What a Lovely Sight Page 4

  “I…thanks. For trying. That was really nice of you, even if it fucked us over.”

  I looked up to see him smiling at me. He seemed sure of himself. It was certainly good that one of us did.

  Jeanine called me as we were in the home stretch.

  “Did Manny Weston find you? He ran up to me looking for you. I could hardly look at him.”

  I glanced over at Manny and smiled. “Yeah, he found me. We’re together right now, actually.”

  “You are? Oh god, so it is true. You are dating him.”

  “I don’t…that’s not really happening. It’s just—” I wanted to kick myself for how insincere my words sounded. I should be able to explain things to my best friend, for crying out loud. Oh, shit. I shot up in my seat. “Jeanine, don’t go back to our dorm room. Just stay at home for a few days.”

  “What? Why? Is it haunted?”

  “No. It’s just…um…” there was absolutely no way to explain this without sending Jeanine spiraling. “There are some people looking for me. Very dangerous people. And I don’t want you to get hurt.”

  “Oh my god. You’re being hunted?” Jeanine’s voice was so loud it crackled in my speaker.

  “Pretty much. So please stay away from our room. I’m not sure how many there are and I don’t want you caught up in it.”

  A chill, like a blast of ice water, slammed against me. I jumped in my seat, shivering, glancing over to Manny to see if he felt it too. He jerked in his seat, frowning. Then he slammed the brakes. I lurched forward as we stopped inches away from the car in front of us.

  “What the hell?” There wasn’t a stop light for miles. Why did it stop? Then I glanced around. Nothing was moving. The drivers around were staring into nothing. There was a kid playing in a yard a few houses up, staring up silently at a frisbee suspended in midair. The boy’s dog was in mid leap to catch it. Everyone except for me and Manny were completely frozen, and it was deathly quiet.

  “Kat? What happened? Did they find you?” Jeanine said. Okay, so whatever was happening was not affecting Jeanine. That was kind of relieving.

  I put on my most cheerful voice. “I gotta go. Call you later, okay?” I hung up, feeling really guilty about cutting Jeanine off. But I couldn’t handle her crisis and ours. It was so, so quiet. The only thing I could hear was our breathing as we tried to figure out what to do.

  And then there was something else I could hear. Car wheels crunching the grass next to the road. I glanced in the rearview mirror. The truck was tall, red, and bulky. And in the passenger’s seat? A perfectly hairsprayed mullet. “Fuck.”

  Manny pulled off of the road and started driving ahead of the truck.“The driver was following me earlier.”

  “Oh. Wonderful.” The necklace warmed on my chest. I had no idea what that meant nor time to decipher it.

  “Where’s your mother’s house?” Manny asked, slamming on the gas. We were flying across the sidewalk, but the truck was still gaining.

  “What? No! We can’t go to Ma’s now. We’ll just have to roll past it.” Jeanine wasn’t affected, so there had to be a limit to the magic’s range. I squinted, trying to see where the edge was in any direction. It wasn’t depressingly out of sight. “There’s gotta be an edge to this thing, so we just have to get out of it.”

  “And then what?” Manny’s voice was strained.

  Why the fuck did he think I had answers? I’d never been stalked by murderous magic users before.

  “I…don’t know. But there’s gotta be a reason they used it, so if we get out of it we’ll have an advantage.” More accurately, the odds would be slightly more even instead of horribly skewed, but I said the slightly more optimistic thing for him. And probably for myself. I glanced back and blanched. Mullet man had a gun and was pointing it at the car. “Uh, Manny? We’ve got a gun.”

  “Shit.” Manny swerved down a side road and narrowly avoided a gunshot. I hissed when I saw it was Walnut Street.

  “Manny! This road has a dead end!”

  “I’m sorry! I’ve never been over here before!” He turned the car around, but by then the truck was blocking the way. Mullet was grinning, pointing the sniper rifle at the engine.

  I frowned at the gun. It didn’t look quite right. On the tip was a pointed, light blue chunk.

  “Manny, I think that’s a freeze gun. They’re gonna try to freeze the car.”

