Angel Reborn, page 27
Looking up at me with eyes that were still wide, she whispered. “Did I do that? How did I do that? How did that happen? I didn’t feel the glow. I didn’t feel it. How did I do that?”
“I don’t know, babe, but we need to get her checked out to make sure she doesn’t have any other injuries. Climb in the van, and we’ll figure the rest out once we know nothing else is broken.”
After a clean bill of health from the emergency room, Sage insisted that she still wanted to go to school.
Aria had remained largely silent throughout the examinations and conversations with the hospital staff, and she’d only nodded with her arms tightly crossed over her chest when I asked if she was okay with Sage continuing on to school for the rest of the day.
“You’re overthinking things, aren’t you?” I asked her as soon as I got back in the car from checking Sage into school with the doctor’s excuse.
“I did that.” Her voice was hushed and trembling, and she sat hunched over slightly in the front seat with her arms still tightly crossed, as though she was trying to shrink in on herself. “How did I do that?”
“I would imagine it’s the same as the other powers you’ve manifested.”
“But you said no one ever has more than one bloodline’s ability. You’ve all said that. But I just healed my daughter’s arm by touching her, and correct me if I’m wrong here because I’m still learning, but is that not a Genezerue ability?”
“Yes. It is.”
“Right. And bending metal and water are both aspects of the Galdorcræft, while the clairtangency is a trait of the Veiori…am I getting them right so far?”
“Yes.”
“What the hell, Nick? Why am I not only suddenly supernatural, but somehow all the supernaturals?”
“Technically, you haven’t displayed all of the bloodlines yet, but the answer is I have no answer. I don’t know, Angel. But let’s focus on the fact that Sage is healthy and unharmed, because that could have been much, much worse, and the fact that you healed her arm and eradicated her pain is a good thing. Let’s not lose sight of that.”
“I had no idea I was doing it, Nick! I could have harmed her. I could have broken a bone instead of mending it. I have no idea how I did that, which means I had no control over what I was doing. I didn’t feel the glow. Every other time, even before I knew what I was feeling, there was like this surge inside me. This…power…that rose up just before I did something. But that didn’t happen this time. I just touched her arm and did something to her.”
“Something good. You healed her.”
“But what if it hadn’t been good? I wasn’t in control of what I was doing when I touched her, Nick. I had no idea I was even doing it!”
She buried her face in her hands, and I pulled over at the first available spot that had a shoulder wide enough to put us out of the lane of traffic.
“Hey.” I reached over to lay my hand on her back as I searched for the right words. I wanted desperately to comfort her, to reassure her. But I had no idea what to say.
In all honesty, I was unsettled too. Perhaps not to the extent she was since it was happening to her, but what I was witnessing shouldn’t be possible. And yet, it was happening. Which terrified me.
It was also hard to comfort her when she had a very valid point. There was no way to know what she was going to do next and whether it would cause anyone any harm.
Aria dropped her hands from her face and propped her feet on the dash. “We need to talk to your mom. You said she’s an expert, so maybe she’ll know what to do.”
Relief washed over me at the thought of finally being able to consult the person I felt was most likely to have answers for us, but at the same time, I knew how adamantly Aria had been opposed to the idea.
“Are you sure you want to do that?” I asked.
“No, I’m not sure. Not at all. In fact, if anything, I’m sure I don’t want to do that. But what choice do I have, Nick? It’s like every damned day I’m doing something more bizarre than the last. I’m honestly scared at this point that I’m going to accidentally turn into a bird or something, and I have no freaking clue how to fly. I’ll probably get picked off by a giant hawk in the first hour.” She paused for a brief second and then looked at me. “Do hawks eat other birds? Whatever, it doesn’t matter. The way my luck is going, I’d probably shift into a worm. Or a cockroach. We need to talk to your mom. Maybe she knows of a cure. Maybe there’s some kind of custom cocktail for something like this. Not that I want to drink blood. But I guess I could if I had to. Your mom worked with your dad, right? She knows about all sorts of things. Maybe she knows someone else this happened to.”
It killed me to see Aria in such turmoil and not be able to help, but I was confident my mother would know more than I did.
“Let me call Mam and see if we can meet with her now.”
I dialed my mother’s number, frowning when her voice mail picked up on the first ring. After leaving a message for her to call me, I tried Graeco’s number, but his phone went straight to voice mail as well.
It wasn’t out of the question that they might both be occupied by something at work and have their phones turned off or set to Do Not Disturb, but given all the unusual incidents lately, I couldn’t help but assume the worst.
I dialed the switchboard at VCBI and asked to be connected to my mother’s receptionist, whose number had been erased from my phone and my memory when I shifted to my human state and thought I would no longer need it.
“VanCleave Blood Industries, can you please hold?”
“Sure,” I said, though I was annoyed at being asked to do so.
“Is everything okay?” Aria asked.
“Yeah, I think so. I’m just trying to reach Mam. She’s probably busy. I’m sure things have gotten backed up at work with everything else she’s dealing with.”
