It must be the power of that incandescent light, the magical heat of it. She realized abruptly she was sinking with the wing, had been the whole time she was experiencing that heady feeling that seemed to make her aware of all the parts of herself that could stir a lover. Her mouth, her throat, her grasping fingers, the undulation of her hips . . .
Even as the wave of sensations amazed and confused her, a tingling sense of unease penetrated them, warning her that the pleasurable light was struggling, fading somehow.
There was also a definite urgency to its downward motion that couldn't be explained by the weight of waterlogged feathers, mainly because they did not appear waterlogged at all, floating as easily as the tendrils of her own hair. And didn't birds--or birdlike creatures--have hollow, nearly weightless bones?
The wing had maneuvered her off the white sand bottom, down to the nearest shelf another thirty feet below, then to a finger seventy feet below that. From here, she could see one more shelf, and then the ocean tipped off into a much deeper cavern, so deep she was startled out of her reverie by a sense of vertigo. While she could see the wall of coral, covered with tube sponges and sea fans, below that things became much murkier, until it went into complete black, where the light from above wouldn't penetrate, and the water grew far, far colder. There were no reassuring whorls of warmth. They were over the Abyss.
The wing had seduced her like a siren, and sea creatures knew all about the danger of sirens.
Wriggling out of its grasp, she leaped away from it. Because of her sudden surge of apprehension, she whipped around, half expecting pursuit.
It did appear to hesitate, but she told herself it was just the waters she'd stirred, holding it in a momentary vortex. When it drifted down and landed on an outcropping of rock, it began to slide, tumble, toward the edge of the Abyss. As it drifted in that direction, a hunger grew in her heart that she couldn't explain. A need not only to grasp it in her hands again, but the creature to whom it belonged.
Danger . . .
The sonorous call reverberated through the waters, the whales signaling one another, the message picked up and carried by a school of fish that exploded out of the edge of the pit and cut past her on all sides.
The instinctive spear of terror through her vitals made her look up. She couldn't see anything, but somewhere above her, she sensed dark, shifting . . . monsters. There. Red lights, glowing at a distance like signal lights from boats. Red eyes, a color she shouldn't be able to distinguish at this depth unless it belonged to something that contradicted natural law.
Every creature had a honed fight-or-flight sense, necessary to live in a world governed by survival of the fittest. But this was more than the alarm caused by a predator's impersonal hunger closing in on her. This was personal, creeping into the marrow of her bones, a dark, anxious poison spreading out from her internal organs. Even as she was able to identify that the intent was to paralyze her with her own fear, she could not seem to counter it, which made it even more terrifying.
Leave him . . . You cannot help him . . . No concern of yours . . . He cares nothing for your pathetic kind . . .
Dark Ones. The enemies of the angels, of every life form. The power of the compulsion was overwhelming, and it was not a single voice, but many, a malevolent force. As she struggled against it, she managed to throw up a weak protection spell, enough to give herself the space to realize they were not targeting her specifically, but any creature in range that might be giving their target aid.
She couldn't stand against Dark Ones, and she knew nothing of the battles angels fought. Why should she defy the will of that voice of darkness?
As Anna watched the wing make its tumble, she realized it was being drawn to its master, like an innocent child betraying its parent. It was just an amorphous glow now, falling into darkness, like a candle being extinguished. The darkness of the Abyss was total. Final. It would swallow the wing.
The owner of that wing was unprotected, wounded. She was as sure of that as she was that much of the fear battering her senses was real, not just the magical effect of his pursuers.
Abruptly she shot forward, using the powerful propulsion of her midnight blue tail to send her over the edge and arrow down into the Abyss. Seizing the floating wing, she increased the speed of its descent, taking it down, herself with it.
Take me to your master. We must save him if we can.
Two
IT got much colder, very quickly. As she descended, Anna tried not to think of the increasing darkness, the shadows melting together as the light was left behind, heralding the total blackness that waited below. She gripped the wing as if it represented a life-or-death oath she'd taken.
When the curve of her tail touched the edge of another precipice, it startled her. The wing slowly, slowly settled. As it did, she realized it was covering a shape partially illuminated by the wing's fading internal light. When it shifted, the light grew stronger, making her realize it had blanketed another wing whose light was brighter, for it was still attached to its owner.
She floated closer, hovering over him. His eyes were closed and there was a cut on his face, the blue line of severed flesh a smaller version of the alarmingly large open wound on his back, staining the other wing and his skin. Beneath it, he was bruised, covered in welts as if he'd been beaten, clawed. She swallowed.
Another good current, and he would roll over the edge of this outcropping and fall even deeper, to where the temperature could drop beyond what she could bear. But there was nowhere to hide here.
She glanced up. They were coming. In the unnatural despair hovering just at the edge of her consciousness, she could sense them. Scattered, but descending. And they had no intention of helping him, whatever they were.
The wing was drifting, so she reached out to grasp it, only to realize it wasn't drifting. It was . . . shifting. Shifting to align itself with the wound in his back.
