A Crack in Everything (19 page)

‘
We both are
.’ That made sense. Didn’t it? Sense from the disembodied voice in her mind. Joy.

Downstairs the sound of a Rory Gallagher CD reached her. Well, at least someone was having fun. Two someones. How could guys do that?

The doorbell rang and Izzy swore. ‘Dylan, will you get that?’

No answer. Izzy opened the bedroom door. The bell rang again, more sharply.

It was morning, Izzy realised. Somehow it was morning. She’s been running on empty for so long she couldn’t even tell the time of day. The tea helped, but she should have eaten. She needed sleep.

Needed it, but didn’t have time for it. Her leaden body protested as she stood there, swaying, her head feeling like the centre of a maelstrom.

And beyond it, the warning, the icy touch of the mark on the back of her neck. The cross tattoo burning with cold against … no,
inside
, her skin. Something was wrong. This was dangerous. More than dangerous. She knew that feeling now. Not the voice, just the sensation of her tattoo, a warning of danger.

Izzy’s stomach heaved. Downstairs the sound of guitars got louder, duelling, sound upon sound that tore through her agonised brain. The doorbell sounded out, shrill and harsh, someone leaning on the bell, determined to get an answer.

‘
Listen, Isabel
,’ said the angel. ‘
No one must answer the door. You can’t let them inside. Let me help you
.’

The voice felt more determined all of a sudden, and different. Not the sweet lullaby it had been before. This was something more, something … eager.

Another chill ran through her. And another. So very cold.

‘
Let. Me. Help!
’

The words rang through her brain with such force that they brought Izzy to her knees. It was wrong. She knew it was wrong. The angel had tried to force Izzy to do her will twice now. She hadn’t asked or cajoled, or even demanded like now. The angel had tried to force her. If she had succeeded then, would she bother to ask now?

But the voice was that of an angel. Her angel.

Izzy whimpered, pressing her hands to her ears. She couldn’t stand it. This was all too much. She couldn’t fight any more. She didn’t want to. For once, someone else could help her, was offering to help her. She couldn’t fight anymore.

‘Help,’ she whispered, aware that she was giving in, that her weakness, or exhaustion, had the better of her. She wilted, letting the angel have her way.

Light engulfed her. It tore through her veins and arched along her spine, crackling like electricity, alive and vital, agonising.
Light everywhere, blinding, burning, searing through her body.

Her hearing focused, tightened, and she heard the latch of the door being drawn back, heard Dylan’s voice.

‘What?’

She didn’t know who it was, or what they wanted, but the angel did. The angel knew everything. She surged forwards, moving faster than a mortal could move, her body no longer her own, no longer human. No longer part-Sídhe, even. She moved beyond the realms of the earth planes, into a transcended state that knew only the threat at the door. That only knew Dylan was in danger.

Chapter Nineteen

The Angels at the Door

D
ylan opened the front door with a curt ‘What?’ just as Jinx stepped out into the hall from the kitchen. Instinct for danger flared in his chest, but it was too late.

Two men stood there, in identically sombre suits, two men who, even to Jinx’s jaded eye, were the most beautiful things to grace the planet. He faltered, put out an arm to pull Dylan back, even as the screaming in the back of his mind identified them as angels.

As more than just angels. Haniel was there, sure, but the other one. The other one was an archangel.

Hair like beaten gold, polished by a loving hand. Eyes of the deepest sapphire, both blue and black mixed into one shade and altogether endless. One momentary slip and someone could fall into them forever, be lost in the glory they held. Even a creature without a soul, such as himself, struggled with
the urge to leap.

‘Have you heard the Word?’ the archangel asked. His voice flowed like music, like the strains of lyric adulation, like the heavenly choirs he lorded over in the Holy Court had all sung in unison. In wondrous harmonies.

Jinx and Dylan froze. What else could they do? Haniel was a minion. This creature, this marvel of creation, came from a far higher rank.

Which meant only one thing. Heaven was done screwing around with second-rates. It had sent the big gun to claim the prize.

‘Izzy,’ Jinx murmured and his body tensed, readied itself. If he ran, if he changed as he ran, could he make it past them and up the stairs in time? Could he—?

The angels pushed past Dylan, and he turned to stare helplessly after them, stunned by the voice that still reverberated in the air around them.

