Awesome.
Four
I step into the water in my skirt, shivering instantly. Wyatt kisses the side of my head, “Did I mention, I love you.”
I look up at him, and no matter how hard I try, I cannot fight the smile I get. I know I love him too. I nod and push into the next kiss he plants on my forehead. We dive into the water and they are there. I hold my hand out to the brunette who has met us at the shore, “Can you take us there? We followed the map to here, but it’s over there somewhere. An island I think.”
She nods once, giving Wyatt a look. I sigh, “He’s mine. Like the baggage I take everywhere with me.”
She scowls and Wyatt chuckles.
They grab my hand but not his. I grab his as I’m pulled away. He laughs when we are under water again, “They won’t touch me—never touch another woman’s husband.”
I growl, “You might have said something.”
He laughs in the bubbly-weird laugh we have under water, “I forgot till now.”
The swim is short, like seconds short. We get to a floating dock. It is in the middle of the ocean. They leave us there. I swim to the dock after Wyatt. He hops up and offers me his hand. I let him pull me up. We both shiver, huddling into each other for warmth.
We are surrounded by mist and the dark night. It is creepy, maybe not quite as creepy as the earth witches’ house, but still very creepy. I sense movement in the fog and tighten my grip on Wyatt.
He turns around, pushing me behind him, and holds me there. The mist moves again, and I swear I hear a song on it. It’s lovely.
Wyatt winces. The mist swirls and forms into a figure and then a face, and then it’s gone again.
I hear the song again. I realize it’s a voice. “Why do you seek us?”
I look at Wyatt. He frowns, “What?”
“You don’t hear that?”
He shakes his head, “Air witches are telepathic. They hear your thoughts and send you theirs.”
I sigh, “You have to tell me these things before we get to the dock.”
He shrugs, “Didn’t seem important.”
I concentrate and think, “We need your help with the horsemen.”
Something drops onto the dock. I scream and jump. A massive winged woman walks towards us. The dock trembles under her feet. She looks like a Viking woman. Strong, blonde, scary and a little too muscled for a girl.”
She lowers her eyes on me, and I swear they see right through me with their brilliance. They are blue in the way the sky is in July on a cloudless day. They are tranquil and yet harsh.
“Why do you want to kill the horsemen?”
I look at her, “I am the sin eater.”
She narrows her gaze, giving Wyatt a skeptical look. I exhale and my wings pop out. She smiles instantly and the blue of her eyes is pleasant. The stress is gone from her face. She nods, “You are the sin eater.”
I nod, not sure why we are repeating things. She looks at him, “What is he?”
“Mine.”
She shrugs, she doesn’t care about him. She wants me. She nods upward, “We fly.”
I wince, “I’m not great at the whole flying thing. I sort of have to be falling first.”
She shakes her head, “You fly or you stay.”
I give Wyatt a smile, “We fly.”
He grimaces, “You got this?”
I nod and offer him my hand. I do a couple squats. The air witch gives me a confused look. She jumps from the dock, shaking it back and forth. I almost get seasick and leap up too. My wings try to flap but we fall back to the dock. Wyatt laughs, “Fly first and then come get me.”
I let go of his hand, “Ok.”
I jump up, almost getting it. He grabs my foot and tosses me high into the air. I flap upward to where she is and shout, “Be right back!”
She looks confused, I don’t think she has many other faces.
I dive towards the dock, soaring down. “JUMP!”
He turns and leaps. I catch his arms but we drag down. He goes under water for a second, like I’ve dunked a tea biscuit in my tea. I flap hard, really focusing on the wings. We start to go up again. It takes me forever to get back up to where she is. She points and takes off. Wyatt is shouting at me but I shake my head, “Not looking down at you. Sorry. I can’t do this. If I look down, we’re dead.”
He starts to climb my body like I am a tree. He climbs around the front of me. I shake my head, “Stop moving. I’m going to get sick.”
He shouts back, “You get sick on me, and I’ll pull that damned dagger out of your heart and put it back in.”
I sneer, focusing on the flying angel witch in front of me. “God, she’s so graceful and good at this.”
I can see his grin in my peripheral, “She isn’t lugging two hundred pounds with her.”
I growl, “You need to go on a diet.”
