Earth/Sky (Earth/Sky Trilogy) (26 page)

The shock wave hit us.
Adriel folded me into his arms in our spiraling down, and then leveled with the ground to zigzag among the trees. Wings pulled in close around my body as he flew between two trees growing closely together. I fought to maintain my whole mind, that faint yet beautiful music lulling me to peace.

Flame roared up from the earth
, setting trees ablaze and blackening them to ash before the fire could spread. The floor tilted and pushed us upward to avoid being caught in it. We were moving so fast that the trees blurred to green smears. Shooting through the canopy, Adriel’s wings darkened. More fire raced down from the clouds, and we pierced through the trees once more to race along. Flames appeared all around us.

Oh God, I was going to die.
Not off the cliff but burned alive. A sudden cold filled me as a blaze passed too closely and set some of Adriel’s feathers alight. Going into a spiral, he flew faster and faster to extinguish them.

With a jolt, we were standing in the parking lot of a seedy theater.
Trashcans tipped over behind us with a crash. Adriel was walking swiftly and pulling me along, his wings gone. I struggled to keep up with his long strides. Part of his face was burned, from the temple down to his right cheek. “Adriel, you’re hurt-”

“Walk,” he ordered.
We made it to the sidewalk and turned left. People were strolling across the street to an equally seedy hotel, one pushing a cart full of trash and others laughing rowdily. Cars went by in both lanes. When we got to the end of the block, Adriel didn’t wait for the walk signal to flash. Darting across since no one was coming, we jumped up on the opposite curb and kept going. No one gave a second glance to his torn shirt.

Dark smoke raced overhead, dipping in and out of the clouds.
Then a second and third streak appeared. It looked like they were searching from the loops they made. Chilled to see them, I whispered, “Would they actually start a firefight here on the road?”

“They’re Rippers,” Adriel said tightly.
“We’re supposed to be discreet about our existence or risk punishment. But I don’t know how much they care.”

We were going so fast that I had to stop talking.
One of the three streaks of smoke shot to earth. I peered down the driveway to a store across the street and saw a figure form there. It was Makala. A truck passed down the road between us, and as it did Adriel pulled me into Botanic Wonderments.

The same woman from the first time I had been here was behind the counter.
Canvassing my mind for her name, I was relieved when it came forth. Neala. She was the only one in the store. Adriel aimed for the counter and she looked up from a magazine. “Hi, Jessa! It’s good to see you again. How can I-”

“Hide her and call the Kreeling
s. It’s an emergency,” Adriel burst. He thrust me at the counter, which I circled and ducked behind. He went to the window to look out.

Dialing rapidly,
Neala paused while it rang and then spoke into the receiver. “Radeo? Radeo, it’s Neala. I have a situation at the store. Yes, it’s Jessa Bright. She just came in with one of the Graystones . . .”

“Adriel?
What’s going on?” I called.

“They’r
e out there, Makala and Japheem.” Adriel had one finger raising the curtain. “Both are looking up and down the sidewalk on the opposite side. Stay back there.”

The phone clicked down.
Neala said, “Radeo and Silea are coming here. Collan and Evanyi are tracking the skies.”

“What are they doing now?” I asked.

“Japheem is still on the sidewalk,” Adriel replied. “Makala is looking into stores, but she’s going in the other direction.” He let the curtain fall suddenly. “Shh.”

From my hiding place, I
saw Barasho walking down the sidewalk on our side of the street. He looked through the windows to the store and I retreated further behind the counter. Adriel pressed himself against the wall. Returning to her magazine to look casual, Neala turned a page. I didn’t know if Neala was human or a zombie, and if she was the latter, how far away a fallen angel could sense it. Breathing deeply, I picked up on the earth scent I associated with Zakia. She
was
one, just like him. It was only a hunch, but I was sure that I was right.

A shadow fell over
the counter. Neala hooked her dark hair behind her ear and continued to read like she hadn’t noticed. Then it passed and she muttered, “He’s gone.”

“The back room,” Adriel said.
The two of us rushed back there. He went straight to the phone and made a call while I headed for the sink. “Drina, Jessa and I just ran into a pack of Rippers in Seataw . . . we’re in Botanic Wonderments. I’m going to lure them away . . . okay.” He hung up.

“You can’t leave me here!” I exclaimed.
Having dampened a paper towel, I brought it to the desk and pressed it to his burn.

“They’ll think you’re with me,” Adriel said.
He put his hand over mine. “Stay here. Be careful of Neala.”

“She’s like Z-”

“Yes. The Kreelings will get you into hiding until this is over.”

The front door opened.
Very loudly, Neala said, “Hello! How can I help you?”

Adriel and I froze at the desk, hearing the warning.
A man whose voice I didn’t recognize said, “Hi, I’m just looking for my friends! Have you seen them? One’s a girl about this high with long brown hair, and the other is a guy with blond hair. They’re both in jeans and about seventeen, eighteen years old.”

“No, I’m sorry.
I haven’t seen them,” Neala said. “Would you like to try one of our free samples of shampoo?”

“Oh, no thanks,” the man said.
The door opened and closed. Then it was quiet in the store. Adriel rose from the desk and peeked out to the main floor.

“He’s human,” Adriel said.
“That must be one of their acquisitions. And here’s Silea.” The door was opening again.

Silea
came to the back room and looked us over. Her blonde hair was pulled in a tight ponytail, and around her waist was a belt laden with weapons and other objects. “Are you hurt, Jessa?”

“I’m not.
He is,” I said.

“I’ll go out the back
door and fly off fast so you can take her out the front to your car,” Adriel said to Silea.

“How many are there?” she asked briskly.
I didn’t feel very confident about going off with her, considering she was human and younger than I was. All the martial arts training and experience in the world couldn’t compete with wings and swords made of fire.

