Wicked (19 page)

“I’m not in the mood for swimming.” I pull my arms over the lip of the pool and rest my chin on my hands.

“What’d she say?” Logan’s hair is plastered back as his t-shirt floats up around his chin.

“Maybe we should grab Chloe and drown her while everyone’s in the pool?” I put it out there like it’s a viable option.

He shakes his head and places his hand gently against the small of my back.

It’s killing me Skyla. Tell me what she’s holding over you. I really do want to help. Logan looks boldly into my eyes, burns a hole into my heart with the tenderness of his words.

She knows Marshall’s a Sector. I shiver as the thought sails through me.

The expression bleeds from him as he goes under then reemerges. “She won’t win. We won’t let her.”

She has Gage. She’s already won.

His hand slides off my back.

I always forget Logan is listening.

Gage gives Chloe a hard look as she heads toward the gate. He speeds over to me and squats down near the waterline.

“I’m going to take her home,” he says reaching down and rubbing his thumb over my cheeks. “She says you know.”

“We both do.” I glance over at Logan.

“I’ll come over later and tell you what she’s thinking.”

I shake my head over at her. “The last thing I want to discuss is Chloe’s next move.”

“Then let’s talk about ours. We’re going to come up with something. I promise.” He presses in a quick kiss to my cheek before bolting towards the exit.

There’s that promise again.

I glare openly at Chloe as she wrings the water out of her hair. Chloe has us so twisted around her finger, it’s going to be like hostage negotiations just trying to see Gage.

“Can I have a ride home?” I ask Logan.

“No.” A playful smile teeters on his lips. “I want you to come with me to shoot off my new gun.”

“Can we use Chloe as target practice?”

He shakes his head.

“Where we going to do this?” I ask.

“Faction meeting in Belize.”

***

It’s dark under the shadow of a nonexistent moon. The air is thick with humidity, and there’s a breeze that wraps us in the perfumed scent of night-blooming jasmine.

“So light driving, huh?” I say as Logan leads me down a quiet narrow street with tall archaic buildings on either side. His hair is grey at the temples, the skin around his eyes is more textured, worn with time, and I wonder if it’s because that’s his true age, but don’t ask.

He pauses and pulls me in gently by the elbows. Half his face is locked in the shadows, the other half illuminated by a streetlamp—ironic because that’s how I see him now, half Celestra, half Count—half good, half evil.

“Light driving as a mode of transportation is only good for emergencies.” He gives a gentle smile. “This just happens to be one.” Logan holds a paternal quality that I find irresistible.

“I’ve been meaning to ask if I could buy that car off you,” I say to relieve the tension in the air.

“It’s yours,” he says with little interest as he pulls the black and green gun from out of his jeans and starts plucking at it.

“It looks fake. Like something you’d see in the arcade.”

“I assure you it’s very much real.” His eyes widen then retract. “Skyla,” he says pleading, “let me do this alone. Stay here or let me take you home.”

“No.” Nicodemus something or other was one of the names of faction leaders who cleared the way for the death of a Celestra. “Might I remind you, while the faction leaders banded together and decided they were fine with the Celestra deaths that occurred en mass, I wasn’t.”

“It’s going to get ugly,” he warns. “Stay here. I’ll get you when I’m through.”

“There’s no way I’m leaving you,” I hiss.

He takes me by the hand and doesn’t debate the issue. Instead he leads me towards a brick building, and we ascend a stairwell off the back. We float up the stairs like ghosts, without one sound, or one breath that could possibly give us away.

A triangular window affords us a peek inside a well-lit room. A small circle of eight to ten men sit knit together passing papers back and forth.

Logan presses his back against the wall. I can feel his warm breath as he pants unsteady.

There is no one else I would do this for. Not one soul on the planet. I love you, Skyla. He pushes his lips to my cheek with a fiery passion as though he were kissing me for the very last time.

Logan storms into the room.

I don’t hear questions, or voices, just rapid-fire explosions stemming from his hands.

Logan rushes out. Over his shoulder, I see blood splattered up against the walls as a horrible groan emits from deep inside the room.

