Call of the Siren(23)
Lina rose and followed him out into the street. When a gust of wind threatened to send the sides of her leather jacket flapping back, she zipped it up. The last thing she wanted to do was expose the arsenal of weapons strapped to her sides.
Ronin must have caught a glimpse of her weaponry, because he asked, “When did you get the dagger holster?”
“A few months after I moved to the city. I’ve got a few different kinds, depending on how many daggers I plan on holding.”
His brow arched. “Smart.”
“Yeah. Getty was a clever one, I’ll give you that.”
He pounced on her words with all the finesse of a Council interrogator. “Who’s Getty?”
Lina stiffened at the realization that she’d unintentionally revealed more than she’d intended. She was starting to get soft around Ronin. She’d have to watch that. Or maybe it was the damn lager.
“He’s no one.”
Ronin stopped dead and turned to face her. “Bullshit, Lina. Can’t you—just once—tell me something about your past?”
Lina stared at him, the need to protect her secrets warring with the conflicting desire to alleviate just a little of the pain she saw in Ronin’s eyes. In the end, the words reluctantly tore themselves out of her mouth.
“Getty was the mercenary who trained me when I moved to this dimension. He gave me these”—she motioned toward the weapons hidden under her jacket—“and he taught me how to fight.”
“But why? Why choose a career as a mercenary? It must have gone against every instinct you had. I’m only half angel, and at times, I still have to fight my impulse to maintain peace when I’m on a job. I can’t imagine how difficult it must be for you.”
Not so hard, it turned out, when one was dead inside. She started walking again, and he followed. “I found the job suited me. Getty helped me to look past my squeamishness, taught me to use speed to compensate for my physical weaknesses. He made me stronger.”
And then, like everyone else in her life, he’d left her.
“Sounds like you cared for him,” Ronin said.
“I did. He was like a father figure.”
“Where is he now?”
“Dead,” she said flatly, the delicious aftereffects of the lager dissipating faster than she would have liked. “The years of hard living finally caught up to him. His heart gave out on him about eight months ago.”
Ronin walked beside her in silence for several beats before saying, “Sorry.”
“Yeah.”
Me too.
A few minutes later, they came to a stop in front of the address the goblin had provided. It was a small, six-story building on the end of the street which, like hers, appeared to be a walk-up. Lina rested her hands on her hips and surveyed it. “There have to be at least twelve apartments in here. How do we find the right one?”
“Search one at a time, I suppose.” Ronin walked to the front door and tried the handle. As expected, it was locked. The lock was of human construction and could easily be broken, but such an obvious break-in might attract some unwanted attention.
When Ronin looked back at her, Lina glanced up toward the roof. “Work our way down?”
“Sounds good.” His boyish grin indicated he was looking forward to letting his wings loose just as much as she was. Guess they couldn’t escape that part of their heritage.
They rounded the corner to the side street, which wasn’t as brightly lit as the front. Ronin tugged off his lightweight sweater while Lina unzipped and shrugged out of her jacket, leaving her top half clad in nothing more than her black tank top. Then with a pop of her shoulders, her wings grew out of her back.
She let out a moan of relief.
Otherworlder scientists had intellectual reasoning for how winged species like angels could absorb their wings into their body and then grow them back out at will. To Lina, it was and always would be pure magic. What else could explain the tingling sensation, the feeling of rightness, that accompanied each spread of her wings? It was the closest she ever came to happiness these days.
She glanced at Ronin’s folded wings, once again struck by the majestic beauty of the angelic appendages. Long, full, and white, they arched over his shoulders and tipped low to the ground. He stretched his wings and, with a practiced flick, propelled upward into the air. Lina fought the desire to break out into a smile as she followed him, her leather jacket clutched firmly in her hands.
All too soon, they landed on the roof and reabsorbed their wings. The feeling of euphoria fled almost as quickly as it had come. Sometimes she wondered whether angels were meant to absorb their wings at all. Doing so always sparked such a sense of loss.