“Will,” I said, prying my lips from his to gasp for air.
He grinned at me before he buried his face into my neck, nuzzling and mumbling in response.
I laughed and untangled myself from him. “Will. Hey.”
His eyebrows raised questioningly and he gave another gruff, unintelligible answer. I pressed a hand into his chest, guiding his back into the bed, and his hands ran up my thighs as I positioned myself over his hips. Now that I was in control, I raised a finger at him to let him know that I was serious.
“As much as I’d love to stay here all day—maybe even forever—we have things to do,” I said firmly.
“I don’t disagree.”
“You are terrible,” I said, laughing. “We need to get going!”
His hands settled on my hips and suddenly he flipped me around until I was beneath him again, the mattress bouncing. He kissed me hotly and I gave in, throwing my arms over his neck, hands digging into his strong shoulders. His fingers brushed the skin of my waist beneath my shirt. We kissed for what felt like hours, until my lips were swollen and tender, and his shoulders had turned red beneath my grip. Yet again, we came to that familiar stalemate, where we waited for one of us to make the first move to back off for good. This time, it was him. The cloudiness in my senses began to fade and reality came crashing back down. For some time, I lay against the bed beneath Will, his fingers twining through my hair and my own curling around his shirt, folding my body against his like I was trying to climb into his skin to get that much closer to him. But the peaceful dream had to end sometime and we had a mission to complete.
Once we were all ready to go, we navigated the sprawling bed-and-breakfast out to the parking lot where the rental car was parked. The hotel dated back to the Colonial period and had that classic East Coast charm to it. I really wanted to explore its many wings and the property it sat on, but we had stuff to do first. We found the post office easily, but as we walked inside and the local elderlies glared at Will’s tattoos spiraling out from under his T-shirt, I had severe doubts that we would find much information here.
I scanned the wall of gray metal mailbox doors and found box 184. At least we knew that this particular box existed. Question was, did it belong to the mysterious Ethan Stone?
There was an older woman working the single register behind the counter, wearing a pink cardigan with kittens over a pink shirt. She glared at me from beneath her halo of frizzy gray hair. “Can I help you?”
“Yeah,” I began, unsure of how to work this. “Could you tell me who rents box 184?”
“No,” she replied rather tersely. “That would be against federal law.”
I bit my lip and thought hard. “Well, does it get used often? As in, recently and still in use?”
“Yes, mail comes in and out,” she grumbled. “It’s a P.O. box. That’s what happens.”
The kittens on her pink-on-pink ensemble weren’t very intimidating, despite the woman’s harshness. “Thanks for your help,” I told her smugly.
Outside the building, we stood on the sidewalk. Will didn’t seem too disappointed. “At least we know that the box is still active.”
“Yeah,” I said. “But we’ll never find out who’s using it. So…if I were a bored, small-town local kid and there was possibly a gazillionaire living in a gigantic house around here, possibly a psychic or something else supernatural, meaning he possibly doesn’t chill with regular people, meaning he’s possibly a recluse…”
“How can you say all of that in one breath?”
“Shut up. I’m thinking,” I said. “This guy is probably the only cool thing to talk about around here, except for the horse shows advertised everywhere. People really like horses in Saugerties, I guess. Anyway, Ethan Stone would probably be like this town’s Boo Radley, you know?”
“The who?”
“Meaning, he’d be an urban legend, only he really is something supernatural,” I said. “Meaning, while the adults in town might glare at us, the local kids would love to spook tourists with the story.”
“But why?” Will looked at me a bit cross-eyed. “I don’t understand why they would care.”
“That’s because you’re a replicant. Now let’s go.”
I took his hand and dragged him down the street. This part of Saugerties was like a postcard, seriously. It was creepily quaint. We walked down the picturesque street until I spotted a local ice cream shop, its benches out front packed with teenagers. Jackpot.
