Nearly every civilian on the street is taking video of the inferno with their phones. Through the thick black smoke Arek backs away from several men, their guns aimed toward him. They open fire. His body jerks from the barrage of bullets.

“No!” I yell.

Kilon starts to open the door, but Sassi stops him, “No! He’s on his own. I promised him.”

Kilon’s veins pulse in his muscles when his fist pounds against the door. The medical equipment falls to the floor and he yells at the top of his lungs. Geo clenches his jaw but still drives away.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Somewhere between the crash site and the airport Sassi has coordinated an exchange of the ambulance for an SUV. It takes just thirty seconds to pass the keys and jump in to the new leather seats. There is empty space beside me, and I reach out with a shaking hand to touch the seat belt where Arek would be. Smoke and oil are embedded in our clothes so we keep the windows open to air out the smell, even though this makes Kilon uncomfortable.

“He can take care of himself?” I ask. I peer through the rearview mirror at Sassi. “That’s why he’s second in command. Right?”

After several moments, she clears her throat. “That’s right.”

However, Geo interjects, “There is only one who can equal him.” I look up at Geo, who is still wearing the paramedic’s hat. “When Arek was young, a man named Alfonzo Geretzima, leader of the Umbramanes—”

Sassi interrupts while staring through the dark window, her voice a deep rumble. “Umbramanes means the Shadow Ghosts. They’ll take your life before you know they’re there.”

Geo continues, “Just like Gyre saw something in me that he could refine, Alfonzo has spent his life searching for those Velieri who can join the Umbramanes. Every Velieri begins training when they’re young—beyond their school studies and just like football players are drafted, Velieri can be chosen for something specific if they exhibit certain characteristics. At one time Alfonzo found two who he knew were destined to be a part of the Ghosts. He didn’t like the idea that they were siblings, too many things could go wrong there, but he decided to take Arek and Navin anyway. Yet both would be a disappointment. One would eventually be excommunicated, and the other . . . the other chose a woman.”

Peter, who kept silent much of the time, his face black from soot, said, “The Umbramanes aren’t allowed to live normal lives. They are to live like ghosts . . . invisible to the world around them. And Arek is one of the best, Willow. Alfonzo made sure of that.”

The lights of the airport are getting closer through my window. “He left Alfonzo for me?”

Kilon grins, “From a man’s perspective, there isn’t any other choice.”

Several minutes later, the stairs descend from the jet. Briston and Mak are the first to reach us, while I can see Beckah searching the group. When she is close, she is the first to ask, “Arek?”

“Left behind,” Sassi says with resolve, just before she disappears in the jet clearly upset by her necessary choice.

\/\/\/

It’s been several days since Arek has been gone. It feels wrong to stop at a hotel while he is still missing, but Sassi and Briston decide it best to hide within the safety of a Velieri hotel. We have traveled so long and far that I don’t know what city we are in.

A chubby, balding doorman with a kind smile steps aside, pulling the heavy glass open. “Welcome back, Mr. and Mrs. Pierne.” The man with chubby cheeks and a bulbous nose then notices me between them, and his eyes grow wide. “Welcome back, Mrs. Rykor.” I didn’t know what to say to his obvious familiarity. How many times had Remy heard that in her life . . . Mrs. Rykor?

“Thanks, Joe,” Kilon says as we step into the grand foyer of the hotel.

Large swooping scallops have been carved out of the ceiling, reminding me of cardboard egg crates, however these are in a natural wood with walls that are charcoal gray.

“Only Velieri stay in the upper levels. The facade is that of a regular hotel, but Velieri own it and run it. It’s like a safe house,” Sassi explains.

“Do Velieri only shop at Louis Vuitton and Cartier?” I ask when noticing people’s bags and suitcases.

“Most can certainly afford it,” Sassi grins.

We pass a Michael Kors boutique in the lobby. “Michael Kors belongs here?”

“Michael’s been reinventing his style for eight hundred years and becomes a name in every century. Most of us change what we do all the time, but that man . . . that man truly just loves clothes. I was so grateful when he got us away from Elizabethan collars.”

I notice the posture of everyone in the foyer straightens and their eyes turn inquisitively when we enter. Several people hurry to us, taking our bags from our hands and ushering us through the crowd. “It’s so good to have you back. Briston already told us you would be here soon,” the young man with curly red hair and a face full of zits says as he tries to throw a heavy bag over his shoulder, yet it slides off several times. Finally, Kilon reaches over and takes it back. “The others are waiting for you. Here’s the key.”

“Of course, thank you,” Sassi answers as she takes the key.

Suddenly we are interrupted by a loud woman with a pink diamond studded suitcase rolling behind her. “My boyfriend told me the rumor that you were back . . . and you end up in the same V hotel as me. It’s unbelievable.”

Kilon quickly blocks her from coming closer and she looks at him with irritation.

“I’m so sorry,” she says. “Can I just get one selfie?”

“You are not serious?” Sassi asks.

“It’s just so amazing!”

Kilon and Sassi deny her quickly and lead me away.

“People have lost their minds,” Sassi whispers as we enter the elevator.

\/\/\/

The sheets shift beneath me. There have been many times in my life when sleep has been difficult, but in the last two days since Arek’s been gone, the hours tick by so slowly that I beg for sunlight. The cars on the street outside my window are a strange uncomfortable drum that I can’t shut off.

At two in the morning, the air in the room changes and shivers jump down one vertebra at a time. There are no unusual sounds in my room, only a grave awareness that I’m not alone. The unnerving idea of the supernatural isn’t new and even now after all of this has happened, it is truly easier to believe. The unchained rocking of my heart won’t settle as my eyes wait for something in the shadows to move.

A breath rushes past my ear when I hear the whisper, “He’s here.”

I wait, cemented to the weak covers of my bed as though they will be able to protect me, until I hear the words again, “He’s here.”

My puckering skin continues along my body as I slowly melt out from under the blankets and my feet stretch on the carpet. The air is unusually thick as I guardedly walk toward the door. I’ve never experienced this . . . I think.

For a moment I hesitate in the darkness, yet something strange happens like the energy in the room swells, even the walls creak from the pressure. My head swings around, checking every corner, but I know, even though the room is empty there is something there with me. My temperature rises and my heart races.

“What’s happening?” I whisper to the room, hoping that it won’t talk back. My mother’s influence on me is obviously strong.

That’s when the door to the room, despite its weight and size, opens just an inch. The urge to run the opposite direction and bid this unexpected ghost good-bye is intense, yet the power behind me pushes my bare feet along the ground until I must lift them or risk rug burn. Slowly and carefully I open the door and peer into the hall.

No one is there.

Still the supernatural rubs their hand along my skin until the bumps stay permanently. Just as I am about to turn back, something at the end of the hall catches my eye. Clean but bruised and cut fingers slowly emerge around the wall. Paralyzed and catching my breath, like a sailor before an ominous sky, I wait.

Despite the light above flickering and the smell of newly shampooed carpet wafting through the hall, nothing can afford my attention more than the large figure in clean jeans and a black T-shirt, scraping the wall to stay upright. I step forward, waiting for him to look at me; my knuckles are white with tension.

Slowly, Arek’s sick green eyes look up as sweat drips down his forehead, his face the color of the Swiss Alps in winter.

“Arek!” I rush forward, wrapping my arms around him, but it is then that he gives up the fight. His body drops to the ground, and that is when I see the blood seeping through his clean shirt.

“Kilon!” I yell. Beneath Arek’s shirt is a body riddled with bullets, some seeping and some fighting to heal.