Shadow of the Sun

CHAPTER 9: HEIGHTS

  By the time I arrived at the airport, the rain had abated and the sun peeked through the shadow of clouds. The grounds were blinding as the water-covered asphalt gleamed and shimmered, reflecting the bright orb in the sky like a huge mirror. I put my sunglasses on as I exited the car, trying to deflect some of the brightness. When my eyes focused, I noticed there were roughly thirty people in the immediate area, many of them FBI agents. Karen was among them. The FBI agents watched the airline workers lift the angels’ boxes and carry them into the cargo area of the plane. Karen wasn’t happy about the situation; a frown dominated her features. The look didn’t sit right with her face. I didn’t blame her. Who would want one of their own to ride in the cargo area of a plane?

  She must have felt my eyes on her because she turned to face me, her frown instantaneously twitching up into a very affectionate and welcoming smile. I returned the gesture. It seemed almost impossible not to feel cheerful in her presence.

  As the airport employees loaded the cargo, Karen barked orders. One guy cowered in fear. I smiled at her exasperated face and wondered if she was stressed. Did angels feel stress? I knew they could feel sadness. Luke’s golden tears ran across my mind. I couldn’t imagine the loss he must have felt at losing not only his sister but his twin.

  My driver placed my suitcase next to my feet. “Dr. Moretti.” He tipped his hat.

  “Thank you,” I said. I popped up the handle on my luggage and dragged it across the tarmac toward the plane, hoping it wouldn’t pop open after everything I had shoved in there. The stairs to the plane were down, but this was not a small puddle jumper. It was a huge Boeing 787.

  One of the FBI agents came my way. He was tall and very handsome. Maybe Jenna had it right about the whole FBI requirements. His earpiece bobbed as he scampered my direction.

  “May I help you?” he offered, shooting me a dazzling smile.

  “That would be much appreciated,” I said gratefully and grinned at him.

  “My pleasure.”

  He lifted my suitcase effortlessly, as if it was feather light. Maybe I could introduce him to Jenna.

  “Ladies first,” he said. His hand rested gently on the small of my back as he led me toward the stairs.

  The inside of the plane was not setup as I was used to in a typical commuter plane. There were couches with coffee tables, big screen TVs, and a bar. Most of the couches faced the front of the plane. A hostess smiled at me genially and offered me a drink before I even had the opportunity to sit down. I declined. This was how the FBI traveled? Maybe I had gone into the wrong profession.

  The FBI agent helped me put my suitcase in one of the overhead bins and smiled at me, his teeth straight and white. “It was a delight to meet you, Dr. Moretti.”

  For some reason it didn’t surprise me that he knew my name. “You can call me Gabriella.” I could feel the blush snaking its way up my cheeks. “I’m sorry. I didn’t catch your name?”

  His smile brightened. “Agent Carter.”

  “Will I see you on the flight, Agent Carter?” Was I flirting? He was delicious in his black suit with light brown hair and his dark-brown mysterious eyes. Plus, the voicemail I had received earlier made me want to venture out. No more drunk, burping men on my voicemail. That was a promise I was making to myself—starting right now.

  “You will, Gabriella.” His eyes twinkled. “You can call me Joseph, by the way.”

  He paused to touch his earpiece. I thought it was funny how they all did this when someone spoke to them over the tiny device.

  He frowned. “I’ve got to go, but I’ll see you back here shortly.” He threw me another grin before descending the steps of the plane.

  Well, so far this day was faring well—except for all the mystical forces and prophecies being thrown around like beads at Mardi Gras, and the Shadow coming to my office to warn me. I bent to retrieve my book from my purse under the seat, and when I straightened Karen was sitting next to me. “Gah!” I screeched.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to frighten you.” Her voice was magically engaging, like a Disney movie. Must be an immortal thing. “Good book,” she murmured.

  I put my hand to my chest to soothe my speeding heart. “How do you do that?” I gasped.

