Crystal Tomb (Starfire Angels: Dark Angel Chronicles Book 3) (4 page)

"Because it's harder to create a
portal to another point on the same world."

On the same world? On Earth? He must
have been kidding. Right?

No. She knew that determined look he
wore.

And the image on the monitor told her
where. "Giza?"

"It's the closest landmark, something
easy to focus on."

She sat down on the bed, her head
racing with ideas of why he would want to go to Egypt. Only one
answer fit, but she had to hear it from him. "To what?"

He swiveled in the desk chair. ["The
Eye is in the desert. I want to find it before anyone else does.
Sooner or later, one of the protectors may break. If
not…"]

["I know."] He didn't have to finish,
even when speaking Inari. "If not" possibilities made her nauseous
again. That mission almost five thousand years ago should never
have left a Starfire shard hidden on Earth.

Yet she couldn't argue that either. It
had been safe for almost five thousand years; four thousand seven
hundred and some odd Earth years to be more precise. The Inari had
fought over the power of the Starfire throughout their history, so
stashing pieces on other worlds was logical.

["It's been moved over time. In his
mind, Torres thought it was originally given to the Scandinavians,
but it traveled south and fell into the hands of the Romans and
from the Roman Empire ended up in Egypt. Somewhere along the line
it went from being known as the Eye of Odin to the Eye of
Horus."]

Odin…
The Norse God. Of course! That was it! Scandinavia was where
the Inari mission to Earth had taken the Starfire shard in the
amulet when they were attacked by humans at their original
destination. And she thought Inari hated the cold. Maybe not so
much, or maybe they used that to deter anyone who came after the
Eye. ["Vodin! General Jakoru Vodin, from my vision…Vodin.
Odin."]

Elis's lopsided grin eased the tension
of the moment and made her heart ache for his kiss and, with it,
the desire to forget her life could be anything but
normal.

Elis pursed those sweet lips. After a
few seconds, he mumbled, ["If Vodin left the Eye to the
Scandinavians, who was Horus?"]

Damn, those eyes were gorgeous, but
they stared at her as if expecting something other than what she
really wanted. ["What?"]

["Torres said Rafael returned…Rafael
Horus? Sounds right for an Inari name."] His eyes dropped to her
chest. Not that she disagreed, but she suspected what she would
rather be doing wasn't what he had in mind. His eyes focused on the
pendant, the shard she wore on a chain around her neck. Of
course.

["Were they present on that
mission?"]

Ah! She got it. He wanted her to ask
the entities of the shard she wore. Usually, the Starfire entities
popped up a vision of something appropriate when they thought she
needed it, but not this time. Strange that they hadn't.

Purple eyes behind black locks stared
at her expectantly.

["All right."] Why not? She wanted to
know too.

She slid back to the head of the bed
so her back rested against the wall, folded her legs into a
comfortable position, and closed her eyes. A second later, she
found the resonance from the pitch of the crystal's energy in her
DNA. It warmed through her, enabling her to connect to the entities
of her shard.

Voices whispered incoherently, through
feeling rather than true words, and synchronized into
agreement.

THERE IS NOTHING.
The meaning shot through her. They knew nothing.
They could only know if they were present to witness events.
Another Crystal Keeper could have been there, but that one hadn't
borne her shard, if that was the case.

Raea let the resonance fade and opened
her eyes to Elis sitting next to her. ["They don't
know."]

["Or they don't want you to
know."]

There was that. It wouldn't be the
first time the entities withheld information from her when she
wanted to know something but they didn't think she was
ready.

Elis's hand slipped under hers, their
palms together, and he locked his fingers with hers.

"Elis! Raea! Time to eat!"

Perfect timing…almost. Amid all this
distraction, she hadn't forgotten her hunger.

Elis slid off the bed, his hand still
locked with hers, but Raea used it to stop him, a question on her
mind seeking an answer before anything more could interfere. "What
were you going to say earlier, before we were
interrupted?"

Normally she'd think that bashful
reddening and avoiding her eyes cute, but right now it did nothing
but aggravate her.

"It's…not important," he
said.

Like hell it wasn't! "Yes, it is, or
you wouldn't have said anything…Bonding. Hello?" Need she remind
him? Only because of Nare's interference had she learned of that
little detail of Inari relationships.

He grimaced. "I'm sorry about that,
but this isn't the same… Evelyn's waiting." He pulled on her
hand.

She resisted his urge for her to
stand. "Elis." He could make things so difficult when he
wanted.

He said nothing.

Fine. Whatever. She'd pry
it from him later. For now, she slid off the bed with him, her hand
still in his, and grabbed his shirt to pull him close before he
walked off. "You
will
tell me later."

"When the time is right." After a
quick kiss, he led her out.

When the time was right?
That confirmed it—what he said
was
important to their relationship. What could he be
holding back?

She'd find out soon enough, and hoped
she wouldn't regret it.

Risaal

{"No wings."}

Rikku
Ronur Kalas hissed contempt at the confirmation by his
underling, Kin Silur. No wings. Then they couldn't be
Inari.

He was so sure he had the right ones
after talking to people and learning about those closest to the
angel sightings, which could only have been of Inari.

He'd have to report back
to
Kan Rikku
Nakor
Surik with nothing. With the temper of the young commander, Kalas
would probably lose his head.

Returning with nothing was not an
option. They'd stay until they found the "angels".

If these two weren't Inari, who else
could be causing such a stir in the community?

