Angel's Breath (Fallen Angels - Book 2) (19 page)

I felt a rush of blood rise to my cheeks at how I had let those fears turn me into a panicked idiot.

“We might have a chance if we can get loose.”

Darcy tried to shrug, but the harness was too tight for her to do more than move her shoulders a quarter of an inch. “If you have any idea how to do that, I’m all ears.”

Instead of answering, I tried to lean forward. I couldn’t move far because of the seat belt. Straining against the harness, I tried to pitch my voice low enough that David and Al couldn’t hear me.

“Stacy. Stace. Wake up. Are you awake?”

I didn’t know what kind of tranquilizer they had given her, or how long the effects would last, but our very survival was pinned on her regaining consciousness soon enough to help.

“Stace,” I said louder. “Wake up. We need you to untie us.” Conscious of Darcy beside me, I continued to speak to Stacy. “We need you, babe. I need you. Stace, please wake up!”

David turned his head around, and looked directly at me. He smiled and took off his earphones.

To Al, he said, “Just keep it steady.” He extracted himself from the pilot’s seat, made his way past Tom, and came back toward us.

Sitting in the seat in front of Darcy, he said to me, “Welcome back to the land of the living. How’s the head feeling? Al really rang your bell, didn’t he?”

I bared my teeth at him. “What, did you come back here to gloat or something?”

“No. I just wanted to give you the opportunity to make peace with yourself.”

I wasn’t following his meaning.

He said, “You may have been wondering why I haven’t killed you yet. You see, I had to be certain you were our father’s only bastard. Can’t risk the creature jumping to someone else. Father Putnam assures me there are two factors that decide who gets possessed. There’s the strength of the bloodlines, and geographic proximity. I’m pretty sure Tom and Al aren’t related to me, but I believe in being thorough.

“I just received a message a few minutes ago: We don’t have any living aunts or uncles or cousins, Richard. Our closest relative is a second cousin who lives in England.

“As much as I was looking forward to watching Father Putnam exorcise the fallen angel from you, I’d rather not take any chances. You have until we land to make your peace.”

He looked at Darcy. “You might be interested to know that one of my researchers did some digging on you, Ms. Anderson. I really didn’t know what I was going to do with you. I mean, I don’t think you’d come work for me.”

“It would never happen,” Darcy said with a fire in her eyes.

“Exactly.” He rubbed his chin. “I wasn’t looking forward to keeping you tied up forever. That would be too costly, and there are too many things that can go wrong.”

He paused, as if hoping someone would prompt him to deliver the punch line. When neither of us rose to the bait, he winked at her. “It looks as if we will be having an exorcism after all. I could just shoot you, but Al said he wanted to watch you scream as we slowly ripped the creature out of you. He’s never seen an exorcism before, and I believe in giving my employees little perks like this.”

Darcy made a puzzled face at David’s meaning, but it came to me a moment before he made his big reveal.

David reached out and brushed Darcy’s hair back from her face. She tried to pull away, but couldn’t.

“I bet you thought you didn’t have any relatives,” he said. “But good news! Looks like your father had one cousin, and it turns out he’s living in California on welfare. He had some kind of a workplace accident or something a while back. He seems to be a real down-on-his-luck guy. I’m sure I could work with him.”

I could see the horror in Darcy’s expression. “You’re insane,” she said in a hoarse whisper.

David looked surprised at the accusation. “I’m no different than any other successful businessman. I seize opportunities when they present themselves, and make the necessary decisions—”

That was when, to my utter shock, a dark-haired ball of fury flew past me and collided with David.

Chapter Twenty-Five

I didn’t know how long it had been since Stacy had regained consciousness, but I could imagine the rage she felt, seeing David—her brother’s murderer—sitting in the seat across from her, a smug look on his face.

It was natural for her to want to exact revenge.

Before I knew she was awake, she had launched herself at him, using the weight of her body to drive him into the opposite wall of the plane. The force of it knocked his head into the window behind him so hard the glass cracked. If the blow didn’t kill him, it certainly rendered him unconscious.

“Stace,” I said when I recovered from my surprise. “Untie us.”