“We aren’t sure
how many,” Adriel said. “Five perhaps, although I think one of the five is actually that human man who was just in here. Jessa, the names?”

“Barasho, Makala, Japheem, and a blonde girl whose name I never heard,” I said.
“Adriel-”

“
Japheem,” Silea said keenly. “Does he have strange eyes?”

“Yes
.”

“We know of him.” Removing a walkie-talkie from her belt, Silea said, “The Graystone is going out the back.
Hold fire. One to four may follow him.”

“Copy,” a voice crackled
. Adriel walked to the back door.

“Don’t go!
They’ll hurt you!” I pleaded.

His
sea blue eyes were full of grim purpose. “I can’t die, Jessa, but you can. Silea will take care of you.”

I didn’t want this veritable stranger to take care of me.
Helplessly, I watched as he went out the door. It closed on his darkened angelic form streaking up into the sky. Silea looked out to the main part of the store and said, “Hurry.”

Neala was stationed at the window, searching the people on the sidewalks and checking the sky.
“No one is in sight.” We rushed past her and outside to a black van without windows in the back. The door slid open and a man with hair nearly as platinum as Silea’s gestured to me impatiently. I climbed inside and looked around for a seat, but there weren’t any. The door rattled shut behind Silea and the man climbed to the front. I sat directly on the floor. The engine turned on with a silent purr that vibrated under my legs. Attached to the interior walls of the van were racks of weapons.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“We’re going to put you in the bunker,” Silea said. She was no angel, but she read my reluctance easily. Scrutinizing me with intensity, she added, “There is no choice. You are in extreme danger, especially if that is the Japheem we know. You do
not
want to be one of his mortal women-”

“We’ve got a tagalong,” the man
interrupted.

Cutting
herself off, Silea forced her way past me to the racks. She unsnapped the latches holding down a rifle, which she cracked open and loaded with a strange golden bullet. When the van went over a bump, a second bullet fell from her fingers. I picked it up, feeling not the smoothness of a bullet but a coarse surface. I brought it closer to my eyes. Thousands of little gold links were wrapped tightly into a bullet’s shape. “What are these?”

“Bindings for fallen angels.
They’re called atah’pay, or just bindings,” Silea said. The bullet was whisked from my fingers and loaded into the rifle. “Radeo?”

“Still one tagalong,” he said.

The van turned hard and I grabbed onto the shelves to prevent myself from sliding along the floor. Silea maintained her position with one hand gripping a post. I didn’t think that I had ever seen a more serious teenager than the one she presented. Nor had I meant to intrude upon her life with this. I should have gone along with Adriel and the injured little girl. This never would have happened otherwise. “I’m sorry,” I blurted. “You probably had a nice day planned out for yourself and I’ve gotten in the way.”

“This is our work,” Silea said stoically.
“It will be good to return Japheem to his bindings.”

“You’ve caught him before?”

“Not us. Other Kreeling hunters caught him hundreds of years ago. He managed to escape. Hunters looked for him for a long time without success.”

“Found him for you,” I said in a weak joke.
She didn’t laugh. I was pretty sure this girl never laughed at anything. The van turned left and I held on. Silea locked her arm around the post and filled a pouch at her belt with more of those odd golden bullets.

“A second Graystone is here. Do not shoot,
” the walkie-talkie crackled. The voice coming through was male and a little sullen, rather like he wanted to shoot.

Oh God, what a mess I had made of everything just by going to Seataw!
The man in the front cried, “Silea, I think this one is getting ready to fire-”

The van jerked
off the road. We drove through the trees, jouncing painfully on the uneven ground. Then he hit the brakes and snatched up a rifle from the passenger seat. “Run for the bunker; I’ll cover you!”

Silea forced the door open and I followed her out into the woods.
We had come to the lane where the Kreelings and Coopers lived. A tree was turning to ash beside the mailboxes, and even as I watched, fire raged down from the sky and melted those boxes to nothing. The man lifted his gun and looked up where the fireball had emanated. Silea shouted, “Come on!” She pressed the walkie-talkie to her mouth and exclaimed, “We’re hot, we’re hot, location base and have target, one tagalong and it has opened fire!”

We ran through the trees in the direction of the first house.
The gun blasted behind us. I heard the horrifying sounds of children playing farther down the lane, unaware of the chaos headed their way. Gasping for air, I said, “Silea, we have to tell them to get inside!”

“There’s no time!” Silea ordered.
We ran around the side of her house. Past it was a flight of stairs in the yard leading down to a door.

“Chase!
Chase!” a boy was shouting. Children screamed and laughed. Now I could see them, a cluster of dark heads running over the lane down by the last house. Silea stopped at the top step and turned her gun to the sky. Then she screamed my name, since I was running for the road.

“Get inside!
Get inside!
” I shouted to the children. Some stopped and turned with curious looks; others didn’t hear me. Reaching a boy and girl of kindergarten age, had they gone to school, I snatched their hands and darted for the house. Fire raced down the lane and disintegrated a tree.

“
Jessa, come back-
” Silea’s voice was undercut by a low rumble, not that of an earthquake but a growl. I looked back to see her sprinting after me. Suddenly she tumbled into the grass, white wisps collecting into a four-legged shape and charging past her in a direct trajectory for me.

All of the kids
were shrieking with fear now, and scattering as muddy fireballs came down from the sky. Dirty flames rose up at each strike, the creature made of wisps of air blasting through them. This must have been what Adriel was talking about, the wind wolves called anemoi. Though its body was see-through, its teeth were solid and sharp. The two children and I ran over the lawn with it coming closer and closer. We weren’t going to make the door in time . . .