Chapter 12
Chapter
Twelve
Gavriel pulled me close, looked at me intently and said, “You’ll probably want to hold on tight.
Also, maybe close your eyes.” He winked, and then his enormous wings flipped out, and he leapt into the air.
We rushed through Song as a shadow of darkness and death.
I closed my eyes and clung to him, inhaling the scent of his skin, buzzing as his blood inside of me reacted to being so close to him. Or it was just me.
I had a reason to hang onto him, so I did, pressing my cheek to his pulse and listening to his blood beat along with the rush of his wings and the wind.
The flight was too short, but not short enough, because when he landed and released me, I promptly fell over.
“Are you all right?” Gavriel asked, bending over me.
I looked up at him, but then started staring at the enormous stone boot behind him. I slowly stood and looked around at the bizarre field of scattered stone objects. “The eye doctor also does statuary?”
“Turns people to stone, but don’t worry. We’ll be fine.”
I looked at Gavriel, feeling a rush of panic. “Turns people to stone?! No. Absolutely not. I’m here for glasses, not some altercation with a sorcerer. It’s not worth the risk. We have a job to do. I never should have gotten distracted. Let’s go back.”
I held out my arms to him, grabbed his shoulders and moved close, ready for him to launch us away from danger.
He gave me a slight smile, his skin so warm, his eyes so beautiful, dark, still filled with death’s shadows. “We’re here. We might as well ask if he can help.”
“You don’t ask for help from people who have that much power. I manage well enough without being able to see words. You can read for me. Even Crucible can probably be trained to read for me. Let’s go back.” I gripped his shoulders and pressed against him, invading his space the better to leave.
He smiled and slid his hands around my waist. “I think if we leave now, he’ll be suspicious.”
“If we stay, he’ll have a nonmoving target. I’ll take my chances. Come on. Fly.” I nudged him back, but he only smiled and held me closer to him.
“You smell nice.”
“That’s because you washed the werewolf scent out of my clothes.”
“No, like fresh bread, or cut grass, fresh, alive, sweet.”
I pulled back, breaking out of his grasp.
“I’m dead. Fine. If you’d rather I be a really dead weight, let’s go see this optometrist, but stay behind me, so if he turns anyone to stone, it’ll be me, and you can grab me and fly us out of here before he shatters me.
That was a very large boot. Are there giants around here? ”
“There were,” a cloaked figure said, stepping out from behind a large statue of a troll. A very large troll, because the cloaked man was enormous.
I stepped in front of Gavriel and rose on my tiptoes, the better to block whatever petrifying spell he had.
“Good afternoon. I’m here for glasses. I’m a vampire, but words are blurry.
I can still catch a bullet with my hands, but words are harder to catch.
I’m sure you’re too busy to help us, so my friend and I will go. Thank you so much for your time.”
The shadowy, hooded figure turned and started walking away, raising his hand in a universal, come-hither gesture.
I sighed and followed. This really didn’t feel like a good idea. “Do you think you could help us?” I asked the cloak of ominous desolation. Were there wings beneath that cloak?
“Us? Does the angel care about whether you can read? Does he want to hire you for bookkeeping?” His voice was dry, almost amused, but too serious for levity. The cloak certainly seemed to hide something. I hoped it was wings.
“Are you an angel?” I asked and then immediately wished I hadn’t. The less said, the better.
“That’s right. Are you?”
“No. I’m a vampire.”
He snorted and then quickened his pace with his long stride towards a small cottage tucked into the mist-shrouded, stone-strewn hill.
It was all so creepy, like intentionally created to cause fear to anyone who dared come near.
Had we flown directly north from Singsong City?
We must have, but who would live up here on the borderlands between civilization and troll country.
Not to mention the giants. Gavriel stayed close behind me, but he wasn’t short enough to use my body as an effective shield.
We finally reached the small building that wasn’t really small, just buried in the ground, covered in weeds, roof and all.
The optometrist ducked through the door, and we followed. I expected more spookiness, but instead, it was a cozy jumble of books mixed with beakers and jars packed with various spell-casting ingredients.
He took off his cloak, hanging it up to the right of the door and turning to face us. There was something frightening about him, but also interesting. Maybe the fact that the dark-winged angel wore glasses over his dark, ominous eyes.
He studied me intently. “You can’t read?”
