Vicki Pettersson - The Given

“You mean you don’t know?” Donel said in a voice that made clear that he both did . . . and relished telling Grif. He glanced at Sarge. Grif did the same, a look that told him nothing and everything at once. Because Sarge’s eyes were downcast, his wings dragging on the floor. Grif turned back around, and the Seraph brightened, literally.

“Why, Griffin Shaw,” he said, smile beatific. “You killed Katherine Craig.”

No.” Grif jerked his head. It wasn’t possible. He may have watched Kit when she didn’t know he was there, but he had been very careful to do as instructed and refrained from making contact. For six long months he’d left her alone. Therefore she couldn’t be dead. “No, Marin would’ve called me if something happened to Kit. We’ve stayed in touch.”

He’d told himself it was smart to make an ally of the Las Vegas Tribune ’s editor, especially one with a Rolodex for a brain. What she couldn’t remember off the top of her head, she hunted down like a bloodhound in the countless files she hoarded for herself. No bit of information—or gossip—was too small or insignificant to escape her notice. That’s why he’d told her about Evie . . . or at least that he was looking for an old relative named Evelyn Shaw.

And that’s why, Grif told himself, his desire to keep in touch with Marin had nothing to do with her being Kit’s aunt and only living relative.

“Marin couldn’t call you,” Donel said shortly. “Because she doesn’t know it yet.”

Grif almost laughed. If Marin didn’t know about it, then it hadn’t happened. “It’s six P.M. on a Monday. If Kit skipped work today, Marin would’ve known it before nine A.M.”

“Except that Kit did go to work today. She put in a full shift, and stopped for gas on the way home. She prepared an early dinner of salmon for one before she went to a club called Jitterbug to watch her friends dance. She left early and alone, and was assaulted at nine P.M., as soon as she entered her home.”

Grif looked at his watch. It wasn’t even nine o’clock yet. Though it would be in five more minutes. He whirled.

Sarge just stared back with those sunken eyes. “Her Centurion has already been dispatched.”

Grif swayed, and it had nothing to do with the water beneath them. “And we’re just talking about it? On a fake pirate ship?”

Donel shrugged. “We do not interfere in human affairs.”

Grif did. Growling, he lunged for the hatch leading to the deck. He even anticipated Donel’s charge—or maybe he’d been hoping for it—because all the pent-up anger and sorrow and guilt of the past six months gathered and coiled in his left fist and he let it fly even before thunder cracked across the room. The blow careened into a jaw as hard and sharp as lava rock, and vibrated through Grif’s arm, separating joints. Still, a cry like river rapids tore at the air and flashes of images—Donel, strange and twisting, falling back . . . then bright and burning and whipping forward.

Grif cringed, but the returning strike never came. His breath rasped hard in his chest. Of course, he thought. The Pure couldn’t harm the Chosen.

He couldn’t open his eyes, not with Donel’s rage burning up the room, but he fell to his hands and knees. He didn’t mind begging. Not for this.

“Please,” he said. “Please, she’s been through enough.”

A whoosh of air, the ethereal scrim lowering between them again, and Donel merely glowed. But his words now sizzled. “Yes,” Donel said, mouth turned down. “We believe so, too.”

Desperate, Grif turned back to Sarge. All the strange new furrows in his face had shifted, and Grif watched a tear carving a new track in his destroyed cheeks. Yet he only shook his head. “Donel is right. That’s why we are here .”

He flared his eyes at Grif, his words weighted oddly, but Grif was too worried, too grief-stricken, to care. He didn’t want to play games. Not with this. “I’ll do whatever you want.”

What he couldn’t do was shoot the breeze with a bunch of feathered monsters while Kit was attacked, injured. Murdered.

“We already gave you the opportunity to run down your fate, Shaw, and you chose to stroll.” Donel folded his arms inside his robe. “Allowing you the opportunity to solve your own murder was supposed to heal you so that you could move on into God’s presence. Had you truly been working toward salvation, Katherine Craig would not be dying now.”

Oh, God . . . oh, God . . .

He prayed as he hadn’t in years.

Donel sneered. “Instead, you continue to obsess over the past, and things you cannot change.”

“Yes,” Sarge said again, gesturing around. “That is why we’re here. ”

Again, that hard inflection. Grif suddenly realized that only Sarge was posted on the aft end of the ship. And he was directly across from the other Pures. Trying to slow his breathing, trying to think despite his instinct to run for that hatch again—for Kit—Grif worked to calm himself.

“How did it happen?” he asked, because he couldn’t say, “How is it happening?”

“The way it was meant to the first time she was destined to die,” Donel said. “In her home, in her bedroom.”

Grif fought off a wave of nausea by locking eyes with Sarge instead. The Pure narrowed his eyes at Grif. Marble churned.

“There is at least one silver lining for you,” Donel continued, voice again flowing evenly, again in control. “Katherine Craig will no longer distract you from your salvation.”

A snarl rose in his throat and Grif was about to lunge again when Sarge was suddenly there, standing between him and the arrogant Pure. “Donel is right. You must brook no distractions.”

Grif gritted his teeth before catching Sarge’s eye. What the hell was he going on about? Then he realized Donel was also looking at Sarge. Looking like he’d never seen him before.

“What are you doing?” Donel asked. The Pures behind him moved for the first time, edging closer, every eye narrowed on Sarge. Grif took the opportunity to scan the room with his celestial vision—softening his gaze so that the meager light blended, the shadows melting into each other, the ions of every surface shimmering as they shifted. “Oh,” he said, and that’s when everyone turned to him.

He rose to his feet, and stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Sarge. “We’re not really on the Surface.”

Donel growled.

They were in the Everlast. That’s what Sarge had been trying to tell him. He clearly knew what Donel had planned, and he could feel what Grif and Kit felt, so . . .

“I had Nicole Rockwell bring you back to the Everlast while you were unconscious.” Sarge waved at Donel, as if presenting him. “It’s easier on the Host that way.”

“So why make it look like a real place in Vegas?” Grif asked.

The other Pures remained still and silent. They knew something was going on, but Sarge was standing between them and Grif, blocking them from him both physically and mentally. They were as lost as he was.

“Because I knew that if you realized you were in the Everlast you’d immediately try to return to Kit.”

That was it. He could reappear at any time or place he wanted on the Surface, as long as it was the future. He just had to get to Kit before . . .

“Too late,” said Donel, not even needing to read Grif’s mind. His thoughts were plain on his face. “She is even now being relieved of her mortal coil.”

“Then what the hell are we doing here?” Grif yelled, and had the pleasure of watching the Pure cringe at his curse. “Why are you telling me this now?”

Sarge appeared in front of him so suddenly that Grif jumped. He jumped again when one dark hand gripped his shoulder, fingers tense and digging, demanding Grif’s attention, his eyes swirling with emotion that threatened to pour in rivulets down his ruined face. “Your time is short, moving forward—”