Page 38 of The Storm
“I think whoever was here had more things,” he said. “More luggage.”
“They’re running?”
“That mattress is large enough for an adult and a child. Maybe two adults.” Max looked at Renata, waiting for her to meet his eyes. “Renata, there could be two of them.”
The books were a collection of English, Italian, Turkish, and Arabic. Some were only pamphlets. Others were magazines. It was a scattered collection of writing that told Max whoever lived here had traveled from the east and collected things to read as they went. Refugees with akareshtachild?
He looked around the room and noticed something in the corner. He crouched down and pointed his headlamp at the painting on the wall. In the darkness, he could see more work from a familiar artist.
The child who had painted the animal pictures in the classroom had also worked on this wall. The crayons didn’t work as well on stone, but he could see light outlines of a flat-topped house and a group of trees and play equipment like he’d seen in human parks. There were dogs and cats. A bed with a pink bedspread and dolls lined up beside it.
“Renata, you need to come see this.”
She was already back in the passageway. He could hear her footsteps growing fainter as she continued her search.
In the far corner was one last picture, drawn in more detail than the others. A man and woman holding hands. On the man’s shoulders perched a little girl holding a purple balloon. The man had a beard and he was smiling. The woman wore a blue head scarf and she was smiling too. She was grasping the man’s hand, a spotted dog’s leash held in her other hand. Smiles. Ease. Peace. A pink bedroom and a park with swings. A beloved pet and a bright purple balloon.
“They’re a family,” he whispered. What kind of family had akareshtachild?
He looked again at the man and woman holding hands.
A Grigori family, of course.
Max heard Renata’s breath catch and echo a second before her feet started to move.
She was running.
Max stood. “Renata!”
As soon as he entered the passageway, he smelled it. The scent of sandalwood was drifting in the air. Sandalwood meant Grigori.
And Grigori meant Renata was on the hunt.
* * *
He usedhis senses to track her, but it was difficult. Renata had been evading fallen angels, Grigori, and Irin scribes for centuries. She knew these tunnels like the back of her hand. She also had a knee-jerk reaction to Grigori. If she found the man in the pictures, she would stab first and ask questions later, possibly traumatizing the very child she was trying to help.
He came to a halt when the passage dead-ended. Max turned and faced the darkness, knowing he had no hope of catching her before she found the man she was hunting.
“Renata!”
Max walked back down the tunnel, sweeping his headlamp back and forth, trying to hear anything familiar.
“Renata, he is not your enemy.” Max couldn’t know that for sure, but he was hoping that a man who carried a little girl on his shoulders, bought her a purple balloon, and made her mother smile was not an enemy. Was the mother human or Grigori? The child had too much magic to be only a quarter angelic. “It’s a family, Renata. A man and a woman. A little girl.” He saw a dark tunnel entrance to the left that he’d missed the first time. he walked through it, hoping that this was the direction she’d gone.
“They lived in a city, Reni. They had a little dog. They went to the park together. He carried her on his shoulders.”
Max started running when he heard her. It wasn’t Renata, but it was a child. And that child was crying.
He ran full speed down the passageway, using her cries to guide him. He turned right at a fork, hoping that the strange acoustics in the mountain weren’t playing tricks on his senses. When the crying grew louder, he ran faster.
He almost missed them in his desperate search. He passed a long section of rock and heard the little girl’s breath catch. Backing up slowly, Max crouched down and looked into a crevice.
His headlamp caught a flash of blue. He took off the bright light and shone it at the floor. The woman in the blue head scarf was hiding in the crevice, her amber-gold eyes wide and frightened, her hand pressed over the mouth of the little girl who squinted at the light. Taking a guess, he spoke in Arabic.
“My name is Max.” He held out his hand. “I’m not here to hurt you. I promise.”
Both the woman’s and the little girl’s eyes were bright gold. The woman, like the man, was angelic offspring. Was the child their own? The little girl didn’t look like the woman. They might have been sisters of the same angelic father, not mother and daughter. It wouldn’t be the first time siblings had protected younger children from the Fallen.
