Page 67 of Feathers and Scales

Fotios lay before her on a cot, brown hair soaked to his pale forehead as he squeezed her fingers until they numbed. The scent of death, spoiled wine, and urine saturated the air. Others groaned and screamed as the physician bent over Fotios’s strips of flesh that had once been legs. Nausea turned her stomach as she dared not look into Fotios’s eyes. Her own brimmed with tears she held at bay just like the thought that he was here because of her.

He whispered, “Emotions are—”

“Shut up!” She pulled energy from the feathers of her wings and granted a miracle—healing his legs as much as her limited feathers would allow. It didn’t take long for others to notice. The Athenian army threw accusations of godliness in her direction. When men grabbed her from behind to take her from the camp, it only began a long physical and psychological abuse that taught her Fotios was right. Emotions were a weakness.

Stop!She shoved the darkness aside.I will save Simon.The feathers of her hidden wings tingled with power. She touched his shoulder and mentally shoved Simon through the timeless Spirit Dimension using the gift of the Fallen—the abilityto grant miracles.

Her feathers lost energy as she used the law of displacement to send his body to a time when he didn’t have injuries. Five feathers fell to the floor of the ambulance. The cut on his forehead sealed closed along with the bullet wound.

Simon paled, lips a sheen of blue that dispersed quickly as the Spirit Dimension froze anyone that traveled through. He awoke gasping, curling into a ball as if someone had sent a kick to his chest. Shivering under the blanket, he tugged it against himself.

“W-W-why d-d-did you d-d-do that?” Simon asked.

“You would have died.”

He swallowed, eyes wide. “But around others?”

“The benefits outweighed the risks.”

His flinch stung the heart she’d tried to keep out of this situation. She lifted the feathers that had fallen by their rachides and pushed them against the truck floor. The force caused them to burst into dust.

“Is he good?” Raz asked, his attention still on Agent Yuller, who watched them with avid interest.

Izzy sighed. “He’ll be okay.”

Raz nodded and applied heated dominance to his voice as he asked Yuller, “Where’s the Tattered One?”

A cold smile spread across Yuller’s face. “You know my master?”

Shivers racked Izzy’s frame.

Raz tightened his grip on the gun. “What does he want?”

Yuller’s eyes swiveled to Simon. “The hacker. Wrapped. Packed. And shipped.”

Izzy leaned over Simon, her heart racing with renewed fear, but she asked Yuller, “Where to?”

Yuller gagged, coughed, and said in a menacing tone not like his own, “Where Isi tried to build a better future without us.” He lunged for the gun.

Raz swung it, butt end cracking against Yuller’s temple. He fell limp to the ground.

Izzy glanced around. The few people down the road distracted by the fire didn’t pay them any mind.

“Move so I can stash him.” Raz bent and hoisted Agent Yuller over his shoulder with a loud grunt.

Izzy dragged Simon away by the arm. Her thoughts whirled around Yuller’s last words, not making any sense out of them.

Raz threw Yuller into the rear of the ambulance and closed the doors. “Come on. We need to get out of here.”

“What are you going to do with him?” Simon asked.

“We’ll rehabilitate him from the Archfiend’s Illusion.”

Simon clutched Izzy, and they staggered with Raz up the road.

Raz pulled a walkie-talkie from his pocket. “Guys, I left a puppet in the bed of the ambulance. Lewis, I need that car now.”

Around the bend, a pair of lights flooded the street and blinked. “I’m here,” a man said over the walkie.