A Matter of Time (The Angel Sight Series) (18 page)

“The city must still be in ruins. Ten days after the Fallen attacked the plane at JFK, the military showed up here to try and clear the Fallen out. All-out war broke out. The Army and National Guard evacuated the city. The Fallen defeated the military less than a week later. They abandoned the city to its own devices, and anyone left there was on their own. They were pulled out so fast they left some of their equipment behind.”

“So pretty much all the Fallen are barricaded in the city with military weaponry,” Kade said. “You could have mentioned that on the two-day drive here.”

“I didn’t feel much like talking,” Cam bit out.

Not this again.

“I still don’t understand,” Cam said. “We’re supposed to protect people, and they’re fighting a war inside city limits.”

Cam’s angel side was on full display. Whether he’d lost his faith or not, Cam was still himself through and through.

“It’s a war the Fallen started,” I said, watching how his shoulders heaved up around his ears.

“Don’t,” Cam stopped me. “Don’t make excuses for them.”

I looked at Kade again. Then at Cam. Both of them had given up everything that ever meant anything to them. For this. For me. San Francisco was an abandoned war zone … because of me.

Frowning, I said, “I’m going to do whatever I can to make this right. I will take every Fallen out, one by one if I have to.”

“You may not have to,” Cam said. “According to what I overheard Elyon tell the Governing Fifteen, the Fallen believe when your power reaches its peak, you’ll be able to destroy all the angels. At once. It didn’t matter where they were, in Heaven or on Earth. You could annihilate us all. If that’s true, you might be able to do the same to the Fallen.”

I shook my head beneath the tarp, causing it to ripple. “I can’t do that. I don’t have the power—I … ” I looked at Kade then back at Cam. “I think we have to talk to the angels.”

“If anyone can tell you more about it, it’s Elyon.”

Elyon, who controlled Cam, threatened me, and had killed my mother. Wonderful.

“Great. To Elyon then.”

At Kade’s insistence, we rowed the rest of the way in silence. The dull grayness of San Francisco resembled nothing like what I remembered. No lights lit the streets, no cars raced from one red light to the next. Not a single person walked the length of the Embarcadero, where the city met the bay. The piers to our left were closed to ships and people alike. The only noises were the sounds of our oars and the water splashing up against the small metal boat. San Francisco was a ghost town.

At least it all still looked intact. My nerves had nearly flayed me when Cam had mentioned the military, but there were no gunners or fleets of abandoned Navy ships along the water.

At the front of the boat, Kade and Cam’s gazes went skyward. The sun had begun to rise, but had yet to fight through the thick fog cloaking the city. The light would not be our friend here.

They both started paddling toward shore. Kade reached back and tugged my tarp flap closed. I swallowed in the darkness, still processing everything, knowing that our journey was just beginning.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Rayna

The boat bumped something, pitching me forward. Kade tore off the tarp covering me. He gathered up the first of the three backpacks beside me. I followed his lead, slipping on my own as Cam climbed up onto the pier. Kade tossed Cam’s pack up onto the wooden planks of the dock. The hulking metal structure of the Bay Bridge loomed above us.

Kade scanned the sky again before gripping my shoulders and looking me square in the eye. “Be quiet, be quick. If we get separated, hunker down somewhere safe, wait until nightfall, then call the burner cell numbers. Got it?”

I nodded. We’d run through this part of the plan a dozen times last night. I knew I was the linchpin. If I got picked up … well, I couldn’t think about that.

Cam reached down and locked his hand around my upper arm. Kade pushed while Cam pulled. After so much time in the boat, my feet wobbled when they touched the rotting planks of the pier. Cam shouldered his pack while Kade hopped up.

“Two Fallen,” Kade said pointing up. “The bridge may have covered us. Stay close to the building until we reach the end of the pier. Then we’ll run one by one.”

Cam and I both nodded.

Cam led the way, inching along the outside wall of an old warehouse large enough to house boats. I followed close to Cam. Kade hung back, watching the sky.

My heart beat so loudly I swore it reverberated against the concrete building at our backs.

Cam pushed against my arm and he stopped. I followed his gaze, up, up, up. Swirling around the top of one of the support posts for the bridge was a dot attached to a small set of black wings. I held my breath so it wouldn’t shake. Not since before I believed in angels had I been this scared of a set of wings.

