Iron Inheritance (35 page)

I chuckled. “What happened next?”

“I ran and got away; therefore, I won.”

“Peachy.” I smiled. “Was this before you got your talent? That’d be a quick getaway.”

“Yeah, but even after I did, I found that technique quite useful.” He grinned. “Something about the oil or salt, maybe?”

I looked down, still trying to picture him as a chubby little kid. “When did you find your talent?”

“Feels like I’ve always had it, really. Becomes a part of you, you know?”

I shook my head. “I wish we would’ve done this sooner.” I reached out for my glass and accidentally knocked it over so milk ran straight toward Josh’s lap.

Before I could flap an eyelid, Josh grabbed a wad of napkins and his own glass to catch the drip. “Me, too.” He grinned.

I reached out to pick up my overturned glass, and his hand glanced off mine to try and get it first.

A white hallway with subway tile. Old fashioned gurneys rolled past me so my hair whipped out from my shoulders. Crying and the deep thuds of bombs pounded the earth nearby. Gas lamps burned on the walls, and men in old green army uniforms marched past me. At the end of the hall, a woman with dark hair and a slender build stood amid the chaos of the hospital, staring at Josh, who was in a uniform. The woman seemed curious, cocking her head to the side at first, squinting.

Then her eyelids burst apart in realization.

She reached behind her back and threw something. Josh turned and ran, only looking back to see a dagger made of blue flame twirl past his ear and disappear into the wall.

“Eve—” Josh’s voice called me back, worry seeping into its deep tones.

“Hold on.” I massaged my temples and kept my eyes shut.

“You being able to see things, especially through just touching someone, is not some fluke. It means—”

“Tell me another story.” I opened my eyes and grabbed at his hand, swallowing the image, the vision—whatever it was. “Please. I just need to be normal right now. Just help me forget a little longer.”

He hesitated for a moment, but then came around to my side of the booth. I slid over next to the window.

“Ok.” He smiled, his eyes shifting to avoid mine for the first time tonight. “Well, this one is a bit more involved.” He paused. “I’ll have to whisper it, you know, copyright protections and all. Don’t want anyone to sic Disney’s lawyers on me.”

He leaned in so my shoulder pushed into his chest and his lips were right next to my ear.

“There once was a princess.” His breath tickled my ear.

“Ooh, I hate it already.”

“Who hated being a princess.”

“Ok, never mind.” I grinned.

“She was not locked in a tower or forced down a dungeon, you see. She was allowed to go wherever she pleased. But every time she went out, the people of the town expected her to perform, to do a spectacular feat. She would fly through the air with toe-crimping ballet slippers. She would twirl around in dresses with a corset for breathless hours. She would sing, and everyone within earshot would stop to listen, so beautiful was her voice.”

I backed my ear away. His eyes were closed. He didn’t notice that I’d moved.

“But the princess longed to simply blend in, and one day, a handsome prince came.”

I smiled and closed my eyes too.

“And there was only one way to break the spell over her.” He ran a finger over my cheek, and I turned my head.

I inhaled, and his lips were on mine for an instant before he pulled away and started to say something—an apology.

I pushed my lips back to his, pressing into him with all I had left. He froze, but the more I pressed my lips against his, the more he thawed. He brought his hand to the side of my face again, rough against smooth. Back and forth melting together, a slow melody leading up to an orchestra’s finale, a crescendo of butterflies and tingling light leaping in my chest.

He pulled away, his eyes still closed.

“So he kissed her,” he said, his lips barely an inch from mine, “and turned her into a lovable hamster, which he promptly gave to his niece, and she said, ‘thank you, Uncle’ and skipped into a meadow. The end.”

I ran my hand through his hair and smiled.

“What? Too predictable? I’ll have to change the ending.” His blue eyes glinted in the light.

The waitress slammed the check down on the table and startled me so much I jumped off the bench. “Anything else?” She eyed us disapprovingly.

“No, thank you.” Josh slapped several bills on the table. “Please keep the extra Lincoln. I have many.”

She rolled her eyes, and I managed to stifle a laugh until we passed the rest of the early morning customers on our way out. We stood on the cement landing just outside the door, my arm laced in Josh’s like it was built for mine, like we’d known each other since we were three and he’d promised to marry me when he was five and I knew his secrets and he mine. My whole body felt light—feathers tickling my skin so I’d float into the sky.