  “Now’s not the time,” she said, patting my hand. “Not while there are so many humans around us.” Her eyes darted around the plane suspiciously. Maybe she forgot I was human.

  “Is there a . . . a Shadow here?” I whispered.

  Her head snapped in my direction. “Of course not. Did something happen?” Her eyes went wide in alarm.

  “No,” I said hastily. “No, I didn’t see one. But after what the Elders said about Jeff . . . well, I didn’t know if. . . .”

  “Thank Gods,” she exhaled in relief. “You scared me for a second. Anyway, I talked to the Ladies of Light before I arrived at the airport, and they placed a charm on the airport to protect us from any Shadows.” Karen put a hand on my cheek. “You’re the imperative one now. You can save us from our never-ending war with the Shadow of the Sun. Maybe those keys will lead us to the answer.” Her eyes searched my face.

  “Who are the Ladies of Light?” I wondered aloud. “I have the keys, but where do they go? Where’s the lock?”

  She looked over her shoulder, and her eyes darted around the plane again, then she sighed. “Okay,” she said, her voice lowered. “I can’t tell you everything now, but this is what I can tell you. The Ladies of Light are the protectors of the immortals. They’re fierce, and all angels follow their rules. They’re bringers of light. Even the Elders answer to them.” Once again, her eyes flashed from one side of the room to the other. “And those keys”—she pointed to my pocket—“I’m hoping we can figure out what they go to by waking the—”

  “Hey guys,” Sally interrupted.

  My earlier fondness for Sally disappeared in that second. Karen was about to tell me something important, I just knew it.

  Karen put her finger to her earpiece. I didn’t think anyone was calling her over the device; I think she just wanted to leave. “I’ve got to go.” She placed her hand on my arm and gave me a stare that seemed to say “keep this between us.” I nodded, and she rose to leave.

  “This is great,” Sally said cheerfully, turning on her phone and angling it so I could see the planner on the screen. “One of the FBI agents gave me the itinerary for the next two days.” She paused, but when I didn’t say anything or react she carried on. “Looks like we have a really busy schedule.”

  She described the plans for the next two days, but it was lost on me. Her voice was a low hum in the air as more people boarded the plane. The keys in my pocket were distracting. I could feel them there, like they were calling for me. What had happened to those three angels? Why was the Shadow of the Sun symbol placed around their necks? What kind of power did the Nebulous Sun hold? And why was the Definitive Sun, engraved on the keys, also inside the chest that was marked by Shadows? I wondered if the Shadow chest was in the cargo hold with the angels. My mind was on repeat as the questions spun wildly in my head with no resolution. I needed answers, but Karen seemed just as clueless as me. Okay, maybe not as clueless, but she probably had just as many questions, if not more.

  I thought about Luke and his glacial blue eyes filling with golden tears. I wanted to stop those tears, make them go away. The Elders said I could fix this. That I could stop their war. And I wanted to, if only for the sake of seeing Luke’s tears disappear.

  “And I’m dating Bigfoot. There is just something scrumptious about big hairy men,” Sally said, scowling.

  “That’s great,” I replied absentmindedly.

  “And I have eleven toes . . . Are you listening, Ella?” she snapped.

  “Oh, yes. Wait, what’d you say?”

  She sighed heavily. “Since I’m on this trip are you going to tell me what’s going on? Something major must be brewing for the FBI to be swarming the place like they were. Speaking of. That on
e FBI agent, Joseph? Meeee-oow!” She clawed at the air.

  “Ladies.” Joseph laughed.

  Sally’s expression turned from feisty kitty to out-right mortification. She didn’t look over her shoulder to where Joseph—tall and handsome—stood. Instead, she closed her eyes and bowed her head. I watched as her neck fluoresced red.

  “Can I speak to you, Gabriella?” he asked, his brown eyes holding mine.

  “I’m just going to . . .” Sally pointed to something in the opposite direction of Joseph and sprang from her seat as if she’d been electrocuted.

  Joseph and I burst into laughter.

