Page 79 of Night in a Waste Land

Beck sent him an incalculable look, a pulse of gold in the gloom. “If you’re worried, you shouldn’t be.”

Lightning chose that moment to illuminate the window; thunder followed closely, a low rumble.

Gavin swore under his breath.

“I didn’t think kicking in doors was your style, back in the day,” Lance said. “I thought it was all about sneaking in the back way. Or was it through air shafts?”

Beck grinned. “An effective strategy. But I’m afraid my wings wouldn’t fit.” He spread them in demonstration, as lightning flashed again, blue limning the black, bat-like scallops of them. “Won’t you trust me, Sergeant? Thisiswhy you brought me back, after all. To solve your war.”

“Wars are won,” Lance gritted out. “Notsolved.”

Beck shrugged eloquently. Then his brows lowered, his smile becoming more a baring of fangs. “What’ll it be?”

Lance studied him a moment; Rose saw the pulse of a vein in his temple, and the beading of sweat there, too. He was nervous – very nervous. More so about Beck than the mission he was proposing, she wagered. “Through the front door, then.”

“Excellent.”

~*~

“We still don’t know how he’s doing it,” Rose said, a few minutes later. Everyone had gone off for final, private preparations. She and Beck stood at the head of the dining table, the map still laid out before them. Beck was tracing city blocks with the tip of one claw. “He’s still sharing the body with his angel. Two voices.”

“Hm.” He was distracted, lips moving soundlessly as he recited street names to himself, nearly wondrous.

“Beck?”

He lifted his head, finally. “No worries, sweetheart.” He offered her a smile that was truer than the ones he’d given the others, but no less quick. “I can handle him.”

She worked not to frown. “You’re not being overconfident, are you?”

His expression froze. A split second, easily missed if she hadn’t been watching him so closely. “What’s this I hear? Doubt?”

Despite the crumbling mansion around them, his black hair, his horns, she was transported back to the basement of his townhouse, that day during their training, right near the end, when his obsession had become feverish. Right before they went after Castor.

Right before he was taken from her.

She felt that way – but he looked different. Not only the wings, and the eyes, but there was a steadiness, now. Not obsession, not the fevered madness of a goal nearly achieved. His energy was all very carefully contained; he looked nearly peaceful – save for the way he gazed at her now, assessing her faith in him.

She sucked in a breath, and couldn’t have said why.

“Beck, I just got you back,” she whispered. “I don’t want to walk into a shitshow and lose you again right away.”

The line of his mouth softened. He cupped her cheek, claws teasing at the soft skin behind her ear. “Sweetheart,” he purred. “You won’t lose me. Not ever again.”

~*~

The rain beat steadily on the pavement. Faint bluish-purple light glowed in the windows on the center floors of the building. Up top, white-gold light beamed out into the night, another sign of Shubert’s excesses.

Rose stood beneath the umbrella of Beck’s spread wing and took a steadying breath.

From Beck’s other side, Lance said, “If you’re trying to get us killed, there are easier ways to do it.”

“Nonsense,” Beck said lightly. He folded his wings up – the rain pattered on her helmet – and strode to the heavy, chained and bolted steel doors that allowed street-level entry to Times Gardens.

Gavin had bolt-cutters. He lifted them –

Just as Beck took the chain in his hand, and broke the links like they were nothing.

No, Rose saw, as she rushed up behind him – he’dslicedthem. With his claws. The same claws that had brushed so gently across her skin less than an hour ago.

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