Conduit (7 page)

Chapter Seven

The late afternoon sunlight spilled
down around Lev and Elizabeth as they ambled along the path toward the lake.  White
birds circled overhead, now and again dipping low and skimming across the
water’s surface to swim.   

“It’s a perfect day,” Lev said,
smiling, his arm draped around her. 

She looked up at him.  “And what
makes it so perfect?”

“You.  Any day with you is perfect.”

She smiled and tucked her head just
beneath his chin, one hand resting at his abdomen, her fingers lightly curling
into his t-shirt.  She inhaled softly, a contented smile playing at her lips.

“I love you too, Lev,” she said. 
“I’ve always loved you.”

His arm tightened around her as they
stepped toward a spot along the shore where the reeds and cattails stood parted,
allowing them passage all the way to the water’s edge, where they lingered and
watched the sun steal from the sky, setting the lake afire.

“You know, I must have seen a million
sunsets before we met, and none of them ever touched me until I fell in love
with you.  You made all the difference in me.  You alone,” he whispered.

He nudged her gently forward so he
could turn her to face him, and their eyes met, alive with the warmth of the
present and the possibilities of the future. He closed his eyes and pressed his
lips lightly to hers, kissing her almost tentatively at first and teasingly,
and then more passionately, exploring her and she him, until the kiss had
consumed them both.

Even as she pulled away, breathless, Elizabeth
kept her eyes closed, her lips parted as though he still kissed her.

Lev moved to kiss her again, but that’s
when everything changed.  He felt her pulled suddenly from him.  Her eyelids
flew wide, and her mouth a broad
O,
a scream
ripped from her throat, shattering the still of the land as she was dragged
from him despite his best efforts to hold on.
            “Elizabeth!”  His fingers grasped only air as her body was carried
aloft and away until he lost sight of her completely.

            “Help me! Don’t let me
die!”

            His body tensed.  “I’ll
find you!”

Lev felt someone shaking him.  The
world around darkened and fell into shadow, and he tried to find his way but
couldn’t. There was too much darkness, and nothing made any sense anymore.

Where was she? 

“Lev, wake up!”

The jostling drove away that outer
darkness, though the other lingered, and he opened his eyes to find Celia
leaning over him, her hand on his arm.  He felt her fingers digging into his flesh.

“Elizabeth?” he called, glancing
feverishly around the room, hoping to catch a glimpse of her.

“She’s not here, Lev.  It’s a
nightmare.”

He thrust himself to his feet. 
Unfortunately, as he struggled to gain his footing, Celia sensed that he wasn’t
completely balanced and didn’t let go of him.

“Lev, you need to calm down, okay?” 
She tried to soothe him, but he never even looked her way. 

“Elizabeth?”

“She’s not here,” Celia said,
grabbing for him, forcing him to stop.  “There’s no point looking for her.”

He would’ve kept on, but she spoke
this time in his head, a place he couldn’t ignore her though he so desperately
wanted to.

“She can’t be gone,” Lev barely
managed. 

In her eyes he found his answer, and
when she’d realized as much she slowly wrapped her arms around him and drew him
close, for the moment gathering the broken pieces of his world until he was
ready to rebuild, to fortify that world against the coming storm.

 “We will find her.  Somehow.  Evan
has gone to present your case.”

There was nothing else to say about
it, so Lev pulled back and changed subjects.  “How’s Griffin?”  His voice came
out a harsh and low.

“He’ll be fine.  He’s dealing with
Elizabeth’s absence in his own way.  It’s not easy for either of you.”

“I don’t know why Father is bothering.”
Lev walked over to the window so he could look out. He gritted his teeth.

“What do you mean?”

“There’s no way they’ll agree.  Evan
so much as confirmed it, and if I can’t protect Elizabeth, what difference does
any of this make in the end?  Why would she still love me even if we can get
her back?  I’m useless.”

Celia slid her finger beneath his
chin and forced him to look at her.  “She didn’t fall in love with you because you
saved her life in the first place, Lev.  She loved you because she saw through
to what was inside, and that’s what will make her love you still, even when all
this is over.”

Lev pulled free.  “You seem certain. 
Part of me thinks it won’t matter even if we do get her back.  I failed her. 
Again.”

“You did your best, and that’s all
anyone could ask.”  Celia pushed at the hair falling into her eyes.  “You’ve
always done your best, even if your heart wasn’t totally in whatever you were
doing.  It used to be just a matter of pride—of duty and purpose.  Now it really
matters to you.”

“Somehow that doesn’t make me feel
better, and I seriously doubt that little pep talk is going to back Griffin off
any, either.”  He leaned on the sill, stretching his back out, trying to relieve
some of the tension there.

“It wouldn’t matter if Griffin were
totally on board with you right now.  You’re biggest dissenter has always been
you, Lev.”  Celia moved close behind and circled her arms around his torso.  “I
know this is harder than you ever thought, but I also know it’s worth it.  As
long as she is alive, we’ll find her.”

“That’s a big if.  I keep hearing her
in my head.”  He straightened and glanced at his sister.  “If I’ve been made
entirely human, I shouldn’t be able to hear her at all, but I do.  I do, and
the way she screams my name terrifies me because I’m afraid that when all is
said and done I’ll be too late.  She’s going to die, and we’re going to be
separated regardless because I’ll be stuck as a human, and she’ll go on a
sojourn to her next existence.  Without me.”

