Page 40 of Vanish Into Light

Did he? He felt that way, faintly. The buzzing was spreading: into his teeth, into his head, a rush like white noise. He was aware of Tris saying something to him, and then Gallo.

But Damien was staring at him, red, and white, and black, tail flicking over his shoulder. “Come on. Let’s get you something cool to drink, hm?” When his hand closed around Lance’s wrist and tugged…he followed.

~*~

Beck and Noah stood squared off from one another. Beck kept flipping the pendant and catching it, the ring of silver against skin faint, but magnetic. Even the birds had fallen quiet. Noah’s hands – large and gnarled – hung loose at his sides, but his fingers would half-curl, occasionally, and Rose thought he was weighing his chances of reaching a weapon should Beck decide to make a move.

It was stupid.

“Look,” Rose said, folding her arms, and resting her hip against a table loaded with small succulents in ceramic pots. “You can either tell him, or he can beat you to hell, and then you can tell him with blood in your mouth.”

Noah’s gaze slid toward her, and then back.

Beck tucked his chin, his smile small, sharp, and sparkling. “She makes a good point, as usual.”

After a moment, Noah turned around and walked to the sideboard, picking up his glass along the way. He poured himself a refill. “Get either of you anything?” he asked over his shoulder.

“Some answers,” Rose said.

Beck chuckled again, and when she met his gaze, he winked at her.

He was still very much himself, but less restrained; he smiled more, and his regard was more openly affectionate and proud. She’d adored him five years ago, but she wasn’t blind to the fact that, back then, he’d kept a very careful lid on his gestures and reactions. She hadn’t thought of him as tense, but the easiness in him now proved that he had been.

Noah turned around and leaned back against the sideboard, drink cradled between both hands.

Beck tossed the pendant again, caught it, and then held it up to the light, framed between thumb and forefinger. “What was this originally? What was its shape?”

“Originally?” Noah took a sip, and seemed to steel himself. “It was just a splinter. A shard, he said.”

“Who said?” Rose asked.

“The angel who gave it to me.”

Beck made aplease elaborategesture with his free hand.

“He was walking around looking like some kinda male model. Tall, pretty guy.” He made a face. “Walked into the club and my first thought was: that’s some good new blood. But he wasn’t interested in my project.” He cast a glance around the room. “Pity.”

“He have a name?” Rose pressed.

“Yeah.” His gaze came to her – bored into her with a sudden, shocking intensity. “The Archangel Raphael.”

A dark cave, the sound of dripping water. A town turned to a cult, and a hand around her throat; a voice echoing inside her head, taunting her, laughing at her.

Her stomach rolled, once, and she swallowed the urge to retch. “I killed Raphael’s conduit personally. With a hell-forged dagger.”

“I know,” Noah said, evenly, his gaze never wavering. “He told me.”

It was an effort to suppress a shudder. Never had she felt so helpless – so like she might lose – than she had when she’d faced Raphael in that mine shaft. Lance had carried her out, afterward; had tended her wounds, and looked on her with anguish and tenderness, and she’d realized then that there was no escaping the way she felt about him – just like there’d never been any hope of not loving Beck with every fiber of her being.

“He said,” Noah continued, “‘That’s Becket’s queen, that girl who doesn’t look like anything special. Don’t underestimate her.’ But if Becket’s here, then that dagger’s long gone, isn’t it?”

“I–”

“No simple summoning spell could have pulledhimout of hell. The king of–”

The rest of his sentence turned into a choked-off gasp, as a black length coiled tight and sudden around his throat, and squeezed.

Beck’s tail. Beck himself stood now behind the man, and gripped the sides of his head with both clawed hands. His tail tightened again, and Noah stretched up on his toes, spine bowing, as he choked, and coughed, and tried unsuccessfully to take a breath. His glass shattered when it hit the floor, and he reached to claw ineffectually at the tail around his throat.

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