Airs & Graces (15 page)

“She speak many language,” she said, voice solemn, but before she could say more, I was off, striding in the girl’s direction. My vision wavered in that sickeningly familiar way, causing me to stop short of her. I closed my eyes and willed whatever it was that was going to happen to just do its thing. I wish I could tell you that this meant I was gaining control over the Grace, but that wasn’t it. I just didn’t try to fight it. I closed my eyes, and the images were as bad as I’d feared they would be. Damn, couldn’t this thing show me something nice for once?

I closed my eyes and fought down the queasy feeling in my stomach and tried to tell myself that what I was seeing had already happened, at least that I was pretty sure it had. The walls were on fire, the eerie glow the flames produced throwing the courtyard in high relief. I turned slowly away from the wall towards the Temple, eyes widening at all the
bodies.
They were all dressed in the familiar Temple garb and just strewn across the flagstones, so many just broken and bleeding, eyes staring sightless to the stars. I hugged myself and bent forward, a cry emanating unbidden from my throat. The tears welled and spilled of their own volition, but the sight did not waver in the slightest, and of course why would it? It wasn’t really here, just in my head right?

My eyes swept up the Temple stairs pausing in a macabre leapfrog from body to body, which is when I realized, some of the bodies; especially the ones on the stairs, weren’t even close to human. Some of them my brain just couldn’t or wouldn’t make sense of, they were so horrifically twisted, and I didn’t pause to look at them long enough to force myself to make sense of them. My gaze continued its climb, even though my body was rooted in place. It stopped cold at the top of the steps, where a young girl, the tatters of red ribbons in her hair, stood posed, stretched out in an elegant combat stance. She had two swords in her grasp, one in each hand, held out from her body and dripping viscous black blood. Her tiny chest heaving with each breath, the look in her dark eyes burned fiercer than any flame and screamed silent defiance.

It was the last look I got before the sky cleared, and the birds began to sing again, and I stared at the empty Temple steps of now, Tab and Master Yin conspicuously absent. I turned to the girl who stood beneath the shadow of the wall, her arms crossed over her chest, the look in her eyes daring me to speak on what I’d just seen. Never one to back down from a challenge, I nodded and chose my words honestly.

“I get it now,” I said. “You’re the protector of this place, and I have nothing but trouble biting at my ankles.” I swallowed. “I promise you, I like it here, and I would do anything,
give
anything I could, to keep the trouble that’s following me out of here, out of these people’s lives.” I looked at the ground and back to her, but she wasn’t giving an inch. “It’s probably a pretty crappy consolation, considering what’s after me though,” I mused. I bowed carefully and respectfully to the girl and finished with, “I’ll talk to Tab as soon as I can about getting us out of here,” and I meant it.

I went back to Mei-Lei, who was standing there, ashen, her color returning with her smile. She linked her arm with mine, and I tried to think of something to put both the girl and the Temple’s guardian at ease. I decided to cater more to Mei-Lei, simply because nothing short of me getting the fuck out was going to make the guardian happy, and so I said, “I don’t know if I will ever have the opportunity to see any place so beautiful again, Mei-Lei. Show me and tell me everything.” Mei-Lei looked at me as if trying to judge if I were serious or not. Finally deciding that I was, she started off with me in tow, her joyful chatter filling the air surrounding us.

I had no doubt that by the end of the day I would know everything about the Temple and quite possibly about everyone in it. It may not have put me any closer to figuring out my problems, or answering any of the questions I had about the things I carried or why I was suddenly everyone’s favorite person to want to kill to get it, but it made Mei-Lei happy. That, and it would fill up the time I had to wait until I could find Tab to talk to him and see if he’d come up with a plan. I hope he had, and then I really hoped he might share it with me. After I said what I needed to say maybe he would. Who knew?

