No, she wouldn't let her thoughts go in that direction. She'd had to break her never-made but implied promise to Mina. The inexplicable magic that had allowed a simple mermaid to draw one of the universe's most powerful angels out of his element, convince him to accept being turned into a human and drag him through nearly a week's worth of Western human culture, would help her survive long enough to get him there. And once she got him there, the shaman would be able to heal his soul so it would be important to him. She refused to let herself believe anything different. There had to be some kind of sense in the universe. Someone had to have a happy ending, in a situation where a happy ending truly mattered to the balance of the rest of the universe.
"I would prefer to stay with you until you return to your own kind, my lord."
"I would prefer you to be well."
Her eyes opened. "The same goes. I never . . . felt lonely with you. Only safe. Warm. With wings wrapped around me." Her gaze drifted over his wings, which had appeared with sundown, which oddly she couldn't remember happening. Had she drifted off? He'd also shed the jeans for the cooler battle skirt. "Couldn't figure out why my aunt Jude felt afraid . . . but it's you. The way I feel about you."
"I don't want you to be afraid."
"I'm not." She smiled then. "I was loved by an angel. How could I feel a moment of fear?"
Jonah didn't like the serene acceptance in her features, as if they were already down a road where Fate had removed the choice of turning back. Travel by Fate . . .
"You are loved by an angel. You are also the most exasperating female. You have no sense of when not to argue with me."
"My time may be short."
"It is not," he said with sudden, frightening fierceness. Sliding her more deeply into the water, he kept his hand near in case she was too weak to stay above the surface herself in her non-water-breathing form. "Damn it, Anna, I--"
"I meant, if you're going to send me away." She smiled, actually almost laughed at him with her sweet mouth and gentle, all-too-knowing eyes. "Besides," she said sleepily. "If you let David rush me back to the ocean, such an intense and long trip would require him to ground himself, and you've said the easiest way to do so, the most pleasurable way . . ."
He tapped her forehead, managed to catch a strand of hair and tug on it like a group of threads. "I am going to drown you," he promised. "As for David, I'd advise the safest way for him to ground would be a nice, cleansing meditation."
She closed her eyes again, though the smile stayed, fading only as she relaxed against his hand. "Do angels know any songs, my lord? Do you sing?"
"We are trained to do so, yes. The Music Master worked diligently with me for nigh twenty years before he recommended that my tongue be removed so I couldn't cause the next apocalypse with my singing voice."
"Oh, no . . ." Her laughter was a quiet whisper, weak. It made Jonah's vitals tighten with an emotion he'd rarely felt in himself: fear. "No wonder you said your singing would frighten the cellar dweller half to death. But it can't be that bad, truly. Sing something to me. A lullaby. There's one about a sea horse, who twirls himself in a bed of seaweed and swings, back and forth, back and forth, while he watches the light of the moon thread down through the water to him . . . closer and closer, until he swings in the moonbeams."
She sang it for him, soft and easy. Though she spun no magic in her voice, the notes were clear and pure, the magic contained in their sheer simplicity. She ran out of breath, several times, but finished it. "You try."
For her, he did. He rumbled through it while her head came to rest on his knuckle again. She tapped out the time against him. Jonah wanted to kiss her, hug her to him fiercely. He was going to fly her back to the sea himself, to hell with it.
When he was done, her eyes opened to slits, a twinkle in the violet blue depths. "I think the apocalypse has started. I sense great chasms rending the earth."
"You were warned," he reminded her. "Little firefly. You know, it's believed by some that fairies are fallen angels who weren't bad enough for Hell."
"I've heard there are angels as big as giants. One that could whack you with one hand, like a fly."
"While you would be one of those tiny, irritating biting bugs he can't see."
A smile touched her mouth, then died away again. "We're supposed to love all of the Lady's creation, but I admit, my lord, I miss the ocean so much I am beginning to lose an appreciation for what is beautiful about the desert."
"You're in it," he said. When her gaze flickered up to him, her small hand came to rest in the crevice between two of his fingers.