He would find them and the Inari would
pay for the trouble they had caused his crew.

{"Their bio signatures indicate they
aren't human."} Nakor Rik, the third member of their team hiding in
the van, showed him the scanner's readings. The frozen images of
the two crossing between houses showed their internal
anatomy.

Impossible. They looked human on the
outside.

Rik was right—Kalas hated one of the
Nakor clan being right, but the scanner didn't lie. Although they
scanned the two from across the street, the imaging of the bodies
of the couple showed respiratory and circulatory systems matching
what he had seen of the Inari. Those two weren't human.

But what had happened to their wings?
Or were these two something else? Hybrids perhaps?

There was something different about
them.

The human faces of his underlings
indicated surprise, but the break of brown "skin" into spines along
Silur's neck revealed the dark green of his natural Risaal form for
a second. The youngest would need practice holding his camouflage,
which was one reason Kalas often left him out of sight from humans
while he and Rik went out among them for information.

{"They look Inari internally."} Rik
tapped a finger on the screen, which changed and showed an image of
the moment they scanned them but manipulated to see all angles.
{"Externally, they could be human."}

Perhaps all was not lost.

{"Close enough."} Kalas gazed at the
images, memorizing the features of the couple. {"We'll go in after
they've gone to sleep and take them."}

{"What if they don't
know?"}

Kalas clamped his teeth a moment,
fighting the urge to let his emotions break the human camouflage he
wore. Silur would ask that. He was young, and Kalas would excuse
his impertinence…this time.

Kan Rikku
Nakor Surik would not forgive him for disturbing
the humans and possibly alerting the enemy to their
presence.

But the humans were a violent race
also and could be blamed for trouble. That made the answer simple:
{"Kill them."} They still had the human to torture about the
Eye.

Lights Out

Oh, bliss! Oh, joy! Oh,
rapture!

Whatever. She had to lay off the
thesaurus—one of the joys of memorizing everything like a living
recorder, and she could live without that.

Freedom was definitely the right
word.

Three days since they last flew felt
like an eternity. This was what Raea was meant to be, not a
valedictorian writing a stupid speech.

She didn't want to speak in
front of her whole class, much less the whole school
plus
family and friends of
everyone. Joy—so not.

And what had Elis done? Nothing. He'd
convinced the Principal, Mrs. McKeen, he couldn’t say anything more
that Raea could say better. Wimp. He just didn't want to speak in
front of everyone, although the whole school would probably pass
out from hearing him actually speak. That would make it so
worthwhile.

Ah, well. Too late now. If she had the
chance, she'd gladly let someone else take her place. Such was her
life. A speech was better than facing the Shirukan any
day…maybe.

Forget it.
Why did she even worry about it? Now was the time
to fly and forget about graduation.

She'd probably trip on the
steps to the stage where the podium was. She'd be laughed out of
McClarron. Or she'd forget something or slip up.
Something
would go
wrong.

Fly. Don't
think.

Warm air currents from below lifted
her to the starry night sky, but she flapped higher. This was
flying!

Elis looped up and spiraled
to level off facing her. Show off. Okay, so
that
was flying. He would always be
better; but he'd grown up on the homeworld flying all the time,
while she'd spent most of her life without wings having no idea of
what she missed. Now she couldn't get enough.

He passed close over her, the shift in
the air currents forcing her to make adjustments in the angles of
her wings.

Fine. If that's how he wanted it, then
she would give him something to think about. He could follow
her.

Raea folded her wings and dove, the
patchwork of farmland below growing larger while the wind of her
dive pulled tears from her eyes.

["Raea."] Elis's voice came through
clear on her tri-comm with a hint of concern. Unlike a phone, the
small communications device linked to her auditory nerve, which
meant a clarity overriding all interference. She hardly noticed the
device attached along her cheek in a line from before her ear to
nearly the corner of her mouth. His voice sounded like he was right
beside her, and she could almost imagine he was.

Except she shot towards the ground
like a missile with the air rushing past her ears. It thrilled her
like the dropping ride at big amusement parks.

["Pull up. Pull up. Pull up…"] He
mumbled the words, but he might have been whispering them in her
ear.

No way. She could do this, and she
would prove it. After her trip to Inar'Ahben three weeks ago and
the race against the Shirukan, she had more confidence in her
flying skills.

["Raea!"]

All right, all right. Just a little
more.

That farm below grew fast. All right.
Time to break her fall.

At the opening of her wings and the
sudden twinge of pain through her back, she gasped. Catching the
air like a parachute strained her back muscles and only slowed her
fall.

Great. Raea flapped hard to regain her
altitude, the farmyard growing but more slowly beneath her. Each
stroke of her wings sent a sharp pain through her back
muscles.

Ow! Ow! Ow!
Maybe Elis was right. He was always right. Damn
him.

Idiot!
She should've listened to him and pulled up sooner, before she
accelerated to such a speed.

Slowly, she climbed again, Elis next
to her.

["Are you all right?"]

["No."] She sucked in a breath through
her teeth at the twinge of pain with each flap. ["You should have
warned me."]

["Would you have
listened?"]

No, but that didn't mean he couldn't
have tried harder. Against the star-sprinkled sky, she could see
nothing of his black wings or his body, dressed all in black and
dark colors as he was, and only a somewhat lighter area of his
face. She imagined an expression somewhere between hurt and worry.
Damn. Elis was way too good at guilt-tripping, and he didn't have
to say anything or even be visible. ["Okay, probably
not."]