It circled a few times. The wind intensified, chilling my face and blowing some of the higher cloud cover away. A hint of sunlight broke through the fog, and everything around Cam and I brightened.

Our wings were picking up the sunlight and throwing it out. The Fallen wouldn’t be able to see Cam’s wings, just as Cam couldn’t see theirs.

Both sides, however, could see mine.

Cam slid in front of me, trying to bury the shimmers from my wings in his own, but it was no use; they were too bright, a beacon for the Fallen soaring above, looking for exactly that.

Through Cam’s wings I spotted a Fallen with pale skin swooping toward us.

Cam pushed off me, spread his glorious golden wings, and took off, slamming into the Fallen in midair. All I could do was stand and watch, wishing I could blast the Fallen somehow without hurting Cam in the process.

Kade’s footsteps thundered down the pier. He ran toward me, wind blowing his hair back. Remembering the plan, I tightened my hold on my backpack and ran toward the street.

The Fallen Cam grappled with made an awful sound, somewhere between a scream and a grunt. It was loud enough to gain the attention of another set of black wings perched on a building high above us. He swooped down, not bothering to extend his wings. Kade pulled me to his side once we reached the street. I looked back at Cam, still grappling in the air with the first Fallen.

“She’s here,” the second Fallen called out. He extended his wings. The ominous crack of thunder lit the air as he caught an updraft and soared after us.

Kade flung me behind him and turned to face the incoming Fallen. “Remember the plan,” he told me.

I should have kept running. But I couldn’t. Cam and Kade didn’t have to do this alone.

“Go!” Kade called right before the Fallen rammed headfirst into his chest.

I backed out of the street stopping when I hit a building. I kept quiet, watching.

Cam’s Fallen tumbled lifelessly out of the sky and into the bay. Cam flapped his wings and headed toward Kade, who took punch after punch from his opponent.

Kade’s arms were holding the Fallen to him and away from me, opening his face and chest up to the Fallen’s skilled fists. “Get. Her. Out. Of. Here!” Kade yelled between punches to Cam.

Cam scanned the street and found me. I shook my head, my arms rigid by my sides. I wasn’t going anywhere without Kade. Cam must have seen that in my eyes. The knife in his hand dripped blood onto the street. He landed behind the Fallen pummeling Kade and drove the knife into his back.

The Fallen slumped forward, collapsing over Kade. Cam heaved him off and helped Kade up.

“What the hell was that?” he asked Cam, running with a new limp toward me. His face was swollen and bloodied, one of his eyes already beginning to close.

Cam outpaced him. “You didn’t see the look on her face; she wasn’t going anywhere without—”

A roar erupted from the sky. Kade grabbed the loop of my backpack and tugged me around the first corner, where the bridge above us covered more of the sky.

“They must have heard the second one’s call. There are too many of them,” Cam said, eyes searching the air. “The only way we’re getting out of here is if I lure them away.”

“What? No,” I hissed.

Cam looked over my head, into Kade’s eyes. “He’s right,” Kade said, not looking away from Cam. “We’ll stick to the plan and find a way to regroup after nightfall.”

I shook my head. No one cared about my unwillingness.

Cam’s hand, slick with blood, touched mine. He gave a brief smile and then pushed off the ground. The flap of his wings blew wisps of hair into my face.

“C’mon,” Kade said, pulling me along.

I followed Kade’s lead, not trusting myself to speak as softly as I needed to, so I kept my mouth shut and watched Cam swoop over the bridge and fly deeper into town with two sets of black wings behind him. In the distance, black streaked across the sky. The black wings overtook the white and the entire lump, all three of them, went down into the city like a rock.

I gasped.

Kade stopped. “What?”

“Cam just fell out of the sky. All of them did. Kade, we have to—”

“Shit. All right. We’ll head that way so when he calls us later we’ll be closer to a meet point.”

“Okay.” My voice quaked. “You think he’ll be fine?”

“I do.”

As we trudged deeper into the city, climbing over the rubble of former asphalt and crumbling buildings, I wanted to believe Kade. Nothing was impossible, not after everything we’d been through, especially for an angel as trained as Cam. Still, something felt wrong. Hell, the city was a ruined war zone, everything felt wrong.