There were angels in the house. Jinx knew he had to do something and quickly, but their presence stole all his strength, drained away his will. And that voice, that melodic, hypnotic voice … He could only stare at them, lost.

Was it really possible? That his people had been like that once?

But then another light dawned above them, brighter, deeper, more terrible by far. Where the archangel’s light was sunshine through clouds, this was raw, the light of the sun in space itself – boiling fire, untempered by air. It came from the top of the
stairs and a voice rang out, a voice that shook the house from the upper rafters down to the foundations.

‘You may not enter here without leave, my brother.’

Izzy’s voice. And yet not her voice at all. Something else, something other, something with no place here.

The light of the archangel dimmed, revealing their figures again.

‘You are no sibling of mine,’ said the archangel. ‘The fallen do not command us. Rather you should come with us, and give yourself up for judgement.’

Izzy took two steps down the stairs and stood there, aglow from head to foot.

‘This is a place forbidden to you, under my protection. I need not leave. In truth, I need never leave. Not while I am here.’

‘Sorath, you overstep yourself.’

Her hair flared back from her face as if a hot wind fanned it and light spilled from her eyes instead of tears. ‘I know no other way, Zadkiel.’

‘This is not over,’ Zadkiel growled, his mouth a hard line.

‘Far from it,’ the angel Sorath promised with Izzy’s sweet lips. Jinx’s heart lurched inside him. He should have kissed her when he had the chance. He should have taken that proffered moment of joy because now … now … would there ever be another chance? With an angel inhabiting her half-Sídhe body, having ignited from the divine spark she carried, a transformation was inevitable. She’d never be herself again.

Even if Sorath deigned to give up her form. Which was unlikely. Izzy was a vessel. That’s what Brí had called her. A vessel for divine power. She could have been made for something like this.

And angels didn’t tend to give back anything they took.

Jinx sucked in a breath. ‘Izzy.’

She turned and looked at him with that endless gaze full of light. It was only a glance, only the briefest moment, but it almost felled him.

Nothing of the girl remained to be seen. Nothing at all but the vague suggestion of the outer shell.

But Zadkiel wasn’t finished. He took a step back towards the door, towards Dylan, and a sly smile spread over his perfect features. Dylan didn’t move as Zadkiel reached out – his grace like an unfurling wing – and rested two fingers on his forehead.

‘No!’ Jinx yelled. But he was too late.

Light filled the doorway, blinding, dazzling. It forced Jinx back, his instincts too strong, terror like a netted bird inside his chest. And at the heart of that light, Dylan gave a strangled cry of agony. His knees sagged, but he didn’t fall. Zadkiel pinned him there.

Sorath took another few steps down to the turn of the stairs and rounded on the angels.

‘Leave. Now!’

Another blast of wind ripped through the hall and the front door slammed shut, the glass shaking in the frame.

The light snuffed out like a candle and the house fell still.

Jinx forced himself to take another breath. Everything in him was screaming to change, to attack, to rip the thing out of Izzy. That he couldn’t do it was beside the point. That she was now far stronger than he could ever hope to be, just an aside. The angel turned to him now, folded her arms across her chest.

‘Get out of her.’

She tilted her head to one side and fixed him with an expression far more ancient and knowing than Izzy could ever have managed. Her eyes were flat as stones – polished and beautiful, but lifeless. A predator’s eyes. He’d caught glimpses of those eyes peering out at him before, behind Izzy’s consciousness, but now, to look right into them and see nothing left of her at all … Jinx could barely breathe. He choked on fear.

‘She asked for my help. I gave it. I didn’t even have to be bound to do so. Not like you, hound. I am a generous friend and a staunch protector. Isabel knows this to be true. She trusts me.’

He ground his teeth together, even as they tried to elongate and sharpen. Everything inside him screamed that he had to protect her, that the angel was beyond dangerous. ‘Let her go. Give her back control.’

The angel waved one of Izzy’s hands dismissively. ‘It will happen. I’m not strong enough to stay. Not yet. And she is strong indeed. I chose well. I sensed her across the centuries and she called to me. I put game-pieces in play and mapped
their course. I fitted moment and vessel together so well. Perfect, as in all things.’ She stretched, her arms reaching out to either side like wings, tilting her head back so that her throat was exposed. ‘But now, I’m tired. Catch me.’