I hauled Will up to the window to order. I figured we ought to blend in with everyone—and I’d get an ice cream out of this as well. After I got my regular cookie dough, I made Will order something. He got a small root beer float, of course, and then we sat at a bench with another couple. The girl smiled politely at us and the boy gave Will a nod of manly solidarity.
“Nice tats,” the boy said. “Get them done in the city?”
“New York City?” Will replied. “No, in Rome.”
“Interesting style and the symbols are really cool. I hear the Italian tattooists are the best.”
“She isn’t Italian, but she’s amazing.”
I beamed and took a bite of my ice cream. I happened to have been the not-Italian, “amazing” artist of his tattoos five hundred years ago, when he became my Guardian.
“Are you guys from around here?” the girl, a cute, curvy blond, asked.
“No,” I replied. “I’m from Michigan and he was born in Scotland.”
“Wow,” she said. “Both of you came a long way. Are you on vacation?”
“Pretty much. You guys live here?”
“Yeah,” the boy said. “Born and raised, both of us. I’m Scott. This is Leah.”
“Ellie and Will,” I said, and gestured to him beside me. “So, you guys probably know all the cool stuff to check out. You know, the stuff that isn’t advertised every five feet.”
Scott shrugged. “Not really. It’s pretty boring here. There’s a few places people say are haunted, and there’s this compound up off of County Road Thirty-Three—”
“Compound?” He got Will’s attention.
“People say it’s a government facility or something,” Leah said almost dismissively. “Like they’re building robots up there. It’s stupid.”
“You only think that because you’ve never seen it,” Scott sneered at her.
She rolled her eyes. “It’s not real! You guys are so dumb.”
Scott turned his head to us. “I’ve seen it. Trust me. It’s got a huge wall all around the property and always has guys out at the gate packing guns. There’s a house on a hill that the driveway leads to and it’s huge. We’re pretty sure they do mutant experiments or something.”
“I heard the house was owned by some crazy billionaire,” I offered, hoping I’d get more information out of him.
He shrugged. “Yeah, some people say that he’s some master thief who steals valuable stuff from all over the world. I’ve never seen him, though. Just seen the guards out front and lights on in the house.”
“Cool,” I said, and looked right at Will. “We should check this place out.”
“Sounds like a plan,” he agreed.
I turned back to Scott and Leah and leaned over the table. “Where did you say this house was again?”
13
MARCUS AND AVA ARRIVED AT THE BED-AND-breakfast at last and after they checked into their room, we regrouped in mine. They sat in the couple of chairs at the small table by the big window overlooking the garden outside, and Will and I sat on the edge of the bed, briefing them on what we found out in town earlier. Meanwhile, the angelic reapers had ordered a ton of delivery, which overran the room. I had some fried rice and a couple pieces of pizza, but that was only a fraction of what had been ordered—and quickly devoured. Will took the guards Scott had mentioned very seriously. When Cadan arrived, I filled him in and we suited up. We didn’t have a whole lot to expect from this mysterious Ethan Stone. I mentally prepared myself to be ready for anything.
r /> Getting past the front gate of the mansion was extremely easy. There were two guards visible, but we flew over them, hidden in the Grim, and landed safely deep in the wooded area that stretched across the property. The house was well lit even so late at night, and we could spot no reapers in the Grim aside from our own forces. Cadan split from us to find a way inside that wasn’t the front door.
“The demonic could be protecting the interior,” Ava suggested.
“We don’t know for sure that this is Stone’s house,” Will said. “We have to proceed with extreme caution. I don’t sense any demonic power, but they must be suppressing their energy.”
I nodded in agreement. “If Stone or the grimoire copy aren’t in there, then we need to get out quick and clean. I’m not losing anyone else.”
I was suddenly deafened by the wail of a siren coming from the house. My hands clamped over my ears and I peered through the trees in confusion.
“They know we’re here!” Marcus shouted.