The sky remained dark, a dark that was more than heavy cloud cover. Dust kicked up under our footsteps. It didn’t matter what street we turned on, at least half the buildings had taken damage. Massive chunks had fallen from the sky, landing on other buildings and in the streets. Cars were overturned, crushed, and abandoned. It was as if more than just the Fallen had landed here. I wouldn’t put it past the military to bomb the city, but I would imagine a bomb destroying everything, not just bits and pieces. This must have been the result of the angels fighting back.

Kade jerked me back, into a building that had been ripped apart from top to bottom. He pushed me deeper in while he remained at the opening, watching for a set of wings, or movement.

I didn’t have any clue how long we’d been walking, but my throat was dry and my stomach swirled. Walking over rubble was more of a workout than a regular block. In some cases we’d had to climb mountains of it.

I ventured deeper into the building, and when I found a spot heavily cloaked in darkness, I sat down and opened the zipper of my pack one catch at a time so it wouldn’t make too much noise. I pulled out a bottle of water and a protein bar. While I sucked down half the bottle, footsteps crunched under the uneven rocks. I knew those footsteps anywhere.

Even in the dark I could see that Kade’s face had healed from the beating he took to keep me safe. “Any sign of Cam yet?” I whispered.

“Nope. How are you holding up?”

His question rocked me back to a time when nothing else mattered. He would always wait to ask that until I was safe, completely enveloped in his arms.

I swallowed, my mouth dry in spite of the water. “Fine. We just have to find Cam.”

Kade checked the time on his cell phone. “It’s nearly three in the afternoon. Maybe we should rest here until we get his call.”

I capped my water and shoved the empty meal bar wrapper back in my pack. Leave no trace behind. “No. We keep walking until it isn’t safe.”

I stood and shrugged on my pack. Kade followed without argument. Though tension crackled between us, we kept our space this time.

He wasn’t allowed to do this to me, not now, not when everything rested on my shoulders. Not when finding Cam had to be the most important task. Finding Cam and then going to the angels so they could tell me how I was supposed to stop the Fallen. Kade wasn’t allowed to push me away anymore, because I was the one who’d be doing the pushing from now on.

“He’s got to be close. We’ve been walking all day—”

Kade shushed me. I gravitated toward the nearest wall, the zippers from my pack clacking against the concrete. A new course of sweat gathered at the back of my neck. I kept my eyes open and alert, even though all I wanted to do was close them.

Soft murmurs came and went. Hints of life. The talking voices were so soft they could barely be heard. Lacking the bass a male voice would have exuded.

I glanced at Kade and mouthed, “Women.”

Angels, and therefore, Fallen, were never created female. Which meant there were still people here, trapped in this war-torn city.

Maybe they had found Cam or saw where he went down.

But if we could hear them, so could any Fallen flying by.

I turned, pressing my ear to the concrete of a building that seemed mostly intact from this angle. Waited. Waited. Waited.

Kade pointed upward. I watched his warning, but didn’t see the set of wings he must have. I flattened back against the wall, still straining to hear. But the noises didn’t come.

We had passed a door to this building. I angled my head toward it. Kade shook his head. I nodded, my lips tightening into a thin line, barely containing my anger with him. This wasn’t up for discussion.

We were getting in there. One way or another.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Kade

Ray pushed off the wall and slid around in front of me. I would have grabbed her hand if it would have done any good. But I knew that look. Her eyes were narrowed, her lips thinned, her cheeks pink with irritation. She was going to do whatever she had already decided on, no matter what I said or tried. Grappling with her in the street with at least one Fallen circling overhead would only get us noticed.

I kept my eyes up for another count of ten before joining her at the door. Her grip was already on the handle. I held my hand out to stop her, hoping she wouldn’t pull out of spite. She didn’t. Guess she still trusted me enough. I inched closer and peeled her fingers off the handle, then whispered in her ear, “Sometimes, in war zones, when people are left behind, they find
unique
ways to protect themselves.” The gnarled lock had already been broken from the outside. Slowly, I inched the door open. A chain on the inside of the door rattled softly. I angled around to get a better look and spied the worst-case scenario. “Especially when the military get involved.” I pointed through the crack in the doors to the floor where a device had been set up.