  “It’s always a good day when you get clawed at.” He chuckled. “That happens more often than you’d think,” he joked.

  I laughed while he settled into Sally’s seat. He didn’t say a word, just sat quietly, comfortably, next to me. There was something about him that made me want to be near him. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but he was different. Maybe he was an angel too. Who knew at this point? Were there any humans left?

  I glanced out the window over his shoulder. White clouds filled the view. I sat up in surprise. I hadn’t realized how engrossed I’d been in my thoughts.

  Joseph must have sensed my shock. His gaze went to the window behind him, then he turned back to me. “What’s wrong?” His features were calm, though his eyes were fierce, ready to spring for attack. Must be an FBI thing.

  “When did we take off?”

  He smiled, biting his lip as if to suppress a huge guffaw. When he got his composure back, he said, “We’ve been airborne for seven minutes.”

  His dark eyes bored into mine and many expressions flitted across his face. He seemed amused yet anxious.

  “What did you need to talk to me about?” I asked, changing the subject.

  “Nothing in particular.”

  He smiled, his teeth gleaming against the sun that shone through the window. Good news: he wasn’t a vampire. He leaned back in his seat, his head resting against the headrest, his smile still in place.

  My eyebrows rose.

  “I rescued you from your assistant. I could tell you weren’t paying attention, so I thought I’d pretend I needed to speak to you.” He shook his head, laughing. “The few minutes I talked to her were . . . interesting, to say the least, and I thought you might need a conversation rescue. Though I didn’t realize what kind of conversation I was walking into.”

  “Me either,” I mumbled.

  “I’ve heard a lot about you,” he said out of nowhere. His deep eyes looked sideways at me.

  “Oh yeah? And what’s that?” This should be interesting.

  “You’re a skeptic. That your job is to find the supernatural.” He cocked his head to see my expression. “I heard it’s impossible to fool you.”

  I nodded. Maybe that was all about to change.

  He became abruptly serious. “This might be the real deal, huh?” There was something about him that made me want to spill everything that had happened to me. I didn’t know this man, yet his deep communicative eyes were constantly searching for something in mine.

  “Could be,” I said as doubtfully as I could manage. What I wanted to say was “you bet your ass it is.”

  He nodded, as if he could read my mind. We were silent then, and it was a very relaxed quiet, one I didn’t mind in the slightest.

  I picked up my book to start reading. Right before I delved into the novel, I looked over the pages and saw Karen twisted around in her seat, watching me. She smiled, gave a little wave, and turned around. Even with her back to me, I knew she was protecting me.

  Several pages into the book, the hostess padded on by. “May I get you anything to drink?”

  “Cranberry juice,” I requested. I thought about asking for a shot of vodka in that cranberry juice, but decided that wouldn’t be very professional.

  “Sure thing,” she said sweetly. She put ice in a cup and poured the drink. “Here you go, hon. And for you, sir?”

  “Nothing for me,” Joseph said dismissively.

  “So—” he turned to look at me “—what exactly do you do in the Fishbowl, was it?”

  It seemed he had been fully briefed on Zelko Corp. “The Fishbowl was kind of from a joke.” I smiled. “On a normal day—if there is ever a normal day for me—I do autopsies on bodies that are suspected or deemed ‘supernatural.’ We have some very rich, very bored investors who pay us a lot of money to tell them ‘no, he wasn’t a demon, he just had a really bad skin disease’ or ‘yes, he was very hairy, but sorry, he wasn’t a werewolf.’ This is the first time I’ve been completely baffled. Those”—I almost said angels—“bodies are different. I was actually scared for the first time since I started working at Zelko Corp.” I wanted to put my hands over my mouth, shocked that I had just admitted that.

  “Really?” His voice passed conversational and went straight to curiosity.

  “Oh yeah, the only other time I was remotely freaked out was by the feather man,” I admitted with a twitch of my lips, trying to figure out why I was spilling my guts to this man.