“Cadan!” I cried out in horror. He was probably what had set the alarms off and he was out there by himself in whatever mess he’d walked into. I couldn’t let him fight alone. I raced through the trees and burst into the open lawn, which was now lit up with roaming floodlights. I did my best to dodge the lights and to stay hidden. I could hear the footsteps of the angelic reapers keeping pace behind me and the crackling of gunfire everywhere.
There was no more time to find a way inside that could provide cover. I soared over a balustrade and nearly slipped on the terrace leading up to the mansion. I bounded up the stone steps and ducked between towering columns to burst through the front doors.
“Cadan!” I screamed, skidding across the glossy marble foyer floor in near complete darkness. The searchlights roving the grounds cast stark beams that lit up the interior of the house for only a moment before disappearing again. “Cadan!”
The response was gunfire. I ducked and rolled across the floor to dive into a parlor leading from the foyer as bullets pounded into the walls and glass all around me. Will, Marcus, and Ava went to work, colliding with our attackers. Black shadowy bursts of reaper power and the short, disorienting flashes of light from firing guns made it hard to see anything at all. Bullets tore off chunks of marble columns, ripped through wood and plaster, and above the roar of destruction I heard men shouting orders.
But where was Cadan? A frightful knot tightened in my gut.
I darted from my hiding spot to another room as bullets made the archway frame explode into splinters. I caught sight of one of the reapers who had his back to me and was stepping farther away from the others. I crept behind him quickly and shot my hand forward and knocked the gun from his grip. I grabbed his throat, digging my hand hard under his jaw, and I yanked him toward me and slammed his back against the wall. His petrified appearance didn’t faze me.
“Where is Cadan?” I shrieked, knowing—and not caring—that I probably looked as wild-eyed as he did.
He shook his head and mumbled at me. I jerked him forward and smashed him into the wall again, crushing plaster, and he screamed in pain.
“Where is he?”
“Ellie!”
I looked over my shoulder and saw Ava racing toward me. A reaper between us swung the butt of his rifle up and into the side of her face with a crack. She growled at him, grabbed him by the neck, and threw him across the room. His body crashed into a chandelier in a shower of glass and crystal, and then a fireplace, destroying the mantle and everything on it before hitting the ground and not rising.
As my gaze returned to the terror-stricken eyes of the reaper I had pinned, I became aware that something was very wrong. He grappled at my hand, pulled at my fingers clamped around his throat, and I barely felt anything. Reapers were stronger than that—even the weaker ones. I drew in a sharp breath and released him, stepping back and letting him crumple to the floor.
“They’re human,” I called, waving my arms to the angelic reapers. “They’re human! Stop! Don’t kill them! They’re human!”
A bullet struck my shoulder. It was a pain unlike anything I’d ever felt before, like a major-leaguer swinging a baseball bat into my body at full strength. The force swung me off my feet and my back hit the floor, knocking the air from my lungs. The bullet lodged in my shoulder hurt so bad I couldn’t breathe, and I could feel the heat from my blood seeping from my wound. Will crouched over me, shouting, but I couldn’t hear his voice at first over the heavy thudding of my pulse in my ears as the blood ran out of me. The tissue and muscles trying to heal and right themselves inside me was probably even more agonizing than the initial hit itself. I could feel my body pushing the bullet toward the surface, but what should have been relief was only the blinding sensation of a power drill grinding through my shoulder.
Cadan’s face appeared in my blurry vision and a wave of relief crashed over me at seeing him alive. “Oh, God,” he murmured fearfully. “Did she get shot? Can she heal from this?”
“I don’t know,” Will admitted, the terror in his bright green eyes obvious. “I have no idea. Ellie, please stay with me. Please, don’t go. Please.”
I did my best to give him a nod and tried not to move anymore until I felt the bullet surface through my skin and plink to the floor. Once the wound had closed and the pain began to dull, I weakly sat up with Will’s and Cadan’s help, grimacing in pain. “Wow, that hurt,” I grumbled, clutching my shoulder.
“Are you okay?” Cadan asked as he stared at me in disbelief.