Either the impact must have stunned her, or she was still feeling the remnants of the tranquilizer in her system, but Stacy was very slow to pull herself away from David’s unconscious body.

Al and Tom were not so slow. Both men turned at the sound, and Tom immediately struggled to unfasten his seat belt.

Remaining at the controls of the airplane, Al yelled, “David!” When he said it, his hand must have moved the wheel, because the airplane pitched to the left. The motion made my stomach heave, and I tasted bile.

Growling a curse as he leveled the plane again, Al said to Tom, “Kill that bitch. We don’t need her.”

By that time, Tom had untangled himself from his belt, and moved into the aisle. He pulled out his gun and held it in front of him as he picked his way toward us.

“Don’t shoot,” Al said in warning. “Just break her neck.”

“Stace, get up!” I shouted.

With her hands propped on the armrests of the seat, Stacy lifted her head and looked at me. Her eyes weren’t focusing, and her mouth hung open.

“I don’t feel good,” she said in a croak.

“Behind you,” Darcy said. But Tom was already on her, and he grabbed her by the neck from behind.

Stacy, screaming in terror, reacted by mule-kicking, and her heel connected with Tom’s groin. He grunted and doubled over, releasing his grip long enough for Stacy to get off the seat and run toward the back of the plane.

With an incomprehensible shout, Tom lunged forward and managed to catch Stacy’s ankle, tripping her up. She fell heavily on the aisle floor beside me, and I could hear her breath rush out of her.

Like an animal, Tom pounced on her. With his large fist, he struck at her with a hammering action. She was still conscious, and managed to duck far enough to the side that his first blow glanced off the side of her head. His knuckles connected with the floor, and when he pulled his hand back up, I could see he had torn skin. Rivulets of blood dripped from his fingers.

Bound hand and foot, I was powerless to stop Tom from killing her right in front of me. “Get off her, you bastard.”

Tom, snarling, took aim and punched. What saved Stacy, oddly enough, was Al. He had turned around to see what was happening, and lost control again. The plane pitched one way, and then jerked back the other as Al corrected course. The motion made Tom lose balance, and he fell into the space between Darcy and the seat in front of her.

Although the harness bound our hands, Darcy had somehow managed to wriggle her fingers out, and she clawed at Tom’s head. He pulled back with a yowling sound, a bloody lock of his hair ripping away from his head.

Standing on uneasy legs, Tom backhanded Darcy across the face. She cried out, and I could see the blow had dazed her.

My rage continued to build like a hurricane, aching to be released. I fought against my bonds, but could not break free.

Stacy managed to get to her hands and knees. She scurried behind me. She reached up and grabbed the fastener of my collar with one hand, but before she could undo it, Tom leaned over the seat and slapped her hard, knocking her back from me.

At the same time, he pulled out his gun. Despite Al yelling like a madman for him not to shoot, Tom had had enough.

He fired his gun, and Stacy gasped as the bullet struck home.

What Tom didn’t know was that when he had hit Stacy, her fingers had caught on the rosary around my neck. As she fell back, she tore the necklace away from me.

The cord of the rosary snapped … and the spiritual binding broke.

The fallen angel inside me rose up.

“Stace!” The sound of the gunshot sent a bolt of panic through me.

In a blind rage, I drew in the air around me, focusing it on the strap binding my hands. Loosening it enough to get my hands free, I quickly wriggled out of the harness.

Freed, I turned, kneeling in my seat, and released a torrent of wind at Tom, who was still pointing his gun at Stacy, as if waiting for her to move so he could shoot her again.

I sucked in every available particle of air inside the cabin, and threw it at Tom with as much power as I could, hoping it would crush him against the fuselage.

The impact sent him hurtling into the rear exit door. The force of the blast was enough to knock the door open.

Tom was sucked out into the atmosphere, and the air pressure change inside the cabin was so fierce my ears popped. The roaring of the wind was overwhelming, and drowned out my screams.

Stacy, the front of her shirt bloodied from the bullet wound, began to slide across the cabin floor to the open door. I couldn’t tell if she was alive or dead, but if she got sucked out, there would be no help for her.