"No matter what happens, my lord, this is not your doing. It was my choice. Even the men you command, it is their choice. Do you know that? They don't expect you to be infallible. They expect you to be a man worth following, even into death or worse."
He swallowed, his hand tightening on her small body. Suddenly he wished she were larger, as large as the Goddess Herself, and he could bury himself in her arms, in her, and escape the feelings those words unexpectedly prodded to life in an aching chest. "How can a man deserve such loyalty, except when he keeps them from being slaughtered?"
"It isn't about keeping them from harm, my lord." She shook her head. "It's about doing what's right and true, not shirking from that. I was frightened of helping you. Did I tell you that? That I thought about swimming away with the others? But that wasn't right. I knew it, when I saw you for the first time."
"You could have been killed."
"Yes, I could. But it would have been worse to make the world a little less bright, because of my cowardice. Such things add up in the subconscious of the world, my lord. Become part of its blood."
"You're too young to understand that."
"No, I'm not. Truth is truth. It's just difficult to accept when you lose the people you love."
She looked up at him as a tear splashed on her abdomen, proportionate to a cup of warm water hitting her skin and splitting into a dozen other drops, warm and salty. Jonah looked away, ashamed of his weakness, but her words made him close his eyes to fight more tears he couldn't afford. "Love adds up in the subconscious of the world as well," she whispered.
He brought his attention back down to her then. When she pressed her forehead against his fingers, the contact resonated throughout his whole body. The way the slight weight of her rested in the cradle of his palm with such trust. The fragile impressions of her curves, the edges of the diaphanous wings. "We're not far now," he repeated, though he was swept by a sudden uncertainty as to what the destination of this journey truly was. What it would mean to both of them. From the first, she'd been leading him, and he'd been shamelessly content to follow.
She nodded, apparently too tired to speak anymore.
The approaching night wind whispered over the desert. Jonah lifted his head, turning in its general direction. Anna stiffened in his grasp as his muscles tightened and the confusion of his thoughts cleared in an instant. The quality of the wind changed, the whispering becoming a sibilant hiss.
Holy Goddess.
"Evil, persistent beasts," he muttered.
Nineteen
IN a flash, Jonah leaped up on the rock, balancing over the bowl and its precious contents. Staring into the dark, he shifted his attention between the multiple approach points, cognizant that they could even come over the rock formation he'd placed at his back.
When he heard something below him, he glanced down to find Anna gazing bemusedly up into the folds of the battle skirt he'd donned just before sundown while she dozed in the water, for he'd felt more comfortable in it.
"If I'm going to die right now, my lord, this will be quite a view to have in my mind. They'll be sure I deserve Purgatory, right from the off."
"I can think of far more justifiable reasons to send you to Purgatory for some discipline," he said, torn between exasperation and amusement.
Even as he teased her, he kept his guard up, searching. If he had to, he'd call Luc and David to him. He wouldn
't risk her life any longer for pride, and she was bound to him now. The Dark Ones wouldn't ignore her. He could feel them shifting out in the darkness, drawing closer, seeking. He and Anna were hidden in the shadows of the rock. Once the Dark Ones found them, they'd announce their discovery with their usual deadly shrieking, diving upon them like unnatural birds of prey. With his energy signature as an angel, it was only a matter of a few moments.
He tensed, crouched down over her. David . . .
With his senses so tuned to the impending threat, he first took the sound for a muted growl. But it was too constant, too . . . mechanical. It was drawing closer as well, getting louder.
Light. Twin lights, piercing the night. A vehicle coming. Coming fast.
Jonah cursed. If the occupants got too close, the Dark Ones would push traces of sadness to full-blown despair, stoke anger over a minor offense to psychotic violence. They'd enlist human help to try to take Jonah down.
There'd been numerous cases of Dark Ones possessing human bodies, making the human's actions indistinguishable from that of a serial killer or the most dangerous of schizophrenics, until a savvy priest--or at least one slapped awake by an angel--would assist in tearing the wretch out of the human body. Now he had more than Anna to protect.