Then the wing brushed her. Since she was bent over the angel, it curved around her, pulling her down, low, lower. She tried to free herself, but before she could she was lying upon the side of the inert creature as the wing folded itself around its host. Her alarm eased as Anna realized she was simply inside the wingspan as it curved inward.
She was almost afraid to look into his face at this close range, but curiosity won out over good sense. With that one look she understood why her great-aunt had wept in remembrance.
He was unnaturally beautiful. No, that was wrong. He was as perfect as Nature could make him, and nothing could make anything as Nature did. While her cousins always sought to make themselves more beautiful, as if that were the main reason for existence, one underwater orchid blossom emerging from a crevice of coral put them all to shame.
It hurt the heart to look at something as beautiful as this, so perfect that it was almost an emotion in a physical form. Despite the danger pursuing them, for a moment she was absolutely still, amazed she was close enough to touch. A high, fine brow. Such a straight, straight nose. His hair was dark, so dark it blended with the nearly night color of the water and made her jump when it whispered over her upper arms. As it waved over his face, brushing those sculpted features, she saw the strands of varying lengths formed a shoulder-length mane. One piece apparently had been braided to keep the rest from his line of sight, for it was already half unraveled. The clean-shaven line of his jaw made it almost impossible for her to resist the desire to reach out and touch his face, see what it felt like, smooth skin, chiseled bone. The texture of his mouth. She remembered the way the wing had made her imagine a man's mouth upon hers, and her body unexpectedly tightened all along where it lay against his. She wanted him, but in ways that went far beyond physical and emotional understanding.
She needed to be a part of him. His beauty spoke of light, a light so pure it would burn away the body while the soul clung to it, willing to become ash to be within its presence.
And she would never feel alone again.
This was some strange compulsion,
a different, much more pleasurable form of what the dark creatures had tried to impose on her mind. Anna shook it off with effort and focused on the immediate problem, the insane thing she was about to do. Roll them both deeper into the Abyss.
When she curled her arms around his upper body, it was a reach. He had broad shoulders, necessary to support those wings, she was sure. A wide chest. Unlike human flesh, which felt cold and slippery beneath the water, or sea creatures, which felt soft and sleek, he was somewhere in between--hard muscle and warm, smooth skin. It reassured her, because she'd been uncertain if he would be affected by depth pressures the way humans were. The wing obligingly stayed curled over her. Would it stay with her? Could she hold him as they fell, or would she lose him in the darkness?
As his heart beat against hers, she tightened her arms around him. Closing her eyes, she had to will herself to pay attention to what she was trying to do and not just lie there, clinging blissfully to him until death came to take them both.
She felt her way through the feathers to his side, his waist, an easier holding point. Using her tail, she pushed against the ground, her bare hip bone pressing into his leg. All he wore was a belted, short half tunic that rippled with the water's movement, and she felt the hard muscle of his thigh.
"Come on," she whispered desperately. "We must move." They had to go deeper, where his light wouldn't be seen. The overwhelming warmth she felt from him was being poisoned by the artificial despair creeping more deeply into her mind. His enemies were too close.
Slowly, despite the weight of the wings, he began to turn, taking them over the edge. She pushed harder with her tail, wanting to fall clear enough that they wouldn't bounce off the sharp edges of the coral. Come on. They had to go deeper, deeper.
She was already deeper than she'd been before, and Goddess, but the water was cold. So cold. And dark. His light was the only light. As they tumbled together, with her wrapped in his wing and wrapped around him, she realized she could lose her sense of direction, go down when she meant to go up, and never find her way to the surface again. The reality of that brought another terrifying thought. When she was lost in the darkness, it wouldn't matter to anyone. No one.
But nothingness would mean no more pain or loneliness, she reminded herself. Ridicule, inadequacy. Staring from cruel eyes. Callous comments that made her angry but gave her anger nowhere to go because it was pointless. All of that would dissolve in the Abyss, like the tar pits where Ice Age creatures were destroyed. No more . . . anything.
Oh, God. She didn't want to die. The red lights were too close. They were going to catch up to them.
No! The wing tightened around her hips and Anna held the wounded angel's weight closer, felt him living against her. Think about him, Anna. How mighty and fine he must look up in the sky, his wings spread. Protecting. Existing.
How was she going to hide his light?
Praying the Dark Ones were following the light and not the essence of the man himself--Soul Finder magic--she sent out a small tendril of magic herself, so insignificant in comparison to what she held and what followed them that she hoped it would warrant no more notice than a floating cloud of foam to a shark. Many sharks.
Come to me. She issued the command in her mind urgently.
Like fireflies of the sea they came, puncturing the darkness. The fish of the Abyss were a variety of unusual shapes and sizes that blended well with their surreal world and lived without fear in the void. They approached from various directions, in small groups and then one blessedly large school.
Their glow reminded her that light came from within. She would fear no darkness. If they caught him, they would kill him . . . or worse. She would not permit that.
She summoned the fish so they moved with them, weaving in and out until the two of them were part of a school of many different, iridescent colors, but primarily white and silver. As they dropped, she and her precious burden blended, a part of their travels.
