BROKEN ANGELS (Angels and Demons Book 1) (8 page)

There wasn’t time to take a car or use the QuikTunnels to get to all four locations before anyone else died from the disease. They traveled in their ethereal forms, Dylan pulling Wyatt along. He didn’t like to travel that way, but he didn’t complain.

Unfortunately, the effort really took a lot out of Dylan.

She felt physically ill as they landed outside the ruined city of New York. She fell to her knees and a headache like ones she used to get before she learned to control her powers was pounding in her head. She leaned forward, worried that the last meal she’d eaten might come up any second.

“She needs to be healed,” she heard Stiles say to Wyatt. “She was taking in too much of the darkness back there at the house.”

Wyatt knelt down beside her and ran a hand slowly up her back. It felt nice, but the warmth of their shared healing wasn’t there.

“Is it your head?” Wyatt asked. “Like before? Did they overwhelm you?”

She nodded, regretting the movement almost immediately. Pain sliced through her, settling in her neck. She was afraid to move again, afraid that the pain would just continue to multiply.

Wyatt ran his hand over the top of her head. There was a little warmth…but not like before. And it did little to fix the pain.

“We should stay here till morning,” Stiles suggested. “Let us catch our breath. And a little sunlight wouldn’t hurt when we start hunting around in the ruins.”

“Yeah, I guess so.” Wyatt touched Dylan’s head again, his fingers disrupting her hair, but doing little else. “We’ll sleep under the trees. It’ll be just like the old days.”

Dylan forced a smile. “Too bad we lost your old bed roll.”

He smiled too. “The damn thing was worn out anyway.” He kissed the side of her head. “I’ll go find some firewood.”

Dylan thought she caught Wyatt shooting a glance at Stiles, but wasn’t sure. The pounding in her head made it nearly impossible for her to really concentrate on much of anything. But the moment Wyatt was out of sight, Stiles was kneeling beside her in the same place Wyatt had just vacated.

“You’ve got to learn to shut it out, kiddo,” he said softly as he laid his hand on the top of her head. Instantly, the pain began to recede, almost as though his hand was a magnet and the pain was a collection of metal filings. She closed her eyes and sighed as it all floated away, even the nausea that had settled like a hot ball in her belly.

She sat up, a sigh slipping from between her lips.

“Thanks.”

“Anytime.”

Stiles set his hand on her shoulder for a long moment, and then he turned away, bursting into his ethereal form and rushing out over the ruins.

By the time Wyatt came back, Dylan had found a soft, lushly green grassy area that would make a suitable bed for the night. She gathered some moss that would make a decent pillow and slipped out of the long over shirt she’d been wearing to use as a blanket.

“Feeling better?”

“Your touch is like magic,” she said, gesturing to the ring of rocks she’d built for him to build the fire inside of. “Just like always.”

Wyatt dropped the wood and began building the fire without saying a word. She watched, feeling a slight sense of déjà vu. How many times had she watched him do that when they’d first met? The first night, she hadn’t even understood what it was he was trying to do. But, then again, she hadn’t understood a lot back then.

She couldn’t imagine what her life would have been like without Wyatt.

When the fire was roaring in its little ring, Wyatt came to her. He touched her face lightly as his eyes searched for signs of illness.

“It’s okay,” she said. “I’m okay.”

He nodded just slightly, never taking his eyes from hers. “Where’s Stiles?”

She shrugged. “I think he went exploring.”

“I think his grief is driving him insane. What the hell did he do to Jimmy?”

Dylan bit her lip, her own concern for Wyatt’s father burning in her belly, bringing back that nausea to a small degree. “I don’t know,” she said softly. “I think he gave him a memory.”

“Of what?”

She shook her head. “I had my mental walls up to keep the thoughts to a minimum. I couldn’t see it.”

“He needs to back off, babe. I won’t sit back and watch him hurt my family.”

“I don’t think he did it to hurt Jimmy.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t think I’ve seen the old man move that fast in years. Whatever Stiles did, it pissed him off.”

“Like father, like son.”