Then my stomach dropped into oblivion.

A dense black cloud hovered over Josh’s car with an even darker black silhouette embedded in the center. Yellow eyes peered out, and a sinister cackle curled the air around us.

“I must admit, I’m a bit surprised Kovac is still alive, darling. Quite disappointing,” said the shadowy form as it walked down from the cloud as if there were invisible stairs coming out of the foggy transport. His body was knotted black essence, and with each step down, it solidified. Darkness became bone and sinew and blood and breath. When his feet touched the ground, I saw him truly, and the picture was gruesome. He had white, translucent scars etched over every inch of his gray skin with no pattern or logic. From his feet to his arms, up his neck and across his eyelids, cuts new and old made up his exterior shell. Stringy, tar-black hair came next, and then his whole body was obscured in a wave of smoke that clothed him in metal and leather armor that strained as he stepped toward us.

“
You
killed them.” The words burst out of me, and my mind clicked back to the rage setting. I saw only him, thought that one thought. “You killed them!” I yelled and charged at him until Josh pulled me back.

The armor-clad murderer looked surprised, and then smiled, his eyes sweeping over me greedily. “I thought you smarter than that, Evelyn. I took your grandfather’s soul, of course.” He tipped his head in acknowledgement, stopping about ten feet from us, his yellow eyes glinting.

I looked to the side and saw his reflection in the chrome siding of the diner. He wasn’t wearing armor anymore, nor were there any scars. He had tan, flawless skin and wore a tailored suit. I swiveled my head back to reality, and he was in armor, scars from wounds that would have killed anyone else peeking out between the folds of metal and leather. My head whipped back and forth one more time to make sure before I turned to Josh. He tightened his jaw and nodded—only Josh and I could see him as he truly was. Whatever he was, he had the ability to change his looks, which meant he could definitely have made himself look like Kovac when he attacked us. He had been the one behind this all along.

“However, your mother’s death was not my doing, nor was it Kovac’s, as you’ve already figured out. I’d thank God for her death, personally. Very natural death, I’m told. Childbirth.”

I shook my head. More lies. That’s all Babylonians were good for. He had her necklace; he was the one who’d told Kovac what to do.

“Though, it should be said that if Sol would have just given you to me in the first place we wouldn’t have had such unpleasantness between us.” His voice was sultry, smooth, and caustic.

I widened my eyes, and my muscles lost their tension. Given
me
to…? He didn’t want Grandpa? My mom? What did he want with me?

“So you used my family just to get to me?”

He chuckled pity. “Oh, sweetie. All I meant to say is that if he hadn’t stepped in front of you, he’d still be breathing. That blast wouldn’t have killed you; it would have released you. He should have just given you to me.”

“What do you want with me? Who are you?” I stepped away from Josh and the chrome diner, away from the people inside. I could still see them through the windows—families and workers and even the mean waitress. They were ignorant of everything that could happen here. They weren’t going to die because of me. No one else was going to die for me.

“My name is Procel, angel of thunder.” Mr. Sickly Scars waited for a reaction.

“An angel?” I looked back at Josh. His face was ashen. “I thought angels didn’t come to humans except to—”

“Spawn Graced? Siphon off a sliver of their own angelic souls and then pop back to eternity for the war?” Procel leered. “Only the Heavenly Host have forsaken you as God has. No, the Fallen tend to take a more personal approach.” He spread his arms wide. “That’s why I’m here.”

Every word he said scuttled up the back of my neck and shivered down my spine. “What do you want with me?”

He flashed a perfectly straight and blindingly white grin. “So many chances I’ve given you to take your revenge. Why didn’t you?” he asked curiously.

I tilted my head and squinted. Revenge? I turned my gaze away from him and remembered the vision of Kovac kneeling below the black cloud. He’d wanted me to believe that Kovac killed Grandpa, killed my mom so I would turn around and kill Kovac myself. How could he benefit from that? Why would he reward Kovac for enduring that?

“Why didn’t you?” Procel’s calm demeanor changed in an instant, his teeth bared, eyes stretched wide.

The air tingled with electricity.