Then we disappear.

***

An evening in Sri Lanka stirs of exotic breezes—spices with names I can’t pronounce and saffron colored robes that filter through the streets. I pull in close to Logan. I miss home, Gage, and the old Skyla and Logan who didn’t run around the world offing people with bullets.

You killed too many, I say.

They’re planning to annihilate the remaining Celestra. He raises his chin into the night and takes a deep breath.

You know this? I ask.

Logan, who has always been steeped in mystery, seems to know a little too much about everything.

He nods. The Counts are getting ready to graft me in as one of their own.

And you think this is a good idea because? I already know what he’s going to say.

I do and so does your father. Logan pushes me in with a tight embrace.

“My dad?” I pull back and ask out loud.

“Yes,” he circles into a nod. “He’s a great guy, he’s been mentoring me.”

“What?” I have to agree with him about my dad being great, but mentoring Logan?

“So he thinks infiltrating the Counts is a brilliant idea? How do I know you’re not playing both me and my dad? How do I know you’re not Demetri Edinger in disguise?” God, I’ve never even entertained the idea. Talk about coming out of left field.

Logan recoils at the thought.

“Come on,” he whispers, leading us through a seaside villa that glows a soft vanilla.

How are we hitting these faction meetings at the right time? I ask out of curiosity. Logan is obviously and undeniably in the know.

The Counts hold New Moon festivals. The leaders have a meeting beforehand to officiate it. We’re traveling back further and further into the evening, so by the time they realize what’s happened, it’ll be too late to stop us. Logan pulls his cheek back with pride.

Can’t they go back and meet up with us? I’m no genius, but if they can, we could be walking into a bloodbath.

They’d need a treble to pull that off, and they’d need a supervising spirit to give them one.

Why does that sound familiar? Oh that’s right, my dad talked about it. What exactly is a supervising spirit? More crap I don’t know. Great. Aren’t I locked in a treble with freaking Ellis? And what supervising spirit approves of pot laced light drives?

A Sector, Fem, he glances over me with reservation, a Caelestis, or another higher order.

Chloe traveled into the future to slit my throat. That means she must have one.

That means she has one for sure. Logan nods into this before pausing at the door.

I take in a deep breath as we head towards the entrance.

Logan dives in and shoots up the room in a series of explosions.

He ejects himself and lands on top of me, his lips hitting mine hot and wet as we quiver back to another time.

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Rome if You Want To

It happened again in England. The hint of a sickle shaped moon beared witness to the carnage of Logan’s wrath. I stand nearby, afraid, watchful of what the beautiful blonde boy that lies buried in my heart is capable of. All along I thought trust was the issue with Logan, now I wonder if the problem was sanity and his seemingly short supply.

Logan is exterminating Counts at record pace—their blood on his hands. In mere hours, he’s transformed himself into a perfunctory killing machine. Nothing will ever be the same after this night. And it makes me wonder if this night is our last of peace.

“You don’t have to worry about killing them,” Logan says changing out his clip, “They’re less human than you think they are.”

I think of Ellis and suddenly doubt that.

“Where are we?” I ask, staring at the thick cobbled roads. An entire millennia of foot traffic has worn a slick patina over the walk.

“Welcome to Rome.” He pulls a kiss off my lips and peels a layer of my soul off with it.

“Don’t do that,” I say breathless. “I’m with Gage.”

Logan swallows hard as though he had forgotten, or at least hoped that I did. I can feel the drought of our love emanating from him in this fractured moment of time.

“I’m sorry.” He leads me by the hand up towards an intersection, then I see it— grand and pious. It eats up the night in one monolithic fit of glory. The Colosseum.

“In there?” I ask.

“No. In there.” He points to a building across the street from the ancient structure. We take a seat on a nearby bench so we can take in all of the beauty of what lies in front of us. “I wish it were under different circumstances.” He wraps an arm around my shoulder. It feels genuinely platonic, so I leave it there.

“I wish everything was under different circumstances. Especially the fact Chloe managed to worm her way back to life.” I hate that the entire Chloe debacle happened because she played off my stupidity.