Mei-Lei had me going all day, crawling over every last inch of the Temple, filling my head with dates and facts and how things worked. She was so enthusiastic about where she lived that I almost wished she could come to Seattle someday so that I could return the favor. I felt a pang of sadness when I realized I may never see her again. After the evening meal and evening meditation, which I just couldn’t get into like I had that morning, she deposited me at my door. I was physically exhausted, and so when I shut the door behind me to find a linen nightgown folded neatly on the table, I almost crawled into bed in my clothes without changing.

I took the time to put the thin shift of material on. It was long, grazing the tops of my feet, and was really just a glorified tank top the way it was cut at the top. It was comfortable, though, and who was I to bitch? It was nice. I lay down, but my mind was all a-buzz. I hadn’t seen Tab again all day, but I had seen plenty more of the guardian as she’d shadowed me and Mei-Lei throughout our tour of the Temple. At least her expression wasn’t quite as fierce at the end of the day as it had been at the beginning. I had no idea how I’d managed to score any Brownie points with her, but at least it was some sign of progress.

I finally sat up and decided sleep wasn’t coming. I stood in my small room and looked around. The odds and ends I had rescued from my jacket were spilling from my bag on the table. I picked a shiny dime out of it and slipped out of the room, setting the dime on the floor in a puddle of moonlight close to my door so I would know which one to come back to.

The air coming in through the open archways was crisp and a bit chilly, but I didn’t expect to be out long. I padded barefoot up the hall and took a path that looked familiar from our ramblings earlier in the day. If I was right, there should have been a balcony of sorts just up around the next corner. I was correct, and so made my way out under the deepening night sky.

The star scatter was amazing; I’d never seen anything like it. I stood in the chill of the Tibetan mountains with my neck craned all the way back, my hair hanging loose around my shoulders and down my back, and just stared into the sky. I sucked in a breath, let it out slowly between my teeth, and wished I could get back the calm state of this morning before the courtyard vision, but now my selfish time was over. I knew I had to get out of here. Not for me but for all of these people that I put in such danger just by being here. I ran my lower lip between my teeth and wondered how to go about getting a hold of Tab.

I knew I was probably the last person he wanted to talk to, but even he had to agree I needed to make my next move. I didn’t like not knowing what that move was going to be or the fact that I didn’t know squat about my situation. That wasn’t true. My situation boiled down to this: I had it; they wanted it, and they could go get bent. I just didn’t know how to go about accomplishing their getting bent while keeping me alive. I hugged myself against the deepening chill and hoped Tab had an idea. I didn’t trust him, I know any sane person would after everything he’d done to keep me alive so far, and it wasn’t like I wasn’t grateful for those things, it’s just I didn’t know if I was completely cool with trusting someone that played everything as close to the vest as he did. That and I knew the minute that this was all over he was going to bail. Everyone bailed on me eventually, friends, even my own family. Everyone but Piorre, who was murdered. I tried to squash the little voice in the back of my head that tacked on
…before he could get the chance.

Out of everyone, I think Piorre was the only one of them that would have stuck it out to the end where I was concerned. Lord knows he put up with enough of my screw-ups and bad decisions around the shop in the last five years. Always patient and forever teaching me…goddamn it, I would miss him. I swiped at a stray tear. I sighed out and sniffed.

“I know you’re there,” I said softly. It felt weird talking to myself, but I wasn’t. At least not really. It was a longshot, but we’d tried just about everything else to this point… The way Tab treated the situation, it was as if once rendered to Grace, or whatever, the Angel stopped being a person and just was some kind of superpower… but what if?

“Tab said your name was Iaoel.” I pressed on. “It’s a pretty name. Not like Adelaide, stupid old-ass German name for an American girl…” I blinked as images of a modern city flashed through my mind’s eye. I closed my eyes and stood still, an old map unfurling across a scarred wooden tabletop. I squeezed my eyes tight, and the vision settled on the continent of Australia, and I laughed a bit nervously.

“You mean the city?” I asked, which was promptly followed by the vision of a flower bursting into full bloom. A beautiful, joyous image. I shifted on my feet and let out a slow breath.

“You’re there, aren’t you? You’re there, and you’re sentient…” Nothing at first. I looked up into the night sky, at the snowcapped mountains, and thought I may be going crazy, that I was so desperate to ‘unfold’ this thing that I was making things up.

