The Singer - Hunter Elizabeth - Страница 4

He turned right, then right again at a cafe with a cracked window.

She stopped, her cheeks flush with embarrassment as she caught the tenor of his thoughts. Embarrassment, but desire, too. He knew she wanted him…

Up the hill he climbed, until he’d left the shops behind and the streets were filled with stone houses. A striped cat walked along the top of a wall, following him as he searched for clues. At each intersection, he’d see something.

An orange tree that tilted to one side.

A wall with colorful graffiti no one cared to paint over.

An abandoned cupboard with grass growing through the bottom.

Each turn led him up the hill and  farther away from the town center, but with each step, his sense of familiarity grew.

She was chatting about something with a dark-haired man. Laughing at some joke he wasn’t a part of. He was irritated by their ease together.

At the end of the road, a house rose into the cliffs. Or, he should say, a group of houses. There were buildings stacked at the base and rooms carved into the cliffs with stairs leading up. A wall surrounded the old compound, but no graffiti covered it. Trees grew over the walls and he could hear voices whispering within. He didn’t recognize the language.

Here.

She was here. She had to be.

Malachi stepped up to the large wooden door in the wall and lifted the knocker, banging it down as the voices beyond the wall stopped. There were shuffling steps, then an old man opened the gate.

“Yes? How can I—sweet heaven!”

Malachi stood speechless as the old man’s face paled. His eyes were like saucers.

“Hello?”

“It can’t be…,” the man breathed out.

“I’m sorry to disturb you, but I… I think I—”

“You’re dead.” The man stepped back, and fear rose in his eyes. “You’re dead.”

“I don’t know what you’re—”

“What are you?”

“What?” Fear twisted Malachi’s heart. Perhaps he’d been wrong to come here.

The old man’s hands shook. “You wear the face of a dead man.”

“I don’t understand—”

“What are you?”

Anger rose up. “I don’t know what you’re talking about! I’m not dead, obviously. I just don’t remember—”

“Malachi?” The awestruck voice came from behind the old man.

Malachi raised his eyes to see the dark-haired man he’d seen in his memories. “I remember you.”

The other man’s eyes were also filled with fear. But it was a fear mixed with hope. “They said you were dead.”

“Who did? I don’t know what’s going on. Who—”

“It can’t be.” The dark-haired man stepped forward, his arm raised. He reached for Malachi, confusion written wide on his face. “They saw you die. Your dust rose. She felt your loss…” The man’s fingers touched Malachi’s shoulder and gripped. “You’re real. How are you real?”

A thick emotion filled his throat, and his eyes burned. “I don’t know what happened to me, but I need to find her.”

Another voice rose in a shout. “No!” The sound of running steps, then a tall blond man stood in front of him, mouth gaping. “No, I saw you die.”

“Maxim,” the dark-haired one said. “Are you sure?”

“How can you even ask me that?” he cried. “We all saw him die, Rhys. You saw her grieve. This is something… This is not our brother!”

She grieved… For him? Fear and shock and anger wrestled within him. Malachi said, “I don’t know who your brother is, I just need to find her. Where is she?”

“You will not hurt her!” the blond man yelled. “Whatever thing you are, you’ll keep away from—”

“But Max”—the dark-haired man named Rhys stepped between his friend and Malachi—“if it is him—”

“It can’t be!”

“What if it is?” He held the blond man back by the shoulders. “What if some miracle—”

“Miracle? Is this the time of the ancients? This is evil. Evil wearing the face of our—”

“I need to find my wife!” Malachi roared. “I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t know who I am. But I know I heard her. Heard her calling me to come back to her. I just need to—”

“What?” Rhys had frozen, turning to look at Malachi, even as he continued to hold Maxim back. “What did she say?”

“I said, I need to find—”

“No,” he hissed. “What did she say?”

“I don’t—”

“When you heard her”—Rhys stepped closer, looking Malachi in the eye—“what did she say?”

Malachi tried to calm his racing heart. “Vashama canem. She said, ‘Come back to me.’”

All the color drained from Rhys’s face. “Heaven above.”

Chapter Two

Nordfjord, Norway

Ava was still sleeping when the car came to a stop. She clenched her eyes shut, holding on to the safety of silence for as long as she could.

“Ava.”

Damien knew she was awake. The man had preternatural senses that never switched off. Ava had decided he was like a weird combination of the most overprotective dad and big brother in history. Which, being the only child of a mother who saw her more as a peer than a child, was a new and interesting experience.

She snuggled into the down-filled jacket under her cheek and ignored him.

“Open your eyes. I know you’re awake. It’s going to rain in about fifteen minutes, and I’d like to start up the trail before it pours.”

She lifted her head and turned to him, speaking in a scratchy voice. “I never would have let you talk me into this in Turkey if I hadn’t been such a mess.”

“But you did, and now we’re here. Get your jacket on.”

She caught him looking at his reflection in the rearview mirror. “Looks like someone’s nervous to see the wifey,” she muttered.

“Ah, look. Acid-tongued Ava is back. I missed her so much while she slept.” Damien gave her a droll look. “Wait, no I didn’t.”

“You’re the one who dragged me out here.”

“Would you like to go back to Oslo?” He pulled the keys out of the ignition and tossed them to her. “Go ahead. Hope you can outrun Volund’s Grigori. Maybe you can scream again if they get close. Or maybe not. You’d pass out and hurt yourself if you did that.”

“Shut up.”

“Or maybe you can follow me and stop acting like a child.”

“Stop trying to manage me,” she croaked, her voice dry from sleep.

“For now you need to be managed.”

She licked her lips and Damien held up a bottle of water. Ava took it, drank, then handed it back, noticing the extra-grim expression on his face. Slightly mollified by the water, she softened her tone.

“Hey, Captain Sunshine, shouldn’t you be happier than this? You’re going to see your wife at the end of that trail.”

Damien only stared into the thick trees that surrounded them. “A piece of advice—Sari doesn’t like the word wife.”

“Why not?” Ava knew the Irin used the word “mate” more than wife, but she’d heard the scribes in Turkey use both on occasion.

“She was born in a time when the human term ‘wife’ implied property.” Then a rare smile flickered at the corner of his mouth. “And Sari is no male’s property. Now get your shoes on and lace them up tight. I don’t know everything that will meet us on that trail, but I do know this: there will be mud.”

They were somewhere in rural Norway, surrounded by blue and green. Steep green mountains laced with waterfalls cut against the clear blue sky. Blue-green water from the glacier melt. Ava knew they were somewhere in the fjords, but she wasn’t sure where.

The plane had taken them to Paris, then Berlin, then Damien had found a car and started driving. He didn’t tell her where, but she could read the signs. They’d headed west, then north. Through Hamburg and into Denmark. They’d taken a ferry that landed them in Bergen, then after a brief sleep in a small hotel, they’d started driving again.

Through mountain highways and on smaller ferries, they’d driven farther and farther into the Scandinavian countryside. Towns were quickly overcome by wilderness and an utter sense of isolation that Ava found comforting and frightening in equal measure. As she stepped out of the car, she felt as if she and Damien were the last two people on earth.