Fierce Dawn (38 page)

She struggled into her pants and shirt. Her heartbeat slammed in her chest. Where would they go? How long would they run before she was forced to face Crusoe? The image of him, his black wings spread wide above her, so different compared to Elijah’s blue ones, filled her thoughts.

The seeker’s golden hair and pale eyes had glowed with such an ethereal quality against the dark backdrop. Angelic and menacing. A shiver chilled her spine. Crusoe, coming for her. But Elijah had said Lyric’s name.

Elijah shut down each space heater to save battery life. His movements were jerky and rushed. She’d never seen him move without smooth stealth. Seeing him now unnerved her. Panic edged into her stomach. Their lovemaking seemed a distant past.

With a final glance around the darkened tent, he took her hand. Wordlessly, she stepped into his embrace and shut her eyes. The snowy cliffside and tent siphoned from her vision. Accustomed to the severe motion, she knew the moment they’d arrived back at the Spanish Colonial mansion’s foyer. Home. Dawn broke over the mountains and the first rays of sunlight seeped into the room. The metallic scent of blood met her nostrils. She covered her face against the sharp invasion.

“
Don’t leave my side. Do you understand, Sadie?”

Blood stained the floor in an inky red. Spatters reddened the walls and high ceiling. It was everywhere. The sight gagged her with fear. “My God, what happened here? Whose blood…?” Her mind flashed with that annoyingly familiar sense she’d been here before. But it wasn’t that she’d been here. She’d dreamed it.

Elijah stopped and took her by the shoulders. “He could be here. How much did Lyric teach you on cloaking?”

Not much at all. But if Crusoe was here for her and had already caused so much bloodshed, Sadie needed Elijah gone from her. She refused to put him or anyone else in danger. “I can cloak.”

Elijah gave her an odd look. “I need you to cloak. As well as you can. And swear to me you’ll stay put. I just need to make sure we’re alone.”

Sadie nodded. Lying had never been so easy. As the dreams fragments pieced together, she knew what would come, what she had to do. Elijah disappeared down the corridor.

Sadie found the trail of blood and followed it up the stairs. What had
Lyric
called it? The treasure room? The sanctuary? Her steps slowed as she approached the door, memories of the wooden chest sitting open. Of Crusoe, coming for her. Elijah safe. Alive.

Blood pooled under the closed door. Sadie twisted the knob. It unlatched. She held her breath and pushed the door open. The path of blood abruptly ended. Sunlight bathed the chest in the center of the room just like in the dream. She crossed the threshold, braced for him to come. If she had stayed downstairs, all the blood would become Elijah’s.

The popping sound behind her sent a chill over her spine.

Sadie turned around. Crusoe wound her hair into his fist. He snapped her to his chest. She gasped. But the sound evaporated along with the room and walls and floor as Crusoe snatched her away.

If she lived to explain her actions, would Elijah forgive her?

Another pop sounded. Their arrival. He released her. She stumbled and spun to face her captor. He’d brought her to her childhood home, she realized. The walls wore a different paint color and the carpeting was now wood laminate. But she knew this place.

She recognized the cedar and crayon smell, the sounds filtering in from the schoolyard across the street. A bird chirped obstreperously from a low branch in the front yard’s single tree. Lemon, she remembered, with fragrant blossoms every spring. And though it clearly belonged to a boy with far too many toys now, this was her old bedroom.

“
Don’t be frightened,” Crusoe said. “I won’t hurt you.”

She snorted despite her watery belly. “Yeah, right.”

“
What you saw wasn’t real. Nothing more than animal blood. I needed Elijah to bring you back. So we could negotiate a deal.”

“
What kind of deal?”

“
I freed your cousin, who, by the way, came willingly and has no idea she was being held in ransom for you.”

“
I don’t believe you.” Something in his words rang true
,
though.

