Of Consuming Fire (2 page)

“Nothing more than you’ve done, ma’am,” he said with polite distance. “I’ve come to report that your findings seem to be accurate.”

Grace wanted to sag in relief, but was so wary of causing Sergeant Collins to think any less of her that she clenched her jaw and forced iron into her spine. No one would know how worried she’d been about her translation. She’d emit cool confidence all day long. Her “findings” included the recommendation that whatever damage the sword caused could be un-done by administering the fruit of the Tree of Eternal Life topically. They’d been forcing the fruit down Jericho’s throat for days to no effect. It was a nuance of the language that had given Grace the idea to apply the fruit to the site of Jericho’s wound.

“So, Jericho’s recovering?” Grace forced herself to ask, alarmed a little at the obvious worry in her voice. She didn’t care about him that much, did she?

A new voice sounded as it approached. “His skin is knitting together before our eyes.” Dahlia Edward’s brown eyes peeked around Collins’s shoulder, warm for the first time ever that Grace witnessed.

Grace actually liked Dahlia a lot, and not just because Jericho did. Grace hadn’t met many people who seemed to hate all others as much as Dahlia did. She was even more socially hostile than Grace. It was … refreshing.

“They think he’ll wake up any moment now, and I want to be there when he does, but I had to come thank you first,” Dahlia continued.

Grace felt her eyes widen. “Thanks” often involved touch of some kind. “That’s not necessary,” Grace muttered, crowding the corner again.

Dahlia rolled her eyes. “Relax, Red,” she said with a laugh. “God, it’s not like we’re going to attack you with hugs or anything.”

Grace didn’t laugh. She didn’t even notice when the two before her exchanged a worried look as her eyes glazed, and her mind turned over one of Dahlia’s words.

Attack. Attack. Attack
.

A loud snap erupted in front of her face.

Grace refocused to see Dahlia’s fingers before her eyes as the woman snapped again, this time accompanied by a sharp, “Grace!”

Grace sucked in a breath.

“Is she … ” Sergeant Collins trailed off as both women’s heads snapped around to glare at him.

Grace opened her mouth to speak, but was cut off with Dahlia’s curt, “She’s fine, Collins, God.” She then stood directly in front of Grace, blocking her from Collins’s sight, giving her a chance to compose herself. “Nothing some lunch and a good night’s sleep won’t fix. We’ve run her ragged. Give her some
grace
.” Dahlia snorted.

Collins threw Dahlia a wobbly smile. “I’ll just … um … call Miss Esperanza then. Tell her Jericho’s fine.” His mouth moved like a caress over the name of Dahlia’s former mother-in-law, his accent adding at least two syllables, and his eyes twinkling like a kid.

Dahlia looked at Grace and winked. “You do that, Collins.”

He cast one more concerned look toward Grace’s corner, not quite meeting her eyes, and backed off, hurrying away to his office.

As Dahlia watched him go, her hand fell to the small bump beneath her shirt. Grace was pretty sure she was the only person in the facility who had guessed that Jericho and Dahlia were expecting. There had been no announcement; there hadn’t been time before Jericho fell gravely ill. But Dahlia made that little movement often when she thought no one was looking.

She turned to Grace now and arched a perfect eyebrow.

“I really am fine,” Grace offered weakly.

Dahlia scoffed and muttered something in Spanish that Grace perfectly understood — dead languages weren’t her only specialty. Grace bristled. “Look, I’ll just get back to work.” The news of Jericho’s recovery was already spreading if the increased chatter in the room was any indication. She could re-join life now. She needed to get started on writing this up, though she knew publishing any of her top-secret findings was going to be an uphill battle. Possibly an impossible one.

Dahlia nodded once and began to turn away.

“Hey,” Grace blurted. Dahlia turned back to her. “Um … when he wakes up. Tell Jericho … I’m glad he’s okay.” Grace was shocked to find out she meant it.

Dahlia’s eyes roved Grace’s face for a moment, but then she smiled. “You’ve got it, Red.” She took two steps toward the medical wing, then stopped.

Grace watched the black waves cascading down Dahlia’s back rustle as the stunning Latina tilted her head to the side.

“Do you hear that?” Dahlia asked.

