Iniquity (The Premonition, #5)(16)

When I open my eyes, I’m on the ground in the snow looking up at the gray sky. Black clouds are slowly ebbing. The reconno?tres are gone. Soft, black petals float down to fall upon my cheeks. Reed’s gray wings brush up against my shoulder just before I’m clutched to his chest. His warm hands explore me, checking to see the extent of my injuries as he speaks to me in Angel. He sounds worried, but I can’t think of why at the moment.

I search the area over Reed’s shoulder; everyone I love is on the ground. Black rose petals fall upon them, covering them like a blanket. Russell stirs; he brings his hand to his forehead to rub it. When he looks around in confusion, he sees Anya on the frozen earth beside him. He lurches to her, pulling her limp body up into his arms. He rocks her, wiping black petals from her pale cheeks. She coughs, and then gasps for breath, winded.

My eyes go to Zephyr who’s kneeling by Brownie. He has Buns in his arms already and he’s trying to help Brownie sit up. It takes me another moment to realize that the barrier of magic that had been protecting them is gone.

I turn my head and search for Xavier, finding him near me. He’s getting to his feet, holding his ribs. Black petals cling to his blond hair. My focus returns to Reed who, unlike everyone else, is unscathed by what just happened. “That was magic, Reed. Someone just stole it all from Russell and me—they used it against us.”

“Are you hurt?” Reed’s expression is grim.

I move a little and feel the ache of bruises, but nothing seems broken. I shake my head. “No. You?”

“It never touched me,” he says. “The fire-wind blew in and knocked all of you to the ground. It wiped out your magic protecting the house. The reconno?tres that were surrounding us they...changed.”

“Changed? Changed, how?”

He scoops up a handful of petals and crushes them in his fist. “This is what is left of them.”

I groan in disgust, brushing all the petals off of me as I shiver.

Xavier squats down next to me and looks me in the eyes. His tone is one of accusation as he asks, “You gave him Jim’s ring?”

“Um...” I look at him in confusion, “what?”

“Where’s my ring?” Xavier grasps my shoulders; his fingers tighten on me painfully. “Tell me where it is!”

The hurt in his eyes speaks to me more than the pressure on my arms and I blurt out, “Backyard. It’s in the backyard—buried near the tree where you first kissed me—”

Xavier silences me with his lips as they crush mine. He lets me go abruptly before I even think to protest. The growl from Reed says that it was long enough for him to die. Xavier’s face turns toward Reed as he straightens. He holds up his hand to Reed and says, “Soon.” With that, he turns and strides away to the car he came in. The black frame is now dotted with petals as it lies on its side, having been blown there by whatever magic had come at us across the snow-covered lawn.

He pushes the car over, righting it. The screech of metal rubbing metal hurts my ears when Xavier nearly tears the door open and gets in. It takes him a couple of slams to get it to close again. The engine roars to life just before the tires kick up clods of snow, dirt, and roses. The car fishtails onto the driveway as Xavier speeds away from us.

“What the HELL was that all about?” Russell yells to us from where he’s helping Anya up from the ground.

“Russell, figure out a way to protect the house until we relocate.” Reed doesn’t try to explain further, but sprints to the separate garage where he keeps his cars. Disappearing inside, one of the doors lifts slowly, revealing a white Lamborghini. Before the door is all the way open, the car lurches from the darkness and flies across the drive to where I’ve gotten to my feet.

“Please get in,” Reed says to me through the open window. As I retract my wings and comply, Zephyr appears at Reed’s window. “Be ready to leave when I call.”

Zephyr doesn’t smile when he says, “I will make the arrangements.”

“Shut the door, Evie,” Reed says with his hand on the stick shift. When I do, the car rockets down the driveway. Instead of applying the foot break near the end of it, Reed pulls the emergency break as he turns the wheel. The car slides sideways onto the street; he releases the hand break, and pushes down on the accelerator, burying the needle. We swerve dangerously on the road every so often as we hit patches of ice on our way out of Crestwood. Reed immediately corrects the wheel so that we hardly lose any speed.

“Where are we going?” I ask as I scramble to put on my seatbelt.

“We’re trying to catch up to Xavier,” Reed replies. I want to ask him to slow down, but I can see by the tension in his forearms that he’d be going faster if it were at all possible. “We have to get to what’s buried in the backyard before he does.”

“Why?’

“Because Xavier wants it bad enough to leave you with me until he gets it. It’s a ring, right? Like this one?” Reed holds up his hand, displaying my uncle’s class ring, which I now have serious doubts about it truly ever having been a class ring.

I nod. “It’s a ring. It’s his ring,” I clarify, “but it doesn’t look like that one.”

“Do you have any idea what it does?”

I shake my head. “How do you know it does something?”