He smiled so openly her breath snagged in her throat. “I can see why you’ve captivated him so well. But again, I must assure you Jennifer is safe at home.” He pushed a tendril past her shoulder. “Aside from a minor heartbreak that couldn’t be helped, she is unharmed.”

“
Heartbreak?” she asked, then understood. She remembered Jen, coming home raving about the perfect guy. “You’re Denny’s?”

“
One and the
same,” he said, a boyish smirk beautifying his too handsome features. Even his scars were beautiful. Charm wafted from his every pore. “But our little romance came to an end once Elijah gave you to me.”

Sadie found her tongue too stiff to speak. His words scared her despite knowing deep down, Elijah would never give her to him. She stood her ground.

“
I’m surprised he gave you away so readily. Or doesn’t he realize what you are now?” He paced a semi-circle around her, examining her, the same way Lyric had in that alleyway. Except Lyric had scared her as a test. Crusoe was caging her in for keeps.

“
What I am?”

“
The daughter of the last prophet.” He stopped, too close to her face. “You know where she hid her verses for the Book of Sorrows and you are the key to unlocking its secrets.”

“
I’m not a messenger.” Sadie refused to retreat.

“
I agree. And yet, you are her daughter.”

His hardened eyes belied his innocuous grin. “Jen will suffer more than a broken heart. As will Heather, who is doing well and expecting to be discharged today, I might add.” His cloying scent nauseated her. “The Ackermans will be home soon, Sadie. Time is of the essence
.

The Ackermans? The room she stood in swam back into focus. “Why are we here?”

“
I want the missing verses. Your mother hid three, here, in this house. Find them.”

“
How…I…I wouldn’t begin to know where to look.”

“
Well, I’d say you have less than an hour before mommy Ackerman returns from her weekly grocery shopping. Then it will be time for little Lynae’s nap. She gets fussy if she doesn’t get her nap. And Thomas will be home from school, ready to play.”

Bile rose up Sadie’s throat, acidy on her tongue. She wrapped her wings around her shoulders
.
Shadows of childhood fears slunk into the recesses of her mind. She let herself go back to those deep hollows of worry and uncertainty, watching her mother scurry around the house in the dark, muttering unintelligible nonsense about angels and demons.

She could still feel the rough carpet on her bare feet. Crumbs and toys scattered the floor. How old? Ten? Eleven? A loud
thwap
startled her. “Momma?” she called
,
but her voice barely hit above a whisper.

She peered out of her bedroom and saw her mother crouched on the living room floor, a hammer in hand, the side table toppled on its side and the carpet ripped away. “Momma?” Louder this time.

Beverley Graves gasped and looked up, frozen with obvious fright. Her gaze darted about the room, falling on Sadie. “Babygirl! You scared me. Come here, honey. Hey, it’s okay.” Sadie went to her. “Mommy’s just on a project. Go back to sleep.” Her mom gathered her close and kissed the top of her head. “Go on, honey, back to bed with you.”

But Sadie couldn’t sleep. Her mom’s episodes were growing more frequent, even that young, she could see it. Sleep would be impossible. How Heather still slept with all the noise, she’d never know. So she sat in the dark and watched, to be sure her mother didn’t do anything bad with that hammer.

Several more loud thwacks resounded against the floor, splintering Sadie’s ears. Her mom tossed slivers of wood aside, digging into the floor like it was dirt. Then she moved a stack of her books into the hole before puzzling the wood back together, smoothing it with her hands, replacing the carpet. Murmuring over the little grave, she righted the table. A vase of flowers and it would have been the headstone.

Her mother glimpsed her in the dark, the wildness in her eyes quieted. She put her finger to her lips and nodded at Sadie. The weight of the memory ached in her chest, piled among so many others and drew her back to the present. Crusoe’s gaze glittered with anticipation. Recalling her sister, her cousin, the little boy’s room, Sadie would do whatever he asked. She had to if she wanted to see any of them again or at least know they were safe somewhere out there. Crusoe must have seen as much.