Grace frowned. “Hear what?”

Just then, the lights flickered. A distant rumbling seemed to seep in through the walls of the facility.

All of the hopeful chatter in the room faded and then fizzled out as people began to look around curiously.

A huge clap of thunder rent through the building with such force that loose items throughout the main room clattered where they sat.

The lights went out completely.

Emergency lights along the walls illuminated, casting Dahlia’s caramel skin in an unearthly glow as Grace stared at her in barely subdued panic. The others in the room began to mumble to each other, their voices rising in pitch. She felt her nails digging into the skin of her arms and realized she was hugging herself again.

A man in a lab coat raced into the main room, skidding around the door and barreling toward Dahlia as soon as he spotted her. “He’s waking!” he yelled at Jericho’s wife. “Come quickly.”

Dahlia took a quick step toward him, but then stumbled. She threw out an arm to catch herself against the wall. “
Shit
,” Grace heard her mutter.

Dahlia spun around and pinned Grace with a wide-eyed look. “Earthquake,” she told Grace in an odd, disbelieving tone. “Big one.”

Dahlia lunged forward and grabbed Grace by the arm, hauling her quickly to a nearby desk and shoving herself and Grace in the small area beneath it.

Shooting pains emanated from the skin Dahlia’s fingers touched. Grace hissed and tried to wrench her arm from Dahlia’s grip as she spluttered, “What — how do you — ”

“I can hear it coming,” she said impatiently. “Take cover!” she bellowed to all the gawkers.

No sooner had the words left her mouth than the first wave hit the building. A sound, louder than the eardrum-cracking clap of thunder, ricocheted through the room like a freight train, and Grace watched with wide eyes as the floor began to ripple at the edge of the room and move toward them like oncoming ocean waves.

And, even though paralyzed with fear, all Grace could think of was the scorching pain of Dahlia’s fingers where they still clutched her arm.

Screams began to echo as the men and women who worked at the facility realized what was happening. Feet thundered as everyone sought shelter.

But Grace scrambled away from Dahlia and out into the open as soon as the woman’s grip on Grace’s arm slackened.

Dahlia’s arm snaked out and captured the back of Grace’s jacket. “What the
hell
?”

“Don’t
touch me
!” Grace shrieked so loudly that Dahlia drew back in shock.

A huge chunk of plaster fell from the ceiling to land right beside Grace. A cloud of white exploded from its impact and dusted both of them. Desks began to skitter across the floor.

“Do you want to die?” Dahlia yelled, blinking the white powder from her lashes.

Die or be touched? No contest. Grace didn’t move.

The earthquake gained in intensity. The glass that made up the ceiling of the dome tinkled and Grace looked up as a crack spider-webbed from one end of the dome to the other.

“Okay,” Dahlia said fast and low. “I won’t touch you. Just get your ass under here right now!”

Grace dragged her eyes from the ceiling to look into the dim space beneath the desk. Dahlia pressed herself against the side, leaving more than enough room for Grace to fit without having to be against the other woman. And still she hesitated.

Across the dome, bookshelves began to fall like dominoes, each one hitting the ground with a resounding boom. The tinkling of the glass ceiling increased and one or two shards escaped and plummeted toward the ground.

With a deep breath for courage, Grace dove into the area beside Dahlia just as the ceiling gave way.

The glass chimed like clock-tower bells as it fell. It tinkled off of every surface and bounced from the floor in glittering arcs. Grace watched in horror as a huge shard caught one of the soldiers as he tried to dive under a desk a few feet away. His scream cut off as the glass sliced through his chest and pinned him to the floor right where Grace had been kneeling seconds before.

Grace huddled into the corner and buried her face against the wood of the desk so hard she thought her nose might break.

The waves of the ground moved as though alive beneath Grace, hitting her in the shins and knees again and again as she knelt and causing her stomach to lurch as though seasick. Beside her, she heard Dahlia begin to recite the rosary in Spanish in a low, breathless voice. As a backdrop, the glass on the floor clacked and pinged as the entire building shimmied with the rage of the earth.

And in the next heartbeat, everything stopped.

Grace’s frantic breaths in the sudden absence of sound were excruciatingly loud, but the silence didn’t last for long. Moans from the wounded began to fill the air.