  He rushed to unlock the doors. Mullet pulled the trigger. We slammed the doors open as the bullet hit the car. Manny’s door was wider as the freeze wave hit, so he pulled me out on his side.

  I gave myself two seconds to look around as the truck came careening towards us. Going forward was the truck. Bad. Left were houses leading back to mom. Bad. Back, another house. Bad. I wasn’t taking time-freezing stalkers near anyone. Right? Houses with corn fields behind them. And I could almost see some stalks blowing in the wind. Which meant those stalks were outside of the magic’s range. Maybe it was a trick of the light, but I was going with it.

  “Fields!” I said and took off. Of course Manny caught up with me almost immediately. Damn being 5’4”.

  It was a bad plan, really. I knew we weren’t gonna make it. Getting away from whoever they were wasn’t really feasible. But I didn’t panic. Sure, the necklace was burning against my skin, my heart was banging around in my chest and I was gripping Danny’s hand so hard I could have broken it, and the only noise I could focus on was Mullet’s laughter ringing in my ears. But I wasn’t screaming. That had to count for something.

  Manny pulled me closer to shield me from a new assailant with the same godawful watch and a gun that also didn’t look quite right. A blast of air hit us, sending us flying into the air. I allowed myself to flinch and bury my face in Manny. I did not want to see us land. We hit the ground hard. I heard something crunch as Manny lost his grip, sending me rolling until I crashed into something. I forced myself to open my eyes and found that I’d hit a pole holding up a scarecrow. I pulled myself up, using the scarecrow as leverage, and managed to stand. My legs were wobbly and my mouth tasted like dirt and the edges of my vision were a little foggy, but all things considered, I was doing okay. Though not nearly okay enough for Mullet to be walking towards me.

  Fear finally hit me. I started breathing hard and my hands felt like jelly. Then I looked past Mullet. The driver, some brown haired schmuck, was holding Manny upright with a knife to his throat. Manny’s left arm looked wrong, twisted and limp.

  “Katiana, we just want to talk,” Brunette said. And that’s when my fear turned to rage. These people hurt Danny. They hurt me. They hunted us. And they just wanted to talk?

  “You’ve got a funny way of initiating a conversation,” I said. I let go of the scarecrow. I was going to stand on my own, logic be damned.

  “We just want to know about Caden Knight.”

  “I have no idea who the fuck that is, buster.”

  “Funny,” Mullet said, leering down at my chest. I glanced down. Some of my buttons had torn off my shirt in the fall, revealing my necklace. “Caden Knight’s specialty was with rocks. He loved making the colors bleed into each other. I think you’re lying, girlie.”

  Finding out my father’s true identity from a complete pest stung more than it should have. It made frustrated tears prick at the corners of my eyes. But they were not going to get the satisfaction of seeing me buckle.

  “What do you want?”

  “He stole from us. We just want what he took returned,” Brunette said. Behind him and Manny, the air gun assailant approached.

  I had no idea what that was, but they wouldn’t believe that. And even if I did, it didn’t matter. The only place I could think it could be was at my house, and there was no way in Hell I was taking them near Ma. Horrible laughter bubbled out of me. “And then what? You’ll just let us go?”

  “Why on earth would we do that?” Mullet said, confirming all of my worst suspicions.

  A scream filled the air, not from me or Manny, but the air gun guy with sunglasses. He was jerking up, up in the air, yelping and reaching for the ground. And the thing hauling him up was…the monster I saw last night. The monster tossed the air gun guy up in the air and slashed across his body. The man’s body went limp and his gun started falling to the ground. The brunette holding Manny used him as a shield and started firing at the monster.

  I didn’t see the air gun land, but it must have landed on the trigger because it sent me and Mullet careening through the air. I slammed into the ground and the fog in my eyes got worse. Sounds were washing through my brain. I was still aware enough to scream when Mullet climbed on top of me. I could see his eyes behind his sunglasses, his eyes green like a snake’s. I head butted him, which did nothing for my ever-growing concussion, but gave me just enough leeway to fish my pepper spray out of my purse and tag him in the face. He screamed in anger, then raised a knife over my heart.

  “The stubborn ones are always more fun,” he said with a crazed grin and plunged it down.

