Incendiary (The Premonition Series (Volume 4)) (24 page)

Feelin’ elated and p
issed off at the same time, I si
t back down in my seat, puttin’
my face in my hands. “She thinks tha
t?” I mumble
.

“Tha
t’s what she said,” Reed replies
.

“Can
we trust what she says?” I ask
, glancin’ at Anya and seein’ her still glarin’ at Evie across the table.

“She’s not F
allen, Russell,” Reed replies
, watchin’ Anya, too. “She seems to believe what she’s saying, bu
t…none of us are infallible.” Reed speaks
to her again and Anya’s eyes
sho
o
t to his
,
scowlin’
.

“What
did y
ou
just say to her?” I ask
.

“I simply told her that if she harms E
vie, I will kill her,” Reed says
in a low tone.

“Reed—
” Evie star
ts
to say.

“Love, she thinks that you are coming betw
een her and her mate,” Reed says
s
oftly, not takin’
his eyes off of Anya. “She will defend what is hers
. She’s a Throne, you are Seraphim, it is
nearly
equal ground, but I can still defend you.” Pullin’ aside t
he shirt he’s wearin’, he leans
closer to Anya, showin’ her his bindin’ mark.

Anya smi
les
then,
her whole face lightin’ up, like Reed has
just given he
r the keys to Paradise. She sp
e
aks
rapidly to Reed, pullin’ on his arm and makin’ him lean closer to her so she can
see his mark of Evie's wings
better. He smiles, too, answerin’ back
after streams of music co
me from her.

Lookin’ at Red
, I say
softly
, “It’s like listenin’
to
a symphony
of fallin’ snow—th
e
ir voices
..
.
like they have the power to change our world.
”

“They do, Russell,” Red replies
, watchin’ me across the small sp
ace. Red
’s words hit me
and my throat feel
s
tight, like I can hardly breathe
. Gla
ncin’ out the window at the fallin’ snow
,
a shadow mov
e
s
along the window ledge
.

“GET DOWN!” I yell
, springin
’ up and tacklin’ Reed and Anya,
just as bullets explode
the window behind us. Fallin’ on the floor
beneath the window, Reed pushes me off of him, lungin’ to Red
’s chair and pullin’ he
r
from it to the
ground with us. Anya’s eyes squeeze
shut as glass
an
d fabric from the curtains fall
on us.

As I look up, the toe of a boot drifts
over the
edge of the
sill. Reac
hin’ up, I grasp
the ankle
attached to t
he foot, twistin’ and hearin’
it
crack
as I
break it. I push the leg backward and hear a scream as he falls
out the window toward the street below.

Reed holds
up the phone from his pocket
, usin’
the reflective surface to scan the outside.
“Gancanagh—
do you sense any magic, Russell?” Reed as
ks
g
rimly.

“Naw, not y
et…let me do some recon,” I say
, cl
osin’ my eyes and concentratin’. T
he
world ‘round me starts
to do back flips as I force
a clone out of me. An
ya, seein’ my clone, gasps
before
reachin’
out her hand to try and keep it
from
movin’ away from us. “Reed, e
xplain what’s happenin’ to Anya.
”

“I’m going with you,” Red says
, makin’ he
r
clone appear beside mine.

“Yeah, okay,” I
agree
, directin’ my clone up onto
the window
ledge. Automatic gunfire pulses
right through my clone
and I grin
at the stinky freak in the window of the townhouse directly across the street from us.
I spread out my clone’s wings, just for fun
,
and watch
the frustration mount on the cold creepy one’s
face when none of his bullets a
ffect
me.

Watchin
’ Red
’s clone
frown at my clone, I ask
, “Wha
t?” Ignorin’ me, she
directs
her clone to fly across the street
and mine follows
hers
.

When we
near the Ganca
nagh with the automatic, I ask
, “Friend of you
rs?”

“No, I don’t know him
,” Red answers, movin’ ‘
round and scannin’ the area. “Two more in the bedroom. They’re sp
eaking Polish
,
I think,” she informs me
.
“How do you say
‘K
i
ss my ass’ in Polish?”

“
Pocałuj mnie w dupe
,” I reply
, grinn
in’ as one of the cold ones takes
a swing at my clone and hi
s arm sl
ips
right through me.
I add
, “
Twoja matka to bajki
.”

“What’s that mean?” she asks
, wr
inklin’ her clone’s nose at me, not even tryin’
to avoid the spiky spear
the Gancanagh th
rust toward her from
behind
.