But before he could reinitiate his summons to David, he felt a hesitation among the oncoming Dark Ones. They were . . . milling. Confused by the energy or intent of the vehicle. A strong intent, so strong that when Jonah adjusted his stance to see its approach, the aura blasting before the large red Dodge Ram pickup appeared like a rolling ball of fire.
The truck skidded up, jumping off the hint of road and coming to a sliding stop, a barricade between Jonah, Anna and the darkness bearing down on them.
A slim waif of a woman with blonde hair and vivid blue eyes, shoved open the passenger door. "Get in. Hurry!"
Jonah seized the pack and Anna, with only a blink to regret not being able to salvage the water.
"Take the wheel, Maggie." A hand reached from within, dragged the woman back into the cab. "Drive like you've got the hounds of Hell behind you. Just like I taught you."
A man as tall and broad as Jonah emerged from the driver's side. When Jonah leaped into the back bed, knowing his wings wouldn't fit in the cab, the man put a foot on the wheel well to swing a long leg in, taking a stance beside him. "You better give her to Maggie. We're going to have a hell of a fight to get home. I haven't seen them this bad since the last drought."
He was smart enough not to reach for the tiny precious bundle Jonah held against his chest, but Maggie leaned out the back window, her two hands cupped together like she was about to receive a priceless treasure. Jonah took the important, vital second to stare into her wide blue eyes, so gentle and kind, so determined despite the undercurrent of fear.
"Matt's right. You better let me take care of her."
"She's a little weak."
"I'm better now. I can help--"
"No. You go with her." Jonah transferred Anna into Maggie's hands, noting his one almost dwarfed her two. She had pretty fingers, unadorned except for a simple gold wedding set.
A cold breeze skittered up his spine, like a ship passing, but infinitely more unnatural.
"Drive, Maggie," Matt bellowed. Jonah noted him hefting two shotguns. He tossed one toward Jonah as Maggie disappeared into the cab, holding Anna. "Can you shoot, angel?"
"Bullets won't--"
A shriek and Matt cocked the gun with one hand, rotated it up smoothly and blasted the air at a forty-five degree angle in front of them. The flash illuminated the skeletal, red-eyed visage of the winged Dark One bearing down on him, less than twenty feet away. The double cartridges somersaulted it back, causing it to explode in a shower of flame that flashed light across Matt's firmly held jaw, his cool hazel eyes.
"Brace on the floor." Matt jerked his head down, gesturing toward triangular rubber grips spaced across the truck bed. He had a boot solidly against one as the truck jumped forward with a horrible jerk, hesitated, then leaped forward again with a roar.
"Bless her sweet heart. Still has trouble with the clutch." Matt took another shot in the dark. "Ah, Hell's bells. Closing in."
Jonah took the gun to his shoulder and fired off the four rounds, watching as the charges ignited the air. He spread out his wings to balance himself, and as he did, Matt dropped to a knee to give him the room and use the cover, firing another shot. "Here!" He held another sawed-off shotgun to Jonah. "Keep firing. I'll keep loading and shooting from down here."
There wasn't a weapon Jonah didn't know how to handle instinctively, but he was wondering what in all of Hades was firing out of these guns that could destroy Dark Ones. Two swooped in together.
"Arggh . . ." Matt got struck by one and Jonah fired into it. It dropped Matt onto the roof, sending him rolling down the front windshield while the other tackled Jonah. Striking it with his left wing, he knocked it off himself and the truck and took a shot at its body as it rolled. Cursing when he missed, he went up and aloft, flipping the necessary few feet to grab Matt by the collar, pluck him off the windshield. He caught a glimpse of Maggie's horrified eyes and a tiny fairy on her shoulder, gripping her hair.
Matt rolled into the bed and was back up with a loaded gun before the two Dark Ones could circle back. The two men went shoulder to shoulder, the cab at their back, and fired simultaneously. Matt racked in another round as fast as an angel could fly, and took out a third.
Silence. A great, vibrating silence. Jonah searched the sky. So many stars out, no blot of darkness heralding their enemy's presence. He knew where all the constellations were supposed to be in a clear sky. But he was too wary to relax his guard. They'd been all around, thick as a cloud, though he now realized there'd only been six or seven. But they'd descended with that ferocious, confident aggression he'd rarely seen in such smaller numbers. Damn it all, Luc was right. They were getting ready for something.
