Vicki Pettersson - The Taken

“It’s your fault.” Her gaze refocused, hard upon him, and her grip tightened to the point of pain. Grif tried to jerk away, but he could have been chained in the electric chair itself, and Anne’s face was suddenly inches from his. Hissing, she leaned so close they were aligned and touching head to foot. “I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for you.”

Grif fought to keep his voice and heart steady. She would feel it if his body temperature were to spike, if he were to take even an extra shallow breath. She was, very suddenly, sensing everything. “You’ll leave soon,” he told her evenly, “and you’ll never have to touch the Surface again.”

Tears welled-relief or regret, he couldn’t tell-and her already stricken face crumbled. Then her legs gave out, and Grif had to embrace her just to keep her standing. “Why won’t He call me back?” she cried, body sagging, voice breaking. “My mind is cracking. The impurity is profane.”

“I know,” Grif said, stroking her head, wiping the tears from her face.

“And yet…” Steeling herself, Anne pulled away, then licked her lips while she stared at his. “I can’t help…”

And suddenly Grif’s back was against the brick wall, the overwrought angel pressed against him, her lips probing and bruising. Her tongue flicked out like a snake’s, and her nostrils flared to take in his scent. Her eyes rolled, not with pleasure but like a machine cataloguing knowledge, and her tongue clicking rhythmically in his mouth, like she was counting moment after moment. Repulsed, he shuddered and had a horrifying thought. Was that what he’d looked like to Kit?

Grif managed to turn his face away, then pushed at her hands, which seemed everywhere at once. “Stop it! Anne!”

Yet his head hit the brick with a crack that made him wince and Anne seized the opportunity, mouth fastening over his, tongue probing, taking more. “Stop it!”

Using all his strength, he pushed, and Anne rocketed back, body skittering on the jagged asphalt of the alley. She was up again, standing in front of him, in the blink of an eye. “So the bull hasn’t been castrated,” she said. “It was a good try, though. I almost believed it.”

“Believed what?”

“You, trying to fit in on this mudflat. Ignoring your celestial nature. But now you see… you’re still a freak. Like mine, your celestial nature is bound in flesh. It’s like an A-bomb wrapped in rose petals. Feel it, touch it, taste it…”

And again, she was there, mouth fastened on his, arms wrapped around his back, and this time he couldn’t shake her loose. The power to call thunderheads from the sky filled Grif’s mouth, and his veins bulged with ozone. The earth’s lava flowed through her lips, and color streamed in sharp blades behind his eyes. Then Anne grabbed his shoulder blades right where they ached, right where his wings should have been, and raked them until he bled.

Screaming, Grif tried to pull away, but her nails were deep inside his flesh, ripping and probing, searching and…

“What is that?” Grif staggered away, suddenly free. Yet he felt chained, bound, too heavy in his flesh, and he reached for his back, and found…

“Feathers. One each, from my wings.” Anne giggled, too girlish and high, and she gave him a lopsided grin. “You can’t fight your angelic nature now, can you? Now you have to go back. Now you are also Pure.”

She cackled again.

“No.” Grif clawed at his back. The phantom pain that’d been stalking him was gone, but the feathers were burrowing under his skin like centipedes, like snakes. Like a pure angel’s wings.

“But first,” she said, in front of him again, “you are going to kiss me. And then you will move inside me. And then I will know what it really is to be alive.”

She lunged again, but this time Grif used her own power- his power now-to push her away. She stumbled back, chest heaving, and winced like she’d been slapped. Lowering her head, she slumped and muttered to herself, “Sharp and sour. Acidic and cold. No one told me.” Her eyes arrowed up, full of blame. “Now rejection has entered my emotional repertoire, too. And I can never unknow it.”

Grif winced, but still backed away. “I’m sorry.”

“That’s what men always say, isn’t it?” She laughed without humor, and licked the taste of him from her lips.

“I just… I can’t kiss another woman.”

A low chuckle rumbled in her chest, and Grif felt it echo in his shoulder blades. Shoulders bunched, she swiped her arm across her mouth. “Do you know what’s hilarious about this whole debacle? What’s so absurd?”

He shook his head, not daring to say a word.

“You, Griffin Shaw, are under the illusion that you’ve stopped living.” She bared her teeth, the smile gone macabre. “And Katherine Craig is under the illusion that she still is.”

Grif shook his head. No, that wasn’t right. There had to be a way. Kit was still breathing, they both were. Besides… “I wasn’t talking about Katherine Craig.”

“Oh, you meant Evelyn Shaw?” She bit her lip consideringly, accidentally drawing blood, and her eyes rolled again. Then his voice, the desperate nightmare voice, sprung from Anne’s throat. “Evie…”

Anne straightened, dispassionate again, and nodded once. “I see,” she said, in her own voice again. “You desire to know what happened to her, your old love. But do you want it more than anything?”

Grif wiped his mouth, but her taste, the ozone, the Everlast she’d buried inside of him pinballed through his core. “Yes.”

“I can give you that.”

He stilled and looked at her.

She smiled. “If you let Kit die.”

Grif closed his eyes, let his legs give, and slumped on the paint bucket he’d placed there minutes before. Picking up his hat from where it’d been knocked when Anne lunged, Grif settled it on his head, and buried his face in his hands. She learned quick, he thought wryly. He had to give her that.

“You look torn.” She knelt before him, then reached out and gently-but insistently-pulled his hands away. Tilting her head, she peered up into his face. “Does it hurt?”

“Yes,” he said tightly.

She leaned toward him. “Let me taste…”

Grif rocketed to his feet. “Don’t touch me!” he thundered, and there was power in his voice, there was pain. There was Everlast.

Anne heard it, and straightened with surprise. Was that concern furrowing her brow? Did she regret planting power inside of him? Maybe she only now realized that in trying to make him more alien, she’d actually made him stronger.

“Then choose,” she said, lifting her chin high. “Weigh your need to know what happened to your old love versus your need to save the new. Do you want that old knowledge, or do you want Kit?”

“She’s not a new love-”

“I tasted it on your kiss! It’s there, like a hint of Paradise!” she screamed, and the building behind him shook. “Why else would you still be here? Why would I? You love her, Griffin Shaw! You love her without willing it or wanting it, and that is the most exquisite pain of all.”

Do I? he wondered, wincing.

Anne crossed her arms. “Choose. Two loves, but you can only have one. Do you want to know what happened to Evie, where she is? Or do you want to stay here and try to save Katherine Craig?”

If he said his wife’s name, the mystery that’d haunted him through the last half century, and throughout the Everlast, would be solved. Who killed his Evie? Who killed Griffin Shaw?

Thinking of Evie, drawing the memory of the way she’d looked that last night-dazzling in blood-red-he rose unsteadily. I might even be able to find her in the Everlast. He’d apologize, they’d reunite. And they could remain together forever.