Shruggin’, I say
,
“It
means, ‘Your mother is a Faerie
.
’
Well, three here. We should check the
other levels across the street.
”

“Okay,” Red’s clone says
, disappearin’. I let my clo
ne speed back to my body, too.
Returnin’
to
my
normal consciousness, I report
, “Three across the street
—
banjax cha
rmed weapons, not a big arsenal—
couple of gats and some smokies—
oh
,
and those long spiky spears
.”

“Thanks, Russell,” Reed says
, “I’ll be right back.” In
a fraction of a second, Reed i
s gone from beneath the window.

Gunshots ri
ng
out
f
rom the house across the street, while
one of the cold freaks screams
, “
Gdzie poszedł
?
”

“What did he say,
Russ?
” Evie asks
nervously.

“He just screamed ‘Where did he go?’” I gri
n
, knowin’ that Reed is scarin’ the crap out of them before he kills them. He’s mean like that when it comes to
protectin’
Red.
Gla
ncin’ next to me, Anya’s lookin’
at me like she’s seen a ghost…well, maybe not like that ‘cuz she’s probably seen plenty of ghosts, but she’s a
s
pale as one anyway.

Walkin’ in from the landin’
that leads downstairs, Reed says
, “I’m fairly certain that’s all of them. They must hav
e tracked Eion,
or the other one—
”

“Keefe,” Evie and me
say
in unison.

Lookin’ between Evie and
me, Reed frowns, “Right—
making our position volatile.”

I rise
cautiou
sly from the floor and shake
the broken glass from my
hair. Evie, lookin’ shaky, goes
immediat
ely to Reed’s side. Scoopin’ Red
up off her feet, Reed s
ays, “I have to clean up here—
g
et rid of the corpses. While I do that, I want you to shower and change
. We leave in twenty min
utes.” Turnin’ to me, Reed asks
, “Can you be ready by then?”

“Yeah.
I need to
borrow some clothes,” I reply
.

“There
are bedrooms equipped with bathrooms on this floor. Check the closets. There may be something
you can squeeze into,” Reed says
,
and he leaves
the room with Evie in his arms.

As I glance back to
Anya
, I see
she
hasn’t moved to
get up. She i
s curled in
a ball
with her eyes squeezed shut and her hands tremblin’. Crouchin’
down, I touch
her shoulder, sayin’, “Anya…”

Spring
in’ from the floor, Anya wraps her arms around my neck
. Her whole body trembles
as h
er shallow breathin’ tickles
my neck. “Hey…that was just
a little gun fight, Anya. If you'
r
e
gonna hang w
ith us,
it’s gonna get a lot worse than that. Maybe there’
s somewhere else you
can go? Do you
have friends here?” I ask
, gently
rubbin’ her back
to try to calm her down. She doesn’t answer me, so I sigh
, “You
don’t und
e
rstand a word I’m sayin’, do you
?
No? Okay, let’s get you
cleaned up and we’ll figure it out later.”

Miss Me Dearly

Takin’ Anya in my arms
, mainly
‘cuz I can’t get her to let go of my n
eck, I scout
the second floor
of Reed’s townhouse
. A
bedroom down the hall
presents itself as a good enough place to get cleaned up
,
so I go
directly to the attached bathroom. Its small
, like most everythin’ in Poland
…that I can remember ‘cuz technically, I’ve never been here when I was this tall…or male.

Turnin’ on t
he small shower
, I look down at Anya and
feel a blu
sh creepin’ up my neck. I clear my throat and say
, “Uh…Anya? We’re fixin’ to leave as fast as we can so w
e need to shower and change into clothes that are less…well, that blend in more with the locals
.”

She lifts her
head fr
om my shoulder
and waves of
her beautiful dark hair tumble
off my arm.
I can tel
l she’s
still freaked ‘bout what just happened
with th
e Gancanagh. “Ruse-
el leh-chi lit
…” she breathes
.

“Huh?” I ask
, testin’ the water to see if it’s too hot.

“
L
eh-chi lit
,” she says
again
, touchi
n’ the feathers of my wings gently
.

My eyes widen.
“That sounds…are you speakin’ Navajo
?” I ask in surprise
. “Did you
just call me ‘red s
moke
?
’” I ask
her, wonderin’ if she’s referrin’ to my clone.

“Ruse-el
a-tkel-el-ini
,” she says
,
pointin’ at my chest.

“Troublemaker, huh?” I ask
, smilin’
. “Damn…what do I re
member ‘bout Navajo
…
t
o-altseh-hogan
—
this is
a
temporary place—
camp.
We have to move to avoid another
khac-da
...another ambush.”
Seein’ her eyes go round
in fear,
I frown
before saying in a soft voice, “
Russell
yah-a-da-hal-yon-ih
Any
a…I’ll take care of you,” while strokin’ her hair.