Lev had reached out and gripped both
her arms in his hands, and he didn’t realize just how hard his fingers dug into
her until he saw his forefinger pushing deeply into her skin with a strength
that would probably leave bruises, or would have if she were human.  And yet
she paid no mind, probably because she didn’t feel pain like mortals.  He tried
to remember that kind of imperviousness and what it felt like but couldn’t.  It
didn’t make sense. 

“You have to find your faith,
brother.”  Celia looked deeply into his eyes.  “I know it’s there.  It’s still
a part of you.  Granted, it’s probably been bogged down in all the emotions, but
you haven’t lost it.  You know what angelic power is capable of.  Hold fast to
that because even though you aren’t an angel anymore, you are among them.  You
have not been abandoned, nor will you be, for in as much as you love her, Evan
and I love you still.”

Unsure what to say, Lev pulled her
into his arms and tried to take strength from feeling the mystery and wonder of
all she was.  The light and breath that marked her as pure and supernatural yet
dwelled somewhere inside him, and he knew Celia was right.  If anyone could
save Elizabeth, she and Evan could. They would find a way.  They didn’t believe
in giving up.

“Thank you,” he whispered.

Celia smiled and slowly pulled away. 
“You should go back to sleep.”  Since Elizabeth had been taken, he hadn’t passed
a night in his room, and he probably wouldn’t again until she returned safely
home.

Celia waited until Lev had lain down
again before slipping back to her room.  He tried to make things easy on her by
acting like he was falling asleep, but his mind was spinning too fast.

For the next few minutes, as he lay
awake, he listened to the house settle back into silence before he just
couldn’t take it anymore.  It was then that Lev made his move.  He had to,
considering just how much he felt the walls closing in all around, suffocating
him.  And maybe they should, he thought, considering just how right Griffin had
been about his inability to keep Elizabeth safe.

No, he needed to take a walk and burn
off some of this crazy energy. Or maybe a jog around the lake would be enough
to tire him out.  He was going to have to be stealthy about it, though, if he
wanted to go alone. Then again, maybe Celia would be too wrapped up in watching
over Griffin to pay any mind to him, thinking he’d gone back to sleep.  No,
that wasn’t logical, but Celia had always been the optimistic sort.  She wanted
to believe she could offer something reassuring when sometimes there really
wasn’t anything to offer.  Like now.  No words that could touch the emptiness
lurking inside him. 

Lev took a deep breath and sat up and
grabbed his shoes, grateful he’d left them so close.  The less noise he made,
the better.  He’d been under the microscope since becoming mortal, and part of
him wondered if it had been such a disaster because so many people had such a
vested interest in whether or not he could actually deal with being human.

He’d once believed becoming human was
the answer.  Now he knew better.  Maybe there was no answer, but there had to
be something besides this mess.  There had to be.

Once he’d slipped on his shoes, he
stood and stole to the front door.  He waited a moment or two to see if someone
were going to get up and ask him some inane question, but no one did, so he
took that as his exit cue and slipped out into the crisp night air.

Lev struggled to keep his attention
from wandering.  Part of him knew he shouldn’t be out at this hour, especially
not by himself, but he simply couldn’t breathe.  It had all been just too
much.  He slipped his feet into his shoes and stared into the night, well aware
he didn’t need any light for the path he planned to take.  He had it memorized
because of all the times he’d walked it with Elizabeth, and while he had never planned
to head down it alone, he couldn’t wait until it was just he and Elizabeth
again.  

As he stepped off the porch and
headed toward the lake, he stared at the full moon and tried to remember when
it had been more than some soft yellow ball overhead, but the longer he was
human, the less he could remember the celestial life when for centuries he had
sojourned so many souls, all of which now seemed a dream.

Suddenly the weight of this life
seemed almost unbearable, and once he had started walking, he upped his pace
until he was running.  His feet knew where to fall, and he made his way
effortlessly, taking comfort in the way the air felt rushing past.  It was the
only thing which seemed to calm the frantic unsettled feeling.  He could hear
his heart pounding in his chest, and suddenly he felt so painfully alive that
it took his breath away, leaving him raw and exposed.

He arrived at water’s edge before he’d
realized it and stopped suddenly, looking out at the water beneath the moon,
still save for the occasional breeze rippled the surface.

The world was so silent he could
hardly bear it, so he spoke the only word he knew: “Elizabeth?”  His voice was
quiet, barely a whisper, but too loud all the same, the weight of it sending
him to his knees.

It was his fault—all his.

“Elizabeth.”  He said it again,
almost as though he were having a conversation and thought she might suddenly
appear to offer an answer to his unspoken question.  When that didn’t happen,
he screamed it, his voice echoing loudly almost like gunshots.

No answer.  Had he truly expected
one?

In pain, he looked up again at the
heavens, “Why?  Why did you let her be taken from me?  Why make me human and
strip away the one person I sacrificed everything for?”  Fury boiled through
him, and even so, he knew there was no answer.

“You shouldn’t be here.”

Evan alighted silently before him. 
His wings seemed almost blue in the light, and they quickly began to fade until
Lev couldn’t see them anymore.  His shoulders tensed as he thought of what it
had been like to have his own wings, but that was now a distant memory, weak
and faulty like the rest of him.