Stay with me. She held the simple, pure minds as she sensed the darkness getting closer, looking. Oh, Goddess, probing. She wouldn't let herself panic, for if she did, the fish would scatter. Focus on me. It does not seek you.
When the probing collective mind found her, touched her, the fear and despair were like being rammed face-first into the steel side of an unexpected shipwreck. The emotions were so strong that for a moment she was disoriented, terrified, thinking the monsters had appeared all around her.
These are not your emotions. They're using you, manipulating you.
She shoved out of them with a fierce burst of resistance. She had enough unnatural factors shaping her destiny, thank you very much. No one was taking a single decision from her that was within her power to make.
Fortunately a push of current, an even colder surge, took hold at that key moment, rolled them left when the fish would have startled away in that direction, a reaction to the disturbance in her mind. Steadying them, she held the compulsion magic with renewed vigor, joining her mind with the school's as well as focusing on blending her body, and the body of the angel to whom she clung, among their physical shapes.
Just a school of fish . . . seeking dinner from the water. Seeking . . .
Her knuckles made contact with the canyon wall. While many places were too steep for anything to get a purchase, some things grew and lived in the crevices beneath the crags. The soft, wavy touch of sea fans, the quick, startling stab of some type of blenny, seeing if she was food before the creature pulled back in again. Clinging to the trunk of a sea fan, she let it anchor her and her burden. Her meager magical abilities were exhausted, so the fish swam away. Her arm ached with holding him. The severed wing helped, snugged in as it was around them both, but she sensed its sentience was connected to its master and would eventually fail if she did not find them a resting place.
Practically, she knew she didn't stand a chance against an old, blind and wounded Dark One, let alone how many she sensed were after this angel. She would find and enter a tunnel, she told herself. She would go down deep enough to get him out of range of the senses of the evil creatures following them. If she could do that, perhaps they would decide he'd drifted with the current and was no longer in the area.
And then you'll both die because you'll get stuck or lost or there will be horrible things waiting for you . . .
Making herself move along the cliff face, she followed it by touch alone, trying not to let her panic be fueled by the fact that all light except that from the faint glow of the wings had disappeared.
Once, she had discovered a travel postcard floating in the water. It was the place the humans called the Grand Canyon. Aunt Jude had told Anna these underwater cliffs had also felt the touch of sun, thousands of years ago. The world was so old, old as the Lady Herself. Older than this filth that was trying to take what she had found.
Finding a crevice wide enough for the two of them, she discovered it led into a narrow tunnel. As she followed it, tugging on her burden, she tried not to think about her lack of options if she took them down a fissure with no exit, where she could be trapped by what pursued him.
There was no greater terror for a sea creature than to be immobilized. The lack of ability to move was a sure death, a waiting death--the worst kind. Which was why Anna had such admiration for Jude, who held on to her sanity for the hours she spent tangled in that net.
Holding on to that thought, she kept moving forward, trying to keep track of her orientation with one hand on the wall, though the cold fear in her vitals told her she wasn't sure if she was going up or down anymore. All she knew was that there was now rock on all sides, the occasional conical shape of a stalagmite or stalactite, a reminder of Aunt Jude's words regarding the land-based history of these caverns. Had she thought the open pit of the Abyss dark? This was true darkness, the kind that could tug one toward madness in no time. Once, she hit a wall. It made her yelp in startled fear and she almost went back. Then, thinking carefully, collecting herself enough to feel around, she reali
zed it was a turn in the tunnel and began to follow it in a new direction.
At one point, the rock became smooth, and pinpricks of light started to come through the glittering flecks of minerals embedded in the tunnel sides. While it provided illumination, it was too small to give more than meager comfort, so she imagined the water here as a Caribbean crystal blue touched by the sun.
Her muscles were burning. Her tail propelled her for swimming, so she was unused to straining her arms and shoulders this way. But stopping was not an option.
The minerals disappeared, taking the illusion of light with them as the tunnel turned once more. Despite that, she kept following, obeying the compulsion to outrun whatever might be behind them, knowing by instinct that was the priority above all other things.
There. It was gone. She drifted to a halt, using her tail as a wedge between the walls to hold them in place while she waited, probing. Yes, the artificial hopelessness was gone, bringing a keen sense of relief. They'd lost them.
But instead of bringing in a rush of comfort as she'd hoped, rational thought returned, bringing terror with it. She'd long ago lost track of the direction she was going, the turns she'd made. What had she been thinking? Had she been thinking at all when she made the decision to do this?
Even as panic rose in her breast, she recognized it as the most deadly enemy she'd faced yet. A creature could quickly seal its own death warrant by giving in to mindless flight instinct. But her energy to resist had been sapped by those evil things as well as the physical effort of moving the large angel. She was where she'd never been before . . . a place that had been part of the nightmares of her childhood. Despite herself, she returned to the idea that the Abyss seemed not only capable of swallowing their physical bodies, but even the memory of their existence. In such a desolate place, maybe even the Creator could forget them.
She choked back a sob. She wanted to turn back, take them back, but she didn't know which way was back. It didn't matter. She'd just swim, the faster the better. Anything was better than not moving.