He glanced over at his new comrade. Matt had a bloody gash on his head, and his eyes and the set of his mouth were still warrior fierce.
"Goddamn it. I lost my hat. I'll have to go back in the morning and see if I can't find it." But despite the casually irritable comment, Jonah noticed he didn't release his gun or relax his stance, either.
The men stayed pressed shoulder to shoulder, studying the night from all angles.
"Everyone all right in there?" Matt yelled, and the horn honked in reply. "Keep it going as fast as you can, Maggie."
"Matt," he called out over the wind and engine noise, glancing at Jonah. "As you may have guessed. Carpenter."
"Jonah. Angel. As you may have guessed."
Matt glanced at the wing that was brushing his shoulder. "You don't say?"
The grin that creased his face loosened something in Jonah's gut. He'd missed the camaraderie of soldiers. It took him by surprise, because, until now, he hadn't allowed himself to identify that empty space inside of him. It had been just one of many empty spaces. Perhaps that one tear Anna's words had wrested from him had opened up some other things.
Jonah hefted the gun. "These aren't bullets."
"Bet your lily-white ass they are. Wal-Mart special, less than twenty bucks for a hundred rounds. But they've been blessed by Sam the Shaman, and it makes 'em lethal to the likes of them." He nodded at the empty sky. "He said you were coming, for several days now. We've been keeping watch. We're his neighbors, the last house on the track before the Schism."
He cocked a brow at Jonah. "It's hell giving the UPS guy directions when Maggie orders her sundries from the catalogs. 'Take the last house on the left before you hit the magical fault line, where you might be sucked into an alternate reality. Careful, the streets aren't really well marked.' " He chanced a quick look over his other shoulder. "Here we are now. We should be okay as soon as we get in through the gate."
Jonah glanced back to see the silhouette of a two-story wooden house, caught briefly in the headlights as they wound up the road toward it. The wood
fence around the property was split rail, but a mixture of polished, carved white oak and rowan, burned with protection symbols. "They can't go past the gate," Matt said. "Sam says so."
The truck stopped in front of the gate and the driver's door opened. Maggie stepped out on the running board, her hand gripping the top of the door.
Matt whipped around. "Maggie, damn it, use the remote--"
"It's the woman; she's--"
Before Maggie could finish the sentence, she screamed. Her chin hit the driver's door as she went down. Her body landed in the dirt and was jerked out of sight beneath the truck.
"Under the truck, one of them was--" Jonah leaped out of one side with a weapon, Matt off the other, shouting his wife's name.
Catching the back of the truck in one hand, Jonah lifted it, bringing it up on its forward wheels. He had a brief, horrific flash of a Dark One completely blanketing the struggling Maggie. She screamed, her hands clawing, trying to push it off. Younger angels had difficulty dealing with prolonged physical contact with Dark Ones. For humans, it could be lethal, if the Dark One was in attack mode.
It would already be in her mind, her body, taking all of her pleasurable thoughts or happy memories and turning them into twisted nightmares, violating every part of her with its foul stench. Matt seized it before Jonah could roar at him not to touch it, and his arms went into the blackness up to the elbows.
"Matt, pull free!"
The gun was tooled by a human and its timing and sight could be off. Jonah took the shot anyway. After so many battles, he knew hesitation was more fatal. He blasted the beast's head apart inches over Maggie, clipping Matt's shoulder. The man didn't even flinch, grasping Maggie and rolling away with her. Dropping the truck, Jonah caught the creature's leg and pulled it out, sending its body sliding ten feet away before it exploded from the magic of the charge, showering him with Dark One body parts.
"Get inside, inside," Matt panted, lifting Maggie in his arms. Leaving the driver's door open, he shoved Maggie in behind the wheel, stepped up on the running board and leaned over her struggling body to activate the gate's remote and put the vehicle in drive. Jonah followed it in, guarding their backs, probing to make sure the closing gate restored the magical protections on the circle the fence provided around the property.