  Joseph laughed. “Feather man?” His reaction surprised me.

  “Oh yeah. This moron had the brilliant idea to stitch feathers into his skin to make it look like he was a bird, or an angel, or who knows what actually goes on through a person’s head like that?” I shook my head. “And it wasn’t like he was scary, but removing hundreds of long emu feathers from the guy’s back was horrible. To think that someone probably helped him with it or to think of the poor bird missing its feathers.” I shuddered. “Never a boring day in the Fishbowl.”

  “That sounds . . .” He made a disgusted face. I nodded in agreement.

  “So, Agen—Joseph, what do you do at the FBI?”

  “I over see our P.I. lab in Washington. For the most part I stay out of the labs. They creep me out, especially the experimental ones.” He shook his head at some thought he must have had. “I mostly work in the field, overseeing the majority of our investigations. Usually my cases involve horrific deaths that have been suspected to be of the paranormal persuasion.”

  “Like?”

  “In Georgia, one year, there were several deaths that the Christians were presuming were the devil’s work. I had the ‘pleasure’ to speak to some very . . . interesting people.” He chuckled. “Even the coroner, a scientist, refused to work with the bodies, afraid he would be infected by the devil. When it was all said and done, it was two kids who had joined a cult and took it too far.”

  “Really? A cult?” I asked.

  “Stupid, I know.” He shook his head again. “They thought they were following the devil’s orders. If you believed in that stuff, perhaps they were.”

  “Perhaps.” I looked over his shoulder again to see the clear blue sky stretching for eternity.

  “I could really use a vacation.” Joseph sighed. “Do you like to ski?”

  My eyes shot back to his face. “I do, actually. I love it. Last year I went to Snow Bird in Utah. They have amazing slopes.”

  “Really? I’ve never been. There are some places to ski on the east coast, but I’ve never had the opportunity to go. My brother lives in Colorado and invites me up every winter. My sister-in-law and their kids come with us. They’re young, but they’re very enthusiastic about skiing. It’s a joy to teach them some of my totally awesome tricks.”

  I laughed at his surfer-dude voice and the thought of him showing off for his family. Then my thoughts went back to the last time I was skiing. It was an adrenaline rush, and at the same time, it gave me clarity about my life. Sometimes I hated the fact that no matter how hard I tried, I was unable to remember a single second of my life before I was found outside the adoption agency. Every time I went skiing, I hoped that something would return to me, but it never did.

  I looked down at the book, which was open, and read one of the lines. “Just because he was a creature of the night—of darkness—didn’t mean he was evil. As he stared at me, all I could
see was his benevolence, his light.”

  “Good book?” Joseph asked. I looked up. Again, his mysterious eyes seized mine. “Earlier, your eyes were moving so fast I didn’t know if you were actually absorbing the information or not.” He gave me a half smile.

  “Yes, it’s great. About a vampire.” I closed the book so he could see the cover.

  “Vampires, eh?” He raised an eyebrow. “The skeptic reads books on the supernatural?”

  “Sometimes fantasy is better than reality,” I mumbled.

  “Maybe we should change that. I could show you the sights while you’re in D.C. Your schedule doesn’t bind you to the lab all day.”

  “How do you know my schedule?” I asked, eyeing him with a smirk.

  He looked sheepish. “I gave the itinerary to Sally. And I was kind of curious about you. You aren’t upset, are you?” He looked anxious.

  “No,” I said too quickly.

  He grinned. “I wish that we could just know the truth. All this secrecy is rather annoying when you’re the one seeking answers.” He shrugged.

  “Then I would be out of a job,” I said, laying my head back.

  “True, and then I would never have met you. So maybe all these mysteries will end up being a good thing.”

  The plane shook with turbulence. I looked out the window and saw massive, towering storm clouds ahead. I gulped and gripped the armrest on the couch-like seat.

  “Anxious, are we?” Joseph asked, glancing at my death grip.

  The plane shuddered again, and my fingers only dug in deeper to the fabric.

