The Guardian (Callista Ryan Series) (2 page)

             
“You overestimate them. They know nothing of her birth.”

             
“Even so, they have ways of gathering the names of those under our protection. She has likely drawn their attention. Abandoning her now would invite them to attack her.”

             
“If what you say is true, then maintaining watch of her would be more an invitation, I should think. The more energy we expend upon this inconsequential mortal, the more of an interest she will be to them. If we leave her now, they might overlook her altogether.”

“
You
may go.”

             
A stony silence allowed his whisper to echo through the room. “You should not disrespect your elders, Alexander,” Emeric warned.

             
He might have said more, were not the conversation cut unexpectedly short by the opening of a door.

              Callie threw away the empty bottle of wine which had been left on her mother’s kitchen table. It was a cheap one, the kind which tasted more like cough medicine than alcohol. Then again, the cheap ones were all that Maggie drank.

             
After shutting the trash bin, Callie retrieved a glass from the cupboard and flipped on the faucet. She watched the cascade of white water collide with the base of her glass, splashing up the sides and licking the rim, desperate to get out and be free once more. When the glass was nearly overflowing, Callie shut off the water and took a large swallow to cool her fevered mind.

She stood in the shards of moonlight which broke through the window, trying not to concern herself with the fact that she was reverting. Four years ago, she was a scared thirteen year old girl who
lay awake with the fear that she was being watched, who snuck into the kitchen in the middle of the night just to be surrounded by her mother’s furniture again, who cursed herself for a coward and held together the shattered pieces of her sister. And now, at the age of seventeen, not much had changed. Sometimes she felt as though the last four years hadn’t happened, that they were an omitted chapter in her life, like she’d just jumped ahead in time, bringing with her the same mental state that she’d had at thirteen.

              She looked at the trash bin, where the emerald bottleneck peaked out above the rim. Maggie didn’t have the same problem. Everything in Maggie’s life changed after the accident. She’d had to drop out of school so that she could stay at home with Callie. She ended up getting a job that she hated, trading in her college courses for tip money. It hadn’t taken long before she’d started coming home later and later, drunker and drunker. Her boyfriend, Jacob, who had followed her to UCLA and whom everyone thought Maggie would marry one day, had come home over Christmas break his freshman year and found her passed out on a park bench.

             
Callie shook her head, trying to forget that night. It was the first time Maggie hadn’t come home. It had been hard on her, Callie thought, to see the guy she loved getting to live the life she should have had. Ever since Jacob had graduated a week ago, Callie was terrified that Maggie would start spending more nights away from home. He’d moved back to Mill Valley yesterday, though she doubted Maggie knew yet. It was strange to think that four years meant the difference between being a waitress and getting ready to go to law school in the fall.

             
Callie placed the glass in the sink, unable to finish her water. She suddenly felt tired. All she could think to do was to get back in bed, as always, and wait for oblivion. She hadn’t the energy to do anything else, or the will to face the world just yet.

             
The darkness had made peace with her eyesight, and Callie could now walk back to her bedroom quietly, avoiding the corners and walls which she had bumped into on her way to the kitchen. She was already half asleep as she opened her bedroom door.

             
For the second time that night, Callie froze. For a split second, she didn’t realize where she was. There were two people in this room, two tall, darkly dressed people whose faces were part of the shadows.

             
But then, quickly, her mind processed the scene. And just as quickly, fear ripped through her gut and tore up her throat and she screamed
.

             
Before her scream could be heard, however, her feet were lifted from beneath her and the air around her became colder. The smell of her bedroom disappeared, replaced by a sharp scent of smoke and gasoline and tar. And for some reason, she was looking up at a sky full of stars.

             
She was moving quickly now, though she had no idea why. She felt her stomach sliding around inside of her. The oxygen was thinner, and stung her lungs with its chill.

             
She looked around frantically. Above her, constellations weaved in and out of her view. Before her, a looming horizon of sky scrapers sprinted evermore near. The city? How was she approaching San Francisco so quickly?

             
And then she looked behind her. One of the men was there, chasing after her, and he was…floating. But how was that possible? He was tilted at an odd angle, his front pitched forward, so that he was lying diagonally on the air, midway between upright and horizontal. His feet weren’t touching anything, and yet he was moving. And behind
him
….

             
Those couldn’t be what she thought they were. They almost looked like…wings. Large, monstrous, bleach-white wings tinted grey in the night. They were at least as tall as he was, stretching over his head and ending just below his knees. They extended to either side of him, lapping against the air in thick, heavy beats. They must have been four feet broad, thrashing menacingly in the wind.

             
Then she felt something which stole her attention. Warmth, solidity. And that was when she realized that the man wasn’t chasing
her
. He was chasing the man whose arms were wrapped around her, the man who was towing her across the sky as he beat his own bestial wings. She couldn’t see this man, though she realized now that she was held against him. The sound which they made was deafening, like the sound of helicopter blades whipping in circles. Callie could barely strain her neck enough to catch a decent view of them, but what she saw was so large and so near that intimidation caused her to squeeze her eyes shut.