Wyatt normally didn’t like being compared to Jimmy. But he didn’t argue this time. Instead, he drew Dylan closer to him and kissed her. She stepped into him, her hands moving slowly up his chest until she could feel his pulse beating just below his skin low in his throat. She loved being so close to him, loved the feel of his hands on her body, and the taste of his lips on her tongue. She wasn’t sure she could ever get enough of this even if they both lived a thousand years.

But as they lay tangled in each other’s limbs hours later, while Wyatt’s soft snores caused his hot breath to brush against the hairs on the back of her neck, she found herself thinking of things she shouldn’t. Wyatt’s touch had always been able to heal her, even after his other powers had faded. Every time they touched, there was that familiar warmth, that sense of peace that came with healing. But lately…was that fading, too? If so, what did that mean?

What did it mean that Stiles’ touch could do what only Wyatt’s touch had once been capable of?

And why was that one moment—that one kiss she and Stiles shared—suddenly constantly on her mind?

Something was changing, she could feel it. Something undefinable seemed to be infusing itself into her soul. She didn’t understand it and didn’t ask for it or want it. But it was there and she instinctively knew there was nothing she could do to stop it.

Could Stiles feel it, too? Was Wyatt aware of it? Was she finally going crazy? Or was she simply falling out of love with her soul mate?

Her heart immediately protested. Wyatt would forever be the most important person in her life. He was…everything.

She snuggled closer to him, making him moan softly in his sleep.

She couldn’t imagine her life without him in it. She didn’t want a life without him in it. She’d always kind of assumed that they would go together and move on to whatever came next hand in hand. But he was growing older and she wasn’t. He was changing and she wasn’t. He’d lost his powers—he was more human now than he had ever been. He was different. Or she was different. Or both…she really wasn’t sure anymore. But she was afraid God had plans for them both, and those plans did not include their being together in this world and the next.

And it was that that scared her. It was that that made her want to resist whatever this change was.

She wasn’t sure she could survive whatever came next without Wyatt.

The building was still partially intact. Stiles, Wyatt, and Dylan walked through it, knocking over debris here and there in an attempt to find anything that looked like a scientist’s notes or to find a blank spot where someone might have taken some sort of equipment. Stiles didn’t think anyone had touched these ruins in years, except maybe Outlanders passing through who had used it for shelter.

“There’s nothing here,” Wyatt finally said, giving voice to exactly what Stiles had been thinking.

“This place, was it important to their process?” Dylan asked.

Stiles nodded. “It was, for a while. But I don’t think they used it after the human war ended.”

Wyatt kicked over some more debris, sending dust flying into the air. “You knew about this place?”

“Yeah.” Stiles sat heavily on the broken remainders of a wall. “Demetria brought me here once. They were working on the elixir here.”

“Then it would be logical to assume this is where whoever altered the disease got his information.”

“Not if they moved their notes and equipment before the building was destroyed.” Stiles waved his arm around to indicate the entire building. “Does it look like someone’s been scavenging medical equipment from this place?”

“We don’t know how long ago this person altered the disease.”

“I would guess, not long.”

“And you would know that…”

“Guys,” Dylan said, “when you said it would be just like the old days, I didn’t think you meant everything about the old days. Can you cool it a little?”

Stiles stood again. “I don’t think there’s anything here for someone to use. We should move on to the next location.”

He didn’t wait for a response. He burst into his ethereal form and headed toward Chicago. It was a little strange being back there. The tunnels where he’d first met Rebecca were still there, unharmed from the earthquakes he’d caused to convince Jack James to move the community. Even the farmland—the fields he’d worked with Tyler, Mark, Philip, and the others—was still there, vaguely visible despite the corn and other vegetables that were now growing wild. It had been the beginning of a life that would change Stiles forever.

Was that why it hurt so much to see it?

The building in question was downtown, a couple of miles from the old tunnels. He set down on the sidewalk outside, surprised to find that the city was still pretty much intact. There were signs of neglect, of course, but the angel attacks and the human war hadn’t left the many scars that were evident in other ruins of this size.

He wondered why.

“Is this it?”

Dylan stared up at the building’s façade as Wyatt perched on the edge of a water hydrant that was long unused and rusted closed. The toll of moving around with Dylan was beginning to take its toll on Wyatt. He was pale and his breathing slightly shallow. Stiles might have healed him if he wasn’t aware that his touch would not be welcome.