“No way, baby. I’m at seven percent body fat, I like it there. I still have an ass in my jeans but not my old hockey-player ass.”
I laugh and suddenly the flying feels easier. The better my mood and the less worrying, the easier it gets.
We fly through a huge, white fluffy cloud. I lose sight of her and then I realize Wyatt is walking, and sort of carrying me.
“Can you touch?”
He nods, “This cloud is a platform.”
I shake my head, “Don’t let go though, okay?” I look down at the map on my hand. We are right over the burning red ember at the end of the line. I look up and scream, seeing the blonde. She is with other blondes. It’s like Hitler’s angel army in a cloud city. Where the other witches all have women of all nations and races, the air witches do not. I swear one girl looks like she might have exotic features but she has blue eyes and blonde hair. It’s creepy to see so many of them.
Wyatt drags his feet. My wings suck in and he’s holding me in the air. We are surrounded by a white city. It is like nothing I could have imagined.
I still can’t look down. I’m scared it’s like that tower we saw in geography with the glass-bottom floor.
The blonde points at me, “Sin eater, meet the white priestess.”
The blonde next to her, in the white gown that almost looks like a toga, gives me a nod. I bow, not sure what else to do. Wyatt shakes his head, “Please excuse her, she doesn’t know anything. She was raised as a mortal.”
The white priestess makes a face, “With wings and raised as if you were a human?” She finds this distasteful, apparently.
“Yes, your majesty.”
Wyatt laughs and leans in, “Stop. She isn’t your queen. She is the queen of the air witches.”
The beautiful, and yet stern-looking, priestess nods, “Your pet is correct. You owe me no fealty. We serve the same true king. What are you wearing?”
I look down at the massive black skirt and Wyatt’s black shirt. “What?”
“You look like one of those depressing fire witches.” Her eyes trail Wyatt’s bare abs, “His outfit is much nicer.”
I smile at her lecherous stare. He tilts his head, giving her the smile. Bam! There it is. Sweet God. I smile when I see her response. She has weak knees and she’s doing the heavy mouth-breathing thing I always end up doing. He is like an addiction. She blushes and turns back to me.
I blank my thoughts, actively working at filtering the dumb thoughts and weird judgments I constantly have.
I point at her, “She looks like Nicole Kidman a bit, huh?” Okay, some things get through the filter.
Wyatt smiles, “Inside voice, not the outside one.”
She ignores my idiotic comment and looks down at the cloud-covered floor, “Do you know how to kill the horsemen?”
I shake my head, “That’s why I’m here.”
A sly smile creeps across her perfect pink lips, “You don’t?”
I shake my head, “No. I don’t know how.”
She shakes her head as if teasing me, “No. You don’t kill the horsemen. They are the mighty king’s men. They are God’s horsemen. He has sent them to test his people. To see who will falter and not stay strong in their belief, in the face of pain and death and suffering.”
It doesn’t feel right. I frown, “Are you sure? It seems like they are kind of evil.”
She shouts for no reason at all, “YOU DON’T KNOW ANYTHING, CHILD!”
I step back. Wyatt steps in front of me, “She knows her gut feeling. If she thinks it’s wrong, it is. Who told you this was the way it would be?”
She paces in front of him, suddenly shaken or upset. I don’t even understand why. No wonder the other witches think they’re crazy.
Her eyes turn on me, “Those traitors think we are the crazy ones?”
Wyatt gives me a look. I wince, “Sorry. Weak mind.”
He turns back to her, “If you ask me, the air witches are the best ones. You have stayed true to the angels who helped make you what you are. You serve God, as we do. You fight for the cause of God’s people, like we do. Fire witches are selfish and don’t even get me started on earth witches. Slutty space cadets. The nixie are creepy, very creepy. You guys are the only ones I trust because we both serve God. Now tell me, who told you the horsemen were his?”
She swallows hard, “The angels.”
“Which ones?”
“Michael. Our father.”
Wyatt bites his lip and takes a deep breath, “Michael is the angel of war. He wants war. He wants to get back to Earth and have a big old war. I’m not saying the horsemen aren’t God’s. I’m just saying their purpose is extinction. They’re supposed to kill off the weak and save the truly penitent and suffer the evil. But they go about it in a dark sort of way.”