  For a moment, I thought of the things I would never get to do. Places I’d never get to go, like Greece and Morocco. People I’d never get to sketch. I’d spent so much of my life taking care of people that I’d put off actually enjoying myself. And this creep was going to end it all before I even got to go on my first real date.

  The necklace glowed so bright I was nearly blinded. I saw those flecks in the stone fan out from it, covering my chest. As the knife got close to my skin, they congregated around the point of imminent impact, sticking together. When the knife touched, the flecks covered the tip and swerved to the side. The knife glanced off and plunged into the dirt. Then the flecks shot back into the necklace.

  For a moment, we were both in shock. Then Mullet raised it again, his eyes practically sparking with r
age.

  “You stupid fucking—” the light suddenly dimmed. Mullet gasped, his face contorting in pain. He surged off of me, landing twenty feet away, near the brunette lying lifeless in the field. Mullet scrambled backwards, staring up at the monster in horror. One of the monster’s clawed feet landed on Mullet’s left leg, pushing down until there was a crunch. Mullet wailed in pain, screaming, “Please!”

  “No,” the monster said, picking Mullet up by his neck with large, clawed hands. “You have salivated over ending this woman’s life since this morning. Such bloodlust must be smited.” Then they squeezed, and squeezed, until Mullet’s head popped off his body like a bloody bottle cap.

  Then they turned and walked towards me. I was frozen, completely transfixed. Seeing their silhouette from a distance at night did not remotely capture it. Their skin was dark cobalt blue, shimmering in the late day sun. They were tall, so tall I thought they might dwarf the scarecrow, with a wide, muscular chest and rippling arms covered in fur. Their hands reminded me of tree trunks, solid and strong, with vicious claws at the fingertips. Their face, though, was remarkably human. They had a strong jaw, covered by a black beard, with full lips and glistening light blue eyes. Their hair was the same black as their beard, long and straight, tied back with a ribbon. The wings were like a bat’s, a translucent black that framed their body. They were terrifying and gorgeous all at once.

  They knelt next to me, wiping their hands free of blood on their black skirt before they extended one to me.

  “Are you well, Katiana?” Their voice was sonorous, almost overwhelming, like thunder.

  “Um…” Maybe it was the fog clinging to my eyes, but they didn’t seem real. Then I felt my face flushing. God. Damn it, brain! I did not need any new crushes. Look where the last one got me. I needed to focus on wannabe murderers going after me and Manny. Oh, shit. “Manny!” I stood up suddenly, stumbling forward. I was incredibly dizzy. One of their wings caught me as I fell, turning me back towards them. I came face to face with their chest. Damn my height. “Thanks.” My tongue felt thick. Whether that was that from the crush or the concussion was a tossup. “Um…is Manny okay?”

  “Your Emmanuel is fine. Shall we go to him?” They extended their hand again. This time, I took it. They pulled me in close. I started running my fingers in circles across their chest. The fur on their chest was soft and silky, the exact same shade as their skin. I was so stuck on the sensation that I didn’t notice we were flying until we were high enough to see the highway. Then I threw my hands around their neck on impulse.

  “Oh god, we are flying.”

  “Indeed. Is it pleasing?”

  “U-um…sure.” I felt…good. Exhilarated. I’d survived magic stalkers. Not on my own, but that was a moot point. And now I was flying. Again, not on my own, but…I looked over at my rescuer. It wasn’t terrible to have someone’s help.

  As they landed in front of Manny, I said, “I just realized I never asked your name.”

  “I am Voam Sashura, Warrior of Halvall.”

  Chapter 11

  VOAM

  Perhaps Katiana will know of a way for me to return to my home. I should tell her of my plight, present my story as one of victimhood, not of traitorous failure. She is in my arms as I take her to her mother. She would be inclined to listen, to swear to aid me, after I have saved her. But I am too surprised by her to say what I must. When she gazed upon me in the full glory of the light, her eyes held no disgust, not even the surprise of the night before. Just awe and fascination. And now she is calm, nothing approaching unease as she gives herself over to me.

