Incendiary (The Premonition Series (Volume 4)) (66 page)

“What’s
angelic cognition?” I ask
.

“The ability to perceive what your angelic opponent is think
ing
—
how
he thinks—
behaves,”
he explains
.

“All these things I
can learn from Reed,” I reply
.

“
You can learn
how a Power will react and perceive from Reed, but what of the Seraphim and
especially the f
allen Seraphim? H
e can’
t teach you that,” Tau replies
.

“You would be surprised at
what he knows. H
e could teach you a l
ot about half-humans,” I reply
.

“I’m counting on it, since I seem to
be at a disadvantage” he replies
.
“I’
d value his council.
”

“I’m willing to learn all of the things you’ve outlined while we’re here, but I want som
ething in return,” I say, and watch
his head tilt just a little to the side, the way Reed’s does when I’ve captured his full attention.

“W
hat are your terms?” he asks
.

“I want t
o know about her—
m
y mother,” I say
, wanting to hold my breath, but forcing myself to breath
e
evenly.

“What do you want to know?
”
he asks
.

“Everything,” I reply
.

“I would like
to tell you about her,” he agrees
softly.

“Good,” I reply
with a nod. “We can start tomorrow.”
I turn and begi
n walking across the floor to the doors.

“Ev
ie, you said, ‘while we’re here
.
’
What
did you mean by that?” Tau asks
behind me.

I stop
,
closing my ey
es and mouthing
,
“
fffffffaaaa
.
”
I open
my eyes and s
lowly turn
back to face my father. “I meant that when we get Brennus, the terms of our agre
ement will be fulfilled,” I say
.

“That i
s what
I thought you meant,” he replies
, looking unaffected.
“May I add a
small
caveat here?” he asks
me rhetorically. “
The conditions that you are attempting to stipulate are not within your realm of control. You will be here until I determine otherwise, at which time we, you and I, will be elsewhere.
Together.
Failure to comply with that stipulation will lead to severe pen
alties. Is that clear?” he asks
me.

“Mmm,” I mutter
, turning once again toward the doors.

I
n a fraction of a second, he is
standing in front of me with his fingers lightly lifting my chin so that our eyes me
e
t, “I a
sked if that was clear,” he says
.

“It’s crystal,” I reply
with a sinking feeling.

“Good,” he smiles
. “
Then
I wi
ll walk
back with you
to find your friends.”

Don’t Look
B
ack

Tau and I leave
dinner behind in the Black Café as
we walk
together
toward the library.
Neither one of us speaks on our way, since dinner has
ap
parently not lived up to either
one
of our expectations.
When we arrive at our destination, I kno
w instantly that Reed
is not here because there a
re no butterflies in my
stomach. Disappointed, I slump
into a wing-
backed chair and listen
with
half an
ear as Tau speak
s
to one of the Powers.

“Your friends have left word for you
to join them in the South Tower.
I believ
e i
t wa
s
the Harem wh
en you were here last,” Tau says
to me.

“I know where it is,” I say
with relief
, while getting up from the chair. “I’ll find them.”

“No,” Tau says
with authority. “You’ll stay with me until I can deliver you to them.”

“I’m not defenseless
,” I mutter
.

“You cannot
walk
around here alone,
”
Tau states
calmly.

“Fine,” I say
wit
h as much dignity as I can
.

“Cole and Xavier are in th
e West Tower,” Tau says
. “I need to speak with them.”

Indicating with a sweep of his ha
n
d
that he’
s ready to
go, I follow
him out into the hall as
we walk
toward the
tower of rooms that Brennus had
created just for me. I have no interest in seeing them ag
ain. The things that I cherish
the most,
like
the pictures of my childhood, a
re
gone now, having b
een stolen back by my friends.
Peeking a
t Tau, I wonder what he’ll think of the archive—
the
homage
to
my past.

Will he recognize anything?
I wonder
.