I’d already explained this. “I can read slowly if I squint and get the distance and angle just right.” I physically couldn’t force myself to reveal any more details about my weakness. This entire situation was bad enough.
“Vampires don’t wear glasses,” he said with a slight curl of his lips.
“Neither do angels,” I said, giving him a flat look. I’d given him an excuse not to help us right away. It wasn’t my fault that he hadn’t taken it.
He smiled slowly. “What can you see?”
“Bullets.” I should have brought some weapons. Killing him would be very difficult. Not that I was killing just now, but being in the same space as someone who smelled of so much power made me want to be prepared.
“Yes, but what else? Physically, your eyes are fine. It’s something else that is keeping you from focusing on words. Usually it comes from a spell, a curse, or another reason, such as when someone trades their sight for something even more valuable.”
I stared at him blankly. “I didn’t trade my ability to read for anything.” I’d traded my soul for David’s life, but that was hardly related.
“What can you see that others can’t?”
I looked at Gavriel for help, and he gave me a sweet smile that he shouldn’t be using in a situation as dangerous as talking to a mad angelic sorcerer who may or may not turn us to stone.
“I can see corruption,” I finally said, because I had to say something.
The spectacled angel raised his brows high over the glinting curve of his silver frames. “You can see corruption, or smell it?”
I shrugged. “It’s more of a smell, but it’s not actually any of my physical senses. I thought that perhaps you meant ‘to see’ in a more metaphysical way. I’m not very metaphysical. I’m an assassin, not a sorcerer.”
“An assassin? So the job you need to get back to is to kill someone? Am I the target?”
I gave him a smile. “I wouldn’t have mentioned that I was an assassin if you were. The target is a demon. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be with an angel.”
“Not that I’m not wonderful company,” Gavriel murmured.
I looked at him, and his slight smile made my skin prickle. I really didn’t like being in this situation with him. He wasn’t defenseless, but he shouldn’t be here, in someone else’s power.
“The two of you are in a relationship?” the older angel asked, sounding so disapproving. “You aren’t in the same life states. That always ends badly. His blood is poison; you’re a drinker of blood. I can smell it in you. You’re filled with his blood. Not that he’s complaining, but he should be.”
“I don’t drink his blood,” I said through bared teeth. “I drained him unconscious to stop him after some idiot Cupid pricked him with a dart. I don’t drink live victims. That’s what blood bags are for.”
“Interesting,” he said, studying me even more intently. “And why do you want to read?”
I blinked at him. He wasn’t interested in arguing, only wanted to see my reaction.
He was one of those people who prod and test people to see what they’re made of.
I hated that. Also, I hated thinking about angels and vampires being incompatible.
Not that I disagreed with him. Of course an angel and a vampire together would end badly.
My life was over and his had just begun.
“I’d like to read for the logical reason, the better to read contracts so I’m not forced to rely on someone else’s help.”
“So independent,” Gavriel murmured.
The old man turned on him. “What are you doing? You’re a Hartshorn. You should be passing down your precious genetics, not dallying with an undead leech. You have a duty to perform.”
Gavriel pulled his sword, such a quick movement, holding at the other angel’s throat.
“No. You don’t insult those who come to you for aid.
Undead, yes, but she is so painfully independent, to call her a leech.
And don’t talk about my genetics. It’s rude, and also hypocritical coming from someone who let their own precious angelic lines die out. I thought that you’d understand.”
The stranger pushed away the point of the sword with two fingers. “I do understand. You meet an immortal goddess of death, like this person, and you see her pure soul, and sense the angelic in her, and you can’t help yourself. But she’s not alive. She can’t give you the life you crave.”
I was going to die if I had to listen to this for another second, you know, figuratively.
I stepped between Gavriel’s sword and the sorcerer.
“Can you help or not? I’d say not. You’re clearly not a professional, or you wouldn’t fixate on whether a vampire or angel can be together when they aren’t, in fact, together.
We’re working to take down a demon. I don’t get ‘with’ anyone, particularly romantically.
I’m here for glasses. Whatever Gavriel does with his life is his business, not yours or mine for that matter.
So let me ask you one last time. Can you help me? ”
He narrowed his eyes at me. “Yes, I can.”
“Will you? We have to get back to Singsong City before it’s time to feed Crucible.”