Wings of Fire (2 page)

Parisa.

Parisa.

Sweet Jesus. He felt light-headed. He struggled to breathe.

At last. He’d found a connection to her at last. He focused on breathing for a moment. He had to get command of himself if he had any hope of extracting the information he needed.

When he was calmer and while he was still inside the pretty-boy’s mind, he moved around the shrouded entity as though walking a mental circle. The death vampire sobbed now, but Medichi didn’t give a rat’s ass. He’d witnessed too many of the bastard’s memories, those that involved securing dying blood, and the women he’d killed to get to it—always women because they were easily subdued physically.

So, yeah, let the bastard feel some pain. Let him feel a lot of pain because it wouldn’t be even a fraction of the devastation he’d created in the women he’d killed and the families left behind to deal with all those losses.

He focused once more on the shrouded dwelling and from deep within the death vampire’s mind a location at last came forth:
Burma, Second Earth.

Medichi couldn’t quite grasp the sensation that plowed through him, but it popped a firework in his mind until glitter rained in his head. Relief flowed, pure exhilarating relief. After three long horrible months of hunting, he had just limited his search to a single country, located on only one of two dimensional earths.

Finally.

His entire body sagged and his throat tightened. He had a chance now of finding her, his woman.

Parisa on Second Earth and in Burma.

Even so, given Rith’s level of preternatural power it would take a few days to find the lair that held her captive. With Rith’s ability to create shields, no doubt the dwelling in which Parisa was kept was under some crazy-ass mist. The grid would have to search for an anomaly, something nonspecific and unidentifiable—in other words, something vague that didn’t belong.

But what were a few more days after searching for three long months and finding nothing? Yeah, he could wait for the grid to uncover an anomaly.

He closed his eyes. He took a long, long moment to offer thanks to the Creator, lifting his face to the heavens, his heart almost floating in a chest that had been constricted from the moment when the hologram of Parisa had disintegrated in front of his eyes.

He felt the pretty-boy’s life fading. He withdrew from his mind. The death vamp vomited blood, a lot of it.

Medichi sat down beside the creature that had once been a proper vampire youth. He put his hand on his shoulder, and kept it there. His touch calmed the shaking.

Medichi lowered his head to his knees. He despised what the death vamp had done, but he’d also seen that as a young ascender, a Twoling born on Second Earth, he’d tried dying blood on a dare, offered not from a body but from a goblet at a party. He’d been promised no ill effects, just pleasure. Well, pleasure he’d gotten, but he’d also gotten about three centuries of addiction, killing, despair, and no way back from a stupid teenage mistake. He hated all this shit, the treachery of Greaves and his forces, the resulting mortal victims. Still Medichi remained close to the vampire, as much a victim as those he’d killed, until he felt the final breath.

Stillness overcame the broken body. Medichi looked up. How far away the rim of the canyon seemed. The rush of water was loud in his ears and dominated his impression of the space. Above, complete silence. Below, all this rushing noise.

With his hand still on the death vampire, he repeated the words that had been his ritual for centuries. He was a man of faith if not a believer in structured religion, so in certain situations, like this one, he did what he thought was right, even necessary.

He looked at the now empty shell beside him and spoke against the hurtling water: “May the Great Spirit help you atone for these your terrible sins. May you be forgiven and may you find peace in the arms of the Creator. Amen.”

He released a heavy sigh.

So much death in their ascended dimension when it wasn’t necessary. Vampires were essentially immortal, or had the potential to live forever. But the addictive nature of dying blood, which seduced every death vampire who partook, made it necessary to kill mortals and ascenders alike for more.

In turn, Commander Greaves, bent on the domination of two worlds, used dying blood as one of his weapons. He not only encouraged the creation of death vampires, but built armies made up of them. There were even rumors that he provided the blood not just to his armies but to those High Administrators around the globe that he’d persuaded to join his faction.

Medichi had no qualms about being the sword of justice.

He left forgiveness to God.

Still sitting, he pulled his phone from the pocket of his black leather battle kilt and held it to his ear. He thumbed it. The phone was the size of a credit card and was a direct line to Central. For all other calls, he had a BlackBerry.