It took an instant to register what was happening, what she was doing. She pitched forward, down the stairs, and that momentary hesitation made his heart lurch with panic. He dived forwards, catching her before she hit the ground. Izzy, his Izzy. She hardly weighed anything at all, but he held her close, the most precious thing on the earth. Or above or below it. Not because of her bloodline, or the angel, or because of the spark.

Because she was Izzy.

And for a moment he’d thought her lost forever.

The shocked realisation robbed him of breath. He cradled her close, growled in the back of his throat and fought the curious sensation of being whole at last.

‘Jinx?’ Her voice was hoarse, as if it had passed through razors to reach his ears.

‘I’m here. You’re okay.’

I should have kissed her. When I had the chance. And I should kiss her now.

But he didn’t dare. Wanted to.
Needed
to. But didn’t.

Her eyes fixed on his face, studying him intently. ‘Are they gone?’

‘Yes, for now. We’re safe.’

‘Dylan?’

He hesitated, unsure of the answer to that. Unsure of everything. Especially of the girl he held in his arms. No, not a girl. Not facing the things she was being forced to face. A woman. The one who now, somehow, held his heart as well as his freedom.

Chapter Twenty

Aftermath

T
he first thing Izzy knew was that her head felt like something was trying to claw its way out. The second was the sound of someone crying softly, so quietly, because no one would ever hear, because no one would care even if they did. She struggled towards wakefulness, in spite of the lurching stomach and the throbbing at the top of her spine.

‘Steady,’ said Jinx’s voice.

Strong hands cradled her, helped her to sit. So gentle. Touching her as if afraid she would shatter into a million pieces.

Which was just as well because just then she was afraid that she might.

Dylan sat on the sofa, his shoulders shaking, his face buried in his hands. As she managed, with Jinx’s help, to drag herself upright, the memories flooded back – the angel, the deal, the fire and burning light. As if the sun had poured directly into
her veins.

‘What happened to Dylan?’ she asked. Jinx had been there, she recalled, as she came back to herself, as she fell forwards down the stairs. He caught her. And she had felt – safe?

Safe. With him. A shapeshifting Sídhe hound serving as an assassin to a mistress who hated Izzy’s biological mother – who only wanted to kill her for the spark inside her, to torture her for the angel she harboured. Jinx, who was only helping her because he’d been inadvertently bound to do so when she pulled the knife out and broke his geis. He didn’t have a choice in this, did he?

So why was he suddenly being nice?

‘What happened?’ Her throat ached, like she’d spent the night screaming. Which wasn’t far from the truth.

‘The angel.’

‘She said she’d help.’ Izzy wilted against the warmth of his hard body. So close a contact, so warm, and that scent, that intoxicating scent – cinnamon and musk, heady. It made her shudder inside. ‘What happened?’

‘You don’t remember?’

A swirl of light, of fire, filling her, consuming her, and a voice, not her voice. Her body no longer her own. Her mind burning.

‘Sorath,’ she whispered. ‘Her name is Sorath.’

Jinx stroked her hair. The urge to lean in to him, to let him caress her made her tremble inside. Shivers passed over her scalp and down her spine.

‘Dylan?’

‘I’m here,’ he said, his voice ragged. ‘I’m okay.’

Izzy tried to stand on legs almost too wobbly to hold her, but made it the short distance to the other sofa. Kneeling down was easy. She just wasn’t sure she’d ever be able to get up again. That didn’t matter right now, did it? This was her fault. All her fault.

‘He looked inside my head, rummaged around in there like it was a box at a jumble sale.’ Dylan pushed himself up from the sofa and lurched towards the French windows. ‘I need air. I’m sorry. I just—’

He didn’t finish, just escaped from their company as quickly as possible. Izzy watched him go, unable to think of a single thing to say that might stop him.

‘Then they know everything.’ Jinx was pacing again. Like a caged animal. True to his nature, she supposed. Always moving, always watching, guarding her whether she wanted him to or not. They were bound, Brí had said. He was hers to command, her slave.

Her stomach twisted at the thought. Not in a good way. ‘You don’t have to stay.’

‘Yes, I do.’ He didn’t even hesitate. He didn’t pause. His eyes scanned the windows, the garden beyond.

