. Not them. My self-pity quickly spiraled into a dark depression.
After an unknown amount of time pa.s.sed, 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 pa.s.sed, 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 pa.s.sed. 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 b.r.e.a.s.t.s. 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.
"d.a.m.n 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.
Chapter 9.
"Oh, no," I gasped as I pressed my hands against Tristan"s frozen face. "What-?"
Oh, c.r.a.p. 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 pa.s.sed 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.
And good thing for that because my eyes landed on an aged wood cabin nestled in the woods that I wouldn"t have seen through the cover of leaves.
Our landing was clumsy as we plowed into a bank of snow, but then I could use my power to lift Tristan up the wooden stairs and across the porch to the front door. With another shove of power, I slammed the door open, then guided Tristan inside the cold, one-room cabin.
When I glanced around, my eyes instinctively went up to look for a hole in the roof because a blanket of white covered the entire interior. There was no hole, though, and when the back of my hand dragged across the top of the couch as I directed Tristan to the hearth, the white stuff didn"t feel cold. It plumed into a cloud when I lay him on the floor. I rubbed my fingers together. It was thicker than normal dust, more like ash. Was this fallout? I had no idea, but that was my best guess.
There was no wood in the cabin, so I had to go back outside and hunt some down. Once I had a few logs stacked in the fireplace, I had to hunt some more for matches or a lighter, and blankets and food would have been nice. I didn"t find any blankets at all, but I found a matchbook with a single match and one can of sausages. Miraculously, I managed to light the fire with the one match, and then I cut open the can with my dagger. The sausages smelled like farts and tasted like a.s.s, but I couldn"t remember the last time I"d eaten. So I shoved them in my mouth and forced them down as tears spilled over my cheeks at the memory of my son, my husband, and my team choking down sausages just like these on the train in Russia.
The fire barely warmed me and did nothing for Tristan. When the few logs I"d found crumpled into coals, I went outside to find more wood. A new blizzard howled through the woods, blanketing any fallen logs. I found one piece that lasted another hour or so, but it quickly became apparent that we couldn"t stay here.
So where to next? And how?