“Loyalty,” he corrects. “Chloe redefines manipulative. She’s a harmless looking spark that can turn a forest to cinder with her pinky.”

“You got that right,” I say. She charred the landscape of my world the instant she showed up at the party.

“So, you wanna tell me about what happened that day you took down half the student body and ran into Pierce?” Three deep lines crease just under his left eye as he gives a gentle smile. It feels as though I’m here with a much older man. I like this aged version of Logan. Something about him curbs my anger, erases some of the hurt caused by the teenage version.

“I thought we took down the Countenance. You and me, even Holden was helping. Pierce,” my hand rises involuntarily, “was a friendly face when I saw him.” I shake my head. I was so lost. “Um, Gage, he had the head of an eagle, and Ellis, he had the head of an ox.” My gaze drifts up towards the thousands of stars watching over us in a spectacular blaze.

“And what kind of face did I have?” He rounds his hand over my knee natural as breathing.

“You had the face of an ass,” I say politely removing his now roving hand.

“Figures.” His expression sours. “I would do anything to regain your trust.”

A swell of emotion envelops us like a membrane. I can’t break free from his steely gaze. It’s so hypnotic, so comfortable to get lost in Logan’s eyes.

“Is that all you want from me?” My heart jumps in and out of rhythm.

“I want everything you’re willing to give me.”

We exchange an entire season of sorrowful sighs before heading over to a rectangular building with mirrored windows. But it’s the Colosseum that captures my attention. It looks straight out of the pages of a history book, so unearthly old, so foreign, you would think it were some unbelievable movie prop, a cheesy bad replica, but here it is. It stands erect in the night broken and beautiful, lit up like a jewel.

Logan walks us in through the side of the seemingly docile building. He leads us down a long stairwell that narrows to an opening at an underground level.

I’m not sure we should be killing people like this. Maybe this one we should let slide? You know let bygones be bygones? I suggest.

You want to let your father’s killer slide? I can guarantee more Celestra deaths. What we’re doing is going to save lives. He pauses tenderly examining me in the stale thread of light.

I pull him further along, not wanting to get caught up in the moment. If anyone would have told me months ago I’d be going to Rome with Logan one day, I would have envisioned a far off honeymoon. I would have had stars in my eyes over sharing something so special with him. Bullets and blood, and racking up a body count would have been nowhere near the list of things I expected.

“Honeymoon?” He pulls me in, enamored by the thought. “I’ll remember that.”

I’m not sure if he means because it’s a nice thought or because he thinks it’s still an option, either way it was a fleeting fantasy, and that’s all it’ll ever be.

“Skyla.” My name depresses from his lungs lower than a whisper. He closes his eyes, and a seam of tears ignites over his lashes.

Then he galvanizes. Something fires him up like an engine. He roars to life and charges us down a football field worth of corridors. Voices emit freely from an opening to our left, and Logan jumps inside, all hellfire and fury, then a strange eerie silence.

A hand reaches out and pulls me inside.

“Logan!” It speeds out of me in a panic.

Logan’s hands are restrained behind his back, his lips bound with duck tape.

Looks like they found their treble.

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Gone Wrong

Four well built men, surround us like a garrison. I’m assuming they’re all Counts and they’ve somehow become aware of the fact that new moon faction councils are turning into a hell of a lot of bloody fun for a couple of young Celestra—well, one Celestra anyway. For the record, I’m not having any freaking fun.

They push Logan into me hard, and we smack into the wall behind us.

Don’t move. Logan rubs the side of his face up against mine, our twin scars meet for the very first time. It feels intimate, passionate, and the armed thugs waiting to pump some serious metal into us are the morbid witnesses to our necrotic brand of love.

We have to fight. Remember what I taught you? He moans in order to stall.

Yes. Sweeping out their feet, the chokehold, wrestle them to ground, and break their arms—the ball buster.

That’s the one. Logan bends over and hikes his leg up behind him in the air at record speed. My brain registers this as though it were all happening in slow motion. He knocks down two of the men to his right with his ballerina-ninja-like move producing a shower of teeth and blood.