Throwing the remnants of the leather harness off me, I jumped across the seat to grab her, but I wasn’t fast enough, and she followed Tom out of the plane, into the wide-open sky miles above the ground.

“Richard, no!” Darcy called out, but I was running on instinct.

Without a moment’s hesitation, and no thought of my fear of heights, I dived out the door after Stacy.

I had always had an idea what free fall would feel like, but the reality was much different from what I had imagined.

The fear of falling I had developed after my first experience came back—this time with a vengeance. A wall of air slammed into me, ripping at my clothes, skin, and hair. Suddenly, I couldn’t breathe. I opened my mouth, but I couldn’t stop my throat from contracting against the rush of air.

The ground far below me didn’t seem to be getting bigger very quickly at first, but then I could see I was running out of time. It was in that moment that I remembered what Darcy had said.

I had the power to control air.

Instinctively, I willed the air particles below me to come together to make the atmosphere under me more dense, creating more resistance and slowing my fall.

I also created a protective bubble around my head, deflecting the stream of air away from my mouth. With the decrease in pressure, I was able to relax my throat and breathe again.

A hundred feet or so below me, the distance between Stacy and me began to increase. She was completely limp and at the mercy of gravity’s pull.

On television, I had seen skydivers tuck their arms in and increase speed by forming themselves into the shape of a rocket. I knew that would not give me enough time: we had been falling too long. The ground was rushing up fast.

Willing the exact opposite of the air cushion effect, I caused the air and wind to part below me, creating a frictionless tunnel.

I more than doubled my velocity downward, and for a moment, I felt the tight constriction of panic grip me.

I am in control,
I told myself.

Reaching Stacy, I threw my arms around her.

Once I had a good hold of her, I willed the air to gather under us as a cushion once more.

For a moment, I thought I was too late. We were only a few hundred feet from crashing into a forest clearing.

Straining with the effort, I focused more and more air to thicken below us, and I could feel the physical pressure on my body as the atmosphere under us became as dense as water.

Despite my efforts, we hit the ground hard, knocking the wind out of me. I had tried to protect Stacy with my body, and when we landed, she bounced off me, her head hitting me in the mouth and making me see stars.

But I was alive!

Groaning with the effort, I rolled over and checked Stacy. She was unconscious, but I could feel her breath against my hand. Pulling back her shirt from her shoulder, I winced. Tom’s bullet had hit her in the chest below her collarbone. It was bleeding freely.

Quickly, I tore off my shirt and did my best to wrap it around her torso in a makeshift tourniquet.

“I’ve got to get you to a hospital,” I said to her, though I knew she couldn’t hear me.

I looked around. I had no idea where we were or how far away the nearest hospital was. I had no way of calling for help, and I knew if Stacy didn’t receive medical attention soon, she might succumb to her wounds.

Frustrated, I stood up and looked around, and that’s when I spotted something hanging from a tree on the other side of the clearing.

Tom.

“I’ll be right back,” I said to Stacy, and broke into a run. When I got to the mercenary’s body, which looked as if it had been run over by a truck, I steeled myself to search his pockets.

I found a cell phone in his pocket, and prayed that it still worked.

Flipping it open, I pressed the power button, and felt a wave of anger at the injustice. The phone came on, but there was no connectivity.

Racing back to Stacy, I checked to make sure she was still breathing. I tightened the tourniquet around her wound, and said, “It’ll be all right; I promise. Just hang on a bit longer.”

Trying to be as gentle as I could, I picked her up and held her close.

Part of the reason I had developed a fear of flying and heights was the complete lack of control. I was at the mercy of other forces. Now, when I tapped into the power of the thing that possessed me, I had control over air and wind. I had stopped Stacy and myself from smashing into the ground.

And if I could do that…

Closing my eyes and focusing my mind, I once again gathered the air around me, willing it to lift us off the ground. I trembled from the effort, and when I opened my eyes once more, Stacy and I were several dozen feet in the air.

I continued to push us higher and higher until we were well above the canopy of forest around the clearing. For someone with ordinary vision, all they would be able to see was more trees. When I concentrated, my range of vision multiplied. About forty miles away, I saw the tops of a few high-rise buildings. I recognized the skyline of Tacoma.