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)
Despite the fact it was after midnight by now, he made the call, got a husky-voiced Honor on the line. But though it was clear both had been asleep, Dmitri didn’t tear Illium a new one for his request. The second knew Illium would’ve called him only if it had to be Dmitri who drove the truck. “I’ll be there soon as I can requisition a truck from the Tower garage,” the other man said before hanging up.
“Do you want Dmitri to see these?” Illium asked. “Or shall we carry them in a way he can’t?”
“The latter,” Aodhan said at once. “I want no more memories of these than already exist. They were a cleansing of my soul, stroke by stroke. Now it’s time for the detritus to be removed.”
* * *
* * *
Dmitri just nodded when Aodhan refused his offer to help carry out the canvases, then stood watch over the truck in the moonless dark. Clad in black jeans and a black T-shirt, his hair roughly brushed, he should’ve looked young and careless. Except this was Dmitri, a vampire of such power that even senior angels treated him with wary respect.
His presence was a pulse in the air, dark red and viciously controlled.
Illium had the feeling that Dmitri knew what Aodhan had been doing. But if he did, he said nothing about it, and—once they’d emptied the storage locker—Illium and Aodhan flew overhead while Dmitri drove the vehicle over two hours north out of the city, to a remote area inland from the Hudson River.
No city to warm the air with particles of light here, the world pitch-black.
“Thank you,” Aodhan said to Dmitri after they’d emptied the truck of its cargo.
A nod from the second.
But Aodhan had more to say. “Did you know?”
“No.” Dmitri shrugged. “But I figured something like that had to be going on. You’re an artist, Sparkle. It’s what you do.”
A gentle slap to Aodhan’s face that held the affection he’d shown them when they’d been baby angels. “I, meanwhile, spent my rage getting into every fight I could, got beaten to a pulp more than once because I took on far older vamps.
“Only reason they didn’t rip off my head is because, one, Raphael kept hauling me out before it got to that point, and two, even the most infuriated old ones felt sorry for me—they thought I’d had a bad Making, was half-insane. I think you took the better route.”
The hug between the two was initiated by Aodhan, but Dmitri’s hold was tight, the fisted thump on Aodhan’s shoulder one of brotherhood. He murmured something to Aodhan that Illium didn’t catch before they broke the embrace.
“Don’t linger too long,” the second said. “Forecast says there’s a huge storm coming.” Jumping into the truck on that, he turned it around for the drive home.
And Illium set fire to the stack of canvases after a nod from Aodhan.
The flames were a dazzling blue that sent curls of black up into the atmosphere.
30
“Showing off?” Aodhan teased, even as the blue flames altered to a more prosaic yellow-orange.
“I think it was just my pissed-offness coming out,” Illium muttered, circling the bonfire to ensure it ate up every tiny fragment of every canvas.
Aodhan let him circle, let him pace, his own presence peaceful as he told Illium more stories of Eh-ma, of how she’d chided him for covering the canvases in black without thought to how much depth he’d need for the images hidden within, and how she’d once argued with him that he hadn’t been that thin when he came back.
Aodhan laughed, a glittering candle set incandescently alight by the flames. “I was healed enough by then that I argued back that I most definitely was that thin, and we quibbled until she drifted away into the fog of her mind. But she always came back, always found me at the times I needed her most.” His voice grew thick. “We should go see her.”
Illium fell in love all over again with this warrior artist with all his shades of being. Looking up at the sky as fine motes of ash floated up against the pitch dark, he recalled all the technical data in his head. “Adi, there are no satellites passing overhead. No security cameras in any direction.” A rasp of sound. “There are no people living nearby, and even if someone has chosen to wander the wild…there’s no light. No moon. No city bright. Stars hidden by heavy cloud cover. You don’t sparkle in pure darkness.”
* * *
* * *
Aodhan looked at the skin of his hands. It glittered in the firelight, but should he step back into the heavy shadows of the trees, he’d become just another shadow. His skin needed light for life, drew it to him, but it couldn’t draw what wasn’t there.