Thin Air

Simons stared at me with a grim, set expression as I got in the Camaro and headed off down the road.

When the van tried to follow, its engine blew in a spectacular white cloud of steam.

“I should be ashamed. That,” I said to Ve

“Perhaps,” she said. “But you needed to know. So you won’t trust your sister again.”

“No,” I said grimly. “I don’t think I will.”

Driving is therapy for me. Interesting thing to discover about yourself…There was something hypnotic about the road, the freedom, the feeling of being in control and having a direction. I drove fast, but not recklessly, and if Ve

I had a lot of time to think. After a couple of hours of that, I said, “Ve

She raised her eyebrows. Pint-sized haughtiness. She was still wearing the blue jeans and pink shirt; I was getting used to the less formal look, but I didn’t let it fool me. There was nothing informal about Ve

“You couldn’t handle it,” she said. “Dji

“But…you can become human, right?”

“We can take human form. That doesn’t mean we become human. Not really.”

So even though David had fathered a child with me, he hadn’t been…human. Not inside. Comforting thought.

I edged a bit more speed out of the accelerator. “You said David would be on her side, not mine. Are you guessing, or do you know that?”

She didn’t answer me.

In a way, I supposed, that was answer enough.

The countryside began feeling weirdly familiar. If I’d put together the pieces properly, Sedona had been the last place I’d been seen before my absence from the world, followed by my appearance, naked and memory-free, in the forest. I felt like I ought to remember it.

I was, quite simply, too tired. Sedona had motels, and I had cash, and although Ve

Ve

“Well,” I said as I zipped up my black jeans, “I guess now I know who the target audience is for reality TV.”

If I hadn’t known better, I’d have thought she was embarrassed. She slid off the bed, and the TV flicked off without her hand coming anywhere near a remote control. She folded her arms. “Are you done sleeping?” she asked.

“Obviously, yes.”

“Good. It’s such a waste of good time.” She moved the curtain aside and looked out. “We should go.”

We pulled out of the parking lot and cruised slowly through town. Ve

“Are we close?” I asked. I was still tired, but it was a pleasant kind of tired, and for the first time in a long time I felt like I was going into trouble with a clear mind. The road vibration was almost as good as a massage.

“That way.” Ve

The sign said, CHAPEL OF THE HOLY CROSS.

Ve

“Where’s Ashan?”

“Safe,” she said. “I’ll bring him here when we’re ready. If he panics, he can be hard to control.”

A Dji

I didn’t like it here.

“This is hard for you,” Ve

“Yes.”

She turned those blue, blue eyes on me and said, “Do you know why?”

I silently shook my head. I didn’t think I wanted to know.

We got out of the car and walked to a steep set of concrete stairs leading up into the dark. Motion-sensitive lights bathed the steps dusty white, a startling contrast to the reddish rocks. I put my foot on the first one, and suddenly I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t move.

Ve

And I saw chaos.

Raw fury. Horror. Anguish. An abiding, keening grief that had reduced this place, on the aetheric level, to a black hole of emotion.

“My God,” I whispered numbly. “What did this?”

Ve

She shut up, fast, but not before I put the pieces together. “Imara,” I said. “Imara died here.”

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “We didn’t know what to do. She was part human, and that part couldn’t be saved. He tried, after you were…after you disappeared.”

“David tried to save her.”

Ve

Maybe mine, too.

“We’d better go,” she said, and took my hand. Hers felt warm, childlike, human. “It’ll be better at the top.”

It wasn’t exactly easy ascending those stairs; I felt as if I were moving through the same quicksand I’d fought through back on the beach. The handrail felt sticky. I looked at my hand, almost sure I’d see bloodstains, but no…nothing. Up above, stars were twinkling in the dark blue sky; there was still a band of pale blue toward the horizon, shot through with threads of red and gold. Beautiful.

There seemed to be a thousand steps, and every one of them a sacrifice.

When we made it to the landing I was gasping for breath and shaking; Ve

That didn’t seem to matter to Ve

Except for the flicker of a couple of red candles here and there, it was quite dark inside; the dim, fading sunset showed a small chamber, inked in shadow at the corners, with a few plain wood pews facing the huge expanse of glass windows. It was breathtaking, and it was, without a doubt, a holy kind of place.

Ve

“I thought you said-”

“I said I’d bring him,” she said, and I felt a massive energy surge sweep over my body, staggering me, and I almost saw the golden arc of it blow past.

It seemed to outline a human body, glowing hot, and then the glow vanished and there was only a man standing there, unsteady and pale as a dead man.

He pitched forward to the floor, retching.

I knew exactly how that felt, actually. I’d felt it when I’d flown Air Ve