“
Good girl,” he said and his words reminded her of Elijah.

Would Elijah find them?

Sadie took him along, room by room, pointing to the spots she could remember, seventeen in all. Most were empty. Had her sister found them? Is that how all the boxes that had been in Sadie’s room unopened for so long had been filled? Or had her mother robbed her own little graveyard, moving the paper bodies?

Had Sadie been cursed with the prescience to dream this moment coming?

At each destination, Crusoe defied the molecular structure, forcing his hand through, retrieving three separate journals from a bedroom corner, a closet, the laundry room. At least when the Ackermans came home, they’d remain ignorant to the violation in their home. Or be able to ignore the sense of it, having no physical proof.

Crusoe trailed a finger over the last cover, faded butterflies and hearts. Now he would want her to read them. Her mother had left her boxes of journals. But Sadie had never opened them. She’d read too much of them in her childhood.

Nights stolen mirroring her mother, peeling back itchy carpet, the musty smell of dirt and prickle of spiders watching her fingers shake. Her hands did now. Crusoe stood, the gleam in his eyes on fire. She lifted her chin defiantly, pushed her hand out, ready to face what he wanted.

“
No,” he said and his excitement was palpable. “Not here.”

How much of the surface had Elijah
,
Holly and she scratched? Holly. Where was Holly in all this now? The color of blood filled her imagination, the flash of an image. Sadie painting rabid strokes onto a canvas of Elijah and Crusoe in battle.

Where would Crusoe take her now? Whose blood would he spill next?

He shoved the journals into her pants like a shoplifter. The incongruity made a nervous giggle bubble up her throat. She swallowed it back. He grabbed her arms and for a horrific moment she thought he would kiss her. She bent away. The air began to turn and she saw he only meant to steal her into another place, further from Elijah, from her family. She wanted to push her energy in opposition to his, to kick off of his transport and swim through space and place. But so long as he had her, those she loved were safe. Sadie didn’t struggle as the toy
-
ridden room and its cedar scent sucked away.

~ ~ ~

Chapter Twenty-eight

Muffled screeches and banging on walls. The room spun around her as she fought to ground herself. The tang of antiseptic burned in her nose. Stale coffee scented the air. A hospital. But no quiet bleeps or muted conversations between nurses. The dingy padded walls hurt her eyes. The distant crash of metal, a yowl of a plea. She told herself not to panic. Taking her here amounted to a manipulation, a threat. He could not take her to an asylum, she was not really here…was she?

No!

Crusoe shoved one of the journals at her. Sadie opened the pages, refusing to acknowledge the amusement crinkling his eyes, dark and sick. She sat on the cushioned floor and blocked out the noise. The words in front of her blurred. Tears coursed down her face. She swiped them away.

Her mother’s distinct scrawl strung words together.

Ezekiel and Ecclesiastics. Lies and lies and lies again and more. See them now, see their wings. Daughters. Too much burden, the soul is burden and weight you wear now and again and the veil shall collapse and water will tread his all. All and all and all again. He shall come for you. You are not time. He is time and you must wait and bide. Raphael will lie. She leads him down the path and beckons with her witch tongue on fire. If they succeed all will fall. The change must come. The change will come and first.

Sadie frowned. She paged through and realized why Elijah had planned to coach her answers. The scribbles made less sense now than they had back then. They’d thought she could fake this? Or had she fooled herself into thinking she would know or see whatever her mother had been trying to translate from her poor demented mind.

Another muted scream, the kind of emotional torture she feared most, rang in the air, muffled by walls and doors and padding. She could only imagine how shrill it must be in person. Even now, prickles barbed her scalp with pain. She’d screamed like that once. After Heather had found her, back cut, gripping a knife, desperate to rid herself of the pain and bizarre thoughts.

Now she knew she’d been trying to free her wings. Her thoughts had been part of her transformation. The meds must have staved the change off. No more, though. She was a seeker now. She had to be brave now.