“Hey, Warrior Medichi,” Carla said. “Did you get him?”

“I got him.”

He heard a whoop and a shout and then Medichi smiled. Thank God for the women at Central. They were chosen for their calm tempers and positive outlooks even in the face of nightly death. They also did cleanup through a sophisticated inter-dimensional process that was more technology than preternatural power.

“Has Jeannie gone home for the day?” Carla and Jeannie overlapped their schedules. Carla had the day shift, while her best friend, Jeannie, had the night shift. The women were gold and served seven days and nights a week, just like the Warriors of the Blood.

“Yeah,” Carla said. “I kicked her out an hour ago. She has a brunch this morning with a Militia Warrior.”

He bristled. As a Warrior of the Blood, his protective instincts were always in overdrive, even where Jeannie and Carla were concerned. The Militia Warriors, though less powerful than the elite Warriors of the Blood, were still strong hombres and carried a shitload of testosterone in their own right. “Is he treating her good?” he growled.

“He’d better if he wants to stay alive,” Carla responded, but she was chuckling. “Hey, don’t worry. Not only can Jeannie handle herself after so many centuries as a vampire, but our Militia boys aren’t stupid. They know the Warriors of the Blood would be all over their asses if either of us got hurt.”

“Damn straight,” he cried, but more softly he added, “You still dating your man?”

She giggled then sighed.

“I take that as a yes.”

“He’s gorgeous,” she cooed. “Almost as pretty as you.”

Medichi found himself smiling all over again even though he was exhausted and had a torn-up and really dead pretty-boy beside him. Yeah, this was his life, finding small measures of comfort while sitting next to a corpse.

“I need a little cleanup action,” he said.

“I see him. What a mess. Oh, God, look at those wings.” In recent months, satellite imaging had enhanced the grid’s capacity as well. Medichi wondered if Carla could see the scars laced down his back, although right now his hair hung almost to his waist. Well, if she’d seen his scars anytime in the last three months, she hadn’t said anything. One more reason to love her. “Close your peepers.”

Medichi let his eyelids fall. Damn, he was tired, because it felt good to shut down like this, on a wet rock in the middle of the Colorado River. “Ready,” he murmured into his phone.

He saw the flash of light behind his lids. He felt the air move beside him. He opened his eyes. The death vamp was gone as well as any traces of blood, bone, or other feathered debris. “Clean as a whistle as usual, Carla. Thanks.”

“I know you’ve been after this death vamp for weeks. Please tell me you have some news for me? Anything I can use to find our girl?”

Our girl.
That’s why he loved the Central staff. They made everything feel like a team effort; no matter what you went through, you had backup.

Relief flowed through him again, like a cool breeze on a hot day. “Actually, I have the best news.” He explained getting inside the pretty-boy’s head and finding the shrouded dwelling.

Carla squealed several times in the telling. He could hear her tapping on her keyboard. “I’m reconfiguring the grid to Burma, Second Earth, even as we speak. If I find so much as a flyspeck out of place I’ll call you. Just remember that this will probably take two or three days. Jesus, this country is so frigging big. Did you know it’s the size of Texas?”

“Do what you can do,” he said.

“If we were looking for a power signature, it would be different, but we’ve already searched both worlds and didn’t find one, so expect some near-misses.”

“Hey. Trust me. I know the drill.”

“I know you do but oh, how I want this to go fast and it just can’t but holy shit—” Carla rarely used profanity. “Burma, Second Earth. This is fantastic news. Have a limoncello on me. Now head home, Warrior, and for the Creator’s sake, get some sleep. You’ve earned it.”

Aw, hell. Carla was such a sweetheart. “Can’t. Not yet. I’m heading over to the Cave. Some of the brothers might still be there having their morning bullshit session, and I’ll want to talk to Thorne. I’ll let him know about the shift in grid coordinates.” Thorne was in charge of the Warriors of the Blood, including all communications with Central. But once the warriors had checked in from a night of battling, searching for Parisa took priority.

Medichi wasn’t alone in his despair. All the warriors had been wrecked by a disappearance on their watch. If it could happen to Medichi, it could happen to any of them.

