Vicki Pettersson - The Taken

Tears fell unheeded from her eyes as she stared. “Be careful. He’s powerful.”

“You be careful, too.”

Wiping her face with one hand, she lifted her glass with the other. “Don’t worry. Chambers can’t ever touch me again.”

Grif shoved his hands in his pockets. “You should let someone touch you, though.”

Bridget shot him that too-knowing half-smile. “So should you, Shaw. So should you.”

The cab that’d dropped Grif in front of Bridget’s shop was long gone, and he was forced to walk back the way he came. Not that he minded. He had a number of thoughts to chew on, and the almost-fresh air did him good. Again, it didn’t matter that his personal navigation skills told him no more than which way was up, he just lit a Lucky, tucked his head low against a pushy breeze, and headed to the bright bulge in the middle of the desert night.

As he walked, he reassessed Kit’s chances of survival against what Bridget had told him. He’d already known Schmidt was involved in the events at the Wayfarer, and his attack on Kit marked him as enemy number one. He’d assaulted Grif again at Tony’s, and, in all likelihood, killed Paul Raggio as well. He had partners-all nameless and faceless thus far-though one had taken a bullet at Tony’s, courtesy again of Schmidt.

Which brought him to Schmidt’s other partner, Chambers. The oil greasing the wheels. Question was, how was Grif supposed to clear Kit Craig from all these men’s sights? Was it even possible at this point? Could fate be altered a second time, or was she in so deep that it’d be like throwing a floatie to someone in the middle of the Atlantic?

Bust the lid off the Chambers-Schmidt connection, Grif thought, nodding to himself. Even in Vegas that was a scandal. But because power and muscle lay entirely with them, proof had eluded the light of day for over ten years. Chambers had it, of course, but he certainly wasn’t going to let it be used against him.

“Has to keep those tapes somewhere,” Grif muttered, flicking his cigarette butt into the gutter. It’d take time to find them though, and Grif couldn’t even be certain of the next ten minutes. Free will or not, Sarge could yank him from the Surface at any moment. So how the hell was he going to score enough time to reveal Chambers’s dirty little secret, much less save Kit?

Find out who sent Kit and Nicole that list, he thought, cutting across a vacant commercial lot. That’s what started this whole thing, so maybe it could end there, too. But how to find someone who had less interest than ever in being found? And as Bridget had no idea who was behind that initial list, where the hell was he supposed to start?

Exhaling a hard breath, Grif rounded the corner, felt one painful pulse from where his wings once were, and instinctively threw up his hands in defense.

Anne stood there, stoic and unmoving. “If I were going to strike you, you’d already be down.”

Straightening, Grif jerked at his jacket’s hem. “I knew that.”

What he hadn’t known was that dark skin could look so ashen. Gone was the glorious sheen that made the Pure’s features gleam like polished marble. Her eyes were dull and sunken-they almost looked human-and her structured clothing looked like it was holding her up instead of the reverse.

“You look terrible, Anne. And… blue.” He took a step back as she lifted her chin, but he struggled to see the vengeful Pure who’d knocked him cold before. “Have you taken a real breath since you hit this mudflat?”

Her jaw clenched, the bones underneath appearing brittle, like they would pierce the skin at any moment. “Air is for the weak.”

Grif watched the old disdain flash in her dark gaze, but it had no real heat this time and was banked an instant later. Besides, she might be a mighty, immortal Pure, but he was the expert here on the mud. “Yeah, well you have to breathe.”

“Breathe, eat, move-all these necessities and actions.” She jerked her head, and it swung back unnaturally, like it was on a spring. “I can’t even catch my thoughts anymore. They swirl and swirl and just when they’re about to coalesce into something of use, I’m attacked by a sensation-a scent or texture or sight… sometimes all at once. It’s overwhelming.”

She shook her head again, this time swaying with the movement, then stilled like she just remembered Grif was there. Grif might not be in danger of physical assault, but he wasn’t sure he liked this neutered, unhinged Pure any better. “Come here, Anne. Sit. You need to take a minute.”

Anne allowed herself to be led to the back of the building, where Grif upended a paint bucket. She plopped down with a jerk, and running long fingers over her smooth skull, sighed. “This is why He did it, of course. I never understood it before, but I do now.”

“Did what?” Grif asked, leaning against the wall.

She gazed up at Grif dazedly, like a child. “Made you. Mankind. Why he formed you in His image. It is the perfect vessel to experience life to its full-feelings, emotions, senses… all of it piled atop an everlasting soul. Being human… it’s incredible.”

Grif had never seen it that way, through an angel’s eyes, before. “Yeah. I guess it is.”

Lifting her hands in front of her face, Anne studied the backs of them, then the palms, and back again. “You know, angels were made in a state of grace. It’s not prideful to say that we are perfect-it merely is what it is. We are strong, powerful, fearsome, and good. Even those who followed Lucifer are still instruments of use to God, but… feeling things the way humans do, the way God does, that is not our nature or our right. Those that forgot that, the Third, were ever ruined.”

She looked up at Grif, then surprised him by taking one of his hands in hers. Swallowing hard, he felt her fingertips, curious and caressing, exploring his. It wasn’t like Kit’s caress… or any other person’s. Her alienness was palpable. Electricity, not blood, soared in her veins, and vibrated in her touch. She was a different breed even bound in flesh.

“And so,” she continued, stroking his palm, sliding her electric fingers along his wrist, “as magnificent as those of us in the Host are-as much as that should be enough-we are not His most beloved creation. How ironic that we have more power in a thought than humans have in their entire bodies, and yet we are not equal to even the lowest of you.”

Grif didn’t know what to say. To apologize for that would be an insult to God. To not apologize seemed heartless. Grif might be stubborn and broken, but he was not that. Yet just as he was about to speak, she rose, both of his hands in hers, and stepped so close that he could see the storm clouds roiling in her eyes. Grif swallowed hard.

“I did not give you enough credit,” Anne whispered, drawing even closer. Her foreign heart thrummed as she pressed it to his chest. “Wearing this flesh has taught me what you must endure while traversing the Surface. The Pure feel emotion, yet without donning the material of God’s exact image, nothing sentient can ever know true passion. I see this now. Even pain is impossibly exquisite.”

Grif tried to slide away.

Anne’s fingertips tightened like steel.

“You don’t look well,” he said, swallowing hard. The knobs in his back throbbed.

“Because I am being poisoned by the perfect impurity of the human condition. And yet…” Her storm eyes fluttered, unfocused. “I cannot help wanting more. Did you know that strawberries taste like they’ve been dipped in sunbeams? Did you know that a child’s sweat smells like an old oak’s strong, wet roots?”

Grif shook his head slowly, not daring to say a word.