‘I mean, you don’t have to if you don’t—’

‘Yes,’ he interrupted, his voice more forceful this time, ‘I do. You don’t get a say, Izzy. You don’t get to be the magnanimous lady of the Sídhe or whatever you imagine you’re trying to be.
I have no choice. And neither do you. I must protect you. If I don’t, your mother’s revenge will be the least of my worries.’

Her reply was almost automatic. ‘She isn’t my mother.’

He ignored that, charging onwards in his explanation. ‘If I do, my matriarch will never forgive me. And if I don’t, even if I manage to evade both of these nearly all-powerful bitch-queens from hell with goddess complexes, if I don’t protect you, fate itself will take a hand and feck me royally over. A geis works that way. It’s like karma. Only much more of a pisser.’

‘So you’re protecting me because of what
might
happen to you if you don’t?’

He studied her face and then looked away far too quickly. Hiding something else. Always hiding something. That was Jinx through and through. What was it this time? ‘I’m protecting you, that ought to be enough,’ he muttered sullenly.

Change the subject, she decided. Quickly. ‘They were angels, at the door?’ The question earned only a brief, silent, nod. ‘And the angel in me—’

‘Sorath.’

‘Sorath. I … I felt fire.’

‘Yeah, angels are all about fire. Usually in the “razing things to the ground” with it variety. But that one, Sorath, she’s retribution and anger burning with all the fires of the sun. She fell for a reason. And she chose you. She timed it so you’d be near. Which means she’s up to something. I hate it when they’re up to something.’

Like you are?
Izzy didn’t say it and it didn’t seem quite fair.
But she couldn’t help but feel it. Reason, that was what she needed to use now. Logic and reason.

The angel had helped her, though. She’d saved Dylan, had driven the other angels away. Just as she’d promised.

Outside, Dylan’s phone rang. He answered quickly, his voice subdued. Jinx closed the door over to give him privacy. As he turned back, Izzy rounded on him.

‘An angel who fell in time to pass her spark to me. Heaven, hell and all your Sídhe hierarchy after me. My dad hurt. And the only way to save him, or me, a grail. Where do I get a grail, Jinx?’

He shrugged. ‘I think Holly has one.’

Izzy could only stare at him. ‘You
what
?’

‘It’s not like a big deal or anything. Not the Holy Grail. The angels would never leave something like that kicking around, would they? But Holly used to have one. It’s a cup. Very shiny. It heals people. She used to use it in battle. Any time some warrior of hers was hurt—’ he snapped his fingers ‘—pow! Back and ready to fight again.’

‘And this would be Holly who wants to kill me, and who will torture you as a punishment for helping me. The same Holly? Not some other psychopath of your acquaintance I haven’t been introduced to yet?’

Jinx gave a brief laugh. ‘The sarc becomes you, you know?’

A compliment? What the hell? Oh, no time for that, she decided. Not now, no matter how good it felt. An unexpected compliment, if it was truly a compliment, was no reason to
get off track now.

Ah hell, she couldn’t help it. ‘
Becomes me
?’

A smile crept across his lips – gentle, almost mocking but not quite, almost fond. ‘It gives you fire of your own.’

Like Brí. Deny her mother as much as she wanted, she could see the similarities. And yet Izzy’s fire was all her own. She could summon it at her fingertips. Sometimes. Not when she wanted to, of course. She sighed before returning the smile. Half-hearted though it was. Because even a mention of all this madness robbed her of wonder in it all. ‘Sorath’s too much. If she hadn’t let me go, I’m not sure I would have been able to … I couldn’t have …’

‘Fought her?’

All fire and passion, anger and rage. There was no fighting that. It was like a tsunami sweeping over her, and nothing could stand against it. ‘I wasn’t strong enough. I was so scared. I couldn’t help but give in and let her do what she wanted. And then … she was so … she consumed everything. I couldn’t get away.’

Jinx reached out and took her hand, his long fingers wrapping around hers, his touch so tender. ‘But she wasn’t strong enough either,’ he replied. ‘She couldn’t hold you. And she needed your permission, didn’t she? She said you had to ask for her help.’

Izzy frowned. She
had
asked for help, he was right. But strangely that wasn’t a comfort. She had known, as clearly as she knew her own identity, that something dangerous was
coming, something none of them could ever hope to handle.

Izzy’s strength had returned, the angelic energy dispelling her need for sleep, her need for food. Everything had changed. That, more than anything, confirmed what she already knew, that she wasn’t entirely human.

