Vicki Pettersson - The Taken

The man’s interest, and engagement, gave Grif hope.

“And they violated their angelic nature by turning against God. If you’re against God, you certainly harbor no love for his most beloved creatures.” Grif looked up in the sky and the blades that had once supported his wings shuddered. “Remember, angels are not God’s children. They’re not Chosen. They’re not made in His image. They’re just winged monsters who are there to serve Him.”

Hitchens stared at Grif for a long moment, then shook his head. “Let me see if I got this straight. All the assholes who should have taken a tumble into a fiery pit are instead walking around in a forest with fairies jumping out from behind the trees?”

In that moment, something flared, twin flames of white-hot fury located directly behind Hitchens. Grif took an involuntary step back, but stopped there. Anne wouldn’t confront him with Hitchens present. Still, he corrected: “Angels. Not fairies.”

Flame erupted in Anne’s gaze as she shot him another fiery warning, but then the glasses went back on, and she melded again with the night.

“And they don’t jump out at them,” he continued, eyes fixed on the place he’d last seen her. The itching between his shoulder blades now thrummed. He felt his wings like phantom limbs and knew it was because the Pure was near. “They ambush them. They ride herd. And every time they catch a soul, they do to it whatever that soul did to earn their spot in the forest.”

Anne growled, a sound too broad and loud for the human ear, though the horses in the barn behind them began whinnying in unison. A crack sounded, hooves on wood, and a half dozen others followed, along with alarmed shouts and a particularly sharp cry. Hitchens glanced over nervously. At least that spooked him.

“They torture those souls that way again and again. They do it endlessly. They do it for lifetimes.”

A whip of wind slapped him, and he stumbled back as the Pure rocketed straight into the air, but Grif already knew Pures hated it when mortals discussed them, their world, and their true natures. He’d been prepared. However, Hitchens had not.

Offering a hand, he helped up the now visibly shaken detective.

“Don’t know about you,” Grif said, shoving his hands into his pockets, “but I think I’d rather burn.”

And, shooting the wide-eyed man one last smile, he headed back across the lawn.

Hitchens’s voice rang out a second later. “You’re a sick fuck, you know that?”

“Not as sick as you,” Grif muttered, knowing as only someone with a healthy dose of celestial eyesight could, that he’d flat-out wasted his breath.

By the time Grif returned to her side, Kit had mostly composed herself. Dennis had the unpleasant task of informing next-of-kin as to Paul’s death, and since she had once been his next-of-kin, she convinced Dennis to bring her along. Though relations between Paul’s parents and her had iced over after the divorce, they still exchanged Christmas cards and the occasional phone call. It would help, Kit thought, for her to be there.

Either that, or they’d blame her entirely.

God knew she blamed herself.

Grif knew that, too. He rejoined her side in that stealth way he had, though Kit knew the moment he arrived. Her world warmed a bit with his presence, but Kit wrapped her arms around herself anyway, and looked out into the darkness. Right now her world was operating at a few degrees below the arctic chill.

“It wasn’t your fault,” he tried, as she knew he would. She continued to stare into the unyielding night.

“You keep saying that.”

“Dennis said it, too.”

She gave him a look that was more wry and despondent than any she’d worn since her father’s death. “It’s his job to say that.”

“As a cop?”

“As a friend.”

Grif studied her face, those expressive brows drawing now, and even though he didn’t move, she felt as though he inched closer. “I’m a friend.”

“Thought you were an angel?” she shot back before she could stop herself. She held up a hand immediately. She didn’t want to injure anyone else. She certainly didn’t want to argue. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

No . Kit shook her head. “Look, I know that you’ve been there and done that as a P.I., but I’ve spent my entire adult life investigating these sort of stories as well. Sordid tales about murder. Stories that invite people into lives they’d never lead, or want to. But they weren’t just stories.” She shook her head, and slumped against the cool wood of the white ranch fence.

“When I was sixteen I had to read the headline blaring the news of my dad’s murder over the front page of my own newspaper. When I was twelve my mother’s obit took up a whole page inside. They were more than just stories then, and the same goes for all the bylines since. Same goes for now.” She looked directly up, and though close, Grif’s expression was blurred by her tears. “But I think I’ve started something here that I can’t stop. And I have a bad feeling about how this story is going to end.”

“No, Kit,” he replied lowly. “As long as you’re alive, it can be stopped.”

“But they’re not alive.” Kit wiped at her eyes. “It’s too late for Nic and Paul.”

“It’s too late because someone else decided to play God.” His gaze didn’t waver from her face as another emergency vehicle edged by the already crowded entrance. “It’s much easier to destroy a life than it is to live one.”

Kit laughed bitterly at that. “You don’t have to tell me. Every time I create something good in my life, someone else comes along and sideswipes it.” She sniffed. “Maybe it’s a sign.”

“Don’t say that.”

She sounded bitter and hopeless, a combination she found repulsive in others and intolerable in herself. But tonight, with her ex-husband’s blood so thick in the air that the horses couldn’t settle, she found it fit like a vintage glove.

“Kit.” Grif spoke more softly than she’d ever heard him speak before, like she’d break if he raised his voice. “God gave us this life, and one of its cornerstones and greatest gifts is free will. Unfortunately some people use that gift to harm others.”

Kit gave a half-laugh and straightened. “Yeah? So where was my mother’s free will? Because the last time I saw her she was a bag of bones gagging on her own saliva. She weighed so little her body seemed hollow, and she couldn’t breathe without the help of a machine.

“ Mankind didn’t do that, Grif. A murderer didn’t do it. God did it. He set her up, and then he sideswiped her just to watch her fall.” Steeling her jaw, she lifted her chin. “So as far as I can see? People are just following in His footsteps. Guess we really are made in His image after all.”

Then she whirled, and strode away. Eyes were on her as she walked to the far fence, and not just Grif’s and Dennis’s. She cut her gaze left as she leaned again against the cool wood, and saw that awful Hitchens eyeing her like she was his next meal. Ignoring him, she looked back into the empty pasture and wondered what she was really upset about.

The words about her mother had surprised even her. Of course, she wasn’t foolish enough to think she’d recovered from that loss. But she’d survived it, then lived with it, and thought she was doing well… at least until recently.

Now her life was under attack, and she was shocked to find how fragile everything she’d built really was. She was dumbfounded, too, to find that while people were being ripped from her life like paper dolls from a chain, she longed to be the one who’d be gone first.

I, she thought on a pitiful half-laugh, want my mommy.