The vision hit me so hard and so fast it swallowed up the night sky and mountain peaks. I stood in front of a mirror, raking my fingers through my long blonde hair over my shoulder, using a silver backed brush to comb through the natural beachy waves the locks fell into. My eyes raised in the glass and met my own, so fiercely blue that my breath caught. Pale, fine-boned, and delicate, my face that wasn’t
my
face. The satin of the gown I wore clung to my perfect figure. My wings stretched out behind me, snowy white, barely kissed with the golden bronze color along their backs, reminding me strongly of a barn owl’s coloring. I closed my eyes at the somber look of the ones in the glass and heard the echo of my own voice, my
real
voice ask, “Oh my God, is that what you looked like?”

I opened my eyes on the reflection in the glass which was smiling and blinked, there was another reflection in the glass now; one with black hair that shone with blue highlights, though his wings weren’t crimson tipped in black. They were as white and pure as freshly fallen snow. I turned abruptly, to face the Tab in the vision, and the vision shattered. I broke out of my reverie long enough to know that he was there for real. You know how you can sometimes feel someone standing there behind you before you can even hear them or see them, and you just somehow know who it is? It was like that, but how I knew it was him had to be a Grace thing – er,
Iaoel –
because Tab and I hadn’t known each other long enough to be that familiar with one another.

“Hi,” I said, upon completing my turn. He stepped out from the shadow along the edge of the wall, so I could see him, and nodded at me. He didn’t have his coat on, and for some reason I was mildly surprised that he didn’t have any tattoos on his arms. I don’t know why; I just kind of expected it. I wasn’t disappointed by his muscle definition though. He had good arms. The dark leather of whatever held his knife along his spine blended so well against his new black tank-top that it was barely detectable. Still I could see the edges of the harness over his shoulders, worn along the front of his body like suspenders. He spoke, and it drew my attention away from his chest and back to his face. I caught myself blushing lightly.

“Hello.” His voice was warm on the cold night air, and I sniffed, my nose beginning to run from the cold, and thought about how to phrase what I had to say.

“I’ve got some things I want to say.”

I decided to just be upfront. When he just stood there, liquid gray eyes locking onto mine, I decided to be brave and just go for it. If he wanted to go all imperialistic and aloof on me, then fine. At least I would feel better for getting it out.

“I’ve had some time to think since we got here, and I owe you an apology,” I started; his expression softened marginally but still remained stoic, so I pressed on. “You’ve done a whole hell of a lot to keep me alive and in one piece, and I’ve been kind of an ungrateful bitch. I’m sorry.” I stepped forward and did the girl thing and hugged him. “Thank you for saving my life, Tabbris. I appreciate what you’ve done for me, and I appreciate that you brought me here and gave me some time to sort some of this shit out.”

He stood stock still under my touch, like he didn’t know what to do. I don’t think this is what he expected out of me, but it was always so hard to tell. Finally he patted me on my back awkwardly and said, “You’re welcome, Adelaide.”

I stepped back and shivered. He’d been warm to the touch, and now the night air was just downright cold. I crossed my arms across my stomach, hunched my shoulders a bit, and continued.

“I was stupid with the car and just taking off like that and…” I really didn’t want to go over that part again. It was embarrassing now that I looked back on it, so I just settled on, “I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.”

“That’s good,” he said gently. He was looking me over, a slight frown on his face as if trying to decide something. I turned back to the view and looked back over the mountains and star-shot sky. It was really beautiful here. I could still feel him at my back and the silence was growing uncomfortable, so I simply started talking to fill it.

“I had a dream I was Piorre last night, and some of this shit started to make sense.” He shifted behind me, and I took it as he was getting ready to leave, so I apologized again. “Sorry, but after all of this I have some questions that I just don’t have the tools at my disposal to solve on my own so I have to ask them.”

I waited and was surprised when he said to me in an almost kind voice, “Ask your questions, Adelaide.”