“Yeah,” I grunted. “Give me a sec.” It was still hard to breathe. The deeper tissue trauma the bullet must have caused seemed to take longer to heal. Until then, it would hurt like hell. “You didn’t kill the one who shot me, did you?”
“No,” Will said, sounding disappointed with himself. “I was more worried about you than with taking off his head.”
I sighed with reprieve. “Good. The guards are humans, not reapers. Tell the others to stop fighting.”
“Stand down!” A voice echoed from across the room.
Will and Cadan shot to their feet and I turned my head to see a man emerging through the crowd of armored humans. He was tall, dressed in a suit, and looked to be a little older than my dad had been, with sharp features, and his sandy-blond hair was trimmed neatly. His eyes, a dusty hazel beneath a light brow, surveyed the scene and then glued firmly to mine. His lips, soft but thin, carried a curve of amusement, and the wrinkles in both corners of his mouth told me he was fighting what could have been a smile.
“We wouldn’t have had all this trouble if you hadn’t sent in a demonic reaper first,” the man said in an English accent. “When did you start working with Hellspawn, Preliator?”
Will vanished and reappeared with his fist tightening around the man’s collar and lifting him off the floor. The guards’ rifles raised and clicked into position. “Who are you?” Will snarled, lifting the man higher.
“Don’t fire,” the man shouted to his guards. “Set me down, Guardian, and we can work this out like civilized creatures.”
“Tell me who you are first!”
“Stone,” the man said finally. “Ethan Stone. Now, if you’ll kindly—”
Will dropped him and the man crumpled to the floor with a grunt. “Okay, Ethan Stone, how do you know who we are?”
Stone picked himself up and brushed the dust from his suit, giving Will a cocky grin. “I didn’t need to summon any telepathic talents to tell the obvious once I got a look at you. Again, all of this could have been avoided if you’d simply knocked on the door instead of sending in a demonic reaper. That was asking for a mess of trouble.”
I took a painful step toward Stone and put my hand protectively on Cadan’s arm. “He’s my friend and brother to my Guardian.”
Stone’s hazel eyes brimmed with surprise. “That certainly wasn’t the response I’d anticipated. Not only friend, but brother?”
“Long story,” Cadan replied. “Very scandalous.”
“We ar
en’t here to chat,” Will said as Ava and Marcus stepped close to either side of him. “We’ve come to take back what you’ve stolen.”
“Yes, yes,” Stone said tiredly, waving a dismissive hand. “I know this already. You want the angelic reaper’s copy of the Lord of the West’s grimoire. I knew you were coming.”
“If you knew we were coming, then why open fire on us?” I asked, confused.
“Like I said,” Ethan Stone replied, “I wasn’t expecting the demonic reaper. My men were only defending—and unfortunately destroying—my property from what they were trained to fight against.”
“You’re a psychic, aren’t you?”
He shrugged. “In a manner of speaking.”
“Then you understand why we need that book,” I said. “I don’t want to take it by force. If you know who I am then you know that I only want to stop the Fallen.”
“I know what you’re trying to do,” Stone replied. “And I want to help you. I want you to have the book.”
“Thank you,” I said earnestly. “Where is it?”
He started to turn, beckoning for me to follow him. “Come. The Guardian may join us, if you wish, as long as he doesn’t try playing the strangle tango with me again.”
I nodded to Will, happy to have him accompany me. There was something strange about Ethan Stone. His response to my asking if he was psychic was unnerving and dodgy. There really wasn’t an easy way to prove what he was, but I had to assume that I could handle myself around him, as dangerous as that assumption was.
Stone led us through his mansion and it never seemed to end. The architecture was unlike anything I’d ever seen before. The corridors had short flights of staircases in the strangest of places and each hall had a different color and shape to its design; some were arched and lined with columns, others had sharp angles and corners with vaulted ceilings. Intermittent alcoves with elegant lighting and tapestries decorated the walls, and some windows stretched two stories high and were covered with enormous drapes.