Fierce Dawn (18 page)

“
Welcome, friend,” a flannel-shirted mortal said, offering Elijah a pamphlet.

Gritting his teeth, Elijah wove through the niceties and greetings, focusing on his breathing. The energetic confusion in a place like this could easily drain him. Holly was doing little to hide her worry. Lyric looked uneasy.

It took no time at all to realize Lyric had brought him into a feeder den.

Religious rapture might as well be blood to a feeder. No shifter or seeker or elemental like Holly would be seduced by the high. But Lyric and any other immortal like him would be.

As Elijah went to voice his rancor over Lyric’s location choices, the feeder interrupted.

“
I made contact with someone I think can help. She may have information on Crusoe,” Lyric offered.

“
About Crusoe or the changeling myth?” Holly asked.

They walked. “Maybe both. I know in my bones she’s connected to the Illeautians. If she’s not one of them, she’s got strong ties.”

Elijah didn’t speak. He breathed. The buzz among the feeders scattered amid the devout humans. Based on the noise, he could imagine the fat, rich emotion and pain ready for easy consumption.

Lyric’s jaw muscle ticked. “If there’s rumor of anything, Illeautian or changelings or otherwise, Charity will know.”

“
How is Sadie?” Holly asked.

“
Safe.” Elijah gave his guts a moment to settle. “She needs rest.”

“
I’m surprised you left her.” Holly stepped closer to his side so that her arm rested against his. “How much did you tell her? How did she handle it?”

“
Not enough. And surprisingly well.” It went against everything within him to sit and act complacent in a place like this. But he did so, taking a metal chair between Holly and Lyric. He almost missed Holly bristling over his answer.
Odd
.

“
How direct are we going to be here?” Lyric
asked
, giving Elijah a welcome distraction. “I’m against outright asking about changelings.”

A shrill whine ground at Elijah’s senses. A wave of nausea swelled upward. He fought to isolate the noise’s origin. Stronger, louder, it battered his brain.

Holly placed a hand on his arm. “What is it?”

He couldn’t explain, reinforcing his shield, he blocked the offending noise. It wasn’t human. No mortal could create such a sickening, sinister pitch. And it was intentional.

As rapidly as the reverberation struck, it ceased.

The fragrant scent of roses swept by. Elijah turned toward it. A woman joined them, sitting next to Lyric. Lush couldn’t contain the scale of curves that filled his vision or fully define the sweetness in her sound. Too sweet.

She teased a lock of Lyric’s long, raven hair between two pink-nailed fingers, sweeping the tips over her neck. She bent to Lyric. He whispered to her. She listened, touched his arm like a lover. But her eyes went to Elijah and stayed there.

Holly’s hand dug into his muscle.

A guitar hymn filled the room. Parishioners stood, joined hands.

“
Charity, I presume,” Elijah said, as their row took hands, doing as the others did, blending in. A feeder like her would never fully blend in.

The fiend smiled and blinked once. Slowly. Again, she whispered to Lyric. He half laughed, half sighed. Nodded. Holly’s eyes implored Elijah’s. The glow in her hair licked blue.

Every molecule in Elijah’s body screamed in alarm.

Charity’s rose didn’t overpower. Her scent seduced. Her simple cotton dress heightened the allure. Her heavy arms and thighs and hips were a siren’s sweet enticements. Lyric wasn’t the only one suffering the effects. Holly’s lip trembled. Two feeders to the rear sighed. The humans were drawn to her like ants to honey. They stared, transfixed yet undisturbed by what would otherwise be deemed a spectacle—bizarre—in any realm.

Charity’s sultry gaze fell to Elijah’s lips and she beckoned him with a single long nailed finger. In his chest, beneath the muscle and bone, he felt a tug. His gut told him to play along. When she stood, he followed, leaving waves of envy in his wake.

He’d never met such a powerful feeder.

Outside, the moon hung half full against a cloudless night sky. Crickets chirped. The distant sound of traffic hushed and shooshed. Another faint sound, one he knew all too well.

The changeling.

The sound eased his worry for Sadie. He focused on Charity, on getting information on Crusoe.

“
Elijah, is it?” Charity asked, her long red curls moving with each swaying step as she led him into a short field of high grass.

Irritation coursed through him. He didn’t acknowledge her question. “Lyric seems to think you know about the Illeautians.”

A waft of roses met his nose. “Who doesn’t?” The breeze billowed her long skirt.

“
True enough. Lyric was wrong then?”

She clucked her tongue. “What would you like to know?” A tendril of smoke—or was it steam?—clung to her, glowing eerily in the darkness.

“
I would. I want Illeautian names.”

Her head tipped back in silent laughter. “Ah, yes
,
as do many. Truth be told, they are everywhere and could be anyone. Why
,
Lyric himself could be involved and no soul would ever know.” She rocked her hips. “But you already suspect as much.”

His wings tightened. Rumor spoke of membership crossing realms as well, bleeding through somehow to the spiritual and human realm. Elijah doubted the verity of such a thing. “I’m seeking someone specific.”

She stepped toward him. “Intriguing. Who?”

Part of him itched to tell her. It felt as though doing so would solve everything. Even the turmoil he felt over Sadie’s change. “They’re hunting for the Book of Sorrows’ lost verses.”

Her dark eyes glowed from deep within. His chest tickled and he let his guard down so that she could taste his magnetic energy. Keeping his mind blank, his shield strong, he met her gaze unwaveringly.

The night’s chirping lullaby crooned around them.

Charity drew close. She reached for the chain about his neck. She palmed his compass. “The hunter has lost his prey?” she asked. “Or is he captured in the game?”