             
But then the fear of falling caused her to open them as wide as she could.

             
The city drew nearer now. They were almost to the bridge, and buildings threatened to block their path. Callie couldn’t seem to speak. She was having a hard enough time breathing, the air lashing against her, cold and thin.

             
She couldn’t look backwards and risk seeing that man again. She was sure that the shock alone would cause her to pass out. But that meant that her gaze was riveted to the quickly approaching sky scrapers, each one seeming more unyielding than the last, until every muscle in her body was solid with fear.

             
The closest building was only meters away, and they were speeding toward it. Another few dozen feet and they would be plastered to the windows. They were getting closer with every breath, with every beat, and everything was happening too quickly, and finally the compressed air in Callie’s lungs forced its way to the surface and she found herself crying, “
Look out
!”

             
But it was unnecessary. Already, they had veered to the right. This, though, was little comfort, as they were faced now with a jungle of buildings. Callie gasped, sure that they would not make it out of the city alive, preparing to crash at every turn.

             
They narrowly avoided each building, swerving and bobbing and twisting around the giant masses, each one rising up before them like some vengeful assailant until, suddenly, there were no more buildings. The city was behind them.

Now, they flew over the bridge in slow motion, hovering smoothly over the bay as it sparkled beneath them. Soft, yellow lights shone up from the dark waters, reflections of San Francisco nightlights. The bridge encompassed them in its orange glow, filling Callie with an inexplicable sense of safety. From this angle, the world seemed very large, very still. Callie’s mind shorted out, and all that she could think, as her blood pressure descended to a
n unhealthy level, was that the view was beautiful.

             
And that was when the world went black.

Chapter Two

Canopy

The first thing Callie understood once the blackness had cleared was that she felt heavy. Her limbs were weighted down by sleep, and she felt foggy enough that she could have been dreaming. Fingers poked at her swiftly, efficiently, and she let herself sink further into the ground. 

             
“
Emeric
,” a feminine voice spat “What have you done? Do you realize the consequences this will have?”

             
“It was a necessity,” another voice said calmly. “And I would use your words carefully, Serena. Do not forget whom you address.”

             
“What will you do with her? Who is she?”

             
“She is none of your concern,” the man replied. Callie sighed. In the darkness of sleep, she couldn’t see their faces.

             
“She is poison, Emeric!”

             
“Rest assured, she will not be a threat for long,” the man said without pause.

             
“You will not kill her,” a second man said, his voice quietly murderous. Callie frowned, her head beginning to spin.

             
“We have no choice now. Not anymore. She could play executioner to us all,” the first man said.

             
“You won’t touch her,” his friend replied, just as calmly, though his words carried an undertone of warning.

             
“I warn you, Alexander, you are breaching your limits with me. You have been a disappointment tonight. I will not tolerate much more from you.”

             
“She has done nothing wrong,” the second replied. “What she has seen may just as easily have been a dream to her. She has no evidence that we are truly—”

             
“She is not worth the risk.”

             
Callie moaned, a headache beginning to set in, and the characters in her mind were silenced with the noise. She waited for the throbbing to relieve itself a bit, before settling back into the comforts of sleep.

             
“What is it?” the second man asked, sounding uneasy.

             
“Do not be concerned,” a new voice answered. “She is alright. I believe it was the shock and the change in elevation which caused her to lose consciousness.”

             
“It doesn’t matter, anyway,” the woman said softly.

             
“
Don’t
. You know nothing about this.”

             
“Serena,” the more authoritative man said, “perhaps you should leave.” There was a silence, and then a rustling of footsteps. “But before you go….” Another pause. “You will not tell anyone about this,” he said, leaving no room for argument. A gust of wind touched Callie then, seeming very real. The man continued softly, “Well?”
              The clinical voice spoke again. “Her wings have not developed, Emeric. What did you expect?”

             
“But there is a chance that she may grow them, isn’t there?”

             
“I’m afraid not. This girl has matured fully; she is a woman now. For some reason, fate has denied her the wings you so want her to have, Alex. And without them, she is little more than mortal.”

             
“Emeric, please,” the second man said.

             
“I gave you this chance, Alexander. The Healer has confirmed what we already knew. There is nothing left to do.”

             
Callie swallowed. She had seen no faces, simply heard an angry exchange of voices. And now her headache was beginning to cut more acutely into her consciousness, dragging her dream back down into the shadows of her mind.

             
As she drifted up from the depths of sleep, sifting through the darkness for reason, the first thing she felt was warmth. Her skin felt sort of fluid, as though she could melt into a puddle and be perfectly content.

             
The second was a strong sense of disorientation and dizziness. All of the pressure seemed to have left her head, so that her brain might as well have been replaced with helium. She groaned, pushing a palm beneath her belly to turn herself onto her side. Something was different this morning. Her bedroom had changed somehow. The room smelled different—tangy wood seemed to scent the air. And the fabric of her bed felt rough, cobbled beneath her fingertips. Slowly, she opened her eyes.