Carla’s voice dropped to a whisper. “And you’ll let us know about … well, you know.”

“Of course.”

“Good. Now give me a second to reconfigure the grid.” The tapping started.

He sighed as his heart pulled into a hard knot.

Every twenty-four hours he had contact with Parisa, and everyone knew it. What they didn’t know was the personal way in which it happened. And like hell would he ever reveal that truth, because it was like having phone sex without the phone. Once a day, and always in the morning after he’d battled all night, he’d go home, shower up, and sit on the side of his bed. That’s when he’d hear Parisa’s voice in his head, only once,
Antony
. A sweet telepathic whisper that fired his heart and kept hope alive.

That was the only form of communication he had with her. She wasn’t even ascended, so not all of her powers were developed. And for whatever reason, even though she was a mortal with wings, she couldn’t communicate with her mind, at least not yet.

Despite this critical lack, she had another preternatural power that was considered a Third Earth or third dimension ability—that voyeur’s window she could open. If she was indeed in Burma, she was halfway around the globe when she sent her single telepathic communication. It would be night to his day.

If that were true, then she had enormous telepathic capacity. She just hadn’t learned how to use it yet.

Whatever.

It still meant that in half an hour or so, he would go home, get ready for bed, and discover whether his woman was still alive.

His heart tightened a little more. He both dreaded and longed for the experience because honest to God he didn’t know what he would do if he didn’t hear her say his name today within the depths of his mind. If he thought for even a minute that she might be dead, he’d go mad.

Carla’s voice came back on the line. “The grid’s on Burma, Warrior, and you’re in my prayers.”

His eyes burned. “Thanks,” he said, but his voice sounded hoarse. “Later.”

“Later.”

He thumbed his phone and with a thought, folded to his villa to change out of his kilt and weapons harness. He still hadn’t revealed his scars to his brothers. Only Marcus knew that his back was covered in a basket weave of silver scar tissue, and he’d promised his silence. There was no way he was going to the Cave to meet with the brothers while wearing only a kilt and a weapons harness. The latter, though broad enough in the front to support two daggers, had only a heavy narrow strip of black leather running down his spine.

Shit. He knew the time had come to reveal this hard truth about what had happened to him and to his family thirteen centuries ago, just before his ascension. But he dreaded speaking about the
why
of his scars. Dreaded letting anyone get that close to him.

Well, he wasn’t ready to talk just yet.

He changed into his usual: a black tee, black cargoes, and steel-toed boots. He thought the thought and headed to the Cave.

***

Parisa Lovejoy had run out of time.

She didn’t know the how or why of it, but something in Rith Do’onwa’s demeanor toward her had darkened. When she was around him now, shivers chased down her neck and shoulders.

She stood outside on the lawn, barefoot, a few feet away from the enormous tamarind tree in Rith’s large side yard. She stared up at the double dome of mist and as usual, was amazed.

She could see both layers. The exterior dome was the usual fine crochet-like composite, but the interior swirled in beautiful colors of aquamarine, sea green, blue, and gray … magnificent. The mist kept the master’s home invisible to Central’s electronic surveillance grid. She had learned at least that much in the three months she’d been held captive: The Warriors of the Blood couldn’t find her because Rith had concealed her location under not one but two powerful domes of mist.

Two exquisite domes that meant she couldn’t count on a rescue.

Yesterday, Rith had treated her with his usual indifference, but when she had awakened this morning and met him over the breakfast table, displeasure, perhaps even hatred, had rolled from him, a living writhing thing. And just like that she knew she had run out of time. Whatever mantle of grace had kept her safe in his home these past three months had just been obliterated.

She had to escape. She just didn’t know how to get the job done.

She had struggled with the question all day. Now night had fallen and she had a decision to make. Should she take flight and bust through the double dome of mist that protected the property, or should she take her chances and stay put? She knew that the nature of mist would allow her to easily reach the sky beyond, but her flight skills were untested. It was one thing to practice in the gentle environment of the garden protected by the mist, but another to be in the open air where unpredictable wind shears could turn her upside down.