The Taken

Kit inched onto the platform, and moved into the shadows directly below the overhead exit. But now what? Kit looked down, saw Grif still splayed below, still staring. Tears tipped over her cheeks. What did he want her to do? What could she do? If she showed herself now, Chambers might spook and shoot them both.

“Besides,” Chambers was saying, clearly feeling back in control. “You probably organized all this. You and Schmidt were running a prostitution ring out of the Wayfarer. You’ve been doing it for years.”

The knife in Bridget’s hand began to shake. “No one will believe that.”

“You’re a whore. Everyone will believe it.” He jerked his head. “Now come here, Charlotte.”

Charlotte automatically obeyed. Bridget gasped and reached for her, but only caught air, and Chambers straightened with a smile.

But Charlotte halted halfway between her sister and father. “Promise not to hurt her. No more killing. No more…” Her chin wobbled, then crumpled, and she couldn’t finish.

“Of course, dear.” He beckoned to her, and she took another step. Yet Kit knew that once he had Charlotte, there’d be no reason not to kill Bridget. She knew it, too, and without warning, she lunged for her sister. But Charlotte spooked and ran the opposite way, toward her father.

“Stop!” Kit revealed herself, with not a clue as to what she was doing, or would do next, only wanting to prevent the furied collision that had a child caught in the middle. Chambers half-turned, eyes widening when he spotted Kit blocking his exit, and he fired. Kit ducked, trying to make herself small, feeling her nakedness acutely as the bullet ricocheted off the catwalk, pinging like a deadly pinball.

Lashing out with the knife, Bridget screamed. Chambers whirled at the sound, but she struck him, managing to both avoid Charlotte and knock the gun from her father’s hand. It skittered on the metal catwalk, then flipped to drop twenty feet, and clattered on the ground below.

Growling, Chambers punched her square.

“No, no!” Charlotte was screaming and covering her ears again, but Chambers reached out and jerked her by the arm, leaving Bridget knocked out, before turning to Kit. He looked like a bulldozer. “You can’t stop this,” he said, already walking, head lowered, eyes narrowed.

Kit whimpered, but held her ground. “Just give me the girl. You can go…”

“That’s right,” he said sharply. “I can go wherever I want, when I want, and with whom I want.” And he was suddenly there, on her, hands around her neck, fingers squeezing. Kit groped for his hair, his eyes, his ears, wherever she could get a grip, and was pleased to hear his grunts and curses, yet the gray was moving in, her eyesight growing speckled, and somewhere far off, Charlotte was screaming again.

Then Chambers’s head rocketed back with a sudden crack, his grip loosening as a foot flashed forward. A second blow from above had his entire body whipping away, and Kit shook her head, spotting him again just as he tried to right himself. The man always lands on his feet, she had time to think, but he was also tall, and top-heavy, and that was enough to cause his headlong flip over the low catwalk’s side.

Covering her eyes, Charlotte screamed, but Kit watched him fall, his mouth open in shock, though for once he was silent. Even Caleb Chambers had no comeback for this one.

The bedpost missed his spine, but sank through his soft middle to thrust from his chest like a spear. He hung inches above the silky covers, his back slightly arched, his mouth gone slack. Kit reached for Charlotte and tucked the girl’s head into her side so she wouldn’t be tempted to look. However, Kit scanned the entire room below, eyes moving from Chambers and Schmidt, though not to Grif.

No need, with him standing beside her.

“How?” was all she managed as he put his arm around her and squeezed.

“Flesh wound. I’m wearing… something,” he said, and Kit looked up into his face. He spoke calmly enough, but looked as dazed as she felt. “It was… a gift, I think. In my back.”

He meant on his back. “Like Kevlar?”

“Like…” His voice trailed off, and he slid away, looking below. “Oh, no.”

Kit peered over the short railing to where he was staring and felt her eyes go wide. “That’s the woman from-”

“I know,” Grif said, face drained of color, suddenly shaking. “I know.”

And he raced to the ladder, and to the tall, black woman who was staggering, bleeding, and finally falling to her knees below.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Anne was still breathing when Grif returned, but the air rattled in her chest, liquid and low. Gently, he placed the powerful angel’s head on his lap. “Oh, Anne. What happened?”

She laughed so that blood slipped from one corner of her mouth. “I was in the rafters. Wrong place, wrong time. Isn’t that what you people always say?”

Grif looked up. He’d been outside, back on the building’s rooftop when he’d heard the ricocheting gunshot. He’d thought then only of Kit’s safety… but he hadn’t known Anne was inside. The gunshot he’d heard go off from outside. It’d missed Kit… but found Anne.

“But I don’t understand. You’re a Pure. And your wings, the feathers protected me…”

“Of course. You can’t kill what is Pure. But I am wearing flesh… and I obviously didn’t catch this bullet with my wings.”

No, her stomach was gaping wide.

Grif bowed his head. “Forgive me, Anne.”

She surprised him by placing her fingertips to his lips, and though they played there, there was nothing sexual in the touch this time. “But this is amazing, don’t you see? It’s the ultimate human experience. This pain is divine…”

But death was awful, Grif thought, eyes racing over her face. It meant the demise of all those senses she craved. It meant separation, loneliness, and losing those you most loved.

A corner of Anne’s mouth lifted as she read his mind. “Death is not the enemy, Griffin.”

“It’s the end,” he blurted, even though he knew better, even though he had wings.

“Wrong again. Death,” she said, as her hand dropped away, “is how you know you were alive in the first place.”

Grif sat back on his heels, dumbfounded because it made sense. Anne had been so greedy for every single life experience-taste, touch, sound, sight and scent, even love and hate. Even the negative ones like jealousy and rejection. Yet death, perhaps because of its finality, trumped them all.

“I’m glad to go,” she whispered, seeing he finally understood. “Mortality is too exquisite for me.”

Lifting his head, Grif gazed at the bodies of the two men lying in small lakes of their own blood, then up at the two women, Bridget and Charlotte, huddled above him, trying to salvage what remained of their world. There were wings, too, he saw, making out three pairs waiting in the steel rafters, including Courtney, who leaned forward ever so slightly and winked at him before returning to the shadows. Grif looked back at Anne.

“So… Kit?”

She was by the door now, hands folded, watching them. Watching him.

The Pure let her head fall to the side. Looking at Kit, she sucked in a deep breath, searching for the plasma that would mark Kit as doomed, before giving her head a small shake. “I’m afraid that one… is as pure as they come.”

Slumping, Grif dropped his head to Anne’s shoulder, and she patted it, briefly letting her fingertips play in his hair. “There’s one more thing. Your wife…”

Grif lifted his head.

“She never entered the Gates,” Anne whispered, eyes shining too bright. “I know the name of every soul who passes there. Evelyn Shaw was never one of them.”

Grif swallowed hard, feeling tears well. “Incubation, then.”

So Evie had anguished over her death, too. Too early, too young, too soon. And all his fault.

“I’m… sorry.”