Her eyes leveled on his, waiting, mocking. He turned to leave before his anger broke free and she fed on it, weakening him. His chest tugged again.

“
The particular sect you seek is here, drawn to the desert vortex, just as you are. They are looking for the Book. And for more.”

He stopped. Crusoe’s last wor
ds
to Elijah had meant something, then? “Why the vortex?”

Her lips curled and she shrugged. “Perhaps because of the myth of the end of realms.” She stepped close again. “Who can know?”

He could feel her game beginning anew. “How many?”

A pastor’s voice echoed from inside, cheers and applause carried in spurts. Elijah blocked the dizzying buzz of its energy. It coalesced. The feed had begun.

“
Four.” She stepped away from him and for a moment, he thought he’d been dismissed. “If they find the Book, they’ll need the key to
unlock
its mystery.”

He should get to Lyric. Elijah frowned. “A key? And here I’d thought Lyric knew you well. I don’t need riddles. Or games.”

Charity’s eyes flashed. “Lyric knows far more than he’s willing to see. You think I play games, Elijah?” Her eyebrows rose. “No one said you have to play.”

He narrowed his eyes. His jaw muscle twitched. Anger spiraled through him. He itched to unleash it. Instead, he strode to the door they’d come from. The hinges creaked, the rough weight felt good in his hand.

“
Elijah.” Her whisper carried despite the yards he’d put between them. It stilled his hand. He tasted blood in his mouth. “Don’t forget me, darling.”

He left her. The church door slammed behind him, shutting the night and Charity away. Ignoring the swarm of startled stares, he strode to Holly and Lyric. He didn’t need to speak. They fell in step with him, heading for the exit.

And though an urge to return to Charity clawed at Elijah, begged him to stay, he refused to risk even one glance back.

~ ~ ~

Chapter Thirteen

Sadie set the charcoal pencil down, absorbed in the black and white reproduction of the image in her head. The colors and aromas of the dream couldn’t be captured
,
but drawing it relieved the tension that had been building over the last week, the last day particularly. When Elijah touched her shoulder, Sadie gasped and hurled the pad at him. He deflected it with one arm and it landed at a tilt atop the bed covers.

“
Sorry,” Elijah said. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“
Isn’t there a way you can warn a person
—
?” Sadie shook her head. It couldn’t be more than an hour past sunrise. “How long have you been back?”

His gaze lingered on her mouth. “I just returned.”

“
You were gone for hours,” she said.

“
Did you sleep
?
”

She gave him a slight nod and reached for the pencil. The dream she’d been trying to capture had already faded like smoke in
the
wind, though, making her unreasonable irritation rise. “Don’t tell me we have to leave again.”

“
No, no leaving,” he said, his voice coarse. “I wouldn’t have interrupted your drawing, but I did promise.”

Her heart blipped.

He’d made good on the promise she’d forced on him.

She groped the pencil and reached for the sketchpad, grateful she’d brought them from her home in the rush to leave earlier. Sadie rotated the pencil in her fingers, uncertain what to say.

She’d dreamed of Elijah. Something with food, the smell of snow and winter all around them. A little rest combined with the dream had allowed her keen appreciation for the last twenty or so hours’ events. A few things were clear. She wasn’t in Kansas and she was in danger.

Elijah went to the window and leaned against the wall, a pose Sadie counted now as his favorite way to play it cool. His attention remained on the outside view and something in the set of his jaw belied inner conflict.

She struggled to find something to say. The faint tinges of dawn lit the view. “Where did you go?”

“
Hunting,” he said, turning her way.

His eyes weren’t the sienna brown she’d grown to adore from afar in the library. In this light, his eyes were so sapphire blue that she wondered how she had mistaken their color for brown.

“
Did you catch them?”

The shadow that flashed over his gaze spoke for him. No. He hadn’t.

Elijah came to sit at the foot of the bed. He retrieved a long gold chain from under his shirt. Lifting it over his head, he handed it to her. Sadie turned the light, brassy compass on the chain over in her palm. The needle glowed pale green and pointed at a foreign looking symbol.

“
I can’t find its trace.”

Sadie handed the compass back. The back of her neck prickled. “Is that unusual?”

“
For me, yes.”

“
Just…spell it all out for me. Really. I can take it. Get it over with.”

For a moment, she thought he might smile. But he didn’t. “Think of it like humans. Varying identifying features and traits. It doesn’t stop at tall or blond
e
or funny for immortals. It’s wings, fangs, shifting. Instead of being fluent in Spanish, some speak in elements. An elemental speaks fire, air, water.”

“
Fangs? But you said vampires
—
.”

“
Vampire is a human term. Blood use is what some say made the separation of realms necessary.” He waved a hand. The bed jostled. “A hundred years ago we’d have called the addicts sleepers because of the way it knocks an immortal into a dead
-
like stupor. Vampire is a human term gone slang by immortals. Like junkie or tweaker.”

“
Fangs?”

“
A shifter often has fangs, depending on the animal he or she empathizes with.”

Sadie frowned.

“
Like language. Humans are dog lovers or cat ladies. Shifters are the same. Only it is at a physical level. Their cells are that animal just as thoroughly as they are their immortal body.”

“
What happens if you don’t find who’s after me?”

“
You’ll transform. I’ll protect you.”

A hot wave washed over her. Her sister had wanted to protect her. The doctors wanted to protect her. “I’d rather protect myself.”

Elijah quirked one eyebrow up. “First, questions. After, protection. Agreed?”

Sadie’s stomach flipped. What had him so intense this morning? “Okay. Let’s see if I have it all straight. Humans create myths about vampires and demons to explain the things we feel but can’t see. But in truth, the real thing is bigger, right?”

He nodded. “Bigger. More powerful. Yes.”