She heard her boss, Eli Johnson, bellowing his past-due pregnant wife’s name as he barreled through the dome from his office and toward the medical wing.

“Jericho,” Dahlia breathed next to her. Then she scrambled from her hiding spot, sliding in the blood that slicked across the floor from the impaled man before gaining purchase and sprinting in Eli’s wake.

Grace stared dumbfounded at the glassy eyes of the dead man in front of her before forcing herself to emerge from the desk.

Utter destruction waited for her. Her eyes skimmed over the demolished main room of the facility. Everything was … gone. Desks were smashed. Books were flung to every wall of the room. The glass on the floor glittered like diamonds among the pools of blood. It looked like after-pictures of a tornado.

But the trees stood resolute in the center of the room. Not one fruit had fallen from their branches. And on the desk beneath them, where Grace did her work, the sword glowed. The sword, usually covered with flickering green and gold flames, was now …
angry
. It was the only word she could use to describe what she was seeing. The green and gold flames had morphed into red and black. The metal, engraved with the words she had translated to say
what the tree gives, the sword takes; what the sword takes, the tree gives
was now pulsing with emotion. And coming off of the sword in waves was an otherworldly
heat
. The sword had always emitted a cool indifference. Now it was raging.

“Oh, God,” Grace gasped. Her breathing sped up even more, and black began to edge in on her vision.

Something had angered this inanimate object. Fear, so familiar and yet, in this case, so different, choked Grace’s throat. She had a gut feeling that in completing her job she betrayed a secret. The sword’s secret.

Someone was coming. Coming for them. Coming for her.

She had one thought before losing consciousness:
What have I done?

Such rage.

It was one of the few emotions Jayden had felt in his entire existence, and it was burning him up from the inside out.

Scenery flashed by. Trees that were miles apart zoomed along in seconds. He had to get there. It was his own foolish fear — another unwelcome emotion — that allowed this to happen in the first place.

Between the two — rage and fear — he much preferred the rage. He had been around since the beginning of time, and never once abandoned his post. He had carried out his mission each time a human had dared defile the Trees, his sword making swift justice. And then, five humans had encroached on holy land. Jayden had sensed their looming connection to
her
and … run like a weak little human, the fear of encountering her much worse than anything Jayden could have imagined.

His failure filled his mouth like bitterest poison. Pure weakness. It was bad enough that his post was the laughing stock of heaven; Jayden was a warrior who never fought — it had been centuries since a human had stumbled upon the Garden. But, when given the chance to engage in battle, he actually
fled
? He would never forgive himself, but he
would
make it right. He would never hesitate to carry out his orders again.

When he had felt the immortal dying, Jayden bordered on hope. The thought that maybe he would not
have
to hunt them down — maybe they would kill themselves off as humans had been doing for millennia — had been drug-like in its euphoria. He could avoid her. Never even have to
see
her. It could be his salvation.

And then he had sensed the moment when the immortal healed. Because they used the fruit — again — to save him.

Jayden’s roar of vengeance crashed out of his chest, startling wildlife and echoing off of mountains.

They had used the Trees again. Unforgivable. And he would make sure they knew it, just as soon as he could get his hands on his sword once more. The sword he had abandoned with his post to avoid his Temptation.

He reached the edge of land in Europe, and his wings automatically flared from his back, allowing him to take to the air as he hit what the humans had named the Atlantic Ocean.

They should already be dead. It was his job. They defiled the most holy gift to humanity, and they had to perish as recompense. The rightness of his mission bolstered his wings, and Jayden put on a new burst of speed, covering the expanse of the ocean in mere minutes.

By the time he reached the east coast of the United States, night had long ago fallen, and the sun was beginning to rise.

Good, he would be able to catch them when they were asleep. Vulnerable. His mission would be completed within minutes, and then he could reclaim the Trees they had uprooted from their rightful spot, return them to the Garden, and go about his sentry duty as God intended.

And if he came across his Temptation — Jayden nearly stumbled as his feet reclaimed the earth, his wings returning to their hidden spot in his back. No, he would not even allow himself to think of her. She was nothing. Nothing to him; nothing to the world.
Nothing
. He would carry out his mission and leave, whether he saw her or not.