  “Scared of flying?”

  “Nope.”

  “Heights?”

  “Nope.”

  The plane shook again, and I closed my eyes, trying to take deep breaths.

  “What is it, then?”

  “I have a fear of falling from heights,” I said, my voice cracking with panic as the plane dipped slightly. It had finally flown into the storm cloud.

  Joseph gave a musical laugh. “I don’t understand the difference?”

  My eyes opened to see him staring at me quizzically. “Put me in a plane, strap me up, or let me repel from a cliff, or hang me from a thirty story building, and I’m fine. It’s when I’m not safe that I freak out. Heights are fine, until there’s a risk of falling from them.”

  The plane hit more turbulence, and I jumped. Weren’t they supposed to fly around storms?

  “Maybe I could distract you,” he whispered.

  His hand gently pulled my fingers from their ironclad grasp. That was a distraction enough. Our eyes rose from our hands at the same time. Was he flirting with me? I really think he’s flirting with me.

  My mind went into panic mode. It felt nice, but at the same time I wanted to pull away. He was sweet, funny, and damn he was good-looking, but did I really want to get involved with another man so soon? And one who lived on the east coast? I hated myself just then. There was a perfectly fine man sitting next to me, obviously flirting with me. Don’t be a dope, I yelled at myself. It was my automatic reaction when I felt myself getting closer to someone—pull away and run.

  Joseph opened his mouth to speak, but the pilot’s voice came over the speaker. “Ladies and gentlemen, we’re entering into some nasty storms. I’d like everyone to please buckle your seatbelts.”

  If it weren’t for the terrifying jolt that ran through my body at the pilot’s words, I’d probably have been grateful for the interruption. I gulped when the plane jerked again and hastily began to search for my seatbelt, taking my hand back into my own control. When I couldn’t find it, my heart pounded furiously in my chest. I had a bad feeling about this—very bad indeed. My fingers were busy scattering this way and that across the seat. Joseph leaned over and found it. He buckled me in. My savior.

  “No worries. We’ll be fine,” he said softly to me, his voice soothing.

  That’s when it all happened. That’s when he jinxed us. The plane jolted as if another plane had hit us. That wasn’t the case. I saw what happened: lightning. The plane spun around once before instantly dropping down through the storm cloud. Suitcases appeared everywhere. My drink flew to the other side of the cabin, and my book lodged between piles of bags. The oxygen masks popped out, and I reached for mine, arms flapping though the air until I grasped it and placed it over my mouth and nose. Joseph’s actions mirrored my own.

  My eyes squeezed shut, and I hoped we weren’t all going to die. I thought of Karen and my eyes snapped open like window shades wound too tight. The plane nosedived, and all the debris slid forward. I spotted Karen. Her brown hair was in a mess, but I was relieved to see that she was all right. What I didn’t expect was for her to unbuckle her seat belt and head my direction, literally climbing up the aisle.

  Joseph’s hand seized mine, and I saw the horror-stricken look on his face. He could probably see the panic in my eyes too. If I was going to die, at least I could stare at the magnificence of his face in my last moments. Karen reached us, and the plane jolted several more times as it tumbled through the sky. I wondered if the pilots were still trying to save our lives.

  “Are you all right?” Karen yelled through the noise. What a stupid question to ask.

  I shook my head back and forth against my seat. “You’re an angel,” I shouted back. “Can’t you do something?”

  Her eyes shot nervously to Joseph. Seriously, what did it matter if he knew? We were about to die. Maybe I was fulfilling his dying wish to know a semblance of truth.

  “I must save you, but I don’t know how,” Karen yelled back.

  “Can’t you fly?” It seemed obvious to me. “Where are your wings?”

  She shook her head, and it was then that I looked out the window and saw that our view was no longer clouds, but the solid ground below. We had seconds.

  Karen sent me waves of tranquility. It didn’t matter at this point. Nothing did. This was it. This was the end. I looked toward my Guardian, and she wept golden tears.