On our way, we’
re stopped by several groups of angels all vying for a chance to speak with Tau. S
ome seem
to have business
with him, but others just act like they’
re meeting a roack
star for the first time. I try
to
be polite
, but after
a while I start
to feel like a kid in the backseat of a sta
tion wagon while her parent ru
n
s
tedious err
ands.

Finally,
we
break
away from Tau’s adoring fans and
turn
onto the corrido
r leading past the Knight’s Bar.
I almost stumble
to a halt.
Opule
nt
decay
, like that of the
weathered
seawall
s
in Venice,
i
s present around the foundation in this corridor, caused by the
saltwater
that
had
flooded out of the Knights Bar after my e
scape. The flotsam from the conte
nts of the room had
washed here
to be stranded below the fearsome, s
lithering beasts woven within
the tapestries
when the water abated
.

As
we p
ick
our way around the debris, a d
ark,
eerie energy permeates the air. It gro
w
s
stronger with every step nearer to the double doors
that are
guarded by
two
heavy, medieval
suits of
armor.

“Uhh,” I groan
, instinctively shying away fro
m
the precipice of the doors
. Low e
nergy, like
cold, glacia
l wat
er winding downstream, flows
over my skin on its way under the doors and between the cracks in the wood to deposit
,
like silt
,
into the
basin
of the room
.

T
au’s wings shield
me from th
e entrance to the room
. “Is there something here
?” Tau
asks
me
with
concern
.

“You could say that,” I reply
, and
I
almost have a heart attack when Tau moves
forward to push
both
the d
oors open. “NO, DON’T!” I yell
, grasping him by the upper arm and pulling
him
back from the room’s threshold
.

“It’s okay,
Evie,” Tau says in a gentle voice while he turns to me and strokes
my hair back from my forehead. Lookin
g into my eyes, he asks
, “Do you sense
magic?
”

I nod
,
holding on
to his arm tighter as he turns
to get a better view through the open door
s
. “Do
n’t—
”

“T
he Gancanagh
’s
magic
won’t hurt me. It’s an amusing illusion
to me
, Evie,” Tau
says
in
a
soothing tone. “P
arlor tricks
for
angels
…” he trails
off, while easing m
y hand off of his forearm. “I’
ll investigate the room for you, if you
will
agree to wait here.”

“Maybe we should wait—
I promised Russell I’d stay away until he came with me
,” I state
.

G
lancing
hesitantly
inside
the room,
it
’
s
as if I’
m
gazing through a
delicate,
ha
zy-blu
e
,
silk scarf. The e
ffect
causes
a soft blurring and rounding of shapes
so that everything takes
on a very seductive and tranquil appeal. I
f
I
were
to reach
out, I
feel
that
I
could
then
tug away the hem of the scarf
to reveal the true contents of the ro
om, but witho
ut removing it, the veil creates
the aura of what the room had been like before I completely swamped it with water from the ocean.

“Tell me what you see,” Tau says as he takes
a step through
the doorway.

“I see…I see the Knight’s Bar—
how it was originally with the rose
tte windows intact—t
hrow
ing
colored
light on the wooden
bar—”

“It’
s evening,” Tau remarks
.
“You do know that?”

“N
ot
in t
here
it isn’
t
,” I reply. “I
n
t
here, it’s sunny.”

“What else do you see?” he asks
.

“Suits of armor lining the wall, delicate chandeliers over elegant wooden
tables, rows of ex
otic bottles of liquor
behind the bar…
”

“Enticing?” he asks
.

“It would be,
if it weren’t for the…” I pause
.

“The?” Tau prompts
, walking further into the room
out of arms reach
.

My voice sounds
a littl
e higher than normal when I say
,
“I’m aware
that you’re known for raising the level of bravery into the stratospher
e, but y
ou’re making me nervous.” I take
a step closer to the precipice, doing a little
hand-wringing. “If you come back this way,
I’ll tell you.”