“It’s you.”
“What do you mean?”
She turned to face him. “I mean that it showed up after we made love.” She wondered how she could explain this. “Earlier, I called to you, remember?”
“Yes. I’d just seen the footage of Rotten Row.”
“Right.” She flipped her wrist skyward once more. “This is what I wanted to show you. Can you think back to what it felt like right after you fed from me?”
He smiled. “I was pumped.”
“Well, this is the result.”
He looked up again and she watched his gaze search through the spell, following the intricate silver lines from the tree to the house then back. “It is me, isn’t it?”
“Very much so.”
“What the hell does it mean? I’m not a wizard. I don’t have those powers.”
“But you have something similar when you’re with me, almost like a mirror. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. This is about us, what we seem to have created together. And no, I don’t have an explanation or even a thought about what it could mean, the ramifications or potential.
“What I do know is that when we were escaping Gary’s club, we had excellent rapport.”
“I would agree. Are you suggesting all of this could translate into something in the field?”
“I think so. I just don’t know what it would look like or how we’d do it.”
He held out his arm to her, and with his free hand gestured to his foot. “Hop on. It’s time we head over to Tonopah Bridge and find out.”
She didn’t hesitate, but stepped up onto his booted foot. Balancing both of hers on just his right foot this time, she then slung an arm around his neck.
The moment he pulled her against his waist, he took off nearly as fast as when the bridge had exploded. What amazed her was how comfortable she’d grown with levitation and flight in what was a very brief twenty-four hour period.
He flew higher as well so she had a unique, bird’s eye view of Five Bridges. In the protected areas, street lamps illuminated every row of houses, all the corner stores, gas stations and shopping centers. But soon the land gave way to pits of darkness. The edges of their world, in the middle of north Phoenix, was lit with giant moving spotlights all around the perimeter of the five territories. These lights helped the citizens of Five Bridges to know exactly where the U.S. Border was.
The National Guard had troops stationed on permanent assignment to keep the alter species contained. It didn’t mean they couldn’t get out, but it was getting harder to escape. Elaborate tunnels had become the main exit points.
As a TPS officer, she was fortunate to have a passport and could come and go on stated business. Ironically, she rarely desired to leave Five Bridges. Her home, her life, was here.
The trip across Elegance took less than a minute since Connor was a quick flyer. He chose to make another pass over Sentinel Bridge. A construction crew must have worked through the day using human labor because she could smell the asphalt being laid right now. “That was fast.”
“Lots of drug money combined with motivation. Works miracles every time.”
Passing into Crescent, however, jump-started her adrenaline. Her vision sharpened, and her muscles had started their own flex-and-release right alongside Connor’s.
“How far out?”
“About fifteen seconds.”
They passed over a grocery store parking lot filled with vehicles. She had the odd thought that while some of these vampires might be headed in to buy bread, milk and vegetables, sh
e was hoping her man didn’t have to use his sword tonight.
She shifted her gaze away from the life she didn’t have and engaged the life before her. The canal appeared, crisscrossed by several smaller bridges. He flew above the water then began to slow.
What Iris saw first was an inky witch spell that blotted out the stars and covered the canal as well as the bridge. She could see what looked like a growing stream running in a broad ditch that ran beneath Tonopah Bridge alongside the canal. She realized the ditch had once been part of a run-off landscaping provision for the heavy monsoon months. Her world had simply blasted out a few hundred extra yards which meant the water was rising fast.
Beside the growing stream, several vampires had gathered around a fire they’d built. They were laughing, a couple of them shouting. No doubt they’d been drinking heavily and she suspected were already high on one of the many flame drugs.