I breathed slowly, my muscles contracting and loosening, ready to spring forward. “Now that I finally know the truth, I don’t expect it’ll be long before justice is done.”

Procel’s dry, cracked lips split into a sinister grin and bled black. “Sarcasm is sinful, you know. That way leads to damnation.” He licked his lips and swallowed.

“Damnation’s where you come from, isn’t it? A burning pit in hell? Is that how you convinced Kovac to let me kill him? Promised him a few extra spankings down there?”

“Kovac had faith he would be redeemed for his transgressions.”

My eyes widened uncontrollably.

“Why so shocked? Even the damned have faith. For someone who calls herself a Patron you have a lot to learn…or maybe you already know. Yes.” He nodded. “You know there’s something more inside you. The Fallen, the Heavenly Host, their petty war. We’re above them.”

I stepped forward, and Josh’s hand grazed mine—not to pull me back, but to remind me he was there. I hadn’t even realized he’d been inching toward me. “What do you mean?”

“They’ve been holding you back,” Procel said, his eyes turning curiously to Josh.

Josh kept his eyes on the ground.

“From what?” I said, feigning boredom.

“You are a Blood Nephilim, Evelyn.”

The words took slow seconds to transmit between my synapses. That wasn’t possible. The Blood Nephilim…angels couldn’t make them anymore. They’d be locked up.

I shook my head and stepped closer to Josh, acid reaching up my throat as my stomach dropped away. “No.”

“Blood Nephilim were killed by God because he feared their power—they were too much like him.” Procel stepped closer. “Strength beyond limits. Sight not bound by time. You already possess two of the seven talents, if I’m not mistaken.”

A lump caught in my throat as my eyes connected with his, the truth pulled out of some deep recess of my mind and blending in with his lies. I was a Warrior, but these visions I kept having, did that make me a Prophet too?

“Your other powers will come with time and training,” Procel said softly as if reading my mind.

I looked up into his eerily comforting yellow eyes—full moons reflecting the setting sun.

“Yes, you know it’s true. You can feel the power inside—more essence than flesh.”

I clenched my fists tighter, then stopped when he smiled gleefully.

“Come with me, Evelyn. The first Blood Nephilim in over four thousand years—you don’t belong with the Patrons or the Babylonians. You’re above them, more powerful than they could ever be.” He reached out his hand.

His words were honey, and my imagination craved the sugar. All the talents—strength and speed and healing and miracles and song and strategy and the future. How was that not appealing? I could do anything, protect everyone. No one would have to lose their grandparents, their mothers and fathers.

But it was all impossible, wasn’t it?

Have you looked at what’s happening right now? We’re kind of past “impossible,” aren’t we?

Wait, did this mean my dad was an angel?

I looked up at Procel, white scars crisscrossing gaunt cheeks. “Are you my father?” Even as I said it, I willed it not to be true. I inhaled more air than my lungs could hold. Could a Fallen even make a Graced for the Patrons? Was I really supposed to be a Babylonian?

“Lucifer, no.” Procel spat the phrase like a curse. “Your father’s locked in a cage for his transgression of creating you. He couldn’t be here if he tried. But me—think of me as your mentor. I’m here to guide you to restore balance to this world.”

I squeezed my fingers in and out and saw a glimmer of blue essence flow out of me in a wisp. Relief washed over my whole body. Fallen couldn’t create Graced with light essence. That meant my dad was one of the Heavenly Host. I’d always thought he’d just walked out on us.

Had he loved Mom?

Had she loved him?

Did he even know she’d died giving birth to me?

Or, more likely, that Procel killed her.

Procel extended his hand again. “I am not your father, but I can take you to him, if you like.”

My mouth closed at the sound of his voice. All that he was saying—even if it was true, even if it was what I’d waited to hear all my life—didn’t change the fact that he’d killed Grandpa.

I straightened my back and looked him square in the eye. “For an angel who’s lived a few millennia, you really are stupid. You kill my grandpa, my mom, you nearly kill my friends, and you expect me to come with you?”

“Again, not your mother, darling.” Procel shook his head, his voice sweet venom. “But truthfully, you have no choice in the matter. Power trumps good and evil. That was the perfection of the Blood Nephilim. That is
your
perfection. When you lose control, it comes out of you—it
is
you. You can’t fight it.”