"What are you?" She tightened her brows and saw into their patterns. Mario was vampire, the bearded one was warlock, and the other carried the pattern of a werewolf. But all three patterns were dark and ominous.
"Join us and you will have your answers."
Kylie swallowed and sent up a little prayer. She prayed for help. Then she prayed for forgiveness for anything and everything she'd ever done wrong. Then she prayed for courage. She took another step back until her feet hit nothing.
Chapter Thirty-six
Gravity grabbed Kylie from below. Her breath caught at the same time a hand caught her arm. Her heart throbbing in her chest, she looked up into the face of her rescuer. Red.
He jerked her back to safety.
She found her footing, beside him. But her mind raced as she realized he'd saved her. "Hello, Kylie," the rogue said.
She just stared at him, not sure what to say.
"She made her choice," said the bearded man standing beside Mario. His dark brown robe fluttered in the wind as he raised his hand and pointed those long, aged fingers at her. She stared in something akin to horror as flames came from the tips of his fingers.
Red jumped in front of her, and the old man's flames stopped. "I told you I would change her mind. Give her time. She's too good to kill."
"She has made her choice," Mario said. "Her time is up. Move out of the way. Let her plummet to her death."
"No," Red said.
Kylie stared at Red, confused by his willingness to protect her. And yet hadn't he been doing it all along?
"You dare to disobey me in front of my peers?" Mario growled.
"I dare," Red said. "I've spent my entire life living by your rules. You murdered my mother. You forced my father to run away. I've accepted that all my life, and I have asked nothing of you but this. Spare her. For me."
"She cannot be spared," said the other old man. "She will bring us down."
"She won't. I'll take care of her," Red said. "I'll change her mind, I'll convince her." There was pleading in his voice.
"The decision is made," the bearded man said.
The second old man raised his hand, and a surge of wind picked her up from the ground and knocked her back toward the edge.
She felt herself falling. Felt the air part as her body descended. Fear made her tense; grief for everyone she loved chased off the fear. She saw faces in her mind's eye that she would miss. Things she would never do. She saw Lucas's face and then Derek's. She saw her friends-new and old. Then she blinked, unable to breathe. She saw the sun setting and found an odd sort of calm settle within her. The colors in the dusk sky filled her mind with a surge of calm. She'd be able to be with Daniel and Nana.
Something or someone caught her again. Her memory shot back to being caught by Perry. The grips around her wrist were not human. The jolt brought air into her lungs. Had Perry come to save her?
"I have you. Hold on!"
But the voice didn't belong to Perry. It was Red.
A bolt of lightning shot past them, so close that Kylie felt the sting of it.
In seconds, the huge bird landed back on the ledge and set her gently on her feet. There were no sparkles as he changed back to human form. He was more than just a shape-shifter.
"You okay?" he asked.
Kylie looked at him through the tears in her eyes and nodded. She remembered him saving her from the snake. From the lightning strike in the woods and then trying to save her from the sinkhole. She'd never said thank you, never considered needing to, because all she saw in him was evil. But then he'd saved Miranda, too.
"I don't even know your real name," she managed to say.
"Roberto." He smiled. "I managed to snag this." He handed her Ellie's cap.
Right then Kylie knew. Red ... Roberto wasn't all evil.
"Thank you," she said.
He stared at her as if he didn't know how to respond. Then he reached out and brushed a tear from her cheek. "You are even pretty when you cry."
"No, I'm not. I get all red and-" A bolt of lightning shot down from above. Roberto pushed her away. Her back hit the rock wall behind her. He looked prepared to run, but before he did, the lightning struck again. It hit him. The ground beneath her shook at the impact. The smell of burned flesh filled her nose.
Kylie dropped to her knees. Panic clawed at her throat. She didn't want to see it, but she couldn't look away. Roberto's eyes turned blood red, and his body contorted backward; something that looked like smoke billowed out of his mouth, and Kylie knew it was his soul. And then he fell. The sound of his soulless body hitting the hard earth was pure sadness.
She moved to try to save him.
"Don't." The sound of his voice startled her. She looked at him. His spirit stood several feet from his body, gazing toward the dusk-filled sky. "I don't want to stay." Purples, shades of bright pinks, golds, and shades of gray now laced the sky.
"Do you see them?" he asked.
For a second, she thought he meant his grandfather and the two other men, but then she did see, and she understood. Angels were dancing in the painted sky; like birds, they moved gracefully in the wind.
Kylie nodded. "I do." But she still had to try. She laid her hands on his body. And concentrated. Nothing happened. Her hands would not heat up. Giving up, she finally gazed up at his spirit.
"Why would you want to save me?" his spirit asked.
"Because you saved me," she said, and looked up.
He gazed back at her, and all hints of evil were gone from his eyes. What she saw was a person who never had a chance. A boy raised into evil, taught evil, and never loved. "I understand now," he said. "I was wrong, Kylie Galen. You are not my soul mate. But because of you, I have saved my soul." Then slowly his spirit was taken, pulled up by the sky. He became part of the colors in the dusky sky. Part of the beauty, part of something that was eternal. The death angels took him at the last second of dusk.
Kylie wasn't sure how much time passed, but the colors of the sky had turned black when another whoosh of wind hit. What was a flash in the night suddenly became a body, crouched down only a few feet from her. Kylie scooted back and then recognized Burnett.
"Are you okay?" he asked.
Kylie nodded.
"I need to get you out of here, now." He pulled her up.
She looked down at the body near her feet. And realized his eyes, empty, dead, were open. She lowered herself and closed his lids.
When she stood up, she told Burnett, "He died saving me."
"Then maybe hell will be easy on him." Burnett picked her up.