But that was the problem, wasn’t it? She wasn’t entirely human anymore. She didn’t know what she was right now. Was the angel changing her? Or was it her own blood, whatever made her Grigori? What was she becoming?

And while an angel didn’t sound bad, the way Jinx reacted to the thought of one, of
any
angel, what she had felt when the angel possessed her … it was disquieting.

Dylan’s voice rose from outside the door and Izzy winced at the pain riddling it. She could still see the phone clutched in his white-knuckled hand.

‘So, this grail … where is it?’

A shadow passed over Jinx’s expression at that question. ‘Ah. Holly holds court in the Market. In Dubh Linn, you understand. Not here. In my city rather than yours.’

‘Your city,’ she sighed. ‘How does that work? The two coexisting, the Sídhe-ways popping in and out of reality all over the place, and no one knowing about it all?’

He was still holding her hand. He didn’t appear to have noticed that. She didn’t want to stare at their hands for fear he would, but her skin tingled against his and the mark on the back of her neck made her feel like she was bathed in sunlight. It was blissful, like coming home.

God, I’m completely losing it. Answer the question, Jinx. Answer the damn question!

‘It’s a very long story. Your ancestors …’ He paused and then carefully disentangled his hand from hers. Izzy cursed inwardly, but pushed that from her mind, listening to the soft cadence of his voice instead, trying to absorb as much information as she possibly could. ‘Your
human
ancestors, when they came here, found mine already occupying the island. It had been given to us, you understand, our one refuge in all the worlds. Exiled angels have few places where they can rest. But here … here, we had a place, a place to fight for. Given all we had lost by not fighting, what other choice was there? It was a terrible war and many died on both sides. Our elders, who remembered the war in heaven, were sickened, disgusted to see such horrors again. Eventually a truce was called and it was agreed to divide the island between us. But the Sídhe hadn’t reckoned on the cunning of humankind. We learned that from you, learned it all too well, sad to say. The enchanters divided the island all right, but on planes of existence rather than with borders. So you got the sunlit realm and we got the shadows. And while we can travel between the two, we don’t belong in your world any more than you belong in ours.’

‘Then how do I even exist?’

‘Because your father is a representative of higher powers, an ambassador, if you will, a unique mix of bloodlines. There should only be one Grigori at any time, or so I understand. You’re dangerous, all of you, a mix of all the bloodlines –
angelic, demonic, human and fae. A delicate balancing act which needs correction from time to time. That’s why your father and Brí … Well, yeah.’

‘Why Brí?’ she asked, although the question wasn’t really for him. But there was no one else to ask.

‘Brí’s … special. Old. The members of the council are the last, strongest of those cast out. But Brí stood highest amongst them when they were still angels. She might even have been a Dominion, highest of the second sphere, the kind that almost never come to the horizontal plane in case it sullies them. I can’t say for sure. But powerful, much more than an angel or an archangel. But they never speak of the fall, not anymore. It hurts them too much. There are stories about her, about her home, about the Hill itself and why she stays there. That there’s a thing of power buried there, that she’s hunting for it, or guarding it, or … It doesn’t really matter. She’s Aes Sídhe now, one of the oldest and the highest among us. Her touchstone – that thing around her neck – they say it was once fire from around the throne of heaven but she took it with her and turned it into stone. And fire dances to her will. No one knows her mind and she doesn’t share. Her reasons are her own. And she always has reasons.’

His voice had softened to a murmur, as if he wasn’t telling her anything at all but repeating fond stories to himself. His eyes filled with such longing that she wanted to tell him that everything would be all right. But she didn’t know that. Not anymore.

This was her mother he was describing. Her birth mother. And if Brí could control fire, maybe she could as well. She remembered the sparks, the little useless flames that she’d conjured in panic. She stared at her fingers, willing it to happen now, but it didn’t. If anything her hand felt even colder.

So much for maternal blood then. Her mother hadn’t given her that much.

Strangely enough, it didn’t matter. Not so much anymore. She knew it should and perhaps later it would. Later when she could talk to Dad, get his side of the story. Perhaps the fact that Mum knew helped. Perhaps the fact that Izzy wanted nothing to do with Brí made it easier to accept. Later, she promised herself. Later and later she would sort it out. If there was a later.