Total pages in book: 131
Estimated words: 121854 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 609(@200wpm)___ 487(@250wpm)___ 406(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 121854 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 609(@200wpm)___ 487(@250wpm)___ 406(@300wpm)
He’d always been good at that, Illium thought, painting scenes with his voice as well as his hands. Will you paint New York for me just that way?
I’ll do it in black and white with only flickers of colors, so the light appears to move. His hair rippled back in the wind, his wings glinting in an errant spotlight that had been pointed skyward.
A few more minutes of flight found them over quieter residential areas, then even those fell behind.
How did you get stuff into the locker without being noticed?
I did it in the darkest part of night when the sky was cloudy and starless much like today. Part of the reason I chose this facility is because it’s run-down and doesn’t have much security. No cameras. It’s also in an industrial area that’s all warehouses. No street activity after night, for it’s too remote and, as Beth put it, “creepy.”
And you chose this place to store your art?
The actual storage lockers are tough, and I placed a strong lock on it. As for the work inside…let’s just say I had a complicated relationship with it at the time.
Though tension gnawed at Illium’s gut, he didn’t badger Aodhan for further details. It had to be bad if the other man hadn’t told him all this time…and he’d know the full extent of it soon enough.
There it is. Aodhan angled over an area that was dark but for a few anemic lights, which barely penetrated the gloom.
I think we’re in danger, Illium said in an ominous tone, taking it in from above.
The facility appeared even worse than Aodhan had described—cement walls with peeling paint, the roof pockmarked with rust, the driveway cracked in so many places, it was almost a grass lot. He spotted no movement around the storage facility, but someone was working a forklift at the warehouse across the road.
They waited until the operator was on the far side of that warehouse before they landed. It took Aodhan only a moment to key in the entry code.
The door locked behind them with a hard snick.
“This way.” Aodhan began to walk down the cool cement hallway filled with endless doors that ended at a vanishing point into eternity.
“You know, in those movies you watch with Ellie,” Illium said darkly, “this is where you both start yelling at the innocent future victim to run.”
“Stay close. I’ll protect you from the monsters.”
“Funny.” Illium’s scowl hid the rapid pulse of his heart—not at the environment, but at Aodhan’s teasing words.
Whatever this was, wherever they were going, it didn’t hurt Adi any longer.
His locker proved to be halfway down the hallway on the left.
When he input the code, Illium said, “The day of my birth.” Angels didn’t often celebrate such things after their majority, and many of the old ones had no idea when they might’ve been born, but Illium had come into the world at a time when Jessamy was the Librarian; she kept a neat list of all angelic births.
Aodhan’s smile carved his cheeks, turning him from handsome to devastating. “I had to choose numbers I’d never forget.”
Illium wanted to haul him close and kiss him until neither one of them could breathe. It took serious effort to keep it contained, but this wasn’t a moment to interrupt.
This, whatever it was that lay in the locker, was important enough to Aodhan that he’d first hidden it, and now wanted to share it with Illium.
Once they were past the coded lock, the door opened to reveal another door, this one barred with a huge padlock. “I’m starting to get why this facility hasn’t gone out of business despite its less-than-personable appearance.”
“Ransom told me about it,” Aodhan said. “I was talking about finding a place to store some of my art, and he said the most secure place he knew looked like an abandoned building and was surrounded by chain link with holes in it. A facility no self-respecting burglar would even think about wasting his time on.”
Taking a key from a small pocket in the front of his pants, he unlocked the padlock. “Close both doors behind us.”
Only after Illium had done as ordered did Aodhan turn on the light.
Canvases sat in piles across the majority of the space. Not stretched over wooden frames, not even rolled up in cardboard tubes. Just flat, paint-heavy sheets that had been placed one on top of the other…and still, despite the lack of anything to bulk them up, the piles reached halfway to the ceiling and filled up three quarters of the room.
Illium could see none of the work, the canvases stored face down.
“Where did you find the time to paint all these?” It wasn’t as if Aodhan hadn’t been creating art Illium had seen in the interim, and his work wasn’t slapdash. A single piece could take months if he had dedicated time to spend on it, while a number had taken years.