The Lost (Celestial Blues, Book 2) - By Vicki Pettersson Page 0,11
all. “Jeap?”
Stillness sank into the room, blanketing even the noises of the street outside. The laughing man, she realized, was gone.
Wiping her greasy palm on her capris, Kit kept her eyes on the shallow movement of Jeap’s chest, as if that could somehow keep him alive. She was just about to rise, when his eyes shifted, first one and then the other. She had a fleeting thought—the muscles in those, too, must have come untethered—but then his eyebrows drew low, and the irises shrank to pinpricks, resembling nothing so much as black, four-pointed stars.
“Jeap? C— can you see me?”
“Yes,” he answered, in a whisper that crawled up her arms like a spider. “It’s so peculiar. You’re so . . . bright. A right deva, you are.”
Kit shivered. “Diva?” she said, and the word caused his lids to flare in surprise, the strange starry gaze pinned on her face. Yet he immediately squinted, cringing from her, and Kit held up a hand. “Hey, I’m not going to hurt you. I’m here to help.”
One star-specked eye carefully edged her way again, independent of the other. It must be some sort of side effect from the drug, she thought, before he managed to croak, “You can see me? And hear me?”
Kit leaned closer to reassure him. “Of course.”
“Then maybe you are a deva.”
She shook her head, not following him at all. “I’m going to—”
“D-E-V-A,” he spelled, cutting her off, a cracking sound accompanying every letter, like vocal cords snapping. “Deva means ‘God,’ but is also close to the word ‘devil,’ and both have the same root as ‘divinity.’ I’m very into roots.”
“Roots?”
“You know, vines, trees, forests . . . roots.” Jeap’s head rolled away, but jerked back suddenly, like it was being held in place. Fixed, Kit thought, on her. The second eyeball followed a moment later. Bile swirled in Kit’s belly.
“I wonder,” Jeap said in that snapping tone, “if I can see and hear you . . . can I touch you, too?”
They both froze at the thought, and Kit—in a voice that was also unlike her own—said, “You’re not Jeap Yang, are you?”
The mouth twitched, a serpent’s smile, and Kit pushed back just as Jeap’s body catapulted toward hers. A pained cry escaped the throat, but it was immediately smothered by a howl that was wind-washed and somehow Arctic-cold. Dead leaves fluttered through the walls of the house, and dried boughs cracked against the windows, though there was not one damned tree or leaf or branch in the room.
But there was a rotting arm reaching for her, and Kit threw her phone at Jeap’s body as she backpedaled.
Yet she’d forgotten about the glass jars. She tripped, ankle rolling in her wedges, and the image of stray needles lacing the floor flashed through her mind. “No—”
She braced herself for the fall, and for the decaying body already collapsing atop hers.
Strong hands caught her at the waist, spinning her around. She cried out, but it was drowned out by another that squalled like a winter wind. The loosening of a thousand simultaneously unsheathed blades ripped the air behind her, and a thunderous crack sounded, like an old oak snapping at its base. Jeap’s body had hit the barrier of knives as Grif flexed his shoulder blades, and his protective wingspan thrust Jeap—and whatever was in him—away. Kit had found her balance by then, but Grif—her man, her angel—continued to hold her tight.
Kit couldn’t see his wings with her mortal vision, but his arms alone were comforting. Kit scented bar soap, powder detergent, and strong and healthy flesh. The slight whiff of licorice that always tinged his breath rolled over her as he soothed her with a quick murmur, and she tilted her head up, catching the coconut of his pomade as well. The scents, the warm and steady hands—the flaring, martial wings—centered her.
“What are you?” she heard, the question wind-whipped from behind the shielding wings. “Because you’re not Pure.”
Bristling, Grif’s feathers clinked like knives. Kit still couldn’t see them, but she could hear them as he half-turned. “Depends on who you ask.”
“Are you Fallen?” The wind and chaos in the voice had died down to a cool whisper, but boughs still crackled in the question.
“More like busted,” Grif answered.
Kit stared up at Grif, confused. Was he actually engaging with this . . . that . . . thing?
The splintered voice lifted. “Let me see her. I need that light again. It’s been so long . . .”