When the receptionist didn’t come back on quickly, I changed my mind and ended the call. “You know what? We’ll just drive there. I’m sure she’s probably in a meeting, and if we’re already there, I’m certain she’ll make time to see us when she’s done.”
“Can we go home first so I can change? I’m still in my pajamas.”
I glanced over at the flannel pants and oversized sweatshirt she wore. “Of course. Yeah. I wasn’t thinking.”
“Understandable, since I don’t typically go out in public in my PJs, but I didn’t exactly have time to change in our rush to get Sage to a doctor.”
We both sat in silence as I pulled back onto the highway, but then Aria looked over at me and asked, “Do you think Sage is really all right?”
“Yeah. I do. They examined her head to toe. No broken bones. No concussion. She’s fine.”
“I feel so bad that I yelled at her to come downstairs. If I hadn’t been rushing her—”
“Oh, c’mon, now. Don’t do that. You can’t blame yourself.”
“But I shouldn’t have yelled at her. If I hadn’t yelled, she wouldn’t have been in such a hurry to come down, and then maybe she wouldn’t have fallen.”
“You and I had both asked her to come down, and she was taking forever to get dressed. Granted, we were both distracted and could have done a better job of moving her along sooner, but don’t beat yourself for demanding that she come down. It’s not your fault she fell. It’s not anyone’s fault.”
I reached for her hand and squeezed it, and when she didn’t let go, I drove the rest of the way with one hand on the wheel and one hand holding hers.
Twenty-Nine
Aria
As we neared the house, Felicia called from Blood for All with a crisis. Ever since the night of the Blood Ball, Nick had been spending all his time either at home or at VCBI, which meant he’d been absent from the charity he’d run for the past six years. Luckily, he had a very capable staff in place, but Felicia had only just returned from maternity leave, so she was still trying to get up to speed on everything Nick had dealt with while she was gone.
“I need to run over to the office and go through some files with Felicia,” Nick said once he ended their call. “There’s a contract she can’t find, and I’m certain we received it. It shouldn’t take long, and then we can head into the city.”
“That’s perfect. I’ll shower and change while you do that, and then I’ll be ready to go by the time you get back.”
“Sounds good. I’ll try to call Mam again to let her know we’d like to talk with her.”
He dropped me off at the front of the house, and I shuddered at the sight of the stairs when I came in through the front door.
Sage could have been hurt so much worse than she was, and we were beyond lucky that she’d taken such a nasty tumble and had no injuries from it.
Of course, she had been injured, and somehow I’d healed her.
I looked down at my hands, flipping them over to stare at my palms and then closing them into fists.
I hadn’t felt the power rising that time. There’d been no prickling of my skin. No heat threatened to burst out of me. No glow radiating from beneath my sternum.
So, how had I healed her?
If Nick hadn’t seen how damaged her arm appeared, I would have sworn that my eyes were playing tricks on me and it was never broken. But not only had we both seen it, Zeck had also been certain she’d suffered a nasty break.
I climbed the stairs and headed across our bedroom, grabbing a towel to put on the warmer before I reached in the shower enclosure and turned on the water. I shucked my pajama pants and slipped my T-shirt and sweatshirt off, and then I tested the temp of the water and stepped underneath its stream.
Closing my eyes, I tilted my head back and let the water drench me, wishing it could wash away the clutter in my mind.
No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t seem to clear my head and find any measure of peace. One worry would pop up, and then another, and then another, and then at some point, my brain would circle back to the first worry and start the cycle all over again. I couldn’t stop.
I went through my shampoo and conditioner routine on autopilot, and I had just rinsed away the suds of the body wash when my phone rang on the bathroom counter.
Fearing it might be the school calling about Sage, I rushed to turn off the water and get to the call. I was soaking wet and dripping everywhere, and for what was probably the hundredth time since I first saw Nick’s elaborate bathroom, I questioned the intelligence of anyone who thought it was a good idea to use loose stones and slate pavers for a bathroom floor.
Luckily, I managed to reach the counter before the call ended and without slipping and falling.
I frowned to see Unknown Caller displayed on the screen and then frowned even deeper when I realized it a Northwest Florida area code. Pensacola.
I started to let it go to voicemail since there was no one from my hometown I wanted to speak with, but Nick had said the rental car following Sage and Angie was connected to someone in Pensacola, so I swiped across the screen to answer.
“Who’s this?” I asked, cutting right to the point.
“It’s me, Ariadne,” said a wholly familiar but entirely unexpected voice on the other end of the line. “It’s Mom.”
I was so stunned I couldn’t summon the words to respond. The last time I’d heard her voice, I’d been six months pregnant and carrying a suitcase with all I owned out the front door as she stood crying in the background, begging my father to let me stay until morning so I could leave in daylight.
“Aria?” she asked. “Are you there?”
Clearing my throat, I found my voice. “Yeah. I’m here.”
“Oh, I thought maybe you hung up when you heard it was me. I didn’t know if you’d even answer, to be honest.”
“It said Unknown Caller.”