Dylan, however, was more aware of him than it first appeared. She stepped up beside him and laid her hand on his shoulder, the color immediately reinfusing Wyatt’s face.

“This is what I saw in Jimmy’s memories.”

“It’s intact, that means it would be more likely that someone found something inside here,” Wyatt said as he climbed to his feet. “Is there a settlement near here?”

Stiles shook his head. “Hasn’t been in years.”

That didn’t seem to faze Wyatt any. He strode to the front door—which was missing—and glass crunched under his boots as he went inside. Stiles gestured for Dylan to follow. He brought up the rear. They walked into a reception area that must have once been a beautiful place. There were remnants of it still—marble on the floors and walls, paintings that had once hung on the wall but which now lay in varying degrees of decay on the floor, furniture of wood, glass, and what could only have been expensive fabrics. But they didn’t even stop to consider it as they made their way to the lab on the third floor.

Dylan walked slowly, pausing every little bit to listen for trouble. Stiles didn’t sense anything more than wildlife in the area, more wildlife than Jack’s hunters would have known what to do with fifty years ago. But there was no danger they couldn’t handle.

He knew Dylan was
off
today. There was something bothering her, but she wouldn’t let Stiles in, so he wasn’t sure what it was. He’d seen her, the night before, sharing intimacies with Wyatt. Her mind had been open then, full of so much emotion he was still working his way through it.

Or maybe he was just mixing up her emotions with his own.

He’d slept a few miles away, deciding it was better to give them their space. And when he slept, he went to the garden for the first time in…he couldn’t even remember when the last time was.

When an angel sleeps, he doesn’t necessarily have to stay with his human form. Sleep was a human need, a way of recharging a mortal body. When Stiles first fell, he left his body every night, returning to the garden where he’d spent much of his early millennia. After a while, however, he began sticking with his human form, dreaming as his human form dreamt. It made it easier for him to return to consciousness when there was trouble. And then, it just became habit.

But last night, he had needed to recharge. To remember who and what he was.

There were friends there in the garden. Fellow angels he knew, others he didn’t, but friends just the same. They spoke to him, offered him welcome, and embraced him as a brother. It was nice to be among his own kind again. But it was also…strange.

He had been gone for so long—to heaven, it had only been a short while, but by Earth time it had been a lifetime. Not counting the two years he had spent in heaven after the Battle of Genero, he had been on Earth for more than sixty-five years. He’d been among humans and had lived as a human for that length of time. He was different from the bookworm who had first fallen.

And he still didn’t understand why he remained on Earth.

“Here,” Wyatt said, shoving open a heavy, steel door at the top of the stairs. “This must be it.”

“Not here,” Dylan said as Stiles stepped through the door.

He saw immediately what she meant. The floor was empty. Every piece of equipment, every set of notes, everything that might have existed here at one time was gone. They must have taken everything with them when they abandoned this facility.

“Are you sure this is the right floor? Maybe another floor…”

Stiles shook his head, pointing to a glass enclosed space in the far left corner. “That’s where the lab was. You can see where they had their workstations and the gas nozzles for the Bunsen burners. This is the right space.”

Dylan kicked a wall before she fell into the wall, landing hard on her shoulder. “We’re not going to find anything.”

“We will. We just have to keep looking.”

She rolled so that her back was pressed against the wall and studied both of them, Wyatt and Stiles.

“What if we can’t figure out how this started? How are we going to stop this thing?”

Wyatt met her gaze, and then turned away as the same fear rushed through his mind. But Stiles wasn’t ready to give up.

“There’s another place for us to look.”

“And then? What if Houston is just as empty as this?”

“Then we find something else. We go to Rachel and see if she knows anybody who’s been looking for scientific notes.”

Wyatt nodded. “That’s a good idea.”

“And then?”

Wyatt groaned. “One step at a time, babe.”

“Exactly.”

And then?

She wouldn’t let it go. She stared at Stiles, the question so clear in her eyes he could almost read the words as though they were stamped to her irises.

We don’t stop fighting.

She studied his face for a moment, her eyes softening a little. He got a flash of trees, of a small grove of trees behind something…buildings, before she cut him out again. Then she took Wyatt’s hand and they were off, racing to Houston for the last of Lily and Luc’s labs.