  Her arms are around my neck as we fly. Her hands are warm and small. She is shockingly petite as a whole, yet so strong. I can feel it in her arms. Her skin is dark, her lips large and sweet, her eyes dark and open. At the moment, her eyes are on Emmanuel, who is in my other arm. Her eyes are full of concern and longing and I have this strange desire for that gaze to turn to me.

  Emmanuel is awake now. His demeanor have changed from earlier in the day. When he was with Katiana prior, he was in control, assertive without dominating. Now, he curls into me. His gaze flits between me and Katiana. His eyes are dark like hers, but carry a different tenor. Both are sweet, but Emmanuel’s have in them a spark of mischief and penetrating heat.

  Emmanuel’s eyes return to Katiana and he smiles. “Well, this is not exactly going to be a grand first impression,” he says. His voice is like music. It is beautiful.

  “She’ll be too busy being pissed at me to lose it at you. Besides, she’s southern. Being hospitable is in her blood.” Her gaze falls to his left arm. “I think your shoulder is dislocated. We’ll have to pop it back in.”

  “Wonderful,” Emmanuel says. The r sound in the word rolls and travels up my spine. “I really need to call Spade.”

  “Why?”

  “So she can remove all of the dead bodies and move my car.”

  Katiana raises her head off my chest to frown at Emmanuel. “Who exactly is Spade, Manny?”

  Emmanuel raises and lowers his shoulders, grimacing at the movement. His grip on my shoulder tightens as he looks up at me. His gaze drifts over my hair, then down my chest. Then he smiles. “Thanks for the ride, Voam Sashura.” My name coming out of his mouth is almost dizzying. For a moment, I find it difficult to breathe.

  I was told humans would find me hideous. But these two humans are unfazed by my presence. In fact, they are disrupting me. It is as if there are these aspects of my head, my heart, that have lain dormant, and these two humans are awakening them, one by one.

  I should tell them that I should return to my world. But I cannot make myself. Not…now.

  Chapter 12

  KAT

  I almost didn’t want to stop flying. But by the time we were circling Ma’s house to land, I could almost feel wind blowing on my face. Whatever was messing with time was starting to fade, and no one in Mayday needed to see us soaring through the air. Voam came to a smooth landing, took my waist in his arms, and placed me on the ground. The sensation almost made me buckle, but I survived it without a collapse or a stutter.

  “Thanks,” I said. Fuck, those eyes were gorgeous. Who gave them permission to have eyes like that? They were like shimmering waterfalls. I turned to see Ma standing in the doorway, glaring at the three of us. “Hi, Ma,” I said, my voice almost cracking.

  “Come in here,” she said, her voice flat with rage.

  Manny straightened and coughed. “Yes, Ma’am.” He gestured for me to go first. “After you, Katiana.” I almost smiled at him using my full name with that Spanish inflection, but now was not the time for smiling. We both passed Ma, Manny ducking slightly to get inside. Voam remained on the lawn, waiting.

  Ma took one look at them and said, “You too. Come on.” Surprise flashed across their face, but they obeyed. I wondered how they were going to cope with the ceiling, but once they came inside the roof raised by a whole foot. My jaw dropped. Manny flinched. Ma did not seem to notice. Once she closed and locked the door, she turned to Manny, frowning at him. “You gon’ need some new clothes. Some of Caden’s old stuff might fit.” She gave me a look. “Pop his shoulder back in,” she said to Voam as she went to the basement.

  Manny let out a breath as she disappeared. “That did not go nearly as badly as I thought it would.”

  “Yeah.” My stomach was in knots. I turned to Voam, who was standing up straight in the living room that was now at least eighteen inches taller than before. “Voam, you wouldn’t know how to relocate a shoulder, would you?”

  They straightened, the tip of their brilliant black wings flaring up at attention. “I have dealt with such injuries before.”

  “Great.” I gave Manny an apologetic smile. “I need to talk to her. You’re in good hands. Um, claws. Hand claws?” I bit back a sigh at myself as I bolted after Ma.

  I found her shuffling through a box on top of the washing machine. She must have heard me come down the stairs, because she said, “You’re gonna need somethin’ else, too. Go on upstairs and change.”