“Did it? I didn’t know. I thought it would say your father’s name since the cell phone is on his account. I haven’t had it very long, so I don’t know how some things work.”
It felt surreal to be standing in a luxury home in Nyack, dripping water onto a floor made of smooth pebbles, and looking out at the river in the distance as I listened to my mother speak as though we’d only talked just yesterday. As though she hadn’t allowed my father to make her sever all ties with me at the time in my life when I’d needed her most. As though I hadn’t had a child and gotten married and gone to college and lived and breathed and died and came back to life as a supernatural since the last time we talked.
“Why are you calling, Mom?”
“I wanted to talk to you. Is that not reason enough?”
I’d already been tense before the phone even rang, and the uneasy energy that had been brewing inside me was rapidly growing more unstable as my emotions went haywire.
“How’d you get this number?”
“Pearl gave it to me. She said you called and were asking odd questions about the family.”
I suppose I should have assumed Aunt Pearl would tell my parents I’d called, but I had never considered that it might result in my mother reaching out to me.
“How have you been?” she asked all casual-like, and my brain felt like it was going to explode.
How could she carry on like this was a normal conversation?
The central air unit must have kicked on, because suddenly a draft of cold air swept over me, chilling my wet skin.
Reaching for a towel to wrap around me, I sought to put an end to the uncomfortable questions before it got any more triggering. I had no desire to find out what new abilities might be unleashed if I lost control again. “Now is not a good time, Mom.”
There would never be a good time.
“Pearl said you have a daughter,” Edie continued as though I hadn’t spoken. “What’s her name?”
“I’m not discussing her with you.”
She paused. “I guess I can understand that.”
“I need to go.”
“Wait, Aria. I wasn’t calling just to say hello, and I didn’t mean to upset you. Pearl said you wanted to know things about the family history, and I…well, there is something I think you should know.”
A chill skittered up my spine, and it had nothing to do with air conditioning or me being wet.
“I’m listening. What is it?”
“It’s not something I feel comfortable discussing over the phone.”
Though the air on my skin still felt chilled, my body’s interior was quickly becoming a furnace as the electrical current running through me grew more charged. I had to end this call before I detonated and destroyed the entire house, but I needed to know what information she held first.
“I’m not planning to have a conversation in person with you any time soon, so if you’ve got something to tell me, you should say it now.”
The pebbles surrounding my feet had begun to tremble.
“Ariadne, please. I know I wasn’t the best mother, and I hate the way we said goodbye. You’ll probably never forgive me as it is, but once you hear what I have to say…I’m certain you probably won’t ever speak to me again. Please…please just let me see you one more time. I can meet you somewhere near our house. I’ll answer any questions you may have, and I’ll tell you what I probably should have told you a long time ago. If not for me, then do it for your daughter, because this is something that may affect her. If I could come to you, I would, but I can’t.”
The slate paver stone I was standing on split into jagged pieces and the pebbles surrounding it began to levitate.
“Okay,” I said as every fiber in my being protested. “I’ll come.”
“Thank you. But please, come quickly…before I lose my nerve.”
Pebbles shattered, and the pavers in front of and behind me began to crack.
“I have to go.”
I ended the call and closed my eyes, forcing myself to breathe deeper in hopes I could keep from bringing the whole house down around me.
Inhale.
“Center, center, center,” I whispered.
Exhale.
“Breathe, breathe, breathe.”
Inhale.
I reached to grip the edge of the bathroom counter for more stability, but then, fearing I’d crack it too, I pulled my hands back.
Exhale.
“You are the keeper of your own mind,” I told myself.
Inhale.
“You have a choice. You control the power.”
Exhale.
“The power does not control you.”
The heat of the energy radiating out from me was still elevated, but I could tell it was beginning to diminish.
Inhale.
It’s working.
Exhale.
As my heart rate slowed and the prickling of my skin began to fade, the pebbles fell back to the floor.
I opened my eyes with a sigh of relief, but then I turned toward the mirror and shrieked in shock.
A sliver of sunlight streamed across my torso from the rectangular window above the mirror, and everywhere the sun shone on me, I was glowing.
It was the same kind of misty aura that I always saw around Nick and Zeck, but rather than being one color, it was a myriad of colors, shifting and sparkling like glitter floating in a translucent cloud.
I immediately looked down at my body to see it better, but it wasn’t visible anywhere except in the mirror.
Fascinated, I twisted just slightly to the left and then to the right to get a better look at the reflection of my own aura, and then a flutter of color behind me caught my eye.
Instinctively, I turned, but there was nothing there.
Facing the mirror once more, I tried to get back in the same position, and again when the sunlight hit just right, there was a flash of color behind me just above my shoulder.
I bent forward to get a closer look, but that changed the angle of the light, so I moved farther down the counter where the sunlight filled the space entirely.
As soon as I stepped into the golden light, I froze in place and stood staring at the mirror with my mouth gaping wide.
Rising behind me above my shoulders was a massive pair of majestic, translucent wings that sparkled with a full array of colors like facets of a diamond.
