Shadow Fall

Her chest was starting to tighten, breath more difficult to draw. Custo was leaving?

“At least follow me and get some information so you don’t get yourself killed. Then you can decide,” Luca said.

Annabella’s throat constricted, too. This got worse and worse. “Killed?”

“Will you come?” Luca asked Custo. “Somebody needs to dig that bullet out of your gut before you bleed to death internally.”

Custo frowned deeply in response.

Bullet? Killed? Leaving?

Custo turned to Adam, including her with a darted glance. “You’ll wait here? I’ll be back as soon as I can and explain everything.”

She wasn’t budging without some answers.

With a quick tug on her arm, Custo kissed her, his mouth urgent, burning her up for all of three seconds. He drew back, his gaze hard on hers. “Do what Adam tells you.”

Was that good-bye?

“I don’t understand—” she said. Nothing made any sense.

“We’ll be waiting,” Adam said to Custo. The statement was loaded.

Custo released her, her vision blurring suddenly as he and Luca smudged into receding daubs of color, soon drowned out by the light.

Annabella’s chest was so tight she doubled over.

“Deep breaths,” Adam said, putting a hand on her back. She fought for air, and when her equilibrium returned, she straightened.

“I don’t see a bathroom,” she said to be funny, to cover the tears in her eyes.

“I think we hold it.” Adam still grasped his rejected business card in his hand. His jaw was set with fury.

“Custo will work everything out,” she said, though she wasn’t sure about anything anymore.

She’d thought he was in trouble because of her, but he’d left her midperformance. The blame was just as much his as it was hers. Except he was an angel and was supposed to know what he was doing.

He’d also known he might be leaving, and hadn’t bothered to tell her. He’d let her think that they’d banish the wolf together, when he’d intended to ask Luca to take over. He’d let her climb all over him—oh no, she couldn’t think about that. The mortification would burn her up.

Besides, sleeping with him was her fault. What had she been thinking? That he was gorgeous, that he desired her. Would be there to protect her. The fact that he looked and acted like a man made her forget that he wasn’t one. She’d gotten carried away by fear and fantasy.

Here, now, confronted by these many revelations, she had to face the truth: She’d met him less than two days ago. He was practically a stranger. And he was different from her, set apart from the normal flow of life. Not a man, an angel. Her humiliation was her own damn fault.

It was all right, though. The thought razored through her hurt.

Screw-ups were important; she’d figured that out about the same time she got her first set of pointe shoes. It was the key to her success. That’s how she learned to correct her balance, find her center, so the next time, she wouldn’t repeat her mistake.

The intense glare of the tower might’ve been blurring her vision, but she had her bearings now. She knew up from down. Regular human being from angel. Trust from betrayal.

She wouldn’t fall for Custo again.

Chapter Twelve

CUSTO’S shoulders tensed with aggravation as he stepped away from Annabella. He didn’t like to be away from her, especially when her mind was filling with hard questions. Bad things happened when he left her alone. Close calls that were his responsibility. He’d brought the wolf into this world, vowed to send the creature right back out again, and yet, he’d almost lost her twice now.

Except, she wasn’t alone. She was with Adam, and in a tower filled with angels. She couldn’t be safer.

The bustling room behind Luca promised some very interesting answers. Custo had glanced at Adam and touched his mind to see what he thought of the heavily armed men who’d passed the doorway beyond— was that curved blade a sword or a saber?—but Adam was insensible to anyone or anything but Luca. Annabella’s thoughts were circling the same questions over and over again. His last kiss, intended to answer at least one, had only compounded her confusion.

Her mind was racing, and inevitably she would come to conclusions not in his favor, but he had no choice but to follow, to investigate that glint of sharp steel.

His interest rose exponentially upon entering what appeared to be a slick, modern command center. One wall was devoted to enormous sectional screens that displayed shifting images of cities around the world. Satellite input was overlaid with changing numerical data. To the right, screens tracked a developing weather system, while on the left screens flickered quickly though television news broadcasts in multiple languages.

The men and women, angels, were variably busy around the room. All wore modern dress, some casual, some business-oriented, and still others wore combat gear as if they belonged in mortality. Several hovered over consoles, peering with concern into their screens. The thought-speak was rapid, direct, naming places of “breaches,” conflicts, and instructions to angels in place to resolve them.

Grid C34, a man called near the periphery.

Custo startled, but realized they were pointing at a condensation of digital blue dots on one of the screens, identifying a location on a landmass surrounded by islands. Greece.

Get me Athens, another answered.

Immediately, a central screen displayed the face of a middle-aged man, his black hair threaded with silver, wrinkles fanning out from his eyes and rounding his mouth. Yet in spite of these signs of age, under bushy, graying eyebrows, the man’s piercing gaze was unquestionably angelic.

An angel, aging? Custo definitely needed some answers.

With a sweeping glance, the man on the screen took in the whole of the control room, stopping on Custo. The prodigal son?

Attention in the room shifted briefly to Custo, a couple dozen all-seeing gazes zeroing in on his darkened soul. Custo felt his face flush with heat, but he clamped down on his irritation. “Not likely,” he said. No mind talk for him.

You’ve got another breach near the coast, a man said from the floor, ignoring Custo.

The man on the screen centered his gaze. We see it. Probably another one of the naiads trying to break through. Water is our most difficult medium. I swear, a week doesn’t pass when some fool isn’t tempted by the Otherworld and lost. Sex, riches, even food—with all the warning stories out there, you’d think humankind would learn a thing or two. But no, the stories pass into myth and the same mistakes happen again and again. Our thanks. The man on the screen blinked out.

Custo turned to Luca. “What is this place?”

Luca smiled. “This is The Order, one form of the service you repudiated so passionately in Heaven. The tower is our North American Continental Division. Let me show you around. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed. Maybe you’ll even want to stay.”

Stay here? Custo didn’t understand.

“Yes,” Luca said. “The Order exists on Earth to help humankind. Lately we’ve been most concerned about the escalating breaches between the Shadowlands and mortality.”

Custo took another look around. The place was charged with energy, intent, and work. The angels in the room had a forward momentum that echoed his personal restlessness. They were dedicated to a cause, tracking and fighting mythological creatures. It reminded him a little of Segue.

“This way,” Luca said.